MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 286

Episode Date: June 15, 2015

Featuring Alistair Overeem, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Lyoto Machida, Eddie Alvarez, Scott Coker, Jessica Aguilar, Noad Lahat, Lex McMahon, Jeff Aronson, and Marc Raimondi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And 15. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio after a very enjoyable, a very memorable, a very memorable four-day stint in beautiful Mexico City, Mexico. Wow, UFC 188 has come and gone and history was made on Saturday night. Of course, you know by now. Fabricio Verdum, Fabricio Verdum, Vaikavalo himself, probably still partying as we speak, almost 48 hours later, is the new UFC undisputed heavyweight champion. And you know, every week when I get to do this show, it is an honor, it is such a pleasure. I love doing it. I love putting it together. I love everything about it.

But there's something a little more special about a Monday show after witnessing a title change, especially in the the UFC on Saturday night and especially in the heavyweight division. There's something a little different. There's something in the air. You feel like you're coming off of history. You feel like there's a changing of the guard. There's so much to discuss, especially in this case. I mean, it really feels a little different.

And that's the feeling I have coming into this show. What a moment it was, what a scene it was. And especially because this is a guy who, let's be honest, a lot of us thought, all right, he was going to be a mid-tier heavyweight. Hey, great on the ground. We know about his Jiu-Jitsu accomplishments. Left the UFC after getting knocked out by JDS. Whether it was due to a contract issue,

which has been discussed in the past, whether it was due to the fact that they didn't think they could use him much. This is a guy who then went to strike force. Proceeded to win 9 of 10. His only loss was a bizarre one to Alistair Overeem. One that I think in hindsight, he probably could have won.

Maybe he didn't have confidence in himself. Of course, he pulled off the upset of all upsets when he defeated Fyodor and Mellinenko when he submitted him, his first official loss, Fyodor's, and remember a lot of people going into that fight were thinking like, what, Verdume is not really the kind of challenge that we want for Fyodor. We wanted to see him fight the heavyweight champion of the UFC.

We wanted to see him fight big names. And then, of course, everything changed after the Fyodor win, in my opinion. Goes into the UFC, has turned into an all-around great fighter, not just the jutsu guy, not just great off his back. And of course, all the credit goes, in my opinion, to Hafeel Cordero of Kings MMA. He now has two UFC champions,

two undisputed UFC champions. This is a guy who helped mold the likes of Vanderlais Silva and Shogunhuah. Now he has Hafeel Dos Anjos and Fabrizio Verduim. Who would have thought they'd ever be UFC champions? And to me, the big story is, you know, is Verduen better than Kane? Well, on Saturday night he was. but what I took away from that fight was

Verdum wanted it more than Kane. Remember last week on this show, Javier Mendez told us he had to fight with Kane Velazquez to get him to come two weeks before the fight. Verdum has spent, what, 80 to 100 days now in Mexico in the last six, seven months, prior to the hunt fight, prior to this fight.

This is a guy who left his family, who did everything that he needed to do to become the UFC Heavyweight Champion. He wanted it more than Kane Velazquez. Daniel Cormier told me yesterday, look, if that fight was in Vegas, I don't know if Cain beats him. Verdum just wanted it. And of course, altitude played a factor. I mean, when have we ever seen Cain Velascus huff and puff like that, you know, towards the end of the first round?

He was done. Take nothing away from Verdum. He did what he had to do to win that fight. He wanted it more than Cain Velascus. And now he's the heavyweight champion. I truly believe Cain will hold the belt again. He has a look on his face. like he wants to, you know, it's the same look we saw after the JDS fight.

I think he will be back. I think he wins one fight. He gets right back in there. That's what we'll discuss on this show and then some. But for right now, for Doom is the best heavyweight in the UFC. He wanted it more than everyone else. And there's a case to be made for him being the very best heavyweight of all time. There certainly is.

And who'd have thought we'd ever say that just a couple of years ago? All right. What are we talking about on this show? Well, we're talking a lot about UFC 188, not just that. but Eddie Alvarez's win over Gilbert Melendez, Kelvin Gaslim, getting back on track, Henry Sehudo with a big win, a coming out party for Ja'Ir Rodriguez, and just Mexico City in general, which really, as Dana White told me, a dream come true for him. He's been talking about Mexico for 14 years, and for a crowd like that to show up, and I wonder

how Kane losing affects them. But, you know, they were a little boo happy, but, you know, they booed at the right time. And by the way, they booed the Latino fighters. You know, I thought that was very interesting. Francisco Trevino got booed. He's from Mexico. A knowledgeable crowd, no doubt about it. So this is something that they've been wanting and working towards for a long time,

and it really came to fruition on Saturday night in Mexico City. So at around 4 o'clock, we'll take your questions and comments. Hit us up, as usual. 355 will go inside the vault. This one pertaining to the Kimbo Slice v. Ken Chamrock fight happening this Friday. Did you forget about that? Finally. Will we see it? I hope so. I mean, last time something happened just hours before, remember the cut? Hopefully it actually goes down this Friday for Belator's sake through all that promotion. At 345, we're going to talk to Lex McMahon and Jeff Aronson, the bosses over at Titan FC. They have some pretty big news pertaining to the future of that organization. We're going to talk to them at 345 via Skype. 325. We're going to talk to Eddie Alvarez. He pretty much talked to no one after his win because of his busted nose and eye.

So I want to get his thoughts on the win. A lot of heart shown by Eddie Alvarez after a tough first round. 305, we're going to talk to Yohanna Janjachek, who is the UFC Straway champion. She defends her title against Jessica Pene on Saturday in Berlin. That's on Fight Pass.

The first ever title fight on Fight Pass. 245, we're going to talk to Lyota Machita. He fights Y'Oll Romero, June 27th in Florida, kind of flying under the radar. 225, we're going to talk to Noad Lahat, who faces Nicholas Baxter on Saturday in Berlin. 205, we're going to talk to the newest member of the UFC's strawweight division, Jessica Aguilar.

She signed last week. She's fighting Claudia Gedelia on August 1st at UFC 190. 145, we're going to talk to the Beltor President Scott Coker and a huge Golden State Warriors fan for a couple reasons. Lifelong, but he's really hoping for them to wrap up the NBA finals tomorrow. For one very big reason, we'll get into that with him. And at 125, we're going to talk to Alastair Overeign. He's in Thailand right now. What's like for him?

What's up with JDS hating on him? And is he now closer to a title shot than a couple of days ago since he's the last man to defeat? Mr. Fabrice Over Doom. But first, before we go to our first guest of the day who is going to join us via the Magica Skype, I want to, of course, mention that today's show is being brought to you by our good friends over at NOS Energy Drink. Hashtag with this Noss, I will. Follow them on Twitter at NOS Energy Drink. We appreciate their support.

And then being a part of the team, once again, great to have them here with us. Noss Energy Drink, check them out and buy it with your money. Let's go to Skype and welcome in Mr. Mark Romondi, who's there. Crystal clear, Mark Romondi. Looking great, Mark. So yesterday you hit me up and you said, I have poured over this,

poured over the stats, poured over the facts, the figures, the resumes, the rankings, and I have figured out what the UFC will do with the heavyweight division. Because let's be honest, whether or not you're a Cain fan and Vardume fan, I think everyone would agree that Vardume winning the belt on Saturday really opens things up.

I mean, there's a lot more possibilities right now. Things just got really interesting with the big boys. So give it to me. I want to hear what you got. I want to hear what you worked on. All right. Well, first, this is not what I think they're going to do, but it's certainly what they could do.

When anyone tries to do this kind of stuff, like this fantasy, like, you know, like matchmaking stuff, I mean, it's, it's, it's, There's no variables involved. I mean, there's no talking to managers and anything. So it's like, this is like the ideal situation, but in reality, it's a lot harder than I'm making it out to be. Okay. And what I'm about to say.

But I think that most people agree that Junior Dos Santos is probably the next in line, or it should be the next in line for Redoom. I mean, there's, I mean, the guy has only lost to Kane Velasquez. His resume is better than anyone else. He's coming up a win against Dip Miosich, who's a guy that everyone, you know, is calling him. for a possible title shot in the very near future. I think that Dos Santos is the guy

who can very well get the next title shot. Now, as far as where that could be, there's no, it would be great if it was in Brazil. You know, if For Doom Dos Santos took place in Brazil, that would be great. However, there's no Brazilian paper views left on the schedule for this year. So I'm not really sure where they would do it,

possibly in Melbourne. I know they're looking to put a big stadium show in Melbourne, Australia, in November. Heavyweight title would be a nice little headliner for that show for Doom versus Dos Santos. I think that's a great fight. There's also a story behind that fight because Verdum lost Dos Santos at UFC 90, knocked him out of the UFC.

Dos Santos is pretty much the guy who put Verduem out of the UFC, and Verdum will try to avenge that loss. I mean, I think that's kind of, not a no-brainer, but I think that's pretty obvious. Okay, well, I appreciate the fact that you live in a fantasy world, but I live with the facts. Wow. I'm sure you watched my interview with JDS on Thursday that we conducted in Mexico. Mexico City, and he said he's only ready to return around December. Excuse me, December. Ooh, this

Noss really got to me there. But, but now, does Verdume change things up? Does it expedite? I don't know. I mean, can, can that really expedite things? But right now, you say Melbourne, and I think a lot of people would say JDS, but I think they're forgetting the fact that this guy is coming off of surgery. So that might be the more logical choice. That might be the fight that makes the most sense, especially concerning the fact that he's coming off a win and he beat Miochich, who's making a lot of noise. but it just not, I mean, do we want to keep Verdoom on the sidelines till December? I don't. Well, no.

I mean, in an ideal world, absolutely not, of course. But you also don't know what's going on with him. A lot of guys, you know, they, what's so funny? No, I know what you're going to say, and I agree. I think it's funny. Go ahead. Yeah, I don't think you have any idea what I was going to say. What you were going to say was a lot of guys win the belt and then they take time off to heal up.

Exactly what I was going to say. I did you know. What's up with that? I know. It is weird, right? I mean, they fight too thin nail to get the belt, and then they go away for a year. Well, that's how it goes.

I mean, because those title shots are so few and far between that you work so hard to get the title shot. You fight as much as you possibly can to build your resume and get that title shot, and then you win the belt, and, of course, you want to take some time off. You have the belt. You're the champion.

So, I mean, I don't, I know that a lot of fans hate that because, you know, fans just hate when champions aren't active. And I understand that, but I also understand that fighters want to take, I understand when Robbie Lawler says, I fought four times.

in the last, you know, 13 months, I want to take time off. Okay, so let's go back into your fantasy world. Let's say it's going to be JDS for doing because that fight does has, I mean, it's a tremendous story. This is the guy who knocked him out. As you said, it's great. Everything about it's great. And all of a sudden, much like Overeem, JDS now very much a player.

Like before he was kind of in that Joseph Benavides, Chad Mendes, Jura Fabor spot where he lost to the champion twice. It was going to be very hard to get another crack at him. But now things have opened up. So what do you do with Stipe Miotich? Well, to go back to Dos Santos Verduem, maybe if Verdun, if Dos Santos is not going to be ready by December, January, maybe you can, I know if you want to see Verdun fight as soon as possible,

but maybe you can do that title fight in Brazil because it just makes all the sense in the world. It would be almost weird to have Verdun versus Dos Santos somewhere else but Brazil. I think it would be huge in Brazil. They love champions, and hey, they're guaranteed to get a champion out of that fight. As far as, so that's what I'm hoping. that's what I'm kind of targeting for that.

I don't know if it'll happen. Again, this is not an ideal world. This is not reality. This is fantasy. It is. And then after that, I was thinking, title eliminator, Steve B.

Stevie Miotrich against Andrei Alavski in a title eliminator, which can be a pay-per-view co-main. It can be a, you know, it could be a fight night main event. You know, there's a lot of things you can do with that. It's a good fight. And then I think the fight that I like the most that I'm thinking is Kane Velasquez coming back and fighting Oster Overeign. Oh, wow.

All right. Which could be, I mean, that's a fight that could potentially be a pay-per-view headliner. It could be, it could headline, you know, the Houston pay-review in October. That's a big one. And then the beauty about that is that the winner of that fight could be a number one contender. Overeempska, that could be a number one contender. The winner of Roloski-Myochich can be a number one contender. So one of those guys, it could almost be like, you know,

who's most impressive can get that and go on and fight the winner of Verdume Dosanto. So it's almost like kind of a mini-tournament situation there. So that's what I was thinking. I'm sure they'll do something completely different, but that's kind of what I formulated yesterday. Okay, but what about if JDS can't fight, you know, if you want to have Verdoomed fight in November or so? Do you bump Miotich up because he's the last guy to lose to JDS?

It was a very close fight. He's coming off a very dominant win. Do you go with Miyochich, or do you go with, Arlovsky. By the way, right before I was interviewing, I was about to interview Dana White for Fox Sports Live, which was really cool. I don't know if you saw it, but it was really cool getting to do at Cage Side was a real thrill for me personally. Anyway, Arlofsky, who has been very, I don't know, nonchalant about the whole thing, kind of, kind of disappointing, to be honest, like Miyochich has really gone out of his way. Credit to him, he's really gone out of his way to try to campaign

for this title shot. He's actually going to be one of the guest fighters in Berlin, so more cameras will be on him this week. He'll have more opportunities. to state his case. But Arlofsky man was eyeing Dana White down, like eyeing him down, like really, like like burning a hole through his head, essentially saying, give me the rock, I'm next. So what do you do? Do you go with Miochich, or you go with the hot hand and the guy who has all this, you know, nostalgia and good feelings around him, Arlofsky for that next shot? As much as Stipe has done, I think that Arlowski would be a more logical answer because, first of all, there's still a little bit of a story there. Arlovsky has a win over Verdum. It was a long time.

ago, but they fought before. Erlatsky's coming off that incredible first round against Travis Brown. Exciting, one of the best first rounds. And there's still that name value that Arlowski has. He's still a name that resonates with somewhat of the casual fan base. Miyotr doesn't quite have that.

Arlowski has been more exciting. He has that. I think that's the fight that you do. If JDS is not able to make a fall date or whenever if Hadoom is ready to come back, that's a fight again, I think that Arlowski would probably be the second guy. And Miochich, of course, you know, he's only one in one in his last two fights.

He had the loss of those-septos. He destroyed Mark Hunt, which was phenomenal, which was very impressive. But Arlovsky, I think, you know, I hate to use the word deserve, because really deserved doesn't exist in MMA. It's whoever is going to sell the most tickets and whoever's going to sell the most pay-per-views get the best ratings. And I think that guy after JDS is Andre Arlowski. And how dare you talk about the heavyweight title picture

without mentioning the Grim Reaper himself, Big Ben Rothwell? I mean, this is a guy who is striking fear in everyone. Still not quite there yet, but just showing how interesting this division has become. And let's not forget about Josh Barnett coming back sooner rather than later. That's a nice little jolt as well. Let's give Redoom. Heavyweight division is more interesting now than it has been in years. I mean, there's so many guys coming off wins.

Yes, and it's more interesting than the light heavyweight division. When's the last time we said that, right? Okay, let's give Redume his due. Where do you sit in that discussion whether or not he's the greatest of all time? He is the only man to have now submitted Kane, Fjodor. He did it also to Big Nog. I mean, it's a pretty impressive resume. There's no doubt that he's in the conversation now,

whereas I don't think you could put him even in the conversation until Saturday night. But I don't think you can say he's the greatest of all time, because if you look at it this way, you know, he's never been the best heavyweight in the world during any period of time except for right now, except for Saturday. He's never been the best heavyweight in the world. whereas those guys have long... I mean, Fador was the best heavyweight in the world for like 10 years.

Right. You know, Kane Velasquez was the best heavyweight in the world, probably for the last, you know, three, four, five years. Verduma's been the last heavyweight in the world for like three days. So you can't really say that he's the greatest of all time, but he can certainly become that if he beats Dos Santos, if he beats Arlowski, if he avenges losses, if he beats, you know, Overeem who he's lost to.

I think he can be that, but he's not quite there yet. But yes, he's absolutely 100% in the conversation now. Are you disappointed in Kane Velasquez? Because, you know, when you have Javier Mendes say that he had to fight with this guy to get him to come to Mexico two weeks in advance. And you have Verdume, on the other hand, who's now spent, you know, 80 to 100 days between 180 and 188. I mean, to me, Redume fought the perfect fight. He dismantled him. He beat him up.

He submitted him. But he did more to win that fight. And we've heard this from fighter. before, it's not just what you do in the cage, it's leading up to that point. And to me, Kane Velasquez didn't do enough. He looked to be in great shape, but he was doing that in San Jose. And I'm kind of disappointed, you know, like this was for the heavyweight title in Mexico. Who knows how this affects that market now, you know, with their guy losing? What do you make of that? Well, here's the great irony, Ariel, is that there's probably no place in the world where

Kane Velasquez is more popular in Mexico City. And there's also probably no place in the world where Kane Velazquez is a worst fighter. Yeah. Because the biggest part of his game, his greatest strength, I think anyone would agree, there's no doubt he's a good striker, there's no doubt he's a great wrestler. But cardio is his greatest strength. His ability to push a relentless pace, a pace that no other heavyweight can possibly push is what has made Kane Velazquez into one of the best heavyweights of all time.

He could not do that in Mexico City. He just couldn't do it. Like you said, he didn't go there early enough. He was only there for two weeks. He was there for two weeks, and he came back for a couple of days to do promotion, you know, for Fox Sports. And he, you know, with the media last week in L.A. You know, I mean, I hate to say that he wasn't serious because I know that he's very serious. And I know that he wants, I know that he wants to be the best heavyweight of all time.

I know, I know that. You know, you can't take anything away from his desire. But I think he may have underestimated how, how big of a deal the altitude was. And Verdoom didn't. Verdoom could not have been more professional, man. Like, before UFC 180, He went, you know, two months before, he stayed in Mexico and, like, squalor. And then when Velasquez dropped out of the fight, Verdum completely took the mantle of that card

and promoted the hell out of it in Spanish, in Mexico, to the point where you were there. Yeah. The Mexican fans adored him at UFC 1A in November. They adored him. You know, he was, he was, he did an incredible job promoting that card in Mexico by himself when Velasquez was out. Then, you know, he did it again. He came back. He was in, he was in Mexico.

He was in Toluca, which is 10,000 feet up for 40 days, for more than a month. And he just did all the right things. I mean, he could not have been more professional. He promoted the fight. Great. He even, you know, talked a little bit of crap, you know, last week. It was great. And made, and got the fight even more interest.

You can't say enough about the guy. He's improved his game immensely. He's a professional 100%. I mean, I don't know what else you can say about the guy, but, you know, you can't take anything away from him. You know, despite the altitude, whatever. You can't take anything away from Fabrice over Doom, not one bit. I echo everything you said. And in fact, now that he has started to speak English, we're really getting to learn that

this is a guy with a great personality. He's fun. I mean, at the press conference, he's kind of poking Dana White. He's making jokes. He's a lot of fun to be around. He's almost the antithesis of Kane in that regard. So it's going to be fun to see how far he can take this. And, you know, let's not forget.

He's pushing 40 as well. You know, he's no spring chicken. By the way, I spoke to Daniel Korme yesterday, and he told me he never wants Kane to ever fight again in Mexico City. said, look at that takedown. We never do those takedowns. He never goes for a double leg. They always go for a siglite. He was done at that point. And he tapped rather quickly. He wants nothing to do with Mexico as far as Kane is concerned. Isn't that, isn't that incredible? This is the fight that Kane Velasquez dreamed about. He's always said from when

he first started the UFC that his dream of the fight in Mexico City, this is his market. This is the market that the UFC needs him to carry. And he is least effective in Mexico City. That is an incredible irony, and I feel almost bad for him that that's the case because he's just not going to be himself in Mexico City. I don't know if it'll, I'm sure it'll help if he goes early and if he gets acclimated to it better than he did. But again, like, that cardio that he pushes, he's a big man. And if you look at the Dos Santos fight, the first round was very similar in the Dos Santos fight to the Verdun fight. Dos Santos got a few licks in, got a few good shots in, heard him a little bit, but Lasas kept coming, kept coming, kept coming, kept coming, and made the fight, you know, in a phone booth, and then he couldn't do that

in Mexico City. He just couldn't do it. You know, it just couldn't push that relentless pace that he has, and that was, and that was it. And again, take nothing away from Theresa ever doing because he did everything perfectly. Two questions on the co-main event. A, do you think the right guy won? And B, I want to ask you about this. I briefly spoke to Gilbert after the fight in the hotel. And, you know, he was obviously very disappointed. But one thing that really stayed with me was, you know what, Ariel, for for the last 10 years or so, I've been a top 10 fighter, and I'm not going to be considered a top 10 fighter anymore. And I was like, are you crazy?

You're a top 10 fighter. He's like, no, I'm going to fall out of the top 10. Like, first of all, don't listen to those rankings. And, you know, I think he was four going into it. You'll probably go to five or six. So tell me this. Do you think the right guy won? And you still considered Gilbert Melendez a top 10 fighter?

I think I had Alvarez winning the fight. I have to go back and look at it again because it was a very, very close fight. You know, the first round, obviously, clearly Melendez, he broke, he broke Alvarez's orbital, he broke his nose, looked like he was going to cruise from there, and then that damn elevation got him. Yeah. You know, that damn elevation got him,

and it was clear that he just wasn't himself in the second and third rounds. And Alvarez, man, that dude is tough. I mean, not only was dealing with the elevation, but, you know, he had one eye. He had one eye and a broken nose. I mean, and he still came back, and he, you know, he won the fight.

You know, I think a lot of people think that Melendez won the fight. It doesn't matter. It was a close fight. And there's no. no way that Gilbert Melendez is not a top 10 fighter. Come on. I saw some people online on Saturday night, you know, criticizing Melendez. Listen, Melendez has three losses in the UFC. One was Saturday night. The other two was Benson Henderson, which I think he won that fight, honestly. I think he should have been the UFC lightweight champion at that point, okay? His other loss is Anthony Pettis. Come on.

