MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 414

Episode Date: December 19, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Randy Couture (00:08:39), Eryk Anders (00:30:46), Stevie Ray (00:55:36), Aljamain Sterling (01:11:09), Justin Gaethje (01:31:58), Kamaru Usman (01:50:13), Josh Emmett (02:11:27), Yoel Romero (02:29:27), Darren Till (02:52:24), Jeremy Stephens (03:10:15), Aaron Chalmers (03:28:57), Pietro Menga (03:57:14), Rafael dos Anjos (04:18:30), and NewYorkRic for The MMA [After] Hour featuring Ric's Picks (04:35:10), and the answers to your questions (05:04:04). 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 18th, 2017. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. This, my friends, is our 56th episode of 2017. That's the most amount of episodes. that we've done in one calendar year. 51 straight weeks. We've done shows every Monday of 2017. Plus, we had the Nate Diaz special in May, so that's 52.

We had the George St. Pierre special in November, so that's 53. And, of course, we had the three on-site Mayweather-Megger shows back in August from Las Vegas. So that means 56 today. It also means this is our last. live episode of 2017 so we don't get to complete the year have no fear though next week we have something special for all of you of course next monday is christmas december 25th so if you are celebrating merry christmas happy holidays happy new year we won't be doing a live show much to my chagrin but we do have something special for you new york rick and the crew have been working on a best-of show and we've

done these over the past couple years although in my opinion this is our best version yet i'm not going to tell you too much about it today. Stay tuned for that. But what you can do next Monday, grab some eggnog, turn the fire on, get your onesie on, get the family around, and enjoy the best of the MMA hour 2017 version. But it's a different kind of one, all right? It's a little special. So I'm looking forward to that, but I'm really looking forward to today's episode because I also do believe that we are making history today, my friends. I think this is the first time in the history of the show that we have 13 guests, 13 guests, a loaded show. You know me. Sometimes when I feel like I'm leaving you hanging, I feel like I need to overcompensate. That's the Jewish

neuroses in me. So I have loaded the deck once again, my friends, 13 guests, a who's who from all around the world, an eclectic mix of personalities, a really fun lineup today. And there's so much to discuss, of course, another busy week in the world of MMA in the books. We had Bill Belator on Friday in Newcastle. May Day McDonald and Valerie Littourneau successful in their Belator debuts. And then the big one on Saturday in Winnipeg. The UFC was back in the peg. UFC on Fox 26.

Headlined by Hafeld dos angios. And what a performance. He skunks. Robbie Lawler, in my opinion, five rounds to none. Cements himself as one of, if not the top contender at 170 pounds. and now it's going to be interesting to see where he goes from here. That was the big story, the main event, but also of note Josh Emmett,

who took this fight on short notice, who also missed weight, knocks out Ricardo Lamas in a matter of seconds, a shocking result. He's never had a performance like that in the UFC. So that one was eye-opening and memorable. And also of note, Mike Perry losing to Santiago,

Ponziabio, Ponziubio, a gutsy, durable fighter. He's able to outlawful. last Mike Perry and so now we wonder what's next for Perry and also what's next for Ponziabio. That was a fun fight and on the main card as well, Glover Tashara, returns from his loss to Alexander Gustafin. He rebounds and he defeats Misha Sarkinov, who all of a sudden has lost two in a row, started his UFC career four and O. Now he's

own two in his last two subparer performances. So we'll see where the Canadian Serkanov goes from here. There's so much to discuss all over the place in the world of MMA. Let me run down today's lineup and then we'll get to our first guest at the this is this is what's going down on today's show at 505 we're going to be joined by hafeld dos angios so i'm looking forward to that talked to him about the big win where he goes from here how he has reinvented himself at 170 pounds all that and more with rda at 505 at 445 pietro menga will stop by minga was supposed to make his ufc debut on saturday against tim elliott he failed to make weight never made it to the scale um

big time prospect undefeated out of Europe. We'll talk to Menga about it. What happened where he goes from here? 425, Aaron Chalmers will stop by. Now, if you're watching us in North America, you probably have never heard of Aaron Chalmers. If you're watching us in Europe, you probably have heard of Aaron Chalmers. Aaron Chomers is 3-0 as a pro-M-M-A fighter. He's a member of Bama. He improved a 3 and O on Friday, but he is notorious because he is a cast member on Jordy Shore, which is essentially the English version of Jersey Shore on MTV in Europe. And he has decided to pursue a career in MMA. He's kind of like their situation. That's, I think, the best comparison I can make. And this has pissed some people off. Some love him, some hate him. He is very polarizing. And

he is fighting competition that some don't believe deserves to be fighting for Bama. He's getting a ton of press. He is a celebrity now going into MMA and I'm interested in this story and this individual. So I'm looking forward to talking to him at 425. It's a big story over in Europe, especially as far as the UK MMA scene is concerned.

So that should be an interesting one. 405, Jeremy Stevens, we'll stop by. He now headlines UFC Fight Night St. Louis against Duho Choi. 345 will talk to Darren Till about what's next for him following the loss by one Mike Perry on Saturday. Yole Romero will stop by at 325. We haven't heard from him in quite some time.

Where does he go from here in the ever-evolving middleweight division? Josh Emmett talked about him earlier. He'll stop by for the first time at 305. Talk about the win over Ricardo Lama. Camaro Oussman will talk about his fight in St. Louis against Emil Mech that keeps changing dates. Justin Gachie will be on. Talk about the loss to Eddie Alvarez. Al Jermaine Sterling will be on.

Talk about that frightening knockout loss to Marlon Marais. 145, we'll check in with Stevie Ray, who is still a free agent, see what's up with him. And at 125, we'll talk to Eric Anders, who you may have heard is now headlining UFC Fight Night Bellum in February against one, Leotumachita. But first, you may have heard early yesterday or throughout the day yesterday some horrendous news out of Las Vegas, Robert Follis, who has long been considered one of the best coaches in MMA, who has long been considered one of the brightest minds in MMA, who helped revitalize Extreme Couture,

who was one of the founding members and co-owners of Team Quest from back in the early days. One of the nicest people I've ever met, he's been on the show a couple of times. He was a massive part in turning Misha Tate into a UFC champion.

Sadly, on December 15th, he passed away. And news came out yesterday, and if you were online yesterday, you saw undoubtedly some of the biggest names in the sport paying tribute to him in the nicest way possible. He was beloved by many and some of the words that were written about him, I mean, heartbreaking to read. This has come as a massive shock to the MMA community, certainly in Las Vegas and Oregon. And I wanted to start the show by honoring him. And of course, I could, you know, I could sit here and talk about it.

him and my interactions with him, had a very nice chat about life with him during UFC 216 fight week back in October following the Las Vegas shootings. But I didn't know him as well as our guests at this time. Randy Couture has known him for around two decades, was with him back at TeamQuest, of course, worked with him when he was the head coach over at Extreme Couture. So I can't say enough how much I appreciate Randy coming on the program to talk about the passing of the late great Robert Follis. And I do believe Randy is joining us at this time via the magic of Skype. And there he is right over there. The one and only Randy Gator, the natural himself. Randy, how are you?

I'm good, Ariel. How are you? I'm doing really well. Again, I just want to say to you, I really appreciate it. I know this is a very hard time for you, the team, the entire MMA community in Las Vegas, the entire in North America, I can't thank you enough. And so I just want to ask first and foremost, how are you handling all this? This is a massive shock to everyone. How are you coping with it all? Well, I mean, it's been a rough couple of days. I don't know. It's a, it's a, the holiday season is tough on a lot of people. Okay, we may, yep, we may have lost this connection there right up. And so yeah, and political discourse. Okay, you're back.

You there? Yeah, yeah, you're back. Sorry, we froze up a little bit there. Oh, now we lost you. Okay, if that continues, maybe we may have to, let's give it a shot one more time, but I don't want this. Okay, Randy, you're back. You look good?

Yeah, can you hear me? I can hear you, yeah. Are you good, Ariel? Can you hear me? I can see you. It just keeps saying there's a poor network quality. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, we'll try this one more time.

If not, we'll call you on your cell. Okay. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a rough couple of days. I know Robert's brother was here yesterday. I haven't got to speak with him in person. I've been in contact with Robert's girlfriend, Myra Fukuno, who obviously is kind of left picking up the pieces

and putting all this stuff back together. and it's just it's been a bit of a shock, I think, for everybody. A rough day at the gym this morning, seeing all the fellows, everybody trying to come in and maintain and carry on. So it's been difficult. Is there anything, Randy, that you could tell us about his passing, the details seem to be, rather vague at this time.

Is there anything that you feel comfortable sharing? Okay. I don't think you can hear me now. So let's call him on a cell. I don't want this to keep happening. I see him perfectly, but I just want to call Randy on his cell here

because this isn't the kind of interview that you want to lose continuity. So we'll check in with Randy here in a second. I apologize for that. The connection was fantastic. But no, we'll check in with Randy here. We should be able to connect with him in a matter of seconds. And again, really appreciate him being a part of the show on short notice

here to talk about a subject that I'm sure he would rather not talk about. He's known him for, as I said, around two decades dating back to the heyday of TeamQuest. Randy, are you there? Hello. Okay. Yeah, let's go this way because I just don't want it to keep stalling. So I appreciate your patience. I was just asking, I don't know if you heard my last question, if you felt comfortable in sharing any of the details surrounding his passing because the details have been vague up until this point. Did we? Okay. We just lost him there again. So I apologize for that. Check back in with Randy here in a matter of moments. It's a tough thing. He was on the program. Robert Follis was

after UFC 196 and time permitting in a bit, we may play the clip of him on the show. That was such a big moment. I'll never forget seeing him backstage after Misha Tate's victory against Holly Holman. How happy was the massive smile on his face. Randy, did we connect with you again? Are you there? I'm here. I think we've reconnected.

Yeah, it is probably my fault. I'm too close to the electronics. I seem to make stuff like that go haywire. Not a problem. So I don't know if you heard my question. I'll ask it again, no problem. I just wanted to know if there were any details that you could share or felt comfortable in sharing about his passing because, as I said, the details up until this point have been rather vague. Well, there's not a lot of details available.

Obviously, Robert has been struggling the last couple of years with depression. His brother passed a couple of years ago. It was very close to Robert. and Robert's been struggling with that. And I think obviously it's safe to say at this point it just kind of got the better of it. And I think that's the thing. You know, nowadays we get so caught up in our phones

and social media and walking around the holidays are a tough time for a lot of people. Obviously, I do a lot of work in the veteran community and the number of suicides every single day in the veteran community is pretty stark and those statistics are horrifying. You just don't know. So, you know, pick your head up out of your phone

and connect with somebody. Reach out to somebody if you're struggling, let some people know. And there's a lot of us that have been close to Robert for years that knew that Robert was struggling with his brother's passing and done everything we knew how to do to try to help him deal with that.

And unfortunately, it just, you know, it's been tough. So we all try to pick up the pieces now and remember Robert for the amazing guy that he was. I met Robert 20 years ago in 1997 after my first fight in the UFC. He was training at a straight blast gym in Salem, Oregon and Portland, Oregon, running and managing those gyms. and, you know, I was hungry to learn what this jiu-jitsu thing was and learn more skills. And that's how I met Robert.

And that led me to Nate Corey and just a whole slew of amazing men, amazing fighters that were all touched by Robert and helped and coached and brought along by the amazing guy that Robert was. And so it's, you know, I've talked to a lot of those original Team Quest guys from back then. And we had a pretty amazing room. And Robert was the center of that, the center of that knowledge, the center of that spirit. And we've been fortunate the last four or five years to have Robert in the gym here in Las Vegas, at Extreme Couture. And you mentioned Misha and so many other fighters. that he touched, that he motivated, that he inspired, that he mentored.

All of us are certainly a little confused and just, you know, it's just hard to wrap your brain around, a guy that's as intelligent and warm and giving as Robert was, sometimes you never really know what's going on on the inside with somebody. So it's rough. It's going to be rough for a little while, but I think we'll do our best to keep moving forward and honor and respect, Robert, for all the things that he accomplished that were so positive.

I was talking to a couple of people about him yesterday, and one of the stories that I was told was, you know, even deep into his run as a coach, someone would come through Oregon to do a seminar, an Eddie Bravo, someone like that. Robert's the first guy there with a notepad taking notes. Like he was just obsessed with all things, mixed martial arts and being a great coach. From your perspective, from your experience, what made Robert such a great coach? I think Robert had a hunger for figuring things out. not only the physical aspects of the sport,

but he was one of the few guys that was also in tune with the mental aspects of the sport. And I think that a lot of athletes, in my experience, overlook that part. And Robert was very in tune and kind of getting you in that headspace to go out and deal with the adversity that is competition.

He was just always hungry, willing to put himself out there, had no ego with regard to his ability and his knowledge and want just continually on the quest to learn more and to be better and to do better. And I think that's what made him special. You brought him, you made the decision to bring him over to Extreme Couture and it seemed to me, and correct me if you feel otherwise, that for a minute the gym, the team was going through some transition and then over the last couple of years enjoyed some of its greatest success. of course with Misha winning the belt

Kevin Lee has been doing great a team like fighters were starting to come back and travel to Las Vegas to be a part of the team could you talk about that decision to bring him on board and do you feel like he was greatly responsible for perhaps the revitalization of extreme Couture? Well I think there's an avon flow in every

gym you know you have your ups you have your downs people come and go it's part of the process as fighters certainly to, you learn as much as you can in a particular environment. And then, you know, you've got to kind of find fresh water, find a new pond to swim in and rub elbows with some new fish. I think me retiring and kind of not grinding out another camp, sent a lot of guys looking for another place to train.

And we kind of went through one of those lulls. And then, you know, Dennis Davis, who was, mentored by Robert Fawas and one of our guys from Team Quest started running the amateur team and running the pro practices at Extreme Couture kind of in that period. Robert moved to back, you know, moved to Vegas. He left Oregon and moved to Vegas. And Dennis, having been mentored for so long by Robert, was kind of very instrumental in getting Robert to come into Extreme Couture. He literally took a cut in pay and his own pay as a as a coach at that time to create a space and get Robert Follis in there.

That attracted, you know, Brian Carraway, Misha Tate, a whole bunch of other fighters. And Robert had this positivity about him. You know, he just had a persona that people were attracted to that they wanted to be around. He had an amazing philosophy as a human and as a coach. And that attracted a lot of people and definitely kind of turn things around at the gym when we were kind of in the middle of a lull after me retiring. And we were thankful for that. Robert started the GE program and the key program under Robert's tutelage flourished as well as coaching all of the other athletes that we've already mentioned. So he will be solely missed.

And obviously, it was no secret that he was moving on and kind of had some other things in his sights in November, was kind of headed in a different direction and was vacating his position at extreme couture. But that wasn't under any duress or any real issue. Like I said, there's an ebb and flow to everything. This whole thing came as a pretty big shock to the team and to everybody. So I don't know if there's anything else to say about it, to be honest. Do you recall the last time you spoke to him? I saw him at a tough enough fairly recently. And spoke to him that night.

Obviously, we had fighters competing, and his focus was. on that and I mean I saw him at the gym just about every single day he always had a smile always had time to greet everybody that came past the mat when he was there whether he was wearing a guy on the mat or not it didn't matter and you mentioned that you know he had left the team and there was some reports even Kevin Lee talking about that maybe he was going to open his own gym he was always so great to see at events always had a smile on his face and the fighter spoke so highly of him. And so I'm wondering if at this point, you know, as sort of, you know, the namesake of the team as, as, you know, the figurehead, are you doing any, what, what do you feel needs to be done,

if anything, for the fighters who are still part of Extreme Couture, who worked under him, who were inspired by him to try to get them, you know, to try to get them to cope with this? What do you have in store? Is there anything in place to try to help them with this tragedy? Well, right now we launched some fundraising, obviously, to kind of close things out and take care of some of the issues that are staring, Myra, in the face in the wake of this. I'm not sure. Obviously, this all just kind of broke loose yesterday. So there hasn't been any memorial or anything like that announced. I know a lot of the guys from Team Quest and from Extreme Couture both have posted tributes and put things out there commemorating Robert and how much Robert affected all of us. Something more formal, I'm sure, will be forthcoming, but right now I think it's too early to say. There's been no announcements.

I think, like everything else, time will heal. we need to communicate, wrap our arms around each other and talk about what's going on and the feelings that this is generated for a lot of us. And through that, I think we get together and get through it together. I'm putting you on the spot here. I recognize that if one doesn't come to mind, certainly understand. But do you have a favorite Robert Follas story, a great moment that you shared together, something that comes to mind of a, you know, a happy, exciting moment that he was a part of as far as your career was concerned? Well, Robert was in my corner and part of my journey for the first six or seven years of my 14-year career. We spent a lot of time together,

you know, ferreting out technique and tactics and spent a lot of time. building team quest and creating a facility that fostered a lot of champions up in Oregon and Gresham. I think one of the funniest things that happened there was we were in this kind of damp, dank, wet old van conversion center that was shaped like a Quonset hut. and it was, you know, we didn't care. We were happy to be there, but we, when Robert came in and started managing the business, we realized we needed a facelift.

And so we had the brilliant idea to put a bunch of sheetrock up, you know, put some insulation in and a bunch of sheet rock, which turned out to be a horrible idea. By the end of the second week, there wasn't a single clean piece of sheetrock left in that gym. I think there was one left over in the corner and we placed bets every day to see who was going to get. get their opponent's butt or head pushed through that last piece

of clean sheet rock but we just had a ton of fun learning beating the hell out of each other but getting better and Robert was a big part of that my heart goes out to you Randy

and the rest of the team and everyone who knew him of course his family and friends just horrible news he will sorely be missed and I can't thank you enough for coming on and talking about this and hopefully everyone back in Las Vegas is doing as well as they could dealing with this news. Please hang in there. Thank you for the time, Randy. Thank you for sharing some thoughts.

And again, my condolences to you and the team. Thanks, Ariel. Have a great day. Same to you. There he is. Randy Couture talking about the late Robert Follis. As I mentioned, he was on the show a couple times in the past, most recently after Misha Tate's victory over Holly Home when she became the UFC women's bantamweight champion.

Always a smile has a unique smile or had a unique smile. And always just a friendly face. His knowledge was incredible. You could tell like one of those coaches, you know, like there are some people who kind of pretend to be coaches and others who just sort of exude coaching and their leaders. And I'll never forget being backstage at UFC 196 and seeing how happy he was.

He was exhausted. He was sweating following. the Misha Tate win over Holly Home. It was such a roller coaster of emotions. And he was on the show that Monday after. And I wanted to play a quick clip because this is a guy who has been a part of MMA for 20 years or had been. It's hard to talk about him in the past tense. And I asked him, you know, where that moment ranked for him. You know, he was cornering Chale and Randy. I mean, all the great set team quest and then moved on to Extreme Gouture. And, well, his answer, you know, was memorable, at least for me. So here's Robert Follas.

a year and a half ago on the program after 196, talking about Misha Tate's victory over Hollyholm. You've been around this game for a long time. Where does that night rank for you as far as, you know, I'm assuming it was a roller coaster because it started off a little slow, then really, really good, then a little slow, and then, of course, the unbelievable ending. Where does that one rank in your career?

You know, I've had people in UFC for 15 years going on 16. Like an unbelievably long time. Sometimes I think about that. I'm like, it just seems weird. And this was the best experience I've ever had. Wow. It was the most invested I've been with a fighter. I mean, we poured so much since we started working together

and we started off on a very bitter sweet note our first fight together with a loss. And then since then we've gone undefeated. And, you know, part of it is I've known Misha for years since she was a teenager. I met her when they were coming and cross-training. Her gym would come and cross-train with our gym up in Oregon. And so we've had a relationship prior to, and we've grown to be very good friends. Her, Brian, my girlfriend, and then we hang out.

We do dinner. I mean, it's more than just an athlete. She's become a very dear friend. So it was extra special in that regard. You've been around this game for a long time. Where does that night rank for you? So there's Robert Follas talking about the win over Holly Home and how much it meant his greatest moment yet.

So again, rest in peace, Robert Follas. he will sorely be missed the Las Vegas corner confirming today to our own Mark Romandie that the death was a suicide and this is heartbreaking, obviously, on many levels. And if you know a bit about his story, it's one that his family is familiar with. So just horrific news and the community will miss him and our hearts go out to the entire Falls family and the entire community that he touched in Las Vegas. and of course in Oregon his family and friends as well. So it's always tough to transition from moments like that,

from stories like that. Still seems very strange that this happened. Just some, not that long ago, but we will do our best. And again, I really appreciate Randy Couture

for coming on for a few minutes to talk about this. I know it wasn't easy. Some news last week as far as fighting news is concerned. I think it came out on Friday that Eric Anders got what he asked for. He asked for Leonardo Machia.

in Bellum, Brazil in February. He's getting Lyotam Machita in Bellum in February. In fact, Eric Anders, who is taking the UFC by Storm 2 and O now, is in Brazil right now, unrelated to the fight. But we will talk to him about that. He is kind enough to be joining us via the Magical Skype. For the first time ever, long overdue. There he is.

Your boy, Eric Anders, joining us. Eric, how are you? Are you, I couldn't hear what you had to say there. I'll try that again. Are you in bed right now, Eric? No, I'm just in the room kind of isolated from the rest of the family. Okay. I feel you and I appreciate it. You're in Brazil right now. Where in Brazil are you? I'm in Curitiva. And why are you in Curitiba?

Me and the wife. This is where she's from. My wife is Brazilian, obviously. We had this vacation planned and then after I fought, my last fight against Marcus Perez. You know, I really weren't quite expecting to get the news that fast that Leotto accepted the fight and we were going to fight in February. So, you know, Winnihan got on the plane anyway. He's been doing some training since I've been down here and, you know, everything, pretty much normal just in a different country.

Did you meet your wife as a result of martial arts? Kind of. We have a mutual friend through Jiu-Jitsu. You know, we both live in Birmingham, Alabama, and the jujitsu community is really small, and especially the Brazilian community is really small. So I ran to her through a mutual friend, and we've been together ever since.

Awesome. That's great. So after your recent win, you just fought a couple weeks ago, we talk about this all the time, taking advantage of the mic time. You had a name. You shot your shot, and they came back with the big fish. It's amazing. Did you think that that would actually work?

Did you really think that you would get this fight? If not, Liotto, you know, I was really hoping for a top 20, top 15 guys. So, you know, they granted my wish. And, you know, I plan on taking full advantage of that come February. There are some people who say, and I will admit, when I heard this, I was like, man, Eric Anders, you know, a youngster, he's blowing through people, knocking people out. Maybe this isn't the smartest fight for Liotto.

You know, this is, it's not necessarily like the Bo Hashinia versus Johnny Hendrix fight, but it kind of reminds me of that, like almost trying to, you know, build a star off another star. Are you surprised that he said yes to this fight? Man, you know, the other was a legend in the game. And, you know, I don't think, I've never heard of him turning down fights. And not surprised, you know, he's a, he's a professional. And he's, you know, I mean, he's a little old, but, you know, he's still crafty. He's got a lot of cage time.

He's fought some of the best in the world, former champ. So, you know, maybe he's looking to get back in the wind, call him. Is there a specific reason why you chose him, why you asked for him? Not really. I just knew they had a fight coming up in Brazil and Berlin where he's from. And, my, I love the hostile environment. I can't wait to hear the Brazilian chant of Bahamu Hay as I'm walking out to the cage. I think that's really going to get me crook out there.

Do you speak Portuguese? Uh, poquino. Okay. My wife, she's trying to teach me. You know, I'm not the fastest learner in the world, so she's been very patient with me. I don't know if news traveled to Kirita, but are people coming up to you and talking to you about, do people recognize you and know that you're fighting there, you know, in Brazil in a couple of months? Well, I just, earlier today I trained at the Gracie Baja, one of the Gracie Baja is down here. And they all know who I was.

And, you know, I try to keep a low key, you know, because. I don't want anybody trying to beat me up while I'm down here. But they were all very respectful, polite, and, you know, worked with me a lot. So, you know, I don't know if they're necessarily pulling for me to win, but at the same time, you know, they treat me very kind. This is all kind of happening very fast. I mean, you made your debut in July on short notice. And then, of course, earlier this month you followed that up with a win.

You retired, half a foul Natal, essentially. And now here you are main. eventing show in Brazil against the former champion, a legend, Leonardo Machita. Is this happening faster than you thought it would? I mean, I know you're not in your 20s anymore, but still, I mean, as far as the UFC is concerned, you're still a rookie, right? You're still in your first year.

Is this all kind of surreal? What's happened to you here, that you're in the main event against Leotamachita in a couple months? I mean, not surreal. It is happening kind of fast, but, you know, like you said, you know, I'm on the other side of 30, so, you know, I don't really think that I have too much time left. So, you know, let's go out here, shoot these jump shots and, you know, they keep, as long as they keep going in will be okay. What do you mean too much time left?

I mean, do you have an end date already in sight? Not really, but, you know, 35 is kind of when that, you know, window starts to shut a little bit. So I don't want to be one of those guys who goes out there and gets knocked out ten times in a row or whatever. So, sure. I definitely have an end. and, you know, have starting to develop multiple streams of revenue. So I don't have to fight until I'm 40 years old. So everything's coming together as I planned.

So 35 is kind of the time when I want to get out of the game. Like what? What are your other streams of revenue right now? Through sponsorships, me and my wife, we signed up for the palaces. And the end game is to open up my own gym. and run that and facilitate that. And I think that would just be a little bit too difficult to train, get people in the door and fight at the same time.

So kind of set myself up for that at the end. Do you feel the effects at all? I mean, of course, anytime anyone talks about you, they talk about your football career, a great career at Alabama, and you played football throughout your life leading up until that point. Do you feel the effects of football? Like, you feel like you've taken some years off your career

because you were involved in such a brutal sport, leading up to your MMA career? No, not at all. My body, this is the best my body has felt since I started playing football. You know, we train pretty intelligently at the gym that I trained at in Birmingham, sparring fitness. You know, we only spar once or twice a week. A lot of drilling, you know, not really damaging my body.

You know, football, it's a collision every play, you know, car wreck, every play. But now my body, one, I don't have to leave. lift all those weights and eat all that food is kind of the opposite. Right. When I was in college, my back always hurt, my knees always hurt from bearing all the weight and hits and whatnot. But now that I'm doing MMA, my body has never felt better. I'm walking around more of a natural weight.

My diet's much better. And the way we train, I'm not going to, you know, I can go forever if I wanted to. How much should you weigh in college? The biggest I ever got was about $2.50. Wow. And now, of course, you fight at 185. That was close. Yeah.

Like I said, you know, they have you, you know, it's like they put you on like a catfish that eat everything in sight. I was eating pizzas, you know, at 12 o'clock, before I went to bed, eating ice cream at like two in the morning, you know, anything to put on size. And, you know, that's not even necessarily the best way to do it. But now it's the opposite. I eat at certain times, eat much better foods, run. my body is just a much better condition than it's ever been. Does a part of you wish that you got into MMA sooner that you never went down the football route?

You know, I really don't get into that because you really can't change the past. I enjoy and love MMA much more than I ever did football, but at the same time, it's also kind of part of the reason why I'm moving up so fast. I already had a built-in fan base when I got into the sport, a lot of support and fans all over the country. from, you know, the love the tide.

So football has been good to me. I have long believed, you know, some people ask me, I talk to, you know, other guys at parties, whatever, and like, oh, my fantasy team, all this stuff. I haven't watched one quarter of NFL football this past year. I used to be a huge Bills fan. I just don't, I find the sport brutal. I find it hard to watch.

I find it too dangerous. And then people say, like, what? You cover MMA. how can you possibly say that as very hypocritical? Am I crazy for thinking that football is a more dangerous sport than MMA? No, you're not at all. I think football is way more dangerous than MMA. Even if you get knocked out in football, I mean, knocked out in MMA, it's just one time.

You get up, you take a couple months off, you know, let your body heal. But in football, you may not get knocked out, but you're constantly getting hit, getting hit, getting hit, especially if you play that D-line, linebacker running down. back, offensive line position. Every play, it's a collision. And, you know, your body doesn't appreciate that. You see guys at 30 years old who their career is done just because of all the hits, all the contact and whatnot.

So, you know, just look at the shelf life of the average NFL player, three to five years, if you're lucky. MMA guys, they can play for much longer, as long as they're not, you know, one of those guys that play with their hands down and just chuck for the fences. and take it together, you know. Why didn't you make it to the NFL? You had a great career, I think seven tackles in the championship game, right, a few years back.

Why didn't you make it in your opinion? Well, back then, it definitely wasn't my choice. You know, they said I was too small or whatever the reason was I got cut. Try to do the Canadian thing. They can only keep so many Americans per team. Played a year of arena football and pretty much they said if it's not the NFL,

then I don't want to play. No love for Canada. done. I didn't. What's that? No love for Canada. It wasn't good? I would say, but once again, they gave me the axe.

At no point that I didn't want to play football until it was over with it. Okay. The NFL said, no, get out of here. Canada said, get out of here. Damn. You know, lived out, you know, got out of my system

that last year playing arena ball and, you know, went to the desk and, you know, didn't enjoy that at all. So I just looked, when it's walking to a gym here in Birmingham one time one day, just wanted to train blew off a little steam. And, you know, they put me in the cage in the boxing room with Walt Harris. That's great.

If you want to fight, go fight. I was like, man, I never said I wanted to fight. I just wanted to train. But, you know, whatever, I need a sissy. So I pretty much spent the next 10 minutes of the day, you know, in the corner with my hands over my face. And that's when you knew you loved it. I just knew that I didn't know anything.

And so, you know, I enjoyed the struggle, especially with judicious. You can't ever learn everything. So I knew I'd have to start from square one. I'd have to, you know, put my ducks in the row and whatnot. So, you know, at first, like I said, I was just trying to train. And then, you know, two months later, I had my first amateur MMA fight. And, and you say, like, a big MMMA, fight or a big college football game,

you enjoy the MMA process more. Why is that? Just because, you know, football, you have to depend on people. Yeah. You have to worry about somebody, you know, missing a block or missing a tackle, throwing the interception, following the ball, or whatever.

When I get in the cage, it's just me and the voice of my coach. And I'm cool with that. That's the way I like it. You know, that way, you know, if I drop the ball or I win, you know, that that was on my shoulders. Okay. it's it's all you're doing all all the pressure is on you and you seem to be rising to the

the occasion and performing well under the pressure do you think an event they i don't it's been a while since they were in birmingham i think like the earth like like in the early days like the ufc's you know three four or five days yeah six or something like that an event headline by eric anders in in alabama how would that do um man it would do awesome i think you know dionte wilder the heavyweight champ uh you know he sells the place place out. I think I would sell whatever venue they we fought me and me and Ellie got

from the gym fought in Memphis for Belator early on in my career and you know so many people came you know we sold a bunch of tickets and stuff so I can only imagine what we do if they came to Birmingham. Yeah that'd be huge. I'm assuming you saw

Leiros fight against Derek Brunson right? I did yep. Are you relishing the opportunity of maybe retiring the other machita? I don't, you know, it's tough for me to say, like, that I retired, Hoppe on the tall. I was just the last guy to fight him. You know, I mean, if it wouldn't be, it would have been somebody else, you know.

