MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 295

Episode Date: August 17, 2015

Ariel Helwani speaks to Chris Weidman, Donald Cerrone, Will Brooks, Roger Huerta, Cathal Pendred, and Jeff Novitzky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And 15, Hogan, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani. Inside our New York City studio, my friends last week, a tale of two weeks in the world of mixed martial arts. Monday through Friday? Pretty quiet. I lied. Monday through Friday was super busy. Holy moly was a busy.

A lot going on. Found out the main event and co-main event. for UFC 194, found out main event for UFC on Fox 17, found out that Verdume is fighting Kane again. What else did we find out? Oh yeah, Anderson Silva, a horrendous appearance in front of the Nevada Athletic Commission

and a bunch of other stuff as well. And then over the weekend, it was super quiet, perhaps one of the most quiet non-holiday weekends of 2015. Nothing really happened. small things here or there. But as far as real MMA news, no events, of course, for Bellator World Series of Fighting UFC, nothing really happened. And it was an opportunity to catch

our breath. Get excited for this coming weekend in Saskatoon. Assess what had just happened in the last five days. I mean, the Anderson Silva thing was just very wacky on a whole bunch of levels. And of course, we'll talk about that all show long. But it was a nice, quiet summer weekend

with not a whole lot to about and I appreciated that. But it all ramps up. Once again, we've got UFC this Sunday. Remember, it's Sunday in Skatchewan, and then Bell Tour's back next weekend, and then the following week is UFC191. So as always, much to discuss, much to digest, much to break down, and we are happy to be with you here on this beautiful Monday in New York City, a wonderful day here in the Big Apple. All right, what are we talking about? Who are we talking to on today's show? I believe this is episode 294, 295. We're getting close to 300, my friends. That's going to be exciting. But for now, it's Monday, August 17. 294, 295, something like that. Anyway, at around 245, we're going to talk to

Cahal Pendred. He had an interesting back and forth with one Philip Brooks, aka C. Munk last week on Twitter. So we'll talk to him about that also. He's coming off a loss. He's fighting in Dublin in October. Always good to talk to my good friend, Cahall Pendrid. That will be at 2.45 p.m. Eastern 225, we're going to talk to the UFC's VP of Athlete Health and Performance. His name is Jeff Novitsky. A very powerful, very influential man in the world of anti-doping, was hired by the UFC, and I believe April. He's the one along with Usada that's heading up their new anti-doping efforts.

So I wanted to check in with him around a month after this whole new program, went into place and see how it's going. Where they go from here and also maybe get his thoughts on Anderson Silva as well, who, as you have probably heard by now, has been suspended for a year dating back to his fight against Nick Diaz. So it's retroactive. It expires, if you will, on January 31st, 2016, but he was also fined $380,000. So his entire win bonus and a percentage of his show money. Pretty significant. At 205, we're going to talk to Donald Soroni.

as I said, his UFC on Fox 17 title fight against Hafelde de Sanjos was announced for December 19th in Orlando, Florida. So that's a big one. Will Brooks also had an interesting week. His title fight was announced for November 6 against Marcine Held, but some other stuff was going on as well. So I'm looking forward to talking to Will Brooks, the Bell Tour lightweight champion, and also Roger Huerta, my very first interview guest as far as video interviews are concerned. He returns to action September 1st, one championship. And we'll talk to him at 125. But first, and of course, as always, we are going to take your questions and comments.

So leave us a question or comment in the comment section below, or use the hashtag the MMA Hour on Twitter. But first, let us welcome on our first guest of the day. He is the UFC middleweight champion, the reigning and defending UFC middleweight champion. It was announced last week that he'll be the co-main event against Luke Rockhold at UFC 194. That's December 12th in Las Vegas. he is Chris Wydenman and he joins us right now via the phone. Chris, are you there?

Hey, what's up, buddy? Hey, Chris. So a lot to discuss with you. First things first. Just curious. I'm not trying to start anything. Not trying to make a big deal out of it. But once again, your co-main event. How do you feel about that? You know, it's understandable with this Conner and Jose card,

you know, fight. It's been marketed forever. It was obviously supposed to be one of the biggest fights of the year, now almost the biggest fights in history back in, I guess, July, and then, you know, obviously the whole day got hurt. So the anticipation for this card is, for that fight is ridiculous. So if I was going to have to pick somebody to be a co-main event for, that's a good fight to be a co-main event for.

But, you know, and I'm not fighting a guy like Annison Silver or even Bito Belford or Leo I'm a cheetah. I feel like Luke is still, he has even been on a, maybe on one pay-re-review card in his career. He's never been a main event or co-made event at him pay-review. So he's still up and coming and trying to build his name. So it's good to be, you know, under the big lights and short skills and such a big car. So it's all good. So in other words, you're blaming him for this, right? Absolutely. Well, I mean, you're bringing him to the dance, right?

I mean, as you said, he's only been on one pay-per-view main card, UFC 172. I think he was the third fight on that main card. You're no stranger to this sort of thing, though it is your second time co-main eventing in a row. And after your last fight, you know, you went on the mic and you said, you know, join the team and give you respect, things like that. I thought you would be main eventing your next show, but it sounds like you're not too worried about it.

I mean, it doesn't really matter. you know, they try to put big cards together. There's usually two title fights and usually goes in wait order. So the last one was the Daniel Cormier and Anthony Johnson's card, and they were fighting for a bout. So according to the way they usually do things, of course I was going to become an event, which was whatever. Even though I was the only true champion on that card

because both of them really didn't have a championship, you know, I could argue. But, you know, as long as people are tuning in and they're marketing me the right way. Building up to the fight, I have no real problem. This is definitely different because I'm the heavier guy, so usually I would be the main event. But because of the buildup for this, their fight,

I understand why they would want to make me the cool main event. And correct me from wrong, you get paper viewpoints, so this is a good cart to be on, right? Exactly. I'll be making good money. Nice. Well, I'm happy for you. I can't. I'm not going to be complaining. Speaking of that amazing promo earlier this year that joined the team won, have you sense that more people are giving you love joining the team, so to speak? Yeah, absolutely.

A lot more love, so I really appreciate it. I have some amazing fans, so I definitely feel it. I don't know what it is, but it definitely feels like people have turned the corner on you. It feels like finally they are accepting you as champion and excited about your fight. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that promo, that performance against Vitor. Maybe it's this fight that they finally feel like, okay, you're fighting someone who's kind of your age. I know that Anderson, the first one, you were, you were, to some people in Underdog,

I know the hardcore MMA enthusiast, the fellow fighter, didn't think of you that way. But I don't know, it just feels like after that fight, something has changed. Have you noticed that? After this last fight? After this last fight, something seems to have changed. Yeah, I think the more times you win, Hey, what's up, buddy? Hey.

The more times you win, the more fans you get. And I think with me, it was kind of a weird circumstance. You know, I beat Anst so, you know, it wasn't my nice fight or my intense fight. What was going to? Who's bothering you there? What's going on? I just walked into the gym and I'm walking by people without saying hi. Oh, okay, okay.

I understand. I don't know that I'm on the phone with you guys. Thank you. Yeah, so, I mean. I don't even know where we are. I'm sorry about that. Who is responsible for making you lose your train of thought? I want to know who the culprit is.

There's a couple of guys at the front desk. They don't deserve the name. Okay. You mentioned Anderson, so let me ask you, what did you make of that whole bizarre scene in Nevada last week? I mean, it was, in my opinion, the worst performance in front of a commission ever. And it wasn't only his fault. It was his team's fault as well, the legal team, his defense team.

And they did him a major disservice. When you go in front of the commission, as you know, it's not just you speaking there. You have actual professionals, legal representation, that are supposed to defend you in the best way possible. They did not do that. What did you make of it, considering you have fought this guy twice? And here he is, I mean, coming up with this really bad excuse. I didn't watch it all. I know I told you a little bit, but I didn't.

I watched like a little bit of it. And I've seen some people. So I don't know the fact. I didn't, you know, I don't want to just kind of start talking without knowing the facts, but I saw some people said that he changed the story like three times or so a boss Ruden said that. And my thing is just, you know, everyone just grew up. I kind of, I tweeted this out, but everybody messes up so people understand that. But, you know, people don't like liars.

So if you mess up, man, just be honest. People, people respect that and understand it because everyone, everyone messes up. And people appreciate honesty. and if you're changing your story three different times, that doesn't sound good. Just fess up. To me, the most telling part of the entire hearing was that he said it was the first time

that he had ever been tested outside of fight night. This situation was the first time ever. So going to your fight, I know it's the same case for you, but I mean, when you heard that, if you did hear that, what did that make you think about? Wow, so going into my fight, is it possible he was doing something as well?

Do you think of that? I mean, if I would have lost to him, I'd be thinking that. Yeah. Because I'd beat him and so whatever. I'm not putting too much stored into that. It doesn't make a difference if he was on it or not on it. So, no. What is it about you fighting these Brazilians who afterwards seem to go in this downward spiral?

Look what you did to Anderson. Look what you did to Leoto. The Vitor thing is kind of up in the air. But, I mean, you feel like you... It's not just... It's not just the Brazilian. Oh, yeah, that's right. I mean, you could start even before this.

