MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Best of The MMA Hour 2015 edition (vol. 2)

Episode Date: December 29, 2015

On this "best of" edition volume 2 of the show, we'll feature some of our favorite interviews of 2015. Here's who you will hear from: Daniel Cormier, John Kavanagh, Rory MacDonald, Sage Northcutt, Al Iaquinta, Robert Whiteford, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, as well as some other other memorable moments from this past year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction

of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. It's the mixed martial arts hour with... Let us introduce the real UFC light heavyweight champion, the lineal champion of the world. The one and only Daniel Cormier, let's clap it up for the man. There he is, shirtless. How about that, my friend?

Congratulations. I'm just waiting right now. Salinas digging through the bag trying to get me a sponsor shirt before I get into trouble. Oh, okay. Well, I like this shirt. I thought, man, living the dream over there. sponsor. Yeah. Who needs a sponsor? Look at that.

Mm. Hmm. Hmm. Stop. Stop. Where's the belt? Oh, you want to see. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's on my, uh, on my, uh, island in the kitchen next to the rest of my, my, uh, belt, because I was trying to, I was trying to do a picture this morning. I don't know if you saw it on Instagram. It's fantastic. It's an unbelievable picture, man. Like, I, I literally was sitting there and, uh, I sent it to my manager is Bob and DeWain, and I said, guys, we've done pretty good for five and a half years, you know, and they said that needs to go out to the public. I said, yeah, I'm amazed.

Unbelievable, very happy for you. Congratulations. I'm wondering right off the bat, what, you know, this has been a very, very, look at the smile on your face. I love it. This is really, I can't stop it. I'm trying to be serious, but I can not stop it right now. I'm seriously trying. This has been a very intense debate. Is Daniel Cormier the real champion paper? Are you hearing this a lot? Or is it other people talking, you know, away from you? Are you getting this from people?

I hear it, man, but you know what, man? I've got some great fans and friends because they defend me, you know. I've said it time and time again that John disqualified himself from the competition. He took his name out of the hat. He's not an option anymore right now until he's. He gets everything right outside of the octagon. You get to choose who you want to be your champion. You cannot pick John Jones.

He's disqualified himself in competition. And there's nothing we can do about that. There's nothing I can do about it. There's nothing Anthony could have done about it. We can only compete to the best of our ability for what's available. And that's the UFC championship. Ariel, I am proud of what I accomplished the other day. I mean, not many people ever get the chance to stand inside of the Ocgon

and wear the UFC title. I'm proud of that. Let me ask you this. I know you're an intense competitor and your heart of hearts. Will you only truly consider yourself a champion until you beat John? You know what, man? I would love to fight John again and hopefully beat John. But when they put that belt around my waist, I'm the UFC champion.

They don't do that. They don't just give away those titles, man. And they didn't say, here, Daniel, here's your interim title. They said, Daniel, you are the lineal UFC champion. Cross the board. When we go through the books, as I said in the interview, I said, Ariel Hawani, when you look in the record books, there will be no asterisk next to my name as I'm the UFC champion. There will be no asterisk. There will not be a pause.

There will not be a space in between John Jones and me as the champion. We will flow, just like John flowed from Shogunhua, as Shogunhuahua flowed from Liotto Machita. Machita went from Rashad Evans. there will be nothing different. So in history, it will go down. You know back in 95, 95 when the Houston Rockets won the championship, at the time, everyone said, well, the Rockets aren't the champions because Michael Jordan was playing baseball.

So they would have never won if Michael Jordan was still there to play. When we look back at the Rockets now, nobody says, well, that's only because Michael Jordan wasn't playing. They said the Houston Rockets were the back-to-back. NBA world champions. Thanks in part to the great John Starks. I'll stop it. Come on, man. Come on. Come on. Zero for 18, by the way. It was one for 18, by the way. He made one. He made one. The zero for 18, John Starks. Thank you for shooting the Knicks out of the championship

series. Okay. I'm going to ignore. I'm going to try to be happy for you here, so I'll ignore that. You told me before the fight, you kind of shocked me. He said, I don't really need this. You know, I want it, but I don't need it. I don't need to complete my life. I have a great fan, all that stuff. Now that you want it, do you still feel the same way or do you think things would have been incomplete without it? I feel the same way, man. I mean, I think that's what actually allowed me to win that fight. I was able to just let go and just go and compete. I'm glad that I talked to John when I did because I was starting to do it again to myself. I was starting to put that pressure of I have to get this one. I have got to get it done this time. I cannot not win this

fight and I do it to myself over and over and over again and this time I was actually able to to let it go and it allowed me to just do what I do and that's just compete. Is that Dipyourcar.com? I can't find my Dipyourcar.com teacher, man, I'm screwed. Well, we'll give them a shout out right here at dipyourcar.com. I see them on everyone. Dipyourcar.com. How are you guys doing? I cannot wait to dip my car. Okay. So you reach the mountain top. You've been waiting for this moment your entire MMA career,

and the mic is put in front of you for the first time Joe Rogan, the first thing you think about is John Jones. You don't say anything to anyone else. You drop the mic. It's the promo of all promos, one of the greatest, top three greatest promos in the history of this sport post-fight. Why in that moment, though, are you thinking about John Jones? Because he beat you.

Like, John beat me, and I just beat the guy that a lot of people thought was going to beat him. So I'm like, you know what, man? I still want to fight him. You know, I want to challenge myself against the best guy. You know, he's good. You know, I think more than anything with Saturday Night showed is how special the kid really is if he can get himself in everything else in order to have beaten me and then for me to do what I did to Anthony Romwell Johnson.

That's crazy, man. So, yeah, I want to compete against him. I hope that he does get it together so that we can fight again. Have you heard through the grapevine at all that he was watching? I hope he was. Could you imagine him sitting there watching me, of all people, get the belt? Do you know how much that? I mean, if the roles reversed, I would be going insane if I had to watch him do that if I was in his situation. You know, I mean, he doesn't want to see me win. He doesn't want to see me carrying what he probably feels is still his title, which it isn't. It's mine. But he doesn't want to see that. You know, and I don't know. Maybe John's in so much of a better place.

now after going through the issues that he has had, that he's let everything go. But we'll see, I guess. A lot of people thought Lorenzo Furtita was mad at you. He gave you the stare down to death as you walked out. Is that the case? I think maybe I cussed, so maybe that's what it was. But no, Lorenzo was fine. We actually talked after the fight, texted, and he was very happy.

I talked to him on Saturday night after the fight, and I talked to Dana on Sunday. and those guys are extremely happy with my performance, and they're happy that I'm the champion of the UFC. I believe that I can actually, I will represent this sport in the best light possible. I won't mess it up. I won't get myself in any trouble. I'm going to live my life the correct way, and I'm going to be a champion the kids can look up to it and hopefully aspire to be like.

When you spoke to them, did you get any insight into what? what they want to do with John or what they know about John or what's next for you. Did you talk at all about that? You know, man, once I got out of the octagon and I was able to kind of just get back in my environment and start to kind of think about what I had just accomplished, it wasn't really about John anymore. You know, I didn't think about John anymore. So Lorenzo and I, we talked none of nothing about John. Dana and I talked nothing about John.

They allowed me to have my moment, which was great, you know, because when a guy, when a guy does something that he's been chasing for so long, you know, you owe it to him to give him his moment, you know, let him bask in it for a second, let him, let him,

let him, you know, kind of basking what he had just accomplished. And those guys actually did that for me. You know, these two guys, you know, Dana and Lorenzo are great guys,

and they gave me an opportunity, and I took advantage of, and they told me that they were very happy and proud that I did. I love the, Rogan interview. I love the beta thing. We'll talk about that in a second. But really, my favorite thing, my favorite thing that you said was the story about you and your fiance, Selena, and your parents and siblings, pulling together around $500 just to help you survive. So I want to ask you, when was the first time that you thought, wow, UFC champion? That's something I want. That's something I want to be

called. Was it before the Olympics? Was it as a youngster in Louisiana? When's the first time you thought that, wow, this is something I want. When would when did that dream start for you? How long ago? It wasn't UFC champion. It was to fight in the UFC. I watched Brock Lesnar and Frank Meir, UFC 100. I was like,

man, this is crazy. If I ever got to compete in something like that, that would be great. When I talk about my parents, you know, it was just tough, you know, because Lynn and I were just starting off. You know, we were just starting off. We moved to California, to

San Jose, which is very expensive. Excuse me. Bussey. Bussey. Sorry. We wanted to live on our own. You know, we were expecting our first kid. And I would get my cage-friended sponsorship, and our rent was $1,300 a month, and my

cage-frize sponsor was $1,500 a month. But I also taught private wrestling lessons so that I would raise my income to probably about $2,000 a month, and that's how we would live. So it was tough, man. And a couple times we didn't know what to do. Now, when I say welfare, like, I mean, you know, we weren't getting like any government checks or anything. We were getting like WIC and stuff, like to help buy formula for our kids and everything.

And I just want to maybe kind of explain that a little bit better, but we just didn't have. And we were fighting in the best way that we could to try and make our lives together. And now it's kind of working off. I want to ask you the same question. I asked Chris before his fight, was there ever a point where you were, you know, sleeping next to your fiance, your future fiance, maybe your kid is now in the world and you're thinking like, man, I'm just not making enough here. Like, I'm the provider for this family and this is a great dream and all, but how much longer can I do this? Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? Did you ever

doubt that this day would come? You know what? I never did because she would never allow me to. She knew that it was something I wanted to do. And when I was, start saying stuff like i've just got selina i've got to get a job and she's like no you don't you need to train continue to get better and improve and one day it's going to work out you know so uh and plus my manager man like my managers like if we ever were needed like we're dying dire need they would always come to our aid you know i mean at one point uh we've had guys that have owed our management team 10 15 20 000 because the wayne and bob will just take out of their own pocket to give to you.

So now that we're making money, I have no issue writing those guys' checks because when we had nothing, they would actually just pay it. When my sponsorship checks were late sometimes, didn't come on the first of the month and my rent was due by the third,

Duane and Bob would write me my sponsorship check at the beginning of the month to make sure my rent was paid and then they would just wait for the check to come in to get paid whatever time it came in that month. They just made sure that we were always okay. Wow. What was it? There's no, there's no company like Zinkin in MMA.

You know, these guys, Dwayne and them, Dwayne doesn't need mixed martial arts. They don't need mixed martial arts to live. Bob's a great businessman. He's done great for himself. They don't need this. They do this because they love their guys. They want to help. And it shows.

That's why we're also fiercely committed to our management team. and you see them having some of the biggest name fighters in the world. Maybe the highlight of my weekend was meeting your mother, Mrs. Cormier. What a moment that was at the Wayans, a lovely lady. What was it like when you showed her the belt? And I also saw, and I want to get your take on what was it like in this moment. I saw your fiancé holding the belt right after. Like she was clutching onto that thing.

Like it was the most prized possession in her life. What was it like when you got to finally look at them and share this with them? You know, Salino was just like, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. I can't believe this. Because reality is all we've known in terms of UFC champions came. And we've seen what it's done for his life. So she was just like, I can't believe it, you know?

And my mom is 73 years old and she's quiet. And the story of her actually walking up to you was surprising because it's not something that I would have expected her to do. I think about it, I'm like, that's exactly what she would do because all she watches is Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 with the hope of seeing me on TV at some point. Some of me is to watch the weather channel for 10 hours and she's all, boy, there's some bad weather in Russia. I'm like, what do you care about the weather in Russia, mom? And she's like watching the weather channel. Then it was CNN. And now all she watches is UFC.

She loves Fox Sports 2. and she goes, well, that area of Hohani, he's a pretty nice guy. He works with you tonight. So she saw you, and she went up there. It was great. Like my dad, my dad was probably the proudest he was just standing there smiling. And my dad's a big old guy that's worked 25 years for the city of Lafayette doing the baseball fields and cleaning bathrooms and doing all that. And that's a big, burly, hardworking man that doesn't smile very often.

but this dude had a smile across his face that it just warmed me inside, man. So showing them and giving that back to them, I admit the world of me. Did Schwarzenegger make fun of your belly? He did. He goes, I think I might have saw a two-pack. I go, well, you'll never see a two-pack right here. I go, it's fine, though. I said, don't worry about that belly, Schwarzenegger, governor. Did he show you love?

He's a great guy, man. Crazy thing is Arnold Schwarzenegger's very good friends with my manager, with Dwayne Zinkin and his family. So yesterday I get a call during my travels back from Las Vegas, and it was Dwayne going, dude, I just got a message from Arnold, and he played it, and it was Arnold left a voicemail on Dwayne's house phone because Dwayne still has a house phone for some reason I can't explain. And Arnold was like, great job, guys.

You have the best management team and awesome for Cormier. What a great guy. Way to really get after it. Arnold's a great guy, so there are plans for us to all get together for dinner. And how about this? You're the champ of the world. You reached the mountain top, a great moment, and yet you had to drive from Las Vegas to San Jose nine hours because you missed your flight. Is that true? Ariel, I didn't miss my flight. I made a...

Selena, be quiet. Don't talk. Selena, don't talk during my interview. One of hours yesterday it took us to get back from Vegas with two sip, with two, two, toddlers are three-year-old or four-year-old because Daniel can't read the date when he's booking airline travel. So I booked my family's travel for Sunday, thinking it was Monday in the UFC, move mine to Monday. But because we're four, there were no flights coming in from Las Vegas to San Jose one way, San Francisco, R. Oakland. So we ended up having to pile into a minivan, which, by the way, Selena refuses to drive anyways because she doesn't want to be the mom with the minivan. but we drove 12 hours yesterday from Vegas to Gilroy,

and we got home at 12 o'clock in the morning last night. How much would that drive have sucked if you didn't have the belt with you, right? If I didn't have the belt, I probably would have just stayed in Vegas. Like, there was no way. We were going to wait probably. Actually, we would have still drove because I wouldn't want to piss the lean off anymore that she's already mad at me. Okay, so what about this Ryan Bader thing?

Holy moly. Where did that come from? Where's the animosity? Where's this coming from? Who, Ryan? Ryan's learning from the Conne McGregor playbook of building a fight. Like, what is up with Bader? I don't mind Ryan Bader thinking he deserves a title shot. I understand, Ryan, due to the process of elimination, you're pretty safe, buddy. You don't have to come and interrupt a press conference.

I mean, you're the number five guy in the world. Rankings are going to shake up on Monday because I do. just beat the number one guy, things are going to happen. Just wait, Ryan. It will happen for you. But Bader, I don't know if I made Bader mad in New Orleans by just messing with him the whole time trying to sell the fight or what. But somehow something switched in Ryan Bader and he turned into an angry guy and just

kind of attack me at the press conference. I'm just an innocent bystander. I'm just trying to hang out. I played no part in that deal. I don't know what's trolling Bader. This is my press conference. Get the F out of here. The thing is with Bader, though, he started since the beginning of the middle of the week.

You know, like he's like sending me messages on Twitter for some reason. I don't even understand. I'm like, well, Ryan, I've got a fight to get to. So the crazy thing is, I think after I beat Ryan Bader, he should have to go get beat up by Anthony Johnson for being so disrespect for the Anthony Johnson. Because he was acting as if I beat Anthony before we even fought. He's calling me out for a title shot. I'm like, hey, I've got to worry about Anthony Johnson. I'm over here worried about Anthony, and you're trying to call me out.

That right hand that Anthony Johnson about knocked me out of the Octagon with, Ryan Bader would not have gotten up from. And I think that's his punishment for disrespecting Anthony Johnson. He gets to get beat up by me, and then he gets to go and fight Anthony Johnson, and Anthony will beat him up too. Deep down, are you just like, are you just licking your lips? Are you just saying, like, oh, man, if my first title defense is against Ryan Bader, you call them the easiest fight.

Is this a perfect scenario for you? Well, I don't understand. I don't understand, like, if Ryan has fought all these guys, the top guys, and he's lost to him, how all of a sudden does he just think, miraculously, he's going to match up so well against me? What's he going to do? Like, what's he going to do? I understand. Brian Bader wants to fight for a title.

Great for Ryan. I could respect you, Ryan, Bader, because you're a wrestler, I'm a wrestler. I could respect you. But now there's no respect because of the way you handled the situation. Bader talked about he wants to kick my ass if Rumble doesn't do it on Saturday. But, I mean, who's assing, I mean, who's asses he? The thing is, Ryan Bader has done something so phenomenally spectacular. He's got everyone to talk about him.

It's unbelievable that Ryan Bader's name is coming off of someone's tongue. Ryan Bader doesn't get in, I saw somewhere today. Ryan Bader is actually going on the radio show. I don't think that's ever happening. and all this time that Ryan Bader's been fighting, and he did it by interrupting my moment. I mean, good for you, Ryan Bader, I guess. He heads off for Ryan Bader.

I don't know. He must be talking to McGregor or something. McGregor's got him. He's the teacher. So do you think that's next, if it's not, John? Has to be, right? Again, process of elimination. Yeah.

If you look at the new rankings that came out today, I'm one, Anthony's two, Gusseson's three. The Bader's right behind him. Anthony and Gustafson are coming off of losses. Ryan Vader, you're next, bud. You're going to get exactly what you wanted, exactly what you asked for. I hope you make a good fight of it because if you don't, you're going to get embarrassed. And by the way, you know, so now we have this situation where it's probably beta.

I mean, do you feel like this is almost a good thing for the UFC because now you have all these matchups? You've never fought Gustafsson. You never fought Bader. You know, all these guys that Jones already beat, it's actually kind of a fresh coat of pain on the division. Do you feel like you're almost, you know, a good thing for them? Man, I'm telling you, man, because John beat everybody. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.

What do you? He messed up the division. He beat everybody. Like, there's like eight guys. You go, when a guy, I mean, a guy defends his title eight times against eight different people, it really throws a division in a tailspin. But now, like you said, you know, I've never fought Gustafson, never fought the Shara. All these guys are in play now, you know, so we'll see how long John's situation

takes and even if he does come back, you know, I win the fight against John. I win the rematch and I can still fight all these new guys. Last thing, was that the hardest you were ever hitting a fight when he rocked you early? You know, man, I've been in a fight, yes. But Ariel, I tell you one thing, this was not a right hand. This was a right missile. It was the fastest thing. It was the fastest punch. I mean, I literally was on my feet from the next. I'm like laying on the ground. I saw a picture in a fight. I'm like, oh, I took a lot. I took a lot. I took a a nap like Nick Diaz in the middle of the aisle. I was just kind of laying there like, what am I doing from my feet to the ground so fast? So I try to pop up and I look behind me.

I'm like, oh my goodness, he's coming back. And then I look behind me and Anthony Rumble was chasing me trying to finish me. But my whole deal was don't allow him to get the follow-up shot. The follow-up shot is what's going to put you out of this fight. He got so excited that I was able to actually take his back. And once I got my hands clasped, I was okay. I wasn't. It wasn't necessarily like dizzy though, Ariel. Like I got, I fell down, but I wasn't fuzzy. It wasn't like I was seeing two of them or any of that. I was just, I just got knocked down.

So, so you, you then submit him, and then he goes on the mic and says, don't quit, which some people kind of laughed. And then he puts the belt on you. What did you make of him afterwards? You know, man, I don't know exactly. I don't know exactly what to make of it. He's a nice guy, and I think maybe he showed exactly how nice he is after behavior. in the way that he did, you know. A lot of times it's tough. Losing a fight is tough, man.

And in your darkest hour, I guess your true color show. And Anthony Johnson is made of gold if you ask me for the way that he handled that. What he did for me on Saturday aerial was he made my experience different. By putting on the belt, he made my experience of being crowned a champion different than anyone else in the UFC's history. Nobody's done that. So thank you Anthony Johnson for making my experience different. I appreciate it and I appreciate you. Well done, my man. Everything was perfect.

I thought the walkout music was perfect, the fight, the post-fight interview, the everything. So well done. What do you want to say? Yes. I was very close to you and y'all must have forgotten. Don't say that. I was very close to doing it and guess why?

