MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 413

Episode Date: December 12, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Marlon Moraes (00:05:40), Frankie Edgar (00:17:47), Nicco Montaño (00:29:56), Alexander Gustafsson (00:54:56), Eddie Alvarez (01:10:38), Daniel Cormier (01:31:18), Diego Sanchez & Isaac Marquez (01:56:06), Chris Wade (02:16:09) in studio, Brian Ortega (03:06:32), John Danaher (03:29:55), Frank Trigg (03:57:38), and NewYorkRic for The MMA [After] Hour featuring Ric's Picks (04:41:53), and the answers to your questions (05:14:33). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, December 11, 2017. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a lovely weekend. Somewhat of a terrifying way to start the day, to start the week. you probably heard earlier this morning there was a failed terrorist attack at the Port Authority subway station

which is around oh I don't know how many miles from here just a couple of miles away in fact it is the subway station that I go through that I take to get to this studio and from the press conference

that occurred around two hours ago it's the exact corridor that I walk to get to my one two or three trains so just bone chilling stuff terrifying stuff Thank God. No one was seriously injured. Apparently a few minor injuries, but this could have been a catastrophe here in New York City. I've talked to my wife about this several times. I'm always shocked that nothing has happened yet as far as terrorist attacks on the subway in the subway stations of New York City.

We've seen it all over the place, but there's not a lot of security, and this appeared to be a nightmare that became a reality. thank God it was a failed attempt. It didn't go as planned. But just a scary way to start the week. So that's the way we start here in New York City. As far as the world of MMA is concerned, it has been a very busy week in the world of MMA since we last spoke. So much has happened since our last show last Monday. It felt like every organization under the sun had an event this past weekend from the world of MMA kickboxing and boxing, big boxing event in New York City as well, on Saturday on ESPN. As far as the news is concerned, really, in my opinion, three to four major pieces of news happened since we last spoke.

The big one, of course, George St. Pierre is no longer the UFC middleweight champion. He decided to vacate the title late last week. As a result, Robert Whitaker is now the undisputed UFC 185-pound champion, and he'll be defending that title on February 10th in Perth, Western O'Dierkechard Australia against Luke Rockhold. He is now the official champion. And I have a lot of thoughts about this story. I have a lot of thoughts on how GSP game the system, how the UFC knew he was going to game the system, and how they let him game the system, and how that is the perfect summation of where we are in 2017, in this new era, the WMEIMG era, how this kind of stuff

is okay. Title lineage be damned, rankings be damned, sport be damned. What's the best thing that we could do on a given night? And yeah, we shouldn't be all that surprised.

The fact that he gave up the title as quickly as he did, yes, battling colitis, yes, he is sick. And I don't think anyone really begrudge him for doing it when he did it,

but it really is the greatest indication that he had no intention of, you know, defending that title. And instead of dilly-dallying, he said, look, I'm not going to try to even beat this illness, you can have the belt now. Maybe that expedited things. We'll talk more about that

and what it means for the division and really the sport, because I really think that it's very symbolic of where we are right now in MMA. So that's one of the big stories. The other big story, Steve Miochich and Francis and Ganu are going to fight on January 20th in Boston for the heavyweight title. That was officially announced. McKenzie Dern won her invicta debut. That happened on Friday, probably her most impressive performance yet. And in the main event of UFC, on Saturday, Brian Ortega submitted Cub Swanson via guillotine. Fantastic performance. He remains undefeated.

And now there's a new force to be reckoned with at 1.45. So we'll talk about all that and more throughout the show with various guests. Get your questions on the back end. Let me run down today's lineup. And then we'll get to our first guest of the day who had a fantastic performance in his own right on Saturday in Fresno. 440. We'll talk to Frank Trigg, who made his

UFC reffing debut on Saturday. What a nice surprise that was. We'll talk to him about that. At 420, we'll talk to John Danaher, the BJ coach for one, George St. Pierre, about GSP vacating the title. The aforementioned Brian Ortega will join us at 4 p.m. talk about the win over Swanson. 305, Chris Wade, one of the great lightweight prospects in the UFC will join us in studio. Looking forward to having him in studio. Diego Sanchez and Isaac Marquez will join us at 245.

If you don't know about their story, prepare to be amazed. 225, Daniel Corme will stop by, talk about UFC 220 and Volkan Ozedimir. 205 Eddie Alvarez will be on the program. 145, we'll check in with Alexander Gustafson. It's been a while since we've talked to him. 125, the new UFC women's flyway champion. Nico Montanio will stop by, talk about being champion, what the past week in her life was like.

And at 115, we'll talk to Frankie Edgar, who had a fantastic performance. Excuse me, Frankie Edgar didn't have a fantastic performance. His team had a fantastic weekend. They have been on a role as of late, whether it's Eddie Alvarez. He's about to get a title shot, it seems. and of course the great Marlon Marais

with a vicious knockout of one Al Jermaine Sterling on Saturday and that's where we begin so let's go to the Skype machine and say hello to the Magic Man himself Marlon Maris joining us right now via the magic of Skype. Marlon, how are you? Very good man, very good, very happy. Yeah.

And pleasure to be here one more time with you, you know. The pleasure is ours. Congratulations. Would you say, Marlon, that that was the most vicious knockout of your career? You've had great knockouts, you've had great finishes, but that one seemed to be on a whole different level. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, man, that one was scary even for me, you know? That was one of the, I think, was my biggest knockout in my whole career. Was it hard to enjoy the knockout? Because it seemed, as you just said, it was scary. And it seemed like even when they were talking to you after the fact, Paul Felder, it seemed like your attention was on Al Jermaine. I thought the UFC did a very poor job of not giving us an update on Al Jermaine, not even forget about showing him on camera, getting carted off,

just telling us how he's feeling. You were very compassionate. You seemed worried. Was it hard to enjoy the victory because he was out on the mat for quite some time? Yeah, first of all, we always want to promote. We want to talk about, you know, the performance, how good we are, how good is our team. Thanks, everybody.

But when something like that happened, you know, we forget about anything else. you just worry about another human being right there with you. You know, the guy that shared the same passion as you, the guy that fights, you know, and we know his team and everything. And I felt like shocked, you know, I didn't know what to say. I was just worried about him and it was kind of hard, man, to enjoy. Did you backstage try to find him, get an update, try to speak to him at all? I could not find him.

the hospital, but I saw him the next day, you know, we hug each other, you know, we are, we are training, we train, we, we have the same career, you know, I can't, I can't hate the guy, you know, he never done anything against me. He just want, he just won the same thing I want, he want to be a champion, and I want to be a champion, and we cross paths, you know, but now we move forward, he keeps his career, I keep mine, you know. And like you said, man, about the UFC. I don't want to judge the UFC, but it's kind of hard, man, what to

do, you know? Man, that wasn't easy to see, man. That wasn't something that people want to see home, man. He wasn't okay, you know. Sure. People right there, my coaches, my coaches don't want to look at him, you know. That was a little bit scary, man.

And I really understand at the UFC point in not showing him. and like I think they want to make sure he was right first that that was a nice and my family don't want to see me like that you know if I was on his spot I didn't want people to see me I want to keep my keep like on a side you know I don't know I think I think they did right but Marlon you know that this is a reality of the sport and it's a very dangerous and violent sport and in the NFL when someone gets hurt and seriously injured like we saw last week in the NFL we get an update on how he's feeling I'm not saying play put a camera on the guy, but at least tell the audience. They didn't even tell us that he was carted out. They didn't tell us that he was walking. They didn't tell us that he went to the hospital. We got no update.

He was swept under the rug and there was a pay-per-view commercial that aired. So all I'm saying is I don't need to glorify it. But as a viewer, I'm worried about him. And I see the look on your face. You seem worried about him. It's nice to get some kind of update on how he's feeling. Just something, some acknowledgement that we actually care about the health and safety of these fighters. Yeah, man.

but something like that's hard to predict, you know, we don't know. That's going to happen. And I think they got caught, you know. They didn't know what to do, you know. I'm not saying they were right. I'm not saying they were wrong. I'm just saying they were not ready for. Sure.

I don't know about not ready just because we've seen bad knockouts in the UFC before. I just wanted an update. That's all. And they certainly have a lot of time to update us. I've been in one time, Maybe 10 years ago I was in Brazil and something like that happened to add some barboz opponent. That was a head kick, but man, the guy didn't come back like for half hour, like crazy, you know? Right.

And, man, it's scary. And I think this one was in the same level or maybe worse, you know. I never see anything like that in my life. I started fight. I was nine years old. I've been in a lot of kickboxing tournaments. MMA, but man, that was very scary. Does it make you feel weird?

Like, does it, I don't know, does it turn you off a little bit? I mean, this could happen to anyone, right? It could happen to you, could happen to the next guy, could happen to a teammate. Does it make you feel a little uncomfortable? I felt uncomfortable, but like you just said, man, when we walk through a cage, that's a cage fighting, you know. You want to do that to me. He want to knock me out. Yeah.

So I got to be first. I got to do it, do it, you know. I understand. It is a reality of the sport And that's why I say I think the UFC should be ready For something like that At least to give an update

But alas I digress I'm curious about the finish Because you were very honest about the finish You said that you were actually trying to kick him But you landed the knee So in your opinion how did that happen Did you just catch them early Or did you adjust in midair

Explain how that happened Man That kick It turns into a knee Because guys The wrestlers They shoot a lower level And they go through

your knee. And I catch some guys with that kick before training. And Ricardo always tell me, man, you got to watch the Kanoi going to fight with half. He catch half with that kick, you know. And Ricardo always tell me and like, man, it's hard to do, you know, like, throw the knee. And he like, man, you just got to land the kick. You don't have to throw a knee. You just kick, you know. If you kick, he might run through your knee, you know, not saying he's sad for this fight. But We work it, you know. I done before and it wasn't luck. It's training.

Yeah. It's hard work, you know, and I catch him. Do you feel like now the UFC career starts, the debut I know was frustrating. Some people even thought you won. It was a close fight against half-Fa-Sung-South. The next fight was close. But now this is a phenomenal finish against a very highly regarded opponent, top-ranked opponent. Now do you feel like, okay, now everyone's looking at me.

Now I can go on my run in the UFC? Not just because the finish, you know, because of everything, all the fight week, how I felt, how I walk through the cage, how I start the fight, you know, dictating my pace, showing my speed, my power, my wrestling, my jiu-jitsu. And in just a minute, I was able to show a lot of things, you know, and I have so much more to show and that the power and that I finish him, the kick, I land, and, you know, it's everything, you know. I have everything. I just have to live in there. and from now, you know, I think, I think I feel like I'm ready, you know. I think now I can definitely perform right in the UFC and do what I know. Did it take some time, like, looking back, do you feel like maybe you were a little nervous?

We hear about octagon jitters, things like that. Do you feel like that was the case in the debut a few months back? No, I was way more nervous than this fight than my debut, you know? Really? Why? We need that, you know, we need to, you can walk in there like so really. and feeling like you're going in for a date. You're not going for a date. You're going for a fight, you know.

This guy's going to try to kill me, you know. And you got to be on, you know. Like Eddie said, I have to face my fears to show how tough I am. You know, I have a kid, you know, I have to prove to my son how tough I am. And I have these guys, you know, Eddie, Frankie, I look up to these guys and I want to be like then. And when I walk in there, I want to be me, but I want to have a little bit of these guys. you know and I'm very thankful and blessed to have such a warriors in my life you know I was blown away by your post-fight interview after your last win it's one thing to call an opponent out

but you were pleading to get Jimmy Rivera you were saying please I mean you the the the tone of your voice you really wanted to fight this guy it's not happening now it could happen in the future but why why were you so um like you you're so hyped about fighting him the possibility of fighting him why did you want that fight so much what is it about Jimmy Rivera that got you so worked up? It's about Jim Rivera, but man, it's about this thing about UFC now, man. These guys like picking opponents and saying like, oh, I'm about to fight for the title, you know, I want to fight this guy because if I beat this guy, I'm there for the title or I am the guy for the title.

Man, just fight everybody, you know? Don't, man, you just don't give a fuck, you know, go there and fight whatever you want, you know? Keep winning. If you keep winning, you're going to get your chance. chance. And Jim, that's him, that's a guy that was, I was offered to him before. I'm just a man, you know, man, just go there and fight me, you know. You got to fight. You have to, you know, and he doesn't have opponent. And I said, man, that's me, you know, that's my chance, that's my time. And that's the reason, you know, I feel like guys keep picking opponents. And I'm not going to be

that guy. I'm going to fight everybody. And hopefully I can fight the winner, Jim Rivera. and John Lineker. Is that what you won next? Do you want the winner of that fight? Yeah, I want to win. I want to fight one of them. Man, I really just want to keep fighting. I want to fight somebody ahead of me.

I think that fight is going to be a very entertaining fight, and I want to take the winner. Who do you think wins? I think if they stand in Brawl, Linearer, if Jim Rivera's marked and dictate his pace, mix it up, he's going to win. I think Jim Rivera got edge, but he got to be smart on a feat

to not get hit because Lennox got the power Lennox can finish him. Okay. By the way, I mentioned this at the top. Your team, the Ricardo Almeda slash Mark Henry team, you guys are on a roll as of late. What you did on Saturday, what Eddie Alvarez did, Zabit is killing it thus far. We're expecting Frankie to get a title shot.

What's the mood like with the team these days? Why are things clicking the way they are? man we work hard you know we help each other and we just want to see each other succeed you know and i was very happy for eddie performers i was very happy for timur performance at the pro fight league i was very happy man with all of these guys i was happy for cordi cori was doing good against some prue you know it was a tough fight the big guy you know and our team work hard man we train hard we don't bullshit we don't talk shit we go out there and we do shit, you know, and that's it.

I like it. I like it. Congratulations, Marlon. Good to talk to you. All the best to you. And I hope that you get that fight that you want, the winner of Jimmy Rivera and John Lineker. That's a great fight. Thank you so much, man.

I want to thank all my team, Mark, Henry, Ricardo, Walmeid, I Anderson, Frankie, and you guys are the best. You know, Ali Abdallahis all week helping me out, cut weight, holding pads. Man, this guy's not a man. You know, this guy is a training partner, and I'm very happy and blessed to have a guy like that, you know. Thank you, Ariel, and you guys are best, man. All the best.

We'll talk to you soon, Marlon. Thank you. There he is. Marlon Marais, one of the top contenders in the 135-pound division. Someone who was in his corner on Saturday flew out the Fresno to be there. He's been a part of his career for quite some time is the answer. Frankie Edgar, he's kind enough to be joining us on the phone right now. Frankie, how are you?

I'm good, Ariel. How you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes here. So you were in the corner. You witnessed that knockout. How scary did it look, Cajside? Well, it was scary.

You know, I'm friendly with Alvin Me and obviously close with Matt and Ray. So, you know, you want to cheer for your teammate. You know, Marlon's a very good friend of mine. And as soon as that knockout happened, I didn't look right. So I didn't celebrate like I wanted to. And, you know, he was down for a while. And it was scary. He really was.

Do you feel now, I just asked Marlon this, but as someone who's been a part of his career for quite some time, you've cornered him countless times. Do you feel like now we're seeing the real Marlin? Because the first two fights, you know, drop the close decision, second fight, also a close decision. But now we can finally like, okay, this is when it really begins for him in the UFC? Yeah, I agree, yeah.

I mean, I think people are seeing it. And I've seen that a long time ago, but now that the world's seeing it. You know, he showed some, you know, great skills and great fights at WSOF and, you know, in his first two fights. I mean, he's fighting good guys run out the game. as he should, because I think he's one of the best in the world. And he's just got to get his feet wet, and here he goes. He's, you know, dominating Alshmaine, who's a very, very good fighter.

You really love this guy. You went from a vacation in Disney World to go to Fresno to corner him. You left your family to do that? That's amazing. I did, yeah, man. You know, that's what we do. We got to tell his back. You know, I know he would do the same.

And he asked me, and I left my family at Disney and flew to California. So, yeah, it wasn't easy, but, you know, that's what we do for each other. And then did you go back to Disney or are you back home in Jersey? No, I'm back home. They didn't stay that long. I'd be broke if they did. What about those lines, huh? You wait in line for two hours to go on a ride.

Is it really worth it? Dude, I'll tell you what. The Avatar ride was worth it. It was worth it, man. And my wife said a drill sergeant, so she got us up early. We went to the park. We raced to the line. We only waited an hour, which was like, here is unheard of.

So it was totally worth it. next time you need to talk to Daniel Cormier. Daniel Cormier has the VIP passes. He never has to wait. He goes like every week to Disney World. So next time you go there, speak to the champ, all right? All right, after you got the end, I guess I got to hit him up. Exactly.

He's got the fox in. All right, so let's talk about you. I got a little bone to take with you. Oh, okay. What's the survey on who should Max fight, Holloway Ortega? You heard, Frank, you're Ortega, you heard Dana White say on the number one contender. even if Rattagas said it. Why we started five area?

No, I'm not stirring the pot. I just wanted to know what the people wanted. I'm a man of the people. I was just, I think you just... What do you want? What do you want? 100%. I would say it to Brian. 100%.

I was devastated. When you got injured, I said that was the fight I was most looking forward to this year. I'm just trying to get a sense for... You know, the people have recency bias, so they get excited about a guy. I wanted to see if it was actually coming into play here. But unequivocally, on the record, 100%, you deserve that.

I have been championing your cause for years now. You're going to turn on me, Frankie? You didn't even want to come on the show, for God's sakes. I had to text you a million times. What happened to us, Frankie? Yeah, you know, that's what I'm wondering, man. You know, I happened to look on Twitter before I got in this interview. I was like, damn, what's up, Ariel?

But I hear a situation. Okay, all right, fair enough. So how are you feeling? How is the eye? I can't even get a text back. I don't even know how you're feeling. I don't even know what happened. No, I'm good, man.

I'm good now. I was pretty bummed, you know, obviously. that title fight would meant a lot to me. But I'm healthy now, and we're just waiting to book. You hear from Dana and when we're going to book this fight. I saw a picture. You were actually talking to Dana backstage, right? Yes, I was, yep.

Did you ask him why he seemed to openly question how you broke your orbital bone in training? He said this to reporters. How does this happen? How do you break your orbital bone in training? Did you ask him why he was questioning your toughness? No, I think he was questioned my toughness. I think he meant more like I shouldn't be.

getting hit like that, hit like that so I could get a broken face. You know what I mean? I think that's what he was getting at. That's what he kind of conveyed to us at least. Did you ask him about that? Yeah, I mean, you know, he asked me what happened.

You know, what happened? I said, hey, man, it's just, you know, I'm preparing for a guy that punches and kicks. You know, it's hard not to get punched and kicked when you prepare for that. Okay, and then what did he say? He did tell you that you are the next guy, right? No matter what happened with Ortega, you're the next guy.

Yeah, we're just figuring out. Yeah, it's just after the fight. I saw him after this weekend's fight, and he said, yeah, we're just figuring, waiting to see what's next. I think March or April sounds good, so one of those days I imagine we'll set it up. When will you be cleared to just resume normal training again?

I'm going this Friday to get my face scan, so I should know then. I feel pretty good, though. I mean, I'm working out, just not getting punched or really grappled super heavy. Have you ever broken that bone in your face? I have my very first fight First M&A fight

I broke my face In my other side Yeah on the other side Was that underground combat league Yes yes it was It's kind of the same thing You know just after the fight I felt fine and I went to blow my nose

And you know shit blew up This time I kind of my face felt numb I blew my nose a little bit And my face filled up with air So I kind of knew right away Was it a knee a punch and elbow I was after sparring man I spar pretty hard it was like five rounds

nothing you know crazy I think it might have been a ducked into a kick it could have been that but you know nothing nothing nothing clapped me or anything like that you know I was worried for you this is how much I care about you Frankie

I was watching that fight between Max Hollow and Jose Aldo and I was so worried for you because if Aldo won I feel like you'd be in purgatory again because you had the two fights against him so I was like oh man this is so great for Frankie Max wins, he gets that fight again. Were you nervous watching the fight? Were you nervous about the idea of, you know,

Aldo potentially winning and then you're back stuck in that position? Yeah, I was, you know. Definitely can't count Albo out. I mean, he's one of the best to do it. But I did feel that Holloway just... I just feel Holloway had his number, man. He came out strongly. He did in the last fight, first round.

First round, you could say Alba won, you know, both fights. Second, you can see. Holloway getting his feel and then third round just poured on. I just feel like, you know, Albaugh can keep up to pace. Are you as impressed with Holloway as everyone else seems to be 12 in a row? He's just 26, just turned 26 to beat, you know, Aldo twice. You know how hard it is against Aldo. You know, someone like yourself has been around the game.

How would you describe Max Holloway? Are you as impressed as we all seem to be? I am for sure. You know, I'm not one to, you know, rag on anybody just coming about to fight him or I want to fight him. I think he's all there. He's cracked up to be. the fact that he's so young and you keep getting better every fight

it's scary almost but that also motivates me you know I mean I still feel like I'm at top my game you know Max is the future but I'm still here I'm the president and I know I want to get this title shot and you know get what's mine and become a two-way champion

and that's just my goal since I came down to 45 in your opinion can you say like do you do you see past the victory do you see openings do you see holes in his game right now when you watch him yeah I mean I do because I think I match up well. You know, I'm not just a guy that's going to stand up and throw away you.

I'm going to mix it up. I'm going to, you know, keep you guessing. And I feel, you know, wherever it goes, I have adequate skills to handle myself. So, you know, as far as pace and all that stuff, you know, he brings a very good pace. And, you know, so do I. So I think it should make sure a great fight, and I know I can compete. I don't think it's going to happen in March or April. But what about this idea of you fighting him in Hawaii?

Would you be down with that? Oh, for sure. for sure you know uh i know my family and friends wouldn't mind it either um i got again i don't know how realistic that is but yeah i would i you know i definitely want to fight sooner than later so uh you know if uh if march is is Vegas or wherever may be that's what i would be done for but yeah i would definitely fight in hawai is that the one that they're talking about the the march third one i think it is in Vegas that's just me looking ahead you know okay so i know i know that's it i know that's in vajer just me looking ahead but yeah um march where you're

April. Okay. By the way, what did you think? Did you watch the Ortega fight? And if so, what do you think of Artega? Yeah, I think he's tough too, man. I mean, these young guns are great. You know, they're good fighters. They're finishers. I mean, you know, he's a big tall guy. I think, you know, he's doing well with Cubs standing up. And, you know, he's very opportunistic, too. He leaves a submission open. He's going to jump on it.

But you think he's not quite ready for title shots, right? Do you feel like he needs to do a little more to earn that? I don't care what he's about his way to a title I just know he's not in front of me that's all you know I mean you know he's got a good following he's finishing guys yeah he might be ready but as long as it's after me that that's what I care about

you're no stranger to these positions were you a little nervous after the wind did you think that they might get a little excited and pass you over again I didn't you know just from kind of hearing you know talks I guess I wasn't too too concerned but you're right you never know man I mean on performance like that anything happens

but, you know, I'll be honest to him saying, you know, he thinks I should get it. I think help my case as well, so I got to have some respect for a Tegger for that. Pretty damn cool that he said that outright, I thought. He did not want to, you know, skip, you know, jump over you and skip the line.

I thought that that was, for a young guy to say that, I thought that that was pretty darn cool, but less we forget what happened against Chad Mendez and then the next night with the Conor fight, so I know I don't need to remind you of all that. Are we cool, Frankie? I feel like things aren't cool anymore. I feel horrible about this. No, no, we're cool, man

Should I take down the poll? Do you think I should take it down? Don't even put it out there? Listen, if I'm not, if I don't win the poll, don't post the results, that's all. I feel, I got the Jewish guilty conscious. It's just killing me right now. I feel so bad. You've been so nice to me.

Why? You got to cheer out tomorrow's Hanukkah, right? Wow, how did you know that? I'm impressed. Come on, man. Come on, man. I live in Jersey, Beau. I have a lot of Jewish friends.

Do you do it? Do you do the Hanuket? You guys light the candles all that? No, I don't know. But I know my friends I do. Yes. Right. Well, you know, I play Christmas songs. It's okay. We could all be one. You know, the holiday season. And by the way, just to let you know, Frankie, you are winning right now, 66% to 34%. So that was just me telling the UFC, look, don't try any funny business this time. The people have spoken. They want the answer, all right? They're searching for a question. They got the answer. How me build my case. That's it. build my case. I appreciate it. The case has been

built. Case closed. Thank you so much, Frankie. I appreciate you doing this. Thanks for coming on. And I'm glad to hear that you're feeling better and hopefully you get that title shot in March. Ariel, thanks, man. It was a pleasure, brother. All right, there he is. Frankie Edgar stopping by. It made me nervous there for a second, but we're all good. I can't

live in a world where Frankie Edgar is mad at me. I was just trying to let the people know that, yeah, Ortega's great and he may be one fight away. I'd like to see him fight one more time. But Edgar deserves that shot. Remember after the injury, I was devastated. Absolutely devastated. That's the fight I wanted to see. I couldn't even enjoy Max versus Aldo, also bummed that we weren't getting Edgar

versus Holloway. So that's that. All as well, that ends well. All right. Let us move along. The big news last weekend, as you may recall, the UFC crowning its first ever women's flyway champion. It has been a little over a week since she has been champion of the UFC's 125 pound division. Her name is Nico Montanio. Everyone is gunning for her. You heard from Valentina Shevchenko. You heard from people on Twitter saying they wanted to fight her next. Well, let's talk to the brand new champion. She joins us for the first time on the phone. Nico, how are you? I'm good, Ariel. How are you? I'm doing great. Congratulations on an amazing win, on a great achievement. So let me ask you nine days later or so, or maybe it's 10 days later, has it sunk in?

Does it really feel real? You're the UFC's first ever women's flyway champion? it's kind of forcing itself I like to say grounded and rooted for sure but I'm definitely getting noticed as the first ever UFC flyweight champion

so yeah as the days go on it starts to sink in more and more not only the first ever UFC women's flyweight champion the first ever Native American champion in UFC's history and I understand there was some kind of parade back home for you, some kind of big gathering resorts? What did your community throw for you when you came home with the belt? Yeah, they gave me basically a surprise parade. And in our community in Luka Chuka, it's like population 400, but everybody's super scattered.

So to see a whole bunch of people get together for me, it was great to see the support. And I said a few words. And there were some people even from Canada, Oklahoma, made it out. So it was a quick, yeah. It was a quick plan and everybody was able to show up. You had no idea this was happening. It was a complete surprise. Yeah.

I found out like the night before because it was floating around on Facebook and social media, but I wasn't on Facebook or anything. I really haven't even been on Twitter. So I didn't really know. And then nobody really got in touch with me until that night, the night before, like super duper late driving back from Vegas. And I was like, well, it's a good thing I'm going back to Luka, guy not Albuquerque so I can make my food.

Did that blow you? I mean, for people to do that, to come together to celebrate you, how do you react to that? Yeah, you know, you get, I got like caught up in my throat for sure. I was on the brink of tears. I feel like for the past week since the fight, even before the fight, that's where I've been. Just like in this, in this mindset of like, oh my gosh, is this real? It's so surreal. Like, I don't know how to take it all in other than just,

flow with a punch it basically, but it was pretty awesome. My heart was really warm. You know, doing this, having this win, I'd like to bring awareness to everybody about our tribe, our culture, not even just Navajo or Chickasaw, but all the indigenous tribes and their struggles and stuff. So I was, I was pretty pumped that they're seeing that and they're respecting that. Where's the belt right now? It's right here in front of me. You look at how many hours a day do you spend looking at it?

Oh, I don't. I leave it. I leave it in its case until I can find a perfect tone for it. So right now it's just put away. It might be a little too soon, but what's the greatest change to come about as a result of you winning this belt? Have you felt anything yet? Do you feel like things are different? Yeah, like I said, just the acknowledgement of the efforts that I've put in.

to bring everybody awareness to what the indigenous tribes have been living with from day one. Their struggles or accomplishments, you know, being the first Native American champion. I feel like I have a lot to bring to the table. And so just, you know, understanding that the people are being understanding with me and patience, but just that whole side of everything, just people acknowledging that I'm trying. to help out my community and my people and the appreciation from that is truly what I really want to see

and I'm getting right now. I saw in an interview, I think it was after the fact. You talked about how you were living with your husband in a basement and you were looking forward to getting your cats some treats with the money you earned. You got a great contract and you got the bonus and the Reebok deal and all that. Where are you living right now?

Could you tell us about your living conditions? Yeah, I'm still in the basement. So I'm sure with any fighter, Diego Sanchez, I think just posted something on Instagram being like, hey, Nico, when I won the ultimate fighter, I was like living in a garage. So I'm sure just like any fighter, you know, I don't have great credit. And my living conditions are pretty poor. I live in a tiny basement still. Water pressure is not too great. but it's better than nothing

you know it's better than what some kids grow up with on the Reds so I at least have that perspective in any place I live in whose basement is this like is it just you're renting someone else's basement or do you know the people no this is just what was on Zillow wow how big is it it's not very big

probably about 500 square feet we got it because of the square footage because it was good for the price. It's like right across campus and right in the heart of like Knob Hill, rain between downtown and Knob Hill. But the ceilings, it's a basement. So the feelings are super low.

I'm okay about living in an Adobe, but my boyfriend is like six foot. And so he has issues walking through doorways. Are you now planning on moving? I am. I am. I'd like to, that's another part of my give back to my family. You know, they supported me through everything. I'd like to have a place for them when they come into town because a lot of them have

doctors appointments here in Albuquerque. Because we have to travel at least two hours in Luke of Chukai to get to any sort of hospital or like Walmart or anything. Wow. And my grandpa owned a trading post. So whenever they come into town, they want a staff club or do their appointments. And sometimes they have to stay in the night because it's crazy, right? and this is a four-hour drive for them,

so I'd like to be able to put them up and feed them food and be a normal person with my hospitality. Have you received your entire purse for the night? And if so, like what's it like getting that? Like all of a sudden you go from living in a basement and you're struggling with water pressure and wanting to get food for your cats

and now you get like $250,000 in one night? Yeah, it's pretty big. I don't let myself settle on that. number though because I know a bunch of it's already like I'm owed or I you know I owe a bunch of percentages to my coaches and I know like what I want to do with the majority of it is put it in savings I mean it's not anything that I'm going to go crazy about I'm definitely going to be smart about it I've lived in poverty my whole life so I know what I don't want to do and so I'm going to definitely save up and be smart about this now now be honest with us when you got on that show

When you signed up for the show and you said you're going to try out for it, did you fully believe that you could win it? No. I was just like, it's something to do before I go back to school. It should be fun. Wow. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

Did you think you would even win a fight? Yeah. As soon as I got into the house and I got to know the girls and we got to doing like practices with each other and everything, I saw that I was right there on their level. And so I don't, I didn't think too much about it. I didn't think too much about, like, oh, my gosh, if I win, if I lose, blah, blah, blah. It helped seeing that first fight go down with Roxy and Shauna and just see how they handled it and how the rest of the house handled it.

So I was like, win or lose, you know what, you're going to go in there and they're going to have fun. You're going to do what you do. Don't think too hard about it. And next thing you know it all along. And so why did you even try out? Like, how did you find out about the show and why did you decide to do this? Be away from your family, six weeks, live in a house, go to Vegas, all that stuff? What was the motivation behind it?

Was it, you know, just worth, you said, ah, you know, I'll just do it. It's worth a try. What was the thought process behind actually going out and doing this? So I just, I went out because my coach was like, we're doing the 25 this season. I was like, 1.25, are you sure? because it was going back and forth, like, on social media, being like, you know what, it's a 35 season, no, it's a 25 season, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, I could do either, so whatever.

And I went and tried out, and I was able to stay the week. And then after that, it was like hush, hush, you know, how the process goes until it gets closer to the initial week that we fly out there and start our six-week process. But I was like, oh, that works because I was applying for school. and they're like, well, you didn't get accepted in the fall. You can come back at the beginning of the year, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, perfect. You know, I can make some extra money.

I'll get my name out there. Who knows, maybe this will be something that I can keep doing. And then I got in the house. And definitely the coaches who are in the house, Justin Gakey, Matt and Luke and Trevor, I feel like help guide me to find a deeper motivation. and, you know, fighting for four to five years doing, having the record that I do, it's not really, it doesn't really say too much. But having the King of the Cage belt at 125 coming into the show, still nobody even knew who I was.

And I was kind of low-key. And so they were like, you know what, nobody knows who you are, keep your drive, keep your passion, find, like, a stronger motivation. And I kept that motivation, which was representing my tribe. my people all through the season and there wasn't any distractions there so I kept with it and I'm keeping strong. What are you going to do about school now? I honestly was thinking about trying to multitask with them both, but I'm the kind of person who just dives in to one thing 100%.

So it will be there after my career here. If I do decide to go back, I mean, it's always going to be there. feel like that's something that can wait. But fighting definitely has a time limit on it. So I want to pursue this first. After the victory came out that you were battling a very injured foot, a broken foot. When did you break the foot? It was my second day back in sparring after the show.

