MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 281

Episode Date: May 11, 2015

Featuring Ronda Rousey, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Carlos Condit, Carla Esparza, Luke Barnatt, Makwan Amirkhani, Brandon Halsey, and Marshall Zelaznik. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, May 11th, 2000. And 15. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani inside our New York City studio. And I got to tell you, if I could bottle up, if I could bottle up, just like one of these wonderful Noss bottles right here, if I could bottle up this time of the year, I would do it. And then I would open it in eight months. It's so beautiful outside. Everyone's in such a great mood.

Sun is shining. What a time. What a time to be alive, my friends. Great time. I love this time of the year. It's amazing. And I love Mondays. I know a lot of you don't like Mondays.

This is a much talked about phenomenon. People don't like Mondays. But I love Mondays because I get to do this show. And this week is a special one. Before we get into today's lineup, of course, let me remind you that this week's episode of the MMA hours presented by NOS, do something epic. Go make your mark on the world. Hashtag with this NOS I will.

Follow them on Twitter at NOS Energy Drink. We appreciate their support very much. Another busy week in the world of combat sports. Of course, the big topic last week. The revealing of the Reebok numbers, the compensation, the breakdown. Is it good for the fighters? Is it good for the UFC? Is it bad for the UFC?

We will find out. Time will tell. Mixed emotions, mixed opinions. It's been interesting to follow this story, and I'm sure you guys want to talk about it on this show as well. So let's get into this show, this Monday, May 11th show. At around 335, we'll take your questions and comments. As always, hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour.

Leave a question or comment in the comments section below. 325, we're going inside the vault. Remember, my friends, not a lot of promotion. I've got to be honest, but youriah Faber versus Frankie Edgar is happening this Saturday. Remember a few weeks back? We had them on the show at the same time. Right after it was announced, I was so excited for this fight. And I kind of feel like it's just come out of nowhere.

It's a Saturday morning show, which excites me even more. I love everything about it. The UFC's debut in the Philippines. I'm Ryan Faber versus Frankie Edgar. We're finally going to get it. It's happening this Saturday. Fox Sports 1. And this week's Inside the Vault is dedicated to that fight.

At 3.20, we're going to go to Las Vegas and speak to to Marshall Zalaznik, who is the UFC's chief content officer. He deals with a lot of UFC FightPass stuff, and there's some exciting news as it pertains to FightPass. Of course, Saturday Fight Pass was the home of the UFC in Adelaide, Australia. What a card that was. Every time the UFC goes to Australia, it seems like they have a great card. A lot of finishes, fun personalities, fun performances, fun fights.

although it ended on somewhat of a sour note with Steep Amiochich mauling Mark Hunt for almost five rounds fight definitely should have been stopped earlier. It just, it was like, what is the point of this? Over and over, he broke the record for most strikes versus non-strikes,

if you get what I'm saying? It was just, it was very one-sided. I was like, what? I don't need to see this. I mean, I feel like that really shaved years off of Mark Hunt's career, hopefully just that. But,

for Stipe, a great performance, and he's back in the mix, certainly a contender once again coming off that controversial loss to Junior Dostos. Anyhow, we'll talk to Marshall about fight pass and some fight pass related news. Three o'clock, we're going to be joined by the UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, the one and only Ronda Rousey. Is she the best fighter in the world, as Business Insider revealed last week? Is she the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, as Jeff Wagenheim believes? Who knows?

What I do know is that her book, which is called My Fight Your Fight, You See It Right Here, is coming out tomorrow. It's already available for pre-order. And let me tell you, I'm looking at you all in the eye right now. I would not say something. I hope you believe that I would not say something if I don't believe it. I read this book this weekend in 25 hours. It took me 25 hours to read this book. I've never read a book that quickly in my life, dating back to my high school days. It's an amazing read. No joke. I'm not just saying it, because you're not just saying it, she's coming on the show. I'm not saying it because the book is right here. Please believe me. It is an amazing, quick, fascinating, revealing, honest read. It really is. It comes out tomorrow. She's doing a ton of media, but she had to come on her favorite show today as she kicks things off here in New York City to talk about the book and a whole lot more. Trust me on this one, everyone, please. MMA books haven't been great. Sports books sometimes kind of lame. This is a book I think anyone would like, really. And we know a lot about her. trust me. There's a lot of revealing honest stuff in there. It's a great read. She wrote it with her sister, Maria Burns Ortiz, who is a journalist, so you know a great writer, and I highly recommend it. So anyhow, we'll talk to Ronda Rousey at 3 o'clock at 2.45. We're going to talk to Habib Nirmagamadav. What's up with his injury? Rehab. When's he going to return? A lot of smack talking going on. I'll talk to him about that. 225. We'll talk to Makwan Amir Kani, who returns June 20th in Berlin. You remember this guy, right?

Mr. Apple Eater himself. Very interesting guy. We'll talk to him. He is in Sweden right now. Carlos Condit returns to action on May 30th. We'll talk to him at 205 about his upcoming fight against Tiago Alves. Brandon Halsey is the Bellatorre middleweight champion. He defends his title this Friday on Spike TV against Kendall Grove.

We'll talk to him about that. And at 1.25, we'll talk to the former UFC strawweight champion, Carlos Sparza, who we have not heard from since she lost. to Yana Yon Jacek at UFC 185. It's been almost two months now. Amazing. Time flies. But first, let us go to the Skype machine.

Let's go all the way to Manila. Wow, look at that. Where Luke Barnett resides right now. He, of course, is fighting this Saturday against Mark Munoz. A very important fight for both men. A fight we're looking forward to. And he was so kind to stay up. It is 1 a.m. over there, right, Luke?

Yeah, that's right, Ariel. It's 1 a.m. over here. and you've got a pretty stacked show, but you had to start off with your MVP. How you doing, man? Of course. Now, are you outside, or is it just really bright in the room? It looks like you're outdoors.

I'm in an amazing hotel. They stuck us in the Seoul Air Resort, and it's like some sort of foresty look, and there's some lights. I look like I'm outdoors in the forest, but I'm in the hotel. Well, it looks amazing, and the connection is amazing as well.

And by the way, I truly appreciate you staying up so late to come on the show. As I mentioned, it's an important fight for both of, you. You're fighting Mark Munoz. It's his retirement fight. We'll get to all of that. But I'm wondering, how long have you been there? Because based on your social media and whatnot, I feel like you've been there for quite some time, the Philippines. Yeah, we've been coming up to a week now where I've been out here. Like you said,

it's 1 a.m. And the time difference is 15 hours from San Diego, which is where I flew from. So I took the extra week to get acclimated. And I'm fighting at like 11, 12 o'clock at night. So I'm wide awake right now, as you can see. And every day, I've done. I've been here. I've been adding an hour on to the time difference to my schedule. So I'm waking up later every day, going to bed later every day. So I wanted to really make sure, like you said, very important fight for me. And I wanted to make sure I'm wide awake when the fight happened. Were you there when Pachiao fought Mayweather? I just missed it. If I'd have organized it better, that's where I would have been. I would

have been here out even longer, but I wasn't. What about the aftermath there? Are people still all fired up about that, talking about it? Because there's been a lot of crazy things happening as far as Pachiao's concerned since the fight. I mean, people are, they are crazy out here about money. He's everywhere. Literally advertising every single product you can imagine, you see Manny Pachial's face. It's insane.

And when you bring it up, people are pretty passionate and sore about it, just like Manny seems to be. So, yeah, they're not happy people, and I think I'm going to have to upset them again this weekend. Yeah, and I was going to ask you about that. How do they feel about the UFC? And in particular, I mean, we have a lot of Asian fighters,

of course, Mark Munoz is on the card. I think he'd probably be the most popular one that's fighting on this particular card because of his roots in the Philippines. Are you getting the sense that the UFC and MMA is a big deal over there? It's huge. It's absolutely huge. Everyone I speak to, I bring up the Manipakeal fight again,

and they bring it up as an example, and they say, they say, boxing is dead. You watch the Manipaal fight, boxing is dead. UFC is the future. That's what they all say. Wow. And my taxi driver, he was a Mark Munoz fan.

He picked me up and he was like, oh, you're fighting Mark Munoz. And I was like, yeah, you know, he wasn't very happy. I thought he was going to drive me to the wrong place, but I got there safely. And everyone knows it's going on. It's a huge deal out here. And I think it's going to be pretty wild. How do you feel about this scenario? Because I feel like, you know, you're a nice chap.

You want to be loved. I mean, no one wants to see. You talk to any casual fan, anyone who has come across Mark Munoz, no one says, bad things about the guy. He's just such a nice guy. And in a case like this, you kind of want, you want to see the guy go off on a win, right off into the sunset, he's coming off a tough loss. I mean, he hasn't looked very good as of late. You want to see it all in nicely. And you're going to go in there, into the Philippines of all places and try to beat this man and make him lose in his last fight. That's a tough, that's a tough task. And I'm assuming

they're going to boo the heck out of you. How do you feel about this whole scenario? I feel like it's a lose-lose for you almost. I mean, beat him viciously is what you meant to say. that's viciously in front of his home people. It's, you know, I never thought of it like that until a few people said that to me. You know, I didn't, all I saw was the opportunity. I was just happy for the opportunity, the fight, to be in the Philippines, to be here. And then when people said, oh, you know, Mark's the pound for pound nicest guy in the world. How do you feel about trying to beat him in?

And I'm like, I didn't even think about it. All I thought about is myself, you know, the win for me. Mark's a big marquee name, has been around a long time, has been up. there with title challenges. Like you said, he's not been great of late, but he's been spoken about in the top five before. He's a real big name out here. The biggest name or the biggest relative name

to the Philippines on the card, you know, everyone knows him. The big fight, Uriah Faber versus Frankie Eager, it's a big fight, but it's not the people's fight. The people's fight is Mark Minnors. Everyone is talking about Mark Minnios. They're so passionate here about the Philippines. So, you know, it just puts an exclamation,

on the fight. It's a big fight. It's a big deal to the people. I am going to get booed. And I have, I actually have some connections to the Philippines. I train with, train me with Brandon Vera, who's obviously extremely popular out here, speaks very fluent to Garland, has ties out here. And his cousin has been showing me around the Philippines. And he's, I think he's my only Filipino fan. And he says he's going to wear a Lubanat t-shirt in the stands at the fight. I'm not sure he will. But he says the people, they will bull you before. And if you win, they will be silent. They won't say a thing.

It'd be like walking in a ghost town. But if you lose like a split decision or, you know, like Mani Pachial, they'll be sore losers. That's what I've heard. And by the way, you got it half right. You called it the people's fight. Come on, man. You know it's called the people's main event.

You got to get it right. Okay. I apologize. It's definitely the people's main event. There you go. That remains to be seen, but you're on the ground over there, so you would know better than I would right now. And by the way, speaking of his performances,

I mean, do you feel like he's... See, when I find out that a fighter has announced his retirement fight, and he already has a foot out the door. And then when you consider in this case, he hasn't looked great as of late. And then you consider in this case he just shut down his gym. I mean, there are a lot of things that you might say, who, I wonder just how prepared this guy is. I mean, when I think that, okay, this guy is planning on living the rest of his life past,

you know, Saturday he's got plans. He wants to get this one out of the way. Sometimes you wonder if they're 100% focused on the fight, if they're putting too much pressure on themselves, it's a lot to handle. What kind of Mark Munoz do you think you'll be dealing with on Saturday? You know, I think it's one or the other. It's either going to be trying to go down in a blaze of glory

or he's going to be a mess. He's going to be the worst version of himself or the best version of himself. That's how I look at it. Obviously, I'm planning for the best version. And I think there's a lot of pressure on him. He's going to be carrying the event. You know, the fans are going to be looking to him. And he, his performances recently, they haven't been,

his last performance was, you know, not great. The performance on that, he had a tough guy, you know, he fought Gargad Musassi. That's a great, great opponent. And he did, okay. Before that was Machida, again, a great opponent. They were friends. There was something strange about it.

And he did not look good in that fight. So he, I think it's the last fight is the one fight you could say he's really failed in, you know, because the two fights for that were against top five middleweights. in the world and it could go live away. And I feel like if you really, the expression I put it was, we all know Mark Minnors wants to go out with a bang, and I just need to make sure I'm no one holding the gun. Because if he wants to, and he gets his way in the fight,

it can be very, very tiring and hard work for me. But I just can't see it being like that. I think aggression in this fight is a big deal. And if I'm aggressive in the first round, and I don't let him settle and don't let him build, I think it'll be finished very, very quickly. I think it'll be over in the first round. What about for you?

Is this do or die? I mean, you've had controversial fights, close ones, obviously. I'm sure you still think you won. But, I mean, at the end of the day, it is a two-fight losing streak you're on. Do you have to win this fight to stick around? I see it that way, you know. That's how I'm looking at it. I'm not putting the pressure on myself like that because I'm a young guy.

You know, I'm 27 years old. And I want to be in the UFC. I want to fight in the UFC. I love fighting in the UFC. And it's everything that I am. I put more time and money and everything I can do into this fight than I ever have before. but it is do or die and I'm treating that way to make sure that I put the performance on that I want, you know. I don't want to go on a three-fight losing streak.

Like you just said, I feel like I definitely won my fight in Berlin against, like undoubtedly won it against Sean Strickland. My last fight, you could say either guy won. It was one of those. That was a real split decision. I wasn't happy with either performance. And I just really want to put on a great performance. That's all I want to do here. I know I've got it within me.

I'm the best version of myself that I've ever been, and I just need to show the world that. I need to remind the world who I am, basically. What's been the problem? I mean, early in your UFC career, I mean, I remember one fight, you essentially won three times in the fight. I mean, you were kind of like a sniper out there. Why does it feel like the gun has been in the holster for the last two? You know, I think it's a lot of things. I think it's progression in a way.

You know, I've changed my training environment. I've improved stylistically very well. I've adapted to who I am and become a better fighter. But I've tried to be too clean. I've tried to be too sharp. I've tried to make everything perfect. And fighting isn't perfect. It's not a perfect thing, you know.

I've been chasing perfection, and I think it's stunted me in a way. I need to go back to just going after the fight and getting it finished. And that's what I'm going to try and do this weekend. And try not to think so much. I've been overthinking the situation and just let it out and let it go. And I think my opponents have had a lot to do with it in my last two fights. Very, very scared opponents, scarce, not engaging, staying away from me, not fighting, you know. And I've sort of fallen into that hole.

Against Mark, he has no choice, you know. At the end of the day, he's barely six foot tall. I have like an eight-inch reach advantage. We know he's not going to want to strike with me. So he has to win the fight, he has to engage. There's no other way for it to happen. So, you know, I think it'll bring the best out for me. I noticed you're rocking some bad boy gear there,

and they've been, you know, a part of your fights in the UFC since the beginning, I believe, right? Since post-Tuff, you've been with them, right? I had one fight outside of Bad Boy. Okay, but it seems like a great partnership. You're very proud, and, you know, when I think a bad boy, honestly, I think of Wyman, but I also think of you, and Shogun, of course, you represent them very well.

And of course, that time is coming to an end very soon. How do you feel about the Reebok deal and now that we found out about the compensation terms? You know, I've been to start up. I've been very, very happy with Bad Boy. They've been amazing for me. They've helped me with my transition to San Diego to train at alliance.

You know, they really have been the most supportive company within my career. They've really, really helped me and they help all their fighters and they're great guys to be involved with. You know, so it's a sad thing to have to let that go. you know, with the Reebok deal, it's already bitter for me because bad boy have been so good to me

and I feel like I want to repay them for as long as possible and the term has been cut short by Reebok. But having said that, the UFC have got to do what the UFC have got to do. And I think it came out recently. Someone said, I can't remember who, that we should never have been out to get sponsors in the first place, which I thought was quite an interesting term. And if you think about it, all of, you think about all major sports organizations, you know, don't have players wearing different sponsors in games or in things. You know, your team is sponsored by somebody.

And then all of your sponsorship deals are taken outside of the octagon, you know, outside of your playing field. You can't rock a different sponsor. So it's been, it's been lucky for fighters to be able to do that up until this point. And I think a lot of people have sore, even me, you know, I'm, I'll be on my sixth fight now in the UFC. So I'll be on the second pay grade. I think it's $5,000.

I'll be getting per fight, which I may. a lot more than that right now per fight through sponsorship so it is going to hit me and it's going to hurt so financially it's not a great move and i think for individuals they're it's going to hurt they're going to not like the revoc deal it's not going to be great but in the long run maybe for the sport maybe for the ufc look at a big in the big picture it could be the right move but it's going to be a lot of teething problems a lot of fighters falling out and a lot of fighters getting upset but at the end of the day sitting in Manila in a beautiful hotel, fighting Mark Minyos in the Philippines. There are opportunities you can't get anywhere else in the world.

And money doesn't bother me. I'm not bothered by the money that I'm going to lose because Reebok's going to, you know, those, I don't fight for money. There's a lot of guys out there that fight for the dollars. And I'm a bit disgusted sometimes when I see people who get paid a fairly good wage to do this. And the UFC have made it possible to make a living out of this sport. and now people are dissing them

because they're trying to do something new with the sport and bring in rebar and all that sort of stuff. You know, I think it can be a bit disrespectful. Sure. And I think there's something to be said for the fact that, you know, like if I was unhappy with how much MMA fighting was paying me, I wouldn't go on Twitter and complain about it, right? I think that there's a better way of handling it a few things.

I do believe it was your boy, Chelsunnen, who said that fighters should have never gone sponsors to begin with. So I'm not surprised to hear you quote, your old pal chale and just to to ask you two more things on that. A, can you tell us, I mean, how much you'll be losing? Are you, are you comfortable with doing that or would you rather not? I mean, it changes from fight to fight. How about for this one? Any number that I told you. For this fight, I'll probably be losing if it was on that around half. So I'll be making about half around, maybe a little bit, a little bit less than that. So, you know,

it's quite a big blow. Yeah. And you know, you know who LeBron James. is right? You do. I do. So, you know, the, the jersey that he wears is an Adidas jersey, right? The Cavaliers jersey. But he does have a deal with Nike, and he wears Nike in his game. So when people say that, you know, pro athletes can get their own deals, they can. You know, Michael Jordan made a great living wearing his shoes in his game, you know, in an NBA game. So I don't know if the comparison is 100%. Well, okay, fair enough. But we can still, you know, you can still see a sponsorship deal for any other company as long as it's not sports apparel.

I know it's still a conflicting problem. Like you said, Nike and Adidas, but there's still deals to be made. You just have to be a bit more creative than where you source them from. And I think guys will think think a little bit more and there'll be still big, big deals to be made.

I think just like everything in our sport, the media, the fighters, the actual fighting, everything's evolving in front of our eyes. It's such a young sport. And one would hope and assume that this two will evolve as time goes on. I want to ask you about something that happened on Saturday. Take off your fighter hat for a second. Put that analyst hat that you were so much praise came your way after our trip in Sweden. By the way, did you get any TV deals off of that? Did you get any jobs? Because I think

you nailed it. No? Maybe. Well, I think we'll find out after Saturday I'm going to start thinking about that sort of. There's a few offers. Well, I think you're fantastic. And certainly BT Sport or if you're here in America, there should be a home for you. But I want to ask you about what happened in the main event, some controversy with the Hunt fight going a little too long, at least in most people's eyes. Do you think that in this day and age, again, evolution of the sport, so times change all the time. Corners need to stick up for their fighters a little more. I mean, Mark Hunt is such a tough guy. If you ask him, do you want to continue? He's going to say yes. But they have to look at his face. They have to look at the beating and say, Mark, enough is enough. We don't want you to

suffer from this this the silly fight in five, 10 years. Is it, is it on the corners? Is it time for them to start, you know, stepping in there and saying enough's enough? Because we hardly ever see that in this sport. I mean, as a fighter, yeah, and I know it's, I would, I would dread the day that my corner saved me from a fight. And I know that's like a strange thing to say, but Mark Hunt, like you said, a tough, tough guy. I don't think he, I still don't think he thought the fight should have been stopped, even when it was. Right. Which is ridiculous. But I think he would have been, it's like his legacy in a weird, strange way. I think that's how he sees it.

He is not human, the Super Samoan. If his corner had stepped up and threw in the towel for him, I just feel like he would get a new corner with Mark. You know, I think it would really hurt him. And I understand what you're saying, and I get it, and I agree. From an analyst hat, I agree. I think for fighter's safety, for their health. You said earlier, it took years of his career.

what you meant is it took years of his life. Yeah, I didn't want to be that dramatic, but it feels that way. I know. It really does. And I think as a spectator watching the sport, I would want them to throw in the towel. As a fighter, if my corner threw in the towel, I'd be furious. Ah. So, and then you have, you have fights like the Pat Barry Czech Congo fight, which I know is not such a beating.

Sure. But where someone gets dropped, it looks like it should be stopped, and then he comes back and gets a knockout. And you always, I was watching that fight. believing Mark Hunt was going to get out and knock him out. Just believing he was going to get up and had land one big shot. And that's what you want to see. And I think yes and no. As a fighter, no, as a spectator, yes.