Because going into the fight, it was just weird how much people thought I was good. to lose. Yeah. Being that I had only lost one time. And I know it's about, a lot of times it's like your last memory of a person is what sticks in people's mind. But I was like, man, let's not forget I had won 15 straight fights. So more than anything, the reason I used that L.O. Koojai song was because if you listen to the very beginning of the song, he says, don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years, which is exactly how I feel. This wasn't a comeback fight for me. I felt like I was going to win this fight. And we have to be, we have to be a little broader in our, in our, in our, in our opinions and in our perspectives when it comes to fighting. The last memory of Anthony

Johnson on Saturday, don't let that change what you feel for Anthony as a fighter. This guy's a phenomenal fighter. And going into his next fight, he shouldn't be considered the underdog or people believe he's going to lose just because of what he did last time. It's all matchups. And I knew that I matched up well against Rumble Johnson. Great stuff, D.C. So happy for you and your family. Congratulations, my friend, an amazing performance. You are the champion of the UFC's light heavyweight division and you certainly deserve it. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much, Ariel. Guys, do yourself in favor. Go to YouTube. Watch UFC 166. Practice walkouts with Adam Geller. It's the funniest video you will ever see in your entire life. Hey, Ann, the Seth Rawling celebration from WrestleMania coming. I am waiting for Ariel, Hawaii. on his email I gave it to you.

I gave it to you. The moment in the email, I will send you guys to Seth Rallin's celebration just like I promise. You're the man, D.C. Thank you. Thank you.

I had a nice running with John Kavanaugh back in Dublin when he had, I believe, four fighters on that card, and after every fight he would come back and put up a finger.

One down, three to go. Two down, two to go. Et cetera, et cetera. They swept the card, as you may recall. Cal Pendrid, Gunner Nelson. Connor McGregor.

Maybe Neil Siri was the fourth in case, am I forgetting someone else? You get the point. Anyway, I told him before UFC 189 that, and Neil Siri, of course, not a member of SBG, I know that, but maybe I'm thinking of just four Irish guys. I feel like I'm forgetting one.

The point is, before UFC 189, I told him I was expecting the same if it went his way. It did not go his way, of course. Pindred lost. Gunner and Connor won. But I'll never forget seeing him after because you have to understand, John Kavanaugh isn't one of these Johnny Come Lately's.

You know, you may have heard of him only recently, and you may think that perhaps he is, you may have heard that, you know, he's kind of like the Greg Jackson of Ireland, et cetera, et cetera. But this is a guy who is really an Irish MMA pioneer. You know, this is a guy who has been there from the get-go. This is a guy who, Connor McGregor says, you know, if it wasn't for him,

he probably wouldn't be who he is today. He had to come back to his house and drag him. back to the gym and say, we still have work to do it. Your career is not over. And on Saturday, when I saw him after the McGregor fight, he really had nothing to say. He was very emotional. It appeared to me like he had tears in his eyes. It was a beautiful moment and one that was very much well deserved. If you think about grooming fighters from their amateur careers to this point, in a very small gym, an unimpressive gym, to the UFC title, interim or not,

whatever you may think, to a huge event like that in Las Vegas from a small little place like Ireland, that's an amazing accomplishment. And you think about that, that's not taking guys from Albuquerque or even Montreal, California. This stuff just doesn't happen in sports.

Certainly not in Ireland. it just doesn't happen. And so we had to have him on the show to talk about what this means to him, to his country, to his gym. One of the best stories that I've seen unfold since I've been covering this great sport.

So let's go back to the Scott Machine and welcome back once again, the king himself, sporting the robe this time and sunglasses, the one and only John Kavanaugh. Congratulations, my friend. Thank you very much.

I've been looking forward to this phone call for a long time. Yes, as of I. And where are we right now, by the way? This is the Mac Mansion. We're back. I'm still here. I'm leaving today. Have you had enough of Las Vegas?

Definitely. I've been here. It's been about 10 weeks now, so I'm looking forward to going to sunny Glasgow in two days' time. Well, I appreciate you carving out some time. I know it's very busy for you over there, and you've got a lot on your plate. so thank you so much. Tell us, so what are we, we're three days removed. What's it like? Can you put into words now? Because when I saw you immediately after the fight, it's a moment I'll never forget. It was beautiful to see, but you really had nothing to say. And it appeared as though you had tears in your eyes,

because I can understand, I don't fault you. It was very emotional. How do you put it into words now what you accomplished with Connor McGregor? I guess, I guess there isn't really a way to do it. You get so many flashbacks. You get so many flashbacks. of how it all kind of started with us and, you know, meeting his mother there on the night and his family. And yeah, I'm better at armbars and routines than I am at trying to describe what this night was. Did you have a chance to smell the roses throughout the week from the way-ins to, you know, the calm before the storm on Saturday to Chenate O'Connor, all that? Were you laser-focused or were you able to appreciate the magnitude of what?

what was transpiring because of you and your guy? Yeah, I guess every now and again, you have to stop. You know, that's really the point of it all. Otherwise, what are we doing this for? And when we'd hear another new record is broken or the likes, you know, Cheney O'Connor's going to sing him out. There's just so many things happened in the lead up to this

that made it obvious that it was going to be one of these nights. And even when I was, I don't know if you saw when I was leaving the cage, I was walking back to the dressing room with Connor and, you know, just kind of had an arm around each other and just kind of stopped on the walk out, back to the change rooms and just looked around the audience and went, this is it, we're going to be old men talking about this moment. So let's just stand here for two seconds and look around and absorb it, take it in. Thus far, what has been the greatest byproduct of this victory, a phone call, a message you received, anything in particular that really caught your breath and said,

wow, I can't believe how special this was. I think it was my mother crying. Oh, wow. That would probably be it. And I didn't know my mom and dad, they went to a party back home and they stayed up to watch it. My dad doesn't stay up past 9 p.m. for anything. fact he was up at a i guess it was five 30 a m or something like that back home he managed to stay awake all night uh to watch it and was was very that was that's that was big for me wow that's it's

it's making me a little emotional here uh when did you speak to them um i got a message right away after it um i wasn't able to call my man back until um i guess it was about you know i tried to call them about, I guess, Irish time about 7 a.m., but they were asleep, but then I spoke to that evening. My mom was still, it was still taken, and it was very cool. So let's talk about the actual fight here, because what I loved about it was Connor backed up everything that he said. He went straight for Chad from the get-go. Really, I mean, I think he almost caught Chad by surprise. Did you know he was going to do that? Well, he's done a lot in all his fights. Yeah. he basically sprints across the cage.

It's two things. One, it does get them on the back foot. And once you start thinking defensively, it is kind of a slippery slope. And two is that I still don't think people genuinely understand just how much joy Connor gets out of competing. It's really his happiest moment. He doesn't have me given out and tell him to mind

the contact level he can go as hard as he wants. and you know it was going to be a good challenge chat is a fantastic fighter and and he's so excited to see what's going to happen maybe the flying knee that that that caught me but but still it was it was a good start of the fight I got it trying to live up to that incredible co-main event so it was good that he got off to a fast start and he was taken down rather quickly what were you thinking, okay, great, let's get this out of the way, let's show the world that we're competent or were you at all nervous? What were you thinking at that time? Yeah, I did raise an eyebrow at the choice of jumping into a flying league.

Well, it was nice within the opening 10 seconds of the show that, you know, he can play a guard and it's MMA. It's, it's, you're going to be on your feet, you're going to be on your back, but he was back up, but in a blink, and again, I'm sure that was another small psychological win in the fight. I thought Chad won the first round. Do you agree? I think I read somewhere it was like a minute and a half was where Connor was on his back in round one. That's three and a half minutes then on the feet.

And I thought for the three and a half minutes, he was very much in control. And I actually just rewatched it this morning. And I noticed after about 40 seconds, Chad, takes a backstep in a deep breath. And I think it was already starting to tire within 40 seconds. I don't care how short your training camp is. That's something to do with training camp that's going to have you tired at the one-minute mark. I think it was to do with just what it's like facing Connor and to be caught with some of those shots. Those front kicks, some like they were working on,

and those will take the life out of you. You know, obviously in boxing, it's boxers work the body, but you have to get on the inside. The nice thing about the leg, you know, obviously there's extra reach on us. You don't have to worry about the counter, but I guess in short,

no, I think in terms of fighting, Connor won the first round, in terms of MMA scoring, which I really think has to be looked at again. I can see how an MMA scoring I might have been given the chat, but I just don't think it should, be an automatic round win if you get a take down. I think we should be looking at other things,

how the sway of the fight is going, which of the two look comfortable, much damage was done and you know, kind of had that cut above his eye from one shot. But I think the writing was on the wall about how tired he was getting by the end of round one. So obviously you guys were very confident going into the fight. But do you think it's a different fight at all if Chad does have a full training camp, meaning does it go into the later rounds? Does Chad do anything differently? Do you think it changes because that's something that will obviously be brought up. If they have a rematch at some point that will be used against Connor, what do you make of that argument? Well, it's not come out yet, but I'll tell you. We didn't do one live round of MMA sparring or wrestling for this

training camp because Connor had, Connor had an injury and we weren't able to train in full pace. so this wasn't us at full capacity either. At the party after the fight, actually not Saturday. I didn't see Connor Saturday tonight, but on Sunday night we all went out. And we had a few drinks and sitting down, and I said, I've got to be honest,

like when we were walking out to this fight, it was in the back of my mind we hadn't done a single round of live wrestling. And, you know, I had my eyebrows raised, and I thought, well, let's see what. happens and he was laughing at it too. Now the injury is completely healed now

but it wasn't until about two weeks before the fight that we felt it was 100% but we still didn't do any full rounds because didn't want to exasperate it. The injury still was there, I didn't want to bring it on so really the first round

of full wrestling was done in that fight. Wow. And I think his timing a little bit on the sprawl and dealing with the with the shot was was not quite there start starting getting better as the fight went on but um do i think a rematch if it does happen down the line it would be different uh yes uh for both of them so can you shed some more light about this entry because it was rumored for a long time is it the knee what happened i don't want to going through it too much. I'm sure it's all going to come out. I can just say that it's fine now.

Okay. No surgery? As you could see in the fight, he was, you know, that was the first full test on the knee and he flew through it and he was able to deal with all positions. You know, there were some scrambles, there was a lot of wrestling and it held up and there's nothing wrong. So we're 100% confident that it's that it's perfect now. But still, like I said, walking out, it was kind of funny. Those hundred of a second thoughts you get in your head that, all right, we're about to go into a fight with the, you know, a lot of people say the number one guy.

And he's this Division I wrestler, everybody's always spoken about. And we've not done any wrestling. So let's see what happens. This is going to be fun. After actually being in a fight and having to use, the knee at, you know, obviously full strength, the takedowns and all that. Do you have any idea how it's feeling 24, 48 hours later? Did he have to go get it checked out? No problems, right? No after aftermath issues? Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, I won't lie. It was definitely in the

back of my head. And when Aldo pulled out, I thought maybe this is a, this is a good way for, a good opportunity for us to pull out. But like I said, like I've told the story already, there was certainly no way Conor was having any of that. He was way too excited to compete. But now that it's all set and done, it passed with flying colors. There's no issue. Was there any point before Aldo pulled out

where you were afraid you said, this is too big of a fight, we need to delay this? You know, it's kind of my job to be, to weigh up everything. Sure. You know, I look at pros, cons. I'll think about all possible scenarios.

But when I spoke with Connor and I saw this absolutely unshakable confidence, then I knew it was the right decision. I knew it didn't really matter who it was going to be, the way he was feeling mentally about this. And like I said, the wrestler question has been answered a bunch of times for us over the years in the gym anyway. We have a lot of high-level wrestlers training with us. So coupled with that, I was absolutely confident that we've made a right decision.

How do you feel about him having to stick around in Las Vegas to coach the ultimate fighter? And will you be a part of it as well? You know, to be honest, for Connor, Connor likes to be busy. And he likes, he loves fighting. And there's not a whole amount of other things he's all that much interested in. Like when we were here, we used to Sunday was rest day and we used to do kind of different groups of us would do different things on Sundays like go to water parks or go downtown or you know we had kind of different things we enjoyed doing Connor rarely participated in any of those

things he just he just you know Sunday was rest days we just stayed on the couch and just kind of got ready for training on Monday watching videos and and that's that's really all he's interested in so for him to go straight from this into coaching on the ultimate fighter I know it's going to keep him focused and it's it's kind of a fun thing for him to do as for me I'm I'm leaving today I'll be home for a day and then I go straight to Glasgow with Paddy I don't really see myself coming back out to play any part in it maybe maybe just maybe I'll come out for a few days but I don't think so to be honest I have a lot on back home now and I haven't seen my gym in quite a while so I want to spend some time there obviously see my family

and there's some big things come up as well back home in terms of. For my gym, straight past gym, it's the 10th anniversary of having summer training camps in Europe for SBG. And my coach is coming over. And so, you know, we have a lot going on. So I don't think I'll be able to come back over. Do you have any idea what it will be like when he does come home? I mean, what kind of reception? Do you think they're going to plan a parade for him?

What's it going to be like? And do you have any idea when he will come home? Because it seems like he's a little book now. Yeah, well, I guess the filming of this is going to be another, I guess it's six weeks or something like that. So what, what's that then? That's September, is it? As late as September? Yeah, yeah, end of August.

Yeah. Late, late, late, late, yeah, late, yeah, late August, early September. Yeah, I see the odd thing, tweeted to me and I read, I still think I'm in a, we're in a bit of a bubble here, you know. I don't really know how big this is yet. Some people have messaged me, you know, this is going to be something then in 20 years' time, people will look back and so, you know, remember there's a great achievement in an Irish sport

and, you know, a lot of very nice things like that. And I suppose I'm, like, almost on the next day, on Sunday, I was in my head. I was thinking, okay, what's Paddy's weight at? How many days for the cut? he's facing a very dangerous opponent. What day do I get there? You know, I kind of went straight into like U.C. Glasgow mindset.

And I've always sort of been like that, whether win-lose or draw on Saturday night, the sun rises Sunday morning, and the job continues, you know. In a perfect world for you, when does the Aldo fight happen and where? Again, you know more about this than I, would but I'm hearing the New Year's Eve I run about New Year's Eve show I think they do it like January

2nd or something like that like let's be honest it's going to be in Vegas this just there's no way that's not going to be the case so yeah if it's if it's if it announced that it's January 2nd in Vegas I'm very happy with that I already got

the all clear from Orlet that I'm now to spend Christmas here so Well, obviously, she'll be with me. We wanted to go to New York for Christmas this year. Well, if it doesn't work out, we'd love to have you. Yeah, yeah. Well, who knows? Maybe even if I'm here for that training camp, if I can shoot over for two days,

maybe I can sit beside you there and... Oh, that would be an honor. That would be an absolute honor. Now, do you believe the fight will happen? Is it going to be one of those white whales that, for whatever reason, doesn't happen, or do you think these guys are destined to fight? I really hope so. I really hope so.

I think we're in a golden era of MMA and that all the best fighters are within the one organization. We don't really have the political issues that happens in boxing. And, you know, obviously the big Mayweider Pac-Man fight, like a lot, I'm not a boxing expert, but a lot of people said that it might have been better five years ago or ten years ago. Whereas for now we get to see people in their prime against each other. Like that Connor and Chad fight was fantastic, you know, two guys such high level. Not to mention, of course, the Lollerun. Right.

Story. What the hell? Story. Yes. It's still early for me. I appreciate that. And I might have a slight hangover. I'm not going to lie.

No problem. I hear the hair of the dog or whatever they call. I learned something new this weekend. It's called Hair of the dog. Hair the dog, something like that. Drink more is what they tell me. That's just an Irish way of coming up an excuse to keep drinking. Exactly.

But you think it will happen in the fight? Um, yes, I guess. I'm an optimist. So I will, uh, I'll say yes. I, I'm sure, uh, yeah, I'll say yeah. Okay, so how about this? Do you feel like he's champion or will he only be champion until he beats the champion? Um, I, I feel like he's the champion. Um, I think he's done pretty special things in the UFC in quite a short period of time. he's being willing to accept any challenge. I don't know if there's many fighters with what he had in front of him

with two weeks and notice would have accepted. Not even such a great, there's such a great change of opponent like with such a great change of style, sorry is what I'm trying to say. I remember when John Jones was going to fight someone and he pulled out and Chales-on was the replacement. remember this? Yeah, UFC 151.

Yeah, of course you do your encyclopedia. He refused the change of opponent. And I remember thinking at the time, I thought that was very strange. Like, why would you do that? Especially for him being from a wrestling background, it wasn't like it was going to be

such a huge deal from the, you know, and we're all due respect to the son and he's a great fighter, but he, not the most dangerous opponent he could have faced. But, what So for Connor to have done what he did and accepted that change, I think that showed a championship mentality.

And from the win there, we couldn't do any full-paced wrestling training. Everything had to be done to set a slow flow pace. It's pretty special, I think, and speaks volumes to his mindset. Connor talks about visualizing this, and we have clips of him talking about being a champion and all that stuff. But what about you? you know, did you believe that this would happen for you in your country and your gym? Did you believe, do you remember the first time where you thought this is an actual possibility?

This is something that I want? Because, you know, there are a lot of people like you who are in Europe right now, gym owners, great coaches who will never see this, who will never experience this for various reasons. They don't get the right guys. You know, who knows what happens. You're at the mountaintop right now. You remember thinking, okay, this is what I want. This is how I'm going to attain it.

Do you remember like the first time you were actually dreaming about it? all of this. You know, I've always kind of had the approach. If you take care of like minute by minute, then year by year seems to take care of itself. Like so I've always had the approach that whatever I'm doing, tried to do with a hundred percent, you know, full commitment, 100 percent commitment. And so every training session I did, I always felt I was in the best gym in the world. Now, the physical surroundings.

We're all in these kind of damp little industrial units. but I always felt like we were, you know, we were training like world champions and that we had the best training methods and we had the best technique. And, you know, if I did every training session like that, then sort of weeks became, months, became years. And of course, you know, when I seen Conner's ability in the gym, I've always seen a hell of a lot more of what he can do in the gym than people have seen what he can do in fights because the fights tend to be very brief.

but when I've seen that and it just it did seem like it was going to be a matter of time I do realize and I know look plays an uncomfortably large role in most people's lives more than people would like to admit and you know things have happened

to me over the years that have just been great and we were prepared so when the opportunity came along we were able to take it but just being But in a lot of incidents over the last couple of years where the diverging roads could have easily went the other way.

And, you know, we're just on the regional circuit still. But we kept that and here we are. Final thing for you. What do you think the byproduct of all this will be? You know, where I come from in Canada, there was a guy named Vince Carter who played for the Toronto Raptors basketball team. He was an American.

And this was in the late 90s. Basketball wasn't really popular in Canada. and now 15 or so years later, the Canadian national basketball team is amazing. We're producing some of the best talents in the world. And every single one of these guys, we're all 20, 21 years old, all states because they grew up watching Vince Carter.

I feel like the same thing is about to happen in Ireland. You'll have 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, who are now soon going to come to your gym, if they haven't already, and you will now have this dynasty because of this one man. Do you feel like that's going to happen? Has it happened already? Well, I think you have Nate the Great on your show.

He bailed on me. He bailed on me, Nate. Oh. How about that? He big-time me. I have another one on my hands. Unbelievable. Ten-year-old, and he bails an hour before the show.

I drag myself a bit. Amazing, right? Anyway, yeah, I mean, you could use another one in your country, man, GSP, I'm sure. Sure. For what he's for, for MMA in your country. And, you know, I enjoy reading, like, books like bounce and stuff like that and they speak about this effect. There were some, I was reading about some Korean girl and until then there'd be no female

professional golfers in Korea. This girl won some, I guess, PGA tour or something. And again, they saw that effect about 10 or 12 years later. There was thousands of young Korean girls that had done 10 years training since she'd won starting to come out and be, and win stuff. So I guess we had it. in Ireland as well with a rugby player, Brian Ardriscoll

that was world class and he inspired a generation. So I think it's going to be the same for Connor because the guys that train with me know that the word talent makes my eye twitch. I really hate that word. It's kind of like saying there's something magic, magical happened.

