MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour: Episode 480 (w/ Alexander Volkanovski, Jordan Burroughs, Duke Roufus)

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Alexander Volkanovski about his win over Jose Aldo at UFC 237, possibly fighting featherweight champ Max Holloway next, more; Jordan Burroughs about his win over Ben Askren at Beat The Streets, Dana White’s recent comments, potentially fighting in MMA, more; coach Duke Roufus about his student Anthony Pettis’ upcoming fight with Nate Diaz, more. We also take your questions on the latest news in MMA on Sound Off and A Round of Tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Monday, May 13th, 2019, and this is the MMA Hour. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm greatly appreciated it. What a show we have planned for you guys today. Let's see. The man who just beat the King of Rio in Rio will be here, Alexander Volcanowski. Maybe the best American wrestler ever, if not that, pretty close. Jordan Burroughs, fresh off of his victory over Ben Ascran, will be here. And the man who's going to lead Anthony Pettis into battle against Nate Diaz is going to be here, Coach Duke Rufus. Plus, as always, you'll be my guest, not one, but two different ways, using the hashtag with your tweets, the MMA hour. Please keep sending them. We always appreciate that when you do as well. You can call us.

We'll take your calls as well today at 844-866-2468. Yes, yes. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I know that I did. All right, so I'm very excited about the rest of the show. Mr. Volcanovsky's going to be here. Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Rufus. Yeah, and then we'll do some of your calls, some of your tweets, the whole bit.

It's going to be a good show. Ooh. All right. With that and said, it is time now for a round of tweets. All right. What's Danny doing there? Hi, Danny. We'll see Danny later.

about that. It is time for the tweets. So let's see. When the clock and then the Twitter thing start, there's the clock, right? God damn, I always get that wrong right here. And there's the first tweet. All right, here we go. Whatever you want to run it. Bop-bada-bop-bop-bop-bop. There we go. I pick up a check from the artificial sweetener companies every Monday. I don't, but don't think I wouldn't accept one. I would accept one in a heartbeat because I am not a sweetener anti-vaxxer. I actually look at what the science has to say, you're fine, everybody, you're fine. All right, next. Okay, how much potential star power does Jessica Andrage have? Compared to Rosamma Unis, congrats of becoming a father. Well, thank you very much for the latter part.

Here's what I would say about the first one. In the United States, close to none, probably, I think just being realistic, especially with the language barrier. In Brazil, hard to say. I don't know. I'm not there. but I think what I would also say is remember we've been looking for out of this new generation of Brazilian fighters the old ones are going away like the the Vandrelays and the Vitors and the Nogueras and the spiders and the you name and all

the machitas some of them are still hanging around a little bit but that era has definitely over and Brazil has been looking to replace them with the new generation of stars some of which are happening some of which are coming along but it's good to have on the women's side them carry that torch a little bit in that capacity as well so how much of a star I don't know how important

Is it that a young Brazilian fighter became a UFC champion? I would actually argue pretty goddamn important. Pretty important. It's a big deal. Next. Let's see. So TSP MMA-150, I think that is Tatiana Suarez, if I'm not mistaken.

So the question is, Suarez or Karate Hadi next for the belt? I mean, it's, well, okay. So here's the deal. It depends on the calendar because Tatiana Suarez has to face off against Nina and Soroff in next month, right? So let's see how that goes. and if that tells us something, then we go.

I say if she beats Nita Anser off, then that's your contender because the things that... The thing that happened to Rose, I don't think what happened to Tatiana. As strong as... As strong as Androge is. I just don't see it as the same.

All right, next. Can I interest you to have any of these deadwood for Real Baton? Ashley Young, nope. Alexis Sanchez. He fell off. and Maddich. No, no, you may not.

Although I cannot tell you how much I'm looking for. I told this before. God, they lost yesterday to what? Real Sociedad. Oh, God. This season is just, I can't wait for the season to be over. What a miserable, miserable, Real Madrid season. So I don't want any of your dead weight.

We've got plenty, plenty of our own. Next. And then you got Danny in the back talking trash in my ears. I hope he dies. All right. In retrospect, how significant was Douglas Lima's win over MVP? Well, what did you mean by significant? Do you mean significant in terms of getting him the visibility and credibility that has long eluded him? Probably pretty helpful. Significant in terms of the toughest guy he's ever fought? Not that significant. Although I don't want to discredit MVP. He's obviously a worthy adversary. He had earned his way to that

spot with his win, however controversial, over Semtex. And by the way, I thought he was getting Lima, not the business, but he was much more open and aggressive in this fight. So I'm going to say significant means giving Lima the respect he deserves and the visibility he deserves. And in that sense, I definitely think it made a big difference. Last point on this, anybody who wins the Strike Force Grand Prix, or what I'm saying? The Beltaire Grand Prix is going to benefit pretty mightily from it. But no one deserves that benefit more than Douglas Lima. And Douglas Lima, if you've ever interviewed him. He's such a nice guy, but he doesn't know how to tell his story, I think, all that well. And this tournament might tell the story of Douglas Lima in a way that he never could.

And so he can uniquely benefit in ways that other fighters might not be able to. Next. What do you think of Nate Diaz back to the Octagon? Cannot wait. I know Danny and I are probably going to talk about this in the sound off. I love this fight with Anthony Pettis. I love it so much. And by the way, I love the fight with Tony Ferguson, so much more with Cowboy than Cowboy versus Connor, but I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit later. Next. Featherweight with the highest ceiling.

Volcanovsky or Megamad Sharapov. You know, about a year ago, I would have said Magamette Sharapov, but now I might say Volkinovsky. I thought the performance he turned in against Aldo was nothing short of magnificent. I really thought it was special. Very, very special. One more if we have time.

I think we do. Yeah. Did you end up getting the snoo for your daughter? If so, what are your first thoughts on it? Do you guys ever know what the snoo is? The snoo is this crib that, first of all, it retails at $1,200. So while I did get it, I didn't buy it. You can rent them.

So I just, I was like, I'm not dropping $1,200 on this thing. So we decided to rent it. And in renting it, what we have found is that so far, it doesn't work. Now, I'm not ready to give up on it yet because it turns. that it might be better for infants that are and newborns that are like a month or two versus my daughter is two weeks and two days, right? As of today. God, it's still weird to say.

Anyway, so we put her in the snoo and she howled. And the snoo will even tell you if it doesn't work in the first 60 seconds, it's a wrap and it doesn't work. There have been other like automatic rocking things that we've got her that she likes. But the snoo, no, bro, that has been an epic disaster. So I'm going to give it one or two more months. If it doesn't work, I'm just going to return it. And I'd be out like, what, 2,300 at that point, but that's better than 12.

Although, I guess if I would have gotten a full refund, but I'm not sure how long it lasts. I don't know. I don't know. All I'm saying is, so far, the snoo has been the nubs. Not that great. Mm.

All right, I believe they're trying to locate Mr. Volkinovsky. We'll see how that goes. It's always perilous, boys and girls. you never really know who's going to be on the show. You can plan, you can book, but in the end, it's like Doug Stanhope said, you know, it's like when I do a set, it's like going to battle. You're not all going to be here at the end.

Not everyone makes it to the end of the show, you know, so. So that's what we have in store. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed the fights over the weekend, man. It was hard to watch. I used to think I love the double dose on the weekends, but I don't. I've decided,

I think I like the Friday show and then the Saturday show. I don't like the double Saturday show because not only did we have Bellator and UFC, I had them on my two monitors, but then Jared Hurd, the boxer out of D.C., who lost. Amazing.

He was competing at the Eagle Bank Arena, and that was on PBC. So I had three of them up. And it was, you know, it's just you can't, it's hard to follow everything when that happens. It's not a really, doable thing. So, like, it sounds so fun in theory to have that, you know? It sounds so fun to be like,

oh, man, we're going to have all these fights going on at the same time. And I get to overdose, and it'll be great. And then you get there, you're like, I can barely pay attention to either of those. Although, I guess it kind of worked out with the short knockouts with the way Chandler got stopped. And then the way Lima stopped MVP, I don't think that the interruption was too bad. if memory serves, but you can see how it could have gone, right? You could see how it would have been. It would have been a nightmare.

Imagine both had like relatively moderate pace, even slow-paced action, or both being high-paced and just being hard to follow. It wouldn't work. So I'm not blaming the promoters. It's how the cookie crumbles. It just, I think I've finally come down on the idea that like, yeah, it's probably a bit too much.

Give me, give me, give me PFL on Thursday. give me either UFC or Bell-Torne Friday and then UFC or Belvoir on Saturday and then it's a wrap. Call it a wrap on that one. Although I have to say, most exciting thing that happened in sports over the weekend. I know it's the MMA show,

but did you all see Kauai Leonard? Hit that game winner in Toronto? Oh, man. Boy, he had the old Canadians saying, A after that one, what a phenomenal performance. That was the most incredible thing I'd seen. Game seven, right?

Was it four seconds left? drives inside the three-point space down to the, not the baseline, but to the, almost to the out-of-bounds marker, past the backboard, fires it, tips, tips in, time expires, gate, I mean, it's just like thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

And then it wasn't until Sunday, I realized that there was all this, like, consternation about the slam. And I didn't get it, and I still don't get it. Because when you really begin to consider the value of the slam and what's

purpose it serves and why we allow it, the intellectual case for getting rid of it kind of collapses to be candid with you. All right. Jesus. Thousand things. All right. Mr.

What's the word on Volcanovsky? Okay. All right, we can do this. How about this? If Burroughs can't come on earlier, because we've been moving him around, which I feel bad about. We can just do early calls. And then we can do another set of calls at the end.

But I don't want to just come up here and kill airtime and waste the audience this time. How about that? Can we do that? Let's do some calls. So you want me to set it up? Just set it up and throw it to the thing of a jig. And then we do it? Yes.