I feel like everybody who I fight, they're doing so good. Everyone thinks they're going to beat me. Then after I beat them, they just, they don't look too good anymore. You can start Mark Munoz. I think he was on a three or four fight win streak. He was going to fight for that title. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the chance to be against the Silva. And then I beat him, and, you know, he went on a pretty crazy losing streak, and then he sucked. You know, in people's eyes, these are the things that I said. I beat Mark Muno's, but he sucks. But at the time, when I'm fighting him, he's a man, you know, and I was going to lose to him. And then obviously the Anderson Silva fights,

people have many excuses afterwards, but you watch him against Stefan Bono to fight before, or who he fight before that, I don't know. But he's unbeatable, you know, and he's, you know, obviously he was putting his hands down in those fights, and, you know, he did that same thing to me, besides I stuck. I stuck to what I was planning on doing.

I stayed on course and took him out. And then, you know, since then he hasn't looked so good. And then obviously, other than we have Machita for Liotto. I was going to a tough patch, and we'll see what happens with him. But there seems to always be no matter what. It's just excuses, excuses. By the way, before Bonner, it was the second Chale-Sunin fight. Gotcha.

Just for the record. When did he finish Chale in that fight? It was that first? Second round. Second round. Second round. Okay. And then I beat him and he's old.

And I got lucky because he had his hands down. So speaking of this topic, later on in the show, we're going to be joined by Jeff Novitsky. And I know you've been one who has been very vocal about PED use in MMA. Are you happy where things stand a month into this whole new program with Usada? I'm happy where, from what I heard, all this stuff was going to happen. And I hope it is happening, but, you know, I haven't been drug tested randomly yet since... I don't know. I got a...

They 100% started this thing, right? They're supposed to be drug testing people randomly right now, right? Yeah, yeah, it started in July. Yeah, so, yeah, nothing... I haven't been drug tested yet. I want to be drug tested, and I want to be randomly drug tested anytime because that's going to clean up a sport. I want everybody, I want everybody else to be drug tested, obviously, including my opponents. so I hope

I'm excited to hear you I'm not going to listen to you talk because I'm too busy to listen to this show but I hope you're asking some good questions and find out what's going on so I can learn so you haven't been drug tested once at a competition just yet

no I got drug tested a bunch of times out of competition no since this whole thing started like you know I mean since this whole deal not through this new thing so that was I fought May 23rd the last time I was drug tested was May

23rd, pre and post fight through Nevada, when did this thing start in July, right? Yeah, July 1st. Yeah, so I haven't been drug tested since then. And you have some, you know, top guys in your gym and your camp? Yeah, I haven't heard. I haven't heard anybody. I didn't know, I don't know one fighter that has got drug tested. That doesn't mean they got, they might have got drug tested. and just didn't tell me, but

these are the guys in my gym, I'm sure they, I mean, I would think they would have told me, but who knows? Does that concern you? I hope it's, I just hope everything is, I'm curious on what he's saying. I mean, yeah, I want, I mean, this is, I was so happy to hear

this guy, Jeff Novitsky's coming in, he's a serious dude, I actually spoke to him a couple times. She's really smart. He seems like he's excited to, you know, clean up a sport. And so that excited to me. And so, you know, I was excited about the news and thinking everybody was going to be finally clean, or at least close to clean. And especially these harsher rules that they're going to put down if you do fail, all these things.

So that's why I think, I think, Annes and Silver kind of got lucky with that one-year thing, because I think it's supposed to be like two to four years or something for a failure, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I hope that discourages guys from... I wonder if it will. I think that's going to be the most interesting part of this whole scenario. So that is good information, and I look forward to hearing what I said. I actually even tried to look up myself on their website to see if there was any record of who has been drug tested just yet.

I know that they said that there was going to be some sort of online component to it, but I come from it. And do me a favor. Ask, make sure you ask them. Please. Are they, they're definitely going to be testing for growth, like the stuff that people think they can get away with. hormones, the EPO, stuff like that. And, like, what I had an issue with with Vitor, his, I guess his, and I talked to Novitsky about it, and he was telling me, you know, it was weird, I guess, because

his Vitor's testosterone was 1,200, but his ratio to SB testosterone was normal. But 1,200 testosterone for a guy who needs to, you know, he needs. did testosterone replacement because he would have died. It was so low. It just seemed crazy. So I just want to make sure that that's all taking care of it. I mean, I just hope they could test for everything. Growth hormone, EPO, this testosterone thing, like make sure it's legit where they

catch people for, you know, the testosterone levels. I don't know. I hope it's, you know, it's good stuff. Let me ask you again about the quote-unquote privileged surfer boy, as you call them once. is there some real beef going on between you two? Because it always felt like you guys were friends, like you were buddies, but it always felt like there was this,

there was this competitive vibe between you. Like there was this tension. I guess tension is the word that I'm, like I always would see you guys interact, but in the back your mind, even when you were doing the Fox show, you knew that you were going to face each other, so you didn't want to get too close.

You get what I'm saying? Is that the best way to describe your relationship with Luke? I guess so. You know, we both, we came up, you know, we were both prospects together around the same time. And I was usually, I was, you know, number one. He was always kind of like number two or three coming up. And I know he's had his eye on me. And when we'd hang out and stuff, he always, like, kind of talk about fighting and stuff with that.

But not us fighting, but just like fighting in general all the time. And I'm just like, whatever else. Talk about something else. I don't want to be awkward. But, yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I think. You know, it's been a long time coming. We're definitely going to, you know, we knew we were going to be fighting at some point. I think he's a talented guy.

You know, and I thought we'd be fighting a little earlier in our careers, but he's here now. He's coming to fight for the belt, and I'm excited to go out there and just completely run-through Luke. I really, I just really cannot imagine myself losing to him. And I know he'll kind of talk the same way, but I think he's just, I think he's just kind of faking. and I don't think he really even believes he could be me. Really? Why? But he knows what he knows what to say. I just think he knows.

I just think he knows. These guys know in the way. I think they're starting to get it. And he's one of the guys who knows. He's like, I think he's a little insecure with himself. And I feel like that's why he has to pump his chest up all the time and go a little overboard. But I think he's just insecure. And I think he knows what's coming.

I think he'd much rather be fighting anybody else besides me. Wow. Do you feel like a part of this is his buddy, Daniel Cormier, writing tweets for him and pumping him up? Part of what? You know, this bravado, this trash talk, the tweets, all that stuff. Do you feel like it's really not coming from him? It's just more his friends, his teammates trying to push him out there? Well, I know. I mean, Cormeier was writing tweets for him. You know, they admitted that. whatever. It's pretty funny.

He still lost the Twitter, the Twitter beef or whatever you want to call it, even with Kormez-Rout. But, I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure, you know, his teammates want to help him out as much as they can, you know. So, that's fine. Compared to Anderson, 1 and 2,

Leoto, Vitor, even before that mark, where do you rank him? Do you think this is your toughest fight or no, at least in the UFC? I'll tell you, I feel like I'm more motivated for this fight than I've been in a long time. Wow. Even before the first Anderson fight? I was really motivated for that fight too.

But I'm just, I can't, I don't know if I could rank it in a certain order, but I'm just, I'm working really hard and I'm so excited. Because this is not a fight that I can allow go to distance or to the judges. You know, I have such a great opportunity here to run through him and truly make, I think, one of the final statements in this division that is just, because he's being a good part of the division, I've been a good part of the division. I think after this fight, the question marks are gone. And, you know, I think it's going to be a huge part, a huge part of my career. You know, it's a huge part of my legacy, this fight. And I know that. And I just have to run through him.

Absolutely run through him. And the good thing is that he has no idea what I'm bringing to the table for this fight. I could just stand and try to knock him out, and I could take him down and go to submit him. He has no idea what I'm going to bring. And that excites me, and I really could go either direction. I feel like if I wanted to, I could stand to knock him out. I feel like if I wanted to, I could stand and wrestle, I'd then take him down and submit him. So I just feel like I have such great opportunity no matter where this fight goes.

It's just a really exciting fighting. And, you know, and he's a talented kid, so it's going to look good. I'm going to look good doing it. You know, sometimes you fight sloppy guys, and it doesn't look as good. But this kid, he's athletic, he's good-looking, he's got a great body, and it's going to be fun beating him up. So, Jacques, Ray, Romero, you don't feel like, you know, you don't feel like you'll have a little unfinished business after this guy? Um, no, listen, I'm, I don't, I don't know, but right now it's, it's, it's Luke in my head, you know, uh, he, he'd beat Jack Gray once in Strike Force. I know it was a long time ago.

Yeah. So, um, if I, if I, if I run through Luke, I just kind of know where it puts me. I just think it solidifies the fact that no one in this way is beating me. And then the steps I take after that, um, who knows, you know, I don't know, I don't know where, I don't know where this fight. brings me, but I know it just brings me higher to the top. So, I don't know. It sounded like you were going to say after him, I'm going up.

It sounded like you were getting there. It might be. But I don't know yet. Who knows? I don't know. I feel like there's a plan for me, and I know this is a big fight for me. I'm going to retire on the field, and I will be,

named the greatest whole time. Yes. At some point, I don't know when, I don't know when it's going to happen, but in order to do that,

I'm going to go up to 205 and beat whoever everybody thinks is the best up there. That is going to happen. And I'm really excited for that, but first I have to, like I said, I have to beat everybody at 185.