I don't believe in magic and I don't believe in talent. That Connor was inspired for whatever reason a bunch of years ago to pursue this dream. and he killed himself in the gym every day. And that's what I saw for the last 10 years. Now people look at him fighting.

Oh, he's so talented. And like I said, it really bugs me. We could sit down and have a conversation about that another time, just how much that word annoys me. No doubt people are going to keep sending me a message now saying we're talented. But anyway, so when I look around my gym, I teach a teenage class in my gym,

and I'm looking at these guys that are 12, 13, 14, And they're already moving in ways that, you know, took it maybe a year or two for the likes of Gunner and Connor to get there. It's amazing. And all they do is hang out in the gym all day long. Sometimes with my sister, Anne, who managed them, has to shout at them to actually kick them out. But what are they going to be like when they come into their late teens, early 20s?

What's the next generation going to be like? And I'm excited to find out. Beautiful stuff. Again, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're leaving today. I really, really appreciate it. I want to thank you also. You had some very nice words to say to me before the fight.

It meant a lot, something I'll never forget. I'll never forget you embracing with Connor at the top of the cage. I'll never forget seeing you after. I mean, your introduction, you and your team and getting to know some of your fellow fighters and coaches, has just been a beautiful thing over the last two years. You guys are all so classy, such gentlemen. It's just a pleasure to be around you guys and cover you guys. And I couldn't be happy for both you and the rest of the team.

So enjoy it. And now good luck to my main man, Patty, on Saturday. Keep the good vibes rolling. And I'm sure I'll talk to you very soon. Again, thank you very much, and congratulations to you and everyone else. Thank you so much, Aaron. We'll speak soon. All right, there he is.

Head coach for the UFC interim featherweight champion. Great guy, John Kavanaugh, couldn't be happier for him in the squad for what they accomplished. A beautiful moment in Las Vegas. I have been trying to get our next guest on the program since, essentially July 11th. Everyone's still very much in awe over what he did on July 11th at UFC 189. It's funny leading up to that card, the co-main event between Robbie Loller and Roy McDonald flew under the radar somewhat because of all the hype surrounding Connor McGregor and Jose Aldo and then Connor McGregor versus Chad Mendez. And while everyone was talking

about Connor July 12th, the following day, his big win, we were talking about Roy McDonald and Robbie Lawler just as much, if not more, because what they did inside that Octagon, nothing short of amazing. I joked afterwards that they were going to put that clip of them facing off against each other at the end of the fourth round into that Bob O'Reilly highlight reel because it's one of those iconic clips. An instant classic. It was legendary the moment it ended.

It was an honor to witness. And I've been wanting to have Roy McDonald on the show since then to talk about the fight where he goes from here and all that stuff. So so happy that he is on right now, right here. on the MMA hour. Rory McDonald, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure. It is great to hear from you, my friend. So it has been almost exactly one month since we saw you in action. I believe this is your

first interview since. How are you feeling? I mean, that's the big question right up the top. Physically, how do you feel? I feel good. I've been training almost every day

since the week after the fight, pretty much. So I'm feeling pretty good. And what injuries specifically did you suffer in that fight? I got a broken nose and a really tiny fracture on my

joint in my toe, but it didn't really, the toe is not really an issue. It was more like the swelling from just like the damage kicking and stuff. Mostly it was just the broken nose. That's the only thing I'm really dealing with right now. Did you need to have any kind of surgery? No, no, it looks like I'll be okay.

and you were able to fly home right away right you didn't have to stick around in Las Vegas despite the broken nose yeah I went home that the next night I believe yeah Sunday night it was it was a weird thing for me because and I know this sentiment was shared by a lot of people you know we try to remain as unbiased as possible but we are human beings and knowing how long it took for you to get that title shot knowing what it meant to you to see the way it ended was heartbreaking. It was hard to watch because you were so close.

Are you still over? Are you still thinking about it? Do you still feel hurt by what happened? Again, according to the judge's scorecards, you were right there. How did you react to it? No, I'm happy the way it went. I thought it was a good fight.

It was an amazing experience. I'll never forget for the rest of my life. That's what it's about. It was an amazing experience. I'm grateful for what happened in there. and, you know, I think it's going to help me grow as a martial artist. You know, it's going to turn me, it's going to, it shows me what it's going to take to be a champion.

And, you know, the changes I need to make to get to that level, you know, to just get a little bit better. So I can remain champion, you know. Also, I have a bat. I hurt my MCL as well. In the fight? before the fight but yeah and the fight

made it worse how many weeks or days before the fight did you heard it initially before training camp oh wow so you went into that camp a little banged up

yeah but who doesn't go into fight camera you know you tweeted a picture and you wrote this text you thanked Robbie Loller and forza Habier coach

you said this was the best time of my life I'll never forget this fight and it's a picture of you completely bloodied and with the text, so you want to be a fighter. That was the best time of your life? Certainly.

It was the greatest moment of my life, the best experience. You know, it was a real experience. It showed me who I was. You know, it was the best. It was the best moment in my entire life. It was amazing. So you enjoyed that more than any of your big wins, beating, you know, Tarek Stephanie, any of those guys?

Yeah, obviously, I'm disappointed. you know, that I didn't win. I wasn't able to push through and stop him, you know, but at the end of the day, it was, uh, it was,

it was, it was just like once in a lifetime experience. And I'm grateful for it. What was that feeling like? Because it was, um, it was interesting to watch again. You're in the fifth round.

It's, it's obvious that you're, your, your, your nose is busted. And then he punches you with a jab. And it's almost like a, um,

it was almost like a, um, it was almost like a, like a delayed reaction, it hit you then, okay, this is, this is too much. What was that feeling like? What was that pain like? I believe it was a straight left. Straight left, okay. Yeah, yeah, pretty much he was just being really accurate with his left hand and the fifth round. And, you know, he was really finding, finding the spot with his left right on my nose. It just was giving me shock waves through my brain and my body. I don't know.

It just stopped me. Have you ever felt that before? No, I've never broken a bone in my life. So it was an interesting feeling that fight three rounds of the broken nose. But I was doing okay until like the fifth. You know, I was okay. And then like it just kind of started finding a home for that left head right on my nose. You know, it was some nice punches by him.

have you watched the fight again? Yeah, certainly. What's it like when you watch it? It's pretty cool. You relive moments and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know. I enjoyed watching it, you know. Do you agree with the-

Robbie's an amazing fighter, you know? He's an amazing guy to fight against him. I can't wait to fight him again. We're going to fight five more times, I bet. Really? That's what you want. You want five more of those? Yeah, he's the funnest guy in the world to fight. That guy brings out the best in you, for sure.

Do you feel like the judges had a right? You were up 3-1 going into the fifth? Yeah, yeah, I do. I agree with that. So everything's so positive. Everything you're saying is downright remarkable. Does the thought ever cross your mind I was four minutes away from finally being a champion?

Yeah, but I mean, the reality, the guy stopped me. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't flipping those punches when I should have been. You know, I wasn't applying good technique. I wasn't using movement, you know. The foot was kind of keeping me stationary, and, you know, he did what he had to do. He closed the show on me. So, I mean, he's a champ now. He's a champ for a reason.

So, you know, I'm going to learn from it, and I'm going to get better, and I'm going to come back, and I'm going to beat him. What was the biggest thing? You said you learned some things that's going to make you better. What's the biggest thing, one or two things that you learned about that fight, that performance that you're going to correct the next time out? First thing that comes to my mind is my training method. I'm going to make it a little bit more intense on myself. Okay. I'd probably start applying small love training like I used to do in the past when I first started out.

training more at Teshito and stuff like that but yeah no like obviously at TriStar too but just applying more small glove training rather than the big gloves with headgear and shin pad stuff I just think

yeah and then some other things too you know that I you'll see in my next fight I just I'd rather show it than talk about it but I do know that I I have a strength that I need to

work on and it'll make a huge difference in my fighting. So you'll be doing your next camp at Toshito in B.C. where you started? Yeah. When's the last time you did that?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna be traveling around between all my camps, you know? I just, I haven't spent enough time working at Toshito. They have, it's a different, it's a different regiment. And I believe that needs to be,

uh, you know, it needs to be back in my game. I'm just missing something from my past, you know? But obviously I still need my Tri-Star team just as much as ever, you know. Yeah. You'll still have Faraz and company in your corner. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

You know, Brazz is my head coach, you know, for a reason. He knows what he's doing. what was that moment like that that that that that that that stare down at the at the end of the fourth round what was going through your mind you know what I'm talking about right that's one of those moments that uh I mean I'll never forget it just watching it you the the round is over and you guys do not want to look away from each other what's going through your mind when that's happening uh I don't know I just didn't want to back down you know he was he's a bit of an animal in there so you know he started staring at me

and so, you know, I figured, oh, we're probably going to start fighting here again. I don't know. I don't know. I just didn't want to back down, you know. I didn't want him to alpha me. Sure. That makes any sense. No other fighter has ever brought that out in you, you think?

Like, have you ever felt the way you felt in a fight like you did at 180? Carlos. Carlos, yeah, Carlos. Yeah, Carlos Pohnit, for sure, is another guy like that. It was in Iron Well. And, uh, yeah. that, you know, the fact that those two are fighting, that's going to be an amazing fight.

Can't wait to watch that one. Yeah, I saw you tweet about that as well. There was a gif that was passed around all over the place after the fight of the doctor coming to you, pressing on your face, and then you just kind of collapsed. Oh, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, is that hard to watch?

No, not really. Why? Well, I don't know, because it seemed like you're an extreme amount of pain. Not really. I was exhausted, disappointed, dizzy. Right. And then you go to the hospital, and then there's a picture tweeted of both of you just having a laugh. What did you say to each other?

Nothing. Just congratulations. And, you know, that was a good time. You know, hope you're okay. This and not. How much? So it's, you know, this is, we're competitors, you know, I have nothing against Robbie. I have nothing against any of the guys that I fight, really.

In fact, I like them. I have more respect for the people I fight than, you know, people in general. So, I don't know. Do you enjoy that sort of, you know, after the fight meet up, you get to sort of reminisce about the fight, see your opponent, he's in the hospital too. Is that a nice way to end the night for you or is it awkward? No, yeah, it is kind of cool, isn't it?

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that picture is, I showed that. that's my mom. I mean, this is what the sport is all about. Yeah, yeah, for real. Yeah, it was a cool moment. Dana White said afterwards that you didn't know what year it was after the fight. Is that true?

Yeah, that's not true. She was just asking me so many damn questions, and I was, like, just trying to get air and, like, try to, like, spit out all the blood that was in my throat and my lungs and stuff, so I was just, I was just annoyed, so I stopped answering her questions. Okay, the doctor. Yeah.

This in the cage? I knew what year was. I knew everything that was going on. Is this in the cage or after the, in the fight when you're in the back? In the cage. Wow. So she's just peppering you with questions right then and there. Yeah.

I don't know. I was not into talking to a doctor right then. Sure. It's just kind of in my own world, you know? I know what's going on. Well, it's their job to check on you, you know, that you're fine. And, I mean, I'm not going to question a doctor. They, that's their job.

I just didn't feel like talking or. Are you at all concerned about, you know, head trauma, a very big topic these days in sports in general, not just in the about the damage that you took in that fight? Yeah, but I didn't have any concussion to symptoms. Like, I never got really, like, rocked, like, as far as, like, my equilibrium

or anything like that or, you know, seeing stars. I never had that once in the fight. It was just the damage to my nose. That was a big problem. I got the impression. that despite the loss, you gained so much more respect from the MMA community

than any of your previous wins. Did you feel the same way? Yeah. It seems like I'm getting a lot more love. Everyone loves you now. We've had... No one wants... Yeah, like before this fight,

I was the boring guy for a while after the Jake fight. Even though I was knocking people out and giving fight in the night, people don't give a shit. They hear one guy say that I had a boring fight, so I'm the boring guy. Now I have a...

have a good fight, so I'm fucking cool again. It's all fickle. It doesn't matter. I don't care. I know who I am, so that's all that matters at the end of the day. So you just shrug all that off, all the praise. It means nothing to you, much like the criticism. Yeah, I mean, my next fight could be fucking boring again and shitty, so they're going

to hate me again, eventually. Who knows? But what about... What about from your peers? Was there one fighter in particular one... You know, a person you look up to who reach out, you, text you, sent you a message, and said, holy moly, man. Was there a moment like that that you experienced?

Yeah, it's definitely nice from, you know, other martial artists that you have respect for. You know, they give you, you know, props and respect. That's always nice because, you know, they've been there and they've been in those situations and they've had to fight through stuff like that. So, you know, I appreciate that stuff. Was there one interaction that really stood out?

No. Are you going on vacation after this? Are you really right back in the gym? You deserve a vacation. Yeah. I went to Colonna, trained at Tichito. Now I'm back in Montreal, training at TriStar,

going back to Colonna again. This Saturday, going to do some training there. I don't know. I'm just kind of flying under the wind, but I'm never going to stop training. I need to get to where I'm dreaming of being, you know, and nothing's going to stop me.

And that's UFC champion. And when do you want to fight again? December. December? Any date in particular? I don't know. One of the cards. We've got one December 5th, December 12th, December 19th.

Those are the three. Any of those sound good. I don't know. My nose is still broken, so I kind of have to wait until that heal so I can test it in sparring. Okay. And then spar for a little bit, you know, get. comfortable sparring, getting it punched again. And then when that's all good, then I'll probably book a fight, you know, within like, you know,

two months or six weeks or something like that. I'll probably get right back into it. Did they tell you when they expect the nose to be 100%? No. Okay. So now you just have to lay off it, essentially. Yeah, I'm just not punching it. I'm not doing any sparring.

Right. And you have a perfect scenario in mind? someone you'd like to fight in December? There's so many guys. I mean, I think Tyrone's fighting Hendricks. Yeah. Carlos fighting him. There's so many good guys.

You know, Hector Lombard, Chago Elvis, who else is in the top ten that I haven't fought? Well, I don't know. Someone who haven't fought who's relevant and who's a good fighter. I mean, I'm good with anything, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course. Well, you know, Hector is still on ice a little bit,

and Tiago Alves is. is moving out to 155, believe it or not? 155? Yeah. Tiago Elvis is going to 155 or 185? 155, lightweight. Holy. I don't know how you're going to do that.

Yeah. I don't know either. The only one that comes to mind, like in the top 10 that you haven't fought, is, well, there's two, actually. Damien Meyer or Matt Brown. Yeah, yeah. No, I fought Damien. Yes, you have.

Geez. UFC 170, right? That was when my son was born. I don't know what it was, but... Yeah, I beat Damien, but he's an excellent fighter. Matt Brown definitely is an excellent fighter, who fight him eventually, I'm sure. So, yeah, anybody, you know,

I'd like to fight someone I haven't fought before. That's good, but if that's not possible, then, yeah, definitely a rematch with someone in the top 10 who's good. Whatever, I don't care. Do you kind of feel like because of how great that fight was, because of your popularity now, that all you have to do is win one more time,

and you'll get right back in there? It's highly possible. I was thinking about that the other day, because someone asked me that. You know, you see Carlos, he just beat Tiago with an impressive victory, and he's got the title shot. And I'm not sure if he lost a fight before that, did he?

Yeah, he lost to Tyrone Woodley. He blew out his knee in that fight. Oh, right. So, you know, things like that. You never know. I mean, it's all performance base at the end of the day. So we'll see. Hopefully.

I don't know. I don't care. I don't really give a shit. I just want to fight everyone. Oh, man. It is so great to have you back in our lives, Roy. It's good to hear from you. And did anyone from the UFC reach out to you after the fight?

You know, did they call you, see how you're doing, check up on you? Dana and Lorenzo called me and, you know, Dana the next day called me. They were really happy. Yeah. Was it nice to hear from them? Did you appreciate that? And also some staff from the Canadian UFC team. Yeah.

You know, they reached out to me. You know, because I work together. I work with them a lot. You know, Carolyn, you know, the PR team and stuff like that. So they sent me some messages and, you know, made sure I was okay and stuff like that. I'm sure you appreciated that. Yeah, yeah. No, they're awesome people.

I love those people. They're really nice. What was your favorite part of the whole process, that entire ride, to 189 in the fight in particular. Is there one thing when you're an old man talking to your kids, your grandkids, your friends? This is what stood out. This is why I do what I do.

This is why I love my career. Probably that moment when me and Robbie were staring at each other at the 4th. It was so great. That was an intense moment. You know, it was really, you know, we were looking at each other like, you know, we want to kill each other. We had the ref in our way.

God. It was amazing. What an experience. I hope you get that picture somewhere and put it up in your house. Did someone send you that picture? I don't like pictures of myself. I don't hang pictures of myself in my house. But if one can, you know, describe your career in one picture, that's it, right?

That's who you are. Yeah. I also like the one where my blood is like in my mouth. is leaking all over my face. I think that is incredible. I think that one describes my career, my personality perfectly. You know what I would say to that, right? That's why I'm the Red King.

Right, that's exactly why. And another name. I'll be it to the Blood King soon, huh? Oh, my God. Are you changing your nickname again on us? Who knows? I miss the... I do think you are.

I miss the hair, though. Can we get back to the old hair, or is that done? I don't have a mohawk anymore I just shave my head no But what about like the gentleman's part I like that very much Yeah yeah maybe that'll come back Who knows maybe I'll grow a mullet

I don't know I like this Roy McDonald's It feels like you're worry-free No inhibitions you're just You're letting it loose Yeah definitely You know that experience in that cage And you know

Some things that happen to my personal life lately definitely what happened to be on none of your damn business okay sorry I mean you brought it up I'm just joking

no yeah it's just so good stuff or bad stuff yeah it's good stuff oh positive okay so you're a happy man

yeah yeah I think it feels like that fight again despite the loss it brought out you know it just kind of let your guard down and you view everything differently and that's awesome to hear

I mean it's very refreshing. Yeah, well, experiences like that, I think, you know, when you have to push to a certain point,

you know, they change you for better or worse. You know, you have to decide in them right away which route you want to take mentally, and this is,

I guess, the way I'm going. Hmm. It almost feels like, like, we got this from George, too. You know what I mean?

Like, at one point he went through these wars, and then it just seemed like everything changed for him, like his guard went down. Right. Yeah, yeah, you're right, huh?

Yeah. Did you talk to him after the fight? Yeah, yeah, I trained with him today, actually. Oh. Yeah. Wow. All right. Did he tell you about his plans? I feel like I might as well ask. His what? His plans for the future?

No, no. You don't talk about that. Not really. I mean, I don't know. I'll talk to him about it soon, I guess. Probably this week. Oh, okay. Do you want to call me? as well. We could go like a three-way? Yeah. I'll leak

all his big secret to you. Okay. Sounds like a plan. Roy, I'll let you go. Thank you so much for the time. This has been amazing. I was so excited when we got to secure you on this show because, like I said, I've wanted to talk to you for

a month now since this fight. I was just in awe. You know, you made me proud to be a Canadian. You made me proud to be an MMA fan. You made me proud to be an MMA journalist. What you exemplify to the world that night nothing short of amazing and I think encompassed why we all love the sport so much so congratulations my friend and I can't wait

to see you back and get well soon I hope the nose I'm very sensitive when it comes to noses because I can't imagine what would you like to break my beaker so I hope it heals soon that thing is iron it's not breaking that could be true that could be true but again thank you

so much and thank you for the time and we'll talk to you very soon all right buddy thank you all right there he is Warren McDonald's Let's talk to the talk of the MMA world. There he is. A man who now needs no introduction. Perhaps two weeks ago, you had no idea who this man was.