There's no way that Gilbert Mendes. I think he's still a top five lightweight, in my opinion. I think that's silly for people to say. And people were criticizing the first. fight. You know, listen, it wasn't, it wasn't the barn burner that we all thought it was going to be, but considering what happened, it had an incredible story. You know, Melendez has rocked Alvarez in the first round. Alvarez came back, gutted it out with one eye, won the fight. I mean, how tough is that guy? I mean, it's an incredible story. And you can't, you can't, how do you criticize Eddie Alvarez? You know, he did what he had to do to win the fight after getting badly hurt in the first round. So,

Eddie Alvarez is not a lay and prey guy. That's not his style. I mean, look at his fights with Michael Chandler. Those fights were some of the best of all times. So to sit here and criticize Eddie Alvarez, which I saw some people doing on Saturday night, come on. I mean, the dude, did we have to do to win with one eye? Give him a break. Jeez. And by the way, kudos to Joe Rogan, who was the first, in my opinion, to notice that the reason Eddie Alvarez's eye blew up was because he blew his nose, which is kind of a one-on-one type of thing, like something you learned very early in your career. But Rogan was all over that.

So kudos to him. We have run out of time, but I want two yes or no answers here, all right? Kelvin Gasselm, will his next fight be at 185? I hope so. Well, that's not a yes or not. I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes. He has a nutritionist now.

Dana White was not aware of that on Saturday, the press conference, when he was telling him a good of nutritionist. So Kelvin has a nutritionist now. He fights again in November. Plenty of time to lose enough weight so it could be a safe cut to 170. Yes, so his next fight will be at Walter Wade? Okay, first of all, you didn't listen to my question. I said, will his next fight be at middleweight, 185?

And you said, I hope so. So you screwed it all up. Are you saying 170 or 185? His next fight is going to be at 170. So you didn't listen to my question. Stop trying to confuse me how long. It was a very simple question. Okay, second one, last one.

Will Kimbo-Slice fight Kent Shamrock on Friday? No. No? No. Oh, my gosh. No, they'll fight. I mean, I have no idea what's going to happen. But will they fight?

That's all I want to know. They'll fight. I'll be watching. It'll be a train wreck. could you imagine if the NBA finals goes to game seven their ratings will suffer immensely because i think this could be their highest rate of one if done correctly but we'll see what happens Tuesday in cleveland for now we say goodbye thank you very much for the time mark great stuff as always thanks man all right there he is mark romandy of mmafighting dot com great

stuff from him and now speaking of the heavyweight division a man who in my opinion must have a massive smile on his face this morning it's it's this morning where he is is. He is in Thailand right now, so it's actually 1225 a.m. Tuesday morning over there. Things have changed for this, man. I can't wait to talk to him about it all. I am talking to our old friend, Alistair Overim. Alistair are you there? Alistairdareem, Overim. I'm here, my friend. Wow. You know, I had to stop short at selling my firstborn son to try to get you back on this show. Where's the love for your old friends? Where have you been? You would never do that. Now, you have been flying. I've been flying around, traveling around, there's appearances here, the appearance is there.

I attended the U.S.C. Adelaide event. I attended the Filipino UFC event, which was huge. Did some Tel Avivians and seminars. Flying around, training, of course, too, always staying in shape. And, yeah, but here I am. You got me. Well, I appreciate it. When's the last time you were in the United States, by the way? I feel like you've been gone for a very long time.

I had a flight And then I stayed a couple of weeks And then I went to all over and first see my daughter Family there And then from there I went to To Philippines and Australia and all It's been a big trip It's been two months now

That I got been home But Yeah Thailand is very pleasant And then my reception in Australia The crew there Also had To great care of me

So I'm good And before we proceed, I must wish you a belated happy birthday, May 17th. You are now, how old are you? 35. Yes. There it is. Goodbye, 34. Hello, 45.

Yeah, but I'm still going to strong. Well, happy birthday. I hope, was it a memorable one? Anyway, listen, you're not calling me to congratulate me from my birthday, so let's just get right to the point. Okay. Yes, let's get right to the point. Talk about some heavy weights. Okay, let's talk about some heavy weights.

What was your reaction, Alistair, when you saw your old foe, Fabrice Over Doom, become the heavyweight champion of the UFC? You, my friend, are the last man to beat this man. That was back in Strike Force. It feels like it was many moons ago. But that's a fact. What was your reaction? What were you thinking when you saw that on Saturday? Well, first of all, big kudos to Verduem.

I mean, he's made a great development as a MMA fighter. You know, he's always been tricky. He's always been persistent, you know, and his basketball and his jitia skills. But now he truly is a stand-up warrior, and he's an all-round LAMS. I mean, he's showing great stuff. And, yeah, the headway division is entirely open now.

I fought for Doom had an excellent performance, but I also had to add to that that I thought that Kane did not happen with performance. And usually Cardio is his cane's weapon. And, yeah, it's... It looked like the high altitude is bothering him. I've never seen Kane, and of course the ring lost he didn't fight in two years. And it was a little bit something that you could expect.

You know, Verdun coming off of a winning streak. You know, he's fighting every couple of months. Kane did not fight in two years. And I don't think it's a really clever thing to not understand the high altitude thing. I mean, wrestlers in the U.S., they know about that stuff, so maybe the underestimate that, I don't know. So do you think that was more about what Kane didn't do? You know, he didn't get there early, he was gone for so long,

as opposed to what Verdume did do? Well, I think it's also, if you haven't fought for two years, and, you know, as a champion, as a headway champion, as Kane was, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on you. And especially, you know, the last fight didn't have. happen and then now it had to happen. And I think that was a factor too on it. So what does this mean

for Alastair? Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, it's two years not being in the hockey, not being dealing with the media, not dealing with the fans. I mean, you're a champion, but you're not, you need to get in there. And this is, as one of my old coaches, said you need to fight as much as possible, because that's

where you go and that's how you maintain sharpness. So that's what he didn't do. And by the way, this is why I have said for some time now that if you don't have a fight book within 365 days or fight, of course, within that time period, you should be stripped. You can't sit on the sidelines for two years and still be considered the champion. You can get an immediate shot when you return, but I kind of consider Redoom the champion going into that fight. Am I crazy? Well, you know, these are decisions that don't lie with me.

I mean, you know, obviously there's very clever minds that go through all options and there. They're debating and their thinking, and that's why they gave the Burdune the interim title. And that was a little bit what was on the line for Kane. If he did not fight, he would not be stripped. That's what I understood from the thing. And that's also a big pressure in your preparation and in your everyday, you know, facing the media. So, you know, all the pressure was on Kane. So now...

And then he makes the mistake of flying into... This is what I read. Of course, I have not been there so I can't. say for sure, but you read that he flew into Mexico City two weeks in advance. I can tell you, Mexico City is a high altitude in Albuquerque. And Albuquerque, it takes three weeks. So, yeah, it's all in laws, it's just been a not too kind of problem. Before I get to what this means for you, one last question on Verdum, the fighter.

When you watch him fight now, when you watch him on Saturday in his last few fights, is this a different fighter, in your opinion, than the one that you fought in Dallas not that long ago? fought him in 2011. It is four years ago, almost exactly four years ago. Do you feel like he's evolved that much, or is he still the same guy in your opinion? No, no, he's the same guy, but he's definitely involved. I've evolved too. And coming to the next question, you still think he can beat him? Yes, I do think I can beat him. I've been following his progress throughout the years, and yeah, I can say I'm very hungry to fight him. I definitely do see weaknesses with him.

He's a great athlete. He's doing great at the moment, but he has weaknesses. And I feel that I'm the guy that can expose us. What kind of weaknesses do you see right now? I'm not telling you, because then it might not work in a fight. Okay. But you see something. You see a few things.

Fair to say? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I see several things. So are you going to campaign now for a shot at for Doom? Do you think because you are the last man to beat him, you have this history, you fought twice, that the UFC should book Alastair Overeem versus Fabrice Verdeum next.

Well, it's not my decision, but if that former ring would you like to fight Verduem next, I would scream yes. Of course. I would go into case, well, I'm already making a shape, but I would step it up a couple of notches and, yeah, definitely say yes. Well, I think it would be weird if you said no, but do you think that that's the fight that makes most sense?

Let's play matchmaker for a second, because you have these chips on your side of the table, because you are the last man to beat him, should they go with you next? Let's convince the world here. Well, it's like this. I'm not the UFC. I'm not a matchmaker.

I'm the last guy who beat Verdun, and I'm going to leave it up to the UFC to decide what I want to do next, but if the phone rings, I will be available. And, yeah, that's up. Let me ask you this. Of course, there has been this talk

for quite some time now between you and JDS, Junior Dos Santos, you were supposed to fight a few years ago, it didn't happen, and recently that talk has ramped up. If they offer you Verdum or JDS next, which do you want? That is a very good question and hard question to answer. JDS is a fight that has been, yeah, versus a already happened a couple of times. But I would have to say I would go for Verdun.

You know, he's holding the strap. That's, you know, the last manner for me to call. the last belt that I need to get so I would definitely go for for June. No questions asked. I'm not sure if you know this, but I ran into your old friend, JDS, Thursday in Mexico, and I spoke to him for an interview. He had a very interesting reaction when I brought up your name. I want to play you a quick clip and get your reaction to it, okay?

Are you there? I want to see you fight over him. Do you think that they'll keep him that long to fight you? I mean, that's the fight we all want to see. Why? Because you guys are supposed to fight for so long. Yeah. You don't want to see it? No, actually, I'm going to fight anyone the UFC tells me to fight.

But this guy, I don't know you guys give credit for him because he's a talker. You know, he likes to talk. He knew I was hurt with my injury. He knew I couldn't fight and start to say a lot of things. Why? Because he wants to appear, you know. So it's hard. You know, I don't know people give credit for this guy, you know, because he doesn't deserve.

I think right now we have so. many other fights like Andrea Loveske or some, you know. But of course it would be great to face him, you know, because he's very dangerous. He's a tough fighter. And I think it would be an interesting fight for the fans. But I don't like the way he tried to promote himself. Alster, you still there?

I'm here. What did you make of that? A lot of, uh, what is that? Yeah. A lot of positive words. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know what to make of that. To be honest, I didn't know he was injured. I don't really see any point in injuring somebody who is injured. Yeah, and other than that, you know, again, I'm open to fight him. I also think he's open to fight me. I don't think JDS is afraid of anybody. I mean, he needs to turn up. Tremendous athletes.

He's fought many badasses beside me. But, you know, if we're going to be honest, Ariel, yes. You're there, but if we're honest in that interview that you just, in that clip, you just, let me listen to me, doesn't really, I mean, he's mentioning our law scheme, he's mentioning somebody else. He's not mentioning me. Why would he not mention me?

I don't know. I don't know. It's a big mystery. Well, I thought his reaction, I mean, this is a pretty fun-loving guy. He got really fired up when I brought up your name. Like, why are you even? Why do you media people keep bringing him up? Like, yes, he's interested, and I don't think he would turn it down,

but he was almost baffled by the suggestion, and he doesn't understand why we all want to see this fight so much. Did you get that as well? He got really, I don't know if you could tell watching the clip, but he got really agitated when I brought it up. No, I didn't really get that from it, because he was still smiling and they're still being charming. Mm-hmm.

Oh, he is trying to. Yeah, I just don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, it's usually, everybody should fight each other. I mean, there shouldn't be any yes or no's, yeah, I don't get it. I don't understand because he's a fault tough guy. I mean, he's, I mean, you look at the steeper fight, you look at the two-game fights, the three-game fights, actually, one was easy, but two were very hard in him.

I mean, he's not a guy who, you know, he's a tough guy. So I don't get it. I don't get it. But, yeah. But let's clear the air right now. When you said you wanted to fight him, he's claiming that you're saying this all, a sudden because you know he's out. You know he's injured. You know he has to sit on the sidelines. You're claiming you didn't know that. No, I didn't know that. I didn't. How can I know?

So, so now that you found out that he will only probably be ready to return in December, have you changed your mind as to, I mean, obviously the Redoom thing is is what everyone wants, and I don't blame you for wanting that, but let's just say they don't go in that direction. Are you not willing to wait until December to fight again? Because that would be quite the layoff for you. Well, it will be. I ratified before. And I was, to be honest,

hoping to fight already in August, beginning or end of August. Oh, wow. But yeah, yeah, I want to stay active, but it is what it is. And we're just going to, you know,

again, I'm not the huge I'm not the matchmaker. You know, I'm just going to wait until, yeah, they come up with something and then we're going to go full to Iran.

So you want to, but you want to fight sooner rather than later? Like August, even now that we're in mid-June, you're ready to go? Well, now it's mid-June, so August I think is a little premature. Okay. But, you know, because again, we're going on stuff. Okay, my position is I want to fight. ASAP. You know, I'm in shape.

I'm really, I'm not injured. I can't fight. So, silence. Silence. Well, you said so. I thought you were going to say. By the way, how many fights do you have left on your contract? That is none of your business.

Why? I'm not asking you for your credit card information, damn it. I didn't ask for your action. You, sir, have no manners. I'm like, what am I, like a salmon? What was it, a trout? What was it, a tuna? You have no manners at all.

I'm bathroom every time again. What do you mean? This is a common question asked in sports. No, you don't do that. do that. Come on. But anyways, is there anything else I can help you live on this? Because you remember, it's, it's, uh, a.m. for me, it's the past midnight. Sure, sure, sure. Almost one a a a. I appreciate it very much. Okay, I have just a couple more questions. I just want to know, are you going to stay in Thailand? Is your, is your next camp going to be in Thailand?

No, no, no, no. I'll probably fly to U.S. within, I think within two weeks, three weeks. And then, um, you know, it basically depends on my next fight, because I'll, you know, I'll probably, Obviously, I always finish up in Albuquerque. I'm always training. I'm always training, staying in shape. But it depends on the next ride. I mean, I might go to Albuquerque just a couple of weeks to hang out and train with the guys. But it depends.

It all depends on the next ride. When is that going to be? I mean, is it going to be September? Is it going to be November? Until that time, we're cruising. You know, staying in shape. Learning new stuff, developing. Because, you know, it's sport of always change and always getting better.

So that's what we're doing. Have you had a chance to talk to your friend, John Jones? Do you know how he's doing? A couple of texts here in there briefly. Positive. He's in a gym. He's helping his teammates in good spirits. Yeah, that's it.

And I would imagine traveling with you across the world is like traveling with, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo or John Lennon or Michael Jordan. I mean, a legend of all legends. Do you got a good story for us from Manila or? Australia, like something the people didn't see. Something like, wow, this was amazing. I can't believe I got to experience that. You got anything for me?

I want to live vicariously through you. Well, I'm not good at storytelling. Okay. But, you know, the thing with me also is, like, I have so many stories. Oh. And it's like, let's say I'm sitting at a birthday with some old friends, and they are telling the stories all the stuff that I've been through.

and I'm like, oh yeah, that was there too. Because I, you know, I don't remember them, and I'm very bad at telling stories. I can't create the same emotion of how it happened. So I'm not going to do that. Okay, fair enough. Will we see the Ream again? Where's that? Where's that gone?

What's that? The Ream, the documentary series. Are they following you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, not at the moment, but we're going to, um, season four is about to start in, match you with the next fight. Oh, that's great. That's great news.

Yeah, we slow down a little bit. Yeah, we slow down a little bit because I wanted to be back a little bit in a winning column. Because, you know, it was a loss against Raffles. That was the last one. And it actually sucks when you lose. Sure. It was a little bit like, okay, let me get back in the winning call him, and then we're going to restart again. So it's been the winning column after Stephen's true and there were a war Nelson.

So if we know, it's time again, we can start it up again. All right, well, order has been restored in the heavyweight division because Alastair O'ring is back on track, and because you're back on your favorite show. We missed you. I just want to let you know that, and I appreciate greatly the fact that you have come on. If you really miss me, you would have congratulated me May 17 and not begin five weeks later. What do you mean? I have the proof that I wished you a happy birthday.

In fact, I called... You text me? Well, I didn't want to bother you. you? You tweeted me. I sent you a DM. You know I'm going to go back and check that. Absolutely.

In fact, I have been trying to get you on this show for months, and thankfully, your very nice and talented assistant or manager helped me out, so I want to thank Iris personally on this show. She has been a pleasure to deal with. Well, I wish you sweet dreams. Are you going to dream of a title shot tonight, Alster? That actually would be a good dream You should, you should

I want to see it I want to see Verdum overreem three All right, well good luck getting it What's that? Say it again I'm going to say good night to that area Okay Good night to you Alster

Thank you again Truthfully I appreciate it greatly And I hope to see you and speak to you very soon Ariel thanks for having me And next time A little bit more cordial time, please, because this a.m. after

midnight stuff, yeah. You're going to get a little bit more cranky Alice on the phone. You know what? I don't mind cranky Alster, to be honest with you, but I have noted that and I'll never do it again. Yeah. Okay, man. Have a good day. Take care. There he is. Alster Overeign. One of the top heavyweights in the UFC right now.

He is he is campaigning. He certainly has a case. He certainly has a case. Not sure what they're going to do, but they certainly have a lot of options these days, right? a lot more interesting ones than of Canaan, and I guess that's parity and that's good sometimes. All right, let us move along. Belator is back.

Belator 138. It's this Friday, June 19th, Scott Trade Center in St. Louis, Missouri, a market that has been good to that organization, but also been good to our guests at this time. He is the president of Belator MMA. He is a man who I would imagine is, well, I know he's a big Golden State Warriors fan, but he is, he is probably going to root harder than ever for a conclusion of the NBA finals on Tuesday, because that means he doesn't have to go up against game seven of the NBA finals on Friday as Kimbo-slice faces Ken Shamrock in that main event. A big card for the organization, so we wanted to talk to Scott Coker about it all.

Scott, are you there? Scott, you were there yesterday at Oracle Arena, right? Yeah, it was fantastic. What was that scene like? It's electric in there. I'd tell you, the Bay Area basketball fans are, you know, are amazing. And, you know, we've had a couple good years now. But honestly, for the last 15 years, it's been kind of like the dark ages.

And they continue to sell out and have passionate fans, and I'm one of them. I saw you posted a video of the post-game celebration. Those were good seats. Scott Coker, are you court-side? Because it seems like you're living large over there at Oracle. I'll tell you, you know what? I do okay. Okay.

You should come down and come check it out with me. It's a great experience. the action. But, you know, it's not a bad scene in that house, but I'll tell you, I like my seats. So you're a lifelong Warriors fan, right? Yeah, I've been watching the Warriors for a long time. I mean, you know, I saw Rick Berry play live. Let's put it that way.

Wow. Do you remember when they won in 75? You know, I was here, but, you know, I was just a young guy back then. But, you know, I do remember them playing. and then in the consecutive years after, and we used to always go watch the Warriors and play. And so I've been a lifelong Warriors fan, lifelong Niners fan, and Giants fan, so there we go.

So this is what I'm getting at. I mean, I know you want them to win, but what a bittersweet moment that would be if you have to go up against Game 7, right? Well, listen, I talked to Terry last night. I said, listen, don't even worry about it. We got this covered. Tuesday night we're going to close it out.

You know, the calves, to me, are looking a little bit, you know, run down. I mean, you can't just rely on one guy or two guys. Sure. I think we just have a better team and with much more bench strength. So I think we, you know, I think we're going to wrap it up on Tuesday. And everybody's going to tune into Dalton, Kimball v. Shamrock on Friday. Yes, and I know a fellow Dubs fan, Rich Chow, is also kind of, I mean, he's swayed because he doesn't want to have to miss it.

And I can understand that. I remember famously there was a Strike Force event. You watched, I think it was the last ever one, and you were watching the Niners in the playoffs. Is that accurate? I remember you having to double-dip at one point, right? Well, yeah, earlier in the game, there was a playoff game. But, you know, I love sports.

I love the, you know, obviously, you know, the fighting takes priority. But I do love sports, and I do really, really enjoy watching the playoff games. And the basketball has been intense at a very high level. And, you know, it's been a lot of fun. I mean, you probably watch. You're a big basketball fan. It's been an intense game.

It's been a lot of fun. Okay. One last thing before we actually get into this card. I just want to know because, you know, this has been talked about a lot lately, and it was brought up once again on Saturday. The strike force, the ex-strike force fighter is doing so well in the UFC. Now you have another one in Fabrice Radoom, who is champion. Of course, you have Robbie Lawler and Ronda Rousey,

and you know, Luke Rockhold going for the belt. you take pride in that. Do you sit back wherever you are when you hear about this? I don't know if you're actually watching, but do you smile? Is it a bittersweet? Is it a little like, ooh, can you imagine if we still had these guys? How do you react to that?