And as a human being, I think the answer is yes. With everything... Sorry, go ahead. I think for Australia, I was going to say, is there's been some controversy in Australia already to do with the UFC and to do with a cage fighting or mixed martial arts. You know, and the fight they had before there with Silver,

I had that big bloody match against Mark Hunter, I believe, again. And there was so much bad media following that fight. So much bad media in Australia. There was politicians getting involved and trying to ban the sport in Australia. And having it happen again in Australia, and I think the referee is to blame more than anyone. You know, it's even more bad media. And they can, you know, it's just not great for the sport.

seeing that happen the way it happened. And I think that referee made a lot of mistakes that night, or the referees in general, made a lot. There was an eye-poking incident, which they made up and they stopped. And I also think if it wasn't Mark Hunt, would they have to fight a lot easier? Because he's obviously, you know, one of the home boys. Yeah, there's a lot of issues there.

With everything that we know about head trauma these days, it feels a bit uncomfortable watching that, you know? And you see his face after the fight, And it's like, man, it just was it worth it? You know, you hope that there's no long-term effects. But I would like to see Corner Step up. But again, you guys are tough SOBs. And I know there's a lot of pride on the line as well.

And you want to go out on your shield. So, you know, I have to respect that at the end of day as well. By the way, you mentioned San Diego. Are you full-time there? No more England for you? The transition is happening. I go back to England after this fight because I'm getting married. So I go back to get married and do all that sort of stuff.

So I'll be home for a few months. training-wise, there's nowhere better for me than Alliance. So I have to be out there for my camps. And I'm trying to make it a full-time gig just to improve as a martialist. But I think eventually I'll reside back in the UK. That's weird, because you would think as your BFF, I would have received at least to save the date. I didn't even get, maybe you had the wrong address or something? Well, I'm sure there's a UFC event that weekend.

That weekend's got a UFC event. The needs analyst. I just didn't want to put you in that situation where you might have. have to turn it down and, you know, and your boss would get upset and then... You know what happens when you assume. Yeah, assumptions of the mother all fuck-ups, I know. Well, that's a different take on it. Well, all right.

But if you want to attend, you know, you're not invited, so don't bother turning up. Well, by the way, maybe we're not BFFs because you haven't lived up to the deal. I believe you were supposed to be on pay-per-view, right? This is true. This is true. hopefully this next fight will get me there, and then we can become best friends. All right. I look forward to that. Again, thank you so much for staying up. I appreciate it. Very much looking forward to this fight. Very important for both you and Mark.

You set it up very well. All the best to you, Luke. And if we don't speak before, I'm sure we will. But if we don't, Mazel Tov on the upcoming nuptuels. I appreciate it, my man. And have a great show. You've got some great guests coming up. So I'm going to be watching. Thank you very much. There he is, everyone. Big Slow himself. Luke Barnat, a very big fight for him coming up. this Saturday in Manila. Wow. He is right, though. I mean, from a, from a local standpoint, it's probably the most anticipated fight of them all. You know, we here in the United States

cannot wait, counting down the hours for Frankie Edgar versus Uriah Faber. But Mark Munoz in his retirement fight. Remember, we saw Mark not that long ago on this very show on the Skype machine, and he told us he had just closed down the Rain Training Center. So these days, he's kind of bouncing around and, you know, one has to wonder what kind of stress that was on him. What has he been dealing with? Closing down his gym of several years, that's a big deal. Right before his retirement fight. And then you got this young upstart in Luke Barnard, who very much needs a win.

He's on a two-fight losing streak. And he is coming to the Philippines to spoil the party, the retirement party of the Filipino wrecking machine. Pound for pound, without a doubt, one of the most beloved fighters. in our sport. No one says a bad thing about the guy. Perhaps too nice. It's amazing. It really is. All right, in a minute, we're going to be joined by Carlos Barza. She's the former UFC Strawway champion. We haven't seen or really heard from her since UFC 185. That, of course, was Dallas, Texas. Tough fight. That was a historic night for the UFC. Two titles changed hands.

that night and one of them was in the strawweight division have been wanting to talk to her for quite some time she went on vacation she is back now i believe and she is joining us once again via the magic Skype there she is tremendous Skype connection wow that is crystal clear carlos barza how are you i'm doing great wow thanks honestly that wasn't very reassuring i i didn't really believe you when you said i'm doing great oh sorry i'm just like i'm a little muffled i just got off the phone So I'm like, hey, hey, hey, I got to go. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Is everything okay?

No, yeah, everything's good. Just got back from vacation and then took a last-minute trip to Vegas to do the, like, the hometown throwdown, like, do the class with them. So it was cool. Did you win a Harley-Davidson because you won the show? And by the way, is the- Yeah, I actually won a bike when I won the show. So I have one too. So it was actually a really beneficial class for me to take and learn how to ride as well.

Can I ask you to maybe turn down? the volume on your computer because I'm hearing some feedback. Okay. Can you still hear me? Yeah, I can still hear you. Okay. Let's, yeah, that's much better. Thank you so much. Do you know how to ride a Harley? I do now. Oh, all it took was one weekend. It was like a three day course and we were basically like they taught us, you know, we were spent a lot of time like riding the bike and learning like all the rules and stuff. It was like three days, eight hours a day. So it was like pretty intense. But yeah, I know how to ride. Not very well. Like, I don't feel safe going out on the street quite yet, but I feel, I know how to ride, though.

Do you have the Harley that you want in your possession? It's funny. They actually told me it was available for me to pick up this week. So it actually worked out perfectly that I got to go and do the class. So I can actually probably go pick up the bike myself now. Oh, wow. Okay. Please be careful.

Wear a helmet, please. And as much protection as possible. For sure. Okay. Good. Like I said, we haven't heard much from you in the last. last two months. Of course, that was a tough night for you in Dallas. What has life been like? I mean, are you still processing what happened? Are you over it? Are you still fired up?

Explain to us how you're feeling. I mean, honestly, I'm just still processing, like, the whole year. Like, I feel like, you know, right after I finish winning the title and just dealing with everything that came with with the show, not only like being on the show, but like the repercussions that come afterward, like, you know, just all the, you know, there's negative feedback. There's pot of. positive feedback, but, you know, going from Invicta and then going from a large scale like this, it's a little bit hard to deal with. And I mean, honestly, to be totally honest, I was like crying every day in the last part of my camp because I was like, not in this camp, but, you know,

getting ready for my first title fight because I was like, it was really hard. And then finally after I felt like I gave everything I had for that fight and then it was like, oh, okay, I did it. I can't believe I did it. And then, you know, I felt like right after Christmas and all that hecticness. It was like, okay, you're fighting again. I'm like, you know, but no excuses. Like I accepted the fight and now I'm just, I'm actually like my shoulder's a little bit messed up and I haven't had time to do physical therapy yet. So I did a couple of sessions before I went on vacation and to New York for a couple teaching seminars. But now I just want to, like I can still move it around and all that. But I just got to get it back to 100 percent so I can start training.

again. In hindsight, and again, I respect the fact that you're not making excuses, but in hindsight, do you feel like you took the Yawanna fight too quickly? You need a little more time. I was looking at past winners. I think Nate Diaz had a relatively similar turnaround, but again, he wasn't fighting for a belt. He wasn't defending his belt. He was just kind of, you know, kicking off his UFC career. You were a co-main event, pay-per-view, a very big deal. Do you think it happened too soon? I mean, I spoke with you right after I won the belt, and I remember, talking to you about not wanting to fight until later in spring, like not even until possibly now or a month from now. Like I didn't, I felt like I needed a break, but, you know, I felt like,

um, you know, for whatever reason I ended up taking that fight and, you know, I was asked to take the fight and, you know, I just wanted to, um, you know, whatever I took the fight. So, um, you know, it is what it is. Of course, I have regrets, and I wish I would have just put my foot down and said no and waited, but I didn't and you can't change a past. I can only change the future and what I do from here. You know, a lot has been made of your pre-fight demeanor and how maybe you get a little nervous and you're kind of your stone face, but I really want to talk to you about this because it was talked a lot, you know, it was dissected very much, even on this show. I brought it up myself, just how you looked in the cage before the fight. It reminded me a lot, and I don't know if you recall this

fight, UFC 118, BJ Penn versus Frankie Edgar, and he was just standing there. Even his corner was trying to put down his banner, and they were knocking him in the head, and he had no reaction whatsoever, and then, of course, we know what happened. It just didn't feel like you were there. It felt like your body was there, but you weren't there. And for some reason, it looked like on your face, at least, like something was spooking you out. Is that what was going on? I mean, what was happening in your mind? I mean, like, honestly, I just felt totally drained and like I didn't have anything left for this fight and I didn't want to be in there. And even during the fight, like, I just felt like my muscles weren't working.

I just felt like I was just like, oh my God, I got to go four more rounds. I don't. And it wasn't just a matter of like what was going on in the fight. It was just like I just felt like I didn't want to be there. And a lot of the times, like I've been told if you're in practice and you're looking at the clock, Yeah. You know, that's not good. You know, and I just felt like I was just waiting for it to be over.

I didn't want to be in there and, you know, and I want, for me, fighting has never been about money. It's never been about fame. It's never been about anything like that. For me, I fight because I love it and I'm hungry and I want to get in there and I didn't want to be in there and it had nothing to do with, you know, with like what was going on with the opponent or the fight or anything. It was just, I just felt like I know. maybe did need a little bit of a break and whatever, you know, and I have a break now, obviously not under the best circumstances. I wish I could have had a break as the champ, you know, and got to enjoy being the champ and having people be like, hey, great job, you know, you're a champ.

Hey, what's up? And now it's like, oh, hey, sorry about that. I saw it, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just kind of sucks. Do you still feel that way towards the sport? Like, do you still have these weird feelings towards it? Or do you love it again? I'm feeling better about everything happening. I'm just kind of, you know, in MMA, it's a funny sport. We don't get an off-season. We don't, you know, football, basketball, baseball.

They had their season, pre-season, everything, and then they get a break. Like, for us, it's, you know, no official, like, set time of just off-season. And I just feel like right now I'm just taking a little off-season, decompressing. Maybe I was thinking about taking up surfing. and like getting good at that and having fun at something else and then you know getting back into training to the point where I'm like hey I miss this I want to train I'm hungry to get back in there distance like in my whole camp my whole camp was just it felt like just getting through the motions right I was like showing up to practice because I had to not because I wanted to yes they say

distance makes the heart grow fonder yeah I definitely agree with that actually that's what I did every summer in college to make myself miss wrestling. I would do Muay Thai, like totally different sport. Oh, this is fun, keeping me in shape, jump back into wrestling, and I miss it, and I was passionate about it. And then I would do jujitsu. It's like, oh, this is a fun sport doing something else, and then get back to it. So that's kind of always been my process.

So I think I'm just going to start something new, like surfing or rock climbing or just something and have fun and then just get back into camp again or get back into training. And what about Yohanna? Did you honestly expect that out of her? Did you expect her to be that tough and, you know, the take down defense? And of course we know about her striking, but it really seemed like on that night, she put it all together. Yeah, definitely. She's a great athlete. I have nothing but respect for her as an athlete. You know, she did what I thought she was going to do, and I just felt it's hard for me to really judge because I felt like I had a really bad performance and I didn't do anything I was supposed to do. But, no, I do think that she's a great athlete. I just honestly wish I could have given her my best, just not only for like her, but for the fans, you know, win or not. lose. It's if you go out there and you feel like you did what you were supposed to and you put it all out there, like, I have nothing, you know, I don't like to lose, but it's like, okay, you know, we're

out there and I did my best and I have things to work on. But when you go out there and you don't do what you know you're capable of and you just don't show up, it's, it's, you have regret. I have regret, definitely. Have you watched the fight again? No, I actually, I haven't. This is the first time because, you know, I've always watched my fight. right away, like all night and, you know, analyze, you know, win or lose, like, what could I have done? Even when, like, what could I have done better, this, this? And I just felt like if I watch at fight, it would be like not even watching myself because

I didn't do anything that I was supposed to. And I'll watch it later, you know, I think when things settled down a little bit more, but no, have not watched it yet. Now that it's over, what about, you know, her demeanor leading up to the fight and the way she was getting in your face and all that? Did it really bother you? No, it didn't really bother me. Like, I just, I'm just like, she's a weirdo, you know?

Like, she would do weird stuff. And I don't know, like, she was talking trash to me and telling me, like, wipe that smile off your face. I'm going to take that smile off your face and just kind of getting all crazy with me. And then her little, low, weird, like, stances she does. And, you know, I don't know. She just, I just think she's kind of weird. And then giving me, like, a cookie.

And I'm just like, I don't get you. Like, I don't really know what was going. through her head. I don't know if she's like, trying to play mind games or this or that. And I just, I don't really care what other people do in stare downs, but it was just, it was just weird to me. So let's just say she was playing mind games. I mean, did it work? Did she get in your head to where, like, annoyed you and you were, you were too emotional about the fight maybe? Honestly, not really, because I felt even before, and that's what's annoying. Like, I think I've heard something or seen something where she was like, see, my mind.

games worked. And it just makes me like roll my eyes and think like, no, they didn't. And I hate giving her like that satisfaction of that, you know, because in reality, I honestly feel I was defeated before I even took the fight. I actually like denied the fight. I mean, and I said, no, I don't want this fight. It's too soon. I, you know, still had somewhat of an injury. You know, I was, you know, I had just fought four times within a couple months. So I was, you know, not wanting to fight. And I was in New York at the time and still had a week in New York teaching seminars. And it was like, okay, well, you know, just get back to, just get back to your gym and see if your injuries are good to go. And if not, maybe we can put you on the polling card. And I'm like, okay.

I don't know. I just felt like a little rushed. And I just, I honestly felt defeated before I even took the fight. I didn't want to fight, but it is what it is. I did take it. That's my own got to take responsibility. I took the fight and it is what it is. You know Jessica Peney pretty well, right? You've been in there with her. How do you think she does against Joanna on June 20th? I think, I honestly feel like Jessica, strong, strong possibility that she's going to win this fight. I think that I think that Joanna is

prepared for certain things and I think that Jessica you know off her back or you know I think that just kind of like what happened with Joanne Calderwood. I think she's so used to probably training off her back and getting up and defending takedowns whereas

someone if they ended up on the ground and you know Jessica I think Jessica has one of the sickest guards probably in the UFC you know, male or female. And I think if they get anywhere near there, whether Jessica pulls guard or tosses her,

I see that I know she's been working on a lot of judo and stuff. I think Jessica can definitely come home with the win, and I want her to. She's been my friend for years, and I wish her only the best. So do you think there's a chance you don't fight again this year? You take the rest of the year off? I don't know.

I'm just playing kind of by ear, honestly. My injury is not really that bad. It'd probably be better within a couple weeks. And I would like to get back in the first. training. I wouldn't mind fighting before the end of the year for sure. I definitely want to fight one more time before this year's over. I think that's a long time without fighting. Even though I had a lot of fights in a short period of time, I think going from, you know, March till next year is a long break. I definitely want to fight probably in the next, I don't know, maybe six, seven months or

something, something like that. And the division is so wacky. I mean, who knows who's the champion by the time you fight again. Have you started to think, okay, this could be my path? Like, I just need to beat this person in a perfect world and then I'll be right back in there. Have you allowed yourself to think of that yet? Honestly, no. I've just always been opening to fighting whoever. I've been fighting the top girls in the division since, because of my wrestling background and, you know, the difficulty of finding opponents. I've been fighting some of the top girls since my first, end of my first year, beginning the second year of fighting. You know, I've been fighting top girls. So for me, I'm just

whoever they want to throw at me, I've always been willing to fight whoever. You know, I don't care about style. I don't care about, you know, rivalries. I just I love fighting, you know. And I love the thrill of getting ready for someone new, whether that's a striker, jiu-jitsu,

wrestler, or whoever. How was, you were in Jamaica, right? I was in Jamaica for like four days and then I went to the Bahamas for another week. I saw a video of you jumping off some, some cliff or something. It was very scary. You need to tone it down with these extreme sports. It's Brick's Cafe. I guess it's like a big thing where they have like three levels of cliffs.

And, you know, I knew like, I was like, oh, am I going to be able to do this? I said, as soon as I get there, I can't think about it. I just got to throw my shirt off, freaking walk up. I said, one, two, three. And I was like, wait, wait. And I jumped. And it was a thrill. It was super fun. and yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm an adrenaline junkie. Maybe that's why I love fighting. Yes, because you cannot pay me enough money in the world to do something like that. I feel like 100% I would slip, crack my head open. It would be a disaster.

Well, they have a bottom level. Yeah, maybe bottom level. Is it two feet high or is it like 100 feet? Because I can't deal with something like that. But I give you a lot of credit. It seemed like a fun time. Were you with your BFF Feliz? No, I wasn't with her this time.

But actually, we're planning a trip for, Hawaii. We don't have any date set, but she's always want to go to Hawaii and yeah, I think it would be really fun. And I might visit her in Chicago this coming summer, actually. We've been talking about the taste of Chicago. I don't know if you know that. But she's like, you're a total tourist and you would love it. And yeah, so that could be really cool.

Man, you love food, just looking at you on Twitter with the chocolate tacos on Cinco da Maya and everything and the cookies, of course. You really do love that food. Oh, I'm a total foodie. I love it. You gave me this awesome recommendation too, which... Did you go to it? Did you go to...

The sushi one, no, because we were trying to go before the fight, but on Saturdays, they're only open for lunch. Oh. So, you know, the fights, obviously, we wouldn't be able to make it if we went to the dinner. But that was our goal. I'm like, okay, we called make reservations, and they were like, sorry, only open for dinner today. We're like, dang it. sushi sasabunet, the greatest restaurant I've ever been to my life, period. It is unbelievable.

It looks like a little library. It's tiny. The quality of the fish and the rice. Oh, my God. If you love food, the next time you're in New York, forget about $1,000 Sundays or anything like that. You need to go to Sesa Bune, the best. By far. By far.

For sure. I bookmarked it. I haven't written down. I'm ready next time I go to New York. Well done. All right. Well, now we see a smile on your face. That is good to see.

I'm happy to hear that everything's okay, you know, post-fight. and looking forward to your return. I think, you know, this division is so crazy. One win, you're right back in there. Who knows? Maybe the big rematch. Carlos Sparza, Jessica Aguilar, number one contender fight, right?

If she comes over to the UFC and then the winner gets a title shot, what do you think of that? I don't know. Is she going to come over? No, but I'm just playing fantasy matchmaker here. Oh, okay. That would be a big fight.

I'd fight her for sure. I would definitely be willing to fight her, but... She was talking smack after a fight. Did you see that? She was talking about. I saw her talk smack before my fight. She was saying, like, you know, even if Carla wins, guess who's still number one? And I'm like, get over yourself, girl.

Like, you haven't fought any of the top ten girls and, like, who knows how long? Like, how can you even call yourself number one if you, you know, fight people who aren't even ranked? Right. Who don't even give you, like, a real challenge. And not to disrespect who she has fought, you know, their game to fight and everything. But, I mean, it's just as far as, like, rankings go and all that, it's like, do you feel like you're really challenging yourself and can really call yourself number one? No, you can't. And I know she does some extra stuff, which I feel like she's a cheater, to be totally honest.

What do you mean? What's going on with your computer, by the way? Is it about to blow up? Oh, my gosh. Do you hear that? Yeah, shut up. I don't know why it's doing that. Sorry.

I don't know. What extra stuff? What are you trying to say? I say that she's a cheater, and I don't think that because of what she's done, she can call herself number one ever than she's ever fought. Even since she's beaten me years ago, I felt like if you cheat, then you never really even won that fight. So whatever. You think she takes PEDs? Oh, I know for facts.

Oh, wow. You know, I'm not going to get into that. Okay, okay. It doesn't really matter. Like, if she's not getting popped or if she hasn't been tested, not really anything that anyone can say or do. so I'm not really going to sit here and harp on it. Okay, now I really want to see the fight. The rematch.

Yeah, she just talks so much trash on me. I just feel like I almost felt like not even putting her on blast, but just almost personally messaging her. Like, really? Like, how can you call yourself a martial artist and how can you sit here and talk trash on me and how you're number one if you're going to go and do these things, you know? You think she was dirty when she fought you?

Oh, I know she was. Really? How do you know? Because somebody, a friend of mine told me that they personally gave her shot in her butt or whatever. So whatever, girl, you're not number one. You've never been number one. So get over it. Welcome back, Carla Sparza. Thank you very much for the time. Great to have you on the show. And I'm sure we'll talk to you very soon before your next fight. Looking forward to it as always. Awesome. Thank you so much. There she is.

Carla Sparza. Love that ending. How about that? Some strong words. for the World Series of Fighting Strawaway Champion. Of course, they have a history. We'd love to see that rematch. I think it would be a lot of fun to see it. All right. Let us move along. And it's interesting.

