MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour: Mayweather vs. McGregor special edition, Day 3

Episode Date: August 25, 2017

On this special edition of The MMA Hour, live from Las Vegas, site of Mayweather vs. McGregor, Ariel Helwani speaks to Randy Couture (00:02:48), Floyd Mayweather Sr. (00:14:41), Josh Thomson (00:34:05), Teddy Atlas (00:44:39), Isiah Thomas (00:54:32), Tyron Woodley (01:13:59), Heather Hardy (01:29:55), Ice Cube (01:40:41), Brian Kenny (01:56:51), Amir Khan (02:14:00, and Stephen A. Smith (02:25:42). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's the mixed martial arts hour with... The mixed martial arts hour. It is back in your life on this Friday, August 25th, 2017. Logan, everyone, I'm Ariel Hawwani, still in Las Vegas. This time I'm coming at you with maybe six hours of sleep, so I'm no longer delusional. But boy, oh boy, I was just telling the crew here, I'm having the time of my life. I've never had more fun covering...

any kind of sporting event, covering MMA fights, covering anything, period, and it might actually be the time of my life period. I don't know if I've ever had more fun in the span of three, four days ever in my 35 years in existence. This has been a blast. This has been an honor. This has been a privilege. Thank you so much to Twitter for giving us this platform.

You can watch us live right now. If you are hearing this, you are doing so already over at mMAfighting. Twitter.com. We have a jam-pack day slated for you. this afternoon from Las Vegas. We're going three hours today leading up to the way-ins. We've done two shows already.

We've done the beat from here. I don't even know what happened yesterday with Chris Eubank and Kepti and Valentina Shvchenko and DJ and all the guests who stopped by. Karatop, Bonner, Barone a couple days ago. Gentleman's Club with Floyd Mayweather,

this has been unlike anything I could have ever imagined. And we are still a little over 24 hours away from the fight of the century. Connor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather, Junior at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Some of the names who will be joining us live here today, these are some of the names.

Randy Couture, Teddy Atlas, Josh Thompson, Tyron Woodley, Heather Hardy, Brian Kenny, Stephen A. Smith, maybe Isaiah Thomas, NBA legend. And who knows who else is going to stop by? We're in Media Center here in Vegas, just a couple blocks away from the T-Mobile Arena. This is called Radio Row right behind me.

Tons of guests here. The buzz is building. We were here on Wednesday. It was quiet. Now it's a circus. It's a zoo. And I love it. Look at it.

Tons of outlets, tons of radio stations, TV shows. It's just so much fun. I hope that you have been enjoying the coverage. I hope you had fun with us over the last few days. Let's do it again. I do think in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by one of our first guests. and you know what?

Maybe we should go... Randy, come on up here. Come on up here, Randy. Let's start with Randy Couture, the Legend, who came in just for us. Randy, how are you? I just called an audible. Why not?

I could do that. I could do that, Randy. Because I run this show. Thanks for doing this. Grab the mic right over there. Thanks so much for stopping by. How are you? Absolutely good, thank you.

This is great. I have a lot of questions for you, Randy, and I appreciate it. I'm happy to start the show with you right off the top. A couple days ago, I'm flipping through the channels. And I see Randy Couture on FS1, and I thought for a second the solar eclipse happened a little early. I thought I was in the twilight zone.

How did you? I can't get on FS1 anymore. How did you get on FS1? You know what? I have no idea. They reached out to us. They kidnapped you? I'd be interested in doing a couple of their talk shows.

And, of course, and I haven't been back literally in five years. Yeah. So it was cool to go back and see everybody there and be back in the green room and the whole thing. It was fun to do those shows. Those shows are interesting, they're intriguing. They ask a lot of interesting questions, so it was good. But honestly, I don't know how that happened. Perhaps it was an olive branch.

Perhaps you'll be doing more. You should be on there. I would be happy to. I enjoyed working there when I worked there. It's something that I do enjoy. I think giving a fighter's perspective, I think we see things that other people don't see. How do you feel about this?

Because building up to this fight, we've been talking about you versus James Tony that was so much fun to cover of course it was the reverse and no one thought that James had a chance in your fight and a lot of people don't think Connor has a chance let me ask you this going into the James Tony fight

who has a better chance like if we were to say okay these two fights are happening on the same night Connor against Floyd and boxing or James Tony in an MMA match 10 years or what is it eight years ago now against you um you know it really depends on the combatants I wasn't going to play James's game.

I had respect for James' ability as a boxer. This is an MMA engagement. I wasn't going to stand around in front of him and see how hard he hits and see how good he rolls his shoulder and throws that hook. I mean, there are a lot of other pieces to MMA, and I want to see how he's going to do in those situations.

This is the opposite of that. Connor, you know, his striking style is from more traditional martial arts. He does a lot of spinning kicks and spinning fists, and he's not a traditional. boxing or western boxing type striker and now he's engaged in a purely boxing competition where that footwork and that timing and that hand speed and all that stuff comes into play and he's

fighting arguably one of the best defensive boxers we've seen in 20 years yeah uh just does he have a chance absolutely he's got a couple things going for him he's unorthodox he's a southpah and he's unorthodox he's not going to throw things like Floyd has seen coming at him for his entire career. He's young and he's big for this way class. So those things I think go in his favor, but still at the end of the day, Floyd's going to do what he's going to do. He's going to be elusive. He's quick. He's got great hand speed. He's got great head movement. He's going to be hard to hit. And the harder you chase him, the more you seem to get hit, that's how I see this fight going. Are you surprised that Dana and Company allowed this fight to happen? You were, you know,

you tried to do the Fadoor fight. I know that's different. It is different because I'm not protected by the Muhammad Ali Act. Uh-huh. When Floyd Mayweather got his boxing license and got his boxing number, he became protected by the Ali Act. Sure. They realized at that point they couldn't stop him from doing this. You mean Connor?

Connor. Okay. I said, I'm sorry. May Mack. Yes, they've kind of blended into one, haven't they? It has. It's very strange. Do you think that's the only reason why they let this happen?

Oh, they did a complete 180. Yeah. Stripped him of his title or harassing him because he was talking about this fight. That's right. That's right. And then when he got that boxing license, they did a complete. complete 180, they saw the opportunity to take some of that money, to make some money off of this thing, and they realized they couldn't stop him. I'm not sure why, because he's educated, he knows that he's

protected. I'm not sure why he let them in. You think that would have flown? I mean, they could have sued. They have a contract. They, right? Four fights left. That contract is null and void. In boxing? By his protections under the Ali Act. It's written right in that contract. You cannot buy. wrestled grapple without our express written consent. But the second he got that boxing number, he fell under the protection of the federal legislation that's written in the Muhammad Ali Act that doesn't allow that exclusivity by a promoter.

So why didn't you try to box Fador when you tried to fight him? Why didn't you go around them? I'm not a boxer. I know, but both of you together, you know, like it was such a big deal. It was a big deal. And I honestly, back then in 0506, I didn't understand what the Ali Act was.

Okay, fair enough. I didn't understand, and again, I'm an MMA fighter, I'm not a boxer. I didn't realize that going and getting a boxing license created some protections for me that I don't have as a mixed martial artist. Okay, fair enough. Now, where do things stand with the Ali Act? Because you're one of the few who actually puts his money where his mouth is. I know that's not the best analogy, but you get what I'm saying.

A lot of people talk about Aali Act and association. You actually do the work. I'm heavily involved with the mixed martial arts fighters association, the MMAFA. We've been to D.C. almost every month for the last nine months. With Mark Wayne Mullins help spearheading this, who was an MMA fighter, you know, tried out and was going to be on the ultimate fighter. So he understands perfectly well what these contracts look like and how this all fits together. Oklahoma, right? He's from Oklahoma?

Yeah, he is. We have 36 congressmen now that are co-sponsoring the expansion. That's 16 more than the original act had when it was. when it passed in 2000. So I think we have some great momentum. Mark Wayne is a very smart man. He understands how all this works. It's been an eye-opener being on the hill and talking to these people

and trying to educate them about what mixed martial arts is going through and what's going on with the fighters in our sport. How soon do you think we can get this done in MMA? It looks to me like we're going to get to go before the entire Energy and Commerce Commission here in October. Oh, wow. So I spoke to a subcommittee back in December last year in the 113th Congress. We reintroduced the Expansion Act in the 114th Congress.

We've since garnered a lot of momentum with the congressmen on both sides of the aisle. They understand the issues, understand what's going on in our sport, and I think we're going to finally get to present this to the Energy and Commerce Commission to be voted on. And then it has to go to the House. Okay. So there's still a couple of steps. Yeah, we're still a ways away, but I think we've got some good momentum going in. I love that you're doing that.

Please keep that up. It's important for the sport. Do you think we'll ever see an association of sorts, or do you think the sport is too fragmented? No, I think if we can continue to educate fighters, I mean, that's what we're doing. I needed to be educated myself. Like I said in 2005-06, I didn't understand what the Alley Act was and what protections, boxers were getting that we aren't getting because the Act hasn't been expanded to cover. all combative sports.

So, you know, there's an education process. It's a bit scary when your potential career is on the line. I can't imagine what Kurt Flood was going through in baseball when all this was going on in baseball, and they were trying to form a fighter of baseball association, you know, for the players. Right. And that's basically what we're in the process. Educating fighters, letting them know that if we come together,

if we use our voice, that we have a lot of power. And we need to use that power to create some transparency in our sport to allow us as athletes to get some of the things we need. Healthcare, retirement plans. I mean, there's a lot of issues in our sport right now for the fighters. We're not getting our fair. The revenue that comes into our sport, we're getting a very small percentage of that,

and there's not another professional sport like it. Do you think Connor is opening some of those doors? He's certainly shedding a light on it in this, and him going out and getting a boxing license. Diaz wouldn't have a boxing license, too. He's certainly shedding a light on some of these issues and what's going on and the difference between... I've been asked that since I started in 97. Why don't you make that kind of money?

What's the difference between boxing and MMA? And I didn't understand. I really know how to answer that question back then. I have a better idea now what the difference is. It was a point where you were making a lot of predictions about UFC fights, and you went on a crazy streak of getting all kinds of... It was amazing. 97% or something.

Yeah, it was nuts. So your prediction is the only one I care about for this fight. Can Connor do it? Can he pull it off? He can. I think he's got a fighter's chance in this. Sure, he's an amazing athlete. He's a great mixed martial artist. Is he a great boxer? I don't know. I don't, you know. But what if he goes in there and just tries to play dirty as a martial artist, hit him in the elbow, hit him in the shoulder, just frustrate him? I think he has to do that. I think he has to do that. He has to do those unorthodox things that most boxers aren't going to do. That's one of his advantages. So wait a second. Are you picking Connor? Is that what happening here?

I think Mayweather's going to win this. I think it's going to be a 12-round, typical Mayweather performance. It has that potential. Really? Floyd is that elusive. You know, I mean, he's talking about, oh, I need to be the aggressor because the Pac-Yau fight and all these things. I get it, but I just don't. He's 49 and 0 for a reason.

He knows what he's good at. He knows what's gotten him to that point. Everyone's, oh, it's to fix. He's going to throw the fights so they can make more money and do it again. I just, I do not. He's not going to risk that one loss, right? No, why would he? He's already making a ton of money.

Yeah. $150, $200. Yeah. So what's the point? Do you think that it would be a massive disaster for boxing if Connor wins, or do you think that people view this as just sort of a one-off and not really a victory for MMA because it's boxing? No, I think there is, I mean, I felt that kind of pressure when I fought James. You did.

You felt you representing the sport. I was representing my sport. I think boxing has more to lose in this engagement than we do. even if it goes 12 rounds and Mayweather gets the decision, I still think that's kind of a win for us. A moral thing. They comment on how bad our striking is and, oh, we've knock you out and all these things. I've heard this stuff since I started in 97, 20 years ago.

Yeah. So I get that. I understand where they're coming from. I understand what they're analyzing and looking at. I don't think they understand what it's like to step in that cage when somebody can kick you, take you down, elbow you, hang on to you and punch you. You do all the things that we do in MMA that you have to be ready for. It changes.

It's not the same sport. There are a ton of similarities. It's still an individual combative sport. Don't get me wrong. But technically, it's not the same thing. Striking changes. Your stance changes. All these things change when all these other things are a potential threat.

Brandy, your insight is second to none. I really appreciate you. You're doing great stuff with Hawaii 5-0, right? Thank you. I have a lot of fun with that. My fourth episode. Yeah, great stuff. Crazy character, but he's fun.

You're an amazing ambassador for this sport, and especially the fact that your fighting days are over, but you're still fighting for the younger guys, I think speaks volumes to who you are and your character. So thank you so much for that, Randy, and thank you for stopping by, making the track. Everyone's going to attack you now back there, so get ready for that. But let them know who brought you here, right? Yeah, absolutely.

There he is. The legend, Randy Couture. We appreciate his time greatly, joining us here this morning. You can just walk off, Randy. That's what we do here. We don't take commercial breaks. It's kind of on the fly. There he goes.

Randy Couture, the one and only, the former UFC champion, Hall of Famer, legend. Living legend. What a way to start day number three of our live MMA hour programs. And I believe two trains passing in the night. We've got Randy Couture, and now we've got the inimitable, the

incomparable. Floyd Mayweather, Sr. Without him, none of this is possible. Without him, we are not here talking about that young man. Floyd, Sr., how are you? You are dressed impeccably today, my friend. Okay, thank you. You just have to put the microphone to your mouth,

the world can hear you. We got it? Yep. Okay. Are you enjoying this? Sure. Because you were kind of critical of this fight. You kind of said that, yeah, this doesn't really make sense.

He has no chance. But look at this spectacle. This is great for boxing, isn't it? Everyone talking about the sport? Well, right now, I'm saying that it's great right at this moment, because it's a lot of things that can come out of this and change it around. There's a lot of things that can do that. But right now is looking good right now, though.

What do you mean by a lot of things that could come out of this? It's a lot of things can change. Like what? What do you mean? Oh, you know, it's different things, you know. It can be, I'm just telling you that the reason I say what I say is because a lot of things can't happen, you know. He can swipe floor his feet. Huh?

You're worried? Uh-huh. Are you worried about that? Of course, I'm worried about that. Okay. I'm worried about that because I don't want nothing going wrong with my son and nothing that should not happen, happen. Okay. Are you worried about like a knee or an elbow?

Are you worried about a kick to the head? I'm worried about all that. Really? You don't, what do you think this man is unhinged? She won't go by the rules, the Queensberry rules? Look at me. Let me just tell you something about people. People sometimes get, people sometimes.

sometimes people's people's that they are complainers and sometimes people's do things that they know they shouldn't do and sometimes things happen with that you know, things happen with that

and that's where people's, you know, when you start you know I'm just saying right now being that we fight we're talking about my son and McConnell I'm talking about him

swiping his feet yeah throwing his elbows or anything crazy like that okay you know I'm just telling you that these are a lot of things that happen

and people don't a lot of times people don't you know, and being at my son, being as my son, a lot of times, you know, how people feel about him, you know, they are, oh, they're glad eyes. Stupid, crazy bullshit. Yeah. That's what it is.

Can I ask you about this? This past week, your son has been spending a lot of time at his new gentlemen's club. Are you worried about that? Should he not be home sleeping at 4 a.m.? I went there and I saw him. I spoke to him there. He was very gracious and he was very open. with his time, but fight week, should you not be at home resting and not in that kind of atmosphere?

You'd prefer that, right? Well, I'm going to tell you that, uh, uh, Florida is, uh, you know, I haven't been, I, I haven't, uh, been to the gym and stuff that much. Why's that? Well, you know, they, they do times that, they do a lot of different times. that I don't, you know, sometimes it's time that I haven't got tired working at the gym, man, then I'm not going back down there. I mean, because I got, I got like a good 35, 40 minutes to get to the gym. Oh, I see.

Okay, so if he's working out in the middle of the night, you can't go wake up and do that at 3 a.m., right? Yeah, he does that. And I think that, you know, sometimes, man, that ain't... You don't like it. I mean, I think that it should be where I know what's going on. Sure. You're the head man. Yeah. Without you, none of this is possible.

Right. Will you seen his corner on Saturday? Well, we'll see. What's happening? Tell us. Well, right now it's not... nothing major but you know it sounds major you're the guy this is 24 hours before the fight well we'll see okay we will see because uh uh I feel like I should be in the corner as well

but what went on is uh I was I happened to be away away from the gym when everything started When everything started, nobody didn't let me know anything. What's? So I'm just saying it was, right now, I don't know whether the other day, the other day I did some pad work with him. Okay. What?

Yeah, I did pad work with him. We did about four or five rounds we did. Okay. How do you look? Well, I mean, him hadn't hit pads. man, it hit pads and you know a win. I'm just saying, no, but he still seems to me he still seems like he's up to power right now. Are you concerned?

Am I concerned? Yeah. I'm always concerned about my kids. Given what you're discussing at. I'm always concerned about my kids, but I'm always concerned about my kids, but I'm not really, really, worried about him taking care of itself. I think he could take care of itself. Are you disappointed?

I should say that I'm gonna just say it like this right here. I think that things would be much better with his daddy because I always made sure he got where he needs to be. You know, and it never

there never was no friction with me and him, because I always got it where he needed to be. I made sure that he did, but I think he's going to be okay, though. Is there friction right now?

Is there friction with me to him? Yeah. No. No. No, no. When will you find out if you're in his corner? I will find out tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yes. Isn't that late in the game?

It's still late. It's going to make a difference whether it's late or not. Will Roger be in his corner? Roger will not be in his corner because Roger is not 50 being in this corner. Roger is sick now. Sick right now, yeah. Yes, Roger's sick. So who will be in his corner? I don't know if my brother Jeff would be in the corner, but I doubt that.

Yeah, because I asked him. Because Jeff never been in his corner. Yeah. And we'll see. I just, personally myself, we will see. It's some things that, to me, ain't right. What do you mean? Well, you know, I've just said some things ain't right.

But we'll see what happened. 36 hours before the fight of the century, number 50, you're saying we don't know who's in Floyd's corner, that there's a little bit of... Hey, look, look, look. he didn't tell me I'm going to the best thing I can tell you man the best that I'm going to

I'm going to see tomorrow if you're not in this corner will you attend the fight oh yeah I still I would still come here to support my son you know it's not no big deal about that let's be honest you'll be disappointed if you're not there for number 50 right given everything you're the one who introduced him to boxing if you're not there for this fight I'm the first one that ever started him about.

Yeah, that's what I, when I say, without you, none of this is possible, I mean it. Yeah, but I'm saying, I'm not, I'm the one that started my son. Probably not enough. I started about, he's probably about 11 months old. I started training. I've been training from the next time on, you know. And then he started wanting to go. to the gym and start training daily from that point on.

And every day, pretty much in the gym all the time. It would be a travest demon on this corner. It was a great moment a few years ago where he said to you towards the end of one of his fights. I don't remember which one where he said, everything you taught me, I remember it from day one. You remember that moment? My dad, he taught me.

He showed me everything. It gives me goosebumps that moment. You remember that moment when he said to you, I never forgot it. Yeah. That was a beautiful. moment. Because we know that your ups and downs have been somewhat, you know, in the public. But, you know, I'm just saying, like, I'm going to see what happened, man, but, you know, it's only him, man, right now. It's on him, because, you know, you got cousins and stuff there.

There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Yeah, well, you know, I'm just said, I don't know what he's going to do, man. It's on him. Are you going to talk to him today? Or are you just going to wait? I plan on talking to him today, yes. Okay. We plan on talking to him today. Okay.