Now he is a mega star. He is super, Sage Northcutt, just 19 years young. And this kitchen, by the way, has become somewhat famous because I see you do all your interviews from there, Sage. Yes, sir. It has good lighting. It's beautiful, by the way. Do you still live with your parents? Am I what?

Do you still live with your folks? Yes, yes, sir. That's going to end very soon now that you're this MMA megastar, right? Thank you. I guess we'll see. Okay, well... You're very nice. Thank you for the time.

I want to ask you something right off the bat that I wasn't planning on starting the interview with, but it's somewhat new news, if you will. A veteran journalist by the name of Showdown, Joe Ferraro reported a couple of days ago that you're going to go train at TriStar now. Is that accurate? Yes, sir. That's true. I leave tomorrow morning, actually, to go to Canada.

Wow. Now, are you going to move there? or are you going to come back and forth? What are you doing in Montreal? Well, really? I'm just going up there to check it out and see how it goes and see if it's fit for me. But like my jistu coaches right now, Chris Mango and Ted Stickwell, Gracie Baja and Katie, they're awesome. But also have school too.

So I can't actually go up there and live there, but I'll get to go up there for about a week or so and check it out and see how it goes. Well, you know, I'm from Montreal, so I can give you the tips. It's one of the greatest cities, if not the greatest city in the world. the way. Oh, really? Yes. That's going to be awesome. Did they recruit you or did you reach out to them? How did this come about? Well, actually, they mentioned, they said that they mentioned something that they've heard about my fights and obviously always talk about how George St. appears in my favorite fighter. Now I look up to him. So I think it's just like perfect timing that I get to go down there and get to train with them and get to meet them and it's going to be incredible.

Have you ever met George? No, I haven't. Oh, my Lord. I'm looking forward to it. Are you nervous? How are you feeling before this big meeting? Oh, no way. I'm not nervous.

I just, I'm pumped up. I'm super excited. Now, he goes all over the world. He's traveling. He's training. Is he going to be there? Do you know for sure that he's actually going to be at the gym? Yes, sir.

I heard he's going to be there a few days within the week. So it might be three days. It could be four. I guess we'll get to see. And I'm just excited to see him, even if it's one day. I've got to tell you, I've had a lot of MMA managers reach out to me and say, tell me about this Sage Northcut Kid.

Is he being represented? Does he have a manager? I feel like you're the biggest recruit in the sport right now. So all these managers who are probably watching this right now, tell them, give them the good news or the bad news. Do you have a manager? Well, right now, actually, my dad is like my manager because he has my best interest. So I guess I would say my dad's my manager, but I guess he always has been because he's

always looking out for me. So he's also my coach too. Of course. Yes, he was in your corner for your debut. Are you, are you fielding offers right now? Are a lot of people coming at you? Yes, sir, they are. So ever since UFC 192 on the fight and from there, everything's blown up, including Instagram, my Twitter, just all the media, everything and people coming at you. So I think it's fun. I like hearing everybody and get to hear and talk to everybody. I think it's a blast. How are you handling it? Is it overwhelming to a degree or is it all positive? Well, it's definitely different. And sure, it's not overwhelming. I enjoy it personally. So any of the negative stuff that I'm on here or I try not to ever look at that and I try to block it out. So really, I'm only hearing the positive aspect, the positive side of everything. So it's great. Why do you think your debut was such a big story and more importantly so well received?

received. As I talked about on my show last week, I mean, your videos on our website compare to even the champion, Daniel Cormier, you are tripling everyone, if not more. Why do you think so many people are interested in you? Thank you. I would say probably because it could be the fact that I'm so young and I'm the youngest current fighter in the UFC right now, 19, so that could have a part in it. And then maybe also because I could be slightly different from most fighters and the fact that I'm always smiling and I'm having fun. So like when I walked out there in the octagon, I was actually smiling right before they said, okay, ready and like to go out there and fight. I was actually sitting there smiling against a cage and just like soaking it all in

because I'm having fun out there. So that could be a little bit different too. And maybe the fact that also not only them young, but I'm in school at the same time. So I'm not getting to train full time. And if I did get to train full time, I might be a complete like totally different animal for a lot of fighters that I might go against my opponents. So maybe that could be the possibility also. Are you taking any classes this semester at Texas A&M? I am, yes, sir. I actually cut back classes a little bit. So before I had, I believe, the minimum amount of hours to be a full-time student was 13, 12 or 13, I believe, and I actually cut back a few classes so I could train. And like my fight for UFC 192, that was the first time

I truly got to train for a fight. So that was incredible. And then my next time, my next thing, next fight, I'll have even more experience, more training. So I can just keep seeing myself go up and up with the more training and technique I learned. What's it like when you walk around campus these days? A lot of people recognize you, more people recognizing you? Yes, sir. You're right about that. Man. It's pretty cool. I like it. It's awesome. And okay, so when you signed your UFC contract and you found out that you're going to fight in your home state of Texas, did you have any idea that it would turn into this? Or did you think, all right, I'll make my debut, I'll get some local attention, and then I'll build my way up. Did you think in the back

your mind, all right, once these people see me, see what I'm all about, see my look, see my fighting style, it's going to explode. Did you think that in the back of your mind? Oh, thank you very much. Well, actually, I've always known that the UFC is incredible at bringing up all their fighters. They're just amazing and getting the fighters out there known. So, but not this much. I had no idea it was going to blow up this much. This is incredible. And I'm sure every fighter would like it. And that's what I look forward to. So I've always looked forward to it myself, and I'm sure I've wanted this to happen. So I visualize it. It's perfect. It's happening just like I pretty much thought it would, and even more than I

thought, even better. So it all starts when Dana White and his buddies show up to your fight at Legacy for his reality show. And of course, prior, as you've probably seen, they were kind of joking about you, and then you knock their socks off. Did you have any idea while you were fighting that he was in attendance? I actually believe it or not good thing you mentioned that so when I actually was back there warming up before the fight I had no idea

whatsoever he was there or he was even coming and I know he hasn't scouted or gone to any other MMA leagues or smaller events in like a whole entire year so yeah when I was actually walking out there I heard some news like some people were going like I thought it was a rumor possibly but they go hey Dana White's here

he's watching people fight he's going to be watching you fight Sage and I was like man this is incredible I hope that's true I had no idea that he was really there. And then once I actually stepped foot in the cage for that event in Lake Charles, the Golden Lake Casino, I actually saw him through the cage and saw him right there. So here's what Matt Serra and Nick the Tooth. So that was just super cool.

So I put on a great show and I finished my guy in the first round and choked him out. And it happened, I don't think it could have happened any better. It was perfect. And I thought it was just so amazing that he happened to be there at that time and the odds of that. And what do he say to you afterwards? Afterwards, he said, he knew I was 19 years old, and he knew the amount of fights I had. So he thought it was funny that I had my hair spiked up and that he said, look, I just walked out of a tanning booth, all tanned up, didn't think I could fight. And then he said, I pretty much blew his mind that he took back his words from what he thought before the fight and then what he thought after the fight.

So within a few weeks afterwards, I got the call from Dana White. and Mr. White said that he liked me to fight on the UFC 192 card, and that was just the best opportunity that's ever happened so far. And, of course, took advantage of that, and I'm so glad that I got that opportunity, and so glad he picked me and saw the talent him to fight. How did you react to that news, and how did you celebrate that all of a sudden you were on the UFC roster,

just like that overnight? Well, you know what? When he actually gave me the call, I had already had another fight playing with the league that was fighting in called Legacy. Yeah. So I noticed people didn't want me to actually fight, but Mr. White had the confidence to me that I could fight, but obviously if I would have lost the fight or gotten injured, then I wanted to fought for UFC 1902. So I knew that going into my fight, and I finished my guy, and that was actually finished from the second round,

made sure there's no injuries, no possibility of injuries, and try to minimize those risks. and it was just such a huge opportunity. So it was awesome. Considering how everything blew up in the week leading up to 192 and you were putting the media workouts and all that and there was a ton of attention and talk about you leading up to that fight, did you feel nervous at all? Like in the locker room right before you were about to walk out. Did it finally hit you? Oh my gosh, I'm about to fight in the octagon in front of my people, a lot of buzz. You don't seem like the kind of kid that gets nervous, but I'm wondering if right before it sort of hits.

hit you in sort of an action kind of way. Well, thank you very much. Well, actually, when I walked out there and I was warming up in the back of the locker room, I was actually watching everybody fight. So I saw the first two fights before me up on the screen and Sergio Pett is Indy Pess's brother. And I was just watching them fight. So I warmed up a little bit and got ready. But I was just sitting there real calm.

And then after the second fight was done, they go, Hey, Sage, you're about to go up there and fight. So I was just ready. I hopped up and I had no jitters whatsoever. And actually, when I actually walked out in there, I just kind of, I love the feeling of everybody watching. So when I walked out there, I was looking at the whole entire audience just soaking it all in. And I personally, it might be different with other fighters, but it doesn't really get me

nervous or really even the butterflies too much. Like, sure, you kind of get the butterflies in your stomach before you go out there. and because you just pumped up to fight, but not the feeling of being nervous, but it just kind of gives me more energy, more, uh, more, uh, more to go out there and do my best. So, so the answer would be, no, I wasn't, I wasn't nervous. I was loving it. Did the commission tell you no gel in the hair? They did. Yes, sir. They did. I wasn't used to seeing you with that poofy hair. It was poofy. Did that bother you? Maybe I was mix it up. Did that bother you that you couldn't wear a gel for your UFC debut?

No, that didn't bother me. I just figured maybe my opponent would fill my hair and be like, man, his hair is really soft. Speaking of that opponent, he came in overweight. He complained about the stoppage. He pushed Herb Dean, Francisco Trevino I'm talking about. What did you make of the way he handled himself? Well, you know, first off, speaking of Francisco Trevino, he's, I would say that anybody, and I'm sure anybody else would say also that anybody in the UFC is,

is in the UFC for a reason. So there are no slashes in the UFC. If you look at his record, he was 12 and 1, and the only loss he lost to was Johnny Case. And he happened to go all three rounds of Johnny Case. Johnny Case couldn't finish him. And Francisco Trevino, and so he fought me, hasn't been finished, hasn't been submitted, hasn't been knocked out,

and he only had that one loss. And I would, I mean, I'm sure anybody would say that Johnny Case also isn't any slosh. He's 24, I believe. So there are no slashes in the U.S. UFC and the stoppage by Mr. Dean out there, he knows how to stop the fights. He's been in the UFC so long and been around so long that he's the best. He's one of the best referees out there. So I believe that it wasn't me stopping the fight. It was him. So he knows what he was doing. You've been given this new nickname, Sage Van Zent, and people comparing you to Page and her rise,

your rise. What do you make of all this? I think it's great. That's super funny. I like it. You don't mind it. I don't mind it. Pageman, Zandt. She's, she's very pretty and she's very outgoing and always smiling. So that's a huge compliment. I mean, we both kind of look alike. I was trying blonde hair. Smiling. Yes, it's a bizarre thing. You're like the Ken and Barbie of the UFC. Are you okay with that? Oh, thank you, Juan. Thank you. You're fine. Some people are saying that as an insult, but you take it as a compliment. That's what I love. about you. Definitely a compliment. Absolutely. Unbelievable. What an amazing thing. And your sister is also a fighter. She fights for legacy kickboxing, right? Colby, I believe her name is. Colby, yes, sir. She actually hasn't fought him recently. She's been focusing on the school, but it's been a few years since she's fought a little bit. Your success, is that going to get her to pick it up again? Very possibly because I think she's getting to see me have so much fun and just she's getting to see everything and how amazing the UFC is and everybody how nice they are.

So everybody, UFC fight past. You yourself are incredibly nice and awesome. Everybody is. So I'm having a blast and I'm sure she's seen that too. What weight does she fight at or did she fight at? 135. 135. Very interesting. But she's six foot tall and she's lean and ripped up. So she is a pretty big 135, I would say. Your dad said that you never really watched the UFC fights when they would watch for whatever reason you didn't like to watch. Is that going to change now?

Sure, absolutely. It changes. I'm watching as much as I possibly can. Okay. And I do watch when I get the chance to. He just might have thought that maybe I was not getting to because I was doing schoolwork or have to study for projects or stuff like that. So ever since I was in junior high, I've made straight A's all throughout high school.

I had a 4.0 straight A's my whole entire time in high school while traveling about every single other weekend of tournaments. And then at Texas A&M, I'm in patrol and engineering, which engineering for A&M is the number one school of the nation for engineering. Wow. So that alone is a huge accomplishment. And that takes a lot of time away from getting to watch maybe all the fights. But I love watching the fights. It's very fun to watch them. Is it important for you to get your degree, you know, in the straight, you know, four years' time?

Or is there a chance you might take a break now? Well, since you mentioned that, I actually might take a break. Oh. So right now from the first semester, I'm now in my second semester. So first semester, I was taking full-time classes. And now that I'm going to fight for the UFC. So having full-time classes, it doesn't really work out because there's so much workload. so much studying that you really don't have time to train.

So I would stay up until two or three in the morning, just studying and then I'd have to go get a mile or so on a few miles run and work out the gym super late and try to get my working out in like that late at night. So now I've cut back on the workload. And in the future, too, the more fights I go, you could possibly see me taking a break from school for a year, maybe two years, and we'll see how that goes. And then I think I'd be totally different because getting trained full time,

it's just going to be completely different. It will change everything about me. I would be a totally different animal out there in the ring, and it could be pretty scary for some opponents, knowing that I'm getting trained. I'm so young, so I have so much to learn. Have they told you what's next yet? No, sir, they haven't.

I don't know the opponent yet, but I'm hopefully hoping to fight within the next month or two, and I'm ready to fight any day. So I know there's a superfight weekend coming up in December, and even than that, that would be amazing to fight on. Yeah. Just, I'm, it's such an honor to be able to fight for the UFC. So pretty much, anytime I get to fight for the UFC, I'm going out there and put my best show on, put on a show for the crowd and get everybody's money awards and just make everybody have a blast out there, just getting to see something different.

Do you have a dream scenario if they say, okay, what do you want, which card, which opponent pick? Do you have an answer? Well, right now, no, I actually don't have any opponent in mind right now, only because I would like to work my way up the ladder, and I'm only 19, so I do have a lot of technique to learn and a lot of thanks to drill and positions and situations. So I don't want to go straight into the fights with the number one top guys, top 10 guys, yet.

I mean, I've rather worked my way up there. And then the number, I'm happy fighting anywhere. So if it were to be Australia, for her to be in Las Vegas, being in a super fight weekend, any of that's great for me. And I'm just very happy that I get a chance to fight. Here's the big question. It's around 140 in Texas right now. How many push-ups and sit-ups have you done today?

So this morning I went to a jitzy class and then pushes and sit-ups under 500, but I got a mix in the weights later. I notice every time you speak, like your pecks are going up and down. It's mesmerizing. there it is there it is what a guy you must get tons of people reaching out to you i can't imagine what your twitter is like right now in your instagram this is got to be this is like a dream right have you woken up from this dream or do you still feel like you're on cloud nine here no it's still is cloud nine pretty much because it's totally it's totally different so i'm enjoying i'm enjoying

every minute of it every second so well it's awesome i hope i hope my twitter and my instagram and everything out there just keeps going up because i want the most people to be able to see what I can do and in my future fights too. You are a breath of fresh air, my friend. Congratulations on all your success thus far. I love the smile on your face. I love your positive attitude. Your father as well, had the pleasure of meeting him. Just a great story and I wish you nothing but the best. Good luck in Montreal. Enjoy that. Good luck meeting George. Great guy as well. And the whole team over there is great. And I'm very much looking forward to not only your next fight, but watching your ride in the UFC. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Great to have you on the show for

the first time as well. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me too. All right, there he is. Super Sage Northcut. Great stuff from him. A fresh face just 19 years old. And all of a sudden, bang. A gigantic star in the UFC. Raging ally Quinta was in full effect on Saturday night. And like I said earlier, I didn't mind it. I thought it was great. I'm really enjoying seeing I Quinta's personality come out. I'm really enjoying watching the evolution of his personality. He was on this show not too long ago talking about post-fight after the Lozahn fight. The Alejandro bit is great. It's all very entertaining to me and I'm enjoying it greatly. So let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in our next guest in the same location as the last time we spoke to him,

the one and only raging ally, Quinta. Al, how are you? Yeah, I'm doing good, man. I'm doing good. That was everything. Have you calmed down? Are you over it? Yeah, it took me a little bit. I'm good, though. Wow, look at that cut.

It's looking a lot better. It's looking a lot better. It's feeling a lot better. How many stitches? 11. Seven outside, three inside. You do the math. I don't know.

Seven outside three. I think that's ten. Ten stitches. Have you watched the fight? I watched a bunch of times, yeah. Do you think you won? I do. I think I won the round. I think the second round, third round, he took off.

He was, you know, he wasn't fighting. And I was pushing forward. Even the first four minutes of the first round, I think I came after him. I pushed the pace. You know, the last minute of that first round, he beat my ass. I'm not going to lie, I got, you know, but that's what I'm made of. I came through that and, you know, that's what it is. So to be honest with you, I've heard every scorecard there is on the Twitter, on the Facebook,

there's a whole spectrum of scorecards that you could choose from, depending on how you looked at that fight. Second and third round, I came to fight. I think he was fighting like he wanted a paycheck. And that was the difference in the fight for sure. So do you think that it was more about what he didn't do as opposed to what you did? In other words, if he fought the second and third rounds like he did in the first, do you think he would have won that fight?

And for some reason, he took his foot off the gas. There was no – he landed a combination. He landed one combination in the end of the first round. Other than that, it was the same fight. If you take out that last minute of the first round, the whole fight was the same. It was me going forward, him. sticking a punch, two punches, taking three steps back, taking four steps back. So it was, you know, it was, it's a tricky fight to score. It's hard. And, you know, I think me and him, we both gained

respect for each other in the cage. He had some, some things to say before. I had some things to say before. And, you know, I hit him with some good shots, and I could tell that he respected that. And I know, you know, he hit me with some good shots. And at the end of that first, round he had me on the ground and uh you know he was he unleashed him so i you know i got hurt i was hurt for sure but uh you know that round ended and he was on top of me and i i didn't even you know not even thinking about it it was like i was half out in half out you know i was just i kicked them off of me and he said oh don't kick off don't kick me off you and and you know that's what i'm made of you're on top of me i'll end of the round i'm going to kick you off you get you know it was uh and it was uh and it

wasn't even disrespecting. It was just that's what it was, you know. Get the fuck off me. And if I'm so hurt, next round, come out and fight me again. And he didn't do that. He went back to the same thing in the beginning of round, and he couldn't land another combination like that again. So, you know, it was an extremely close fight. It was a good fight. And I think that should be, you know, the point that's emphasized more than anything. What do you say to the people who say, look at the stats. He outstruck you in every round. I know stats are very controversial in MMA because they don't often tell the whole story. What do you say to those people? 100%. Stats do not tell the whole story. I looked at a, you know, they said I was 0 for 8 in takedowns. Oh for 8.

Do you remember me trying to take him down eight times? Like, I wasn't shooting like Ben Asking and takedowns where it's like my life depends on it. I'm shooting and I'm really, you know, I'm getting him to the ground. I'm grabbing his leg. And if he doesn't, you know, if he's in good position, I'm throwing punches off of it. I'm not throwing him, I'm not trying to take him down like I need to take him down. I don't need to take him down. I'm shooting in for a leg and I'm grabbing a leg.

If, you know, the punches, he's landed in a punch going backwards and it's just touching me on my head. You know, I'm slamming leg kicks, you know, what does that count for? You know, there's just so many different ways you can score a fight like that. You know, it's, uh, it could have went either way. Depending on who you ask, you know, there was a lot of, you know, respectable fighters tweeted that I won that fight. And that's what I take most in the anyway. People that know about fighting, people that know, you know, you know, in the second and

third round, when things get tough, what it's like to just keep coming forward and really want it and not shy away from, you know, a battle. How much did the cut bother you throughout the fight? The beginning of the second round, I felt it a little bit. You know, it was not affecting my vision, but it was, yeah, I guess, you know, a little bit. But it wasn't too bad. It was below my eye. It was good.