It'll be up to the only old to decide when he's had enough. Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely going to try and go out there and, you know, take his head off. But, you know, if he retires, he retires. If not, then, you know, the legend continues. Do you think he's past his prime? You know, he's 40. You know, there's no 40-year-old walking their earth in their prime.

Yeah. your prime is like probably 20 and 33 you know 25 and 33 or something like that so he's definitely not in his prime but i think he's still a formidable foe dangerous um you know his chin may not be what it used to be but you know uh they always got skills man so it seems like they're kind of putting you on the fast track here do you think maybe this time next year we're talking about eric anders and title contention do you do you think that that's a possibility Absolutely. Hopefully at the end of 2018. I like to stay active. I like to fight four or five times a year. So, you know, I go out there and get four or five victories just in 2018. You know, I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility to be fighting for a title. So how long are you in Brazil for? And like, so is the training, are you kind of, you know, doing your training camp now around your vacation and then it will just kind of continue when you get back home to Alabama? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm training pretty much the same thing. Jiu-Jitsu striking, strength and conditioning, all that other good stuff. I just linked up with Gaddi Yamaguchi. That's nice, man. Gaddi, Belator fighter. Yamauci? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gochi, Gochi Yamaha. Gracie Bahra. Mm-hmm. Okay. I just think that with him, you know, the Gracie Baja here in Curitiva. So tomorrow we're going to do a little strength conditioning, some striking stuff, and then I'll finish that out with some jiu-jitsu time. Nice. That's not really like a real vacation.

Like you're kind of still working, but I guess that's the life of a fighter. Yeah, absolutely. My wife, she gets it. She understands, you know, there's a lot of stake for this next fight. So she's cool with it. We were supposed to stay until January 3rd. come back January 3rd, but we're going to Vegas on the 27th for some press conference type stuff. It'll be our first time in Vegas, so I'll enjoy that. That's fun. So you're really getting the spotlight put on you. And then, of course, then you'll continue the risk your camp. By the way, you, you know, you're doing well in pro-MMA now. One thing that's not really a part of the culture as opposed to boxing is amateur MMA.

Like, you see some guys take, you know, a few fights here or there. You had 16 amateur fights, right? I had like 23 or 24 amateur fights. Why so many? You don't often see that. Because I had JV-level experience wrestling, and that is the extent of my combat sports experience. So like I said earlier, I had to start from Square 1,

and I knew once I turned pro, it's too late to go back and try and fix holes in your game. You can get better, absolutely. But if you just have like a glaring issue, a glaring hole, you're going to take two or three L's, and then it's going to, before it's exposed, and then you have to work twice as hard, three times as hard to get where you want to go, which for me, the ultimate goal is that middleweight strap. So it definitely would be hard to get to the UFC, you know, if I was seven and two,

or, you know, six and three or something like that. So I'm tend to know, looking to go, you know, everything's looking good because I had a lot of amateur career. So you would suggest to a young up-and-coming fighter to go the same route to not be afraid of having a lot of amateur fights? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unless, you know, if you're a Division I, All-American wrestler, or you've already got pro boxing experience, you know, fix the little holes in your game and then take it from there. But if you have zero and you're 25, I think I was like 24, 25, when I started in MMA, you know, better to take your time. and, you know, I feel like it was going to happen fast. Me and my, me and my coach Chris Collin, we knew, you know,

just because of the built-in fan base with Alabama, the Alabama fans that, you know, this would probably happen pretty quick. Nine fights in, or eight fights in, we're in the UFC fighting the hot feet on the tall. So, you know, I just want to make sure that I was well prepared for, you know, I was a professional and, you know, to go pro and, you know, succeed in the UFC. Forgive me for asking this, but considering your background,

I feel like I have to, have you seen any of Greg Hardy's amateur fights? And if so, what do you make of his performances thus far? Man, I think he's going to be really tough to beat because he's so big and athletic. He's super raw right now. He's probably in the same position. I was in when I first started.

I think he's a little bit older than me. but, you know, I think he's going to be good just because the athleticism and guys that big is rare, and I'm sure he packs quite a while up when he punches. So I'm sure with the right coaching, you know, as long as he keeps the yes man away, I believe he'll have a prosperous MMA career. Is this someone that you would welcome to your gym?

Greg Hardy? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, man. You know, as long as he's cool and he's not. You know, I don't know him personally. Like I played against him. Like he played defense. I played defense.

So we never like saw each other. He played at Ole Miss. So, you know, there's, I don't know him personally. So, you know, as long as he's cool, you know, we don't really turn people away. As long as they're cool and, you know, they know how to train without trying to kill people. Last thing, do you hear from a lot of your, you know, former Crimson Tide teammates who are now in the NFL? Do they sort of live vicarcy through you? Do they think it's odd?

Do you get a lot of support from them as you go on your MMA journey as well? Yeah, I was just talking to Mark Ingram the other day. He was like, bro, if we don't go to the Super Bowl, then I'm coming. So, yeah, Mark Enger will be in Berlin. A couple of my other teammates who used to play and are still currently playing, you know, pretty much the same thing. So there'll be a lot of Americans in Berlin. We need to figure out how to get Nick Sabin Cajside in Brazil.

You think that's possible? I don't know what he's doing. Well, probably not. I do work so much in February 3rd, recruiting and all that other good stuff. So, I mean, he's a tough guy to get a hold of. Maybe you get that title fight in Las Vegas. That'd be a pretty cool thing to have him Cajside supporting you. He's going to have to come.

He ain't going to have a choice about that. Okay. He doesn't have going to be me and him after that fight. Eric, congratulations. on all your success. It's an amazing story and pretty damn cool that you're getting this opportunity against Lido Machita in Brazil of all places where he's from. Thank you for doing this on vacation as well. I appreciate it. And it's great to have you on the show. Thank you for making some time. I've been trying to get you on the show for months now. I appreciate you carving out some time for us.

I know you're right. Hey, by the way, why do they call you your boy? I always wondered about that. Why do they call you your boy? That's kind of the way I taught me I think it's funny I kind of refer to myself in like the first person like grab that for your boy can you help your boy with this

do you do this for your boy you know and you know the guys do start to me that and it's just up all right

it's a great name I mean it's memorable so that makes it a great nickname thank you very much Eric all the best to you and maybe we'll see you out there in Las Vegas for that press conference

all right appreciate you brother all right there he is Eric Anders There's a big fight for him against Liotto Machita in a little less than two months time, December 3rd in Las Vegas. So what an opportunity for him. Remember, he made his debut back in July, July 22nd to be exact, Long Island, that Fox card. He knocked out half a Natale.

He took that fight on short notice, came out guns blazing. And prior to that, he was in LFA. He was their champion. the call-up, gets the short-notice fight against Natal, and Natal comes on this show shortly thereafter and promptly retires. And then very recently, just less than two weeks ago in Fresno against Marcus Perez, he won via unanimous decision. Not one who typically goes the distance.

In fact, six of his wins have been via knockout or TKO, one via submission. So seven finishes overall three via decision. And then afterwards, he shot his shot. for Lior Machita, our own Gileme Cruz reported that Liotto wasn't too keen on taking this fight and coming back. And I was somewhat surprised as well

that he was returning so quickly after the loss to Derek Brunson, but they apparently needed a main event for that card on February 3rd. That is where Liromichita's from. And so the dragon steps up after getting knocked out in the first round by Derek Brunson.

He'll now be fighting Eric Anders. This could go very wrong for Leo de Machita, he's lost three fights in a row. Last time he won was December of 2014. And yeah, now he's fighting a guy who is on a roll. So we'll see what happens. We'll have some time to talk about that in the new year. Okay, at a matter of moments, we're trying to connect with one Stevie Ray. And as you may recall, Stevie Ray, not to be confused with one half of the Harlem Heat from back in the day. the brother of won Booker T. He last fought in July against Paul Felder. That was the card in Glasgow. And there was a lot of talk that this was going to be the last fight on his UFC contract.

He had been offered a new deal, decided to roll the dice, as has become common. And unfortunately, like Cub Swanson, just a couple of weeks ago, things did not go his way. he lost to Paul Felder via knockout and since then there haven't been a ton of updates as far as his status is concerned, his MMA career so I wanted to check in with Scotland's own Stevie Ray and I do believe we have Stevie Ray is it via the phone, yes, it's via Skype.

There he is, Stevie Ray. How are you, Stevie? Hey man, you see me? Yep, I see you just fine. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Good to check in with you. I know you're busy tonight, so thank you for the time. So like I said, we haven't seen you in action since July.

It was reported all over the place. That was the last fight on your deal. Of course, it didn't go your way. Where do things stand here? End of the year, mid-December. Where do things stand as far as your career is concerned? To be honest, I'm not 100 years. What's going on?

I mean, yeah, I thought out of my contract. I didn't quite realize what finding out of my contact that I would be sitting on the sidelines for so long I thought I was risking getting a little bit more money

but yeah I'm just it's been for strength but I've been in touch with Sean Shelby he's just basically said that you know he's really busy he's got a lot of fighters to match

and he's even got some fighters that have won their last fight that are still waiting on a new contract so I think he's just got a really busy workload especially with maybe Joe Silver recently leaving

but yeah he's not told me I'm getting resigned and he's not told me I'm not either so yeah it's a bit of a nightmare but I'm hoping that I'm going to get re-signed for London. So you were offered a contract prior to the Paul Felder fight, and it was your decision to say,

you know what, I'm going to play this out and try to get a better deal following a victory. That deal that you were offered prior to the Felder fight, that hasn't been brought back to the table following the fight. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. So me and my management had both kind of agreed that it was better fighting out of the contract

to try and earn the money that we asked for. So, yeah, we fought out. I just, I thought that if I fight out my contract and I won, then I get the contract that I ask for. And if I lose, then I get a worse contract. I get, you know, one that isn't so good. I didn't think I'd be on the sidelines, or I wouldn't have thought out my contract.

But, yeah, that's, I have spoke to Shelbur, though. He did say that he will resign me for the same offer. So he said the same contract will still be on the table if and when he retines me. So at least I know if I do get

re-signed, I'm getting the same contract that was initially offered. The question is, I don't know if I'm 100% getting resigned. Right. So it's been five months since your last fight. Have you considered fighting elsewhere just to remain active to try to get back on track

or is that too tricky at this point? Yeah, I think it's just too tricky. I mean, I've been offered, like there's been a few other promotions been getting in contact, like ACD, offered me a fight in November. Even, like, Bama offered me to fight on the Newcastle show.

So there has been offered there. It's just I don't want to jeopardize getting back to the UFC because if I go and go and, same with another promotion, then I've probably ruined my chances of ever fighting in the UFC again. You think so? Why so? I mean, people bounce around. Why do you feel that is? I don't know. Another promotion probably wouldn't just give you a one-fight deal. You'd maybe have to sign up to a few fights. The only reason I would really get seen in somewhere else is if the UFC have said,

you're not like that's you cut basically then I'd be looking to sign with that's the same part about it I don't know if I'm 100% getting signed or not Sean said that you know it makes sense if they're going to re-sign me that they'll resign me for the London cab and he's not he's not started

he's not started matching for that card I think Matt's put a couple of the kind of heavier guys on the cab And, yeah, I'm just pretty much sitting on the sideline hoping that I get an email soon. I've been trying to call out everybody off, so I kind of couldn't step back from that now. Because I end up looking stupid, calling people out, and then they're being told Stevie's out at front of that. Right. Yeah, so.

Do you feel Stevie like you are being punished for not to be? taking that initial offer? Maybe. I mean, the UFC didn't really want a lot of prior to find out their deal, so it's maybe but I'm not 100% sure, to be honest. I've, by the sounds

about the way, you know, Shelby's getting in touch and stuff, and it just sounds like he's got so much work to do. Like, he said that some guys have fought out of the contract and won their last fight. It can't re-signed them yet, because he's got other fighters in contract

that need to get fights by seven times on him so it just sounds like you know he's got a lot of a lot of fighters to try and match other seven times so yeah

it's kind of my fault obviously I've thought of my contract but it's been a tough tough few months speaking of which I know you spoke to our own PT Carroll you also spoke to MAME Junkie about this several months ago. I read some stories that, you know, you said that it was hard to leave the house. You were very depressed. You were feeling bad about what happened. You were regretting

it. Here we are in December. How are you dealing with it all? Do you feel like you're starting to, you know, the clouds are starting to open up that you see some kind of light at the end of this tunnel? Are you still feeling blue? I'm not feeling 100% to be honest. I'm feeling a lot better than where I was. I was like in a really dark place. obviously it was probably a mixture of I got knocked out for the first time in my career it was in my hope so there was a lot of pressure on me and so it was maybe a mixture of that and also not knowing what my future holds obviously as most people know you only get paid when you fight I've got

beyond saying because when you start living this life in the UFC No things acting a little weird here Stevie can you hear me maybe we need to

reestablish the connection here let's try to do that because it's not very good on the ears we'll reestablish the connection there but you heard it from you heard it from Stevie Ray there still not signed still

you know it's interesting to hear him say that you know it's his fault and we talked about this on the beat a couple weeks ago if I'm an NBA player and I'm going to you know test the free agent market you know you

you decide summer before maybe two summers before you have at least 82 games or if you're a baseball player 162 games for a football player

16 games NHL 82 games you have a pretty long period to try to put your best foot forward. In our sport, we talk about free agency. It really isn't free agency. It's not real free agency. There's really only one place that you can go. Yeah, you know, a few people can go over to one.

There's a couple people that can go over to Risen, but it's really just Bellator. And so that's not really, you don't have a ton of options. And you have one fight to essentially prove it. And it could go wrong. And so I don't think it's fair to put that. on yourself and say it's my fault you know it's it's just that's the way sports should be unfortunately um you only have one fight as opposed to 82 games to try to put your best foot forward and write the ship i do we have stevie back let me see here it stevie are you there can you hear me

yeah i can hear you okay yeah we lost you there for a second are you covering the uh are you covering the microphone on your phone because it's a little muffled the sound oh maybe is that bad uh it's a little bit better. We'll go with that. I just see your, I just see your forehead now, Steve. I want to see your full face. Put the camera back a little bit. There we go. There we go. There we see the full face. Okay, so you said that you're starting to feel a little better now. Is there any reason for that? Or is it just that the, you know, time is healing this wound and you feel like you're turning the corner? Just really, I've moved on a little bit. You know, I've accepted the fact that because I was waiting around, waiting, waiting,

I've just recently opened up my own gym, just starting small, so I'm just getting rent in a little studio room. I started to take classes in my local town. So that's been keeping me preoccupied and busy. And then, but yeah, I still obviously waiting here if I'm getting things to do. do you have a deadline in mind how long you're going to wait for like how long you can afford to wait

really like january um for the london card that's my deadline if i don't get free sign to the london card then i'll literally have to think about what i'm going to do whether i want to fight elsewhere or or just jack it okay do you want to continue fighting if you're not in the UFC? I'm not 100% sure to be honest. The goal was always to get to the UFC. It took me like seven years

a lot of time, a lot of sacrifice. And to get there, and if I didn't get re-signed after getting beat by Paul Fowder, who's obviously on a tear up the hell. And it just, I don't know, that just

shows how we're getting looked after, I suppose. That's the most annoying part about it. I don't feel like I deserve not to get me things. Right. I beat some good guys, Ross Pierce, needle, loads on. I just got caught off.

I felt like I got caught. It was one of those things, part of the fight game. I've still got a lot more left in me. There's a few guys I'd love to get my hands on. So. What's the dream scenario for London? I don't know. For the fans, it would probably be Mark D.A.C.

I'd love to take his head off. Who's that? Who does, say it again? Say his name again? Mark D.C. Oh, Mark Diochese. He's fighting in December. We had a little bit of beef on 12th, so.

Yeah, maybe him. I could also see Marson Hills. I think it would be a nice fight. Okay. Yeah. To be honest, I've got loads, though. I'm that frustrated. I'm ready to fight anyone. And what's going on between you and your management? Is that all cleared up, or are you involved in some kind of issue with them as well? Or maybe your ex-management? Yeah, well, I was on the phone came the other day and we've agreed to move up, like, move afar. Okay.

I'm no longer with that. And we're still in the phone. we're still in the negotiation of what's happening because I'm still due to him a percentage of my last fight. So, yeah, we're in kind of some negotiations of what's happening with that. But yeah, as far as it goes now, I'm also a free agent when it comes to management as well. Okay, so a lot of transition heading into the new year. Yeah, a lot of frustration to take out on my next opponent. Yes. Well, my opinion doesn't mean much, but I certainly think that you are worthy of being in the UFC,

and I'd love to see them resign you. And if they were willing to offer you that deal prior to the Paul Felder fight, I feel like a loss to Paul Felder, especially at this point, considering how well he's doing, is nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing to scoff at. So London seems like a great place to have you return. for whatever it's worth I wouldn't be so hard on yourself

I don't think that you made any kind of mistake or messed up this is just business sometimes you roll the dice sometimes it doesn't work out but you know I don't think that that should be held against you so to speak

so I hope everything works out for you Stevie whether it's in the UFC which I know is where you want to be or outside of the UFC and hopefully 2018 is a more positive career as far as your career is concerned than 2017 was so hang in there

my man keep us posted on how things go and thanks for some time here on this Monday evening. Thanks, buddy. Thanks for helping me on the shore. And like I said, I do get on the London

card. Be where I'm going to get because I've got a lot to take that with them. All right. Good luck to you, Stevie. All the best. There he is.

Stevie Ray. I'm looking to get back in the UFC. It didn't go well as far as his contract offer was concerned. Let's see what happens here. I hate to say it,

but wouldn't put it past them to hold that against you if you turned down a contract and it didn't go your way. And of course, they're in a state of transition as well. And there's some cost cutting and they're letting deals run out too. We heard from Chris Wade last week who said that his deal ran out and it doesn't appear as though he's getting a new deal. So it's a different era now.

It's a different time in the UFC. So we'll see what happens with Stevie Ray. All right. We spoke extensively about Al Jermaine Sterling and what happened a couple of weekends ago in Fresno. and wanted to check in with him and see how he's feeling and get some thoughts on what transpired against Marlon Marais. He is kind enough to be joining us via the magical Skype. There he is. Al Jermaine Sterling putting some drops in his mouth.

What is that, Aljo? This is actually CBD oil from Pure Spectrum. Okay. It helps with the brain. There's a lot of things, you know, all the fine stuff that you can get from the hemp plant. know. Okay. Wow.

I take it every day. Every day. Yeah, all good stuff. You feel like it helps you? I think so. One of the main things I think it helps me with is just sleeping in general. Okay. I don't know what it is.

I have a hard time sleeping at night, which can be suck. It sucks. Right. Well, you look good. I like the beard. I like the hair. Everything looks good. How are you feeling nine days after that fight against Marlon?

Besides having a, besides being disappointed and, and being slightly kicked down to pedestal a little bit. I feel the same, man. I don't really feel too bad. You know, I think it would have been worse had I lost to a prick of an opponent. But Mom was a great guy, great dude. You know, I've known him before. We even, he got to the UFC.

And I always knew I passed across, and we know I never wanted to train with him specifically because of that. And sure enough we got to fight, but not really, I guess. but, you know, things happen. This is the fight game. Sometimes going there and things like that happen. Do you remember the fight at all? Do you remember the ending?

Do you remember anything about the fight? I remember pretty much every single detail of that fight until I got hit by the knee and that's when it just all fades to black. Wow. Literally, everything is black right then. At what point do you start to remember things about that night? when I got to the hospital

it was actually pretty bad I guess my brother was saying that I was awake but I kept asking him the same questions over and over and over and he said at that point he just stopped answering me and then when he realized I started to get mad he realized that the real me was actually back because

I was starting to get pissed and he knows how I am he was like ah this must really be a question that you're really that you can actually remember at this point so yeah when we got to the hospital I was laying in the bed and I saw that I had my fight shorts on and I was like Jesus Christ I got hit by the knee and then he was like oh wow you're actually back and I was like yeah I remember every single thing that happened and now I'm in a hospital wow yeah what was the question that you were asking him over and over again just I guess he said I was asking like what happened like over and over like what happened and then he kept saying I told him to explain it to me one more time so how did I get hit by the knee so what happened again so how how did I get hit by the knee again? Yeah, so I can imagine how scary that must have been.

Have you watched it since on television? Not on TV, but I've watched it over and over on the highlights on YouTube or on Instagram. And yeah, pretty much as much as you could possibly watch it. You know, I just wanted to see exactly what I did to make sure what I remembered was exactly what happened and exactly what it was. You know, I kind of, just to take you guys through the fight. So in the moment, I normally hit that check right hook when I step back into that South Paul stance. And Marlon did a good job. He threw that lead uppercut and came with that left hook right around my right hand and caught me right behind the ear.

So I went down for a split second and he tried to jump all over me, but I still had my wits about me. And as he does that, I'm trying to latch on a triangle choke. As he pulls his arm out, I fill the arm bar. I try to switch over to an arm bar. He managed to get his arm out. But I felt like the arm, like, locked. And I was like, man, I can get this guy. I can get him.

And then as soon as she pulls out and he turns away to stand up, I stand up. And then I just think in my head, I just got to grab him. I just got to grab his guy and I'm going to backpack him and it's going to be it. And as soon as I did that, the ref jumps in. I don't know why he jumped there. It's not like we were sitting on the floor and he was kicking my legs. But that little pause in the action, I guess I kind of got really antsy and just as soon as he stepped away. I know Marraise was, I think he was kind of looking down, and I was kind of looking up to fake him out and then to shoot in.

And as I look up and I look down and he's looking down, he looks up. He hits that switch kick, and I run right into his knee. And that's the last thing I remember. It's kind of like a movie. I freeze framed it in my head and I'm like, I can just hear the ending. Like, you're probably wondering how I got here at this very moment. And at this very moment, this is where I fucked up. And yeah, pretty much that's where I fucked up.

And I ran right into that knee. That was pretty cool, though, because Not cool, but it was interesting Because the way he threw that switch kick Is exactly how I throw mine in training. I've actually Cut some people's eyebrows because of that Because I lead with the knee

And then I chamber the kick And it's just really odd To see somebody else who does it like that Because I've never seen him do it in like any of the tape That I watch. And so I wasn't really overly cautious about shooting in I just thought I could get on his legs Because the leg was there.

So I shot from a distance thinking that I faked them out by just looking up and looking down. I kind of just got ahead of myself and ran head first, well, chin first into that knee. And I just remembered that was it. Good night. Good night, Irene. It's clear that you're handling it well.

I mean, even a couple days later on Twitter, you're kind of joking about it. But to watch yourself get knocked out like that first time in your career that that happens, how difficult is that? It was interesting. I was like, man, that's what that looks like. Because you don't remember anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like, surprise, I'm here.

And then so I'm watching it over and over, I'm like just trying to break it down. I'm like, there's not much I could take from this fight besides. I got overly anxious to try to get my hands on them. And I just made a simple mistake. And, you know, he just happened to throw the right move at the right time. But it wasn't even the move that he landed, which was the knee, wasn't even what he was trying to do, which he actually said. But with the way he throws that kick, you actually lead with the knee.

and that does pose a lot of trouble and for a wrestler looking for that take down as far away as I was thinking I was in a safe range to shoot which I really wasn't I just kind of got ahead of myself and just watching over and over

I watched the way I landed I was like Jesus Christ that looked so bad so I kind of I really felt for like my friends and family that were back home looking at it and thinking like if I was alright because it looked like I freaking died in there man

I'm not gonna lie it looked like I died in there and then I hit my infamous dad So There's not much like I say You know You just take your

Take your hits on the chain And move on That's life I mean I've been knocked down A few times in my life And it's nothing different It just sucks to have it

Happen on a Your first time on the main card And your ninth UFC appearance And you get freaking put down In 67 seconds It's just Unreal, you know Do you think that will change

How you fight it all? Like do you feel like There'll be any ill effects here? Not so much. I think my last two fights before, Marlin, I showed that I can be more aggressive and I can open up with the hands if I need to. And I was looking to do that. You know, I was looking to fill him out early and see what he was trying to go for with his game plan, but I wanted to put the pressure on him. And once I got that little taste of I can outgrabble this guy, no problem.

And I just got overly ahead of myself. I think it's just in this sport, it's a game of inches. You make one little mistake, and that can be. be, as you can see, that can be the end of your night. I think the same thing happened with Lomas, the very next weekend, this past weekend. The same thing with Overeem. You know, it happens, man. You just never know.

Even with Daniel Cormier, like him fighting John Jones, him missing that check of that kick by split second is the reason why he got put on wobbly legs and eventually led to him being finished. So it just happens like that in the sport. There's no big boxing gloves. There's no shing gosh for you to get rattled, but you can still keep your wicks and bearings about you. And it just so happens he hit me right on the button with that. Well, I ran right into that knee and I guess I hit myself right on the, I don't know.

It depends on how you look at it. But I guess, you know, I kind of, you going forward and running into an impact kind of doubles and triples that impact and just makes it that much worse. So moments ago you said that, you know, it kind of looked like you died in there and you felt for your family and friends watching at home. over the past week, I've gone on a few diatripes about this. I was very bothered by the way that was covered on television. There was no mention of you after the fact. They didn't show you. They didn't give us an update.

I mean, if you're watching at home and if I'm a loved one, I mean, I know you, you know, we're acquaintances. I cover you. I was concerned about you. I can't imagine how family or friend, we got nothing. And you see Marlon Marais off into the corner. They don't show you. You see that he's concerned.

He's talking about you and the whole thing was swept into the rug. Your name was never uttered again. Are you bothered by that at all? Do you feel like like Ricardo Lama's gets knocked out brutally. They come back. He's okay. He's on the stool. They showed him briefly. Okay, we know he's okay. You never even got a mention, let alone shown on camera. Do you think that that's the right thing to do? As opposed to in football, there's a brutal hit. We see the guy. It's just a harsh reality of the sport. Now that you're a part of it, how do you feel about that? What did your family and friends say about how that was covered on television? Not for nothing. I enjoy being a part of the UFC, of course, but I definitely think they could have done a lot better with the updating the fans and everybody else, especially, you know, we have, we have loved ones back home, you know, so I had people trying to call me, trying to reach me, and they couldn't get in touch with me. You know, obviously, I was still delirious, delusional, both and won, and had no service. So the least they could have done was get a follow-up report and get something out for the press or something, you know, at least for the people who are actively checking and wanted to really know who were actually really concerned about how I was doing.

Could I actually have some peace of mind and know what was going on? And not for nothing, man, you know, I've been getting along a lot better with Sean Shelby and even Dana White himself. You know, obviously it's a business relationship. So I don't expect these guys to be my friends or my best friends. I don't look at it like that. but at least a text message to say, you know, just checking and see if you're doing okay, you know, make you sure you're alive. I think that's common courtesy.

You know, I am one of your, I'm technically one of your employees, no matter if you want to call it we're self-employed. I'm still one of your employees, dog. You didn't get that. Even if I didn't like you, if you were my boss and I didn't like you, I'm still going to check on your well-being. That's just how I am. I don't know. Maybe everyone's just different, but I think, from a human being standpoint, I think that would have been a cool thing to kind of, I guess,

wake up to, you know? Yeah. You didn't get that? No, I didn't. Wow. Wow. That is, I'd even know that. It's kind of a letdown, but I almost wanted to text them sarcastically, but hey, just

to let you guys know I'm alive. But, you know what? Like I said, it's a business relationship. I know what I signed up for. I don't expect these guys to be my friends. I just thought they would have had a little bit more of, I guess, human decency to do something like that. Sure. And I'm not trying to put them in any position, but I just think for the future, not just saying,

woes me, but for the future, for other fighters, I think it would go a long way in terms of the fighter's minds and how we perceive our bosses. It makes it seem like they actually give a shit. You know, that's all I'm saying. Okay. I mean, you told the guy who knocked a great job. So I don't know. Right, right. You.

Are you okay? Yeah, no. 100%. I couldn't agree with you more. You were taken out, I think, on a backboard. Do you remember any of that? Did you get worried that something serious was going on? Do you have any recollection of that?

Not at all. I saw the picture I was taking off on a stretcher. I was like, God damn, man. Could this get any worse? But I asked multiple people about how long I was down for. I got like five different answers, two minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. I'm like, so how long was I really down for? I guess when you're in the corner, I guess my coaches and stuff, they couldn't really

remember because in the moment you're not really thinking about that. You're just trying to make sure your guy is okay. Yeah. So I just for my own, I guess recollection, I guess. I guess for my own personal wanting to know, I just want to know how long I was actually down for. I think that's something that I think anybody. would want to know for like how long was I really out for sure it's that scary stuff absolutely I've

never been put out I've been knocked out before in training earlier this year and uh by actually marlin's teammate uh is a beat and it was a spinning 360 roundhouse kick caught me in the back of my neck no my eyes were still there I didn't I didn't black out anything but I was I was down like clearly hurt and just to where it landed for the next two three weeks I had like vertigo really bad like lay down trying to go sleep. I had to sit up to sleep because I was getting the spins really bad. And that was kind of a scary thing. I was like, man, concussions are like really no joke. I took a good amount of time off. I don't even think I really sparred before that fight where I fought Augusto Mennas. I took that fight on short notice because I needed to make money.

And I was just in a position where I'm like, you know what? If I'm going to lose and get cut, I might as well make my money now and figure out my life later. So that's just the way I'm looking at. I overanalyze everything. You know, I get it down to it to you. That's just the way I am. and I break down things and I just try to look at every single thing down my eyes, cross my teeth and I was like, you know, if I'm good enough, I'm going to win, I'm going to be in the UFC

if I'm not good enough, I'm going to lose. So I might as well just take this fight, roll the dice. I didn't really spark for that fight because I was really jacked up from that kick from the beat, you know, the sparrow, you know, clearly outclass, but he was a lot bigger.

I think he was huge, man, whatever, that's another story. But long story short, getting back to what I was saying, And I was knocked out then. That knockout, not messed me up completely worse than this one. This one, I had nothing. I had no stakes.

I didn't have like any throbbing pains, which was weird. My chin wasn't even hurting. I thought I might have broke my jaw. I made sure when I woke up, the first thing I did was check my jaw. It wasn't broken. I just had to bust the lip, I guess, from the knee, just hit me the side of the mouth. And that was pretty much it. As far as training now, how long of a break are you going to take?

Well, I'm required to take 30 days off, no contact. but there's no one here to actually regulate that, obviously. As a smart individual and being a student of the game and just seeing all the other concussion stuff in football, soccer, and in MMA, just seeing the guys before me, you know, I'm going to make sure I do myself the justice of taking that time off. And if I need to take more time off, I was going to take the time off with goals.

I quote four times this year. It's a lot. The training of self is more detrimental on the body than the actual fight. and we had actual joke because this knee probably because of all my training I don't really get hit in the head I get hit in the body more than anything

so I guess from all my fights and all my sparring sessions I guess this knee was like the culmination of all the hits I should have taken in those fights and in those training sessions so it was kind of like a running joke in team joke kind of thing because I don't know I'm very good at avoiding

getting hit and that knee just made up for like everything it's like everything would just roll up into one big ball, boom. Oh, man. But going back to what you said, I'm just going to take my time off. And I wasn't planning the fight until like March, March, April. But now that's like without a choice. Sure.