Well, I mean, I'm extremely happy for those guys, and they've done a great job. And it just shows that, listen, when Strike Force was running, you know, the reporters were like, oh, you know, the best fighters are the UFC. And I said, no, the best fighters are here as well. And, you know, it's over a period of time. proven that, listen, we have the

roster that was an unbelievable roster, and then we bought Pro League, and then brought those 50 fighters in. But, you know, the champions that have fought for Strike Force, even just a fighter, not just a chance, but the fighters that have been fighters that have fought for Strike Force that are not fighting in other leagues, including

the U.S.C., I mean, they're doing a great job. And I'm like the proud dad. I do have my clicker out, you know, and I'm doing my strikes and out. But at the end of the day, you know, really happy for them, and I like forward to them to them to continuous success. And of course, I can't forget about Daniel Cormier, who's another ex-Strikeforce guy who won a

belt recently. How far do you think Beltaur is from reaching that status, where we can say, you know, the best fighters in the world are also in Beltaire, that these guys could come to the UFC and win belts. Do you feel like you're there yet, or you still need a couple more years? Well, here's the thing is that, you know, this company already had fighters. A lot of great fighters are, by the way, when I came into this league. And I think we've added a couple, we've built some, you know, some fun fights. We built some hardcore fights. We brought in George, I mean, we brought in Melon DeLard,

we brought in Phil Davis, and, you know, we brought in Melvin Manoff and Paul Daly. We just added a lot of colorful fighters to our roster. And, you know what? I will say right now, listen, the guys, there's some guys in here that can fight anybody in the world. And that's just a fact. And I think that the people that are in the business know that.

but you know give us another you know year and a half two years and we'll see we're at but you know for right now I'm very happy with where the roster is at right now by the way I should wish you a happy anniversary

it was last year in three days June 18th where you were officially announced as the new president of Bellator what was you know how do you describe this past year because I know at first you said it was like a minefield there was a lot going on do you feel like now it's a little more smooth sailing

was this one of the more trying years of your career? Can you put it into some sort of description, some sort of category for us, this past year for you as the new head boss over at Bellator? Yeah, I think that we've accomplished some great results. If you look at, we started the tent pole events, which I really love, and that's what's going to happen at St. Louis this Friday night. It's one of our big production shows,

and it's just something a lot of fun to watch and entertaining, and we'll have some fun fights, we'll have some hardcore fights, So have just a great night of fights. We have a title sponsor and Light Beer from Miller. If you think about now we're going to some venues that are sizable. We have some exciting announcements this Friday. We'll announce for the future. But we've brought in a lot more talent into the roster

and kind of just kind of rounded it up. We've signed guys like Aaron Pico and Ruse. I mean, you just saw a lot of great things that are going on. And I'm excited. I'm excited for the future. Because if you were to ask me, you know, it took a six months to really get our, you know, to get to the point where we had to, you know, when it came in, we had to do a fight right away. And then we went on the road for like nine weeks. Yeah.

And then I could start working on actually remodeling or rebuilding the company. And then that's kind of what led to the Tito-R-T's fight. And then fans kind of got to see a little bit about this is where we're headed. And I created a lot of side bit. and that kind of was announced in our first hint poll. But, you know, I would say from November till now, it's really been our growth spurred, and I think we've done a lot of good things.

I've been hearing rumblings about these announcements coming on Friday. Is there anything you could tell your old friend, Ariel? I mean, any hints, anything at all. Come on. It's top, top secret. Come on. Nothing. You're going to have to come down.

You're going to have to come down at St. Louis. Big stuff? We're talking big things? It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I think some good things, I think that the things that we're doing are going to have a place in the history of the sport. And I think that it's going to be a lot of fun to watch it unfold. So you mentioned the tent poll events.

This is one of those coming up on Friday, Kimbo Slicse versus Kent Chamrock. The Tito Ortiz fight was on a Saturday. Are you done doing the Saturday shows because Spike has this Friday night fights thing going on? You know, we'd like to stay true to the Friday Night format for a spike. But from time to time, we will do a Saturday show. A lot depends on, you know, the availability of the venue and, you know, if it makes sense for everybody. But, you know, we are traditionally a Friday night lights out product. Yeah.

On the spike, you know, Friday Night Combat Sports Block. So, you know, we'll try to stay true that. But, you know, you'll see some Saturday night fights as well. Can you take us inside trying to actually put together Kimbo Slics versus Ken Chammrock? Because these are two guys who weren't active when you sign them. They have a history. They don't like each other. We know what happened way back when October 4th, 2008, they were supposed to fight on CBS

and Ken gets cut before the fight. How difficult was it to actually put this fight together, A, and B, how long did you work on it before you actually were able to sign them? Well, you know, the history of, let's say the Belfare part of this fight is we were in the process of signing Kimball to come back and fight and we thought that would be a lot of fun and be great ratings

and you know, he's such a great charismatic character and, you know, and he's got some great knockout power and he's been training at AT&T so, you know, he's getting his jujitsu together or anti-jitsu or whatever, you know, he calls it. But we signed him and we said,

hey, you know, you know, we're thinking about opponents, we'll give some names, and then what's, happened was I ran into Ken at our fan fest in San Diego. And we brought in Hoyce, we brought in Rainey Couture, and Tito, and Tito was fighting. And we had Bonner there, and we brought Ken in to sign autograph just to meet the fans. And so, you know, I walked in and he said, hey, Ken, I haven't seen the guy probably for 10 years.

And I said, hey, how are you doing? And then he said, great, you know, thank you to be here. And then he looks over the room. He says, I want to fight that guy. And I said, who? I'm looking at, and the road's crowded, so I'm like, who are you talking about? He said, I want to fight Hoace Gracie. And I just kind of chucked out.

I said, well, I don't know if Hoyce is fighting anymore. I mean, you know, it's been a long time. In my mind, I was thinking, yeah, this has been a long time, but he still wants to fight this guy. So I said, okay, well, in the back of my mind, it just kind of stuck. Okay, this guy still wants to fight, and he was in great shape. And I said, yeah, did you ever think about fighting again? And he said, yeah, I would if it was somebody I wanted to fight. And then after the San Diego event, we started talking, and I said, hey, maybe this is something we could put together to be a lot of fun because that's a fight that should have been many years ago.

But, hey, so was the Pac-Aa May with the fight. That fight should have happened eight years ago or six years ago or whatever. So, you know, let's just put it together. So I thought that it was a perfect fight. I called Ken. I said, hey, Ken, you know, there's any interest to fight. He said, man, I would love to fight that guy. I've been waiting, and it's been, you know, I can test tell.

It's just been wearing on him for all these years. And then we called Kimbo, and Kimbo said, yeah, I'll fight him. And if you think about it, this is the pivotal fight that didn't happen. And then it's so ironic because I think it just came full circle. And what I mean by that is when back in in 2008, when the company Pro Elite didn't produce this fight, it kind of started the demise and the fall of that company. And then it was Strike Force. It was Silicon Valley and myself that went in, we bought the assets of that company.

And, you know, Ken's career kind of took a little bit of a, you know, hiccup, and then Kimball Sice went into boxing. But here we are back, you know, so many years later, putting that fight together. But so there's a circle of life here to this fight. And, you know, and I'm excited to watch it because I'm telling you right now, there's some heat between these guys. These guys do not like each other. I've been around a lot of fighters in my career,

and usually they can kind of talk to talk, and they kind of have like a little publicity scuffle or whatever. But this is real. There was times where I was like, oh, my God, these guys are going to fight right now. And there's been many times I say, hey, guys, hold on, you know, like, you know, you guys get paid to fight.

This is a professional match, please, you know, don't start fighting in the studio, don't fight in this interview environment. And so I'm excited because I can guarantee this when the cage door shuts and if they say go, it's going to be a fight. Any reservations fear at all that something crazy is going to happen beforehand like it did back in 2008? No, I think that was an isolated incident and, you know, there's all these speculations, but I don't want to speculate.

I mean, you know, to me it's like, like, whatever happened happened and, you know, it just worked out the way it worked out. And, you know, I'm just moving on to the future. and I tell you, Ken's been living in a motorhome, parked in a martial arts gym, an MMA gym, outside of an MMA gym. And he has, you know, he said I had three forms of protection here in my motorhome. And I said, well, what is it? He says, I have my pit bull, my dog, and then I have my 9mm on my Bible.

Okay. And then they get through that, then there's me. I said, oh, I think you're covered, buddy. Yeah. I think you're good. You're good to go. Still the world's most dangerous man. He's just, I mean, Errol, he's been staying there for the last, about almost two months.

For two months, he's been living outside of an MA gym in a RV, sleeping, training, eating, and sleeping, training, eating. And that's it. He hasn't, he's completely isolated himself from his home life and his family and this is something that's very important to him. Can you give us maybe some insight into your thought process? Like, what's a home run rating? Do you think this beats your record on Spike? What are you thinking?

Let's just say you're not going up against game seven. What are you thinking? Listen, Peter Ortiz set the benchmark with the monarch fight. Yeah. And we'd like to beat that record. So that is the, that's the milestone. And you think it does? Do you think these guys have what it takes?

Do you feel that buzz? Yeah, I think you can do it. Wow. All right. That is big. And by the way, drug testing has been a story, and it's great to know that they were tested leading up to this fight. Of course, UFC just announced a deal with Usada. Is Belator interested in doing that as well, doing something with an independent body? Well, you know what, I'll tell you. We are definitely looking at different options right now. And I think the biggest hurdle for me is, and not just myself, but, you know, the team inside, including all the spike people is, you know, where, you know, if you're independent testing, but who's the, you know, who's going to be the enforcer? And is it the commission? Is it, you know, are you regularly by the commission because all the athletes are?

and the commission, you know, was founded many years ago to protect the promoters from the athletes and the athletes from the promoters and then the promoter and the athletes to the consumer. So, you know, is it going to be different than what the athletic commission would do? And then all these athletic commissions have different, you know, regulations and rules and penalties. So it's kind of, you know, an interesting time because, you know, if you're the judge and the jury and the executioner, then, then that kind of goes against what the athletic commission's airport. So, you know, it's kind of a interesting time right now. So right now you're still kind of figuring out if this is something you're interested in doing. Yeah, well, I tell you, we're interested in protective support.

I will say this. Okay. But, you know, when I talk to several athletic commission executives, you know, they're like, look, if the league has a bigger suspension or less suspension than when we enforce, then we're not going to honor it. And they told me that's just straight up. That's how it's going to be. We're the athletic commission. We regulate the fighting industry, and you guys can do it. But if a fighter, you guys want to penalize him for three years,

and our penalty is only one year, then he's going to be one year. If he's not fighting for you, then he's going to be able to go and compete here, you know, whether you like it or not. I mean, it's a complicated time. When are we going to see Phil Davis's debut? Soon. That'll be one of our announces. Oh.

Got to come out. You've got to come out on Friday. Soon, though. Because I think your light heavyweight division, all of a sudden has become, you know, with Lee McGeerie. When are we going to see him back? Soon. You're going to have all those announcements this Friday.

You should come out. Oh, my. You can't tell us anything here on your favorite show. No, but I'll tell you, we got some exciting announcements. And, you know, this is a fight card from top to bottom that's going to be, you know, something for everybody. and, you know, we're going to have some big announcements at the press conference on Friday. So, come on out.

Perhaps pay-per-view? Are you back in that business? No, we're a Spike TV property, and we like being a Spike on Spike, and I think the eyeballs that Spike can bring are really important right now for us. And by the way, let me ask you this. You made some news when you signed Ed Ruth, of course, and Aaron Pico, two guys who aren't going to start their MMA careers tomorrow, but certainly huge prospects that got a lot of people excited. Is that something we're going to see you do more of, try to sign these wrestlers or amateur

athletes, before they actually start considering training, before they get their Olympic dreams out of the way? Or are these two guys kind of special, and that's it? I think we're going to pick and choose athletes that we think will fit well in M.A. Aaron Pico was a no-brainer because, let's say that he's a kid that's already been boxing. and want to be in the combat sports. When I sat down with Aaron the very first time, he said to me, I want to be, you know, one of the greatest, no, he said, I want to be the greatest combat sports fighter ever,

which means I want to go to the Olympics, I want to win the gold, I want to come to the MA, I want to be the world champ. And, you know, if time permits, I want to go and be a boxing world champion, too. I want to do everything. And, you know, when you're 17 years old, that's how you think, right? I mean, if you're elite Olympic level athlete, So he wants to conquer the world. And then Ed Ruth was somebody that came to us and had interested in M.A.

and we said, hey, let's do it. And both those guys have been out there representing our team or representing our country, wrestling all over the world. And I'm excited because, you know, the wrestlers in M.A. have had great success. And we think that are going to continue with those two guys. Okay, last question. Before I let you go on again, thank you very much for the time. Belator is back this Friday on Spike TV. It is Belator 138. It's being dubbed Unfinished Business.

And as you mentioned, something for everyone. You've got the lightweight title on the line. Pitbull is back. You've got Bobby Lashley fighting. Unfortunately, James Thompson out, but you still get to see Lashley if you're a fan of his. Daniel Strauss returning. To me, very interesting, the return of Michael Chandler. I'm very curious to see how he looks. Also, kind of flying under the radar, Justin Lawrence, making his Belator debut. This on the prelims, but still interesting nonetheless. which fight other than the main event really has you very excited. Boy, that's a tough question. You know, Justin Lawrence is a new kid that we just signed, but, you know, tremendous prospect.

You know, like you said, you talked about Chandler and Whitehall. But I'm telling you, there's a kid, Henry Corrales, that came to us with an undefeated record. And, you know, he said, look, I'll fight anybody. And say, what about you and Strauss? He said, we'll take it. This kid is somebody that's, you know, been highly recruited and has a great host for. So, you know, this would be his first fight in a big spotlight like this.

And I'm really interested to see how he's going to perform against such a great fighter as in Daniel Strauss. Yeah, that is a big step up. Strauss still very much a player in that division. So I curious to see that, as you mentioned, his Bellator debut. I wish you the best, Scott. I wish you the best on Tuesday as the dubs try to wrap it up. and, of course, I wish you the best on Friday for Bellator 138. We shall be watching.

We appreciate the time as always, Scott. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. All right, there he is. Scott Coker, the president, Belator mixed martial arts. They return on Friday. And by the way, they have a few of their events, which I think is good, already laid out. They return, actually the following week, right?

It was, yeah, June 26, Belator 139. So that is the following week. Czech Congo versus Alexander Volkov. heavyweight action and Beltor 140 is July 17th Welterweight title on the line Douglas Lima versus Andre Koreshkov. So interesting to hear

that they are done going up on Saturdays which I think is a very smart thing on their part. Own Friday you're pretty much guaranteeing that you know you never have to go up against the UFC which I think is very good and

you can own that thing with you know the whole spike Friday night. What is it Friday night? with Friday Night Light Fights or something, they call it, with the PBC Premier Boxing Champions and, of course, Glory as well. Friday Night Lights out, right, right, right. Friday Night Lights out. New York, Rick, very quick to correct me on the Spike verbiage,

although you haven't told me if our next guest is on the line. Let's wait for it. She's not. Next guest, of course, is Jessica Aguilar. Remember a couple weeks ago we had her on the show. she announced on this very program that she had been given her release from World Series of Fighting. There wasn't much going on for her over there. It was kind of crazy to have her, you know, one of the very best at 115 pounds,

but there was really no competition there for her. So they gave her the release, which I think, you know, kudos to them, honorable. You don't see that often. And then she announced on this program that she wants to fight in the UFC, which I thought was an interesting move because, you know, there aren't a lot of places right now for 115 pounders. You have, of course, Invicta, and then the UFC. UFC is obviously the place I think every single fighter wants to be,

even if your division isn't there, you dream of that sort of thing. It's no knock on Invicta. They've just been around a lot longer. I think anyone would agree with that if you asked them at Invicta. So she announces that, but it took a little bit of time. Finally, she got herself a fight, and it's a big one. Wow. In my opinion, it's a number one contender fight, 100%.

Of course, the title is on the line this Saturday on UFTA, FACP fight pass, Yohanna Yongechek against Jessica Pene. But then, August 1st, you have this massive fight. It's a great fight. Kudos to Sean Shelby. I thought that the fight that would have been the most fun right off the bat would have been Jessica Aguilar versus Carla Spars that we spoke about. Their issues, their rivalry, if you will, Carla throwing some bombs her way, accusing her of PD use and all that stuff. That would have been fun, but it appears as though Carla Sparza is going to be out for a little longer. You know, she's nursing some injuries.

So now you do Claudia Gedelia, who's coming off a controversial loss to Yuana. Very close. She could easily be the champion right now. She was supposed to fight in April against Ashling Daly. She pulled out due to a back injury. Now she's 100%. And so the fight is taking place UFC 190, August 1st in Brazil. Jessica Aguilar versus Claudia Godelia.

again, as I said, I think that is 100% a number one contender fight. And I love the fact that it's taking place on a Ronda Rousey card because I think that it's going to receive a little more attention. When Rousey fights, you know, we start thinking and looking a little deeper into women's MMA. And I think it's great to put a fight of that magnitude. One day I would love to see, you know, the 115 and 135 pound title on the same card. I think that would be great as well. but the next best thing is a number one contender fight, and that's what they did.

I think that makes a lot of sense. And quietly, that card has become very interesting. They premiered a commercial on the 188 broadcast, which I thought was fantastic. It was, in case you missed it, it was Rhonda Rousey hitting Mitz with her coach Edmund Tarverdian, and she's just going relentless, while clips of her previous opponents, Liz Karmouche, who else, Katzengano, Sarah McMahon, Alexis Davis, clips, Amisha Tate as well. It's just the old clips of them saying how they're going to beat her, how they're going to be the next one, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then bang, it ends. There's no real mention of Betchko head.

There's one soundbite of her saying she's going to take off her head, but it's really all about the dominance of Ronda Rousey. They show the quote of Ronda, you know, being the most dominant athlete, according to S.I. It was a perfect commercial spot. It's really all about that. That's the way you have to go in this case because Ronda is the big draw. She's obviously the one who everyone knows. She speaks English. I mean, it's just great to sell her dominance.

I thought that was a very clever campaign. They also aired a new 189 commercial, of course, involving Connor McGregor and Josie Aldo, which was great as well. The commercials are getting a lot better, especially those extended ones, like the shorter ones where there's just a whole bunch of yelling, I'm not a huge fan of, but the longer ones where they get creative, I like very much as well. So I thought that was great. And as I said, 190, quietly, you know, is a pretty solid card. Where the heck is Jessica Aguilar? Eric, are you there?

She texted me earlier. Can I get an update? But what does that mean? You say you're working on it. Okay. So you're saying, but has he connected with Jessica or? Yeah, so we could do phone, by the way. Okay, okay.

getting all pissy with me back there well I guess in this downtime I could remind you that today's episode of the MMA hour is being brought to you by our good friends at NOS Energy Drink hashtag with this NOS I will at NOS Energy Drink we appreciate their support

as always thank you very much to them and a late addition to the show by the way if you missed it at around 345 speaking of UFC Fight Pass at around 345 we're going to be joined by Titan CEO Jeff Aronson, as well as Titan C-O-O-Lex McMahon, to, well, to give them the floor to announce some pretty big news regarding the future of Titan FC. All right, we have, Jessica, I believe it's on the phone.

Is it on the phone? Let me see. Jessica, are you there? Hey, Jessica, what happened to the Skype? Yeah, it says it's signing on, but it's just, it's not, I don't know, it's not allowing me to sign on. so I apologize for that. All of a sudden, you're a UFC fighter and you've become too big time for Skype, right? No, no.

You better stop. Not even. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no problem. I'm just joking.

So let me ask you this. You don't have a manager, right? My, I do. Oh, you do? Lando Rodriguez. She's my girlfriend. She helps me out. She's been helping me out.

So, you know, she helps me out with, like, right now, they just need me to be. be focused on the fight. So it's time for me to let go a little bit. So I, you know, I've allowed some help. I understand that and appreciate that. I'm wondering who was involved in the negotiations with the UFC and other promotions as well if that happened. Was it, was it you or was it Alana? No, well, for this one, it was Elena and Dan and Dan Lambert from American top team. When you came on this show, you said you want to fight in the UFC, you want to win the belt, you want to prove to everyone that you. you're the best. Did anyone come calling? Did anyone try to make a pitch for you to come to their

organization, or did you only talk to the UFC? You know, I honestly, I only wanted to talk to the UFC. You know, there was other people that came, you know, wanting to, for me to fight in their event. And I was, you know, I was flattered by that. But honestly, I just really wanted to talk to UFC. And, you know, I got it. I got my wish. So I'm so honored. to be representing the UFC, and I'm really pumped, you know, I'm really pumped for this fight. Yeah, and I think everyone is as well, and congratulations on the deal, by the way. Did you fear, though, from a business perspective, that you might be pigeonholing yourself? Because if you come out and say you want to sign with UFC, you don't give yourself a lot of leverage.

You know, at this point, Ariel, I just want to continue proving why I'm the best, and this is a platform to do so. So I have to do what I have to do, and I just have to do what I always do, is train hard, win, and then everything else will come. So I'm just, I'm just honored to be a part of the UFC now, and I'm pumped for UFC 190. Did you ask for Claudia, or did they offer you, Claudia? Yeah, it was offered to me. Okay. They said that as soon as they have a fight for me was August 1st, and, you know, I said, let's do it. So, you know, it's going to be a great fight.

I'm fighting in Brazil, which is huge for me. And, you know, I've been training with Brazilians from day one, so now I get to practice my Portuguese. So it's going to be really cool. How much did you know about her when they offered you her? You know, I've been actually, I already competed against her in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu when I was, I think it was, I was a bluebell. It was a couple of years back in Texas.

She was, obviously, it was in an open class. You know, she was a little, she was like 145 pounds at the time. She was a brown belt. And I lost by advantage. But I've been watching her for a while now. And I know that she's very talented. And based upon her fight, you know, her close fight with Joanna, I know that she has a lot of skills. So it's going to be, it's an exciting matchup.

and I'm just so pumped to be fighting, you know, in front of the, that those great, those are the great fans. Do you agree with me that this is a number one contender fight? Really? Absolutely. I agree. You know, like I said, you know, I'm sure she's pumped about it, Claudia. And we saw her last fight if it was, you know, if it would have went, went in a little, I mean, in my eyes, I think she won the fight. But, you know, I do think that this is a contender fight, and I'm just so pumped and excited about it. Have they told you that? No, they have not.

I mean, things can happen, you know. They said it can happen, you know, if I go out there and do what I need to do and show, you know, show my skills, and then, you know, that might happen. But depending on what happens with Joanna and Jessica in a week, you know, anything can happen. and then we'll just go from there. But I'm looking at this fight for now. This is my championship fight. This is like I'm training like I'm fighting for the title.

So this is the fight that I'm looking at right now. And by the way, since you bring it up and we talked about this because you were just on the show a couple weeks ago, but your pick for the title fight this Saturday is Joanna, right? You know, I love Jessica Penny. I think Joanna is just right now she's so hungry. But Jessica brings, you know, she's very diverse. and highly talented as well.

It could go. I mean, it's going to be a great fight, too. You know, I say Joanna only because she's hungry, and she's so young and pumped, but, you know, it can go either way, and I'm excited to watch the fight. So I'm not going to pick anyone anymore. I'm just going to say it's going to be an exciting fight.