It was, you know, it was, it's been a lot worse cuts. Thank God it was where it was. It was amazing to watch both of your reactions when they announced that you won. He flipped out. You hardly moved. It was almost like you knew. You had no doubt in your mind that you won that fight. You just stood there as confident as can be.

did you really not think there was a chance you lost that fight? You'll see. As they're talking, as they're saying, you know, they announced me, they announced him 30-27, and they announced me, and I put my hand up. Before they even said it, I knew I won that fight. I knew the second and third round. I did more. You know, did he do more damage in the fight?

Possibly. But the way this is scored, three rounds, I fought two harder. There's three guys. sitting at the cage, there's three guys. And all that I had to do, you know, he won the first round. All that he had to do was show one of them that he won two, one round. All he needed to do was one round. And both of those guys said I won two and three.

So that, you know, that says it right there. There was two guys. All I had to do was show them that I wanted two and three, and that's what I did. What did you think, though, when you heard 30 to 27 for him? Uh, I kind of thought, I thought that was, you know, part for the course. I figured that was going to happen. Why? Well, it's been documented as, you know, the, uh, Doug, uh, Doug, uh, Doug Crosby has a long,

going feud with, uh, we're not a feud, but whatever, he just, he's, he hates on us, and most particularly Ray Longo, but he, he's got a problem. And, uh, you know, it's, he's a, he's a, you know this is where i get serious the whole thing this whole thing is kind of like a joke everyone thinks all boo i curse them it's funny but this is where i get serious and you know you're gonna have to talk to ray about that but this guy is definitely an incompetent judge and it's uh it's a travesty that he was anywhere in the vicinity of the octagon when i was fighting

and and i will touch on this later i did speak to ray this morning he gave me some information, but I just want to ask you one thing if you can confirm this. Did you ever speak to Doug about maybe being in a movie of his? He works as a stunt coordinator, and that didn't fall through. Is that accurate? Or that fell through, excuse me? I spoke with, um, uh, some, not him directly. Yeah. But someone called me, um, Steve Kouffer, who is the, you know, New York Samba and Sambo, Steve, he had asked me to be in a movie, not a movie, whatever it was, he asked me to be in something. And it was through this, you know, I find out later it's through this guy. And he has an agenda.

There's always an agenda behind it. And I kind of, you know, saw right through it. And I said, no, I don't want to be, you know, I didn't want anything to do with it. And then somehow he's judging my fight. So, you know, I turned down an offer from this guy, whatever the reason being, you know, and then he's judging my fight. So the deal right there that's not, you know, I don't know, it's just not right. I don't know how that happened. I looked after the fight and I was like, you know, looking around the cage, I saw that, I saw it.

And then I saw him sitting there and I said to Ray. I said, why is this guy judging my fight? And it just, I knew right away. I said, I'm down one judge. I'm down. I need, you know, three judges are supposed to be, you know, objective. See the fight how it is. I knew right off the bat this guy was, he was not giving me, he's not giving me nothing.

When did you find out that he, go ahead? At least covered up. Give me 29, 28, but he gave me 30, 27, which, is just a big FU, you know. You know, give it 29-28, Madrasville, because that's probably, you know, I've definitely won one round. There's no way you can give me, you know, that.

So, you know, make it look a little bit, whatever, but there's what it is. When did you find out he was judging? And did you try to fix this? Did you try to complain? I saw him judging. I saw him judging the fights before. I was watching in the screen in the back,

and I saw him there. And I was like, oh, look who's it. And then, uh, But I thought we had this thing where he wasn't judging any of our fights. I thought this was well-documented, well-known. This guy was not a part of it. And, you know, I don't know. Who is he to...

We have people train at the gym. You know, they excuse themselves. If there's even somebody that I know slightly that I have had... even a conversation with, they'll excuse themselves from the fight. They'll say, listen, I can't rough his fight. I know him somewhat. I'm friendly with it. Whatever it is, they say, I can't do it.

And they get a backup judge to come in or get a backup rough. This guy, I mean, I'm going to say he asked for it. He somehow got in there somehow. And it's a shame because, you know, no matter how the fight went, I feel like I was getting screwed either way. And I didn't find out until after, but it was, you know, it's just not right. Was that why you were so fired up because, you know, the fans were booing a little bit, but it seemed like you went from zero to 100 very quickly. Was it because you had realized that you were put in this position,

or were you legitimately upset at the fans for booing? No, I was upset at the fans. I mean, if you listen to the decision right after they announced me, everyone cheers. And then, you know, he kind of stormed out of the cage and made a big scene, and that's when they started booing. I think one, you know, one person, one person started booing, and then everyone started booing.

It was like, oh, yeah, just boo this guy. You know, whatever. Do you regret the way it all went down? No, not at all. I think if it went down in the same way, I do the same thing. You don't boo me. I freaking, I'm the reason you're there watching, you know. I put it out, I put it out down the line.

I got this scar on my face, you know, after I flirt, and, you know, it's a good fight. Matt's good... Matt said, you got a new scar on your face. And that was like, it's like,

yo, I got a scar from this. This ain't a joke. You know, this is real. And then people start booing me. What am I going to... Every time I look at this scar, I'm going to say, oh, that was the time.

Remember the time that people booed me? So now every time I look at the scar, it's the time I cursed out Virginia and told them to go fuck themselves. So it's a little better, you know? And you said, that you looked into the crowd and you saw two people flipping you off and that's what really

drove you over the edge is that accurate yeah it was i i looked you know like you kind of i'm looking up i'm like am i really getting booed right now is this happening and i saw two kids just fuck you fuck you're sitting there doing nothing you're sitting there drinking beers you're a freaking loser you go back to your hillbilly freaking whatever don't tell me nothing i'm i'm the man right here you cheer me you know So, yeah, I would do the same thing again. And if they were a little closer, I probably would have kicked the guy in his ass. But it's frustrating.

And all these people on Twitter, the same thing. I saw people after the fight and they all wanted my autograph. I said, guaranteed, freaking half these people would booing me in the stadium. I guarantee it. Oh, wow, fight, great fight. You're a warrior, this and that. Guaranteed, you would boo me too, bro. Right.

Fuck yourself. Well, how about this, Al? Two gentlemen reached out to us. and they claim to be the ones who gave you the finger. And they want to speak to you. Get them on a plane and bring them here right now. I take them out back. I'm okay.

He's beat their ass. Well, Nick and Stephen are on the phone right now. Oh, here we go. Link and Steve, what is this? Howard Stern?

Get them on. They want to apologize. Nick, are you there? Oh, get out of you. Yeah, I'm here. And thanks for not kicking our ass out.

I yeah you know we were just booing the decision and when it seemed like you got mad at the crowd world school pro wrestling fans we reacted immediately

marking out and we're glad you respond to the way you did we're glad you have no apologies we uh I'm sorry you know because it's all

I saw you really so bad about that in the post type of conference talking with my wife man you were really jerks to that guy and uh you know that's uh not us we were just being fans

it was all show to us we know it's not that few and you made an ally at Quintifans for life of us by reacting like a real person. I appreciate that, man. Thank you. That's awesome. You're forgiven.

Stephen, what do you have to say about this? You know, yeah, it's kind of the same thing. It's almost like, you know, I feel like Al's in you, he's a Nick Diaz of Long Island. If he could give a little bit more, fuck you. You'd probably have more fans, actually, dude, because we love them after that. How about this, Al? They love you now.

Isn't this crazy? This is nuts. I like it. So all's good. You guys buried the hatchet? You forgive him, Al? Yeah. I'm cool with that. I think, like, you know, he should just rent Long Island more, and today UFC shows up in MSG and he's on that card. Get the biggest pop of his life. Yeah, man. I'm down. And let's go. I like these. This is good. How about this, though? This is good. I was ready to go nuts and these guys are good.

I appreciate. Well, guys, thank you for calling. Anything else you want to say to Al? Because, look, I mean, I think, you know, you don't have to give the guy the finger. You understand why he was so upset? I mean, the guy put his heart and his blood and his sweat on the line, and then he sees you guys in the crowd.

I mean, it wasn't called for, right? Totally. Yeah. I mean, after, you know, 60 ounces of the beer, things happened. There we go. I can understand that. If anyone can understand that, it's, Mr. Iaquint over here.

All right, guys. Thank you for calling in. We appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. We'll be sure for the next time. How about that, Al? Your favorite show makes dreams come true here. We buried the hatchet.

It's unreal. This is good. You know, I made a lot of friends that weekend, cursing people out and whatnot. Everyone was cool. You know, it was a good time. I met Mitch Clark's parents. Oh, very nice.

After the fight, you know. And Mitch Clark's brother was talking a bunch of trash. Now, Mitch, I have no, he's cool as hell. I saw him the whole week. It was, you know, what's up, man? Good luck. I was rude. You know, it's all good.

But then I saw his family after, and they have been, oh, man, they have been brutal to me on Twitter. Really? Yeah, and I lost the fight. I didn't win the fight. What are they saying? So I'm walking with my mom and a couple of my buddies from the gym, told my teammates. And the guy goes, hey, I'm Mitch Clark's dad. I go, hey, Mr. Clark, how are you?

He goes, I'm the Gabagool. I guess I called somebody a Gabagool. It was like a word. I just, I don't know. I was like, all right. And then it clicked. It was like, wait, Mitch Clark's brother talked a lot of shit online.

I was like, where's your other son? And they all pointed out of him. He was this little guy sitting across the table. And I was like, I was like, man, you got to take it easy on me. You know, you're kind of brutal. Your brother won the fight. Why are you coming after me? and he yeah he was just like he was cool so he didn't have a problem but there's a lot of thing you know

these guys on twitter they you know they go nuts and then when um when they're in front of you it's can i you know can i have a handshake in an autograph it's it's kind of rough you know they don't realize people people see and you know you get all the same stuff on twitter and it can be rough so do you think you've gained more fans by what you did they saw the real you they saw your emotional that stuff or are you getting a lot of hate i've seen some of the tweets sent your way what's what's the reaction been like you know what it is i'm real man if you tweet me i'm gonna tweet you back and usually what happens is they'll say something bad and i'll say fuck you and then they'll say and then they'll say well this and that and then i'll say this and that and by the end of it it's

like you know what you're not that bad of a guy i'm a fan now al and it's like why do we have to curse each other out for it to be like that you know so I'm figuring this whole thing out as we go along. And these fans, you know, I think they're just like me. But I don't think I'm going out there on Twitter to just hate on people. You know, it is what it is. It's just cool. It's all good, man.

It's all good. How are you celebrating? Are we going to Mexico finally? What's going on? We came right home back to New York. Yep. I just chilled west of the fight a little bit. didn't do anything crazy.

I'd like to go to Mexico in June, right? Yeah, that'd be great. I was going to wreck the hotel. The hotel room... Oh, my gosh. I had every expectation of getting demolished. But I made a good friend in Clara. Clara, she was old enough to be my grandmother.

Very nice Spanish lady spoke to me, taught me. She taught me a few things in Spanish, you know. So I was like, I can't ruin the hotel room now. She'd have to clean it up. Yeah. So I just left and didn't wreck anything this time. And I think everyone's happier because of it. And Clarice still likes me.

So it's good. I saw on the Alejandro de UFC Twitter account, are you showing her a magazine of some lovely mamacitas? Is that the same lady? Yeah, that's her. That's Clara. She loved it. She's awesome.

By the way, she told her. Go ahead. I just wanted to know when you decide where you're going to tweet things from? Like, when do you decide to go in Alia Quinta? and when do you decide that the Spanish one deserves a tweet or two? I don't know. Yeah, it's a good question.

I have no idea. It's one of my favorite things in MMA right now, that whole thing. It's pretty crazy, right? Yeah, I don't know. We're going to have to just keep going with it and figure it out as it goes, I guess. Do you know what you want next? Who you want next? What makes sense for you next?

You're on a bit of a role here now. I have no idea, man. I want a Heineken or something I want to just chill Get my eye better Daug Here's the other thing Okay

Those in Virginia Virginia First of all That place is beat Virginia The fans booed me Except for my two friends now I like them

They're cool Yeah that's cool Yeah That's right But uh The doctors in Virginia Right I'm getting stitches on my eye

I thought I was getting stitches The guy goes Is two guys These big Virginia and whatever. They go, we got this glue here. It's $800 a bottle.

He goes, yeah, $800 a bottle. Like, all right, you can't glue it. And they glue it. So one guy's holding my eye, and the other guy's gluing, and the guy's has the rubber gloves, his rubber gloves got stuck.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Blued to my face. So I'm sitting there. I got this guy in there. They're yelling back and forth to each other. No, no, do you do it, blah. They had to rip the gloves off my face.

My face is this blood squirting down my face. I had to go yesterday again to get stitches. I had to do it all over again in New York. Have a very intelligent doctor, Dr. Friedman, fix my face up. And now we're good. But, you know, what do we got going on down there in Virginia? It's not very good. safe to assume you're not chomping at the bit to return to Virginia anytime soon.

I can pretty much guarantee you I'll never go back to Virginia. That place is wrecked to begin with. I don't need to go there. There's no reason to go back. All right. Well, we'll end it at that note. Al, I appreciate it. What a performance.

I loved everything about it. The fight was good, too, right? I think harping on the scorecards is the wrong way to go about things. It was an entertaining 20 minutes. Thanks, Ariel. I appreciate it, man. All the best to you. We'll talk to you very soon.

You got it. Thank you. There he is. Alejandro Ayaquinta stopping by. This man, way back when, was the very first Scottish fighter to fight inside the Octagon. That was October of 2013, took a fight on short notice against Jimmy Hedis. Unfortunately, did not win that fight. But since then,

He has won two in a row, defeated Daniel Paneda at UFC 171, and then came back on Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland, to defeat Paul Redmond via knockout. He got the party started in many ways on Saturday in Scotland because his win completely made the crowd erupt. I mean, the crowd went ballistic when he won, and even more so when he jumped into the crowd to celebrate with them. He has been hounding me and asking me to come on this show for quite some time, and after he won. I knew right then and there that we needed to get him on the show. I'm talking about Robert

Whiteford, who joins us right now. Via the magic of Skype, there he is in all his glory. Robert, how are you? Congratulations on the win. How you doing, son? About time I was on this show. I know. I was waiting for the right moment and I think Saturday was the right moment. So congratulations on it. And by the way, I like this new look for you. Longer hair, the beer. Where's this coming from? Hey, I just got sponsored by a beard company and my girl. My girl, friend takes it and they say, I told her this morning, I says, if they're paying it's staying, that's what I told her. She's not happy. She can't match the payment of those guys, so I told her it's staying. Did that sponsorship come as a result of Saturday? They'd sponsored me

previous to the fight and then they just got in contact with my manager this morning and I offered more money for another six months of the beard. Wow. Well, I love it. I say keep it as well and I love the money. Exactly. So, you know, at the the top of the show, we had your teammate Stevie Ray on, and he told us that he's still on a high. He still can't really process what happened on Saturday. How about you? I'm always in a fucking high. I'm in high in life, you know, and that just made it even more better than Saturday. I landed on the moon on Saturday night, and I'm still not back down, but, you know, I'm always high in life anyway. I fucking love it. I heard from a lot of people that

your walkout was something special. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it. What was the song that you choose? Yeah, we couldn't see it. You never heard that? I didn't see it. I couldn't, I can't find it anywhere. Oh, fuck it's special. You'll get it on my Facebook page. Okay. On my fan page. I come out to the National Anfirm, the Flower of Scotland. Oh, wow.

I knew as soon as I walked out to that in my national arena, the home crowd would go nuts. You know, I've been to the football matches and the national rugby matches, and when the fans sing that song, it's something special. And it took the roof off the place, you know. I had my head coach there, Conan Silver from an American top team. and he's not wanting to get emotional and just before I turned at the checkpoint he had tears in his eyes

he was filled up you know it had the full place going wow I wish I could see that so I can see it on your Facebook page I'm going to check that out after the show that sounds fantastic and you've got to get back to me

and tell me if it doesn't give you goosebumps I'm telling you fucking give you goosebumps did you feel any kind of responsibility because you were the first of the Scottish fighters to fight on the card that you had to set the tone you had to get things going I mean I'm pretty good at blocking things out

you know, I'm like Dexter, professional during the day, serial killer by night. And I just flicked the switch when it was time to go. But I knew it was a big moment. I knew it was a big moment for me and I knew it was a big moment for the crowd. So I didn't feel any pressure. I was bringing the pressure, you know. Redmond had to come in there in front of 11,000 my home fans and deal with me another end of it.

I was lucky it was just me getting my hands and I'm not the rest of the support as well. So you finish him early in the fight and then right away, you don't even think twice. you jump over the cage and into the crowd. Were you always planning on doing that, or was that a spur of the moment thing? Fuck, I lost my mind. I don't know what the fuck happened. I was, that fuck knows what happened.

One minute I was on top of the cage and the next minute I was fucking in the crowd or having a clue what happened. Didn't they even know who the people were or nothing. Next minute I was in the middle of it. Wow. Because, you know, I was actually thinking, oh, maybe that's his family, his friends.

You had no idea who those people were. In that fucking clue. And if they weren't there, I would imagine you were going to run up the entire arena. I mean, it just seemed like you were a man on a mission. I was off. I was off. I was off. You know, it was like when I was a kid doing the gardens.

I don't know if you have ever, you'd do that in America. But as young children, you've got the back guards, what would you call it, the yards? Yes, yes. Yeah. So you jump the fences, you know, and you just keep going until you keep going until there's no more fences to go. that's what it was like as soon as I jumped that first fence I was looking for the next. How old are you? Let me see.

You're 33. I'm 32, but I feel like I'm fucking 13. Well, actually I wanted to ask you. So, you know, in your time 32 years here in our great world, was that the greatest moment of your life right then and there? Fuck by far.

You know, if you were going to write a Hollywood movie, that would be the fucking ending, right? You couldn't fucking script that shit. It was fucking unbelievable. And I was just fortunate enough it was me If it wasn't me I'd been in the crowd watching somebody else doing it I was fucking tremendous Is that something you dreamed of

Like when you started did you say You know because we hear from Connor a lot Oh I wanted to bring the UFC to Dublin You were the first Scottish fighter Did you dream of having that moment? Was that part of your dreams? Hey hey listen this started in a small hall In Soki and Alba

It's a very small town in the top of Scotland Right the countryside It started off there in a local judo hall That just so happened there was an MAMA session, you know, and after my judo class. And I thought, fuck it, I'll give that a shot, I see where it's like, you know. And the next minute I was hooked. But I knew right then, there and then I wasn't want to be just fighting on the local scenes, you know, like Scotland and the UK.

You know, I'd watch the UFC. Always in my head I had the bigger picture, you know, I wanted to fucking get there. And people maybe called me crazy at the time, but the crazy people are the ones that make the fucking difference, right? That's the way I look at it. I don't like to follow the trend. to like to be myself and be different and I knew back then that I wanted to get to the UFC you know and I knew I could

do it and when I'd done it I thought right away I'm going to bring this fucking show back to my home country and a lot of people were going nuts because I was the third fight on the card you know they were saying Whiteford should be higher up but honestly you could have put me out first fight I wouldn't have give a fuck you know I was just delighted

I was delighted to fucking get that show there and be the first Scott out you know and show my people what were made it it was amazing It seems somewhat fitting that you would start things. So prior to that session, of course we know about your judo background. You're an accomplished judoka and your Twitter name is flying judoka. Did you know anything about MMA?

Was that on your radar at all? Well, I'd watched it as a kid, you know, me and one of my best friends, dad used to have it in VHS. And when he used to leave the house, we used to sneak into his room and get the VHS videos and watch them thinking we were watching illegal fighting. You know, like, fuck, we better not get caught watching this shit. It was bare knuckle back in the time. That's when Tank Abbott used to throw down guys like that.