All right. Let's do it now. Let's do a first edition of the sound off. All right. So let's go to my main man, Danny Seguro, here. he is the let's see hold let me get see if I got

you were lime to chicharon last week right yes so let me see if I can think of another one you are the tres to my leches how about that I wonder how long

you're gonna keep this up as long as I can all right so here's the deal if Volcanovsky gets back to us we just quit this and we go to him yes yeah that sounds good but in the meantime let's do some calls okay I want to hear from the donks

and by the way could it be more appropriate that I am the world's leading mouth breather while I hear from all of our mouth breathing audience members. Yes? Yep. All right. I love your enthusiasm. It is palatable.

Let's do it. Sorry. Very high energy. I, uh, you know, it was a rough weekend. Game of Thrones kept me up a little bit. I hear you don't watch it, right? Again, not to have anything against it, but no. It was a pretty, uh, intense episode.

I would just say that. Hey, I heard the mountain died. Oh, is that a spoiler? Of course. Well, the mayor won the fountain, dad. All right, prepare for some Twitter, some Twitter hate going your way. That would be new, I'm sure. Yeah, rest in peace, man.

All right, so what's up? Let's do some calls. All right, let's get it. Let's talk about the strawweight fight that happened, title fight, and sort of the things that came out of it. Okay. Morning, Luke and Danny. Connor from Jersey by way of Seattle here. I wanted to say I deeply appreciate the show, your content, and the tenor of discourse.

Keep at it. I'll be watching. my question is with the Andrage title win, does you want to now have an open door for another title shot? If not, what path leads her back to 115 gold? Thanks. Yeah, I don't, I don't see that as likely right now. There are other women who are way, way more deserving than you want to get J-check. She's got some work to do. I'm not saying she's super far away.

Is that what we really want to go to? Or do you want to see fresh matchups? like Suarez or God knows whoever else. The boogie woman, man. You do want to see her? Yeah, but not now. But I do think, I think, Yonna is in an interesting spot because, like, look, I think she's very, very good. I just think Rose, you know, just has her number.

And that's just the way MMA works sometimes. But I think if you take Rose out of the equation, Yonah would probably hold onto the title, I think. So I would like to see her in that mix eventually, I think maybe a win. away would actually be quite adequate. If you want to throw in their karate-hadi, I'm completely fine with that. The winner between Tatiana Suarez and Nina Ansaroff, I'm down for that

too. But I guess just to keep the train rolling, since Waterson doesn't have any fights lined up, I think she should be next. Really? But yeah, well, why not? Let's just keep the division going. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think if she comes back quickly, I think that's fine. That's right. Yeah, because Waterson right now is without a fight.

I think the rightful person that should be fighting would be Tatiana Suarez if she wins, of course. But again, she has to win, and then she has time to rest, then time for a training camp where Waterson can start training camp right now, you know? So, yeah. But, yeah, I do like Joanna and that mix. And I think with Rose leaving the, perhaps leaving MMA and certainly now not being champion,

I think that just opened a huge opportunity for her. Okay, fair enough. All right. So Barrow's actually just texted me. He wants to come on now? Yeah, he wants to come on now. So you can piece this together when we do the calls later, right? Yeah, for sure.

Well, we're going to have another gap, actually, because I doubt. Okay, so bring Burroughs on and see if Duke can come on a little early too. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll hit him up. All right. Let me know when he's on. Please, thank you. Yeah, man, I'm loving 115.

I'm loving 115. It's the best women's division by far. And by the way, like, for Jessica And Rajge to be doing what she's doing, like to be a physical powerhouse like that, you don't see people that male or female that small who have that kind of physical ability, right? And she does. And it's a spectacular to watch. It's amazing to see what she can do. So yeah, let's keep it fresh. Let's keep some, let's rotate in some fresh bodies there. And to the caller's point, if in fact you want to wins one more match. I would put her like in sort of like a semi-stepe category where

I know that he got the Cormier rematch that's going to happen in August. What I'm saying is I had thought the whole time just get one more win, man. You're kind of right back there. You know, I know he already beat him, but like, I don't know, something like that. And you're right back there.

I think she's kind of in a similar space. Beat like one really good contender. Are people going to really say she shouldn't be up there, at least in the conversation? If not outright selected for that kind of a thing? I don't actually believe that. I think she'd be right there. So I don't want to jump.

bumper to the front of the line, but I wouldn't put her all the way in the back of the queue either. Although the lingering weight cut issue is something that's going to be interesting. All right. So let's go to our guest. Now we've been pushing everything around, which I feel kind of bad about. We got him on the hook. Let's hear for this. If he's not the best wrestler the U.S. has ever seen, boy, he's pretty close. He had a great win and beat the streets on Monday over Ben Ascran. Jordan Burroughs joins us now on the phone. Hi, Jordan. How are you? Hey, what's up, guys? I'm doing well. for the invitation.

Yeah, and by the way, I'm sorry to keep moving you around like that. The show is crazy, so thank you for accommodating me. You're a true pro. Yeah, no problem at all, man. Listen, I'm a wrestler, and I'm on an M&A show,

so I appreciate it. All right, well, first of all, boy, you beat Ben Ascran 11-0, Tech Fall. Couldn't have gone much better, right? Yeah, it was a solid day. Great performance. I was happy with it.

I was happy with it. What can I say? Now, you, how do I ask this? I know you expect to win, and I know you expect to dominate. Did you expect it to go exactly like that? I did. Well, you know what? Like, I think that then after when he competed as a wrestler, he was an amazing athlete.

He still was an amazing athlete, but just has transitioned to a completely different sport. And I imagine that he doesn't train his wrestling as often. And so there are just particular positions in the sport that he hasn't felt in such a long period of time, that his timing is a bit off, but my time is extremely sharp because this is what I do pretty much daily. And this is the only discipline that I'm trying in. So I think that the advantage was weighed and tipped heavily in my favor. And he was just out there hoping for something good to happen.

And so I got a lot of respect for Ben and what he was able to do. And the fact that he even accepted the challenge was pretty cool as well. But yeah, for sure. If anything left in the tech fall, I would have been disappointed in myself. All right, fair enough. So I got a bunch of questions about this. Number one, it looked like you were taking it very seriously. Would you say you put the same intensity into this as you would any of your other matches?

Absolutely. I thought we did a really good job with the banter leading up into the event. I don't know if he really thought that he could win or he really thought he had a chance, but I was more than willing to go with the trash talk route with him in preparation because I knew there were no implications. And no one would feel bad. It was just fun. but going into the match

as soon as the whistle blows when I step on the match side like I wanted to win and wrestling is different than like MMA or boxing or really any other combat sport in the fact that you can't really draw along an opponent

right you watch Connor McGregor and Floyd made with a fight Floyd can just throw a few punches right he can do a lot of defense you can flip a few punches like Connor get a few shots and you can't really do that in wrestling without getting scored on

or putting yourself at risk so for me going into that match I was like listen I love Ben He's been a tremendous job in the sport of wrestling. You're doing a tremendous job in M.A. But I'm not letting you school on me. Fair enough. All right.

By the way, how you... Let's talk about his heyday, that funk style. For folks who may not know, how unique is that? Oh, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. He had, I believe, he had over 90 pens in college, which is insane to think about two of the men of the last decade just graduated this past.

year Jason Nolf and Bo Nickel, both at Penn State, and they had in the 50s. So he had almost twice as many pens as those guys, and those guys were both three-time NCAA champions. He was just dangerous. He was a dangerous guy when he got its hands on you. He just had an uncanny feel how to get to position, get you to your back and hold you there. And that's why he has tremendous respect in the sport, even 10 years outside of competing as a wrestler. People still were like, man, been dangerous. he could do anything, it's still possible.

So that speaks there to the mystique that he possessed when he was once a competitive. Now, forgive my ignorance. He was on the 08 Olympic team. I believe your first one was 2012, so you were separated by an Olympic cycle. But was that the first time you guys had ever trained together? Sorry, had you guys ever trained together prior to this competition? Yeah, we had rolled around before, but this is the first time that we've ever been in a competitive sanction match. And so the crazy thing about it is we wrestled at the same weight class.

but I see I'm considerably smaller than Ben is. We had a catchweight 175 for this event, and the morning of I woke up at 171, and he came into Wayne's with a sauna seat on. He had just got off of the treadmill or the bike. And so it was just interesting to see that the size, significant size difference between the two of us, yet we competed at the same as competitive.

But it was good. It was good. I think Ben did a really good job. And although it was the first time that we wrestled each other, I was familiar with him just from watching so much video of him from all the years that I had been a fan of his. All right. Now, there were moments there where you were taking him down and he was smiling. And I think he was talking to you during the match.

What did he say? Well, the first thing he said, when we first came out and shook hands, he was like, wow, can you believe we sold out the Hulu theater on a Monday night? And I was like, wow, this is pretty dope, right? It was like kind of that moment where you stop and you reflect. And then two, once I double-legged them for the second time, 9 to 0, he was like, I thought you said you were going to give me a chance. And so I think that he was like, yo, listen, let's entertain the crowd.

Don't just crush me. Like, let's put on a show for these people. Let's let them get their money's worth. And I'm like, I'm not that type of guy. So no mercy from you. You were not out there to give a show. You are out there to dominate. The show isn't a point scoring for me.

11-0 is the show, not the, you know, show guy bones. So in the end, I think I saw today that Beat the Streets raised a million and some change. You've got to be really thrilled with this. Like, in terms of the business side, because you've done beat the streets many times, but not like a, in Jiu-Jitsu, they would call this like a super fight. You've never done, to my knowledge, a super fight quite like. like this, what lesson do you derive about how wrestling can use this going forward? This was an awesome moment for our sport.