What are you going to talk about? I'm going to ask him about boxing, you know, about, you know, what's going on here with, you know, if there's somebody else, let me know. Yeah. I mean, you deserve that. Yeah. So, you know, I'm just. But we don't know who number one is right now. We don't know who the first is.

I should be the first. Yeah, hell, yeah. I'm not, but I don't know. I'm just going to see. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just beyond it with you, man. I don't know what's going on.

Because I don't, because I guess, first when I was, I was gone, I think I went back to Michigan, I think it was. Check on my mother and stuff. And then it's just to me that, it was just to me that when I came back, man, you know, all of them guys being within and this and this and that, man, we're going to say. I'm just going to see it. All right.

For my last time, I want. This will be your last time, right? Yeah, my last time, yes You won't corner anyone else after this? Huh? You won't corner anyone else? What do you mean? You won't be in anyone else's corner after this fight?

This was going to be your new-bye? I trained Andrew DeBeeley. Okay, yeah, yeah. I train him too. Okay. So he's another opponent that I trained, you know, he's one of my fighters. Okay, all right. But this is the last night for Floyd?

He's the upcoming fighter right now. Yeah. To be. So I got, and you know, I got Mickey Bay. Mm-hmm. And I got, I had a couple other guys that I dropped. Then, you know, to me it's just, I'm not worried about anything. Right now, I'm doing well, so I'm not worried about it.

Okay. Can I ask you about this? Floyd Jr. says that he's going to go forward. that he's going to repay the fans for Manny Pachial, that he's going to bring the attack to him. Do you believe that? Do you believe that he's going to do that, or is that just promotion?

Because that's not the kind of fighter that he is. Floyd hasn't been that kind of fighter. He's not a brawler. He's not a reckless kind of fighter. I wouldn't even suggest him doing that. Yeah, but he says it. I would suggest him go out there and, you know, bounce around, a few rounds,

and move around and count of him, count of him, keep counting him on certain things, run your combination off when you're right there, then you understand me, you know, you duck, bam, bam, bam, bam, boom. And you keep boxing in me, keep scoring without being scored. That's right, that's what he's done. That's what he's done for his entire.

And that's what, that's what helped him to be the man that he, is today. Yes. And that's the only thing that's going to help him today to get out the situation. Because there's no you trying to, there's no you trying to train. I mean, there's no you trying to train and go ahead up with somebody like that. And testing, you ain't got to test the water like that. Yep.

I agree. You already know, you know the water. Because all you have to do is do what you want to do because you can do what you want to do with this boy. He can do what he can do, he can do what you want to do with it. Floyd, Sr., I can't thank you enough for the time. And I appreciate you opening up like you did. And I hope it works out.

Like I said, I think it's a travesty if you're not in this corner. If you want me to make a call to Floyd Jr., let him know how I feel. I'd be happy to do so. But I hope that it works out on Saturday night for you and him. Well, we see what happened, man. All the best to you. Thanks, my man. Thank you.

There he is. Floyd Sr. Again, without him, none of this is possible. We really appreciate it, and best of luck to you and the family tomorrow night. Thank you. Please, there he goes. The one and only Floyd Sr.

Living Legend. Appreciate the time. Look at him. Impeckably dressed. Look at that suit. Three-piece suit. Kidding me on a Friday morning? You got to love that.

Floyd, Sr., stopping by here on the mixed martial Arts Hour. Live from Las Vegas, Radio Row, you see us right there. Who else is going to stop by? I don't know. We're just getting started. We're going three hours today. Who do we got next? Adam, you tell me. We're waiting. All right. Well, why were you wrapping me up so much? Geez, I had a lot more to talk to Mr. Floyd Senior about. No, I think we got, I saw Josh Thompson before. Where do you go? He went to go talk to other people? That two-timer. Okay, all right. So you don't want me to go to Josh Thompson. All right. Okay, okay, okay. There's a lot going on. I see Stephen A. Smith in the house.

There is so much going on here. You have no idea. Wow, that was so interesting. Did you guys catch that? Did you catch that? Here we are, 36 hours before the fight of the century. And Floyd Sr. is talking about that he doesn't even know if he's going to be in Floyd Jr.'s corner. I didn't expect that.

I really appreciate him opening up the way he did. I was kind of blown away by that. Now, if you're new to the Floyd story, you'll be surprised by the fact that senior and junior have not always seen eye to eye. This is not new. There have been times where they have not seen eye to eye. Sorry, keep my posture's bad, then I get up, making Rob work over there. This is always the safer shot with me.

I try to get all Larry King on them, you know what I'm saying, Rob? I need some suspenders, but this is fascinating. 36 hours before this fight, Floyd Sr. tells us he doesn't know, he doesn't know who's corner, or I should say who is going to corner his son. I'm still trying to digest that. I mean, it's one thing two months before. It's one thing to be up in the air.

It's one thing to try to figure it out. We're 36 hours. Roger Mayweather, his brother, is sick. He mentioned that. He's been dealing with some health issues. And so he's not going to be in Floyd's corner. He's always kind of been the mainstay. Jeff Mayweather, who he spoke to just a few weeks back, typically doesn't corner Floyd. Now, at the end of the day, let's reiterate that it's Connor versus Floyd. It's Connor versus Jr. here. You know what I'm saying? The corner at this stage 49 and 0, maybe for someone like, you know, a young guy like Tank Davis, maybe it means

more. But in this case, in this case, you've got a legend, you've got a guy who's done it 49 times professionally, let alone amateur, let alone Olympics. Still, I think it somewhat speaks volumes that 36 hours before the fight, it is unclear whether or not Floyd Sr. is going to Floyd Jr.'s corner. How about that? What's that? Okay. So that remains to be seen, and that is now a new layer to this story. Fascinating turn of events. Still to come today. And a reminder that at 6 p.m. Eastern time, the Wayans are taking place at the T-Mobile

arena here in Las Vegas. They will finally step on the scale. There have been some rumors, some innuendo that Connor has been having trouble, making weight. From what I'm told, those are inaccurate. Those rumors, those stories are inaccurate. So we'll find out at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. And now let us welcome in the punk. Josh Thompson, the real punk. Not that CM punk. The real punk. Josh Thompson joining us. How about this, Josh? Is this fun or what? It's amazing. It's great to see two athletes, two fighters get this type of recognition. I love it, man. But isn't it great to see combat sports get this kind of recognition? all these media guys who don't usually cover the sport?

Yes, it is. And I've been actually watching a lot of what goes on, like on ESPN, DTI, and they're actually covering these athletes, and that's what I really love seeing, because you never see them talk about combat sports, ever. You know, unless it's like a Canello or Gennady Glove kid. Yeah, yeah. You know, but Mayweather and Connor, this is next-level stuff,

and I hope, I wish that my hope has always been that they would start covering at least the main event guys, giving them a little bit more recognition in the mainstream public, because I think that'll open up the eyes for everyone to start following athletes and getting their kids more involved with things like jujitsu and kickboxing and teaching kids not to be bullied by just learning self-defense. That's right. Do you feel like this is MMA versus boxing? In other words, even if you're not a Connor guy, you have to go for Connor because he's representing our sport? 100%. And I saw that a lot when this all started. When they first started campaigning for this fight, I said what is going to happen is it's going to end up being MMA versus boxing. It doesn't matter. The MMA guys, the UFC guys, the Belator guys, were all, a majority of us are standing behind.

Connor because we would love to see this happen. Now, do you feel like it would be disastrous for boxing if Connor pulls off the upset? I wouldn't say it would be disastrous only because Floyd, he's pretty much, he was pretty much already retired. Okay. You know, and so boxing, you saw a rise a little bit in boxing after he left because he was the face of boxing and it wasn't the face that everyone really liked. You know what I mean? But then when he left, you have, now you have Gatty Kalovkin, Triple G, you've got Canello, you've got a lot of these top under, you know, Lemoshenko, like they're putting their stock into guys that are more crowd-pleasing.

Floyd always been a great technician, but at the end of the day, people more tuned in to watch him lose, okay, because they wanted to see him versus him actually, he's the hill. Yeah, let's pause on that talk for a second because I want to talk about you. You've had an interesting couple of weeks here, so you fought, it's almost been a year, right? September. February. Oh, February. Oh, February. It feels like it was so long ago.

Yes, I remember. It was the same time as the NBA All-Star weekend. and it was a controversial finish headbutt against pit bull and then you went to the California State Athletic Commission and now in your opinion there's an asterisk on the result no no not my opinion they offered an asterisk they said hey what can we do to make this right I said well what happened okay so what had happened was I'd gotten headbutt I got dropped

then I was able like I realized that John McCarthy didn't see the headbut wasn't going to stop the fight I stood back up and continued to fight but only for like it was I would say maybe two or three seconds shot in you know how people when they get rocked the first thing they kind of do as they shoot. Yeah. So I was rocked. I got up and I was able to kind of like get my takedown or try to go for a

take down. I got hit a little bit at the same time. It really wasn't even a clean hit. It was more with the forearm and I got dropped, knocked out. Yeah. Which I understand the situation in the scenario. Let's not be mistaken. Big John wasn't in the position to see it.

That's understandable. But what I was more upset about was the fact that there's a couple things. First thing was, is that they never invited me to the first appeal because there was two appeal processes. Okay. So they never invited me to the first appeal. appeal process. So the first appeal process I was never invited to, which now at that last hearing with the one that they just had recently about two weeks ago, is they put that on the docket

that every athlete has to be formally invited or has to let that they have to be known, that this is when their appeal is and they aren't obligated, but they are allowed to attend with the layer and present their case because that was never in the rules before. So now, for me, what I've done is I've changed the sport of MMA or actually of combat sports, that now every athlete has to actually be notified in writing through an email or something saying that, hey, you are invited to come, okay, to present your case. So that is one thing that I've done for this sport as well as for all the athletes. Because at the end of the day, it's about making sure that athletes get a chance to represent themselves.

That's right. Because this is an individual sport. As much as we train with teams, it's about making sure that the fighters get to represent themselves. Yeah, that's a great point because there's no association, there's no one battling for you. There's no sort of union head. you're on an island by yourself. Exactly. And for me, I feel like the commissions and that they know that.

Yeah. And so that's why I think they were willing to brush it under the rug. But I wasn't willing to. So I called up Andy Foster. I said, hey, you guys have the whole appeal process and everything like that tonight earlier today. And I was never notified on when it was. You just told me I was on the agenda. You didn't say when the agenda was.

You didn't say the place and the time. You didn't say location. You didn't say anything. So we had a conversation about it was late at night. And I wasn't as upset about the fact that they ruled against me. I figured they would. I mean, how often do we hear that they change these things? Exactly.

But it was the fact that I was never notified, so that's where we came back. And I ended up getting the second appeal, which was actually then put in the place a couple weeks ago. Okay. Now, the problem that I have with what was going on is Big John admitted that there was a headbut. So I'm out there pleading my case. Big John admits that there was a headbutt. He admits he didn't see it. He admitted that if had he seen it, he would have stopped the fight and giving me my five,

my five minutes to, um, to recover. As well as have the doctor probably come in and, and see me. My argument was, if that's the case, if that's what you said, Big John says he would have done, then why,

why is this being ruled a, a loss? Yeah, yeah. Because when you look at, they, when their argument was, California athletic manager argument was,

is that because I was head butted and I didn't go down in like screaming pain or grab my head and say, hey, I was head butted. Is that, That's why they're not overturning. I didn't let the ref know that I had been fouled. And I said, well...

It's not really on you to do that. I said, well, I have some models with my argument. I said, my argument is, as I'm presenting this to them, I'm telling them, like, I didn't realize that as I'm fighting, it's my job to be the ref and to be the athlete. I said, and the other thing as well, show me in the rulebook where it says that I need to make some sort of gesture that I was kicked in the growing or hit in the eye or just because people do that doesn't mean that everyone does it. Sure.

And after 20 years of... doing this, I've had John called, I don't know how many of my fights, you know when a ref's going to jump in. There's no reason to turn away. I could have gotten hit. Pitbull ran at me and, you know, and basically was coming at me as I had a split

second. I had, I hit my butt. I was dropped from the head butt. I hit my butt. I looked at John. John wasn't stepping in. Pitbull was running at me. I kicked him back and I went to sat up.

Now, I actually thought I was knocked out. I actually thought I was knocked out right then. I didn't even know I got back to my feet and shot a double leg. When I went back and I went back and I didn't realize that until I saw the replay inside the cage. So I was a little upset about that whole thing. Like I said, it didn't realize the arguments that these California State Athletic Commission officers are making, the board.

Yeah. I was baffled by. Some of the arguments were that it was just really that these people are just, these people, these are the people that are overseeing. Overseeing my career. I couldn't believe it. And here's the thing is, the other thing is they're put into place. by the governor of California, which makes it even worse, is it because when you hear about politics in Washington, D.C., and we can go on for that for days, but the issue is, is that you see that

they're really just using the California Satelletic Commission as a stepping stone to get them into the next thing. Because listening to some of their talk and their conversation, they had no idea what was going on. Okay. One of them was asking about pancreation earlier. Oh, my. And she says, what is this new, like, fighting thing where you guys just, they use no gloves

in the hands. She says, like, it's really weird. Is it safe? And I'm thinking to myself, you have no idea what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have no idea what MMA is. That's crazy. You know, and so she, because I think Andy Foster is one of the best in the business. But he's not on the board. I know. And that's the thing. So, I believe you said, EO, right, executive officer is what he is. So, um, so what's the ruling? So the ruling is no, that basically they didn't want to overturn it is because they said I was able to intelligently get up and continue to fight. And I said, well, look, my other argument, in is this. Are you saying, because Big John

called this fight as well, with Misha Tate and Holly Holmes, she's completely choked out, but yet still throwing punches. Are you saying that, because our bodies are conditioned to keep fighting, that I was in the right frame of mind to keep doing that? Your logic makes no sense with the

Holly home and Misha Tate fight. Because she's completely choked out, and she's still throwing punches. Yeah, that makes no sense. I've been doing this for 20, 22, or 20 years, Ariel, and let me just tell you that it's hard for me to say that my body is not conditioned to technically get up or to technically like try and fight back.

Sure. You know, I mean, there's several occasions with the Hermes-Fronk a fight. I got dropped. I had no idea what was going on. But I do remember like kind of flailing, trying to grab him, you know, this shit might your body's just going through the motions trying to pull them into guard. So that whole argument now, at the end of all that, when they all voted no, not to change the fact that it was a loss.

They all immediately within seconds said, well, look, we were thinking about office. offering you, you'll be the first fighter to ever have an asterisk next to your name in the record books. And what we will do is we'll put an asterisk as to Pitbull's win. And I said, well, what is the difference besides changing it? Yeah. And being the first to have an asterisk. It doesn't make any sense. It's kind of like a token.

Yeah. And so I got to the point where I felt like they were just doing this to save face. Yeah. Like, hey, let's offer you this. And we're going to put in the notations that there was a clear head book. We obviously all agreed there was and moving on. And I said, wow, this is horrible. We have like 30 seconds left.

I appreciate you breaking this down, but you have your next fight yet. So I do not have my next fight. I do know there was a lot of talk about me, possibly fighting Zach Freeman or Caveman. Yeah. So if I get one of those two fights before the end of the year, yeah, Rickles. So before the end of the year, and then for sure, Bellator 200 next May. Oh, wow. That's going to be a big one.

That's going to be a huge one. Oh, wow. That's huge. I didn't know that they were doing that. That's going to be our mothership. Okay. Okay, keep up the good fight, my man. A pleasure.

I truly, if you got me on, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a veteran of the sport, and enjoy this. Enjoy the circus. This is awesome. I love it. Great. There he is. Josh Thompson, Bellator Lightweight, the former Strike Force lightweight champion.

In fact, the very first event that I covered live for Strike Force involved Mr. Josh Thompson going up against Gilbert Melendez, and that's when he became champions. So that was very fun a decade ago. Interesting stuff as far as the California State Athletic Commission is concerned. Here we have as we move along, one and only. Teddy Atlas stopping by. Wow, what a great honor this is. Teddy Atlas, the legendary boxing trainer, of course, of ESPN now. Thank you so much for joining us, Teddy. My pleasure. Yeah, you seem happy to be here. Are you enjoying this? You join the circus?

I'm doing my job. Yeah, you're not really enjoying this. I'm doing my job. You know, it's not that I'm, hey, listen, I'm blessed. I can be doing real work too. Yeah, that's right. Let's not be phony here. It's not, you know, let's be honest. There's a lot of people out there that have to work a lot harder than me. That's right. And I'm here for ESPN. I've been here all week. Are you staying for the fight?

I have to. You have to? Under duress? Not under duress. I know you're trying to be cute. No, I'm not trying to be cute. No, no, no, it's no problem. What do you mean?

No problem. But not under duress because it's my job. And, you know, do I think it's a real contest in a fighter's world-type situation, the way fights are usually contested, you know, in that kind of way? No. Why not? I think it's an event. It's an event.

It's sanctioned by the Nevada Committee. There's a lot of things that go within legal realms. That doesn't mean that it's within the realm of what we're talking about, you know, professionally. Just because it's legally sanctioned, we could mention a million things that fall under those kind of rules and guidelines, parameters, if you want. I mean, that's right? We could do that all day long. So do you... But it doesn't mean that it's...

It doesn't mean that it has the authenticity or the... That it's... It has to... Not credibility only, but that it's authentic as far as being an athletic contest in a boxing ring. I mean, you got a guy that... Terrific M.MA fight. And I have all the respect for the M.M.A. guys in a world. Terrific athlete as well, right?

Tough, tough, tough, tough son of a gun. I don't know how good an athlete he is because I haven't seen him in any other, you know, forums. Well, the fact that he's a two-time champion in the NBA, doesn't that just make him a great athlete in its own right? I mean, it makes him a tough guy. It makes him a good grappler. It makes him a great striker for MMA. Very good strikers for MMA with that level of guys. Listen, it's...

Is Floyd an athlete? You got a... Listen, you got a guy in McGregor... Yeah. Who, the truth's going to be spoken. and you're going to, and I know that you want to favor the MMA guys. No, not at all. No, no, no.

What are you talking about? But that's, listen. We've been talking to all the boxing guys this week. But all I'm saying is that you got a guy that he's never been in a boxing ring in his life. Professionally. Yeah, on a professional level. And he's getting in there with an elite guy. Sure.

There's a little bit of a leap of faith there. I'm sorry. A little bit. Tisement. A tiny bit. It's okay. Your show, buddy. No problem.

No, but so do you feel like he has no business? being in there with Floyd? Of course you don't. If you were a part of the commission, you would not have sanctioned this. No. Is this bad for boxing? It's not good. I mean, the good for both sports is there's a light. It's much better for MMA. MMA can't lose. I agree.

Boxing can lose. I agree. Boxing can lose because if this guy does anything more than what's expected, and that means surviving. Yeah. Then the integrity, the credibility of boxing takes a hit. Yeah. Because people have put Floyd up as some of them as the best ever, which he's not. You know what I think?

Well, it's not the best ever. Who is? Listen, I love Floyd. Sugar Ray? Henry Armstrong. Okay. Sam Langford. Okay.

Sugar Ray Robinson. Joe Lewis. I mean, we're talking about a sport that's been around 200 years. Yeah. We're talking about fighters that I just mentioned. Some of them had 300 fights. Yeah. So, I mean, Henry Armstrong held and simultaneously defended.

three full titles lightweight featherweight and welterweight full titles no junior titles and simultaneously defend them and he won the middleweight title against Severino Garcia and he made it a draw because he wasn't signed up with the boys wow so the guy's a monster yeah and he had a great fight nickname muhamassad Hank and that's better than anybody's out there today so but what I'm saying is that you you have a You have a sport in boxing that's been around all this time, has all this history, and we know that you're taking a guy that's a caveman compared. And again, I'm not saying in a derogatory way, I'm saying it to get to a point.