And that was my first taste of it. But I'd never really paid attention to, you know. I participated in judo, and I thought that was the toughest fucking sport on the planet until I got punched in the face, participating in this. And that changed my fucking mind instantly. So that was my first taste of it. You didn't spend this fight week in Scotland, right? You were at ATT in Florida?

Well, I've been doing the fight camp. Yeah. fight campo was there for eight weeks i was away from my cat holly for eight weeks you know i fucking miss the wee guy it's terrible uh my girlfriend as well better put that in there because she'll go nuts if i don't say i miss her uh and i was back i was back one week before the fight and i was unfortunate enough i could spend it in my bed moan bed you know what fight week that was fucking tremendous yeah i bet but what was it like coming back for the beginning of fight week you know in your home country and then seeing this sort of buzz start to build build build the wains were great

and then the fight i mean the atmosphere was fantastic So now you're living it because you had been away. You were in Florida. I mean, you couldn't have been farther, right? I mean, you weren't experiencing the buildup. What was that like for you? I knew this shit was going to go crazy. You know, you couldn't tell me I'm one of, I'm Mr. Crazy here, you know,

and the Scottish people are just as fucking crazy as me, and I knew it was going to kick off like this. I knew, I knew it. Even though I never seen it happening, I was away in Florida, I fucking knew it would be gone nuts, you know? And when I came home and I seen it and I made that way, and I was just so pleased that the Scottish support got behind. The show was sold out in under 25 minutes.

The weigh-ins were sold out as well. There were a thousand-odd people there, and that was during a working day. The working-class people took time off work to come and support us at that event. It was tremendous. Us Scottish love a fight, you know, we're fucking crazy. And you put one of your, especially one of your own guys

in that octagon, you're going to get them their numbers, and I knew that would happen. I knew it. How popular is the sport, and what has the aftermath been after Saturday? in the national media. I mean, are they treating this like a big deal? Have they caught on?

Have they understood what transpired on Saturday? Errol, you know, I was struggling again the local fucking paper back here. You know, the local paper that I think they sell maybe 500 copies or something to the small villages that I live in, and they wouldn't even fucking put me in that thing. And I just got a message from one of the UFC guys' office with a pitcher. And I'm in every single fucking paper you can get national paper in Scotland.

So you can't beat that. The local paper can show up their ass because I'm in every single national paper. So they understood. Because sometimes it feels like the first show kind of flies under the radar as far as the media is concerned and then the second show gets to be a big deal.

But it appears as though in Scotland they have recognized that you guys are a big deal and I'm happy to hear that. Fuck, we've been fighting for centuries, you know. All you need is a whisper, a small whisper of a bit of violence going down and you'll get the fucking Scottish crowd there.

You know, it doesn't matter how small or how big it is. We will fill those halls. And you come back again, we will fill it again and again. You know, we love to fucking fight, and we just prove that. Irish people are pretty the same. We're pretty pretty alike, you know, and you've seen the kickoff it's happened there, and I'm just wanting to spur on for the rest of the people here.

You know, me and Steve and Joanne, but we've been training in the hall in Glasgow. When it rains, the fucking water comes in the ceiling, you know? That's how fucking poor we are out here. So I want this to kick on. off, get my gym funded, get more money to that, get the guys funded, you know. Stevie's still pedaling these bike to train

and I think he can go and buy a new car now he's got that 50 G's. Joanne gets the bussy training, you know, we're all fucking skin out here, so it's good. I want the money to come and I want us to get better from it, you know, and the gym and everybody. What's your situation like? Because it seems like often when we talk to

these, you know, these European fighters, a lot of you guys are struggling and that's often the case with a young MMA fighter. Stevie just told us he was on welfare you know again and not to keep comparing everyone to him but Connor was also on welfare not that long ago and look how he's doing now what's your situation like

it's 10 as well fucking beat that on welfare and 10 kids you can't get any better you know what I mean say that it froze up what did you say what was the beginning of that response I couldn't hear you Stevie is on welfare and has 10 children to 10 different girls we cannot beat that you know so fucking that 50 G is

is going a long way for him. What about you? I'm lucky enough I've not got any kids. Thank fuck. And I haven't fought in a year. That's the other thing, you know? So it's been fucking tough. It's been tough.

And I've just been lucky I've had the local support back here with the small businesses that are supporting me up until this. And even during flight camp and I went away to America, they were sending money over to me to pay my building stuff, you know, because I still have a house back here. I still have my girlfriend. I still have shit I need to pay. So I was fortunate enough to get these.

baseball companies sponsor me and send them in my otherwise it would be impossible, you know? So obviously you've enjoyed success training with ATT. Any chance you move to Florida, so you don't have to go back and forth? I love my people too much, Ariel, you know? See, when I stepped off this off the plane and fight week and I smelled that fresh Scottish air, you cannot beat that. That is priceless.

You go over to Florida, it's 110 degrees. It's 100% humidity. You fucking sweat walking from the car to the gym. no thank you no thank you you you know i love it here it's been raining since i got back i think we've had two days of sun and bring on the rain that's what i say i'm pleased for this cold weather and the fresh year you know i fucking hate the heat how do they feel about your accent over there in florida they have they they can't fucking understand the word i say i'm sick of repeat myself to those guys it's fucking ridiculous ridiculous and then and then when i try and change it up so

so that they can understand me a bit I sound like an absolute prick. Like what do you do at? What's the difference? Let's say you're talking to a guy in a grocery store in Florida. How do you sound? How are you doing, sir?

Can you understand me very well? You see the difference? I sound like a fucking asshole. I saw this video that the UFC put out I think it's some kind of comedian and he's talking to... Oh, that's it. Who's that guy?

And what is that language that he was speaking? A Scottish comedian and he's speaking how could you put it slang Scottish Wow You know Any of these small

Any of these small villages You travel to like mining There's maybe 500 in this small village It's a small mining village And we all speak the same You know We either speak fast Or we speak gibberish

And that's the way to describe it But it's only the Scottish it can get it I don't know if you've seen Markish Brimidge trying to understand some of it He was fucking downfunded by it man Downfunded So you speak like that as well With your friends

of course wow so let me ask you a question and I just want to see you respond in that in that well let me ask you a question okay and see how you respond

okay fair enough if I say if I say to you get yaldi what does that mean get rowdy nope I have no idea

give it everything oh my gosh it's kind of the same right I guess now in hindsight tell me like a sentence about your experience and something that happened to you this past week and I'll see if I understand what you're talking about.

Let me see. Some of the messages I was getting from Facebook, from the girls, they were saying I was looking offy bra on Saturday night. Oh gosh. I'm guessing since it was from a girl, you were looking sexy? Of course.

What does your girlfriend think about that? What does your girlfriend think about that? Fuck, she hates it. Fucking hell. The price she's no fucking down here to try to stab me with a fork in my eye right now. now for saying that. How long have you been together?

Three years. Wow, so she saw you before you became a UFC fighter. She was there from the beginning. She's been there from the beginning, you know, and she still fucking hates me as much now as she did then. Why does she hate you? Because I'm a typical guy, a typical Scottish guy, a prick.

Hey, by the way, what was it like when you got the call that you were going to be the first Scottish fighter in the UFC? Is that something that you were striving for? Did you want that distinction? Sorry? Did you want to be the first Scottish fighter? Is that something that you were striving for? Of course I did.

Of course I did. You know, the only person that was coming close to me, well, the only person that was close to me at the time was John Calderwood. You know, we're training the same gym. And I used to tell her every day, there's no way that a fucking chick is beating me getting to the UFC. You know? I used to tell that every day, you might beat me in sparring,

but you're no beating me getting to the fucking UFC. So I wanted that. I wanted that level above her, you know, just to keep her in a place that I made it before hers, so I was happy at that. Well, that is a great distinction, but you did lose that UFC debut. How much does that bother you? I feel like you're the kind of guy that is still kind of bothered by this. Only when people bring it up.

As I say, I can switch off and forget things very easily. That is a fucking silver topic, you know. He got me in my worst day and I got him in his best day. that's the only way I can put it you know he was fucking lucky put it that way when I got the phone call I was actually sitting with my girlfriend

right I was in a Chinese buffet and I was on my six plate my six plate and I was looking at the puddings thinking I'm going to tackle that right now and my manager called me saying can you make 146 pounds on Saturday and I looked at the buffet

and I looked back at my phone and I said fuck it take the cake away you know I'm going to make it And I made it in five days notice, 30 pounds, 32 pounds in five days. It was fucking horrendous. But you better believe that fucking pisses me off to the highest order.

It's a fight I would love to get back. Jimmy's a nice kid, you know. And I'm sure he would love that fight as well and an even playing field. You know, the both of his at are best. So what do you want next? Any of them. Put them up and I will knock them fucking down.

It was unfortunate that I got injured heading into the seaver fight or he would have been in the receiving end of that fucking left hand on Saturday night you know that was a fucking huge blow for me it was one of those camps that nothing went right I blew my knee out I blew my back out you name it it was getting fucking blew out

you know and he was so lucky that I never made it to Stockholm so lucky so even that seaver fight even though he's coming off a loss bring him to Dublin I would love to go on that is it October card I believe it's 24th

bring him over to Dublin and I will smash him into the ground. All right. Mark my words. You want to fight on the Dublin card? Of course, I want to find the Dublin card. I'm healthy, I'm ready to go. Redmond didn't lay a fucking gloving me on Saturday night.

I'm ready to go. I want to get in there and make that money, you know, and get back out fresh and good looking collect that money for this beard. Well, so we're going to let the beard grow all the way to your next fight? Of course, this is going nowhere. I love it. As I said before,

If they pay it stays, Ariel. They pay it stays. What a pleasure this has been. A great debut, Robert. Hey, before we go, let me show you this. Have you ever tasted one of these bad boys, Ariel? No. What is that?

Chocolate? Tunnitch tea cake. Wow. This is a Scottish biscuit. Oh. I am on my 24th box since Saturday. Get out of here. I cannot stop eating these things.

Let me show you this first. Please, please, please. So it is a small biscuit with... Oh, my gosh. Marl's mal on the inside of it. Yes. It is the fucking best biscuit in the planet. Really?

21 boxes? 21 boxes is these, mother. Wow, how many? And six in each? Wow, I can't even do the math. That's a lot. 120 years. I don't fuck about.

I don't know if you have heard my slogan before. I am not here to fuck a book, whether it's fighting or eating fucking biscuits. How much you weigh right now? How much you weigh? Probably 175. Wow. Honest? You think so?

What are we two days? Wow, Jesus. That's a lot. I was 164 going back into the octagon and Saturday night. Oh, okay. Not too bad. 20 pounds you gained. So, Sansein, 21 boxes of these.

Five haggis suppers. I don't know if you've ever heard of haggis. I've heard of haggis. Never had the pleasure, though. That is another tremendous Scottish dish. I've had six, six, six, have you heard of a chippy before? You know what a chip is? No.

Chip shop. Mm. Please tell me you know what a chip shop is. No clue. Tell me. Like, have you ever had fish and chips? Oh, yes, yes. Oh, yes.

Have you seen a traditional Scottish fish and chip shop? Negative. Where they battered everything. You know what batter is? Sure. Yeah. Fry it. So from Mars bars to Snickers to haggis, to fish.

the fish, everything goes in that fucking friar, and it is the best taste in the fucking world. So they get haggis and they fry it, and it comes out to chip shop with brown sauce on it, is absolutely amazing. Haggis is a meat? You've never heard of haggis. No, I've heard of it from, so I married an axe murderer. Have you ever seen that film? Yep. They talk about haggis, but I don't know what it is.

What exactly is it? Right, let me explain to you what it is. Hagus is a small Scottish animal, okay? And it has four legs and two of them are smaller than another, okay? So this is the leg

so they have one here like this, they walk like this. And they can only go from side to side on the hillside. They cannot go up and down because one leg is short or another. Okay. So what you do to catch these little guys

is your friend goes to one side of the hill and you start at the other side. You scare them along the hill they cannot go up and down they can only go in straight lines and you catch them in the bag at the other side and that is supper wow what do they look like like small hedgehogs gosh only in scottled you do your homework aerial yes you do your homework hero son and get back to me about that okay have you ever worn a kilt before fuck i wore a kill up to my last fight aerial which one on saturday i'm c 171 in dallas yeah yeah

My walkout, I had my Kilt on and my spawn and it was unfortunate with the Reebok deal this time I couldn't wear my kilt to the octagon, you know, that's the only thing. I mean the Reebok deal, it's good for us right now but as in taking my identity away

with my kilt, you know, it's it wasn't a good thing it went down very harshly let me tell you that, I told the UFC officials what I fucking thought right away. But, yeah, I wear a kill all the time. You know what? A traditional Scotsman does not wear underwear under his

kilt. Yes. I have heard that. You know that, right? I know that, yes. Are you the same? Are you the same? Are you a traditional Scotsman? I'm 100% Scottish. So when I go out wear my kilts, I do not wear underwear, Aero. I love it. Have you ever played the bag types before? I haven't got the long capacity for those fuckers. Ariel, yes. You can imagine going out on a Saturday night in Scotland with your coat on. the girls know that you do not have underwear on oh my lord it makes for a fun night believe me when's the proper time to wear the kilt i mean is it more for formal occasions or you can wear it any time weddings and stuff okay weddings so why would you wear it out on a saturday night

some crazy mothers like to do that you know if you're brave enough then you you brave the scotch weather the cold the rain and you've got no kilting you've got no pants on some of us like to do it and I'm one of those guys. I would imagine it feels good, you know, the breeze. Oh, tremendous. You have no idea. Listen, when you go home, try your girlfriend's skit on and open the fridge door, open the freezer door

and stand in front of it and let me know how that feels. All right. It's a deal. This is amazing. I really enjoyed this. We're going to do it again soon, Robert. I appreciate the time. Best of luck to you in your next flight. But more importantly, congratulations on this big win on Saturday. It was a great moment. I know it meant the world to you. You really came up big and you made it a memorable one with the jumping out of the cage and all that. So kudos to you. Thank you very much. I was an emotional

wreck that night and it will not happen again. I appreciate it by the way. And I'm happy we finally were able to get you on the show that you were able to carve out some time for us because you've been hard to get in touch with. Really? No, I'm kidding. I've been hounding you for fucking a year aerial, so don't give me that shit. All the best to you. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, ma'am. Cheers. There he is. Robert Whiteford. Great stuff from him joining us from Scotland. Learned a lot. Learned a lot there. A nice young man who came up big, as I said, was very emotional and jumped out of the cage.

And it was really a fantastic afternoon for the UFC and their debut event in Scotland. Now we're starting to learn more about Polish culture, Polish athletes. You're putting Poland on the map as far as MMA is concerned. You're the most famous Polish fighter in the world right now, right? So I wanted to play a game with you. Okay. Before I let you go. It's called Name that poll.

Name that poll. Not yet. Not yet. Take it away. Take it away. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, Polish people, they're called Poles, right?

So I started doing a lot of research, and there's a lot of famous Polish people in the history of mankind. A lot of people that I didn't know were Polish. So you've made me do my research. So I'm going to show you a picture of a Polish person. And you have to tell me what their name is, who they are. I will try. Do you feel like you know a lot about Polish culture, Polish history? Yes and not.

Okay. No, I'm focused on my job, you know. Yeah, but these are people. Of course, you have to know. Yeah. Okay, so the name of this game is called Name That Pole. And guess what? We have some music.

Do we have the music ready? There it is. Oh, you can't hear it. Put the headphones on just so you can enjoy the music. This is called, I don't know if they play this in Poland, but it's called Polka music, right? Polka, yeah. You know this? Yeah.

This is nice. Okay, so this is it. There you go. Can you dance Polka? No. Okay. All right, so here's our first Polish person. There he is.

This is a very famous man. Do you know who this man is? Nico and Copernic. There you go. Nicholas Copernicus. Yeah. Born in 1473, died in 1543. Who is he?

Tell us quickly. Astronomy? Yes. a mathematician, astronomer, physician, a scholar. In my city, we've got the castle, and we've got the big figure of Michael. You know, I didn't know that he was actually Polish. Copernicus. How did you say his name again? Michau.

Michael, yeah. Oh, that's right. Okay. Copernicus. Yeah, his nose. Yes, what a nose. Similar to Jessica's. Wow. Well done. Great haircut as well. So there he is. There's our first one. So you're one for one. Well done. He was born in Thorn, by the way. It was the city in Prussia, an autonomous region in the old kingdom of Poland.

Okay, there we go. Don't cheat. You're looking at the names. What's going on here? All right, here's the next one. Here we go. Name that pole. Who is that man?

Chopin. Wow, look at you. Frederic Chopin. Born in 1810, died in 1849. What a young man he died. Tell us about him. What do you know about him? Now I forgot, you know.

Okay. Obviously a very famous penis. He's like one of the famous, yeah. Sure, sure. He was born in Zelazoa. Zelazovola. And near the Krakow

where was the EFC fight night Oh, that's right. In Warsaw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he died at 39 years old. Wow. How about that? Okay, so two for two. How about this? Are you having fun? This is good. Look at you. Representing Poland. Okay. Here we go. Here's number three. Name that poll.

Maria Konopnitska? I mean, this is unbelievable. I'm more impressed. with you right now than I am in your fighting. She was a writer. Not quite. She was a physicist. Isn't Konopnitka? It's, oh no. It's Maraucca, Korea. Yes. I thought you said the same thing. No. Oh, okay. I said Konopnitska, but I want to say to Korea. Mary Curry. Chemistry, yeah. I had no idea she was Polish. Yeah. Unbelievable. This is a legend right here. So Mary Curry, a Polish physicist and chemist, she's arguably the most famous female scientist, ever. Like you're the most famous female fighter, female scientist.

She was born in... I don't know. Warsaw. Warsaw. Yeah. She passed away in 1934. Well done. Okay, so now you are... I'm going to give you that one. Okay. So you are three for three. All right, let's go to our next one. This is a tough one, by the way. Name that pole. Easy?

Carol Voitewa. Oh, so this was interesting. When I was looking for his picture, all the pictures were him wearing the pole. Yeah. Too easy. my guy in the back New York Rick said there's no way you're going to get this there he is Pope John Paul you're not a fan yeah I'm big fan oh you're big fan like I got like lots of emotions right now why why is that

because I am a Catholic you know so he's like an icon for me icon Pope John Paul is second right now he's what Saint what's that Saint like saint Saint that's right Cato Wojtewa Vojtewa Wow John Paul II John Paul the second there John Paul the second

Where was he born? In Wadovice. That's right. Oh my gosh. You really know your stuff. Niakr as well. I wouldn't know this about Canadian people. How long did he last as a poll?

How long was his tenure? I don't know. I don't remember. 26 years? 26, yeah. How about that? He was the... 80-something, yeah?

Did you know he was the youngest pope? Yeah. Ever? Yeah. Amazing. Okay. Now it gets a little tougher, by the way. Okay.

So so far, you're four-for-four. Well done. Are you having fun? Yeah, sure. Do you want to have some donut? No, later. Okay, maybe later. All right, here we go.

Let's go to our next one. Name that poll. Polanski. What is going on here? He's a director, yes? Yes, an Academy Award-winning four-time nominated Polish film director, Roman Polanski, born in 1933. Lots of bad stories about him. This guy is a controversial figure.

You know, he's had a very tough life. But he was living in Italy, probably, yeah? Yes, yes. You know, he lived in during the World War II, and he had to hide. He was Jewish. but what happened? His wife, was it his wife? Yes, his wife was murdered.

Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, she was pregnant. Her name was Sharon Tate in 1969. Tate, who was pregnant at the time, was murdered by serial killer Charles Manson's sect. But then in 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty in the United States to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old. And then he had to flee, right? This is all I heard, him. Bad news.

That's bad stuff. Okay, so there he is. Roman Polanski. Look at you. On fire now. Five for five. You are killing it. Okay, let's go to the next one.