I went for a tie, I went for a kick. My sparring partner grabbed the kick and tried like tie dumped me basically, but my foot folded under. itself. And so I broke my cestimoid bone. It was pretty sore, but you know, once you're in it, you're like, oh, whatever, it's sore. I'll, uh, it's okay. And then I went trail riding the next day.

And then the following day, it was a huge and I was bedridden for like a week and couldn't really move it for like a month. And then got my cortisone shot and was able to like move it around. But it was definitely something that, like, I couldn't bar the rest of the camp. and I'm a runner, especially to make 25. I love to run in the morning, but I wasn't able to run at all. I didn't run all camp.

I didn't far all camp, basically, because I was like, everyone was like she's made out of glass. Don't touch her right now. She has a fight of her life coming up. And I didn't want to give that opportunity yet, so just kept it careful, as careful as we could be after that. Wow.

And how much did it bother you in the fight? A lot, actually. it definitely hurts not to the point where it was hurting like when I initially broke it but like to roll over it when I shoot on like an orthodox person you know you have to penetrate with that left foot it was kind of hard to roll it's so it's so hard to roll over my toes to have that range of motion because it just like it doesn't allow me and it and it's really painful once I get that far so my level changes are crap but I don't really want to blame it on that because there's obviously

ways around things I could change, but I just decided to keep going with my doubles, and that was like the only part of the fight that I was being compromised by the foot. And not like lesser ticks off the left side. Right. Did you have surgery yet? No, I still have to go into my appointment. I have one on Wednesday. Wow.

So you don't know when you're going to have surgery yet? Nope. And that was the thing. to like I was going to see a doctor who's not in a orthopedic surgeon or anything so I'm going to go and see an orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday

and hopefully he'll have other options other than surgery. You're hoping for no surgery? I'm hoping for no surgery. I'm hoping if there is death Cessamoid bones in there because the only reason why I'd get surgery is because of the test of my bone that's fractured is broken off into three pieces

and we got to make sure that when we go into surgery to remove the dead bones that we're not moving the live bones or else that'll mess with my stability and balance on that left side. So in a perfect world, let's say you're able to avoid surgery,

how long do you want to be out for? We've seen in the past, you know, Carlo Sparza came back relatively quickly after winning the show, didn't work out for her. Are you hoping to take a longer break? because, I mean, it's a very taxing process, of course, and now you're dealing with this foot injury.

Yeah, exactly. I'd like to go into this next fight as a title defense 100%. I don't want to have to think, like, oh, I can't spar today or I can't run. You know, like I want to be able to feel as confident as ever. I prove to myself and to everyone that I'm pretty tough and I don't necessarily have to be 100%. I know that fighters aren't always,

but I feel like in a situation like this, I owe it to myself. You know, I came out of a six-month process of making weight four times and fighting the number three seed, number two seed, and number one seed. Like, this is my welcome into the UFC. I feel like I do owe it to myself to let my body heal, especially if this is where I'm going to be for a while. And this is definitely where I want to be for a while. So I owe it to myself to heal up and feel.

100. Have you seen some comments? You know, it seems like people aren't going to fully accept you as the 125 pound champion until you fight one of the more established names like a Valentina or, I don't know, some of the other names that were thrown out. Even Paige Van Zand's name was thrown out. Do you see these comments and how do you react to them? How do you feel about them? I do. I laugh it off. You know, I get, some people don't have the best attitude or sportsmanship, especially when it comes to fighting. But I feel like, like I'm not scared.

Like, I'm absolutely not scared, but I definitely think that they should be able to show what they can do at 25 before getting a chance to fight for a title. Like, Sarge, even though she didn't make weight, she made weight, like, we can't forget that she made weight three times in a six-week period. So she can make weight. It was just a hard process right after the show. went home, went back to the regular diet, but their body wasn't used to after that six-week period, and then it was kind of hard to bounce back, given the amount of time that we had.

I'm definitely not scared. This is the name of the game. You want to fight the best so that you can prove to everybody else that you are the best. But right now, the best is not Chef Chenko at 25. She hasn't fought out that weight. It's not Paige Vandat. She hasn't fought up that weight either, so I think it's pretty silly. And I'm a person who wants fair fights.

And so I just don't think that they are deserving of it right now. Who do you think right now, like once you do come back, who do you think your first title defense will be against? Do you have an inkling? Who do you feel? Yeah, like I said, I'm a pretty fair fighter in all of this. And I do think that Sarge can make it. I would like it to be Sarge, you know.

I think she deserves another chance. she made it through six months of hell doing that. Like I said, I was there watching. I was there partaking in that six weeks period. So I know how much of a heart she has and how much she's wanting this. I unfortunately can't see Chef Chanko or Paige Van Sant through the process of making 25 or wanting this belt. But I just feel like Sarge is a little more deserving for sure. Wow. What were your feelings when she had to pull out and Roxy came in?

Did you, you know, we've seen in the past people say, thanks, but no thanks, I don't want. You know, I don't want to fight someone on one day's notice. Did you ever consider that? Were you given the option to say thanks but no thanks? You know, I'm sure I was given that option. I just didn't even think about it. I didn't think twice. Roxy is a good friend of mine. Like before the fight, after the fight, she's who I clicked with in the house first. just who I looked up to since day one since before I even thought about fighting.

And so I was just like, well, perfect. Like, what better way to introduce myself into the UFC if not, like fighting the number one seed, somebody who's had so many friggin' fights somebody I look up to and fighting for this title, like this championship fight? So I didn't think twice. I was just appreciative that she took the fight on one day's notice. Being a UFC champion in this sport and mixed martial. arts, it's the greatest achievement, it's the mountaintop, all that and more.

You know, the greatest fighters in the history of the sport for the most part at one point have held that belt, except for a few exceptions. Does it feel, like, do you feel like you're a UFC champion, or do you feel like once you defend the title, it's not a part of the show, you establish yourself, then you'll feel like UFC champion. Like, does it all feel like you're in the same conversation now as, you know, George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva and all of these greats, right? Chris Wyden and Connor McGregor, everyone.

Do you feel a part of that conversation, a part of that group, that fraternity, if you will, that, you know, that elite group, or do you only feel like it will, you know, sink in once you defend the title? You know, I don't think it'll really ever sink in. My efforts are going to be the same, like, whether I win or lose a fight,

I'm still going to put in 110% of what I know I can do and more. So being in that circle, like, it's definitely an accomplishment and it's definitely something that I've always wanted to do where I think everybody romanticizes it so much. And I just, you know, when I lose this next title defense, whether it's with whoever, I think I'm going to be feeling the same feelings that I feel now is just gratitude

and keep doing what I'm doing, you know, never settle no matter how long I'm the champ or what, just never settle and keep working hard as long as I keep that mindset and not get a big head and not put myself in that realm. I think I'll be, I'll have a good stride. It's amazing. What an amazing story, really.

It truly is one of the best stories of the year. And, you know, I love the fact that you're getting this kind of recognition back home and it doesn't appear at least after one week like you are, you know, letting it get to you. You're allowing yourself to have a big head. Congratulations, Nico. All the best, too.

I hope the foot heals properly. I hope that you don't need that surgery. And hopefully we'll see you back in there sooner rather than later. But on your own timeline, we've seen in the past, as I said, people coming back too soon after the show and it didn't go their way. By the way, in a perfect world, like, do you think July, August? When do you think would be appropriate to return? Yeah, somewhere around that time, you know, like I said, I still don't even know what my issue is with my foot. or any sort of recovery process.

So I'll let myself hang out for the holidays and enjoy this time and spend it with my family because I don't really get to and camp. So in a perfect world, I'd say around July, May. Okay. All the best to you. Again, congratulations. Enjoy the belt. Enjoy everything that comes with it.

And appreciate you coming on. Great to talk to you for the first time. Yeah. Thanks, Ariel. It's been a pleasure. All right. There she is. Nico Montagnio, the.

first ever UFC women's flyway champion. What a story. Living in a 500 square foot apartment, poor water pressure said she just wanted to get some food for her cats, or her cat, I should say, after winning that, she won 100 and 100. Then she got a bonus for fight of the night. She also got the Reebok bonus.

That is life-changing money. And now all of a sudden she is a champion in the UFC. And, well, what comes with that is a massive bullseye. everyone gunning for her. She does bring up a good point. The UFC women's flyweight rankings came out yesterday, or last week, I should say, for the first time. And until you've competed in the flyweight division, which I do think is the right call, they are not putting you in the rankings. You have to actually go out there. A new member of the flyweight division is Alexis Davis. She was victorious on Saturday in Fresno. She defeated Liz Karmouche. So I expect her to be a part of that discussion as well. But it's going to be interesting. After the likes of Valentina Shvchenko and Paige Van Zand and Jessica I all get their flyweight debuts out of the way it's going to be very interesting to see who she fights in her first title defense

and all of a sudden the flyweight division is a very popular one Belator putting on some solid flyway fights as of late they had a great one on Friday in Italy and Victa had a flyway title fight on Friday as well so all of a sudden the flyweight division is very much in demand. Now, UFC has champions at 115, 125, 135, and 135, and 145. The 145-pound title will be defended on December 30th in Las Vegas.

All right. Great stuff there from Nico Montanio. In a minute, we're going to be joined by Alexander Gustafson. It has been quite some time since we've talked to the Mahler. And, of course, the last time we saw him in action was back in May when he defeated Glover Tashara. phenomenal performance. Remember the barrage of uppercuts

that dropped Glover Tashara? That was very impressive. And afterwards, of course, equally, if not more impressive was the fact that he proposed to his girlfriend. It was a great moment inside the octagon. But then after that,

he kind of fell off the radar. He was not talked about a lot. Of course, D.C. fought John Jones. There wasn't a lot of talk of Jones fighting Gustafson. after that win at 214, and then Jones gets stripped. D.C.'s champion, not a lot of talk there. D.C. in talks to fight Volkan Ozedemir, that actually happens.

And then we find out last week he comes out and says that he had shoulder surgery. So I wanted to check in with him and see how that's going. So we'll be talking to Alexander Gustafson in a matter of moments. I believe that we are trying to connect with him. After that, we'll be joined by Eddie Alvarez, as we kind of reset here. the aforementioned Daniel Cormier will be stopping by so we'll get his thoughts on January 20th which all of a sudden became a really interesting night

in the sport because the light heavyweight title will be defended the heavyweight title will be defended Francis Inganu and Steepi Miochich and then over you know across the country over in Englewood California on the rebranded Paramount Network Belator going up against the UFC on the same night doesn't happen often especially with two big shows like that and they have a great one with War and

McDonald and Douglas Lima, of course, Chil Sunnan and Rampage Jackson as well. So we'll get to that in a second, but first let us go to the Magica Skype. I do believe he is standing by, joining us from Sweden. The one, oh, okay. All right, we'll go to the phones. And welcome in one Alexander Gustafson.

Alex, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. I hear you. All right, Alex, great to talk to you. It has been some time since we've heard from you. After the win in May and the great win over Glover and you propose, you kind of stayed quiet for a while and then you reemerged last week with the news about your shoulder surgery and all that.

Why did you take this long hiatus from the MMA spotlight, if you will? Well, where should I start? After everything, I just had a break for a couple of weeks and then I went back to training and I hurt my shoulder right away. Wow.

So I was training I was training and I just I hurt my shoulder in a wrestling in a wrestling practice and I felt it was burning a little bit on my right shoulder but I didn't you know I just I just went and sit on the sideline I just watched the sparring finish and then my coach just told me to let's go to the hospital and check it out so and probably the collarbone just was the color bone wasn't attached to my shoulder anymore so it was so it was was just standing right up. Wow. That's unbelievable. So you broke her collarbone? I didn't broke, I didn't broke the bone in itself.

It was just, it was just somehow, it just let go of my shoulder. So they are connected. And after I got thrown, I was landing on the mat with my shoulder. And it was just ripped apart my collarbone from my shoulder,

basically. So, so they just put, They just put a plate, a metal plate in it with three screws. And I had it to about two weeks ago. Oh, wow. So you had that, I mean, your fight was in May. So you've had that for like, what, like four months or so?

More? Yeah, about three. With the plate I had for three months, exactly three months. How much did that hurt? It was just burning in my shoulder. I had a weird feeling after I got thrown on the wrestling mats. It was just burning and it was heating. And I felt that I had pain before, a lot of pain before.

But if you feel it's burning somewhere on your body, you know, it's serious. And yeah, I went to the hospital and just told me to like, it's over. We have to operate you. Okay, and so now you had the plate removed? Yeah, exactly. And what is the timeline? Like how long before you're back to training, back to 100%. Oh, back to 100%.

I give it maybe, I give it to end of January, I think. Something like that. So you're on the comeback trail. You've rounded the corner. Yeah, yeah, of course. I just took it play it out and now I'm back in training. I train once or two times a day and I try to just, I've been doing a lot of rehab and I'm just going to keep doing that to get. The injury itself is healed, but I'm a little bit weak in me and my shoulder. I have to work up my muscles and everything. So I'll get back to normal.

Do you think if this injury didn't happen that you would be fighting for the belt in January, that you'd be next in line? well I don't know I think so I think so I'll be I'll be pushing for that fight for sure so I think I'll be there instead of the other guy

Volcanoes to me are you impressed how would you describe what he's done in the past a year a year ago this time we never even heard of him now he's fighting for the belt does this come as a shock to you did you know who he was

I know he's from nearby Switzerland what are your thoughts on him no he he's he's good he's good he has a lot of power in his hands and it's not a joke he's he's good so and and after a fight we fought at the same time in in may and he as soon as he connected with his punches you know the guys just he knocks people out so he's he's the real deal for sure. But you know the journey has been very

you know it's been a very very fast journey for him so and now he's up there and then fight it for the title so and I think I think overall the division is kind of kind of weak right now so. Right. They need you back right?

I'm not surprised this the division is weak, it's shallow they need the maller back I need to step in. Yeah. You were very, you know, you were very open and honest about John Jones after your fight in May. Once you found out what happened and the stripping of the belt, how did you react to that? You know, I wasn't shocked. I wasn't surprised. And I feel sorry for him. I think it's, what can I say? You know, it's, I just feel sorry for him that, you know, he's his, you know, his time for a thing.

I mean, like, it's new things coming up all the time, so I'm not surprised at all. And I just feel sorry for him. And it's, you know, it's bad for everything. It's bad for a sport. And he's, you know, look what he did to DC. He's a beast. And nobody's done what he's done. And he just getting caught for, you know, over and over again.

When you say you feel sorry for him, what do you mean by that? Because, you know, if he's doing this to himself, why do you feel sorry for him? I mean like I just I don't know something is it must be something wrong there right you know

you don't do that if you if you how should I explain it I just think that he's just doing he's just taking the wrong decisions

all the time and for that I'm feeling sorry for him basically would you like to see him not returned do you want the UFC you know without John Jones

are you tired of John Jones at this point you know he's you know i i want him back i i think he should like i i want to not fight him i want to fight him at some point in my in my future career i just want to fight him some one more time basically and and for that reason maybe you know i think i think i think i would like for him to come back but at the same time he's been he's been getting caught for for a lot of times and you know if he doesn't come back it doesn't come back so I just feel I just feel like you know it's out for the sport and and for the whole thing even even if you know

there's a possibility that he's on PEDs you still want to fight him well you know a fight is a fight right and and if he comes back if it comes back and and you know he you know he has to be clean. There is no other way. So if it comes back at some point, he's going to be clean for sure. And by the way, I'm not surprised to hear you say that because Daniel Cormier says the same thing. He says he'd fight him again and again and again, even knowing what he may be doing behind the scenes. So I appreciate the fact that you say that and you're honest about that. Do you consider Cormier the real champion now? How do you feel about the belt? Well, you know, he has a He has the belt. So, so I think it's a, it's a guy, D.C. I want to fight easy for sure. I want that belt. So. But, but for me, it's still the real champion is, you know, it's John Jones, of course, because he's been, he's been destroying everybody in the division. And, you know, he's what is, you know, everything's done is nobody's done before. So for me, he's, he's the real champion. But I accept DC as a champion too. He's, he's a good guy and a good fighter.

and the only guy is lost to is John Jones. So here's the real deal, and I think it's a champion material. DC has talked about your fight against him at 192, and he said it was a miserable experience, and he's not too keen on fighting you again. He says this kind of with a smile. Of course, he would fight you if offered,

but you really beat him up. Do you feel the same way about fighting him? Would you prefer in a perfect girl? In other words, are you kind of hoping that Volkan wins so that you don't have to fight DC again if you're the next man in line? I want to fight DZ. I want to fight this for the for the belt.

Okay. And, you know, I lost him on, on, I lost him. So I want to fight him again and get my rematch and take the, take the belt from him, basically. But, you know, in my opinion, I think, I think, a Vulcan is a beast, but he's a good guy. It's heavy, heavy hands. And, but, uh, I don't know if he had a. the qualities to beat D.C. Have you been told that upon returning,

you'll fight the winner of that fight, if John is going to be out for quite some time. Have you been told that you're next? No, I don't know nothing yet. And I haven't been, I haven't been too focused on that either. I've just been trying to get him back in training, back to my normal shape, my normal me training.

So I haven't been focusing too much on that. But now the plate is gone from my shoulder, and I'm back in training. I'm feeling good. I had no pain, nothing. So I'm getting back, and I'm going to start looking at different opportunities. And, yeah, see what happened. Have they told you, you know, your doctors, when, you know, at least as of right now,

when you could possibly return, is there a time frame that you have in mind? Well, a couple of more weeks with basic rehab. And from there, I'm... I think I can start. We're looking at starting training in MMA for real. You know, every discipline in the game with the wrestling part and the submission part, everything else. But right now it's a couple of more weeks.

The whole January out, and I'm going to look, I'm just going to do my rehab and then from there start my training for real. So maybe like mid next year is an appropriate time frame. Yeah, maybe spring, early summer, something like that. Recently, you also signed with a new management team, and I was looking them up. It seems like they represent a lot of non-MMA fighters, tennis players, I think maybe hockey players as well. But definitely outside of the combat sports world, why did you make this switch at this point in your career? Well, I had a couple of meetings with them, and they're really good.

They're really good. And even if they're not in the game, in my game, they still, they want to learn. They're very, you know, they just, how can I say this? They're very, well, they're very good at what they're doing with athletes overall. So, you know, we have a good, good connection and everything feels very good. So it wasn't much much to think about. This seems like a good step for you in your career, right? Yeah, it's the right step for me to go with them now.

And Sweden is not a big country. So this team here, the management, they are, they're on another level. So it's really good for me. And I'm looking forward to to work with them in the future. Do you have a wedding date planned yet? No, not yet. We're looking at next summer, something like that. We haven't decided actually a date yet,

but we look in different possibilities. It depends where I'm at my career and my training and my fights and so on. Just a piece of advice. Don't go with the long engagement because then it gets very stressful and everyone wants to give you advice. No, no, I know, I know. I'm listening to you. I'm the same. I think the same. I don't want to be engaged for like five to seven years. Oh, it's a mess. It's a mess. You just got to get it over with. And then you'll go back to normal.

Yeah, exactly. Are you with the shoulder, are you able to change diapers and things like that? Or does your fiancé have to do all that now? Sorry? With the injured shoulder, were you able to change diapers? Or did you get an excuse and your fiance had to do all that? the changing of the diapers. I have to blame my injury with the first couple of the first couple of weeks. Yes, I had a feeling.

I have no choice. Okay. No choice. Well, it's good to hear from you again. It's good to hear that you're feeling better and that you're on the comeback trail. And then last thing, excuse me, last thing for you, Alex,

is it fair to say, like in a perfect world, if the UFC says what do you want, you want to fight the winner of Volkan versus DC, you don't want to fight someone else and then get to the title shot, right? feel like you've earned it? I want the title fight. That's, you know,

the winner of the Volcan DC fight, I want the winner of that one. It's no fight in between or I just want to step into the title fight right away. That's my plan. That's what I want. All right. Well, I hope you get it. Again, great to hear from you, Alex.

Hope you feel better soon and hopefully for your sake you get that title shot. Thank you for coming on again. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right, there he is. Alexander, the maller, Gustafson. Great to hear from him. And now you know why he was a bit off the grid for quite some time.

Interesting to hear him talk about the title and him considering John Jones still the champion. But the light heavyweight title will be on the line without John Jones on January 20th, D.C. versus Volkan. We'll hear from D.C. in a few minutes. For now, though, let us go back to the phone lines and welcome in our next guest. He was the talk of the town last week after his performance at UFC 218. He is the proud owner of the most violent man in the world championship. He is the one and only Eddie Alvarez.

He's coming off that great win over Justin Gaci on December 2nd in Detroit. And he is kind enough to join us on the phone right now. Eddie, how are you? I'm excellent. What's up, Ariel? It's great to talk to you, Eddie. Are you still on Cloud 9 after that victory? How would you describe how you're feeling, what, nine days later?

Cloud 9. No, I'm at the mall with my wife and my wife. daughter, we're getting some Christmas shopping done. Back to normal life. So I gave you kind of a 15-minute break from Christmas shopping. Yeah, yeah, I told Jamie I'm going to go back out in the car and knock this interview out and then we get some lunch. All right. Well, I appreciate you doing it.

I appreciate you interrupting the Christmas shopping for us. Could I ask about the face? How is the face feeling? We're not seeing you right now. Are there any serious entries as a result of the, I mean it was all blown up? What happened there? No, my face is great, fresh as a daisy. I think I got a little, I got a black eye underneath my right eye.

That's it. I think the left eye is gone. The bump that came out that I thought was a broken jaw, it was just like a hematoma. I don't know if it came from like an elbow or a head butt, maybe even a punch. but it just popped out out of nowhere but it was nothing serious it was all like soft tissue so like that there was nothing broken in my face

they did they did a bunch of scans I got that that checked out and we're all good and just the leg you know just got to continue following up with my leg but I don't I don't think that's anything that's going to be long term either

so we'll see what was the injury that happened to the leg my legs I just got a bunch of, day after the fight, there was water all, like, crazy amount of water in my knee and all swollen up. It still is a little bit, but it's, it's went down significantly. I got, like, range of motion now. I got some MRIs done. They said, I think initially, initially the first diagnosis was like a baker cyst erupted.

So, like, when they erupt, you get, like, all the water or whatever goes back in your calf and in your knee. So, like, that was what all the extra float and stuff that was in my leg. But he kicked my leg out pretty good. So when we were walking out, I stayed on my shit, man. There's going to be shitty walking through the malls all throughout the holidays. But I'm already a little bit better than what I was. So I see it. He won't okay.

As we talked about going into the fight, there were massive expectations about this fight. I mean, it couldn't have been higher. Everyone was just going crazy about it. Do you feel like it lived up to the hype? I mean, come on. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the approach was right.

The approach during the training was right, the working on kind of not giving a fuck so much and just going out there and not being, not thinking about the actual fight so much or thinking about what I should do or being analytical about it, just kind of going there and feeling it out. I feel like I was being myself.

I was able to enjoy the fight. How many times have you watched it? Oh, a ton. It's fun as hell to watch. I mean, if nobody, I'm a fight fan before I'm a fighter. Like, I watch Marlins fight a ton of times too already. But, you know, if there's a good fight on where two guys are scrapping, I'm going to watch it a ton of times. You know, even if it's me or not me, I just, I like to watch a good fight.

That was a whole fight. Can you describe that feeling when you land the knee and you put your hands up and it's clear the fight is over? You actually like you slayed the dragon. You don't have to go through it anymore. Your face is a little bit swollen. Your legs are killing. What's that feeling like when you come to the realization that you actually were able to finish this guy? First man to ever do that.

I wasn't thinking about Justin finishing him. I was thinking about the first thing I thought about was like that was me. You know, that was, it felt, it felt exactly like, um, I felt exactly like myself. Like, I wasn't hiding nothing. I wasn't trying to be something that everybody wanted me to be. I was just fighting like, like Eddie Alvarez fights. And like when the whole crowd was going fucking nuts and my corner's biting their nails and my corners like, what the hell are you doing?

Like that's when I know I'm, I'm, uh, I'm fighting my typical, my, the way I fight. And I was proud of that, that I was able to get back there inside of the fight, get back to that kind of fighting. Was there a time when you felt like you were fighting, you know, for other people, you weren't fighting for yourself, you weren't fighting like yourself, and had to get back to who you were and, you know, fighting again for yourself and being happy with your performances? Did you feel like you strayed away from that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I won a world title not being totally comfortable, not being totally confident in what I do. I'm, I'm, I look back. When I look back, I'm like, hell, man, you weren't even in the right mind frame.

You weren't even fighting, like, yourself, and you were able to capture a world title. So if you're able to let go of these things, let go all this expectation, like, imagine, imagine what you can do. Imagine that things you're able to accomplish. So it just felt good to kind of let go all that shit and just, like, say to myself, like, you know, there's nothing to live up to. you ain't shit. You ain't ever going to really be shit. So, like, nobody expected much in the first place ever. So just go out there and just be you. Like, that's how I felt in the very beginning when I started fighting.

So I wanted to get back there, like let go all this bullshit that was inside of trying to make people happy. So once I let go of that, I can just kind of be my normal self. There's talk now, considering who you've been in and you've kind of gone on, on this run where you beat other champions from other organizations that you are the greatest lightweight of all time. How do you feel about that title? It was a great headline, like an awesome headline, definitely flattered by it. It just lets me know that people are recognizing that, like, how much I put in this game

because a lot of people only know me by, like, my, what I've done in the UFC. and to be honest I'm not totally happy I'm just feeling some comfort just feeling some comfort and feeling like I'm being myself inside the UFC so like it lets me know to the hardcore fans

and the people who have always been watching me from like all the way back in 2000 frigging three when I was fighting a basketball gym to now like they they recognize that like I've it took me a while to like not took me a while

but I um I wasn't just like top in the world this year. I've been I've been top two in the world since 2008 and it's easy to become like a name and and a star in this sport. But to do it for for 10 years, it's really tough. It's really tough. You have to have a certain commitment and a certain love for it and I do. So I mean, regardless of it, say I'm the greatest ever, whatever, there's always going to be opinions, but I just appreciate people, you know, looking at what I've done in the past and looking at what I accomplished.

So now that you've actually been in there with Justin, you're sort of cut from the same cloth. How do you feel about him? Do you feel like you've gained respect for him? Have your opinions changed on him at all? How would you describe your feelings towards Justin after fighting him? It was, I felt like the fight was going to be a mere image of myself, like will was.

Like, even when we swam in the pool, this guy couldn't swim the lick and he messed. manage to, we swam in a pool against each other, but he finished the whole half mile. And like, when you watch this guy swim, you be like, there's no way. He's like, he's going to drown. He manages finish the whole half mile swim. So, like, it said something, like, it's just swim. I understand that. But it said something about him.

Like, I probably, like, halfway through when fuck this. I'm not swimming. I can't swim. I'm going to end up trying. He finished his swim. So I knew, like, he's a lot better. fighting and he is a swim and I'm like this guy he's just not going to give up

it's not in him so he's that type of guy I knew that going into the fight it was important to match his will like that needed to be matched and his energy like the kind of energy he brings to the fight he brings a pace

I needed to match both of them but be more skillful so like I couldn't just say oh I'm more skillful than this guy I'm going to rely on that and I'm going to beat him because of that I needed to pick up my energy and I need to pick up the will, like the spear apart. I needed to match him in both them realms and then be more skillful. So I feel like we did a good job matching him in that department

and then bring a little more game plan and skill into the game. From my perspective, the most impressive thing that you've ever done in your career, isn't all the championships beating all the champions, the big names, it's that you didn't allow the Conner fight to define you, and in fact, you've seemingly become a better fighter as a result of it. That could break a lot of people, but somehow you were able to turn that into a positive and rise above it all, and you're more beloved now than ever.

How are you able to do this? Because I don't ever look at, I don't look, this is a long-term thing. I tell everyone, this is a marathon, not a sprint for me. Like, fighting's been a journey for me, more than just like fighting another guy. And I put this on my Instagram not long ago. Like, fighting's not just about going in and punch another guy in the face.

Fighting for me is a lifestyle. It's a journey to like find out what the fuck I'm made of and who I am. So like when I look at the long term, it's very simple to take a loss like that and go, shit. Dost it off. Let's grow and let's try to get a little bit better. but I think if someone don't truly love the sport and they're just kind of looking for like looking for the money looking for the fame

looking for all the material shit they'll quit pretty easily like off a big loss or like you know you get embarrassed in front of you know these millions of fans they might go out fuck this I'm not into it but I sincerely love fighting it's more of a lifestyle

than it is for me than like a hobby so that's why that's how I think I'm able to kind of to get through that that kind of shit. You know, I'm competitive, so I can't stand the fact that I didn't put it down at MSG. Like, in that big moment, I'm pissing myself about it, and I'd love to get it back. But I think dusting myself off and knowing that this is a longer journey than just one single flight, that's how, you know, we get over that kind of shit.

You mentioned, you know, back in the day, people watching back in the day, the early days of your career. Someone who was watching you back in the day was Dustin Porreier. Dustin Porier said on the show last week, quote, the thing is, I grew up looking up to Eddie. He was a big name fighting in Japan, HGNet, used to do specials on him. I was a young fighter. I really like the guy. Now still I respect the fighter. He's a strong fighter. He has a lot of heart, but as a person, he's a bitch. He's talking shit when I stood up for him in the heat of the moment. I thought that maybe they were accidents, the knees. And now I've gone back and watched the fight as a fan, like you said. And he thinks that you quit. Not the other way around.

He thinks that you quit, and he kind of put down the challenge. He said, let's go five rounds. Let's figure this out. Do you want to figure it out with him? Do you want to fight that fight again, or are you done with Dustin Porier? Considering what I just did, it'd be the silliest thing I could do. They put me against an undefeated rising star. You're going to give Justin Gachie a title fight. If Justin Gage beat me, he was going to fight for a title.

Didn't happen. knocked the guy out who's never been beaten his life and I respect Dustin's like push he's doing his best job but it's like it's all for nothing I mean it'd be silly for me to

oh let me go let me go backwards and look at that guy like I'm looking the same way he's looking forward at like Tony Ferguson we're keeping our eye on the Kibibb Barbosa fight

and I'm trying to help. I'm going to do my best to help Edson, whoop on Khabi. So we'll see how that top shakes out. And like I said, this is my last fight. I have one fight left. So I'm going to sit down with the boss man.

He texts me on the way home. So we had a little bit of a conversation on my way home from Justin Gachie fight. And I think we're gearing up to. to talk about a mega fight. So it shouldn't be long before we sit down and talk to day and then we get some things hash out about doing something big. Whoa. When you say megafite, what are you referring to? We need to sit down and talk about it first.

I should be heading out to Vegas within the next couple weeks. I don't know if we're going to let the, I don't know if we're going to let the holidays settle down. and then do it or maybe do it before, but I'm excited about the future, and I'm excited about putting some stupid-ass fights on, like, crazy big fights for the fans. Did he throw out a name when he was talking about megafights? We'll see.

We'll see whatever. Look, all I can say is just, you know, stay tuned. For my fights, whenever I'm stepping back and I like the guy, and I just feel, I just feel nice and comfy now. And everybody's going to be able to get to see that same exact product you just seen, that same violent, that same finish and self coming, because I'm just fine in my groove. Like, they thought they're going to bring a young guy in and take my name. And the truth is, I'm just getting warmed up.

I'm just getting warmed up in here. So I'm having a good time. Does the name rhyme with late Niaz? you guys can draw or complete look we're going to sit down and all I can promise is that everyone will be excited everyone will be happy is it fair to say that you're not going to fight out the contract that you want to resign beforehand um yeah I mean

we'll talk you know everyone will talk I'm sure everyone at the end of the day will be happy um one thing one thing about um the UFC is that when you perform and when you make the UFC money and when you do the things that they want you to do they reciprocate some some guys complain a lot of times about about what goes on but uh rarely do they think about what they're giving back to the company not just performance wise but financially so you got to kind of weigh out what you're given versus what you're getting and uh we're going to sit down the next couple of weeks and everyone's going to understand

what we've been, you know, the sacrifices each person made and, you know, I'm sure they'll do the right thing. Last thing for you, Eddie, after the fight, you talked a lot about you wanted to just be the most violent man in the UFC, and it's a great title

and it's one that everyone's getting behind. And you even kind of brushed off the titles. At some point, are you going to redirect your attention towards the titles? And is it now? Is it after this Gachy fight. At the end of the day, you always want to get back there, right? Because that brings you the most money. So how do you, or when do you start to redirect your attention back to that belt? I am, but I'm a realist. You know what I mean? Like, my eyes always on that gold belt. Like, I feel like I'm, I fucked up. You know, I lost my bell and I'm a pissed

about it, but I'm being realistic. Like, I can't, you know, we can't make, you know, we can't make Connor get back in there. He's going to ask for San Francisco. It's going to take a while for that guy to defend that. And then Tony, I mean, Tony's waiting for Connor. Tony's going to sit. He's going to wait for that Connor fight and try to get that big payday. For me, I don't, Edson, I hope Edson wins and it makes his run.