A caveman when it comes to professional boxing skills, and he's in there with an elite guy, a scientist, and again, a guy that were putting forward as one of the best of this era. And if he does anything more than what's expected, survives. Yeah. Boxing, people will say in MMA people will say, ah, ha ha ha, ha, look, we put our guy, and then they'll be honest. Yeah. They'll be, they'll say, our guy never boxed before. Our guy's a caveman. And look what he did. Look what he did with your best guy. And that's scary for me. That's all. You're worried. That would bother me. Boxing is a great sport as MMA has. And I've been into my whole life. And that would worry me. You know why? Because it wouldn't be fair.

Because Mayweather's not the best of our time right now. The Mayweather of five years ago, yes. Okay. One of the best of our time. At least the best defensive fighter. But not maybe overall. When you put in everything else, offense and everything going and getting a guy, finishing a guy, all those other qualities. But he will be put forward as the best of our time.

He's 40 years old. He hasn't been two years. He took the fighter on short notice. He is no longer. that Mayweather. He's not even the Mayweather. I went back five years, right? Yeah.

He's not the Mayweather two years ago. Wait a second. So some might say that you're trying to put out an excuse beforehand. I'm just putting out the truth. I don't do excuses. You have no reason to. I don't do excuses. I try not to do them in anything.

I think that's part of the problem in our country today is people make excuses. People make themselves victims. I agree with that. I don't play into that stuff. I don't think that stuff is healthy, any of us. Are you an MMA fan? Do you appreciate? Appreciate the hell out of it. Do you go out of your way sometimes to watch some big fun? Gilbert Melendez. Yes, yes. He had asked me to work with him to train him one day.

Oh, interesting. He came to San Francisco. My son works with Oakland Raiders, and I was, I don't remember if I was there for an ESPN show, but I might have been there to see my son. I was in the Bay Area, and he lives in that area. And he contacted him. He said, Teddy, is there any chance I can come and talk to you? And he'd be. So I said, yeah. And we met, we had lunch together, and we talked, and then he asked me if he could get a day in the gym with me. Okay. And I did.

I did that. He was nice enough. And it wasn't a barter system. It didn't have to be that way. But he was nice enough to leave tickets for my son. My son's an MMA fan. Oh, great. To go with some of the Oakland Raider guys to go to a fight.

I can't remember what a fighter was. And then I. Kept my end of the bargain. The next time I was in San Francisco, I met him in his gym, and I went to his gym, and we spent a day where I work with him. And listen, good guy, tough son of a gun. All the MMA guys are just extraordinary from a discipline, from a mental. See, I appreciate not just the physicality.

I appreciate their intellect in the grappling. You've got to be smart for the good grappling, not just strong. but I really, really, really admire their tenacity, their toughness, their discipline emotionally over their feelings where they're always kind of like boxes. They're always fighting off the threat and the temptation from a natural standpoint, from human nature, from instinct of survival to give in to submit. I make an excuse to get out of a situation. They are a tough son of a gun.

When you see some of the things that these MMA guys go, when they're in the headlock, they're in a leg lock, and they don't submit. And somehow they find the way to turn the tables and get out of it. It is some of the most compelling, just dynamic, compelling, but extraordinary athletic feats that I've ever seen in my life. Ever. Ever.

I appreciate you saying that. In anything. Teddy, I must say, speaking of admiring, I'm a huge fan of yours, and you may not believe me. I believe you. Okay. What you said after the Pachial fight against Horn, I've been watching you for many years. You continue to do a great job, and you continue to be the standard bearer as far as boxing analysts are concerned. So thank you so much for all your hard work.

I appreciate you stopping by and enjoy the fight on Saturday. Yeah, and I hope everybody enjoys it, and you guys, like I say, a lot of respect for you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much, Teddy. All the best. One of the very best as far as sports analysts are concerned, period. Boxing or not, Teddy Atlas stopping by of ESPN, he'll be weighing in on the action over on the mothership in the coming days and hours. We only have a little over, there's your napkin page, a little over, what, 24 hours away from the fight of the century. That's what I'm calling it, the money fight.

Now, in a couple of minutes, we're going to be joined, or a couple of seconds, we're going to be joined by another living legend. Today's the living legend day. We've got Randy Gatorre, you got Floyd Senior, we got Teddy Atlas. Now we've got coming up, Isaiah Thomas. Not the Isaiah Thomas who's just traded. Isaiah Thomas, Detroit Pistons, number 11, the Hall of Famer, the NBA champion. Coming up right here, there he is, the one and only, Isaiah Thomas in the house. Wow, this is something.

Let me stand up for Mr. Isaiah Thomas here. How are you, my friend? Thank you so much. Please sit down. You want to wear these? Sure, go ahead. You don't have to. Hello?

We're just live right here, okay? I don't know how I can follow Teddy. Oh, my God. Teddy Atlas is something else. Oh, he breaks it down, right? Are you a fight fan, Isaiah? I'm a fight fan. And the way he breaks it down and the way he gives it to you, I mean, you think out the teddy is giving it to you.

Like, you know what you talk about. I said he's one of the best analysts, period, not boxing, sports in general. He breaks it down. So do you appreciate MMA as well, or are you more of a boxing? Yeah. You watch MMA? I do. Really? I'm surprised. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, I don't know, I can't, I don't know like all the names, you know, to call them out. Sure, sure. But, you know, the sport has grown. Right. And not only has it grown, but, you know, I love the way they've incorporated the gender aspect of it, you know. Great point. Male and the female. That's right. And everybody is fighting. Everybody's in great shape. And the respect what they have for each other in the ring, outside of the rain, you know, when they, you know, they fight is a fight.

But, you know, at any point in time, they can really, really hurt each other. Yeah. So they beat each other up. They hurt each other, but they don't kill each other. Yes. You know, so it's, it's a fine line, and I admire the way that they're able to hold back when they can really, like, go for the jugular. It's a great point as far as how the genders are on equal footing, because you are the

president of the New York Liberty, right? Yes. And right now, like if ABC had a double header, calves, warriors, followed up by the Liberty and the sparks. Let's be honest, people don't view WMBA like they do the NBA. It hasn't been around as long. But here in this sport, MMA, you can have a great card, all males, two women at the top and no bats and I. They are on equal footing. So hopefully one day that'll be the case for basketball as well.

And what MMA is doing for the WNBA just in terms of sport by being so outful, front with it. Empowering. It's definitely helping the WNBA. It's making more women and more people come to all-sport and grew all-sport on the equal footing. Can we get a prediction? Who do you think wins?

Connor or Floyd Mayweather? I'm hoping Mayweather win. Okay, why? I hope he wins. Because he's always been supportive of myself. Okay. He's always been supportive of the NBA. Yes.

I mean, he shows up at the All-Star Games. He comes to all the events. You know, he's sitting the court side. So, you know, he's always. always giving us love and he's always giving me myself personally love. So when I look at the fight, I look at it and I say, okay, McGregor comes in and, you know, he's used to having eight weapons, right? It's two feet, his knees, elbows, you know, but now you've eliminated six of those weapons. So he's only got his right hand and his left hand that he gets to work with.

Yeah. And Floyd is used to working with his right hand, left hand. You know, so in terms of punch, slipping punches, so forth and so on, I do think that Floyd has the advantage. Now, the one disadvantage that Floyd will enter into the ring with is that the first two to three rounds, when you're fighting somebody or playing against somebody in a basketball standpoint that you never played against, you don't know what this guy can do.

You don't know if he's good going left, you don't know if he's good going right. That's right. So the first two rounds, you know, I think it's going to be interesting to see if Floyd can figure him out. Great analysis. You know, I wasn't expecting. that kind of analysis from you and I appreciate it very much and you may not expect this for me.

I'm a basketball aficionado. I cover this fighting stuff of my true love. Number one is basketball. Awesome. I remember in 1984, you and Bernard King at the Silverdough. I remember the finals when you had the bum ankle and you're hopping around. One of the greatest. I remember when the dream team pushed you out. Yeah. And I thought that that was BS. Yeah. I thought that that was BS. And of course you made. I remember that too. I remember it. And it wasn't cool that they did that. But you came back for the next dream team, but it wasn't cool that they did that. So I've been following your career in basketball for years and years, and I must say I'm a diehard. And when I say diehard, I will go toe to toe with Spike any day.

I'm the biggest Knicks fan on the planet. So I've been following you with the Knicks for quite some time. You know what I love about the Knicks fans? Okay. It's just what you just said. You would go toe to toe with Spike. I will go toe to toe to spike, you know, in terms of who the biggest fans. I have never been in a place where people are so passionate about their team.

Yes. And love the Knicks so much that. to the point where physically they get ill, they get angry, and they really want the Knicks to win. They really want their team to win. And I can tell you this, now that I've been in New York for a long period of time now, I understand. Oh, my gosh.

I understand that passion. I understand that love. And, you know, even the mean things that are said, you know, they're still said from a loving place because they just want you to win. Like, you just want your team to win. There's a wound in my heart right now. The past 17 years have not been great. There have been some moments here and there.

But you know what? That wound, 17 years and I've been there, the most impressive thing that I see about Knicks fans. And I've experienced it being the president of Nix. Please, yes, I know. We have no shot at making a playoffs. Yes. You mean this year or in general?

No, this is my house. Oh, okay, yeah. Three minutes to go in the game. You know, we're. We're in April, maybe like five games left in the season. The whole stadium gets up and start chanting, defense. You live and breathe it. I mean, it was, I love it.

It's the most surreal, beautiful moment. One of the most surreal, beautiful moments I've ever experienced. I have to say, and I'd love to get your take on this. I was thrilled when Phil Jackson left. I think Phil Jackson was the worst thing to ever happen to the Knicks. I think how he treated Carmelo Anthony publicly was disgraced, I think how he treated Christaps Prasengis, the future was disgraceful. Do you agree that he did a pitiful job as president of the New York Knicks?

I would say this. There have been a lot of us that have come through New York that want to do well. Sure. And, you know, for whatever reason, you know, we didn't do well. And I look at Phil before he got to New York, how he is respected in the game. and that's the Phil Jackson I choose to remember. And that's on the real, because I do know like... But to publicly shame Carmelo like that,

and to devalue him and to say what he said about Chris Staps, that... Listen, you may not have the best... You got to give Carmelo a lot of credit, though. Oh, my gosh. By respect for him. The professionalism that he has shown... Through all of this.

And that's the thing that we... And you may not understand this when I'm... That's the thing that we love about New York because it really does bring out the best in you as a person because you really do get pushed to the wall in terms of trying to figure out how to win, how to put it together, and how to satisfy the fan base. And, you know, that's why we all try so hard and that's why we all want to crack that egg, just like you as a fan, right? believe me Phil Jackson myself Donnie Walsh Larry Brown all of us like go back and try to figure out like

man what did we do wrong and if we could do it all over again what would we do different You have regrets? You have regrets? We all have regrets because when you don't win you of course has regrets. Now do you think that Carmel will be in a Knicks uniform come October? I don't know but I

Would you trade them at this point? I do know as a man and as a former player and watching him handle this, I got great respect as do I. How he's handled it, how he's handled it,

and what he's done. I'm not enough involved in the inner workings to say if I would trade him, keep him, or not. Okay. I think only Steve Mills or Scott Perry can answer that question because they have more information than I do.

But I know as a basketball player and a former player, all of us admire his skill. I couldn't agree more. I read a lot of the New York papers, of course, and respected calmness like Frank Isola. Yeah. They seem to believe that you are still very much involved with the Knicks.

That behind the scenes you have James Dolan's ear, that you speak to him, that you give him advice, that there's always a connection. Scott Perry with Detroit, right? I know my stuff, Isaiah. Are you still involved with the Knicks? I'm involved with the Liberty. That's it.

Exclusive? If you want to talk about the liberty, and you want to talk about the great year we have. You are having a great year. And by the way, come back some tickets. All right. At the garden. Buy some tickets.

I mean, the year, the last three years that we've, we've had with the Liberty. You know, I've been some of the most successful seasons ever. Our fan attendance is up. Doesn't get talked about enough, the job that you've done with the Liberty. But that's okay, you know. Just talk about the good and the bad. Yeah, but when we, you know, we're doing extremely well right now.

And I would say, like, if you want to see some good basketball, definitely come to the garden and watch a little bit more. You didn't answer the question there about James, about having his ear as far as the Knicks are concerned. He trusts you. He likes you a lot. You're friends. I said, I talked to him about the Liberty. That's it.

I don't speak to him about the Nix. Why? It's not. Just as friends. Yeah, but I respect authority and I respect lines of authority. Okay. And it would be inappropriate of me and not respectful of me to whoever is in that job to voice my opinion. Fair enough.

Now, when I'm on NBA TV or TNT, do a great job. Then I can do that. But from a personnel standpoint or a strategic standpoint, that's a, that's a very standpoint, that's not my place and I have to respect those lines of authority. Would you like to be an executive again in the NBA? I don't know.

Is that a dream? I don't know. I'm really having a good time and what I'm doing. But you never say never. So I would have to answer that. I don't know. Okay.

Can you tell us about what you're promoting here today? What do you have here? I partnered with MGM. Okay. And MGM, we're introducing a line of champagne, Chirland Champagne. We've been in the state six months. months and it's the hottest champagne right now that's on the market.

Really? Congratulations. Chirland has been making champagne since 1788. We go back six, seven generations of champagne makers. And I was just named Champagne producer of the year in New York. Wow. And we have a 90-plus rated portfolio of champagne. And I'm honored to, you know, if you want to test it out while you're here this week, go to any of the MGM.

restaurants and ask for Shirland. Wow. And I hope you tweet about it, talk about it. Absolutely. Are you a connoisseur? A champagne connoisseur? Are you an aficionado? I was not.

Okay. And the only time that I had really experienced champagne is when I was pointed on my head with champions. Those two championship games. Finney Johnson, the microwave in Portland. Come on. What a great performer he was. But I exited out of my popcorn company.

I was one of the founders of popcorn Indiana. Okay. So when you go in the store and you see that red bag of kettle corn, I was one of the partners and founders in that company, and now I'm in the champagne spot. And we got over 200 acres in Champaign and in the Aubrey region, and we sit right next to the Sin River, and it's harvest season coming up in two weeks,

so I'll be going back over there again. But, you know, the family of champagne makers that they have, they really are a family of growers. So the champagne really comes off, The grapes comes off the vine. They hit the family, the maker, and then we take it off the vineyard, put it on the boat, and put it right in the customers now. I'd be remiss if I don't ask you about your namesake. Have you talked to the young Isaiah Thomas about the chair?

Spoke to Isaiah, actually yesterday. How's he handling it? Emotionally, he's hurt. He's hurt. Emotionally, he's wounded. Now, from a basketball standpoint, he and Kyrie Irvin, this would be great for both of them. They both are do well. But, you know, it really was like a punch in the gut because it came out of the,

nowhere. Kyrie was expecting the trade. He was prepared for it. You know, and talking to Isaiah the other night, you know, now he's scrambling, trying to find out where his kids are going to go to school, trying to find a place to live. And it was just so unexpected for him. And the thing that really kind of, you know, poured at my heartstrings is that,

you know, he said he gave his heart and soul to the self-tick. He did. You know, he gave him everything. And, you know, it's a, it's a big. business and we all understand it's a business, but to have it happen in such a way for him, I think it really hurt him. And I think it's going to be difficult for him to trust again, to give that trust, that loyalty, that love to another organization. And I think the cavaliers are definitely going to have to do some relationship mending to get him back to the point where

he loves being where he's at. Because he's a small guy. The thing that gets him over is his love and his passion. Yeah. And if those things are kind of, you know, missing a little bit, it's going to be hard. So Cleveland's got some relationship. Interesting. Things that they got to do to build that trust.

Wow, that is fascinating insight. Last thing before I let you go on, this has been a real treat for me. Thank you so much for the time. You're welcome. I believe the Knicks are going to make the playoffs next year. What do you say to Knicks? I think they got a shot. Yeah?

I mean, I believe, I don't know. Am I delusional? What do you think? No, I mean. I like the draft pick, Nillingis is the real thing. He is. Right? and if Carmelo is there and he's, you know, healthy of mine and everything else, you know, they're good basketball.

I keep Carmelo. I keep him. He's a legend. I am. He's still got some left. Yeah, I mean, as basketball fans and former players, no one doubts Carmelo Anthony's basketball playing the football. Yes. Now, can the relationship be mended with him in a...

in the front office, not every means. Well, one man is gone, and that's a good thing, because I think now Scott Perry is very well liked, from what I understand, so hopefully he can build that relationship. I remember also I'm Canadian, 1995, when you broke through that wall with the Rappirs. That was great, those draft picks, Tracy McGready, Damon Stademeyer, Damans, Mighty Mouse. We can go on and on, Isaiah, but you are out of time.

I am out of time. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Congratulations on this. Thank you. And honestly, I say this personally, great talking to you. Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun.

There he goes. Isaiah Thomas, the Hall of Famer, the Living Legend, former Knicks, president and former Detroit Piston, the two-time NBA champion. How about that? Isaiah Thomas stopping by. You never know who's going to stop by here. You never know who's going to stop by here on the MMA hour. Isaiah Thomas in the house.

How about that? That was so much fun. Holy smokes. Who do we have now? Adam crawling down? What do we got? I don't even know what time it is. I feel like I'm in a trance right now.

Isaiah Thomas was just on my set. I had to talk to him a little bit about the Knicks. I had to weigh in on the Nix on the state of the franchise because Isaiah Thomas, as you know at times, as you know at times,

has been a polarizing figure in the NICS organization, but I appreciated hearing his insight. I appreciated him stopping by. I don't think he expected some of that basketball knowledge, but you know how I do. You know how I do.

All right. So thank you very much to Isaiah, all the guests. I appreciate everyone who has been sticking around with us. This has been so much fun. And now we're going to keep the train rolling along. I believe in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Tyron Woodley, the reigning defending UFC Worldway Champion. Tyrant's just there talking to Stephen A. Tell Tyrant, we can go out all day.

We don't got all day, Tyrant. Hobnobbing with Stephen A. We got a jam-pack show. And then after that, we're going to be joined by Heather Hardy and Stephen A himself. Let me take a sip of water here. I don't know if you guys know, but Isaiah Thomas was just on the show. Did I represent as Knicks fans? I think I did.

What do we got? Oh, we got the big three. Oh, that's happening? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ice Cube. How about that? Ice Cube stopping by at 1145.

What I love about this setup is that you never know what's going to happen. What I love about this setup is, it seems to be just like let me just get a look like we were here two days ago and it was kind of quiet and I was wondering I was wondering if it was going to pick up

I was a little nervous to be honest I was thinking to myself is this it this doesn't seem that busy but now here we are on Friday and things have certainly picked up I see Chuck Minhal trying to get our sloppy seconds there with Floyd Sr.

Classic man in the hat Tyrone Woodley's still talking to Stephen A Also still to come Brian Kenny Oh there they are See? I told you. Should I just go walk up to him right now? Hey Taryn we don't go out all day We go

Just walk right up to him Go walk right up to him right now Do it do it Do it What do you think? Our time doesn't matter What do you think? Stephen A is bigger than us You think Stephen A is more important? I see how it is, Tyron. I see how it is. We're going to go right up to him. Tom Ariel said so.