Fair enough. You know, I'm wondering, I'm assuming that you would have taken any card. You just wanted to fight in the UFC, and I respect that. But to fight on the same card as Ronda Rousey, Did that make you a little more excited? Was that, wow, I mean, you've been around this sport for a long time. You've been one of the faces of women's MMA. Was that something special for you?

Absolutely. That's huge for me. I'm a fan myself. And then just to be fighting on her card and then to be fighting in Brazil with the Brazilian fans. And it's just all exciting to me, you know. But yeah, it's an honor to be fighting on that card. and, you know, I can't wait, man.

I'm really pumped, and I just, I just can't wait to be in there. Have you ever met Rhonda? I have not. I don't think so. I have not. I have not. Do you admire, I mean, we talk about her training and her drive, her determination. From what you've seen, do you admire her as a champion?

Are you a fan of hers? I am, I am. I admire her as a champion, you know, she's kind of been in, I've been through some of the things that she's been through in her life. you know, she's here for a reason. She's not just here because it was given to her. She's worked her way up, and, you know, she's been a competitor since I believe she was born, you know. And it shows.

So, yes, I'm a huge fan of hers. What are the kind of things that you've been through that she's also been through? Well, you know, I lost my father at a young age, and, you know, there's just been a lot of things that's happened in my life that made me stronger and made me push, you know, push my father. myself to where I'm at today. You know, my mom has worked very hard to raise a family, and now it's kind of my turn, you know. So, you know, there's a lot of things in common that we have. I haven't read her book, but I'm going to. Oh, I highly recommend it.

I really, yeah. Highly. I'm going to get. I spoke to your teammate, Tisha Torres, before her fight this past Saturday, Mexico City, and I asked her, the news just came out that you had signed with the UFC, and I said, you know, It's a very good chance. You guys cross past now. Would you ever fight, Just Scagular?

She spoke very highly of you, and she said she would do it if it's for the belt, the belt only. Do you share that sentiment? Well, right now, if that happens, then we'll talk about it then. But, you know, if it happens and that's, you know, she's at that position, and yes, that's, you know, we train at one of the top gym, top teams in the world, American top teams. and we have a lot of guys like that as well, the welterweight division especially. So if that happens, I'm honored to go against a teammate.

Did you watch her fight on? Go ahead, sorry? Yes, I did. I did. It was, you know, what did you make of it? You know, I believe she could have done a little more, but she got the win, and, you know, that's all that matters.

She'll get back in the gym and prepare harder, and she'll come back. for more next time. You know, on Saturday, so you watched the cards, you would know this, the altitude, you know, was just a major factor from the main event to the co-main event to her fight.

We even saw Yeir Rodriguez throw up after his fight. And I know fighting in Mexico is something you've always wanted to do, a dream of yours. Did watching Saturday's fight and what the altitude did to some of those fighters make you think twice about that dream? Not at all. It made me want it even more.

You know, if I get that out opportunity to fight there, you know, I'll be doing my fight camp there, my entire fight camp. So we'll talk about that then right now. I'm really excited about UFC 190 and, you know, I can't wait to show the fans on this platform who Jessica Jagg is. Will you be on the pay-per-view? I'm not sure, Ariel. I'm not sure. That's a good question.

I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm not sure. I can't answer that. But either on Fox or, you know, if I get lucky, if we get lucky, we'll get the push to pay-per-view. But I'm not sure. By the way, sometimes being on the prelims, and I'm not just saying this because I work for Foxes, is better because more people end up watching them. Yeah, for sure.

I believe that, too. I believe that too. Either way, it's going to be amazing, and I'm super pumped. I know it just got announced, but how do you beat her? In your mind, how do you envision it? How do I beat her? Everywhere. Everywhere, Ariel.

It's going to be amazing. Everywhere. or standing ground everywhere. You have a point to prove. Absolutely, I do. I have a point to prove. I train with the best team in the world, American top team.

I have great, great people around me. And I believe in myself. So, you know, like I say, my model, I'm going to just smile and believe. And, you know, you guys will see on August 1st. And, you know, hopefully, oh, well, are you going to be there? Hell yeah, I'll be there. I can't wait.

Oh, well, then. Well, then I'll see you there. to say hopefully I'll see you, but I'll see you there, Ariel. Okay, last question. In your illustrious career, you now have fought, what, 23 times? You've only fought outside of North America once, right? That was in Tokyo against Megumi Fuji. How early, since this is kind of a theme this week, how early will you get to Rio?

Probably two weeks. Two weeks, wow. Two weeks before the flight. Okay. Yeah. Probably two weeks. You know, I'm not sure what the itinerary looks like yet, but, you know, we usually, to Japan, I usually go. about two weeks, a week and a half,

just to, you know, get used to the hours and the time difference. But I think Brazil is not that much of a difference, is it? No, it's not. It's very close, but it is kind of, you know, it is, it could be a culture shock, different food, different, you know, it's just a little different. So I've heard from fighters that it's good to get the early plus. You've got to deal with those chance.

They are not going to be rooting for you. I hope you're prepared for that. Yeah, you know, I'm going to be, I'm prepared. I've been in an underdog before, and, you know, so I'm really prepared. I'm just, I just can't wait, you know, to hear the electricity with the Brazilian fans. I'm going to practice my Portuguese, and, you know, and then I'm going to get my win and come home. All right, well, I wish you nothing but the best, Jessica. Again, congratulations on signing with the UFC.

And also, I feel like it's important to note, I think it was privately, but we did talk about, you know, when this time came, when you signed that you'd come on the show and talk to us about it and you stay true to your words. So I really appreciate that as well. Again, congratulations on the deal and good luck in this fight. I love this fight. I think it's such an interesting fight and I do believe this is just my opinion that it is for the number one contender spot. So can't wait for August 1st. Can't wait to see it actually go down and good luck in training as well.

Thank you so much, Ariel, and we're going to be having fun. I'll take you a Lucha Libra Master. Oh, yes. I'll promise you that. I appreciate it. So we're going to have some fun. And we're going to be having some fun in Brazil with the Mexican Lucha Libra Mac. Can't wait.

Thank you very much, Jessica. Good luck. Thanks again. All right. There she is. Jessica Aguilar, the newest member of the UFC's strawweight division. A great signing by them. And like I said, that 190 card, you know, Brazil as of late, they didn't get the best cards,

but I like this card very much. Ronda Rousey versus Bechkoheya for the Bantamweight title. Shogun Hua versus Hoseerio Nogera, which, of course, they're not who they once were, but there's some history there. Stefan Strove, in a very important fight for him against Bignog, the return of Bignog. Bigfoot Silva versus Soapolele, Fézhael versus Patrick Cummins.

And then how about this one? Damien Maia versus Neil Magni. Remember when Neil Magne won his last fight, and I said they should book Damien Maya and everyone said I was crazy? Again, as I try to tell you guys, I don't just throw things out there for the sake of throwing them out there.

Worley Alves versus Nordine Teleb. That's a fun card. UFC 190 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All right, before we get to Rio, of course, the next card up for the UFC is UFC Berlin. It's this Saturday. It airs this Saturday afternoon in Berlin. It's on Fight Pass, the main event.

Yohanna Yongev versus Jessica Penet for the strawweight title. One of the interesting fights on the card, in my opinion, involves Nicholas Baxter versus our guest at this time, joining us from Brazil. View of the Magic of Skype, Noad Lahat, A.K.'s own, Noad LaHat. And there he is, Noah, with a t-shirt that just kind of smacks you in the face. I am the Jew. What does it say? Wow.

I am the Jew that Mel Gibson warned you about. Exactly. So we call the world, right? Yes. Well, welcome to the show. Are you walking around the streets of Berlin with that T-shirt? I'm walking in the street of Berlin, whatever I feel like it. Like a boss, as they say.

Exactly. How's Berlin treating you? You've been there since when? Since Thursday? I've been here since Wednesday. Yeah, me and my coaches. We went a little sightseen. Not too much.

We focus on resting and training mostly and making weight. Well, I follow you on Twitter and Instagram, and I saw, and I'm going to get to this because I thought it was very interesting when this fight was announced. You know, obviously, we know about your background. You're a very proud Israeli Jew, fighting in Germany in times of change,

and we've come a long way, but it's still in the back, I think, of every Jew's mind. The Holocaust happened less than 100 years ago. It wasn't that long ago, and you're fighting in Berlin. You've done some sightseeing, as you said. You went to the Holocaust Memorial. You've walked around. What has that been like for you?

Have you ever experienced anything like that before? Well, of course, as Israeli, as a Jew, you grew up. You always know that. You always know that as a country, as a people, we have to be strong. So things like that will never happen again. And walking in Berlin, feeling that and seeing, if you saw on my Instagram, those stones on the ground with the names of the people

are going to the Holocaust Memorial, and it's strong. It's make my stomach flip around. It wasn't easy. Walking around and think that in this place, so many of our people got butchered and treated like animals for no reason just because they're believed in different gods. or had different values.

So considering that, did you have any reservations about fighting there when they told you they want you to fight in Berlin? What did you think? Well, I don't like travel. I prefer to fight close to home. But when they told me Germany, I thought what an awesome opportunity for me. I don't even care about, you know, just being here for me, it's winning. To me, to be, he represents myself as a Jew, as a strong Jew.

is a proud one, coming here and show, to me, I don't think other people maybe can understand that, but to me to come here and show my flag with the star of debut on that and be proud of that. What they used to, what he used it right here to mark us with shame and to come back here to this place and to show and be proud of who I am and what I am, especially as a fighter,

especially to fight here, I already won. It doesn't even matter if the fight, win or lose, I won. Wow. You gave me goosebumps there. It is pretty heavy stuff. What kind of mental state are you in after going to the memorials and all that? Is it too emotional? I mean, were your coaches maybe concerned about you doing that?

Because I can understand it. It puts you in a different kind of mindset, right? It is, it is, yeah. But separate the fight from life. So where I walk through, you know, through the museum and through the memorial. And it was a hard day. It's not easy.

You hear the testimonies and stuff like that. And it really, like, mentally it hard on you. And it just gives you that extra motivation to know that I want to represent and to the best of my ability and show that, and show where I come from and that we're not so easy to,

mess up with anymore. Are you concerned about the reception you'll get? You know, because you wear the star David very proudly when you come out, Zerjean, your hat, your shorts. How do you think it's going to be? What do you mean? You got caught in the middle. I said, are you concerned about the reception that you'll get?

You know, again, I think times of change in Berlin is actually a very progressive city. The country has obviously changed a lot. But are you at all concerned because you do wear the star of David very proudly on your gear when you fight? Nah, zero concern. I don't care. I am who I am. If anybody got problem with that, more than welcome to come stay to my face. You know, Nicholas Baxter was considered before his last fight a very big prospect in the division. A lot of people are very excited about him. And then he stumbled, of course. And I'm sure you can relate as well because your debut didn't go your way and you rebounded very nicely. What do you make of him? When they offered you Nicholas Baxter, was this the kind of guy that was on your radar? Did you know anything about him? what were your thoughts?

Actually, I knew nothing about him. When they told me, hey, you want Nicholas Bex? I said, yes. And then I had to go to who he is. I never said no to a fight. So they asked me if I take the fight. I actually took the fight before they gave me an opponent. I said, give me what you want to.

And so, yeah, I never said no to fight. I'm here for the sport to have fun. And I'm here to fight anybody. if someone give you a different kind of trouble then that's the whole the whole

the whole game to overcome it I don't see special problems from him he's a good kickboxer and that's it so nothing he does

concerns you well I'm sure he's dangerous I saw him you know I saw his fight his first one that he won by submission but mostly because he dazed the guy with that front kick. Not concerned.

Probably stuff that you know maybe need to worry about, but it's okay. It's okay. All part of the game, fine. I haven't looked at the stats. I don't have them in front of me, but he's a pretty tall 145 or right. He's kind of lanky compared to you.

Yeah, I think it's like he's 6-1 or something like that. I don't know how. How do you feel about that? I feel like it's more to grab. Okay. Fair enough. You, of course, are a proud member of A.K.A. It was a tough night for A.K.A. on Saturday.

Did you watch Kane's fight? And if so, what did you think about it? Oh, man, it was hard. Me and my coaches, we were sitting here watching it. I think Kane lost to the altitude. I think it just happened that Verduem was there. I don't think really, I don't think, really, I don't think. in a match that both of them got the same training in the same place where he got much to offer

to him he looked pretty pretty exhausted already at the first round and i think he made a mistake going late but he's he's awesome he'll come back you know more dangerous than ever i'm sure i've no doubt about it and i just think it made a division a little bit more interested because He'll come back. Either remit or not, he'll just go through everybody in that division. Yeah, you look at the look on his face. I mean, he looked like a guy who wanted to rip everyone's head off in the press conference. Same kind of look we saw after he lost to JDS.

You were around them, of course, you were preparing for a fight? Did you have any, did you think, oh, maybe he's not ready, he's not 100%. Like, did you, were you completely shocked by the cane that you saw in the cage? I was completely shocked. Because he looked like he was in great shape, right? He always is. skin is that's the one thing you know we all know that he can go he can come back from uh from from from from injury two months doing nothing and then go five rounds like it's nothing and people

they have to change people on him every run and to see him and already the first two three minutes we look at him and we're like is he breathing heavy i don't think i ever saw can't breathing heavy so it's obviously was something wrong i think uh i think the acclimated to that to the altitude was a little problem for him i didn't had a chance to talk to him but I think that was the problem. But what's it like being at the gym with the captain, Daniel Cormier now champion? Is he insufferable? Is he parading it around, shoving it in your face?

What's it like? The head got bigger, huh? It's bigger and bigger. I was really happy for him. He's an awesome guy. He's really deserved it. And I think he's really a good role model for the sport and for everybody. You know, he's teaching kids all the time and then work with kids and work with us.

He's teaching us all the rest of the rest. wrestling. I was really happy for him, but yeah, his head got bigger. He shrink for 205, but his head got bigger. Yeah, I expect nothing less. One more thing about your team. I know you trained very closely with Josh Thompson, right? And he has a fight coming up in July. How much left does he have in him? Because he's been very quiet as of late. We haven't seen him in quite some time. Since the last time you fought, to be exact, and you don't hear a lot from him. What's it like being around Josh these days? hurt pretty I spot with him every day

he got a lot more coming he's one of the most technical guys I know and he's one of the most stubborn and tougher guys I know around there is no quid in him I think every time he lost it was either a bad decision or you have to like really put him out

he's also a person I learn a lot from and I think he got he got a lot more in him Well, that is good to... Yeah, it's common with the fighter get older, so he's not... They're not as explosive as a 20-year-old, but he got a lot of experience. He's really technical all around. You saw him, even when he fought Henderson, he took him down easy.

He got good hands. He's good blackball in jujitsu, so he's good all around. Sure, and I believe he actually won that fight. I thought he kind of got screwed by the judges in that one. You received a lot of attention. leading up to your last fight back in July and afterwards, of course, because you announced that you were going to go back to the army. Things were a lot more tense where you're from.

What was it like when you went back? You had just fought in the UFC, big card in San Jose, your new home, and then all of a sudden you're back wearing the uniform, you're back on the front lines. What was that like for you mentally? Well, it was a while ago, so. But mentally, it's just put everything in perspective that, you know, that at home people are getting shot at,

have to, you know, running to take cover from missiles and stuff like that. It's just put everything in perspective. And again, leading to Berlin, you know, that we still, still in 2015, we still need to worry about our existing. And only because we have different religion, that's the only different. And we need to remember that. And I think this is the great connection to this one, you know, going from the Army and then to Berlin, I just know that this time we go and we fight back.

Back in a day when we couldn't, now we have an army, we have a strong country, and we're strong people now, and now we're not going to get pushed around. Now this time when someone comes for us, we're going to hit back and hard. Because you were a UFC fighter and you received all this media attention, did people recognize you? Did people say, hey, are you that guy I saw in the news? I read about, what was that like? Yeah, actually, yeah, people recognized me in the street and stuff. It was nice to get a recognition because MMA is not as big in Israel as it is in California or the state.

So it was nice to bring the attention to the sport. maybe that's not the way I wanted to bring their attention to the sport but I do know that a lot more people watch this fight now because of that. How long were you there for? I was there until the whole conflict. You know, everything got quiet. I stayed for a little longer and then I came back to San Jose to train again.

I had to get, I went over surgery, I had to fix my elbow. and so yeah I had to go fix my elbow, go to rehab, and then start training again and get ready for this one. When did you injure your elbow? Oh, I injured my elbow before my fight in Brazil. I was supposed to get surgery before the fight in Brazil. I had 15 pieces of broken bones in my elbow. My left arm was useless.

I couldn't use it. And I was supposed to get before the fight in Brazil and then they offered me the fight on short notice. So I said, yes, I jumped, and then I lost. I was like, I can't go get the surgery after loss. I have to win first. I have to get the peace of mind. So I got the win, and after the win, I told my wife and my coach,

I said maybe one more fight. I feel under the runs. That's it. Every time I train, I had to go home in ice it because it was swollen. I couldn't bend it. Then if you see in the fight, I couldn't punch with it. I couldn't protect myself. so now I got two arms.

Well, that makes things even more interesting in my opinion. And I know you're not lacking inspiration, but you recently became a new father, Mazel Tov to you, my friend. That's unbelievable. Congratulations, of course, to both you and your wife. How has that changed you as a person but also as a fighter? As a person, it did change me. As a fighter, I don't know if it changed me much.

I still, you know, going to the cage, do my job. But as a person, it's hard to explain. Of course, you know it as a father, but all of a sudden you see, you get new perspective on life. He's a new creature that you're responsible for him. For the, for, you try not to screw him up too bad. Yes, of course, among many other things.

Yeah, but it was really, it's hard to describe. It was really emotional for me. me, especially in the middle of fight camp. I didn't want to fight while my wife was pregnant. So I took the fight right after. I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to put her through all the fight camp and all the excitement while she was pregnant.

So I had to wait and get my baby wife in fight camp. I went to, you know, I was, I came back from training, got home at 9 o'clock, and my wife told me, okay, go to bed because tonight is tonight. Wow. So I'm going to bed after a few hours. She woke me up. Let's go to the hospital. Being with her in the hospital, she delivered the baby, and then I had to go to training,

then come back. Wow. It was interesting. The reason I ask you if it's changed you as a fighter, it's because, you know, maybe your mindset is different. The way you look at things, now you're fighting not only for you, your wife, but you have an actual baby that you have to support. Things have changed. So that's why I was thinking maybe it changed your perspective. Well, I always wanted to win.

I don't think anybody go to fight and think you're losing. I always wanted to win more than anything. I still wanted to win more than anything. But now I've got a reason. Now I've got a better reason for, you know, I need to bring home. I want my kids to be proud of me. And but as a fighter, it didn't change me much. As a person, yes, definitely.

As a fighter, still the same fighter. By the way, how are things back home? things are awesome by the way I'll tell you my brother and sister ask me to say hello I'm not going to say hello to them everything at home you know as usual every once in a while

they get like a rocket or two flying by but what they see the news it's not what it's really like even even during like even during the war I think I posted pictures from the beach and you see the everybody going to the beach. And Israelis are different. Israel is made from a different, from a different material.

We don't get excited about stuff like that. We go, we're still going out every night. We're still going out at restaurants. If you walk in Tel Aviv, still parties, everybody relaxed. It's usually the army doing a good job pushing everything to the borders. In the center of Israel, everything is quiet. And how to bring the, the, you know, Sidney to Tel Aviv 2016. Oh, are they talking about that? I'm talking about that.

Yes, I like it. I would run there if they did that. I wouldn't even take the plane. I would be so excited. Are you going to walk out, are you going to walk out to Matisseau again? Of course. All right. All right. I love Matisiao. He's my man. You know, one time I met him, I interviewed him in Vancouver, and I have to admit, he wasn't very friendly. He was actually quite rude to me, but it didn't change my perspective on his music, but it wasn't, I was disheartened. because I met him in Santa Cruz one time he just posted on his Twitter

free show today in Santa Cruz which is about 40 minutes from my house I finished training my friend just told me like hey you know Matisseya I was like

so I drove all the way there he did a he had a CD coming out he actually was nice to me still had the long beard I asked him do you speak Hebrew and he was like

it looked at me no but are you Israelis inside we start talking even though he were like 100 people was around he was nice to me. Maybe it's your face. Maybe it's my face or maybe he was in a bad mood. I don't know.

I'm just saying that one time it was a little strange. I don't like him without the beard, by the way. I liked him with the beard better. Yeah, I agree. I think to me, like, it's also his new music when I see him without the beard. It's like, he lost something for me. I really liked him with a beard. It's like represent something. But also his music, especially, you know, his old stuff. Really, especially at the Jerusalem, when I hear that, I get all pumped up. and ready to go. I agree. Final thing.

How do you beat this man on Saturday? I'm going to finish him. Wow. Finish him. Early? How are we doing it? Submission, knockout? It doesn't matter.

Whatever come. I'm going to get the W. Whatever. Either way. Mazel tov, my friend, I can't wait for it. Big fight for you on Saturday. It's on UFC Fight Pass.

The entire card is on Fight Pass. A lot of interesting fights, including this one, Noad Lahad versus Nicholas Baxter in Berlin, Germany. Again, I wish you the best of luck, and it's great to have you back on the show. We missed you. Thank you very much. All right, there he is. Israel's own Noad Lahat. Huge fight for him. He's coming off a win. It was back in July. He fought in San Jose. That was UFC on Fox. Now, here he is fighting in Berlin.

A big opportunity and an emotional one for him, so we wish him the best of luck. All right. As I mentioned, this Saturday, the UFC is back in Germany, and then the following week, they are going to Florida, Hollywood, Florida, to be exact. And the main event is a very interesting one. It involves Yuel Romero versus our guest at this time. The Dragon, Lioto Machita, huge fight for him. He joins us on the phone. Lioto, are you there?