Yeah. Well, you know, you actually bring up a great point because we always report on these medical suspensions, but there's no one there to regulate them. So it's really on you and your, you know, your coaches to do so. So, you know, I think now we're getting smarter about brain injury and hopefully I hope that you adhere to it and others do as well. There's no point in getting right back on that horse, right? It's probably more detrimental for the long term of your career than, you know, to try to get a fight in there and get back on the horse, so to speak, right?

We saw that with Michael Bisping. Yeah, and I don't really understand that theory unless you're at the end of your career and you just want to make some quick coin real quick. But I'm not making that much money where it's going to make that much of a difference where it's going to make or break me. but it is what it is you know I think some guys are too tough for their own good good thing I'm not like that and I already knew I needed the time off to let my body heal up and now I've been giving that time off

against my will but sure enough I'm going to make sure I take advantage of it and just stay sharp stay using my jihitsu probably getting a couple more competitions maybe even getting the EBI um sharping out of you know I like competing I think just competing in general is something I always enjoy and do something I love.

People can make all the jokes that they want. It doesn't bother me unless you're trying to be a dick and you're like, you're like purposely trying to be like hateful. If you make a joke, I can take a joke. But you're like trying. I guess some guys on Twitter, this one guy just constantly, he's tweeting me probably 30 times in the last, maybe even more than that. And probably the past week. And just constantly just chirping and talking shit. I'm like, I'm not even going to block the guy because I'm like,

I want you to see that your words don't really affect me. I don't know if you get better about your day and about your pathetic life that you constantly have to sit on Twitter to talk to one individual and let them know how you feel

when I on the other side really don't give a shit. But if we're in a person and you decide to run your mouth like that, maybe things go a little bit differently. And, you know, but that's another story. It's just always interesting

to people who are the tough guys that never done anything or accomplished anything in their life. I'm living my dream. I'm here where I am. I put into work. I'm trying to cash out. That's the slogan, put in the word cash out. And that's all you can do, man.

You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going forward. You roll with the punches, whatever life gives you, and keep pushing. Well, a small piece of advice, I agree with you 100% as far as blocking is concerned. You don't want to give them that satisfaction. But discover the mute button, my friend, because they don't know that they've been muted. You just never see them again. That's the way to go. The mute is the greatest thing in the world.

I never knew that. That actually was that true thing. But now that you said that, you can mute the guy. Go to settings, press mute, and he'll just be shouting into a black hole. And you'll never see it. It's a beautiful thing. But he doesn't know that he's muted. That's the beauty of it all.

Yeah, yeah. He started attacking me. Another guy started attacking me as well. Started attacking truck. I'm like, I don't know. These guys have like, I don't know. They must have boners and hard on sports. I really don't get it.

Like, I don't know. I guess I'm doing something right. They say, if you ain't got no haters, you ain't popping. So I guess I'm doing something, right. Kudos to you on how you're handling it, Aljo. Really, it's impressive, you know, just being able to come on the show and talking about it, let alone sort of making jokes about it and whatnot on Twitter. I'm happy to hear that you're okay.

And I agree wholeheartedly with everything that you said about, you know, the way it was handled. I think you at least deserve a text, but that's neither here nor there. this point. Happy holidays to you and hope you get in there soon enough. Take your time and get back on track whenever you're ready for that. I appreciate you doing this. Thanks for having me, Ariel. I'm going to go coach my kids, Bowen High School, because this is what I do outside of fighting. Life goes on and that's all you can ever ask for. All right, best of luck to you, Aljo. I appreciate it. There he is. Al Jermaine Sterling doing great things with kids over on Long Island. Appreciate his time coming on the show today. Okay, we're just a few weeks removed from UFC

218, one of the best cards of the year. One of the best fights of the year was Eddie Alvarez versus Justin Gachey. One of the best fights of the year was Justin Gachey versus Michael Johnson, I should say. That was back in July. I'm excited to talk to Justin Gachey about all of that. People were buzzing after that fight.

Unfortunately, he didn't go his way. I'm curious to get his thoughts. He's joining us now via the Magic of Skype. There he is. Justin Gachie. Justin, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Ariel? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate you doing this. So like I said, we're a couple weeks removed from 218 from that fight, almost three weeks removed.

How do you feel? There was so much buzz. There was so much anticipation. The expectations were sky high. It didn't go your way. How do you feel about it in hindsight? Yeah. First of all, I'll be a lot nicer with this interview than I was last time we talked.

Thank you. I get real short views on a fight week. I don't like it too much. I can't really help you. But looking back, yeah, it lived up to the hype. You know, I told people before that I had the fight of the year, you know, until I fought again. And, you know, and that's what I do. So I do every time, I get a bonus every time.

And I really had a lot of fun in there. That's first and foremost. It was a time of my life, honestly, being in front of that many people being able to put my skills, you know, on the line at the highest level, on a pay-per-view. So, yeah, all those things, you know, it was a dream come true for me. So you say time of your life, you had a great time, dream come true, all that stuff. If someone didn't know better, they might think that you won. Is it a little bittersweet that in the end you didn't win? How are you able to say those things about a loss?

I have to keep reminding myself that I lost. I don't know. I mean, I signed up for this. I said it before. I said it many times that I was going to lose. If I lost, I hope that I would got knocked out. And all those things came true. I love the sport.

I'm a fan of MMA. I've been a fan of him and me since before I started it. I was a fan of Eddie Alvers before I started fighting. So just the culmination of events that have, you know, transpired in my life through hard work, through specifically hard work. You know, it's just I'm happy. I'm happy for myself. I'm happy for my family. I'm, you know, like I said, now, now they, I've been trying to prepare my mom and sisters and stuff for that for that for a long time.

So when it did happen, they were like, well, you kind of prepared us for this. So, you know, it wasn't that, it wasn't that bad. So they handled it okay. Yeah, yeah. I think once they saw me and saw that I was, my spirits were high, I think it helped. Is it possible that you derived as much pleasure out of that kind of fight as you would a win, like the Michael Johnson fight? Is it the same kind of thing for you? It's close.

It's really close, actually. I mean, big difference. You know, as far as if I would have won, the future would have been a lot different or my next fight opportunities would have been different. But, you know, when you win, you get to pick someone in front of you to fight. When you lose and, you know, I'm still ranked number five in the world in the UFC. And so coming off a loss, now I get to give someone behind me a chance. And we'll see which one of these loud mouths, Kevin Lee, Dustin Porrier, one of them is going to have to get me on my comeback. So I'm excited for that.

So now that you've been in the cage with Eddie Alvarez, how would you assess his skills? Better than you thought, same as you thought, worse than you thought. How would you assess him now? Man, he's tough. He's tough. He's a warrior. Yeah, I bring it out of people. I bring it out of people.

Like, I've been telling people I need to start smiling to my opponents and shaking hands and just being nice. So then when the bell rings, I catch him off guard because I used to catch people off guard, but everyone's ready now. They know I'm coming, you know, full fury. And yeah, he was ready. He was so in shape. And, you know, his cardio was on point. I couldn't break him. I broke 18 people in a row,

and on my 19th fight, I found someone that I could not break, and I enjoyed it, I appreciated it, and all of the above. You fought a great fight. I mean, the leg kicks were working. It seemed like there were times,

even he said, you know, fourth, fifth round, he was happy it was in a main event because he doesn't know if he would have been able to stand. Looking back, were you happy with your performance,

or do you feel like there were things that you could have done differently leading up to the third round? No, I'm completely happy with my performance. I think, man, you know, I wrestled for so long for 20 years. And the amount of work, like road work, running and swimming and things like that that I did. When I quit, I kind of like got, you know, I was scared.

I didn't want to do it no more, honestly. I didn't want to do any. I didn't want to lift. I didn't want to run. I didn't lift or run for like three years after college. And finally, you know, towards getting into my World Series thing, I was like, all right, I got to stop fucking around. And, you know, so I need to, I need to do those things. I need to wrestle more.

I need to grapple more. I need to run. I need to swim. And I need to be able to be able to put my body through what I put it through for 15, 25 minutes. I can, the crazy thing is I can hit just as hard as I can in the third round as the first when I'm super tired. But, you know, I was definitely scared, not scared, but I was nervous to get into grappling exchanges. Therefore, I wasn't throwing my high kicks like I should. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to avoid those really kind of negated, you know, the things I needed to be doing in the fight.

I should have been in the clinch more. And, yeah, I mean, he did a great job. When he threw that knee, it was perfect timing, perfect spot. Kind of rope-a-dote me. We were kind of sitting there kind of not relaxing, but I kind of got relaxed for a second because I was so comfortable in the clinch right there, letting those hard uppercuts. And I think we were talking to each other like, oh, good one, good one.

I was like, oh, fuck, you bring it all night. I'm right here. And then I think that's when he need me or it was pretty close to that. But, yeah, man, I loved it. I love what I do. I love it. Do you remember what it felt? Yeah, I mean, to the layman, it does feel kind of crazy.

Do you remember what it felt like to get knocked out? Yeah, yeah. I, um, man, so usually I don't, I can't retain anything. like both of my UFC fights now like I'm very comfortable and very present and so I'm able to retain more so like I retained that whole fight I

I lost probably like 10 seconds like I remember seeing his arms up and then I I saw the referee waving it off and I thought for a second the fight was over time I'd run out and then then I realized that he stopped it

and yeah I knew I was I didn't think out I thought it was fine and then I got up and I because in the back I told the ref that if I if I lost I wanted to go to sleep which I still want to apologize to the referee for that

because I feel like I shouldn't be putting them in that position but yeah I got up and so then I saw his hands up and I saw him waving it and I was like and I tried to tell the ref you son of a bitch but every time I got to the bitch I couldn't say I was like you son of a

you son of a you son of a I was like oh okay I'm good stopping good stuff it so yeah I remember all the day It was crazy. I've been worse off after other fights. I'll tell you that. Really? And now that you have a loss on your record, do you feel like there's less pressure? Like now that you have that won, the way you approach your fight to your career, does that change at all?

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I'm happy to get it over with. I'll be honest with you. I mean, hindsight, I would love to be undefeated still. But yeah, I mean, that's not what this sport is. Now we can actually focus on what I do good. my timing, my attitude. You know, I just fought. You know, I'm a wrestler, and I just boxed with one of the best, you know, pure MMA boxes I think there is. So, I mean, I'm happy with my skills.

I'm happy with my coaches. I'm happy with the life I chose and all that. How many times have you watched the fight? Probably like three. Okay. I'll be honest with you. I think I won the first round. I lost the second round, and I was definitely winning the third round when I got knocked out.

obviously the judges i've heard the judges had the first round for him but it's hard to it's hard to judge the amount of damage and i'm i'm inflicting necessarily on on his lead leg yeah and by the end of the second by the end of the second round all the damage to his face most of the damage to his leg was already done and i had lost those two rounds somehow so i mean i caused damage in those rounds whether i want or lost i mean that that's the way I try to just go in there and finish people. So, yeah, maybe I was going to lose. I thought that it was going to be close.

That's why I was definitely going for the finish. And, yeah, I'm ready to do it again. I'm not ready right now. I'll take a good four to six months. Okay. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you about that. Maybe. Yeah, I just want to snowboard a little bit.

So I know I can't be in camp and snowboard at the same time. Are you going to give your head a rest? Are you going to, you know, take a break here? Yeah, I fight twice a year. So I've been fighting twice a year for three years now. Sure, but I mean, as far as training is concerned, sparring, things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I haven't done one fight. Screw that. Yeah, I'm doing the thing I'm seeing, you know, neuro, neuro whatever, blah, blah, blah, to get all my functions back. Everything's good. I'm taking care of everything that I need to be taken care of. I'm working with some of the best doctors that work with the Denver Broncos on their concussion protocols and stuff like that.

So you said you haven't been doing a thing? What have you been doing since the fight? Like, what do you do at home just to pass the time to have fun? I've snowboarded, golfed a few times. Gone to the casino a couple times up in the mountains. Living it up. Sanging out, I get to go home and see my family for Christmas. It's been 10 years probably since I've been home for Christmas.

So I'm excited about that. Wow, that is unbelievable. 10 years since you've been home because you've been fighting or busy during that time? Wrestling, well, when I was, you know, five years of wrestling, that's straight through. We got, actually, we got to go home for two days. We'd get to go home the 24th and we had to fly back to 26th. Okay. So we were there for one day.

And I lived three hours from the airport that I have to fly into. So I was, you know, I got, I flew in. It was a day of traveling, day of traveling, and one day of getting a visit. Do you say anything to you after the fight? Yeah, we saw each other at a hospital. You know, good fight. You know, it hurts win or lose. Yeah.

It really doesn't matter. I mean, for the most part, obviously, the quick knockout team that ain't hurting, but the sport is so, so unforgiving that, you know, you can be your best one night and you're still going to hurt for a few weeks. You refer to our pre-fight chat earlier. Why were you, was it just the weight cut? Or was it something else

bothering you at the time? Oh, no, I just watched it. I was definitely not. I don't know. I was irritated for some reason. Was it because of the way cut? Probably because I was about to get the fight. No, my wake?

No, not at all. Oh, okay. I get very short views the week of the fight. Yeah, no. With my family, with my friends. I mean, I try not to, but there's no.

not really, I don't really like joking around that whole week, or really you joking around me. Okay. Yeah, I just try to stay focused. But now I think, now I think, like, this fight, I couldn't, like, even the John Foy was a little bit nervous, but this is why, like, I was in the back sitting there. I was like, man, I can't get scared. I can't get nervous. Like, what the hell's wrong with me?

You know, I was like, you know, I get the fight in front of all these people, which is awesome. But, yeah, I'm, you know, I think now that I lost, hopefully I can get some of that. back. I'm hoping, hopefully I'll be scared next time the fight. You used to be scared. That's a common feeling for you? Yeah, when I was amateur and yeah, my first

robots, yeah, I would get the same as you're supposed to when you're about to go out and, you know, almost maybe die. So why don't know? I don't know. I don't know why. Why do you feel like you weren't this time? I don't know. Well, no, it wasn't necessarily just it's been a, you know, each fight's

getting different, different, different. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, the more you fight, the more different it's going to become. I thought the more you fight, the more nervous you get because the more aware you are of the, you know, unpredictability that this sport brings. But, you know, it hasn't done that to me. I don't know why. But yeah, I don't know.

I'm hoping that I'm terrified next fight. In your opinion, is it fair to call Eddie Alvarez the most violent man in the UFC now? I can't say no. I can't say no He finished me So yeah I'll give him that What's the perfect

I know you're a little bit of ways away But in your mind You have a perfect scenario For your return fight No I mean like I said I'm still ranked number five So the guy's back there

If I don't want to fight me Yeah I'll probably get to pick whoever I want I want to fight I mean Kevin Lee is back there Dustin's back there I owe that

I mean, before I said I wouldn't find him if I won, obviously. But I mean, in a way, you'd sound like a coward saying you'll fight him if you lose. But I'm still ranked number five and I'm still ranked ahead of them. So they need that fight. They need that fight to move up. So I'm whoever the UFC wants to give me, I'm going to get paid the same in my next fight to fight to whoever it is. This is around the time when we do awards and things like that, which was the better fight in your opinion? This one or the Johnson fight?

I would say this fight. Really? I'd say this fight's, I mean, it was too, I mean, me and Johnson was too high-level athletes going, you know, toe to toe as well. But this was, you know, we both have really good wrestling. He's got really good jiu-jitsu. And, you know, we kind of negated each other on the takedowns. He definitely got, you know, we got in a couple scrambles. Luckily, I got him back to the feet.

And, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think it was the Alvarez's fight. Wow. I feel like a lot of people are actually going to vote for the Johnson fight as the fight of the year, but you would actually put the Alvarez fight above it. Yeah, I mean, if you're watching strictly high-level MMA fighting, that's what that was for as long as it lasted for 14 minutes. So, you know, we were tired.

I was tired. I was tired at the end, don't get me wrong. That wasn't high-level cardio. Right. It was high-level fighting. Is you happy that it wasn't a five-round fight then? I mean, of course, it didn't go past, but do you feel like, Just know, like the five-round thing would have been too much?

No. No. No, like I said, I could throw just as hard as, you know, my timing's going to be a little bit off. My reactions will be a little bit slower, but I hit just as hard. I'll kick him just as hard in the fifth as the first. So, yeah, those, if it was five, I, you know, I don't, I can honestly say I don't think I would do anything different. If it was five, I would have still been going for the finish just like I was, even though it was three. that didn't even play a factor in my mind, to be honest with you, not one bit.

Wow. Okay. Last thing for you, Justin. Are you surprised that Nico Montanio won the Ultimate Fighter? No, I mean, I picked her to win the show before the whole debacle of her, Sarge missing away, her fighting, Roxy, you know, her own teammates. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be, I'll be honest with you.

I was super impressed with Roxy. Roxy came out and she fought Nico. You know, she fought her to the end. And she tried to finish her. She was trying to finish and trying to win the whole time. I was very happy with Roxy's performance. And yeah, definitely happy for Nico and the fact that, you know, I have her on social media.

I get to see all her family and friends and how proud of her they are. So, yeah, all that means a lot to be just knowing her. Yeah. Justin, you're a gym, man. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. you and to see your approach to MMA. I'm happy to hear that you're okay. And thank you for the great fights this year. And thank you for doing this and for coming on and for being nice to me. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. Don't worry about me, Ariel. Okay. I try to take care of myself as much

as I possibly can. All right. Enjoy the violence. Okay. Thank you, Justin. I appreciate it. All the best. Talk to you soon. Happy holidays. There he is. Justin Cachie. Oh, wow. That is amazing. One of a kind, that guy. I mean, he's talking about the fight, calling it a dream come true and all this stuff, and he lost the fight. If you didn't know any better, you would have thought that he won the damn thing. It's amazing. It's amazing to hear him talk about all this. But I'm happy to hear that he's okay, that he's in good spirits. And looking forward to seeing what's next for him, I have a feeling that he will have the pick of the litter. Who doesn't want to fight that guy? It's almost like you're guaranteed that you're going to get some kind of bonus at this point. And as he

mentioned he's still very much in the mix at 155 pounds. All right. Coming up next, we're going to talk to Kamar Ustman and what a strange journey it has been for him over the last month, month and a half. Initially, he was supposed to fight Emil Mech at UFC 219 in 12 days in Las Vegas. That fight got pushed because Mech had some visa issues. Then I was told it was signed sealed and delivered for UFC 220 in Boston. And then it ends up going to the St. Louis card a week before.

from again what I was told, they just wanted to beef up the whole damn thing. So let's find out from the man himself, Kamaro Usman, joining us now. I do believe via the magic of Skype. There he is, the Nigerian nightmare himself. Camaro, how are you? I am amazing. How are you, man? I'm doing good, although I just see your mouth, Kamaro. If you can pan up a little bit.

No, I hear you just fine, but no, if you can pan the camera up. Can you move it up a little bit? So I see, there we go. A little more, a little more. Nope, no, no, now a little more. up up up yeah there we go perfect perfect is that good for you yeah that's good okay cool um better yeah much much better pan down just a smidge just a smidge just a smidge pan down there we go all right i love it i love it now it's perfectly centered um okay so let me ask you

this right off the top when are you fighting kamar usman what date could you tell us because it seems like it changes every few days man as far as i know uh january 14. I will be fighting in St. Louis. So what happened? Because I was told you were in Boston. Why did you go to San Luke? What happened there? Man, you know what? All I can say is some of the things that happened to me don't really happen to any other guy in the division. He had a top guy in that World Tway Division. So

that's all I can say. But what are you referring to? You know, what? What are you referring to? As far as these changes. Who else? in the top of that division, have you heard this, there's these much changes going, you know, back and forth happening to how many guys? But, you know, it happens to me. So I just, I basically just take it and run with it. But long story short, the fight was originally December 30th, as you know. And due to his visa issues, they scrapped the fight.

November, I think 5th or something like November 10th or something like that, which is the approximate date which Emil DM me and said, hey, I was apologizing, hey, I'm sorry, this and that. It's looking like I won't

get my visa in time. Would you be interested in moving the fight to Canada two weeks before? And I'm over here. First of all, In first place, I'm having issues even getting motivated for the fight because, let's be honest, Ariel, what does this fight do for me, athletic, career-wise? Absolutely nothing. This is just for money.

It does nothing for me at all. And I've said several times in several interviews, I don't fight because I need money. That's not the issue. I fight because I want to prove that I am the best at this sport. And so I am educated. I am educated. I can go and get a corporate job and make decent money and live a normal life. I might be the baddest dude in the corporate office, but I'd be living a normal life.

Right. But I truly want to prove that I'm the best at this. And I know the way that I train. I take nobody likely. I made that mistake, my second five professional fight, and I paid the price for it. ever since that day I will never do that again. I take no one lightly and I know how hard I push myself through training. I know how rigorous it is on my body.

And so why would I put my body through that if this fight is doing nothing for me? And so after he said that, can we move it two weeks earlier? I'm like, first of all, I don't even care about the fight. I don't really want this fight. Who the hell are you to tell me let's move the fight two weeks before? Or like you're, I understand if you might be the champion or you're the number one contender and you're trying to get me to make the fight happen. I understand that. But you're, to me, honestly, you're a nobody.

This fight does absolutely nothing for me. Then you're asking me, let's move the fight two weeks before. Are you scared or not to duck me or duck? I duck nobody. If I ever say a pass on a fight, it's because I believe that it's too easy. It's not a test for me. I said no to Mariahs the first time.

They gave him to me. I said no to him. And look what happened. I said no to Warlay Alvin and Joe Silver made me fight that fight. He told me you have no choice you will fight this fight or I will extend your contract.

I told him, all right, I'll go to Brazil and I'll beat him up. I have the text message to group and I went to Brazil and I beat him up. And so I felt the same way about this guy. And so once the fight with Graham, basically, like I told you, We were offered Kobe Coventon.

We were offered Coventon. He said no. Right away, he said no. I don't want anything to do with that guy. No. So they tried to make the fight again. Two weeks later, I think something transpired. I don't know what it was, but they tried to make the fight again.

And Kobe said, no, absolutely not. And then for the third time, they offered us, we were supposed to, this was supposed to be. my main event, January 14 I was supposed to be my main event. Obviously, you see why it took so long to get a headliner for that car. Yeah. It was supposed to be me and Kobe Coventon to headline the car.

But he turned it down. Wow. He only wants to go after the guys he feels that are old, that he could have an athletic advantage or maybe a cardio advantage over to maybe try to push, pull them in deep waters. He knows that

plays no part with me. You can't out wrestle me, you can't out strike me, you don't have more power than me. Basically, he sees this, he's so afraid to where he was running to nobody but the other older guys that are on the way down. That's the only guys he want. And so this was supposed to be our card. Unfortunately, we weren't on it. And I couldn't get anyone else because the fight was offered to a couple of other guys. Darren Till talked to Big Me and him had a little go on Twitter, but let's be honest. Dana White is protecting Derrickin. I have a couple of other guys. I asked him. I But I said I would even fly overseas and fight him. I would fly to Liverpool or fly to England. We can main event there or Orlando. We can main event in Orlando. And they said no. Then it's got plans for him.

Which, let's be honest. I have no problem with that. I understand what day is doing. He sees another person he can build over there in the UK. Bispang is almost out. That's another guy he can potentially build and can be a money-making guy for him. I understand that, but at the end of the day, these guys are going to have to face me at some point.

So, yeah, there until, I believe he will fight if he had to. If he was his choice, he would fight. But let's be honest, Davis protected him. So that's fine. But Kobe Coventon, they've offered me three separate occasions. He said no. And so they moved us to UFC 220. I said, fine, I'll take a meal on me.

And good for him. He started running his mouth. and he got his I'm going to be honest he does have a couple of fans he does have a couple of fans because I get so much hate tweet from him you're ducking him

you're scared of him this and that each and every day and so those guys just basically fuel to the fire to where it kind of got to my spirit to where it's like okay I can get up for this now

this guy wants to talk all right I will go in there and I will spank him like I do that each and every one of my opponent we can make this happen And so basically he's talked himself into it to where I am up now And I will take care of him January 14th But after that, COVID Coventon, you can run, but you can't hide

I'm on your tail Have you been told that if you get through a meal They're gonna do whatever they can to make that Covington fight happen? They've been trying to do whatever they can to make the fight happen I have an area let's be honest you know me I am extremely honest with you I've never lied to you And I won't start now They tried to make that fight.

I have the text messages from Dana, from Sean, that they tried to make this fight. He's turning it down. But after I get through, which I'm not taking a meal lightly, I never do that. I don't make that mistake. I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to take care of a meal January 14th.

And after him, you know what I say? I say, me and Kobe Covington, we coached the next ultimate fight. Who wouldn't want to watch that? Oh, wow. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, we coach the next ultimate fighter.

and then we scrap it out. I saw you in Detroit. You were there. You were under the weather. By the way, you feeling better? Yeah, I'm feeling better. Okay. Now it's just my daughter was just sick last week.

So I just got the sniffles a little bit, especially going hard and training like I normally do. But I'm healthy. I'm good, and I'm charged up, and I'm ready for this fight, for sure. I know part of the reason you were in Detroit was to support your friend, Phil African fighter, Francis Ngano. He has a massive fight on January 20th.

Are you bummed? I mean, it seemed like a great opportunity, you know, to have two African-born fighters fighting on the same card as so much buzz surrounding both of you. Are you bummed that you're not on that card anymore because of that connection with Francis? Absolutely. And I figured since I, which I said, at the end of the day, I said, sure, if Emil Meek is the only guy willing to take the fight, that's fine. I'll take him.

But let's do it at 220. Francis would be on that card I will be on the card and also Razak my boy my partner Razak would be on the card so basically we were going to just basically cover you know prime areas

of Africa Ghana Nigeria and Cameroon we were going to basically put the world on notice that Africa is taken over at this moment and so when they eventually moved it back to St. Louis I was bummed out for sure but

origin that was supposed to be my card in the first place. Okay, so how do you feel, by the way, about the division? Because a major development happened on Saturday, Huffeldo Sanjo skunking, Robbie Lawler, winning all five rounds, in my opinion, and many other people's opinion. Do you feel now like he's going to be the number one guy that he'll fight Woodley and that maybe this frees up?

Covington, did this maybe help your case? It absolutely does. And I tweeted, I tweeted during the fight, after the fight, I tweeted at RDA. I just tweeted that tweet was to remind. I'm not coming off focus here. Kobe Coventon is still the focus. I tweeted just to remind fans after my last buyer,

RDA was free. He had fought Tereek Safedine, who was not even in the rankings, and Neo Magni, who was finished faster than the guy that I just finished. So I tweeted at RDA and let him know that you duck me because I called him out. He was free. at the time. I called him out. The fight made sense,

but he decided, no, I don't want that fight. You know, I want Robbie Lala. And he went out and he put on a great performance

against Robbie Loller. Hats off to him. Honestly, yeah, I think if Tyrant needs a fight, that's the next guy in line to fight Tyron Woodley.

Absolutely. So that frees up. Mr. Covett. Kobe, come get some work. By the way, who do you think wins that fight? Woodley or RDA if it happens?

I'm going to go with Tyrone Woeley. I think Tyrant is a legit welterway. He's got power. He's got speed. He can wrestle. And you can't grapple with Tyrant if you can't get him down. And, you know, I just don't think RDA is equipped enough to get him down. I think the only area RDA might have a slight advantage is just maybe cardio.

Because RDA has proven that he can go the distance. and really dominant, even going through a little bit of adversity, he's proven that he can do that. And so has Tyrant. But I think that's the only area he has an advantage. But to be honest with you, I think Tyron Woodley knocks him out. Really? Wow. Are you surprised that RDA is doing this well, though?

At 170? This last spike shocked me. It shocked me because before that, no, he was very strategic. Let's be honest, he was very strategic. strategic in the fight selection. Very, very strategic. He came in and fought to Rick Safferty, who was like one for six in his last seven to fight,

six fights. And Safferine is nothing but a kickboxer that if you put pressure on, he can't do anything. He can't fight going backwards. And this was one thing that was also very frustrating with me. At that moment, I was ranked 10th in the world. Saffertyen was 14th.

RDA moves up beats Safferty at 14th and RDA gets ranked 8th above you What sense is that made? Because that's what we know sense. And so And then after that

It goes to Neil Magny who I called out Who supposedly accepted the fight Then the next week Next thing I hear He signed about agreement with Carlos Condon So once again It's like, wait, what's going on here? Why can't why am I not getting

these fights. And then Damia Maya, I called Damia out while he was sitting in Cajside in Brazil, in his hometown of San Paulo. Didn't get the fight. Kobe Covington gets the fight a year later and goes to a decision with him, which I promised I would stop Damia Maya in the first round.

I didn't get those fights. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I don't know what it is. Like I said, maybe you know, UFC just didn't think I was ready for them to put money behind the market or whatever it is, but it speaks for itself. You look at my fights. I think Brian Stan was actually the one who gave me the stats to where it was, I was beating my opponents probably. I was out striking them 120 to like maybe 10 each fight after five fights.

And my fights speak for themselves. I don't lose a minute or second any round. I've never been taken down. I dominate from start to finish. If I'm not going to submit you, if I'm not going to kill you, you're just going to be in for a three-round ass weapon from start to finish. And Kobe Covington is next on that list, but he's doing everything to avoid it.

I think the last excuse I heard was his toe was hurting. That's why he couldn't headline with me January 14th. I believe he said his toes hurting. Do you think Kobe Covington is racist, Camaro? That's a loaded question. Let's be honest. I don't believe, I don't think he's racist,

but I'm going to just lay it out for you. The fight when I eventually get my hands of Kobe Covington, the fight is more than just the fight itself. The reprimalsizes so many other things. It symbolizes the attitude towards immigrants in this country, not just in this country, toward around the world. It symbolized, for me,

symbolizes all that because that's how a lot of people a lot of americans kind of feel like that for some some odd reason and and towards immigrants all that the immigrants just for some reason to some of their eyes some of them they're just never good enough they don't do anything they're not they're not good enough you can't really you know feel as comfortable and that's what colby is doing he's trying to play on that role which i understand it's working for him it's actually getting people to care about him because before that, no one cared about him. Absolutely nothing. He would win fight after a fight, but no one cared.

But now that he's actually shown his true colors, people are starting to care about him. And so the fight is going to symbolize more than just me going in there and just stomping his ass. It's going to be different. It's going to be based on the attitudes towards immigrants in this country. and that is what he's really portrayed. I'm not saying he's racist. To be honest, I don't believe he's racist. I think in a different world,

he would have, we probably could have been cool. But, no, and I told you, I actually ran into him one time. I ran into him at the airport. He was a general, just a sweet boy. He was a sweet boy, very sweet boy. He was a nice guy.

Oh, man, when's your next fight? You got something coming up? And so when I reminded him on Twitter, he said, I came up and I tried to suck up to him. This fight is going to symbolize a lot more than that. It was supposed to be us January 14th, but he said his toe was hurting. So you know what?

I think there's going to be an event in February that might need a headliner. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to take care of a meal meet. And then I'll be ready to go even in February. Wow. Or if the UFC really want to make some money, they'll make us the coaches of the next ultimate fighter. And then we can prolong. I can give him much more time to train before I put the beating on them. By the way, do you see those Photoshop's that Emil has been making, like the duck tails and Duckman and all that stuff?