And I feel like Luke is a great, great, great fight to have. By the way, what do you walk around at? I'm like 210 right now. Oh, wow. So you don't think 205

will be too big for you? No, because, I mean, I could get up if I wanted to. If I'm, eat a little bit, lift a little bit, I can get up to like 225. Pretty easy. Not easy, but I could get up there. There's been times. I remember before my Tom Lola, Tom Lola,

if I don't know how long ago that was, but I was like 235. That was when Hurricane Sandy hit, but I was just kind of chubby. I was out of my, I was immature. I'd eat like you wouldn't believe. And I've changed my lifestyle a lot. I don't really drink anymore.

almost for the last year. Not much drinking at all. I mean, maybe a beer very rarely. But, I mean, pretty much in the last year, I don't drink, I don't go out. All I really do is focused on training, my family, God, and that's really good. I'm just trying to self-improve in every area of my life. When you talk about that legacy and going up to 205 and all that, in the back of your mind, are you really truly hoping that John comes back because, you know, he was in most people's

eyes undefeated before he left and all that stuff like that? You know, the battle in New York, all this. Do you feel like you need that? Do you need him to be there? Or if D.C. is champion and beating him, is that good enough for you? I know for a fact I'm not leaving this sport without fighting John. I just, unless he's not coming back at all, but if he's there and I'm here, people are going to want to see it happen and I want to see it happen. And that's nothing against John. I think he's It's just because he's, I'm just, I'm a competitor. And I want to fight the best possible people. I want to fight the, I want to have the biggest challenges in front of me and conquer him.

That's why I wanted to fight Anderson Silver when nobody else wanted to fight him. I want the biggest challenges. I want to beat people that people think I can't beat. And John is definitely, John's definitely going to be one of those guys. He's an amazing athlete and he's accomplished so much. So I hope he gets his stuff together and he comes back. You know, I'm not taking anything away from Daniel Corcorner either. He's another stud.

So, yeah. I like this. This is a rare Chris Wydenman here. It's a quiet, kind of whispering Chris Wyman. I don't know who you're hiding from if you don't want anyone to hear you, but the confidence is just on a whole other level. It's great. Really?

It's, in a weird way, it's Roy McDonald-esque, because I feel like you're in, like, some bunker, and, you know, there's a picture of Anderson crossed off twice. There's a picture of Leoto. There's a picture of Vitor. There's like a heavy bag that's all beaten up. There's like water dripping from the ceiling. The lights are flickering.

That's where I feel like you are right now. At least that's what I'm imagining. That's kind of what my gym does look like. See, I knew it. I never even been there. Yeah. Yeah. You should come by.

But yeah, no, I'm really excited for Luke. December 12th is going to be a great night. And I'm so excited. just to run through him. And with all due respect to Luke. He really is. He is a great fighter, and I'm taking a very serious. I was watching his fights the last couple days.

And it really excites me. I see a lot of things. I see a lot of ways for me to win and it excites me. I'm sure he sees things, too. But that's him being disillusioned. I see the truth. Man, I can't wait for this one. Two of the very best.

prime. It's so great. You know, you're both in your prime. You have to fight another American, which I know is weird for you. But, you know, two... Yeah, but it's refreshing. Yeah, it's different. It's a different story completely. It's not someone who, after the fact, people can say, you know, he's, he's old, he's out of his prime, you caught him at the right time. I mean, there's nothing that can be said other than the fact that this is one versus two, peaking at the right time, meeting on what could very well be the biggest card of the year when it's all said and done. So it's a lot of fun. know, personally, I think there's a case to be made for, you know, the only undefeated

male champion currently in the UFC main eventing, but I get it as well. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. My thing is, listen, you can be, I understand making a co-main event. But like you said, I am the only male undefeated champion. The people I've beat in my career, no one else has done. I'm on the way to become the greatest full of time.

All I want to do is I just want to be marketed the right way, barely. That's it. So don't just, don't just brush over us like we're just another co-main event. this is a special fight. Are you confident that will happen? Special fighters. What's that? Are you confident that will be the case,

that you will be marketed this way? I'm, I'm, uh, we're gonna be talking to the U.S. you about that, but I'm confident they'll do the right thing. I think, uh, the Jose Aldo and the, the Goria fight's been marketed enough.

It's, if people know, uh, that fight already. There's been a lot of money to run to that. So, um, I don't think there's,

there's not having much need to market it much more. So I think marketing me and Luke would be a good thing for the card. All right. We'll leave it at that. Chris, I appreciate the time. I know you're going to train, so thank you very much. And, you know, hopefully I'll get to talk to you before the fight. But if not, good luck in training.

Can't wait for it. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. There he is. Chris Wyman, the UFC middleweight champion. Huge fight for him, December 12th, UFC 194 in Las Vegas. My good friend, Sean Al-Shadi, letting me know that the online database of tests

will be up in early October regarding USADA. So it's going to be updated every quarter, and they will start being updated on the site in October. So that's why I wasn't there when I looked last week. Okay, let's move along. As I said, very excited to welcome in, a man who just happened to be my first interview guest way back when, April of 2008, as far as video interviews are concerned.

It was at UFC 83 in Montreal. He is very kind enough to stay up into the early morning, of Tuesday, August 18th over in Thailand. It's very late from there, or super early, depending on his sleeping habits. He is facing Koji Ando, September 1st at One Championship. He is, MMA veteran, Roger Huerta. There he is.

Roger, how are you? Doing all right. How are you doing? Did I wake you up, or are you just waking up? No, man, I'm just chilling. Well, it's good to have you on the show. You know, actually, I said you were my first interview guest way back in April of 2008.

I don't know if you've ever actually been on this particular show, so this is very exciting as we approach our 300th episode. This is the first. This is the first. Wow, how about that? And again, thank you for staying up. So you came back last year around this time, end of August, after a very long layoff.

People weren't quite sure what to make, you know, after the soccer kick and all that. You won. How come we haven't seen you in a year? I've been busy coaching, man. I've been busy coaching and building a team out here in Thailand. Yeah, I work at Tiger Mutai, one of the coaches there, and working on our MMA team, and that's pretty much it. Just doing this thing kind of full time now. So it wasn't injuries, it wasn't anything like that.

You've just been busy developing talent. No, well, it was injuries as well. Yeah, I was injured, so I just let the body rest, but I was still involved, but in the coaching aspect. So, was still studying, was still learning, was still, evolving and seeing what the, yeah, just the evolution of the sport. What did that win last August do for you against Christian Holly? I think it was, what was it, four in a row that you had lost? I mean, it was a long layoff in between your last fight prior and that fight.

Did you feel like before you called the quits, even if, you know, you never know what happens in the sport, did you need to get back in there one more time to go out on your own terms, perhaps with a win? Like, mentally, what did that do for your head, for your confidence, all the time? that. To be quite honest with you, I was already willing to call it quits. I was, after that soccer kick, I was like, all right, I think this is, that's it for me. And when I was coaching, and because of the coaching, you know, you get to spar with a lot of the guys and a lot of up-and-coming guys. And those same individuals were just kind of like, yo, man, you need to just, you need a good

team around you and get back in it. So that's how to, and then, yeah, and I was still, gone. So you come back, you win, and then does it change everything for you? Because you say, you know, you're even considering it. Not really. I just, I went back in, like, I was, I was done with that fight, and I went right back into my other guys' training camp and coaching their, you know, running their training camps and going out to Stockholm, going out to to Berlin, and, yeah, just coaching a lot of guys. So it's just nonstop. But I remember the way the MMA community, they were legitimately happy for you after you won that fight last year,

because prior to that, you had not won since 2010. What was it like for you just to feel your hand being raised? To feel like, wow, I came in and I walked out and I'm the victor. Nothing. It felt good.

It felt good to win. And it just felt good to... You know, I've been doing this since 2003. You know, it's already 2015. So you can say I'm a decade into this, right? So when you put a lot of time into something and your victorious, you get to, you know, accomplish those goals that you set for yourself, yeah, you feel good about yourself. Of course, you know, it's just one of those things.

I had set a goal for myself. I wanted to win. I accomplished that. And then it just, you continue on. Now I have a different task. I got cogiando. So tough opponent. And you know, you set goals for yourself.

Like, I want to finish this guy in the first round. That's like a goal that I've set for myself. He's a tough individual. He went five rounds with Shinia Yoki. Well, I don't want to go five rounds with him. I want to finish this guy in the first round and then make a statement at that and then go after Shinia. So, you know, that's just the thing. Like, that's what ended up happening.

You're like, okay, I set a goal for myself. I accomplish that goal and you continue on and continue on. And so that's just as far as a competitor, that's kind of my road to it. So when I hear you talk about Aoki and the title and all that, it feels like almost like, okay, now you have a path. It's not just like you're going in and you might go out and you don't really, but now you're striving for something here outside of just being a coach. Of course.