Hi, hi, how are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. You know, Lioto, I was very surprised when they announced this fight because you fought two months ago. This is a very quick turnaround for you. Why are you coming back so soon? So it might seem sooner than anticipated, but I like to be busy,

especially after a devastating loss against the local record. I think the best way to recover is to get another fight. So you said to the UFC, you want to come back sooner rather than later? Yes, I told them. And you had no problem, at least physically, in returning two months later? No, right after my fight against Luke Rockwood, I had a surgery on my left hand. This just was, I just took out some fragments from back then, no? Too many training, and I had some fragments inside of my hands.

But it took me about two weeks to be healed 100%. and now I'm here, I'm ready for this fight. Did the hand hurt you leading up to the fight? Was it a problem for you? Just a little bit, just a little bit. Yeah, when I punch, when I punch, I hurt. Oh. Did you consider pulling out of the fight?

No. No, not at all. Have you watched the fight? Yes. I watched maybe two or four times that fight, but I saw that I got an elbow on my neck I got out he elbowed my neck and I was so jizzed at that time

then when I went to the court I buried him my brother so when I got back to the fight I was so cheesy my legs were wobbling yeah I wasn't recovered so suddenly I fell again and he was marked and capitalized him.

But I think, I thought that there was illegal, illegal shot. But it's not a problem because, you know, it's a fight, something happens. Sometimes it's happened. It's no problem with that. So you think it was a shot to the back of your head. It was an illegal shot. Sorry? So you think the elbow that he hurt you that made you all wobbly was actually an illegal shot?

I think it wasn't purpose, no, wasn't purpose. Right. Was not. Was not a purpose. Right. Yes. I think it's happened, but it's making me bad. It made me bad.

It was a very strange fight to watch because I've never seen you lose like that. I mean, he was very dominant. What's it like for you to watch it now? Was that not the real Liotto? Do you think that the elbow really... Yeah, it wasn't my knight at that time, though. I don't know what happened. It's hard to explain.

But I have to move on and go to the next fight. I don't want to keep my folks on that fight because it's already passed. And I have to think I had and look for my next fight. So now you're fighting Joel Romero, who's obviously a very accomplished wrestler. There are people like Daniel Cormier who say he's the best wrestler in MMA right now, which is high praise. are you impressed with him? Do you think he's that great of a fighter as well, or do you not think he's on your level?

I think he's my level, because I think he's a top five, a top four. I don't know, exactly. So, but he's a good wrestler and good, but he knows how to fight standing up. He has a good ground game, I mean, control on the ground. And also,

So he had many knockouts in his historic. So he's a great fight. He's a complete fight well-rounded. And he's very veteran fight. Even though he has a couple of fights in the NBA, but he knows how to fight in high level because he used to compete in Olympic games, in World Championship.

He knows how to handle with that. remember watching him in the Olympics? I just watched back in the day a couple of fights against Satiev, Adam Satyaev. He's from Rousian. He was an Olympic champion. When he fought against Yoir Romero, I think it was a very amazing fight. So, but I think it's going to be an NBA fight. Many things can happen.

Yes, and to be exact, your rank number four in the official. UFC rankings, he's ranked number six, so it's a very important fight. Historically, you have been very successful against wrestlers, Randy Couture, Ryan Bader, Dan Henderson, Mark Munoz, C.B. Dahloulaway. Did you think about that when you were offered this fight, and did that make you want to take it even more so? Because I think a lot of wrestlers have trouble with your style. No, really. No, I think that to Yohel-Homeru is one of the tough opponents. in my career. Always, I try to think like that because I can train very hard and it's making

me strong. So I know that I know how to fight against wrestlers. And also, I have a good partner. I have a good training partner here to help me. Grover this year always helped me and Kevin Kay, the many, many, many type fighters can help me during my camp. So I think, I'm getting used to fighting against wrestlers. Did you bring in any new, you know, wrestling-oriented training partners to help you prepare for Yo-O Romero? No, really. I've been training with Kenny Johnson and Kevin Casey. Because Yo-O. Romero, he's a good wrestler.

But even though he's a good wrestler, but he doesn't shoot a lot. No, he likes to grab up, to grab, but he doesn't like to shoot from. on four distance. He likes to fight on the sand. Right. He doesn't use his wrestling as much as one would think, or maybe he hasn't tied it altogether. Because MMA wrestling is different

than amateur wrestling, right? Yes. Yes. Right. Right. You know, this fight is still, you know, in the rankings, it's still very important. And the middleweight division is more interesting than ever. Do you think that, you know, right away

if you beat him, you're right back in that title discussion because a lot of people thought a win over Rockhold would have put you right back in there against Chris Wydenman. Yeah, I think that if I be Romero, I'll be in the mix. I'll be in the mix and I can fight for the title in time. But that's not my goal now to think on the title because Royal Romero is a tough opponent. I have to think in my next fight because my next step is my main step. So I have to keep my focus on Royal Romero.

But of course, if I have a good victor, a great victor against him, I'll be in the mix. How much time did you have as a 100% healthy fighter to prepare for this fight? Because you said you had surgery on your hand. So when did that become 100% to the point where, okay, you can really start your training camp? I think maybe five, six weeks. I had a great camp. Yeah. Because I have no excuse me for that camp, no.

right after my fight against the Rockhold, maybe three days after I gave my surgery, so I couldn't hit someone, but at the same time, I could run, I could lift some weight with my legs, I could know I could do some stuff, I kick some bags. I never stopped. I never stopped.

I always in movement to wait for some opportunity, and suddenly these opportunities just show up, and I got this fight. What was it like for you to see your old friend and fellow Brazilian, Fabrizio Vaikavo, Brazil, become, Vaikavalo Verdum, excuse me, become the latest champion from Brazil, become the undisputed heavyweight champion on Saturday. What was that like for you? I was extremely happy for him and very satisfied with his victory because he deserves everything. I know he training hard.

Sometimes he trained together. and how he woke all is pays off Fabasio Véryrdu, he's a great athlete and he grew a lot in MNA and now he became a champion I think he's one of the best fighter in the world he beats a beast

Candelask man Wow he beat him he wasn't lucky now he beat on the ground he beats on his stand standing up, he did

on the clinch, he did a great job, he deserved everything. Yes, this is the only man to submit Kane Velazquez, to submit Fyodor Amelianenko. He also has defeated Rodrigo Nogera, who also he submitted Travis Brown, Markhan. Do you consider him to be the greatest heavyweight of all time now? I consider him

one of the best. One of the best. One of the best. Because you... Now he's the best. Now he's the best. Because you told me not that long ago that you think that Fador is the best ever, right? Yes, because I like that style. I like Fedor styles. But he are very retired, man. And now I think the sport is growing so fast and changed many, many, many things.

Now you have to know everything to keep it up. Do you think, well, when's the first time you met him? Would you recall the first time you actually met and trained with Fabricio? Sorry? When's the first time, do you recall the first time you met Fabriceu Verduem? How long ago? Oh, long times ago, we fought together in Jungle Fight, you won in Brazil. We had the same card at that time.

And after that, we all is in touch. Sometimes I met him in some events. Sometimes I met him and he. the United States. And when I moved to LA, two years ago, I met Han again, and we started to training together.

We started to do some things together. And he helped me a lot at the beginning. And we always help each other. Didn't you spend some time at King's MMA as well? No, for this fight, because Raphael wasn't there. Right. He was in Mexico City for a long time,

and I couldn't, I couldn't train there for this fight. But I've always been there. I like to be there sometimes twice a week, once a week. I like to be with that group of people because they have a good energy, good vibre, and they can help me. Apocco is one of the best coach in the world,

so it can help me a lot. Just a couple more things. You know, recently people were saying Brazil MMA is dead. There's only one champion left. now all of a sudden we have Verdum and we have, you know, obviously Aldo fighting next month, Bechko He is fighting, it has changed.

Does that give you inspiration, motivation, like to see your friend win the belt two weeks before your fight? Does that give you a little extra push in the last days before your own fight? Of course, man, of course. It's motivation, I mean, I'm eager for my fight and when I see those guys train hard

and get some victory. It just makes me happen, make me feel good, making me feel better for my fight. Would you ever consider doing a jiu-jitsu match like a metamoris? I know you train with the Gracie's. Is that something that interests you? Maybe. Who knows? Who knows in the future?

What you like to do? Maybe if I had a good offer, I'll be there for sure. But I know that I had to keep my focus on submission fights. and training more, training hard, and it'll be a very real preparer. And I know you recently did a Reddit AMA, which is amazing, considering how far you've come as an English speaker. And we've talked about this before. I commend you greatly. What was that experience like for you?

And what was the best question that you received? Oh, my God. Because, to be honest, my teacher, she did the Reddit team website. she asked me Liotto can I put that in the website I said for show so I recorded a film and sent you there

sent to there I got a lot of questions about 600 questions to train my English so I don't remember a lot but I had a very very questions too many questions so questions about

Homero Rockhold about my life but then also I got so many letters to appreciate my job, a lot of fans, and I was so happy. I'm happy. I'm happy. I want to see a new Lioramachita Asai video.

I love when you teach us about Asai, preparing Asai. Can we see that? Yeah, for sure. For sure, but I have to talk to Hannah. I have to talk to Hannah. Henry, he's the best for Asaii. Okay, a last question for you. I'm wondering, Luke Rockhold, Chris Widman, you know them very well. Who do you think wins that fight?

It's hard to say who's going to win that fight because both of them has a strength and weaknesses. I think rookie Rockhold has a good ground game, and he knows how to fight standing up. So Chris White has a good take-downs and also has a good control on the ground. So it's very hard to say. I think who brings better strategies going to win this fight. Well, you have to pick a winner. You can't sit on the fence. Oh, my God.

I speak for a white man. Okay. You know, the UFC just signed someone named Michelle Waterson. They call her the karate-hadi. Have you heard of her? No, no. Well, her nickname is the karate-hadi. She trains with Greg Jackson.

In my opinion, you're the original karate-hadi, Liotta Machita. Yeah, you're right, man. You're right. I don't know, area. That one was bad, though. That's just my opinion. That's just my opinion, my friend. I wish you the best. It is always such a pleasure. Are you coming out of the closet right now?

No, I'm just saying. Look, a man can say about another man. I think he's a very good-looking man. I'm in awe of Mitchie, especially when the beard is just a little short. It's just nice. I can say. I'm very comfortable. Can I not say that, Ed? Hey, you can say whatever you want, man. Liotto, it is always a pleasure. Thank you so much. a lot to us that you would come on the show. I wish you the best of luck on June 27th against Yuel Romero. Can't wait for the fight and good luck in the last few days of training. Thank you, my friend. Thank you so much. I really appreciate for that interview. Thank you. There he is. The original karate-hadi himself, Liotto Machita, the dragon.

June 27th, he fights Yualo L. Romero in Hollywood, Florida. And a lot of people have been asking me, why are there only five fights announced for this card? Well, the reason for that is it is the finale of the Ultimate Fighter, Brazil. You know, this card was supposed to take place in Brazil, and they moved it to Florida. It was supposed to, you know, the tough finale of Black Sillings versus ATT was going to happen there, which kind of made more sense in my opinion, but I don't think a lot of the tough guys are going to fight there, so it doesn't really matter. Romero trains at ATT, the Soldier of God, 9-1 returning. It's a very interesting match, a huge step up for Yole Romero.

I'm curious to see how he responds. The other interesting fight on that card, Rick Story versus Eric Silva, the UFC debut of Steve Bosse, Quebec's own, against Tiago Santos. So that's June 27th. It's on Fox Sports 1,

the finale of the Ultimate Fighter, Brazil, but, of course, main event, the big one, Liotr Machita versus Yuel Romero. All right, let's go back to Berlin. On Saturday, it's a UFC fight pass only card. Another interesting fight on the card, by the way.

Old friend of the show, Makwan Amir Kani, also fighting on the card. The co-main event is a familiar one as well. Dennis Seaver versus Tatsuya Kawajiri, Peter Sabato, versus what's this? Stephen Kennedy also on the card. But the big one is the main event. And the main card, by the way, it airs live on FightPass at 3 p.m. The prelim's also airing live on Fight Pass at 12 p.m.

So if you're on the East Coast, you can just sit back and watch the whole damn thing on your computer. Hook it up to your TV. And for the first time in Fight Pass's short history, we're getting a title fight. How about that? The Strawweight Championship is on the line. Jessica Peney challenging the brand new champion, defending the title for the first time, our guest. at this time. Yohanna Yangtzechek, and there it is.

There's the belt. Yohanna, how are you? Hi, guys. Here's my baby. Oh, I love it. Do you ever leave it? Do you sleep with it? Oh, nice.

Look what I have. What are those? Jordans. Yeah. What number are those? Six or seven? 13. Wow, it was later on.

You're right, you're right. You know, I was wondering about this. And by the way, thank you very much for coming on the show. You're such a big sneaker head. What's going to happen when the Reebok deal happens? You better. I'm happy that Reebok is part of UFC. I'm very happy.

I like it. But are you going to stop on Jordans? Maybe. I will see. I don't know what I'm going to do. Well, you know what I think. I think that they should sign you as one of their athletes. You're a big champion from Europe, a new market for them.

you deserve your own re-buck deal. Yeah, I would like to, but we really see big things will come. So, yeah, I'm focused on my fight on Saturday, 20. So the last time we spoke to you was just a couple of days after you became the champion, and that wasn't all that long ago. It was around three months ago. How has life changed for you? You know, nothing changed.

I am a champion, and that's all. And, you know, I've got more attention from people, from media, from friends. I've got more friends, more attention, but that's all, you know. I still have my good life in Poland, you know, as before, but now I am working more hard than before. Do you have a lot of people who maybe weren't talking to you before you were a champion who now come out and want to be your friend, who want to be associated with you?

Do you get that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. How do you deal with that? I have my family around me, my boyfriend. my sisters and it's very important for me yeah what about all the media attention do you like that yeah i like it so much i like it so much and i feel good behind the cameras so i don't have problems with it so i'm happy i like it i like this part of my job yes it's the easy part so you last fought in

march like i said so three months later you're defending the title for the first time it's it's a pretty quick turnaround and of course this card originally was was Alexander Gustafsson versus Glover de Chera, but then Alex got injured and they put you right in there. Were you hoping to return this soon, or did you prefer having a little more time off? You know, before I got the phone call from my manager seven weeks ago, I was asking him about my next fight and if he got some information from UFC,

but he didn't. And in the evening time, seven weeks ago he called me, And he asked me if I would like to fight in Germany because Gustafson got injured. I say yes. And I'm very happy that I can fight in Europe. But of course, I like to fight in US more. But I'm happy that I can give part of me for my family and European fans. Why do you prefer to – I mean, Germany is so close to Poland.

It's a very quick trip for you. Why would you prefer to fight in the U.S.? No. different. You know, I'm a champion and, you know, like, people know me, but not really, you know, but in America it's something different. You can feel the atmosphere, the different atmosphere. People are going to show you that you are a champion and it's something different, you know. I always have good feelings in America and I like it so much, you know, and I've got more attention from US fans than Poland. or European. So my next fight is going to be in the US. Oh, okay. Is there a city in particular that you want to fight in?

No, but I would like to fight maybe on the end of the year, December. It would be nice. Maybe in Las Vegas. Oh. That would be something. The fight capital. Yeah, why not?

Obviously, there's a long history between Poland and Germany. How do you feel about fighting in Germany? Yeah, I like it so much, you know, life is different now, so I like it so much. Yeah, that's all what I can say. I'm very happy that I'm going to fight in Germany. Like you said, it's very close to Poland.

So my father going to be there, my boyfriend, my sisters, my friends. I'm very happy, you know. So Jessica, before this fight was announced, wasn't really on the radar. She had a fight booked for Brazil, and a lot of people weren't talking about her in the title picture. What was your reaction when you found out that it was going to be Jessica? your next opponent. You know, she's pretty good fighter and she's number three in the ranking.

So I think she's the right person, you know. So I'm very happy. It's going to be very interesting fight for me, for her and for you. Why do you think it's going to be interesting? Because I'm very good. I'm a champion. And Jessica, she's got lots of experience and she's quite good fighter. like I say, and I think, you know, she want to be a champion.

I am a champion and it's not going to be easy for her to get the bed for me. And yeah, that's fine. I saw yesterday on your Instagram. By the way, it's a very entertaining Instagram. So I urge everyone to follow. You were eating a big bowl of peni pasta. I cannot eat pasta right now. Or you pretended to eat it.

My brother-in-law, he cook himself. But, yeah, you know, the Fight Week is coming. So, right picture. Sure, I liked it. She responded to you. Did you see her response? Oh, I didn't. Oh, yeah, yeah.

She put up a picture of like this kind of, I don't know, this character saying every time she sees the way you face off, it reminds her of this character. And not a not flattering picture, to be honest with you. So she has seen your picture and responded. So clearly the message. was sent. So I didn't see it, but I like it, you know. I like this game before the fight. Yes, you're one of the best at it.

You know, it's interesting because when you fought Carla, you had many opportunities to face off with her before the fight, but this time you guys haven't really seen each other. Once you do face off with her later on this week, are you going to try to do the same thing, you know, get in her face and try to break her mentally? You know, I'm not acting, you know. Everything is very natural, you know.

So I don't know what. going to happen. Maybe I'm going to be quiet girl. Maybe I don't know. I don't like Crashog, you know, but when you're preparing for the fight, you're preparing for your opponent. You know, I have respect to all of them, but still I hate them, you know, because I must fight them. So, but yeah, I like them all. Recently, we had her on the show and I asked her about the fight. Asked her how she expects it to go down. And I want to play you the clip and get your response, okay? Say again? I'm going to play you a clip of Jessica on my show a couple of weeks ago talking

about the fight, and then we'll get your response, okay? Here it is. Here's Jessica Pene on the MMA hour just a couple of weeks ago. How do you beat her? Well, like, what's the biggest hole in her game in your opinion? Um, I'm going to submit her. You are? You think the ground game. Her takedown defense looked good against Carla. I'm not that kind of grappler. Mm-hmm. Do you foresee an early submission, a late submission? I just see a submission. Very confident. She's going to submit you. What's your response?

I'm coming, Jessica. You didn't have that good opponent in the cage, and you're going to feel the Polish power. Oh, my. I'm coming. I'm coming. There it is. Is it heavy? And I'm coming. Is it a heavy belt? What would you say, sorry?

I'm coming for you, Jessica. It's message to her, you know? Okay. I think she... I'm a champion. Is it safe to say she's never fought anyone on your level? Yeah, it's true. How heavy is the belt?

Very heavy, you know. But the preparations were more heavy than the belt. But it's very heavy. I can feel it. Do you feel, you know, Carlos Sparza spoke about this. There's a saying, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Like when you become the champion, things change. There's more pressure, more spotlight. Do you feel that going into the fight? I do not feel it. You know, like I said, I was dreaming about it.

And even before I was fighting my Thai. I was dreaming about the biggest trophies, you know. And I was six times war champion, Noikao War champion and six times European Noitao champion. So now it's time for MMA for the biggest things. So I am UFC champion.

There is nothing better than UFC, you know? So you know what I mean? Like it's more difficult to be a champion because you must run away. You must be focused every day, train hard. But I like it so much, you know. I am a hard worker and I like it so much. Right after your win, you were there in Poland when the UFC made its debut in Poland. You were sitting in the front row, and the little-known Marina Morose was calling you out.

She pulled off a big upset win over Joanne Calderwood, and then you guys really got into it. It was a great scene. What did you make of what she did in the cage as a fighter? And then when she was calling you out, what was your take on that? You know what? Jojo was supposed to win this fight, but she wasn't there. she got some private problems. But I think she could win this fight,

but I wish Jojo will be back and she's going to put on great show in Let's Go next month. But yeah, Marina Moros, exactly she didn't know what she was doing, you know what I mean? Her manager, he was like pushing her and he let her do it. But I knew it, you know. I say to my boyfriend, he was sitting next to me. It's like, look, going to be some funny circus right now.

And she found me and she was starting to doing some trash talk. But, you know, they cannot push me. You know, they can fight with me in the cage, but they cannot push me, you know. I'm not this person. And so I just stand up and, yeah, I just talk to her. I just respond to her that I'm ready for her and I can fight with her right now, you know. Did you tell that to you? Did you say to Sean Shelby after I want to fight this person to shut her up?

No. No. That's not your job. Do you think she's on your level? No, no. She, no. She should go back to the line, you know, and wait. I don't know if you know this, but.

My father was shouting, Array, Array. What does that mean? Are I? Yeah. Go back to your line, yeah? Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't know if you know this, but the UFC just signed Jessica Aguilar, which a lot of people think she's done more...

Yeah. She's going to fight because Laugia Gadela, yeah? Yeah, in Brazil. First off, what do you think of her as a fighter? And second of all, do you think that the winner of that fight will be next for you as champion? I don't know. Probably, yes, but I don't know. Rose is coming to Berlin.

Maybe UFC wants her to be next challenger. But I don't know. But, you know, I'm going to fight with everyone. And I understand that. And I'm going to accept every opponent. But if UFC wants make Aguilar or Gadela challenger, I'm going to fight with them. Sorry, who did you say this coming? I want to be there.

August 1st in Brazil. Oh, I like that. I'm sure they'll make that happen. Who's coming to Berlin, you said? Rose Naimunas. Oh, you think she... I don't know if they'll give her a shot, maybe. I mean, she didn't fight.

She's coming like a special quest, but I don't know. You know, people are talking around, but I don't know. Probably it's going to be Gadela or Aguilar, but I think Gadela are going to win with Aguilar. Oh, really? Why? Yeah. The best female fighters are in the UFC. Is that something you want because it was such a close fight?

Do you want to quiet all the critics who say that maybe she should have won that fight? Yeah, sure. I would like to fight with Gadela one more time and I will show to everyone that I am simply the best. Let me ask you just a couple more questions. I'll let you go and I appreciate the time. What's the coolest thing that happened to you since you became champion? Someone recognized you, you received this honor. What's something that really you could have never imagined,

but now it happened because you're a UFC champion. Anything come to mind? No, no, no. I'm very happy that the people around me are happy, so we all are happy, that's all. How many pairs of shoes did you buy since you became champion? Hugh. Ten?