I don't know if you're going to get this one. Here we go. Lech Valenza, the Polish president. The Polish president himself. Say it again. Lech Valenza. Is he still the president? No, long time ago.

It was communist that time. That's right. So do people like him or not like him? Yes, so much. They like him. What about Polanski? They don't like him. They like him.

Controversial. Yeah, controversial. Yeah. So anyhow, this is the former president of Poland. He's a noble. Peace Prize Laureate. And he's credited with changing the Polish political system. So people like him.

Solidarity. Yes, there it is. Solidarity. In 1989, after the fall of the Soviet Union, he persuaded leaders from the formerly communist parties to form the first non-communist coalition government. Unbelievable. He's still alive?

Yes. Yes. You know, it's interesting. In 2000, he ran for president, but didn't get any support. Did you know that? Yeah. Why? I don't know. You vote?

It got changed, you know. Do you vote? That time not. But now you do? Yeah, I do. I feel like people want to have you on their side. I feel like a lot of the politicians are you. You know, last time they chose new president.

Yeah. So I've got lots of pictures that they put me on the list, you know. Wow. That's dirty. And you didn't vote. They made fun of it. Okay, so now we're six for six. Yeah.

This is amazing. Did you think you would do this well? I didn't think so Okay, here we go This one's tough I don't know if you're going to get this one Here we go, name that pole I don't think you're going to get

Is he Polish? You know, I feel this is a, you know It's almost not fair on my part This man is Mike Shoshchevsky Do you know who Mike Shoshchewski? Well, he's Polish American His family is from Poland But he's a very famous

Basketball coach He is a coach for Duke University One of the greatest coaches of all time Hall of Fame are legend So I didn't know He's the son of a Polish American Catholic parents parents. This man, you need to know who he is. Mike Shoshavsky. So it's a bit of a trick. I tried to trick you,

but he's Polish-American. You see his name, Sheshvsky, K-R-Z-Y-Z-E-W. Shishvsky. Yeah, she was born in Chicago, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, you got good eyes. How about that? All right, so there's my, so you learned something new? Yeah. Very nice. Okay, so I still say you're six for six. That was kind of a curveball. Okay, who's next? Name that poll. How about that? You're Anna Krupa? Wow. So what do people think about her? She's a very famous model here and she's on TV.

She's working for TV, doing some, you know, all kind of stuff. She's very famous. Do you like her? They are laughing about her accent because she speaks more English than Polish. Okay. But she's very nice. You like her? Yeah, I like her.

Have you ever met her? No. Beautiful lady. Yeah, she is. Yeah. Lots of famous Polish models. Are beautiful. And are famous.

But she's famous here in the U.S. because I think she has a reality show or something. Yeah, probably. Do they follow her over there in Poland? They don't like her anymore. No, they like her. They do. But they're bigger names.

She's getting a little old, right? Yeah. Anyhow, this was a younger picture of Joanna Krupa or Yohana Krupa. No, but she still looks the same, you know. Still looks the same. Always young. Where was she born? I don't know.

Warsaw. She's been in every single magazine possible. Okay, there she is. Still alive, 1979. She was born. Okay, here's the next one. Name that poll. This is another.

tough one. How about that? What do you think? Marching Gortat? No, close. So I was going to do Marching Gortat, but that would be, that'd be too easy, right? This is Machek Lampé. Lamp. You know him? Yeah, I heard. You heard of him. You know it's a funny story

about him. He was drafted by my beloved New York Knicks way back when, like in 2000 or something. And I really thought he was going to be a great player. But then they traded him to Phoenix for Stephen Marbury. Is he a big deal there? Not really? It's more about Marcin Gortat.

He's the best. Yeah. The most famous NBA player? Yes, he's doing the charity game between the Polish army and famous people. So he's very big. You were supposed to play in it, right? That's supposed to, but I cannot because of the injuries. That's too bad.

I'm not. I'm going to watch it. On TV. Yeah. No, I'm going to be in Glasgow. Oh, okay, okay. Was that the first time they asked you to do it? to be a part of it?

Yes. That's a big deal. Yep. Have you ever met, Marchine? No. He's wearing a Polska. But we have the same friends. Oh, wow.

Yep. He's wearing the, that's the national team? Probably is. Yeah. Machia clumpy. I wonder if he's still playing these days. I think he's actually playing in Spain. He's born in Lodz.

Wich. Wudge. How about that? Horrible. Why are we so bad at speaking the Polish names? It's very embarrassing. Okay, here's our next one. Name that poll.

Here we go. How about that? Dorota Rapcheska, the nickname Doda. Doda! I heard that she is the... Your eyes are big. Well, she is a very nice-looking lady. Polish, Britney Spears.

Yes, she is. Yeah. How do people feel about her? Different. Do you like her? Like a... Yes. Pop star.

Yes, she is. Yeah. You know, she has Hebrew writing on her arm over there. You see that? Yeah. You know what that says? That means to love Radek. Radik, yeah.

Her husband. Radik, he was a soccer player. Now he's like a superstar, kind of like celebrity, yeah. Ah, like a socialite. Yeah. How do you feel about them as a couple? Not a fan.

They're not together anymore. Oh, what happened? I don't know. So she has a tattoo with his name and they're not even together. It's crazy. That is crazy. That's why don't do it. Don't do it.

How do you feel about marriage? Do you want to get married? Yes, I want to. But no tattoos. it names. No. It's just, what's the point? Yeah.

Is she still famous? Kind of. Yeah. Do you listen to her music or no? No. Okay. Here we go. Name that poll.

We only got two more left. How about this guy? Actually, this is the last one. This is a tough one, but I wanted to keep him last. Close. You know, it's funny. I was going to do Andrew Golata. Let me think.

Okay, okay. So this is another tricky one. It's an American. Is it a wrestler? Yes. Was he the wrestler? Polish Canadian. I don't know.

Killer Kowalski. Kowalski? You know him? No. Walter Kilarowski, one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Oh, so I didn't hear about... He's the son of Polish immigrants, and he grew up in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

I mean, this is a legend right here. This man has trained many of the great wrestlers of today. You're going to read about him. I thought it would be good. Galada, too easy. Killer Kowalski. That man, I mean, it doesn't get any bigger than him. I must check.

Do you like professional wrestling? Not at all. Okay. You didn't grow up watching that? It's very popular in America, but in Poland not that much. No. Maybe that's why you don't know Killer Kowalski. All right, so there it is.

Name that poll. What did you think? Yeah, I had fun. You had fun. Sometimes I don't know if you're telling me the truth. Did I win some? Donuts. I should have done that at the end as your present.

But I got to say, I was really impressed with your knowledge, especially of the early ones, because I didn't know Chopin. Marri Kerr. I didn't know that they were from Poland. Yeah. Because Chopin is a French name. Yes, it is, kind of. Hmm.

And soon one day, you know what, in 50 years, someone's going to play this game, and you're going to be up there as one of the famous Polish people, and there'll be a young girl or guy, you know, and you'll be, is that what you want? You want to be known? Is that what you're most proud of, your Polish heritage? Yes, why not?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully they're about to tell me that the phones are working. We could get back to Michael Bisping. Yes? More questions for you. Okay.

I'm realizing now how negative they were. Is this a reflection on your current state of mind? Well, these were selected much earlier in the show when we were rolling along. Tell me about your experience at NXT this weekend. It was awesome. I could not recommend going to see a live wrestling event more highly. It was a lot of fun. And I didn't even miss comment.

A lot of times when I'm at like a, you know, a fight event, like a UFC event or, you know, kickboxing or whatever the case may be, you really start to feel like you're missing the commentary because there's lulls and kind of, you know, silence and downtime. But the WWE event really flowed nicely in the crowd chants and all that stuff. How did you even end up there? I, a friend of a friend works for WWE. What? What do they do? They're in, uh, is this like a top secret? thing? You don't like to

talk about these things. Why not? Just tell me his job. It's actually a she. Okay. Even better. And she works in like talent relations. Talent relations? Yeah. Why she hook us up with some guests? Could have had a guest today on the show. No, not that end of it. The other way. Like, uh, like entertainers, like getting involved with the, the WWA. Oh, did she get the, um, the green arrow guy at SummerSlam? I'm sure they were involved with that. That's interesting. So they get like celebrities to the events.

Yeah. So basically she... Like connecting with the, you know... Yeah. So she got you. She got you to the show. You're the celeb. Yeah, that was it.

I had a run-in. So for anyone who doesn't know, NXT is like the spinoff, but not so much the spin-off. It's like the AAA of WV. Yet they have some veterans. Yeah, I mean, Kevin Owens was there.

Kevin Owens. He was fighting the next night on SummerSlam. Which I don't like. It's like either you're in or you're out. Oh, he gave it as all, though. No, I know. But from like a character standpoint, it feels like he's living double life.

Okay, fine. So you have that, and then you have legends like Juschen Liger, and then you have Samoa Joe, who if you've been following wrestling, I mean, this guy. Now, I looked on Wikipedia and apparently Juschen Liger is 50 years old. Yeah, who knows if it's the same guy, but... But that's pretty incredible. If he was 50, then God bless him. He looked great.

Well, so is the Undertaker in that range. Yeah, but he was doing a lot more athletic kind of moves than... Absolutely. The one thing I'll say, I did tune in, more so because I was curious about the crowd that they were able to sell out an arena like Barclay Center. I heard that they released two-inched tickets on Saturday and sold them out in 20 seconds. So I was curious about the Brooklyn crowd and all that stuff. My one gripe was that it felt too rehearsed.

It felt too scripted. Like it's clear that it's the minor leagues to a degree. Some of the characters are figuring it out, all that stuff. But when the minor leagues are presented on a stage like that where it looks like the big leagues, it's hard to remind yourself that this is, for the most part, a group of athletes who aren't quite ready for the big leagues. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, I didn't get that feeling from the audience. Now, A, I'm not watching, you know, on TV with the tight camera angles and seeing that, you know, very up close.

I'm kind of just seeing the outlines of moves and seeing all that type of stuff from the crowd. and also I have this you know, raucous, you know, 15,000 plus person crowd that's around me and it's,

you get really into it. So I didn't get that sense. Like I thought it was, it was fantastic. You know, everything looked awesome and all the matches were a lot of fun.

But I could understand that. I'm sure if I went back and watched it on, on the network, it would be, but the crowd was fantastic. Oh, it was,

it was bonkers. It was, it was something that I would recommend for anybody. I could not recommend it more highly. even if you didn't know who these people were. I don't know. I feel like you're a closet wrestling fan.

Like, you keep dropping these little clues here and there. I mean, you're showing up to NXT events. It takes a special kind of wrestling fan to do that. I love the idea of like wrestling as a business. Like I listen to all the podcasts because I like the idea of, like I like when they talk about behind the scenes type stuff. I like when they talk about work versus shoot stuff. But I don't really follow the wrestling.

but I like the the wrestling business is very fascinating to me. Yeah. And there are a lot of similarities. To the fight business. Sure. Well, to the MMA business in particular. More similarities between wrestling and MMA than wrestling and boxing, just based on how the organizations are structured and the promoters and all that stuff.

I know Brock compared Dana and Vince McMahon last week, and that got people all in a tizzy. But, yeah. No, I do like that aspect of it. But let's give credit. where it's due. If you don't understand what NXC is, that's fine. I'm telling you it's a minor league, two degree, it's kind of a quasi-minor league, spin-off promotion. That's not that old. And that was able to sell out a major league arena like the Barclays Center. That's incredible.

That is amazing. How about my man Kevin Owens dropping that promo? Did you see that promo where he called the wrestling fans in Florida, the John Cena of wrestling fans? Did you see that? No. I don't even know what's going on. You can't look at you. You show up to NXT, just because it's the cool thing to do in the borough. And you don't even know what's going on. Nah, get out of here. What do you mean? You don't even know about the promo.

I know about the promo. I'm there to watch a great show. I'm not there to watch every promo that they've ever cut in their lives. This is a great. This is maybe the best promo since the CM Punk Las Vegas promo. Oh, God. Wait, that happened in Las Vegas? You know which I'm talking about?

When, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, the table. And then he sat there and he sat there and he was, like, hey, Cole Cabana, that whole thing. Oh, I thought he did, uh, I thought the pipe bomb was the famous one. There's another one. The most famous one is Las Vegas. It's more famous than the pipe bomb. This is the pipe bomb.

Oh, oh. Yeah, I know about that. I didn't know what happened in Las Vegas, but yeah, I know about that one. I think it was actually the MGM. Either MGM or Mandalay. Anyway, so you went to NXT, you loved it. How many T-shirts did you buy? None, but.

Not one? Nothing? No souvenir. I'm not, I'm not buying T-shirts. I don't buy, like. not even like a like a like a like an ironic one something no i'm not there to be ironic i'm not there to make fun i'm not there to become a super hardcore fan either i wanted to see a good show and i saw a great one okay and then to make matters worse you went to a way wait wait wait wait you went to a major league gaming sort of no no major league gaming is like an organization like a league

this one was not MLG. This one was, I think, Riot, the makers of League of Legends hosted this one. I could be wrong about that, but this was the North American Championship for League of Legends. The North American Championship, and what is League of Legends?

League of Legends is a computer game that's the most played game ever in history, across computers, consoles, all that stuff. The most played downloaded game. Oh, because it's an internet game?

Yeah. It's an online game. And what is the premise of said game? You control a character and you fight on a team. It's pretty straightforward. Okay, so it's called League of Legends, and people actually watch other people play this game. So they packed MSG to sit.

Crazy. The people from MSG to sit in an arena and watch people play on computers. The hell is wrong with this world? Come on, be honest. is it interesting at all? I thought I had a great time as well. I went into this weekend thinking I'm gonna hang out with my friends

and have a decent time at both events. Did you go with the same people? No, different people. Okay. And I had a way better time than I expected at both of these things. Which one did you enjoy more? It's hard to say because I really enjoyed them both.

It's very different. Like the crowd for WWE is insane. Like the atmosphere there and, you know, the energy of the arena is completely different. Whereas I was more interested in actually what was happening on the screen with the video games because it was more exciting. It's a championship. It's, you know.

You were more into the video game screen? What? Yeah. That is crazy. It's real drama. It's not a performance. So you're able to understand like, oh, something's going. Like, it's like watching a movie.

Well, no. The WWE is more like watching a movie. No, but, I mean, in a movie, you're watching a guy going to. going through wherever he is, killing people. That's a movie. It's like, no, it's like watching a sports event. It was more, it was closer. I'd say it was actually closer to a sports event than the WWE was.

Are you crazy? What? The, the, the WWE was in a ring. It was, it was, it was, I mean. No, but this was, this was real competition. How many teams? Two teams. It was the finals. So what is it, like, is it, like, is it, is it everyone playing at the same time? So there's five guys versus five guys, and they're all playing at the same time. against each other?

Yeah. Team of five versus team of five, all in one game. And is it like kind of capture the flag where you have to kill the other people? Well, no, capture the flag. You would have to capture the flag. Sure, sure, sure. This is, they're in skirmishes.

So every, you know, player controls one character and they fight on the screen. I can't believe MSG would stoop to this level. How dare you, sir? What a sad state of affairs over at the me? So how long does this last? This was the championship. What do you mean the championship?

This is the North American Championship. And then they go on to what, the World Series? They go on to the World Championship, where they're going to get beat by the Koreans or the Chinese. Where were these people from? Some of them were from other places. Like I think you're allowed to have players from other countries, but mostly Americans. No, but like the North American, is it like Chicago versus Boston? It's not like that.

It's like sponsored teams. They have, you know, coaches, they have... Get out of here. They have managers. They have coaches. They have apparel. Like they have jerseys and stuff. How do they introduce them?

Do they come down a ramp? No, they kind of walked out from behind stage and, you know, gave a wave to the crowd. But no, they introduced, like, it was like up first is some, you know, whatever the guy's name, like, Ariel, the nose, Helwani. And then they'd have the guy come out and, you know, there was like pyro and stuff. It was pretty cool. And people are going nuts. Like, they know who these people are. They know exactly who these specific people are.

And what about the jerseys? Are people walking around wearing the. those like is it oh i got a kevin durant esk yeah really oh there's the fandom for this is incredible wow the people knew all how many people uh how many people competing or were there in the arena

in the arena i can't i it's hard to say because they scale it differently for like different things but it was it was i think it was equivalent to like a concert where like you know there was a stage for sure over 10k at least 15 i have to think that is wow they sold out you know msg like a like a performer what. So are you watching it on the big screen? Yes. And elsewhere? There's other

but oh, that's back. They're back. I wonder what someone will think if they just tune in now for some strange reason. What has happened to the M.A. hour. I'm just very fascinated by this. I saw a real sports story on this and I find it very bizarre. I feel like it's really, this is the sign of the apocalypse that people are actually into this thing. I don't feel that way. I'm kind of excited about this. And I don't even. What does that mean? Are you going to get into it? No, I don't play these games.

It's the same thing with the wrestling. I had an amazing time, but it didn't compel me to watch or play it. I would be curious to check it out just to see how bizarre it is. I have an open mind when it comes to these things. I'm not one of these hoity-to-ty people. I think if you're a wrestling fan, you can kind of see the wrestling and all this stuff. What do you mean by that? I feel like all of this is sports entertainment.

All of this is theatrics. Oh, I see. I see. Okay, okay. You know, if you're a wrestling fan, you can appreciate this. wacky society that we live in and the subcultures that reside in it. I feel like people who don't get wrestling are a certain kind of person

who just can't suspend disbelief. Like they can't just think outside the box. I mean, I just really feel like people who take themselves so serious. Like I saw ESPN covering SummerSlam. I thought that was really cool. Great. They were thinking outside the box. It's a quiet sports weekend. But then I see other people commenting like, what the hell is ESPN doing? Bo, blah, blah, blah. I mean, just relax. Stop taking yourself so serious. So I get it. I'm not trying to put these people down. I just feel like watching someone play a video game, is there a commentary? Oh, there's

commentary, yeah. Oh, wow. This is, this is, this is big stuff. Okay. I know, I know. I saw the real sports story. I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. One guy was like a mega star. He's taking pictures of people signing autographs. These guys are celebrities. They sold out the Staple Center. There were lots of people there saying, you know, oh, I'm here for this guy or that guy. It's amazing. They're big celebrities. And, um, now what's, what's the, um, the demographic breakdown at these things. Very young. Very young.

All males? Not all males, no. So, you know, there were a lot of females, a lot of cosplayers and things like that. What was that? Where you dress up, like the characters? Oh, get the hell out of here. Oh, yeah. Those people walking around like that?

Oh, yes. They're walking around as the characters from the game? How's that much different? Like, that's like, when I went to WWE, there were people dressed up as Kevin Owens. Yeah, I know, but are they dressed like, what are these characters? Are they like, furries? Yeah, no, not furries, but there's like characters that are animals and. things like that. Oh my gosh. And when you say young, do you mean like sub 18? Possibly. Yeah. I mean,

there's definitely high school kids and junior high school kids there. With parents? But there's also, no, I mean, most of them seem to alone. But there's also like, you know, older people, older than myself. And get out of here. I think I'm old. What's the oldest person you saw? Like, someone in their 50s? Someone in their 50s, yeah. Probably there was with this kid. Probably. But, you know, I think it skews, it skews younger for sure, but it, right. reaches all demographics. And how long was this, you said?

So it was a best of five that went only three fights. Is there an undercard? No, no. It's just straight into it. Yeah. It was a best of five that lasted only three bouts

or three, you know, matches. So it was like, I'd say game time, it was like an hour and a half. But there was other theatrics. There's promos. There's video packages.

Promos? Like they're talking smack? Oh, yeah. They're doing interviews. And the guys are like, oh, that guy's trash. Like he's not. He's not a good, he's not a good player in this specific way or this guy.