We ended on that note, and I'll tell you why in a second. This Friday, Brandon Halsey, defend his Bellator middleweight title against Kendall Grove, had the chance to see Kendall Grove. Not that long ago in Montreal, he was cornering his friend Michael Bisping. And there's been some bad blood between these two leading up to this fight.

It airs this Friday night on Spike TV. It's the main event. Looking forward to it. And Brandon joins us right now on the phone. Brandon, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Thanks for having me on, Ariel. It is a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us. I don't know if you were listening to the end of that interview, but the segue is kind of strange because Carla was just accusing Jessica Aguilar of taking PEDs, and that's what's happened to you leading up to this fight. You're being hit from all kinds of directions, including Kendall's.

accusing you of being a steroid user. What's this been like for you? You know, people would do anything for attention these days. But, you know, I've got my entire life throughout my rushing career, you know, all the way up until my last end of Mayfite. So it's nothing new that I haven't been through. You know, I've been tested 100 times every time I've come back clean. So, you know, I've nothing to worry about.

And, you know, if it is what it is. And you've said that you've been randomly. tested leading up to this fight, right? Oh, yeah. There's no denying looking at me, you know, I don't look like a normal, you know, fighters, so everybody has their doubts, you know. These guys are popping for, you know,

PEDs left and right, so, you know, it kind of ruins it for these guys that are putting in the hard work double-fashioned way. How many times have you been tested leading up to this fight? I've been tested every single fight, probably the last four fights and also on my undercard fights too. Wow, but leading up to this one, how many times?

Leading up to this one, I've done, we just did a random drug test this last Wednesday. We should have the results coming back any day now. But before this, yeah, five times before this. You said something very interesting on Twitter recently. I'm trying to locate it here, but in short you said, you know, these accusations are all well and good. I wonder what my lawyer thinks of them after the fight I'll deal with it. Are you actually thinking of suing these people for liable? You know, it's, uh, yes, it definitely crossed my mind, but, you know, I'm trying to stay

focused on the fire right now, you know, and I'll take care of business after the fight, too. Do you feel like this is a bit of a weakness, like, okay, he's throwing this out there because he might be having doubts or he's looking to make excuses beforehand? Is that the way? Oh, yeah, you know, like I said on Twitter, you know, I've never seen anybody make excuses for losing before the fight, you know? weird move on his part, but you know, I've seen people

doubting him and talking traps, so, you know, he's trying any way possible to get in my head to try to kind of throw me off track, but, you know, I'm focused, and, you know, it's nothing new for me, so it's just, you know, another day at the office. He had a nice run in the UFC, of course, and now back where he was, you know,

very successful on Spike TV, and it makes a lot of sense for him to get a title shot, but what do you make of his career at this point? Do you think he is as good today as he once was? Yeah, you know, I've never seen him really evolved past his highest point in his career. Am I looking past him? No.

I'm just going to welcome to the new air of MMA. I find your status as Bellator champion very interesting because you might be right now one of the most unheralded champions in major MMA, right? I mean, there isn't a lot of talk and buzz about you because you just became champion, and I think

a lot of people just don't know about your skills just yet. Would you say that? Do you feel, even though you are a champion, you still don't get treated to a degree like a champion by the public, at least? Oh yeah, you know, I'm very new in my career. I've only been doing it in May for two years, but I continue to evolve every single day as a fighter. So, you know, each fight, I think more people are going to jump on

and kind of recognize my skills a little bit and, you know, kind of follow my career a little bit more. Has life changed at all since you won the belt in September? Yeah, you know, it's no different. You know, my life's not different. I still do the same things. Yeah, I'm getting a little bit more attention. Yeah, I'd say so, but nothing's really changed too big. You know, I'm hoping to make a big jump this year, 2015, to kind of, you know, jump in the line light.

So you're one of those last guys left from the old era of Bel-Tur where title shots were won via the tournament. That's not the case anymore. Did you prefer that format as opposed to now that Ken LaGrove didn't win a tournament to get this title shot? Which do you prefer? Well, you know, going through the tournament, it sucks, you know, can you fight back to back every four to six weeks. So it's kind of a grind. But it does kind of give a solid contender because they have to run through and actually beat people to get to a title shock. So it's not just kind of randomly selected.

Like, okay, he looks good and he'll match a ball with the champs. And let's pick him for a title shot. He's won the last one or two fights. So, I mean, I like it as far as the fact that it kind of, solidifies the contender, but as doing it, it's kind of hard on the body, and, you know, fighting three times in a matter of three months, it's kind of a strain on the body. Why has it been so long since you have defended the title for the first time? Your last fight was, what, eight months ago, right?

Yeah, eight months ago. It's been a while. Yeah, it's, you know, we've been trying to push for a fight early this year, but as Bellator doesn't really have that deep of a roster of middleweight. So, you know, there's no surprise there that there's not too much debt. So trying to find a valid contender was kind of a challenge. Do you feel like Kendall is a valid contender? Yeah, I mean, he does he have the resume?

He's a UFC veteran. He has a lot of notable wins against some guys. Yeah, I mean, for Belltor made sense. You know, it's just another guy kind of in my way. So he's just sorry, Kendall, but, you know, that's a, it's a, it's a, how it goes, and, you know, that's the next fight, and that's what I'm going to have to do. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I heard through the grapevine that you are going to become a father pretty soon, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. My baby's due July 2nd, so, you know, nothing better than,

you know, winning my sight, and then welcoming my new baby in this world. First one? First one, yeah, excited. Well, early congratulations, and I find this interesting because I know you've had an interesting relationship with your own father, right? Through the years. Do you have any contact with him these days? No, you know, my dad raised this as like Spartans. It was real tough, you know, tough love, you know, taking us to the gym every day, wrestling, judo on the weekend. So we had a pretty military-run life.

So he kind of put a gap between us through the years. You know, I don't really talk to him much and a bit more these days. But, you know, I'm thankful for what he put me through. but, you know, I kind of want to raise my kid a little bit differently than that. Was he physical towards you? No, you know, nothing more than, you know,

I don't know if you're familiar with wrestling dads, but, you know, wrestling dads, you get a little intense and, you know, if you don't win, you get the kick in the butt. Right. And that's what you got. Oh, yeah. What's the story?

I read a story about you when you were, you recall being in your crib and your dad would like growl at you. Is that accurate? Yeah. He thought that would mentally get me ready for when I was older. You thought psychologically hearing growling would get my killer instinct going. So I don't, I guess that worked out a little bit because here I am fighting.

Yeah. How old were you when you would do this? Oh, he'd do that. I guess he did all the time when I was a baby in my crib. Do you actually remember it or someone told you afterwards? No, no, that's where my mom would tell you. He was so freaking weird. She'd go in there.

I mean, not even growl to you and, you know, make noises. I was like, oh, yeah, that's nice. Would you do it for a long period of time? I don't know. You know, I didn't get, like, specific details. Once I heard growling and me in the crib, I was like, oh, gosh, I got to turn a eye to that one. And safe to say you're not going to do that to your child coming up. No, no, no, no, no.

I'll be more of a lover father to hear. So do you feel like, you know, based on your experiences with your dad, you know, when you were growing up, you're just going to do everything completely different? Or now that you're older and thinking about fatherhood, are there things that you say, you know what? Maybe he was right doing this. You take the good and the bad from it and you try to learn from it, I think. You know, I think that's what makes it better. You know, you want to kind of learn from your mistakes or what your dad did with you

and kind of want to tailor to how you want your kid raised. You know, do you want your kid to, you know, take after you or do you want them to fall in your footsteps of the sport. You know, it just all depends on how you want to raise your kid, you know, and I just want to be, you know, loving, you know, father and, you know, raise him right through the church and just be a good dad. Considering that, I mean, are you surprised that he hasn't resurfaced in your life as of late? I mean, because he tried to instill this toughness in you as a youngster. Now that you're a champion, you know, one would say, okay, now here he comes back to try to be a part of all this again. Is that surprising? Or did it?

he trying and did you, you know, stonewall him? You know, I accept my dad for who he is, but, you know, yeah, he tries to come back in the life, but, you know, everybody loves a winner. You know, when you're down at the bottom, nobody, you know, you kind of find out who your true friends and the two people who support you, and then when you're winning and you're back on top, you have all of these people coming out of the woodworks trying to be your friend. so, but, you know, he's been consistent. He's kind of left me alone.

He hasn't really kind of surfaced in my life, but, you know, I like it that way. I like positive people in my life. I like positive influences. My wife's one of them. She's, you know, great. She's a backbone. And I just try to surround myself with positive people now and, you know, keep positive thoughts. Does the fact that you're going to become a father now around the time that you're

defending the belt for the first time, does it put any more pressure on you? Do you feel like you need to win? be because you know you need to support your family and all that stuff do you do you think about that sort of thing oh yeah everybody thinks about that i mean that's uh i mean men that's what we do as men is uh we're you know support the family that's what we do so yeah does it add a little extra pressure yeah a little bit but you know i don't let it get to me i'm i know i'm you know what i'm you know my skills uh it's just another day just do what i'm supposed to and everything's going to go well and i'll be able to support my family and you know what it that's just

how it's going to go. You are from Huntington Beach, right, in California? Yes. Of course, when you think of that place, you think of Tito Ortiz. Is he the reason why you became an M.M.A. Oh, no, not at all. You know, M.M.A fighters, I watched, you know, very first U.S.Cs, you know, and I saw wrestlers were able to kind of dominate the sport a little bit, you know.

And kind of growing up, just watching it through the years evolved, it just was one of those things were like, you know, I think I would be good at this. And this looks very interesting, and I'd like to make a career out of it. And as, you know, it came to evolve, you saw more and more guys kind of make a career out of this and actually make a living. Because when I first came out, I think it was won the tournament. You won $60,000. And I don't think you could really, I mean, you could live off that, but you can't really make a career out of it. But seeing it, being able to make a career, it was, you know, kind of right up my alley.

I just thought, why not go into that right after college? I see a lot of college restures making it transition. Why don't I do it? but you used to have a relationship with Tito, and now you don't, right? Yeah, Tito went to Cal State Bages. Same school I went to, he wrestled on the same team, my older brother did. So, you know, I knew Tito throughout the years, probably back in 96. I think I met Tito for the first time before even made the transition in the MMA.

So, yeah, we did have a little bit of a relationship, but, you know, people, you know, people see people's true colors. and, you know, that's the way it goes. What happened? You know, there's a small falling out with, my manager was Tito's load manager, so they had kind of running with this new Bellatory thing. So there's kind of some tension there. It kind of got back towards me because of my manager,

but it was all just little things said here and there, and it's just, you know, you don't need that kind of crap in your life, You cool off people and, you know, if you're going to throw, like, shots at you. Right. So is this a fight that you want? Is this a personal thing for you? I know it's a different division,

but you have a history in that division. Is that something that you're going to ask for? Oh, you know, of course. You know, why not? It's a good business move on my part. He's a big name. You know, what better than to make a little bit of money and beat up opportunities in the process.

So I think a lot of people would love to do that, and I'd be glad. gladly to do that. I'd love to call Sky Coker and set that after this fight. Have you told them that? Oh, yeah. I mean, you've said it numerous times, but I don't think Beltaire's down there. They're not going to put that fight together. That doesn't make sense. They don't want to see Teito get beat up. I want to kind of keep them in good status.

So we'll see. We'll see. You know, never know what the future holds. Sure. Is it somewhat of, I don't know, I don't want to call it a miracle, but is it somewhat surprising that you're in this position, A-D-O, doing this well, a champion, considering that that mountain bike accident that you had not that long ago, it sounds, I mean, from what I read, it sounded pretty serious. Have you defied the odds here by getting to this point? Yeah, you know, the doctor, I blew a completely lushered my shoulder. I had a great 4-AC separation, tore my rotator cuff, completely tore my labor, I'm meant to do reconstructive surgery, had to put an artificial graft in my shoulder. So, you know, the doctor's like, you know, you're probably not going to be the same after the surgery. So, you know, we don't know what percentage you'll be back at, you know,

but it's not definitely not going to be the same as it was. So, you know, when you hear that kind of staff, it kind of scares you, especially being an athlete, and, you know, that being your dreams of finance, it kind of puts the scare on you. But, you know, I made a good recovery rehab for about eight months, and, you know, I'm back to full strength. How long ago was that?

That was in May of 2012. That was actually at Tito. It's funny thing that was at Tio Ortiz's training camp for Force Griffin. Oh, really? Wow, the last one. Yeah, last year, he played. And that's why you gave him the boot. Bad luck.

Yeah, I guess you can say that. Wow, so you've been with him not that long ago. Yeah, probably. It was about two years ago there. Wow. And May 2012, that's three years ago, yeah, around this time. Amazing. So, yeah, coming up on three years now.

Did you think you would be a champion this soon in your career? You know, you always want to shoot high. right? So I pictured myself, you know, like it was one of my goals. You know, I don't try to dwell too much on the future, but yeah, it was one of those things I was looking towards. I was like, you know what? I think I kind of want to, especially signing his belt toward May of 2012, I was thinking two years I want to have that belt. And it was about, you know, almost two years. So yeah, I kind of saw myself on track with where I'm at right now. Amazing. Well, I wish you the best this Friday. Looking forward to the fight, you'll be defending your title for the first time against Kendall.

Grove. Brandon Halsey versus Kendall Grove for the Belator Middleweight title. It's on Spike TV. Great to have you on the show for the first time and obviously good luck in the fight. Good luck with the pregnancy coming up. Two months' time. It's an amazing thing. Good luck to you and your wife. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thanks to having me on, too. All right, there he is. Brandon Halsey, the Belator Middleweight champion. Big fight for him. He defends his title for the first time this Friday. If you recall, back in September, he submitted the Venn champion Alexander Schlamenco via RNC in just 35 seconds out cold.

It was an amazing win for him, and it kind of screwed up Bellator's plans at the time. And now here he is. Eight months later, defending his title for the first time against Kendall Grove, despite a, I saw him in Montreal, very, very excited for this fight. Feels like it's the culmination of many years in MMA. And he's been training, of course, with the guys in Orange County,

Michael Bispeng, Mark Munoz, etc. All right, that's this Friday on May 30th. Great fight in Brazil. An amazing fight in the Walterweight Division. Tiago Alves will be going up against Carlos Condit. We have not seen or really heard from Carlos Condit, and a lot of time we haven't seen him in action since UFC 171. March of last year.

It has been a long road back, and he has a huge fight coming up in, what, 19 days time in Brazil, main event, Fox Sports 1, had to have him on the show to discuss that and a whole lot more. here he is Carlos Condit on line one. Carlos, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you? Great to have you on the show. Great to talk to you. By the way, I saw you in Las Vegas, not that long ago, and of course, follow you on

social media and all that stuff. It's a new look, Carlos Condit, with the hair and the beard. What's going on over here? Where'd this come from? No, I just grew my hair out and grew my beard out. That's it? Okay. It's actually gone now.

What? Why? Yeah, man. Well, I cut my hair. Because kind of a pain in the ass in training. And then, you know, for the fight, you know, I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with it. So I cut that short and then kind of cut the beard short to match as well. Oh, this is disappointing.

So you just look like the old Carlos Condit now? You know, honestly, I'm like WEC. Oh, fresh face. Right now. It's pretty short. It's pretty sure. But it'll grow back. I'll grow back after the fight.

So it's like spiky hair. no facial hair, nothing. Depending on how fast I can grow my beard in the next 19 days, we'll see, see where the bards have. But yeah, it's pretty short. Did you do all this? Like, did you grow it out since the time you got injured, or would that be too long? I mean, like, was it representative of how you were feeling as this sort of caveman coming

back to life? No, it didn't really signify anything. It was just, you know, just something different. My bearded got really long while I was out on a trip at one point. And I was like, ah, you know, I'll just go with it. And then, yeah, and I like I said, it was kind of a pain in the ass. Yeah, in a fight, you don't want to lose because of your hair. We've seen that before.

Guys wiping their hair off their face. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. I know, right? You were just in Brazil with Tiago. What was that like? It was cool It was kind of a whirlwind trip You know we hit a couple of different places

In a very short period of time And You ate some good food And talked to some nice people But I didn't get to see a whole lot Do you have any kind of relationship I know you're both managed by the same guy Right, Malki's your manager

You've been with him for a long time Do you have a relationship with him? With you go Yeah We're cool you know, a matter of fact, before I fought Dan Hardy,

my coaches hadn't quite got out to London. And I needed somebody to hold pads from me, and he held pads for me a little bit out there. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, other than that, I mean, yeah, we're acquaintances and we're cool. You know, it's not like we're, like, good friends or anything.

So he was your good luck charm. I get it. Well, I don't know. I don't believe in luck, man. You don't? I got it done. Well, I mean, not really. No.

So did you believe in superstitious? Like earlier today, I asked my colleague New York Creek to get me a bottle of water. He got me the wrong water, and it screwed me up. I had to go back downstairs and buy the same one that I buy every week. I'm kind of superstitious. But I hear fighters all the time. Like, I hear Connor talking about how that's a weak-minded person. And then when I said good luck to CM Punk, you said luck is for losers.

Are you one of those guys? Yeah, I guess I have the same philosophy. I mean, you know what? If luck exists, you know, I definitely want it on my side, but I'm not a real believer. I think you make things happen. Our good pal, Will Fox, just tweeted me a picture of you. Sands' beard, Sands long hair. It's very jarring.

You look a lot skinnier. With the beard, you looked a lot bigger. You look like a 205. The picture on the screen right now is you with the beard from your media day not that long ago, and you looked a lot bigger, unless you were actually a lot bigger because you had been inactive. Well, yeah, I mean, right now I'm in the middle of camp, you know, kind of headed down towards 170. So I thought I am with inner for sure, you know, 10 pounds at least.

How big did you get at the peak since you've been away? peak? Maybe like maybe 200 for like a couple hours. Is that the biggest you've been in a long time? Yeah, I mean, I hit 200 every once in a while. Oh, okay. And it's, you know, it's not, I usually don't, I don't get fat really. I don't really have that body type, so it's like, you know, lifting and eating a lot.

Well, aren't you lucky? You don't get fat a lot of... Oh, you're the same body type, dude. Well, I don't know about that. I got a bit of a muffin top of brewing right now. But anyhow... You're a tall guy. That is true.

So we haven't seen you since March of last year, and it's amazing because, like, you're away for that long. It's, you know, to be honest, it's like we forget about you, you know? There's so many events, so much goes on in that, and there's a new champion, it's crazy. What's it been like for you? Has this been kind of a welcome break? Because you were so active leading up to that point,

and it always felt like you were one of those guys, like you were Mr. Reliable for the UFC. It almost felt like you were there every time they called your number, and now you had to take this extended period of time off. How did you deal with it? Well, I didn't have any other choice. I had to do what I had to do with regards to getting my knee healthy and getting strong.

So I just kind of focused on that. And enjoyed the time off. I did some fun stuff. I was able to do a lot, you know, physically. Like, you know, the rehab was really challenging. And then, you know, I was able to do different, you know, overbody stuff and core stuff. And, you know, so I was just getting myself active and engaged in that.

And that kind of, you know, that pacified my, my competitive intensity, I guess. But you hear from some fighters when they're out, especially with the ACL injury, that they start to get a little crazy in their mind. I mean, they can't watch the fights anymore because it's just too hard. They get very anxious to return. Did any of that happen to you? No, I mean, not so much. I watched a little bit, and any time I watch fights, I get anxious, and I'm like, oh, man, you know, I get inspired. You know, I wouldn't quite say anxious.

But, you know, not being able to do anything, you know, I just kind of had to step back and watch it as a spectator, especially in my division. And I couldn't, you know, couldn't stay, you know, I couldn't have too much emotional involvement in what was going on. Because, I mean, I would go crazy. So I just, you know, I just kind of kind of kick back and enjoy it as a fan. It was hard to watch that fight and the way it ended. was that 100% what he did to you or was your knee banged up already going into the fight? He being timely, of course.

No, as the knee, as far as I know, the knee was fine going into the fight. And, yeah, I just stepped wrong on a takedown or something weird happened on a takedown. I'm almost positive that's when I blew the ACL. And then pop back up and got kicked on my... other leg and when I went to pivot, I had no ACL and the knee just buckled. It felt like Woodley didn't really get a lot of credit because people were like, well, he got hurt in the fight. But to that, I say, I mean, he essentially hurt you. Do you not agree with that assessment?

Do you feel like you hurt yourself based on what you're saying? No, I mean, like, you know, he initiated a takedown, Hermione and the other takedown. I think I told you this before in an interview, we, did a while back is, you know, I get taken down quite a bit, and I don't always blow my ACL. So I didn't think it was kind of a freak thing. But, you know, I get afraid to him. You know, he was winning the fight, and, you know, and then I lost him on injury, but he won the fight, so, you know, I'm not taking anything away from him.