Tell him Ariel sent you. There we go. There's Scott going to do the Lord's work. He's going right up to Tyron right now. Hey, if you're going to keep us waiting, champ, we're going to barge into your conversation. Switch to that camera for a sec. Switch to that camera for a sec. We're going to barge in on your conversation. Go closer, Scott. Go closer. We're going to barge right in. Get in there. Don't be shy. Tell him to get in there. Tell him to get right up in his face, all up in his grill. Hey, Tyran. Tell Tyrant to hurry up. Tell him to look at me right now. Changing numbers. It's changing them. Oh, okay. Here we go. I'm going to go right to Tyrant. I'm going right. I'm going to talk right to Tyrant right now.

Hey, Champ, Tyron Woodley. Hey, champ. We don't have all day. I know this is a living legend right here, but we don't have all day. We don't have all day. This guy is sitting there changing numbers with Stephen A. Smith. You told me, 345. Come on. I said 1045 live at 11. We don't have all day, Tyrone Woodley. I mean, my God. I mean, my God. What, you see a more famous man and you just got to talk to him and big time us? I mean, my God, Tyrone Woodley. I have to go there and drag you here. We are live. We are live. How about that? Can we just talk about this for a second? What does Stephen A. have compared to us? He's got a little sliver. Look at this.

In my main area, how about this? Holding it down. Fox what? Fox who? Fox who? That's what I'm talking about. How about this?

Oh, now you're happy to be here, right? Now we're good enough for you. All right. Let's go. Thanks for coming. It's good to see you, my man. It's good to see you. What kind of magic are we going to make today?

Last time, you're dropping bombs, making threats. Hey, today, man. Today, I'm excited to be here. Okay, okay. I get a chance. Where I'm at, I'm going to. You're right. You can talk to me.

Just talk to me. Everybody. Everybody get it today. Every camera shoot. All right. So, you know, I'm just excited to be here. A lot of people didn't think this fight was going to happen. Yes.

I knew it was going to happen. You did. You did. From some stuff behind the scenes. Oh. It's just the fact that you have the biggest superstar in mixed martial arts right now. Fighting against the pound for pound best fighter in boxing. We would have never thought this fight was going to happen.

Yeah. And the fact that it's taking place, we get to be here covering it. Yeah. I think it's pretty dope. Now, what's your role in all of this? You know, I did a show called Two Days Before the Fight Yesterday. Okay. I'm also doing the Wayans show, the pre-fight show, and the post-fight show.

So I'll be doing those things, and occasionally people say, hey, man, we want to talk to you about this, and what do you think about that? Because obviously I know Floyd, obviously, me and Connor have had our run-ins, and I'm a champion in the UFC, and they want to hear from someone that trains at Wild Car Boxing for the last eight or nine years. That's right. I think I have a very unique perspective from the entire story, so I'm in a good position. This is a massive opportunity for you, a lot of eyeballs. And it's funny because people think that you're like you're on the outs with Dana,

but if you're on the Azo Dana, you don't get these opportunities. So this speaks volumes. Yeah, we kumbaya. You kumbaya now? It's like on and off. One day yes, one day, no. You know, I just, I'm a man at the end of the day. Yeah.

I feel like I do a lot of things for the promotion. I feel like I display a true champion mentality. And I feel like as a person, I don't go out there and say I'm perfect. I don't go out there and say I don't make mistakes. But I at least come forth and I try to represent the UFC and a good man of my family. I try to do that. And when you're doing so much for yourself, promoting, being in your own, movies, podcast, whatever, I got so many things going on, I feel like that is very damaging

at times when you can say something about your champion. So that's with my issue. I mean, I sort of threw that conversation, so everything's... You're all good? Yeah, we are good. Did you get, you get the public apology? Did you get the private apology? I didn't get the public apology, but at the end of the day... I'm waiting for it. Dana White is Dana White. Yes. And we all know Dana White. Yes. And when I, when I demanded for the public apology, my God told me I wasn't going to get it. Oh. But... It's worth a shot. But it was worth the shot. But anyway, we got to the point where he voiced some things that he felt,

and I think it's good that somebody that's on the level, he's basically the boss. He can at least hear me out on where I was coming from, and I can listen to where he's coming from. We can end the conversation in a peaceful manner. Did you get a private one? I got a conversation that basically he understood where I was coming from, I understand who he's coming from. Okay, get off my phone.

Wait, who said that? You were him? I probably did. Oh, wow. I like that. That's good. Good for you. Well done. How's the shoulder? Man. Which one is it? This one. I would love to say it's great, but, you know, I'm trying to go to a non-surgery route. Okay. That way I can be back in action. I got to meet with a doctor about doing the PRP, the stem sale deal.

I bought this stem machine. It's called the ARP. It's like some crazy Russian stem machine that contraction muscle is like 500 times a second. So I'm already, I'm already to the point where I can lift my arm up. A few weeks back, I couldn't do that. Okay. With no clicking, I was like right here. Oh, wow. I'm getting better. But what am I in the rush for?

Tell me, who's the number one contender? Like, for real, you're not just going to throw me in there. I didn't already beat one guy twice, beat the best grappler that's ever been in there, beat the best brawler that's ever been in there. And you got all these guys, these clowns bumping their gums. Yeah. Let the deck shuffle. You guys fight each other. I'm going to sit on the throne, watch, and let me see a clear number one contender.

Or guess what? I might go up to 185 and make Bisbing as yours and piercing you. They obviously don't want to fight. So maybe it's time for me to move into a different weight division. You have drawn the ire of GSP. GSP doesn't get upset easily, but I think he's mad. I didn't get a chance of read. What did he say?

He was on my show. He said he's not scared. He wasn't happy with what you said about him being scared. He should have said that yesterday when I saw him. Oh, you saw him? Yeah. No, two days ago. I was in L.A.

Wildcar? And I was staying right down the street from Wildcar. I said, let me walk in there because that's my family. I walked in there talking to Marie, talking to Freddy. Yeah. And he was like, George is just going to be here. 10 minutes. Oh, yes. I was like, I ain't got no issue with yours. And to George, I talk to him, smile, laugh, talk about weight. Um, I have no problem with what I said. It's honest.

It's true. No, I didn't, what did he say, though? He said he was upset. He said, oh, I mean, I mean, I'm going off top of my head now. There's a lot going on, but, like, saying that he heard your comments, afraid. What do you mean afraid? I'm the greatest welterweight of all time. I'm the greatest wealth of all time. Come prove me wrong. Yeah, that's the one. That's it. Are you hoping that he loses so that he comes back down to? No, he's not going to come. You can't lose it and come back down and fight me for a strap. Why not? I'm not going to say no.

I'm not going to say no to it, but I just don't think that's going to be his mentality. I don't take back one word. I'll say it to his face. I feel like George St. Pierre was the greatest world to win of all time in his era. I feel like he's done what he needs to do as far as defending the belt in that division. Now, he set the platform for the pay-frey model. He can come back now. He has the past to come back now and say, hey, it's a lot of money happening.

You know, the world is viewing him and man a different lens. I want to come back and participate in something I help build. there's no shame in this game. But don't act like you coming back to run the middleweight division or coming back to run the Weltsway Division. Had Wonder Boy won, he would have fought him. It's a less dangerous fight. Damien Maia is a less dangerous fight.

The same thing I did to Damien Maya, he probably would have done the same thing. It would have been very tough to take him down. George just has probably some of the best timing that we've ever seen between him and Dominique Cruz. It's very tough to get him to the ground. You've seen cost check, fix. Some of the top wrestlers have problems,

not only not taking him down, but being taken down by him. Johnny Hingrich. So that's what I think. And also, if you remember, when you left the sport, he had a lot of conversations about concussions. And what person in the UFC pound for pound punches harder to me? Roma Johnson's gone. So if you're talking about pound for pound, nobody punches harder than me.

I'm going to give him a concussion, maybe many of them. So that's what I think. And I stand by it. If he was sitting right here, I wouldn't say nothing different. Diane asked you this question. Yeah. John Jones. Man.

What's your reaction? You know what? My reaction is, I do want to give the benefit of the doubt. And, you know, obviously, we all got stuff that we got to deal with. You know, nobody should be ready to just throw stones and somebody else. I do want to see what happens when they test his other sample. I do want to see what happens when they test the supplements. And I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. And even if he does come up and they say he took something, man, a three, four, five, two,

whatever damn punishment he's going to get, that's punishment enough. I'm still not going to have much to say about it. I do believe that obviously he is the only fighter on the entire roster that could technically sit for four years and come back and be competitive. But it doesn't change the way you view him if it comes out that he cheated? Because I don't never viewed him up here. You didn't. I don't think he was around up here. Everybody's greatest of all time.

You didn't think you didn't subscribe to that? That's not going to stop. Like what he does. It doesn't tame what he did before all this stuff. Like here's the thing. Here's the thing. And I'm just wondering. You mean like baseball like a guy.

If it came out that. that you... People would be like, oh, you've been on that shit the strike force. To me, it would be shocking because you, DJ, you know, Cormier, Wyman,

like there's some guys where I'm like, you know, these guys do a right. So that's shocking. But we've been through this before now, right? There's been incidents, in and out of the cage. So do you...

Basically, how many benefits of the doubt do you get? Now, in baseball... Should one have anything to do with the other, or should they all just be viewed as separate incidents? I think, I think with humans,

you've got to always, no matter what they're past, you've got to be ready to at least issue to benefit the doubt because if you don't, just think about yourself. Somebody might not want to ask you to benefit it out to you. I think that if you hitting a baseball and you taking steroids

and it's making you crack that damn ball a lot further or punch a lot harder, I think John Jones is great because of how unique he is, how he's such a long building, he knows how to use it. That's not something, that's skills. That's not something that performance enhancement drug is going to make you, it's going to make you taller. It's going to make your arms longer. Right.

You know, that's why he's so unique, and he doesn't have the hesitation. mentally, he doesn't think that this moves not going to work. He don't think it's, hey, this is MMA. Maybe I shouldn't try to do this back-to-back throw at his inside trip. I'm like, I would have never done a single leg in a fight or jump guard. His ability to just go out there without hesitation, without any filter, to just try stuff and believe that it's going to work is why he's so great. Can performance enhancement drugs develop that?

I don't think so. If he took something and it was something illegal, he's going to have to deal with the consequence. He's going to have to have four years without making seven-figure paydays. That's going to be his consequence. I'm not going to give him an additional one. I wonder if he comes back after the four years. He will.

Yeah? Man, he's 30 years old. He's 30 years old. He's going to, like, I'm 35 years old, and I'm just getting started. If I wanted to compete to 40, I could. Will you? I don't know. I mean, right now it's like it's a weird, I'm in a very weird spot.

Why? Because I've beaten most of the guys. There's no clear number one contender. Are you not motivated? No, I'm motivated. I'm motivated just because my coach, she said, you were not even there yet oh really you've beaten

my toughest competition is behind me on paper my coaches we sit down and we watch you know Johnny Hinsress would have been a tough matchup on paper Robbie Lawler no disrespect to Robbie Lawler but we felt like we had

been tangibles to make it an easier fight that people would have thought Stephen Thompson was a tough fight on paper Damien Maya same as Robbie you know we had ways that we felt like that fight would have been favorable to us but the fight in my mind that would have been super tough. Roy McDonald,

Johnny Hendricks, at that time with the two toughest spice for me in the entire division. One of them didn't happen. One of them I lost. Guess what? They're gone. I'm in a position where, you know...

You're still the king. I'm still the king. What's up with this Colby Covington? What's going on with this guy? Kobe Covington won't even get a word out of my mouth, so we can move. ATT. What is up?

What is he taught you? I mean... Me, me, me. Can we call up Dan Lambert and say enough with this? Let him do this. Where's the unity? Let him do his deal. I mean, what is it hurting? He's caught, I mean, you want to hear something?

I'm going to show something with you. I haven't shot. You always get the, you always get the hidden footage. I'm going to show us something with you that nobody has ever known, right? Please, please, please. So I went back to ATT for my training camera, right? This one, this one. Yeah.

It was dope, great experience, one welcome, right? And Kobe Coventon wasn't even really in the gym at all, not even training. He was too busy on home on Twitter. Then he was saying all this stuff. Yeah. And now I'm in a gym. Now, where to talk at? Where are you at?

Where you at? Yeah. Nothing. Silence. And the irony of him having a shadow box underneath the picture of me with the belt on was enough for me. That's right. I'm shadowboxing by you. I'm jogging by you.

I'm standing near you. And you're facing the wall. Yeah. And you won't even turn around and look at me. Like, you're in the corner. And you won't move from this corner until I finish my workout. And you shadow box in the same spot for 30 minutes and you wouldn't turn your back. But you got so much to say on the Internet.

Yeah. I'm a type of guy, you know me. If you're going to step up to me, make it be real. Kind of found that out the hard way. That's right. If you want to step up, make you be real. If you want to do your thing on Twitter, have it. I'm not going to stop you.

Right. You know, a lot of people think that's the way that they have to make money. People like me think you just got to beat the top guys to get there. So if that's what he wants to do, I'm not going to stop him. I'm not going to debate. I'm not going to give him any attention. It's just really embarrassing for our sport that people can't just do it the old-school way and just beat people, you know? All right.

Your man, stealthers, is wrapping me up. Can I get a prediction? Prediction, man. Come on. I'm a bet on Connor. You're actually going to go back. I'm going to bet money on Conner. Oh, snap. How much? I'm a bet a grand that he stops Floyd within six. Because I think that's his chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm willing to lose a thousand if it don't happen. How much would you win? I think I'll win. All right. I like it. So that's what you're going to go. But I think Floyd's going to win. But you're still going to bet on them.

I'm going to bet on him. Why not? All right. Thanks, my man. I really appreciate you doing this. You came only for us, right? You met all these people as a result. But you came here for the, look at This setup. Look at this setup. Look at this setup. Remember that. There he is the champ. The reigning defending UFC welterweight champion.

The chosen one, Tyrone Woodley, stopping by. Great stuff from him. How much fun are we having here today? Who else is going to step up? Step right up, I just want to say. I don't know who's next. Who's next? Heather Hardy is next.

That's what they tell me, but you never know with these things. This is great. I am having such a good time here. We are in Las Vegas. We are doing our thing. Amazing stuff. Look at this. We're at the media center. Look at it. Who else is here right now? A lot of media people. You can see some... Some boxers. Floyd Sr. still here. Is he giving up our goods?

I thought we got the exclusive with Floyd Senior. Still here. It's great. So the Wayans are three and a half hours away from right this moment. They will be taking place just a few blocks from here. They will be taking place at the T-Mobile Arena. They will be taking place on Showtime if you are not in attendance, if you are not. You had to get tickets, by the way. You didn't have to pay for said tickets, but you had to get tickets to attend. And I wouldn't be surprised, by the way, if people are scalping those tickets, although I don't know. You know, I haven't seen a lot of Irish fans here and people have predicted that. I was talking to our own P.T. Carroll about that. The tickets are very expensive. These are expensive tickets. And so I don't know if a lot of the Irish have made the

trip. I don't know if a lot of the Irish have made the trip. We'll see. I guess we'll find out at the I guess we'll find out at the at the at the Wayans in a couple hours. Look at this. I showed this yesterday. This is amazing. This is something that the great Esther Lynn made. She made a newspaper essentially of all the photos from the world tour so there you have the i'll tell you my favorite one you know it's my favorite picture of the entire world tour imagine if it's not in there this is it this is my favorite picture writes mike dab in the middle that to me is the picture of the world tour although i must say i predicted that this would be my favorite picture of this entire fight.

I predicted that this would be the photo that everyone remembers this fight with or about, whatever you want to say. But the one where Conner's down doing the Bruce Lee thing, that to me is now my new favorite picture, because that represents what this fight is all about. It's boxing and martial arts.

That's the new picture. That's the picture that will symbolize this fight. That's the picture that would tell the story of this fight. This is so much fun. Oh! Look at this. How about this? The heat is in the house. Stopping by, Heather Hardy. How are you? It's great to see you. Oh, we did a kiss. We did a, uh, uh, an earphone to face kiss. Great stuff. Do you want to put this on? You don't have to. As long as you hear me. Do you hear me?

Okay, so just put the mic up close. Get closer, Heather. Don't be shy. This is very exciting. We just had you on the program a couple weeks ago. We spoke to Lou on our show last week. You see that? He was in studio. He was very, I think he went there begrudgingly. I don't think he wanted to make the trek from Long Island, but he was phenomenal. once he got in studio. It was tough to get him to come out. Yes, he's very entertaining. So we're here, by the way. You're still laughing at Connor? You're still mocking him? Not on your show.

You got a great response, though. The people loved you on the program, right? That was so great. Thank you so much for having me. Would you say it was a career highlight to be on my show? It was definitely up there in the top ten. Like, between the nationals and gloves and valves and stuff, for sure. And how about this morning?

See, you failed to actually say this on the show. You're here because you received an award from Maywe's. promotions. Is that not true? Yes. Tell us about it. And now everyone's going to think, like, I only like him because he gave me an award. Yeah, well, now the truth comes out. Now we know why you were backing him so much.

Once again, the truth comes out on your show. He gave me an award. It was Titans of the Trade Breakfast. They do it once a year. Sorry, I have to come in my mouth. And they were awarding me for the advancements I've made in female boxing for sports and women in the industry. That's incredible.

Yeah. Was this an honor for you? It really was. I never even been in like a fancy hotel like the MGM Grand. And when I was going up in the elevator, I was crying. And I got in the room and I facetim my mom and she couldn't pick up. And I was like, but I have to show you. Oh my God. You've never been in a hotel in Las Vegas? No, I've never been to Las Vegas at all.

This is your first time. It is my first time. What is it like? Well, I'm alone. So it sucks because I'm alone. Yeah. But everyone knows you here, right? You're a superstar. My sister's like, just put on dress and go out. And I'm like, that's not safe.

Yeah, and it's not that fun to be alone and go out. Why didn't you bring someone? It was like a kind of a last-minute trip, and I was really coming for work anyway. It's like forcing me to be good. Yeah. Would you like to fight here? Is this sort of a thing that you would love? This is my dream to fight at the MGM Grand.

Really? To fight under the same life that Floyd May Weather fights at. Wow. One of my dreams. One of your dreams. But, I mean, that's my ultimate goal. I would love a fight here on the big stage, right? You've never fought here.

You've always been an East Coast fighter. Well, I'm signed by Lou, so I do all my fights over there. That's right. But it's not really so much symbolic of I want to fight in Las Vegas as I want to get on a pay-per-view card. You know, some of the biggest fight cards are right here in Las Vegas. Like, you know, my mother's fights. I would love to make some money. You can do that.

Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, Paige. She always comes through in the clutch. You're the best. There she is. All right. Paige is a big fan of yours, by the way. She's so sweet.

So you got this award, and were there other awards? Or was it all just about you? No, no, no. There were like five women who were honored. Sparkle Lee was honored. She's one of the first female referees. She's a boxing ref. She actually refed my last fight.

But refs fights all over the world. She's on like over 100 championship fights. There was two young kids, a basketball player, and also a rapper, a female rapper. That's fun. What an eclectic mix of individuals? It sure was. It was.

Was Floyd himself there? No, Leonard Ellaby was there. And I was kind of like fan girl. Like, oh, wow, there he is. Don't be leaving Lou for the best. Leonard, though. No, no, no, no. Lose my dad. Lose my dad. He's going to be here too. Yeah, he caught me this morning. He actually was at the breakfast, so he was like, good speech, kid, but he wasn't dressed in a suit, so he didn't want to come all the way

inside. He's bashful? Loo DeBella is bashful? Maybe in his pajamas. That's right. But that means you're not alone, because you've got your guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. But who wants to go out with their dad? Well, that's true. Right. That's true. Are you going to the fight? No, I'm not going to the fight. Why not? Because they just have me come here for today. Okay, so you're going home? Yeah. When? Tomorrow morning. You don't want to stick around for the fight? Well, they didn't ask me to, so I was like... Where will you be watching the fight? At Amity Hall. Where's that? In Brooklyn, New York, and I'm laughing because my friend who owns Amity Hall told me, I better tell everyone that I'm watching on Amity Hall. So, David, I'm watching

the bar fights at Amity Hall. You're welcome, David. And I didn't even know that you wanted to plug that. I didn't want to plug that at all. But he came to my breakfast this morning, and right before I went on stage, he was like, because he was still drunk. And right before he went on stage, she was like, make sure you mention the bar. And then it was like a big joke. All right. And I actually now got a chance to mention the bar. In front of millions of people.