But that wasn't always the case. No. What changed? I don't know. I can't really Life, I suppose I suppose It's more chip

I mean Man, life is good I can tell I hear some crickets in the background It sounds like it's paradise over there It is man It's Yeah

It's awesome I don't know Are you on a hammock right now I am on a hammock Oh my gosh, you're outside Are you outside? I am outside Is that where you sleep?

this is not where I sleep but this is a place where I kick it Wow What a life We're doing it wrong here I'm in the concrete jungle of New York City And look where you are Well to each his own

You know everybody has their thing I like this thing Did you ever think I mean was this always part of the plan Did you think that you'd end up in Thailand as a coach And all that is that what you thought was going to happen to you Oh not at all Actually life is a weird

you know, life is strange. And, you know, you always, again, sometimes your head, sometimes you're behind, that sort of thing. But, like, you just never know. And, like, I think what, yeah, you know, I'm 32 years old now, and I never would have thought that I would be living abroad or ever thinking of continuing to live abroad till the end of my days. You know, it's, like, that's kind of where I'm at. So you're done with America. This isn't a pit stop for you. No, like the world is awesome, man.

Like, I want to check it out, you know? So I want to continue checking it out. And, you know, I bought this map and, you know, it's on my wall and I get to see where I'm at. I'm like, okay, I'm in Phuket. I've been to all these different countries because of living in Phuket and because of my job. And because of the, yeah, the people are. It's cool, man. It's just, I don't know.

It's cool. But right now, you're content in Thailand right now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Seems like a great place to be. What about being a coach? When did that come to you? Because that's not something, you know, when you're a youngster and you're on top of the world and all that, you don't think about coaching the future generation.

When did you realize that you were actually good at it? Um, I don't know. People keep coming to my classes. So I suppose I'm okay at it. Who are you most excited about? What do you mean? As far as your students, the guys that you're, you know, you know, you're students, the guys that you're, you're, you're, you are coaching.

As part of my guys. Yeah. I would say like we're like, they're my students. I say we like we're, we end up becoming the team, you know. We call each other team banter because we give each other a lot of banter. Other than that, I'm excited for two guys, obviously Maribik Tysumo and Subura Tauguo. Those are the main two guys that I was able to get in the UFC. And they've been, they've been doing awesome.

Like I think Beckins like four and one now, Zubis 2 and O. you know, Nick Hein just came over here from Berlin. He had his first training camp with us for his last fight when he fought. And now he's in his second training camp with us before he goes to Japan. Yeah, and then we got Shay Walsh. He fights in Bama, so he's fighting for a title sometime in November. Alex Wilkinski from Australia. Man, that guy just keeps mauling everybody.

Yeah, we just got a pretty cool squad. over here. It's nice. What's your contract situation like with one? Four fight. We just signed a four-fight deal, so I'm with those guys for a little bit, for a while. Oh, okay, you just signed a new one. So this is the first of four coming up. That's correct. Because I feel in this day and age with the, you know, the Bellator's and the World Series, of course with UFC doing so many shows, Roger Huerta, Mr. Sports Illustrated, would be a hot commodity. Did you play the field before signing this new deal?

Did I play the field? Yeah. Man, I like one of C. Okay. My relationship with, like, Victor Cui is pretty cool. My relationship with Matt Hume is pretty cool. Like, it's, you know, I don't deal with any managers or any of that sort. I just deal with them directly. And, you know, we just came into an agreement and continued on.

So it lets me, you know, be a coach, manage my guys, and do my training and go, you know, as soon as I'm done with my fight, I'm back in Phuket, you know, finishing Nick's training camp, starting like Zooves or Maverick's training camp. And yeah, it's just kind of like a continuation of that. It's interesting because all fighters that fight for that promotion seem to echo the same sentiment. Although here in the United States, they're not as popular because they're just not on television.

Do you get a lot of people who reach out to social media, Twitter, all that stuff, and say, like, where have you been, Roger? You know, where can I see you fight? Do you feel like some fans who watched you, 2007, 2008, 2009, and the UFC don't know where to find you these days? Be quite honest with you, I don't pay attention to the U.S. quite a, you know, I'm too

involved. Like, for example, it's about to be 1 a.m. here, you know, I'm talking to you. I should actually be in bed. I know, I know. What a pain in the ass. I'm sorry. You're making me feel guilty. Are you trying to bring out the Jewish guilt in me?

Hey, no, it's all right. How else am I supposed to get you on the damn show? I don't know, mate. Okay, well, I'm almost done, all right? I can tell you're very much enjoying this. Why do you have a knit cap on? Is it cold over there? It's chilly.

It's like camping. You know, in the daytime, it's hot, and then the nighttime gets kind of chilly. Mm-hmm. Same thing. When's the last time you were in the U.S.? It's been that long? Maybe two years? I was wondering if you said you would have been there for some sort of family thing or a fighter,

and you go into that culture, the way it is here. and you're like, man, I don't miss this one bit. It's way better where I live now. I actually, well, I like to travel, but every time I come back to Pouquet, it feels chill, at least for me. It's one of those places where, yeah, I don't know. To me, it felt like the end... Yeah, I'm not really missing the States, to be quite honest with you. To me, it felt like the end was the incident in Austin. Like, that's when you said, enough is enough. No, I still lived in the States for a while.

Oh. After that. That went down and, yeah, that was, I looked out, actually. I could have been really bad for me. But yeah. I'm not supposed to take the line to your hands, they said. Of course, especially when you're a fighter. Gosh, you're a target there.

I guess you did look at because it was on camera and all that. So, okay, so you say now that you want to, you want to run through Ando and and beat him in the first round and then Shinya, are they on board with this plan? Like when you resign with them, did you tell them, okay, this is what I won, and did they say they like this idea? They were, we were high-fiving, actually. Oh. Yeah, we were high-fiving.

I mean, I don't think they really understood what I was saying because I was, no. Yeah, no, they're cool. What do you mean? What do you mean? It's a joke. I was saying, obviously, I don't know. I don't know much of them. I don't know.

I don't really know. I mean, I know they're fighting style, but I don't know much of them. I don't know if you know how to talk English, basically. Obviously, they're both Japanese. So we wouldn't be having a conversation. So I'm getting at. So we weren't really high-fiving.

Who are we talking about here? I feel like we're not talking about the same person. We're talking about Kojiando and Shia Yoki. No, I was talking about like the one-fc brass, like Victor and Matt Hume. Oh, yeah, no, they don't know. They don't know my, no. don't know my thoughts, I guess.

Wait, but when you resign with them, don't you tell them, okay, this is what I want out of this whole agreement? No, we just agreed on a four-fight deal. I didn't know which opponents I would face or any of that, and still, I got my opponent seven weeks ago, it was. So that was good enough notice for both of us, and yeah, we were able to do our training camps. If I walked into your home in Pouquet right now, where would I find the Sports Illustrated cover framed and mounted?

Which wall would it be on? Probably my mom's home in Austin. Nowhere to be found in Thailand? Nowhere to be found. Is there a reason for that? No. I don't know. I don't travel with.

I'm not going to travel. Here, let me frame this and travel with it everywhere I go. in the world. No, but you know, it might remind you of a different time. I guess if you were on the cover, you would actually do that. Hell yeah, I would. I would let every, it would be my passport. Let me through. Do you see this man? I was the first ever MMA fighter. Everyone makes a big deal about Ronda Rousey. You did it first. You're the pioneer. You're the Trailblazer. Congratulations. I don't know. It wasn't, uh, I don't know. It wasn't a goal, I guess. It wasn't

a goal that I was like setting for myself. I want to be in the cover of this. Like it wasn't that. And so basically I guess so when that happened, it wasn't monumental for me, I suppose. You know, if I would have won a UFC world title, fuck, that would have been definitely monumental. So, um, because I, you actually work really hard for that. Is that something you still think about? Is that something you still want? Well, I'm going after your shinia. I'm not really going after belts now. I'm more, I'm 32, man. Like, hopefully I just need my body to, stay together and, you know, go through some, some competition. But you don't think about, like, you don't say, I want to be UFC champion.

That doesn't mean anything to you. That doesn't, like, it doesn't cross my mind. Okay. Like, I want to be UFC champion. You know, actually, there's a kid that is basically my, one of my guys, Marrick Chaisumov. Yeah. Who has such, I truly believe this guy will be champion. Okay.

You know, him and Habimagimagim Mago Mbrose used to be champion. together back in the day. Okay. So, and, uh, man, I'm telling you. So that would be awesome. He talks about this. He wants to be UFC champion, or do you feel like you'll feel that same sort of, you know, um, satisfaction?

Both talk about it. Yeah. Okay. We both talk about it. Like, it's, you know, it's, it's a goal, you know, it's a goal that you step for yourself in any kind of way. Like, that's something that you want to achieve. Like, and yeah, he's, he's definitely gunning for it, you know.

So that'll be, that'll be. quite, I mean, and Zoom, Zub too. Those two guys, holy crap. They're awesome. When I saw you in Sweden, you compared him to Taituma, you compared it to GSP, right? I did, yes. He reminds me of George, you know, as far as like, you know, George is a workhorse, man. That guy, that guy was just fucking nonstop working.

He was just nonstop training, that dude. And that's Mervic. That's Mervik, the same, the same attitude, the same thing, the same drive. You know, it's really, you got to really convince them to take days off, you know. Okay, final thing, let's end on this, and then you could go to bed and I'll leave you alone forever because I've been bothering you a lot about this interview, and I apologize for that. 32-year-old Roger Huerta, if he could talk to 25-year-old Roger Huerta, what would you say? What's the advice?