Got a guy on Twitter here, his name is Jerome. He's saying, please ask Carlos about his natural movement training. What is that? I had been working with this guy named. Erwin Lecor, and he's a founder of this program, we found this fitness movement called Move Nat. And it is, it's basically functional, natural movements, and it can really apply to anything you do,

but it's basically mastery of your body in really any type of movement with regards to flexibility, strength, balance, coordination, breathing, timing, all that stuff. So for me, what we've been working on is really the fundamentals of my movement. So stance, positioning, balance, that sort of thing. What's the vibe like at Jackson's these days after what happened to John Jones? I saw someone ask you about it on Twitter and you had a no comment for them with a smiley face. You know what?

Like, you know, I'm pretty focused on what I got going on. And, you know, John's been around the gym a little bit, which is good. You know, I like to see him down there. You know, it's a, you know, it's a crazy situation that, you know, he's going to have to, you know, deal with. But, you know, I think having him, you know, in the gym doing what he does best, you know, training and trying to stay, you know, I don't know, keep that side of his life. life, you know, going. It is a good thing, but, you know, I don't. Was that John right there?

I'm sorry? Was that John getting all excited in the background? No, that's my kid, man. Oh, okay. I'm not in the backyard with Owen. No, I mean, you know, honestly, not much different. I mean, you know, and if it is, I haven't really noticed, like I said. So all things considered he's in relatively good spirits?

Um, yeah, I mean, I haven't really talked to him. I haven't talked to him about the, I mean, talked to him briefly about the, you know, well, not about the incident, but about the situation. Sure, sure. He just says, I'll be back, you know, I'm, I'm going to be back. And, you know, I believe, there's no, there's no doubt. You think he fights again based on what he told you?

Um, I think there's a good chance. Yeah. I mean, in his, I think in his mind he's fighting again. By the way, you were in the Philippines not that long ago, right? Yeah, over the summer. Yeah, and the UFC making their longer way to debut this weekend in the Philippines. And I heard, I was talking to Reid Harris. I think he was there with you, right?

Reed Harris? He told me that the people went nuts for you over there. Like huge crowds came to see you work out and all this stuff. Why are you so popular in the Philippines? You don't have ties to that part of the world, right? No, not really. I don't know. I think,

I think, really, I mean, it's a huge community of fight fans. You know what I mean? I think, um, probably going,

I don't know the history of it all, but I mean, I guess maybe going back to, um, you know, the thrill in Manila of Ali, um, and,

and, and, uh, mani Pacchio and then some other great fighters coming out of there. Um, so I think, you know, you know,

you know, fighting is big there. Um, and I don't know, You know, I got a lot of fans, a lot of places. That's true. I'm not trying to downplay your fandom. You know, this, you being on my show today is essentially a Mother's Day present for my mom, because you're her favorite fighter.

So, you know, everyone loves you. But I was just, I just, you know, I didn't, he told me he was, like, blown away by the turnout. So I didn't know if you had any kind of connection to that part of the world. I really don't, man. Some of my friends that I grew up were Filipino. But other than that, I mean, that doesn't have anything to do with my fighting career. Speaking of your upbringing, your father, a politician in Albuquerque, and you're getting into the sort of politics game, right? I mean, didn't you recently urge lawmakers to try to stop this coyote killing in Albuquerque?

Yes. I wouldn't say that I'm getting into politics. But my dad's wife works for animal rights voters of New Mexico and asked me to speak on this bill. and yes, I went up there and did a speech. What's going on over there? They're killing coyotes just like that? Well, they do that anyway. And, you know, coyotes can be a nuisance,

and, you know, they probably do need to be hunted to keep their numbers down. But what the bill was to ban these contests where they basically massacre as many as they can. And, you know, it's kind of, I don't know, I don't feel like it's in the, in the spirit of of hunting because for the most part they just you know

discard them they don't do anything with them basically they just you know kill these animals the mistake killing them

with no you know and so yeah so it's you know I'm I'm against

I think it's counterproductive to the the the population issue I'm trying to keep their populations down so I don't know it's uh

yeah you know It's a interesting thing to go up and do. Yeah. I'll leave you on this. Are you annoyed that you have to go to Brazil to fight a Brazilian? No, not at all. I'm excited that I get to go to Brazil, and, hey, you know what?

It'll be even a greater accomplishment when I go down there and finish him in his own country. I've done that a few times, and it's always kind of a little added, a little added. added bonus. Sure. Much like you did at UFC 115 with Warren McDonald

in Canada. Are you hoping that he wins the belt in just a couple months time? Because that's a rematch,

I still think a lot of people would love to see. Yeah, you know, I don't really care either way. Okay.

But, you know, but now that you put at that way, yeah. It's, there's the backstory there. There's,

you know, there's a lot of interest in that fight. And, you know, might be a fast track for me. to another title shot.

Yeah, I think it expedites things immensely if he wins. I think it would make a lot of sense. Just my two cents. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it is great to have you back in the mix. We all missed you. It's been a long time. I'm looking forward to this fight greatly. May 30th, Fox Sports 1 in Brazil.

Tiago Alves versus Carlos Condit. Welcome back, Carlos. And if you could just grow a little bit, you know, it was just so nice that beard. If you could just grow it a little bit before the fight, I think we'd all appreciate it. I'm working on it. Okay. Thank you very much. much. All the best to you and we'll talk to you soon. Good luck.

All right. Take care, man. Later. It's a, it's a, it's a crutch almost. I mean, I just, I just feel like I have to say good luck to these guys, right? I mean, they're fighters. It's not like, it's not like I think they need the luck. It's not like I feel like if they don't hear that before fight, they won't be successful. But I feel like I need to say it. Especially when you're going to take the time to come on the show or speak to me, I feel like I need to say good luck to you. It comes from from a good place. Seampunk gets annoyed. He is very quick to tell you luck is for losers, but

I feel like I have to say it. And I always say it for some reason after someone tells me they don't believe in it. But anyway, Carlos Condit is back May 30th in Brazil. That's a great fight. That's an important fight at 170. Two guys who have been around a long time who have had their injuries,

of course, as of late, who've come all the way back, fan favorites. That is a solid fight night main event. Solid. Looking forward to it. Let's move along now. Our next guest, you heard from him in January after he burst onto the scene in Sweden. What a great performance in his Octagon debut. Of course, that was the UFC on Fox Show in Stockholm on January the 24th.

He defeated Andy Ogle in just eight seconds, eight seconds. And on June 20th, he is back in action. He's fighting in Berlin against Masio Fulin. He is the pride of Finland. Makwan, I'm Yarkani. And there he is. My old friend himself, Makwan, joining us via the magic of Skype. Makwan, how are you? Hello. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm great. Thank you very much for joining us. It's fun to see you in the flesh and not via one of your

your Instagram videos where you're giving us all these stairs and smiles and whatnot. It's riveting stuff on your Instagram. Yeah, it's strange Instagram. stuff for girls and if somebody follow MMA, they're stuff for them. Yes, well said. How has life changed since your amazing debut in January? Well, of course, a lot of people know me now, but my focus has been on this next fight.

So I have been actually living on a gym at Stockholm, Sweden, All-Stars June. I actually like sleep in the gym and I eat and train there so I haven't been like having fun or anything. My focus is on a fight and Marcia Fullen will go to sleep in the first round. Okay, we'll get to that in a second but sleeping in the gym like are you sleeping on the mats or do you have a bed, a room over there? I have a small room. It's like compared to one toilet. it's like really small. But there is a TV and PlayStation 4.

That's all I need. Are you alone or other fighters there? Now I'm alone. Wow. Actually, I've been alone there for one month. Is it lonely? Yeah, sometimes. But I chose this path, so I have to live with it.

Why did you choose the gym? Like, why not get an apartment nearby and just sleep like everyone else? because then I feel like I have done much more to this fight and my opponent and I feel like I earned the win. So you need to almost suffer before the fight, make sacrifices. Yeah. So I left my family in Finland and I'm pretty bad to keep contact with my family. So I hope that everything will be rewarded. after the fight.

Do you think you'll do this for all your fights, or just now at this stage of your career, you need to do this kind of thing? I have always wanted to train. Like, you know, the Rocky movie where the Russian guys only train, the only focus is on a fight, so that's a good example.

Why this fight is important, even though it's Macio is against me but what are laughing well I mean you said it's important even though it's Masio I mean you're saying it's an important fight although the opponent isn't important

is that what you're saying? I don't care who is against me I told everybody it will be a short fight Andy is still sleeping and I will need to

by next time a bit for Marcia. Sure. Do you think it'll be shorter than the Andeogel fight? No,

because that was the debut was just I just wanted to show everybody I was pretty mad

so I wanted to show everybody that I belong in UFC and much farther so this one

I will be Of course, I want to finish it in the first round, but I don't say that I won't do flying me, but I think I will be, like, be much carefully. Why were you so mad going into that fight? There were a lot of people who said that I don't belong in the U.S.D., so I was talking to myself and I said, what is the good? way to show people that I belong there. So I thought, I'm going to knock this guy out in a few seconds.

Do you still have that anger? Go ahead, go ahead. What were you saying? Yeah, some people. Yes. Feel some people like that was just a lot. It was eight seconds. You can't say anything about his, like, we can't see, like, what kind of fighter he is

in eight seconds. but there is always people who talk like that so I just have to get used to yes we call these people haters but you know what they say Paris Hilton once said haters make me famous yeah that is true

that is true Paris is very smart you know what Paris Hilton is so you're still upset you still have that anger in you maybe that's a good thing yeah I have told everybody in I said I hate

to sparring because you know Nicholas Baxter? Of course he said to me that I know I feel you you are like too kind to hit

and it is true I don't get the aggression in sparring and I don't want to get. But in a fight I want to be like an animal. Totally different in a fight. So if I spar, I want to do it like really easily. But now when I have been in Stockholm and Reza Maradi, he came back.

He made me feel like I don't want to do sparring anymore. He was like really when he do sparring. He do all the nasty things on sparring. And he can, like, after the first round, he can actually come and, like, when you have this half a minute, one minute recovery, he can come and stand in front of you. Oh, God. Yeah. So he makes it feel like it's a real fight. No wonder they call him the mad dog.

he is a special guy to say the least yes we know him well over here so one of the big stories after your win in Sweden was you wanted to buy your mother a bed and you bought her a bed in fact you even carved on it the date right you you put the date and I think the

the win what was it like when you when you delivered that belt the bed to her it was good I did to my every person in my family, I did something to help them. Oh, what else?

Well, I bought iPhone 6 to my sister, and I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to say that I did good things. Okay, okay, fair enough. You have to remember your family when you... Of course. But the bed, the bed was special? Was she emotional afterwards? Yeah, of course.

but I asked how do you feel about your new bed? She was it's good it's like sleeping on a show it's like really like it's not so soft and she liked that

but it's good she was happy and it was funny when we have this small dog French bulldog and I went home and the dog was

running to me he saw me after half a year then my mom came to open the door and I was hugging the dog then my mom was like oh my god there were in the old times

the dogs were like protecting the family and now you're like forget your mom and the dog but she knows that I'm doing my job here and she does it like she doesn't bother me or trying to call me or anything she's going to see me on

Berlin so I will make her happy again will she be there yeah I told her that you should not come and just talk home okay because it's like huge crowds and uh it's not same like yeah the old fights it's like uh I don't want that he she gets a heart attack so she was like no I will come and there's nothing that can stop me and the same thing you don't want her to come to this one but maybe she's your good luck charm yeah actually every time she has been watching my fight I have always won and when you are in a we we can say deep shit in a fight you are in a position where you don't want to be and you need that extra power from somewhere and that's

I'm getting that from when I think that there is my mom watching here so yeah no one's get beat up in front of their mother do they do Mother's Day over there in Scandinavia yep so I'm hoping you called her on Mother's Day right no

what? Why? I just said to my sister that tell my mom that I love her And then my sister was like, I'm mom too. He had a son, so I said, good luck for you. Well, what's wrong with calling your mother on Mother's Day? You're so close to her.

Yeah, I want to stay away from everything. I don't want to hear about news and what is happening in Finland. and then I don't want to, I left my friend and everybody to Finland. So I don't want, I won't make stress to myself. So I don't want anybody else to it. And even though it doesn't, if something happens, even though it doesn't, like, affect my life, but still I don't want to be stressed, like I think about sad news or something.

So I have told everybody that I would see you guys after Berlin. Wow. Do you think she's sad about that or she understands? She understands. She's happy that I have good people around me in Stockholm. And there is not that much people that I know in Stockholm. So I'm always at the gym and that's it. So there's nothing to be worried about.

Given this state of mind, I kind of feel like, didn't even want to do this interview. Like, this is annoying for you. No, it's not annoying. Okay. I just, my focus has been so much in this fight. So, like,

there's one girl sitting that you look like, you are worried about something. It's not, Elil Latifi, he said, wake up, you are lost. It's not. I'm just so focused. want to laugh, joke or something when I'm doing my training.

And now my focus is in my everyday life. So, yeah, from the training, it's now affecting my normal life. So it's nothing that I hate anybody or anyone. So that means leading up to this fight, no more videos of you eating apples or any kind of fruit, right? It's all business. No, of course I have to. media

doing these funny things but most of the focus is just on fight and it's hard to act that you have a fun

when actually you you want so bad I want to beat this much you're full and like so bad you know when you take fish out of a sea

and all he do is a breed I want to do this to Masa Pohlin that he is in a whole other level when he meets me. Oh, my. You know, I read recently something very interesting. Did you apprehend some muggers? Yeah. What happened there?

I tried to read the articles, and I believe it was in Finnish, but the translation was very confusing. What happened? I was drinking coffee with my friend. He's a bodybuilder. Oh. He's like really huge. then you were just talking and I heard the girl who was working there she screamed that guy stopped

and I watch out from the window and there was two guys running out they had a lot of beers with them so I told my friend that let me drink this coffee I took the last cup of coffee and I ran and I ran like really fast then I was like oh my god I haven't seen this fast like ever because I have like train a lot and for their bad luck

I had running shoes and my clothes were like for running so it was fun actually running after it and then they just stopped because I was coming so fast then my friend he was so lazy he took a car.

The bodybuilder. No cardio. When I said, yeah, no, I said to stop. No, I said to them that I suggest that you stop.

So I said it, I said it so nice in a nice way. So that's why it became like famous. I didn't yell or anything. So that was the big reason why

people liked the video so much. It was all over in every news, paper and stuff. So it was because of that, that somebody handled situation like that in a nice way. But did they just stop and give it back to you? That's it? Yeah, they get it back. Oh my. The cops in New York should watch that video and take example. I don't know if they'll stop, you know, in New York if you say that. But yes, I do agree. It would be nice to see less less friction between the police.

It's a big problem here in the United States. You could be that example. You should come here and give seminars. That is true. I have seen these videos. Crazy. Amateurs. You can't handle that kind of situation in the nice way you shouldn't do that show.

So you went to get the beer and then you went all the way back to give it back to the restaurant? Yeah, we gave it back and the girls were like, you want to coffee or... Something we were like, no. It was a, it was a normal thing. I think that in Finland, you know, you can get sued when you touch somebody. It's so easy to sue somebody. So I took my phone and I filmed at the same time. So when I take the beer and everything and they leave.

So they can't like afterwards go to the beach. probably do something to their self and say that Mark won did this. Oh, that's right. It's very smart. Yeah, so I filmed it and then we just took to beer back and it was, I think, everybody was watching in that place where we were. So it annoys me that people didn't do anything. They were like just standing. Yeah.

Okay. So now it is. 842 in Sweden, what are you doing for the rest of the night? I'll by yourself there at the gym. I'm now at my friend's place because I had to do this interview. Oh. You have no internet there? No, it's in my room. It's like in a place where the internet doesn't come that far. Okay. So what are you going to do? Just go back to your room and go to sleep? have this diet on.

I have to follow the schedule and say I have to make food. Oh, what are you eating? Whitefish today. Okay, very nice. Can you give us a prediction? You say first round, how are you going to beat him? That's it? I'm not going to say how I beat him, but I swear, I swear that Matthew is not going to see

second round. You swear? If Master of Poland will go to next round, I will bow to him in that cage, and I will say, good job. Okay. Next round, you will sleep.

Okay, we are going to hold you to that. I will remember this on June 20th. I said the same thing about Andy Ogle and nobody was listening. Well, you know, to be honest, you weren't quite as popular back then, right? But in my hometown, I said like...

Okay. And in Finland, I said to everybody, and he's always like that talking much. Okay, so if it goes past the second round, which you do not expect, you will bow down to Masio Fulen before the route starts. Yeah. As soon as I hear that the bell ring, I will do like that. But in your mind, you know how you're going to beat him. Yeah.

Like, I have this working with this. new doctor who helped me with everything what I eat and how I train and sleep. So he's working with Musashi too. Oh. He said to me that for something special, I didn't know what he mean, but when I started to talk to him about how my fight will end, and I only watched 30 seconds of a full-lance fight. and I said how I will win that fight and how it will end. So I saw the same thing with Andiogo.

I'm pretty much like, let's say I have a good head. I haven't got any punches with the head. All right. All I can say that is, this is just one obstacle to me, Like, I don't see, like, a possibility to lose this fight. When I look at the Masia Fuland, I don't see that he can knock me out. He will never choke me, he will never lock me. Like, there is no 0% that I can lose this fight.

You can say that I'm cocky, but I have trained. I have done everything so right to this fight. Well said. Okay. Tremendous stuff. You are a fascinating guy, my friend. I wish you the best of luck on June 20th in Berlin. Makwan Ameriakhani against Maso Fon.

I'm looking forward to it very much. Thank you for the time. Thank you. There he is. Hey. Yes. He always listens to this. He always listens to the show.

It's his favorite show. Okay. Tell him to put one bonus to the side. Okay. ready to me. Until Joe Rogan to not drink anymore. Okay, fair enough. Thank you for the time. There he is. Makwan Amircani. Great stuff from him, as always. Looking forward to his fight June 20th in Berlin. That is the card, of course, that is headlined by Jessica Penei versus Yana Yon J. Czech. Fight pass card. All right, let's move along. Let's go to

our next guest. A lot of people are very excited to hear from this man. He is always money when he is on the show. Of course, I'm talking about the one and only Habib Nirmagamadev. Chabib, are you there? Yes, I'm here. How are you there? I'm doing great. So, very disappointing news. We are not going to see you in action next week against Donald Seroni. When you learned that you were out of this fight, that you suffered a knee injury after everything that was said, all the buildup, how did you react to the news?

You know, I feel very bad about this because I hurt my knee. And I know a lot of people with this fight in Russia, in U.S. And, you know, I am upset, too. I am very upset. You know, I very won't decide. I won't come back, beat these guys and take my title shot, you know. But God have another point about this. And, you know, I'm very upset about this.

Well, you're the kind of guy that says, like, man, you know, I, maybe I talked a little too much that, you know, it was bad luck, things like that. I brought this upon myself. Do you think of that? Well, sometimes fans crazy, you know. Every time I talk and I do, you know, I still understand it. And this is my plan. And friends sometimes talk like crazy, you know, but it's okay. It's okay.

I understand. Friends now, a little bit upset, a lot of fans. And me upset, too. I'm no happy because one year I know fight, you know, I can't. This is no good news for me, no good news for fans. I understand this. What kind of feedback did you get? Because I recall when I heard the news when it came out there, everyone was like,

oh, you know, talk so much and now the fights aren't happening. What were people saying to you on Twitter? I know you're very active. Where people, you know, were they supportive or were they kind of piling it on? Especially fans of the fighters, you know, like Anthony Pettis and Toroni, Nate Diaz, those fans, I could see a scenario where they would kind of try to make you feel even worse? I know for worse.

You know, some people happy. Some people upset. Some people trash talking, you know, it's okay. You know, this is tough spot. And every time in the gym we push myself and another guys push yourself. Like, because if you want to win, you need, you need to go like crazy, you know, because MMA every day go high level and you need training hard, push yourself, and MMA all the time have injured.

And I want next time I think I training a little bit more smart. Before I know I'm understanding I train like crazy. And I think this is very good experience for me, very good experience. And, you know, it's okay. but Pettis me I have a lot of fans Pettis have a lot of fans and all the time fans wait

fight me and Pettis fight and we injure and a lot of fans upset. I understand this. I understand. Your coach, Javier Mendes, told me he thinks you came back too soon that you're only at 90% when you started this camp and he wishes you had an extra month.

Do you agree with him? Do you think it was too soon? Yes, I come early because I'm very hungry. now I'm in Vegas, do rehab, UFC support me. Lawrence and Dana, thank you so much. He supported me

the second time because before I have injured, he support me these guys. Now I have injured. These guys support me. No, these guys believe me, believe me, and these guys support me. I won't come back maybe September or October and

I'm very hungry. I know. I know fight. one and a half year and this is very hard for me because I all the time watch every fight and MMA moving but I'm staying you know

this is a little bad and I come back soon I come back were you surprised that Donald Soroni didn't try to rub it in or say anything I mean he kind of took the high road

he was very classy afterwards does that surprise you I think this is good for him I don't fight I think Now we have a fight, but I don't think so this fight is very easy, but everybody thinks this guy's easy, but because this guy, he has an opponent, striking, opponent, aggressive striking guy. Good luck for him, good luck, but I won't fight with these guys because two times, you should give me this fight, two times I have injured, you know.