I'll sit back and I'll have Edson become the lightweight champion. I would gladly sit back and love to see Edson capture that title and he did the same thing for me. I'll do the same thing back. But for right now, shit just isn't defined with the title. And to be honest, there's not a lot of value in it. What value is in it? There's an interim guy who beat the number seven guy to become the champion.

That's not a champion. You can't beat the number seven. They can't bring a number seven rank guy. and then put him against the number one contender and he beats him and he says now you're the champion that's like that's silly that's silly in any organization any sport anything and then um and then what else so the champion isn't defending so now the belt the belt's like kind of the value of the belt loses it loses value so for me i'm like let's make another belt let's let's make whoever's the most violent you at this point

We can make out whatever belts we want because there's not much value to them. So I just want to fight the best guys. I want the fights to be violent. I want the fans to be jumping and screaming the same way they wear on December 2nd in Detroit. That felt good to me. So I want to continue to feel good about the fights that I'm in. Incredible stuff, Eddie. Again, congratulations.

I was in awe of what you did December 2nd in Detroit. I know the rest of the MMA community was, and it's so cool to see all the love and respect. that you are getting. The community could be a rough place at times, but man, do you have their respect, and that's pretty amazing to see. Enjoy the victory. Enjoy shopping with your family.

Hold on. One second. Let me, uh, so I've been doing some pretty, like, exclusive shit on this trial app. I'm sure everybody's seen it. Okay. Um, it's trial, T-R-A-L-E, and it's an app. You go on it. It goes from anything to my full entire weight cut, me cutting weight, me headed to the hospital.

after the fights inside the locker rooms. It's super exclusive. It's only for my fans. You're not going to see a bunch of hate on there and shitty comments. But if you guys can, download the app, it's free to download. You can create a profile and follow me on trail.

If you get a chance, please. How do you spell trail? Trail is T-R-A-L-E. Okay. All right. People download it and they can interact with you. Download it and And this stuff, they'll be able to trial me and it's exclusive stuff.

But stuff I'm just not really going to share in my regular social network forums. You're going to see some pretty cool shit. And if you're a fan, you're going to love it. So check it out. Awesome. We'll do that. Thank you, Eddie. Enjoy the holidays.

Appreciate it. Congrats again. Thanks, Eric. All right, there he is. Eddie Alvarez, the most violent man in the UFC. All right, I'm a little nervous about our next interview. Let's just get it out of the way. could be very awkward.

Let's welcome in the UFC's light heavyweight champion of the world, the one and only Daniel Kormier to the program. Daniel, how are you? D.C., you there? I told you, I was nervous about it. Daniel Korme, are you there? Hold on. Daniel?

Daniel, are you there? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Hold on. Okay. Hold on. Can you still hear me?

I can still hear you, yes. Okay. Now we can talk. Wow. Headphones in. One of the worst, it was... One of the worst starts to an interview in the history of this program. Well, you would expect it, you know, considering our last interactions.

Yeah. Where do we stand? I mean, it was a big, it was a big deal. I mean, here we are. Two people who everyone thought were, you know, thick as thieves publicly arguing. Where do we stand? Well, I think it's fine. You know, we just had a difference of opinion.

and, you know, I do get where you were coming from, but I stand with my teammates above everybody else. So, but I do appreciate your thought. I do appreciate your approach to fighter unity. It's very important for us as fighters to stand with each other, but I stand with Kabib and Kane Velazquez and Luke Rockhold and everybody else first. All right. Well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate you being,

I know at the end of the day you are the captain of AKA that's most important. That's the most important title that you have. Appreciate you looking out for your guy. I just thought you were doing old Tony a little dirty. And Tony and I have had our issues in the past. There's no love loss there. I just didn't think it was right what you guys were doing to him. That's all.

And you are fine to stand in the space that you wanted to stand. We disagree on that topic. Okay. There you go. We can disagree. By the way, you mentioned Kane Velasquez. I saw you tweet out something about him. He's back.

He's back to training. Oh, yeah. He's back to training, and it hurts, but it doesn't feel, nothing's felt better for a long time. You know, it does suck to have to go in there and work with Kane because he's so much better than everybody else that has ever been around. But it's good to have him, man. Just seeing him back doing what he loves to do. it's amazing as a friend and as a fan of mixed martial arts

because when Kane gets back you guys know what he does for the heavyweight division he makes for some very, very interesting and fun fight. When do you think he'll actually be fighting again? I don't know. It's a process.

You know, like when you start dealing with some of the injuries that Kane has had, and I've seen a sense wrestling, you know, back and it's like backs and necks and all those types of injuries, man, it takes time to recover. And I think

for a long time, Kane may have pushed himself when he should have rested, and I believe this time he's actually taking the time to try to let himself heal. And I feel like this will be a chance for him to make a long, sustained run.

Much longer than he really has over the course of his three. He's had a lot of injuries that at bad times, I talked to Kane about this, and it sucks. You know, for a guy that was as talented and as committed to the sport, you know, he's probably lost five years. And could you imagine what Kane was Alaska's resume would look like without five years worth of time on the shelf? It's so sad to think about, but I believe that he has finally got himself in a position

where he's going to have his body is going to be able to match his work as a person. his mind, his ferociousness, his mentality, everything, and allow him to go on a run for a long, sustained run to kind of finish out his career. That was a really interesting post, and it was great to see you guys training together, but to me, the thing that really jumped out was a little lower down, hashtag, where is Luke?

You just kind of slid that one in there. And then you tagged him. You didn't just do the hashtag, you tagged him too. What's going on between... I asked them last week on the show, what's happening here? Is there a crack in the team? What's going on? What's he doing?

He hates that. So I just keep doing it. I called him the other day. I go, I go, hey, how are you like, where's Luke? He goes, you're fucking killing me with his hair. Where's Luke thing? He goes, I'm fucking getting bombarded by people going.

Where's Luke? He hates it. Well, I think it's funny. You know, because he hates him so much, I just keep doing it. But, no, man, you know, Luke's doing his thing, man. There's no crack. You know, I talk to him. constantly. We all talk to them constantly. We love Luke. Luke is down in Florida training.

And we'll never do as teammates as friends that try to hinder one of our own from finding a situation that may benefit them better. And right now, I believe that Luke feels down in Florida, the situation is just a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's better for him. you know when i'm not fighting i travel a lot doing television i've got a family family we've kind of we've kind of and kane had been hurt you know so uh just his training situation in between fights wasn't ideal so luke found a situation that worked for him and and fell in love with it so uh he came back a couple weeks to go and train some you know he was home for a little bit and now he's down in florida so uh he's doing what's best for him and and i

applaud him for that because these decisions aren't easy. You know, it's not easy to go and and do something different. Something, something different is always difficult. You know, I've been a victim of that a lot of times over the course of my life. And I applaud Luke for doing something different and finding a situation that works for him. So we miss him. You know, we miss him. We wish he was home all the time, but, you know, for him to do what he's doing is very breathing. and it was best for Luke and we support him. D.C., how nervous were you when you found out about Volkan? It seems like the light heavyweight division is kind of plagued with these issues.

Were you worried that you wouldn't have anyone to fight, that this guy would be out for quite some time? I don't know, you know, I just kind of was like, just move on to the next guy. You know, if it's going to be somebody else, you're going to be somebody else. I really don't have. have any energy anymore for all these guys

extracurriculars anymore. You know, I'm not going to, that's, like, if you're going to go to jail, go to jail. We'll give them to jail. If you're going to get yourself in trouble, you get yourself in trouble. I didn't do it. Whatever. I'll just go on to the next guy. You know, I'm not going to,

I'm not going to deal with that anymore. I feel like, I feel like I have lost years of my life dealing with the shit with Jones in terms of the arguments, the fighting, the worry, whether we're going to fight, when we're going to fight. I've lost a lot of time and energy just wasted on things that was out of my control. So if Volcan O's Dmyr goes to jail, of Alexander Gustafson does something and gets himself put in trouble, I'll just move on to the next one.

That's what it's going to constantly be for me. At this point, they're all faceless until fight night whenever we're standing across the oxygen, down from each other. It's just a name, and whoever that name happens to be is who I'm going to fight. So is it fair to say as a result of that question and your mindset that you've kind of moved, we don't know what's going on with Jones, but have you just kind of moved on from him at this point? You're not going to think about him, worry about him, until we know what he's dealing with as far as suspension is concerned? Yeah, and, you know, it's a short amount of time.

You know, it's a short amount of time, you know, because I don't know whether or not his, his, his, I don't know whether or not John Jones' issues our situation will be resolved before I'm out of the game. You know, so it could be, so all this energy needs to be dedicated to something else, and that's fighting the guys that are here to fight me.

You know, I've been in this situation before. So I'm just going to approach it as such. Now, if he does come back, then yes, I will definitely want to fight him again. Nothing would make me happier. but until this suspension's lifted or whatever the case may be

focus needs to be on Volcan and whoever comes after that I don't know I don't know what's happening with John Jones I haven't given it that much thoughts since since oh shit

it's kind of been doing my own thing so last time we spoke it was it was all real again that you were the champion all of a sudden you said that you didn't really feel like the champion and maybe wouldn't feel like the champion until you fought again. Now that you're almost a month away, do you feel like the champion? Or do you feel like you'll only feel like the champion again once you beat Volkan?

My mentality hasn't changed in that sense. You know, like I told you, you know, like I was on your show quite a bit right after all, after the fight. And then after that happened, I was on there, like, kind of like back to back almost. The mentality has not changed. You know, I do, I do stick. with what I said, you know. On July 29th, I was there. You know, I was in the oxygen on July 29th in Anaheim, and, you know, it was going all so good until it wasn't anymore, you know, and I lost the fight. So that has not changed. So I need to go out and fight against Volcano's the

Merit Beaconautist's guy to feel like myself again. I feel like there's a stench on me. It's almost like I got pissed on by a skunk, and I just stink everywhere I go. Until I can get a really, really good bath, a hot. Even if I'm in the milk or something to get the stink off me, but beating Volcano Osamere, I'll feel as I do right now. That's just me. I'm a competitive, man. I know I lost that fight.

I can't erase that memory. No, I still have nightmares. You still have nightmares? Yeah. listen, I still dream about losing to Kill Sanderson in the NCAA finals. I still dream about losing the Olympic semifinals. I still dream about losing the John Jones twice. Like, for people like me, the losses don't really go away. You know, they don't fade with time. They just stay with you. And they are what motivates you. And it's kind of crazy, but that's just

who I am. And I think that's what makes me who, that's what makes me who I am. And that's what makes me able to do the things that I've done over the course of my life is that losses don't leave. They just kind of stay with me. It's been like that my entire life. So, yeah, it's crazy. One thing I have noticed, though, and I actually just got a tweet about this. Earlier in the day, Alexander Gustafin was on the program and he said that he still considers John Jones the real champion. That's not to say that he's not happy for you, that he doesn't want to fight you, but he still kind of feels like Jones is the real champion. And I got a response from someone who said, No, DC is the real champion.

He's the clean champ. And I've seen this a lot. When you beat Anthony Johnson the first time at UFC 187, I saw a lot of paper champ. You weren't the real champ all that stuff. I don't see that as much anymore. Do you get the same impression that people have actually turned the corner and actually really do believe that you are the real champion,

that they don't kind of look down on you anymore like that? It's the most unbelievable thing that in a situation where I lost the Jones in January by decision in a good fight. And then this one, I got knocked out. I got, actually, I got finished for the first time of my career. And more people feel as though I'm validated as champion now than I was then, which is crazy. Because, you know, because the result was so clear in July. And more people now are respectful of what I've done than before.

And I think maybe that's because when you start adding, you know, performance and answers into the equation, it makes things look a little bit different. And I feel like maybe that's why people are more respected. But yeah, much, much less. People are much, much more willing to accept that. I've kind of done everything the right way, you know. I've just fought with what I've been given. You know, I get stuff like, oh, you're not 5-11.

Well, I'm probably not 5-11. You know, oh, you kill yourself to make 205. Yes, I do. Oh, you're fat. You know what? I am probably one of the fatter guys in the UFC, even when I'm on my weight. I'm just not, I'm probably not, I'm not like the guys that you see out there. And I'm just out here working with what I was gifted with and has gotten me to where I am.

You know, through hard work and commitment. I think people respect that more today than they did because you see a guy that is, gifted with a lot of natural gifts, you know, very tall, able to make a weight class that most guys can't at his size. And just naturally has a really good fight IQ. And he'll feel as though he has to do some things that the line still has to be blurred in order to compete against that guy that just might not be 5-11. You know, a guy that looks like he is at the soccer game with his daughter every Saturday. I think people look at that and go, wow, there must be something to that little guy, you know, that makes you feel like you got to do a little bit extra to beat him.

And I think that's true, because if you, you know, I've shown him time and time again that, that, that, it's not easy to get your hand raised against me. And he's the only guy that's done it. I saw you gushing over Francis and Ghanu on Instagram. You were just blown away by that knockout as we all were. How do you feel now about sharing the marquee with Inganu and Miyochic? Do you like this? It's so crazy too because like I remember when Ngano first made his USC debut.

I was working the Fox desk. And I was just so excited about this kid from Paris. And I was like, oh, this dude's a monster. You're going to be ridiculous. And it's just crazy how fast things change. I remember I was in Canada once and there was like a, I had like an appearance or something. And I invited Ingan. And he went and he was just kind of.

Just getting started, you know, he didn't. He wasn't like, no, and he just kind of showed up to kind of say hi. And it was this really cool thing. And to see that this kid has risen so far in such a short period of time, I think it's tremendous. And then to fight with Steve Miotich, who I have an unbelievable amount of respect for, it's just amazing. You know, I spent a day with him in Cleveland doing this show car. called In the Clinch.

What a great show, by the way. You did a fan. You are the quintessential host for that program. They couldn't have found a better person, in my opinion. Ariel, I appreciate that, especially being that, you know, you did the show before, too, and I thought it went so well. That is your show.

Like, hey, it's starting to come back together. Oh, my goodness. It seems as I'm starting to come back together. We're going to start driving people crazy again with a compliment. But, no, no, man, you know, walking around, Spitting the day with Steve A, you know, guy's a fireman, guy's a fighter, he's a family man, husband, just a, just A-plus man all the way through. It's going to be a great fight.

Now, I talked to the champ the other day. I talked to Spey the other day, and because, you know, we have a media tour. We have to go to Boston tomorrow, and I have to go to Boston on Wednesday for the on-sale. And I was trying to make sure that Steve-A was going, too, because I was like, why should I have to go here, Steve A, if you live in Cleveland, why can't I do the L.A. leg, which is nuts, because Sipay is going to L.A. for that part, and I'm going to Boston, which completely makes no sense that we're crossing country. We're crossing the country, but I talked to the champ, and the champ said,

I'm not scared D.C. at all. He goes, I'm not afraid of Francis Ngano. There's no worry. That's strong style mixed martial arts. He goes, this is what we wanted. We wanted someone that people will tune in to see if he can beat me or not. He told me before, when I was, at the end of the show, I said, you win this fight, you become the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.

I go, who can beat you? He goes, they can put King Kong in there against me, and I'd knock him off. And hey, you got to fight King Kong, Steve, but he's not afraid. And I can relate to how he's feeling because I remember when Anthony Johnson was knocking everybody out and people thought I was going to get my head knocked off and the whole time I was like I'm going to beat this guy because sure he looks scary to you but he's not scary to me and I can sense when I talk to speak that he feels the exact same way that uh and gano just does not have the overall skill to beat him it's going to be a fun night in Boston I can't wait um two last quick things for

you DC number one how much fun are you having doing this TV work it seems like every time like of course what happened at 217 with the thug Rose. You know, you're just like always kind of, I've said this to you. Like you remind me of Jim De Anvil Nighthart the way you can, you know, stand still. The Colby Covington was just phenomenal, like the way you were playing him up in that crowd. I don't know what it is, but it's just a little different.

And that's no knock on Felder who's doing great and Dan Hardy and all these guys. But there's just something a little different. Are you trying to be kind of like the fan meets the analyst? Why is it, why does it feel a little different when you do it? How would you describe your approach as opposed to the others? I don't know. I mean, I'm just having fun. Like, I love watching fights, and I have the job of going there watching the fights and talking about the fights.

And I feel as though maybe I can relate to you in that sense that I fight, but still, I'm just like everybody else. I'm just over here enjoying myself. You know, I've had a great time that Colby Covington thing for me felt like 1980s wrestling. And I was not trying to disrespect Brazil in any way. I just, it's his moment. Whether the crowd loves him or they hate him. It's his moment. And if you're cheering him, he should get his moment.

If you're bullying him, he should get his moment. And I just remember watching wrestling when I was a kid where stuff like that would happen and the crowd would just be going nuts. But the bad guy was just in there soaking it all in. I loved it. That was fun. The Doug Rose thing was all I could think of was like, Oh my goodness.

Rose Nom Units just knocked at Yoanna and Jacek. And that's what I would have done at home. I would have ran around my house yelling Thug Rose over and over again. And that's exactly what I did at the thing. And the UFC loved it. You know, the UFC thought, wow, that is a pure, that's just a excited reaction. And we love that we got to, you know, we got you on the call doing it. So that was a great thing.

Yeah, those guys are doing tremendous though. All the guys are doing great. I just, I love my job, Ariel. I'm a lucky guy, man. I'm a lucky guy to be able to do the things that I do. I'm a lucky guy. Hey, in the U.S. loved it. They do.

They do. They loved it, so I'm going to continue doing it. They should love it. I love the fact that you don't take yourself too seriously, and you're just having fun, and the enthusiasm and the passion comes through the television. I mean, it's very clear. One last thing.

How are we going to, I mean, how do we fix the Justin Willis thing? I mean, the guy's like kind of calling you out. Like, what are we going to do about this? There's nothing to fix, man. He's a great, he's a great, he's a great teammate. He's a good training partner. And he wasn't calling me out.

I think he was just, he told me when he answered. He goes, he answered it with big, pretty grace. You know, just the grace of a, of a grace be faithful. a king, a king that Justin Willis is. Look, he's a great, he's a good fighter. He's, he's going to be a problem for a lot of guys in the heavyweight division. He spent years, man, training with me and Luke and Kane. And I think as he progresses in his career, you're going to see all the hard work come

to fruition. He's a phenomenal athlete, man. Played Division I football. And long arms, very physically strong. gifted, I like Justin Willis. So, Ariel, don't go over here. We're going to end up back on bad terms when you keep asking me shit like this. You don't have to quit, too.

It happens in no time you try to make me bad mom, my buddy, Justin Willis. No, I'm just kidding. It'll be fine. That was my fun. It'll be fine. I keep thinking about what you said in the middle of this interview. It's like a knife in my heart. You said, you know, when the whole thing happened with Jones, I was on your show, like

back to back to back. I couldn't help but feel like that was like I asked you to come on too many times. Is this a burden for you? I keep thinking about you saying that. I feel bad about it. Should I lay off? Should I pull? Well, it wasn't, it was me asking too much.

I shouldn't have asked to come on your show so many times. At a point, you got to cut me off. When I keep saying, Ariel, I need to come on to talk about this. I have to come on to talk about this. You got to go D.C. Enough is enough. You are not the co-host of my show. Enough is enough.

At a point, you got to tell me no, because I just go on too much. Oh, yeah. I truly enjoy your show, bud. Hey, you're best of the business. The host of In The Clinch. He's working the Winnipeg show, right? You're going to Winnipeg, right? I am going to Winnipeg, Benner.

Unbelievable. To be cold? It's going to be cold. It's going to be hell. If hell was cold, it's going to be the opposite of that. He works. I mean, the guy is just a tireless worker. He's the light heavyweight champion with UFC.

He's co-headlining UFC 220. He's got a podcast, which you never plug, by the way. Plug the damn podcast. What's the podcast called? Talk and Talker. Go to talkandtalker. Go to talkandtalker.com or search. talking talker on iTunes, Google Play.

Hey, it's a great podcast. We have a good time. Me and Nick Swinmern. Guys, listen to episode 10. It was the episode where Nick Swinmerer, who actually is a part of a minority owner and the Golden State Warriors, he got his championship ring from last year. Wow.

Dude got a championship ring from the NBA champion. So, yeah, it's a good podcast, man. You guys should listen to it. Much love, D.C. I'm glad we buried the hatchet. Good luck in Boston. and good luck in Winnipeg, and thanks, as always,

for making time for us. Thank you, my man. I'll see you in Winnipeg, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll be there. All right, bud. Later. There it is.

Daniel Cormier, the reigning, defending UFC light heavyweight champion, alas, I will not be in Winnipeg. I love Winnipeg, but I will not be at this particular show in Winnipeg. It's a great card. UFC on Fox 26.

RDA versus Robby Lawler. Santiago Ponzanibio against one Mike Perry, but, yeah, I'll be watching for a moment. I'll be enjoying every minute of it. I love the fact that it's an 8 p.m. start on the main card. You know that makes me very excited. All right.

I can't wait for this next interview. I've been looking forward to this all week. One of the great stories that you'll ever see in mixed martial arts. We all know how special Diego Sanchez is. We all know what he's meant to this sport and how everyone loves him and loves following his career. And he was involved in one of his toughest fights ever two weekends ago against the Shermanator, Isaac Marquez One of the great battles of the year

In my opinion It's going to be in the running for fight of the year 2017 And so I wanted to have the The opponents On the show together To see if they buried the hatchet See how they feel after the fight

And there they are Diego Sanchez Isaac Marquez The Shermanator in the house This is amazing stuff Hey guys, how are you? What's up Ariel? We're doing good man

Just excited to talk to you I got my main man Isaac the Shermanator Marquez right here. And he's fresh off his victory and he feels great. And oh, he has a message for you. Oh, wow. We're going straight to the next fight. We're not even getting to talk about the last fight.

We're going straight for John Dodson. Yeah, it looks like, you know, he's ready for the next level. He found someone who's more his size and he got excited. They already had a dance off where, you know, Obviously, John got served. If you haven't seen Isaac dance, he's even better dancer than he is. He's a better dancer, a better bowler. And man with the girls, this guy, he has the best girlfriend.

And this guy has a little mouth. He's a little Mac Daddy. I love it. Isaac, congratulations on the win. What has life been like since you beat UFC fighter, tough one winner, Diego Sanchez? What's it been like? I like it.

he liked it oh my god what how many times have you watched the fight four weeks two weeks he's been watching it for about two weeks he said that's amazing he hasn't stopped

and we're seeing some we're seeing some footage of the fight right now that was that an arm triangle or was it an arm bar what was it Diego and how tight was it because I saw you nursing the arm afterwards you know it was an arm bar and we worked that move a lot during his training

and I just wasn't aware that he was going to pull it so hard and so fast on me and this guy's a little raw champion and you like the arm bar and what other what other submissions do you like? The neck. The neck? What else do you? The leg bar? Yeah, yeah.

He likes the missions but I don't know, I think he's been working on his stand-up and you're looking for a You're not fat no more. We're all fat no more. And that's because you work hard. You run, right? I call wine. Run and what else? What does the coach tell you?

No salt. No toast. No cheese. No tea. And no bread. No bed. Wow. Sometimes we cheat on the diet, but pretty much.

No cheese. No tea. No tea. No tea even, he said. That is discipline. That is amazing. What do we do eat? No hot dog.

No hot dogs. No teeth. No cold. No cold. No cold. No warm water. No water. But, yeah, you know, we're training hard.

We're working hard still. And this whole thing started just about Isaac's health. I seen a young man looking at the mat with desire and on heart. Just he wanted to step foot on that mat. Like I see him on the sideline. And so I asked him, I said, said, you like MMA. He told me I love UFC.

And I said, all right. Well, do you want to just watch or do you want to train? Oh, he wants to say his next tattoo. He's going to get the UFC right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's amazing. He wants to get in two places, but we're going to limit it to one. And I think we're only going to get one, one, one UFC tattoo.

And maybe Dan and why will hook you up with some tickets to go to a real UFC one of these days. Oh, yeah. Yeah? Would that be a dream come to? true. Holy Diego. Yep. Yeah. That's another one of his dreams. And Isaac, you attained one of your dreams. You were able to fight in your fight for your mom.

My mom. Yeah. And tell him about your mom. My mom die. Yeah. His mom passed away from dementia. And he misses his mom, loves his mom. And he has this tattoo right here on his arm. You see it. He'll put it on the camera. Yep. It's a cross.

And it said his mom. And that's the whole reason. He came and told me, I told him, Isaac, you know, you want to train? He said, I want to train. I said, I got him on the mat. He jumped on the mat with me. And we went from there. And I was training for a fight.

I had a big fight. So I told me, man, I can't train you more than like 45 minutes, Isaac, because I have a big fight that I have to train for. And so Isaac responded by telling me He has his big fight that he's training for too And you know He looked at me like I'm training for my big fight too And then he told me he's gonna fight for his mom And so when he told me that he's gonna fight

He's gonna fight so his mom could see him I just wrapped him around my arms and said All right let's do this meito let's get some training Let's learn how to throw some punches some kicks and just let's start working. And, you know, one of the coolest things was he immediately lost weight. He would listen to me and he would eat healthier. And he just, it's amazing.

It's been an amazing journey. And we're only 10 months into the journey and we only train once a week. So the more and more opportunity that arises, hopefully we'll be training twice a week. Maybe optimally would be three. but Isaac does have talent and he's a motivation for all of the Down syndrome community that even though you're down syndrome you know you can still have a dream you can still believe in your dream and your dream is possible and it can come true if you really believe in it right

right Isaac here you go that's amazing that's why he's coming after uh john dotson um aka the black jacket and and what are you going to do to him you know fucking egg my fucking Nick, no fucking head. What else? Look it back. What else? What else? Damn.

This is no joke over here. And he's going to get a new nickname called Isaac the breaker because after you fight him, you just go home broken. So. What are you hoping to have this fight? 27th nickname. I have three. I have had three nicknames. He has 27.

So, you know, he's teaching me a little bit about that. Is R. My name. Yep. My name. Yep. The Shermanator. H.R.

Okay. S.R. That's the 28th. Right. But, um. What, when? Any, any questions? Yeah.

Yeah. No, this is a man. I love this. This is a beautiful site. You still hear me, Diego? Hello. Do you hear me? Yeah.

I can hear you. I can hear you. So you met him 10 months ago just at the gym. He was just at the gym. and then you started to help him train, that's it? Yeah, you know, like, yeah, Albuquerque is a smaller town. We don't have a pro football team or a pro basketball team. So us fighters, you know, that hold it down for the UFC,

we really are like the real true pro team that we have here. And so we get people coming into the gym sometimes. For the most part, it's a professional gym. And we don't just let anybody come on in. but, you know, no one was going to tell Isaac no, and he walked right up to the mats, and he stood about two inches from the mats, and that's when I confronted him and got him, got him training. And I didn't plan any of it at all. I didn't, there was no plan to it.

It was just, just me meeting somebody and, you know, share the love, you know, share the mixed martial arts. And, and for me, I've only been. I've only improved getting better while training Isaac in basics and everything that Isaac does. I train right there alongside with him, even if I've trained in the morning and it's halfway through the day. It doesn't matter. I get extra energy from Isaac when we train together. We roll, we grapple, we spar, we get in the cage, we fight, we do, you know, and it's just really been fun for me. I know that after I'm done fighting, you know, coaching maybe in my path, but I know for sure I'll be

coaching Isaac Marquez. And you never know. You never know. We're looking to start a special needs little team here at Jackson Week MMA. So we're working on that. So, you know, this is just the start. Isaac is he's starting his career now. and he's going to continue to fight.

We're going to get him another fight. Hopefully, little John answers and replies. You know, we're waiting for his, if he's going to take the fight, right? We don't know. He's scared. No. Yep. No, he's a little scared, I think.

We make kids. Huh? Me? Oh, you're going to work hard? All right. He said he's going to work hard, and that's it. That's incredible. And we're not going to talk no trash about John Dock.

We love him. But if he does get in the cage with Isaac Marquez, it will be trouble. It will be a broken heart for John Dodson. Diego, how did the idea to actually have a fight come about? Where did this come from? Well, it started with, see, I told him, I said, Isaac, I have my big fight coming up, and that's what he told me. Hold on, let me declines.

all right um i should be popping back on the screen yeah you're back you're back okay here am all right yeah yeah i um he just told me he had his big fight too so i was like well all right let's just run with it if he has his big fight then he's going to put more heart more passion more discipline into the plan which i had for him was just to be healthier you know he came in with a little belly and you know he had them chubby cheeks and and I just wanted him to be healthy you know I don't want him to ever have a heart attack or anything like that so you know in the beginning it was just just you know let's get this guy to be optimal you know that way he can enjoy his life and and be in better shape and and everybody knows working out give you multiple benefits of you know

just you feel better when you work out when you train you know it releases those serotonins and and stuffing your brain and, and, and you feel better. But it, it just started with that. And from there, I just kept telling him, yeah, you know, we're training for your big fight. You're going to get your big fight. You know, I just was, you know, just playing with it, and honestly. And he took it serious. And so when the time came, the right, all the stars aligned.

And Isaac was able to bring it, you know, a manifestation destination. nation and with the Jackson Wing team and everybody all came together and the New Mexico Athletic Commission. We all came together and we made a young man's dream come true. And in the end, it was all about his mom and he wanted to dedicate the fight to his mom. So in the end, one man's dream came true. Now Isaac has a much more driven, purposeful, meaningful life that he's carrying out. he loves martial arts

he loves the UFC and he loves me and I love him more I like David yep he loves his barber he just said he loves his barber there but yeah no so it's it's been a all

a positive thing you know after the fight was done it ended up going viral yeah so many millions and millions of people checking out the story you know that we were happy about that but we never planned any of that

we just, um, it was all just about Isaac fighting for his mom. Yeah, what is that, what has that been like the past? I've seen this everywhere. We're looking. Um, you know, it's been really, it's been really cool. You know, we've had some, you know, the thing about it is, uh, a lot of people, Isaac, the Shermanator Marquez, his specialty is the arm bar, but right now he has America's heart and a chokehold because, you know, it's just, it's pure, it's innocent, it's sweet.

It's real love. And that's the story between me and Isaac. It's real love right here. You know, I love this guy. He loves me and he loved his mom. He loves his mom. And so, you know, anybody who, you know, could relate with losing a mom, you know, that's something that's very hard. And it was very hard for Isaac.

And, you know, so that's how he found a way to put that energy in a positive way. so he could believe in his dream and fight his fight and win his fight for his mom. And that's exactly what he did. And it's so proud. He did amazing out there. I wasn't expecting him to be so fast or quick. If you've seen some of his techniques were real precise. And that's not just for me training him.

Isaac will stay up all night watching YouTube, watching moves, learning moves. And I'll never forget the day that I came in to train him. Isaac and I was running late that day. I was in training camp and so the rest of my um my teammates here at jackson week they they got him with open arms and um he had some good rounds with with a couple pretty good fighters and I was like maybe maybe he could do it you know I was like I was so impressed with with with how he had developed as a mixed martial artist because we didn't have our hard days where I'm like uh you know and then we'd have our good days so um he had a very good day and that's when I decided.

I said, man, you know, maybe he can do this, you know, to the extent that he can, because he does have a neck issue where if he was hit too hard or compromised, it could turn out bad for Isaac. So that's why everything we do is very professional. He's always watched out over, and, you know, I take care of you, right? Oh, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. What a beautiful story. Isaac, let me ask you before I let you go. Who's your favorite fighter? Do you have a favorite one? I like Diego, my man. I had a feeling you would say that.

Amazing. Wonderful. Well done, Diego. Well done. Who else? Who else do you like, buddy? I love my girlfriend. He loves his girlfriend.

And shout out to Lydia. She's his babe. She has a lot of patience. And we appreciate you, Lydia. Shout up to Lydia. That's amazing. Well, this has been a great story. All the peeps out.

here, all the peeps out there who have a dream, believe in your dream, Isaac Shermanator, Marcus, all the Down syndrome kids that may see this video, believe in your dream, go after it. There's a lot of people out there in this world that support you and will help you. And that's how it all came together. It's a lot of people who will take the extra time out of their day to help someone who may have not been dealt the cards that we are dealt. But you know what? Have just as much heart, if not more.

And brilliant genius right here to my left. And my brother, Isaac from Mayer Marquez. Give him a follow on Instagram. Team Jackson wink, you know me. Nightmare forever, you know. Linehart, dream, all that, too. Isaac, congratulations on the victory. You're the man.

You're an inspiration. You're my hero. And I'm looking, I hope you get that fight against John Dodson. I can't wait to see it. I have a feeling you're going to whoop the floor with him. It's going to be amazing. One more time.

One more time. Here. I got one more time. He's, Isaac's wants. Isaac wants to do a shout out. So, Isaac. What's your doing?

What's that? What's that? What's the key? Your fucking neck. What a fucking head? A fucking neck. A fucking neck. A fucking neck.

You're a fucking back. Damn. watch out John Dodson Diego well done thank you thank you here you thank you for having us on the show

we love you and stay tuned big fights for Isaac and big fight for me soon just enjoying the holidays and enjoying Walterway happy holidays to you guys

again well done congratulations to you both a phenomenal story and thank you so much for doing this It was great to meet you, Isaac. All the best to you. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.