I think we realized how to utilize really the USC, but also guys that have a significant following in our sport. I think that's the thing for us. Like, we've followed the former wrestlers, but we haven't really given them an invitation or extension of being able to come back and enjoy the sport that they want to love. And so I think that just the way the show was given, whether it's a press conference or the live way-ins, just a banter back and forth on Twitter to get fans excited about it. I think just a significant marketing that we put digitally.

There were so many things that we tried to do to really pump the smash the right way. I think it was tremendously helpful just from having been. to Askerner because he has a significant following that's not in the wrestling community. What kind of response did you get, either from the wrestling community or outside of it? Tremendous. I think that for people who didn't know who I was,

they got the opportunity to see me compete, and they were like, wow, this guy is pretty freaking good. And for the guy who already knew me, they were like, wow, like, let's see what he can do against Ben Askeran, who, I'd say we have a big contract with styles, but it still was a lot of fun, and it worked out well. And I'm willing to do it as often as possible

because this was something that we really don't get the opportunity to do in our sport. Our biggest competitions are the World Championships and Olympic Games, which we only compete in once a year. And so for us to be able to do this in the midst of our training was it was a dream, man. It was a dream. Why? Because it, I mean, what?

It's because you broke the monotony, because you got competition experience, even if it was against somebody who formerly was at the world level, but maybe not now. And I guess you got paid a little bit as well. So, like, help me understand what was so valuable about it. Yeah, I think a little bit of everything. I got to introduce myself to non-traditional wrestling fans that were maybe new about the sport but never really followed. And they only knew Ben Asker and because of his competition in the UFC.

We got to sell out for the first time in Beat Street's history. an event, like an amazing historic venue, like the Hulu Theater attached to Madison Square Garden. We got to raise over a million dollars to beat the streets. I think we did one of the largest viewerships in

flow wrestling history. I got to be on the mat with one of my icons and someone that I followed for a long period of time and someone that I genuinely have a large appreciation for. and yeah

I mean it everything that you want from an event I think this event provided like I truly felt like a prize fighter and not just like a misfit wrestler in a niche sport like we compete in so yeah it was significant for me in that way

and hopefully been enjoyed it as well and maybe next year we can invite more former wrestlers that have transitioned to MMA to come back and compete against current wrestlers I think that if we can follow this model I think it could continue to be successful. And I think every year it could get better and better people are willing to put it on the line.

Who's going to be willing to come back and compete against some guy who's competing all the time in wrestling and a focus is solely on wrestling? I don't know, right? But I think a guy like Henry Suhudo versus Nick Suriano, right? Or a guy like Daniel Cormier against Kyle Snyder or me against Kamar U.S.man. You know, Caden Cots versus John Jones. all these fight. I don't know if these guys would even be willing to do it, but it does present some pretty darn intriguing matchups.

Man, you just, I wasn't even thinking about half those matchups, and now I want to see all of them. It's kind of interesting. Here's the one minor reservation that I have, Jordan. I wonder what you make of it. If you watch how Ben talked to you in the lead-up to this match and how Ben talks to his UFC opponents, it's a world of difference. Sure, he was trash talking a little bit,

but he goes after his UFC opponents. But I guess my only point is he knew how to handle this situation the right way. I would be upset if wrestling adopted some of the really raw trash talk that happens inside MMA. Does that make sense? I don't think we ever will. I don't think we ever will. It's just not who we are. It's not within our characters.

And in the ideals that we've treated for this sport, we've wanted to be guys that although we are competitors, we want, and not that guys in the UFC are, like, morally corrupted. But I think that they just go to a different place. And when you're fighting a guy, sometimes you have to be in that place, right? As wrestlers, we're not trying to hurt or damage physically our opponent. All we're trying to do is score points and get our hands raised. So I think that's where we differ from the UFC,

but I think also the way in which we could address each other to be cool from like a competitive spirit. Like I like I actually enjoyed the trash talk with Ben because I felt like it was it was modest but it was fun, right? Like you were playing a game of madden at your crib with some of your buddies. It's the way that we would address each other.

It's like, listen, there's no disrespect. There's no hard feeling. I appreciate you. You're a tremendous athlete and competitor. But also I want you to understand that I mean, I think I can win. I think I'm capable of winning, and I think I am going to win. And that's important.

All right. It's really important that we have to say that. But Ben did a good job, man. I'm glad. I'm glad he didn't try to come at me personally, like a guy like Chale did. But I think that Ben did a really good job. I know he respects him. All right.

So last question. I'll let you go. I really appreciate your time, Jordan. I'm sure you heard Dana White. He went on the Jim Rome show after your big win. and Jim Rome asked Dana White about you. He said he was very interested. I wonder what you make of that.

It's exciting, man. I can't deny it. I can't deny it at all. There was a period of time early in my career where I was like, wow, I'm going to definitely fight. I definitely want to be a part of this lifestyle. And there was a period of time where I had so much success in the sport of wrestling. I was like, I don't really need fighting.

I'm good. I'm doing well financially. I've got a solid following. I've got a family. I'm healthy. I'm good. And now how I've arrived. of a place too where I'm like, well, I'm seeing all of these guys that I once trained alongside

become champions. I'm like, if these guys, and this is not a shot at any of those dudes, but I'm like, if these guys can become champions, I know I can become a champion. Because I possess all the same qualities that these guys possess. So, I mean, it's exciting. It's exciting. It's something that I definitely consider. If I do consider fighting, it won't be until after the Olympic.

the games in 2020 and then from there I'll reevaluate and see if it's something that would be a realistic option for me because I mean at this point the great thing about what I do now is when I leave the arena after a competition I'm healthy I go back to my house or I go to a restaurant with my buddies and have some dinner I don't have to go to the hospital It means. So it's just a significantly different lifestyle that we have. But no one steps into the octagon expecting to get beat up and take a lot of punishment. So, I mean, it's something that I have to evaluate with my wife and my coaching staff here.

But, I mean, for the right price, I'd be willing to consider it for sure. Well, I'll tell you what, go get some hardware for yourself and America in 2020. And we'll keep the light on for you here in the MMA side of things. Congrats on everything you got and Ben as well from Monday. We really appreciate your time today. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you guys for the invitation and be welcome. All right. There he goes. We're the best.

Best double leg that Justin Gagey's ever seen. All right. We go to our next guest. We have shoveled some things around, but he's here. He just beat the King of Rio in Rio. I'm not sure where he joins us from now, but he is on the Skype machine. It is the one and only Alexander Volcano. Look at that handsome devil. How you doing, Alexander?

All right. I'm really good. How are you? Are you still in Rio? Where are you? Yeah, I'm in Rio. So I'm just in the lobby now because I was having a bad connection. I think he was trying to reach me before, but I went downstairs now. So now it's working well. All right. Well, I appreciate you making the change there for us.

I always ask this after fighters have, you know, I wouldn't say that was a super physically tough fight. He didn't take a ton of damage. Nevertheless, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, just my ankles, my feet and ankles probably from me kicking his legs and elbows and stuff like that.

Just a little bit sore. They swell up a little bit, but all good. Rate your performance. I got to tell you, I was blown away. Jose Aldo is hard to make look vulnerable. You know this better than I do. And you had him out there confused. He didn't really know what to do.

A lot of the times, you won't say, an easy decision, but a very clear one. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know what I mean? Like, man, I just had him puzzled. like pretty much that that whole fight. Going in, you know, obviously we had a game plan. I stuck to it really well. And that's why you've seen me sort of,

why you've seen him sort of struggling with it. So that was just, you know, again, on my part, I've done everything I was meant to. You know, I smashed the game plan. I thought that he might have took a few more risks where when things weren't going too good for him. I thought he would have got desperate and that's where I would have caught him. But he just, yeah, again, I knew he,

I knew, like a lot of people saying, obviously going into that fight, watch the leg kicks, you know, watch his county and he's so explosive and stuff like that. I knew that, but it's easy to, it's easy to just say you're going to hit someone, you know, if I'm standing there, fair enough. But when I had him so worried about what I was doing, had him, you know, I just had him puzzled. And you could see that, you know what I mean? He was always adjusting, always, you know, trying to set himself up. And before he knew it, he couldn't pull the trigger.

Let's talk about the game plan. I'm a big fan of you, obviously, but as well as what the guy. at City Boxing and Eugene Baerman cook up. So let's talk about it. What was the objective here? What were you tried to do? Well, we know, obviously, you know, again, he's a counterstriker. He loves a counter.

He's always based very heavily. You know what I mean? He loves the leg kicks. Look, if you stand still in front of him, he's going to fire them big leg kicks. I'm sure that was his game plan with me to fire off the leg kicks. But again, I always had him adjust them. So that's why you've seen me with a lot of movements, a lot of fakes and a lot of faints. I just always had him guessing, always, you know,

I actually was trying to draw him into pulling the trigger a bit much. I think he noticed that. So that's why he wasn't pulling the trigger at all. But at the same time, again, you can say even with the clinch work and stuff like that, mate, if I shot and he, you know, stuff to take down, I was going to come right back at him. That was just another thing for him to worry about. It was just to have a puzzle in front of him,

have him so worried about things that I'm doing. You get him, and he's very, very overreactive. he reacts heavily to everything. And that's why he's seen every time I've done something, he was ready to head slipping, you know, sort of ready to pull the trigger. You got to mean, old shift, he would always adjust, always adjusting, always very, very, very base.