One day, one day I won't fight with this guy. So you think it all worked out well for him, better for him, right, because now he's fighting someone who is tailor-made for him, another striker? I think, too, because this guy is not top 15, and I think this fight more easy than me, but I don't think so this fight for easy for him, because this guy has style a little bit hard for him, because this guy all the time pressure, aggressive fighter.

And if you lose, if Carver's Bulls, I won't fight for the title when I come back, because I come back October, Rafael Sanders come back October, I won't fight with him. But if Cowboys won't win, I think he deserves his title shot. Okay, well, that's very interesting. So you think that if he loses, you should get the title shot, even though you haven't fought since last April? I think, I think my mind, and I think if Cowboy wins,

he has eight winsick, and this is awesome. you know, he deserves. But if you lose, Caldor lose, Pettis lost, Gilbert Berlin, there's no fight, Benson Henderson no fight, and I think I deserve, I think. And if he lose, I promote my title fight, but if he win, he deserve.

It deserves, and eight wins, this is no joke. Well, you certainly have a lot of options, because, of course, you have the RDA fight, you have the Saroni fight, And the relationship with Showtime Pettus and Nate Diaz continues. After you were out and it was officially announced, he wrote to you, Karma is a bitch. Hope that disability pays well. And back in June of 2014, you wrote to him, how much disability payment do you get?

Nate Diaz continues to take some shots here and there. Are any of these guys bothering you? Are they getting under your skin? You know, Ariel, if you remember when I know top top 10, when I know top 5, like I all the time won't fight with these guys because before these guys high level. But now I don't think so. But before I all the time ask UFC, please give me an idea, please give me entertainment. But all the time these guys scare and no give answer for UFC, these guys no one fight before with me.

But now, these guys talk shit because I'm injured, because I can fight now. And I can't fight with these guys both, same night. These guys, these guys, easy money for me. And these guys need to shut up and say, because last fight, these two guys look like sucks in the fight. And because, you know everybody what I do, you know, how I dominate this, which is Rafael Dosanias. And Rafael Dosanias smiths, smiths these guys like,

girls and these two guys need shut up and train. And if you actually give me this fight, I try. I won't fight with these guys, but I know when I come back, when I help it, these guys shut up and no give answer for UFC. And, you know, this, when I injure this guy all the time, talk shit. But before these two guys shut up and no give answer, USC. So you think they're only talking because they know they can't fight you right now? Yes, 100%.

Yes. So if you had your way, if you could choose any scenario upon returning in October, what do you want? RDA, title fight, if he's still the champion, of course, Saroni, Pettis, or Nate Diaz? What would be your top pick, your best case scenario? If Saroni win, I think Saroni fight for the title versus Rafael de Sanis. if you lose I fight for the title but if you win and he fight for the title

I want same night fight versus both guys Diaz and Pettish if this guy's healthy and if this guy is not injured and I am healthy I want to fight with these two guys Same night Maybe maybe next

Diaz Pettis or Rafael de Sarnas So I saw a picture recently you were with your manager Ali Abdel-Ziz and Lorenzo Fertita at the UFC offices. Did you pitch this to him? Yes, I met with Lorenzo, me, Aliadaliz, and Ranah White. We met talk about business. You know, talk about business, talk about my angel,

talk about my next fight, my, you know. This is big business, you know. And these guys won't promote and these guys won't. I'm healthy and I fight. I, you know, support. And next time, next time I'm training more smart next time. So did they bring up the whole thing, the issue that they have with A.K. And to see if it was a problem over there and that's why you got injured.

Did you talk about that? Because Dana White has been outspoken about that. This is all about A. AKA is a great team. we all the time push self together, support, and AKA is no like team, like family, you know. This is no about AKA. You know, sometimes injure happen.

This is sport, this is MMA, this is no like another sport. This is a very tough sport. And we talk about Dana and Lorenzo. And I understand, this guy understand, I'm number one light. And this guy won't support me. And I come back soon and you guys. understand too. Did they lay out a sort of plan for you?

Did they say this is what we want you to do when you come back? I think they won't become, they won't. When I come back, I'm champion because these guys understand I'm the biggest name in Lightford Division and I'm one of the best, maybe, you know. But now, now I focus my knee, focus my rehab. now. But when I come back, and I come back soon. I come back soon. By the way, you injured the same knee that you injured last year, and I was told, and correct me from wrong, that when they were checking out the knee, they found out that the surgery

that you had in Russia wasn't the best, that it wasn't top-notch. Do you think, A, is that true, and B, do you think that led to the injury? No, no, the surgery, when I do surgery in Russia, it's good. This is no good, but in Russia, but in Russia I do surgery ACL and now I do I have I hurt my knee now same knee but miniscus and so surgery well what I do surgery in Russia is no bad surgery now I do surgery in away and you know I'm very upset I'm very upset I don't know sometimes but last one year I can fight. Has this been the hardest

period of your life? I think, I think, yes, because this is, now I'm very good shape. I'm young, 26 years. I'm one of the best fighter in the world, and I can fight. A lot of people wait my fight. A lot of

people want to watch my fight. You know, in Russia, in U.S., I have a lot of friends in the world, you know, but... And I can fight, you know. I won't say sorry to my friends, and I come back soon.

You're a very confident guy, but are you at all worried that these injuries might catch up to you and that when you return, you're not going to be as dominant as you were before the injuries? I'm better now, you know, but when I come back, I won't finish guys. When I come back, and I feel... I feel how I worked before.

I feel how I work now. I'm different now. I'm more strong, more hungry. Maybe this one year, maybe one year this is no fight

this is maybe for me is good. We'll see when I come back when I come back to the cage, we'll see. Maybe this is better for me. I don't know,

but God has another plan. You know, it's okay. Everything okay. When I come back, I won't finish guys. And, you know. All right.

I thought, I thought you had a final thing to say there, but you have said enough. We appreciate the time, Habib. All the best to you. Good luck with your rehab, and looking forward to your return in October. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, I did. Okay.

There he is. Chabib Nurmagamatov stopping by. We wish him the absolute best. All right, let us move along now. Very excited that for the second time in around six months, it took us two years to get her back on the show, but now here she is for the second time in six months. She's actually in New York right now.

promoting this amazing book. You heard me talk about it at the top of the show. We're going to talk about it again now. Rhonda Rousey, who has penned this book that comes out tomorrow. Tomorrow, you could pre-order it now. It comes out tomorrow. It's called My Fight, Your Fight. I read it and I have a lot of things that I need to discuss with her about it. She joins us right now on the phone. Rhonda Rousey, are you there? Yeah, how are you doing? I'm great. Thank you so much. This means a lot. I know that you are so busy today. And for you to take out some time for us little MMA people means a lot. I appreciate it very much. I have to say something. Thank you. I have to say something right off the bat. I've been around this world for 32 years, and I've read a few books in my day, but I've never read a book in 25 hours. When your amazing agent, one of the very best, if not the best in the business, Brad Slater sent it to me Friday night. He said, you must finish this weekend. And I want notes as you go through the book. And I'm a father of two, and I was alone with my kids on Saturday. There was no way in my mind that I could finish this book. I finished it in 25 hours.

And I'm not just saying it because you're on the phone, honestly, and I hope people believe me. I was blown away. I couldn't put it down. It was honest. It was revealing. It was riveting. It was one of the very best sports books I've ever read books, period. So I just wanted to say right off the top, congratulations.

You and your sister did a masterful job, and it was really an amazing piece of work. You should be very proud. Thank you. Yeah. I'm extremely proud of Maria. She really killed it. She knocked out of the park. I mean, I really looked out that my sister is an award-winning sports.

She's got a real talent of really making you feel like you're there. And making it sound like it was you, and that was obviously, you know, one of the key things when someone is working with another writer, you want it to sound like yourself and I can hear your voice throughout. How difficult was the process, though, because, you know, your story, for the most part, well documented, you've been through a lot and you've been through more in a short amount of time than most people in their entire life. How difficult was this process to relive it with a family member, not just some stranger?

I think it was easier in a way because I did it with my sister Maria because there are a lot of things that I would feel uncomfortable talking about to somebody else that I knew would just be faking empathy for the sake of making money, writing a book. And plus Maria knows a lot of the questions to ask. She was there. She lived it too. And yeah, she knows my voice. I wrote in a speech and vernacular. so it's really easy for her to pick up exactly how I would say it. And, yeah, I mean, it was really hard going through something since, you know, you can get through stuff and you remember that it happened, but actually having to relive every story and have to really explore the why is behind things, one of the harder things.

Because I would have to explain every single thing that I did, like, well, why were you doing this? Why did you do that? And it was very introspective in that way. But I learned a lot of myself and me and my sister ended up a lot closer by the end of the process. As I mentioned, it was very honest. It was very revealing. And we'll talk about a few of those examples in a second. But what was the hardest part to relive?

Was it your dad or was it something else? I think talking about the stuff of my dad was difficult. And surprisingly, talking about all. ultimate fighter in front of my family was very, very difficult. And because remember my mom was there, my family was that we were all, we were just sitting at, um, at lunch and I was talking to my sister about it. And there, there were, there are, there are a lot of tears shed in the writing of this book, for sure. I mean, there would be time where, um, I would be in the middle of, of lunch after

training. My sister would hit me up. She's like, hey, we need something like here. Could you tell me just one thing about a little snippet about how you felt after you won your Olympic medal. And I wrote the one paragraph at my phone about my dad's flag. And I was like in the middle of some random Armenian food place just first into tears, like thobbing over my cell phone in the middle of some random place. And just random times. I would hit me up. I need something like this, something like that.

And your mind will just immediately be transported back to that moment and have to relive it over and over and over. But you know what? The process of like reading through it, I think it was harder than telling it because I would read these parts over and over and over and over again. And there wasn't a single time that I wasn't laughing and crying reading the book. I didn't, I didn't get desensitized to it. I think that was the hardest part was the correction process. You mentioned something that was quite striking to read.

You said that you don't think if, you know, if your dad doesn't pass away, that all this other stuff happens to you. You guys moved to North Dakota, and then you moved back to California, and a whole bunch of stuff happens in between, and you kind of wondered out loud, or maybe you even said the statement, if now I remember correctly,

what we see now, what has happened to since, maybe doesn't happen if that horrible tragedy doesn't happen to. Do you really believe that? I believe that we would have stayed in North Dakota, and I never would have been to know, 100%. Wow. And my life would have gone entirely different direction, and maybe it would have gone in a fantastical other direction that I also would have loved. But I wouldn't be where I'm at now, that's for sure.

You mentioned that flag, and obviously we don't want to give away too much, but that was a, you know, I'm a pretty emotional guy. I tend, especially now having kids, I tend to cry too much. When you, when that part, you know, your mother was given a folded flag. Your father served his country, and she did not open it for three. 13 years. I believe it was when you were in the Olympics that she brought it out, right, and unfolded it. Is that correct? Yeah.

Yeah, it was right after I won the bonds medal that I looked up and saw. Did you know right away that that was the flag? Did you know that she had it in her possession and she was planning on opening it there? No, I knew it. It was my idea. I was the one holding on to his flag all that time. It had been folded in a plastic triangle for, I'd kept it for a long time. when we were going to the Olympics,

I handed it to my mom, and I told her specifically that I wanted her to bring it. But I forgot about it while I was fighting, because I'm fighting. I'm not thinking about it. And so, it's like when they put the belt on me, every single time I forget about it, that someone's going to sneak up behind me and put a belt on me.

Like, I jumped every time. Yeah, and so, like, of course, I forgot about the flag. And the second I looked up at it was, it's like someone sneaking behind me. you and putting a belt behind your waist that you're surprised times a thousand. Also amazing is when you talk about one of your lowest moments, I believe you're in a parking lot outside of a 24-hour fitness, and you're telling yourself that this is the depressing part of your book, that at some point you're going to write this story and this is the low

moment and you'll come back and you'll be, you know, queen of the hill. Is that something that you say afterwards or do you actually really remember telling yourself that? Because if so, that's almost like an out-of-body experience. No, that was my pep talk to myself a lot of the time. If I came back from working all night and they're tiring the roof next door and I only have a few hours to rest, but I have to breathe in fumes in my bed and just be sledding on my bed with no sheets on it until, you know, my pep talk to myself before I go to my next job and my next workout was this is just the part of the book where the person is struggling

to get through the shitty part. And that was how I got myself losing. If I talked myself through things, was I convinced myself that I was in the middle of fantastic autobiography. And no one wants to read a book about everything is dandy all the time. Right. And I think you're very lucky that your sister is a journalist. Because journalists, as you know, sometimes,

I know you've had your battles with journalists, especially as of late, but they seek the truth. And maybe as opposed to just a friend or someone who's there to write a book, they'll be a little less fluffy. And it seemed like, you know, like I said, you were very honest. Did she kind of bring that out of you? Did she say we need to tell people what really happened here? Like I'm reminded of you talking about your relationship with Dana White,

which I didn't think for, you know, in a million years, you would address these rumors that you guys were dating and things like that, but you addressed that head on. Was that something that she said you need to do, or did you want to do that? No, I just told the story the way that I told it. And that was one of the things on my mind. Would I have to keep it a secret for that long that I was going to be in the UFC? and that was something I really had to go through.

I'm terrible at keeping secrets. And I'm terrible at deflecting things. If someone's like, why are you here? And I can't say while I'm there. I mean, I was a really frustrating time. I mean, to leave that out would be omitting the truth. Yeah, I remember seeing you backstage in Minnesota, Toronto as well, as you mentioned. Couldn't they have told you like, all right, this trip you don't have to come on,

we're not going to announce it? Why did they make you go to all those fights? Because they kept thinking that, that they were so close that by the time we got there, we'd be able to do it. Okay. And you still have to go through the whole thing over and over again, where these new dresses and get all made up, and then you're let down almost.

It probably was really annoying. Yeah, it wasn't the way, but it was also kind of cool and that, you know, I was flying around on a private plane and being spoiled, but it was annoying in that I kept getting built up and then let down and built up and they're up and they're up. And it happened like three times until they surprised me at a Nate's site. The New York Post came out with a story, a review of your book yesterday, and they made a lot of the fact that, you know, after the Olympics you were smoking

and had a bit of an addiction to paint pills. How bad was this? It wasn't that bad. I never considered myself addicted. I mean, there was no time that I wasn't at work where I was like, oh, I got to get myself some of that and nothing like that. It was more like this environment I was in. And it was just available there.

I was like, whatever. And, no, I was just, I was really depressed because devoting my life to this ideal and building my body up. It made me so unhappy that I thought maybe breaking it down would make me happy. And then I kind of found at that point that neither of them are working out. I got to think of something else. If you made a young girl right now, 12, 13, 14 years old, who loves, judo who loves any kind of Olympic sport and says her dream is to be an Olympian and win a medal, would you tell her or him not to do this, given your experience?

No, no one can tell you what your dream should be. If that's their dream, they should go do it. That's it. If anyone told me not to do it while I was going after it, one of them affected me in the least. So, no, they just got to follow their path if that's what they really want to do, and it's going to lead them somewhere. but it's better for them to know what they're getting into instead of having a false idea of this idyllic dream that they sell you.

Do you regret it? No, not at all, but I definitely wouldn't do it again. You wouldn't. If they gave me a free wildcard to go to the Olympics and compete, I wouldn't do it. So you use that on the Olympics and not the ultimate fighter? What do you mean? Well, because I feel like you really dislike that. I would be, I would expect you to say that you would use it on the ultimate fighter, not to have to do that again.

Use what on the ultimate fighter? The wild card, to not do something all over again. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, the wild card. A wild card is, we have to qualify your country. Yeah. They qualify yourself in the Olympics. And so they have so many wild cards that they can give out.

So even if your country hasn't been qualified, they can give you the wild card and you can fight any. way. Okay, I understand. Like saying that you were Olympic champion, but you got injured for two years, and then you didn't have enough points. They could give you wild cards, we can go compete anyway. Okay. I don't know if you know this. My uncle was a judo cut in the Olympics. Did you know that? I did not. Would he in the Maccabia game? No, no, no. These are the real Olympics. 1976 Olympics, Montreal. He represented Lebanon. He lost in the preliminary rounds, but he's there. We have the pictures to prove it. How about that?

that's cool i don't know he was in the real olympics i asked if he was in the macabia games as well no that's me but that's a different story for a different day uh because we are short on time do we have a couple more minutes me i mean i don't i think we just pulled up our have we yeah we just pulled up the serious okay let me ask you two more things three more things and then i'll let you go my favorite part of the book do you know what it was what when you were talking about this show i couldn't believe it i'm reading the book and there's like two pages about the m m mhm a hour in fact i wanted to play the clip of you on it, but we've run out of time, so I don't want to waste time. But wow, that was amazing. You didn't mention my name, but you mentioned the show, so it's good enough for me.

I had no idea. It was amazing. It was November of 2011. It was you and Misha Tate on at the same time. Essentially, I believe, we got you the title shot. I mean, let's be honest. It was an amazing debate, but I didn't know that you prepared so much for the interview. You spent like several days playing her, playing you, doing all kinds of research. That was pretty cool. Thank you for that. you're very welcome maybe you could do a reading of that whole part if you want later you could do sustain silent reading with ariel i have the clip i wanted to play for you to relive it but i don't want to waste time i i went and found the clip and you you actually went through a whole transcript of it amazing stuff okay uh last couple things before i let you go and again the book is called my fight your fight

it's tremendous it's on sale tomorrow um are you going to coach the ultimate fighter brazil opposite chris cyborg no okay that's a rumor out of brazil ultimate fighter ever again. Okay, everyone's asking me about this. This is not happening. No. Everyone in the UFC, everyone in the ultimate fighter, everyone on Earth knows that I will never do that show ever again for all of the money in the world.

You'd have to hold my little sister at gunpoint to get me to do that show again. Chris Seibor came out. The UFC confirmed that she's under a Zufa contract. Do you think we will see this fight sooner rather than later? I don't know. I mean, Pachia Mela had about a five-year build-up. end up with 5.5 million, so we're about at three. So I would say I would keep my hopes up until five, and after that I'm moving on with my life.

Okay. And then finally, will we ever see you inside a WW ring? Well, you have. Yes, ever again. I'm going to find a way to get back in there. I don't know how it would be possible in the foreseeable future. I mean, it's definitely not possible for a very, very long time. I have an extremely full schedule.

Yes. But I want to find a way. Somehow, some way, someday. I just have no clue when. All right. For now, we'll say goodbye. So much going on in your life. You have the Entourage movie coming out in June.

This book coming out tomorrow, your fight, UFC 190. We'd even get to that. We'll save that for a different time. Good luck with the book. I know you're doing a ton of media here in New York. Again, I can't say enough good things about it. If you're a fan of sports or just humanity, you should check it out 100%. My Fight, Your Fight.

Rhonda Rousey. Thank you so much for the time, Rhonda, and we'll talk to you very soon. Really appreciate it. No problem. My pleasure. I'm really glad you liked it. A hundred percent. I'm not lying. Trust me. Thank you. All right. I'll go to one. I'll talk you later. There she is. Ronda Rousey's stopping by. Honestly, I'm not saying this, and I know 100% that you think I'm lying. I know it. I know it sounds like I'm just kissing ass. And to a degree, I don't blame you because you hear this on these shows so much.

I can't say it enough. It was a great read. I've never read a book in 25 hours. Honestly, I haven't. I really haven't. It just, and this was with kids. I read it on my iPhone, because I wasn't sure I was going to get the book in time. I read it on my iPhone, and there are some great stories there. One cool story that we didn't get to, I think it was in the Misha Tate fight, the second one, UFC 168, she says it's the last time she will ever throw a kick in a fight. She says her coach, Edmund, who the dynamic between them and how they got started is fascinating in its own right. says don't throw kicks because when you throw kicks, it shows that you're upset. I know you're upset. Don't throw kicks. And she threw in against Misha Tate and she says she'll never throw in again.

Crazy. All kinds of good stuff in there. We know her story kind of in broad strokes, but not like this. I mean, a book is a whole different kind of beast. And it's a very honest and revealing book talking about her relationships with men, her family, the ups and downs. She even spent some time in Montreal. My hometown. So I know it sounds like I'm just kissing ass and yes, yes, yes, yes. But trust me, it's worth getting. It comes out tomorrow and she's doing a ton of media here in New York and it's well deserved because sometimes these books, as we know in MMA in particular, they kind of fall flat. You know, they're just, you can tell it's a half-ass job. This definitely wasn't. And honestly, I'm not a fan of books that come midway through one's career. You know, it's like you're in your

prime. What are you doing writing a book? There's so much to be told. There's so much left. But if her story ended at the Olympics, that was a book right there. Of course, five people will probably buy it. She's incredibly more popular now. There it is. All right.