Good, good, guys. Thank you. Awesome. There he is. The Shermanator. Isaac Marquez. That may have been my favorite segment in the history of this program.

That was incredible. Diego Sanchez. What a guy. If you haven't seen the video, the Jackson Wink, Twitter account, Instagram account, account,

excuse me, um, they've posted that a couple times we showed some footage of that just amazing stuff there's some footage on the screen right there you see Isaac with the takedown this is towards the end I believe right

Isaac with half guard Diego reverses you can tell that the the crowd was very much in favor of the Shermanator Isaac Marquez and now you see Diego trying to pour it on goes for the back Isaac gets up

reversal they reset trips them take down into mount half guard Diego reverses once again Diego trying to get out of

Isaac's guard you see here I mean it's it's just impressive stuff this was Jackson Wink fight night two in fact the promoter was Lenny Fresquez and now you see him grabbing the arm he's about to grab the arm and there you have it the arm bar bang

Isaac Marquez 1 and 0 submitting Diego Sanchez the ultimate fighter winner the former title contender hands raised high well done the Shermanator

well done what a great moment well done to all involved that was amazing stuff thank you so much to Diego Sanchez and Isaac Marquez for coming on

that was amazing I'll take these off as we welcome in our next guest I've been wanting to have our next guest in studio for quite some time let us welcome in at this time New York's own

Long Island's own, Chris Wade, who is in the house. This is amazing. See you. How about this? How are you? Chris, how are you? Thank you for coming in. It has been a, you can't, you, I come bearing gifts. Wow. Amazing. I love it for you. Look at that. That is nice. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's your own company, right? Yes. You own it? I own it with a few partners. Wow, thank you. Yeah. I appreciate it. Nice little Hanukkah gift for me. There you go. Thank you very much, Chris. Thank you for that. I appreciate you doing that. Welcome to the show. I must admit, I've wanted to have you in studio. We have a lot in common, Chris.

I know. We're sort of like Twitter sports friends. I love this place. Thank you. I appreciate it. How long did it take for you to get in? You know, I almost missed it. Really?

With what happened with that pipe bomb today. I decided to go south to Atlantic. Okay. And I went the wrong way on one of the subways. Oh, no. And I tried to reach out to you. But luckily, another guy, he also had gone the wrong way. I was following what he was doing on the subway sign.

I realized, we're going south. We're not going to cross into me. Manhattan. I'm going deep into Brooklyn. I got to get out of here. So I jumped off and luckily I was able to spin back the other way. I decided to drive in because I didn't want to deal with, how crazy is it? Has it calmed down a little bit or is it still a little bit? You know, initially I was going to go into Penn and take the subway down. And then as soon as I woke up this morning, I got the alert and they were saying everything shut down up there. Don't even go up there. So I just steered south and it was very quiet. Okay. Yeah. All right. It's terrifying, right? It's a crazy world we

live in like, you know, it's the holiday season. This guy's just, he's trying to blow people apart on the subway. It's, it's insane. I always talk, I'm like, I'm always on the subway and I always mentioned to my wife, like, I'm shocked. I hate to say it that something hasn't happened yet on the subway because it's just like a free-for-all, right? Yeah. There's no security. There's essentially nothing. There's not much. There's so many people. There were a lot of policemen outside of the turnstiles today. I don't think. I noticed that they had like five, six guys with like assault rifles basically just watching at Atlantic at least yeah I can't imagine what it's like but at Atlantic yeah interesting um all right well let's talk about you as we try to transition

from something like that which is kind of crazy I saw you did you just announce a fight or a grappling match on Twitter yeah I just announced I'm gonna be doing a submission only grappling match against Sydney Outlaw who was on the contender series yeah this summer he won his fight we were supposed to face off and ring in combat but it didn't work out back in the day yeah Something happened, he got hurt, and he had to pull out, like, the day away ins. So it was tough. You know, when you're trying to come up like that, it was a setback. But he's a grappling specialist.

I'm a grappling specialist, so it should be a good one, submission only. And you're still in the UFC? I'm a free agent right now. You are? I'm a free agent. Interesting. I didn't know that. Okay.

So you didn't have to get permission to do this. No. But, you know, I don't know how exactly it works. I've been seeing guys like Gilbert, Aljo, yeah. Or kind of rolling. contractually tied to them, you don't really have to ask for anything, right? No.

So you fought out your contract? Yes. The last fighting against Frankie Perez. Against Frankie. Interesting. You know, I was under the impression that Frankie and I were both kind of, because we had come off a few losses. Yeah. I thought it was one of those like sink or swim kind of deal.

Whoever loses this fight, you're out. It's a lightweight division. You know how the lightweight division is. It's stacked. Yeah. So, you know, I feel, obviously you saw my tweets. I feel misled. Yeah. That's where that anger kind of came from.

Okay, so let's talk about that. There's a lot to unpack here. I'd even know that you were a free agent. Matt McChryan was on the show a couple weeks ago. He talked about how Joe Silva, according to him, lied to him about the size of the cage. And then I saw on your Twitter, you were like, oh, yeah, I kind of know, I've had my own issues with Joe Silva in the past. Who, of course, is no longer with the U.S.C. What happened with you?

I mean, I think from the jump, he and I just never saw eye to eye from, and I never had to a conversation with the man face to face like this. Really? Never once. The only thing we've done is, you know, shake hands with him, give a little head nod. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. And the way that I heard through my management at the time that he was speaking about me was

just like it was infuriating, you know. What was saying? You know, I went to redo my contract when I was three and all. I guess it's standard. Yeah. If they see that you're trending in a good direction, they're going to re-extend your contract before you get to that last fight. I think probably what it is is it gives them a little more leverage.

If you win your next fight big, now they're looking at having a really deal with you. So I did the standard, the 8 and 8, the 10 and 10, the 12 and 12. I put the first guy to sleep in a minute. It was like one of the quickest debuts. You know, Dana giving me a hug as I walk in the back. I'm thinking after this first fight, like my dreams are coming true here. This is going to be amazing.

Like everything I've worked so hard for. I got to the Boston fight in January. It was like maybe four months later and they put me against LePang. Yeah. And I beat him like 30, 26. But I wasn't proud of the fight. Too much grappling.

Not enough, like, too much trying to submit the guy and not enough trying to put him away with my striking. And I won 3026, but I never watched the fight still. Because I was just like, I was down on the fight. Really? And from that moment, I got a sense when I went, even in backstage, I saw Dana, saw a couple of people. Like, they didn't even really want to, like, conversate. They were kind of like, you know, I tried to reach out, hey, hey, hey, just kind of right around you.

I was like, something's not really right here, you know? And then it took me six months to get my next bout being two and oh asking, asking, asking, I'm healthy, me. Yeah, yeah. And it had to be a short notice. gave me like, all right, we'll throw him on three weeks, New Orleans with Mitrione, which is where I kind of started like getting to know him a little bit. Okay. Against Jogos, who got a raw deal in my opinion too with them.

But I thought we got after it pretty good. You know, he was bloodied. We were going at it. I won that fight, 3027 again, lost like no rounds. And I got no discretionary win bonus, which is like usually standard. My teammates will tell me, dude, I get discretionary. a string bonus when I lose fights. Really?

You didn't get one when you want to fight? I'm like, and this is the pre-sale era. We're not talking about the new UFC, right? We're talking about the old. This is the old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the old regime.

Yeah. And then when I got to 3 and 0, I thought I had like, you know, just a little bit of leverage. Yeah. One fight left after that? One fight left. Yeah.

I think I was coming up on like 14 and 14. So I said to my manager, hey, do you think maybe we could, you know, negotiate up just a little bit? You know, get a little pay bump, a couple grand, you know. he's like, you know, I'm going to ask, I'll go ask. He calls me back, like, distraught, Chris.

It didn't go well. I'm like, what happened? No-go? He's like, not just no-go. I mean, he laid into you pretty good on there. Joe Silva? Yeah. Okay.

Like, what do you mean? He's like, I don't even want to repeat the things that he said to you, about you, on the phone. Really? I was like, it was, what? How? He's like, it was ugly, man. What? It was ugly.

And I'm sitting there like, what did I do to this guy? What did I do wrong to this guy that he's talking about me like this? You know, we've never had a conversation, nothing. And after that, that's when I started getting booked with like, first it was Tysam off. And I was like, all right, you know, let's go. The visa issues in Boston. So I wound up submitting Medi Baghdad. I'm 4 in 0 now.

I won the top 15 fight. I'm like, let's go. Let's do this. we're climbing to the top. So they give me a mega Madoff in the Netherlands. And he pulls out, and without calling me, they give me Kabilov. Yeah.

And I'm like, you know, that didn't seem like standard to me. What do you mean without calling you? Like if someone pulls out, usually you'll have a conversation with them about like, all right, what's our options here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I wanted a top 15 fight. Yeah. And I wanted a fight in America where I think I'm marketable.

Yeah. I think I'm one of the better-looking guys in the division. I think I'm one of the most athletic guys on the roster. I wanted to be promoted. I wanted to fight a James Vic at the time, Kevin Lee. I wanted my chance on one of these up-and-comers. Without a conversation, they're like, nah, he's staying in the Netherlands. He's fighting Kabilov.

It is what it is. We take it, you know, I don't know if you saw that fight. Didn't go my way. And then, so that's three of the Russian guys. guys in a row. And then my next fight, my manager calls me laughing, but nervous laughing a little bit. I'm like, what is up?

He's like, you're not going to believe this. He's like, they gave you, you got a fight, but it's another Dagestani guy. I'm like, no. No, it's not. Who is it? So he tells me Islam, I wasn't familiar with him at the time. But he told me that there was like a PED issue.

And I don't know if you've ever seen my Twitter, but I'm pretty vocal about how contact oriented our sport is that you're trying to harm each other in there. So I'm very against PEDs, you know? So I was like no, I'm not, you know, he's coming off

an appeal suspension where like he didn't really say he didn't do it. There was like an issue with the language barrier or something. It was a new on the band substance list. Yeah. I was like, no, you know, give me someone else. And that's when I knew, like, this is a problem. He's like, you know, I'm on

on board with you, Chris. We're going to tell him this isn't the fight for us. Calls me back. He's like, that did not go well. I'm like, again? No, what could have possibly happen now? He's like, he said he's going to cut you

that you're in no position to turn down a fight. Who do you think you are? Blah, blah, blah. Now I'm watching guys hand cherry-picked fights all across every division to try to work their way to the top. Now I'm like, this guy, This guy's got it out for me.

And he basically said that. He's got it for you, man. And I think they were trying to trim the roster down. And I think he tried those two losses in a row. He tried railroaded me and put me out after that. I wound up with new management. And I was able to get on that Long Island card thinking I'll write the ship. Now, by the way, did you change management because of this?

Yes. I thought that I contacted Sean directly because I contacted Sean directly because I I thought I didn't believe what they were telling me. John Shelby? No, my management. I was like, how could this be? Yeah. They're telling me, he's looking for a fight for you.

He's looking for a fight for you. And then I'm like four and two. I had the four-fight win streak, and then the two losses to the Russian guys who haven't lost since. And they're like, you know, they give me like a short notice. They call me about Felder.

Feldor fought someone in like Nova Scotia or something like that earlier this year he was supposed to be on the Barclays so I take the fight I say yes to it and then they give me the guy's name who he wound up fighting I say yes to both names I'm like just I'll do it I'll take it and like no one even answers me back they just booked the two of them oh my god and this happened like two or three times this year alone where I got cold about something and then no answer back after I Yes. So after that, I get a call on saying, like, yo, I think they're just going to let you go. I'm like, you just gave me a fight offer last week. What's going on right now? So I went around,

contacted Sean, like, we need to talk, you know? And, you know, I have respect for Sean. He treated me like, you know, a person. He didn't demean me or anything like that. But he kind of passed the buck a little bit, in my opinion, onto Joe, you know, trying to trim the roster down. I'm not, I'm going to try to get you about, but I'm not sure. And, uh, wound up getting that Perez fight. Yeah. And I think I won all three of those rounds too. Right. It wasn't my best fight for sure ever. I wasn't that happy with it. But I thought I was, you know, next contract, moving on. Let's go. Let's move. I was told after that fight, we're going to get, we're going to do your next contract when we get you your next opponent. So I

waited from July to, you know, around my birth. on September. I'm hearing nothing. I'm like, something's not right. So I start calling, calling, calling. And that's when I, they don't even come straight forward with you. They just like, kind of, that's why I made the reference on Twitter to the guy from office space, who they don't, he doesn't really get it, and they don't want to really tell him, like, what's going on, but he keeps getting moved and tucked away. And it felt like that. And, you know, I just, I feel like I got railroaded, you know. And so they never offered, you anything. No contract offer, no fight offer. Nothing. I just kept hearing that it was going to

happen. It was going to happen. It was going to happen. We got a lot of guys to get fights, like this, this, that, and the other. And then just, I'm still sitting here. Wow. They haven't made. Five months later. Yeah. And, you know, I got, it's not to say, like, woe is me, what was me, but to me, when I, when I earn the record that I have, I have two first round finishes, and that's why I blew up, And I'm watching guys like on the cart, main card. No offense to those guys. They're on the main card. This dude has no win streaks and never has put somebody away.

And Sean's tagging him like their buddy buddy after the fight. He didn't finish again. Dude's like half a decade older than me. There's no consistency in anything that they're doing or rhyme or reason. And that's when I got frustrated. I'm watching Michael Kinone's and Sage. I called Sage out when I was 3 in a no. No love.

Nothing. Called Lentz Out after my last fight. Nothing. It's like I tried to look and see guys that have been, this has happened to. And it's always the same thing. It's veterans that are getting paid a lot of money that they just don't see the value anymore in it. My contract is still very reasonable. The only guy I can see is like the guy Hallman was like four and three, but he put that

speedo on and got himself in like, or if somebody got in trouble. outside of fighting. Nothing. I don't know. I'm left to, all they tell me is like, you know, it's not right what they did.

So at this point, are you moving on? Yeah, I'm moving on. You think your UFC career is done? I think so. Wow. This is shocking stuff.

Yeah, I don't, you know what? It's not healthy for me, for my mindset. Like, they made me wait 10 months. They've made me feel every fight like a pit bull that's

not the whole, organization. I love the PR guys, Chris and Christian and everybody that's Dean and they're all amazing people, great people. But the way they treat the fighters, I mean, look at my buddy, Aljo, like this weekend, excellent fighter. Anything can happen in there at any time. You think that that's worth what you're giving us for that? And then you're going to treat us like this on top of it. Like to me, that's where I had to like just voice my, my frustration. Yeah. Do you feel better now that you've kind of come out and... You know, I do. I do because I didn't have an outlet. Like I said, this is all middleman

stuff with management. So there's no way to, like, unless you go around and like really try to get at them with a call on his number or something, you really don't speak with them. You're just hearing things. So the reason I chose Twitter was so that I could I could, at least they would read or see my frustrations, you know? Do you think it worked at all? I don't think they care about anything. They just want to use whoever is coming up, whoever social media is the strongest.

I don't think it's about who's the best fighter or who can get their hand raised anymore, which I understand, like, they got to make money. But they never put me in a position where I'll cost them money. Right. I've been stuck tucked in a prelim. for my whole career with them. They never wanted to promote me. You know, I talk to guys, I'm not going to name names,

that are handpicking fights, getting raises, and that when they have conversations with them, they're saying, we're going to build you. You're going to build them. So you keep the one and two, one and three guys around as guppies so they could be eaten by the big... I think I'm like a threat because they don't want to promote me, but they know that if they...

My thing is, like, put me down then. If you don't want me around, just put me down. Give me a fight against one of these guys that you think are better than me and let them knock me out. Let them submit me. And then I'll go like this. But why do you think they don't like you? I can't fathom it.

Nothing happened. Maybe I got a little outspoken about some issues on the internet early. Really? About what? I don't know. I jumped in briefly into the like fighter union thing and into like feeling like we don't make enough money. Maybe someone saw stuff and was like, this kid's, I don't know.

You spoke a little bit about your clothing line, right? You were disappointed that you couldn't wear it. Yeah, the Reebok deal. I was disappointed. I can't represent Island Strong in my company, you know, and make double, triple the income from my family. Right. Because, you know, because of this deal.

So I don't. So the only thing you can think of is that maybe you were being punished, but no one actually came out and told you like, hey, the reason why we don't want to be in business with you or promote you or build you is X, Y, and Z. You never had that conversation. Never had that conversation. Did you think when Joe Silva left that maybe things would change?

I thought things were going to get better so fast. I thought me and I thought we just didn't click and he didn't believe in me. And I thought that I was going to get some sort of a fresh start with the new company. And I went to that athlete retreat this year. Like, I don't know. I had such a positive outlook on 2017. I thought it was like, I had a rough 2016 personally. Sean and I, we had a brief phone conversation.

I know he went through some stuff with his family, and I went through some things. And I said it in a post on Instagram that I shouldn't have been in the cage in 2016. I should have been taking some time off. There's no excuses for, you know, I went in there. I chose to sign those contracts. And I went in there at the end of the day. But the lack of compassion, like that they have for you as human beings, it was just insulting. Wow.

What happened in 2016? Do you mind if I ask? You know, I just a single dad now. So I was living with, you know, her mom and that it kind of all fell apart, like, around that time. Okay. Right when I was in the Netherlands, like that first fight. Oh, wow. My head was just elsewhere.

Like, I couldn't put body weight back on after I made weight for my fight. It was just the 2020 hindsight. It was a foolish move to be in the cage at that time. and it didn't do my career any justice, you know? How old is your daughter? She'll be four on the 9th of January. And she lives with you? Yeah, I have her half the week.

Half the week, okay. How are things now? Like, how are you adjusting to this? Things are way better now. Okay. Definitely much more adjusted to the new schedule, the new life. The new reality? Right, the new reality.

But again, you kind of go to them and you have a moment as like a human and you try to they're just like you mentioned this I mentioned it yeah yeah he knows that I mentioned it and he kind of cut me off quick and was like listen I see where you're going

I'm just going to cut you off there and I'm not saying that I'm getting rid of you I'm going to try to get you something but nothing for you right now and just kind of like dang yeah what was it like so you got it's amazing to me that you know it feels like almost every

New York fighter has had a chance to fight in New York Yeah. And you were the last one, right? But you got Long Island, right? Not Long Island. Which was huge for you. Yeah. That's your mecca.

And you got, you know, the first fight, that was cool. You got to be the first one in there. Yeah, that was cool. And it was a great performance. I remember talking to you afterwards. Did you think in the back of your mind that there was a chance? This was your last time fighting in the UFC? Like, was that even a remote possibility?

Were you emotional about it at all? You didn't even mention it to us in the scrum? You never even, like, hinted at it. Well, I get really, I'm a wrestler, growing up and I take things like really, really hard. I'm very critical myself and I know that I'm still not living up to my potential. I know that if you ex my teammates or people that I spar with or move around with, that I still have so much more that I haven't even shown and I'm still young and I'm healthy

and I want to get in there and I fought Frankie and I let other things like just, I thought I played it a little too safe. you know, to be honest with you. Okay. I thought I could have opened up more, and I think that they probably agree. But at the end of the day, like, can you name one person that's five and two in the UFC

with two first round finishes and they don't even want to speak to you? Yeah. Like... Not even given a low ball offer. No offer. Nothing. Nothing.

Just radio silence. Did you see anyone in the back after that fight? Did you say, hey, are we going to talk? What does this mean? I didn't know I thought that I was I was told like I said to you I lit when I spoke to you yeah I was like all right on to the next contract let's see who we get next wow I made a call out yeah you were talking about Nick Lentz it was a great call out I was out because you know he had just fought Islam and I saw what Islam did with that fight so I was like this is a good

match up you know no no offense to him or anything this is a fight game they want to see you call people out yeah they came up to me who do you want next yeah I don't know I just was thinking like all right, five and two. No, it was a great call. He even responded to you on Twitter moments later. He was a little upset with me. You know, it's just the game. No, nothing personal to him.

But it just didn't sink in for months until, you know, you realize something's not right here. So at what point did you turn the corner and say, all right, this is it? At what point did that realization set in? Well, I knew that I was a free agent and I just kind of, I wanted to explore my options because I've seen a lot of guys starting to do that. And I still see a lot of value in myself. I think I'm one of the best lightweights in the world. I think no one's ever dropped me, no one's ever put me away.

And I think I'm extremely marketable. I think I speak well. I think I looked apart. So I was like, you know, let's field some stuff. And I kind of got like, no, no, no, let's, we're getting you the next deal here. This is where you belong. What did you get that from? Well, the people that I'm with now.

Your management? Yeah. Okay. So I just, you know, I was like, yeah, let's do that. Because at the end of the day, I'm just a competitor. Like I heard Daniel on before when I was sitting in a thing. Like those losses are going to eat at me forever. But I just want to, I want to be in the UFC because I want a chance to compete against the best of the best,

the best guys that, you know, the sport has to offer. And that was my goal always was to climb and to test myself, you know, just like wrestling. You win a match in a big tournament and you advance the next round. Yeah. And that's not how this sport goes. The sport goes about you could be a schlep and have two fights. And if your social media following is 2 million, you can put gloves on. Right.

To me, it's like I didn't get into this thinking that. I got into this when I saw a Bonner fight, Griffin, when I was watching Ladell and Couture and George St. Pierre and all these guys that, like, it wasn't about all the extra, it was about getting in there and winning. And, you know, you have to adjust on the fly, I guess. But it's hard to. It's hard to when you come from a sport like wrestling where it's like a humble, get your hand raised, keep your head down, get to the next round,

don't take anyone for granted, you know, don't give anyone extra reason to fight or wrestle above their level. Right, right. And just get them. Has this turned you off from the sport? Have you we considered... I've been battling... I mean, I've been battling in my mind

whether, you know, this is worthwhile for me to continue for the last like four months, yeah, to be honest with you. Just because, like, when you're healthy and you're going to practice every day and you're investing your time in this, and this is your passion and your dream, and like, in your...

I think it's like 715, my win percentage or something. with them and like they're treating you like your two and five it's just like it's demoralizing right you know you got to summon everything you have as a person to to stay focused and to keep improving and to keep getting in the gym and to keep working out despite no word on stuff you know so do you think there's a chance you may never fight again i i mean i want to fight again i want to chase you know to me now at this point, I'm looking to move on, Bellator, you know, a PFL. I want to be somewhere where someone wants me to be there. I want a positive relationship with my company, not to feel, you know, you wouldn't want to come to work every day for years or whatever, like, and your boss just like,

sure, you know, basically just spitting at you when you come by, like, you're nothing. You'd be like, this place, I don't want to work here. I'm moving on. Right. So I think we just have to be just, have to, you know, I think it's best to just take it in another direction. Have you had any, or your management had any conversations with any other organizations? I mean, we've just started to because of the fact that, like, I honestly did not think that this was going to be an issue at all, you know? I see who's out there getting fights. I'm not a dumb fighter. I see what they're capable of, and it's just not up to them. who I am, some of it.

Considering, you know, what's happened, if they, let's say they hear you and say, yeah, we messed up, you know, we're going to figure this out. Do you even want to go back at this point, or is the damage, you know, so deep, like, did they do you wrong in your mind so much that you're kind of over it? Would you ever consider going back? Yeah, I would consider, like I said to you, like, despite the way things have gone off the jump with Sean, like I do have respect for him, I think that he does a good job, like, putting together matchups. And when we did speak, he wasn't demeaning to me. He didn't curse it me. He didn't tell me that I'm not, you know, this or that. And, you know, I've never had that conversation with Dana or anyone where I felt

that way. It was just really Joe that I heard those things being said about me. So the people that are there now, I don't really, I don't have anything against them or the organization. I just feel. like I got railroaded. I feel like, this kid's not going to lose, but it's going to be tough to, like, put them down. There's really no Russian guys left for Sambo champs to, like, try to stuff them, you know? So we got to just, like, you know, put an end to it. So is this why you're taking that grappling match in January? I'm taking the grappling match just to be at, just to do something and be active, you know. It's been so long, July, the last time I stepped in the cage, and it was 10 months before that.

Right. And no injuries, right? No, I'm healthy all the time. That's the thing. I make weight every time. Right. I go to every PR event they've ever asked. I make weight every single time like a professional. I don't do anything that's going to embarrass them, cursing on TV, whatever they tell you not to do. I take pretty much every bout that I'm given, whether it's two weeks or two months, there's no value in that. Guys can't get healthy. Guys can't fight. You know, I feel like my value's up here. I know you're not that kind of guy, but I also know that the Long Island MMA community is pretty tight-knit,

even though you're not all under the same. You know, I feel like people think of Long Island and they think of, you know, Sarah Longo, but there's other gyms, right? Yeah. As you know. Yeah, you think of, I hear that a lot. Like, so do you train down with Widman? Right, exactly.

I bet. If they don't just call me Wydman, which I get constantly. Do you? Oh, yeah. They don't care. I'll get a DM that's like you're going to be champ again soon. I guess W. That's what it takes is Chris and the W.

But is it tough to see some of these other guys, your friends, part of the same community, they're getting opportunities. Yeah. And you're like, you know, I'm healthy. Where's my MSG fight or things like that? It's really, really hard. It's been one of the biggest challenges in my life to tell you the truth, to sit there idly and be supportive.

Yeah. Like, I love what. All I want is to see my Long Island guys win every single time by finish. and I want their careers to be the best that they could possibly be. I wish them nothing but the best. But it's hard when you know that you're every bit as good as those guys and you have everything, if not, you know, more in some aspects. Yeah.

And, you know, you're being treated as if it's the opposite. Do you have regrets? You mentioned the Frankie fight. And I don't blame you for playing it safe, quote unquote. You were on a two-fight losing streak. You thought you were fighting for your career. Did. You got to get the double.

you, right? But can you look back at the entire seven-fight run and say, unfortunately in this sport, as you know, wars and stand and bang gets way more rewarded than a guy who just consistently wins, right? Right. Do you wish that you did that more, or is that just not the smart? You hear all these things about CT and stuff like that. It's not smart to do that, but yet... I think that's one of the issues they see with me, is like I'm outspoken. a little bit about stuff like that. Like, I'm smart. I know what you pay me.

I know you don't take taxes out. And I know I have a daughter at home. I'm a 30-year-old man. This is going to end for me in five or six or seven years regardless because it's just the nature of professional sport. Unless you're, you know, one of those guys like Randy Couture. Right. You have this long, illustrious career.

But, see, I made a comment on Twitter. I said they came out with a poll that 9 out of 10 NFL players. that they, what didn't matter the position, had CTE. So I said that means 11 out of 10 pro fighters have CTE. Because if you just watch their fight, do you know how many fights I got in in practice just to have that one fight? I'm fighting people that are, you know, elite athletes

three times a week to get ready for this bout. So the amount of blows you're taking to your head and to everything. There's definitely some, like, oh man this is this is a rough sport to be in but at the end of the day it's still my passion it it doesn't deter me from going in there but i definitely try to fight smart i'm not like these guys that are just like oh yeah he wants to give me an opportunity i'm going to lock my feet to the floor in the middle yeah put my chin down and swing overhands like i'm at a 7-11 parking lot and the guy took my spot right because that's what these two guys that are sitting right here

think is marketable. Right. I mean, I'm going to try to hit you and not get hit. Hit you again and not get hit. Right. And catch you and kick you and drop you, put you away. Yeah. That's, you know, maybe that's just not what they want to see.

So, you know, at this point, you're kind of, you're out there. You're fielding offers or I hope to be fielding offers soon. Yeah. And you'd like to get back in there sooner rather than later. Yeah, I want to get back in the cage ASAP. Okay. Asap. It's unbelievable.

I mean, I had no idea that this was the case. You kind of played this close to your vest. Yeah. I mean, to tell you the truth, it's a little bit embarrassing, right? I don't know about that. I mean, I don't see, embarrassing in what sense that they didn't want. I got people walking around to me all day. When's your next fight?

When's your next fight? They don't understand or get it. They're like, you won. What do you? And I'm trying to explain to people like the system. Right. It's a long conversation. It's such a long conversation.

I can't even do it anymore. Right. And correct me from wrong, you didn't really want to get into it. Someone kind of convinced you, right, to get into MMA after wrestling. Yeah, I was like, I was a baseball player. Right. I just had like a, I was a lefty. I could hit, like, basically, and the wrestling and my teammates and how good we were in high school, it just got me bored or stale of the lack of action in that sport.

Yeah. Led me away. And then while I was coaching wrestling after high school, school. I had my first coach, Joe Panerello. His son was coming down to my wrestling practices. He was watching UFC all the time. Would you ever be interested in doing that? And I was like, you know, maybe. And then he finally got me to hit pads. When I hit pads, I had a huge smile on my face. I loved it. Yeah. So we just took it from there, and he gave me some kickboxing fights. I started putting people away in kickboxing fights, like three or four fights where I think I put everybody

away and I just jumped right into basically pro-MMA. I went one amateur fight and then ring of combat straight through. Do you ever think back to that, you know, conversation with your friend and say, man. Yeah. No, I don't, I don't forget any of it. I wish it was, you know, I wanted to still continue. I think like I said that I'm still, there's so much more for me. I just, it's frustrating when you're, you have to, there's no season. This isn't baseball or basketball where, you know, the seasons come in and the playoffs are coming, and if you would just perform, and that's it, it's just all matchups, exhibitions that they make. Right.

You see how it goes now? Sure. Our belt, my belt's been locked up for how many years. They're going to announce soon that it's getting buried with that guy. It's not going anywhere. Right. So, I mean, it's just changing. Very, very, very, very.

I mentioned at the top of the show, you know, GSP vacated the title. I have the utmost respect for GSP. He gamed the system, though. He gamed the system. He saw that there was a fight, and he said, that's a fight I could win. I can make history with that fight, and let me go in there. And then a week ago, or 10 days or so ago, Dana White said, I'd be super pissed if he vacates the belt or doesn't fight Whitaker, right? And then he comes out after he vacates and says, eh, I wasn't really that pissed after all.

And that's why I put in his contract that he should fight Robert Whitaker because I knew he wouldn't fight Robert Whitaker. And what does that say to you? in this past year, they don't really care about the belts and the rankings and the title lineage and what's good for the sport and what's good for the UFC. It's how can we make the most amount of money on that particular night? And the way that they can make the most amount of money is have GSP fight at MSG and they would do it again. I hope no one thinks for one second that they're mad at GSP or that they would do something different if given... As he's ready, he'll be probably back at that venue or he'll be in Canada. Things have changed.

Yes. Things have changed. Because they sold the company for so much and they need to make back that money, they need to do whatever it takes. That's why they're offering fights to Nate Diaz against Tyron Woodley. They're trying to do whatever it takes to make the most amount of money on each pay-per-view. And it's a tough spot for someone like you who, for whatever reason they feel like isn't going to move that needle for us. Isn't going to get, you know, so like you're expendable, right? Where was I that I didn't move the needle?

Right. You never got that shot. The time he's, the first time I choked the guy out in a minute, he tweets. two words like wow Wade I got like 10 like 8,000 extra followers in like an hour and

he comes and greets me in the walkway giving me a hug that's how you start the card that's how you start a show and so you could just see it's almost it's up to them to build they can build you in a heartbeat if they want to right the access

they have to social media they can build you in the blink of a than I. You could be relevant all over the place if they want it. But if they don't want it, they could bury you so far in the basement. And you're left to promote yourself, which is difficult when you can't

really get in there and move that needle, like you said. Right, right. You know, what kind of gym videos can I possibly put up that's going to get me 5,000 followers today? Sure. And then maybe you could go calling out the world and causing a ruckus and get arrested maybe. Yeah, you could call out everybody and

and have to look over your shoulder when you're walking all over the place. But I guess that's a new method too. So I know you're a big sports fan. Big. Because I see on your Twitter. So Knicks, Rangers, who's number one?

Who's the number one team? Unfortunately, the Mets. The Mets? Interesting. I just saw John Carlos Stan holding up the jersey. Collusion. It's collusion. You hate it.

How do you take a whole? Hall of Famer from that organization, he buys a team that's in financial dire straits. You think that's what happened? He needs to write the ship. Yeah. This guy has a no trade clause. Here's my thing. How are you the National League MVP?

Yeah. Best player in the whole league. 59 homers. Yes. Yeah. And you get moved. I understand the contract is huge. I get it.

I know the money was like it was a bad mistake by the Marlins. Yeah. Ownership. Horrible ownership. But that doesn't require you to mortgage one piece of your future. at all. They wanted Castro gone because they want Torres to play anyway. So they did them a double favor. It's amazing. They made out like bandits and it like to me as a Met fan just sitting back and like Sandy Ellison's like we're going to see what we can do here and watching them like have that same

young team that we had like two years ago. Right. When we played the royals. And wow, I'm watching it dwindle like season by season. The pieces are just starting to break and fall off. And they got close, not even as far as we did. Now they're hammering home to go for the throat. And that's the difference between like the Yankees. They're rebuilding, you know, phase

lasted like two months. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Also, the little train that could Yankees, like the feel good Yankees also lasted like four months. Now they're a juggernaut. Yeah, now like the murderers row. Talk of Major League Baseball. The Knicks. Knicks. That's what we share.