Have you seen this stuff? You like this? I saw one. I saw one. It was, I don't, was it, was it the duck tails? Something like that. I saw that. It was funny.

The thing with me is I understand, I understood from a very long, long time ago when I got into the sport with Rashad. I have probably one of the best mentors you can have in Rashad Evans. This is not personal for me. He's saying whatever he needs to say to get the fight because he knows he doesn't deserve the fight. Let's be honest. He doesn't deserve the fight. So he's going to say whatever he needs to say to try to stir up, whatever he can stir up to get the fight. And as I mentioned, he's got a couple of fans which have retweeted it, have reposted it.

For me, that basically just was fuel to the fire. Thank you for doing that. You have given me extra motivation to really put my body through the ringer as I know how to do. And now you're going to have to answer to me. You're going to have to step inside that after God. They're going to lock that door and you're going to have to defend yourself. But unfortunately, it's just going to be a three-rout beating from start to finish if I let you get to the third round. I feel like 2018 is lining up to be a very big one for you.

it starts very early January 14th in St. Louis, as you said, against Emilmec. Now we know for sure that it's happening on that date. Hopefully it remains. Hopefully you get the fight. And then you can move on and achieve those goals. It does really feel like you're about to turn the corner here. And it's imperative to start getting those fights and get people to accept those fights. So good luck. Happy to hear.

Yeah, go ahead. Absolutely. You're right. I'm going to take care of a week January 14th. Me and Kobe Covington, we're going to coach the next ultimate fighter. and then I'm going to beat him up. And after I'm done beating him up, RDA would have challenged for the title

and got knocked out, and I would be next to line to fight Tyrone Willie for that title. I look forward to it, Kamaro. Thank you very much for the time. Best of luck in training. Good luck on the fight on January 14th. And, of course, happy holiday senior family.

I'm sure you won't be eating a lot during this holiday season, but you could celebrate on the 15th, perhaps. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Ariel. All right. There he is. Kamaro Usman, big fight for him,

coming up in a little less than a month. And now we know it was a big mystery in MMA. Who is going to headline that card in St. Louis, the UFC announcing over the weekend that it is going to be that Jeremy Stevens versus Dujo Choi fight, it essentially got bumped up from main card to main event. And it's actually, I mean, it's a really good card. Page Vandant is also on it.

I mean, for a fight night, from what we've come to expect from fight nights, I think it's actually a pretty solid card. So that goes down January 14th in St. Louis. Okay. One of the big stories this past weekend was Josh Emmett knocking out Ricardo Lamas in a matter of seconds in their fight on Winnipeg,

excuse me, on Fox in Winnipeg this past weekend. I mean, just an absolute vicious knockout, four minutes and 33 seconds. It was one of the best of the year, landed right on the button on the chin. Daniel Cormier going nuts. And it's his first knockout as far as his UFC win

career is concerned, his fourth UFC win in five fights. And now all of a sudden, as John Anick said on the broadcast, there is a new contender at 145 pounds. So excited to talk to Josh Emmett about that big win. He is kind enough to be

joining us via the match of Skype. That is not Josh Emmett. That is Josh Emmett. Hey, Josh, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on, Ariel. It is a pleasure. Congratulations to you. So two days, less than two days later, what's it feel like? You just scored the biggest win of your career over the biggest name, opponent that you faced on Fox, of all places, the biggest platform possible around 2 million people watching. What's it been like for you? I don't know. It feels just, it feels kind of the same to me, you know. Nothing's changed.

It's almost like it was a dream. You know, I went out there a week ago. I was cutting the weight. I don't really sleep that much during fight week. Just typical routine. And then now I'm back home. And I'm looking forward to my wife and I are actually going to Italy. We leave Saturday to go visit my brother. Oh, wow.

Which part of Italy? We're going to land in Rome on Christmas Eve. So we'll be there for Christmas and everything. Then we're just going to work our way up north. So we're going to go to, you know, Tuscany. That's where he's from. He's in the military. So he's stationed out there.

and then he's going to show us around. We'll be in Florence for New Year's, and then we're going to go to Venice, and then eventually make our way up to Milan and fly out of there. Well, I'm sure this trip is now going to be a little sweeter following the victory this past weekend against Ricardo Lamas. I want to actually start before the actual fight itself. You took this fight on short notice.

When you got the call to fight Lama's, of course he was supposed to fight Jose Aldo. Aldo gets bumped up to fight Holloway after Edgar gets hurt. What was your reaction? because, you know, you've had, as I said, four fights in the UFC thus far, but you've never fought a name like Lamas on a platform like Fox, you know, these kinds of stakes. How did you react to the news?

So the way it all went down is I was, my managers were talking to Sean Shelby about me fighting in January. And they also just threw out there that Lomas needed an opponent. And so they told me this. And then this was, you know, it was at like 10 p.m. at night. So I went to bed. I woke up the next morning and I called him right back and I said, hey, forget the January 14th card. I want to fight.

I want that Llamas fight. And so they told Shelby that I was game. And I guess he still went through, you know, everyone in like the top 15 asked them if they wanted to fight. Everyone said no. So it came back to me and I was the only one that took it. So the ball was in Lomas's court and it was either fight me on that day or he had to wait until a later date, you know. to fight a higher ranked opponent, but he went ahead and took the fight, and that's how everything went down.

Were you surprised he said yes? I don't know. I wasn't. I wasn't. Like, I know Lomas is a real fighter. This has happened to him time and time before. He also has a family, so I was thinking if I put myself in his shoes, I would probably want to, you know, spend Christmas with my family.

I know he has another kid on the way, and he said that in his interviews as well. that he needed to get the nursery ready for January. So I was thinking, I think he is going to take it. And so he has, you know, time to get ready for the new baby. How much should you weigh when you accepted the fight? Like in the high 70s. Okay. 78, 77.

Any concerns at that point about making the weight about making 146? No, not really. There really wasn't. I immediately, you know, got on a super strict diet again, started working out. I lost a ton of weight pretty quick. And then I was basically, I was a little heavier going into fight week than I was for the previous fight when I fought in Poland seven weeks ago. So I was, I was on track and, I don't know, it didn't work out the last few hours of the cut.

So that week, last week in Winnipeg, what, you know, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, were you starting to get concerned? What was it like as you were trying to make your way down in the final hours to 146? No, I was actually, like I said, I was a few pounds heavier than I was for the full-on fight. I felt pretty good.

And it was just Thursday night. We were working out. I went to, I took like a few hour break and then went back to the gym at 5 a.m. I was 4.5 pounds over. I had my sauna suit, sweet sweat. We were running. I was on the treadmill for an hour and ten minutes.

Went back to the hotel, did some things. And then I finally checked my weight, and I was three pounds over. So we kept working and working. And then at that point, I couldn't sweat anymore. And, you know, I stopped sweating. My coaches saw that I was having, you know, a challenge with it. And it was their call. They're like, there's no way.

because we rechecked my weight again. And I lost like three-tenths, four-tenths of a pound in 40 minutes. And they're like with 90 minutes left, we know you cannot lose this weight. There's no point in draining yourself even more to be in a worse position. And you're still being in the same position. You're not going to make the weight. So I listen to them. I fully trust in them so much.

And I listened to them, but I was so disappointed. It was the first time in my life since I was little kid. wrestling, all my fights. I've never not missed weight through college, everything. And it almost felt like a loss to me. I was, just had my head down. I was just kind of, I don't know, it was a, it was just such a bad feeling. And they said, keep your head up. Let's just, let's go weigh in, and then we'll worry about the fight. That's why we're here. And LaMis still took the fight. So I appreciate him. And I, like I said before, I apologize to the UFC and the fans and him, of course. and it'll never happen again.

I just, I will not take a fight under four weeks. And, yeah, but I think I, you know, they took 30% of my purse. So that's more than 20% as usual. And I was excluded from the $50,000 bonus. So I lost a lot of money on this fight. So I think I, you know, I paid for it. So is that why you weighed in at around 930 local time and not like try to go to the limit? because you just, you knew that you weren't going to lose anything else?

Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. I was going to keep going. I had 90 minutes left, and they're like, you're not going to make the weight because they saw what was going on. And so they said, that's just weighing now, start hydrating, and we'll worry about the fight. We saw a couple of weeks ago in Sydney, four fighters misweight. All four of them won. And so, I mean, we're talking a couple pounds here, I know, but what do you say to

people will say, oh, it's not fair. You had an advantage. You didn't, you didn't exert yourself as much as he did. You know, you went in, you were overweight. Yeah, you missed, you know, out on some paydays, but in hindsight, it wasn't fair. What do you say to those critics? Because you do hear that. I'm sure you've heard that. I saw it a bunch on Twitter afterwards. What do you say to those people? You know, definitely I hear it. And for a lot of those people, you know, the tech spurts and the naysayers and haters, it's, they really don't know anything about fighting. I do not think it's that big of advantage. I was like drained to my my match. You know, I just do not think maybe I wouldn't even been able to fight if I kept trying. I still wanted to make the weight. And at

that point, the doctor that travels with the UFC even said that it was, you know, unsafe to continue to go. I don't think it matters. You see that time and time again where people miss weight by even more weight and they lose the fight as well, you know. So it's kind of a toss-up. I'm always, actually hoping my opponent misses weight so I can get that 20%. You know, two pounds is not going to win or lose a fight. You know, he's been training for seven or no since September for one of the best fighters in the world, you know, a legend of the sport. And I trained two weeks for the fight, you know, before I went out there and started cutting weight.

I was sick for two weeks and on antibiotics. And just because I wanted to kick it, I just had a cold that's been going around. and I'm just now getting over it still. So you said you missed out on the bonus. Typically the UFC doesn't give out a bonus when someone misses weight. And then you had to give them 30%. Is that just a Manitoba thing that's part of their commission? That's the rule?

No, no. It was, I think it was due to LaMas's managers. They didn't want the fight after I didn't make the weight. There was no way that they were going to take the fight. And then somehow that got brought. brought up, well, we want 30% then. And then, I don't know, I think maybe the UFC may have, if you got a new deal or something out of it, too, I'm assuming.

Maybe a little more money from them as well. But we'll find out soon when the, you know, the salaries are released. Yeah. So how much should you potentially lose out on if we include the $50,000 bonus? Refive 62K. Okay. And so is it hard to fully enjoy the win because of that hit to the pocket? Yeah, no, it definitely is.

But at this point, the win was more important than the money. And I do it for the money because I want to, like I said before, I want financial freedom. I want to be able to, you know, support my wife and family. And we, yeah, it was hard. It was, but it was disappointing with the weight cut. So I take full credit for that. And like I said, it will not happen again. But the win was more important at this point.

And just to go out there and all the exposure that I got and then just, I knew I could win the fight. My teammates, my coaches, family and friends were the only ones counting me in. Everyone else was counting me out because they don't know me. And so I knew I was going to go on there and shock the world. And I did that. And so this will pay dividends over $61,000, $62,000 in the long run. In a fight, this may be a tough question to answer, but in a fight, have you ever landed a punch that cleanly that had that kind of damage attached to it? I mean, because it was just amazing, that literally was on the button. Did you recall ever landing something that felt so good?

Yeah, I've actually, in some of my earlier fights, I've landed a, you know, a few big punches with my right hand right on the chin where I actually thought Christos Yagos. He was, that's right before I got in the UFC. He was a UFC veteran, really tough guy. To this date, he was still one of my toughest opponents. He was the hardest punching individual as well. But during our fight, I hit him a few times right on the chin. and, you know, he was just legs all wobbly and stuff like that. And then I finally put him out in the third round with a big overhand right,

straight to the chin and dropped him and, yeah, finish the fight that way. But this is just something that my boxing coach and I have been working on, you know, just bringing back the hook. So if I, because I admit to that right hand a lot. And so if I miss with the right, the overhand right, that left hook's falling behind. We also knew that Lomis drops that right hand. a lot so the hook would be there, whether it be a check hook or just a regular hook. And yeah, he kind of,

he fell right into my game and I brought it right back and just, it was perfect placement. I felt it through the two big knuckles on the glove. I knew the, I knew the fight was over. As soon as he hit the ground, I just, you know, I'm not going to, you know, pounce on him and hit him again, you know, because it was done. And there's no need for that. And that's exactly actually what happened, the way you kind of played it out there. And I got to give you a little. lot of credit for that because I know it's easy for someone like myself who sits here or any fan at home watching

to critique what's happening in the heat of the moment and it's all happening so fast. There's so much adrenaline and emotion involved but I thought it was very impressive and commendable that you did not punch him while he was on the ground. It's always very hard to watch that. I was somewhat critical Francis and Ganu

for doing that to Alistair Overeim. It seems like there's a split second where you're kind of aware that this guy's out there's no need for that extra punch. Is it hard? Like are you having an internal dialogue. How did you stop yourself from going in there? Because we've seen more times than not, those punches are thrown in that situation. Yeah, and that's the thing. I know, like, I know, like, don't stop until the ref pulls you off. And I've done that in some of my fights before, where I've dropped someone really bad before, but they're, they're not out cold. They turn over,

so I pounce on them and I finish with the TKO. But just the way I hit him, I just, I don't know, And in sparring, sometimes you land the cleanest punch and you just know. And so I felt that through my left hand and I literally saw him just fall back and his head bounce off the ground. And I was just like, that's it. And then I celebrated, of course. And then when I look back and he was still out, I don't know. That's kind of hard to watch. I can't celebrate anymore.

So maybe that takes away from my knockout also. So I have to take a knee and just hope he's okay because I know he, I know his wife. and his family and friends and his dad were there. And I can only imagine what they're going through if my wife or my mom or something like that, that happened to me, you know? So I just, I don't wish that upon anyone, even my opponent. Like I always hope I go in there.

I get the win, a knockout like that, but we both go home safe, no injuries to our family and friends. Best feeling of your career, best moment right then when you knocked them out? Yeah, I guess so. It was, you know, this is the longest I've gone without a finish. And so I knew I was overdue for one. And I kept saying, hey, I'm going to get one on Saturday. I wanted to go in there and I wanted to do what the current and former champion couldn't do to LaMas.

And I did it in the first round. I just, I know where I stack up. I've been with team off male for over a decade. And I know I'm one of the best fighters in the world. You're right. told me that when I was 2 and 0 as a pro. He said, you're one of the best fighters in. the world just nobody knows it yet and i've gone uh i've took the hard road it's so much adversity

i've been so much injuries and and i thought time and time again should i keep doing this should i keep pursuing it but uh my goal is always to get in the ufc and then once i got here i i'm not going to stop until i'm a world champion well it's paying off your eye was right there's no doubt about that and so now you know you're in that exclusive club you beat ricardo lamas you you enter into a whole new stratosphere you know if it was up to you what do you want next what do you think makes sense. There's not a lot of room there between Lomas and, you know, the top dog, Max Holloway. So what makes

sense? What are you expecting? So my thought is I wouldn't be a world champion, like I said. So if something was presented to me like a title shot, like I said, I'll take that in a heartbeat. But I know Edgar and Holloway there in Toxit fighting, I think Edgar has definitely

earned it. And so what makes most sense to me is maybe Brian Ortega and I fight, the winner of us gets the winner of Aldo, I mean Edgar Holloway. All right, I like it. All of a sudden there's like a changing of the guard at 145. It really feels like this past

month has highlighted that Holloway winning first week of December and then Ortega and then you, there's some new faces, you know, coming on the scene and so you're kind of calling for a little bit of a mini tournament. I like that. Yeah, no, definitely. And I was actually at that Fresno part. It's three hours from

Sacramento. So I got to see Cove and Ortega fight live. and some other great fights on the card as well. But yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And like I said, this is my time. And this is what I've been wanting for so long. And I knew it would come eventually. I had to just keep chipping away and grinding at this, you know, what I've been chasing.

And then it's here. And that's why I seized the opportunity. I pounced on the opportunity to fight Llamas. And, yeah, I just, I can't wait. to see where 2018 holds for me. Congratulations, Josh. Great performance.

Great finish. One of the great finishes of the year. Happy for you. I know he's been a long road to get to this point. So enjoy the victory. Enjoy the holidays.

And I too am very curious to see what happens to you in 2018. So best of luck next year and thank you for the time here today after the big victory. Thanks for having me on. I knew it was a matter of time also.

Yes. Looking forward to the next one. Thank you, Josh. All the best. there he is Josh Emmett coming off that gigantic, vicious knockout against one Ricardo Lamas on Saturday. If you missed it, go back and check it out.

Hard to find a punch that lands cleaner than that one, that left hook. Daniel Cormier loved it. In fact, he even noted on the Telestrator how many times Alamos's head bounced on the canvas. I told Cormeia after the fact, by the way, that I thought the Telestrator stuff was good. I really enjoyed the insight, but next time, maybe no need to count how many times

someone's head bounces off the canvas, at least that's my two cents. All right, let's move along. It's a very interesting time at 185 pounds. Of course, George St. Pierre is no longer the middleweight champion. He has vacated the title. Robert Whitaker is fighting Luke Rockhold at UFC 221 in February in Perth, Western Australia. We have not heard from Yole Romero in quite some time.

In fact, I saw him in the lobby of the New York Fighter Hotel prior to 217. He was there, of course, to cheer on his good friend Michael Bisping. but as far as media is concerned and whatnot, we have not heard much from Yol Romero. So I wanted to check with him as the middleweight division is starting to take shape once again. He is kind enough to be joining us.

Let's go to the Sky Machine. There he is. Yoel Romero. How are you, Yuel? Hey, Shalom. How are you? Shalom. Happy Hanukkah, Yuel.

Thank you. It's good to see you. It's good to have you on the program. What's going on with this beard over here? What's happening over here? We got a little blonde hair? Yeah, because not have a fight. Only I make it when I have a fight

I'm waiting for the fight but nobody wanted fight. Okay, so let's get into it. What's going on? I know that there was talks of you fighting Luke Rockhold. I think there was talks of you fighting Kelvin Gasselm. Do you have a fight? No, I'm waiting for the UFC. The UFC give me somebody

for the February 24. I want to fight in Orlando. I'm ready for the fight for the May event in Orlando. and I went in for the, no matter for the fight for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for Rucco, but he, I know he had a fight now with, you know, and now I went in for some of the, you see, give me somebody for the, okay. So you've been told that you're going to fight? Go ahead, go ahead. But the people, no, no, nobody says, yes, I want to fight you are.

Nobody say. Wow. I say USC, okay, give me some, give me somebody. Maybe, maybe, maybe Michael Bispy. I don't think that's happening But maybe crazyer thing So they told you though That you're going to fight on that card in Orlando

You're going to be the main event But they're just trying to find someone to fight you Yes Okay That's what I use Do you have a Perfect scenario? If it was up to you

Who would you fight on that card February 24th Right now I have no bad in my mind Because everybody is saying No I don't want to fight and now I say you see give me somebody okay um were you disappointed that luke rachold said no to you do you understand why he said no i don't understand why he

say no i don't understand i maybe he have a strategy and and you in the mind he say no not take it you're i go to the fight somebody easy respect for the deba branch respect but that's what he's thinking you know because that's the the mental rule. I wanted nobody like a dengue man. I want a more easy fight and win. And Joe Romero, no have a fight. He loses the last fight.

I won. I only have a ticket for the fight. That's what I happen. Okay. But for my opinion, normally, he needed to fight with me, you know? And the winner, go to the fight with the rubber. But why this is the problem? Wobb have the UFC have a

one show in Australia. And this guy is the champion right now in my division. He needed somebody. Right. UFC gave the Luzzi because Luzroko, he won the last fight. But is it not true, though, that after the David Branch fight,

they tried to do you versus Luke Rockhold, they tried to book that fight? It's talk, okay. You were in New York. you watched Bisping versus GSP, were you surprised that GSP beat Michael Bisping? No.

No? It's not surprised for nobody. It's no surprise. It's no surprise. I know I know the the

Michael Bisping you know, have a good wrestling, you know, like a grappling, you know? And I know these guys have nothing

for this for the Champier. I know the Sanpier go to, he beat him, he go out again. Yeah. You thought, you knew that he was going to vacate the title? For sure. Why? It's very dangerous because 184 pound is very dangerous category.

Many people have a good equality. I say like that I make a clap for the, for the, for the, because he is thinking good. You know? Yeah. Okay. I have another bell, you know, very easy for this guy. Yeah.

I kill him. He had a very good Christmas, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you upset, though, when he vacated it, or you were like, no, I expected this? Um, yes. I expected that, you know, because, you know, it means me, no, no, no, no, no, have a chance with him, you know? Mm-hmm. And then two weeks later, Michael Bisping fights Kelvin Gasolm.

What did you think about that? Were you surprised that he took that fight? And were you surprised about how it ended? You know, that's a surprise for everybody. That doesn't be a surprise. Why? It's so crazy. It's not me saying.

I don't know why. Athletic Commission say yes. I said that he fight. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. I don't know. the family permitted

the Malka Bishby will go for the fight I don't know why the team the coaches he said okay

take the fight I don't know why Malka Bibi take a fight I don't know why you have said he said yes

it's very dangerous it's very dangue it's not only fight it's very dangerous normally he needed rest like a 16 day

19 day yeah you know so he's sleeping he's lip yeah you know he's living

He not top out. He not top out. He's slip. Yeah. You know? When the dust doesn't, when the dust doesn't happen in the pipe, like a chalk or cow or chicken out, you need a rest. Like minimum 16 days. Hmm.

Minimum 16 days. And that's not happening. I say, okay, the first time with the gastero, like a jab, something, something, something, jab like this. Like this. In the face, he go out. Yeah, because no other, but the reglamant. Yeah. For the regular mandate, he, he needed, rest.

And then your manager, Malkikawa, one of your managers, went on Twitter and said that Kelvin Gasselm had turned down a fight against you. Is that true? Yeah. Yes. So is that fight not happening? Or maybe later? I don't know. I don't know.

Okay. I don't have a deal. All right. When you found out that Robert Whitaker then became the real champion and that he was going to defend against Luke Rockhold, then thinking back to what happened in July, did it sting a little bit? Did it bother you? Because that could have been you, right? You win that fight in July. You'd be the real champion right now.

Yeah. I'm thinking a lot about it is, you know. But you know what? I say, thank you God for everything. You say, it's not my time. I think maybe God He wanted

I am Learn a little more You know A little more And I continue training My mind is like a baby You know

I take everything good You know I train it Not like a passion Because passion is good And it's good I have a focus I know

Who I am You know And I continue training I clean for the the

the the the when I mistake what I do in the last fight when I

lose it I clean I put everything you know and now I the

will come back I stay here stronger you know very very happy you know that's more

important in the life you continue doing your work ain't happy You said that you said that you cleaned the mistakes that you made in the last fight. What kind of mistakes did you make in your opinion?

My opinion is I now go with the altitude, altitude training. Oh, okay. That's what I want to do. I not do and now I do, you know. I do everything good, you know. And I come back stronger, believe me. I'm very happy So you said that

They want you to main event that show in Orlando How do you feel about doing five rounds? Are you okay with that? You need to see And you and the people see Oh wow Okay You have a surprise for us

You're going to shock the world Is that something you want To prove everyone wrong That you can go five rounds You want to be in the main event To shut everyone up I want That's that

I want to fight Five rounds Okay Don't care who. Okay. Give me somebody. Anyone. Anyone?

Doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No matter. Wow. Do you think if you win this fight in Orlando, do you think that you should be next in line for a title shot? Just one fight get right back in there?

Ariel. I'm not thinking I am win. I am win. Yeah, yeah. I'm not thinking. I have win. I am going for the title. I am going for the title.

And I am winning the title. believe me. Okay. I am winning to fight. This fight for the common in Orlando, I go to the bell and you take it the bell. Believe me. All right.

I believe you. You, my friend, you on the wall, all the world see what I say. Okay. Are you hoping that Luke Rockhold wins against Robert Whitaker? Because that's a fresh matchup.

Do you think you have a better chance? I don't care. Okay. I don't think about who wins. Okay. I don't think about. this. Blue Roggo win, okay?

I make a cloud. You see my face. Robert, you win, I make a clap. You see again my face. And... And what about Michael Bispeng? Is that over with?

Or, you know, there's some talk of him having a retirement fight. Do you still think that that's a possibility now? Come on, man. What do you mean? Everybody, no. who is Marco

Bispin I say I am respect because listen I respect Michael you know what

because he stayed in USC for a long time that's you need say you know

you need to make a clock for the very long history you know in the career

you know by who any time when this guy fight the more the the

the the the top fight you see every time lose it every time lose it only that's

time he he can go to the fight for the bell when he beat the Lou Roggo

everybody know why I am out another is a fight and another guy is the injury you know

nobody can fight and look say okay give me this This guy, another time, one more time. You know, like easy, like my friend Joe say, easy morning, you understand? Easy morning.

But the problem is the Lou Rocker, he's doing the big mistake we do. Put it down like a shit, you know, he's seen the Macombie like it, you know. It's not good when you, you know, respect the people. You don't respect the people, you know? Yeah. I never do like this before and pray for my daughter. No, never. No, no.

This is not good. This is not good, you know. Everybody is human, you know? You have two hands? Yeah. He has two hands too. You need respect. That's what I happened.

Lou Rogers say, no, he said like this, but come on, come on, you know, no respect because he's the money. But look at what happened, you know? And the market people win. And running again. Who is the For the first stop?

Yeah. This guy for the Yeah. Yeah. He is that guy. You know? He is. And ruling,

ruling, all men. They're hanging us off. Okay, give me that. You know? Give me that. But look, for my opinion,

he loses it. He loses the fight. He loses the fight. The Henness is the really champion. Wow. No, him. He wins. He loses the fight.

But, you know, something happened, all gay, and he'll be a big. And, look if I, the second time when he, he,

defended. You, the belt, he loses. So why don't you want to fight him? retirement fight. You know, you could settle the score with him. No interest or you just don't think that he's going to take it so you're not thinking

about it. It's very good for him. He fight with me. He's a big time retired. That's it. All people in the world want to see the fight happen. Yeah. I am too.

I wanted the fight happen too. Only one guy he don't want it on the world. That's why it happened. It's him. He don't want it. He don't want it because he know. He know. He know I am.

Want to hear. How much? He says, Suarma. Suarma. You saw. No, Suarma. Swarma. I want to eat you so.

So. Oh, my. Yes. I want to eat. Yes. I want to eat. Believe me. I believe you.

I want to because he needed a. Because he needs respect. He talked like an idiot. He talk, he walk like an idiot. No, man, what you say, something about the country? Why you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, okay. I accept it. You don't like it.

In my eyes, you know, like when I speak English, you know. But you need respect my country. You know, you need respect my family to. See, you're not doing. Believe me, you need to pay. And that's what I want. I want. Five with hand and hip.

In the octagon, you know. Pay me. Pay me. That's what I want. Hey, Ariel, you want. have a power, you can call him? I can call him. Yeah. I can call him. Yeah, call him. Hey, you want to fight you. Give me the chance that you're going to fight with you.

All right. Or maybe call that and not, that a wife, somebody. I don't know. So you have a power. Call him. And, or call the, call the wife for him. Hey, yes, I want to fight. You want to fight with your husband. Get me. Okay. All right. I can fight with Hen in Orlando. Okay. I came to with Henning in London too.

Yeah, it's beautiful. Easy. It's beautiful. For Orlando, for the Florida people, you know, for their people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And London for England people.

It's good. Good. All right. Look at it. Joe Romero, Romero, Marcus B.P. fight in Orlando. I can win because not kill it.

I don't want to kill him because I want to fight in London. And, and Joe Romano win and look at this. George Romano B. Spine 2 in London. It's beautiful, bro.

Like three weeks later. Three weeks later. Unprecedented. It's no problem. He's not, he do it. He can do it because he fired in New York and he fired in China.

In China. You know, it's good. It's favorite. It's favorite for him. Y'all, let me ask you this before I let you go. You're a proud member of ATT. Do you have any issues with Colby Covington? No.

No issue. No, no. Okay, you're all good. Because, you know, he's a hot topic these days. Some people are mad at him. You're okay with him? With Kobe. Colby, yeah.

You have a problem with Kobe? No, he said, you have any problem with Kobe? You know, he's talking about him. talked about your friend John Jones. He's talked about Brazilian people. He's upset a lot of people. I don't have a problem. I don't listen. Okay, good. That's good. That's good. All good. All good. It's great to catch up with you, U.L. Believe me, I live my life. I live my life. You're a good man. I know I know PlayStation what the people say. Nah. I leave my life. I only, all. All right. All right.

Only, only have this competition. The freedom for Michael Brisbane, because he talks about me. Yeah. You're about my family, my country, okay. When they see, maybe, that's it. For example, my manager, say something about me.

He said, come on, come on, we need a talk. You know what I'm saying? Oh, my. Yuel, it's great to see you, my friend. Great to see you. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. I know you don't do a lot of interviews,

so thank you so much for coming on the show as always. And good luck getting that fight in Orlando against whom ever. If it's Michael Bisping, even better for you. I appreciate it, Yowell. Thank you so much. All the best. Great stuff.

And how about that? Does the interview all by himself? He's come a long way as far as his English is concerned. Amazing stuff from Y'all Romero. It's always so riveting, having him on. It's half riveting, half terrifying, speaking to you, O'O. Romero, I don't want to be on his bad side.

All right, I can't wait to speak to our next guest. I've been thinking about him for quite some time. I was certainly thinking about him on Saturday night. That's when Mike Perry was fighting Santiago Ponsinibio. And I think we were all kind of secretly hoping and maybe wondering if Perry would win that fight. Would he meet Darren Till in London early next year? Unfortunately for Perry, he did not win that fight. So now we wonder what's next for Darren Till.

Everyone's wondering what's next for Darren Till. Let's say hello to Darren Till at this time and check in with him. Darren, are you there? Darren, are you there? Blah, blah, blah. Darren, are you there? Oh, I know that is. I can hear, Darren.

Darren, can you hear me? Maybe he put me on mute or something. He didn't want to hear you all, Romero. Darren, can you hear me? I don't know what to do. Should we call him back? I mean, he seems to be right there. Okay, we're going to call him back.

Hopefully that... Okay, let's call. Darren, can you hear me? Okay. Okay, we're going to call him back. We're going to call back Darren Till. Maybe that'll hang up the phone and then call him back and then he'll hear the phone ringing.

That was great stuff from Yo-Romeril. Still trying to catch my breath. You know, you don't give yourself a lot of time to catch your breath when it's back-to-back killers on this program. But we were having a great time. In a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Darren Till, hopefully. And following that, we're going to check in with Jeremy. Stevens, who's going to be headlining that card in St. Louis on January 14th. And then stay tuned

for Aaron Chalmers of Bama fame and of course of Jordi Shore fame. I know a lot of you are looking forward to hearing from The Joker. And then after that, we're going to be joined by Pietro Menga. I'm looking forward to hearing his side of the story why he missed weight prior to his debut, which never came to fruition on Saturday in Winnipeg. ever made it to the scale, had some kidney issues and the fight was canceled and he didn't end up fighting Tim Elliott. So we'll check in with Pietro Mango, who's one of the rising prospects coming out of the UK. And then finally won the show in a perhaps fitting way with one Hafeldos who came up big on Saturday night and called for a title shot against Tyron Woodley.