Let us move along. Last guest of the day. This man is very busy man. And he's a very kind man as well because when I was having cable issues watching the Floyd Mayweather and Mani Pachial fight, this man was going on Twitter speaking to the bigwigs over at In Demand to try to fix my rinky-dink issues

that's how kind this man is he's the chief content officer of the UFC he's the one and only Marshall's Elasnick and he joins us right now on the phone Marshall are you there? I am here nice to be with you what a pleasure and I got to thank you in person or over the phone that was so nice of you

wow and it's great it worked out the old trick of changing the channel back and forth worked. It did. What a crazy thing. Have you ever seen any, I know you have a history with this, you know, you used to work in this field, right? You know, cable paper view and all that. You used to work for In Demand itself, right? That's right. Yeah. Have you ever seen anything like that where they had to delay a show because there was so much activity? I mean, we've never seen anything like Pac-Al Mayweather, but there have been big events. Have you ever heard of something like that before? Not a delay that I can remember, but I do know we've had big events when I was there

past and there were ordering issues that came about. They usually got themselves worked out. This one was particularly interesting because I was actually with HBO people as well as in-demand people, and their phones were just blowing up with systems and executives emailing at one of the head of HBO legal around us. And it was interesting, at least from my perspective, I wasn't as stressed out as they were, making sure that things were progressing and then hearing the discussion about delaying the show. So it was a unique experience to see it all come down. But, you know, now I'm sure people are wondering why they waited. They should have just started the show and gotten it over with. That is true. By the way, give me honest take here. Did you enjoy it?

Did you enjoy the spectacle? Or are you one of those who's going to crap all over it? No, I enjoyed it. You know, I spoke to a lot of friends who watch it on TV, and I know where they would have been disappointed on watching on TV. But at the event, it was a spectacle. It felt big. There was a big pre-party with all the celebrities that were around. I still get starstruck from seeing all these people, and everyone around is, you know, trying to be seen.

So, no, it was a fun event to be at. I feel really fortunate that I could be there. But, yeah, you know, it's fun. I've been to some of the biggest sporting events, and a big boxing event is still one of those events that gets you excited. Did you pay for your ticket? I did not. I was lucky enough to be invited. Oh, man. It's good to be the king. I'll have to ask, Dana. Well said. Okay, let's talk some fight pass. A lot of exciting things going on. You just had an event.

By the way, I know you guys don't talk about this sort of thing, but, I mean, event to event. And last one, the Mark Hunt's Deep Miochich one, that was a quality main event. That could be on Fox Sports One, Fox, whatever. Is it growing every time? Can you at least tell us that? Are you noticing that the viewership numbers are growing? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, we're seeing growth, and there's no doubt we get our big spikes around our events.

And it was a perfect storm for this event on the weekend because it was in the morning in Australia, which meant it was prime time here. All of our marketing efforts were working, our social efforts were all working. It was really, it felt like a fine-tuned machine around here to promote this event. And it doesn't hurt also that the fights earlier in the event were finishes and people start tweeting those.

It starts to create its own momentum. But to answer your question, for sure, our big spites come around these live events, which, you know, the majority of our subscribers come from the U.S. and Canada, and our Fight Pass events in the U.S. and Canada are completely available on Fight Pass, so it makes sense that we would see these big spikes. But yeah, big, big, big successful weekend for us. It always feels like live is king. At the end of the day, you can have all these libraries, and we'll talk about that in a second. But that's really the

way to bring in the audience. It feels like, to me, there have been less live events on Fight Pass this year as opposed to last year. Any particular reason for that? Yeah, there's no doubt there has been. You know, last year when we launched, we were in the big international growth phase. We were doing more events internationally. This year, what we've tried to do is create better quality events instead of, you know, quantity. We've gone for quality. You know, you'll remember that we announced the number of fights early or late last year that we intended to do as a company.

We pulled that back. And that was really to make sure that we could deliver quality events for everybody. and I think that fight actually was a good example of how this is working. You know, again, we're trying to deliver the best quality events to the fans, but you're right in terms of there's less fight pass events than there were in the previous year. So the fight pass account and also my good pal, Aunt Evans, all cryptic last week about some big fight pass news. And then we come to find out it's International Vallitudo being added to the library. How did you secure that library?

I mean, that's some classic stuff. Yeah, that's some classic stuff. Well, certainly it's been on our hit list. We actually secured it right around the time we had our announcement when we announced Cage Rage and all those other promotions. But we wanted to hold it back. We wanted to stunt it a little bit. But I've known Sergio Baudirelli for years. He was the promoter of those events.

And we secured those rights. And obviously, we've leaked them out through social media that they were there. We've already seen great uptick in viewership on that life. library. And for us at Fight Pass, we really are starting to believe and starting to work towards the fact that we're archivists. We are trying to make sure that we preserve all of this great content that's out there. This sport is only getting bigger. And we're trying to make sure that we continue to deliver quality and make Fight Pass better. So this is another one of those acquisitions. And if people haven't watched it, I'd recommend they go and check it out. They can start their

seven-day free trial. They can cancel in that seven-day. If they just want to see this stuff all in one place. They're amazing fights to watch. I mean, this was definitely no rules, MMA, and true Vallitudo. So you not that long ago added live and Victa events. Any plans? You know, because it's starting to feel more than just UFC fight pass. It's starting to feel like MMA fight pass.

If you get what I'm saying, any plans on adding more live events to the platform? For sure. You know, all those deals that we've secured in the past give us the ability to air their content, live. We're working through production issues. You think about Pancras, they're doing almost 40 events a year. We have in our sites to get Pancras live on Fight Pass. But we've got to figure out graphics, voiceover. They only come with Japanese graphics and Japanese voice.

So we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with that. We also, you know, keeping with the Brazilian theme, we've closed, we haven't announced this, by the way. I guess this is a bit of a scoop for you. Oh, yeah. We've closed Shudo Brazil. which, you know, they've been around for 13 years, 50 events, Joseo Aldo, Henan Burrell. I mean, when these guys were just raw, just tough fighters.

So we've closed that. We're getting that library in, and we are working as hard as we can to see if we can do this weekend's shoot-o event live on Fight Pass. So we've got some more work to do, but if we can do it, we'll start screaming from the mountaintops because they're, André Petanaris, who is the promoter there. He's a good guy, solid guy. good fight card together, so we're trying to figure out how to get that in. But for sure, more live, more live. Lorenzo's on me every day. We're coming. What do we have live? And we're getting some operational production issues figured out. But my guess is within the next 60 days, you'll see a lot of announcements, probably within 30 days of more live inside Fight Pass.

Really? Wow. So this Sunday, this weekend, excuse me, you don't even know yet if you're going to be able to do it for the shoot-o card? We don't know. We don't know. You wouldn't normally Harris talking about this, but I'm excited about it. I know Lorenzo is that we just have some production. They produce the event live for Brazilian television, so we know there's a live signal, but it's making sure we can get it. We can get it in the quality we need and ensure that we have a consistent stream for everybody. And my guess is we should know sometime later today or tomorrow whether, in fact, we're going to be able to do that. But if you don't get it for this one, the next event you'll have it for. Absolutely. It's going to happen. I'm going to be

disappointed if we don't get it for this weekend, so we're pushing to make it happen. And by the way, I don't know if this is crazy, but you tell me like a pancreas event with the Japanese graphics and the Japanese announcers, I kind of dig that. I kind of think that's fun. Why do you need the English? It's funny, you know, we, with a lot of the library that's being ingested now, we're keeping the true VO, the voiceover, and the true graphics. I think for the live experience, we actually may have two tracks, and we'll probably, because it'll be easier. for us initially have a Japanese graphics, and then you'll be able to take your choice of a

Japanese VO or English. Those are some of the things working out, but I tend to agree with you. I love watching the sport in the native tongue, if you will. It's sort of like the English Premier League on NBC. I think they do a good job of exhibiting that with sort of the true English commentary. How many people subscribe to Fight Pass right now? You had to ask. Well, we don't announce that, as you know,

I snuck it in there. You see I wedged it in between the other stuff? But I can tell you that, you know, some of the information or some of the evidence that it's doing well is that Lorenzo continues to invest in these libraries and getting more live and putting efforts behind like the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which is Friday. We're working on trying to get that back into Fight Pass. We're investing because we have the ability to invest because people are subscribing. But we are growing at a very healthy clip. We have projections to almost double our subscribers. subscribers again by the time we get to the end of this year and we have a team that's dedicated to it.

You mentioned Ant Evans. He's done a great job of curating content, trying to speak the language of our fans who are subscribing. So it's been a great product. It's been a great success and we're not done. So one of the things that you guys announced recently was the revamping of the Hall of Fame and that's going to air on Fight Pass, right? That's right. The ceremony will air on fight pass. Our friend, Ant, also put in a lot of hard work there. So we're excited to be a part of that. We love being around Fight Week. You know, if I can take the time, Invicta is planning their next event around Fight Week with Cyborg in it. So that'll be live on Fight Pass. I think Fight Pass will have a great offering to any of the fans who aren't able to make it

to Las Vegas. We're going to try and give them a flavor for what's going on, including the IMMAF World Championships, you know, the amateur world champions. that took place last year. We're working on trying to get that into the service. So it'll be a big moment for Fight Pass and the UFC on during Fight Week here. So as you know, the Hall of Fame has been scrutinized over the years because it kind of just, you know, it's like it's like a little quick thing at the Expo and sometimes people don't agree with who gets in. Now that you've put this time and effort and resource and you're going to air it, you know,

WWE in my opinion, and I know people hate when I compare it, they do a fantastic job of making the Hall of Fame into an actual TV event. I mean, it's like 80 hours long. That's maybe the drawback, but it's a fantastically produced event. Why doesn't the UFC and then in turn put that on FightPass make an event like that on the Friday night before the July 4th card and make it into a big deal? And if you can't be there, you can watch on Fight Pass. What did that make a lot of sense?

Sure. In fact, those are the conversations that were being had here. There were people within the marketing and the PR group that were big proponents of trying to make this bigger. Obviously, Fight Pass wants a bigger show. I think the show that will come out with these new inductees, I think will impress everybody. And we always aspire to do more and better. And I think this will be the first step in that process, but it will be night and day, this show versus the other show. And I think people will be impressed. It'll be more production value. There'll be more interesting categories. I think it's going to be a lot of fun for everybody.

Since you're breaking news, can you tell us who will be inducted this year? I can, but I won't. Oh, I thought I had you there for a second. No, I asked him, have him tweet it. He'll just tweet it out. He's a prolific tweeter, that guy. By the way, it still feels like, okay, first of all, how do you feel about the search function? Are all the bugs out, or is that still a work in progress?

Yeah, it's a work in progress. It's definitely better than it's been. You know, one of the things, I don't know, maybe this is another scoop. I'm not sure. Oh, yes, please. We've been investing, God, it'll be over a million dollars soon here, in a new interface, which will have more discoverability, better search, more filtering. That's something we've been working on, and we're not quite sure when that will drop,

but it's coming hopefully this year. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to the back engine. It's a lot of work to the architecture. I've learned a lot in the process. But we are aware that there are some challenges with search. I think it's probably a B-plus, a B right now, and we're working our way to get to that A-A-plus.

And what about the actual interface? I mean, is it going to stay this way because, you know, since I have your ear, and I think it's a great product, the stream was great on Saturday, but sometimes it feels like it's a little busy and it's hard to find things. Are we keeping it this way? Are we going to evolve there as well? No, it'll definitely be an evolution. You know, we built Fight Pass.

You may remember when we announced it off of an existing platform that we were able to Frankenstein a little bit to make sure that we delivered at least. accessibility to the library and obviously the live content was important that that quality be good. But we knew as soon as we launched it that we had to make it state of the art in terms of the interface, this discoverability. I really believe FightPass is a tool for people to discover and learn more about the great sport that we get to all participate in in some way. So for sure, the interface is changing. It is updating. I've seen designs. It's going to be kick-ass. I think people are going to love it. And it's only going to help retain more subscribers.

and make it more of that discovery. It will start to deliver on the promise. And so when can we expect that? Don't know. You know, the timing, it's either at best case scenario, it's a third or fourth quarter this year, but it could leak in to the next quarter of 16, but I'm really trying to push our team

for late third quarter, early fourth quarter this year. And I've noticed that some fights, like you guys own the Strike Force Library, but there are still like some that you can't find, like Rockhold's debut, I believe, is not there, and some others. Any particular reason for that? Like, I feel like there's been enough time to upload this, right? Or you just don't have it?

Yeah, it's a little bit of both. You know, there are still some holdback issues with the acquisition with Showtime. So there are certain events that we can't put up yet. It's just a matter of time. There are other events, and this may be one of them, where, you know, crazily enough, there were, and this is true, not just for Strike Force, but for a lot of promoters, even though they were shooting, sometimes they only shot main cards. They didn't shoot prelims.

And Strike Force, surprisingly enough, didn't shoot everything when they were producing their live event. So we're now trying to go out and find whether there's footage that exists from. Sometimes the promoter had a friend who shot it on their home video camera, and we're literally going to the effort to try and find this stuff. Because for me, that's what FightPass should do. You should be able to hopefully one day have the anthology from every fighter that you can watch every fight, even if it's a home video. Is there a holy grail out there for you, like one fight or a clip or something that

you, like, it's just killing you inside that you can't find? No, I mean, I think Pancras was the one we really wanted. There are some great fighters that came through there. I think the promotions we announced, those were our target hit list, and we got those. You know, there's still talk about the K-1 library, even though it's not MMA, you know, it's kickboxing. and so many of the great MMA fighters participated in some of the K-1 kickboxing events, that's all muddied up in bankruptcy and ownership interests,

but that's something that I know Lorenzo would like to see. So, but no, I think we're doing a really good job of getting some of the historic content, and now it's about getting the new content so that we could expose events from all over the world, and we're making great progress. As a pay-per-view guide, you ever foresee the day that all UFC pay-per-views are exclusively on bypass a la WW network? I don't know. You know, the future, I mean, I can tell you that things are changing so fast.

I mean, OTT, you know, the concept of over the top wasn't even in the nomenclature and most people a year and a half, two years ago, and now it's everywhere. You know, Netflix has done an amazing job. You know, I think that there is something premium about pay-per-view, which will probably never change, you know. If you could do three and a half or four million buys at $100 on pay-per-view because you have the right event. I am still a believer in the product that there is always going to be space for the right event.

And over time, could you have, you know, bigger events inside Fight Pass? I suppose so. But we actually like our position, and we think our strategy is good, which is we're really complimentary to all of our other TV content. WWE won a different route. They've had good success. But I think for us, we want to really support all of our partners around the world. This is a worldwide product.

And we're still growing the sport. We're growing the business. We need television to continue to grow the fan base, and so we're committed to that. And FightPass will be there to make sure people learn more and feel more in touch with the sport. And by the way, I'm getting some people from Canada asking me right now. So just to clarify, you need to watch, if you want to watch Fight Pass shows in Canada, you have to have the fight network, right?

You can't get them on Fight Pass anymore? No, we did do a new deal at the end of the year. basically if it's what we call our Fight Pass event, an event like the one that came from Australia, we don't really call them that, so it might be confusing to our members. But basically, if it's an event like we had in Australia, you can watch the entire event on Fight Pass. You get that with your subscription. If you have Fight Network, you can also watch the main card, which is the last four fights of a Fight Pass event. You can watch it also on Fight Network, but also as a subscriber.

You then have different events like a pay-per-view event where the pay-per-view in Canada is on Rogers or Shaw, where you can watch the pay-per-view. The prelims, which will be the middle prelims, this is very confusing even as I explain it. You'll probably have to be on TSN and Fight Network, although I think they're just TSN, I'd have to refresh my memory. But the early prelims, which used to be our Facebook prelims, they're always in FightPass. So depending on the event, whether it's a fight night, a pay-per-view, or a Fight Pass event, depends on what content you'll be able to see.

But for our Fight Pass events, Canada and the U.S. are the same in that you can get the entire event on Fight Pass. By the way, before I let you go, I have to ask you this because it's of great interest to me. I know 1% of my audience cares, but I'll be selfish here for a second. I still feel like TSN doesn't really give the UFC the attention it deserves. Like when I was there for Montreal, for 186, I was watching TSN all the time, and there was no mention of it. How's the deal working out? Well, it's actually going really well. You know, we have Tom Wright in Canada and his team manages that around the Mayweather

fight. I met with the head of TSN, the guy who runs the network. We had a nice lunch together. They're excited for the product. It's always, when you start with a new network, there's always a little bit of a ramp up to get them involved. But they're a motivated, excited group for the UFC. We're doing great ratings there.

And we are never satisfied with the editorial coverage we get from just about any partner. So we're putting pressure and having conversations with them to make sure we continue to get that support. This is part of the building of the sport that will ensure, you know, the longevity of it. So we're, I'm glad to hear that. I will definitely be calling Tom's guys and say what's happening and get a report. Tell them, tell them and report back. So June 20th, Berlin, that's the next one. How many more this year on Fight Pass exclusively? I said Brazil. I meant to say Berlin. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. So I think Berlin may be out. hold on, I'm just looking here.

I think that's our third of the year, and we'll have at least three more, potentially more, and then, of course, all of the other international events and domestic events, we're getting very close, by the way,

to announce a domestic deal that I think will surprise people. So there'll be a lot more live content beyond the UFC fight pass events. What do you got? Can you give us a hint? No, but it's going to be exciting. Maybe we'll break it with you.

Well, that'd be nice. You have to ask you. Okay. I will do that right after that. this. All right. Great stuff. Thank you so much, Marshall.

Again, thanks for the help with the Pachiao, Mayweather, pay-per-view, and the service is great. I use it as a research tool before, you know, when I'm working at the fights and things like that. So it's great for someone like myself and, of course, hardcore fans. We appreciate the time. And good luck getting that shoot-o-Brazil card on Fight Pass this weekend. I hope you're able to pull it off. Yeah, we've got a good team here.

I'm confident we will, but we'll see. But thanks, Ariel. It's always good at speaking with you. All right, there he is. Marshall Zalaznik, the UFC's chief content officer doing great things on UFC FightPass this past weekend. It was UFC Fight Pass from Adelaide, Australia. And I got to tell you, the Australian events on Fight Pass are a gift from God because the pacing is just unbelievable. The fights are super fast.

And then they just go one after the next. There are no breaks. It's great. I love it. Definitely worth the nine bucks if you. asked me. Speaking of Worth It, our latest sponsor, new part of the family, our friends over at NOS Energy. If you missed it, this week's episode, and for the next round two months of the MMA hour is presented by NOS. No looking back, no holding back, and absolutely no regrets.

Find a NOS near you at find NOS.com. Their Twitter handle is at NOS Energy Drink. So, I was going to play a clip of Uriah Fabor from UFC 132 as Inside the Vault, but since we didn't get to the Ronda Rousey clip because we were running out of time, and I felt like that interview lasted like three minutes. It was so fast. I wanted to play two quick clips from November of 2011, this very show. She talks about it in the book, page 218, and it's great. She talks about when I invited her and Misha Tate on this show before the fight in Columbus was announced. She was campaigning. She was just four-and-o. Misha was saying, that she didn't deserve it. And Rhonda was doing a fantastic job of building a lot of hype after her

strike force debut. And she talks about in the book how she prepared for that interview. It was so delightful to read. Of course, it probably meant a whole lot more to me than the average reader. But I went back. I found the clip. It was on AOL, the old studio, and I took out two one-minute clips. The first one is the one that she quotes in the book, this exchange, a great exchange between her and Misha, I'll play you that one, and then another fun one on the back end. They're both a minute long, so not that long, and then we'll put a bow on all of that. So here it is, November 28, 2011. In fact, I do believe it was the very last time we ever did a show in that old studio. By then, we had been purchased by SB Nation, and we were going to transition over to that

one-time studio. I remember the John Jones Show. So it was our swan song, and we made it into a book. How about that? When I saw the M.A. hour in a book, my heart was very warm. I was very proud. So thank you very much to Rhonda and her sister, Maria Burns Ortiz, who wrote the book for including it. Here's the first clip. Here's Rhonda and Misha going back and forth debating their fight that had yet to be announced. I just cream you.

And then all your hype is just over. It's like, wow, okay, that Rhonda was just so freaking just another pretty face. Okay, she's nothing. Well, that's not willing to take it. You should be willing to take some risks too. I'm willing. I'm not saying I'm willing. I'm saying my risk.

The longer that you wait, the more of an advantage I'll have. Rhonda, let me ask you. Sorry. Both have. Well, because I'll be more acclimated to the weight and I'll have more cage time. And if you look at a normal growth curve in any kind of, you know, statistical graph, you know, in the beginning, you improve a lot and then you level out more towards the end. So statistically, I would be improving faster at this point in my career than she would.