I know. You're tweeting about them all day. between, that's why I love it by your feed. You're, you're so in tune with the, uh, the world of New York sports. That's another thing with the marketing. Like, who else is talking sports? Like, I remember, yeah, I was, I was, I was asking about, you know, doing sports radio, things like that. You should have been the guy replacing Francesa. Yeah. Right. That would have been amazing. Yeah. Like, I think that if they do so much cross promoting now with sports organizations, that that that's perfect, you know, a perfect alley for somebody like me. But hey, who am I? Are you big Francesa fan?

Are you sad to see him go? It's love, hate. I listen. I love listening. I find myself tuning in every day. But some of the stuff he says is just. You hate listen. Yeah, kind of.

A little bit. But like, even going back to the Knicks now, with Carmelo being gone, man. It's like a new, it just feels so positive now. It is positive, but it's fools gold. Because the reckoning is coming. If you look at their schedule in January,

it's like 24 of 28 games on the road. I don't know if you were watching on Saturday. I was certainly why I tweeted like oh man there's so much going on you know Bellator UFC Lomachenko Riegondo and Nick's Bulls you know I was I was tuned in and they freaking lose to the Bulls the worst team we can't win a game on the road worst road record and all their games are at home at least now but the reckoning is coming were we 13 and 13 or something

yeah they're 500 yeah beat the Hawks yesterday where the thunder yeah that is nice it is nice were you on board with that I was on board with it you were and you know he was just like the writing was on the wall. You know, there's so many seasons where he just like,

he either didn't have enough pieces and he couldn't, he doesn't mesh that great, I feel like every time, where he goes, like Westberg's gonna get angry. Yeah. I'm telling you,

it's happening. You don't see them at some point riding the ship? You don't think this is going to work out the three-headed monster? I think that he needs to take that step back that everyone keeps suggesting.

I know they've talked, talking about him coming off the bench or something like that. Mello? Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. He keeps, I know, but I mean, to have them all on the floor at once, it's tough.

It's, it almost takes away from the flow. That moment, I don't know, I mean, I'm sure you saw it, when Ennis Cantor went up to LeBron for his rookie. I continue to watch that moment. Like, when I'm down, that's New York Knicks basketball. Even Frank getting in his face. It was amazing. How awesome was that? It was amazing.

Just a kid. I love these guys. 19 years old French kid. I like to watch them play. I don't care that they're lacking like a piece. or two. It's a really like push yet. I just like, I see a want now to like win basketball games.

Right. I like watching a Beasley play. You like Beasley? Yeah. Sometimes he gets a little crazy. Yeah. He is good. He's a nice little piece to have off the bench.

Like an eighth man. He's like a renegade. He just, you know. I love McDermott. What a great trade that was. Cantor McDermott. K.P., I mean, I would bow down to, I mean, if he came here, I don't know what I would probably faint.

He's our guy. He's our guy. I wouldn't trade him for Stefan Curry. I wouldn't trade him for KD. That is our guy. I want to see that through. I'm big on that too. I get very hung up on the homegrown.

Right. That this was our guy. You get that feeling. Yeah. As opposed to like trading for a free agent. Last year with Phil Jackson, threatening to trade him, even talking about the idea of trading him,

even if it was mine games. I think that's what got him finding. Yeah, I mean. I think that he stepped one too far there. So it's Mets, Nix, Rangers? No, I would say it's Mets, Giants. Giants. Rangers.

Geez, Louise. Yeah. Has not been a good. 2017 for me, and every facet of sport has been like, I just want to like hit the fast forward button. Yeah. Macadoo, happy though. So happy that he's out.

You weren't in favor of the benching. No. You were in favor of it. If it was for the rookie, though, you're okay with that. Got to see what he's capable of. We know what Gino Smith is. Right. So when they put him in, that was just to me like a slap in the face.

He gives us the best chance to win. With the hair and the mustache. You ever call up to these radio shows? No, I don't have the patience. You know the patience? Yeah, I don't have the patience. How do you have the time to watch all these games? I've tweeted at like Boomer and Carty when he was on the air.

Alan Hahn, I see you tweet to them just because it's easier to get to them. But when you wait on the phone for like Frances or something, to be over an hour. Have you ever called? I have. I've spoken to Steve Summers. I've spoken to. It's hilarious. Yeah, I've called.

That's amazing. Night guys. like Tony Page. Yeah, yeah. I know I could get through. That's true. Late Night is the best. Yep.

Would you like to host a radio show one day and do sports like? Oh yeah. It's a dream. You hear all these guys talk. When sports are your passion to get to... Why don't you do a podcast or something? Get your foot in the... Island Strong starting a podcast.

There we go. When's it starting? We're starting in like two weeks. Okay. And the topics are going to be, we're going to be broad with it. Okay. And I hope to be the guy that's heading up talking sports, you know, locally. A piece of advice.

Is someone who hosts a podcast? Don't go too broad. Okay. They'll go too broad because in this day and age, people want niche. I could open up my phone right now and I'm a Bill's fan, right? Unfortunately, but great game mystery. You see that in the snow? That was incredible.

I could get a Bill's podcast right now, right? I can get a Nick. Although there aren't any good Nick's podcast. And I feel like the Knicks media coverage isn't that great, but that's a different story for a different day. Anyway, people want, you know, they want niche. So if it's too broad, like New York sports is great, but it can't just be about everything on life because you need you need to like kind of zero in on something to get people like my show MMA of course like people are probably mad like ah how dare you talk about New York sports yeah we're

like people are getting pissed out but you know what I'm saying so I think it's a great idea I think you should do it I fully support this and I'll be listening and please talk about the Nix because there's no good Nix podcast out there I appreciate the tips yeah yeah for sure I'm happy to get as good as he gets podcasts are all I listen to I don't listen to music or anything I love the idea of podcasts I'm not a big music guy, I'm more into podcasts. And the reason why is, because I can get, I can sort of get everything exactly how I wanted, right? If I want a basketball specific one, I go to a basketball specific. The ones that are just broad, you don't know what you're going to get, so you kind of lose patience with them. You get what I'm saying? I try to, yeah, exactly. I try to go through,

like I'm a huge Joe Rogan fan, his comedy, his podcast, but I still will try to go through, like you said, and I'll see what that person's going to speak about. That's right. It's not something that really does it for me. I'll pass it up. I love this. I see what you're saying. So two weeks, Island Strong? Yeah, a couple of weeks. We got all the equipment. We're ready to rock. Who is it? It's on the show. It's my partners and I. Okay. But what we intend to do is to highlight local athletes, like guys on Long Island, you know, people that have made it. Local, very successful business people start it really there. But I want to be able to dabble into some of the stuff that New Yorkers and Long Islanders care about. Like you said, New York Sports, stuff like that.

That's great. I love that. All right. Things are looking up. things are looking up. So we've got a podcast coming. We've got the clothing company. Yes. Doing okay? Island Strong, yes. Yeah?

Working people. Everything, Long Island MMA, we just opened another location, I slip with LaFleare and our jiu-s-coach, and our jiu-gege. Okay. So the gym's going great. The business is going great. I just got to get locked in a cage. You got a grappling match?

That's good. That's good. Getting paid for that? Yes. Okay. That's good. So it's just time to put the gloves back on. You're open for suitors.

You're ready and willing. Available. Come on. Let's do this. Yeah. Come on. Belator. PFL.

I don't know what's going on with PFL if I'm being honest. Yeah, I'm not sure yet either. It's a little bit. I'll tell you the truth. I'd like to fight in Belator. Belator would be great. I think before Ink drives, I'm in my head, one of the top ten guys there, you know, get a fight. They could use some lightweights.

Yeah. They don't have a face in New York yet. That's right. Right. This is great. Liam is a New Yorker, but I think he's a New Yorker, but I think he's, British, right? He is originally, yeah. Right. Yeah, Lee McGee. I'm your guy. There we go. Scott Kogolosans every week, by the way. Does he? Yes. Hi, Scott. Well, this has been great.

I mean, honestly, you kind of threw me a curveball there, if I'm being honest. I had no idea. Like, sometimes I say, like, oh, I had no idea. I really had no idea that you were a free age or anything like that. Yeah, that was a little tight to the vests because I thought that, you know, I was told that it was a non-issue. No, there was a non-issue. No, I appreciate you coming out and saying, and people have to know the story and know what you've been through. And there's really nothing I think positive that comes out with keeping it close to your best because then people can't connect to your story. People want to be emotionally invested in your journey. Yeah, I just want to start to be a real person and not be so like and tell it how it is and maybe the fans will appreciate that.

I think they will. I think they will. I mean, the tweets alone is what kind of said, I need to get Chris in studio. I got a couple like the Connor who the Fook is that guy. But it's all right. Forget that. Forget that. You'll know soon. I wish you the best, Chris. Thank you so much. Keep it up, my man. All the best. Keep us posted on the contract. talks and hopefully you get what you deserve. Hopefully you get a good home where they respect you and they give you good opportunities and hopefully the next win in 2018. I feel it.

Yes. Okay, let's just stick to the playoffs. Maybe the playoffs would be. I'll take playoffs any day of the week. Let's start there. And thank you for the gift too. Anytime. If you want anything else, you just let us know.

I appreciate it. There he is. Chris Wade. My man Joe is going to actually walk you out here. All right. Thank you so much, Chris. Thanks for making the trek, especially on a very busy day in New York, a hectic day. There he goes. Chris Wade, one of the very best lightweights in the world.

let's get this man a job let's get this man a home come on i had no idea i'm going to be honest i had no idea i saw some tweets unhappy you know mentioning uh joe silva but i had no idea that uh that he was involved in in that kind of working relationship with the ufc had no idea that uh he was not offered a contract after the frankie prez fight uh very interesting stuff from chris wade and uh look at the record look at the record it speaks for itself five and too, one of the very best at 155, and I think certainly a name that the UFC or any organization can build around and can be a contender.

He's had some big fights. That was fun. I could have talked New York sports with him for the whole hour, but he kind of threw a curveball on my way. All right, great stuff from Chris Wade. Check him out on Twitter, especially if you're a New York sports fan. He has some great insights into the world of New York sports.

All right, big story this past weekend, of course. It happened in Fresno. What a performance. from Brian Ortega. I mentioned afterwards, there's a new force to be reckoned with at 145. He submits Cubs Swanson in the second round. An amazing guillotine, actually readjusted midair.

I mean, the whole thing was just amazing to watch, and he continues to impress. He remains undefeated, and he appears to be knocking on a title shot door. Very excited to talk to him for the first time on this program. He's now joining us via the phone. Brian, are you there? Yes, sir.

Yes, I am. Great to have you on the show, Brian, and congratulations on a phenomenal performance what has it been like your first UFC main event submitting a guy like Cub Swanson the biggest name that you've ever faced in the UFC the last 36 or so hours what have they been like for you? Man at least after that win I didn't sleep that whole night you know I don't know why I was trying to go to sleep I knew I was tired but I was just in awe you know just a lot of things going through my mind a lot of emotions a lot of you know just like it was I knew it was going to be a war and I envisioned myself winning

and you know it was just in my eyes it came out the perfect way me and him both came out unscathed and I got the victory and then in a white I got two bonuses and so it was just a lot of things

going on to my head that you know it takes a lot of process but I finally slept yesterday and I woke up today feeling a bit better you seem to be very relaxed going into your first main event I saw you at the open workouts

you were dancing, your interviews are great and all that. In the locker room beforehand, were you the same kind of relaxed guy? Or were you feeling a little more nervous going into your first headlining show? Man, so, you know, like the camera people and the photographers and the camera people keep walking in to check on the fighters, right? And these guys had to keep coming in and checking and coming in and checking because every time they came in, literally I was just laying down and I was just like, so I was just laying down I was just talking

and then literally like the whole time everyone was like man where this guy got to start wrapping up when this guy got to start and I was like literally like laying down and I called it it was Hennigration myself

and we're looking at the ceiling but we're just talking about life and all kinds of things and then the camera people are like dude like what is I could tell the look is like dude come on do something already for us

and I'm chilling man I'm chilling me and this guy having like a deep conversation about life, about, you know, the future and everything. And we're just, I told them, I was like, man, we're just looking at the stars right now and just talking. And then finally they're like, hey, man,

it's actual time, like, it's actually time to wrap up now. We can't wait any longer. So we're wrapped up. And then I was like, all right, and then warmed up for like, you know, for, like, maybe like, I think when Aljo started fighting, that's when I started to warm up. a little bit and then

Jason Knight fought and then that was it, you know, but it was I mean, I was really calm the whole time. Wow, that is amazing. And are you always like that? Is that just kind of who you are? You're always just a calm, cool, and collected guy? I usually started getting warmed up earlier

than I should and because I'm always just emptied up for the fight I'm excited, but for some reason this week or last week was just, I could feel the energy, man. It just felt like it was my week, you know, I was, I turned the hotel lobby into a casino, you know, and I took some pride in that.

We literally, you know, like every single fighter is out, kind of, I see them, they're stressed out, they're losing weight. And, I mean, I'm in there, and I had all the UFC staff, you know, and I had just, like, maybe MMA reporters, and I had my crew and everyone just, I brought out some domino, some cards, some cards against humanity. and literally the whole lobby was just like a regular hotel lobby and next you know there's like music playing

and there's like all these kinds of tables set up people playing dominoes people playing cards everyone having a good time and I was just happy to create the environment and literally it helped me out man it just kept me cool during the whole week that is amazing yeah I saw some photos and even a few fans tweeted me

that you were kind of holding court I think one even took a photo of you and you spelt out T-Cased city with the dominoes which is amazing that you were that relaxed going into your first main event such an important fight can i ask you about the finish i mean your your submissions they're just you know each one is as impressive if not more than the next but the way you sort of readjusted while you were you were you were hanging on in the air was incredibly impressive how did you do that and how much strength is needed to do something like that

man i felt like i was riding a bull you know like you know and the cowboy takes one hand up and I was just like, man, I better hold on for dear life. Because I grabbed the neck and I felt him doing the proper defense, which was bringing his legs together and then pretty much slipping my legs out the way, therefore there's no guillotine, you know? So once he gets rid of the leg, then he can get rid of the hand's neck. So I knew, I felt the leg going and then me trying to read and I had the neck loose a little bit. So me trying to grab the, like, kind of regrab the neck. I was also trying to redo my legs at the same time. So I was like trying to kill two birds with one stone. So I just figured if I hold onto this, I don't want to lose it. So, you know,

I just, I risked it and I, uh, I just, I remember I, cinched it up tighter. I let go. I try to, like, crawl up, uh, his back with my legs. And at the same time, lock my hand in. So by the time, like, my legs crossed and my hands relock, it's just, it's right on the money. And I, I just, it's again and that's what happened man we got the the nice tight lock and I felt it and I leaned back and squeezed and then I felt them tap and I was like all right that was doing good

in the first round it seemed like you almost got him to submit via choke he got out of it were you surprised that he got out of it? He didn't get out of it the bell rang oh that's right the bell rang that's right that's right the bell rang were you surprised that he didn't tap

I knew I knew I had it and I can feel it and it was and I but I sometimes when you cover their like I'm wrapped over his head so I was hoping that I covered his hearing but uh once I seen him running away I was like all right this guy's falling for time you know he knows that the bell's gonna save him right now and I was like instead of just squeezing all I have and then hoping for like a last second submission I was like I already know this guy is coke prone so let me just relax my energy, let me just hold it.

And when the bell rings, go back to the corner, shake my hands out. And then, like, man, if I almost had him the first round, I could only imagine what we have to do with 20 minutes left of fighting. And, you know, I was just like, I'm prepared to go for the full war. I know things can change, but I was just like, I'm going to submit this guy. Like, this is what I'm going to do to him. How much more time do you think you needed in the first round? Like, if you didn't ease up a little bit, do you think 10,

more seconds, 20 more seconds, and you would have submitted him? I feel like five to ten seconds I would have got him. Wow. That is amazing. Yeah, I just needed to grab that leg and I was it. Afterwards, I saw you, you know, kind of yell out of the cage and it seemed like you were talking to Dana White and we've seen this scene before where someone says, hey, you know, I want that title shot, I want that big fight, I want that bonus. And then Paul Filder asked you what you said to Dana White and you said that you wanted to work

with him on charities to help underprivileged kids. And I was just blown away by this. Here's a guy in the main event who's on the cusp of a title shot who remains undefeated. You're not talking about title shots or bonuses. You're talking about charities and underprivileged kids. Why did you feel the need to do that in that moment? Because that's the way I am, man. You know, I'm very, you know, like I don't really fall too much of my own height, you know? I guess. I, uh, I walked up to him and I said, listen, Dana, I go, I'm not all amped up. I'm not screaming right now like a regular guy would be.

I go, I'm as calm now as I was before the fight. And I'm letting you know right now, man. I go, I feel like there's a lot of things that I can do with the UFC. I go, besides fighting, like, you know, I want to do other things. I go, I really love helping kids out. I really love helping people who are down and out. And I really like to make a difference, you know, before I leave this earth. And, you know, I found the way that I want to do it.

and he was like, listen, kid, like, we'll talk after right now. And I was like, all right, man, we will. And I went back. You know, it's like, we can't do it. We can't have a business or meeting right now. You know, you got to finish your speech, right? I was like, all right, I got you. You're saying this, like, in the cage.

Like, in that moment you're saying this to him. Yeah, well, I never really talked to him in my life. I was like, so this, I have him running in front of me and the lights on me. So, my, well, you know, like, talk to him. I'm like Ken right now. There's a chance to talk to him. It was then. What would you like to do?

What is your dream scenario for helping underprivileged kids? Your story has been told and, you know, it was, I thought, featured very nicely on the FS1 broadcast. I think they did a great job of telling your story. And so we don't need to necessarily rehash that. But what would you like to do now with this platform that you have? You know, I really, since before the UFC and everything, even when I was barely, in the pros, I was helping kids out. I traveled. I was in a bus for two months and we traveled

to every single stay in the U.S. and visited kids in hospitals and everything with the foundation called Mauiola. And it was just me and a bunch of professional surfers and I was like the only professional fighter besides one other guy. And that's what we did. And it was for free, man. We literally just visit two hospitals, hop on a bus, drive, I don't know how many hours, seven, 14 hours, depends on what the next state was. And we would land in there and we would rest or we would rest on the bus

and then we'd get off the bus and then go right into another hospital. We did that for a long time. And I'm one of the few persons that did the whole tour, you know. And a lot of people flew out and they're like, all right, I did a month here. I did a month and a half here.

You know, I got to go back to home. I did the full, I mean the full tour. Even when it was time to go back home, I went from all the way from New York, all the way back to LA in one shot on the bus. And, I mean, it was just, it was a crazy experience in my life to see all these kind of situations that I was looking at, you know, like kids who had cancer and their parents leaving them in the hospital to die, you know, like heartbreaking things that just like, you know, a lot of us who did that tour were there with me were, we would walk out the room and start crying.

when we get emotional. And when I started seeing life in that kind of way, you know, I was like, you know, like I kind of found like a different purpose in life and things I want to do. And then there's besides kids who are sick, you know, these kids were healthy, but they still have a hard time as well in life, like such as myself. So I want to, I just want to help as many people as I can. And, you know, and pretty much just shine light in a lot of dark places

where people don't think light is this. Do you remember how old you were? Because, you know, there's a point, I think, when someone is young and they go through a lot of things, you're just kind of living and surviving. And then there's a point when you become an adult, I think, where you come to the realization that you want to help others who were in a position that you were in. Do you remember how old you were when you kind of came to the realization that, yeah, at some point, I'd love to give back. I'd love to help other kids, you know, not go down the wrong path, not have troubles, not go through what I went through. Well, to help kids out that way was different.

You know, like for me 20 years old when I started helping, like, you know, young kids and visiting. And then the more I told my story and people want to know a little bit about, like, my life and my past, you know, I was very hesitant to tell anyone because just, you know, because I still live in the neighborhood and everything. And you just never want things coming back to you and hunting you. and I just slowly started getting comfortable with telling my story, and then I was more afraid of, like, maybe things are going to happen, but then it was the opposite. A lot of people were coming up to me, like, hey, man, we're proud of you. You know, everyone from the neighborhood from the head was like, we're proud of you, man,

keep doing what you're the only one that's made it out. Kids were telling me, hey, man, like, you know, I'm growing up in similar environments, and just know that you're in inspiration for me and that I started training because of you. And so a lot of positive things came out from that, you know, and I was like, man, so I was helping kids out. And now I'm, like, inspiring other people. And then I think of if I can visit them and maybe hang out with them and, you know, and just do some kind of charity work for them that, you know, like, I can just shine a light

and have them carry it through and they can go through their own route in life and at least just come out of the negativity, you know. I remember around a year and a half or so ago, you told us. after one of your fights that you almost drowned, and you had to be hospitalized and obviously a very scary situation for you. In retrospect, how much did that change your life and the way you approach life?

They just made me not care too much about death anymore, you know? I was like, I wasn't supposed to... You know, like, even when the guy had asked me how you feel about this fight, I was like, I wasn't even supposed to be here. Like, I'm just happy on here. Like, what do you mean? I should be nervous for this.

I should have been dead, you know. So I was like, now everything for me is just a plus. Everything's a plus. Every time, you know, I was the last situation in my life where, you know, I go, you know, gamble with death and this and that. And, I mean, it just makes you appreciate, you know. It makes you appreciate life. And for me, it was just like, I'm just, I'm happy to be here, you know.

So you said you still live in that neighborhood that you grew up in? Are you living in a more comfortable setting, a safer setting? What's your living conditions like now? No, I told the cameras the other day. I was like the other day I was trying to go to go training. And like my whole neighborhood was on lockdown. They had SWAT team. They had helicopters.

They had everything down, you know. And it's normal, you know. All of us here think it's normal. and I know other people from the outside looking in, maybe, you know, it looks a bit scary, but, you know, I got love over here, you know. I got nothing but love over here. Everyone looks out for me over here.

And I'm comfortable here, but obviously I want to do something better, but I feel like, you know, L.A. is crazy expensive, man. You can't just choose to move to a nice area and expect to survive it. You know, it's very, very expensive. Are you hoping to move soon? Get a couple more fights in and then become more successful and absolutely. Okay. And so you mentioned afterwards you're down with Frankie Edgar getting the next title shot

and also very impressive to say that. I don't know how many fighters would say that and I think frankly, Frankie certainly appreciates that. What do you want next? Do you want to just wait for that fight or would you like to fight someone else? Do you want to stay active? What's the perfect scenario for you? I, perfect scenario for me would be enjoy maybe like, you know, like a good month, a vacation

right now and then get back to work and wait for the winner of Frankie and Holloway and just keep training as hard as I can, though, you know, not just relaxing, but really just every time I want to, every time I let the fans see and the world see who I am in fighting, I want them to be like, man, this guy evolves like on a crazy level, you know? and that's what I want to do. Every time after every fight, I look at the tapes, I look at where I made the mistakes. And not only do I try to do myself,

but I try to like times that by two, by putting in a lot of crazy work in, a lot of hours of training, literally just sometimes I think about it, and I go, man, I'm just wasting my life. Not wasting, but I'm just spending all my time just training where I see a lot of people having fun and going out and enjoying life. and I'm over here like I'm hey sorry man I'm not the gym I got to perfect this thing I got to perfect these

guillotine that I perfect these take downs I got to I get better at kicking I got to get better at boxing so you know I'm just like I want to be the best you know and I truly believe I can be one of the best and and I'm just going for it man so if the perfect scenario would be let these guys spread it out I'm going to train my butt off and by the time you know whoever the winner is is is ready to to fend a belt. They put them through a camp, and I'll just, I'll already be in full speed of a camp

and just keep going through there and then get the fight. Is this all a little surreal for you? I mean, you're just 26 years old. You haven't been, you know, into UFC for all that long, and you're talking title shot, you're on the cusp of title shot, your main eventing shows in your home state. Did you expect all of this to happen this soon,

or is this happening a little sooner? It's happening soon, you know? I'm not going to lie. This is happening very soon. I forget, you know, I'm not even done fighting on the second contract of my fight, you know. So, like, the second contract, I'm not even through with it. I know people who fought three, four, four contracts with the UFC, and, you know, they're barely breaking into the top 15.

So I'm for sure ahead of schedule. And, I mean, and I love it, you know, because if you're ahead of schedule, you're doing, you're doing good. And like you said, I'm 26 years old. I feel like I'm barely starting to learn about fighting. And, you know, I'm just excited for the future. How many fights left do you have on this contract? I have one more fight left.

Oh, wow. So you're probably going to have to get a new contract if you're going to fight for the belt, right? Because they're not going to make you fight for the belt with one fight left on your deal. Yeah, absolutely. This is good. You're going to get paid, hopefully.

That's the plan, man. You know, that's the plan. That's what I want to happen. You know, obviously, you know, I love fighting, but, you know, like you said, I want to at least move out of here and I have to worry about things, you know. Do you want to fight out your contract?

Or are you content with UFC? Do you want to stick around with UFC and resound? with them before it runs out? No, I mean, I'm happy being in the UFC. I'm very thankful. I'm grateful for the things that the opportunities they've given me. I look hard to let them know that I deserve them. And, you know, I think maybe we're going to renegotiate.

That's from what I heard. So we're going to renegotiate whenever they want to have the chance to do that and sit down and talk. and, you know, I don't know numbers or anything yet, but hopefully it's better than what I'm getting now. Yeah, absolutely. You certainly deserve that. By the way, last thing, has anyone ever told you that you sound very much like Henner Gracie? No. You sound exactly, when I hear you speak and close my eyes, you sound exactly like him. Man, you know, when you're around someone for 14 years, for a kid, you're going to sound like them, you know. I hate, you know, it's just, you can't, they're around you all day long for 14 years, so.

But some other things are going to slip on you, especially when we're in him, just sit down and we just, you know, like we teach together and then we train together and then we hang out together. And we have my other, you know, my other boxing coach and we're just all surfing, training, doing all kinds of things. So it's like, a lot of people tell me I sound like both of them. I'm like, well, it's because maybe because I'm around them all down. Yeah. And you're rocking his new sweatshirt in that commercial that he put out,

that video that he put out. You rocked it very well. I've seen the hero hoodie. Have you seen the hero hoodie? It is sick, man. It is dope. That hero hoodie, it transforms. They don't know the hero hoodie.

That thing is the craziest. I mean, I'm so proud of Hunter. Man, that guy. That just goes to show you the kind of how brain he has, you know, this guy's sweater falls at the park while he's with his kid, and he comes out with a complete new invention on how to turn a sweater into a little backpack into a sweater without it ever bothering. Like, just the type of brain this guy has is crazy, you know, and it's a hard thing. And I've always competing with him, you know, so I think that's

a good thing. I'm like, man, you have this, you know, like done this in life, I'm going to try to do more. you've, you know, like, you have this many followers on Instagram. I'm going to try to catch up and have more than you. And so it's like a good, you know, it's like a good person to keep competing with. And like you said, you like a big brother to me. So obviously we want to always do our big brothers. Well, congratulations, Brian. Great stuff on Saturday, in the cage, out of the cage, what you said on the mic.

I mean, it was all just phenomenal and very happy for you. I mean, just knowing your story and what you've been through and even the drowning episode last year, you have been through a lot. and you are an inspiration, my man. So congratulations, enjoy the victory. And hopefully for your sake, you get to fight the winner of Frankie and Max. And certainly I think you deserve it. You've done enough, still undefeated into UFC.

It's an amazing thing. So again, congratulations and thanks for coming on the show for the first time. Great to have you on. Man, thank you for having me. All right, there he is. Brian Ortega, T-City in the house. I was late to get him on, and I apologize for that. And there's so much more to that, man.

There's so much more to his story. and I look forward to him getting more shine, more spotlight, more publicity. What a great story. What a great role model for the kids in California, for everyone in his neighborhood. And he's a phenomenal fighter as well. Those submissions are amazing. Great stuff. I know someone who would appreciate those submissions.

His name is John Danahir, one of the very best in the world when it comes to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Of course, the man over at Henzel Gracie School, he's been in many UFC fighters' corner. Most recently, George St. Pierre at Madison Square. Gardner and I try to get him on the program all the time. He's so busy because he teaches a class in the middle of this program, exactly in the middle. So we can never get him in studio, but he is kind enough to be joining us on the phone and John Dan Hur is on the phone right now.

John, are you there? Yes, it's nice to hear from the aerial. It is a pleasure. Great to have you on. There's so much that we can discuss, and I know you just wrapped up a class, so thank you so much for doing this. Let's get right into it, John. Are you surprised that George St. Pierre is no longer the middleweight champion of the UFC?

in the sense that we all knew he had a medical issue going into this camp because there was by halfway through this camp there was something very obviously wrong and George is having serious medical problems two weeks into the camp and they persisted throughout they peaked between in a six-week camp between week four and week two out from the for the main event things got so bad that literally we lost two weeks with zero trade so the cam was really something with his

that was only recovered in the last two weeks before the fight so as far as we all knew that no it doesn't really come as a surprise but the medical competition has turned out to be pretty serious and he was unable to to defend a bit to belt

wow did at any point you suggest for him to pull out of the fight I mean you lose two weeks you're that sick he's not in peak shape. The big question there was, yeah, that was the obvious question. You know, should he pull out? It was a critical three-day period when we had lost a week and a half of training

where the camp was in complete disarray and all momentum for the camp had been lost. And I remember on Friday night having a discussion for us to Haveri, George and myself, as to whether things were going to go forward from here, we should just pull the plug. You know, it was a big event. Madison School, Edison Square Island is one of the biggest venues for the modern UFC. And so to pull out that soon before,

the politically, that would be a major, major decision. And it wouldn't look good for George's career. You know, there were some vacillations before the fight happened. Either Wooders had, and there were others even wanted the fight, and for George to call out just two weeks before would have been, you know, politically desired. So we made a decision that if he didn't have a good workout on Monday, then George would have to pull out.

He had a very good grappling workout on Monday. And then the next Tuesday he had his kickboxing or shoe boxing workout as he refers to at shootboxing. Kickboxing with take downs. And that was okay. It wasn't great. But he was in the ballpark. And then he shows, I must say, a remarkable turnaround in technical performance leading up to the final days of the camp

and started to look like the old George St. Pia was literally less than a week to go before the first weekup. The problem didn't go away. They're all at the actual day of the fight and beyond obviously but it wasn't as

extreme as it was during a critical two-week period right in the middle of the camp and even the day of the fight or the same major medical problems. It's not as severe as I said to those two weeks pre- It's so pretty bad.

And he told him the kitchen now. And the initial tests were just things like a stomach cancer. I mean, that's how bad it was. And they all came back negative.

But more comprehensive testing after the advanced event showed it was all sorts of polymers. And I don't know if any of people familiar with that. It's a very painful and debilitating condition

with a wide array of symptoms which are often confused for other stomach ailments. One of the problems with stomach ailments, many of the symptoms are common to many different kinds of ailments. And it was finally diagnosed as obstructive colitis, and we're working from there. Wow. He had mentioned on my show that he threw up the day of the fight and that he wasn't feeling well,

but we never knew how extensive it was. Yeah, it's... Were you worried? The worst period. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not polite. Any comeback. is always a difficult thing to manage it.

Any comeback in combat sports is difficult. If you look at the track record of great combat athletes coming back, there's been a few happy stories, but most of them are not good. And MMMMET even higher because the actual sport is young and it's from this technical program. It's been four years since George Ford. And the sport itself has evolved a long way since then. I think about individual fighters.

The sport as a whole has evolved. And so to come back, you know, four years in MMA, like 10 year later from boxing in terms of technical development. And if you look at, you know, there's so many famous boxes who've tried to come back. Hanover Ali came off at a two and a half to three-year hiatus where he wasn't even injured. It was fine.

And they have two warm-up fights, both of which are relatively mediocre, and then he lost his first title fight in Madison Square Garden, interestingly. So even someone who's raised in Hollandeley struggled with the idea of a comeback. which he did after four years with a feeling

to be in a medical condition complicating things in a weight category that he wasn't used to so it was a gamble it was a gamble it was a total of a gamble but it was a big gamble

and do you think that this is directly directly a result of him adding this weight the layoff all that stuff and in hindsight if so do you feel like

bad methods were taking to do this like you guys should have done something differently to add the weight and to be a healthy middle weight? I don't think it's appropriate for me to claim, you know, it's a direct example.

I'm not a medical expert. That would be something for a doctor to answer. I can over a speculation. My answer is no, because it's not the first time Georgia's had stomach issues. He had much less severe stomach issues in a previous camp. Also, the very nature of ulcerative colitis is a tends to be a problem which emerges over time. It's not something you eat a little bit more. It's suddenly you've got ulcerative colitis. It's something that it builds up over time. So it's unlikely that would have emerged

as a result of increased chlorine danger in a cancer to try it to the middle weight. So with the provisor, that I'm not a medical expert and with that provisor in place, my speculation is that would be extremely unlikely. do you think if he never got sick if he was okay throughout the entire camp that he would have remained at 185 because as you may know there is some some there are some people who believe that he had no intention of defending that title if you want it actually he entered the the contract negotiations on the other hand that he would fight against robert woodick that was the understanding uh a contract was fine in which uh it was clear if he would he would find robert woodig so my understanding is No, you had the intention of fighting twice at a minimum twice at middle weight. In general, what people will then understand about doing upper weight divisions, they understand that the majority of the problems you face are not the fight itself. It's the preparation for the fight.