No, more. More? No, be ten. Okay, maybe ten. Okay, 10 will be okay. What's the best one, the crown jewel? The last one. I've got them today.

Oh, wow. Congratulations. What's the, if you had the most amount of money in the world, the number one shoe that you would buy? Like, no matter the price, is there one that is your dream shoe? I think I could get Air Max 1, Amsterdam. And I would like to buy it for my boyfriend because he likes it. it so much and I think I'm going to make present for him

in the future. Because yeah, I like this model. Air Maxman Amsterdam. It's very nice. I like it so much. Does he know that you're going to buy this for him? Well, I would like to and he knows that

I could bite for him but you know. How much are we going to, when we're going to get married then I will buy it for him Oh, that's nice. Yeah, like a present gift. Are you engaged right now? No, not yet.

Maybe after the win on Saturday. No. Not too early. No, not yet, not yet. Well, sometimes it's not up to you. Maybe he's going to ask you. You never know. Yeah, we don't know.

How long have you been together? Five years. Oh, so he's known you before you became a star because I don't want someone to come in here, you know, trying to jump on the bandwagon. Yeah, he's supporting me. He's supporting me every day, so I'm very happy. How do you beat Jessica on Saturday?

What? How are you going to beat her? I don't know. I'm ready for five rounds, fight, but, you know, I've got some new aces in my pocket, and she's going to be surprised, really. Wow. I can't, you want to give us a hint on these aces? Any hints?

No. No. All right. Something better. Okay. I cannot tell you more. It is a pleasure as always. Thank you so much.

I really love having you on the show. Good luck in the fight. I'm looking forward to it very much. Jessica Penei versus the UFC strawweight champion, Yana Yianjajek. And by the way, people are starting to figure out how to say your name here. We don't have to call you on a champion anymore.

Yeah, Yana champion is okay. You like that too. Yen Jacek is too difficult. But I'm coming guys to U.S. I'm coming to New York on the end. of June. Then I'm coming to Las Vegas for the YPXO Aldo 5 and I'm going to give some seminar in Las Vegas. Oh really? Yeah. Do you have any information you want to share with anyone? Not yet but you should check my Facebook, my Instagram and Twitter,

Yana MMA and that's all. Yeah and you know you're going to be in Las Vegas so I'm assuming maybe you'll check out Invicta as well right? Yeah, I will be there probably. Maybe when you're in New York, you'll come visit us in the studio here. Sure, why not? Why not? And you should go to Flight Club in New York, the best shoe store in the world. I will. We can go together.

We can go together. That'll be fun. I appreciate the time very much. Good luck in the fight. Thank you so much. Bye. There she is. The UFC strawweight champion, Joanna Yongechek, defending her title.

For the first time on Saturday in Berlin, big fight for her. Kind of came out of left field. I think a lot of people weren't expecting Jessica Penne to be, you know, one-fight away. Remember, she was supposed to fight Juliana Lima, May 30th in Brazil, and then once the Gleover-Teshirea-Alexander Gusseson fight was scrapped, they switched things up, and I think it makes a lot of sense, obviously, to put young J-Chek, who's from Poland fighting in Berlin. And as my good friend, John Gooden reminds me, it's also, it's not only,

the first title fight on fight pass in the short history of UFC Fight Pass. It's also the first title fight, UFC title fight for the great broadcast team of John Gooden and Dan Hardy. And speaking of my mate, John Gooden, who is probably taking a bath right now as he's listening to this fine show. He just launched his own podcast, which I listened to Friday in Mexico City as I was sweating away on the elliptical. I ran a whole half mile. It was fantastic. Anyhow, his new podcast is called UFC OctonSide, and I think a lot of the fans who listen to us from the UK from Europe will enjoy this podcast very much because it has a slant towards the European market.

And he's had some great interviews, and I like his voice very much. I think he's going to have a very successful podcast. I want to wish him the best and congratulate him on the launch of his podcast, UFC Octagon Side. that is our good friend John Gooden. In a minute, hopefully we are going to be joined by Eddie Alvarez, who as we talked earlier with Mark Romandi picked up a big win Saturday in Mexico City. As I told Gilbert Melendez when I saw him in the lobby afterwards,

I really think Eddie Alvarez won that fight in the final minute of the second round. very clear that the first round went to Gilbert Melendez. In my opinion, pretty clear that the third round went to Eddie Alvarez. The second round was pretty close. But then in the last minute, excuse me, in the last minute, Eddie Alvarez took the fight to the ground. He landed an elbow, a spinning elbow, which actually cut Melendez open.

And I really think he stole the round. And ultimately, I think that won him the fight. And this is something that wasn't really mentioned on the broadcast. I didn't even see it on Twitter. Eddie Alvarez, who has been in the sport since December of 2003 as a pro, who has now fought 30 times professionally, who had to work so hard to not only gain acceptance and recognition and respect in the MMA community, but also to just get to the UFC, had to fight through so much.

Finally, on Saturday night in Mexico City, finally, 11 and a half years later, he won his first UFC fight. an amazing story a well-deserved win and now he's joining us on the phone Eddie are you there yeah what up Ariel congratulations my friend

we didn't get to see each other after the fight I want to wish you congratulations because what a performance what a win it was you really had to dig down deep how how difficult was it for you to actually pick up that win because honestly I got to admit

after that first round with your eye almost completely shut I was worried I was thinking man this is a this is a tough tough hand to deal with if you're Eddie Alvarez. I was concerned too. Honestly, I kind of owe a lot of it to Henry Hoof, who was in my corner that night. He kept my head straight, kept me in the fight, even in the wake of, you know, I was kind

in my own head, I was panicking and getting a little nervous because I just couldn't see. so he kept me, you know, not thinking too much and pushed me back out there and told me to keep going that I'm ready for whatever. And I know at the end that I was able to stick in there and stay with it. So in the first round, he hit you with a big elbow to the face. That messed up your eye. But then in between the round, you blew your nose,

which actually led to your eye, you know, essentially closing shut. What were you thinking? Did you forget that – did you not know how severe the injury was? because I wonder if it would have happened that way, had you not blown your nose? I didn't feel like, I didn't know the damage I had. I didn't feel like I had any damage. It turns out my nose and my orbital are both broken. I didn't know that.

I didn't feel anything. I just thought, oh, I got hit with a shot, no big deal. I was blowing my nose as if I would at practice. It wasn't something that I recognized until my eye completely shut. It almost happened instantly. I blew it, and then the eye blew up, and I, like, right away, my heart started racing. I couldn't see anything. So, you know, I'm not super happy with what went on.

I want to put that out there. I'm not happy with my performance. My training that I did, it wasn't – it didn't add up to what I did. out there that night. I was ready to be dominant. I was ready to do a lot more than what I did, but something bad happened, and I needed to adapt.

That was a situation there. How much did the elevation bother you? I didn't feel the elevation much, but I was worried because I was watching every one of the fights before, and I was watching a lot of the fighters who I know are conditioned. I was watching them dump out. like pretty quickly. So I told my corners before I went out,

hey, if I start to get ahead of myself, you know, keep me, keep me not going too crazy because I know a lot of guys who are very well conditioned and I just seen them, I seen them dumping out and they're probably the beginning of the second round, most of them were starting to feel it. So it was a little scary making that walk to a place that you pretty much know you're going to get it out.

if you try to fight your normal fight. Do you think it affected Gil? I'm not sure. I'm really not. I think I didn't know if it was the pressure of the wrestling, why he was sort of losing the spirit a little bit, or it was the altitude. I'm not sure, but I definitely felt like once I started wrestling a little more,

and once I started putting him against the cage, I felt like I was starting to gain the upper hand and starting to break your spirit a little bit. So it could have been a mixture of both, like just... Because I know when I'm against a guy who's like a demon against the cage, it's really tough to deal with. It takes a lot of energy out of you just defendants. So I've been on the other end of that down in Florida and it stinks.

Do you agree with me that ultimately the fight was won in the last minute of... the second round. I think you stole the round with the takedown and the spinning elbow. I think you won the third. Obviously, the first went to him. But when you look back at the fight, I really think that's where you won the fight. Do you agree? I kind of do. I kind of do.

I think the second was close, but the fact that I was able to hit him with that elbow, and I think you got a little stunned with the elbow. It looked bad. The judge has probably seen it as, you know, as something

something good on my favor, but, uh, look, I'm not happy. I know fans weren't thrilled. That's not the performance that I look forward to. That's not the performance that I put my name on when I go out there. But I was a guy trying to survive and trying to, trying to do my best to stay in a fight that I probably should have been out of because I, with my eye the way it was, I couldn't, I didn't know where he was. I didn't know whether he was three foot from me or five foot from me

Or a foot away from me So I think I threw a check hook at some point and the guy was nowhere near me And I kind of laughed at myself during a fight because I just I didn't my range was way off because I can only see out of my back eye Have you ever experienced anything like that in a fight like that kind of adversity where you actually could not see? No No not not with one of completely shut and couldn't gauge distance and and was still like up and run and no not like that i've been hit with shots where i went out completely for like a second and then popped back

pop back into it but i never was like still alive still fighting and just completely you know disoriented by by the range and what where my opponent was in your mind are you like holy crap you know how do i how do i overcome this like we watch the fight and we see it, but we don't know what's going on, and you're able to, you know, you're, you, you fighters are so stone-faced and you're so determined, but what, what is the dialogue, if any, that is going on in your mind when you realize that you have to fight this man, a rival of yours, in a huge fight for you, essentially with one eye? I think you've got to fight your own dialogue. I think when your mind's trying to tell

you anything, you just tell it to shut the fuck up. Because your mind is the first thing, I mean, I feel like your mind, like, kind of just starts messing with you and telling me. you like, you know, quit, you know, it's like telling you, you're not, you're not ready for this or, you know, this isn't right. Once something gets uncomfortable, it's real easy to just say, all right, I'm done, but you kind of got to shut off any emotion or any thought that's going on and just, you know, put there, do what you were put there for, and that's the fight, and anything else is just sort of a distraction, I guess.

So to confirm, you actually did, in fact, break your nose and your orbital. that first shot and that elbow that he got me with that fractured my nose in orbital and that that's what caused my once I blew my

nose that's what caused my eye as well it was just basically one shot that fucking messed my whole face up that that big elbow and how much it would bother you

throughout the fight in the sense that you're actually getting punched right there you're getting punched in your face your nose your eye I mean, was it unbelievably painful every time he punched you? Yeah, I was, you know, I was just trying to adapt, man. I just, I was really, I think what he felt was probably that I was like a guy with his back against the wall. And that's how I felt.

So I think at that point I became more dangerous than what I would have been if I didn't have it. Because if he was the step in the pocket, I was going to. to throw stuff that was basically like a guy who was willing to die because that's how I felt. I felt like very, you know, I was a little bit nervous, you know, for my own safety. So that kind of put me, it kind of put Gil at maybe a more of a dangerous situation because of how nervous I was. And that's, I've been there, I've been in the fight with guys who are scared and sometimes they're the most dangerous guys because they just they throw everything they throw every caution or win

I guess that's uh that's where I was at at that point in the fight because of the damage that I that I sustained considering those injuries did they try to convince you to stay in Mexico and not fly home I know you're home in Philly now but that's pretty serious stuff to be flying with no yeah I was I was I was all nervous about getting on a plane and dealing with the air pressure I thought that it would really like hurt my head But nothing went on. I flew pretty easily without too much, without, like, too much being too uncomfortable.

My elbow is really swollen from the spinning elbow. I, um, they check for any fractures. There's no fractures. It's just like a softball on my elbow. So I don't know. I might need to get MRI on that. That's, that's more painful than anything. Like, and more than my nose and my eye and stuff,

my elbows bugging me. Do you have to have surgery on the nose or eye? I don't believe so. I asked them in Mexico, and they said no, but I'm definitely not going to take their word for it. I'm going to get a check here in America and see what they've got to say. At any point were you thinking, I know we were talking about the dialogue, but at any point were you thinking, man, I mean, I'm staring at two losses in a row. I've worked so hard to get to this point.

Were you thinking about what was at stake or just the task at hand? Just a task at hand. Never, never. The idea for me, like, when I get in the cage period, is to rid myself of any thought, of any emotion. Because I never, I never ever felt anything in there that helped me, like ever. I never felt or thought anything that helped me. So, like, any time, like, a feeling or a thought pops up,

I kind of just try to tell myself to shut up or tell myself that I'm not allowed to feel anything. because that's where I think things are going bad for you. I think it's just you're not in there to think or feel you're in their fight. That's, that's the deal. And so after the fight, even despite the fact that you guys had your history, it seemed like you were pretty cool with each other. It seemed like there was actually some respect shown. Were you happy with the way it ended?

I wasn't happy with the fight. I wasn't happy with the fight. but there's definitely things that that can't happen again that I definitely need to work on. I wasn't happy with my performance that night. I am happy with my resilience. I am happy with my ability to adapt in a bad situation. There are things that I am happy with. But my performance in general, how I trained and how I was ready didn't add up to what I did that night.

and that's what I'm sort of upset about myself with. And, you know, I'll make the proper adjustments in my training and make sure when I go out there and I train that hard again, then I'm dominant. And I'm not making, you know, simple mistakes that I feel like I made. How confident were you, though, that they were actually going to score it for you? Well, when I went back to my corner, I was very confident. But before I went to my corner after the fight,

I'm not good at gauging a fight, period. I'm just not good at it. I always assume in a fight that I'm losing, and I know that about myself, so I never, ever take my word for it. Even when I'm dominant in rounds, I feel like I'm losing for some reason. I just know I'm like that,

so I never take my word. I always ask my corner, and when I went back to my corner, they were all, like, super confident that I won the fight. and what I said to Henry was he was so confident I'm like yo don't be surprised dude because we're in Mexico

and he said no there's no way there's no chance that they're not giving it to you so after I heard that from Henry Henry's pretty honest he don't like kind of bullshit so after he told me that I was I was confident that we had to win

it was such an interesting fight on paper there was so much excitement all that stuff but I really think people forgot that after all that time, you know, in this sport, 11 and a half years, 30 fights that you finally got your first UFC win. Have you been able to step back and enjoy that? I mean, after all this,

everything you've been through, you finally got that first win in the Octagon. That has to be a special thing. Yeah, it is. It definitely is. But, you know, it wasn't the night that I had in my head.

That's what, that's the only thing I, um, you know, it wasn't the night that I had in my head. What I had in my head was to go out there, and what I trained for was to go out there and be dominant, and I wasn't. And I dealt, you know, I dealt with some things. You know, I did some things good, but I did a lot of things that should never happen. I did some things bad. So I got my first UFC win.

I'm happy about that. I'm happy, you know, I was able to beat a guy who, you know, he fought in two title fights, and he's been, he did a fair share of things. I have a ton of respect for Gilbert, I always have. And, yeah, I'm happy. But definitely don't, I'm not going to deny. I got some work to do, and I got some adjustments to me. Did something happen between you and Nate Diaz on Friday before the fight? Yeah, yeah.

After, you know, I've been, like, Nick and Nick and Nate, we've always been pretty cool. I've seen them at all the promotions. We cross paths in dream before, and Nick offered me, you see my nose bleeding one time offered me some medicine to help out. They always seem like super respectful, nice dudes. And even Nick, I call with him, but like when I went there to Mexico, Nate just kind of changed his tune completely. Like, I guess that's how he is when you're fighting one of his teammates.

I get it. You know, he takes this shit personally, it takes it serious. I get, I get it, but it was just kind of weird for someone to be kind of cool with you, and then, like, out of nowhere, they're looking at you hard, like, every time they see you and shit. So I kind of can frother him about it, and after Wayans, I went up to him, I said, yo, like, what the fuck's going on? Like, I've always been cool with you and your brother. like what what do you keep looking at me like this for?

And he sort of looked at the ground. He wasn't looking at my face and he sort of was explaining himself like, well, you're fighting my boy and this and that. So like, and then he looked up at me and was like, so like fuck you. So I was like, well, so like fuck you too. What the fuck? And I said, if you really like going to be like that, then you're fucking next. Like, what are you being like that for?

It was really stupid. Like, as if I have something personal against Gilbert Melendez, I don't know Gilbert Melendez. I can never have anything personal against him. I was there for a check, just like every other flight are there. Like, I didn't pick out Gilbert Melendez. I got a doubt of agreement in the mouth saying I'm playing Gilbert Melendez next, so I signed it. Like, I don't have any personal issues with anybody in the lightweight division ever.

I'm there for a check just like everyone else And then he says some dumb shit like that and is looking at me I'm just like it's foolish It's like it's really stupid So if that's what gets them to the fight And get them riled up and then whatever He just hasn't been fighting and I think he's He has a lot of pen up stuff or whatever his deal is

But um It's whatever I get it happened and it's over with So is that what you want next? I If he was, if he was ranked higher, you know, Gilbert's number four, and I really, like, besides Gilbert, I had, I really didn't have anybody care about to fight. I would really like to just try to get closer to the title, fight either three, two, or one, and get closer to a title shot. He'd honestly be a step backwards right now, and considering he hasn't been active, it just don't really make sense. but I never pick flights.

If I get a bad agreement in the mail, I'll sign it. I'm just letting you know that. I'll never be a guy ever, ever. And my word is my bond. When I get a bad agreement from a promotion, from a promotion who employs me and gives me a check, when I get that bad agreement in the mail, we're signing it. I'm not saying no to anybody.

So I don't ever pick flights with anyone, But just know that if I ever get a bad agreement, Glenn ever gets a bad agreement and says, you know, the promotion would like you to fight X or whoever it is, I'm signing it. I'm not, there's, there is no F-Ans your butt. So it is what it is. And do you think these injuries will keep you out for the rest of the year? Do you have any idea when you can come back at this point? I'm not feeling out there after the year. No way.

No way. I'm going to enjoy a summer with my kids. I've been away for three months, so I definitely want to enjoy the summer, but I'm definitely going to be working out during the summer as well, and staying prepared, and then I'll be active. I don't know if I'm suspended or what I'm suspended for, but whatever that time is, I'm sure there's no way it's going to keep me out the whole rest of the year I want to fight again.

Final question for you, Eddie, and again, I really appreciate the time. I know you just got back home here with your family. means a lot to us. Thank you. What was it like when you got to see your family for the first time in months after that kind of win? You're busted up. You had to travel a long way to get the win. What was that reunion like? Unbelievable. I'm still, even today, my brother came over. I had a few friends come over with thrown out on my deck, having a drink, and there's just certain points of the day where I'm just full of gratitude. I'm just so fucking happy that I'm through the roof just to be home.

If I lost the fight, yeah, sure, I'd be bummed out, but just to be back here with my kids again, I'm just, I have nothing more to say. I'm blessed,

I'm happy, and I'd rather be nowhere else in the world right now. Yeah, no more sleeping on the cot, at least for now, right? No more, yeah, no more sleeping on the side of the living room on the cot. I love my dudes.

Carrington Banks, Sean Suriano, Able, and Irwin. I love them. They all know I love them, but I definitely happy to be back home. Well, you know, for people who have been watching you and a fan of yours for a long time, regardless of

at the end of the day who you think won the fight, just to see you after everything you've been through over the last couple of years to finally get that first UFC win. A pretty cool moment. A real special moment. I know no one was happier than you and your family. Again, congratulations, and thanks for coming on the show, and heal up. Feel better, enjoy that Philly

summer, and I can't wait to see you back in there. I appreciate it. all right thank you guys there he is eddie alvres kind enough to give us a few minutes of his time after a huge win for him in mexico city picking up his very first win inside the octagon a long time coming and i know some people were disappointed uh with the fight they were battling several factors they were battling obviously the altitude i do think it affected at least gilbert and uh you know when when you when you get injured like that things change the fight changes there's no doubt about it so

thankfully for Eddie they didn't stop the fight you know that that could have been a real you know situation to deal with they didn't stop the fight he was able to persevere and after all this time and when I talk about all this time and everything he's been through you know the lawsuit with beltor and being on the sideline let's not forget this is a guy who the last time Eddie alvres won was November 2nd 2013 that's a long time ago when he defeated Michael chanler at belator 106 so again a long time coming and prior to that His last win was October of 2012. Since 2012, just two wins, since that win over Patricki Pitbull.

Of course, lost his debut, but now very much back in the mix, and I will reiterate, I do believe Gilbert Melendez is 100%. I don't even believe. I know. Gilbert Melendez is a top 10 fighter. He has nothing to worry about, at least in my opinion. All right, we'll talk about 188 a little more later on the show, but for now, let's go to a little bit of breaking news.

I was approached earlier in the morning about having Titan FC's CEO, Jeff Aronson, their C-O, Lex McVan, a longtime friend of the program, to come on this particular show to announce some big news regarding the future of Titan FCs. So now let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in Lex McMahon on screen left, Jeff Aronson on screenright sporting some pretty snazzy Titan F.C. T-shirts. Gentlemen, how are you? Doing great, man. Doing great. How are you? You know, we got to represent, bro.

I like it. I like it very much. You know, I saw you in Mexico, Lex, and when I saw you in the lobby, the hotel, you were just, you know, dressing regular clothes. You know, you look normal. You're going to the fight for Nate Marquard, of course. And then later on, on Twitter, I happen to see a picture of you and UFC President Dana White. wearing a Titan FC shirt, a different one, and he's pointing. You guys have huge smiles on your faces, and then that was it, nothing else. So the floor is yours, either you or Jeff, what is going on between you and obviously the UFC? Yeah, man, well, listen, I thank you for the opportunity, Ariel, as always, like you said, you've been a big friend of, you know, us personally and our

organizations, so, you know, we appreciate the time to chat with you. Yeah, you know, listen, had a great relationship with the UFC and with Dana, and it was a great opportunity to kind of tease the news a little bit. You know, listen, you got to market things a little bit and build some anticipation. But, you know, Jeff a while ago said, listen, I think that we should really be looking at the right place to be. And, you know, the UFC and Fight Pass seemed like a great platform.