He's always had a very good base, you know what I mean? And that's why he's the type of person that defense takedowns very well, but, you know, we sort of capitalise that on that. And you sort of seen it. So again, you know, if I adjust it, if I just done one slight movement, he would always adjust himself. and then sometimes I'll catch him off guard

throw a 2-1 or something like that. Obviously it goes even deeper than that, but, you know, that's sort of, it was just making him, keep him guessing, keep him guessing, keep him worrying about what I'm doing and then have my way. I probably could have done a little bit more as well, but at the same time,

Encealdo, he's a dangerous man. I knew he was looking for that one shot, and I knew I was winning. So I just, yeah, I just executed the game plan and it went well. Give me some of the specifics if you can, just a couple of things, not the whole thing.

there was one thing I noticed when I was watching you, you would have like these entries and there would be just a slight delay on the timing of a strike and it had him, sometimes he would read it, but sometimes it would land perfectly. Can you talk to me about the change in timing

as you struck them? Yeah, well, you know, again, you can't give away too much, but it's just all different looks, you know what I mean? It's all different, you know what I mean? It's just, again, you know, if I'm just throwing a fake in and firing straight away,

he's going to, you know, eventually catch on to that. So if I throw a fake and then fire, which a lot of people do, you know, obviously, you know, he's going to eventually, he's very good at, he's very good at adjusting and countering. And, you know, that's why he lands a lot of these knees and, you know what I mean? He knows when to fire. Like, if you keep doing something, like you throw a jab and follow up with something, you do that two or three times, he's going to capitalize on it.

So, you know, just changing the timing with things and obviously momentum changes. And just, you know what I mean? There's so many different things getting thrown at him. And that's what kept him puzzled. So, again, if I kept it simple and only just through a fake jab here and there and then followed here and there, it wouldn't have been enough. So I just, you know what I mean? So that's all I can probably give you on that one.

All right. All right. I got to ask. I know he said something to you after the fight. Can you tell us what he said? Well, I was just saying to him, you know, obviously it was an honor to fight him, you know, much respect. So I just said that to him.

Like, you know, it was such a great honor. And he was like, oh, no, no, honor to fight you. But just he's obviously always been a humble, a really respectful guy. And, you know, that's all. He was saying it back to me. He was saying it was an honor to be in the cage of me. But, yeah, just being polite. Should you get a fight with Max Holloway in Australia?

Well, I should get a fight with Max Holloway. Definitely. 100% I deserve that title of fight. Whether, you know, he doesn't want to fight in Australia, you know, I guess, you know, he's a champion, you know, whatever. But he's game. He knows the Australian first. still love him as well. And everyone knows that's going to be a cracker of a fight.

So, you know what I mean? I don't think it would be as hostile crowd or something that he would have to worry like it is in Rio. So I think that would have been a bit more crazy than it would be in Australia. So I reckon, yeah, I reckon you'd do it. And we just need to make it happen. So it'll be a cracker of fun. I'm sure the world wants to see it.

All right, let's talk about Max Holloway. It seems to me, after that win, Alexander, there can be no doubt you're the number one contender. you said you feel good. Now he came off that war against Dustin Poirier, plus he'd have to go back to 145. So I don't know how eminent would be, but let's put this to bed.

You're the number one contender, and that's just a fact at this point, right? 100%. All right. How soon do you think that fight should be made? Mate, like you said, man, I've got a couple little bruises on my feet and ankles, but they'll heal up real quick.

It's up to him. And like I said, I really want to be on that Aussie card. So we imagine, imagine that card. Imagine, you know, you got easy and a Robert Whittaker and then you would have me and Max as well. Mate, that would be absolutely huge, you know what I mean? So that's something that I reckon he might be interested in. So I reckon we could make that happen. What is the key to beating Max Holloway?

I just fight, still fight my fight. Again, look, he's a gamer, man. He comes forward. He does a lot of the work for me, you know what I mean? So that's why I'm the first. bad match for him. I really do believe that. He's a type of person that does come forward. And, you know, again, look,

he's not the hardest hitter. He's got a lot of volume. But again, mate, if you're there trying to throw volume at me, you're going to receive some. And, you know, they're going to be heavy. They're going to be powerful. And then you've got my wrestling to worry about. Then you've got everything else to worry about. You know, obviously I've got many tools

that he needs to worry about. So I believe it's a very dangerous spot for him. But he's game. He'd be keen. Let's make it happen. did you take from his fight with Dustin Poirier? I may I always knew that he could be beat. I've always knew I was a bad matchup for him. It was probably better for everyone else to realize that he's not invincible.

Obviously everyone was saying everyone thought he was just unstoppable, which I don't blame him. Like obviously he's looked really good, much respect to him. But at the same time, you know what I mean? I knew he wasn't invincible. That just showed. And let's be realistic. I got cardioes for days and I will knock gas and I'll be powerful

the whole time. So I'm a very, very bad matchup for him, I believe. And let's make it happen. And I can show the world. So let me play devil's advocate. And I am playing devil's advocate because I think you're right. It would be a hell of a fight. But let's say if someone wanted to say, okay, but he fought Aldo twice and stopped him both times in the third round, you know, you didn't knock him down. So therefore, Max is better. What would you say to that argument? I guarantee you people will say that. But I mean, they don't know the game. And obviously, I'm a calculated fighter. I'm going to be the type of person that I'm going to do what needs to be done to win.

You know what I mean? So at the same time, I'm not going to take stupid risks and give someone like out. Obviously, he's a dangerous guy. He can knock anyone out at any given time. Why take silly risks when I don't need to? I was doing enough. I was working enough. He just didn't pull the trigger.

But if he did, a little bit more, I reckon I would have capitalised, but he didn't. But maybe he was waiting for me to throw more careless shots and stuff like that. like that, but again, I'm a smart fighter. I've got a good fighter IQ and again, I'm very, very well-rounded and I'm only getting better. So the longer that max their weights, the worst will be for him because I'm getting better and better every day. All right. I know you've got to go. So last question for you. Is there any way for you to describe for people who aren't there? I live across the world. I live in the United States. I'm not in New Zealand and I'm not in Australia. How much has training with city boxing and making that move? What has that done for you? Give me a sense of the

of the change that that means? Well, I find out of a freestyle fighting gym in Australia, so that's where I base out of, but obviously I'm a part of a city kickboxing as well, like both of our teams get along really well, and obviously they're part of my team, so I had Brad and

Eugene in my corner, and I do a lot of my camp there, so, oh man, it's unreal, obviously you've got very, very high level training partners, but they're ahead of the game. They really are, you know what I mean? When it comes to striking and stuff like the way they look into it, you know, goes a lot deeper than what people think.

And, you know, and we're really capitalizing on that knowledge, and you'll see in success. You know what? I'm going to fly to New Zealand and I'm going to get those secrets out of you one day. Maybe not today, Alexander, but someday. Hey, you know what? Thank you so much for your time. Congratulations. A hell of a win.

I look forward to your fight with Max Holloway. Thank you so much. No worries, man. Thanks for having me. There he goes. Alexander Volcanovsky. One of the best. Great, great win by him on.

Let's see. Saturday. I can barely keep track of the days anymore. All right. So do we have Mr. Rufus lined up? Where are we on that? All right. Let's go back to the Skype machine. I'm not sure why I'm adjusting all my stuff for

because we have one of the best coaches in the game. And he is going to lead one of his star pupils into battle in August when that star pupil takes on, that being Anthony Pettus, takes on Nate Diaz. Duke Rufus is here. Hi, Duke. How are you? I'm great.

How you doing today? I am delighted to talk to you, Duke. I always am. Boy, you guys in Milwaukee, the heat is about to come for the summer, which I know you guys are excited about. And speaking of the heat, you guys have a fight with Nate Diaz coming around. After the big win over Wonder Boy Thompson, this is a great time in the career of Anthony Pettis, isn't it? Yeah, it's an amazing time. I'm very proud of him. He had a tough streak. And he turned it around, and he's a better man the second time around doing this. I got to tell you the neat thing about this fight is we've kept it real hush, hush. I think it's been in the works about two and a half, three weeks. And the neat thing about it was Nate Diaz's people, talk to our people to put this thing together. So that's when we knew that it was going to be a real fight that when they came reaching out to us,

you know, there's been bad blood between the two guys for years. So it's going to be a barn burner. Now, okay, so let's back up here a step. So this fight kind of got made. independent of the typical UFC matchmaker method? Yes. You know, some of the higher level managers been, you know, we've been, you know,

communicating back and forth. Even when there was word of, you know, Anthony, Biden, Connor, our people were in touch with Audi and Conner's people and, you know, they were on board with it. It just Connor really wants to fight, Khabib, you know. I think a lot of the managers are being proactive, you know, professional.

We were all in this together. You know, at the end of the day, we're going to fight. But the first thing we'd do is work together as business people. We're in the prize fighting business, and we've got to make fights with prizes. Okay.

Tell me why you like this fight for Anthony. Sell it, sell it to me. Well, first of all, you know, we like Wonderboy. If he could knock out a guy like Wonderboy, Anthony doesn't like Nate. Nate doesn't like him. You know, I get along fine with Nate, you know.

I'm not as besty, but at the same time I don't fight the man. I respect the D.S. brothers, and I respect their stance. That being said, their stance is easy to fight when I say their mentality. They're not going to like you. People that try and intimidate and get in Anthony's face bring him up for the challenge. When Donald Soroni thought, Donald had a little trash talk before the fight. Michael Kieser recently. So people like that actually motivate Anthony.

You know, it's kind of like the scene. and Scarface. Oh, for a green card, I'll kill him. But, oh, he's a communist. I'm going to carve him up real nice. That's the mentality he has when he doesn't like guys. You know, so that's where I'm looking forward to this one. How different is this fight by virtue of being at 170 versus 150 pounds?