You see that? It was great. I tried to get a word in almost, you know, every exchange, and they were going back and forth. It was amazing. It was one of those special moments in our show's history. And she actually quoted that exchange in the book. So I wanted to play that for you. I wanted to play for her. I doubt she's heard it since. She talked about where she was when she made the call and, you know, having these, she prepared for that like a fight. It was amazing. And I really appreciate her mentioning. Okay, now here's the back end. Here's the very end of the interview.

She actually compliments Misha Tate, how times have changed. See, by then she didn't have the fight yet. And Sean Shelby, he won't admit it now, but back then he said, I made the fight happen. And in fact, there was a small movement to get me to put the title around the winner's waist. Didn't happen. I was there, though. I was there in Columbus. I think it was the last fight I went to before I became a father for the first time.

I went to the Arnold Classic. It was a very strange scene, to be honest with you. But it was a fun fight to be at. A lot of great performances. we had that Alexis Davis-Davis-Sara-Koffman fight, which led to Kaufman fighting Ronda Rousey. But the end was, it was weird to listen back because she actually compliments Misha Tate.

Ronda Rousey complimenting Misha Tate, maybe the only time in history that you'll ever hear this. Here it is the very end of that interview, November of 2011. Misha, I don't entirely disagree with you. You know, you're just, you're speaking as an idealist, and I'm trying to speak as a realist. And ideally, I would love for things to be the way that you want them to be. But I just, I kind of, I disagree with you with my assessment.

this current situation, you know, and I want the same thing. You know, I want, you know, us to be respected just for us, our athleticism, you know, and to be able to the fight and be as respected and watch just watch just as much as the men. And I think we just disagree about how we should go about doing it, you know, and I really hope the things will work out. I think you're super cool, really. But, you know, we'll just, we'll just see what the gods of Zufa say. I think you're super cool, really. What? How about that? In November of 2011,

Ronda Rousey said that she thought Misha Tate was super cool, comma, really. How's that for a revelation? So there you have it. November of 2011, Ronda Rousey, Misha Tate, the interview that is discussed in this book.

If you haven't gotten the message by now, I recommend you picking it up. Question comments time. Mr. New York, Rick, are you there? I am here There he is Oh look at him How much did you sell your soul

To wear that hat Not at all I know I gladly do it You're such a fan Huge fan Team player if you will There you go

Relatively drama free back there right What do you mean Everyone on time It seemed like everyone was Cooperative Yeah it was a clean show We did pretty good actually Yeah

Why you seem to suggest That wasn't the case No Okay By saying literally that it was a clean show, I seemed to suggest that it was not. No, we were good. How was San Diego?

I really enjoyed San Diego. I think it's a little more my speed and a little more of my style than L.A. Oh, I thought you were going to say the New York. No, no, no, no, no. Nothing tops New York. I'm New York, Rick. I mean, I can't. That's right.

As you became San Diego, Rick, it just doesn't feel the same. It's not happening. Yeah. Why is it more of your speed and your style? It just felt like in L.A. people didn't seem to be in a rush to go anywhere. You mean in San Diego? No, no, L.A.

They seem to be... Oh, they're not a rush. I thought they are a Russian in L.A. It didn't feel that way. It had a very like... Nobody's kind of doing anything kind of vibe. Whereas San Diego, people had places to go and things to do. And I rather liked it.

Good food, too. Yeah? Oh, yeah, you were hanging out with my guy, Andy Mayer. Oh, yes. Andy Mayer. He really hooked it up. Shout out to Andy. He was the guy who was in studio not that long ago calling out Ryan Bader.

Remember him? Are you asking me? Well, I'm talking to the people. I feel like we're having a conversation. How do he hook you up? He treated us well when we came into his establishment for food, for dinner. What a minch. What a munch.

And then he came to glory the next night. It was a good time. Honestly, scale of 1 to 10, how was glory? Don't give me a 10. You can't, I mean, unless it was a 10. No, I'd say solid eight. Okay. Or nine even.

Oh, wow. Well, I mean, every fight on the Glory Super Fight series was a knockout, except for one, I believe, which was the amateur fight. Then on the main card, every fight was a knockout except for the title fight, which was, you know, the back and forth decision between Simon Marcus and R-10 Levin. So, yeah, it was a really solid card, actually. my fellow Canadian got screwed depending on who you ask that could that could be true yes this is a statement is a fact

oh okay I'm sorry I don't think you're alone in believing that and Simon definitely believes that so I don't think it'll be too long before we see that one again oh you announcing something not announcing anything but I think

I think the people will be due a rematch okay You ready for some questions? I am. All right, let's start with the website questions as usual. First one up. I was wondering what is next for Steve Miochich.

I thought he beat Junior DeSantos and dominated Hunt. Do you guys think he deserves a title shot now, or should he fight the winner of Travis Brown versus Andre Arlowski? I think he's done enough. That's from our good friend, Jason Jones. You know, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I feel as though the heavyweight division is so shallow

that it wouldn't, let's just say, let's say either either Travis or Andre. I think it wouldn't make a lot of sense to kill off a contender. Like, typically I like that approach, number one contender fight, but in the heavyweight division, they need contenders. It can't just be Kane fighting, you know, Verdum and then JDS, and then, you know, I think if Verdume beats Kane, it opens things up a little bit, but I feel like they need contenders.

So what I would like to see is let's just wait. And there are no rush. Let's just wait to see what happens May 23. third. If Brown-Arlofsky is not as exciting, not as dominating, not as, you know, whatever, not as decisive, I think you can go ahead and give Stipea the shot. I mean, the timing certainly works at, and we know that's half the battle. If something more spectacular happens in that fight, then maybe. I mean, I feel like the UFC would be pretty quick to give Andre a title shot because of his name and his history and all that stuff. Brown has been there. I think if Rduem wins, it might be a little tougher for him. I think we need to wait and see

what happens May 23rd before really jumping into this one. But I will say, if things don't really go their way on May 23rd for either guy, if it's just not that good of a fight, I wouldn't be against giving Stepe the fight, the title shot. That's really, you know,

does that make sense? I mean... Absolutely. It doesn't make sense to me. Because think of it this way. If Redoom and Kane fight in June, and, you know, hopefully that happens, and then the winner, okay, he'll have some time to rest, and all that stuff, but then why would you do, let's say, Brown-Arlovsky versus Miyoch,

when the winner doesn't really have a fight? You know, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, we've got to see how it shakes out, and nobody's really established himself as the clear-cut number-one guy. So, yeah. Next question. Who do you think should be next for Whitaker, since he is 2-0, since moving up to the middleweight and was dominant in both of his wins? What a great performance. All those main card fights were great. I mean, Whitaker looked fantastic, and I have to admit, I wasn't sold on the idea of him moving up to 185, but he really looked good. And I've really enjoyed watching him fight. That Colton Smith fight was so much fun, just his game plan and the way he held his arm down throughout the fight.

I mean, I think he's a very smart fighter, and he looked great as a big win for him in Australia. As far as, you know, what's next for him, I don't know. I think, you know, like those guys, you can kind of, I haven't really digested, you know, who's there. I don't think he's top 15, so it's kind of a crapshoot as to where you go. I still think he needs, you know. Well, I think he could possibly be top 15, but he's not in a top 15 fight yet. We don't know what this really means for him moving on, right? Yeah, well, my internet is slow here.

I don't know if it's working for you. I'm trying to see, like, who's 15, 14 at middleweight right now? It's not working. I feel like the internet all day has been kind of crappy here. get on it get on it anyway i don't know who top 15 top 14 is but he's not quite there just yet but kudos to him he's looked good since going up to 185 and by the way sam alvey looked very good i mean smile and san we'll get to sam okay sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry okay so it's interesting that you said you weren't you know sure about the middleweight move uh because our next question kind of touches

on that on saturday we saw two middleweight fighters that originally started their uc careers in the welterweight division have great performances robert wittaker and bradley scott do you think the advantages of large weight cuts are overrated by fighters. Are some fighters diminishing their performances by cutting too much weight? Are there any other fighters that you think could benefit from moving up a weight class and cutting less weight? By the way, we're wrong because Brad Tavares was ranked 14th. There you go. I didn't even think that. I didn't think he was ranked. So Robert Whitaker should be ranked there as well now. And above him, you have Tim Boch, Costa Philip, who's fighting this weekend, CB Dahlwe. So maybe Robert Whitaker is, you know,

is a top 15 guy. Well, I think that there's a difference between a top 15 guy and getting a top 15 fight. But he did get one. I think he has, well, yeah, I wasn't sure where Tavares was ranked, but I think he has a talent to be a top 15 guy and could, you know, be a top 15 guy. But maybe, you know, that wasn't the next step for him. But yeah, certainly, I think, you know, any of those names you just mentioned would be a fair fight for sure.

So anyhow, he alluded to this afterwards. He said that the weight cut was too much. and it was just great to focus on training as opposed to eating. If you talk to Andy Foster of the California State Athletic Mission, he is a very big proponent of this idea that guys are cutting too much and that it's very dangerous. And in fact, story out today from ESPN, it was today or yesterday, I think it was today, where as far as the amateur ranks are concerned,

he's going to put a limit as to how much you can cut. And he hopes that in the future he'll be able to institute this for the pros. I think weight cutting is a serious issue. It's it's something that a lot of guys don't do properly. And you know, hopefully not, but we might see something, you know, pretty serious happen sooner rather than later. I, I hope that guys would do it less and less drastically and, um, and not put their bodies through so much trauma. And, you know, maybe these guys having success will, will open others eyes. I still feel like a lot of guys are going to do it and a lot of guys are going to do it poorly and a lot of guys are going to put their bodies to a lot. As far as guys who do it, you know, who cut too much weight or could benefit from moving up, who comes to mind? I feel like we did this exercise when

Lindeker was moving up. Oh, yes. And we were trying to think of... It's very difficult to think of guys who would benefit from moving up if, you know, they're already not on the radar for names that miss weight. You don't know, you know, a lot of these guys how much they're cutting. unless, you know, it's become a story and part of the fight week of them, you know, struggling or missing weight or things like that. I think a lot of fighters, you know, the majority of fighters could benefit from that.

Also, Brad Pickett was a guy who I thought was cutting too much weight, and now he's back up to 135. Yeah. He got Thomas Almeda. That's a tough fight in his next one. And there are a few guys. Henry Suhudo at one time you could have made the case, but he looked good in his last fight,

so maybe that's not a problem anymore. You know, another guy, I mean, Connor looks pretty depleted when he cuts down to 1.45, and he has said that he wants to go up eventually to 155. The tough thing is, is that as you get older, it becomes even harder to make the cut. So I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we saw him at 155,

Jose Aldo as well, Henna Barow as well, there's a lot of guys cutting a lot of weight. And then, of course, I mean, Ronda cuts a lot of weight. Yeah, but there's nowhere to go for her. No, I know, but I'm just saying she does cut a lot of weight. wait. Here's our next one. She talks about that in the book, by the way,

about how it made her bulimic and all that. Well, that was kind of a downer? Well, the segue is a little weird. Sam Alvi, what are your thoughts on the Sam Alvey Tan sponsor? Was this a smart idea? Tom Wright, I mentioned in the Post-Fight Presser that is against policy.

So that would mean, oh, I'm sorry, they're asking, would that mean that he gets a fine? Well, I don't know if he's going to get a fine, but Smil and Sam is one of the great characters to emerge as of, like, I really enjoy him. I think he's hilarious, and his demeanor is kind of kooky, but it's a lot of fun. And the guy is knocking people out.

He's a lot of fun to watch. Now, the second I saw that, it reminded me of the old golden palace.com days where guys would have things on their back. Yeah, the stencils. Yes, no good. I had a feeling this would be like the Dennis Hallman situation all over again. First, I was thinking, how the heck did he get by them with this? And you could tell as he was about to enter the cage, they said to him, someone like one of the officials was like, can you take that off?

They thought it was, you know, grease or paint or something. And he's like, no, I can. It was actually tanned on me, you know, crafty on his part. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. If you look at who won the performance bonuses, I wouldn't be surprised if they held back because of that, because it was an infraction. And was it worth $50,000? I don't know.

Probably doubtful. So maybe it ended up biting him in the butt. I saw an interview that he did with submission radio where he was very apologetic. The UFC doesn't like that sort of thing. And I feel pretty confident that that's the last time we're going to see Sam Alvey or anyone else pull that off. Crafty, smart. But hey, I wonder also, even though he was there when Dennis Holman did it, we can't forget

that. But would that have gone by Bert? Would Bert have been in Australia? Maybe. They haven't been sending him to all the shows when he was working. But that's the sort of thing that kind of maybe fell through the cracks. And he had it at the way-ins. So why didn't anyone say to him that?

What could they have done anyway? If he had it at the... Stick him in another tanning booth. Oh, yeah. Gosh. He kind of had this... He had like a real farmer's tan, but it was more of a tank top tan.

I mean, it's brilliant for the tanning, the tanning company. Sure. But not for him. Because I think if he didn't get a fine, maybe they left him out of the... I think he'll escape by on this one, you know. He's just so darn likable, right?

Well, he's likable. It wasn't explicitly explained. He did it at way. and nobody really probably said anything. It seemed like it didn't become a big deal until fight night. So I think he'll probably skate by on this one and just, you know, no harm, no foul. Next one. No more tanned lettering.

Most importantly, this guy gets it. I mean, from his demeanor, like I said, to this, to keep him in the news, to his callouts. He knows what he's doing. Now, is he going to get that fight? Well, Elias Theodoro actually responded rather quickly and said he was on and made a joke about the hair. He challenged Elias Theodoro, who's looked very good, who won back in March in Dallas. He challenged him to a hair versus hair match, which is great. Of course, that's not going to happen.

But the guy, you could see, why not? He challenged Daniel Kelly to a fight. Like, he understands the climb. And he's not challenging Chris Wideman. I love it. I love the fact that this guy thinks beforehand, who should I fight next? What makes sense? What's going to make, you know, some buzz?

And he goes out there and he remembers it. that creepy smile. It's fantastic. Why is it going to happen? I guess it's... Yeah, why not? It's incumbent upon them to actually play this out. I think they'll do it. Man, Elias loves that hair. So he better win then.

Yeah, he better win. Oh, man, could you imagine? It would be amazing. That's the kind of stuff that I love. And kudos to Elias for actually accepting the challenge. And why not? I mean, the fight makes sense, right? Why wouldn't they make the fight? Unless he has something else, which would be unfortunate. But the bottom line is, Sam Alis. is putting out, you know, the textbook as to how to slowly climb the ranks in the UFC. It's just perfect what he's doing.

Not everyone could pull it off that way, but it's not rocket science. Habib himself answered this. Now, who do you think he should face when he returns? I mean, I guess it depends. I think if Soroni wins, he deserves it. But who does Habib face if Soroni wins? Well, you know, the great thing about Habib is that he has, he's Chil Sanan-esque, the fact that he has, he's picked a fight with so many different guys.

He has the RDA issue, which is a no-brainer. He has the Saroni issue, which has been brewing for almost a year at this point. He has the Pettus issue, which is as hot as ever. And, of course, the Nate Diaz issue. So, I mean, you give me any one of those fights, and I'm a happy man. Do you have a preference? I really... I'd like to see Pettis, I think, because it's fresh.

If Serooney wins, does RDA, you know, fight him? I don't know if that makes a lot of it. He doesn't really do it for me. He rag-dolled him. last time. I'm not really, unless it's for a title, that fight doesn't really do it for me. No, that's what I mean. Sorry, sorry. If Soroni loses to McDessie. Yeah. Yeah, let's rebook that one. You put him right in there. Yeah, why not? I mean, I think we're all on the same page that inevitably he's going to get the title shot and he's on enough of a streak that a big enough name will get him

it. And I think Seroni is a big enough name regardless of, you know, what his last fight was. So if he faces Soroni, I could see that being the springboard to a title shot, whether he wins or loses against MacDessie. It's one of the great examples of a guy winning a fight and then the win looks a hell of a lot better in hindsight, right? You mean, Hafeel Dosangos? No, Habib beating him last April. Yeah. At the time, that was a... You're talking about Habib beating Dos Anjo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Huge win. I mean, at the time, Noon was saying it was a... You know, we thought it was weird that it was on the prelims, but no one was saying give him a title shot because of that. Certainly. I mean, well, I don't think anybody expected Hafeo Dosangos to be the UFC champion, is the honest truth.

True. And if he had lost the pedis, I don't think, you know, people would be revering it in the same way that win. But, you know, nobody except for Glazant Tebow has made him even look, you know, semi-mortal. He's just been destroying people. So I think inevitably he's going to get that title shot. It doesn't really matter who this next opponent is.

He just has to be healthy enough to fight them. At a certain point, it's going to be ridiculous if, you know, it's two years later and he's not fighting anybody. Mm-hmm. So I like Pettis. I like that fight with Pettus if they can get that together. And I definitely like the fight with Saroni still. As do I. Next question.

What would a win do for the winner between Faber and Edgar? Do you think this is a number one contenders bout or just a fun, quote-unquote, super fight bout with no title implications? I think it's very important. For both guys, I mean, you want to win these kind of fights. It's not a super fight title like we saw on Friday, Legacy RFA. It's not quite that important, but it's still pretty significant. Can we talk about this fight for a second? Does anyone ask me about the promotion of this fight?

I just feel like... Nobody asked about it other than this question. You remember when Connor fought Diego Brandau in Ireland last year? There was a countdown for it, and it wasn't like... It wasn't on TV or anything, but they did put together a countdown for it. And that was a fight-pass show. This fight deserves that kind of treatment times 10. And it almost deserves the kind of treatment.

Like, especially now that they own these libraries, I would have loved to see how many times they were close to fighting, how many times it was talked about. I mean, you could go into the archives. These two have been running parallel lives for a long time. And I know that that favor went down to 135, but it was still always talked about. I don't know.

it just feels like it's here and we still have several days there's no doubt about it but i felt like it would feel bigger at this point this is a big deal for for hardcore fans and it's not one of those countdowns that you put together where there's a lot of smack talk these two aren't going to do that it's just about i think of the term and i'm not going to compare it on this level but they they did a fantastic show in hbo called mayweather pack you out at last and it was just an amazing one-hour look at the road to get to that fight and again i'm not comparing Edgar Faber to May with a Pac-Yau. There's no way. But it does kind of feel like at last. I mean, there was a time where we thought this would never happen. There was a time where both

of them were the best in their respective divisions. They, they, I mean, it's just, I don't know. I want it to feel bigger. And I hope it does. I love the fact that it's a morning fight. For me, the main card starts at 10. The prelim started at 7.45 a.m. Saturday morning, you can't beat that much better than, you know, 11 p.m. last week. But I don't know. I just, do you agree with me? Does it not feel like they haven't put as much into it? It certainly does, but I think, you know, I'm not, I'm not in the department, but I think the logic behind it is people will, people will get, you know, antsy enough and the anticipation will build up enough that Edgar and Faber's name alone will kind of bring them in, rather than having to do so much promotion. Whereas, you know, McGregor at the time, he was just, you know, burgeoning. It wasn't like he was where he is now.

Brandau, he doesn't have that much name value. You have to kind of push that a little bit. Whereas Faber and Edgar, you know, everybody knows these guys. Everybody knows what they can do. And I think, you know, it stands alone a little bit. Now, certainly having shoulder programming and promoting it as best you can isn't a negative. But I think, you know, they're not going to lose too much just because these guys are so familiar to Well, I do think that there's a chance. There's a chance because let's not forget, West Coast, main card's going to start at 7 a.m. Pacific on a Saturday morning. There's a chance people might miss it. Yeah. At least live. I'm sure they're going to replay and all that, and they might not even, you know, recognize the fact that it's not live. But, you know, history has shown that when you air a fight card in a random time because it's international, you might lose a few of yours. And I hope that's not the case. It's actually, you know,

know, there's obviously a nice local connection to the card, but the card is pretty damn good, especially for a fight night. You know, with Faber and Edgar at the top, Gagra Musasi versus Costa Filpoo, solid. Great intrigue, in my opinion, in Munoz versus Barnot. Neil Magni returning against Jun Guilim. Ace. Yes, who's a very tough fighter.

The return of Philippe Nover. And then we get into a lot of local guys who might not be up to snuff, those those five fights alone, I dig them. Yeah, I'm going to be watching. That's solid. I just wonder, I wonder, I don't know. Let's see what happens. Let's not, let's not overreact, but I wonder, I wonder why it has been this way. You know, there's a lot to promote, and they were focused on Mark Hunt, Steepe, Miochich. Prior to that, they had, you know, they kind of took a step back with Mayweather-Pakia, and then we had Montreal on New Jersey. Jersey and of course you got a pay-per-view coming up next week so there's a lot going on.