And then they're, they're cutting to the commentary team and they're cutting to people who lost earlier in the tournament who are, you know, giving their opinion on the, on the matchup. It's, it's legit. So bizarre. What's the production line? There's, I think there's even like Ariel Hawanis of the, you know, the esports. Reporters? Yeah, there's definitely guys who fill that role. If it's that big, I would imagine there's a media.

contingency. I think, dare I say it, I think it's bigger than our small little bubble. You really think so. Yeah, you're right. I mean, if they could sell, first of all, how crazy is it that they can do that at MSG and not MMA? But I get why. I mean, one's just a video game. The other one is combat sports.

But I wonder, I wonder what industry generates more money. I mean, I guess if you compare the video game industry to the MMA industry, it's not even close. But there's a way to compare maybe just professional gaming. And I would have to think, just based on what I saw and what I think I know, which is not as much as most. I think that they might have a bigger draw than we do. That is bizarre. So you enjoyed it. It was awesome.

There was never a point where you were like, what the hell am I doing here? Well, again, like my friends were into it. Like, I think a lot of that... What does that mean when you say they're into it? They play it themselves, and they know, like, the strategies and the techniques that are going on. So I think a lot of it matters, like, what kind of crowd you're with. And for NXT and for this League of Legends championship, it was a very good crowd. And I had a great time.

what a weekend you had it was nice when was that Sunday that was Saturday and the the video game thing was on Sunday Sunday night Sunday afternoon into evening you spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon watching people play video games how dare you it's a bizarre thing but I appreciate the open mindness I think that's good to check out

look I wasn't going in thinking that I was going to start picking up the game and be a convert I just wanted to have a good time and see a good show and I and I feel like on Saturday and Sunday I saw both times I got a really good You go to SummerSlam. Why didn't your WWE friend? I didn't want to be greedy. I mean, come on now.

Wait, did you pick NXT? No, no, I didn't. I didn't. Okay. That was never on the table. I'm not, I'm not famous enough. I'm not John Stewart. Wait, did someone reach out to you and say, hey, New York Creek of MMR

Fame? I have this, or was it a friend who said, hey? No, no, it was a friend. Hmm. While we're shooting the breeze here and trying to figure out the phones, why don't you tell us about your weekend last weekend? You live a very, very, you live an eventful life. It's just always something going on.

Is that how you describe it, eventful? Where were you last weekend? I was in New Orleans for my bachelor party. Now, before we actually get into what happened here, is it not true that you pick New Orleans over Montreal? That is, no, that is not true. My friends who are organizing a bachelor party, you do not choose your own destination. They chose, if you want. They chose New Orleans over Montreal.

Now, is it not true that you forgot that I had a bachelor party? Well, yes. I mean, how am I supposed to remember these things? I can hardly even remember, you know, what the hell the day it is. I mean, trust me, I got more problems on my hands. It was up to you to remind me, as I asked you to remind me. You did not remind me. But anyway, you went to New Orleans on your bachelor party.

Was it a success? I mean, was it, you know, something that, oh, wow, the bachelor party. I mean, this is something people dream about. Think about your bachelor party in New Orleans. Hopefully you only have one in your lifetime. I will only have one. I love my wife dearly. Well, I mean, just saying, she might not feel the same.

How dare you? You know what? I am. Is he gone? Is that it? I just wanted to know if it lived up to your expectations. That's all. Look, I can't do interviews with anyone else.

I actually think he didn't do that. Oh, did he do it? Here we go. Okay. What did you do? Did you unplug it? They're messing around with the board over there. But it felt like you actually did that yourself.

I may have. I'm jonesing to interview someone, so I have to resort to interviewing you. That's how pathetic my life has become. I think this might be our highest rate in this segment of all time. Can you tell me if it lived up to your expectations? I didn't really have expectations because I didn't, you know, I'm not like a party person. I don't go out like to clubs or to bars or anything like that. I don't even actually drink.

So, you know, I didn't have an expectation that it would be some kind of like debauched event. But it was nice. I had a good time. We went fishing. I caught quite a few fish. I happened to be an expert fisherman. Wow. Really? You've done it before? Never done it before. Oh, wow. Okay. What they say, beginners' luck, that was quite good. I've always wanted to fish. I've never fish before in my life. I've always wanted to go like a very quiet. Yeah. Let's not get crazy. I've had enough for you on this one day. You'll be lucky if I ever come back to this damn show. If you ever see me again. But what did you catch? Catfish and redfish.

You love catfish. I love catfish. Is it not true that you used to eat catfish every day for lunch? It's not true, but I used to get fried catfish from a local area. And it would, the smells would... Why no more? I don't know. Is it not good for you?

No, catfish is great for you in general. Yeah, well... But it is fried. Oh, it's fried. So did you eat the catfish? We got to go to, take it to a restaurant and cook up. They cooked up our catfish that we caught fresh, so we got to eat it. which is a really nice experience.

What else did you catch? Redfish. What's that? Tuna? It's a white, it's a white fish, so it's like, you know, a very flaky kind of...

The whitefish is the redfish? Well, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's like a... I really thought it was going to be red. Not tuna. Like, it's more like a... What's the... What are some crappy fish?

Like, you know, it's like the flaky white fish. Cod, yeah, like cod, or something like that. Oh, that's a good fish. I like that. But it's called Redfish? That's its actual name? Yeah, because it's red. On the outside. On the inside it's... No, but it doesn't have like a real name, like a halibut or something like that? No.

It's such a boring name. So you caught that. Did you wear an outfit while you were fishing? Or wore a tiara. No. What I want to do is wear like one of those overalls with the high boots in the water. I guess it's called fly fishing, right? Yeah, no, that's fly. That is fly fishing. But we were in a boat. We were in a boat.

Fly fishing, by the way, is that, why is it called fly fishing? Are you using flies as your bait? No, I think because there's something on the line that's called a fly or something like that. I love fly fishing. Wait, you love it. You never done it. No, I've never done it, but it just seems so peaceful. Yeah, there's an artificial fly on the line that's used to catch fish. But it's not in the sense that it's not like a fly that buzzes around. I want to go to North Carolina, you know, tobacco road, something like that. I just can't do a lot of fishing.

I have to tell you, this fishing talk on the MMA, I have to tell you, this fishing talk on the MMA, hour it is. Well, look, I'm just trying to entertain myself at this point. No one else. I do see a hundred people still on the stream, and I appreciate those people very much, 133 to be exact. They're just waiting, hoping, praying that something is salvaged. And here I am. I mean, we're, we're broadening our horizons here. Anyway, so we get the new viewers. What else did you do? Yeah, this is definitely how we get the new viewers. I, uh, I, I, uh, had a few drinks for the first time in quite a long time. I haven't had alcohol since we did that UFC fit thing all the way back then.

Get out of here. No, I stopped drinking completely after that. Not once. Like maybe a beer like one time, but I pretty much cut alcohol completely out. Okay. So that, I mean, you know, obviously I didn't stay as skinny as I was back then, which was too skinny in my opinion, but I was healthy as a damn horse. But I did completely cut alcohol out of my diet, which is one.

Great thing that came out of that. So, yeah, I had a few drinks on Bourbon Street, as one would do when they're in New Orleans. Yes. And then... How long were you there for? I was there for the weekend only. It sounds like a great time. I still feel like you'd have had a better time in Montreal.

I'm sure I would have. How many people? Four people. Me and my three groomsmen. That's it. Yeah. Did you share a room? No, we had two rooms.

Hmm. How was your bachelor party? It was great. It was like eight years ago, though. So no one cares about that. It was a different man, different time, different place. You know, I said to you before the show, I said, I don't know what I'm looking forward to more, the actual show or the end of the show. I am so relieved that everyone showed up.

I am relieved that everyone brought it. And then some. Holy moly, what a show. What a cast of characters, right? And I'm happy that people tuned in because it appears as though we had some pretty good viewership, right? We had huge numbers. We had a lot of questions. Do you want to do some questions?

Yes, I'd love to. They've allowed us to go a little bit longer, right? Just a little bit. They have. It's very nice. And while you want to do questions, we're not actually going to do questions. Why? We have a message from a special fan.

Okay. And we're going to play that in lieu of questions today. What? Thank you, everybody, for submitting some fantastic questions. We have to answer questions. We must. So we're going to, in lieu of that, take a message from one special person. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Andrew Mayer, and most of you know me is the advocate

the reigning, defending UFC champion Daniel Cormier. There's something you don't know about me. Long before I was Daniel Cormier's advocate, and long after, I have always been and I always will be an Ariel Hawani guy. Now I'm talking to one man and one man only, Ariel Hawani. Ariel, you are an inspiration, a role model, and a pioneer in the MMA community.

I can't thank you enough for all you've done, and the MMA hour giving us all fans an outlet to hear the gossip and hear the trash talk each Monday. So thank you, and I would say I'm your biggest fan, but there's a couple people that might have a problem with that. I've been around long enough that I remember when you first came on the scene, and it's been pretty amazing watching you build the MMA hour into what it is. So, congratulations on the 300th episode, and hey, maybe by the 600th episode, your bills may have

finally beat the Patriots. Ariel Hwani. Oh. 300 episodes. Man with a hat. 300 times you've been back in our lives, man. That's an awful long time. I'm not sure whether the laugh or cry about that, but congratulations on the milestone.

You've come a long way from that quiet kid who wouldn't come out of his dorm room. Syracuse, my man. Keep up the good work. Here's the 300 mo. Ariel Hawani. Without you, I would not be in the position I'm currently in. And when I say position I'm currently in, I mean hated by 90% of the M&A fighting fan base. But in all seriousness, congratulations on the greatest show in mixed martial arts, the MMA hour. You're the best in the business. It's a privilege to be on your team. Congratulations, Ariel. Wow, man, 300 shows. That's a tremendous, tremendous accomplishment. You're the hardest working man I know in this business. I can't thank you enough for all

opportunities you've given me throughout the years. Congratulations again. You deserve all of your success. On to the next 300th. Wow. Hey Ariel, congratulations on a 300th show. I'm really proud of you. This is really awesome and it's been an honor to work with you all these days. Congratulations, Ariel Omani on your 300th episode. I just don't doubt you even had a podcast, so this is even more exciting. Congratulations. Hi, Fetta, thank you for putting on 300 amazing shows and make our money better. To celebrate this, I had to come to your favorite place on Earth

and have one for you. Yes. Palibins. Who's this? Way back in the day, there was Beatles and there was Ali, and Ariel Hohwani was a student at Ithaca College. And that's where I first remember him.

And I just want to say, after 300 episodes of the MMA hours spanning how many years? Congratulations, Ariel. You've done a wonderful job with your career. and it's just great to be working with you for all this time. Maybe this one.

Maybe this one. This is unbelievable. Maybe this one. You know, hey, Aero, I'm just looking for an appropriate shirt for an appearance on the M&A hour. I mean, you've had 300 of them. I figure I'll get invited to one someday. But for now, I offer you a shirtless congratulations.

Hey, Aero, Brian, Stan here. What? Congratulations, 300th episode. Don't let it go to your hands. although I'm sure you will I will see you soon buddy and congrats again. Yo Ariel happy 300 episode this is I really like you that much but I'm still gonna congratulate you because 300 episodes is a lot stay up buddy Ariya I just want to say congratulations on your 300 episode of our the Howard

CoSell of MMA that's you buddy congratulations my good friend and thank you for always putting on the spot and making me We feel uncomfortable. You know that's hard to do, because I got no shame, but you find a way to bring it out of me. Thank you, my man. Thanks. What's up, Ayer. This is crazy.

I want to congratulate you on your 300th episode of M.M.A. Hour, man. I wish you nothing but success. Area One in the whole M.A Hour. You got set the bar. Congratulations on your 300th episode. T. Wood. Congrats on your 300th episode. I love watching it.

I can believe these people even know who I am. Congrats, buddy. We love you. Hey man, I just want to say congratulations on the 300 episode. I'm a big fan, always watch your stuff. Keep you going. What's up, bitch. Erio Hwani, 300 show, what's up, man?

Give me call. I want to come back on later, man. Hey, Ariel, congratulations. 300 episodes, that's amazing. People, you know, they know you as the male model that you are, but it's your great mind that they keep tuning in for, so keep it up, brother. What's up, Ariel, 300 episode,

and then y'all are proud to have you, brother. You're a great idea. to the sport stayed for 300 more. Congratulations on your 300 shows. This is crazy. I remember when it was your first show with me back at AKA when we got in trouble for that big deal and you went in there and you know nervous, a little nervous but very professional.

I'm happy to say I'm glad where you, you know, you accomplished all these goals and you're the best. Congratulations, Eric, 300 episodes. Congratulations. D.C. son, honey daughter. Congratulations, Ariel. It's been awesome. You've been my first interview. Once it started the game, you know, probably be my last. It's been a pleasure. I'm not so. What you're good best? What can I say, buddy? Hey, what's going to Aaron 1.8? Just want to congratulate you on your NBA hour show on a 300 episode.

It's an amazing thing you do for the sport and besides all that, we need to play a game of basketball, you know? I'm a black man. I don't play my basketball, but I got some hoops and I think I got out on triple you. And another thing, I always appreciate you, always have my back and always pushing me to do things that I don't want to do. But like I said, man, congratulations. I feel the good episode, that's a big thing. And you have the good work, buddy. Awwani knows. Hey, what's up, Ariel? What's morning?

Congratulations you on your 300th MMA hour episode. The Pioneer. I really don't care what Andy says about you. You're the man. Ariel Margo. Mark and Red. This is unbelievable. Ariel Juan, congratulations on number 300.

You're the best, baby. Ariel Helwani, congratulations on 300. Congratulations on 300 episodes and I hope you get 3,000 more buddy good job Ariel congratulations on your 300th episode Sean Shelby Ariel congratulations on your 300th episode of the MMA hour and this is as close to exclusive interview as you're ever gonna give it Ariel congratulations 300 episodes Aitown stand up a Ariel Devin Salle here I'd like to congratulate you first on being

Canadian. Yes. And second on doing 300 episodes of one of the cool shows out there, the MMA Hour, which I'm a huge fan of, and I've been watching or listening to for quite some time. So thank you. And congratulations. How Wani, it is Skylar Aston reporting live from Los Angeles. Just want to say, happy 300th episode of the MMA Hour.

You have made all of my MMA fanboy dreams come true by being a guest on the show and on the MMA beat. So I just want to say mazeltov. I am proud to call you a buddy, and you'll always be my favorite. Elwani knows. Wow, 300 years of the MMA hour, that's an incredible amount of time to be covering a sport that has only existed since the 90s. Everybody knows the MMA hour is the Mooney Podcast. You go on the MMA hour. It's a red panty night.

I've been on the MMA hour like 600 times. But I mean, I'm the Ream, so could you blame them? Thanks for everything, guys, and congratulations. Yeah, congrats. You instigating mother- Hey, Ariel, congratulations on your 300 show. It'll probably only make it to 300 one, but congratulations. You know, I got to tell you, it means a mix of emotions.

Oh, man. It means a certain sense of accomplishment, certain sense of pride, gratitude. You know, national podcast day, hashtag podcast day was this past Wednesday. Gave me a chance to reflect on our six and a half year journey, our journey with the fans. all our supporters over the years. I didn't know this would actually be released. Now the espion days, many producers, many people work behind the scenes. And here we are, 3-0.

And you know, some said I couldn't top 2-0. Some question whether we'd be able to recreate the magic of 200. Well, on Monday, October 5, 2015, all the doubters will come home to Roos. because they will recognize that the best podcast period in the entire world has reached the milestone of 300. And when we reach a milestone like 300, you bring out the big guns. Happy 300 episode! Oh my God. Say we love you, Daddy.

Love you. Oh my gosh. Have a great show. Walter, say love you. Oh my. Oh my god, what the heck. Oh my god. Oh my god.

So, we're at the M&M store in. In Times Square. In Times Square. Love you. Oh, yeah. Well, this is crazy. 300 shows. That's a big deal.

Not a lot of people can say that they made it to this point, but I can't say that I'm surprised that you have. I know I'm a little bit biased but I've watched you cover the sports since day one and it's amazing to see the amount of time and effort and hard work that you've put into it and I wanted to wish you a big congratulations on the first 300 and we're looking forward to the next 300 and keep doing what you do with all the passion and love that you do it with. We love you. Hey Arielle, congrats on your 300th episode. I'm so proud of you and all that you've accomplished.

I hope you know I'm your biggest fan and that you can always attribute your success to your little sister who used to pretend to be your secretary and call all the fighters for you. Congrats, love you. Congratulations, Ariel, on another milestone you have done. To say that I'm proud of you, cannot describe how I am proud of you. I hope you continue to follow your dreams, to go places you've never been before, and to do all the things you want to do. I am truly overjoyed with your success.

Mazaltov. Mama knows. Hi, Ariel, I understand you reach 300 shows. I'm very, very proud of you and what you've achieved so far. Extremely proud, in a matter of fact. You're a very courageous person, and once you set an aim, you make it happen. Congratulations. Love you. So I've been a part of this show for nearly 200 episodes.

It's been a real pleasure, real honor. and I think that this is the show that brings, you know, MMA fans what they want every week. And you're the man responsible for that. So thank you, Ariel. Oh, man. Why'd you do that to me? Oh, that was something else. Holy crap, I am blown away. I can't do this show anymore.

That's it. That was like, that was the end. Wow. Thank you for that. Oh, God. It's only because I'm sick. Who's responsible for that? All credit due to Andrew Mayer.

What? Made it happen. Oh, man, thank you so much. What a great guy. Holy crap. That was unbelievable. That was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I am blown away.

I am speechless. That was unbelievable. What can I say? Andrew Mayer, that is a special cat. that guy went to summer camp with my wife when they were little kids. And funny story, they were actually, I think, boyfriend, girlfriend for like a day. And I went to summer camp with them and we were just kind of friends, no crazy connection. And then I went to Orlando to work on a show for Spike TV and I was sitting down at a restaurant and I heard a familiar voice, a raspy voice.

And I said, whoa, I remember that voice. And it was Andrew Mayer. This is like 2006. And then we stayed in contact a little bit. And over the last two years or so, he's become obsessed with MMA, travels to all the events, has essentially become a part of Team D.C. If you watch the Q&As, he often shows up talking about AKA, pumping up AKA. He did it at the Go Big Press conference. A real special guy.

When I moved recently, I was looking around for something to eat, and all of a sudden there was food on my floor. He had ordered Chinese food for my family. But this one tops at all. That was something else. Holy crap. How do you top that? Do you not have any questions? We have no questions.

Oh, okay. That's pretty good. Oh, my God. How about Dwight Howard's first appearance on the environment? He was sitting. I saw him from the Fox that he was sitting with freaking Dwight Howard. That was, I'm blown away. Well, what can you say?

Thank you so much to everyone who appeared in that and to everyone else who's a fan of this show and who has been watching. You know, I feel kind of weird. It's just 300 episodes. It's not the craziest thing in the world. It's only six and a half years. But that was amazing.

I hope everyone gets to experience something like that. That is something I will cherish until I am gone. That was unbelievable. Thank you to everyone behind the scenes. Thank you to MMA Fighting for giving me this platform and Vox. I'd rather not be anywhere else but here. And that's why I'm so proud of this show and love the show so much. And thanks to the guys in the back, Alex, Mark, of course, New York, Rick, a huge part of the show.

There would not be a show without him. He worked so hard behind the scenes. People think, I had someone come up to me and say like, oh, why don't you get a hot girl back there? I was like, what, are you crazy? If you think, you know, I can't excuse his hair. But if you think that all he does back there is just look pretty and get some questions, you are sorely mistaken. He does an incredible job of rallying everything.

And we don't have, you know, the great, this is just at the end of the day an Internet show. So I think we disguised that very well. And thanks to those guys back there and everyone else who's worked on the show from Josh back in the day to all the other guys in between until now it is a true honor. Support for this show comes from Figma. Figma is the place where teams turn ideas into the world's best digital products. And now, Figma is introducing a faster way to make those ideas real with Figma Make. It's an AI-powered prompt decode tool that turns your ideas or your Figma designs

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