And one wonders, you know, with Tyran Willey about to go into the knife, he's going into the if tomorrow, I do believe, December 19th, what happens with that title? One guy who I'm sure is very curious about that whole situation is Darren Till. I do believe we have him now. Darren, are you there? Yeah, I'm doing you there. Yeah, what's not going to make you okay? Yeah, I'm doing great, Darren.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. So as I said, when we introduced you the first time, I was thinking about you a lot on Saturday. As I said, I think a lot of us were secretly hoping for the Perry fight for you. do you think that that fight is now no more, now that he lost? Not no more, mate. I'm still off at the fight, but, you know,

he's coming off a loss out. Obviously to everyone and to the UFC, it doesn't make much sense, but as I've said before in the past area, I don't really care about rankings and that. You know, so, you know, I'm not one to say just because he's coming off a loss, let's not fight, you know, I'm still getting for fighting him,

but obviously it's not, fairly smart matchmaking now because I'm coming off of winning. He's coming off a loss. You watched the fight, right? Darren, did you watch the fight on Saturday? Yeah, what's happening? Me? You're okay? Yeah. Can you hear me? What is happening? It almost seemed like the interview started over again. That is very bizarre. Darren, you're not there, right? Okay, we're going to check back in with him.

It's always something with that phone. Always giving me the sweats. But interesting to hear him say right off the bat that and he said this As I've said before in the past area, I don't really care about rankings and that, you know, so, you know, I'm not one to say just because he's coming off a loss and it's not fighter.

You know, I'm still getting for fighting him, but obviously it's not really smart matchmaking now because I'm coming off a win and he's coming off a loss. Wait a second, Darren, is this you or is this a, like a machine? Are you there? Something really weird is happening here. Yeah, I don't you're there?

what's happening. No, okay. We got to, okay, let's cut this out. What is happening? Guys, let's reconnect with Darren Till.

What is happening? It's like, someone's playing an audio recording. Maybe he knew what my questions were going to be in there. That has never happened in the history of this program. That was the craziest thing I've ever heard. That is the strangest thing. That,

it was so weird. Imagine I gave some of the questions in advance and we like perfectly synchronized it to the point where we were able to do this dance where I asked him a question and then he responded and then I asked him a question. That's not exactly what happened. We're going to check back in with him in a matter of moments here, I hope,

and get his thoughts on what's next. I mean, there's so many options right now. Okay, let's try. Darren Till, are you there? I'm here again, mate. What's happening? Okay. That was the weirdest thing.

I don't know what just happened, but we'll power through it. You watched the fight, right? Yeah, that was fucking, sat there glued to the telly mate yet of course what did you think of the fight overall were you impressed with the the performances did you think santiago deserve to win yeah i think it was close i think sanchago might have just told it it made it was a good it was a good fight i mean peri's got some fucking chin on him like you know we have to respect

and santiago's got and santiago's got hard but uh from a psyching point of view mate not really not really on my level i have to be said that because the footwear out of Perry was not good. You know, he swing him for shots. He's nearly falling over his own feet. And I expect a better footwork and movement from Santiago in which, you know, strike him.

But it was a good fight, but strike him wise, mate. They're not on my level. I just have to say that. Were you pulling for Perry? Were you hoping that he would win so that you guys would be matched up? Yeah, I want for Perry to win, yeah.

So you were disappointed? Yeah, I was, but you know, you never know the UFC could match me against Santiago. You know, he's a really good fighter, but, you know, I do have to say, yeah, I was pulling for petty. Would a fight against Santiago interest you? Yeah, Ariel, you know, I'll fight anyone, mate, I really will, you know. I don't really care, but keep the fights coming. I'm only young. I'm only 24, you know what I mean, mate, so just let's fight anyone.

This isn't the time to be, you know, pick and fights, anything, that's what you do when you get to, like, you know, old age.

I'm young right now, so, you know, let's put the young ones together, and let's slug it out. Um, you tweeted something after the fight,

you tweeted a picture of yourself, um, with a couple of emojis, and you wrote the word what at the beginning. What, what did that tweet mean? What? What?

It meant what? You know, well, what's us? Was that, was that to, to suggest, like,

you weren't all that impressed? Yeah, like, you know, I enjoyed the fight me was a war, but, you know from what I seen

fighting ability fighting IQ was not up to my standards mate I have to say okay so then what about in the main event that's also your division RDA and Robbie Lawler when you were watching that

were you impressed with RDA did you feel like okay maybe this is more on my level he's good mate but again I just don't see I just don't see where RDA beats me

he's striking he's got nothing and he's, you know, he's half-me-sized. Lawler's just fucking lost the plot, just takes shots for fun nowadays. It's just that I don't, you know, just I don't think them two fights are either are good fights for me, if they ever would have

with a fight me, mate, because I think I'd put them straight to sleep in the first round, and that's just me being, you know, confident. I'm not being arrogant to cocky. Robbie's the next champion, so is Raphael, but, you know, their time has come, you know, they've been around for a long time, mate. It's time for the youngans to step up.

Have you been told by the UFC, Darren, that you're going to be on that card in London? No, not yet, mate. Is that what you want? Yeah, I'm not bothered, yeah. Well, I do want the Echo Arena, but if it has to be London, it has to be London, doesn't it? So what happened with Echo Arena in Liverpool? There was some reports that it was being talked about, that Danaway wanted to make it happen, that they were going to move it.

Was this ever in consideration as far as you knew? Yeah, it was a consideration. Dana was the guy who wants to make the echo happen. But obviously, Cage Warriors had a date on the same day. And wonderful he's dad. I didn't let him take the fight, so everything just got messed up. But I know that Dana wants to make the echo still happen. So do you think that it's in the cards for 2018, that it's inevitable that it's going to happen?

A million percent. Oh, wow. Okay. You've been told that? I've been told by my coach who's speaking to the UFC bosses, so yeah. I'm a million percent. We just had Kamara Usman on the program, and he was talking about you, and he said that he thinks that Dana White is kind of protecting you

because he thinks that you could be the next big star in UK, so he wouldn't put you against someone like him. What's your response to that? I don't know what to respond to that. If Kamara is the guy he says he is, and I believe he's a great fighter, we're going to meet at some point. So, you know, why, if Dane, it is protecting me, which I don't really think he is,

I don't know what he's doing, what is planning on it for me. But, you know, we're going to fight at some point. If he's going to get to the top, and I am, we're going to fight, so let's fight now rather than later. But if Dane is protecting me, I don't really know how to respond to that, mate, but what does protect them mean, you know? Everybody said that Connor got protected,

but he beat everyone, he beat Jad, he beat, although he beat, Eddie. So, you know, if I fight Usman at some point and, you know, he's all coming with this chit shot, I'm getting protected. You know, I don't know him. It's a fucking... Uisman just seems to think he's taken on the world.

So, to recap, you're down, even if they come back and say, you know what, we want to do this Mike Perry fight, you wouldn't say no to it. You have no preference whatsoever. No, no, mate, listen, Ariel, I don't mind fighting, mates, I don't mind fighting anyone. You know, it's...

I know we've got beach and the fight doesn't make sense, but we've argued, we've had a lot of arguments. Everyone wants to see the fight. All you see now is chill, chill, chill, chill. You don't see any other welterweight getting mentioned. All you see is till, till, till, till, till, till. You go on any Instagram thread, it's just till, till, till, till, till, till, till. It's not Colby, Colby, Colby, Colby, or Ousman, Ousman, it's Till, Till, Till,

yeah. Everyone wants to fight, till. Are you starting to feel? that itch again? Are you starting to feel ready to get back in there? Yeah, I can't wait, mate. Someone's ed's getting and talk straight off. How much you weigh right now? Should we say 220?

What? Get out of here. Really? Okay. Okay. 210 then I'll say 210. I don't know. 2.10. Jeez, Louise. That is unbelievable. So at this point, you're just kind of waiting for the call. We're going to see what happens and you're not going to do much negotiation. Whoever it is, you're taking that guy. Yeah, mate, I ain't a

cherry treherer. I don't really care, you know. Yeah. The reimbursement says he's the most dangerous in the division, which I do believe he is a dangerous guy. He's got Greg Graftlin, he's got power hands, you know, this, that, the other, there's other guys, Wonderpoil, Masvedal. Whoever they say, mate,

I want to fight them, I don't want to be involved with this protect them bullshit. I want to fight them. best. And if one of these guys are the guys to beat me, well, okay, I'll take it like a man. That's what you'd have to do, and I'll bounce back. But I don't believe none of them can touch me. I'll fucking knock every single one of them out. If you could give Mike Perry advice about what he did wrong on Saturday, what would you tell him? Maybe work on his cardio a little bit and work on his footwork. They're the only two problems I've seen. He's got a fucking granite chin, and he obviously can whack. But, you know, he's throwing

shots from too far out. He hasn't got his distance. Measured him. is with or not. So I barely work on my footwork, always having my stance in place, and obviously a little bit of cardio, do you know what I mean? That's the advice I could give him if he's listening right now.

What's at him, Mike, let's make the fight happen, son. Come on, you should have won't sad be made. And do you feel like there's something to be said for maybe he kind of fell in love with his power? He was trying to go for the home run, so to speak, just going for that big punch as opposed to, you know, mixing things up

and throwing out combinations. Do you feel like that was the case? Yeah, you can't rely on, just to power me, because you're going to come up sometimes against someone far superior. Like, if you've got a guy who relied on power with me, it's not going to work. I'm going to make you look silly. So, you know, it's gone through most of us fights,

but, you know, we came up against Santiago. It's a bit of a better striker, and it didn't work this time. So, you know, work on some footwork and cardio, and obviously, you know, maybe a better strategy. But, you know, I'm not as coachmate. You know, I'm just coming out. that guy with an opinion like everyone else, but

if that's any advice I could give him, I don't feel like I am the guy to give advice, but that's how I see it, you know what I mean? Although he gave you some advice. He saw you on the streets of Poland and told you that you should be wearing a coat, right? He was worried about your health. Yeah, no, thanks, Mike, for worrying about my health.

I'll buy you a drink next time I see you. Do you remember that exchange? Yeah, of course, yeah. It was about 12 o'clock at night, in the midnight. Um, were you barefoot? Were you really barefoot? No, I had sayers on, but I had like these Reebok shorts on and I just didn't have any t-shirts or anything on. Oh my gosh. You know, pretty much naked in the cold seat of bowling.

But you were loving life, right? I always love life, Ariel. That's how I live, mate. I love life. And then as far as Santiago's concerned, because it seems like a lot of people think that you might get him, uh, how would you assess his skills at this point? he's good mate he's a good striker he's a brown belt on the ground he's got decent mess with but

it just goes back to the strike him aerial just I'm just far superior far more intelligent I'm not the strongest or the biggest power puncher

but I'm just too intelligent for them striking wise and if they do manage to take me down I bounce right back up and they've zapped a lot of energy so I am just

I'm not really pain in the ass for anyone to fight me Meets, I really am. And I'm so fucking big for the division, as everyone should say. I'm huge, mate. Yeah. I am so excited for your next fight. I want to see how this story unfolds.

Do you think, Darren, this time next year, we're talking about you as champion? You think it's happening this year? Oh, mate. Come on, Ariel. Come on, son. None of them midgets are going to beat me in the World War II Division. You should be questioning whether I'm going to be the late heavyweight champion, not the middleweight or the welterweight, mate.

Come on. I know I've asked you this question like five times but if it is London what's the perfect scenario for you if you could be matchmaker if you can set it up for yourself what would you like to see happen maybe Usherun or Wonderboy

but I know Usherman's got a fight so maybe he's out of the question so maybe Wonderboy then maybe one more and then a title shot and that's me champion Wow you think Wonderboy will take the fight That's how it's going to go on it no no his daddy won't let him Why do you think that they're not... They said...

You talked about that you're too far ranked. Do you believe all this stuff? Or do you think that they just don't want to fight with you? I don't know where you... Maybe I have jumped a few spots, but so what? If I am, you know, whatever, why doesn't wonder by just fight me and just knock me... You know, knock me off my page?

As to say, you know, if they feel like I don't deserve it, we'll come and show me that I don't because, you know, I know I do. him. He's looking for the title again, but he's been beat twice. So now he's calling out to RDA, which he knows he's going to beat RDA, because I feel like Wonderboy would really not hurt RDA.

I think me and him could make a great fight, mate. He's got a chin, I've got a chin, and I know I can knock him out. I know for a fact I'd knock Wonderboy out of my foursum. Wow. You see it. Early? I dream about it every night.

That's the one. That's the one you want. What is it about Wonderboy? boy that interests you so much. Because he's a well-class striker. Okay. That's why he's striking ability is so good. And I know me coming from the Muay Thai background and him from the karate,

I can mollify everything he does and just prove that I'm the most superior striker in the whole of the UFC. I know that. Wow. What a fight that would be? All right. So now you just, you wait by the phone and you see what the marching orders are. Yeah, well, that's the only thing I can do, mate. I just accept the fight.

I don't want to cherry pick no fight. I just want to fight. Yeah, I must say I was really hoping for that Perry fight, but I don't think it's going to happen next. I don't think so, mate, but if they offered it, I'll take it because, you know, it's like I'm not going to, I haven't got the mentality what Wonderboys can't have got as I don't deserve the fight. Okay, Perry lost.

Okay, everybody loses in this life. I'll fight him. I know I'm coming off a win he's from an awful but I'll still fight on me it'll make for a good fight I'll still fight for me if it doesn't matter I ain't like the rest of these guys

handpicking fights or saying this guy doesn't deserve it you know a fight a fucking fight at the end of day and if you believe you're going to be champion but you'll take 10 fights to get the belt then you don't want to just jump and get one fight and then become a title you know as I say I don't deserve a title shot right now

or maybe after my next fight because you know you've got to end up right you've got to fight a few people, mate. That's how I see it. That's how I believe it. So, you know, let's see what 2018 holds for the gorilla. Well, that is impressive. I know a lot of fighters wouldn't say that or have that mindset.

So kudos to you for that for saying that you would accept that fight. I'm curious to see what happens, Darren. I really am. And I wish you the best. Thanks for coming on the show so many times this year. Happy holidays to you. And keep us posted on what happens as far as your next fight is concerned. I will, mate.

Thanks very much. Merry Christmas to everyone there. Okay. Have a good time. All right, same to you. There he is. Darren Till, the gorilla himself stopping by. He doesn't know what's next. But hey, kudos to him for saying that he would still take that fight against Mike Perry, even though Perry lost to Ponziobio next. Is it Ponziubio next? We'll see what happens. They clearly wanted to make that Wonderboy fight. Wonderboy's team said no. It would be a main event worthy fight for London coming up in March. Stay tuned. All right. One fight that we do know is happening, that we do know is headlining a card on January 14th in St. Louis, Missouri. It's Du Ho Choi against Jeremy Stevens. We were wondering for quite some time, what would be the main event for St. Louis?

Remember, when this fight was first announced just a few weeks back, people were foaming at them out. They were getting all kinds of crazy because on paper, this seems like a great one. And so the UFC listened to that and bumped it up to the main event. We're talking now to Jeremy Stevens.

He's on the phone. Jeremy, how are you? Good. How are you doing, Adam? I'm doing great. Thanks for joining us. Initially, when you were offered this fight, were you disappointed that it wasn't a main event? Was this the kind of fight that you thought should be a main event?

You know, recently I went out and I had to sit down with Dana and we talked about some possible matchups. You know, they offered me the fight with Ricardo Lomas on December 16th. And, you know, I asked them, you know, with some cards falling off on the December 30th card if they could push it to the 30th so that I'd have time to make the weight properly. I didn't want to come in and miss weight. And they offered me that fight.

And then they offered me the Dohoo Choi fight, which is in St. Louis, close to my hometown. And I said, man, both of them fights are really great. But, you know, I was a little bit more intrigued by the Doohy fight. I feel like stylistically, that's even a more exciting fight for the fans to see. And that's what we got. So I'm definitely excited. And, you know, as far as the main event, I figured, you know, they didn't really have a main event

and in my mind I was like well if anybody's gonna be a main event and the fans really want this fight it's gonna be me so I've been training for the five round fight and we're excited to get this opportunity oh wow so you were training for five rounds even before you were told it was a

five round fight yeah of course you know I'm always training and well prepared you know especially especially now later on in my career you know we're always preparing for the best of the best And, you know, that's the future. That's the championship bouts is training for five-round fights.

You know, I don't just go in and spar, you know, two, three rounds and I'm done. Or I don't just go hit pads, two, three rounds, and I'm done. You know, I'm in there training and busting my ass. Like, I'm fighting world champions, you know, I'm fighting at this level. I've been fighting top competitors, top athletes. And with the situation of them not knowing or if anybody was to get hurt, I was like, damn, I could definitely be that guy who slides up into a main event. slot and get a five rounder.

You know, whether they do three, fine, cool. Five round, even greater. That works in my favor. So I was definitely prepared for a moment like this, and I wasn't surprised. What was it about Duhu Choy that interested you even more so than a name like Ricardo Lamas?

Stylistic matchup. The guy's a banger. You know, he likes the fight. You know, he's not a point fighter. He's not somebody who runs. Doho Choi is a guy who bites down his mouthpiece and throws down. And stylistically, that makes for an exciting fight. And, you know, you can get big money getting in brawls and stylistic matchups like that. So, you know, fans are talking about him, you know, you're only as good as your last fight.

And fans are still talking about him, even though he lost. It's kind of like Alex Gustafin thing. You know, he had lost to John Jones, but, you know, he became worldwide famous after that. And everybody was talking about Gustafson. So, you know, that intrigued me to go in there and fight somebody who's, Everybody's hollering about who's knocking guys out. And, you know, as do I. So stylistically, it's a great matchup.

I'm excited for it. Did you watch the Josh Emmett Ricardo Lama's fight on Saturday? And when you saw Lamas get knocked out, did any part of you say, like, damn, that could have been me? No, not at all. I did see the knockout, but no, not at all. You know, that's the fight game, man. One minute you're at top. Next minute, you know, things happen.

You know, there's opportunities like that people will jump in on, you know, anything can happen in May. We've seen it time and time again, you know, where are you thinking someone's going to win and then someone just goes to sleep? And it's a completely opposite person that you thought was going to win. So that's him in May, man. And that's what we sign up for. It feels like there's a bit of a changing of the guard at 1.45, especially this month with Holloway winning and then Brian Ortega winning and recently Josh Emmett winning. It seems like some of the older guys who've been around for quite some time. are getting pushed out by a new crop of guys.

Are you sensing the same thing as well? No, you know, I actually called some of this. It's just matchups, man. That's the way the roller coaster goes, man. You're going to have ups and downs. And stylistically, that's the matchups that people are getting. You know, as far as Albo, you know, I just, I don't think that he's really got it anymore. You know, ever since you saw it, a lot of things have changed.

And that has a lot of guys. You know, you see body physique's changing, you see their winning streaks go down, you see them falling off in the second and third round getting tired, you know, and that's, that's a, this is a clean sport now. And then the level of the playing field's equal. But, you know, props to some of those guys that are stepping up, you know, those guys that you mentioned are monsters. Those guys aren't, you know, Brian Ortega, you can't sleep on that guy.

You know, you got to watch out for that guy. That guy's dangerous. He's got good standups. You got good jiu-jitsu and stylistically is a bad matchup for Cub. And Josh Emmett, you know, he's a lot. the tough guy is coming down from 55. So, you know, you can't sleep on these guys. You know, anybody can get knocked out at any given moment.

You got to be prepared. Whether if you were to get in a street fight or whatever it is, you know, when people are swinging, you know, you got to keep your hands up. You know, that's just, that's fighting. So, correct me if I'm wrong here, you believe that Aldo was using PEDs when he was champion. For sure. Wow. Why are you so confident?

I mean, you know, look at it, look at the performance. performance, you know, look at the physique. You know, he was fighting the fifth round like he was in the first. You know, his, you know, he's, I just, I just do, you know, call me a liar, call me not. I just, I feel like a couple of them guys, even Borrell, I called that out too. Burroughs changed ever since you saw that. So it is what it is, man. I've even fought guys who got popped, you know, like I fought Gilbert.

Look, look what happened. Yeah. You know, so it is what it is. You can call it is, but, you know, I guarantee you if, if I fight you, it's going to be level playing fields. I bet and I win. Do you feel like guys are still cheating? Or do you feel like the playing field is getting a little more?

Guys are cheating. And they're getting popped for it. You know, they just can't get away from it. You know, look at John Jones. Everybody loves a good comeback story. He had a great comeback story and then boom, got popped. So definitely that's the proof that guys are still cheating.

And you can't get away from Yusada. To me, I love it because, you know, I take pride. And no matter what, no matter what happens in my career, I can always look and be like, you know what? I never stuck a needle in my ass. I never took any supplement that's going to help my performance. I never did EPO. I've never done any of that stuff, you know, and it's, you know,

I'm grateful for that. You saw it as came in and level the playing fields out, and you're seeing the results of it, and people are fighting at their natural weight, their natural abilities, and that's cool to see. Very commendable, and I don't know if a lot of fighters could say that. in the past, can you say, have you ever felt tempted? Have you ever met someone who tried to persuade you to do this?

Oh, you could get to this level. You can be, you know, this good. You could become a champion if you did this or that. No, I've never had anybody come up to me. You know, I've had people offer me drugs, but I've never, I've never been like, hey, man, you should do some steroids. No. I take pride in being a natural athlete and someone who can just go in there

and still knock you out. and that's natural abilities. I take pride in that. And, you know, I'm around good people. I don't hang out with people that do drugs or do steroids or anything like that. I hang around good, positive, clean people, and that's the life in the direction that I'm going. And I'm proud to be a clean athlete. Most important of all the subjects, how was your wedding?

Fantastic, man. It couldn't have been better. It was a damn near fairy tell. I had a big, big task. A lot of people didn't know, but from the Moikano fight, I had checked a kick, and on my kneecap, there was just fluid on top of it. It's like for two and a half months,

I got it drained, and then like a day or two later, I got offered the fight on 10.5 weeks notice. I was like 183 pounds, and took everything I had to go in and run and make weight. And I had to swim at first, and I was doing the elliptical. I couldn't really train, way I wanted to until like the last like seven weeks of camp and uh you know it was a process it was a

it was a it was a will of heart and took a lot of uh balls to to do that you know I didn't know if I was going to make weight but I was I knew that every day that I had was it the most important day and a day for me to get my weight down getting better shape and uh I went and did it man I accomplished a heavy task and it was uh it was more of a personal uh journey for me you know can I do it will I do it will I be able to to conquer all these obstacles ahead and I went and did it and it was a fantastic wedding and I had some extra bonus money to, you know, spend on an extra meal. So how much pain were you in in that fight against Gilbert in Edmonton as a result of the knee injury? Oh, I was actually

100% fine. The knee injury was fine. It was just like fluid in my knee. It wasn't like I end up getting a drain. It was not like a, it was not like of a big deal or was it having any problems of the mobility or anything like that. It was just like a pocket of fluid that just kept, that was just stayed in my knee. I tried to compress it. I used to do everything I could. And eventually after two and a half months,

I got it drained and it reacted well. And I was 100% in that fight, as you could tell. And went in there, I got the job though. You said all the right things going into that Gilbert fight, but in hindsight, could tell us, were you a little more nervous about that one because you had the wedding? Like, you didn't want to get seriously injured or anything like that?

Like, was it kind of hanging over your head at all? because you had postponed it, right? And it was coming up in a few weeks. Did it add any more pressure? Yeah, you can say it added pressure, but, you know, what's life in the game without pressure? You know, I do better when my back's against the wall, I feel like. And it's not something that I was really thinking about day to day,

but, you know, it's always in the subconscious mind. But at the end of the day, you know, it's a fist fight. I've been in many wars. I've beaten a lot of guys. I've fought a lot of guys. And at the end of day, man, it's a fist fight, and that's what I was focused on. I was dialed in for that fight specifically, and the only thing that mattered was going there and getting the job done. I wasn't worried about this and that after, who's there, who's going to be there.

You know, I love the fact that it was out of the country. You know, none of my family came. It was just me dropping in with my boys and getting the job done, like some Navy Seals and bouncing out with a fat check. Best part about the wedding. What was it? I mean, I enjoyed every bit of it, you know, it was basically just being in the present moment, you know, seeing my beautiful daughters, my beautiful, my beautiful wife, and just having family around. I just enjoyed the whole process. I didn't look at my phone once.

I, you know, I enjoyed great meals and pictures and conversations with everybody. I was just truly in the moment and really enjoyed it because it was just a lot of hard work that led to that moment. and I just embraced it and you know it went by quick. And Anthony Johnson was at your wedding. I didn't know you guys were friends. Yeah, we've been friends for a long time, man. We fought on a lot of the same cards and he liked my style. I liked his style and we were always boys.

I'd always see him out in Vegas and we'd always click up. He's came visiting me out here in San Diego. He's been a friend of me and my wife for a long time. He remains in contact. He's a big teddy bear, man. He's a great dude. and it was cool to have them there. My family was excited.

Around the same time, just a couple months ago, you know, I think the MMA world was always waiting for you to respond to Connor McGregor and you finally responded to him after that back and forth at the press conference. You posted a picture of yourself and his mother. Why did you do that? Why did you, like a year and a half later or two and a half years later, I think it was. Why did you decide to do that? I don't know

just for just for bullshit you know there's still people that goes around and says who the fucks that guy you know so it was it was just pretty funny he's all funny games I've actually met his parents they're actually really cool people

and it's all fun man it's it was funny you know people was funny people did react to it they get more of a reaction out of that they're knocking somebody out you know that's that's the way the game is these days

and it was just more for fun in games. Does it get annoying at this point? The Who, the FRIU stuff? Like, has it grown to be tiresome? No, because, I mean, you know, I find myself saying it, like, man, who the fuck's that guy? Like, you know, everybody says it. You know, I mean, who doesn't say that, you know?

So, I mean, it is what it is. I don't really, everybody has their own opinions and can say this and that. And it's, uh, capture a lot of tension, but it doesn't, it doesn't bother me at all. So you've embraced it. You know, it's just, it's just what some people say. You know, not too many people come up to me and say it, but, you know, it's all fun. But, you know, when I was in New York, you know, some Irish fans, which I think are the best fans in the world, they're fucking crazy, isn't it? And they show a lot of respect, and they're just, they're amazing fans.

The Irish fans are definitely something different, and they're truly amazing. And, you know, they come up, they're like, Jimmy Stevens, you a legend, you know, and they want pictures. And one of them had an Irish flag of who the fuck is that guy. and, you know, I took a picture with them, and he thanked me for being nice and humble about it, and it was, it's just people, people like that shit, I guess. But from what I understand, that picture with his mom was taken at UFC 189, you could have come back with that right away after he said that.

Why did you hold on to it for so long? I don't know. I guess I'm not a very good shit-talker, you know, I don't know. You know, Connor's pretty woody. He's pretty slick, and that's what makes him good characteristic. He's a good, he's a good entertainer. I guess I just don't talk shit that well. I got to work on my shit talking skills.

Well, yeah, the... But I tell you what, I can fight like a motherfucker, though. Yes, that is true. That is true. That has been proven. You have certainly proven that point. By the way, you mentioned that you met with Dana White recently. He flew out to Las Vegas.

Why was that meeting set? What was the impetus for all of that? I don't want to get in details. It's more personal, and things went well. Okay, you're happy. Yep. You got a new deal? I'll just say I'm happy, my man.

Okay, all right. Well, I think a lot of people are happy that you got this fight against Du Ho Choi. I think a lot of fans in St. Louis were worried about what the main event would be. It seems like everyone's pretty content about it all. So good luck in the fight. Congrats on getting the big fight. And once again, congrats on the wedding just a couple of months ago.

Appreciate the time here today, Jeremy. Yep, thank you, Earl. You're the man, dude. Merry Christmas to you and your guys, and you guys have a great week. Thank you so much. you. There he is. Jeremy Stevens stopping by. Big fight for him on January 14th. That fight is airing on FS1. Doho Choi, important fight in the featherweight division. The featherweight division has been very busy as of light. Two main events, a big one this past weekend in

Winnipeg and then January 14th. So of course, we get a weekend off. Thankfully, this weekend, as far as UFC action is concerned, a chance to breathe. And then it's U.S. UFC 219 on December 30th in Las Vegas. That's Chris Cyborg versus Holly Home. And then there is one weekend off. And then it's back to, it's back to St. Louis, January 14th. That's a Sunday, by the way.

And then, of course, it's UFC 220 on January 20th in Boston. All right. I am very much looking forward to our next guest. Yesterday, when we put out the lineup, a lot of names. Initially, I think there were 11 fighters, ended up being 13. 98%, I would say. I didn't actually count them all, but it seemed like the vast majority of the replies, the comments about the show were about our next guest. His name is Aaron Chalmers. As I said at the top of the show, if you live here in North America, if you're watching us in North America, there is a chance that you may not have.

have heard of Aaron Chalmers. If you live in Europe and specifically in the UK, there is a very, very, very good chance that you have heard of Aaron Chalmers. Aaron Chomers is a reality TV star. He's a part of a show called Jordy Shore. Now, again, you may not have heard of that show here in the United States, but I'm quite certain that you've heard of the show Jersey Shore. That is sort of a spin-off, if you will, of Jersey Shore. It takes place, as you may know, they call people from Newcastle Jordies and the show is also on MTV

and it's very popular. It's still actually going on. The Jersey Shore show, which I think is coming back, sort of died and fizzled out, but this show is still going on and still thriving. Well, what does this mean for our program?

Back in May, Aaron Chalmers, who they have nicknamed the Joker, who's one of the stars of this show on MTV in Europe, made his MMA debut for Bama. And it went quite well. He won via submission in a little over two minutes time. Then he followed that up with a win in September,

and that one lasted just 30 seconds. On Friday, in Newcastle, Bama 33, he won in just 43 seconds via knockout. Now, he is polarizing in the sense that a lot of people think, oh, he's not fighting top competition, oh, he doesn't deserve this shine, he doesn't deserve the spotlight,

all that than some, and I've heard that from a lot of these critics, including some active UK-based fighters who seem to be upset that he's on the program. I think it's a fascinating story. I say more power to him, and he's certainly getting a lot of attention. Just Google his name. You'll see that mainstream media in Europe is covering his budding MMA career. So without further ado, let us go back to the Skype machine and welcome in the Joker. There he is. Aaron Chalmers. Aaron, how are you? I'm good. How's things? Things are great. Wow. This is an interesting story. You are an interesting guy, my man.

We received a lot of feedback for having you on the program. People are very upset. And so let me first start here. You're 3 and O. You're doing well. You just won congratulations. At what point do you think people will start to accept you as just an MMA fighter? Do you think that will ever come or is this just part of the territory considering how you got to this point being on the show? I don't think I'm ever going to be accepted fully as an MMA fighter by certain people. But I'm not in here to please everyone. I'm in here to please myself in this game and please myself. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

If that means upsetting a few people along the way, then so be it. Because if I'm not on the show, it's either them or me. So obviously, I'm going to pick me. Why do you think so many people have a problem with a guy who's just going out there and pursuing a dream, fighting, winning fights? Why do you think this has bothered so many fans and fellow fighters? I really, really don't know. I just think if the boys don't know, no one really wants people to do wealth. That's all I can boil down to.

and as far as as I'm concerned if people concentrate on their own career as much as they did mine then maybe they would start fighting on Bama or all these big shows because they seem to be paying a lot of attention to my career

but not their own like I don't really all I do I just pray and I get in there and I fight what's in front of us but I seem to be getting a lot of hate because of obviously I come from a reality TV show which obviously he gave us the step. Like, the reason I won Bama is because of Jolie Shore.