There's significant changes in diet. Your training was, every single one of your training out is now a weight division here. Most of the stress and toll on the end not the fight itself. privilege for it. You're doing a six to eight week camp with people who are 185 pounds as you're a 170 boulder and if everything is a pool, you hit harder,

you hit a take and you're moving a great mix of efficient body. The problems occur. It tends to more of a training camp problem than a fight problem. You know, there's an environment just to be in a smaller guy. You're faster. You're, you see

things quicker. There's some advantage of being a smaller, fast, the guy. We never really felt that George would have a strength problem with Michael Bassman. He did extraordinarily strong world away, even though some of the biggest pull out there

because of just physical strength. We didn't see that being a problem. The problems were in things and just physical mass, reach, things like these, these are the problems we looked at. And in camp, that definitely did take it tall. But George had every intention of having at least

to advise us to admit it. can I ask you John is it possible I don't know the the connection keeps going in and out could we call you back or is it possible to call you on a different line or something like that because I want to hear I'm kind of hanging on every word yeah what I'll do is I'll change my nutrition

upstairs I'm currently in the basement of the Hince of Grace Academy so I'll just see if that improves the uh... hang on they make one problem there's a box in class going on then maybe the sound of heads and that's down it's acceptable

that's acceptable yeah that's fine okay it's reception improving let's try again can you ask me again that question is your reception improving I'm upstairs now yeah yeah that's better that's better I think that's better okay let's let's go with that are you okay with being in that

position yeah no problem at all okay so okay so so so you believe that if you didn't get sick he would have continued to fight at this point given what he's going through do you think that it is more likely that he never fights again, given his health condition? Or do you expect him to come back at some point?

There is a definite possibility. I don't want to say yes or no because it's not my decision whether he comes back or these are deeply personal decisions in George has to make. Moreover, they have to be made not as spur of the moment decisions.

These are life-changing decisions. So they'll have to be made on the basis of George's reaction to the medication he's taking for ulcerative colitis. From what I understand, the standard medications to ulcerative collides take some considerable amount of time to take effect anywhere from three to eight months

before you'll even notice significant changes. So we have to see how he reacts to his medication regimen and made a decision based on that. Are you in favor of him, not for him? fighting in? In other words, would you prefer that he doesn't fighting in at this point? My thing is always with athletes. Are you happy to do this?

What I don't like to see is people fight because they feel they have to. This is a sport where it's a very, very hard sport. I don't think many people are aware of the rigors of what goes on in the championship level fight camp. It's not for the faint of heart.

And if you're not 100% committed to the project and it's something which you positively enjoy doing, at least in some way. You may not enjoy every aspect. There has been some kind of deep sense of enjoyment of fulfillment that I don't believe

you should get involved. I know one fight camp where George wasn't mentally committed to it was the fight camp with Hendricks where there was doubts about whether he wanted to do them to be fighting. He had to thoughts about retirement

prior to the fight. That was probably the fight camp where there was the least motivation to get in there in the chairman as he normally would. Here there was a tremendous motivation. George is extremely enthusiastic about to find him and express that he desired to come back, but there was a physical problem, which was making it difficult. So your first question was, you know, medically, will he be able to come back?

The answer is we don't know yet, we'll see how he reacts to medication. And your second question was psychologically, is he mentioned? in the game does he want to do this? And I believe, I know for a fact, prior to the visiting event, absolutely that's what he gets. But since this medical problem has come up and become so prevalent and emerged so strongly in the middle of the last camp, I guess it's an open question at this point.

It'll be determined by how he reacts to the medication that he's on. In all honesty, considering how he was feeling, are you surprised he beat Michael Bisping? Oh, that's a great question, Ariel. I'm not going to lie to you. Two weeks out, before the fight, I had a talk with Farahabee,

and I straightforward, they said to him, the George St. Piedre that I saw a train today, gets knocked out by Michael Bisping, nine times out of ten. That was two weeks before the fight. Wow. And Faris looked at me, and I looked at him, and we didn't say a word.

You both know it was true. It was an absolutely critical period. And I will say, George's ability to come back from that absolutely horrendous standstill of the fight can and come back and look very, very strong the last week and then go out on fighting the performance as he did. It was really something to watch. For me as a coach, it was one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen an athlete go to it.

Wow. How nervous were you in the corner? Have you ever been that nervous before for a GSP fight? To be honest, I never really get nervous in the corner because I have a task to perform. Any time I get nervous, any time I'm watching the fight as if I'm not doing anything and I'm in the audience watching someone I like.

Okay. But if it's someone I don't like, obviously I don't get nervous. If it's someone I'm not attached to it or something like that. But if it's someone I like what I have a task to do, then nervous if it comes into it. You have a job and don't expect to do your job as a professional. The reason I asked about nervous was just knowing what he had been through and the fact that you just said two weeks prior,

you thought that he was going to get knocked out nine times out of ten. I was greatly impressed by the degree of improvement a week and a half, George went from looking like a second rate to something very close to the old George St. Pierre. Wow.

Were you in favor of him even coming back to begin with? That's a great question, Ariel. When he first said, I won't come back. He had a very negative reaction to it. I was like, no, I don't think it's a good idea. You don't need the money.

And I straightforward what he said to. I just don't think this is a good idea. You've already done so much. And I had a hard-to-heart talk about. Why do you even want to do this? What's this about? And so my initial reaction was, no, I didn't want him to come back. But he talked passionately about it. I could see that he wanted to do it. It wasn't just on the spur of the moment saying, you know, that sometimes athletes just want to be back in the spotlight. A lot of times it's hard for an athlete just to leave the spotlight. It wasn't. that he felt like he had something to do in the sport.

So initially he was talking about, you know, let's go back to 170 and Tyrone Woodley had become the champion. And I remember we watched the fight of Tyrone Woodley against Robbie Lawler together. And we were both greatly impressed by Woodley's performance at night. And he told me, you know, let's get back in there. And I said something to him. I said, you know, go back in fine at 170. You're just going to be doing the same thing you did for a decade.

You're going to fight another top tier, very, very tough wealth away. And you've done that so many times. If you come back, you're just going to do the same old thing for a decade. Nothing's going to change. And if you come back, it's a huge thing to come back out for years. If you're going to come back, why are you something different? I mean, it's going to change your legacy. and we talked about it some more, and I said to him, listen, there's always been three criticisms of your career.

The first is that you're so controlling and tactical in your approach to fighting that it makes for boring fights. It's always been a persistent criticism. The second is that you never fought upper-way class. You always fought guys at wealth away. And the third is you don't finish fights. Those are the three most persistent criticisms of the legacy of George St. Pierre. They said, why don't we do that? Why don't we focus on a training regimen that strongly emphasizes submissions

and TKOs slash chaos, punching powers, means of finishing a fight? You go up the weight division and you focus on the old dynamic in-out and lateral movement of George St. Pierre to create a faster-paced fight that people find more interesting. We ran the idea past other people, Fara Zahavi, Freddie Roach, et cetera, et cetera. And everyone said, you know what, that's a good idea. Let's go with that.

The initial training that I saw George do in grappling, Josh made and worked with the squad and strongly emphasized submission holes. Normally when I teach Georgia to do, it's really what we call grapple boxing, which is the mix of striking and grappling on the ground. It's mostly positional work. Instead, we changed everything to submission holds favoring strangulations from the back and leg logs.

And George made remarkable progress. He started working a lot with Freddie Roach on just the mechanics of punching, so he's hitting harder. We're sitting on its punches better and just worked on the mechanical elements of just straightforwardly hitting harder with a strong emphasis on left hook, jab, and strength. rare hand. And these made significant changes. There was a noticeable sense in which he was definitely hitting harder and he was working

submissions with a lot of success in the gym. He started working with karate specialists who brought back the old linear in our movement that Georgia was so famous for in the early days of his career. And we were pretty confident before the camp started that people were going to see something new, something it would add to Georgia's legacy. This wouldn't be Georgia 170 fighting another tough world to weight and doing the same thing he's done for a decade. This would be him fighting other weight class

with a strong emphasis on finishing the fight in a dynamic mobile way that people found exciting. And I think the plan is brilliant. Unfortunately, the plan ran slaps into a physical problem which is completely unforeseen. But George is, the incredible athlete that he is, he managed to find a way to get through that and enact the original plan, and he did exactly what the plan was designed to do. He finished the fight with a beautifully applied

strike into submission hall. He used both, he showed increased power. He knocked down a man who's extraordinarily difficult to knock down in a weight division above himself. He showed improvements in some punching power. He showed genuine improvements in submission attacks, finished beautifully on the back. And he did it on a man above him in a weight class in a dynamic, exciting fight that went back and forth, and thrilled a sold-out crowd at Madison School Guard. So all three aspects, or all three of the main criticisms of his legacy, were outstead in one fell swoop, so sweet.

So it was a fantastic achievement in his part, made all more remarkable by the fact that he had to go through so much physical adversity in order to get it done. Incredible. Two last quick things for you. When do you expect to find out if you'll fight again? I leave that entirely to George. Right now, he just came back from vacation. He obviously communicates a lot with his own management. I don't think it's appropriate for me to give a date.

I'll leave that up to George. He's the man in the fit, and he should make that decision. that's ready to a commissioner of George, his doctors, and his management. Were you surprised that he did it so quickly, or considering what he had been through, were you not surprised? Basically, like, he didn't try to wait it out or try to see if he'd feel better, that he just kind of said, no, I'm not going to stick around here. No, George has always had a deep affection and respect for other athletes in the USC.

and his feeling was yeah I could hold on this and see how long I can ride this out and then delay the fight with Mr. Whitaker his feeling was that's just not fair to the other athletes because I'm an established athlete I have a legacy

I don't need the money right now the other guys are working for their legacy and they do need the money right now the USC is a business and they can't just have some guy who the USC in a sense that Georgia favor they didn't have to give George the title shot They could have given there three other people there that were very, very well qualified to take that title shot.

And it would be, I think it would be reprehensible on anyone's part, George or anyone else, to get that shot and then delay a weight division based upon waiting for a result. You don't even know what the result is going to be. And it could be, as I said, anywhere up to eight to 12 months. I mean, this is a long, long process. You can't just hold a weight division. months at a time and expect other people to be happy about it. The USC is a business. They have to run the business to get things going.

The athletes are the same. They're a brand unto themselves, and you can't just tell five people, you're going to wait for me and we'll see what happens. Maybe something will be good, maybe for me there. It's just unfair to pay that to anybody. And George felt strongly about that, but it was unclear. So he said the best thing to do is to,

to vacate the belt and let's see where I stand six months and now and work from there. Okay, I lied one more quick one. If he came up to you right now and said, John, what do you think I should do? Have I done enough? Should I walk away at this point? Would you tell him, no, Moss? You're asking for my personal opinion? Yes.

My personal opinion is there's literally nothing more you can do. That would be my personal opinion. But that's what I said the last time. Right. My initial, the first time I wanted to come back was, what will you want to prove? Like, you've littered life in the sport. You've done everything you're on. You don't need money anymore.

You have fame and wealth. You have a remarkable legacy. You're unquestionably one of the greatest of all time. It's not the greatest of all time. And then George came out. Did something even greater. His legacy was enhanced by the, the fight with Bisping in a remarkable way.

And I'm just not sure what else you could do at this point. He says it's possible because of the 155 and win a third belt. If he did that, I mean, that would be incredible. But can George make 135? I don't know. As far as I know, he's nervous on that low. He's not a particularly big welterweight. I know there are people fighting currently at 155 who are physically large than he is.

for example, I'm quite certain that Khabib Numa Makedov is physically larger than George, walking around. He's a higher body weight. And he makes 155, but it's extremely difficult and rather unhealthy for him. And so is it possible for George's made 155? Yeah, I believe medically it's possible. Is it healthy for him to do? Especially given the stomach issues that he is, I don't know the answer to that.

So my initial hunch is, for me, as my personal opinion, it would be, the same as I had previously, you know, what really more do you want to prove? You've done everything there is. If he does have a deep and abiding passion and wants to come back and fight either 185 or 170 and he's, and I feel the same kind of passion that I saw before the busy fight,

I will back my 100% because I'm not just the coach of him left. That's why I'm also a friend. I would never just leave a friend and say no. But my initial hunch would be you've done so much. why are you doing this again, especially if you have any kind of down to your health. Right. So we'll see.

Absolutely fascinating stuff. I can't thank you enough, John, for the insight, the honesty, the transparency. I really appreciate you coming on today. I know you're very busy. So thank you so much for this. Absolutely fascinating. I really appreciate it. My pleasure.

Ariel. Pleasure to talk to you as always. All right. We'll talk to you soon. And there he is. The great John Danaher, one of the very best of what he does, one of the very best BJJ coaches in the entire world checking in and that's that's mind-blowing stuff. If you had any doubts and look, I know people could say,

oh, he's just protecting his guy, he's his coach. If you had any doubts as to how he was feeling, I mean, we found out even more about how he was feeling. And it sounds horrific. But if you had doubts about his intentions, about the decision to walk away, you got to give him props at the very least for this. He didn't have, like it's not like he had to come back for February or March. right? He just said, look, I know I'm not coming back. There's nothing that will convince me to come back at 185 after what I've been through. I'm out of here. Take the belt. Have your fight with Whitaker and Rockhold in Perth. And I'm not going to stand in the way. And in fact, I was told that he actually, through other sources, reached out to Rockhold to give him the heads up that he was going to be doing this before it was made public. Just giving him that heads up. So I think it says a lot about GSP. And quite honestly, I don't even know that it was. that bad, his health issues, and hopefully he gets better very soon. I think he's been trying to downplay it a little bit, but did not sound two weeks before the fight, he thought he'd get knocked out nine times out of ten. That's insane for a coach to say, but I appreciate him being that

honest. All right, we'll talk a little more about that on the back end, but for now, last guest of the day, and what a great site it was to see at the beginning of the UFC fight night event in Fresno, the great Frank Trigg as a referee, the first man in UFC history to fight for a UFC title and then referee a UFC fight. Amazing stuff. I'd even know that he was training to become a referee, let alone was clear to become one, had passed all the test, was an official for the California State Athletic Commission and was actually tapped to ref the event in Fresno this past weekend. An amazing surprise. It warmed my heart and I wanted to talk to Frank Trigg about it, so he's kind enough to be joining us via the magic of Skype right now. There he is, the great Frank

Trigg joining us on Skype with crystal clear connection. How about that. Frank, how are you? Yeah, welcome to LA. I guess the Wi-Fi here is better. Yeah, it's phenomenal. All right, well, we have a lot to talk about, Frank. So there you are. We're watching the early fights, and you're there.

You're wearing the black shirt. You got the gloves on. Here we go. You're reffing a UFC event. How did this come about? Well, the normal pattern. You know, it's, well, how much time we got?

Because this is a little bit of a lengthy story. Go as long as you want, my man. Okay, so four years ago, I am literally just bitching about how bad the refereeing is. I'm complaining about it all over the place. I'm seeing friends of mine literally having to almost, like, not kill, I don't want to say that, because it puts a bad no more on our sport, but definitely we're having to go two, three, four punches a lot further than they had to to end the fight, or we're getting hit by two or three more hard, significant punches than they needed. And it was like, it was disheartening.

So I kept complaining. I kept complaining. I did a couple of interviews one week about it. The guy, the roughing was just really bad. And the UFC at the time also was trying to increase the judging and fix the refing. And then I got a phone call from John McCarthy. He's like, look, if you think it's so easy, come do it.

Now, mind you, when I was commentating for pride, Joe Ferraro up in Canada, said, you should go take John McCarthy's command course as a referee to judge. Because then when you're commenting, you'll actually know. what their, their, rest and judges are looking at. I'm like, okay, I will take this course.

But I'm going to kill it. I'm a fighter. Like, I know all the rules and all the regulations. I'm going to kill this thing. So I go and take this course. Fail miserably. But I'm not trying to be a judge or a rough.

I'm just taking it to be a better commentator. And I fail miserably. Like, I'm not even close. Okay. So go forward a couple more years. And John's like, come and take the course of time for real

to be a refer judge. At that point, I'd be doing amateur in Nevada. At the time was ISCA. with Ralph Cook, and then it switched to IMAF and UMAF, that whole organization kind of took things over. But so I was doing a couple of amateur bouts went in, took John's command course and failed again. And took it seriously, like studied for it, got ready for it, went in there and failed again. John's course is extremely hard.

And if you want to be a referee, you want to be a judge, you got to take the course. That's, that's, you have to take one of these courses to get qualified. So in the state of California, they have Camo, which is the amateur organization that handles all amateur fights, but to work for camo in the state of California, you have to pass either John or Herb Dean's course. I pass John. So I failed John's course. Then I have six weeks of privates with him. So I'm living in Nevada, driving down to his old gym in Valencia once a week to do a two-hour private with him of how to be a judge and how to be a refiner of a mate. So I'm driving back and forth this whole time, doing this, doing this thing. Because now I'm like, I'm in, man, I am in. I'm

going to figure this thing out. So I finally get the blessing six weeks into it. And I start, I start roughing for for uh camo to be able to be a pro in california license pro you have to have a hundred bouts in amateur or be a pro license in another state i have no roughing experience so i'm going to get my hundred bouts in with california in 10 months i pull off 100 bouts because my schedule i don't have a regular 95 job i'm able to work friday saturday sunday every weekend when i when i don't have my kids i'm able to go rep and i refth friday saturday sunday every amateur event that i get my hands on from L.A. down to San Diego in the state of California while roughing amateurs like tough enough and and real water promotions in Nevada at the same

time. So I am roughing all the time. And I am and at the amateur level, it is, it is amazing to see like you see a guy fight, you know, and you're like, wow, this guy's going to be when he makes pro, he's going to be solid. Like this is going to be a great fighter when he makes the jump. And so I'm getting to see these guys in the cage. I'm learning my I am getting schooled. Every time I step out of the cage, every time I step out of the cage, I've made a mistake.

Every time I step out of the cage, there's something I've got to improve on. Every time I stopped out of the cage, there's something that did. It didn't cause any more damage, didn't cause any more injury to the fighters. Wrong position, wrong placement, was in the camera,

was like, there's all these things you have to think about when you're in as a rough. So get my hundred in, ask Andy Foster if I, if it's okay for me to apply, if I apply, will accept it and give me my license?

He says, yes, I apply, I get my license. I get no assignment. for a year. One year, I am sat down for a year. So I'm still doing amateurs, but I have no, no pro bouts in California. But I am licensed pro in Hawaii, so I'm doing Hawaii bouts, and it's progressing. Now, um, big... No, no. That was a great story. I knew I jinxed it when I, I knew I jinxed it when I talked about his Wi-Fi connection. I knew I jinxed it. It was so crystal clear, and then I knew I jinxed it. Why did I say that? It's all my fault.

it's all my fault. That's a great story. Usually with these things, like you kind of hear about them as they're happening, as they're percolating, is he back? Is Frank back?

Frank, I think I jinxed it. You got it? I jinxed it. I jinxed it when I talked about your Wi-Fi. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

It's your fault. Where did I lose you? Okay. So you didn't get a call for a year from Andy Foster. Yeah, yeah. And so what happened is Andy thought,

like, responsibly, he thought I was just doing it just to say that I was a pro referee. but really didn't want to be a pro referee. So I talked to him and said, no, I really want to do this thing. Like I'm really in this. Like I want to participate in the sport.

I want to help improve the sport. I want to be, you know, I want to get to the point where, where fighters aren't worrying about the third guy in the booth. And that ring about the three judges sitting the outside. They're out there doing your jobs, doing their tasks. And they know whether they win or lose is not because there's a screw job someplace. It's because everything is above board. And that's what I wanted to do.

And Andy's like, okay, this is what the state of California is all about. we're definitely going to start using you. And they, I'm on the beginning cards of all these small, um, local pro events. I'm doing like the first Friday of the night or the third Friday of the night and that's my night and the rest of the time I'm doing the pat downs or I'm picking up scorecards and

you're learning. You know, it's like going to go into a restaurant and, and your dad owns the restaurant and you think you're going to be in there and you're going to be the manager and he's like, no, you're in the back sweep and the floor and doing dishes. And that's what I was doing. I was doing dishes. I was learning and and it, it took a long time.

There was a lot of fights. And I'm kind of lucky because I talked to John McCarthy at least twice a week. If I'm not, if I'm not roughing, and if I'm roughing, it'll be three or four times a week about different things I've seen in other fights, different things I see with other ruffs, different things. Just improve the task, you improve my game. So I've done a, I did a bell tour when Tito fought Chale at the forum. I was on that card, but I was on the undercard. I was on the dark, the off TV stuff, you know, the dark fights. which is where I belong.

If you look at the hierarchy of the guys that are there, that night was McCarthy, I believe it was Beltran, Herzog, Mike Bell, and myself with the five ruffs. Where do you belong in that hierarchy? I belong at the bottom. So that's why I was. And I'm totally okay with that. I am just going.

I'm just working, working, working, and then I had texted me Andy Foster like two months ago. He's like, hey, I just gave you a new assignment, check the app and see if you want to accept it. And it was the UFC fight for a disoominated. And so it's the equivalent of being called up from AAA baseball to the majors. And you're going to play for the Yankees. You're not going, you're not getting called up and going to play for, you know, some random Baltimore oil team.

You're jumping up and playing for the Yankees. It was a huge deal. And it took a couple of days. I'm not going to lie to you, man. It took a couple days from you like really have to sit down. I had to calm myself down and think about like, this is, this is now coming. This is what you wanted. This is what you asked for.

Now you're getting it. you better, you better, and you better have your stuff together, man. Or it's going to, it's going to be. So I went out and I asked for a lot more other minor assignments in some amateur and some other pro events to make sure I was up to task. And December 9th came and went and, you know, I still get, I still get top two after every fight. I still have some things we have to prove on.

But what's interesting, what most people don't know, I asked McCarthy, a while ago. I said, hey, I want to look at the fight that was your best refereeing fight. The fight is perfect, that you were perfect in. Because I want to mimic that style and mimic what you do and what you did. And he's like, yeah, I don't, I don't have one. What do you mean? You don't have one? Like, you can't think of one? No, no, there isn't one that I was perfect. He goes, I am still constantly improving. So, Ariel, I need to take a leap with me here. Take the leap that John McCarthy is the best referee in the world. Take that leap with me. If we just get to that leap, then, okay,

he's the best guy in the world. The best guy in the world is telling you every day I'm still working on this task. Every day I'm still working on this crap. Every day I'm still trying to improve myself. You're like, man, this learning curve is never going to end. There's always going to be something I've got to figure out. And there were a few things that I did on Saturday that I need to improve on. And there's a couple of things that I got to do a little bit quicker.

I got it done, but it wasn't fast like talking to the head table and doing some other things that you have some other tasks you have to do outside the cage. But it was a great event. It was a great night, and, you know, it's just one of many. But I do need to correct you. I am not the first. Dan Severn is the first. Ah.

But he did it when there was no commissions. There was no commissions. I'm the first to do it under the new commissions. Who fought for a belt and referee. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

Fair enough. And it's, but I am the first to do it, fight for a belt, be a referee. At the time of refereeing, I'm in the Hall of Fame as well. So that's the first that I've gotten. But it doesn't matter. All that is random arbitrary stuff It really doesn't make a difference

No, but it's very cool Now let me ask you this Were you nervous? Were you nervous in there? So it's funny, you're just talking about GSP And when he said this line years ago I kind of used it like yeah

We always have butterflies But you're trying to get those butterflies To get into a formation Yeah Fly the mouth in a perfect formation I still get the same I still get nervous I'm walking with the cage

I still do I still get You know you walk in there And you're like Man this is okay I'm here for fighter safety I'm here to make sure these guys get out of here with the least amount of damage air quotes possible so that they can go on and fight again later whether they win or lose. And it does make you a little nervous because you do

have to watch out and there's a lot of things you've got to look for. So absolutely I was nervous, but you have to control it and do your job and do your job the best way that you can. Compare those feelings, those emotions to your UFC debut. You talk about like getting called up to the Yankees. The UFC is still the UFC. Maybe it's a little bigger now, a lot bigger if you if you want to say that, that's fine, yeah. But it was still the UFC back then. Did you feel this? How would you compare those two emotions?

Fighting for me and roughing are two totally different concepts in my brain and the way I approach it. But the feelings are the same. The nervousness you get, you know, people, you know, my younger brother when he was in law school would get nervous before tests. It's the same nerves. It's the same feeling. Like you get that same upset stuff. stomach and kind of shaky legs and you go over like did I do enough that I practice enough to do enough stuff but with this with this it's when fighting it's selfish I have to do everything

I possibly can to make sure I'm beating your ass that's what I have to do whatever it takes for me to get to that point where I am dominating you that's what I have to do as a fighter as a referee it's selfless I am not in there for me I'm not in there to let people know oh look look you know how is this big deal what is this big thing oh I'm you know I'm in here for refereeing for the UFC is nothing to do with that. It's all about making sure those guys are taken care of. And that's been my approach was the reason why a lot of people don't know I rough. I don't publicize it. I don't post it. I don't put my scorecards up. I don't, you know, lay out my bout sheets. I don't do any of that stuff. I just go in. I do my job. I go have a drink with the guys after the fights over and I

leave. And that's just what I do. Yeah, I feel like I have my fingers. I mean, kind of on the pulse. I had no idea that you were even involved in any of this. That's why when I saw it, I was like, holy crap. I mean, and that's what was so impressive about it. Because I know it takes work to get to the UFC, you know, to be refereeing UFC events that Andy Foster of all people who's maybe the most respected commissioner to allow you to do that. I didn't realize it was that kind of road. And so for you to never publicize it at any point is pretty darn impressive on your part. Well, well, thank you.

But don't remember my original reasons for coming in is because the fighter safety. like I'm wearing about guys that are competing. And one of the things I saw with a lot of the refs that were screwing up were so busy trying to tell the world that they had the main event. They're so busy telling the world I had the championship fight and the co-main event. They were forgetting why they were originally there. And so I just took a whole turn and said, look, man, I got a, this is just one part of my life. And those people that really know me, there's a lot of parts of my life now that I've pulled

completely out of the limelight. I'm keeping everything quiet. A certain things in my life, I just keep really quiet now. talk about them at all. I keep it to myself. And roughing is one of those things. And when the hardest thing for me, honestly, was waking up the next morning and after the UFC had put the tweet out that I was in the cage as one of the refs, now having to look at all those notifications of everyone saying congratulations, great job and all that stuff. For me, that's, that was the hardest thing was now the world knows. I'm roughing and I was trying to keep it quiet. I was trying to keep

it off the radar. But now it's, it's on the radar. Now I have to deal with that. It's a different thing now. Oh, wow. I was actually just about to ask you, what was it like to see, you know, the response and everyone's so happy to see you in there. And it sounds like you didn't really like it. Well, no, it wasn't the fact that I didn't like it. I mean, I'm not going to lie. Ron McCarthy was one of the judges. He comes up and goes, hey, look, the UFC tweeted you. I'm like, what? Come on, man. He didn't tweet me. May this stop. Right. It's like maybe I'm thinking somebody else tweeted at the UFC. And I was detested into that tweet. But I know it came right from the UFC. And I was like, I got a gaming chicken skin. Now, mind you, Ron, but. bless his heart, knows how I am. Once I go into the cage, whatever event I'm working, once I go in the cage, my phone goes in the bag, and I do not look at my phone until I am done roughing. Once I'm done roughing, I can get back on and look at in between fights, in between stuff when I'm off. I look at my social media and, and, you know, post picks of other people roughing and doing stuff like that. So Ron waited until I was done. He goes,

hey, look, the UFC tweeted you and it gave me, it gave me goosebumps. Wow. I was like, this is like, this is surreal. This is a huge deal. It's a huge deal for me. I couldn't, I couldn't, when I, so let's step back to when, I have to go back into the pre-fight with the guys in the locker room for the first fight. Yeah. I'm doing all that. I'm running around. I'm trying to make sure I'm going through my head, my checklist, everything I have to get done.

I do my pre-fight, do my checklist in the pre-fight. Do you everything? Get everything ready, get all my stuff set up where my, I know where my gloves are at. I know my bag is at with my water in it so I know I can get right to it and not have to be searching for stuff. I get inside the cage and I do my walk through in the cage right before the first fight starts. I do all you this, whenever I fight on the card, wherever I rough on the car, I don't care of them. The first fight or the fifth fight,

when I finally step in there for my first official duty, I walked the cage. When I walked in, walk the cage, I looked up and I realized the monster energy drink logo is in the center of the canvas, and it hit me right then that I'm here. I'm really inside this cage, and I'm wearing all black.

I'm not in a pair of shorts. I'm not wearing fight gloves. I don't have a jaca. I don't have a cup on. I don't have a mouthpiece in. I'm wearing all black. And it was, it took me a second. Like I had to go, okay, take a breath.

go through your checklist again. Let's get started. And then the announcement started coming in for the first Friday to make us walk. And then we just went and did our stuff. So then when Ron gave me that, now all those emotions start cracking into me at one time.

And I had chicken skin for like 15 minutes. I'm walking around like on a lot of ice. It was cool as crap, man. But waking up the next morning, it wasn't that I didn't like it. It was me always waiting. Okay, this, oh, this, congratulations. Okay, great.

The next one's going to be the one. Oh, congratulations. Okay, that one, okay, that's the next one. Okay, that's the next one. one's going to be the one because you're waiting on that because I'm an alpha male. I put myself on top. I train myself to be the best of whatever I do. I don't care what it is in my life. I'm always trying to be that top guy. But the only thing you ever remember is that one post of that one person says you did a bad job. And that's what you do. You keep looking at. I'm like,

it's coming. It's coming. And this has never came. It just never came. So it was pretty cool. But it was like, man, it was stressful. And I handle my own social media. So I have to answer everybody else back myself. So it takes a while, you know. Did you see Dana White backstage? So he was three chairs away for me, but when I have a commission patch on, it's not really appropriate for me to talk to the promoter when the fight is going on, so I didn't say anything to him,

and when the opportunity arose to say hi to him after the fights were over, because he didn't show up until the main event started or real before the main event, so I was already done roughing. The opportunity arose for me to say hi to him, the fans were bombarding him for pictures and autographs, and it just wasn't appropriate for me to step in there

and say anything to him. I would have absolutely said hi to him if the opportunity was correct, but I just didn't arise. Much respect. You did it the right way. What about Andy Foster? What do he say to you afterwards?

So Andy, unfortunately, was not at the event. Mark ran the event as the lead inspector. And so Mark talked to me after I was said and done, gave me some pointers. Mike Beltrain gave me my pointers. And then actually the first time I spoke with Andy is when you text me, asked me to do your show. And I said, look, it took me a while to answer you back,

as you know, because I had to get a hold of Andy. to make sure it was it was okay for me because there are legal issues now I technically when you work for the commission you work for the state so there's governmental issues I have to worry about what I can say what I can't say stuff like that and he was like hey good job man John when John gets back from Australia he's going to look at the tape he's going to give you some pointers I have a meeting with John here in about an hour from now I get on a phone with John and we go through everything that I did and don't do or did or didn't do correctly and what I approved on what I didn't approve on and all that good stuff and then and he was like every every told me he did a great job

We're super excited and we can't wait to do more stuff for you in the future. And the one thing I will say is that the next Belator card that's on January 20th, I've already been assigned that card. So I'll be working that next Belator card as well. That's amazing. Can you make a living as an MMA referee? So when, and I knew you're going to ask this question. So I actually had to talk to John a little bit about it to make sure that I had my fax rates.

I didn't get screwed up. So everybody understands how it works. whether I work the very first fight of the night on the undercard on the dark on the dark card or I work the main event or I work the main fight of the main event. It's the same pay. Everyone gets the same pay. The only time the pay is different is if you have a championship fight in the main event. So obviously like when John Jones and Corrie and those three fights on went off, then there's those three guys got more pay because it's champions fights as you should. But we all get paid the same amount and we all get paid for the night.

It's not per fight. It's per night. So it makes no difference. We all can work together and hustle together and take care of each other and pay attention. to each other when we're there. So I talked to John, when I first took John's course, the one I failed as a commentator. I'm thinking John's rich.

I see him on TV all the time. I think he's freaking loaded. And he breaks out the numbers for him in his class. He tells you, these are the commissions, this is what we get paid, this is how it works? I was like, how are you surviving, man? Like, how we, I have no idea how you live. I have no idea how you make it.