And, you know, we reached out to them and had a great conversation and a dialogue, and the next thing you know over some time, we developed a relationship. And so I'm really proud to announce that Titan FC will be moving to Fight Pass platform. We're proud to partner with the UFC and looking forward to putting on 8 to 10 great events with them every year for a very long time to come. So, Jeff, let me ask you this as far as the particulars go. And again, congratulations on that very big news for your promotion. When does this deal kick in?

because I know you have a show very, very soon in Montreal. Yeah, so the show, the deal will kick off July 18th in Montreal, headlined by Pat Healy and Mike Ritchie. And that's for your, so that'll be the lightweight title, right? What, that'll be for the lightweight title, yep. And I know you guys have had a deal with CBS Sports Network. Is that deal no more? Yeah, you know, listen, it was the proper time.

for us to move move on and start the next chapter of the Titan FC legacy. And, you know, we're excited to do that with the UFC and FightPass. Jeff, out of curiosity, were there any discussions of Zufa purchasing Titan FC? Now, right now, it's just going to be a distribution deal, national and international fight pass and TV as well. And why did you feel like this was the best place for the organization? I think, you know, we've dealt, you know, through all our years in the business, and we've been in the business for a long time with Alchemists. You know, we've dealt with every single promotion in the country and probably in the world.

And to see the way everybody else does business first, how Zufa does business, it was a natural fit. And to be able to make the groundbreaking type of deal that we did with them, which is just an incredible platform for us to do, I think it made all the sense in the world for our. us to take it to the next level of what we're trying to do. Jeff, you mentioned the word groundbreaking. Why is this a groundbreaking deal? Of course, Invicta has a deal with fight past, Shudo recently, signed one. Why is this one different? I think as time comes out, news will come out, but there's a lot more components to this deal. It's a really in-depth deal, and we're really looking forward to this relationship. I mean, it's really a phenomenal relationship. Yeah, and I think, you know, Ariel, the key is, you know,

Zupa's proved to be a great partner with all their other partners on FightPass. I think what we're looking towards and what we're excited about is that they really are treating this as a partnership as opposed to just a product kind of distribution deal. You know, we're providing some great content for them, but they're really stepping up to the plate in a major way with a lot of marking support. And we're being considered one of their tent pole properties. and what better partner to have than the 800-pound gorilla, the number one fight promotion of business. Listen, if I'm going to have someone go to bat for me, it's going to be Dana White and Lorenzo Fetita.

Those are the guys you want for you. So I'm blessed that I have a great relationship with Dana and that he's been a fan supporter of Titan since we came about, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to work with him. I think Titan, it's going to be great for Titans athletes and it's going to be great for the organization. Does that mean if I'm watching a UFC broadcast, we'll see an ad for an upcoming Titan show on Fight Pass? Will that kind of integration happen?

I think you're going to see a really high level of integration. I think what you just suggested is definitely part of what you're going to be seeing. That's a lot more. I think there's going to be a lot more than that as well. So I think as this plays out over the course of the next few weeks, the next few days, you'll start seeing a lot more. And it'll keep building because there's a lot of stuff going to happen over. for the next X amount of time. Jeff, let me ask you a little more about that relationship

because you've talked to me about this, as has Lex, about that good relationship with the UFC and having that Zufa Al-Claws, that main event you just mentioned, Mike Ritchie and Pat Healy, two former UFC fighters. Is there a chance now with this deal in place that you can have a situation where the UFC wants a fighter to develop under your brand,

but still kind of be under contract? I hate the word minor league, but you get what I'm trying to say, like the farm system, if you will. Is that in play here as well? I think that there'll be tremendous opportunities on both sides. If they need to play someone or we need to play someone, I think that opportunity is certainly out there.

This card in July, we stacked for the fight pass card. We have, you know, like I told you, the main event. We have the co-main event of Kurt Hollabo, who's 14 and 2 on a five-fight win streak. You know, his only lost short notice to Pat Healy and Stephen Seiler in UFC, fighting Andre Harrison, the super prospect, 9 and 0, 2 and 0 under the Titan banner. We have Brett Johns, the number one prospect out of the UK. And our champion. And our champion at 135, fighting Anthony Gutierrez from Tuff.

It will be the return of Jose Pele Landy on this card. He will be fighting on this card. Super prospect, Phil Haas, will be on this card. It's just loaded. Freddie O'Sunsell's brother, Freddie is Unsao, We'll be on the card. Rafael is Sonsal's brother. This, you know, who's 8 and 1 on a 7-fight win streak.

This card's loaded, and he'll be fighting Cody Bollinger. Is, and that's interesting as well. Is JZ on the card? JZ. Cava-Cante? J-Z will not be on this card. He'll be on the next card. Okay, and you mentioned Phil Haas. I'm very excited.

I think a lot of the, I guess, the MMA nerds, if you will, the ones that follow things from the beginning are very excited about him. Who's he fighting? You didn't mention his opponent, do you know? I do know. I don't have it in front of me, actually, but everybody is super excited to see Phil Hawes in the cage, especially under the Titan banner and definitely stepping up his competition. I've watched Phil Train with Vitor and some of the other Black Zillions, and he's a monster, man. Really excited to see him make his debut for us. And I think he's going to shock a lot of people and get a lot of attention.

I think he's going to be one of our big superstars. And eventually, I think, I'll go on to be a superstar in the UFC. And you have no problem with that still, right? I mean, you have no problem grooming these guys. No. No, not at all. I mean, here's, you know, here's the idea. Because of the way we've structured, and this was Jeff's idea, and I give them a lot of credit, because the way we've structured our contractual relationship with our clients,

our athletes, we're willing to allow them go to the UFC. And what that is done for us is people are willing to come to us and fight because they know, listen, no one's naive, right? everybody wants to either be in the UFC or get back to the UFC. That's the reality. So if that's the case, you know, with the platform we provide, now with the relationship that we have and the contracts that we have set up, there's a great opportunity for really talented fighters to come in and display, you know, their prowess.

And then when the opportunity is right, they go on to the UFC. It keeps a tremendous stream of really high-level talent coming in to Titan. At the end of the day, it's our responsibility to build the brand, build the brand of our athletes, and the best way to do that is to put on great fights. And great talent equals great fights. And just to take that a step further, Ariel, if you watched last week the Ultimate Fighter, you had a Hater Hassan against Felipe Portela. And they had Titan all over that episode with their fight in Titan.

They just fought on the last Titan card or a couple Titan cards ago. And Hassan knocked Felipe Portela out. It was all over the Ultimate Fighter show. We released for the Ultimate Fighter show, I don't know, five fighters. It was, you know, we released over half a team. And that's the great thing is those were all great fighters. You know, Steve Montgomery, Hater, Hassan, you know, a lot of guys that were on the current season. He's a big hotel of Michael Graves.

Yeah, a lot of guys that are on the current season of tough were our athletes. And we released them to go. But here's the great thing. I've got twice as many great athletes banging on the door to get in because they see how we treat our athletes and allowing them to go and move forward and progress in their career. So it's a win for everybody, man. Lex, let me ask you this. What does this mean for your broadcast team? Who's going to be calling the fights now?

Yeah, we're going to be announcing that very soon. I mean, I think that you're for sure going to see for us, the hobby, continue to be a huge part of our broadcast team. You know, we've had interchange. We've interchanged a few of the announcers over the past period of time. And I think right now we're actually, Jeff and I are sitting down to map that out. and we certainly like the team that we put in place, and I'm sure we'll be adding to it

and making adjustments from time to time. But we've got a strong team, and I think being anchored by Farazza Hobby is great because it gives you a tremendous insight into the strategy and the fighter mindset and allows fans to appreciate things at a different level. And will the look of the product be different? I mean, it had a certain look on CBS.

Now does it change because it's on FightPass, Jeff? I think that there'll be definitely new components. that are brought into the mix, you know, we'll be taking best practices, obviously. And, you know, I think that they were, they were, you know, one of the main reasons why we did this deal was they loved the product. So we're only going to enhance it,

only going to keep going further. And, you know, using some of the best practices, I think fans can look forward to enjoying an even better product. And earlier you said, Hey, yeah, sorry? No, I was going to say, listen, we've got a great team that's busted their ass, put out a great product for us.

And, you know, this is really an accomplishment of the entire organization from, you know, our fight services group in the back, you know, to our production team. And, you know, we wouldn't have accomplished this without them. And so I think you're going to continue to see the same sort of product being put forward because we've got a great team in place. And earlier, Jeff said eight to ten events. So we're still banking on that for 2015 and beyond. That's what you guys are shooting for?

Yeah, that's what the contract calls. calls for it. And, you know, it's a great opportunity for us to be able to, you know, consistently showcase the talent and keep our athletes busy. And we're excited about the prospect of doing so. How many years is that contract for? You know, I can't really get into the details, Ariel. You almost have me there. Everyone's so tight. It's a long-term deal. I think that we'll have, you know, Titan and the UFC and Fight Pass in partnership for, you know, many. years to come, and we're very, very fortunate and happy about that.

And by the way, does this preclude any other organizations who kind of fall under your category from signing? You know, because I'm kind of sensing that FightPass in a way is becoming the new H-G-Net fights. Like, you know, they're broadcasting more than just ZUFA events. However, does this deal, like, do you guys have an exclusivity thing? You know, Invicta doesn't really compete. Shudo is a kind of different thing. You know, does this stop any other organization from signing with FightPass as well? you know i'll i'll let marshal uh field that question i'm sure you know you have him on pretty frequently i'm sure he'll field it but you know listen they're a growing business and

they're looking to you know add content and i'm sure that they'll find you know the right opportunities to do so but i do know that the partnership that we've forged with uh dana and marshall and the rest of the team over there is uh incredibly strong and it's going to do nothing but enhance uh the titan product well fantastic news for you guys the first event, as you mentioned, July 18th, in my hometown. Who knows? Maybe I could come. That would be fantastic. Yes. Summer. Ariel, you coming? Summertime in Montreal, by the way, is heaven. I don't know if you guys have ever been there. It's heaven on earth. Is it still taking place at the Verdun Aratorium?

Yes. As of right now, yes. All right. Fantastic. And you have Montreal's Mike Ritchie on the card as well. That is great news. Congratulations. I have to ask you about this before I let you go because, Lex, I saw you in Mexico. How is Nate feeling? How's he doing physically? You know, listen, Nate had a tough week. He was fighting a bit of the altitude in Montezuma's revenge, unfortunately. He had some tummy issues and actually threw up right before the fight, right before he walked out,

which I don't think was actually an uncommon occurrence on Saturday 9. There's a lot of people that were suffering from, and Nate happened to be one of them. But no excuses. You know, he had a tough night and Gassman looked very good. You know, Nate's disappointed with the loss, for sure. But the one thing I know about Nate, and I've believed this since the day I met him, I think Nate is one of the great fighters in the UFC, and he's definitely one of the best people in the UFC.

You know, I believe that there's an opportunity for him to continue to move forward if that's what he wants, and I believe that it is. And I know the UFC, I mean, Dana has said that, you know, it will be with them. So, you know, I think his wife is due very soon with their third child. So I think Nate's going to just spend some time with his family and enjoy them and, you know, come back and take a look at what's next. But, you know, as it stands, you know, Namarkward is a UFC fighter and will continue to be so,

per Dana White. So he still wants to fight? He does. He does. You know, and he's, you know, he definitely has the passion. and, you know, we'll sit down as a team and we'll talk about it and figure out what he really, you know, wants to do. But as of my last conversation with him, you know, he is proud to be a UFC fighter

and he's looking forward to getting back in there. But, you know, I think he's more than spending time with his family and enjoying the birth of their new child. Okay, Jeff, final question to you. Any other signings? Any other news you want to break on the program? The floor is yours. No, you know, the matchmaker's been running guys,

getting guys teed up for what's going on. You know, I think the next fight right after this, we'll definitely see Rick Horn fighting Jayce Cal Contact, which will be a really exciting fight. And we'll have a bunch of stuff coming out over the next couple of weeks, and I'll for sure hit you out. All right. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on this show to break that exciting news.

I congratulate you on the news. If I'm not there, I will be tuning in July 18th from the greatest city in the world, Montreal, the Titan FC debut on UFC Fight Pass. That is awesome stuff, guys. Thank you very much for the time. And again, congratulations. Thanks, Ariel.

Thank you, buddy. Appreciate you, man. There they are. Lex McMahon, Jeff Aronson, CEO, CEO, respectively, of Titan FC. Some great news for them. And once again, as Marshall's Lasnik said, very recently on this program, the library, but most importantly, the live events, it continues to grow on UFC Fight Pass.

They're adding more. And I like the fact that they're going. going outside the box. They're thinking outside the box. It's not just Zufa stuff. Invicta now, Shuto Brazil. And next up is Titan FC on the roster. And also International Fight Week, they'll be airing the International MMA Federation events that will be taking place in Las Vegas. So the fight pass platform continues to grow in the latest example of Titan FC. Congratulations. To those fine gentlemen. All right. Another late one. Last week, Mr. New York, Rick, are you there? I'm here.

How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. Last week, people were upset that we cut short the questions. In particular, one fan, one super fan, right? How do you pronounce this gentleman's name? Devin Sawa?

Yeah. So it has come to my attention that Devin is actually a real celebrity fan. He is indeed. He loves the show. Yeah, yeah, but that's not the celebrity part of it. The celebrity part is the fact that he's standing. in the MMA video, uh,

M&M video. This is true. He's the stand character. This is true. But then even more exciting, I learned that he had a, a makeout scene with the legendary Jessica Alba. Is that true in a, in a previous film?

That is also true. Idle hands. I've never heard of this film. Uh, horror movie from, I want to say, early 2000s, 99. So that's old school. Yeah. Hmm. Good stuff.

Final destination. That's one of my favorites. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, let's give the people what they want. Let's give the people. Well, we have to give a shout out to Devin. For sure. Celebrity fan.

I don't know. Do we want to? You know what? I mean, no, he specifically asked. I missed the question. Then I saw it on Saturday night. I believe it was the great Andrew Mayer who brought it to our attention. It was.

He also brought it to our attention. Forrest Gump of him, Andrew Mayor. He also brought it to our attention that the whole Jessica Alba thing, which I did not know, which obviously makes me see Mr. Devin in a whole new light. So I appreciate his support and his fandom. And now, without further ado, let's go to the questions.

Let's answer some questions. There's a lot to discuss. UFC 188. I don't know if you heard, but Fabricio Vy Cavalover Doom is the new, undisputed heavyweight champion of the ultimate fighting championship. There's a lot of champions in there.

I don't love when they say world. You know, it just seems a little bit, I mean, let's be honest, it is the world, but I try to avoid that. For what reason? It does seem like the world. Yeah, I don't know. Unlike U.S. sports that say the world when it's not actually the world, this actually seems to be the world.

Fair enough. Okay. Altitude, how much of Kane's performance on Saturday would you attribute to the effects of the altitude? Are you surprised seeing how much he struggled with it that he was so hesitant to go out to Mexico to train before the fight? What do you think the reason is that he was so hesitant to go early, perhaps overconfidence in his own cardio? Sorry, I'm just drinking my gnawess energy. by the way, at Noss Energy, hashtag with this Noss, I will. You know, that's only a question that I think he can answer,

but I will say this, Javier Mendez, who was on the show last week, as you heard, wanted him to come earlier, and when I spoke to him via text yesterday, he took this one on the chin. He said, look, it was my fault. At the end of the day, I should have pushed for him to come out earlier. That's, I mean, it's clear that that wasn't the same Cain Velascus that we've seen before. Daniel Cormier, as I said earlier, told me, I don't want him to fight in Mexico ever again.

We'll see if that actually, you know, comes to fruition. But I will say this. While it is clear that he was not the same fighter, that he gassed, that he was not himself. Daniel also brought up a great point about how, if you look at Cain's fights, he never goes for those kinds of takedowns. He's always going for the single leg. I mean, he was completely spent and eventually was caught, you know, with the guillotine.

I feel like this narrative, this discussion really takes something away from Fabrice Ovidum. It wasn't just that Cane, Gain gas, there wasn't just that the altitude got to him. Verdum left his own family 40 days earlier. He did the same prior to 180. He did what was needed to do to become a UFC champion. And as we have heard, time and again, half the battle is what happens before the fight.

He prepared himself. And I think that's why Kane can't really use this as an excuse. He can't, you know, we can't take anything away from Verdume. He recognized, and Kane knew this, he recognized that he needed to be there early. And he did, and then look what happened in the fight. He weathered a very early storm, and then, man, that clinched. That was reminiscent of Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin. And then, of course, the submission, it was an unbelievable performance

and one that I want to give all the credits of Verdun because he did everything that Kane didn't do. Yeah, that's well said. I mean, no fights ever going to exist in a vacuum. There's always going to be factors coming into the fight. And for this one, Kane's long layoff was a factor. The altitude, not preparing properly for it, was a factor. So if we're just going to discount the results of every fight based on whatever we, whatever factors we feel are important, then, you know, what is any win worth? So it's a disservice to Fabrice over Doom to make excuses.

And Kane Velazquez would be the last one to make one of those. Like, we can't ignore why he looked that way, but I hate focusing on it too much. I think it's very interesting to note that one guy came early and one guy didn't. Yeah. I honestly think the layoff is more of a factor, but that's debatable, and I don't think there's any right answer. It doesn't really matter. All right. Who should be next for Verdume? Does Kane deserve an immediate title shot? Or should it go to someone on an oppressive streak like Arlovsky? Well, this is the million dollar quote. This is what happens. This is what happens in the third hour. How much is this question? A million, a million, a, a, a, a, um, a trillion dollar question.

How about that? It's tough because I agree with Mark Romandi. Obviously, the JDS fight is a great backstory there. It's, uh, it's a fascinating match. If we want to see how much for Doom has improved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to see him wait till December. Do you? No.

And also, let's not forget, the guy of these top content. I'm talking JDS. I'm talking Cain. I'll put him still in that mix. By the way, Vardume told me after the fight that he wants to give Cain the immediate rematch in Vegas. I love when guys do that.

It's kind of funny that he would suggest Vegas, though, because why not try to take advantage of the altitude thing again? Anyway, he suggested... Did you see me do the Cajide interview with Vardume? It was really exciting. Did you see that? Yeah.

You didn't see it. You didn't see it. I saw it. What about my FX spot when I was with the fans? I also saw that. I don't believe. No, I did see that. I kind of believe the FX thing, not the post-fight thing.

Oh, well. Anyway, of all these guys, Kane, JDS, Miochich, Ben Rothwell, I'm pretty sure that Arlowski has the longest winning streak. Rothwell might be challenging him on that one. But you know what I mean? Arloffsky actually has the longest one. JDS is on a one-fight winning streak. Miochich is on a one-fight winning streak. So should it go to Arloffsky?

I know that doesn't. really matter because Gustafin's getting a tail shot off a loss. But I still kind of feel like Garlovsky... Is the longest streak the factor, though? How about this? Well, let's go to our next question. Okay. Which is folded into this.

No, no. This one. Does JDS now have more of a stake in the title contendership than Miochich and Arlowski? He's beaten both Miochich and Verdun. Doesn't that kind of come into play? More than a win streak? What do you think? What's the kind of weight that you get?

That's five in a row now for Arlofsky, three in the UFC, two prior outside of the UFC, including one in WSOF. So that is the longest one. Yes, 100%. If JDS was healthy, I would go with that. And honestly, it is in six months and who the hell knows what they're going to do between. I mean, there's a show in October in Houston, then Melbourne, and then you have the December show. I mean, who knows? But if he was healthy, I would go with that.

because he's not, I kind of feel like they need to look at either Stipe or Arlofsky, and if I had to choose between those two, I honestly, I'm going to throw you a curveball here. I kind of side with Stepe only because he's the one who's actually going out there and campaigning for it. Like he is really going out of his comfort zone to campaign for this. And I think there is something to be said for that. But if I'm looking at merit, I go with Arlofsky.

Okay. What do you say? I like JDS, but it is a long time to wait. but I think that that's the fight. Did Fabrice over Doom cement a place in the future UFC Hall of Fame and did he become one of the greatest heavyweights of all time on Saturday? He has finished Mark Hunt, Fador Amelianenko,

Alster Overeem, Big Nag, Kane Velasquez, and beaten a lot of others and is now the world champ of the UFC. It's hard to argue with that resume. I agree. So you're saying he's the best? Well, I don't know if he's the best, but I... Well, what are you agreeing with that?

I agree that there's a definite case to be made. like, okay, before Saturday, who was talking about Verdume being the best? This time last year, who was talking about Verdume being the best? Now, if you tell me that you believe Fabrice Radoum is the greatest heavyweight of all time, I can't argue. I don't know if I could go out and say it because who am I to say who's the best? But I think that there's a definite case we made. When I asked Dana White this question, he thought I was crazy.

Well, if beforehand it's crazy, you had to anticipate that there was a possibility he'd beat King Velasquez. So it can't go from crazy to now it's justifiable. This time last year, I wasn't certain. I mean, obviously, I thought of it, you know, this time last week. I think we were talking about this a little bit. But I'm just saying when, again, when Verdume fought Emilineenko in 2010, do you remember the talk going into that fight? It's like, yeah, this is just kind of a cupcake fight for Emilineco.

Anyone who says otherwise is forgetting what, you know, what we thought. of Verdum going to that fight. Remember, he had that kind of lackluster fight against Bigfoot Silva. And prior to that, he had the Mike Kyle fight. You know, it was just Mike Kyle. That was it. Those were two fights that he had after getting cut from the UFC. So he wasn't the Verdum that we see now.

But then, you know, of course he had the overring thing, which was just a bizarre performance. But then he goes into the UFC, and all of a sudden he starts knocking off guys like Nelson and Big Nog and Travis right. Now we start to think like, ooh, he's really putting it together. But prior to that, he was not in that discussion at all. Not even close.

Sure, but I think before Saturday. Yeah, before Saturday I thought of it, of course. I said it in the preview show. I said if he, I asked Dave Doyle that question, would he be considered the best? And I think he, if memory serves me correct, he agreed. And now, I mean, yeah, there's a definite case be made. Again, I don't know if I could like be the one to say that, but I think that if anyone go, I mean, just look at the resume. His only losses right now, so now he's 25 and 1, right?