Obviously, I didn't start in the amateur ranks. I didn't go through that. I jumped straight in the defense. But any open-coming fight, any one of the fight that, I've got off a Dad Bama contract, every one of them would take it. So I don't see why I'm getting so much stick or taking that chance. When did you first start thinking about pursuing a career in MMA?

How long ago was it? It was like so I don't a bit of my time My late teens And I always promised myself I was like I want to have I've always been in MMA I was like I want to fight before I'm 30 So about two years ago I was sitting on a beach with my agent

And I was like Look I really want to fight And so we're chatting about it And he was like well let's get the ball rolling So I wasn't meant to fight on Bama I was meant to fight on the North East show In Newcastle And called Made for the Cage

Which is like a like a normal of these organisations in England. The first one got cancelled, and the second one I was meant to fight on, I couldn't do because of filming commitments. In the midst of all that, Bama got wind of me training, asked us to come for a meeting,

and then it just went from there. So it's not as if I just got a training and got to do it on Bama. I was supposed to fight on a different show, but it just never went through. And then obviously Bama come in with the offer, and like I said, why would I say no it doesn't make any sense

did people close to you whether it's your agent your family your friends perhaps MTV the show did they try to convince you to not do this like hey you're doing well you're successful you're famous why go in a cage and get punched in the face were you getting some some heat for this or were most people supportive? The thing is with me like no one

like no matter what I choose like once I get something in my head like that's it no one can no one can tell us otherwise so once I said I was going to fight, no matter what anyone said, it wouldn't have changed that. So my family and friends are always supportive. So whatever I put my mind to, their support is 100%. And I think as well, because I think people thought I was going to have one fight, lose and never come back. I don't think, obviously, because a lot of people are talking about, like, obviously, we're on the biggest, biggest news in Australia

what in papers in Spain all over Europe but we're getting mentioned everywhere for the last couple of months I don't think it's going down too well with everyone but the way you can look at it is it's bringing a lot more

eyes to MMA so it's too easy to look at it is this going better and is this lasting longer than you expected as well initially did you think this would only last one fight win or lose I'm going to be honest

after the first fight, I was thinking, what am I doing? Like, why am I going in there and putting myself through that? Like, when someone wants to rip me, like, someone literally wanted to rip me head off. And I was like, what am I doing?

I could just go back on the reality show and just drink for a living. Yeah. But obviously, when I started seeing myself, when I started seeing myself progress in training, like, I've only been training properly for nine months. It's not a long time.

I've had three fights in nine months. I'm still very, very new to it. And I'm not, not out there, I'm not asking for title fights. I'm not, I'm not pushing up the ladder. So, I don't see why there's such a big problem. I'm just enjoying myself,

learning along the way and loving every minute of it. Are you surprising yourself as far as how these fights are going? I mean, they're not lasting more than two minutes. You knock the guy out cold this past Friday. I thought Friday was going to go right into

the second and third round. He caught us with a big left hook early on I was thinking can't be taking money more of them so obviously people are like

oh it's not going very long but like I said in there you don't get paid overtime if I say someone hurt

I'm not going to stop and be like oh we need to go to the second as soon as I say him hurt I'm going to jump all over him

and finish the fight that's how it is not going to hit him and stop and think yeah let him group and we'll just

take it to the second round if I say him hurt I'm going straight in for the kill that's that's that's the power it is so the main

criticism that I seem to find is that people aren't so much upset at you, but they seem to be mad at who you're being matched up against. For example, the gentleman who you fought on Friday, Carl Donaldson, O and 1 is an amateur going into this fight, but I've seen some people saying, I have no way of verifying this. I tried that he's a quote unquote white collar boxer that he's like three and 84 as an amateur boxer. Is this accurate? Is he that bad of a fighter? Or was he that bad of a fighter going into the fight? I don't... I'll be honest, I don't match...

Everyone's like, oh, they're going at me, like, I pick the fight. Do you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't have a say, I won't say pick him or not, no, just whoever they put in front. You know, it's, like,

before, because I had a drop out, so that's where that call stepped in. Apparently he's a 12-year boxer, that's all I know. The kid what meant to supposed to fight was five and one. but later on in the thing he was like I want to fight at 70 but obviously I'm like didn't I was it when I'm 77 he's like

if I don't fight it 70 I'm not fighting anymore so he pulled out call stepped in like I say I can only fight what's in front of this and then even now after the fight I called out baby slice because that's a fight that makes sense and everyone's like you can't smash you all over so I can't win I'm calling the people

obviously it's The sea is going to beat us and then I'm still I still get sticks so no matter what I do no matter what I do it's never going to be good enough so I just got to take

you know it is I just take it on the chin I actually I actually find it quite amusing like I'm quite thick skin nothing really bothers us so yeah I'm calling that famous guys so no doubt if that

the fight comes off I'll aim for a whole load of abuses again and if I win that God knows what would be said after. So like I say, I can't win. We'll get to Baby Slic in a second, but I find the criticism to be befuddling because, again, as you're saying,

you're not picking the matchups and you don't seem to be making a mockery of the sport in the sense that you're going out and getting arrested or doing things that are disrespectful towards the sport. So it just, I have to say, it just seems like jealousy. It seems like people are upset

that you're getting this attention, that you're getting this, this shine, that Bama is pushing you, that you're selling tickets, and they're not. That's all it really, it really comes down to that, to me, from my perspective over here on this side of the pond. Do you feel like that's what it is?

Like, here are guys who maybe have been fighting for quite some time who aren't getting the attention, who may be deserving of the attention as far their skills are concerned, but they don't necessarily move that needle. Do you feel like that's the case, that they're just jealous of you? Do you know, I don't really like to say people are jealous of us, like, everyone at me at me to,

I'm not like a, I'm just a normal lad that's obviously took a chance that's being given like any of these fighters would. Yes, I kind of jumped the ladder by getting on Bama. But again, it's not my fault. The offer is the contract. Why on earth would I say no

if I wanted a fight? It's a huge job. But this is the way you can look at it. You've got two people that have fighters. One sells 100 tickets. One sells 2,000 tickets. You own the business. who you're going to, who you're going to pick.

I'm not asking for a title shot. I'm just fighting on the show in doing what I've enjoyed. You know what I mean? That's the way you can look at it. But yeah, a lot of people say it comes out with jealousy and obviously there's so many skillful fighters in the UK

that should be on the show over me. But they're not. And that's it. Like, there's plenty, there's hundreds of fighters in the UK that are more skilled than me. Hundreds and now, I hope only admit that,

but I haven't really got the pull on the social media side or the press side as I have. Right. So that's... Bama, I use Bama as much as Bama used me. I get a fight on Bama because that's what I want to do. Bama, reap the rewards of all the press that comes with it, if that makes sense.

Sure, sure. How many fights left on your contract with Bama? well after every fight I thought every fight they renew it Wow it's a one-fight deal It's cool No no it was three-fight deal at first Then three got scrapped after the first fight to five

Then after that So first fight was free Then after the second fight They give us a new five contract Five-five-by contract And then after the fight on Friday The Spoke in the Adon says we need to sit down again So God knows how many I'm going to get tied in it.

But like I see, it's one of them things. As long as I'm enjoying it, then I want to keep doing it. Right. But I think if I lose, then that's it. I'm going to disappear. But we'll lose all draw. It doesn't bother me. I'm in this purely for the experience.

Will lose all draw. I'll always be coming back. So you called out Baby Slice. He's on the Bellator roster. How could this happen? I called out Baby Slice. slice, because I'll be honest, Faber's Place, to me,

it's a, it's a big, it's a good fight, but also it's a big, it's a big, it's a big period of fight. Obviously, I'm 30, and I can openly admit I'm never going to be a world champion, so why don't I chase them big a periodies? Hmm. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's a, is he,

is he, two and one? Yeah. I think, I think he's two and one, I'm three and all. Both, I think we're both quite early in my career without an amateur record. code. He's quite a big name on Bellator and well-known in America. Obviously, well-known all over Europe

because of the Geordie Show and Bama. Bama, Bellator do do joint events. Okay. So it kind of makes sense. Do you think it's going to happen? Yeah, I think you could happen. Yeah. Like 90% share I could happen. Wow. How soon?

The thing is, if you don't ask, you don't get. Yeah, that's true. rather than beat around the bush, that's who I wanted to fight, so that's who I called out, and I knew where I called him out, I was going to get stick. So hopefully middle of next year, later in the year,

we can get that ball rolling. Does that fight have to be in Newcastle to be truly successful, or do you think anywhere in England is all good? Nah, yeah, anywhere. I think anywhere. Wow. Maybe London.

Because Bellator pulled big crowds. And you mean, obviously, babysat he's pulled big crowds because he's, obviously, he's well known as well. So yeah, that's the fight I've asked for. You tweeted a picture of you with a stack of money and kind of talking on the phone, and that seemed to have pissed some people off as well. So you don't have a problem stirring the pod, right? Do you know what it is? If I'm going to get called, if I'm going to get cold names, I may as well play along to it.

Okay. I mean, if they're going to see I'm missing that, I may as well play up to what I'm being called. So the pitcher, yeah, the picture was, we're just having a little lap around after the fight. I had a few drinks in my post. How much did you get paid for that fight on Friday? Oh, I can't be discussing that.

Why? Why is it so secretive? But the thing Do you know it is What like obviously people don't understand us though My agent Literally he puts like All the promotion and stuff together Like ticket sales

And I think we've done something like Me alone for Friday Night's fight I think we've done over Two and a half thousand tickets Which is not bad Wow yeah Two and a half thousand people To put the bums in the seat is

That's a lot that's a lot of people have put in, you know what I mean? So, like, we'll work hard on all sides of it to try and,

to try and obviously make money and, like, get sponsors and just do the best we can, violets, yeah? And so are you still on the Jordy Shore?

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, we haven't filmed for, well, we filmed a while ago, but I was only in there for a week, so obviously in the minute

it's been working because I can balance it too because I haven't been filming and then I've been in time, so it's quite work, it's working, but I think obviously I've got a girlfriend I've got a girl friend and stuff now

and I'm more settled down so I think like obviously and I'm 30 I think the show is coming to an end for me Oh Because of MMA? I've been on there four years Sorry Because of MMA?

Not just because of MMA It's just like I see it Obviously the show is known for going out Getting drunk And obviously if you're seeing a Jersey show Yeah Like pulling girls and stuff But obviously now I've got a girlfriend

friend, she's got a daughter, a young daughter who obviously looks up to me as, like, a father figure. So obviously, I have to make the right decisions for her and myself and a daughter. So I don't think it's good to be going on there, getting drunk when I've got a girl friend with a young daughter at home. Yeah. By the way, who is your girlfriend? Because I see all these articles about who you're dating. You've dated almost everyone on the reality TV show scene, it seems like, in England. What's her name?

Can I get her name? Is that possible? Yeah, she's called Talia. Talia, Talia, Oatwey. She's not in the reality TV scene. She's just a normal girl. Oh, wow. Was she at the fight on Friday? Yeah, yeah. She's literally in camp.

She cooks us all my food. She's one of my biggest, biggest supports. Like, she's there for us all, like, through thick and thin, and she helps us so much when it comes to camps. And are you surprised? Because Jersey Shore is no longer on television here in the United States. Why has Jordy Shore enjoyed such a long run in the UK? Do you know what I think it's just because it's more like a young thing like 15, 16, 17.

It's not even just the UK. Like we're on it, we're on in like over 80 countries. Oh, wow. We're massive. We're huge. We're huge in Brazil, Australia, New Zealand. Like, you walk down the street in Australia and you're getting mobbed. Just like it's crazy.

Wow. You know what I mean? Like, you walk down the street in Italy. He walked on the street in Italy and it's like, it's just madness. I'm just thinking, why are you going so crazy? Like, all I do is get drunk on television. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's madness.

Do you know what I mean? It's actually madness. Prior to this, you were working at an oil rig, right? Yeah, I was, I was a scaffolded out on oil rigs for, I was a scaffolded up for 10 years, but I was an oil rig worker for five years. And how did you get on the show? That's what I'm saying. People think.

My friend was on it. they just asked because obviously they didn't have anyone that had any tattoos and stuff. So they said they were looking for someone with a different look. Wow. And then there I was. Amazing. The tattoos did it. How many do you have?

I've been quite looking. I've got everywhere from my right leg, but everywhere has covered. Why not on the right leg, by the way? It's gets started at the end of December. That's my last bit of skin. So I've been waiting for the right artist. So eventually I found one and we're starting in the end of December. Okay.

I cut you off earlier. what did you want to say there when I was asking you about how you gone on the show? Do you remember or no? Oh, I just said I was lucky. Like, I've been quite lucky. Like, I just had one interview

and I was like, yeah, we're on the show. So I was quite, being really lucky to be fair. Okay. The fight I really want to see is you versus the situation. I feel like that's the fight. I mean, he looks quite big on telly,

don't you think? Yeah, I feel like you could take him. Yeah, I think I could. He's all show no go. You know, he's just got the muscles, but he doesn't really have the technique like you have. Yeah, he's got the guns, but they can't help you. Have you ever met him? I mean, you may look into it.

I haven't. I haven't. I've never met any of the ones from America, to be fair. Oh, really? How many spin-offs are there, by the way? I think, on our Jersey Shore, not doing it, just filming again, though. Yeah, yeah, they're coming back. Yeah, they're coming back.

We've got some rivalry. No, what did you say? How many... How many spin-offs are there? Do you know? Of Geoley. No, of Jersey. Well, Jersey was the first.

How many different versions? I'd even know there was one in the UK until I found out about you. Oh, there's... Yeah, there's Jersey Shore, Jorley Show. There's Warsaw Shore, which is Poland. There's... There's super show. That's like Spain.

That's a few different country. Italy, Spain. something else in his Acapulco show or something Oh yeah wow

That is hilarious That is unbelievable And why do they call people from Newcastle Jordes Um That's just where we're from Newcastle, I don't know

Actually I don't even know Oh wow That's just what we've called I know But what does that come from I'm going to have to Google it When I put this phone down I feel like that would have

come up at some point, but I guess not. I don't know. It's like, it's like obviously in, like in London in England, like people from down south are called copies. Yeah. It's weird. I don't know me. I really, like you put us on the spot there and I really don't know. And just so I

have a clear, X on the beach no longer, you're no longer a part of that, right? That was just one series. That's when the ex-girlfriend comes to the beach and confronts you. That is when you have the biggest nightmare you will ever have. But how do they pick?

You have so many ex-girlfriends. How do they pick one to come? Or do they all come in a line? No, they just pick the most psychopathic one. Okay. And drop her in. And it just literally caused me in him. Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's not something I would be looking to do again because it was an absolute nightmare. Okay. I thought I could handle it. Now, seeing that ex-lunatic girlfriend walk out of the water is. it makes your heart stop a little bit. And before I let you go, favorite MMA fighter of all time? Who's your favorite MMA fighter?

Favorite MMA fighter of all time is Anderson Silver. Wow, okay. So you've been watching the sport for quite some time. You grew up a fan? Yeah. Back when Anderson Silver I used to do my time, like I thought, the striking level of him was just unbelievable.

Like back in the day, when he was in, like, obviously when he first started, or he's first UFC fight against Chris Leibbon or he demolished him. Just think for someone to be around for so long at that level is just unbelievable. Wow.

And have your thoughts on him changed because of some of the PED stuff? Nah, nah. Because obviously, what is he was, if he's not the most, if he's not got more title defenses ever, I'll be fell. Well, Demetius Johnson just beat him.

Yeah, but to be at that level for so long, obviously, he's getting a bit older now, Anderson, isn't he? But at that, no one at that time, like no one, no middleweight would have a compete. Okay. And the team that you train with? What's the team name? UTC, UTC, Outter Training Center in Birmingham. You're happy there? You're not looking to move or come to the States or anything like that? No, I'm quite happy there. obviously I would like to come over at the state to do some wrestling a.k.a. Or somewhere along those lines.

That'd be great. Yeah, I would love to come over. We've been looking at it early next year to come over and get some wrestling done. Just really try and gain as much experience as possible. But yeah, the state is definitely on the list next year. Well, Aaron, I must say, I don't get the hate, my man. I really don't. You're doing your thing. You're respectful. you seem to be humble.

You're saying all the right things. You're asking for a step up in competition. I don't understand why people are getting mad at you. If anything, get mad at Bama for giving you the competition that you're getting. But also, you're O and one, you know, your O and O, you're 1 and O. you're 1 and O. You're 2 in O. What do they expect?

You to fight 10 and O guys? I mean, you got to start small. Go look at some boxing, you know, look at Mike Tyson's early record. You know, like you got to start small. So I don't get, I don't understand it. I don't think you have your deserving of this hate. And I'm going to back you, my man. well it's funny because a lot of people

a few people that will see it like seeing stuff about like oh he's fighting this and fighting that we went back some of the lads that were seeing it we went back to their records when they were one and two fights and they were fighting people with no amateur experience zero zero but it doesn't really matter because for instance right I could fight

I could fight a 10 in a 10 in a old man and beat them and they would still it would be like it's a fix sure sure sure no matter what I can't win ever so like I say let everyone say

whatever they want like I don't go out there I don't get into like Twitter rouse or online rouse I let people have to say literally it doesn't affect this and I just go about my business and do just do what I'm doing

and enjoy it and if that's upsetting people then then so be it but I think people just need to concentrate on their own career and get on with it but I think I did step into the game

and part and parcel was stepping into it was going to be hatred or getting grief and that's exactly what I'm doing but it doesn't really affect this doesn't phases actually find I find it quite amusing hence the money picture because people are getting them out so I just

obviously thought we would annoy them a little bit more and it works certainly does I see I'm not like that like the money the money pitcher wasn't from the fight obviously the money pitcher would just got the money out just to take I mean like it was just

like I say but it was only a joke but some people take it really like really into heart yeah you're taking the piss yeah you're going to give us yeah you're going to give us grief like fucking hell obviously I'm going to I'm going to like obviously

have a bit of a lot with you about it but the pitcher didn't go down too well either so but it's all funny I'm not home in anyone. Keep doing your thing, Aaron. Continued success. Congratulations on your early success. And I hope you get that fight against Baby Slice.

That would be quite the scene, I think, overseas. So thank you very much for the time here today. And again, congratulations on now being 3 in O in your MMA career. Thank you very much, mate. I appreciate us. Thank you. All right, there he is. Aaron Chalmers, the Joker, they call him.

Again, I don't see what the big fuss is about. Starting his career seems to be doing it the right way, slowly but surely getting his feet wet. I understand the jealousy. I can understand saying, hey, I've been doing this for 15 years. I should be in that spot. But at the end of the day,

we know this is the entertainment business. And if you can sell tickets, and if you can get publicity, and if you can get mainstream media talking about you, there's 12 fights on a card. This is CN Punk part two. The only difference is he's winning the fight. And he's not fighting maybe a Mickey Gaul, so to speak,

but he's getting that attention. and for Bama it seems to be it seems to be you know proving to be worth their while and so I think a fight against Baby Slices is a step up

big name he's coming out of a great camp has fought some tough guys they have that relationship as he said with Bellator why not we'll see what happens interesting guy interesting story cool to talk to him and shed some light we'll see how his career progresses okay another big story this past weekend

a lot of people including myself we're very much looking forward to the debut of Pietro Manga. Big star coming out of the UK as well, undefeated as well. He was going to make his UFC debut on just a couple of weeks' notice against Tim Elliott. Unfortunately, he did not get to the scale. Fortunately, he failed to make weight and the fight did not come to fruition. So I wanted to talk to him about that. And so we'll welcome him now onto the show via the magical Skype.

There he is, Pietro Manga himself, stopping by. Unfortunately, we're meeting under these circumstances, Pietro, but I do appreciate you coming on the show here today. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's great to be on the show for the first time. By the way, most important question right off the bat,

are you a fan of the Jordy Shore? Do you know what? I've never seen an episode of Jordy Shore in my life. I'm not really in the house between 6, 8 o'clock when your TV programs are on. I'm usually in the gym, but I see what he's doing, and I appreciate it. I respect it. The guy's going out there and fighting.

You can't. Yeah. You can't throw him under the bus. He's doing his thing. Everybody else would do the same thing. And he comes out banging. I've seen his last fight. He comes out swinging.

That is right. Fair play to him, as they say overseas. Okay, so let's talk about your situation. First things first, like here we are Monday evening in the UK. How are you feeling? Because it sounded pretty scary. Kidney problems. Could it make the weight?

Physically, how are you feeling right now? Full of jet lag. Grogger, feel like crap. Kidneys, I mean, I'm getting back pain. lower back pain, it's moving around my back, but I don't really want to, you know, I don't want to bring out too much till I don't really want to blame it on that and blame it on illness and stuff. But yeah, I've got a few things going on.

I was in the doctors today, having a few checks, and I'll see where that goes, but hopefully it's, you know, it's something and nothing. I feel like shit in a sense of I wanted to make that walk and I wanted to make the fight. All the other things are secondary to me at the minute, and it shouldn't be the health, but the most important thing to me was making that walk and meeting him in the middle of the oxen and fighting. So when you accepted this fight,

just a couple weeks ago, a short notice fight against a very tough competitor at 125 pounds, Timelyt. How much did you weigh when you accepted the fight? I was around about the morning.

I was around 152 and then I took on some food obviously throughout the day and it was quite a late email that received. So I was between 152 and 155. So I was but obviously

I was working to gain weight for a couple of weeks prior to that just just for the ultimate fire at 1.45, I'd already applied. I sent the application forms off. I was, my tickets were booked, and my visa was done. I was flying out on the following Tuesday to do the trials. That was why the scales are a little bit top-heather. And from what I understand, you were enjoying a succulent steak when you got the call, right? Or at least the email that you'd be making, right?

Yeah. It doesn't seem so succulent anymore, but at the time, it was a juice, or it was medium rare, it was perfect. It's just, it was amazing. So did you have, like, did you say, look, I'm about to try out for this show. I'm trying to add, you know, some muscle here. I'm trying to go to 145. Why take that, like, this is not the introduction that I want on short notice to cut this weight. Did you have any kind of pause and rethink this? Not really.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime. It's something I feel like I've warranted for a few years. And for whatever reason, there's only been short noise fights on the table for the division for, in the past I've been offered one I was injured then I was offered one for New Zealand and actually Tim Elliott got that fight because we was a little bit slow

getting it wrapped up and then this time I'm like look I'm not going to get this opportunity again I don't want the UFC thinking I'm playing games here and I'm waiting for everything to fall into place for me it's a fight if this is my only way in I'm going to dogfight here and I'm going to find a way to get into that cage

and unfortunately I fell at the last hurdle but that was my mind frame going in it was like look forget about tough I was only going down the route of tough to get in at 125 eventually anyway. I was going to fight my way through the house and earn a contract at 125 and look to run through that division.

Where I find myself now is a little bit in limbo. I got off of the fight and it was like, listen, I'm dropping everything and I'm going to give it 100%. There's obviously a lot of weight to drop. The situation wasn't ideal, but I didn't want to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime. When did you start to get worried that it might be a tougher cut than expected

that you may not make the weight? honestly, the Wednesday. Right up until the Wednesday, it was falling off because I was fasting. I was light cardio, the food intake was low, the water, I was worried all the way through it. But the closer I was getting, the more confident I was getting.

And then I made a few misjudgments on the Wednesday. Overtrained, got a little bit, my feet got a little bit itchy. I felt a little bit too fresh. Woke up Thursday morning, I was in a world of pain. The weight hadn't budged much, and I was,

our alarm bells started to ring and I'm thinking this is going to be much more brutal than than I first anticipates it. Okay. And so then you start to have that, is this the toughest cut? I mean, have you ever experienced anything as difficult as this? No, I mean, I thought my last fight was on Bellatoro. I weighed in at 124.5. I did three pound in the sauna on a sweat.

I turned up fight week at 128, 129 point something. I was, I prepared properly, but that's when I've got a bit of notice. And, you know, I've got a training camp that I can go through. I dot the T's, I dot the eyes across the T's, I make sure I'm on point, I'm a professional. I always come in on point and I'm coming in shape. And this time I think I just asked a little bit too much of my body, and I've only got myself to blame. So from what I heard, you got down to 131, correct? Yeah, 131, yeah.

That was 1.34 the morning. I started the cut the night before because I was panicking. I was like, we're going to have to start early, started the night before, got a couple of pound off, getting stomach cramps, getting pain. had to stop, went out of it again in the morning, got to 131 and borderline collapsing on the floor, I couldn't really, the doctor came and he basically said, you know, we can't let you do this and I really appreciate the, you know, the support and the professionalism from the USC medical team because I hate to think what I would have been

trying to attempt. There was no quitting me, I wasn't being that guy that a couple of days before the fight he gets sick or he gets the flu. I was going out on my shield. I want to No one was stopping me He made that way And when he came in And I seen him And he did some checks and tests

I could just see it in his face He was He wasn't there He was worried And he made sure it stopped there Did you ever pass out? I can't really remember To be honest

Wow I can't really remember I didn't know that my team also alert As soon as my team alerted The USC officials They was on it straight away And obviously I was trying to Sway them not to

But they've also got My best interest at heart and it's a bit of a tone situation for them because they want me to make the fight and I wanted more than anything in the world but they didn't want to see me suffer with health problems and potential long-term problems

which I'm hoping that I've managed to avoid thanks to my team and the USV medical team. Do you remember when they told you the fight was being cancelled and if so, do you remember how you felt? Yeah, I was trying to sneak back in the bath to cut some more weight. The USV doctor was in the room

and the phone rang and I kind of stopped. And I was like, just got to just get a little bit more off. And he was like, hey, hey, Pietro, you're done, man. He's not taking the fight. And I was like, he was like, come here, we need to sit you down. We've got a process to do you now. Some medical checks, rehydrate you slowly. He's not taking the fight out.

At first, we got told that if you're 131, if you're 5 pound over the 126 limit, the fight can happen. So it was like, okay, I was checking my way, kind of sneaking around the bathroom, trying to figure something out. and then the phone rang again and it was the doctor he said hey I tell you Tim Elias just refused to take

the fight at a catch wait don't take another step you're done and I just broke down I was devastated I was in tears I can't really remember it's very blurry the whole the whole

phase of events but from what I remember I was just absolutely devastated for the final hurdle right right do you blame Tim Elliott for not accepting the fight No, he's his own man

He makes his decisions I don't blame him at all He's got his own reasons I respect him as a fighter He came in on point He did what he had to do The only thing I don't like Is the way he's carried himself after

I said all You know As soon as I came around It took me a couple of hours I said it's not his fault It's not on him It's on me I took the fight

I said I could make the way I take full responsibility for it But what I don't like Is the way he's trying to throw The UFC under the bus And they sourced him A new opponent A credible opponent

They tried to do everything And their power To make the fight happen for him and not only that, when the fight got announced, it seems to be a crazy hype about it, which was brilliant for the both of us. He's going on, now saying Joe Benavides told him this,

told him I'm an easy fight. He only fights for money, but then he got off with the 30% purse. He didn't want it. He didn't even try and negotiate and saying the UFC should pay and this, should pay. I just don't like the way he's carrying himself,

complaining. He did have the opportunity to take the fight if he wanted. In his opinion, his team's opinion, it was the wrong thing to do. I respect that. but then draw the line there, let's leave it out of that. Let's see one day down the line if we bump into each other, you know, in the cage. But don't start throwing all these excuses out why you deserve this and why you deserve that.

I couldn't even stand up. Don't tell me you didn't have it in yourself that you thought he could beat a man that couldn't even stand up straight. Come on. I just don't like the way he's been carrying himself since the chain of events. In a way, is it a blessing that he said no to the fight considering the state that you were in? Yeah, most certainly. I don't think the fight would have, I'm a realist, I don't think the fight would have gone well for me.

Right up until the fight week, I'm thinking, I'm probably going to put this kid away. He's giving me a full camp and I'm finishing my side around. I truly, honestly believe inside a round I finished with a holes in his game and the mistakes he makes and the misjudgments and the mischews from the first belly makes, I believe I finish the fight. Stylistically, it's perfect for me. But under these circumstances, I was prepared for a dog fight or war.

when I woke up Thursday, Friday morning, cutting weight, I kind of had a word of myself before, you're going to get, you're going to get beaten up in this fight, but I'd have gone in there, my heart on my sleeve, thrown down and give it everything I got, and it would have been one way or the other. I would have introduced myself to the UFC and it's gone on from there.

If you were in his shoes, would you have accepted the fight against you, who's five pounds over? Would you have done it? I mean, I'm new to the UFC, so I don't have the same, maybe the same, casual kind of persona he puts across.

I know he's not happy in the UFC anyway. He's been saying for years I've seen stuff in the past he's not happy with this. He feels like he's been screwed over here, screwed over there. He's got family to feed.

He's got kids to feed and he's not being paid enough. You know, I'm sure he can always go and fight somewhere else. I personally, if you're in the UFC, you don't say no to a fight. I didn't say no to trying to make that weight. There was no stopping me.

I would have gone out, stupidly, stupidly, would have gone out and pushed it as far as I could. But within five seconds, boom, no, I'm not buying that guy. And that's entirely up to him. You know, no one's blaming him. He's not at fault.

He made the weight. He came in and made the weight. It's just the series of events after that. I personally would have took the fight. I will say this. I have felt for quite some time that if you make weight and the fight doesn't come to fruition, that you should, that there should be a case to be made for not only the show money, but the win money as well.

And it should probably be put in writing because the UFC doesn't have to do it. But look, the money was already allocated. They're not losing out on ticket sales or anything like that. It's not a main event fight so people can refund. They were going to give it to someone. I do think he has a point that, that, you know, it would be nice if they did that. Now, it's not in writing. Your fault for not putting it in writing.

But I don't think that's the craziest idea of all time. No, it's not. No, no, it's not. I mean, it's fair enough. You didn't get paid, right? The windbone, he white is, I didn't get paid of being. I'm a minus. I lost money.

I paid for my medicals. I didn't, I've not asked any of my sponsors for a pay. and I don't plan on doing so. I'll take full responsibility for this. He got paid. He didn't get paid as much as he feels. He should have got paid. And I appreciate what he's saying.

I just don't appreciate the way he's carried himself. As a professional athlete, he should be representing the sport and the company in a better light. I just don't appreciate the way he's been speaking about the whole situation come out of all these reasons why he'd have won and he should get this. You should get a little bit more yet. But, you know, it is what it is. Have you been assured another opportunity in the UK,

UFC? No, not yet. I've not spoke with the UFC. I just apologize and made my case and I'll be ready. I'll be ready for whatever comes, whatever opportunity or whatever fight, they feel that I'm stolen the contracts and whatever they feel that's right for me. Then I would love another opportunity to prove my worth and just show, that's why I was willing to go in there feeling like I was because even if I've shown 10% of what I can do in a fight, the fans would have loved it. They would have, they wouldn't know that I'll bring guys to this division, I'll bring attention to this division, a division that nobody wants to watch.