I know. How do you like that? Now, so this is a bar. Are you like a featured guest there? Are you just going to watch it for fun? No, I watch a lot of fights there because there's food. Which part of Brooklyn? It's in Manhattan. It's not in the West Village of Manhattan.

Oh, you said it was Brooklyn. I did. Yeah. Yeah. See, what if I went to Brooklyn now and tried to find Amity Hall? Oh, my God. So it's in Manhattan? It's in the West Village, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. That'll be fun. It's nice. It's got like two stories. It's a big sports bar, so they will have the fight there, and the food is good.

So that's why I want. Are you looking forward to the actual fight, or are you just kind of hoping this all goes away? No, I'm actually looking forward to it now. It's like, it's like, like I said, the last time I was on the show. It's like an event, right? And it's exciting. So we have had a lot of boxers here, and we had a guy named Chris Eubank here yesterday, and he was phenomenal. Hughbank, he's a legendary British boxer. Sure, sure. And he was saying that Connor actually has a really good chance. If he fights dirty, punches to the elbow, punches to the shoulder. He was actually saying that, like, all these boxer type of people, like yourself, who are not giving him a chance, actually, they are foolish. They are making a mistake.

Right. Have you changed your opinion at all? I really didn't. I really didn't. Because, like, I will say it a million times, like, I know the guy is good, right? Connor McGregor can probably be 80% of the champions. I just have Floyd Mayweather on a different level, right? Like I just put him on a different, he's a different level champion.

And I'm not kissing his ass or anything because I don't even really like him. I was never a fan. Yeah. You just, when someone does what you do and you respect how well they do it, you've got to give them credit regardless of who they are. Yeah. And I just put him on a different level. So it's interesting because Floyd, I mean, he's done this 49 times.

I mean, it's kind of like clockwork for him. But there's two things that have come up this week that I wanted to ask you about. The first thing is he's been kind of out and about. I mean, I saw him at a gentleman's club, and I wasn't there, by the way, as a patron. I went to interview him there. Okay, okay. Did you hear this story? I waited for him for six hours.

No way. He said on Instagram that he was going to be there, and I wanted to see if he was actually telling the truth. And so we got him at 4 a.m. We did an interview with him at the club that he owns. And I thought that that was a little bit, it was interesting because you're fighting in 48 hours. What are you doing up?

And I know he kind of has weird hours. But then we had Floyd Senior here earlier just an hour ago. And he says, he doesn't know who's in Floyd's corner. He says that he thinks he's out and his brother's out and there's kind of turmoil there. Is that troubling or at this point 49 and no, all that stuff doesn't really matter? You could essentially go in without a corner. I'm sure it's troubling but I'm also sure that in his 49 fights he's encountered very similar things, right? So it gets to a point where like I've done fights before where two weeks prior I was homeless, right?

Wow. And it's like so you have like all these things happening but you're still focused on getting the job done. And I think that Mayweather has shown to us so many times again. Not even just as 49 and all, but even when he was an amateur and in the Olympics, like the man knows how to win. What do you mean by homeless? Well, when the big hurricane hit my rate. Oh, that's right.

That's right. But it's like all this happened before a fight. We're like, how can you fight? Yeah, yeah. Most of my job. I have to. So I think it's like the same kind of thing. I want to ask you about someone because the last time you were on my show,

there was a guy who kept texting me in the middle of the show, and I want to get this name right, okay? Okay. I want to ask you about this one particular name. I'm so nervous because I never know what you're going to say. Why? Does that make you nervous? A little bit.

Okay, wait, here we go, here we go. I'm doing this live on the air. One second, one second. My phone is a little slow. This guy texts me. His name is Danny Rubenstein. He's a manager in the fight game. Okay.

I'm going to try to get the name right. Okay. Helena. Maradanovich. Jelena. That's a girl from Canada. I want to. Yes. Yes. He was, so throughout the interview, he kept texting me her name.

Mention her name. Mention her name. That was a girl. And we tweeted her and everything. So what's going on? We have to make the fight. Like Showtime got to make the fight. Okay. Showtime has to make the fight. You have to keep tweeting Showtime to make the fight. Because the thing is this, right? In Canada, Jalana is making upwards of, should I say, the money? Go ahead. Yeah, so she's making like upwards of $30,000 per fight. And she can go to Germany and she can make that money. She can go to Argentina and she can make that money. money and she can go to Mexico and make that money. When she comes to America, they want to pay her

$7,000 and $8,000 to defend her title. So girls like me really don't get a chance at it, right? And so there are two answers. Go to Canada and do it, or try to make things different here. Oh, I like that. So it's like, sure, I can go to Canada and fight her. And I don't mind to do that. Like, a lot of people think I only fight in New York, but I only do it because my promoter is in New York and I have to. I have no problem going to Canada. But the problem is, why are we going to keep allowing American women to not make any money when we clearly deserve it. I do not blame Juliana for not wanting to come here for $10,000 when she's a world champion who deserves the right kind of money.

It's mind-blowing how you guys are treated. I actually asked Stephen Espinoza about you two days ago. You did? He was doing a media scrum and you could go see it. It's online. And he's talking about Floyd and Connor. And I said, I need to ask you about Heather Hardy. I went face-to-face.

I need to ask you about women's boxing. When are we going to put it on? Quite frankly, he kind of dodged the question. He sure does. You are so awesome. Thank you so much. No problem. Yes. So what's up? What's going on? Is it happening? He got to do it. I mean, that's what it is. He's got to do it. I would love to fight her. Maybe at the Barclay Center. I don't know if they have a December show, but, you know, I'm doing this October 20th with Belator. I'll be ready. Do you have an opponent yet? We don't have an opponent yet. We're still working everything now. So that's the next fight. That's my next one. It's going to be October 20th. But within four weeks, I'll be ready to jump in the ring. And I would love to close out the year with a world title against Jelaine. I would love to see that as well.

All the best. Congratulations on the award. Thank you so much. Thanks for stopping by again. Thanks for having me. There she is. Heather Hardy is stopping by. Joy to you. Yeah, you could just put that down. The heat stopping by.

This is great. Thank you for taking by. Appreciate her weighing in and I congratulate her once again on her new award. How about that? Very exciting stuff. So in a matter of moments, I do believe we're going to be joined by the Living Legend himself. Wow. Ice Cube.

Let me stand up here and pay homage to O'Shea Jackson Jr. The Man. How about that? Does anyone call you, O'Shea, by the way? I'll let you put on your headset here. I get very excited when I'm in the face of royalty. They usually call me O'Shea Jackson Senior now. Oh, you're always been a senior? I've been a senior and then my son is junior. Okay, my my apologies. You do look alike. How old are you? Man, I'm young enough. You are young enough. Holy smokes. You look like you're 30. Max. Hey, that's cool. I'll take it. Yeah. Well, thank you for being here. And congratulations on the big three. You may not know this because we're a fight show.

I'm a huge, like gigantic, like a nut basketball fan. Love all things basketball. The fact that you gave guys like Charles Oakley, my man, I'm a big Knicks fan, an opportunity to be a part of this and some of the older players to be a part of this, you know, Richard Lewis and all these guys, I think what you've done is great. Now that you're approaching the championship game, which is tomorrow, right? Here in Las Vegas, has it been a success? Are you happy with the Big Three?

Very happy. It's been a dream, you know, come true in a lot of ways to be able to, to just be involved in the sports league from scratch all the way to this point to where we're playing a championship. Our combine and draft was here in Vegas. So we're going full circles. So I just remember how it was then. Now I look at it and it's a big success. Will there be a year two?

Of course. We just signed a new deal with Fox. Well done. So they renewed our deal, so to speak. and so we'll be here for 2018. Wow. Big three basketball. We expect to have an influx of great players into the league, and I can't wait.

Now, are you the sole owner of the league? Do you own the entire thing, or is it a group of people? Well, we have a few partners, but I founded the league, me and my partner, Jeff Quintence, but we have a few investors around the league to just make sure we're able to do everything top class. So, you know, it's interesting because you're here, of course, for the finals. It's tomorrow. We're here for Mayweather McGregor and when this fight was first announced, your name

was coming up a lot. Because, oh, by the way, they forgot to check that the T-Mobile arena on Saturday night, August 26th, was booked by you. Or Shea Jackson Senior. Yes. They didn't run this by you? No. It's a little disrespectful if you asked me. It was. Yeah. But they handled it. You know, sometimes people make mistakes.

Okay. And when somebody step on your toes, all you got to do is say, That's right. And so we worked it out. You know, we are businessmen. You know, I understand that this is a big fight. You know, T-Mobile Arena is the biggest arena in Vegas. And, you know, we weren't going to stand in that way.

And we're great. We're happy. We're at the MGM Grand Arena. You know, our game is doors open at 11. Perfect. We got a third place game at noon. Then the championship is live on Fox. 130 Pacific, and you can get ready and come watch the fight.

So it's a perfect day in Vegas for sports. Yeah. Now, did you, let's be honest, how much did they pay you to change locations? Come on. How much did you ask for? You're a businessman. You're one of the savviest guys out there. We ain't going to talk about that, but we were happy.

They treated you right? It was really all about the Big Three. It wasn't really all about me. Well, I mean, the Big Three. That's right. With respect. We got treated right. All right.

I treated with respect. We're very happy. Now, when you heard the news that they were saying, oh, Team Mobile August 26, what'd you say? Did you freak out? I tripped. I said, what the hell's going on? Yeah. Start calling people, yelling. And then, you know, we just said, yo, it's a problem. We had the date. You know, we had the contract. So we knew it's sooner or later they was going to have to come and talk to us about working something out.

Are you a fight fan? Yes. Are you an MMA fan? Yes. What do you think of this fight? Are you a fan of this fight or do you prefer that they don't kind of go together? I prefer that they don't go together. Oh, interesting.

I mean, I'm going to watch the fight. Are you going to the fight? I plan to be drunk off champagne. After the championship? After the championship. I plan to be passed out. Oh, wow. But I'm going to wake up in time and watch the fight.

Okay. But it's a spectacle, you know. If it was in the octagon, I would give it to McGregor, but it's in the ring, so I'm going to give it to Mayweather. And that's probably how it's going to play out. Yeah, do you think it'll be a dull fight? I hope not. Yeah. And I don't want to see them dance for 12 rounds.

No one wants to see that. I want to see. Somebody hit the floor. What do you prefer more these days, MMA or boxing, if you had to watch one? I still prefer boxing. But I love them both. You know, when it's a big MMA fight, I'm into it, I'm in it. And I love even watching, you know, regular fights.

You know, to me, I love them both. You know, you ask the question, but if it's a boxing match, I'll check it out. If it's a MMA match, I'll stop and check it out. So both of them have grabbed my attention. And so I love them both. I wish people would stop trying to pick, saying that, you know. I appreciate that. One is going to take over the other.

Why we both can't survive. It's enough days in the week. That's right. To put on boxing matches and MMA matches. Now, is my man, is my man Oak here? Is the Oak Man here? Is he in Vegas? I don't know.

His team got knocked out of it, but he was invited. So all the teams are invited. Is he doing okay? Yeah, he's great. It's been a tough year for him. It has, you know. My heart ache when I saw that. They got a lot of talent.

A little dysfunctional over there. Yeah. Yeah. What's going, what did you think of that? That was disgraceful, right? How they treated him in New York? Yeah, man, that was terrible. That's crazy.

That was crazy. I was embarrassed. Me too. As a Nick fan, I was embarrassed. I mean, just as a basketball fan, it was horrific. It was horrendous. And, you know, it shouldn't happen. And I hope they figure it out so it won't happen again.

Now, as far as other things, outside the Big Three, are you able to focus? Are you been 100% on Big Three? Because you got so much going on as far as your acting career is concerned, still in the music business. Yeah. Has it been tough to juggle all of this? It has, man. You know, when you get involved with something like this, you have to go in both feet.

And, you know, you have to, it's a trip because I'm used to just walking out doing the shows. But being able to put these games on, you got to make sure everything is right. You know, you don't want to disappoint Dr. J. I don't want to disappoint the Iceman or Oak. Yeah. You don't want to disappoint these dudes. No. So you got to set it up right.

So I spent a lot of time just making sure everything is right for these guys. Is it kind of surreal that you're working with these? Because I know you're a big basketball fan. These are living legend. I mean, these are the greatest of the great. It's crazy. It's crazy when you got Dr. Jay saying, hey, man, I need 14 tickets for the game. You know, and I'm taking Dr. Jay ticket requests

and making sure my guys, man, get Dr. Jay's damn tickets. Yes. Make sure his tickets are right. So it's kind of cool to be able to work on that level with these guys who I've been, I was hero. I mean, I saw a movie called The Fish that Save Pittsburgh. Yes, I remember that. Dr. Jay, you know, in one of his, you know, maybe only movies.

But so to be able to work with these dudes, you know, it's crazy. I'm tripping. What is the proudest accomplishment of your illustrious career? Wow. What are you most proud of? It's been a lot of it, man. I know. I just, I think most proud of, and it's something behind the scenes,

okay. leaving NWA. Really? Yeah, because it took strength. It took confidence. It took belief, faith, and all those things. And a lot of people may afford it at that moment, you know. It wasn't an easy decision, but just having the courage to do it, you know, that's something I'm real proud of.

Because I wouldn't be here if I didn't do it. Wow. Did you recognize that? Did you know that you had to do it in order to advance in your career, or did you not even care about what was to come as far as the decision? You just wanted to get out of the situation. I didn't even think about advancing my career. I just thought about being treated fairly.

You know, so if I wouldn't be treated fairly, to me, that was a reason to leave. Wow. Have you ever said that before, that's your proudest accomplishment, leaving NWA? I wouldn't have expected that. I think I said it once or twice. Wow. I appreciate you saying that. Is it amazing to you that it's kind of had this second life now

in the 2000s, 2016, I think the movie came out, was it 16 or 15? Maybe it was 16. 15. Yeah, 15. Like, it's all of a sudden had this second life, the group. Does that surprise you? No, because, I mean, the group was, it's like a, when the meteor hit the earth, you know, the earth would never be the same. Yeah.

The NWA started doing music. Music was never going to be the same. So to me, it's a definite turning point. and it's worth examining, and I'm pretty sure we got new fans because of that. That's right. Why don't we have music groups who stand for the same thing that you guys stood for? Why do we not have music groups who are able to, you know, like, for example, people compare Connor McGregor to Muhammad Ali, and I think that in the ring and his trash talk, it's a very apropos comparison. But as far as standing for something in civil rights and I know the times have changed, but going outside of your world, he doesn't do that.

And I think you would be the first to say that. You guys did, I mean, you weren't just rappers. You did a lot for society. Why don't we have that these days, especially in the times that we're living in? I have no idea, you know, but each artist's got to, you know, choose that in their own heart. I'm pretty sure that, you know, you can lose a lot of fans, too, taking a stand. So you've got to have the courage to do that. Do you see anyone who's doing that?

Is there anyone that you're saying, good for you? Way to stand up. Yeah, you know, I mean, Kendrick Lamar does a lot of great things. You know, so, I mean, profits of rage, you know, with Chuck and, you know, what he's doing with Be Real. And, you know, these guys are doing it. You know, he's still making noise. And that's what it's all about. It's great.

And probably, you know, the mainstream doesn't popularize it like, like, you know, we would want. But for guys are still doing it. it is great. You know, it reminds me of what Michael Jordan once said, Republicans buy shoes also. Remember that? Yeah, that's cool, you know, if you're selling shoes. That's right. But if you're trying to change the world, then you got to tell Republicans and Democrats, you know, how they can get it better, do it right. I'm no LeBron James fan, but I have to say he's been talking a lot these days, and I really give him a lot of respect. Even, I don't know if you saw this, fans were burning the Kyrie Irving jersey, and he was like, what is this? What are you burning? It's crazy. It's crazy, right?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I respect the athletes who speak up when they got the mic and that their shine is the brightest. That's the time to speak. That's the time to stand up. So I salute LeBron and Carmelo, Duane Wade, you know, all the athletes. Chris Paul. Yeah, all the athletes that choose to use their power to point out. injustices or things that's going wrong in our society. Good thing about sports is it's an escape sometimes.

You are an escape. Big Three has been on all summer long. As a basketball fan, it's fun, it's fun to watch. Can you be promoter for a second? What are we expecting tomorrow? We got the lineup right here. I know he's playing. I think it's Seattle, right?

No, no, we're here, man. No, no. Seattle was in the semifinals. Semi-final. Yeah, with Seattle. Now we've got, where is it? The finals. We're right here tomorrow.

I got this, man. No, no, no. All right. Check it out. Check it out. 11 o'clock tomorrow, doors open. MGM Grand, come check out. We got two great basketball games going on.

We got our third place game, power versus the ghost ballers. You're going to see Catino Mobley versus... Former Houston Rockin? Yep. You're going to see him versus Mike Bibby in our third place game. That'll be live on Facebook Live. That'll be live on YouTube. And then we move on to our championship game, which is 430 Eastern,

130 Pacific, live on Big Fox. We got the championship number one seed trilogy versus our number two seed three-headed monsters. Wow, Big Fox, not FS1. Big Fox. Damn, is this the first game on Big Fox? First game on Big Fox, and this is our first game live.

And who are some of the players on those two teams? Oh, you got on Trilogy, you have Kenyon Martin. Oh, my man. You have Al Harrington. Yes, former Knicks. Players like Rashar McCants. But then on three-headed monsters, you have Rashard Lewis, you have Kwame Brown, you have Mahmoud Abdul. Chris Jackson?

Yes. You have a-formly known. Kareem Rush. So, you know, it's a great matchup. Is there a particular player or two that you'd love to see in the league next year? Of course, man. Kobe. Paul Pierce.

Have you put out the request? Of course. What are they saying? We'll see. You know, guys took this year to look. We'll see what they say after the season. Wow, that would be huge. Are you confident?

I mean, you know, as confident as I've been all season that we have great product. You do. You got the itch to play basketball. Big Three is scratching. You're the man. Thank you so much, Ice Cube. Later. Really appreciated this.

Yay, yay. Yeah, yay. There it is. There it is. Ice Cube in the house. Big Three tomorrow here in Las Vegas, if you're a fan coming by, check them out at, as you said, 1130, you can come in for the third place fight, and then at 1.30. here at the MGM, watch it a couple hours, and then you go to the fight. What a day.

It's great, man. It's a great Saturday here in Vegas. All right, my man. Thank you so much. You could just walk out. That's how we do this. All right, I'm go. Yeah, that's how we do it. Thank you so much. The one and only Ice Cube. Look at that shirt. Trilogy versus the three-headed monsters. Look at that shirt. Bang. Ice Cube. Holy smokes. This is a lot of fun. All right. Thank you very much to Ice Cube. Cube. We continue to roll along. Still got a few minutes left here on the program. We're going to go to a

conversation now that I had yesterday with Brian Kenny. Brian Kennedy is a veteran sportscaster, has worked for ESPN. He was the man, as I talked about in our conversation, who moderated the Lou DeBella Joe Rogan debate on Sports Center 10 years ago. Now he works for the YomB Network, but he also is calling the Fox prelims for Mayweather-McRegger. He's also, he's also also calling the international feed of the pay-per-view. His boxing knowledge is phenomenal. If you don't know Brian Kenny, just wait for his boxing knowledge. It is tremendous.