I just hope that enough people know that finally, your eye, Faber, and Frank Yeager are fighting. There you go. Reebok criticism. How do you think the USC should respond to the criticism, excuse me, the criticism of the Reebok sponsorship details that have recently been announced? Do you expect they will take any action at all to address the fighter's concerns? Do you think they should have discussed the details of the deal with the fighters in a more private setting to get some proper feedback in order to avoid the public backlash they have received. Well, I know that when they announced the deal in December leading up to the fight,

excuse me, leading up to this announcement last week, they would hold these sort of, I don't want to call a seminar, but these sort of these gatherings where they would meet with Reebok representatives and they would explain things. And this would happen at every fight, like on the Wednesday or Thursday, when all the fighters were in town. So they would, they talked to the fighters and the managers about this. And that's one of the reasons why they switched it from 10 years. excuse me, from rankings to tenure. I don't know how detailed the discussions were as far as how much they were going to make, and I think a lot of them were obviously hoping to make a lot more.

I know that they have heard the criticism. I don't know if it is going to change, and let's be honest. I mean, it happened on Wednesday. The announcement came Wednesday. There was some criticism. Some of it was eye-opening, to say the least. But it's kind of trickled down. Now, I think when asked, like we did with Luke, at the top of the show, I think guys will be honest for the most part, and it'll come out there.

But like I said on the MMA beat, a tweet is not enough. And I'm hoping managers and fighters don't think that just tweeting is going to be enough or saying it in interviews. That's not enough. You need to talk to the UFC. That's how you handle things like a professional. And, you know, we got into this whole thing on the MMA beat, so I don't know if it's really never. necessary to get into it now. But as I said to Luke, you know, I get why they're doing it. I understand. But there are definite, you know, there are there are definite issues that come up.

The main one is if you want to say you're like the NFL, NBA, well, I think that the fighters deserve those same rights that those players have. And in those sports, there's collective bargaining. Let's save that. Okay. Anyhow, back to the question, the specific question at hand, And they did discuss it with them to a degree. And as they said, before the backlash came out, this is just the minimum. And there is going to be a periodic review of the breakdown, compensation, all that stuff to come. So I don't know if it's going to change by July, but one hopes that over time enough discussions will be had to where, you know, the fighters will get what they deserve. Do you feel that it was handled in the proper way, the unveiling and all that stuff?

Yeah, I have no problem with the unveiling. I think people don't mind the unveiling. I think what they mind is the actual numbers. Sure. You know, because they emailed every... It's all like the fighters found out via the press, via Twitter. They actually emailed every single fighter individually. All 586 fighters received an email with the breakdown.

I wasn't specifically written for each guy, but they did so before it was made public. Then the fighters were the ones who essentially broke the news, at least some of them. Cody Gibson got a lot of... love for that. So I don't have a problem. I don't think anyone has a problem with the way it was unveiled. I think the problem that a lot of people have were the numbers. Okay. And by the way, by the way, um, Belator, Belator signed Ed Ruth today. Yep. And, you know, I don't know who

writes these, these things, but the, you know, we broke the news in enemy fighting. And the quote I got, there was a little shot at the Reebok deal. Did you notice that? I did. That, uh, one of the selling points was that he could negotiate his own sponsors. In his bio right now, it's his future UFC champion. I wonder if he's going to take that out, but I thought that was very interesting. It'd be great if he left it. Yeah, maybe. Luke Thomas has a good interview with Scott Coker about the aftermath and how it affects Bellator.

It's very interesting. It's a fascinating story to follow. Okay, to touch upon what you were expanding upon in the last question, do the fighters need a Marvin Miller. In Ken Burns documentary Baseball, Marvin Miller is portrayed as the mastermind who freed the players by enabling free agency. It is important for players to speak up recompensation, but do you think they need someone in a suit and tie? Someone educated, savvy about the law, labor relations, etc. No fighter can reasonably handle combat in the boardroom, and that's where the battles are fought.

Well, I mean, I think the first thing is the players in baseball and in other sports where we've seen this, they were ready and willing to band together. Now, there were some that, you know, they definitely stuck their neckouts early and received backlash and had to deal with the consequences. But at the end of the day, they had to, you know, whether it was the best player in the league, the worst player in the league. They had to agree to come together. And thus far, we have yet to see MMA fighters do the same.

And I think that there are a lot of differences between the two. Major League Baseball, there are 30 owners and there's a commissioner. And, you know, I was just a perfect example. I was just watching Real Sports on HBO, Brian Gumbull's show, right? And they were talking about chewing tobacco. And they were doing a story about Tony Gwynn, who died as a result of lung cancer. And they believed that it was because of his excessive use of chewing tobacco. And they interviewed other players who used it back in the day, Brett Butler, etc.

And Brett Butler, who also had throw cancer. I should correct myself, Tony Gwyn had throw cancer. Brett Butler says that he would not vote for chewing tobacco to be banned. And the commissioner of baseball said he would love for chewing tobacco to be banned. He thinks it should happen. The players union, the players association, doesn't want to allow this to happen. So at the end of the day, the owners could want what they want, the commissioner could want what they want. But the union, the association has to agree.

When TV deals are made, sponsorship deals are made, they all come together collectively and they bargain the same. same deal, the best deal for all involved. That's how it should work if we're going to compare ourselves to other sports. Now, in MMA, there's essentially one ownership group. So it's a little different. And I'm not trying to be Mr. Union guy here. I'm just saying, like, when you bring up these comparisons, then I think, okay, well, are there similarities or are there more differences?

And I feel like there are more differences. Do you feel like the difference in the team sport versus individual athlete part of the equation factors into it. What do you think are some of the things that are preventing the fighters from getting on the same page? Well, honestly, to be honest, I think there's just a lot of selfish fighters

and they deserve to be selfish. The door, the window of opportunity in MMA in particular is very small. I mean, it's even smaller, in my opinion, than pro football and that's very small as well. So guys are saying, look, if I'm at the top of my game, Am I really going to take that risk, take a step back, fight for everyone else? I mean, it'd be nice.

We say it's nice because we're on the outside, but no one really wants to do that. And it's hard to blame them because they say, look, I was in your shoes not that long ago. You work your way up. And if you, you know, earn this and that, then more power to you. I earn what I'm getting. You fight for yourself. So, I don't know, I have a hard time seeing the best of the best who are benefiting from this, who are getting, you know, extra sponsors

who are getting Reebok deals and all that saying, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be a part of it. There's just, there's a lot of repercussions. Maybe, you know, with Belator's rise and, you know, they're legitimately being a number two in America, or at least it's coming up, and there's a home for the fighters to go, that will change things a little bit.

But it's not like the NBA and the NFL. It's not. Luke was saying, oh, in other sports, you can't have sponsors. Yes, you can. You can have Nike shoes. You can have under armor like Stefan Curry. Well, there is a uniform.

Yes, but you could still, you could still earn more income. I mean, from the exposure that you get in fights. Excuse me, in games. If they had that secondary sponsorship, which is in play here, if that was going to them, if that was going to the fighters and the fighter said, look, or the UFC said, look, this is one spot that you get, one spot, right? And you could go out and get whatever you want. You can get a million-dollar sponsorship, a $10 sponsorship, whatever. This is yours.

As long as it doesn't conflict with our others, that's always been the case. Go for it. But that one's not going to them. And so there's not room. How many sponsors are going to stick around, you know, mid-level guys? How many are you going to stick around if they can't be on the shorts or the t-shirt or the hat walking? Absolutely. You know?

It's just tough. Granted, but I think that could change. I think they will eventually get one spot. Not knowing anything, I think that enough pushback will happen that they will get one spot. And, you know, that one spot is what every other sports league gets. It is a limited system. It's not like, you know, anybody can just go out and sell parts of their body appearance-wise and, you know, plaster it with logos. The NBA won't allow that. The NFL won't allow that. You have very limited space and it's mostly relegated to shoes. But that's a big deal. That's a big part of our culture. That's something, at least, right? I mean, the shoe deals are the most lucrative. So if the UFC started allowing one spot, they wouldn't be that far behind in terms of... No, but they don't right now.

I'm fully aware, but it's the difference between zero and one, which I think is an easy enough thing to fix. It's a huge one. Could you imagine if they took away LeBron James' ability to... No question. No question. But LeBron James can sell outside of sneakers as well. He can do things outside of the cage because of it... Yes, yes. I mean, yes, he's a thousand times more famous, right? Right? Yeah. My thing is we're going from unlimited to none, but I think that one is fair,

and I think eventually we will land there to be like other sports leagues. At the end of the day, if these were the terms, you know, so be it, I just wish that there was a system in play where there was someone representing the fighters and said, look, the UFC says this is what we think makes sense. This is the deal. This is how much we're getting. Does this work for you? And there was a back and forth and someone representing the fighters would say, we believe this works for us. Yeah. If there was that back and forth, who are we? At the end of the day, we don't really know how much Luke Barnard is making.

He wouldn't say, no one's going to say. It's their private stuff. I get it. So who are we to stick up? As I said on the beat, and I'll leave it at this. I had someone say to me, what are you going to do about this? You know, I always get this. I always get the managers of the fighters testing me, and seeing like where my allegiances are.

What are you going to do about this? Are you going to stick up for us? What are you going to say about it on your shows? And I said, what are you going to do about it? You know, why is it on me? Why is it on the media? For once, when are the fighters going to come together if they're truly unhappy and try to speak up? Not send out tweets, not do interviews and things like that.

Do it the right way, the professional way. It's not on us. We could talk about, you know, the good and the bad and we can raise issues, but we're not affected at the end of the day. The fights are still going to go on. This is all, you know, the ancillary stuff. When are you going to step up? It's not on us. Yeah.

And that kind of pissed me off. You know, I was like, what? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Well, I think they're feeling the pressure, no doubt about it. Yeah. The managers have to be feeling pressure to make other considerations work. Yeah.

I don't envy it. And by the way, you know, MMA media gets a lot of crap sometimes. Oh, you guys are afraid, credentials and stuff. Look, I deal with a lot of people in the fight game and, you know, step up. You know, we're the ones who are afraid? How about you guys say something? And I don't mean to us on Twitter. I mean, actually say something.

You know what I mean? Okay. Last question from the website. Hall of Fame question. If you got to decide the 2015 class, what would it be for each category? And the UFC, I believe, laid out four distinct wings of the Hall of Fame.

Yes. This person's suggestions are for the pioneer category, Sakuraba. Love it. For the contributor category, Jeff Blattnik. Love it. For the modern era fighter, I think that's like after some month in 2000,

I forget the month of November or something. The Unified Rules. B.J. Penn. Yeah. And then fight. Gerard Gordoise versus Tila Tully. I love all of them except for the last one. The last one is significant, obviously,

because it was the first UFC fight. It was a great finish. But I don't know. I think others deserve to be in there first. There's one in there currently. Yeah, Force Griffin, Stefan Bonner, which is a no-brainer. And by the way, I love this.

You like the wings. I love the wings. Or just the physical Hall of Fame or everything. I love everything because the physical Hall of Fame is a great thing and they can make a lot of money off it, especially if they put it in Vegas. It will be a must-see if you're coming to visit Vegas for a fight. The wings make a lot of sense because now you legitimately have a reason to have Bonner in there as a Hall-famer or Griffin as well. And guys could be in there for two things. Like they have in the basketball hall fame.

You know, you can be in there for the dream team like Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, and also individually. And Christian Leitner's in there because he was a part of the dream team. And you also have guys like Charles Mask Lewis who are definite contributors who deserve to be there, like Jeff Blatnick, should be there as well. So I love the wings. I love it. I think it makes a lot of sense. And I hope that they make it into a big deal Friday night before the International Fight Week show.

A lot of money could be made. You put that show in like the palms or the hard rock. You'll sell that place out, no doubt about it. So I like all three of them. I think that you can get better ones right off the fight for the fight. But all three. What you got? What you got?

Give me one. Well, see, now you get the weird thing of like. Active. Yeah, active. You know, should you wait? It's up to you. It's your ballot. I wonder if they're going to have designated voting on it or just continue to, you know, come up with their own.

Well, they said in the press release that Dana White would lead a committee. So at the end of the day, it is the UFC Hall of Fame. Let's not forget. I think like a fight. like Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg, one or two, to be honest, both of them could go in there. I'm with you. I feel like this one's a good suggestion. It's good. I get it.

It'll make it eventually. But the other three are like BJ for sure. I mean, that would be a no-brainer. Blatnik 100% no-brainer and Sakarabu no-brainer. It'll be interesting once they start to go through this every year. Like, you know, Fador, wow, could you imagine that? Could you imagine if they get Fador to come, the tickets they could sell to that? You know, of course, it's the Frank Shamrock thing.

There's a lot of guys out there. I'm really happy. And Ant, as Marshall mentioned, deserves a lot of credit for revamping this, Ant Evans of the UFC. I think it's great. It's about time. Honestly, the UFC doesn't do a good enough job, at least right now, of honoring their past.

Like the NBA, Major League Baseball, do a fantastic job, NHL. And I hope this is a sign that they will be doing that more. Yeah, I think fight pass is a good component in this and is really, like, kind of pushing that, trying to pay homage to, you know, fights past. And shout out to Chris Rini, because I think he wants to be involved in this. He always has said that. That is true.

He wants to do the bust, so let's get it done. Rini MMA, R-I-M-M-A, right? That's correct. Okay, what do we got? All right, so now we're moving on to the last two questions of the day from Twitter. Yes. Who is more culpable? The ref in the Stepey Miochich versus Mark Hunt fight

or Hunt's coaches for letting him enter with zero cardio. I'll go with the officials. I'm going to lump everyone together because, look, As much as I think the coroner should have helped them out, they're biased. They know Mark. You know, there's a chance. He said backstage, I don't care if my head is getting chopped off. If you step in there, you're all fire.

I don't know, right? Who knows what happens? But those officials are unbiased. They have to do what's right. And, you know, you have to stop asking the fighter if he can continue. Because more often than not, they're going to say yes. They're not going to say no when the camera is on them. That's a verbal tap out, essentially.

I mean, they'll be so embarrassed. Fighters are a very special breed. I would have been out of there in the first 10 seconds. But fighters aren't going to do that, especially guys like Mark Hunt. Did you see his face after the fight? I mean, it was just uncomfortable to watch after a while. I was like, what is being proven here? So I'm going to put the officials in.

I think everybody's. Yes, but if I have to pick one, I mean, that's a cop-up. The towel is not thrown in enough. At a certain point, we've seen enough of this. You know, nobody's going to question Mark Hunt's toughness if his corner. throws in the towel. It's just unfortunate because, you know, nobody wants to see that. Final question.

Will the Reloc deal force name fighters, like Brendan Chob, away from the UFC? I believe he mentioned and came out that he made 32K in his last fight and six figures in sponsorships. Well, I think it still remains... I think we have, you know, the first sign of proof of this with Ed Ruth, that, you know, people are valuing sponsorships. It is a factor.

Look, the quote that I was given by Bell to, I mean, who knows, you know, like Ed Ruth wrote in his Twitter bio, future UFC champion, all that stuff. So that might be a little dig. You never know. I mean, think about it just practically. At this point, at this point, if I'm an aspiring fighter, in 2015, the NFL is still the UFC.

Make no mistake about it. and all this is great. No one is coming up. No one's in a gym right now saying, I want to be the next World Series of Fighting Champion. I want to be the next Belator champion. This is a new reality, but everyone wants to be in the UFC right now.

Now, they could taste the UFC like others and say, this isn't for me, or get to the point where they're a Ben Askrain and say, I don't want to play this game, maybe, even though you want it to be in the UFC. The point is everyone wants to be in the UFC. The sponsorship thing might be an issue right now, but I don't think it's going to,

get people to not sign with UFC, at least right now? I disagree to an extent because, you know, let's look at a guy like an Ed Ruth who's early in his career. He can go into Bellator, make some money on sponsorships, make more money than he would make in the UFC on sponsorships, you know, assuming that that's accurate, assuming that the statement is reflective of reality. And then, you know, potentially prove himself on enough of a level on a scale that he does then get into the UFC.

I don't think that delaying it is necessarily a bad thing. especially if you see the opportunity to make more money. So for somebody who's early in their career and having to kind of decide whether, you know, they want to get thrown in with the sharks in the UFC right away or potentially make more money, again, assuming that, you know, this is accurate and that you can do that. I'm not sure the sponsorship game is still in that state that you can make more money. Then I think it might be a positive move.

It might be a smart thing to do. Look, the Ed Ruth thing is a topic that we can do. discuss at length. We've run out of time. I have strict orders to end the show at 430. We're done. But, but, but, but all say is like, this is a guy who's trying out for the Olympics. So he may not fight two years. They also sign Aaron Pico, who may not fight in like three, four years. So Belator is doing something very interesting where they're signing these guys before they even made their MMA debuts. Ed Ruth, if you don't know, three-time national champion from Penn State. He's dabbled with the likes of Chris Wyden and John Jones. He's trained. I mean, this is a guy

who's very highly regarded, one of the greatest collegiate wrestlers of all time. Belator is really digging deep and signing these guys before there's even an opportunity to look elsewhere. So it's a smart play in that sense, but let's not forget these guys aren't fighting in two, three years. Who the hell knows what's the state of the Reebok deal then? I know it's a six-year deal and all, but maybe the guys are making $100,000. You know, who knows? So I don't know if I feel comfortable, you know, pinning it on that sort of thing. But it's interesting signing.

and, you know, let's see. But let's not think that these guys are going to be fighting next month or even this year, because it's not going to happen. He's trying out for the Olympics. But yeah, they announced that today, and it's an interesting trend that we're seeing from Bellator, signing guys before they even dabble in MMA and guys who are saying that they're going to go to the Olympics first. Crazy. Anyhow, that does it.

Great stuff. Appreciate the questions. One more time. I want to thank our good friends over at Noss for sponsoring the MMA hour. follow them on Twitter at NOS Energy Drink and find a NOS near you at FindNOS.com. Odds for Faber Edgar. Who's the favorite?

I'm going to think Frankie on this one. Big, small. Maybe a little under 2 to 1? Frankie Edgar, according to Best Fight Odds, minus 374. What? Your eye favor plus 336. How about that? That is surprising.

Me too. Because I'm surprised. I think the size is a factor here, but Uriah Faber has not lost a non-title fight. Let's remember that. That is important. But I think Frankie will win. I'm surprised by those odds. I have to say, Faber is popular, so I would have thought those odds would have been closer.

It's going down this weekend. Faber, Edgar. There's also Bellator this weekend. It's a very busy weekend coming up in the world of MMA. Is there another event as well? Well, there's that shoot-o event that they're trying to get off fight past. Is there anything else? I feel like there was something else.

I feel like I'm missing something. What am I missing? Are I missing something? Voluntary O.C. Nothing. That I could see off the top of my head here in this quick research. But, I mean, Frank Edgar, your eye, Faber. That's all you need.

It's a great fight. It's this Saturday. It's on Fight Pass. And it's on in the morning here in New York. And I'm so very excited about that. Can't wait for it. At last. Faber Edgar.

Wow. I hope it builds up up until that event. Those asking about the PME of the people's main event. It has to be that. fight. Are you kidding? I mean, I get locally, we can have a people's co-main event, but as far as the international fans are concerned, Freibredger, wow. Remember how excited I was a few months back when it was announced? We had them both on at the same time. It was fantastic. Anyway, we have run out of time. You can hit my music. Another show in the books, another fun show in the books. And by the way,

a belated, happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers out there. Yesterday was a great day. Of course, no bigger fan of this show. show, then my own mother. Mama knows. Maybe she'll make a comeback as well. I think she's waiting for George St. Pierre to come back. Or maybe is Carlos Condon that she was waiting for. Maybe now she'll come back. But a happy Mother's Day to her and all the mothers out there, the best people in the world. Of course, my wife as well, mother of my two children. I love mothers. There's nothing better than a mom. They're the best. It's a great holiday. I know some people don't like a Hallmark holiday. Screw that talk. It's fun to honor mothers. Father's Day, I mean,

No, I'm kidding. I love Father's Day, too. Anyway, that's next month. For now we say goodbye. I want to thank Luke Barnett for stopping by. Good luck to him as he faces Mark Munoz. The dreaded retirement fight. How about that? This Saturday, Manila, Philippines.

Carlos Sparza, thank you very much to her. Best of luck. Dropping bombs on Jessica Aguilar. Whoa. Brandon Halsey turns to action. Defense his title this Friday against Kendall Grove. Best of luck to both men. Carlos Condit, thank you very much to him.

May 30th. Brazil. Tiago Alves, great fight in the welterweight division. Thank you very much to Makwan Amir Khani, a deep and disturb, a dark Makwan Amirani this week.

Habib Maghamedov, good luck to him. Best of luck. And obviously, thank you very much to Ronda Rousey. Check out the book, My Fight, Your Fight. Comes out tomorrow,

tremendous stuff, and also want to thank Marshall Zelaznick as well. We'll see you next week. Same time and place. Until then, I say peace. Amadio.

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