I'll come in and I'll light this division up. And that was my intentions whole hard on Saturday night. Did you have any face time? I didn't go ahead. Did you have any face time with Mick Maynard? Who's the matchmaker for the division? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he understanding?

And just took, yeah, I just told him, you know, I was just honest and told him from the heart how I truly, I would never have took the fight and wasted everybody's signs but didn't think would make the way. I just didn't judge my body correctly. Things happened. And I also told him I didn't want to be that guy that started coming out with the illnesses excuses and this and that.

So I just kept pushing. And before I knew it, the fight was declined at a catchweight and the fight was pulled. So yeah, I told him that. And hopefully, you know, he's seen it's sincere and I come to fight. I told him that before he even mentioned an opponent. He was like, can you make weight?

I was like, yeah, I'm coming to fight. Things went from there. Is it safe to say you'll never take a fight on this short notice again? Yeah, it is, but at the same time, in the context, I walk around usually at 145, and I've been walking around at 145, I'd make, I'd meet 125 on the nose, you know.

I walk around in camp, 62, I don't like to walk around too heavy. I've trained abroad with, you know, Alfa Mail and over with Mark Henry and Frankie, and I've seen some big flyweight, it's bigger than me. I don't personally like to cut a lot. I've never trusted my body to cut a lot, as at the weekend shown, and right and not trying to,

trying to cut loads of weight and I walk around 62, 63, 64 tops in camp and I can walk around comfortably at 145 out of camp. What I was trying to do was I felt like I was frustrated and I'd email Nick Maynard in September. Look, I'm ready to go. I didn't hear anything back. I've seen the tough trials and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to grow a set of balls and I'm going to go in two weight classes up and just see what I can do. But the first thing was getting past the trials now. If I go in there 145 walking around, they're going to look at me and they're going to be like, man, you're too small, he's too light. You can't come in this house, this weight.

So the agenda was put a little bit of weight on. It was uncomfortable. I didn't enjoy training at 1-50s. Going the house, get through the trials, then I can walk around the way I feel best fighting out because I'm going to be fighting regular anyway. In this week to two weeks, I get an email for the opportunity I've been waiting for the last three years of a fighter 125.

I couldn't turn that down. I couldn't say that. No, I understand. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't live myself knowing that I've got no regrets. I gave it everything. and give it absolutely everything. What was that flight?

I mean, going from here. Going from Winnipeg back home to England, what was that flight like? It was uncomfortable with Tim Elliott sat two rows behind and there. Come on, really? You know, we both on the same flight. Oh, my God. I've not, he didn't say shit. I've not said, I've not tweeted him anything.

I've not said nothing to him. I've got nothing to say to him. You know, if you put it on me and it came up and we would have words, but he didn't. And I know he's talking all this shit online. I mean, like, that's, what I respect about him is he's, he doesn't, he's not fake. He doesn't try him to pretend it's something he's not. He's got something to say.

He's got something to say. But then the last couple of days, he had so much shit to say. I walked past him in the airport. He didn't say shit. Wow. He sat two rows behind me on the plane. He could just give me a tap and go, what's up? What's the score?

Why are you taking this fight? Why are you wasting my time? And then we can go from there. But, you know, I've got nothing to say to the guy. And when I've seen him face to face, I had nothing to say. but, you know, I thought he might have a bit of a set of balls and maybe give me his peace of mind. I'd respect that. Is that the dream fight now?

Do you want to settle the score with him? Oh, hey, that's a, that's a, that's a, me and him have been talking for years. I used to tear into pieces on Twitter years ago when I wasn't in the UFC, but I didn't take it too serious because, you know, it was, I were in the UFC. There was no, no chance that fight really happening. I was under contract with Bellator. He just won the ultimate fighter. I was like, man, you know, you can't talk your way out of a paper bag. you need to go and learn some social media skills

and learn how to come across properly. We had a bit of backwards and forth. So he was always on the radar. So I was actually, when I seen his name getting mentioned, stylistically, perfect for me. It would walk straight into all my traps. You can't talk himself out of a paper bag. And I just think that it's a guy who's high up in the division.

He's managed to beat over guys and go the distance with the champion. So it was a win-win for me, and it was a lose-lose to him. Hence why I think when the catchweight and the heavens opened up this fight could get called off. He was like, I'm taking my money, I'm running, and I'm going to fight again next month and make more money. That's honestly what I believe. And obviously, in the meantime, any other bonuses, the person, you know, the win bonus

or any other compensation he can get, he's going to go hunting for, because apparently he can't put food on his table for his daughter, his children, so he's, so he's been tweeting. Would you like to be on that card in London? Would that be another dream? Oh, yeah. Oh, that would be a huge. My plan was to come here on short notice, do what I can do.

Entertain the fans in London and really show what high-level flyweight mixed martial arts looks like. And that is the dream. Anybody, I don't think it'll be Tim Elliott. I think, to be honest, meaning we've got a nice little rival rebuilding now, something the division needs. The champion isn't saying shit. He doesn't speak. He just plays on his Xbox.

And we've got Tim Elliott talking shit now, and I'm here. So, I mean, there's no British flyweight. There's no European flyweight. There's no Manchester fighters now. that Michael Bisping's about to fight and retire. If they all want to hate me, like they all hate Michael Bispin, I'll come into this division and one by one,

I'll knock every one of them over. That's absolutely fine. I'll go through the lot of them. I've sparred the top flyweight. I've trained with the top flyweight. It's nothing new to me. What's new to them is that I can wrestle like fuck and they just don't realize that yet. It's interesting.

I was told that you're confident that you're brash, all this stuff. We started this interview and you were somewhat subdued, obviously, because it wasn't the best of circumstances. Now here's the brashness coming on. Now it's coming out. The Italiano is coming out. You know, I'm just, I'm not going to, yeah, I'm not going to, I'm just going to be

myself. Obviously, I'm taking responsibility. I don't want to take the light away from that, and I'm not making excuses. I'm a man, and I'll take whatever rap I have to take for this. And I'm at fault, the bottom line. I said it could make the weight. I said it could make the fight. And for whatever reason, I'm not blaming illness.

This isn't blaming, collapsing, trying to make weight. Then in that case, like Tim said, many shouldn't have took the fight. but you ask any of a man who's got the biggest opportunity of his career. I've been training since martial arts since I was six years old. It's not so much cockiness. It's more just passion. I'm so passionate about this. And I'm so frustrated seeing these half-wit fly weights, exchanging positions,

making mistakes, left, right and center. And I'm thinking, God, put me in there and just let me finish a couple of these and draw some attention to this division. Pietre, I wish you the best, man. I know it didn't go your way and I was really looking forward to your debut. but I'm happy to hear that you're feeling better. Hopefully you make a full recovery and that we get to see your real debut

on a little more notice. You get some time to prepare, do things the right way, and then we get to see what you can do in this flyweight division because I know a lot of fans were really excited and buzzing about what was to come in Winnipeg. So thanks for the time after a long journey home. I appreciate it. Yes, go ahead.

Before I go, I just want to say, regardless of everything that's happening this week, I just want to send my thoughts and prayers out to Tim L.A. and X.m., because I know they've had some bad news recently with his coach. So I just want to, you know, it's a sport at the end of the day. I just want to wish him best and send him to thoughts and prayers out to him, his family and all his team out there in Vegas. Well done. Well done, my friend. Thank you very much. And we'll talk soon. Thank you so much for coming on the show. See you soon. All right. There he is. Petromango.

Remember the name, as I said. I know it didn't work out for him, but still believe that he can be a player in the UFC. Once again, a lesson to be learned. Maybe don't accept that fight on short notice, but certainly the guy who's been waiting for that call, you finally get that call. It's hard to say no. All right, let's end the show on this note. There's no better way to end the show this week. After all these guests,

the talk of the weekend was Hafelde dos Santos, came into Winnipeg, massive opportunity against a former champion. And in my opinion, as I've said, a couple times today, he skunked Robbie Lawler, five rounds to none, an amazing performance, a virtuoso performance. Who saw this coming at 170?

I know who saw it coming. Hafeld dosangos saw it coming. And he's kind enough to be joining us on the phone right now. now. Hafeel, how are you? Hi, how are you, man? I'm good. Congratulations on the win.

Be honest with me now, Hafeel. Are you surprised by all this? Did you expect to do this well this soon at 170? Yeah, man. I knew, man. I still have a lot of me.

You know, I wasn't fighting at my back and lightweight. And I think, you know, they move up with the one of the decision that I haven't made. I wasn't happy. I'm fighting at light. with now I'm happy I find out my weight and I'm just happy man enjoying my life and enjoy back

competing and man I like I've been saying on my interviews while I'm still believing I can be the best and by the time that I'm still believing it I'll keep competing by the time I stop believe on it I will quit I will retire you know that's why I keep competing because I know it can be the best is there a part of you that feels considering how good you're looking that you did this earlier, that you never even went down to 155, or that you did, that you moved up, you know, a lot sooner? Yeah, I think, like, when I, when I had the belt, when I defend my tower for the first time against Donald Seroni, the fight with Lola was on my mind already, you know, like I was

trying to make that fight happen, but in the end, after Serrani's fight, because we were champion at the same time, and after Serrani's fight, the cross. corner fight came up and then I decided to want lightweight but you know these things didn't went to my way things did went the way that God wants and it leads me you know I took me two losses you know and but my plan was to move up like after the Seroni fight that was my plan but you know unfortunately things didn't went my way but you know it was worth for my best. Today I look back and I feel that I had to lose those fights so I, you know, I went, they moved on the right time. It's so fascinating and it's interesting that you bring that up because

last year couldn't have gone any differently for you, right? I mean, oh and two, you lost your belt and then you reinvent yourself at 170 and of course how, you know, how you lost out on the Connor fight that was a big payday. Were you worried before this, you know, all started back in June against Tarek Safedin? Were you worried that you wouldn't be able to rebound? Were you worried that this past year, you know, 2016, was going to define you that you had reached the mountain top and that you wouldn't be able to get back to where you once were? Yeah, man, of course. I was fighting under a lot of pressure, you know, especially against static. I was, man, thinking about it just move up.

You know, I had to win. But, you know, I always fight good under pressure. But, you know, I have my fears. I'm a man. I'm a human being. and, you know, like, I had my fears, but, you know, I trust them, you know, on my walk, you know, I've been working hard, I trust on my team, and, you know, my heart walks paying off. How, to me, the most impressive thing about you, and it kind of reminds me a little bit of Eddie Alvarez in the sense that you didn't let last year define you. You didn't let losing out on the Conner fight to find you or the loss to Eddie Alvarez define you.

How are you able to turn all of those negatives into this positive? I mean, I think that you're the comeback fighter of the year, and I think that we can make a case that you're the fighter of the year, going 3 and doing what you're doing to the likes of Robbie Lawler and others at 170. How are you able to turn the corner and not let these things define you? Yeah, man. I look back where exactly on this exactly date a year ago, I was a broken man. You know, I passed my Krishna as a broken man, you know.

I lost my belt. I lost the follow-up, you know, you know, Bouts, I lost against Ferguson, and here I am today, one year later, coming off, move up Division 3,0, just be a guy like Robert Lolo. And, man, it's just, man, you know, my faith. I know God has bigger, a bigger plan on my life, and I'm able to, you know, I'm too strong, you know, and I have a lot on me. I have gift, you know, from God on my life, and I have promises.

I'm able to fight hard and to overcome these situations. Okay, so as far as your great performances are concerned, and now you've had many, where do you rank Saturday night? How high on the list of great performance do you put that one against Robbie Lawler? Yeah, I think that was a great one, man.

Robbie is a warrior, you know. Hey, man, five rounds with that guy. It's not easy. You know, my hands are hurting by hitting his head. They got to have a tough hat. hits hard so that was 25 minutes of like you know stress for me you know I have to be uh cautious all the time because one mistake can cost me the fight you know until the last minute I was really cautious you know making sure I don't get in the crazy brawes because I

knew like one hand can't end the fight that guy hits hard but I mean I think I watched a fight and today and that was a really good performance I was able to do a great strategy and just like heads off for my coaches they did a great job to helping me to you know to pursue my game

any injuries after the fight did your hands get injured or anywhere else no just my my you know my foot my feet you know my my sham just like a lot of bruises you know yeah that was a lot of kids and well my hands are fine, you know, just sore, but nothing cheaters, you know. I think a lot of people were worried after that sequence where I think you landed something like 48 punches in the span of like 23 seconds.

It was a crazy sequence early in the fight that maybe you would tire yourself out. Did you feel like going into the, you know, the break of the round, were you worried that you had maybe exerted too much energy and that you wouldn't be able to rebound? Yeah, like, I believe in that moment that I could finish the fight and then I kind of sprint over there, you know, like I did my best to try to finish the fight, but that guy's durable, man. He takes a lot of damage and he's able to keep going. And no, but I was, I had confidence on my cardio, you know, I knew I still have like three more to go, three more rounds to go. And I just like, I've been a good rhythm, you know, three fights in six months. I knew I was,

I was able to push hard. I knew, I knew, you know, I got. tired, of course, but by the meter of the third round, I was, like, recovered 100% already. Did you notice at the end of that sequence that he was smiling, that he seemed to enjoy it in some weird way?

Yeah, I listen to him. I listen to him. Yeah, that guy's, you know, former champion for a reason. You know, one of the toughest guy that I have a thought. How much credit? I know you're working now with Jason Perillo, who's one of the best boxing coaches in

MMA. How much credit goes to him for what you've been doing at 170? No, I deal with Jason for the last three fights, but, you know, it's a combination. I got a pretty good team behind me. You know, I have my coach, Eduardo Pamplona. You know, it's my multi-coach. He was a very first guy that I trained when I moved to California six years ago, and now he's back here. He's been with me since like this year. And I just put on a great team behind me. Eduardo Pompulana, Philippe Gala Monica, Bubba Jenkins,

and that was the fight that I was able to use everything that I trained. You know, I used my box and I used my mites, I use my mity,

my kicks, my knees, my clinch, my elbows, and, you know, my ground game, my takedowns. So my credits go for all my coaches. Were you told after the fight,

Hafeel, that you're next in line for a title shot? Did anyone in the UFC talked to you about this? No, not after the fight. was so before, like, you know, Danah White said that, and

I'm still, like, trust on him. And, but I haven't spoke with anybody on the UFC yet. Did he say this to you privately, or did you hear him say this publicly? I said, he said that publicly, but not for me, but, you know, I don't

see anybody in the line. I think I beat the toughest guy in the division, and the way that I did, and I don't see all the guy, but Tyrone Woodley. So that's all that you're interested in. You're not going to, you're not going to consider any other options. You know, obviously, as you were asked on Saturday, Colby Covington's trying to get a fight with you.

These options don't interest you. Man, all this guy, they all calling me out, but they all pick Robbie Lullo to win. And now they're all calling me out. That's, man, this is, I can't get it, dad. I can get it. I just, I want to fight. I think I deserve fight for the title. And all these guys, they have their chance.

So, one, their boy calling him out, he had two chance in the past year. So he didn't make it. Now, man, now it's my turn. And so Tyron Woodley is having surgery tomorrow on his shoulder, and it seems like he's going to be out for at least half the year. Are you okay with waiting for him? Of course, man.

I got three fights in six months. I need some time to recover. over my body, you know, I've been in fight camp for six, seven months, you know, I don't, I haven't have time to, you know, to really learn, you know, like to try to get better. I'm just in fight camp for six straight months, seven, eight straight months. Now I need some time to really, you know, enjoy the process, get better, you know, because it's different when you train for a fight, when you're trying to just to get better, you know, it's different when you're training just to get in shape, you know.

Now I need to train to get better, so I'm willing to wait for title warming. Did you hear his comments after your fight on Fox saying that he wasn't all that impressed, saying that, you know, if he'd fight either you or Robbie that he'd knock you out, did you read any of these comments? No, I don't.

What do you make of that, him saying he's not, is that just him talking, or do you feel like he's concerned about fighting you, trying to get a different fight with him sort of downplaying your performance? Yeah, I think, you know, I went there, I went on the Fox stage, I look on his eyes, I told him, hey, buddy, I'm not, I'm not interested in your Gucci belt. I want the UFC gold belt. And, you know, he knows, he knows

I can't, you know, he knows I have what it takes to take that belt home. He knows that. So, and I think there's no other fight to make, but being against Woodley. He said, I saw the IQ wasn't as high as I would have liked for a guy in a number one contendorship fight. Both of those guys, talked about pushing the pace and they were going to do this, they were going to do that. I saw a ton of openings for myself in both those fights. So I guess unimpressed with your fight IQ as well. What's your response to that?

Yeah, man. They claim to be better than me, you know. I'm always against the odds and then I go there and do what I did with Robbie. And, you know, that's why I'm usual to that. You know, people always doubting me. I'm just, they can be better than me, but on fight night, I'm better than them. Do you take some satisfaction, Hafele, you know, we've talked about this after you beat Anthony Pettis. People accused you of PEDs. They've been accusing you for a while.

And I hear you are, you get tested as much as anyone. You're still thriving. You're doing well at 170. And nothing's ever happened. At this point, do you take some satisfaction in all of this, that you continue to do well after early in, you know, your successful UFC run that people were accusing you of this stuff? Yeah, man. they always going to they're always going to be some people they are talking shit out there I don't care about it I care about myself

I know what kind of man or what kind of athlete I am and I know how hard I work and that is always people you know haters and that's part of the game but MMA fans you know I love my fans

but most of the MMA fans they are they have a very short short memory You know, they remember you because you're for less performance. They forget everything else you did. But, you know, that's something that's driving me to train even harder and always to prove that people wrong. How cold was it in Winnipeg? How miserable was it?

Well, man, that was crazy cold. I went outside twice and, man, most of the time I stay inside my room. That was like, I never see anything like that. Was it hard to cut weight being that cold? Yeah, the funny thing was kind of dry. I was like the first train I had, I did there. I felt like kind of like vagas, you know, like my skin was really dry and my lungs are burning, you know, like all my first training. But then got better later.

I just feel like that was really dry. Yeah, because your body's cold. It's hard to sweat. You're not very hot, right? Yeah, yeah. But like to cut the weight, when I got there, I was like 15 or 14 over. You know, not bad. And I was able to cut weight.

Like, I could make weight the day before. And, well, you know, on that weight, my weight came off really easy. Well, Hafeel, I'm very happy for you. What a great story this is. I remember seeing you at UFC 117. Remember against Clay Guido when you broke your jaw? And who would have thought all these years later, you'd be a champion at 155, now on the verge of another championship fight at 170?

The way you've reinvented yourself amidst so many obstacles, you've had so many changes, some highs and lows. It's really remarkable. So congratulations on the win, and congratulations on not letting 2016 define you and impede your success and your evolution as a fighter. It's really amazing to watch. Enjoy the victory, enjoy the holidays,

and good luck getting that title fight against Tyrone Woodley, and I appreciate you doing this after coming back home to Sunny, California. Thank you, thank you. My pleasure, and I'm on my way to be the first Brazilian two-division champion and Waterway Champion. I have no doubts that that's going to happen.

And that's my time right now. And thank you all you guys. Merry Christmas, all the guys. Same to you. All the best. Thank you very much. There he is. Hafelde Los Angeles.

Interesting little factoid there. He would be the first Brazilian Walterway champion, the first Brazilian two division champion. Four men have done it. Randy Couture, BJ Penn, Connor McGregor, George St. Pierre. He would be the first.

He's on the verge of doing that. hard to deny him. It seems to be a two horse race at this point. Does Colby Cunnington fight sooner? I do agree that he deserves a break. There's no doubt about that three times since June has fought some tough guys. Tarek Safedian, Neil Magnea now, Robbie Lawler, so he could certainly use that break. We'll see how it all shakes out. You know after surgeries and the time off and the UFC needing to plug holes. Crazier things have happened in this sport. Guys think that they're on the verge of X, Y, and Z and they get their number called. So we'll see what happens. All right. That does it for the interviews. 13 straight interviews.

Holy smokes, four and a half hours. No time to waste. What you need to do now, you need to go to Twitter. Exclusively on Twitter, it's time for the MMA after hour. There's the address right over there. It's going to be Rick's Picks. It's going to be your questions and comments. It's the last live show of

2017. Episode 56 of 2017. We've never done this many episodes. We've never given you this many guests. What a year it has been. Let's end it on a high note. Go right there. Twitter.com slash MMA fighting for Ricks. We call it the MMA after hour, and it is starting right now.

All right. MMA after hour time. Here we are. No time to waste. Let's hit that music. Let's get this thing started. It is time, my friends, for everyone's favorite segment. There it is.

As I drink my drink. It's time for Ricks Picks. Yes, last time of the year. but don't forget. You already know what it is. Wix Picks. Best up show. Christmas edition.

It's the new craze taking the world by show. Coming up. December 25th. Live from the Vox Studios in beautiful New York City. It's time for Rick's Picks. Yeah. There he is. Mr. Ricks himself.

Got a new shave? A little bit. A little bit of a cleanout. I don't know about a cleanout. I was talking about the sides. Yeah. Like the head. This?

Yeah, the whole thing is cleaning out of here. You went to a barber and said, please don't clean up the beard. I was getting scragly and now it's less scraggly. I guess Scragly is in the eye of the beholder. Where do you go to get a haircut? You go to a local guy or what? I go to a little. Oh, how about that?

Damn. Falling asleep back there. A million dollar man. What a difference? I go to a spot in Long Island City. Shout out to Otis and Finn. Yeah, Otis and Finn Barbershop. How far is that?

My guy Fred. How far is that? From me? Quick, easy. 15 minutes. Okay. From Williamsburg, 15 minutes. So yeah, it's a good location.

And my guy Fred is my favorite. Okay, well, you look great. You never look better. Let's get into it. What do you got? What do you got? Okay. We are going to start with some somber news,

but it had to be, It had to be addressed, obviously, the passing of Coach Robert Follis. In this portion, there were so many tweets and social media posts about Robert, going to only highlight a few things here, but give you an idea of where you can find some more. So first, Tracy Lee tweeted out a link to a you-carrying.com page that is collecting funds for the funeral, for the family of Robert Follis. I'm sure there's going to be fake ones. There's going to be ones coming out that are trying to capitalize on this.

This is the right one. Youcaring.com slash Robert Follis. Donate if you're compelled to for a good cause, obviously. And in following up on that, and we've talked about Robert earlier in the show, in following up on that, there's a post here from MMA fighting. Pros react to the death of beloved MMA coach Robert Follis. there was a huge outpouring of support. He was clearly beloved.

I didn't know him personally, but he was clearly beloved by the community. It seemed like there wasn't a bad word to be said about the guy. See some of those on MMA fighting. You can find it all over the internet if you search for Robert Follis. Truly seemed like one of the genuine human beings in a sport that at times can be lacking on those. So tragic passing and, you know, thoughts and wishes with the family at this time.

I think everybody in the MMA community has handled this with class and is trying to do the right thing here. Yeah, this picture actually was taken during 216 Fight Week and one of the last times I spoke to him, it was actually after this workout that I was talking to him just about being in Vegas two days after the shooting and what it was like. And if he knew anyone, he actually did a scrum. they started doing scrums with coaches that day, which I think is a great idea.

And so he met with the media. He was there, of course, to corner Kevin Lee, who he helped, I think, take to the next level. Yeah. You know, going into that fight against Tony Ferguson. So, yeah, this was actually one of the last times.

I spoke to Robert. And, yeah, it's a bizarre thing. It's weird. I mean, obviously I didn't know him as well as so many of the other fighters who have paid tribute to him. But like I said, he's been on the show a couple times, always very nice, always very gracious with his time,

always very accommodating, always smiling, always seemed to be in great spirits. And to find out that he took his life is heartbreaking. I can't imagine how his friends and family are feeling. Yeah, he shall definitely be missed. Okay. We're going to move to some action inside the cage.

Here we have Alexander Shabli. Dang. Knocking out Miroslav. Oh boy, this one's Strabek. Let's go with Straback. At Fight Nights Global, 82 on Saturday. Upward Cup from Hell. Jesus.

We can rely on Caposa to deliver the goods on some of these unknown fight cards in the middle of the night. One punch. Alexander Shubbley getting it done. Huge one. I still feel like the story of, like, we need to find out how he watches all these cards. But anyhow, go ahead. I mean, look, we can have them. I'll talk to Caposa.

but I was sent this clip over and over and over and over again doesn't get any less incredible every time I see it we have Sufi Sufian sorry Sufian Haj Hadou with the meteorite punch quote unquote this is what him and his coach have named it wow Sufian Haj Hadu with the meteorite punch at German MMA championship 13 also on Saturday wow we see that we see you know have we've seen attempts at I know Shogun, there's a gift from way back in the days of Shogun doing something like this.

But very rarely do we see the fighter land a knockout punch when jumping over the guard. This one clean as a whistle, knocks him out, follows it up with a punch that at the time was unnecessary because he was already out. But well done, Sufian, getting it done. Very rare, but I think we need to see more of this. When people are playing on their back, you know, hands behind their head, make them pay for it. And he did meteorite punch. Okay.

The shocker there is that Kiposa didn't tweet that out. Oh, he did, but what I try to do is I try to go to the place that it originates. That's a journalist right there. To give it the right amount. Okay. Chase Sherman. This is from Fight Night. He tweeted, if Mike Perry and Santiago Ponsonibio didn't end in the co.

I'll let Francis and Ganoe punch me school. were in the face with my arms tied behind my back. Don't say Chase Sherman. Say his manager. This is not Chase Sherman. Wow. Enough of this. You notice I don't play this game anymore. It's not him. And then he put this out there. And then it was like 10 tweets like, oh, I didn't mean to do. Can we take that at the bet? First of all, a bet is something that's agreed upon by two parties. Francis could not care less about this manager throwing out this stuff. So like, stop trying, stop your pathetic attempts to get followers. In my opinion, you're making Chase Sherman into a non-fan favorite.

I'm tired of it. I'm actually considering blocking and reporting it. It's not Chase Sherman. Enough. I was happy to play along with it. But guess what? In 2018, I'm not playing along with it anymore. Just go through his Twitter feed.

And it's all one attempt after the next to get followers. Cheap attempts to get followers, ripping videos, things like that. It worked. Take a break. let the guy get back on track. Stop with this stuff. You're not doing many favors. Stop with it.

You know who you are. You're his manager. I've gone from like a million sources that this is not Chase Sherman. Okay? Stop with it. Francis Sanghano doesn't want to punch you. He doesn't care about your bet. He wants nothing to do with your bet.

Stop trying to gain this attention and followers for no reason. It's empty. It's annoying. It's bothering me. And I'm on the verge of reporting them to my friends at Twitter. Enough is enough. Wow. Enough. And how dare you, come on, you know better than this.

Buried. Buried. I was happy to play along. No, Chase. You want to know his manager's name? No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. I mean, it's on his thing. It's on his account. What do you don't do that? It's on his account. You're, oh, man. It's enough. Just be yourself, okay? Stop these, these, these attempts to try. It's right on his thing.

Where is it? Where's his bio? I see it on my Twitter. Anyway. Like, come on. Stop. Not Chase. Okay.

This we know is... Like, do you really think Chase Sherman 49 minutes ago is talking about if a touchdown is a touchdown? He's not talking about this stuff. You're trying to jump on hot topics to get followers and retweets and likes. Just look at it. Movie theater parking lot. Hide the women and children.

Like, are we going on Reddit and ripping this stuff? It's not Chase Sherin. Oh, and then he gets it to this thing with Colby Covington. Of course, let's attach ourselves to the hot rod guy right now, you know, the hot topic. It's not him. Stop it. Enough of it. And then you're retweet.

Like, enough. Now, to be fair to, let's say Chase's manager, because we're not going to say Chase. Colby attacked him. He went at wrestling and then Colby jumped in. So it wasn't him trying to, at least not at that moment, wasn't him trying to ride that way. The first tweet was from Colby? Yeah, because- The initial tweet.

Chase was making. fun of that that flippy wrestling stuff that Daniel Cormier was also talking about. I've a lot to say about that as well. And then and then um I believe Kobe went at him something like that. I believe that's how it went. I can't follow all this stuff. Um, there's a lot of it. But, uh, I don't believe that that one was Chase or Chase's manager on the other end of it. Well, but um, hey, Cody Rhodes. Back up, right? Pull him back. Pull him back the curtain here. No, no, no, no, no. Do you can I get, are you going to, are you going to put the, I mean, those wrestling guys, I've told you about those wrestling guys, right? How sensitive they are. Chill out. Jesus.

I thought Daniel Cormiere's response was appropriate, measured on the money. Yeah, it was Cirque de Soleil. Just saying, no, no, not his initial thing. Like, I don't love this. His response to Cody Road saying, essentially, relax, I still like wrestling. This is not for me. But if we have a problem, you know, you know where to find it. I love them ripping him for getting comps. Like, this is like, some big crime. Well, I think maybe it's, I don't know, Cody Rhodes, how familiar he is with Daniel Cormier,

maybe he doesn't know how big a fan of wrestling he is and that he's not really attacking. Well, maybe do your research before you come at the guy. Fair enough. Badest men on the planet. And that's why Daniel Cormier is the man, but he handled it, I thought, very well. Okay, we know this is Eric Spicely texting Julian Marquez to let him know that he got the bonus. at USC Winnipeg. Probably one of the better ways

somebody's found out on record that they got the bonus, letting him know that he got the 50K for the fight of the night, sending him a screenshot of a tweet from MMA underscore Kings that shows that he got the bonus. What a great performance?

Like way to... I mean, from top to bottom. I mean, even the call out, I was like, oh my God, this guy's really going to call a Tyne Woodley and then he calls him out for a beard off? Perfect. Love those guys.

Love his chest there. I feel like he'd be. became everybody's favorite fighter very quickly. He's very likable. He's an overnight. That's my favorite kind of guy. Well done, Julian Marcus. Just his style, the finish, the callout, everything about him was personable.

And I think he's going to have a lot of fans moving forward. He's got a good look, too. So good for him. And congrats on getting that bonus. Dustin Poillier with a Christmas gift for Eddie Alvarez, one of the better one of the better tweets that we've seen in a while Dustin the Diamond saying Took my time today and wrapped your Christmas presents

Nice Eddie Alvarez showing off Wrapped hands preparing something Under Eddie Alvarez's tree Eddie Alvarez and I don't know if he addressed this Maybe he did but the tweet itself was gold Was money well done Dustin I want to see that fight nice looking gym set up by the way too All wood paneling on the walls all wood on the floor

and some nice boxing back Okay, Daniel Cormier sticking his hand into the alligator's mouth here. Francis Inganu falling asleep. Daniel Cormier pictured wiping his hands on Francis and Gano's face.

From a germ perspective, I mean, his hands all over his look. Everybody gets too relaxed around me. Nobody's safe. Daniel Cormier doing this to a lot of people, I suppose. Let me get the audio up on this. I want to hear what Engano says again. What is this?

it's the best. No, what was that? What is that? That is the best. I mean, good for him for not flipping out immediately. If somebody touched my face like that, I don't know if I'd...