I don't get it. Like, I don't understand anymore. And he's like, it's my LA cop retirement. That's how I survive. I'm being a police officer, my retirement money, that's what I'm, surviving. We do not make that much money as refs. Somebody, somebody posted or tweeted to me and forgive me, I want to look it up, remember his name so I can mention it here. He's like, oh, it's sad to see

that that Trigg has to ref for a job. Man, it, this is not a job. You're not making, and my response was, hey, this is not a job. It's a passion, which it is for me. There's no money in it. I don't do this for the money. There's absolutely no money in this. Like, none of us are in there. We're not, you don't see refs driving Lamborghinisies. You don't see, you know, refs out there with big houses and living over by you know dana and lorenzo in vegas we're we just go out there and we're passionate about this about this game so can you make a living it's it's a it's a tough how do you need to make a living man like we can't live in new york there's i can't live in new york city there's no way doing it live in new york city um i would have a you know it would be very

hard every referee that you that you see that lives in l.A they all have full-time jobs you know all have super super high level of full-time jobs and they're rough on the weekend And when they have to travel, it's days, it's days off. It's vacation days. You have to take from the real job to go rep. So this isn't, we're not doing this for the money. We do this because we love the sport. And me personally, because I want to get back to the sport, that, I want to tell you that

I made myself famous. I want to tell you that I did all my own hard work and I made this thing happen. UFC made me famous. They promoted me. They pushed me. This is what, this is how I got famous because the top dog in the MMA made me have a name at the time when they were trying to build themselves up. And I have to get back.

You have to as an athlete, as a martial artist, you have to give back to the sport that you were in. It's what we do. And judo, you can't get the top, the top belt, the top rank belt system without being a coach. You have to teach and give back. This is my way to give back to the sport. And I do it because I love it. And I feel bad for Jill and my wife because the whole time we first started dating, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We're running all over Nevada and California roughing and she's at 5.

That's what we do on the weekends. everybody else is at the clubs and hang out the bars and we're at fights, watching the sweaty guys punch each other. That's what we're doing. So your full-time job now is you're still an actor, correct? Stunt work. Well, well, it's so I want to tell you that most of my money comes from acting, but the reality of it is that stunt work.

Okay. It's the most amount of work I do is stunt work now. Like I'm working on SWAT, the CBS show tomorrow again. I'm dubbing another actor. It'll be my third episode with them. I had an episode that aired last week. that everybody saw. I have Lucifer again in a couple weeks before the Christmas break,

and I just died on Lucifer again. So my main gig right now is stunt work, which allows me to always work on the weekends. And unfortunately, I have to tell Andy, hey, I'm 100% taking this gig that you gave me. I'm 100% taking the assignment. But if Hawaii 5L calls, I might have to call out because it pays way more and it's residuals and it's retirement.

And I'm in SAG, so it's like I've got to do it, you know. And so for the record, how many fights do you think you've reffed at this point? Oh, my wife keeps great track of it, but she was in a car driving, so she couldn't give me the exact number. But I'm well over 500 bouts right now. That is amazing. And are you licensed to ref in Nevada as well? I am not. And I have not applied.

I've not tried to apply. So I've been blessed. I can't lie. So John McCarthy is not only the guy. training me to be referee. He's also my mentor. So he talks me all time about these things and where I should go and what I should do. And I'm, you know, I'm anxious. And you know me for a long time, real. I'm super hyperactive and I want stuff now. Like, I want to do it now. So I keep, okay, let's, let's do Nevada. Now let's do New York. Now let's do, you know, because I'm from New York.

I want it. There's a lot of amateur fights up in Buffalo and in Rochester, my hometown. I want to go and be able to represent up there. So I'm like, I'm going to go. I want to go. I'm No, no, no, slow down. I'm in California. And people are going to roast me for this one, but California is the best commission that there is in the country. By the fun away, the best, the best.

Andy Foster sets all the new, the new weight-cutting regulations. He helped progress the new fingers and eye-pokes and the new down-opponent. Like, that's all through state of California, and that's where I'm licensed. So I'm in the best, I'm in the best commission in the country

trying to overreach every day. I'm always trying to overreach. reach to get. I want to do more. I want to do more for the sport. I want to be out there more. And they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, you know, keep me in the barn. They're slowing me down. They're like, no, it's not, you're not ready to apply yet in Nevada. You're not ready to apply yet in, in New York. You're not ready yet to apply in these other places. And excuse me, when that actually happens, Andy will make the phone call to, to the commissioner in those other states and ask them, hey, Trigg would like to, would like to apply in your, in your

commission. Would you accept this application? If they say yes, what's the, you know, whatever it is, like for Nevada, usually have to fly in and do a commission hearing and they're going to talk to you about, you know, and look at your record and do all that stuff. You know, it's a refring record and do all that stuff. And then if they approve it, they approve if they don't, you're just ass out.

This is what it is. So right now, I am just licensed in California and licensed in a state of Hawaii to do professionally. But I would 100% go anywhere. If any order, I don't care if it's Titan fighting championships, you know, called me up. I was like, hey, will you come to Florida and do this? and if Florida will license me, I would go in a ref from Florida.

I'll go anywhere to ref that they will accept me, but I am not licensed in any place else. But I have not tried or put my application in for any place else because John and Andy and Mike Beltran and Mike Bell are doing a great job of kind of, let's hold you back a little bit, let's not get too big, let's just slow down and give you some more, give you some more time in any controlled environment. They control me and they control what bouts I have and they control where I'm at and they control and they're also, I work with the same team a lot.

I'm always with Beltran, I'm always with Baltran. and McCarthy, usually on the bigger pro events I get with McCarthy as well. So I have these guys that give me my conversations when I walk out of the cage, that tell me what I did great, when I need a little bit of improvement on. And when you go to these other commissions, I wouldn't have that. And let's be honest, when a normal referee, let's use that term, a normal referee minus, not take the big four or five out of it, but a normal referee makes a mistake.

It's not that big of a deal, gets a couple of booze, gets a couple of things, nothing that big. Because of me, the way I was as a fighter, the stuff I had to make up to sell fights when I fought Hughes, that that moniker that came in that other, the ultimate personality that I had to use then, that when I make a mistake, it will be detrimental. It will be a huge problem. And they're making sure that mechanics are solid,

that I cannot miss it, I don't miss a step. They're making sure that my reaction time is perfect. And so they're keeping me control because I want to make sure that once I go to another commission, that they will throw me up to the top level. They will throw me up that co-main event, main event just because of my name and being able to use, oh, UFC Hall of Fame or Frank Triggs, the third man to boot. But that's their thing. And so they're doing a good job of making sure that when I get there, that I am completely prepared and absolutely amazingly set for that particular thing. Like today I've talked to Bell, Beltrant, and McCarthy, and we'll talk to McCarthy again, completely separate about the same question I had for them about what I was doing in a particular part of one of the fights I wrapped. And they all had the exact same answer without conferring to each other.

And I knew the answer, but I want to make sure that they all have the same answer. And we do this for each other. Mike, you know, we'll talk to each other about, I talk to them about their stuff. We do this all the time back and forth within ourselves. Just to improve upon our game. We have to. Of all the sports out there, I feel like MMA referees have the tough. office job because it is just so subjective.

You got to step in there. And yes, you have to do that in other sports as well. But I just feel like, you know, like even in your fight, I mean, you have to know when to say when. And sometimes you could be late, sometimes you could be early. There's a lot at stake. Do you now have a greater appreciation? Like if you think back to a 25-year-old Frank Trigg and how he viewed MMA referees, do you now have a completely different appreciation for what these men and women go through? So I told Herb Dean when I was fighting.

I had Larry Landliss for the for the Dennis Hall and fight part two at the WFA. And I told her backstage that the problem right now is that not only do I have to fight my opponent, but I also have to fight the ref. I got to know what ref I have to figure what's going on, you know. And then now if I had taken a refereeing course, and I tell us to every friend that will listen to me, any manager, any corner guy, you need to take a refereeing and judging course. need to take it because I was doing things I thought were illegal and trying to hide them from

everybody and they're like, no, that's totally illegal. You're not. We knew you're doing it. And I was doing and I wasn't doing stuff that I thought was illegal that was legal. Like, no, that's totally legal. You totally could have done that. Twenty-five-year-old Frank Trigg, 26-year-old Frank Trig, not only being a punk, a little pompous ass, a little full of himself, besides all those things, had no effing clue what he was doing or what he was talking about. refs have the absolute toughest job because if we are my uh if we are one one hundredth of a second too late that's an extra huge hard punch coming in and we're just and we're just like you know we have to be there and not that you can ever be in the best position you can't there's movement it's chaos man

there's things happening and people going different directions you can't be in the right spot all the time it's impossible but you have to be in the best spot you can possibly be in at that particular time that particular moment in time. And when we screw up, it's not that, it's not saying we screw up, but say it's perceived, the fans perceive that there's a mess up.

And the fact is that there wasn't a mess up, it was 100% accurate. It was completely understandable what happened, but the fans don't know, don't know the rules, don't know the regulations, don't know what's actually going on in there. Like they just don't get it because at home

or even in the arena, if you can't see what happens. I can't see. Oh, Jumbotron. I'm looking at Jumbotron. That's the best. view the director in the truck is giving you the best view because that's what they're feeding feeding at home so I see the best view that the refs have a better view than that our

view is even better so we know more of what's going on and what's happening but when we get we know if there's a mistake refs do you get picked on it's on it is unfair but it is part of the sport it is part of the game and it's one of the things that makes me love MMA is that our fans not only hold fighters to task there were there there were several fans there with the the well I don't get it but several fans there that had shirts on that were picking on particular other other fighters. Fans hold us to accountability. The promoters hold us to accountability.

But then we hold ourselves to accountability. The judges and reps, we hold ourselves and then we still have to be accountable to the fans and the promoters. Like we still have to understand that, that, hey, I could have been during the Alexa Davis and Liz Karmouche fight, I could have been two feet closer because, you know, I wanted to be in there closer to see what was going on, but I could have been three feet further away. Also, which one is better?

Well, you have to think about the promoter. There's a camera over my left shoulder, man. If I step in close, I'm blocking that camera. No one at home can see what's going on. I'm blocking the talent value. So now I have to step back out of the way, but how far away is too far away. I have to be let the folks at home be able to see what's going on,

but I'll say to be close enough to stop something when it's happening. So it's just back and forth. That's one example of what goes on. We do have a tough job. You're right. We have an extremely tough job. But the people that are the best at it are the ones that have super thick skin because we're going to get booed.

We're going to get yelled at. We're going to get picked on. We have to have super thick skin. But we also, I don't want to say we don't care about the fans. We're not in it for the fans. We're not in it for the glory. When I in it to be loved, when I end it to be to be light. And obviously, most of you listeners know my career, I was not cheered a lot when I was

fighting. I was booed quite a bit. So I've got thick skin. It doesn't really bother me. I'm okay with that. So when I go in there and I'm in there for, or safety. I'm just worrying about the fighters. If I get booed, I get booed. I'm okay with it. Stand him up, Trigg. Stand him up. Okay, well, that's not what's happening right now. I'm just

keep going. Ref you suck. And you're not doing this job. I don't care what you think. Like, no disrespect to the fans. I love our fans. I love people like the fights. But I'm there for the fight. I'm there for them, man. I'm not there for me. I'm not there for anybody else. I'm there for them. Two last things. Any interest in judging? First of all, no. I'm not letting you go. I told you we're staying on it for two hours. And that's what we're going to do. You have a call with John. It's,

hope, trust me. He'll wait. He's going to yell at me for 35 minutes. So wait. And we'll talk about guns and talk about a little bit of hunting and talk about shooting next time. I guess. And then that'll be the conversation. I am licensed a judge.

I do judge quite a bit at the amateur level. I do judge sometimes. So some of the pro events, it does cost for the folks who home that don't know this. I think you know, you understand this, that there is a fee to you have to pay to the commission to have judges and referees there. And on the smaller MM8 shows, they're pro, they might have the income to be able to afford to have an extra judge or an extra ref show up. So we'll sometimes judge ref. And then there'll be an extra seat, the third seat.

The other, the rest will rotate. So you go from pit. Usually it's, it's from pat down to refing to judging to off. And that's kind of the rotation that happens within the hierarchy. Sometimes it's changed up a little bit, but that's usually how it goes. And I do judge quite a bit. but it's personally, I prefer reffing. I find judging a little more difficult.

I find judging a little bit harder because you've only got that view from that one seat. You don't have the view that we all sees at home. I can only score what I see. If I don't see it because it's on the other side of the cage or your back is to me and I don't see what you're doing, then I can't score it because I didn't see it as a judge. Refing to me is a little bit easier, but my son disagrees. He's going to start training to be a judge up in Rochester. And he disagrees.

He thinks judging is harder and he wants to judge. Wow. It's just one of those things. Like it's effective. But I do want to judge boxing. I do want to get to judge boxing, but I have no desire to referee boxing. Huh. Why is that?

Why do you want to judge boxing? I like the way that boxing goes and then I see a problem. I see a problem. Yeah. You know, in some commissions. I see issues the way they're judging. And I'm like, Boxing is such a beautiful sport.

It is such an incredible sport. And you see these kids that put their heart and soul into it. And these coaches that are, that their wrists are busted up and their elbows are broken from the whole midst for so long for so many years. And the shoulders barely work anymore. But they're still struggling every day to get this one kid as Junior Walthaway WBO title. And they're still in there trying to help him out. And it's such a beautiful.

It really is a martial art. And it is so raw and is so determined. And then to see some of these guys just get completely hosed down by bad judging. It hurts, it makes me, it makes me teary-eyed. I see these guys. And I don't know the fighters. I have no relationship with any of the fighters. I don't hang out in any of these boxing fighters,

but you look at me like, man, you're getting hosed by this judge. It's just, I just don't like it. And I'm like, you know, of course, I run my mouth. You know, I don't have much, Ariel, but I do have an opinion. So I start talking about it. And I told me, then start judging and boxing too. So I think the next phase, right now we're in Hawaii. Obviously, Jill and I are in Hawaii.

We make the move January 1st to, LA permanently. And once I'm in LA permanently, and this will be our new base of operation. I will, uh, 100% be looking into judging boxing? Now, will I have to start over again at the amateur level? Will I have to, I don't know any of that. I don't know any of the requirements. I don't know. It's still a very early formulated plan. It may never come to fruition. But it's kind of the next thing that I would like to do is, is to also, uh, judge boxing and see where that goes. And I may not like it. I might get into it. But like, you know what? This is not for me. I'm going to get out. And if it's not for me, I refuse at 45 years old, I refuse to do anything that I do not wake up every morning and go, I can't wait to do this again.

If it becomes a drag or a draw, I am gone. I'm not doing it. If I have any part of it, I don't want to be associated with it because it's going to get somebody hurt or get somebody screwed over and I don't want to do that. By the way, your son who wants to be a judge in Rochester? How old is he? 24, actually, yeah, 24. And has my, let's see, she's 22 months now. I think she turned. two and two months. My granddaughter's 22 months now. That's right. That's right. Congratulations. That's amazing. That's amazing that you're your grandfather. That kind of goes to... Thank you. Yeah. Ball of fire.

So I talked to... And I apologize for this long rant that's about to come up. I was talking to one of the doctors, and he asked me, how was the transition coming out of fighting and how did you transition? What happened? I went through all the athlete depression and what am I going to do next and where's my self-identity and what am I going to have happened and all that? I went through all that stuff when I left to sport. now six years ago.

And I never proficiently retired. I just stopped taking fights. I can make more money doing stunts because at the time I was on the back end of my career. I was not the big dog. There was not going to be any money in it for me. I can make money to stunts. I'm going to go do stunts.

And that's what I'm going to do. I just stop fighting. And I was like, I'm never going to find another passion. I got super lucky that I found reffing and stunt work that consume me every day. And they just, all I can think about every day is how can I be a better ref? how can be a better stunt guy and then you're like when you have children you know this when you have

children they are above everything so think about the passion i have for roughing then with a passion i have for stunt work my kids crush that they're not even it's not even close like just watch them play baseball and watching them come home but like i got all a's and just watching all that it's just amazing then my granddaughter was born and i was like full man they're it's it's they're all the same level now my and my granddaughter all the same level. I'm like, this is, it's incredible when your, when your kids are born, what you're going to do. But the transition coming out of, out of fighting was really difficult. But my eldest son, man, he, he, God bless him.

He got on the phone with me. And we just started talking about next steps and what we're going to do and how we're both going to take over the world doing different things. And, you know, where our lives will will cross over without being father's son and all that kind of stuff. And it was, it just, he got me through that, got me through that whole mess. And then, of course, the younger kids, you know, watching them progress and grow in the amazing little league baseball players and incredible gymnasts and doing all that. I mean, it's just incredible. You know, watching my daughter grow into a little woman. It's just like, oh, it's amazing.

It's amazing. But yeah, so I've been, I'm blessed, man. I'm lucky, man. I got the best commission. I'm working in the best state. Got the best granddaughter that any, any guy could ask for. You know, it's amazing. Is my life perfect?

But hell no. Is it all great that you see on social media? Absolutely not, man. We got days where things are dark and things are black and the whole, you know, where's rent coming from? You know, sometimes we have that. We still have that question. Where's that?

What do I got to make happen, make rent get here? And we still have that. We still have that sometimes. It's not as often as it used to be, but it's still there. But, man, I wake up a bit more. I'm like, what am I really bishing about? What am I really complaining about? I'm okay.

But this will work out. We'll make it happen. And it's amazing, man. It's a lot of fun. It's been great. Yeah. The last thing I just wanted to ask you was about a man who you'll always be connected to, Matt Hughes. Have you had any contact with him since his accident?

Have you spoken to him? Have you reached out to him? I, and I want to so bad, man. And I do, but I feel like it. So I was reaching out eight degrees of separation. I would reach out at TJ Thompson, who's also a stunt man now. And he actually got me into the stunt game with Hawaii 50. He used to be the icon promoter, which is why I fought Bobby Lawler and Jason Miller.

And PJ and I have been very close friends for years. He still very close friends with Monty Cox. So he'll call Monty Cox. He's very close to him with Matt and Mark. And so I'll get my information that way. I just felt like it was inappropriate to, to all of a sudden after all these years, now he has his accident. Let me reach out now. It was like, why wasn't I reaching out before?

And I feel guilty. I really do, Ariel. I have a really hard time with this. And this is probably one of the bigger mistakes in my life that I wish I could go back five or six years and fix it. or even when you interviewed us getting ready for the Hall of Fame, I should have started that relationship then. And I just was, honestly, I was too much of a pussy to do it. I just didn't do it.

And I should have started that conversation with, hey, look, let's just talk every now and again. Let's just, when we're in the same time, let's sit down and have dinner and have drink. And let's talk because he's got, we disagree on a lot of stuff, right? But we agree on a lot of stuff. But we agree on it in different ways. And it's amazing to talk to a guy that was once you're arch rival, your biggest nemesis that all of a sudden now you're like wow man like we can we can do some stuff together we can actually like change the world a little bit if we talk and hang out and do these

things and then the accident happened i was like immediately reaching for the phone i got i got a call let me get a hold of mark and find what's going on and i was like man it's just inappropriate so i have not reached out to him i have not and it really is one of the greatest disappointments in my life that i have is i didn't start that relationship and now you know it's too late to come back in and try to... It's not too late. It's not too late. Do it today.

Text them today. Why not? I don't know. I just feel bad. I don't know. You're right. You're right. You're right.

I'll actually, I promise you up, you know, today I'll just reach out to him and say, hey, just check him up on you. There you know. I just feel like a dick.

It's like a dick. No, it's fine. You're not a dick. You're doing great things, Frank. Yeah, you say it's fine. What's that? You say it's fine,

but it depends. That's right. It doesn't think it's fine. Well, we'll find out. There's only one way to find out. Congratulations. This is a great story. Amazing. And I'm being honest. I saw you on the screen. I was like, holy crap, this really warmed my heart. It was great to see you in there. And I think it's great for the sport that you're doing this. So thank you for doing it on on behalf of the MMA community. And I wish you nothing but the best. I hope to see you in every state, every event, every jurisdiction, whatever the case may be. We need more people like you in there. So thank you for doing this. And thanks for coming on and talking about it. It was fantastic. Yeah, my pleasure. I love coming on. I told you before, man, I could just, you could just cancel everybody else and you're not going to just talk shop for two and a half hours. I wouldn't even care. I'm totally fine with that. I love your show. I do love the information you do put out. I do think sometimes you scroll yourself in these weird questions sometimes. And then it takes me

like five minutes to figure out why you went that direction. And then the answer comes out. I'm like, oh, okay, that's what you did. All right, I get it. So for the folks at home that don't understand, Ariel only puts out about 3% of all the information he has, 97% of the information he keeps to himself. And so when he's asking these weird-ass questions to some of the guests, it's because he already knows the answer. And he's scrolling you down this hole because he knows what's going on. And it's great to watch people squirm. It's like, but you already know what the answer is supposed to be. And so they give you the wrong answer, you're like, okay, so the follow-up is, and it's like, now there's really scramble. And I love that about, I love that about you.

So it's, yeah, yeah. I definitely am a fan, and I'm so happy you bought me back on him. And anytime you want to hand me on, I'm definitely down for it. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for revealing my secrets there. Appreciate it. It's not a secret, man. Everybody knows. Talk to you soon, Frank. All the best. Keep it up. Continued success. Thanks so much, man. Aloha. All right, there he is. Frank Trigg. How about that? What a story. Unbelievable. 500 fights. He's rough 500 fights and no one knew about it. That's incredible. All right.

Really warm my heart. It was really great to see him. Okay, we've gone way over time. Everyone wants to kill me. We've got to go to the after hour. We got to do Rickspicks. We got to hear from everyone else. We got to go home. MMA after hour.

You see the thing right over there? The Twitter. I knocked over my flags. You see the address. I've been tweeting it out. There it is. If you're watching us on M.AFighting.com or YouTube or Facebook, stop that.

Go to Twitter. We're going to Ricks picks. We're going to do the damn thing. We have no time to waste. MMA after hour. It starts right now. Let's go. No time to waste.

As I said, this is the MMA After Hour. it's exclusive on Twitter. Time now for everyone's favorite segment. It is time for... Oh, yeah, look at that. It was like a wook-wook-wook-up. Yes. Open your ears and your minds.

Better have some good ones for us, right? Right? One of my favorite shows of the year, I must say. I love the show. Great personalities. Great people. Sometimes we like to change angles just to keep people. There we go.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here we go. There he is. The one and only New York Crick. The Proud Daddy. Week 3. We're embarking on week three. That's correct.

Any surprises? Nope. Nothing. All right? Status quo. You know, I told you last week, she's a powerhouse. She's growing faster than I ever could have been. She's lifting weights.

I mean, I don't want to predict future apps. athlete, push-ups, champion, but... Chin-ups. It's hard not to at this point. All right. Killing it. Yeah, she's amazing. Next flyway champion of the UFC.

Or maybe Bantamweight. You never know. I'm thinking she's gonna be a lightweight. Wow, first ever lightweight champion of the UFC's Women's Division. That's amazing. All right, no time to waste. Stop wasting time.

What do you got? What do you got? Rick's pick. Okay, let's start Rick's picks. We're going to do some highlights from the week that was, starting here. at Bellator 190. Oh my God, this was great.

Carvalio knocking out Alessio Sakara. This is going to run back. Here we go. What a finish. And it was like 44 seconds in. Great finish early. I mean, don't love the idea of Sakara fighting for the title.

But taking nothing away from the finish here by Carvalio. Yeah, you see him rocked right there. He's rocked. Another knee, elbow. Matt Brown-esque finishing it. Sign me up for Carvalio versus Gagher Musassi next. Love that. Yeah, I'd like to see that. Has to be the fight.

Okay, we move along also from Friday Invicta. Mackenzie Dern. Yes. Getting it done against Kaline Maderos. Arm bar here. This is just the arm bar highlight, but obviously she showed improved striking coming along in the first couple of rounds. Big win over a very tough opponent, Kalina Maderos, who fought for. for the evicted title against Angela Hill.

So a big win for her. Jennifer Maya, no highlight here, because it was a five-rounder, no finish posted, but Jennifer Maya getting it done in the main event. Best performance of her young career? Are we talking about McKenzie? Yes, clearly. The level of competition was way different.

Kaline is a very good fighter. So, yeah, definitely the best one for McKenzie here. And as I said, you know, showed a little bit of her striking game. take it to the ground until later into the fight. So yeah, big win for McKenzie. Don't know if, you know, I'm throwing her right into the UFC's flyweight division yet, but definitely showing improvements every single fight.

Very curious to see what they do with her because UFC has been investing in her. She's been on one of those deals where they give her a little bit. Now she's under the fight pass umbrella, so it makes a lot of sense to have her fight there. Do they push her to the UFC? Do they just say, hey, the UFC can give her one and three opponents. They can give her two and four opponents if they want. The UFC is its own farm system now. Or do they keep her under the Invicta banner?

Do they kind of build her up that way? I'm very curious to see what they do with her. And she made $1.15. So muzzle told about that. Easy cut, it seemed to be. Yeah. So improving that as well. Big prospect.

Okay. Moving to the kickboxing world. Glory, big event, pay-per-view on UFC FightPass or rather UFC.TV on Saturday. Huge knockout here from Petch Panamaran, Kiet Mucco,

Featherweight Division against Zacharia Tugari. Head bounced. Yeah, nasty. Who's on the call there? Who's yelling knockout of the air? That is Todd Grisham.

Great Todd Grisham. U.S.C. Commentator and Glory commentator. Thought that was going to be the knockout of the weekend, there were quite a few others here we have quickly flashing over to the main event Rico Verhoeven versus Jamal Ben Sadiq the headline fight of Glory Redemption

and this was true redemption right? It was it was Rico making up for his loss in 2011 knockout over Jamal Ben Sadiq's well we don't get to see the finish well listen it's a paper view

damn the face of glory is he gonna fight Butterhari again I mean I don't think there's any doubt that eventually he's going to fight Botter Hari again. Barter Hari resigning with glory. Yeah, big news. To fight in March. I don't know if it's going to happen in March, but I know that that fight has to happen.

That's the biggest fight to think it put on, right? Well, also the first one just ended. You know, Baderari injured his arm, and it seemed like that fight was just getting competitive. I thought Bader won the first round against Rico. So there's no doubt that that fight has to be made. Rico calling for it in the ring after. Yes. It was quite the callout, by the way.

It was great. Rico, look, Rico's doing the damn thing on the mic in the ring. He's doing it. Okay. Speaking of huge knockouts, this clip courtesy of USC on Fox, Marlon Marius with the knee

against Al Jemaine Sterling. Brutal. Just absolutely flush. We're going to watch it here again. I thought it was a head kick at first. It was so quick. He was going for the head kick, but landed the knee.

Oh, scary. And kudos to Al Jermaine tweeting after. LOL, I really did do the dab. God damn internet is forever undefeated. Sheet this joke going to be around for eternity. This is the fight game. I'm just glad I got thick skin. I can still do what I love.

A lot of people mentioning that Al Jermaine did the dab on his way out unconscious. Shout out to Al Jamein for having a good sense of humor about it. Not taking a person. Two quick things. I actually was on the flight home with Mark Henry and Ricardo Alameda last weekend. two weekends ago from Detroit, and they were telling me how they didn't love the idea of this fight

because they didn't like the idea of cornering opposite Longocera, first time in the UFC that they've done that. And so it was, I'm sure, very emotional for them, as you heard from Frankie Edgar and even Marlon himself, to see what happened to Aljo and that he was out. Do you get what I'm saying regarding the broadcast? Because a lot of people didn't understand what I was saying, and I didn't think that it was that hard to understand.

when someone gets knocked out like that and you never show him again and you do your best to essentially ignore that he's out on the mat, that he's not standing there when they raised the arms, when the opponent who knocked him out is showing incredible compassion and almost seems worried about his state, you don't have to stick the camera in his face. But the least you could do is say, hey look, Aljo's down. Hey look, Aljo's out. Hey look, Aljo's been stretchered out. Hey, look, Aljo's been taken to a local hospital. We'll up. you with information, tune into the post-fight show, we'll have an update, something. But to completely ignore, to go to commercial and to ignore that he's out, that he is not standing, that he's been stretchered, that he's been taking to the hospital, that he was out for several minutes. To me, it feels heartless. I mean, these guys are fighters. This is a reality of the sport.

When someone gets seriously hurt in football, when someone gets seriously hurt in hockey, they show it. Not only do they show it, they talk about it afterwards. This is a reality. We all know what we're watching. We all like to celebrate. violence, let's not sweep it under the rug, let's be honest about what we're doing. When bad things happen, when dangerous things happen, when scary things happen, why sweep it under the rug? I'll tell you

why, it's because the promotion controls the production. If you're watching HBO boxing or Showtime boxing, this isn't happening. But this is a problem in our sport. It needs to be more honest. They need to tell the people what happened. And as viewers, I think we deserve some kind of update. Again, people were saying to be, oh, what do you want a camera in his face? No, I don't want to glorify it. to make him seem like he's just an object that we're trying to, oh, look how great, look at this car crash. But I want to know how he's feeling. I want to know what happened to him. It's a warning sign. It's a red flag when they don't even show him standing there afterwards or sitting. I want to know how Alistair O'Ream's feeling. At least give me some kind of update. And I was blown away that

people didn't understand that. As a sports consumer, as a fan of sports, I'm used to getting those kind of updates. And it's amazing to me in 2017 that we don't get those updates. Yeah. I mean, I have nothing to add to that. That's spot on. There's, you know, there's levels to it. There's showing him being stretched out. There's, you know, showing video footage of it. Then underneath that is just giving updates in the broadcast or maybe even on social media or whatever the case may be. I think it's appropriate to update them in some way, especially if Marlon is going to address it in his post-fight, it's probably better to say something than nothing.

But at the same time, I understand, you know, if they are producing the show, I understand why they wouldn't want to put that front and center. But I think there's a way to do it. I just think it's amazing that no one else thinks this is weird. Like that you're okay with the guy getting knocked out brutally. You're okay with him not being on the screen. You're okay with Marlon talking about and looking at it.

You could tell he's looking at him and worried and then, hey, let's go to the next pay-per-view promo and then never referencing his state again. That, to me, I mean, do we not care about these human beings? I know what I'm watching. I know it's dangerous. But when something scary happens, I'd love to know what happened. I'd love to know how the guy's doing, at least like a reference. And don't tell me there's no time because we were like two fights in and it was already like midnight. Or, you know, like, come on, there's a ton of filler.

Just give me something. Especially in the case where he's okay. where he seems to be fine. He's at the hospital, but... Yeah, he ended up being okay. He's joking on Twitter. What's so bad about that? Yeah, you know, I think it's appropriate.

Okay. Two champions here together, Lomachenko and Max Holloway, meeting before Lomachenko fought Riggedo at the theater at MSG over the weekend. Incredible. These two were the budding bromance over the last couple of...

It's funny because it stemmed all from Max just saying he's watching him and now all of a sudden they're their best friends but it's great to see you watch the fight um I did yeah what'd you think of the fight I mean Lomachenko is incredible did you not have a problem with with so many I couldn't believe how many people were calling

uh Riegoondow gutless a coward a chicken I mean like within seconds of him saying no moss essentially and by the way no maschenko is a brilliant name yeah no much I think it was a four straight that he's done that but like these guys are fighters you don't know yes he may have broken his hand, he may have broken his toe, he may have torn his ACL, like to jump down his throat that quickly within seconds, I don't know, that seems a bit much.

Yes, but it's hard to argue with the people who are saying he looked uninspired and that fighters have fought through worse hand injuries and that he didn't give the due credit to Lomachenko after the fight, saying, oh, it's because I broke my hand and, you know, he didn't do anything. I forget the exact verbage he used, but he definitely minimized the win. and blamed it all on his hand. It's hard for me to rectify that, to feel sympathy for somebody who's going to say that after the fight

and at the same time, you know, coddled them in regard to stopping the fight. I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem with that fight being stopped. I don't have a problem with his corner protecting him. I don't have a problem with him voicing that he has an injury and asking to stop the fight. My problem is in, if that's the case,

and we're going to give him the leeway that you're asking for in that case, then he can't after the fight. make the excuses that he made. How about we just wait and find out how he is feeling or what he has to say? How about we just give him a second? And when he did, it wasn't satisfactory.

According to who? What if he broke his hand in training cap and tried to fight it out because he didn't want to cancel the event? He didn't want to let everyone down. Then that's his fault. Okay, that's his fault. Is that gutless though?

Is he a coward? Is he a chicken? Like, wow. There's a difference between calling him a coward, a chicken. That's what I was a line. That's what I was seeing. There's plenty of people who are right. rightfully questioning the effort that he put forth in this fight. Didn't look like he wanted to fight,

was clearly, you know, skirting the line on the rules and doing everything he could to not fight. It was not his greatest performance. I mean, it was not a good performance by any sense. Criticizing, criticizing Rigando for that performance is fair game. Now, calling a fighter, somebody who's putting their, you know, health and safety on the line, gutless, a coward, all those things, absolutely not.