I feel if you've done a lot of soul-searching, you figure things out. Here you are on a hammock in Thailand, just living the dream, my friend. what would you tell that youngster? Um, I would tell that guy, yeah, it's all going to be good. It all works out in the end. It all works out.

All right. Well, that's good advice. I think I could use some of that advice as well. Jai Yen, brother. What is it again? Tell me, say it one more time? Jain Yen. Jain means chill out, relax.

Chill out. In tie. All right. Yeah, so get a little chill out a little bit. Well, I'm glad we could catch up, Roger. It has been a while. I don't recall the last time we actually had. I mean, I've seen you at the event,

and it's always very exciting. It brings a smile to my face. But the last time we did an interview, it's been a while. As far as interview, I think it was the first one. No, no, we did an interview, but no.

I did an interview with your friend. May I ask Sean. The great Sean. Sean. Yeah, that was fine. Fantastic. I hope you enjoyed it. What's that? I hope you enjoyed the experience with him because I think he's one of, if not the best in the biz.

Man, he's good. He's an awesome guy. Awesome conversation. And yeah, but as far as interviewing with you... Montreal, baby. Hotel room. Montreal. This is number two. And look at us now. You're in Thailand, and I'm in... the studio in New York. We've come a long way, my friend, and I'll always remember that. In fact, one of these days, I'll replay that interview on this show. What do you want to say? Anything?

Which, oh. The hotel room interview. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be funny. Okay. All the best to you, Roger. Thank you very much for the time. Good luck on September 1st. We will be watching, and I'm happy to see and hear that everything's going great for you. It seems like you've put it all together, and that brings a smile with my face, as I said. So much appreciated my man,

and keep on doing what you're doing. All right, brother. Cheers. All right, there he is. Roger Huerta, El Matador, they call him. Joining us from beautiful Phuket Thailand, way back when, prior to UFC 83, we did this interview.

It was fun. Ariani Celeste was there. It was good times. MMA rated.com. Long live MMA rated. That would have been a good, Inside the Vault for this week's show. But that's not what we chose.

Anyway, always appreciated Roger. Remember, he was a guy who won five in a row in the UFC in one calendar year, which was a record. No one has broken that record, I believe. What was it? It was John Halverson, Leonard Garcia. That's the shot that got him on the SI cover. It was Doug Evans, Alberto Crane.

and then Clay Guida, a tremendous fight. Clay Guida, Ultimate Fighter Finale, was outstanding. And then he fought Kenny Florian at UFC 87, and that's when things started to change all of a sudden. Remember, he then lost to Grey Maynard and left the UFC. It was a big signing for Bellator and won one fight there, but then proceeded to lose four in a row in June of 2012 was soccer kicked, and it was just a gruesome, ugly, downright disgusting sight.

took two years off and came back last August to get back on track one, a first round TKO over Christian Holly, and now he's back in action on September 1st. Speaking of Beltor, their lightweight champion is joining us in a matter of moments via the magic of Skype. His name is Will Brooks, and it was announced last week that he will be defending his title on November 6th against Marcheen-held. That is a tent pole event, as they like to call him. But last week, he was going back and forth with Petitio Pipple for quite some time. Also, tweeting about some other stuff. So I wanted to check in with our good pal. Ill Will Brooks, doing his thing in Florida for ATT. I wonder if a lot of people were complaining about the stream.

I don't know. Maybe it's better. Okay, it's better. They're telling me it's better. So I apologize for that. One guy is not a fan of my shirt today. I mean, we can't please all of you. my friends. Can you just give us a break? We're trying to do the best show possible here. First you complain about the live stream, then you complain about the YouTube, then you complain about my shirt. I mean, what is it with you people? Can't please everyone. So Will Brooks was the man, as you may recall, who really wanted to fight Eddie Alvarez before Eddie Alvarez left to the UFC. He was the man who defeated Michael Chandler twice. But it seems, and I want to clear this up with him, it seems like he's getting anxious to fight.

You know, by the time he fights in November, it will be six months off, six months, April to, actually seven months off. So not a huge delay. Prior to that, he fought November, then May, 16 and 1 overall, one of the great young stars in the Bellator Lightweight Division, which has become a lot more interesting now with the signing of Josh Thompson. Beltaire officially announced last week that Josh Thompson had signed with their organization

and that's a nice addition veteran and of course we all saw it coming a mile away with his previous relationship with Scott Coker and after the third straight loss even though two of those fights were split decisions

it just seemed like this was an inevitable signing and that's what happened Josh Thompson joining their lightweight division for now. Let us go back to the Skype Machine and welcome in the Beltaur Lightway champion himself. Ill Will Brooks. There he is. Will, how are you? What's up, man? What's going on? How you doing, man?

I just got home from the gym, Doc. So I'm in a little bit of a hurry, you know? You got to catch your breath. Yeah, yeah, man. I mean, you're working with a bunch of lions in that America top team, Lions didn't, you know? So it's never a rest period. Who are you training with today? Dustin Porier.

Oh, yes. I've heard of them. You got me over here name dropping and stuff already, well, I mean, you brought it up. You know, it's good to give props your teammates. I didn't know that you were coming from training. I appreciate you coming straight from training and rushing over.

Oh, no problem, man. When I say I want to do something, I do it, bro. That is right. And that's a good segue here, because I got to say, well, before your whole thing with Pippol last week, it just kind of felt like you were just, you were very, what's the word, a little ticked off. Like you were just kind of in a bad mood last week.

Like something was bothering you, but it was all a little vague. Can we clear the air here? Yeah, man, I mean, I'll be honest with everybody. You know, I try not to, I try not to, you know, BS around with the fans and anybody who asked the question. You know, I was a little upset that it kind of took so long to make this Marcin hell fight. You know, part of my job is to compete, you know. was ready to compete a month ago, and I thought that we were going to be scheduled for August, and then, you know, Marcy Leld, when it got married and went on his honeymoon, which is

understandable, so you have to move the fight, and I thought we were going to fight in September, and, you know, Marcy Nelho continued to kind of, you know, keep this thing going where, oh, well, I'm on my honeymoon, and now I can't prepare for September, and now they move it to October, and, you know, it's just that whole roller coaster ride, and sometimes it's frustrating And when you get up, try to start a training camp, then they call you, shut you down. You get up and do it again, and they shut you down. And it was just a little frustrating because I felt like, and I still feel like the organization should have stepped in and say, you know what, Marcyne, we understand you have other things going on in your life, but this is your job. You need to step up and take care of your business.

And I feel like they gave him too many free passes when he's not the champion. He's a contender, you know, so why should he have all these free passes to continue to postpone this first? he's the one that needs to challenge me, you know, and it was a little frustrating. Do you feel like they would have done the same for you? I would like to think so, but in all honestly, in all honesty, I would have to say no, because I did reach out to some of the people in the background and some of the decision makers, and I asked them what was going on, and I tried to express to them that, you know, it just wasn't fair to me, especially being.

that I am the champion and he shouldn't have this room to decide on when he gets to compete, you know, and it was just frustrating because I wanted someone to explain that to me and I just felt like nobody was explaining that to me and, you know, it is what it is. Now you're on a quote-unquote tent pole event as they're calling them like the ones with the big ramp and they seem to push them more, do more PR, more media advertising. Is that a silver lining here or would you not have carried? Like you don't care if it's a small event, big event, you just wanted to fight. I just wanted to fight, man.

Not just fight, but make a paycheck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seven months in between paychecks is a very long time to go, you know, and I'll be honest with everybody. You know, I've never been one of those guys to complain about the fighter pay. I understand the way it works. I understand that in order to make more money, you have to perform. You have to go out there and earn it, you know.

But I think everybody saw my last fight I made $72,000. Now, what people don't understand is I didn't walk out with $72,000, you know, after state taxes, coming home paying management fees and paying gym fees and then paying my bills and paying my own taxes that I have to pay, you know, I don't walk out of there with that much money. And that money starts to dwindle pretty fast. It gets smaller and smaller pretty quick just because I do still live an everyday human life where things come up financially, you know. So waiting seven months for another pay.

paycheck is very unfortunate, especially when there was no, I felt like there was no, there's no legitimate reason for it, except for Marcyne held pretty much just kind of duck in the fight. And, you know, the decision makers are allowing that to happen. And, you know, that's frustrating to me. If you don't mind me asking, and I understand if you do, but since you brought it up, what do you end up with after the 72 and you having to pay all those people? Oh man, I couldn't even I couldn't even tell you. I let my girlfriend is way better with the numbers.