Well, I think it's great for both guys. I mean, I got, you know, I'm being a little goofy with my metaphors, et cetera, but, you know, Nate Diaz is a beast, and he's going to be a beast at 170. But I found Anthony's really strong. You know, one thing I know from being a coach in this sport, I see these guys have incredible performances in the gym at their normal weight. And that's where I'm trying to get a lot of my guys to dial into being at the weight that they perform the best at in the gym. So that being said, it's going to be a great fight. You know, stylistically, Nate is an incredible boxer, tough as nails.

resilient, got the heart of a champion, and incredible jiu-jitsu. I just think Anthony brings more tools to the fight. Ironically, a lot of people don't realize one of my longtime students, his name is Derek Ewan. He was the coach of Josh Thompson who helped manufacture that win over Nate Diaz. So that goes back to old school Rufus game plan. So what was the key for Josh Thompson to beat Nate Diaz? the up-down game, you know, getting them worrying about the low kicks,

going high, going to the body, et cetera. You know, the thing is, kicking defense is one of those things you just don't pick up in a training camp. And that's what we just saw this weekend, two fights that were strongly affected by the low kick, Anderson Silva. And then as well, another fight was,

you know, Michael Venham Page got off balance with a low kick and then knocked out by Lima. That's why I was so competent, coming into the Wonderboy fight. You know, you don't always see the effects right away of the low kick, but they throw incredible fighters. Timings off.

People who have the ability to kick all targets are very hard to beat. And that's something that Anthony has embraced recently, especially when we don't fight wrestlers. It's a lot easier to kick more. It becomes truly a kickboxing fight. We've got a glory or a Ratcham Nern Stadium fight ahead of us. So what is the biggest challenge when you're fighting Nate Diaz? What do you have to really take seriously?

You know, he's great, man. You know, but we didn't get in this to beat bumps. You know, it's like our last fight, Anthony beat someone who'd never been knocked out before and knocked them out. You know, and one thing is just the mentality. Nate, funny story, Joe Silva told me years ago about when Nate fought Clay Gwita. He kept saying 209, bitch, the whole time during the fight. He comes back to the corner and asks his coach, what's 209? I don't, you know, he's just, he's in your face.

He's, you know, so I'm going to be a crazy coach. I'm going to be talking a lot of mess in training to Anthony. That's some of the psychological tricks. My brothers and I used to do growing up. I'm a method coach, you know, when we're fighting, when he's fighting, one of the guys I'm fighting. I become that guy on the pads. I've become that guy in training so that you get used to that mentality.

You got trash talking up in your face, you know, howling and scowling the best way they can from the 209. So I'm going to, you know, integrate and get into that mindset. I'm going to be a homie for a while. That is a hilarious story. That's so funny. All right. So let me play some devil's advocate positions here if I can. certainly Anthony is not Connor McGregor,

but I guess what I'm asking is, how does Anthony get around the big reach of somebody like Nate? Because I even talk to Anthony after his win over Wonderboy, and while it went his way, one thing he said was, man, the reach was a real problem. The distance was a real problem. Now, Nate is not in and out like that, but he obviously has, you know, lanky arms.

So how was Anthony going to deal with that? The only other tall guy Anthony's loss, too, was Tony Ferguson. You look at him versus Kiesa. You look at him versus Donald Seroni. Anthony fights quite well with tall people. You're right, though. You're exactly right there. Luke, that's why you were on the glory broadcast team with us.

You know, your exes and O's. It's the mobility of Wonderboy that gives so much trouble with his reach. Where Nate, when someone's almost still, you have more options, similar to the way Tyron Woodley dropped Aaron Till. So another tall guy. So one of the biggest things I can help my guys with is I was a small heavyweight. So I know how to fight tall, big people very well. That's how it lasted 20 years in the game.

The other thing, I actually spar with my guys a lot. So they're used to sparring a big dude like me working around my reach, my advantages. So that being said, I think that wonderful. voice, a special, special type of fighter that's very hard to beat. Nate has been beat by some good fighters, and, you know, he does what he does, and I don't see him making a lot of serious footwork changes at this stage of his career, because it doesn't blend with his mentality. He wants to walk up and, you know, Stockton Slav people. You know, I'm looking at his resume, Anthony Pettis's resume. A couple things stand

out to me. Obviously, there was a bit of a dark period there from the Dosanjos loss in 2015 through 2016. Let's start there. I'm wondering as a coach, you know, how concerned were you about his ability to get a rebound during that down period? Well, I said it on your guys' show when Ariel was on it, that if he won a one against Charles Hovera, I was going to quit. That's how desperate I was, You know, because it was hard. It wasn't that he was lazy. It wasn't that he wasn't working hard. Just didn't have his mojo.

The other thing, I think that Anthony, he had such a meteoric rise in the sport. I don't think he handled a lot of the things that he never really dealt with the death of his father. Because I went through the same situation. Ironically, I found my sister dead at the same type of age as him. I had a very dark area of my career because I think beginning of your career, when you catapult from bad experiences, you got the angst, you got the fire. You hate the world. You hate your opponent. Well, what happens to become champion?

We meet girls. We get better lives. You're not as angry as you once were. You're forced to get better. You got to win by getting better. And that's what Anthony's done. He's dug so deep, found a new passion, new motivation. It has nothing to do with all the bad things that happened to him.

His motivation is all the great things that are next to him and ahead of him. And that's when I'm super happy about him. Because sometimes, you know, as tough as we are, we do a good job regarding the things that we should address. Because I stayed up many of late nights thinking about all this stuff for him relating it to my life. And he just dug deep and reinvented himself 2018 on. and, you know, it takes a special person to do that. Also, here's another thing that stands out about Anthony Pettus' resume. Like, you'll know this better than I do, but he gets criticized for some of the losses.

Okay, you know, that happens in the sport. I don't think folks realize this is a guy who fought the best of his generation, fight in and fight out. I mean, these are just some of the names. Donald Serroney, Benson Henderson, Gilbert Melendez, RDA, Eddie Alvarez, Edson Barbosa, Charles Olivera, Max Holloway, Jim Miller, Dustin Poirier, Michael Kiesa, Tony Ferguson, then Wonderboy Thompson.

That's the fight list in order. That is a remarkable, remarkable resume for a guy who's had, yes, some ups and some downs, but Jesus Christ, he doesn't dodge any tough fight. Well, you know, when you're trying to do this, it's hard to wake up and do roadwork and kill yourself to fight gimmies, you know? You need people to motivate you.

I'm motivated as a coach because he's super motivated as a fighter. You know, fighting fights were supposed to win doesn't make us work hard and do special effort. And that being said, that's his mindset. I love it. Even in, you know, a lot of people don't realize the Tony Ferguson fight. That was a short camp. We took that UFC needed a fight that in case Connor and Khab got hurt some extra 55s. We took that on a short camp.

A lot of people don't realize Anthony won't admit it because he's. He never makes excuses, but I'll let the world know. Three weeks before the Dustin-Poree fight, he was cut on his forehead. That's why he was bleeding so bad in the fight. Yeah, the Dustin hit him because he reopened the cut. You know, he gets criticized as a Taekwondo pretty boy, but he's about that way. You know, he's tougher than tough man, and that's what I love about the kid. You know, he don't judge a book by its cover.

So what can he gain with a win over Diaz? We know that Diaz has obviously rocketed to start him with his back and forths with Connor. He is beloved. You mentioned about that life. We know the Diaz's are very much about that life. They have a cult following. So let's say Anthony gets a win in August over Nate Diaz. Where does that put him?

What does it do for him? Just more marquee fights. I think that's the stage of the career he's at right now is super fights. You know, I know that's an overused term, but the fights that the fans won. Anthony loves making the fans happy. He lives through the fans. That's why I gave him the Showtime moniker from his first fight. It's not that he was a pretty guy with his style.

When it was time to fight, he flipped the switch on. He ran out there and just whooped a guy. He loves fighting for the fans. There's not a lot of fighters left like that. He's a special one that way. And, you know, when his mind is right, he's in a very tough. guy to beat. And right now he's a happy fighter, which Mike

Tyson says is a dangerous fighter. If he gets this win at 170 and you're looking at his resume, I guess I'm trying to ask like what can we say about his achievements, right? Two different weight classes, got a title in one of them.

How as his coach, would you evaluate his body of work if he builds on the Thompson win here? Just incredible. I mean, you know, I'm not going to say he's Muhammad Ali, but it's Muhammad Ali. Like, you know, a lot of people counted Muhammad Ali out when he fought George Foreman. You know, we knew no, everyone thought we were crazy to take the Wonderboy fight.

They all, we knew that that was a great, that was a great set up fight for the UFC to bring it Wonderboy back, not Anthony back. I mean, I'm not saying the UFC set us up. We asked for the fight. That being said, I just know stylistically. when it comes to striking, who are the best matchups. And Nate Diaz is a wonderful matchup stylistically for Anthony. And we're at a neat stage of our career. We're starting to see some stylistic matchups that are fun for him.

You know, Nate is not a big shooter, not a big wrestler. So it's going to be on the feet a lot unless Anthony chooses it to be on the mat. And he wants to take Nate down. What are you next on the road, coach? We just had two guys at Bellator this weekend. We split one and one, and Tyrone Woodley's protege won his pro debut. He was a former IMF, bronze, and silver medalist. So a really good weekend.

I have five fighters on the Al Thay, May 31st, in Minneapolis. Then we have four fighters on the UFC in Minneapolis, Tyrone Woodley, Sergio Pettus, Jared Gordon, and Jordan Griffin, and then I go with the Funkmaster, Ben Asking. We go to Vegas, July 6th for International Fight Weekend. Got Brendan Allen on the contenders, July 16. And then we go to Cal, we're going to be in hostile territory, then August 17. So we're going to be a magical summer.

All right. We'll have to catch up with you as time goes on because you got a lot on your plate, but I know you're up for the challenge. Always like catching up with you, Duke. Thank you so much for your time. And I can't wait to see Anthony's fight against Nate. Awesome. Thank you. Have a great day, everybody. There he goes. Duke Rufus, a great, great coach and talent in the MMA space.