There's no place for that in this sport in this sport and boxing in any combat sport. but criticizing his performance and questioning the effort that he put forth, hard for me to find any sympathy. What if Flomacheco is so good that he just couldn't figure him out? And he was like, you know what? Then say that. That's not what he said after the fight. He gave him no credit.

Fair. I don't know. It just seemed a little harsh. There's, in my opinion, no. But there's a line. Calling any fighter, look, if you're not familiar with this story, I think it should read up on it and what kind of background he comes from

and fighting his entire life for this opportunity, fighting to be on this stage and fight against a fighter like Lomachenko, going up to weight classes to do it. I don't think there's any question about what his makeup is, what he is as a fighter, but his effort in this fight is okay to be criticized and it was subpar and it wasn't, you know,

I'm fine with criticizing, I'm fine, but it just seemed like it, it seemed like everyone was jumping on him and like insulting him within seconds. And I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't feel like I'm the kind of MMA fan or MMA journalist. I want to hear the story and something may have happened. Who knows?

It just seemed like everyone was very quick to put this guy down and insult him and question is hard and question his integrity. I don't know. It just seemed much to me. I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. Saturday was awesome. There was so much going on.

It was great. Just flipping around. Nick's Bulls. Amazing. Nick's loss. Bulls. Tell me. Come on.

Nick's Bulls, really. I was going from Nick's Bulls to UFC to Belator, to Lomachenko. The Belator car was great, by the way. I enjoyed that. The Colombian girl, Alejandra Lada, coming down, dancing to Shakira. That was awesome. The Carvalio fight. I didn't like the tape delay.

I didn't watch the kickboxing, actually. That's the one thing I didn't watch. How was that? Didn't miss much. Joe Schilling. No, John Wayne Parr fought. Joe Schilling got it done. I mean, you know, come on.

Kickboxing's fun. Good. I'm 10 o'clock. I start to get very tired. That's the problem. So I have to kind of focus on one thing at that point. I can't be jumping around. We're moving on from Max Holloway meeting Lomachenko to now this song remix posted to Max Holloway's

Instagram. Oh, my God. This guy, Maurice Spears is amazing. I love this. Incredible production. Maurice Spears, you did it. Oh my God, this guy's great. You did it.

And notice Max Holloway giving the credit. That's the most impressive part. Oh, yeah, that's great. It's so rare and so appreciated. Remember that when he was throwing the axes from him? Yeah, yeah. I was hoping to get Max in studio today because he was in New York. But?

He flew out yesterday. Oh. I was very excited. Well, well done to Maurice and Max. Okay. This was an interesting one. I haven't been able to, I was trying during the show to track down who these fighters are. What I've been able to gather?

Yes. Because there's not a lot out there. This is from Chin Wu Men, MMA. That's the name of the organization. And what we're going to see here is what, Wrestling fans will call a dragon sleeper, and BJJ, aficionados, will call the Decaparator named after Justin Rader. Dang.

Jeez, Louise. Look at that. That looks like the most painful thing in the world. It feels like my neck. I wish I knew the names of these fighters, because I'd love to give them proper credit for being a part of this match. But Chin Wu M.A., sorry, Chinwu Men MMA is the name of the organization. the caperator. So that's what we're going with?

Yeah, look, I mean, it's a great submission. No, no, no, for sure. Okay, now we're going to go fight announcements. Official, Stipe Amiochich versus Francis Inganu, January 20th in Boston. And Ganu the favorite, at least as of now. In Ganu the favorite. Remember we're talking about that? And we, I think didn't this come out Monday, the odds?

Didn't the odds come out like right after we spoke about it? Me saying that I wouldn't be. surprised if Inganu was the favorite and there it was. Inganu, a slight favorite over Steepa, the champion. I'm just happy that this one's made. What a great double header in Boston. Now, speaking of title fights and announcements, also announced for Perth, Robert Whitaker versus Luke Rockhold happening at UFC 21.

Whitaker, a slight favorite, I think I saw. I believe that's correct. Yeah. Right now. Oh, boy. Great fight. Who do I have in this one? If, I mean,

damn, this is so tough. Whitaker, if Rockhold can get it to the ground, I think he has a viable path to victory here. On the feet, I think Whitaker is going to take it. It depends on how long Rockhold wants to stand with him. If he takes it to the ground, Rockhold's grappling game and submission game is so underrated, so good.

You know what? I think I'm going to go at Rockhold. Dang. I think I'm going to go with Rockhold. Old new champ. New old champ. But if Whitaker can stuff the takedowns, which he's shown to be able to do at 185,

I'll go with him. I think he'll win it on the feet. But if something tells me Rockhold gets this done, I think he's the best 185er. Yeah. So I'm leaning Rockhold. But damn good fight. These two fights are damn good.

After hearing John Danaher, how do you feel about GSP vacating the title? How do you feel about the whole GSP thing? I mean, I didn't need to hear from Danaher to to feel that, you know, GSP has to do what's good for his health and has to do what's right for his career. Let's not act like that title fight

was made on the merits of GSP because he's not a middleweight. And fighting for the middleweight title was not, you know, some achievement that was earned by GSP for, you know, earning his, for, you know, climbing up the middleweight ladder. So the fact that he vacated, that title doesn't mean anything to me.

And now this title fight between Whitaker and Rockall gets to be appropriately for the right belt. So no problem with it. Get better GSP. Doesn't really matter. Do you agree with me when I say he gained the system?

And I don't mean that negatively. He just saw an opportunity where he can make history. He saw an opponent that he liked, that he matched up a well against, that presented a new challenge. The UFC was interested. They were patient with him. He had the eye injury.

and if they could do it all over again, if they could redo this whole thing, they probably would do it again the exact same way, because of how successful MSG2 was, right? The second event that MSG... What would be the argument against it? Well, the argument against it would be

that I've seen A, why did you take this fight if you never intended on defending the belt? But as we know, he signed to fight Whitaker as part of the deal. Well, and then, okay, then B, people, I see people who don't buy,

I've been seeing it, you know, with Danaher on the show, show who don't buy the illness as the excuse for dropping of the title. And then other people say like, look, oh yeah, you gave up the belt in 33 days. Well, you kind of held up the division for the past year. You know, because... That's not on GSP? That's not on GSP.

That's not on GSP. Look, they're both in this together. And that's why when Dana White said that he'd be super pissed, I was like, really, you knew this was a possibility so much so that you made a point to put the Whitaker thing, the clause in his contract because you thought he wouldn't do it. And so he signed it, fair, and then you knew about,

just look at him in the cage after the fight. Look at him in the cage. He was standing there like a guy who knew that this might be it, right? And so they would do it all over again. And I think the bigger takeaway is this is the new UFC. They're going to do whatever it takes

to make the most amount of money to sell the most amount of pay-per-views on that night. if they could get Conner to fight Nate Diaz on December 30th, they'll put a new main event for 219. If they could get Brock Lesnar back tomorrow, they do it. They need to make, I mean, Francis and Stipe, that fight's happening in a month.

Why the quick turnaround? They need to load the deck as much as possible for two reasons. A, the debt, the loan, but even more important right now is that TV deal that's looming. 2018, the story of the year I'll tell you right now is that TV deal that is coming up. at the end of 2018. The UFC needs to be a hot property. They need

to be a hot commodity. They need to get people excited about them talking about them. And how do you do that? You put on the biggest fight possible rankings, title lineage, history, all that stuff be damned. Maritocracy be damn. Put on the hottest product. Get people talking about your product. And that's what they're doing. And we just have to come to terms with that. And it's going to make for fun nights. 217 was

the funest night of the year. It was the card of the year. But then there's a trickle-down effect. Luckily for them, they had Whitaker in place as an interim champion and it kind of goes away. It's kind of a bummer that the line now, you know, from Anderson to Weidman to Rockhold to Bisping kind of gets broken a little bit. But I think we'll all get over it. And ultimately, even if Whitaker wasn't the interim champion, you could have Rockhold and Whitaker fight for a vacant belt. What do you prefer?

The belt has become meaningless. Yeah, yeah. The belt has become meaningless. So none of this. People, you know, criticizing this because George singularly, for some reason, and kind of took away the prestige of the middleway belt. Michael Bisping fought Dan Henderson for the middleweight title. Yeah.

This was no egregious act, you know, attacking the sanctity of the middleweight division. This was a fight that was going to draw well, and guess what it did, and now Robert Whitaker and they're okay. You got called rightfully fight for the belt. No problem in my mind. Okay. Continuing announcements. Sarah Kaufman returning. to the cage here fighting for Invicta.

Yes. On January 13th, headline of that card. One of the best fighters in the world. And it's mind-blowing to me that she didn't have a home for this, for this amount of time. Contract ran out with the UFC. Still one of the very best,

a pioneer in many respects. A top 135 or for sure. Yeah. Good time. Nate Diaz here, retiring from the sport for now. UFC offered me a title fight in any weight class. I'm cool, though.

I'll give them a shot when they do something good on to the next sport for now posting two boxing gloves. So goodbye, Nate. Yes. A heartbreaking retirement. Oh, Nate, we're going to miss you. Connor McGregor, this from Rita Oras Twitter.

Oh, my God. This one got a little bit of hot water. I really have to. I thought you were only highlighting positive things on Rick Spicks. What do you mean? Oh, my God. This is Connor McGregor at the Versace show. I did not reference this once all week.

So many people ask me, what do you think about Connor and Rita? Dee Devlin against Rita. I don't want to touch this. Well, what's funny is... 40 foot pole. Everybody's acting like Connor McGregor just being at this event next to a celebrity

is like the smoking gun here. Well, I mean, date night, they're cozy, whatever. I mean, they're playing it up. Live your life. Live your life. But people were very upset. They were very upset.

I mean, hey... They're following the saga. Say this about Dee Devlin. She's got some supporters. She's got a loyal following. Oh, of course. People were upset on her behalf. Let's not make too much of a picture.

Who is Rita Oura? I swear to God, I have never heard of her. That was the first time I ever heard of her. Swear to God. Had you ever heard of her? Yeah, of course, but that doesn't surprise me. Rita Ora. Tell me one song.

No, you're going to act like I know her dysography, but have I heard of her? Just one song, one song. Don't know. Listen it. I don't know a Demi Lovato song, but I know who she is. You know who Demi Lovato is too, right? Absolutely. Let it go.

Frozen. That's her? Yeah. No. That's what's her. name, Indina Mansell, the one that... She has a version of it, I know that. What's his name? Bostda, John Travolta, botched the name.

But she does have a version. She did sing a version. Give me one Rita or a song. One. Don't... I'm telling you now already that I don't know. I'm about to do the handclaps on you. I don't know. But I know who she is. I know she's a British pop star. One song! I'm kidding. Okay. Fun times ahead here.

Yawanna and Jacek. Oh, yeah. Getting the shadow boxing in in the Star Wars Stormtrooper outfit. I just love this. Look at how seriously she's doing this. I believe the Star Wars Last Jedi film comes out this week. Anybody confer for me?

Yes. It does. Yeah, it comes out this week. Star Wars guy. Are you? I've never seen one. Oh, my God. I've never seen one.

Name of Star Wars. I mean, you know of Star Wars. Just like I know of Rina Ora. I just said I'd never seen one. I just told you I never heard of one Rita song. But I know who she is. Yeah. And you know what Star Wars is.

And so does Yohanna and J. I wish that I could handle my greatest disappointments, the way Yawani and Jacek has handled losing the strong. She seems to be taking it well. Although there was that sort of story with perfecting athletes, which is a bit of a strange one, considering how close they were. I still don't have the clarity that I'm looking for on that one.

But remember when she was on the show and I asked her about the cut? She said that it was, yeah. But here we go. I have to mention this. The UFC A lot of the UFC athletes shouting out Keaton Jones if anybody hasn't seen the video yet

His mother posted something to Facebook Keaton talking about being bullied in school A lot of the UFC Including Dana White I think leading the charge a little bit on this The UFC itself In this DC Woodley Paul Felder

Rashad Kenny Florian Tons of athletes I saw Paige Van Zant I saw all the Octagon girls Everybody in the MMA community kind of rallying around Keaton Jones about the bullying. Now, in the last, you know,

a couple of hours. What is going on? There's been some, there's been some things about his family, his past that have been revealed. I don't think that's important for what I'm trying to get across here in this video about the USC is that the MMA community responded quickly and in unison

to somebody who was in a tough circumstance. Do you know who exposed this whole thing, who may have exposed this whole thing. Okay, but yes, what you're referring to is Joe Schilling. No? Kickboxer and MMA fighter for Bellator, Joe Schilling. Talk to an Instagram account that was trying to profit with a GoFundMe off this story and say that they're raising funds for Keaton.

His mom, right? Yes, but that account may or may not be a real account. That may have been a fake account of somebody setting it up to try and do it. The facts still need to come out a little bit on this situation. And that's why I'm a little reluctant to say, good thing, bad thing, whatever the case may be. But what I'm proud of is the MMA community going to bat for somebody who was asking for help. I mean, Dana's Post, Cormier, everyone, Scott Holtzman. But the fact that we're even talking about this potentially being some kind of scam is just...

The facts are still need to shake out on this. There's lots of fake accounts. It's very hard to kind of verify any of this information. When I originally saw the video, I was like, this is the most hard. heartbreaking thing I've ever seen in my life. And then I was trying to find the source of the video. And it was like these random people posing as like, this is strange. That's why it's so difficult.

The Facebook accounts are, you know, the sister seems to be the one kind of managing all this now. It's very difficult to kind of pin down what's going on behind the scenes. But again, the lesson. But it's worth highlighting here is that the MMA community, you know, there's lots of, LeBron and lots of, you know, huge athletes have spoken on it. But nothing to this effect. The MMA community did this very quickly and responded.

I saw almost every single MMA fighter on social media responding to this. So I'm proud to be a part of this community yesterday. It was great. It really was. Okay. Speaking of proud, proud of our boy, Sean, Shaheen, Al-Shadi.

Well done. Getting engaged, him and his fiance here. I mean, it took him long enough. Damn. I mean, that's where you're going to go with this? Six years. Poor girl's been waiting.

Oh, my God. Sean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have done this. Ariel's just burying you here. Congratulations. Beautiful shot, by the way. Wow. I mean, no credit to the photographer.

I mean, who took it? Whoever took it, Sean, let us know. That sunset. But what a magical moment. Congrats to him. Is that a boat that they're on? Could be a boat, could be a dock. I mean, we have to...

I think it's a boat. I think they were on some kind of cruise. Rocking the Roots of Fight. Good time to do it. Yeah, Root to Fight. Are we talking about the 24-inch pythons? How jacked is, you mean? Sean is jacked. Yeah, we knew this.

I mean, you don't really get to see him. Maybe the MMA community doesn't know, but yeah, Sean, you know, put it out there, let people see the guns. I met his now fiancé at the MMA Awards two years ago. Wonderful young woman. He's a very lucky man. If I'm being honest, I think he waited a little long, but he's rectified it. That's out of nowhere. You didn't say that before.

I gave him a piece of advice. Actually, I mentioned this to Alexander Guston. This is my only advice that I give to people who had just been, you know, engaged. just don't make it a long engagement. Don't make it one of these like two, three year things. It just, it just builds up. If you're going to do it, do it. It's not just, Ariel, let them just my two cents.

Let them do what they're going to do. Let them have the time to get the engagement ready. Let him have the time. If he wants a long engagement, if his, if his fiancee wants a long engagement, I feel like. What do you need the long engagement for? If you're going to do the long engagement, then they'll get engaged. Sean, what's his fiancee's name?

You dick. Why did you have to say? Okay. I have been talking for five and a half hours. To the happy couple, do what you're going to do, live your life. Congrats to you, too. Mazel to you crazy kids. Do you think you'll be invited to the wedding?

No, I definitely don't think I'll be invited to the wedding. Look, if I'm invited, I'll be there. I'll send a gift or whatever the case may be. I would love to. But I feel like I'm not really a part of the MMA fighting family. You guys don't really treat me. You guys don't really treat me like, no, I mean, I'm in, but you guys treat me like I'm out, so I don't really, you know, know,

know how to take it. That's fair. But I'm not on the group emails. You know, nobody, Mark gets photoshopped into the picture. I'm not, I'm there literally in the building. I'm not even in the picture. So, you know, I'm in the building. You were like 10 steps away.

Yeah, you know, I'm reluctant to get my hopes up on getting invited. But, you know, shout out to everybody at MMA fighting for really making me feel loved. Okay. Oh my God. Are we done? No, no, no. We're going to do our question. Okay, let's do rapid fire. Yeah, I mean. Talking for too long.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. What is that supposed to mean? First question of the day. What about my new Island Strong hoodie? Chris Wade. How about bringing the swag? How about Chris Wade bringing the heat? Yeah. All right. Sorry.

Bringing news. Bring news. I mean, I don't think anybody knew this. Yeah. Okay. Quickly. Question of the day. Who should Max Holloway fight next? You gave Frankie Edgar Brian Ortega. 7,000 votes. Frankie Eger, 69%.

I regret asking this question. I know Frankie was pissed. Clearly, people still wouldn't see the Frankie fight. I'm a little surprised. I thought it'd be closer. I thought Ortega would have picked up some more support. But now you can rest easy because Frankie won the poll. I was just trying to prove the point.

I was just trying to prove the point that he was the man. Yeah, I mean, that sounds right. Okay. Question number two. Should the winner of Lawler RDA fight Woodley next? Yeah. Yes, no, he should fight Covington or no, he should fight somebody else. 63% of the vote, the winner should fight Woodley.

The winner of Lawler, RDA, should fight Woodley. It's a little interesting for me just because RDA's wins are not going to be over, are not going to be over maybe. He hasn't fought in the division long enough. I don't know if he's... What? This will be 3 and 0. Yeah, I mean, is that title shot worthy?

Maybe. You know what, maybe. I mean, you beat Robbie Lawler at this point after beating Magnee and Kim. I would rather see Covington. Regardless. If R. Diego goes in there and knocks out Lola in the first round,

you're going with Covington? I would still say Covington, but I wouldn't be mad about an RDA title show. I'm okay with it. But my pick is still, I want to see Covington Woodley. It doesn't seem like Woodley wants that as much as he would want somebody else. So, moving to our

next question. Don't forget about the other big fight on that card. Ponzanibion Perry. Does Perry get into the conversation with a big win. Yeah, I mean, I would say Perry has a good claim to it. Ponziadibio also. If Ponzanibio gets it done, he's the one who should probably be campaigning for it.

But you're right. Covington beating Maya is the biggest one of the mall. Okay. From our own Casey Lated. Oh, wow. Who is the best UFC fighter to never be offered a title shot? He loves this question. His vote is Cub Swanson.

But this is after the fight? After this fight. Yeah. said this last week? I don't think so. No, he sent this today. I mean, it's a hard case. I mean, even Cubs said it afterwards.

He's never won the big one. I was thinking on it. I came up with a few others. It depends on what you can, like, there's two here that are the bigger, the best UFC, bigger, better UFC fighters, but not in the UFC, meaning Mirro Krocop and Vander Le Silva,

both had UFC runs. that were not as good as I would say Cubs UFC run, but bigger names to have not fought for a UFC belt. Jacaray Sousa, Gagard Musassi, I would say, are probably the best UFC fighters to not have fought for a UFC title. One with an

asterisk, oh, I'm sorry. Also in that group, Raphael Sonsau, I think, is another one who had a very good run. That's just you trying to butter up Danny Rubinstein. I don't need to butter Danny. Danny needs to butter me. Yeah, that's true. Danny needs to butter me. We butter.

Have a Sonsal's resume is impressive. If you consider what T.J. Dillishaw has gone on to do and all the fighter C's beat, Assumsela's resume is impressive. And I think, obviously, he's earned a title shot. But we'll see how that shakes out. I feel for Cubs Swanson, he rolled the dice last fight on his contract. But when he said it afterwards, I saw him doing a scrum, he said, man, this hurts and everything. And yeah, you can make the claim.

You can make the claim at this point. I haven't won the big one. It's the same reason I wouldn't mention Dustin Poillier to this point. They've been there, but they needed to get that big one. Since joining WC, his losses have been to Jen's Pulver, Josealdo, Chad Mendez, Ricardo,

Frankie Edgar, Max Holloway, and now Brian Ortega. He's missing that big win. Yeah, not a bad loss among them, though. Those are the top cream of the crop, but getting that next step. In many respects, it was very Michael Bissb. Bisping-esque, how he would get to the top fight, and then Fultor, Bispin, got over the hump a bit. You know, there's a case to be made,

but I would side with some of the names that you mentioned. Okay, we'll move on, but one with an asteris, Habib Nirmanga Madov, I think. Yeah, that is a good one. Circumstances outstanding, though he did get that title shot. He just didn't make it down. Well, interim, but yeah. I consider that.

From PD and Gia, with Brash stars Rhonda and Conner on the sidelines of MMA this year, and champs like Steepay, D.C. Holloway and now Rose trying to fill a spotlight. Are we entering a new era of quote unquote nice guys and gals on top? I can't help but notice all the recent champs are extra humble and kind.

Is there something to the return to martial arts? George St. Pierre also to traditional martial arts and respect and that kind of thing at the top. By the way, another name Guy Messker won a tournament and never fought for a belt. Right. And he's one of the greatest fall time.

Oh, I'd be remiss Ian McCall in that initial flyweight tournament. Had a rough run in the UFC though. That's why maybe I wouldn't include as the number one. But anyway, are we returning to traditional martial artist? I think it goes in waves. I think, yeah, maybe this is the flavor of the day. I think it's somewhat coincidental.

Someone may come up and say, hey, I'm the guy, you know, I'm the man, I'll talk like this or that. It's nice. It's a breath of fresh air. But let's not forget, at the end of the day, trash talking sells, bad voice cell, friction cell. So I wouldn't, if I'm sitting down with a fighter and trying to craft their career, I mean, Look at Chris Wade. Look at Chris Wade. Five and two, you know, two finishes, all that stuff and more.

But doesn't have a home. So friction cells, violent cells, war cell, reckless abandoned cells, trash talking cells. But this is nice for now. No doubt about it. Throats on the growing trend of fighters refusing to take fights with ex-opponent because of rankings are not being a big enough, quote-unquote, name. How do we fix that or how would you fix that if you were the UFC? people seem to be holding out for quote unquote money fights more so than taking the next contender. Is there a specific example that you're talking about because I'm not going to be grudge a fighter

who's just trying to make the most amount of money possible. Look, the UFC is going to use you to their advantage as much as possible. Use them to your advantage. But then how do we ensure that we get? I mean, the whole system in some respects is broken. You know, the whole system is broken. Once you allow this guy and that guy to do their thing, I mean, that's called setting a precedent and a precedent has been set. It seems like we're almost lucking into fights like Whitaker and Rockhold

where Rockhold sat out long enough and got it versus having to be active in the air. Cudos to Luke Rockold who sat on this show that they kept trying to book him against you all Romero and he just kind of waded it out and eventually he gets the title shot. I see that as a problem. I see that as an issue. I mean, I think the bigger issue is if you were willing to give the guy title shots

why were you offering them a fight against a guy who's coming off a loss? And the reason for that is they need to fill up cards. Again, just worry about St. Louis. Just worry about Charlotte. Forget about the long-term. You can't run a promotion that way. Promotion has to be booked long-term. You have to have future plans. You have to have a list. I remember what Joe Silva and Sean Shelby used to tell me all the time. We're not in the business of creating champions. We are in the business of creating contenders. And if you're just going to book contenders willy-nilly just to fill up cards, now you're breaking your whole system. That's why I think 2018, the story of the year is the new TV deal and how many cards

that they are owing their new broadcast partner. They've got too many cards now. And this is like imagine Brian Ortega now. What do you do with him? Do you put him in some fight, you know, and risk him losing? Brian Ortega is the best thing to happen to the featherweight division because he's a new opponent, a new face for Max Holloway, right? Who cleaned out the division, Max Holloway.

Oh, no, stop it. What do you mean? Stop it. You said that a week ago. say that a week ago. I was the one who was saying that I wanted to see Brian Ortega

at 218. You said Max Holloway cleaned out the movie. No, I said he's on the verge. Two more fights. No, there's going to be something. Look, there's a Brian Ortega. I said you can argue that he's on the verge.

There's a Brian Ortega always. There's always a Brian Ortega. Somebody will come up at featherweight, guaranteed. Tell that to Daniel Cormi. Well, Daniel Cormier has got Vulcan. Yeah, and then what?

And then, who knows? Maybe John Jones back. Who knows what happens then? Maybe Anthony Rumble Johnson is back in the picture at that point. Third time. Sign me out.

How do you know? Volcan might win. Then it opens up everything. At the end it does. I think the MMA gods always give. There's always something. There's always something there. Look, light heavy, you got me there.

Light heavy weight is looking pretty rough. But I think there will be featherweight contenders from X. I really believe that. I think Lomas will get, I think Lama is on the verge. I think there'll be something. Okay. As dads, how would you both feel about your kids being involved in MMA or combat sports at a young age? Would you support it or no? Jiu-Jitsu, I mean, doing martial arts, yes, but not actually getting into fights.

You know what I mean? Like, I want to put my son in Jiu-Jitsu, both my kids. They're getting to the age where I feel like it's a good time. They both take karate after school. So yeah, I'm down with that. So they're already in the martial arts? Oh, hell yeah, they're bowing down. They're showing me moves. Comey Sensei, when a pro. Oh no, they're calling you as hense? This is a disaster.

Oh, thank God. But yeah, I'm down. My daughter, no. Anyone touches her? If anyone breathes on her? It's too early for me to say, but she's, damn, she's strong. I mean, it's going to be hard for me to register.

What does she at now? Three, four? Dude, she's killing it. Off the changing pad, just standing up, yoking up like this to me. That next drink is something. That next drink. Okay.

How did Ariel Hawani and New York Rick meet? We met over email. Please, Louise, are you serious with this question? You know what's so weird about this question? Do you know what's weird about this question? When I left the studio last week, I was so mad that I didn't mention the anniversary of the bus meeting. It was the anniversary of the Marcus Brimidge fight

with the Quintin Rampage Jackson interview. And I thought for sure that you were going to mention it. No, I mean... Is that why you picked this question? I didn't know it was this close. I knew it was this month. The anniversary was last week. There you go.

And who did Marcus Brimidge fight? that night. It was the tough. It was the tough 14 finale. Tough 14 finale. Wait, you don't know this? This is like your thing.

Although, I mean, it wasn't that high on the card. Stephen Bass at the Ultimate Fighter finale. That's right. Do you remember that interview? Oh, of course.

I remember that interview. I was sitting down. Marcus Brimidge talking all kinds of noise about like in bigger women. Yes. Rampage Jackson,

like coming into the shot, but getting out. No, we sat down, all three of us together. Yeah, and Marcus, that was his idol. Yeah.

He looked up to Rampage. That was the one that spurred me, long story short, to email Ariel and put me on this course. To now. Change your life.

Here we are six years later. Changed your life. Changed my bum life. Unbelievable. What were you doing before that? I was working at Gawker. God. RIP.

Rest and peace. shout out to Gawker. That's a smart guy like you end up at a place like that. Excuse me. Gawker is one of the last bastions of investigative journalism.

How dare you? I was video editing. Video editing. No, I will not have you disparage Gawker. Video. In fact, I think they're starting a GoFundMe to

rebuy Gawker. Really? Who's starting this GoFundMe? Like some of the past editorial team. Really? Because I don't, I guess they're not getting to do

the journalism that they kind of want to do. Don't ever dispassive marriage gawker, the last one that did investigate in journalism. Okay. Last question. Wait, wait. Wait. What? Oh, here it is. This is it. I found the email. I just went all the way back. Don't read it. Mr. Helwani. No, we've done. Ariel, you've already read this before. But it's a yearly tradition. December 14th, almost exactly six years to the day. It's December 11th. Oh, so it wasn't last The fight was. The fight was last week.

Oh, I see. I emailed you on the 14th. Don't do it. I'm not sure if this is the right avenue to contact you. But I couldn't find another email address. Last question. And I don't have a premium account on LinkedIn. So I'm going to give this a shot.

I'm a 24-year-old New Yorker who is currently interning at Gawker Media. And that stint is coming to an end. I have nothing lined up for the immediate future. So I'm taking the advice I've seen you give in multiple interviews and going for something I want. As an avid MMA fan, I follow the sport daily, including your Twitter videos and the NBCAOL articles. I believe you are the premier journalist in the sport brackets as evidenced by the awards. Enough ass kissing, though, and you just happen to run the MMA hour from my hometown.

I want to be a part of it, any part of it. I'm willing to work unpaid. I've already graduated with a degree in marketing from Baruch, so I don't need college credit either. To simply be involved. If you need any more information or a reference from my... my previous employer at Gocker Media, I'd be more than happy to provide that. I appreciate the time and I hope to hear from you. Isn't that something? And then I sent it off to all the people. I said, are you guys looking for someone? And then I wrote back and it was amazing. And then here's the

most amazing part. You wrote back that same day. Ariel, I'm geeking out like Marcus Brimidge meeting rampage right now. I wasn't expecting any response. No commentary on you. I just know you're a busy man and probably get tons of random emails every day, let alone won this immediate. Or it's can't express how appreciative I am, that you even took the time out of your day to make a single fan feel like anything is possible. Even if nothing comes to this, I understand that it's not entirely your call and ultimately a bureaucratic process. You'll always have a fan right here. Can't thank you enough. Wow. How far we've come. What a mensch. What a man. You know what? Those emails are not as cringy as. Ariel, I'd like to start out by expressing the utmost gratitude again

for you taking the time to read my initial email. The act alone meant a lot to me and exceeded my expectations. Due to your email on my behalf, I was able to get a meeting with Chad Mum two weeks ago. At that point, he offered me a position in some capacity. Wow. Helping out on the MMA hour. Needless say, cannot be more excited and I intend to work as hard as possible to contribute to an already amazing product. I am still in disbelief and how accommodating and generous the people I've contacted have been and how quickly things have happened. Thank you. P.S. I hope you had a great Hanukkah and New Year and great work at 141. The Hades interview was one of my all-time favorites

and the Volkman spot was interesting. But why no Dana interview? Kidding. What the hell? Why do you got to rub it in? So there you have it. We could go on and on. Let's make that a yearly tradition.

Let's not. We'll read New York Rick's emails to me when he was trying to kiss my butt and get a job and he was being so polite. What happened to the hardworking? What happened to the, you know, I'll do anything for the team? Now it's all complaining and belly aching.

What was that? I have no idea. hear it. I can't hear it either. Damn it. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, look, I'm still not a part of the team. As I said in the last segment, nobody, nobody even cares about me anymore. Now you're out here throwing me on blast, reading out my private emails. I'm going to read some of your private emails. Hold on. Okay, we're done. I mean, I guess we're done. I had one more, but like at this point. Is it any good? No, who cares at this point? Well, it's good to have you six years strong. It's crazy. And, uh, the lesson is, you two can send an email. and maybe have your bum life changed. I mean, you got to, look, that was a good email. That was a good email. Look. You got to emails all the time. Bring it.

I respond to all of them, but it's rare that I'll send them off. Listen, yeah, Ariel responds to all of them. So get your emails in. Just like Connor McGregor, your timing was impeccable because we were transitioning, new ownership, new studio. So well done. Look at you now. Proud Papa.

Six years later. Married man. Still haven't shaved in like years. I had a baby. Give me a goddamn break. Get a haircut. But we'll deal with all that later. Thank you very much.

This is how we celebrate the anniversary. You know what? God bless all of you. Thank you so much. God bless New York City. Rob, you can hit my music. What a day it has been. I'm being serious.

One of the great shows of 2017, one of my favorite shows. Congratulations, by the way, to Mowgli Benitez on a fantastic performance. I wanted to highlight that as well. What a great win over Jason Knight on Saturday. And I'm a big fan of Mowgli and his wife. great people, so I wanted to give them a shout out as well. Great performance. By far his best, and I love the shout out to his wife afterwards and then saying, hey, Dana White, my name is Gabriel Mogli Benitez.

Now you know my name. Peace, I'm out of here. And how about Mark Hunt getting officially cleared? So that is great news as well. Great to see Josh Rosenthal, uh, refing on Saturday at the UFC event in Fresno as well. And don't believe what you hear regarding Connor McGregor and Mani Pachiao. That's my thoughts on that or if there are any negotiations going on at this time. Belator UFC back in action this weekend as well. So much to discuss on our last live show of 2017.

Don't worry, we're not leaving you hanging on December 25th Christmas. We'll talk about that next week. But next week is in fact our last live show of 2017. All right, what a fun show it has been. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. Thank you to everyone who called in who joined us as guests today. What a great jam-pack show was. Thank you very much to Marlon Morais.

Congratulations to him. Thank you very much to Frankie Edgar. Good luck getting that title fight. Congrats to Nico Montanio. Thank you very much to Alexander Gustafson. Hope he gets well soon. Thank you very much to Eddie Alvarez, Daniel Cormier, Diego Sanchez and Isaac Marquez.

Amazing stuff. Thank you very much to Chris Wade for coming in. Brian Ortega, John Danaher and Frank Trigg. Thank you very much to all of you as well. Back next week, same time and place. Until I say, peace. Amadio.