And his take on the fight, tremendous. And I appreciated him very much because he didn't know a lot about Connor going in. But you'll see in the interview, he knows a lot about Connor and John Kavanaugh. He's been doing his homework. So here's my conversation yesterday, 24 hours ago. That's why I'm wearing a different shirt in the clip. with the one and only Brian Kenny who will be calling the international pay-per-view

tomorrow night from here in Las Vegas. All right, this is a real treat for me. You all know that I love all things sports broadcasting. Join now by the one and only Brian Kenny's work for ESPN now MLB Network. But on Saturday night, he is going to be calling the Fox prelims for the Mayweather-McGregor card. And then, as far as the pay-per-view main card is concerned, he'll be calling the World Feed.

So we have a lot of fans over in Ireland, over in the UK, all over the world. you'll be hearing this man's voice. He'll be calling the action with Sugar Ray Leonard. How about that? What a pleasure. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.

This is so much fun. I love your stuff. Thank you. I love your interviewing style. Thank you. So I'm a big fan of your work, and especially this week where I've had to get much more McGregor information. I've been definitely looking at the source. I have come to you.

I've been listening. I've been watching. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, we actually spoke about you on Monday on my show. Do you know why? No, I do not. Lou Debella was in studio.

Okay. And it was 10 years ago. that you hosted sort of a debate between Lou Debella and Joe Rogan on Sports Center. Do you remember this moment? Vaguely, yeah. Lou Debella is still very fired up about this.

This was prior to you... I have a weird memory when it comes to all things, MMA. It was prior to UFC 71. It was Quentin Rampage Jackson fighting Chuck Liddell and Sports Center, the 6 p.m. Sports Center, which never talked about M.MA,

had this segment where you brought in Joe Rogan and you brought in Lou Debella, and they had this debate. And Joe, in the eyes of most MMA fans, beat Lou. And he's still fired up about it. And so what I want to, you don't remember much about it? No, it's coming back to me now.

Yeah. It was intense. I forgot about that, yeah. Do you still feel like there's a rivalry there, or do you view them as two separate entities? Well, it's strange. I think actually, just, again, now having more of a view of the MMA world and culture, I am sensing. I thought we're past it. I really thought, I thought, look, boxing's at a certain level.

It goes up. It goes down. it's, you know, one point was the second biggest sport in the country. It's clearly no longer that. And now MMA or UFC pay-per-views get up over a million buys. So now there's, you know, much more balance involved. And the MMA audience is younger. But boxing is not dying.

Like I'm not buying any of these narratives, these easy false narratives. At the same time, I now see there, it seems to be some resentment in the MMA culture at the disrespect, not just from Floyd Mayweather, but the, disrespect from a lot of the boxing fans that say this is a joke. This guy has no shot. And you're a better judge of that. But yeah, so I thought the Rift was kind of over and like we're in a combat sports world and it just depends on what you prefer. And in MMA now we see a lot more striking. Right. Look at the evolution from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu dominated in the Graces. And then into that Rendi Koutur and collegiate wrestlers seem to dominate. Now I see more and more strikers

dominating. So I think we've kind of gotten used to this and it keeps evolving. And yet now kind of like a lot of old grudges come up where, wait a second, McGregor's not a joke. He's our champion. He knows how to box. So look, this is, I think, the rising tide floats all boats. I think it on the by and large helps. But you are seeing a little bit of that tension between the two worlds.

So to be clear, when you found out about this fight, were you in favor of it or did you kind of roll your eyes? No, I rolled my eyes. I thought it was a joke. Really? I'll be honest with you. Wow. Why would this happen? Like, why would this guy in...

I was ignorant, actually. I was ignorant to it. I did not know the extent of McGregor's love of boxing, his background in boxing, and how he actually fought. I'd seen it, but I'm not really studying it. And so I have a lot more respect for it now. Now, granted, I'm here working in, right?

Except my bias for what it is. Of course. No, I appreciate you being honest about it. But I was ignorant to it, and I don't want to be arrogant boxing guys saying he doesn't even have a chance. He'll never lay a glove on him. Well, plenty of world champion boxing.

haven't landed a clean shot on Floyd Mayweather. But I look at it now, I'm just kind of fascinated. The probability is the most likely scenario will happen, which is that it's Floyd Mayweather will outclass him in a boxing competition, because it should happen that way. But there's no guarantee, and I love the way McGregor has gone in with his attitude, with his unconventional, unorthodox style, and just bringing it to the ring.

This whole Bruce Lee stuff, I love that stuff. That's great. That's going in and saying, I'm going to use what's useful to me. I like that he didn't go and get boxing trainers, you know, separate boxing trainers. Because if you go up and just box and mirror, you know how we all mirror each other? If you go in mirror Floyd Mayweather, you're going to lose. He does everything better. But if you go in and say, I'm not playing your game, I'm going to do things differently. Maybe I don't throw a punch. Maybe I run for a minute and a half. Maybe you're going to throw him off. You're going to change the whole dynamic.

And that's his only shot. I'm not just saying this because you're here of all the boxing people I've talked to leading up to it this is the first sort of sane analysis of the fight you get it you actually get it and I appreciate that yesterday I don't know if you watched the press conference

but when they squared off in front of the media and Floyd had the traditional stance Connor said this is Bruce Lee's shit right here and he did the sort of martial arts sense and he was telling the world that I'm not going in there as a boxing you can't go in there you can't transform so all these people who are laughing at him who are mocking his training

they don't get it. That, to me, has been the most fascinating part about this. Connor's team is so confident. Like, if you talk to them, they truly believe they're going to win. This is not Peter McNeely walking up and saying, I'm going to knock out Mike Tyson. We're all kind of laughing. They truly believe it. And then everyone else in the boxing community is laughing. And I feel like they all view them as delusional. You don't feel the same way, though. Well, I think what Kavanaugh had said, I thought was the most fascinating thing, saying, I know they think they're going to have an easy night, easy work. And we think we're going to knock him out. someone is suffering from a delusion.

So, yeah, being cognizant of, wow, we don't quite get it. But isn't that the fascinating part of it is that there is some unknown here. And there is some unknown. But it is it you cannot, you can't, what's the word is? You can't underestimate it or overestimate. You can't overestimate the effect of the styles. Styles do make fights. And now you have a guy coming from another world, which is important.

I actually wrote about this in my book on baseball. Okay. In that we all get into a group think. We all get into a herd mentality. Same thing is you bring a street fighter into the gym. And I remember them telling me this in Catskill 30 years ago when I was in the customato gym. When you bring in a street fighter off the street, he's tough enough to get in the ring with your boxers. But you don't put him in there. Not because you just don't want to school the street fighter.

You don't want the street fighter doing weird things that the boxer doesn't expect. We will all conform in life and in sports. We all conform. There's this pressure to be part of the herd, and we'll all act a certain way. And if McGregor went in and said, hey, let me do this another way. Let me box my way up and have a couple of fights, tune-up fights. Let me get used to boxing. Within two, three years, he'll be boxing like everybody else.

So maybe there's some wisdom to going in and saying, I'm not playing this game. And I have some examples. Please. Manny Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez. Okay. Which one? Because, first one. Okay.

Because Pachiao is coming from a different fighting culture in the Philippines, came in unorthodox, right? Even though now we get used to Manny and he's constantly moving and all of that. Marquez never knew where his left hand was coming from. It was alien. He didn't know. He got dropped three times in the first round. Three times in the first round.

Just couldn't understand where it was coming from. And then what happened? He fought him even over the next like 10 years, right? He'd win rounds. He'd lose rounds. He eventually knocked him out, all that stuff. But for that first round, he was fighting an alien creature, didn't know where it was coming from. And I can say the same thing for Prince Nassim Ahmed.

He was a huge sensation. Why? He wasn't. He hadn't conformed. He hadn't been forged into something conventional. So the more unconventional McGregor is saying, I'm going to stand in front of you and wait and wait and wait. Floyd's going to have to think, because that's what Floyd does. It's the best possible chance of success.

I love it. I love it. Now, Floyd says, if I lose my legacy, he isn't tarnish. I feel like he's 100% wrong. I feel like if he loses this fight forever people will be like, yeah, you were 49-0 but then the last one you lost to the O&O guy. What do you think? A little bit

and yet look, the guy I'm calling the fight with on Saturday night. Sugar Ray Leonard. Of course. I had Ray Leonard's record in front of me. We're doing Friday night fights. This is like 20 years ago. And I'm looking at his record and the first part of his record is here and then he fought so many times.

There was a couple more on the other page. And those were like where he lost his last couple of fights, right? And actually Sugar Ray says to me, he goes, hey, forget that page. So when we think of Sugar Ray Leonard, we don't think of him losing in his later bouts. We think of him fighting Tommy Hearns. We think of him fighting Roberto Duran. I think we'll remember Floyd. Like in the now, it will definitely dent his veneer of greatness and invincibility and screw all of you.

Right? That whole, all is hubris and all that, which is. the selling points of the fight to see him get his comeuppance. That's what he sells. That's what he's been mining for the last 10 years. But does it really change his legacy that at 40 years old he lost a fight? Wouldn't change how I think about him.

No. I feel like that would be the first chapter. People would talk about him. But when it was all said and done, number 50, he lost the martial artist. Yeah, and look at anybody's fight. Look at anybody's card. And that's what makes us remember, like, Rocky Marciano,

was, with the exception of Marciano and Joe Calzaggy and some other guys, there's almost always the last couple of fights where we go, ooh, ooh, ooh, wow, Larry Holmes, I mean, even a great fighter like Holmes, almost anybody you would see, you know, not, well, Hagler lost to Leonard, but most

everybody has an L or have lost two of their last three. That's when they go out. Even the greatest fighters of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson, the end of his record is not so great. But you don't remember that. Now, here and now, yeah, In the general populace, it'll be a big, I'm using paraphrasing Connor McGregor,

it'll be a dent to his ego. It will dent him, certainly. But I don't think it changes that this guy was a multi-division world champion and a Hall of Fame. You watch Connor tape, you enjoy him? Do you think he's a fun fighter? Like what you've seen of him, I'm assuming now you've watched his UFC fights. Yeah. He's fun, right?

He doesn't waste punches, he's precise. Well, that's it. The left hand. Accurate punches. I'll give you another example. I remember, you know, talking to, you know, Winky right. and then later talking to Kelly Pavlik, the way champion of the world.

Youngstown, Ohio. Right. And those guys, you know, from talking to them through the years, they all kind of said the same thing. When they were watching prelim fights, they were like, this is violent, this is crazy. They're throwing too much because guys are throwing like, and having a brawl.

The top guys don't like brawls. They like it to be controlled and precise. Kelly Pavlick said, man, I don't throw a punch I don't think is going to land. You know, and that takes years of experience. So actually that experience will serve McGregor very well going into this fight in that, hey, do what Floyd does. Take the air out of the ball. Slow it down. Because if you think you're going to work at his pace, even at the age of 40, he's wrong.

If you think that, hey, his guy's going to be good in the late rounds, we all know that ain't going to happen. So his best chances to be patient and know that, hey, I've got five, six, seven rounds. Think long term here. If I pace myself, if my heart rate is as low as Floyd's, this is. good, I can go deep into this fight. And I won't end up like Chico Corrales. I won't end up like Oscar Delahoya. Everybody fades, I guess, you know, it's not that they fade against Floyd, it's that Floyd stays here the whole way. And that's a tribute to his greatness. He stays right there. His heart rate, I'd be fascinated to know what it is when he's actually in the ring. The bell rings

and people are going nuts first round. And I think he's just like, no, here we go, right? He's trained himself to think that way. McGregor absolutely has to think that way. And the fact that he's had these mega events in the UFC serves him, I think, very well. That's not like some nonsense thing. The fact that he's been in these events and he won't suddenly be thinking, oh my God, here I am, because that wastes energy and you cannot waste any energy against Floyd. I love the fact that when this was first announced, you considered it spectacle. Now you're breaking it down like its actual sports. And you come a long way in this band of- show respect. I mean, I do. And the fact that he came up, McGregor came up, you know, whatever the

incentives were at the time, whatever the world was at the time, MMA made more sense, but you get the sense that had there been more of a structure for boxing in Dublin, he would have been a boxer. He would have loved to just been a traditional boxer. And that's where his love is. I mean, you can see, you tell me, how comfortable is Connor McGregor on the ground grappling? Oh, he's fine. He's fine? He looks uncomfortable to be. No, people have said his wrestling isn't very strong. Off his back, he's fine, he's had some submissions, but yes, he prefers to strike. He prefers to strike. I feel like people sort of overrate his uncomfortability? Is that even a word? I don't think so.

Discomfort. There it is. Yes. It's been a long night. I guess I've only seen him like in bad spots then when he's on the ground and it's like, wow. He looks like he doesn't want to be there. He certainly doesn't. He knows what his bread and butter is. He'll see a lot of people that go in when they go down. It's suddenly it's like, hey, I thought he was in trouble. He's not in trouble. He knows exactly what you're doing. Like I've been trained that from watching the Gracy's for years where it's like, oh, and look, that was like the lesson of MMA and Jiu-Jitsu was, oh, you look like you're losing. Remember, like Namit or wrestling, if you're on your back, you lost. And now suddenly like, oh, no, no, no, now I've got you.

It really twisted our heads around. So I see him down there, and I was surprised to see him not have that same level of comfort as most guys were at that level in the sport. Last thing for you, I can nerd out with you all day about this funny stuff, and you're tremendous. You do such a great job. Allow me to really nerd out here. I'm a die-hard Montreal Expos fan, believe it or not. Really?

Believe it or not. Really? In Montreal. Yeah. Love the Expos. My Twitter advertor still has the hat. You think they ever come back? I think it's a possibility, but I...

Come on, give me hope, Brian. Give me hope. I don't know. When I hear the commissioners, like, look for cues from what the commissioner says. It seems like it's always brought to him. And what the commissioner offers is Mexico City. You listen to it. What Rob Manfred, when they're talking about, hey, possible expansion,

because there's definitely room for two more teams. Two more, no question in Major League Baseball. It would be good for the sport and time to branch out. But you hear a lot more about Mexico City than you do Montreal. I think with a good park. Most of the guys, Cliff Floyd, I work with Cliff Floyd at M.M.O.B. Network. And, you know, they all say, hey, when we were good and when we were in a good park, there was nothing like it.

People came out. So I think it's still very viable. Tim Raines getting into the Hall of Fame was huge. Next year, it's Vladie. It was excellent. Yeah, it should be. And he's going to wear the Expo's hat, not the Angels hat. Oh, good.

Don't tell me. No, no, he should. I'm still thinking kind of a long shot, though, but it depends on what type of park is there. Okay. But I think in the HADDA, I looked at the attendance. They were like top two or three in the, like the 80s. In the early 80s, of course. Yeah.

On Monday, they were in the NLCS. By the way, in 1995, I invited Cliff Floyd to my Bar Mitzvah. And he said yes. And then I sort of wanted to reconfirm with him a week before. He had broken his wrist. He was playing first base, and Todd Hundley ran into him at Chase Stadium. And I went up to him and I was like, are you still coming to Barbaran bavarizvah?

because I used to go early to all the games at Olympic Stadium to get autographs, and he's like, oh, we're going to be in L.A. that weekend, can you reschedule it? My mom had been working on this barbeds with her demo. I was like, Flood, I can't reschedule this for you. What are you crazy? That was great. And they did that documentary last year on MLB Network about the Expos, which was tremendous. I was actually interviewed for it. I was in it. It's all coming clear to me. Hey, before we let you go? Yes. Before you let me go? See what I did? What do you think happens? Is your most likely scenario of the obvious, or do you have another scenario in what?

conventional wisdom, Floyd decision. I've been watching Connor for a while now. I'm not doubting him anymore. The fact that we're here defies logic. The fact that four and a half years ago he was on welfare, the fact that he went in there and fought Josealdo and not only beat the guy who hadn't lost in 10 years, but knocked him out in 13 seconds.

The fact that he got the UFC to allow this fight to happen when they vehemently stopped every fighter who tried to make this thing happen and said they would never co-promote. All signs point to this defying logic. So why can't the most impossible idea end in the most impossible way. That's what I say. Is it crazy? I don't know, but I'm not doubting him. It's only improbable.

Maybe. But you're saying there's a chance, right? It's like what the great Vince Scully once said, right? What's that? In a year filled with the improbable, the impossible has happened, right? Herkips, home run. That's right. Well done. How about that? What a pleasure. Brian Kenny of Fox Sports. He'll be calling the prelims and also the world feed on Saturday night alongside Sugar Ray Leonard. So if you're outside of North America, you'll be hearing this man, one of the very best in the business as far as boxing. Any sport is concerned. What a pleasure. There he is. Brian Kenny. Check him out on Saturday night. Thank you very much to Brian Kenny. What a pleasure that was. So great at his job.

And I think the international fans are in for a treat Brian Kenny and Sugar Ray Leonard on the call tomorrow night. All right. Up next here, we roll along. This is like the MMA hour, variety hour. This is a variety show. This is so much fun. Up next, we've got the one and only Amir King Khan in the house. Wow, how about this? How are you, my friend? It's good to have you on the program. You've actually been on my show once before when you were involved with the Super Fight League. Oh, yeah. That's right. Over the phone. That's right, over the phone. Right, right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Super Fight League's doing good things, man. Are you still involved with them? Yes, I am, yeah, yeah. So obviously I am a co-owner of Super Fight League.

So I love MMA. I've been in MMA for a very long time. Yeah. Been a fan of MMA as well. So Super Fight League is a company I own in India. Yeah. Yeah. Boy to America, Seattle. I did a couple of shows in Seattle as well. We are more about team concept. Uh-huh.

So there's team, for example, if we did in India, we have, what we did in India was we have Team Delhi, in Mumbai, team Punjab, team UP, we have different teams. It's a team concept where there's points. So if you go for a knock, if you get a knockout, you'll get X amount points. If you get a stoppage, you'll get X amount of points.

And it goes lower, you know. Yeah. So, um, so about points. And when you know that, when you're chasing points and you're chasing a knockout, You know what happens when you chase to knock out, you get knocked at yourself. Right. And I've seen so many upsets in that game.

And that's what people want to see. People want to see real fights. And that's what Super Fighter League is doing. When you were on my program a couple years ago, you said that you were kind of interested in actually competing in MMA yourself. But that never came to fruition. Why? It never come through. I mean, obviously.

I'll just move this here. You don't need these. I had a hand operation. I got my hand operated on because I had some plates and some screws put in there. But look, I'm only 30, man. I still want to maximize my boxing career first. I want to have the biggest fights in my career and then hopefully go on to other things like

MMA, maybe have one fight. I'm at the peak of my career now, so no messing around. For now, you're sticking with boxing. No, yeah, obviously, I'm a boxer. I want to be back in the ring in November, man. Is it fair to say, though, that you're a bit of a frustrated boxer because when I think of Amir Khan, I think of a guy who has, you've enjoyed great success.

But you've also tried to get some of those big fights, and for whatever reason you haven't. Are you frustrated? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, you do get frustrated in, and when things like this happened. I wanted to fight me, whether that fight never happened.

I got very close to it. He did not pull, and who should I fight, and the fans voted for me, but still did it happen. Mani Pakiau. That did it happen. I mean, these are fights I want,

and then I can move up two-way categories to fight Canallo and fight him at his weight, and going in the ring at 157, he must have been about 190, And I took these fights because I want to fight the best out there. I've never turned any fight down. Why do you think Floyd never wanted to fight you? No disrespect, man.