All right, let us do this. Let us go back to our friend in the back with Danny Segura. Let's get back to another round of the soundoff if we can. I don't even want to play the graphics. We'll have to. We can just go back. Yeah, there we go. Danny, can I make a confession? Go for it. I have a booger in my nose the size of a roofing shingle. and it is killing me right now. I can touch it. It is honestly,

if I pulled it, it'd be like a Volkswagen beetle just coming right out of my nostril. You understand that? Yeah, I do. Oh my God, dude. I've been there. I've been there.

Just hang tight, man. I'm never going to get no surgery again, ever, dude. What a mistake this was. I'd rather just use Afrin the rest of my life. I mean, you already got it over with, right? Are you feeling better, though? Somewhat, somewhat. But it's been a week.

It was, I got it last Tuesday. So it's been, it's been seven days. And not that much progress to be candid with you. Not that much. Give it a few months. Then, you know. Great. Yeah.

More months of breathing through my mouth and waking up with a headache. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's very fitting. You're hating, you're hating so much on mouth breathers that, you know, you turn into one. It is, it is karma in the end. Yeah, it's called karma. Yeah. You're pumped for that Ferguson versus, uh, sorry, what am I saying?

The, um, Pettus versus DS fight. Oh, yeah. Oh, by the way, I'm going to be so pissed if embedded, it doesn't catch. Duke Rufus imitating Nate Diaz. How great were that being? Oh, dude, that was so funny. Yeah. What is 209?

That's so great. That's so great. All right. Well, look, let's get back to the calls. I didn't even ask you before. Did people care about Bellator this weekend? What do you think? Yeah, they did.

I think it was more actually centered around Lima and Jack Swagger's... Listen to my nose, right? Controversial. No, no, no. Oh, God. This is what I'm living with all day. all day. All right.

You're the worst. All right. Let's see. By the way, do you want to talk about that slam or do you feel like you've covered it all with you? Let's talk about it because I want to get some other perspectives. Okay, cool. So let's discuss that. Hey, Luke, this is Joey from Woodbridge, Virginia.

Oh, Hoodbridge. I just want to know, what did you think about that slam from on drives? Did you think that's a spike? When I first saw it, I kind of thought it was a spike. I thought it was going to be a disqualification. So I just want to get your take on it. you. Bye. Yeah, so it definitely was a spike. It's just one of the ones that the rules carve out in exception for. I tried to pitch my case to you. The essence of MMA is allowing for things like

this, especially when there isn't this clear and present danger about injury. Not that there's not a risk, but it's not like eye gouging, right? It's not the exact same thing. So what did you make of my argument? Where are you in all of this? So I don't, I feel like some people in MMA, like just right off the bat, they take a strong stance on whatever subject or question is being brought up. I'm right in the middle where I'm like kind of hearing all sides and then still developing, you know, an idea about it, a standpoint. What I would say is I think I'm more towards allowing slams. However, you know, they are pretty, they can be pretty dangerous, you know. But I mean, so is a lot of things in M.A. You know what I'm saying? So the whole point of my MMA is

to encourage it. Exactly. The whole point of MMA is to destroy a person. Exactly. And yeah, it sounds, it sounds brutal, but I mean, it is a brutal sport. This is the business we have chosen. Exactly. This is the hurt business. So, look, I think some should be slammed. I mean, some should be banned if you look at, for example, remember when like Bob Sapp slammed Minotaro where it was just like straight on the neck? Like he just picked them up like from the double position.

Yeah. But he also had a 100 pound weight advantage. That is true. Right. Big, big difference. Yeah. I don't feel comfortable watching that because, you know, it can lead to a pretty serious injury. Like, you know, like, I'm not saying CTE is like no big deal or anything like

that, but like you can paralyse somebody. You know, that's like, that's really, really bad, you know? So, you know, I don't really know where I stand on it. I feel like some slams should be illegal, but, you know, I want to look into it a little more. But overall, I think slamming should be, should be part of M.M.A. Yes, there should be rules about slamming. But we should understand the more rules you create, the more creativity and valuable techniques you eliminate, which is why I tried to show in the Carl Parisian footage. And then also, I think Chelsanin's key insight about you take the things that are illegal and you make them legal so that people don't have a space to hide in their composite sports,

that is that is what we are about here. And I just feel like, yes, you want to take danger seriously. So make a carve out. You can't do it but for this submission. Fine. I'm good. I can live with that. I can live that completely.

I think it's a great compromise. All right. Now let's discuss a different point of view. about that fight. Hey, good morning, guys. This is Charles Jalen calling out of Atlanta, George. My question is about Rose. Do you think it's a good thing

that Rose did not win on Saturday night for the UFC at the fighting fans? Not personally, because Rose is a very, very likable champion, very honorable and for what she stands for. But with her feeling that probably is no longer patching,

and she doesn't know if she's going to keep doing this, do you think it's a good thing not personally but a good thing for the UFC and fighting fans who loves you know consistent defending champions it's a good thing that she did not win thanks for taking my call

and enjoy the rest of the day all right Mr. Yalin that guy he's an OG he's been calling since day one he is a great man yeah shout out to that guy yeah yeah so where do you stand on that was it ultimately maybe a good thing that

you know Rosamu and his lost their belt because afterwards she didn't really, I don't know, she didn't really wasn't too, too keen on continuing her MMA career. She's, it's kind of up in the air. Yeah. So when I pre-recorded my interview with her, one of the things that we ran into was that, um, you know, I was told that she wasn't feeling great. And I was like, oh, she's sick.

Yeah. And they're like, no, she's just, um, you know, she's just dealing with a lot. Now what that means, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the thing. You have to have a certain constitution to be a fighter and you have to have yet another constitution to be a champion. It's one thing to be the person who is seeking out challenges, and it's one person, it's another thing to be the person who is the challenge. I think that pressure she didn't like, I don't think she's ever really liked it, but I think she especially

didn't like it. And so I'm not going to say it's necessarily good because there's all kinds of different realities you could imagine for somebody that we could entertain. I guess the only thing I would say is if you're not right for that kind of a role, which is a leadership role to a degree, you shouldn't be in it. And so maybe the fates played out like they were supposed to in some kind of capacity. Yeah.

And I think ultimately it is something good for the UFC because if you're going to invest media and PR and you're going to invest a lot in someone, you want them to stick around, right? They don't want to like, you know, build up a champion and then have that champion just be like, hey, you know what?

I don't want to do this anymore. I'm out. So I guess in a way, if you look at it that way, it is kind of good for the UFC. But I never, you and I are to say, but we never look at a fight and be like, oh, it'd be awesome if this person lost. Yeah. We kind of be like, if they lose, they lose.

If they win, they win. It's just, well, we'll just make an adjustment from there. Exactly. Yeah. But something I do want to point out and, you know, I feel like I kind of get this sense from Rose is like, look, she's 26. She started fighting at a very, very early age. The things that you're into in your early 20s and then, you know, when you start getting closer to 30, you know, you change as a person, right? You become an adult.

Oh, yeah. So maybe, you know, her priorities change. as well, you know. I don't really think it's also like, oh, she's going through something. Like something must be wrong. Dude, dude. Sometimes. You know what she's going through, Danny? Life. That's it. I mean, you, I don't know if you can remember, but if you go back like from your teens, your late teens and your early 20s, back when, you know, when you were 26, you know, you're a completely different person. Bro, I thought third eye blind was a good band when I was a sophomore. You know, I mean, what a stupid person I am, right? So, there you go. Yeah, we'll see what happens with Rose. You know, hopefully whatever she decides to do next, she's happy in, and that's all we can wish her.

I just want to smoke some of the marijuana that she grows in her garden. Yeah, I saw a picture like a while ago. It's still a very small plant. I don't think there's any nuggets. I don't know if maybe anything has changed. All right, let's switch topics into something, man, a little bit more sad that happened this weekend. Oh, let me guess, BJ Pan? Yeah, how'd you know?

Saddest shit on earth. Yeah, man. Hey, Luke and Danny. My name's Austin. I'm from Fort Meade, Maryland. Around your neck of the woods. A question for you is, BJ Penn has lost seven in a row,

hasn't won a fight since 2010, in nine years. Is this the chance for the commission to finally step in and tell fighters no? I know there was the Chuck Waddell, Tito Ortiz fights, but a guy like BJ Penn fighting under the UFC,

this is very high profile. I feel like this is a time. where the commission can step in and do the right thing. Thanks for taking my call. Appreciate it, guys. First of all, before we answer that question, what did you think of BJ Pence's performance? It was a tricky one, to be honest.

I didn't think it was that tricky. Really? Yeah. I mean, he was finding a Clay Gwita, who's towards the end of his career. Not a bad fighter, but not... Yeah. This is not a prime fighter by any stretch of the imagination, right? So, yeah, I thought it was...

I mean, look, what you're asking me, that he looked better than he had in his previous... utterly lifeless performances. Yes, he looked better than he had in his previously lifeless performances. Here's the thing I don't like doing, Danny. Yeah. You know, what was one reason,

for example, why I do the Monday morning analyst because I'm not picking on fighters who lost. I want to celebrate fighters who won. Yes. Right? That's the whole idea about it. Wow. Look how great this was. I don't take joy in saying this. This is nothing I get pleasure out of.