I let her figure it all out. She literally like, kid you not, my accountant tells me how much money I got to put to the side for taxes and things like that. And then I let her deal with the rest of the percentages and all these different things. But I mean, look, it's not, it's money, it's enough to survive with,

but especially when if you think about our jobs, we're kind of fighting paycheck to paycheck, if you really think about it. until you're making like Anderson Silver money and his 800,000 a fight, you know, now you're kind of like, oh, I can sit out six or seven months. Sure. Right now I'm not making enough money to be able to do that. And I'm not blaming anybody, but I still feel like there should be,

there should be some understanding in that, you know, and especially when I reach out to you and as the shot caller, as the decision-making, I reach out to you and express to you that, you know, I understand you've got to move these fights, but at the same time I have financial things. have to take care of and moving these fights, move my paychecks, and then I have to turn around and reorganize things, and that's just not fair to me, you know, and I felt like there could have been a little bit more effort shown or something could have been done to help me out in regards

that, and nothing happened. Was this maybe a case of no other contender, you know, waiting to fight that actually made sense? Did they not have anyone else? Did you suggest, hey, maybe I fight this guy, this would make sense. Did any of that happen? Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely express that to him. I was like, listen, well, you know, he's a container. He shouldn't have this ability to keep shuffling this fight and doing whatever. And they let me know that, you know, bonding, he's kind of bound to me in a way, you know, because he won the tournament. Yeah. And then went out and he fought Tyrus Sinovsky, and I believe that it was expressed that whoever won that fight would get a title fight. So he ended up winning that fight

and on top of the way he won the tournament, so that's, it's legal, is legally he's supposed to get a title fight. This bottom line is, he's still on that, the contract that Buren has set up, so he's on the old contract, so they're required to give him the title fight. And I appreciate that.

I understand that, but at the same time, he's not allowed to decide on when he gets to fight because he wants to go do personal things. Now if he was, if he had expressed that, oh, I have a serious injury that I need to get, up or get over. I understand that. But it was more like he was kind of like not answering phone calls and his management was just kind of giving people a run around. And I felt like Bellator and the

people would make the decision should have put their foot's down and was like, listen, we're not going to wait on you, get it together and make this fight. So it was just a little frustrating. Okay, so that gets announced. And then on Thursday, there's this back and forth with Patricia Pitbull who's not even in your weight class. And we'll, it's just a little bit more. And we'll, it's just a little bit And what was weird about that, reading that was like, you were like, leave me alone, leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk about this. And then it kept going, and it kept going, and it kept going.

And you're like, please, stop, stop. I'm going to do something to you. I'm going to slap you when I see. Where was this all coming from? It was just, you know, I was already on tilt just because the whole dragging it out with the Marcyne Hill fight. I was already upset about that. and I was trying to do my best with being understanding and being calm and collected and, you know,

do that whole thing, you know. And then Patricia, we've had back and forths before. It was just fun, like, kind of poking at each other. It was fun, you know. But at that time, he just caught me at a bad time when I was dealing personal things and then dealing with this whole Marcin, the whole thing. And he just caught me at a bad time.

And it was just one of those things where I had just lost it. you know and I was a little bit when I went back and looked at what I was saying and how it happened I was I was a little disappointed with myself that I was reacting the way that I was reacting and swearing and cursing and doing that all that stuff it was unprofessional and irresponsible on my part and you know it was just frustrating but it was just a accumulation of things happening you know that just kind of got the best off me and I gave them free rent space in my mind and you know I allowed that negative energy to get into me and I just lost it. it.

So does this mean when you see him in St. Louis, you won't slap him? No, this is not. This is not me saying that I'm not going to do what I said I'm going to do. The one thing that I've been raised believing is when you are a man and you tell another man that you're going to do something, you do it. Either that be, like I said, slapping them. Either that be like anything in life, man, when you tell somebody you're going to do something, you do it.

It means me apologizing to the fans for the way I reacted. mean, it does not change a thing. He's disrespecting me several times now. It was, it was overboard. It was totally disrespectful on his part. It was too much. And, no, I stand by my word. When I see Patricio or Patricchi, either one of them,

I will slap one of them. I promise you that in regards to the way that I expressed it with the cursing and the swearing and dropping an F-bomb as much as I did, I shouldn't allow myself to get like that. But I will definitely stand by what I said. What is it about these guys that really bothers you to the point where you are saying that you're going to do this? Because you seem like a pretty, you know, for the most part, a pretty mild manner guy. Just because I think they're very disrespectful to this sport.

I think they're very disrespectful to the fans. And I just don't like their character, you know, especially when I see them in person. Because I saw both of them in St. Louis when I was out there for this previous St. Louis card, neither one of them had anything to say to me. I'm standing right there, right in front of them, and everything that they say over these Twitter accounts and all these different things, they don't say these things.

When they see me, they look down, their eyes are on the floor, which it should be. They should be like that, because they haven't earned that type of respect for me to have me to make eye contact with me just because they're so disrespectful as human beings. But when they jump on these Twitter accounts, for some reason, they're extremely loud-mouthed.

They have a lot to say, but like I said, when I walk past him, and this goes for a guy like Michael Chandler also, these guys poke fun and they do their Twitter things, but when I'm in their presence, they look down at the floor when they see me walk by, or they do the look. I'm not going to make eye contact,

but I'll reach my hand out to shake your hand. But these things are, I don't like that. You know, if you're going to be this person that talks all this trash, be this person all the time. Don't do this here on Twitter, but then when I'm in your presence, turn into something else. And I don't like that.

I like real people. If you're going to talk trash to me, talk trash to me on Twitter. And when you see me in person, do it in person too. Don't play games with me. I don't like it. Do you think it's possible that the Pitbull Brothers aren't the ones doing the tweeting? Oh, no, I'm sure. I'm sure it isn't them.

But I know who it is. I definitely know exactly who it is. I know what guy it is. Who is it? I don't know his name. Some little guy that runs around with him. I don't know his name. But I definitely know who.

I know his feet. face. I know who it is. And, you know, it's just, again, it's unfortunate that these guys are allowing him to do this, you know, allowing him to go out and make them look back and make them look so unprofessional, you know. It's his job to do the best he can and make sure they look like professionals, especially at Patricio, who is a champion. And when you are a champion, there's certain responsibility that comes along with that. And that's, we're required to be professionals, too, you know. And you can talk trash, but be professional about it. And that's what really frustrated me

because he brought a different Will Brooks out and made me get all nasty and use language that I prefer not to use. Chandler, when he was on this show, right after his last one, said, no doubt in his mind, he fought you on that night. He'd run right through you. He's a better guy.

Did you hear those comments, and do you think it's inevitable that you'll have to fight him one more time? I didn't hear those comments, but, you know, it is what it is. I think Chandler is one of those guys that he thrives off of excuses. Whenever he's met with a hard task and he doesn't succeed, he kind of does this thing where it's, well, good for you, but this.

Or good for you, but this. And you did this, but this. And I didn't do this. And he's made of excuses just because he's lived his life with. I think he's lived his life around people who are kind of like yes men and people just kind of oh well channel it's all right uh you didn't do that good today but you're still the best you know like those type of people which you know that i expect that i got coaches at my gym that i understand like sometimes when you're not doing well it's time time to say something positive and boost your spirits

but i think it's just an excuse maker and what the guy that i saw that night i'm not impressed by him If you ever watch Michael Chandler, he's incredible when there's a guy that's standing right in front of him with his hands down, letting him throw his overhand right, and letting him just knock him down. But when you see Chandler have to fight somebody who's got some athleticism, who got some explosion, he's confused, he's upset, he's shook. That's what he's going to be every single time he faces me. And it's only going to get worse. If he has to fight me again, it's only going to get worse for him. What about the Thompson signing? because one could make the case that if you do fight him in the near future,

that would be one of the highest profile names that you fought just yet in your career. I'm assuming there's a long way to go, but given his history with Strike Force in the UFC, are you excited about this? Do you feel like, ooh, this is a nice name that I could beat? This is a guy. How do you feel about the signing? You know, honestly, I didn't, and no disrespect to Josh, I think he's a pioneer of the lightweight division, you know.

He's been in this sport for a very long time. He's done a lot of incredible things. He's a very explosive, entertaining fighter. But at the same time, I didn't feel any type of weight towards you, you know, because at the end of the day, we still have to fight. We still have to go in the gym, train, and get ready to go compete against whoever steps in the cage. So me thinking about Josh Thompson signing what Bellatory means nothing to me.

It's just good for him. He's able to continue his career and continue to compete. and make money in a work area, in a line of work that he chose. But other than that, I have no concerns of that. If we get in the cage, I'll beat Josh Thompson. And again, no disrespect to him. But this is who I am. I have supreme confidence in my skills and my abilities.

And I work extremely hard to be able to beat anybody. And that goes for Josh also. I noticed you tweeting during the Anderson-Silva hearing. And by the way, I love your Twitter for you because you are brutally honest as you are in these interviews. And that's why I love having you on the show. and I'm just wondering, you know, we had Chris Wyman on the show, you know, at the top of the hour, and he was saying like, yeah, you know, he's happy with the Usada deal on the UFC, but he wants to see some action.

He wants to be testing more and things of that nature. How do you feel about Bellator's stance on drug testing? Would you like to see them do something like what the UFC did? Would you like to see more out of competition testing? You know what? Honestly, I haven't really given too much thought into that. I actually was able to sit in on the media. some of the, I think Forrest Griffin and some of the other guys who run that whole thing came to the gym and set some of the fighters around.

And I was able to sit in on some of that meeting and them explaining how things are going to work and all these different things. And for me, I appreciate and I love the idea of what they're doing. But some of the aspects of, you know, there were some things where you have to check in and tell them where you're going to be, when you're going to be there, how often you're going to be there, all these different things. That part really bugged me a little bit just because we are adults at the end of the day. And you cannot treat us like children and tell us to pretty much tell you where we're going to be at all times and all these different things. If they were able to change that, I would support it a lot more than what I do now in regards to trying to make this a cleaner sport. I love it. If they came to, if they called my phone right now and ask me to go to the nearest bank and, you know, do a test.