Yeah, I don't know if I'd be able to handle it that... That... Like a Tyler man just eating it up in the back there. The worst part is just like, you see how his hand goes over his lip like that? Oh, yeah. The whole face got wrong. I'd be more pissed about that than him waking me up.

No, me too. Don't rub my face like that. Come on. What is that? Daniel Cormier, I mean, you're a brave man. That's not one to do, but... Baddest man on the planet. Cormier. Yeah.

Well, I mean, steep A still, but... By association with the title. But, yeah, Daniel Cormier, braver than me. I would not have the stones to do that. Can't wait for Boston. Those four guys together at the top. Oh, yeah. Great fight.

Okay, we have a check-in from Fador By way of Tiffany Van Soust Hey Ariel Hohmani, the bobblehead, Fadour Likes California Winter is way more than New York I don't blame him, it looks beautiful, going surfing Can I say like the weather has been really crappy here It's cold and all that I'm ashamed to say like I was legitimately jealous

Of this bubblehead when that picture was tweeted out He is... I don't blame you. He's living the life. I mean, at this point, it's nice to hear from him. It's nice to see he's doing well. I don't blame him if he doesn't want to come back. He's moved on.

It's very lonely here. Speaking of which, my Kimbo. Speaking of which, Bellator is now selling these. They're selling them. They're going to be available online. Damn. I think that news was just, just happened this week as well. So Belator is going to be bringing them online.

I mean, where, you know, where's our fade are? Let me get a fadar. Nice. And I know the Kimbo one is associated with the January. fight. So we might not have that one for a while, but we need Fador back. We're getting close. I appreciate her

updating us, though. Look, I mean, she's treating him well. She did commit a crime. She did kidnap the guy. She did essentially steal. Did she commit a crime, or did she assist somebody in need? Oh. I mean, Fador, look, you know, Fadour, and you know, I don't want to scare Randy

or hoist on the table there. They're not treated so well over here. No, that is true. And so, maybe she was rescuing. Wait, you're calling out the staff, right, for their mistreatment of our chinkets? Our props for the show have been mishandled. Wow. And so maybe she was doing a favor to one of her favorite fighters.

Wow. How about that? Okay. Huge tweet from this weekend. Okay. What do we got? John Jones, Johnny Bones. Oh, yes.

On Twitter. Now, if you don't know the backstory, there's a guy who has the handle at John Jones, who is not John Bones Jones. He's a, I believe, a video game developer. Overall, really interesting dude has a very good nature about him in regard to getting hate from the haters of John Jones and love from the lovers of John Jones. In the tweet that you can't see here,

a guy named Jason Dake says, at Johnny Bones, you're a pretty good game developer and seem to be a decent human, cool mustache to keep up the good work. typically we see fight tweets sent at John Jones this time a turn of the tables Johnny Bones who had John Jones blocked replies I think you're looking for John Jones

to bring it all full circle he has passed along one of the tweets originated for the John Jones video game developer I think we've entered the Twilight Zone but he has unblocked John Jones apparently and has passed it along maybe he didn't have to unblocked No he didn't have to

I think though John Jones, a video game developer, might have clicked on the profile and been able to see it. I think he announced that he was unblocked. Oh, that's big news. So, yeah, we're breaking bread. John Jones and John Jones.

That gives hope for all of us other people who have been blocked by celebrities. Who are you blocked by? Dana White. Is that it? That's okay. I mean, one is not so bad. It's a right of passage for all journalists.

I don't know. I feel like I have been blocked by other people. There was a time where I was blocked by the entire UFC, every official account in the UFC, but we have since gotten over that, thankfully. Credit to my friend Lorenzo Fertita, who not only unblocked me, but then followed me again. I think he blocked me under duress.

He was forced to block me, and then he said, okay, now the coast is clear. I'm going to unblock and re-follow. That, you know, going that extra mile, I think really said, a lot. We next have a photo from the Facebook page of the Stockton firefighters, the local one, sorry, the local 456.

Wow. How do you find this? I think I want to be 100% clear. So I think it was BJPen.com that found this. Is this the first time we've had a Facebook post in Rick's fix? No, but we can't do video because it auto plays, which we learned early on in the early on in the tagboard process when we had some videos from Matt Hughes

paying tribute to to some of the nurses that helped them while he was in recovery but anyway suffice it to say Facebook is part of this on Facebook the Stockton firefighters the local 456 said the following message

I'll read it out because it's not on screen tough strong enough to withstand adverse conditions proud deeply satisfied due to one's own qualities or reputation these are two words that inevitably might come up if you had to describe the city of Stockton, those from the community, or those that protect it.

Tough quote and proud quote are words that are representative of Stockton and of Stockton firefighters. They also happen to describe the Diaz brothers. Yeah. hometown heroes that have made their mark on international mixed martial arts world. So when Nate Diaz happened to see one of our firefighter family members, dressed in L-456 swag as one of our firefighters and his son train at the Nick Diaz academy, Nate told them, where did you get the shirt? It's effin sick. I want one. The request was filled and Nate is now seen on occasion showing his support for the Stockton firefighters.

He stopped for this photo before he began his own training session last night. You better take that picture now before it gets all sweaty and wrecked. Thanks for the support, Nate. Stay tough and proud. Stockton proud. Diaz brothers too. So Nate showing love to the community. The community's showing love back.

A beautiful thing in Stockton, California. By the way, speaking of showing love back, how about your boy Sufion tweeting us? What do he say? He's watching the show? They talk about my knockout in the MMA hour live show with Ariel Hawani. How about that? The dreams come true.

Wow, look at you. A real life Santa Claus. Well done. Well done. We need to get those followers up, Sufian. Twelve followers. You're knocking out people like that? It's up with that.

Hopefully that's not, I mean, if it's the real one, yeah, we got to get the followers up. Hopefully this can do it. German MMA championship. Get Sufian some followers. Yeah, come on. Okay. This tweet from WWNXT. Oh, yeah.

Shana Bazler is coming. I don't know when, I don't know where, but maybe Dave Meltzer can give us some insight. But Shannon Bazler is coming, looking forward to kind of seeing her on the big stage. Forget Dave Meltzer, Mark Romandie, the real wrestling insider. I mean, the guy's, he's all over the scene.

Do you see his McCauley Culkin video? I did. That's right. Oh, my God. You blew it. I botched it. You know, a little tip. Why don't you like the things that you want, and then you go back and then you just...

I have a... I have a Gmail draft that I use, and I just put them in there. I botched it. McCauley Culkin on Hornswoggle. What's wrong with you? Yeah. That doesn't mean so much to me.

The first ever home alone finish in professional wrestling history. Yeah, the frog splash. Go check out Mark Romondi's Instagram for Maca. Twitter. Twitter too. Either one, wherever you can find Mark Remondi.

Credible. McCauley Culkin doing a frog splash. at a local MMA event. No, wrestling event. Pro wrestling. Sorry. Sorry, local wrestling event. I botched it.

Mark, I owe you one. Yeah. My bad. And wrapping up Rick's picks, we have the numbers in from Mayweather McGregor. Oh, yes. Mayweather McGregor ends up being the second biggest North American pay-per-view ever.

Wow. At 4.3 million pay-per-view vise. Wow. Unbelievable. Showing that Mayweather and McGregor had it. They got the juice. 4.3 million. I'll give you, so our next live show,

our next live show is everyone's favorite show of the year, the award show. Did you know this? I do know this. And by the way, we've got a show next week on December 25th. That's the best of show. But then we return on January 2nd, because January 1st is a Monday. And no one wants to work on January 1st.

So we return on January 2nd, which is a Tuesday. That's our award show. and look, to me, there's no secret story of the year was Mayweather McGregor. However, I will say the story to watch, one of the stories to watch, not the story, one of the stories to watch, is how this fight ages. And more importantly, like what it really means for MMA, because I was on this show

the day after or two days after, and I said, it was a win for all, right? Right now, I don't know if it was a win for MMA. I mean, Connor made money, UFC made money, but how, like, does he come back? How long is this this layoff going to last, all this stuff and more, again, I believe the fight isn't aging very well. Like Floyd coming out and saying,

oh, I let him win those rounds, this isn't good for the fight, you know, the story of the fight, you know? Do we need it to be a win? Does anybody, like, I guess what I'm asking is every fight's not going to be analyzed, right, by that, right? Like, every time there's a boxing match, we're not going to say,

was that a win for boxing or a loss for boxing? Every time there's a huge MMAR, was that a win for MMA was a loss for MMA is it okay for it to have just been a fight that happened or did it need to be? No it's 100% okay it was a smashing success as you can see all that's of a more

but I did say on this show this was a fantastic win for all right there was a lot more to it it wasn't just a boxing event that came and went and it's going you know the story the full story has yet to be really told as we sit here today on December 18th four months left

later, I don't think it has aged very well. Can things turn around? Sure. You know, you can have a nice piece of cheese and it starts to age poorly, but then it rounds the corner and then it becomes a nice, you know, aged cheddar cheese, something of that nature. So we'll see what happens, you know? The cheddar makes it better. Okay, before we move on to the questions, let's give a shout out to our good friends. Championship, yes. Championship, which is an animated. Space ship, now with a P at the end. Not championship, one word. Championship, an animated series voiced entirely by SB Nation staff. Here, we're going to roll out. Yes, it's an SB Nation project.

I mean, could you pump it up for our friends over at SB Nation, a little enthusiasm? Well, do you want better. We're going to show a little clip here. Okay, here we go. A team of athletes have embarked on a journey across the galaxy.

The quarterback, Dan Cannon. Cannon drops back. Surveys the field. He's going long. Can you believe how good I look? The big man, Reggie Wall. We mastered interstellar travel to save the human race. Now we're playing dodgeball.

The fighter, Cat Scorpio. Get us the fuck out of here, you motherfucker. Who are they calling classless? The gymnast, Allie Wude. Being crushed to death isn't even the worst way to go. Hello, ever heard of a thing called fire? The slugger, Bud Bronson. To be totally honest with you, I do not remember why we're here.

they are all aboard the championship. There it is. That is a real show, by the way, honest. That wasn't us doing some sort of gag. Championship is SB Nation's first animated scripted series. It's voiced entirely by the SB Nation staff. The series documents a group of all-star athletes as they journey across the galaxy to save Earth

by competing in an intergalactic. What was that song? The intergalactic planetary, planet. Is that it? Planetary? I don't know. Beastie Boy. Yeah, yeah. Tournament demanded by Alien Ruler Zod. The short five-episode series allows fans to enjoy a letter take on sports

and proves that SB Nation can compete in the world of narrative storytelling. Content as well as its own journalist, as well as its own in the journalistic space. So you can binge all of season one today. It launched today. it's about five to six minutes long, five episodes, and it's on the SB Nation YouTube channel. And why are we playing this?

Well, A, to support our friends at SB Nation. But as you saw, there is an MMA fighter. Kat Scorpio. She is Rhonda, Manda Nunes, and Cry, Chris Cyborg, rolled into one, age 26, lightweight champion. So she fights at 155. Interesting. Who grew up in the rough neighborhood.

She's always had to fight for something. You don't want to mess with there. everyone getting into the animation space I enjoyed our animated tales of the MMA hour Case Hearts doing the deal How about that? Tetris shot I mean

Oh Mike Mike Perry Just amazing Ceas You know just an unlimited source of entertainment I don't want people to think that I was rooting against Santiago But I have a hard time Denying the fact that I was a little bummed afterwards

That at least like that fight was just, it was just there on a silver platter. I don't feel like Perry loses too much on that one. It was a big step up. He, look, the way... Is it that bad? I mean, yeah, no, it's a big, that's a big step up. The way Ponziadnebio has been taking people out, that was not, you know, that was not just...

I really wanted to see Perry until in London, that's all. Perry wasn't even ranked, and he's coming in against... Yeah, whatever. Don't talk me about the rankings, bro. Look, Perry's toughest opponent was Alan Job. and he lost. Fair enough. This was a step up.

And I thought he fared admirably. He no doubt about it, he's tough. I mean, we don't have to go into how tough Mike Perry is. He just wades forward and walks through shots like they don't even affect them. He lumped Ponziinibio up. And I thought it came down to the third round. He could have gotten it done. So I don't think he loses too much there.

I thought he fought really, really well. And for Ponziabio, he took some damage in this one, but gets to, you know, keep climbing that ladder. only big things ahead from him. So I think they both looked good in this performance. Okay. Both come out looking good, rather. They definitely didn't look good after because they beat the snot out of each other.

Okay, let's move along to some questions. We'll keep it quick. And then, you know what? I have a surprise that Ariel doesn't even know. Whoa. Because I just decided it on the spot. Can we just get to that? No, we're going to do it at the end.

Let's fire through. Just decided on the spot right now. Right now, okay. From our friend Sonny on Twitter, RDA versus Woodley. Wonderboy versus Covington, Till versus Ponsinibio, Mosvedol versus Lawler. Do we like this? How do we like the configuration at the top of one seven?

I like RDA versus Woodley. Who does Covington get? Where's my guy, Usman? Usman Meek. He isn't on here. That's a good one. It's a good one. See, I really, stylistically, I really like Wonderboy versus Till.

Mm. You know? I agree. I really like that fight. Wonderboy versus Till. I mean, Toll versus Ponziubio is not bad. Covington can fight Ponza Nibio because they're both part of ATT. That's the problem.

Mazvedal also ATT. Yeah, but yeah. Mazvedal can fight Lawler. Lawler should take a break, I think, at this point. Yeah, you know, I think Covington's going to try to wait this one out. He'd be smart. This is what I suggest. I suggest RDA Woodley.

I suggest Till versus Wonderboy. I suggest Covington versus Usman if he wins. What happens. and then the other stuff can figure itself out. Sounds like Usman wants it a lot. Yeah, I like the way he had to say. And Covington, maybe not so much based on what Usman's saying, but I like that fight as well.

170's fun. 170's fun. Very fun. It's going to stall a little bit now with the surgery. I wish he did it earlier, but them's the brakes. Till has to fight in London. Next question. DC versus K.

These are a little bit rarer. These are a little bit off-the-wall. questions. DC versus Cain and heavier. Wow, you just buried, like right away. DC versus Cain is never going to happen. Okay.

Alternate universe where they're not friends. This keeps me up at night. This match up. DC versus, I mean, I just want to see Cain fight, period. At this point, obviously DC wins. Kane isn't cleared yet. I mean, he's just... Stylistically, I think that'd be a lot of fun.

Remember, there was a time, though, I will concede this. There was a time that we were talking about this fight. Remember? In Ross's mind, it's time to talk about it again. We don't talk a lot about team. teamate versus teammate anymore. Like, you remember we were talking about Rory versus GSP and Kostchik versus Fis? I feel like after John Jones and Rashad Evans, people were getting better at navigating it

and laying out the groundwork of that ahead of time. Hey, we're either going to fight or not fight when we get to that point. Whereas Jones and Evans were kind of not addressing it and it caused that friction when it did come up, or maybe they played us like fiddles. but I think since then, teammates have been much better at establishing the terms of engagement. Cormier and Cain, for example, have said,

nope, never going to happen. Not going to happen. Some guys have said, yeah, we fight at the same gym, but we're not really going every single day together, so we'll fight. And I think they've been better at that. So Jones and Evans kind of laid the groundwork for us not to get this very much.

The closest thing we got was T.J. Dillishaw and Cody Garber. and that was fan damned but that was after that was amazing but after sure but I think that's the

closest we're going to get these days I would love to see it I mean like like stylistically in their heyday in their prime incredible right now

obviously doesn't make any sense and will never happen I'm I'm very interested in heavyweight DC I'll be I'll be honest I like you know obviously it's like a Francis Inganu

too small against anybody I love too small at this juncture he's almost 40 years old I love heavyweight DC. Yeah, I love him too.

He was cuddly. He was lovable. I don't know if that's where I was going. I like this fighting. But okay. Moving on. What's your personal favorite fight poster? Oh.

And or favorite fighter that promotes, not including Connor and Chill. They're out, you know, they're banned from that discussion. I think it's more interesting to go fight poster personally, but we can, we can do who's your favorite talker or promoter. I'm looking. Do you have one because you were... Oh, I love. I love the...

I have a few. For UFC, it's the George St. Pierre, BJ Penn, 94, where they're back to back with the flags wrapping around. I love that one. One that comes to mind because it was so striking. I don't know if it's favorite or not favorite, but the DiazGSP, what was it, 157, I think it was? Is that the right number?

D.S.J.S.P. is 154. 154 poster with the big head. Yeah, although they tried to recreate it like a million. That one was the original though and I like that one a lot. But my favorite all-time MMA posters all come from Pride. They're all, you know, the...

Can I tell you my favorite? Go ahead. Pride Grand Prix 2004, the breastfeeding one. No, stop. That is the best one by far. That's the best one? By far. That's the craziest one. It doesn't even make sense. No.

It's incredible. There's way better one. I'll stop it. There's Sakuraba getting choked out. That's Pride 10. Best one. By one of the ring girls. there's the butterfly on the hand

there's the sharks just sharks in a tank and then the really like abstract but incredible one the sperm sperm one is amazing where it's all them competing to be the one I mean that is just incredible

perfect poster but those pride posters from like the early to mid 2000s were where it's at my favorite posters why doesn't Sakakibara hire this person he was the man back then I don't know if it was one person

or who it was, but just, yeah. Do him for Ryzen. Why did they not continue to do this for anybody? Like, you never see posters like this anymore. Not even, why did, you know, now that Ryzen's here, they could do that. But why didn't anybody continue or use this person again? For example, like, Boss Logic is getting big up right now. He did the Invicta poster.

He did some work for Mayweather McGregor, I believe. He's done a little bit of work with the USC. Like, when you find these people that the fans seem to gravitate towards, go to them and find them. I don't know why the pride person or people didn't continue that success. A couple of other ones. UFC 144.

Remind me. Edgar Henderson with the Japanese and there was a cartoon version. Yeah, I like that a lot. Speaking of cartoon versions, UFC 181. Hendricks, right? Hendricks Lawler and Pettis Gilbert Melendez.

That was done by Marvel, right? Some sort of comic book. It was one of the big comic book. You know what's one that doesn't get a lot of attention, but is phenomenal if you go back and look at it. UFC 106, Ortiz Griffin 2 when they were head to head. Their heads were so big and it was just so clear. It was just perfect.

Like I love the... Like an old school boxing, right? Like head to head. I love those. Not the full body, the heads. Just the heads. UFC 1 was amazing and I'm surprised that they don't do that more. They don't use the Ultiman more. Yeah, just the Ultiman in the middle. Those are a couple ones that come to mine.

Great posters. There's been some great MMA posters. There's also been way more bad MMA posters. Look, I mean, there's so many events. You're not going to hit a home run every time. You've got to go for single sometimes. I mean, in this new era alone, there's probably been, you know, like UFC 209, I still can't believe that that actually made the final cut.

UFC 209 goes down as maybe the worst. Like, it wasn't even, like, it wasn't even, like, size the right way. It was just bizarre. There was all this excess black space. It was strange. So here's a surprise. Okay. Michael.

Yeah. For asking this question. Okay. You're getting this shirt right now. Wow. Wow. Max Bless Holloway, Reebok shirt. Yeah. Drawn by BossLogic.

Oh. That's the tie right there. Unbelievable. BossLogic made these shirts with Reebok. Michael, you're getting this. I didn't tell anybody ahead of time. You're just getting a shirt because I had it here, thanks to the people at Reebok for sending it to me.

But you know what? Michael, we're passing it along to you. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, whatever you celebrate. He's going to send it. It's yours now. I'm going to send it. Can you hold up the shirt? Yeah.

Cool shirt. a little bit there, a little bit, yep. Can I just offer one piece of advice? Boss Logic, are you listening? It's not Boss Logic, it's to my friends at Reebok. Can we take the Reebok logo and put it right here on the sleeve? And then can we take the UFC logo and maybe either put it under the neck in the back or on the sleeve as well? But to put them over here is just too much.

It's too much. You need visibility, though. You got to get the prime position. Very nice. Maybe. Very nice. Right here. Okay.

Well, any criticism for Boss Logic? You want to tell him how to do the art better maybe? What is that? Are those moose settlers? What is that? What is that? Angel wings? No, I think he's like bursting through the ground.

Yeah, those are wings, yeah. This you're talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a wing. I thought it was like ribs or something. No, no, no. Bursing through ribs? No, he's bursting through the ground and he's flying up.

He's flying up through the ground. Oh, come. Well done, Boss Logic. Well done, Michael. You're getting a shirt just for nothing. You asked a great question. Yeah, that's a great question. It was one of the all-time great questions.

All right, stop. Christopher Gardner asked, It's no secret that the USC theme song is starting to feel dated. My question to both of you is if you have a favorite all-time theme song from any sports promotion. This person, Christopher, says,

Marilyn Manson's The Beautiful People from early 2000s, WWU SmackDown. I know my answer. Do you have one? Please, please. Round ball rock. Auto. So does this have to be fight related?

No, he says any sports. Oh, any sports. Wow. Any sports? Yeah. Where does it say that? The question. No.

Favorite all-time theme song from any sports promotion. Wow. And he picks the beautiful people? Get out of here. I think that's a good song. I don't remember exactly, but. It's a horrible choice. Wow.

You are just killing everybody today. Who else are we going to bury by the end? Beautiful people, really? Hey, Pedro, hook me up over here with some sound. New addition to the show. Oh, okay.

So you're going with my same answer. Oh, I'm playing yours. What about yours? Do you notice what I just did? I just controlled audio for my computer. This is like eight years in the making. Oh, I thought, look, I thought that was coming out of your speakers. No.

The terrible way that you always put it on. What's wrong with you? Don't take it away? No, no, no, no. Pull it down. Why? No, because, you know, you start playing songs longer than that and we get in trouble. No, we're on Twitter here.

It's all good. No, no, that's not how that works. Really? That is not how that works. You know, they played on, they played on... On the road trip and podcast, my favorite. They played on Series XM NBA radio. It's funny.

So I was just talking to my friend about this. Early 90s, hook me up with just a little bit. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, yeah, early 90s, Nixon MSG. Yeah, yeah, this, Nixon MSG. All right. That's enough for that. No, no, this is great. This is a great question.

This deserves a damn prize. Now, you see, he had the tie into the artwork, the boss object tie, he gets it. It is a great question. Wow. Well done,

Christopher. But not the round ball rock. Round ball rock. That is, yeah. It's, Tesh really knocked it out of the park on that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See, I like this new thing, but I don't like, I just want to play the music. Can I get a little some? No, a little so. Just give me a taste. Right here, right here.

Hockey Night in Canada. One of the all-time greats. Okay. This is one of the all-time great. I'm great, tour de year. Hockey Night in Canada. Oh,

what's wrong with you? Anyway, those are probably my top three. We can't just, we just play whatever we want, you know. What are they going to do? What are they going to do?

What are they going to do? Come at me, bros. Damn. You are last show of the year. What's going to happen? You are getting off the way. What's going to happen?

We're done. We're done for the year. You are puffing out your chest. Okay, okay, okay. True or false. Ariel would have been able to live tweet

more than three fights this past weekend if the event started at a later time. Did the early start time throw you off? Were you not watching? No. For the record, it was four fights that I started at the Glover to share a fight. If you must know, I was alone with the kids this past weekend and my wife was working, so I had to put them to bed and then get to the action. I was still keeping an eye on it through Twitter and other means and live stream it at Fox Sports Go, but I can't do everything on my phone. I mean, giving kids baths. I got three kids now. You know, you think you're, you know, You're all hot. You're all cool because you got one.

I got three. Try three. It's tough. Okay? I believe you. If I'm being honest, I'm a little bit upset on this Monday afternoon because my son does carpool. My oldest son does carpool. And this morning for the fourth time, for the fourth time in four months, no, three months.

Fourth time in four months, three months since September. He has thrown up either en route to school or at school because the people will pick him up in the morning, they give him an iPad, they give him a book, they give him some coloring. Oh, the motion sickness. Telling them, please don't do this anymore. And one time he threw up in their car, he never throws up with me, but it's like one time you would learn. And so today, I just bought him a new backpack, Pokemon backpack, and they suggested that he throws up in his backpack. And then the school calls me this morning and says that they're throwing out his backpack

because he threw up in it. So not only does he throw up and get sick, he threw up in his backpack that I just got him. I mean, I understand your frustration. But of the alternatives, he can't throw up in their car that's going to be more costly than throwing up in the back down. Let him look out the window and not give him something to do you know what I mean?

So I was very upset this morning. I don't know. This feels like such a solvable problem. I know, it's four times. Don't give him things that will give emotion sickness. It seems pretty easy. Anyhow.

Rest in peace to our Pokemon back. So, so sad. Anyhow, I loved it. 10.30, I was done. I didn't know what to do with myself. Of course, I was flipping back and forth because my Knicks were beating the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night. How'd that go?

Did they win? It was fantastic. What are you talking about? We beat them. We beat them without Porzingis and Hardaway. It was incredible. Look, I don't watch it out of it. I don't watch bottom beaters.

It was unbelievable. Carmelo's return was spoiled. It was a great moment. So anyway, Saturday was one of the best nights of the year at 10.30 and the night. And by the way, everyone wins. In Europe, they're happy. In Australia, they're happy. In Africa, they're happy.

West Coast is fine with it. East Coast. Why can we do this? If I could just ask one thing, new TV deal. earlier start times, earlier end times, please, for the love of God, no more 130 end times. It's too much. Can't function. Yeah, for a pay-per-view, though, I feel like it's tough to get.

Yeah, but pay-per-view sometimes end up like 12-15 because they don't have to do all the commercials. They just roll through it. I'm with you. I'm with you. For a paper-view, though, it'd be tough to go earlier. Okay, fine. Give me one-a-month pay-per-view, fine. Yeah.

Okay, but the rest, no more. I'm with it. No, most. Okay. Last question. Did net neutrality impact your Darren Hill interview? I'll go with no on that. We'll say no.

But thoughts on net neutrality. How do we feel? How would net neutrality? Is that just a joke? It was a joke. But I'm just wondering like... We had those, that weird thing where his... Somehow the audio thing happened.

The phone replay... I couldn't even like begin to tell you what happened. Rob is going like this. Yeah, that was the weirdest thing. It was almost like some... You know, you know... What's interesting is I thought, that's what was happening when I heard the beginning of it over again,

but I realized, like, I know all the controls back here. There's nothing that replays the audio. You ever see Home Alone, too? Yeah, the walkie thing. Talk boy. Yeah, someone tweeted me that, that he was doing that. It's always a... No, I guarantee it had nothing to do with him,

but somehow the circuitry here replayed what he had said. And then the audio started coming back and we brought it up, and you're like, hey, are you? here and it was replaying still what he was saying. It was interesting when Darren took on either via Skype or phone. Look, I have to tell you, Darren Till, sweetheart. Great guy, great fighter, amazing addition to the show. One of our great cast of characters, part of that animated thing, even though it was

Mike Perry telling the story. Darren Till is all in this universe. We need a new phone service. We need a new phone plan. We need a new phone. Just something to make this easier on us. Let's donate something. Let's gather up all our coins.

Let's just start a go-fund me to get Darry and Till a new phone. Get him something. Because we need to hear him. But, yeah, I don't know what happened there. I really don't. Thoughts on net neutrality. Are you really going to ask me about net neutrality

five and a half hours into these dam? I've got some thoughts. I mean, people, fight for this. Fight. Don't make this a thing that is talked about and everybody's paying attention to, but nobody does anything about it. call your local

politicians. What have you done? Who have you called? Well, fortunately for us, New York is one of the states that is filing a lawsuit to ensure net neutrality

statewide. Don't just talk about it. All that I can say is don't just talk about it, be about it. Net neutrality is important as a show. I don't want to accept a reality or come to a reality

where one day our show could be throttled against other shows because it's not favorable or whatever the case may be. They wouldn't do that to us. Well, no, we'd, look, obviously, I mean, we're bred with us. We'd be at the head of this. Let's be real. Like, we'd be making the Buku Bucks and people would have to pay a premium to see us. But on a serious note, that neutrality is important.

Yeah, it is. This is an important thing for not only, you know, us personally for our own personal lives, but for media content and for internet content. Come on. What's wrong with you, people? We need to prevent this and do whatever we can. I agree. So net neutrality, an important issue.

And equally important, by the way, while we're talking about it, let's give Aaron Chalmers a break, right? I mean, the guys. This is where you pivot? He's a real mention of a bit. No, I mean, I like the guy. And also, the thing about, like, this guy's 3 and O, how is he getting this opportunity?

Like, oh, my God. Are we living the CM Pump thing all over again? Like that story only made its way over to England now, and now people are like, ah. The guy's got like almost a million, no, the guy's got almost a million followers, and we're supposed to ignore him because he's only 3 and O. He's huge.

There's a reason why his clips are circulating, and every 3-0 fighters isn't. And also, on the level of opponents that he's given, as he said, he's only fighting is in front of him. He's not asking for guys who have, you know, he's asking for baby's place. Now he wants a step up in competition. If he's not given it, is that on him?

Is that his fault? No. And I think he's got an exciting style. We'll see if it translates at the upper levels. But to this point, let's just enjoy the ride on this. Well said. Let's not read too deeply into a guy who's just starting his career, putting on exciting fights, and has a huge following.

Follow along. And yeah, I thought he gave a great interview. Lighten up. I thought he told everything you needed to. But that's it. Well said. All right. Well, happy holidays. We're done. We are done. That's it. Thank you very much. Happy holidays to you and the crew back there. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. So to recap, one last time. Last live show of 2017. But we are back next week for a special Best of Edition. So we're not leaving you hanging. You'll still see this face. And then January 2nd, which is a Tuesday, we present our 2017 MMA hour awards. Can't wait for that. What are my favorite shows of the year. But for now, we shall say goodbye so you can hit my music. What a year it has been. I want to thank all the guests who came by, not only today, but this past year. I really

feel like the show turned the corner this year. Not only did we have a bunch of guests, big name guests, we debuted our new studio, our new set. We move studios. We changed sets. Had the Twitter deal. All kinds of things happened this year. First live shows on the road, Mayweather McGregor, Las Vegas, had the Nate Diaz special part two, had the GSP special. It was a big one. Great way to end the year. I will miss you all.

For the record, I wanted to do a show on Christmas, but I was told under no uncertain terms, we are not allowed to do a show on Christmas. They would not let me into the building. So we're giving you a best-up show. Don't worry, it's going to be fun. I want to thank Randy Couture for stopping by again condolences to his family to his friends condolences to everyone who knew robert fallis

a horrific tragedy and as we said many times today he will definitely be missed thank you very much to eric anders good luck to him February in Brazil thank you very much to stevie ray hopefully he gets some good news soon thank you very much to aljermaine sterling i thought was great stuff from aljum really appreciate his time thank you very much to justin gaichie great stuff from him as well best of luck to Camaro Usman January 14th best of luck to Jeremy Stevens

January 14th as well Thank you very much to Josh Emmett Congratulations Best of luck to Yol Romero Whenever he gets that fight Darren Till Appreciate his time as well Aaron Chalmers

Thank you very much Pietro Mengo Thank you very much And congratulations to have out those San Joes Back next week taped Same time and place till the Pish I'm out of here

Happy New Year Thank you.