Floyd's a great fighter. But I just think that, you know, it's a very bad style for him, speed, movement, explosiveness. And I'm not saying that he's scared. Maybe he just didn't think it was the right time. I've heard you talk about this fight, Mayweather McGregor. You don't think Connor has a chance. I don't know. Why?

Because you'll see on Saturday. you see anxiety So do you think that this is a farce? I don't want to say it's a false I mean it's a good fight because people want to see the two best sportsmen I mean it's like a tennis player trying to play badminton

That's a great analogy It's like tennis player playing against the best Badminton player in the world That's a great analogy It's two different sports man And you can't really But look business-wise I want to book to make hundreds of millions

Because they have given this much entertainment to us fans Yeah So they just don't love it. But looking at it as a fight, I just think that Mayerather is going to school him. After two rounds, Mayer will be going to know exactly what McGregor's doing in the fight and he's going to clean him. You think he stops him? Yeah, really. Between round six and nine.

How does he stop him? Oh, I mean, a lot of punches hurting him. Do you think he able to the body a lot? No, Mayer was not really been a big body puncher. So, I mean, but Connor has a pretty strong chin. No, he does have a good chin, yeah. But at the same time, when he keep getting hit on that chin, numerous times at the same point, at the same point, at the same point. How much punishment can your body take?

Connor's a young fighter, a young champion. He's always got another day. He can go back to the MMA and have another big couple of big fights. Sure. So he should not really show too much balls in this fight. If he starts to get a beating, step out, man. Because there's always another day. Mayer is a great fighter.

have to respect that. Do you think that he could get seriously injured in this fight? Correct, yeah. You do? I'm saying that. I'm saying that he needs to think about himself, himself in this fight because if he gets seriously injured, it might not be the same fight over again and I might never fight again. Do you think that it was, I don't know, reckless by the Nevada Athletic Commission to drop the glove size down? No, I mean, Nevada Commission are really good though. I mean, they're really good. But they went from 10 to 8, if anything, you should be more conservative in this fight, right? Yeah, but then again, because he's shown a lot and he's such a big. name and such a good fighter and I think it's just good for Nevada and good for Vegas to

have such a big fight here and have so many fans come to Vegas I think it's brilliant yeah for the economy and brilliant for the casinos right and it's big business for both guys and big business for everyone so why not yesterday on the program we talked to Chris Eubank you know Chris Eubank right British legend and he thinks that Connor actually has a path to victory a dirty fight frustrated him rough him up punch him in the elbow punch him in the shoulder don't try to outbox Connor but just make this into somewhat of a brawl. Do you see that happening?

Is there any chance that happens? No. No, I don't think it happens. Floyd's too smart, man. Floyd has fought a lot of big names and good fighters around the world. And I just don't think he has a chance. No, I don't think that'll have happened. Floyd says he's going to go forward, that he's going to repay the fans.

He's saying that, but Floyd always says that, but he doesn't. You know what I mean? Floyd's playing mind games. Floyd's playing mind games. He's going to say that I'm going to go forward. I'm going to hit him with this shot, with that shot. but he's not going to do that. I know what Floyd's like.

Flores are just going to box him, be smart, not get involved. When he gets close, you'll grab hold of him. Floyd won't get hit in this fight. Honestly, Floyd won't get hit with a clean shot in this fight. Not one? No, not one. Do you think that Connor lands a punch? Not a clean one.

Really? Yeah, man. Not one. What? Honestly, I'm not being disrespectful. I think Conner is a great fighter. In a great fighter, man. And I got a lot of love for the UFC.

I got a lot of love for Connor McGregor. I'm a fun. He's a great fighter, but he's not going to do anything, man. And I know he sounds bad, and I might be sounding like a hater. But I'm speaking the truth, man. I'm speaking, I'm being real. Do you think it would be disastrous for boxing the Floyd loses? Big time. Yeah, big time. It would be a huge.

Yeah, big time. Yeah, that'll be really bad. If boxing, if Mayweather gets beat, then, yeah, for all boxes out there, it's going to be really bad because all the funds are going to be. gonna turn away from boxing and say MMA is the better sport. MMA is the biggest sport. Yeah.

Let's just keep there. So you think this is MMA versus boxing? 100%. Yeah, so you're back. I've been saying that from day one. Are you backing Floyd? I'm backing Floyd for those boxes. For boxing, even though you're probably not a big fan of his.

All right, man, is cool me. I mean, we didn't fight. Yeah. I was a little bit upset with that, but you have to forget things, you know what I mean? In the day. This is a big payday for you to fight him. It would have been, but, you know, I mean, 100%,

but you know what? I've been very lucky. where you know God's been kind and I've been getting paid really well so I am very looking at that in that way you know but I do get paid well and so yeah you think we'll ever see a time where the the cream of the crop MMA fighters like you are in boxing get paid the same because there's you're in the MMA world there's a big there's a big discrepancy Connor is kind of an outlier right yeah it's not it's not really close it's not known because at the day like you're talking about the paychecks and

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the purse. Yeah, I mean, boxing has been around for how long, so many years. That's true. That's fair. That's fair. If you look back at boxing from the Mike Tyson days, Mahmada Lee days, boxing is established with TV, with pay-per-view, with fans. MMA is getting there, but MMA's grown so fast. Yeah.

Yeah? So, but by time MMM-M-A gets to that TV, pay-per-view and everything, then it'll be different. It'll be a ball. It'll be big-time. but at the moment it's uh it's uh it's uh it's uh it's uh it's at the moment it's uh it's all boxing that's why mcgregor came into boxing right if if you know so just to but this could be the way where m m m a does become big like boxing yeah where there's going to be big paychecks yeah there's going to be big purses this is the time you said you're fighting in november yeah

who are you fighting i don't know yeah you don't have enough one next week who do you want to fight I want to fight whoever's out there, man. I mean, look, you got Lamont Peterson. Yeah. We much can happen. You've got Danny Garcia. Yeah. I mean, I would have won that fight.

So what way are you going to go back at? I won't four seven. Okay. I'm more natural. I won't four seven. Yeah, that's the fight I won. You know, I got to ask you about this. What's going on with you and anti-Joshua?

What happened there? Oh, I know. I made nothing, maybe. Is it a misunderstanding over here? Are you guys cool now? Yeah, we're cool. We're cool. It kind of blew up there.

I mean, that was a big deal. It was all just misunderstanding. and it was all just... Did you talk to him privately? He called me, I called me the phone. And you're okay? Look, bro. Has this been a tough time for you?

You recently got divorced, right? Yeah, it's been a tough time for me. It's all... But you know what it's fine. It's public. Is that tough? Nah, I mean, look, it's one of them things. Sometimes in life, things like this happen,

and I wish her all the very best in the future. Do you regret everything that happened with Joshua, that it kind of blew up like that? That's it. You're moving on. Move on, brother. Move on to better things. Yes.

Move on to bigger things. and go into boxing and clean up the sport and become a world champion again and leave all that behind me, you know what I want to do in life. When's the next Super Fight League show? Is there any coming up in the U.S.? Super Fight League is coming up? U.S. Seattle will be going to do one maybe end of this year. Oh, cool.

So we'll let you guys know. Please do. Be there and be part of it. But listen, guys, Super Fight League, you guys want to check out on YouTube and also on Facebook and everything. We are doing, we are growing so fast in India. We get in viewership. We have a country behind us, which is, the country's got about 1.3 billion and 1.4 billion people

living there. So, I mean, you are in, and we are going to be giving UFC a run for their money, my trust me, SFL, 100% brother. When? How long? How long? Give you another maybe, give us two years. Two years?

In two years, you'll see us grow up to a different level. Giving you UFC a run for their money. All right. You heard you here first. Amir, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We love challenges, brother. Yes.

All right. There you go. Amir, King Khan. Great to have him on the program. Great to get his insight on the fight. Great to have him. There you go. Don't forget about that, of course.

Yep. And he is a part of the Super Fight League, doing great things for them, and returning to action, as he said, in November, against the dreaded TBD. Dreaded TBD. That's how it goes.

Amir, King, Khan, stopping by. All right. In a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by one of the biggest names in sports media. This man needs no introduction. He is a mainstay over.

at ESPN, you're looking at him right there. The one and only Stephen A. Smith. This is his big get. This is his big opportunity to be on the MAA hour. He told us that he has been dying to be on this program. He told us that he has been dreaming about being on this program. He told us that this is one of his biggest wishes, biggest dreams, to be on the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with Ariel Helwani.

And he'll be joining us in a matter of moments, of course, co-host over on First Take. Does the Stephen A. Smith show for ESPN Radio. Here he comes. Wow. How about this? Stephen A. Smith, my man. How are you, sir? Thank you so much. Is it not true, Stephen A, that you were telling everyone that before you leave Las Vegas, you must be on this program, that this is your favorite show? I didn't say that, but I do like the show. Oh, you do? And I like you. I'm a fan. Oh, you are. Happy to be here, man. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. We have a lot to talk about. Let's start with Mr. Floyd Mayweather. You got a sit down interview with him just a couple weeks ago in his gym. And he said to you that he's going to go forward, that he's going to repay the fans. Excuse me. Oh, yeah, if you want, if you want, sure. See, you're a pro. You're a pro, Steve. Amir Khan doesn't. know about that. I can hear you better now. He said that he's going to go forward, that he's going to

repay the fan. I don't believe him. I think he's lying. I mean, that would be stupid. And Floyd Mayweather ain't stupid. I mean, he's very, very smart, and I don't think you go forward with Conner McGregor, because you play right into his hands. No, he's not a boxer. He's a UFC fighter, but he's still a fighter. He's more of a fighter than

Floyd Money Mayweather. And if you're Connor McGregor, that's basically your best chance. If Floyd comes at you and he stalks you and he attacks you and what have you, because Connor McGregor is very, very measured. He's not somebody that goes in there, gun-toe swinging wildly, wildly, rather, doesn't have any rhyme or reason of what he's doing.

He's very calculating, highly intelligent, and obviously he's got power in both hands, especially that left. So I just think that it would be playing right into Connor's hands and Mayweather's not going to do that. Not only that, I don't think he'll have to. Because I think Connor, you know, egotistically speaking, Connor is going to come into the ring

and is going to walk right to Florida. Yes. He's going to stalk him. No question in my mind about it. I don't believe Connor knows how to back up. And so because of that, I think that that's going to prevent Floyd from stalking. And that will help Floyd. Floyd said that he's doing this for the black people, that Connor crossed the line.

He said that to you, did he not? No, he said to me that he felt that Connor was very disrespectful, felt that Connor called him a monkey. I said, listen, I'd never heard Connor McGregor say that. I'm a fan of Connor McGregor. I have respect for him. I have great respect for him. And more importantly, I want to point out that I had really big respect for his reply to once he had heard what made what I said about him in my interview.

Because to me, when you're innocent of something, you react the way Connor reacted. What do you mean by that? Well, he's like, I never called him that. I never said that about him. And he felt like Floyd was playing a race card. And as a result, he said, this is the kind of stuff that right because I'm not built that way. And I said, you know what, that's more than fair. Because I never heard Connor say that. I heard him call him a boy and people were saying that that people in the black community particular were saying that that was racist.

I didn't find that to be racist at all. I did not because that's the same way I see Connor acting towards everybody. Yeah, that's right. And so I didn't take it that way at all. I didn't look at him. Now, obviously, that's not something that we like to be called, make no mistake. But it wasn't like he was calling Floyd that because Floyd was black. That's right.

He was calling Floyd that because he's smaller and that's his opponent and he wanted to humiliate him and get in his head. And I said in a pugilistic sport where you see this guy, Going up against anybody, no matter what color they are. And his behavior is consistent. You can call something inappropriate. You can say something that you don't like to. You can even say that as a black person, you might take it this way. But don't label him as being that person.

There's a difference. And I don't see that from Connor McGregor. The Conner that I've seen against Floyd Money Wayweather, is the Conner McGregor I saw against Nate Diaz. It's the Conner McGreg I saw against everybody else. And I just think it's important to say that because we need to be fair. And I don't think that was fair to Connor McGregor. In response to your interview with Floyd, Connor said, no, no, no, he's not a monkey.

I never said that. But he is a weasel. He is a rat. This is a man who beat up his wife in front of his children. Is that a low blow? Is there a line? It's a low blow, but again, he's entitled to go that route. That's not about race and ethnicity.

That's about you as an individual. And all bets are off when you're trying to knock each other out. You know, you want to get in their head. You want to be psychological or whatever. Connor McGregor, evidently, he's never hit a one. woman. I know I've never hit a woman. I don't believe you have hit a woman. So if you are a man that has been found guilty of putting your hands on a woman and a man that's going up against you decides to label you as such because you put your hands on a woman, then damn it you

deserved it. Period. I'm not going to sit up here and there's no defending Floyd Mayweather when I interviewed him. And I was the first interview that he did out of prison. He emphatically and categorically denied. Step saying no. Didn't do it. There's no evidence. He said, I can't get in the details. Lawyers were around. Can't touch on this. specifics, but the bottom line is, I'm not guilty of what they say, but that you take a hit on behalf of your family and went through all of this other stuff. So my attitude was, you paid your debt to society, law enforcement officials said, this is your penalty, this is your crime, you go in prison for three months, you get the last to there for two months and got out a month

early for good behavior. I looked at it and I said, okay, listen, this man better not do this again. Yeah. But boxing risk has accepted them. The public has accepted them. They wanted to see the questions have been asked and answered, what more can you do? And that's really what it comes down to. You recognize it, you know it's happened, you don't let them off the hook because it happened, but in the same breath,

it hasn't happened since to our knowledge. And at some point in time, you have no choice but to move on because you weren't there. You can only go by one law enforcement official tells you, but the same law enforcement officials have told you that we're the ones that let him out in 60 days. But don't you find Floyd's standing in society

and especially the way the sports fans view him to be fascinating because he is arguably the greatest fighter of all time, certainly defensive fighter, and also, I mean, the amount of money that he's made in his career is second to none. He's the highest paid athlete in the world right now, right? I mean, he's going to make $200 million for 36 minutes of work, but yet he is not discussed in the same regard as LeBron, as Tom Brady.

Why is that? Because he's made his money off of being hated. See, you got to understand something. He may not want to come up in front of you, me, or anybody else and answer questions about domestic violence, for example, okay? Yeah. But he don't really mind you talking about it. Me talking about it, nobody else talking about it.

You might hear him bragging about the money. And when you're alone with him, that's not how he comes across, but he doesn't mind giving off that public persona, flaunting and flossing and being excessive. I don't like the fact that when Connor and him were going at it, that his daughter was right there because you don't want to see that kind of language being displayed in front of children. That's right.

Even though I think that even though she's on a tiny short, she's like 18 to 19 years. But you just don't like to see it. You see what I'm saying? But that's his choice. And he's unapologetic about it. And what can you do? Because at the end of the day, all he's interested in is you paying to watch him fight. Right.

Him collecting the check and then going back about doing his business. Now, have he tried to hide it and pretend to be something else that would be different? This guy doesn't care? I literally said to him, you're taking this Connor McGreg a fight. as much as I respect Connor McGregor, he's never boxed professionally. What does it say

about you as a champion? 49 and 0, you've been against some of the best in the world and you're giving a guy that never fought in a boxing ring a chance to fight you.

Is it not insulting to the sport of boxing? He said, who's turning down this money? He said, come talk to me after the fight is over and tell me what the paperview sales were. He said, as long as they sit up there

and they cut the check, I'm good. What do you say? It's like, You want to look at folks and literally say to them, what do you say to somebody that is literally in front of your face earning hundreds of millions of dollars and telling you that's his sole purpose to everything he does

is unapologetic about it, does not care and does not care what you think about him. What do you say? I'm still trying to figure out what would somebody say if they were interviewing him and the man is looking at you in your face? I don't care. What would you do?

The buildup to this fight has been a lot of fun, a lot of unexpected things. I never in a million years thought that C.J. Watson, the former backup point guard. Is he still in the league, CJ? No. That he'd be a part of this. You see this when Connor was wearing the jersey? That's kind of doing his homework.

That says a lot. I mean, people were saying, oh, you're making light. I don't think that that's what it was. I think he was saying, I know what you did, and I know what this jersey represents. That, to me, is psychological warfare. It is fascinating. But that's the whole point. Floyd Mayweather believes everything is psychological warfare.

because his attitude is based on pure skill who would believe they can touch me. That's how he thinks. And so as a result, he expects the mind games. One of the things that has gone unmentioned significantly in the build-up to this fight is how happy Floyd Mayweather is that Connor is the way that he is.

He can talk about the monkey comment that I never heard, that you never heard. He can talk about him being disrespectful and all of that stuff. And he may be sincere about the disrespectful part because Floyd takes care of his body, He takes care of everything. He fulfills his role as a marketer, et cetera, et cetera.

But the thing that really stands out and resonates in my mind is that he is ecstatic. That Connor McGregor is the way that he is because he's like, good. I don't have to market the way that I've had to over the last decade. I had to promote these fights. I had to go out here front and center and sell all of this. Plus get in the ring and fight. This guy has actually made the workload lighter for me. because Connor McGregor is a better marketer

than Floyd made with him. He's carrying the promotion. He's carrying a promotion. And I cannot tell you how much Floyd appreciates it. I mean, I was with Floyd. Floyd's ecstatic, man. I've never seen him this giddy over a fighter before. But this guy is ecstatic because he says,

this guy has, he said, I got to give a great. And it was like the next verse after complaining about him calling me a monkey. And then in the very next verse, he said, but I got to give him credit. Wow. He's really shown up, Stephen. He's really shown up. He has more than fulfilled his end of the bargain.

He has marketed the hell out of this fight more than I even expect it. And I can't tell you how grateful I am to him for it. I couldn't believe it. That's exactly what he said. Exactly what he said. Left field here for a second. Yesterday on the program, we had a man that you know very well, Skip Bayliss on. And he kind of went on its tangent about how at ESPN he couldn't say things he was censored.

And now at Fox, you know, he could say whatever he wants, this, that and the other. How do you feel about him now? Because he also said, because he also said, I have never said anything that I regretted, that I've never said anything that I didn't believe. And you know that's kind of the book that's been written on him now. Well, they're fault. He's right about that. He is. As a guy that has known him for many years, he's my brother from another mother. You're still cool. Absolutely. Absolutely. No hard feelings. You were just with each other last week. Okay. You know, Skip Bayliss is forever, my friend. I don't agree with everything he says. Obviously, we debated for a living. And I certainly don't

agree with a lot of his positions. But he is right about saying that he says what he means and he means what he says. And, you know, when he talks about ESPN, however, that's a personal thing with him and ESPN that I don't quite get because they never tell me I can't say something. Yeah, you say a lot. That's never happened.

I mean, I don't know that to be true. I do know that they make you aware of what they won't like so you can use that as an analogy. It's clear that as a company, Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, There's certain subjects that are taboo. Sure.

But you've heard me go on there and touch on taboo subjects. All right? So that is not that they don't have to like everything. What you do know, however, is that you need to be careful with what you say if they don't like it because it's bad enough that they don't like it, but you then can't go out there and be irresponsible with it. Because if you do, then they're going to check you because they have a company to represent. If he's alluding to that, then there's validity to that. But somebody coming to you and telling you what you can't say, that has never happened.