I would do that. I would love to do that. I have no problem with that. But I feel like there's a little bit more, there's a better way of going about it than making guys feel like they're being babysat and making us feel like children, you know. But do you feel like this is a big problem in the sport right now? It is. Definitely is. And, you know, guys are starting to get exposed, you know.

And even guys that we don't even expect to be that guy, Anderson Silva or Gilbert Melendez. And even though we don't know the depths of Gilbert Melendez's situation, but it's just, it's just. breath of fresh air to understand it. Our sport is, it's going mainstream. It is a little bit more professional. And you get the sense that things are moving more towards like an NFL or MLB or NBA type of format, you know. And it's just, it's really nice to see that we're being taken serious, you know?

Will, keep doing you, my friend. I'm enjoying your evolution very much. And I'm looking forward to your fight on November 6th. You know, of course, I don't love to see you publicly, you know, complaining or being upset and things of that nature. I think there's a lot more to you than that. And I think you're figuring that out along the way as well. But I appreciate your honesty very much, and I always love having you on the show. So thank you very much, and best of luck. Thank you, man. Can I get a minute, one minute, just because this is such a big format.

Do your thing. I did. I posted a video earlier, apologizing to my fans. There was a couple of fans that expressed disappointment in me in regards to the way that I replied to Patricia O. Pitbull, and they had every right to be disappointed. As far as the language that I was using, some of the fans expressed to me that they have smaller children that look up to me, and they do allow their children to follow me on Twitter and different things like that, and they were disappointed in the language that I was using, and they were expressing me that it was unprofessional and irresponsible on my part. And, you know, I just want to take time out to apologize to those fans because they are right,

as being a champion and being a role model, you have responsibilities to carry ourselves professionally and be responsible at all times. And I was irresponsible with the way that I was talking. And I should have been a little bit more professional. So I do want to apologize to those things. Well done, my man. I will check out that video and let everyone know that they should do the same as well. Again, thank you for the time and best of luck to you on the sixth. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Take care. There he is. Will Brooks, Beltaur Lightway Champion. Great to have him on the show as always. All right. Here we go. Let's move along. We go from the Bell Tour Lightweight.

champion to the man who will be fighting for the UFC lightweight championship on December 19th in Orlando, Florida, UFC on Fox 17. My good pal, Donald Seroni on the phone. Donald, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for the time, as always. Are you at the ranch right now? No, yeah, just pulled in the whole food. I hope that I don't get smoked in the mouth again while walking across the crosswalk here, huh? What happened? Whole Foods? I had an incident here like a year ago. Some dude you'd be punched me in my mouth. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember. Did you ever find out who that was? No, no, no.

Unbelievable. I wanted to ask you about the ranch because I just saw another one of your video blogs, I believe shot by the brilliant Will Fox. And this time, what's going on? You can't have a bonfire? What were you doing over there? I couldn't really understand what you were getting in trouble for. I'm putting up like five apartments over there at the house.

I tore down my barns, Mike. I tore down the barn, and I'm burning it. So you can't have a giant bonfire without a permit, apparently. So who tattletailed on you? No idea. Probably people, we were burning a bunch of weeds and stuff like we took out a bunch of weeds, but it was like a bunch of black smoke, so someone on the highway must have no idea. Who cares?

Anyways, I went down and got to burn it from it, and then to burn it anyways. That didn't matter. So what you're doing is you tore down one of your stables and you're building apartments for fighters. Is that what you're doing? Exactly. In the roundabout way. Exactly what we're doing. You see, I keep tabs on you, Donald.

I don't know if you know this, but I like to know what you're doing. And why are you doing this? You feel like you need to have more fighters around you so you don't have to make the trek to Albuquerque every time? I don't know. We said like, right now we are 25 people at the house, and I have a fault of all there and band them here

are getting raised in the fight, so you got a bunch of, like just fun, man, the camaraderie and training and having bullshit and like, now we hold up to the whole food in a van

there's 18 of us or whatever right now. It's crazy. You're like a camp. Yeah, exactly. You don't like being alone. You want to be around people. Yeah, I love being around people, man.

I'm just my close friends and brothers I go to war with me, you know. It's a good time. Always. But what about the fact that your fight is almost in exactly four months from now? You fought around two months ago. Are you going stir crazy? How are you going to survive the next four months?

Well, I've got no choice. Now all I need is a date. Now I got the date. So, September 19th. You know, I'll do a lot of weight boarding and screwing around. But it was funny because you came out with this news last week. You said in an interview that you're considering going up to 170. I kind of felt like you're so close to the finish line here.

You were just trying to force their hand. And lo and behold, like two days later, they announced your fight. Was that the plan? And did it work? I would literally call them for the last month, telling them that. No, I would have went to 70. It doesn't matter of me. You shit.

There's no difference. So you weren't trying to force them to make the fight official? No, okay. I just wanted to go fight. So when you would call them, what would they say? No. They said just sit down and be quiet Sit your head down and be quiet

Exactly what they say So did you say okay I'm going to do some extreme sports Because you're not you're not booking me Was it almost like a tit for tat type of thing Pretty much Pretty much You're driving how it's going Why 170 and not just take another fight at 155

Oh they definitely wouldn't give me 155 When I'm in line for the title Okay I was a immediate no So I figure 70 would be the next thing I could go and fight I don't know. I'm just thinking stupid.

Who cares? Yeah, why not? Why not? So let me ask you, over Twitter, not that long ago, and you're great on Twitter. I love the way you interact with your fans. You know, you insinuated that you thought that he was on PDs, that he had to cycle. So is this something you're concerned about that, you know, he... I'm not concerned about.

I'm not concerned. I was just getting a ride out of him. That's all. So you don't believe this. Getting a ride. I don't know, you know. Maybe he's working hard and doing what he has to do. getting a ride, just piss him off,

just getting a stir. You were just trying to get under his skin? Yeah, for sure, just going around. You saw him, right? Didn't you see him in Las Vegas during International Fight Week? Yeah, and I was Gordred with him, and everything was fine, but then he, like, made a comment that he's going to beat my ass worse

and he's ever beat you on death ever. So I was, oh, okay, now you want, now once I walk away, you want to start poking fun of me, so then I called him Frankenstein and told him that he did steroid, so. He's diving back. So he says he's going to beat your ass, which is what everyone tries to do to fight.

And then you go on, you went totally, you know, in a different direction, and, uh, and went Frankenstein. That really bothered you,

apparently. No, I didn't mean, I was just trying to really bother him. Like, so, it was just, it made me more upset that he was like, laughing and joking and cordial with me,

you know, on one hand, and they were right, right on the other side. So he was like, come on, man. So,

How do you feel about the fight being on Fox? Title fight on Fox. Cool, why not? Great. I don't care. Or, you know, that I'll fight on, I'll be the first fight of the night. On a Wednesday night fight card.

I don't care. He'll make them doing to me. So Fox will be cool. Excited, pay-per-view, cool. It makes no difference to me. You're fighting him in the arena in which he suffered his last loss to Habib. Do you believe in that sort of thing?

Oh, wow, I got the gods on my side here. No, I didn't even know that. Thanks for filling me, and I had no idea. All I knew is, oh, wow, fighting in Orlando, I get to go screw around the Epcot Center and Disney World and the wigboard is on my wigboard and that's what I thought. Your big Disney World, Epcot guy? I will be.

Have you ever been? Last time when I fought Barbosa down in Orlando, Yeah, so there you go. You fought on that card. You had maybe one of your best wins in this. I mean, it's kind of hard to pick one because they've been all very impressive, but great win for you. He lost on that card.

I feel like there's some good mojo going your way. Let's hope so. Yeah. And so do you start your training camp from now, or is it too early? I think I always train. I don't really have a training. I don't know. Guys are all here.

Paul's down here. Band members down here. We're training. So I guess you can say I'm trying. drink. I don't know what camp is, but I just stay in camp all the time. Be ready. You don't have to get ready if you stay ready. Isn't that how they say it? That is how they say it. What about this? I mean, it's amazing to go on your Twitter. I feel like you have officially become the every man's fighter. Like people are toasting you no matter where they are. They're talking about

drinking with you. How did this happen? How did Donald Soroni become a fan favorite for the working man, the blue-collar MMA fan? I feel like you're their number one guy. I feel like that's the kind of guy I am, man. I used to work. You call I work late at Harvard Flood. Those are the people that I relate with, you know. Go home from a hard day of working and they crack a beer. I can relate to that.

Sunday, Sunday, barbecue and drinking beer with your friends. I can relate with that. So I feel, I don't know, kind of on the, I'm their man. When's the last time you laid some hardwood floors down? Oh, just the other day in my house. Oh, yeah, for yourself. But no, like on a job. Oh, call years ago, five, six years ago.

You missed that life? But by the new apartments I'm building, I'll build them. The only thing I won't do is lay the concrete foundation. From that, I'll do all the electrical, all the framing, the roofing, everything. So all the guys here at the house, they're out, they learn how to build fun. Wow. Do they have to? Teaching life lessons out here, Ariel.