I'm not going to sleep later on being like, yeah, I really stuck it to BJ. Somebody in his inner circle and in his life needs to tell him to stop. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is unethical. If you are in his inner circle and you are not telling him to stop, you are party to an unethical act. This is bad. This is very, very, very, very, very bad. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. And this whole bit about you can never tell another person to retire is just, it's, it's, you are, you are not making, you are morally abdicating your responsibility when you say something like,

that. Folks are like, well, you want to be careful about it. Of course you do. But let's look at the facts, Danny. The longest losing streak in UFC history is now occupied by a man who, when I was a fan of the sport before I got into this full time. It was one of the greatest fighters ever. Okay. Had the best jab, had the best takedown defense, had some of the best jujitsu, and was you could not hurt him. You could not rock him or even physically mark him. We are so far past that at this point, it's hard to stay even where we are anymore. You have a response. You have a response. If you are media to speak out no more doing interviews with this guy and being like what do you feel like you could win your next one It has to stop somebody has got to say stand up and say enough is enough and I think the commission might at this point

I guess I guess we'll have to say but the point is do you really Danny have to wait until you're at the longest losing streak of UFC history Before you say something. Gil with this this was viewable a long time ago. Yeah, we have just let it drag out forget all the troubles that are happening in his private life. I don't even know what the truth is with that. It's all allegations. We'll see what happens. But everything that happens in that octagon now, if you are part of that, you are morally complicit in this act. And you have to own it now. Yeah, I'm with you. I still feel like if he wanted a fight, I wouldn't be, look, I don't want it, but I wouldn't be 100% opposed to it. But something that this question brought up and I think is important was remember when Chuck Ladell got commissioned to fight, you know, Tito Ortiz, the commission.

the California State Athletic Commission said, you know, the reason why we were allowing him to fight is because of the type of opponent he's facing, right? BJ Penn is in no way, in no shape to face UFC caliber opponents. And I think Clay Guida is still a UFC caliber guy. So with that being said, the commission does have the power to be like, look, you shouldn't be fighting these guys. If you want to continue fighting, all right, fight.

Like remember what, not so long ago, I think it was last year, Hensel Gracie at 51, fought somebody, you know, some donk in one. Yeah. Dude, I'm okay with that. If you want to do that and let's say go to Belator and just get super easy matchups, just get a few more fights in, fine, do it.

But BJ's no longer UFC caliber. He hasn't been UFC caliber in a long time and he's just going to get hurt if he continues to be in there. He's been getting hurt for years. This is not new. And I think something that makes me uncomfortable as well is like, you know,

there are certain fighters that are in pretty bad losing streaks, but they are in grip with the reality, right? They're like, oh, yeah, I know I'm in a pretty bad losing streak. I know this looks bad. But look, you know, I want to give it one more try. I want to see how this goes. You know, we didn't see, I think, you know,

Guillermo Cruz talked to him and he was like, you know, he wasn't like, look, I think, you know, I'm feeling great. But that Ryan Hall fight was so quick. I didn't get to display everything. I kind of just want to give it one more shot. Dude, he was talking about becoming a champion again. Right. I mean, it's just utterly.

That's when you go, man, like, your reality is not, it's kind of skewed, you know? It's like, yeah, you want to be a champion after the longest losing streak in UFC. history? I mean, is it possible? I suppose it's possible I could, you know, deadlift a thousand pounds after the show today, but seems relatively unlikely. Yeah. Just the last thing on this, MMA media don't want to say things like this a lot of time. Some of them do. They don't want to say it for fear of like pissing off people, which I understand. It's really easy to criticize

MMA media when you're not the person who has to talk to people's managers and agents and friends, that's true. It's very, very easy to say that. But on the other hand, dude, at some point, you got to do the right thing and the responsible thing. I don't know what is in her circle is telling him. Maybe they're telling him to stop and then he just keeps on going. Somebody in that space, if the media or the media, whoever has a public platform, you have to stop being party to this.

You have got to stop being party to this. You've got to say something. It is not okay that this continues. It just isn't. Yeah. I wonder when the UFC is going to step in because we know how Dana White fell about Chuck Liddell and a few other fighters. And I don't feel like they're giving the same treatment to BJ.

I don't know if they see something that we don't. I don't know. I don't know. It's a great question. I don't know the answer to it. Yeah, that's a weird one. All right. Let's talk about Jack Swagger, your favorite WWU.

That was so weird. Yeah. I'm rock hard. Hey, guys. Covenant for an island. I was just wondering what you guys thought about the Jack Swagger fight and how he held on to the choke after the referee told him to let go. do you think he should be fined?

Do you think he should be suspended? Do you think his wins should be overturned to a no contest? What are your thoughts? I know in the past the UFC has even gotten rid of fighters or suspended them, I believe. What do you think? Bye. So what happened was he's talking about Babelusa Brawl, who did that too.

I think he was David Heath. I think he did it twice, right? He might have done it twice, but the big one was he had really busted up David Heath. David Heath was a bloody mess. And I think he hit him in an anaconda and then rolled through and then submitted him and he didn't let go.

And he held on until the guy went unconscious. Yeah. And so it was a bad look. So he either got fined by the organization or let go. I don't remember what happened, but that was a big one. I remember because I had a media fight with somebody else about it, which is the other story. I remember I forgot what I saw, but something that covered it pretty extensively. And I think he had done it twice in the UFC. The first time he did it, he got into some heat.

And I think the UFC was like, look, this is not cool, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And they let it slide. And then he did it the second time. And it was because his opponent was talking, what was his name again? David Heath. David.

I believe that was David Heath, yeah. Yeah, he was talking mad smack. And, you know, Bobaloo took that person. He's like, yo, I'm going to make you pay, bro. Yeah. And he just held into a choke and choked him out of conscience. My whole thought of this was, is it the end of the world? It's not.

Yeah. My thought is the commission should probably say something to him. Yes. I don't think he should be fine. And I definitely don't think he should be suspended. In part because you have to look at what happened. right? One of my arguments about the slam is if every time it happened someone was getting destroyed

we would have to have a very careful conversation about it and while there are health risks associated with it and dangers, no doubt about it. I think we have to have a sober assessment of the health outcomes here. Same thing with this choke. What was the health outcome? I mean, it was not great, but it wasn't the end of the world. So he should just be probably lectured

that's the end of it. My only thought was like, dude, that's the guy you want to flex on? You know, the, what they call him on Twitter, beet plant, beef plant? No, I saw Post Malone references. Yeah.

He kind of does look like Post Malone, man. He just needs like the little drinks. He needs some face tattoos like stitches. Oh, you should actually get that. Always tired, I think he has underneath his eyes. What's your going to do, showy? All right. Okay, God.

Now you put that in my head, and all I can think about is him fighting Post Malone. Good Lord, that is hilarious. Yeah. It's not that big a deal. It's awesome. I mean, it's not great. It's not the big of a deal. I do think the commission should say something.

Yeah, of course, absolutely. They have to let other fighters know, like, look, this is not cool. You can't do this. Once the referee puts his hands on you, it's time to let go. And this whole bit about like, I wanted to make sure, okay, I mean, stop it. This is not a valid excuse. You know, you know, especially because the referee has the rubber gloves, I believe. So in any case, the only thing was afterwards, you know, where he talked about,

Well, I can't even say because, you know, people work in this. So it's a work environment. Just go to look up the post-fight interview if you're listening to this. It's like that was one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen. Yeah. Ever. He looked like, you know, he did the right things. He had good wrestling, I guess.

But, you know, he's out there fighting guys you see on Post Malone. Post Malone on Rough and Rowdy on Bar School. Yeah. But, you know, that's what you do with, I guess, prospects or guys who are just... No, it's a fine way to match him up. It's just a weird way to act. Burn through it to be on your way, you know. Yeah.

All right. Do you want to talk about something cool or something sad? Cool. All right. Let's talk about Douglas Lima then. He had a pretty nice finish. Yeah, he did. Luke, it is Joshy fresh from San Diego,

and I want to talk about Douglas Lima versus MVP. Can we just talk about the timing of that kick and that uppercut that knocked Michael Vennum back to last week? Man, I wish he would fight in the UFC. Thanks. Yeah, dude, the presence of mind that Douglas Lima has, and then the accuracy in a chaotic, you know, weird moment like that, he's so good.

Super good. And he's never going to be Mr. Popular. He's never going to be the homecoming king. He even was like, yeah, the money's nice, but I really want to be champion. I believe him. Yeah. Yeah. I believe him, you know? Yeah, he's one of those old school guys that, like, they fight because they really love it.

And you can tell that guy, that guy's really passionate about. fighting. So yeah, the money's nice. I'm sure he wants to have that. But he really cares about being one of the best Walter weights in the world. And boy, that finish definitely prove that. I tweeted this is like something from Tekken. Like, dude, it was insane. Yeah. Yeah, he's, very finished. I tweet about it all the time. I was like, Douglas Lima is probably better than your favorite fighter. There's a decent chance. Whoever that is, he might be better. You think we ever see him in the UFC or he's just a Belator guy? I think he's probably a Belator guy. He's been, he looks to me like a guy who I'm going to say the word simple.

I don't mean in his brain. Yeah. But I mean, I think he's been loyal to Bellator. They've been loyal to him. He's had a great career with them. He's a valuable asset to Belator. He's never going to be the guy who, you know, is going to make a gazillion headlines. But he's such a valuable asset in terms of, you know, saying you've got one of the best walterweights on the wall.

A hundred percent. And as a product, he improves the Belator product. Like we see some fights that you're like, bro, this fight sucks. But, like, when you know Douglas Lima's fighting, like, you tune in. You know what I'm saying? That guy puts on great fight. So he definitely improves the Belator product. All right, next.

Yeah. All right. Sad or happy? Happy. All right. Hey, guys. It's Rick from Toronto. I'm just wondering if you guys think Cowboy taking this Tony fight with such a quick turnaround is cause for concern.

And also, if you think this was the right fight to make. I think a lot of people expected Conner versus Cowboy. maybe Tony versus Gachy. I think it was surprising for some people. Anyway, thanks guys. Take care. I love this fight so much more. Love it. Love it, love it. Love it, love it. Let's look at the breakdown here.

Yeah, yeah, it would be great for Connor to give some of the shine to Cowboy, of course. Here's the deal, though. If you're a cowboy, you get what you get, you beat Tony Ferguson. That's the best one of your career, full stop, number one. 100%. And it would probably put him in a title position afterwards as well. certainly pretty close. 100%.