20, five losses in one. Losses were to Overeem. JDS, of course, as we mentioned, the Arlowski fight at UFC 70, a unanimous decision, a Big Nog loss, unanimous decision, and early in his career, Sergey Jari Tanov, a split decision.

So only one actual finish. The rest decisions, and, you know, the wins, as of late, definitely outweigh those losses. Yeah. To me, the big story, you know, we can, that's kind of like a barbershop argument.

The big story is that this guy, I mean, how often does it happen where a guy gets cut from the UFC, leaves the organization, and works his way all the way back? I mean, that's an unbelievable thing, especially, especially at 37 years old. He's turning 38 next month. I think heavy weights have a longer shelf life, but also it doesn't happen. What you just said does not happen. This is a very rare case. But also comes back to what many consider, you know, there's still people who will consider

or fate are the best, but many considered before this point, Kane Velasquez to be the best, to be the greatest heavy weight of all the time, myself included. So it's one hell of a story for Verdu. And I just love his personality. He's just a fun guy to be around, and he's really come out of his shell, especially since he speaks English now.

He's just, man, his celebration videos are hilarious. His face, that face that he makes, the, what is that? Like, I can't even do it. I don't even, is it that? No. Is that it? Somebody please screenshot that. It's unbelievable.

Viakavalo is a character. I like characters. It's fun. The UFC currently has four champions that came from the acquisition of Strikeforce, Verdume, Cormier, Lawler, and Roussey, and number one contender in Rockold. Did you see this kind of impact when Strike Force was absorbed by the UFC? 100%.

Let's not forget who broke that news, my friends. I was there. I was there on the front lines. I used to talk about on this show prior to the New York-Rick era. You know, let's not forget, this show existed. prior to your introduction to it. Are you sure? Yes.

In fact, wait a second. Where's that thing? This actually, this show might be our six-year anniversary show. Get out of here. Let me see. How can I find this out? It's like, so hard to find anything about this show, episode one, because it wasn't called the MMA hour. I really don't think it existed before I came on.

Let me see, let me see. It was definitely June of 2009, but I'm pretty sure. Damn it. someone find it for me the exact date because you know my friends over at cage here they gave me that sign which of course someone either either stole or it broke who knows i think it's still i think we still got that one people probably go to the washroom on it i mean the lack of respect but anyway it's probably right now so i want to wish everyone a happy anniversary um did you see it coming come on yes uh yes i did i used to talk about how the champions of strike force could match up very well with the champions of

the uc which is something i've said isn't the case with belal these days. And they have some time. Let's give them that. But yeah, absolutely. Now, now, now, now. Did I foresee Verdoom and Robbie Lawler? No.

And by the way... Wait, wait. Are you about to say you forced our Kormier? Well, I mean, it was obvious. Yes. After I said it for many, many years. It wasn't a crazy thought. But if you would have told me Robbie Lawler,

who was losing to Lorenzo Larkin was going to be a UFC champion or Fabrice Verdome, who, you know, was just... I feel like by the time Verdum was coming out of strike force, we could see that. He was... Okay, well, that time, but not when he was starting his strike force run. No, no, no.

But this is the acquisition of strike force. Okay, well, I just want to say one thing. It's a little weird to include Ronda. People forget this. And how many times you have to repeat it? Ronda was not a old strike force acquisition. Sean Shelby signed Ronda Rousey. So to me, she's a Zufa fighter.

She's always been a Zufa fighter. I know it was in that promotion, but there's a bit of an asterisk there, if you get what I'm saying. And also Lawler and Verdume, you know, fought in the UFC before. Sure. Going to Strike Force.

So, I mean, it's murky, you know, what you consider a quote-unquote strike force fighter. But certainly, you know, they did stints there. And Jokere is another one. Gilbert Melendez, who still looks incredible. So, yeah, the top talent at Strike Force has definitely proven that they can hang. And if, you know, if anybody was unclear about that at this point. Bicky here tells me June 17, 2009. That sounds familiar.

Two more days, right? Something like that. Yeah, but this is the anniversary week. Also, who would have thought this time last year, just for the record, that some of the UFC champions would be this time last year, right? Robbie Lawler, Hafeld dos Santos, Fabrice Rueubert, Verduim, Daniel Korme is a light heavyweight. It's a crazy time in the UFC. T.J. Dilashaw, I know he just won around this time last year, but wow, things have changed. Our next question. How did you guys score, Melendez versus Alvarez?

And by the way, Ariel, the Nade Diaz interview at U.S. 188 was gold. Well, thank you. I love interviewing Nate Diaz. I've already weighed in on this. I thought he stole it in the second round, two rounds to one. What do you think? I had it the same way. I thought second and third went to Alvarez and first clearly went to Melendez. So I think a lot of people were in agreement there, but I don't think that there's not, you know, anybody who says Gilbert won that fight, I think there's a case to be made, but I scored it for Alvarez. Nate Diaz versus Anthony Pettis. After watching Saturday night's interview with Nate, both guys appear to want the fight. and it would be a fun match. Yes. Why is this fight not being announced today? Well, I mean, let's relax that first thing.

Well, I don't know if you saw my interview with Anthony Pettis. By the way, they did a great job of bringing these big-name fighters on Saturday. Excuse me, on Thursday. We did 14 interviews. It was very exciting. Pettis has a big thing on his elbow. He had elbow surgery, and he's going to be out until the end of this year as well. So it would be a little strange.

But as Nate Diaz told me, all of a sudden, he's got some, some options here, some big names. Now, do they actually come to fruition? Can they get him to agree to take these fights? Can they get past their problems? Who knows? But, I mean, Pettis, Diaz, sign me up. Alvarez Diaz, sign me up.

Diaz, anybody? Dias, sign me up. I mean, the guy, you talk about moving the needle. That's where that term originated. How could that have ever been a thing that he doesn't move the needle? But it makes no sense. It actually originated with him, remember?

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. How could he be the guy that you would say that about? Of all people. Yeah. It's unbelievable. But yeah, I'd watch Nate fight anybody. And Nick, for that matter, but this is about Nate. Are you surprised by Dana being so reluctant to give Kelvin another chance at making Walter Waite?

Do you agree with his decision? And do you expect he will stick to it? If Kelvin remains at middleweight, who would make sense for him next after his dominant victory? Well, Kelvin seems confident that he'll convince him eventually. I was a little surprised by how emphatic he was initially. But then, you know, I actually... think Dana deserves some credit here. You know, people are always quick to judge the UFC's like, oh, they give this guy a short notice fight, they don't care about the fighters. This is him actually

saying, I don't think it's healthy for this guy to fight at 170. I mean, why would he care? If it wasn't a health issue, why would he care if he fights at 170 or 185? Clearly, he can hang in the 170-pound division. So it's not like he's trying to stop him from growing as a fighter. He's actually going out there and saying, look, it's for his own good. And anyone who cares about this man should tell him the same. So, I mean, I think he should actually be commended for that. I do think Kelvin Gasolam will convince him eventually to go down to 170, but I have no problem with him doing it.

It's also in Dana's best interest, though, for him not to misweight, to continue to miss weight every single time. Of course, I mean, he's a businessman. You don't want Kelvin Gasolm to show up to his next fight, 10 pounds over on the verge of death, you know, like having to go to the hospital. Who the hell wants that on their hands? No, certainly not. Certainly not.

Well, I mean, it's a combination of things. I think he has to look out for his. own interest, but I mean, I do believe when he says, I don't want this guy to get shirt sick before the fight. He's also a blue-chip prospect. Let's not kill this guy. But I think, you know, just like with Sohudo, I think he's going to end up back at the lower weight class.

I agree. I thought they would do the same thing. I thought they would say, okay, one win, you could go back down. Same thing with Sehudo, right? But apparently he's got to do more. I mean, Leniker's sticking at 135, right? Well, he hasn't had that fight yet. But we assume...

I can see the same thing happening here where he tries. Yeah, I mean, what does it really mean at this point? We have to... The proofs in the pudding will kind of see. Yeah. It's kind of irrelevant right now. And Dana seems to believe that he had a little trouble making 185. And, I mean, he wasn't cut at 185.

Obviously, he should be a 170. Well, he looked at a hell of a lot healthier. That's for damn sure. Yeah. With the amount of gassing out being way too high, should the USC stop going to high altitude venues and places. Dana White alluded to how hard it was

for fighters to perform. Seven fighters puking after their fights. Without the high altitude, fighters perhaps could have had a better performance, notably the main event. Do you think the USC should avoid high altitude venues, especially when title fights are involved? Oh, hell no.

Are you crazy? Did you see that crowd? Did you see that arena? 21,000 plus people. I was in Montreal. I was in the half-empty arena. They broke their gate, said in November, they're going back to Mexico.

I mean, we know that they're going to Monterey in November, but they're definitely going back to Mexico City. I mean, they've been waiting a long time to do that one, and I mean, that's just something you have. We'll go to Denver. It's not the same kind of market, but they're not going to let the altitude ultimately sway them from not going there. Hell no.

It's a great market for them. They're really into MMA. Those fans love MMA, and they're very knowledgeable, too. It's very surprising. I shouldn't say surprising, but they even know who I am. And like when I go to Brazil, you know, it's not the same. It's not the same from, you know, when I'm in the U.S., but they're very, they eat this stuff up. In light of recent, oh, yes.

Miss Tess for Jose Aldo, does this imply Aldo may have had something to hide? What are your thoughts on the whole saga? Oh, man, I feel weird about this one. Let's recap it very briefly here. Nevada Athletic Commission showed up for an unannounced test last week. then he peed in the cup, Aldo did, but then the Brazil commission, which there are a ton of questions about, and these have been discussed at length in the past by great journalists like our own Guillermo Cruz, they kind of stepped in and said that this man, this sample collector, didn't have the proper paperwork to be working in Brazil,

and so they discarded the urine sample. And then he took one the next day, but, you know, that's not really an unannounced test anymore. You know, if I'm Joseo What I would have done was, hey, look, this man doesn't have the proper paperwork. Fine. Whatever the hell that means. But I'm going to pee in this cup. Clearly he works for Nevada Athletic Commission.

Who knows why they dropped the ball there. And I'm going to prove the world. Do whatever the hell you want with it. Go test me. I'll prove to you that I'm clean. But the fact that they discarded it leads to a whole bunch of questions. I didn't like that at all. And hopefully these kinds of things don't happen once the USADA deal kicks in.

But to me, that was not a good moment for Aldona's camp. Do you agree? Absolutely. I mean, there's nothing really to say there. Everybody kind of has a bad feeling about that for sure. The hell is that? Yeah. That was bad. I mean, all you had to say was, look, you might not have your paperwork. That's fine. We'll address that. We'll clean that up. We'll talk to Nevada. But, okay, you clearly are a guy who's brought here from Nevada. Okay, let's just do it. Show the world that I'm clean. And then we'll deal with this situation.

They discarded it? What is that? No good. By the way, by the way, speaking of no good, no pre-fight testing in Mexico, come on. Especially in a place where altitude is at play, that could lead to EPO usage, you know, to improve cardio.

What I was told was only fight night testing. You're in testing, not even blood testing, fight night. So that's a little disappointing, and hopefully that changes as well. First question from Twitter. if Kane never reclaimed heavyweight gold, should Kormier entertain the idea of fighting again at heavyweight?

What do you think? To be honest, you know, my opinion on Daniel Kormier's belt have been made very clear on the show. I think if he can go up to heavyweight, win that belt, while simultaneously holding the U.S.C.'s light heavyweight belt,

he could start to make claim to being the baddest dude on the planet. Even with John Jones, you know, still in the middle. mix. I think that is what it would take for me to kind of be like, well, now, now we've got a conversation here. What about this curveball? Houston, Texas, four hours or so from Lafayette, Louisiana, Louisiana, where he grew up. Daniel Cormier fights Alexander Gusterson first fight of the night, and then he fights for Doom in the main event. Old school. I think he'd win, too. You think he wins both? Cormi is a bad boy. He's a tough SOB. That would be something. Ultimately, I don't think he stands in the way of Kane.

I think he expects Kane to have to fight one more fight, you know, one fight, you know, as non-champion and then get right back in there. I don't think he stands in his way. That's what's so great about heavyweight, though, is that Kane's like two fights away. Yeah. Every heavyweight is two fights away.

As he should be. I'm curious to see how quickly he returns. I think that's really interesting. Shouldn't more corner stop fights like Marquart's did Saturday night and Nate the Great has to be done now, right? Okay. I love these questions today. They're all the topics that I wanted to address here.

Well, I mean, they've been curated by a fine hand. Very well done. Trevor Whitman deserves an immense amount of credit. You know, we come on these shows, we talk, we complain, we bellyache when things like the Mark Hunt situation happens. And then we don't give enough credit to people like Trevor Whitman when he steps in there and says, no mas. Now, the way I saw it, and I know you were watching on television, the way I saw it was Nate first said I'm done. And then Trevor was like, all right, we're done, we're done. What did you see?

I didn't hear him say I'm done. Okay. I did see him be very non-responsive. It reminded me a little bit of BJ on the stool where they're trying to talk to him and he's just in his own world not saying anything, kind of just not there for the fight. So, you know, all credit due to Trevor Whitman, he pulled the plug real quick and made it clear that this is not going to continue.

So kudos. And I saw Trevor at the hotel and he was with his other coach whose name escapes me right now and I apologize for that. And they told me, get this, They told me that they tried to stop the fight in the middle of the fight, in the middle of that round. And the corner people were telling them to sit down because they were blocking the people's view. They were getting up on the like the capric. Yeah, whatever you want to call it.

And they were trying, they didn't have a towel or anything, whether they were trying to get the ref's attention. And they were being yelled at to sit down. Can you imagine that the commission people, whoever they were actually telling the corner people to sit down because they were blocking the view? They were trying to save their fighter. They were trying to help them out. Well, that's a problem. That's a big problem. I didn't know that.

Yeah, so they told me. So throwing in the towel is a figurative thing now. You don't actually have a towel. So what's the system in place to call the fight off from a corner in the middle of the fight? There needs to be a correction made there because that would have been a case where they should have stopped it. And it seems like they were trying to. So that's an interesting thing and needs to be addressed. Crazy. I was shocked.

I honestly can't believe that that's true. Yeah, and I do believe because he told me. No, that's not what I meant. Yes, I know, I know. But I will also add that he deserves even more credit. I mean, this is a guy who saw in the middle of that fight that Mark Hart was in trouble. And if you're asking me, given recent performances, and you know, I'm not going to go campaign for this, but if you ask me, do I want to see Nate fight again?

No. The flyweight champion DJ wants to fight anyone who should be the next. Is it, is it, is it? It has to be Dodson. It has to be Dodson. Sohudo, his team, everyone will tell you, this win and the way he won was a blessing in the disguise because now it slows down the talk. It wasn't time. It would be rushing it. He needs to get more popular, more fine, more experience. The guy gets it. He's a tremendous, a tremendous talent. He's

obviously an Olympic gold medalist. He's got a great personality, a great interview. He gets the showman part of it all. He comes out to the Olympic music. He comes out in that great Aztec gear. And the guy gets it and the flyweight division needs him. But this is not the time for him. And he admits that. Go with the Dotson fight. Strike while it's hot. No one cares about the last fight. At the end of the day, he won, we've seen worse things happen. That's the fight to make. I agree. Dodson. Last two real quick. Ariel, would you give LeBron the MVP even if Golden State wins? Oh, snap. No, because at the end of the day, you need to win the damn thing. All right, we're not here for second place. It's not unprecedented. It's not, but I feel like LeBron, who, by the way, has become very

vocal about his greatness. Yesterday's saying that he is the greatest player in the world, and that's why, you know, he's confident going into game six, which is fine. He never, he always kind of beat around the bush there. I like it. I'm not taking anything away from him. But I think he's the kind of guy who would say, come on, I'm not going to get MVP. My team lost. Ultimately, it should go to the winning team. And by the way, I like to throw my name in the hat for Iggy. I think Iggy's defense has been a big factor. You disagree? Not, not when you're bricking those fritos like he's doing. Whatever. You can't. I think, you can't. I think, you know, we have to consider the source here and you're getting ready to lick your wounds. But, you know, I would give it.

to Steph? Probably, no, not really. I mean, there's almost nobody on Golden State who deserves it after these four games, five games, but somebody will shine out. Iggy. What was your favorite moment? Oh, from our friend Andrew Mayer. But you know what?

He needs to go back to the far as Gump of MMA as a Twitter handle. I actually told him to get rid of it. Bad move. Really? You don't like the branding. You're the one who was shouting it out and hyping it up, and then you tell him to go bad move. Okay.

Ariel, what was your favorite? moment of the entire UFC weekend, not the actual paper review, but any before or after moments. Well, Forrest Gump of M.M.A. Andrew Mayer, this guy has become synonymous with M.A. events. He was actually in Mexico. I don't know how he finds the time or the money to travel to all these events, but he was there front and center. He's actually become a very important part of Team A.K.A. I would say that there's so many that come to mind. It was great to be there. I really enjoy my time over there. Look at his Twitter. At M.A.Y.E.R. of Andrew. that's his Twitter handle.

I shot a picture for him. I took a picture Saturday night after the fight of him and the scrap pack is a legendary photo. He's in the middle, big grin on his face, got Gilbert Melendez, Jake Shields, Nate Diaz. The only one that was missing was Nick, of course.

But this is legendary. This is blow up, put it on your office wall, whatever. That to me was the highlight of this trip. That's your moment? That's my moment. To be the one... Taking a picture? To be the one who took that picture

was a real honor for me. Other ones that come to mind, it was cool with the people, that little spot on FX. Yeah, you know, being on TV. Yeah, yeah, that was cool. Oh, the Octagon side, I mean, doing those interviews

was super cool for Fox Sports Live. Thursday, we got some great stuff. What else? I feel like I'm missing something. It's a little annoying to brush your teeth with bottled water, I'll admit that. I also shower with the bottled water,

so I just go on my head. Yeah. That's a little annoying. I didn't go to Lucha Libre. Some of the other guys went. The food is good, had some nice tacos and whatnot. It's a good time.

I highly recommend it. I feel like I'm missing something, but yeah, it's a good time. That's it. We packed a lot in here. I did pack a lot. I think Devin will be pleased on this one. Much love. Tell us more about the Descalba thing.

A few more things before we go. New York is coming down to the wire, my friends, by tomorrow. We'll know if it's going down in 2015. That's when the calendar session ends. So, I mean, it's got to happen. If MSG is going down, it's got to happen in the next. next 24 hours or so. Please, New York, listen up.

We need MMA here. Stop with this nonsense. MSG, Rockhold, Wiedman. Let's get it done. All right? 24 hours. Let's see. We didn't talk about him a lot, but Yeir Rodriguez.

Congratulations to him on a fantastic performance. Also, Izzy style, Izzy Martinez, his wrestling coach, very high on him. And he was the one telling me that this is a real star in the making. The guy had less than $400 to his name. $400 to his name going into that fight. He walks away. He walks away with a $50,000 bonus. Could you imagine? Unbelievable.

Also, big props to Ephraian Escadero for his big win, those two submissions. Patrick Williams and Escadero back to back in less than a minute. That was a lot of fun. UFC announcing that they are going to Saskatchewan, August 23rd, a Sunday show, Fox Sports 1. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

First UFC event for them. They have been waiting a long time for it over there. over there. And the main event, as announced by the UFC, actually our good friend Dave Dibert announced it first. It's Max Hallway versus Charles Olivera, Saskatoon, August 23rd. And I wanted to just mention quickly one of the things, you know, Cahal Pendred, I know he got a lot of heat, respect the fact that he really was very honest about his performance, almost in tears, to be honest when we spoke to him afterwards, very honest about, you know, this is not the kind of performance that he wanted. Yes, he's 4 and 0.

but received a lot of heat. And you have to feel for a guy who left, you know, 40 days or so, six weeks early and tells us on Twitter that, you know, he essentially broke even. That's the big thing about going early. You're essentially breaking even. You're not making it. It's expensive to do that and fly out training partners.

And then, you know, you get the win, but you get booed and a lot of criticism. And people are really mean online. People suck sometimes. They could be great. They could be amazing. They could be uplifting. There's nothing better than getting positive feedback online. but they can also suck.

And I guess the key is not getting too high, not getting too low, right? Anyhow, I just wanted to shout him out. Congratulations on his win. Thank you very much to NOS, NOS Energy. Check them out on Twitter at Noss Energy. Appreciate the support as always. And that's it. We're done.

You can hit my music. Another jam-pack show. Ten guests this time. So another busy weekend coming up in the world of mixed martial arts. as we've talked about all show long beltor's back on Friday beltor 138

Kimbo versus shamrock and we ran out of time I didn't do inside the vault it was going to be my post-fight interview with Jared Shaw Scala we'll save that one for a different day maybe next week who knows tober 4th 2008 that was a classic

anyway Beltor is back check it out on Friday 1FC is also back on Friday and then UFC Berlin young J-Chek versus Penet straw white title looking forward to that a Saturday afternoon show here in the United States I want to thank everyone who stopped by today want to thank everyone who tuned in thank you very much to the great Mark Romundi turned his back on New York now living large in Los Angeles

thank you very much to Alastair Overe for staying up appreciate his time thank you very much to Scott Coker go warriors thank you very much to Jessica Aguilar congratulations on signing with UFC good luck to her thank you very much to Noad Lahat appreciate his time good luck on Saturday. Thank you very much to Liot Machita. Good luck to him on June 27th. Again, thank you very much to Yohana Yon Jacek. Good luck to her on Saturday. Really appreciate Eddie Alvarez's time

and congratulations to him on picking up his very first win inside the Octagon. And again, congratulations to both Lex McBan, Jeff Aronson and the rest of the Titan team on their new deal with UFC Fight Pass. Back next week, same time in place. Appreciate your time as always. If you missed anything, iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, all that good stuff.

Until next week, I say peace. Somebody. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.

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