And that is not accurate. You ever regret anything that you've said on the air? Of course I did. You know, I remember one time, actually three times stood out of my mind. I remember with Big Dog Glenn Robinson, I came out and apologized because even though he and I never got along, I brought up his name when I was talking about expressing an incident one day. And he had retired and all of that stuff. And I just still left it alone. And actually years before that, I was insulting him because of how he played one night, and I had no idea that his mom had just placed.

I had no clue because I would have never done that. I just lost my mother. And I would thank you. I would never, ever do something like that. So I didn't know. So I had regrets there. And obviously, when I got suspended for the week, when I uttered the word provoke, I didn't mean it the way that it came out. I was just simply highlighting that if somebody is a punk and a no-good bastard who,

with, you know, domestically abuse a woman, you know, and you decide to have that person in your life. Be careful about the situations that you put yourself in because the person's a punk and they're crazy and they're immoral and you don't want, but I uttered the word to provoke to express that sentiment and it was inappropriate. And because of that, there were a lot of women that misconstrued the point that I was coming from, me being raised by five women, my four older sisters and my mother, having 13 nieces and nephews, having two daughters. Of course, I would I don't feel that way. I'm very sensitive.

That's a very pertinent issue in my life. I don't play that nonsense. But it didn't come across that way because of that word. And that was my regret. What was number three? Well, one time with Alan Iverson. Oh. And, you know, just talking about it.

And it was not what I said. It was what I wrote. Oh. And I had written an article about him in Philadelphia 76ers. And I wrote it for ESPN and others. And, you know, I basically talked about how he got him. So actually, he had gotten himself in trouble. Uh-huh.

And I couldn't reach him. And so I wrote this article about how you partying too much, drinking a little bit. You need to slow down, blah, blah, blah. And he and I didn't speak for two years. Wow. And he was furious. And I confronted him finally. We caught up to one another in Atlanta.

And I confronted him like, all of this is misconstrued is unnecessary. There's a lot more stuff that I could have wrote that I did not write, etc., etc. He said, you don't understand. It's not that it was written that it came from you. You know, somebody that I know that I changed. trust, he said, damn, it couldn't have waited until you reached me? Yeah. You know, now, I had a deadline.

Sure. And I couldn't reach him. But I still felt like I should have waited in hindsight, you know, to talk to him. I probably would have still wrote the same thing. Yeah. But I would have made sure he understood because the fact that he felt blindsided. You know, when you're in this business, I don't care that we're pundits and commentators, in my case, a journalist as well and what have you.

The bottom line is you cultivate relationships. and when you build that level of trust, you can tolerate anything other than somebody feeling like you betrayed their trust. And to me, even though I didn't do it, I can understand before speaking to me why he felt betrayed. And that's something that I never ever want to do

to any athlete or any coach, any executive, any owner that I cover. That's very, very big to me that what you see is what you get and you know whether you agree or disagree with me that I'm trustworthy. and I thought that I let it slip in that regard, and I owed them an apology for that. How are you in KD these days? We don't talk too much.

I mean, we haven't seen each other but once or twice, and we walk right by each other. Why? That's fine. Why? I really don't know. I mean, to be honest with you, I really... Here's my thing.

Kevin Durand is one of the greatest players in the world. Yeah. He's a great person, too. Great role model, very philanthropic, charitable with this community. Same thing with LeBron James. These guys are highly sensitive, man. And you can have a disagreement. Or you can report something.

Yeah. And my attitude is if I reported something about your personal life or something like that, that would be totally different. Yeah. Kevin Durant went at me because I said he wanted to leave Oklahoma City. Yeah. Where's he at? You see what I'm saying? It's like, really?

That's why we have some kind of beef. We don't have a beef. I'm a grown man. I turn 50 in October, man. I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem with Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant has a problem with me. Fine.

If LeBron James or anybody else has a problem Have you cleared the air with LeBron recently? No. That was a whole big kerpuckle as well. I appreciate you for saying what you want to say and for not holding back because of relationships and things like that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that because it's about basketball.

It's about a profession you've chose to perform in front of millions of people. I would never talk about your private life. That's none of my business. I will compromise myself. If you don't end up in a police blotters, it's none of my business. That's my attitude about your personal life, personally. That's just me. But professionally, what you do on center stage matters.

How you perform on center stage matters. Why you didn't perform up to par on center stage matters. And I'm not cutting you a break on that because I answer to the public. I don't answer to athletes. I don't answer the coaches, executives, and owners. I communicate with you. We can cultivate a relationship where fairness is obviously primary, but I don't owe you anything more than that.

I owe it to my listeners, my viewers, you know, my readers, et cetera, et cetera, to be as fair-minded, as objective and as thorough as I can possibly be in pursuit of the truth. That's what I owe. That's where my journalistic background now spanning 25 years coming from. And last time I checked, these brothers don't pay my bills. We don't exchange Christmas gifts. We don't have Thanksgiving dinner together. I am not trying to be your enemy at all. but I do not want your friendship at the expense of my professional integrity.

I will not compromise it at any turn. And if they don't want to talk to me because of that, I got news for you, bro. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but I don't have to talk to them to talk to them to talk about them. I don't have to talk to them to talk to them on television order. I am going to do my job. I would be remiss if I don't bring this up before I let you go,

and I really appreciate the time. This is a huge honor for us. I'm a huge, you may not know this about me, but I live and breathe the Knicks. I'm an obsessed Knicks fan. Well, just you and our brothers from other mothers, man, and we're in the same boat. And everything that you said about Phil Jackson,

I had Isaiah sitting here just an hour ago. And I said that... It was a disaster. He was a disaster. Worse than he was. Worse than Isaiah was. Yes. I mean, it was...

I've never... It's been a tough two decades. I was embarrassed to be a Knicks fan this year. I have a five-year-old son. He wears a Knicks hat. I told them, I don't want you wearing this because of what they did to Charles Oakley. Yeah.

because of how they treated Carmelo, because of what he said about Chris Taps Porzingis. Yeah. This is the darkest period, and we've had dark periods. And now the clouds are going away. Am I crazy for thinking we have a shot in the playoffs? Am I delusional? No, you are delusional. Okay, all right.

You are crazy. You are delusional. You don't have a shot. The New York Knicks are... The storm is gone. It's horrible. I will say this. All right.

Scott Perry is a good basketball mind that has been anxious to be in this position to prove himself. Yeah. I'm anxious to see what he does. Yeah. I don't believe. Here's the problem. Here's why you don't believe. Because New York has convinced us

you have to be a name to have cashier the matter. Here's what Steve Mills needs to do. I mean, no disrespect to Jeff Hornacek because he's a good man, and I'm not saying he can't coach. He's got to go. He's not right for the New York market. No, I agree.

He needs to go. He's too nice. And you need to bring in who. Mark Jackson. Really? As the new head coach for the New York Knicks. Here's why.

You're not saying that because your colleagues. That's right. I'm not saying that because of colleagues. I never thought he should have got five from Golden State. Really? He wasn't my colleague at that time. That's true.

He never should have gotten caught fired from Golden State. But Joe Lakey, oh, I know, and I'm very fond of, there was a personal relationship there that just wasn't working, and he had the right as an owner moving a different direction. Here's why I think Mark Jackson would be perfect for the New York Knicks. It's not just because I think he can coach

a nose basketball. He's the guy that would get the city to give the franchise the benefit of the doubt. So in other words, if you win 30 games and 35 games, we're moving in the forward direction, we've done this, we've done this, we've done that.

You're going to ride with Mark Jackson because you believe he wants to win. You believe he's committed to winning, and you know he's not about nonsense. The problem is we don't know that about James Dolan or anybody that James Dolan hand picks. So because of that, we're shady and suspect about everybody. Everybody. And that's the problem. Like the Porzinger's pick, right? Absolutely.

You said it. Hoodwinked. You said we were a hoodwink. But here's the deal. The Porzinger's pick, which I turned out to be wrong about it. But I don't think I was wrong. And let me tell you why. Why?

Because I never saw poison. Yes. So my argument wasn't that he couldn't play. Yes. My argument was that Phil immediately came out and said, we think in four to five years this guy's going to be special. And my argument was who the hell said you have four to five years? You Phil Jackson, 11-time champion.

We don't want to hear no, we're four or five years. We could have got anybody to do that. We got you because you're the 11-time champion that can go into a room with LeBron James and he might listen or to a Kevin Durant and he might listen. And those dudes wouldn't even have dinner with him. See, this is what the bad part about it was. So I wasn't wrong about Porzingis because I was never talking about Porzengis. I was talking about Phil Jackson saying we're supposed to wait four to five years.

And forget about Phil. That's my problem. I was on the same page as you when they pick Porzingis, and people now say to me, well, you didn't believe. You know why I didn't believe? Because they've done nothing in the last 15 years to make us think that we should believe in them, right? Amen. Amen. They kind of stepped into that one.

Actually, the part about me that makes you, the part about you that makes me upset as a Knicks fan is that you sound entirely too nice and mellow. You got to get angry like me. You got to get angry like me. Because I'm Canadian. Because I'm Canadian. You got to work on that. You got to express anger for the New York Knicks, man. That level of an aptitude that lasts that damn long?

I mean, who gets to keep their job as much as these people have kept their jobs with the New York Knicks? It's a disgrace. I'm deathly afraid of Nilakina. I think this is a mistake. Dennis Smith Jr. Oh my God. Every time I see him dunk online or something, I'm like, please, this is going to be our living nightmare. Don't get me started.

Don't get me stuck. I see videos of Nilikina. He's moving at like five miles an hour. I'm very not happy. You know what? You know how you hear of Paris is the land, the romance and all? That's how he looked. He looked like he's walking with a date on cruise control,

chilling trying to romance somebody as opposed to play ball. I'm very disturbed. I'm very disturbed. Will they keep Carmelo? No. They won't? They're trying to get rid of him, but they're not going to give him away for nothing. And not only that, he has no trade clause.

He gets to dictate where he's willing to go for now. Phil coming out and devaluing his trade. Exactly. I mean, it was just mind-blowing. You think he's going to go to Houston? No, because all they have to offer is Ryan Anderson. Who's he going to go to? Got to get a third team to make Houston work.

I don't know if they're going to be able to pull it off. And Kyrie going to Boston was a big, big death blow. Because you could have tried to get Cleveland involved, get involved in some way and made that happen. And that's not what transpired. Last thing in a word, Mayweather, who wins? Mayweather. T-K-O-6. Whoa.

T-K-O-6. I think, I think Mayweather, I think McGregor is going to come at him because he has no choice. I think that's going to make him target practice. Yeah. And I think his only hope is to catch him with a blow. That's his only shot, catch him with a knockout blow. He's not going to beat up Mayweather. He doesn't have that skill.

Mayweather's going to pick him apart. Keep doing your thing, my man. Thank you so much. This was a huge honor for me. And keep Max in line, all right? That's easy. He gets a little crazy that guy. You see what's up of this.

My man, thank you so much. And keep fighting for Knicks fans, all right? Keep telling the truth. There he goes. Stephen A. Smith, how about that? A.S.P.N. First take. Stephen A. Smith show. Holy smokes.

Wow. This is fun. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Let's keep this train moving along. Rob telling me that we got Rashad Evans. Where's Rashad Evans? Where's Rashad Evans? Where's Rashad Evans at? He's coming? Whoa. Sugar Rashad. This is something. This is something.

I don't know how I'm ever going to go back to doing a regular show. How am I ever going to go back doing a regular show sitting here? And it's just a parade of personalities. It is a who's who. This is amazing. Eventually we're going to have to wrap up because eventually we have to make our way to the Team Mobile Arena.

Eventually we're going to have to say goodbye to all of you because, of course, the Wands are coming up in a little over two hours' time. Connemar Greger, a lot of rumors, a lot of innuendo that he will not be making weight. Don't believe the hype. Who will we talk to today?

Floyd Sr., Randy Couture, Teddy Atlas, Josh Thompson, Isaiah Thomas, Heather Hardy, Brian Kenny, Amir Khan, Stephen A. Smith. How many guesses that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And we got more. Sugar Rashad, who's coming off that loss to Sam Alvey, I've been wanting to talk to him for quite some time. Well, actually, just two weeks, because the fight was two weeks ago, but you get my point. What's next for him? Stephen A holds court.

Stephen A is doing a whole bunch of interviews now. The man can speak. Wow. You know what I want to know? I want to know from all of you watching at home, watching us on Twitter, mhmapfiting.com. I want to know where are you watching the fight tomorrow? I'm assuming if you're watching this, you're watching the fight tomorrow, right? Let me know. Use the hashtag VMMA hour, and as we wrap this up, I'll try to read some of these. Okay. So maybe Rashad is up in the air. Is that what you're saying? The Lord give it, the Lord take it. Here's the thing. We are now 34 hours away from the fight, something like that, maybe a little less. One of the fun things about being a fight fan, one of the fun things about a fight of this magnitude, one of the fun things about being a sports fan and big events, watching it with friends. So I want to know where are you going to watch this? How are you going to watch it?

Do you want to watch it alone? Do you want to watch with friends? You want to go to a bar? You're going to do the closed circuit thing? What are you doing? so hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour MMAfighting.com. In my opinion, can I just go Barry Horowitz on us here? Can I just do the self-pat just between us, us friends?

I feel like the coverage MMAfighting.com has had, even if the fight happens in a minute, even if it stops right now, if our stream dies, I feel like we have annihilated the competition. And this is not my style, but allow me to get a little nostalgic on all of you here. Allow me to just kind of wax poetic a bit. It's not going to be Chris Eubank-esque, but it will be my own version.

Every outlet under the sun is here. And I think what we have pulled off in the last three days, multiple months leading up to this fight, one of the more proud accomplishments of my country, career and it's not just me, it's an entire team. It's everyone back home. I've said that I'd never do this because I always forget someone, but let me see if I can mention everyone. Brian Tucker, Sean Alshadi, Mark Romundi, Dave Meltzer, Chuck Mindenhall, Dave Doyle, Alexander Lee, newest member of the team, Pizzi Carroll, Mike Chiapeta, Danny Seguera, Esther Lynn,

Lydon. See, now I'm starting to wonder if I forgot anyone. That's the problem with naming everyone. You start to forget. Everyone at SB Nation. Everyone at Vox. Everyone who's given us this opportunity to do this. The crew here, of course,

Rob, Paige, Adam, Scott, this has been a lot of fun. I might get emotional. But I won't. Did I forget anyone on the team? Now I'm all worried that I forgot someone. It's for, yes, I said Marco Mundi. I would never forget Markramundi.

Are you killing me? Are you kidding me, I should say. Jeff Wagenheim, who's kind of a, you know, honorary member. Okay, here are some of the responses. I asked you guys just moments ago. Okay? I asked you guys moments ago, how are you going to be watching the fight? Anyway, the team, it's the best in the business.

I think our coverage has been the best. Have you read Sean's story on Owen Roddy? if you haven't, please do so. It was incredible. P.C. Carroll, his stories leading up from the Irish perspective. Everyone has been doing phenomenal work leading up to this fight. Guillermo! The Brazilian Beast! Oh my gosh!

I see, I told you I was going to forget someone. I blame all of you. My man, Guillermo, the love of my life. How did I forget you? I'm happy you reminded me. I would have killed myself. See, I never like saying the entire team, because the team is so big and I always forget someone.

Guillermo, I love you. you. Dave Doyle, of course. I think I mentioned Dave, but I'll say him again. Anyway, the coverage has been phenomenal. Everyone has weighed in. Everyone has chimed in. Everyone has contributed. It has been truly a team effort, and I've enjoyed at least my part and being a part of in what I believe is the best team in the business, not just in MMA, but in journalism, period, the best team in the business. So I've been asking you guys, how are you going to be watching? Here is, here's some of the some of the responses on Twitter

here's some of the ones that I got someone telling me MMA and Beer this is the first combat sports event my family has expressed genuine interest in watching so they're coming over Michael Hutchinson says I'll be watching the fight with all my friends who are boxing fans yes I'll be watching it alone in my room Luke Thomas I forgot Luke

Luke Thomas of course you know by now I mean everyone if I forgot someone please don't hate me I mean well my mind is racing. I'll be watching it with my flat and my lady friend. Meow. Who else? Can't decide girlfriend or mates? That is a tough one. Do you go with the mates or do you go with the girlfriend? Why not bring the girlfriend to the mates on my sofa, on Sky in the UK in London? I'm going to watch on AFN at the local enlisted club. That's pretty cool. What else? Someone saying that we did destroy the competition. Thank you. I appreciate that.

gonna be watching May Mac at his sister's wedding. Holy smokes. That's a nice sister allowing you to do that. Maybe she doesn't know. A lot of people are saying, don't end the show. They want us to keep going. We are done. Are there any more guests?

No, Rashad, right? How do we end on that note? Where's Mark? Let's end on, is Mark around? They left. They left to the Wands. Let's see. I'm going to end on a, on a...

Yeah, no. No one of interest here. All right. I think we've done enough. How many interviews do you think we've done in person in the last three days? We've probably done close to what, 20-something? Anyway, all right. So let me recap everything for you.

It has been a phenomenal day. In two hours, I'll just go straight to one here since it's 1257. I want to end on a nice round number. Is that okay with you? Is that okay with you, Rob? All right. Over the past few days, we have talked to a who's who. it has been a lot of fun, but there's still a lot more to come.

In two hours, it's time for the wayans. What a scene that is going to be at the T-Mobile Arena. I can't wait to go over there and take it all in. Then we're going to do some kind of preview show at this point. I don't know what else there is to say about this fight, but we'll figure it out. Tomorrow, it's the actual fight. This, what we've been talking about for the past two months, and of course, what we've been talking about really for the past year.

I mean, I've been thinking about what is the story of 2017, story of 2017 is this. This is the story of 2017. The fact that Connor McGregor is about to fight Floyd Mayweather in a little over 24 hours is the story of 2017. The pipe dream has become a reality. It's unbelievable. You can hear my music as we wrap this up. This is actually happening. It still kind of feels surreal to me that this is actually happening, that we are actually about to watch Connor McGregor, the MMA superstar, the UFC champion in at least one-way class. He'll tell you two, but at least officially right now it's one-way class. He's about to fight Floyd Mayweather.

Think about that for a second. Many non-believers. At one point, including myself, this is actually happening. Now, there's one more step before it becomes official. Of course, that's the way in, and that is coming up, and we will be there, and we will have the coverage for you. don't fret. Now, I want to thank everyone at Twitter. I want to thank them for giving us this opportunity. This has been, as I said, the time of my life, I have loved every single second of this. This has been a dream come true. It has really been. To do a show like this live, continuous, no breaks, let it roll.

Who's next? Let's talk to them. This is a dream. Interviews, curve balls, unexpected guests. This has been a dream for me. and I hope that you have enjoyed the coverage leading up to this point, as much as I have enjoyed covering the event for all of you. It has been the time of my life. I have loved it. I'm going to be sad when this fight is over because we don't get this kind of hoopla in mixed martial arts. This is like a drug.

I feel like I'm high right now. I don't partake in such affairs, but I would suspect that this is what it feels like. This is amazing. Thank you to everyone who tuned in today. Thank you to everyone who stopped by from Floyd Sr. to Randy Couture to Teddy Atlas, to Josh Thompson, to Tyron Woodley, to Isaiah Thomas, to Heather Hardy, to Brian Kenney, to Amir Khan, to Stephen A. Smith. Thank you to all of them for giving us some time. Thank you to all of you who have watched over the past three days. Thank you for all the feedback. Thank you for talking about it, for tweeting about it, for building it up, for sharing it. It means the world to all of us. Thank you to the crew here. Thank you to everyone back in New York. Thank you to my team at MMAfighting.com. My teammates. Thank you for watching our coverage up until this point of May Mac. We're back later on today. Do not go anywhere.

But for now, we say goodbye from Las Vegas.