I mean, you have to. And if you're Tony, it's about as good a reintroduction to that. We would say, like, who's Tony going to fight? This is a great reintroduction because Cowboys coming off that Iaquinto win, which is maybe the best win

of his lightweight campaign, certainly. And so if you get that, you're now thrust to the top of that division. By the way, action on the ground, yes, action on the floor, yes. Action in between, yes. Like, there's very little to dislike here. And people are like,

who should Connor fight? Is a very simple answer. Justin Gachie. He should fight Justin Gaichi. The MMA's most popular fighter versus MMA's most violent. Tell me what's wrong with that. Tell me why that's not the fight to make. I don't know, man.

I don't. I don't like it because I forget about what he would take. What do you mean? Don't protect Connor. Okay, see, I'm in the business of protecting Connor after the hubby fight. All MMA media does that because he's good for your bottom line. You want to see Connor sticking around, you know, the UFC? Yeah.

You do not put him against Justin Gage. That's his problem to bear, not mine. I suppose, but I don't know. Look, I wouldn't hate it. I would watch it. I think as a fight alone is a fantastic matchup. But I think Connor needs a tune-up, man. Connor needs to win.

And I don't think Justin Gagey fight is a fight for him to win. This paternalistic instinct everybody has for Connor that they don't give to anybody else. I'm a little bit over it. I'm a little bit over it. I know what you mean. It'd be better for business long-term. Don't care. Yeah.

I think part of me, there's a part of me that's the boxing way. the way they do things. So I think, you know, an 8-D-S fight would have been amazing. An Anthony Pettus fight would have been amazing. Look, a Gagy fight is good as well, but down the line, like, let him get some pop, you know, behind them. But I mean, if that's the way they go, I wouldn't hate it. But back to the question... The problem is the UFC, you can't get true tune-ups.

A true tune-up is when you get, like, a jobber that they give you. No, there's no true tunips. That's right, 100%. But there are some better matchups than others. Yes. Connor is... Connor versus Cowboy, probably more favorable to Connor than Gachy. I can agree to that.

I think that was a fight to make. To be honest, I... Oh, you're a hater. Yes, I am a hater. You're a hater. I'm a hater. I'm a hater. I'm a hater.

I'm with you with all the reasons you mentioned of why you like Ferguson versus Soroni. If you're a true roommate fan, there's nothing to hate about it. But what I do hate is that at the end of day, one of these guys is going to have to lose. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like, dude, I tweeted out Tony Ferguson. People might not know this. But like Tony Ferguson, if he beats Soroni, he's going to be.

be in a 12-fight win streak that spans six years. And still, he hasn't fought for the real 155-pound belt. I think that's insane. I think this man has done enough to deserve a title shot. And as I said, you know, last show, if he's good on money, because this is how he makes money, I would love for him just to wait it out. Look, Porre or Habib might not show up in September. He can just easily slide in there and end up fighting for the real belt.

And if none of them, you know, end up getting hurt and they actually do fight, just get the winner. you know, early next year. Like, you've done enough, man. Don't put it on the line. Because you know if he loses to Soroni, he's going to be out of that conversation. He's going to be two or three wins away, man. And that's not fair. That's not fair.

And Seroni's dangerous, man. Seroni's game. So I don't want to see Tony Ferguson. I want to protect Tony Ferguson. Because he's done enough, man. He's done enough. He's done it all. He's not going to...

Dude, he cleared the entire division. He should have got a title shot a long time ago. He's not in that space. This is about as good. He's going to get, given the circumstances. I suppose. Yeah. Let him fight it out, bro.

Let him fight it out. Man, if he loses what a... If he loses and then never gets a title shot, that'd be one of the saddest things in M.A. I agree, but MMA is sad, so... That's true. That is very true. It's a very sad sport.

Actually, I left UFC 237 kind of depressed. I was like, Jesus. Oh, not me. Really? A lot of sad things. All right. I think that's the next set... A perfect segue.

Last one, because I got to go... I got to get this sheet rock out of my nostril. Yeah, yeah. All right. So about Anderson Silva. God. Hey, Luke, Danny, it's Nino from Washington Township, New Jersey. I had a question for you. What do you think Anderson Silva should do after this fight? Do you think Anderson Silva should retire? And if so, who would you like to see him fight for a retirement flight? What do you think

makes sense for his way off the door? Thank you. Who's next, bro? Well, first of all, let's see how bad the damage is, number one. All right. But like, if it's a torn ACL, I mean, what are we doing? You see his His Instagram post No So Jeremy Cruz Translated it But basically like

You know if you fall down Get up don't quit It's like dude Your body is literally quitting on you You know him and BJ To the most positive Your body is quitting on you Yeah

You know It's like these guys who done so many You know I'll walk something back I used to believe Danny And I'm not saying this is the case with Anderson I know the question it was about Anderson But we talked about with BJ I used to believe

It was like these guys who hang on too long who are like, oh, they're going to damage your legacy. And I used to think that that was not true. And my argument was, not that it was totally untrue, but overstated. How about that? And my argument was, okay, how are you going to unwind what BJ did to wait class champion before? Now, anybody did it, you know, blowing through Matt Hughes. And then he was with the Morinovich brothers and all that stuff, you know, beating the Graysies and the way that he did, blah, blah, blah.

It doesn't undo that. Those things still happened. Yeah. But then when you begin to, like, did you know what BJ Penn's record is? 16, 14, and 2. He's nearly a 500 fighter. Yeah, man, it turns out if you do it long enough, you actually can. I don't think Silva is there yet.

I don't think he's nearly in the same position as BJ is. Yeah. But if he keeps trying, he's going to find himself there before we even know it. For sure. And there's talks of him signing an extension deal with the UFC. I know. I saw. I couldn't believe it.

This is a weird one because going into the Adasanya fight, I mean, you knew my thoughts. I was like, look, I think Silva's still a top 15 middleweight, right? By the way, and he looked okay in this fight. He looked okay. Yeah, he did. But, like, I don't know, something about him just being on the ground, wincing in pain, grabbing his leg, and then just remembering, you know, what happened with him when he fought Chris Whiteman. Just makes me feeling easy, man. I'm down to watch him fight maybe a few more times, a couple more times. But, like, you know, there's definitely something to that Legends division.

You know, if he's going to fight some other old dude, you know what I'm saying? Don't be fighting Jared Cannonier, who looks, who's, like, built, you know, and just looks like a killer, you know? Dude, correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't Jared Kennanir, the guy who, like, with crazy eyes, marched out, Ion Kutte Lava? Oh, yeah. People slept on the killer gorilla. Dude, he's an insane person. He's an insane person.

And I say that as a compliment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jared Can I hearer is a wild man. And, you know, dude, and I, can I save shouts to Jared Kenanier? I get so sick of these American fighters. I love Brazil, but people like, oh, they're great sports fans. No, they're nationalists. Let's call that what they are.

They're nationalists. And that's fine, but that's what they are. So if you're a Brazilian, they've got your back to the end of the earth. You could be anything else, and they're going to wish cancer upon you and your family. They're who they are. They're going to literally say, we hope you die. Right? You're going to die.

So for him to get out there and then to drink in the booze, I was at their fist pumping and donkey kicking in my home studio. And then to tell the audience that he didn't respect them, yes, thank you, Jared Cannon. I get so tired of these American fighters going down there. I love you, Brazil. Meanwhile, they're throwing bags of urine and coins at them, telling them to get out of the cage.

No, forget it. I'm not saying you have to go to Kobe Covington route. We have to call them filthy animals. But stop jet deflecting before them. They don't want your praise. I guess when fighters do this, they want to be cool. So they usually, you know, learn a couple of words and say, you know, Obregato, Brazil?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, look, yeah, I kind of like what Jerry Kennedy said, like straight up. He was like, yo, if you don't respect me, I don't respect you. So, you know, F you. Kind of like the Ally Quinta route. Which was in Fairfax, Virginia. Good for Al, too.

They were booed in for no reason. He had every right to say that. He fought his ass off. Like, there's no, you know what I'm saying? That was the judge's call. You know what I'm saying? That was on Anderson Silva's leg. The dude went in there and fought.

Pop quiz. Who did Ally Quinta beat in Fairfax to get booed? Wasn't it Mazvedo? It was Jorge Mazvedo. Who he beat and he gets booed. How is that his fault? And by the way, Jorge is a really good fighter. So, yeah.

Yes. Thank you. I think if you're a fan and you're booing, I understand the frustration, but don't take it out on the fighters, man. They go in there and to perform and that's what they do. You know what I'm saying? Unless there's something dirty, all right, fine. Like, you know, there's something there.

But if the guy just goes in there or goes in there just to fight and does their job, like, you know, leave him alone. And did Kenoneer talk trash to spider before? No, not at all. No, super respectful. The fight just happened the way it happened. Yeah. And you're going to boo the guy? Yo, I told you on the NBA beat.

I think wherever this goes, if Kenornear loses, however the fight went, I don't think it was going to be like, oh, wow, look at Jerry Kenanier. He beat Anderson Silva. I thought it was going to be the other way around. Like, oh, my God, look at Anderson Silva. At this point, if Anderson Silva gets matched up with those type of fighters, that's the type of narrative that's going to continue leaving every fight,

if he loses, of course. All right, my friend, I need to go and pull this Lexus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate that you didn't do that on camera. I came, I probably would have been the end of the show. You understand I came this close? I came this close. Really?

Yeah. I am a gross person. All right. Great job today. It was nice to see you. Thank you so much. What to thank all of our guests, Alexander Volcanovsky, Jordan Burroughs, Duke Rufus, all of you guys. Keep sending the tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour.

Keep calling us 844-866-2468. Until next time, stay frosty.