You know what? I need some of those life lessons. I don't know. I'd do any of that stuff. Would you imagine? Don't take by it so serious and fucking drink beer and have a good time. There's a free one for you. Guess what?

I haven't had a beer in over a year. How do you feel about that? Well, maybe you do other recreational drugs. No, I don't. As a matter of fact, maybe I do need to let loose a little bit. Maybe you do. Does it make you think less of me that I've never laid down any hardwood floor in my life? No.

You don't look like the kind of guy that swings much of a hammer, so... Well, I don't know about that. Now I'm offended. No. That wasn't by any means of sexual. No, no, no. You don't think I'm much of a handyman? No.

If I looked at you across the bar and I said, I don't think that guy, you know, he's a construction worker. You don't really have the body frame. Oh. Have you seen me without a shirt? Do you know about the A-PAC that I'm rocking right now? I'll see the shoes you're wearing.

That's a pretty good indication. So if you did see me at a bar, what kind of guy would you say I am? Like a stockbroker kind of computer guy. Get out of there. Stockbroker? I can't do math for crap. Well, you asked me,

our first impression, if I was looking at you, what I think you were? That's, you asked. Okay. I know nothing of you. I just see you at the bar. I see you there with your colorful wing shoes,

and I'm not saying, You know, this guy's a stockbroker, computer guy. I don't know which stock markets you look at, but no, I don't see any finance guys walking around with winged shoes. You never know. Never know. All right, fair enough. Maybe I have to work on my image a little bit.

I think that's what I'm getting here. But here's what I want to know. You got a good image. It works for you. Yeah. It works for you. I would never think you were an interviewer of the greatest athletes in the world. That wouldn't have crossed my mind, you know,

but who knows? And so I guess the lesson here is don't judge a book by its cover. That's it right there. I would never guess... And if you see me at the bar and my boots in my hat, you'd be like, look at this fucking nail, Billy.

That's what would come out of your mind. So don't judge a book by its cover. Hell yeah. You know, I would never guess that Paul Felder is a thespian. Did you know that he's a thespian? You know, I don't even know what a festian is. So...

He's an actor. He had dreams of being in Hollywood. There you go. You got to speak in my language. Now, yes, I did know that. It's very impressive. He's great. I've seen his stuff online. He's really talented. Yeah. Were you proud of him in his performance against Barbosa? I know he came up on the losing end, but it feels like his stock went up after that fight. Oh, yeah. I mean, it is tough. He throws down, you know. I was very proud of him, you know. Very proud of him. Good dude. Hey, one more thing about the Twitter thing. Did you have a conscious decision in your mind? mind, do you make a conscious decision and say, I need to show the world a little more about

who I am, because I feel like in WC days, you didn't have this connection with the fans like you do now. Like, did you think about that? Like, oh, or maybe to someone tell you that you should do it? Now it feels like you really got it down. I mean, if every MMA fighter can have a connection with his fans like you, I think they'd all be a lot more popular and make a lot more money. For you, in the last few years, something seemed to change.

I think it was like a growing thing that started, you know, and slowly, I don't know. I see what you're saying, but, uh, yeah. Not real sure. It's an amazing thing. Maybe my 12 followers that I had in WC days it didn't really add up. As of now, I got a little more. I love it.

It's fun to watch. When's the last time you watched your first fight against Dosanjos? Never. You've never watched it? No. Will you watch it before the fight? No. I don't get it.

Don't care. Don't care. No. Nope, don't even care at all Not even a little bit I care I watch it this morning

I don't have film at all I don't watch film on me On the other guy On any of my training partner There's nothing Mm-hmm I just wanted to say I watch

Go ahead go ahead What's that? I watched it this morning And I feel like you're a completely different person Maybe just mentally Yeah mentally

You have a different confidence level Just feel The way you conduct yourself in the fight. I mean, you got rocked a little early in the fight, so it may have changed things, but it just seemed like a different Donald when you fought him in Indianapolis. Right. Do you recall how you were then compared to now? Is that accurate? You know, I don't really know what was going on with all that, so.

What do you all right? I'm going to hold it around one letter. A beautiful lady got a whole table. I'm going to show it this. All right, sugar? You don't mind now. Yeah. Thank you. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, let's end on this. Let's move along. Okay. Okay, okay, I'll let you go.

I'll ask you one more thing and then I'll let you go, all right? I know how much you love talking to me. But I love talking to you, believe it or not. Okay, what was the word again? A the thespian. Thespian? He said, did you know that was a thespian? Not, did I know the thespian is?

Yeah. What do you think that... What do you think it's going to be like when you get that belt around your waist? What's that feeling going to be like for you? What are you going to think about? What's going to be... Well, I'm going to take the belt off,

and I'm going to give it right to my grammar. That's going to probably be the highlight of my life. You know, she wants that more than I do. So it means nothing to me, Ariel. I don't know how I got to preach this to you guys. It should mean nothing to me. I know you've said this many times, but it could bring a lot of things to you.

Happiness, financial, stability, all kinds of things come with being the champion. Sure. Sure, sure. I'm with you on that, and I understand that, but in the end of the day, I just want to get in there and throw it down. I love it. It's like the funnest thing in the world. Will your grandmother be at the fight? Absolutely.

And you'll give her the belt, and it'll be in her house. Yeah, whatever she wants to do with it. Wonderful. All right. Donald, thank you for the time. Great talking to you as always. Good luck with the building over there. and let me know if you need an extra set of hands. I know a guy. Yeah, you can make it out.

I don't see you swinging much of a hammer, but you could sure try. You'd be surprised, my friend. All right, let's see. Let's see. I'm going to take you up on that. Break the cameras out too. It will put you to work.

Okay. You know, I'm not much of a camera kind of guy. I like to do things, you know, in private, but if that's what you want, that's what you want. You got it. Thanks, Donald. Appreciate it. Good luck to you.

Yeah. Later. Cowboy Soroni joining us. He is fighting for the belt on December 19th in Orlando, Florida. Finally, he gets that long, long-awaited UFC title shot. Okay, let us move along. As we were talking about with Chris Wyden, very excited to have our next guest on the show.

Wanted to have him on the show for quite some time, but I feel like now is the best time because we're a month into this whole new anti-doping era for the UFC. their new efforts to clean up the sport, a lot of change, a lot of moving parts, a lot of things happening. So who better than the UFC's vice president of athlete health and performance to come make sense of it all for us. I'm talking about Jeff Novitsky. He's joining us on the phone right now. Jeff, how are you? Good, Ariel. How you doing my man? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for the time. So you joined the UFC in April. How much did you know about the sport and where it stood

with regards to PEDs when you were hired? Not as much as I know now. I'm a big fan of sports in general, all sports, so there's not a sport I won't watch, but really hadn't gotten in-depth into MMA and UFC specifically until I came on in April. So how did you even end up here? Crazy story. My oldest daughter is a club volleyball player, and back in February, she had a tournament out here in Las Vegas. and a former co-worker of mine that I started off very early with when I was a special agent with the IRS criminal investigation division, went on to become the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office.

And so when I came out here in February, I looked him up, went out and had a beer one night, and he had recently retired, and now is the vice president of anti-money laundering and compliance for stations casino. So over a beer, we're talking about his new job, and he talks about how his bosses, the Furtida brothers, also own the UFC. And so one thing led to another, and he had me out of his office, I think that Monday, met his boss, who's Bill Young, the former sheriff of Clark County and now current senior vice president of security for stations casinos. and so over, you know, an hour and a half, two-hour meeting with Bill Young, he starts talking about UFC and some of the issues they were having with performance-enhancing drugs. So I left, went back home, and about a week later got a call from Bill Young saying, hey, how would you like to come out to Vegas and meet with Lorenzo Furtita, Dana White? They like to kind of bounce a few ideas off you, talk about, you know, performance-hancing drugs, how it relates to their sport. Shoot, I'll always take advantage of a situation like that. So it took the day off work, paid for my flight out on my own dime,

had a good lunch meeting with them and talked about things about what I had learned over my career and what currently was going on with them. So it went back home and about another week later got a call from Bill saying, hey, they're interested in maybe talking with you about a position within UFC. And a couple of them flew out and visited me in San Francisco. and next thing you know, they gave me an offer and took it. And four months later, you know, one of the best decisions I think I've ever made, love the people I work for and work with here and just awesome to be able to be part of something

being, you know, built from the ground floor up. And what, you know, based on my experience, is the best anti-doping program, not just in MMA, you know, not just in professional sports here in the United States, but in professional sports in the entire world. So when you finally join the team and you're sitting there and you're really getting, you know, down and dirty with the facts that are presented to you and, you know, you're obviously having conversations and things like that before July comes around, even before, you know, the announcement is made about the Usada deal. What, what impressions are you getting about the state of PED usage in the sport? Are you thinking like, wow, this is, this is a problem. This is an epidemic. This is, you know, I got a major, major task on my hands here. How did you assess it at that point? No, not really. In my previous career, I was exposed to PEDUs and all kinds of sports, all different sports.

And so I don't, you know, after being here for several months, think it's an issue unique to the UFC or MMA. But what is unique to this sport is the importance, the importance of dealing with it here. You know, Dana said many times this isn't hitting a ball over the fence, you know, with a bat. this isn't trying to tackle somebody down. This is two human beings, you know, getting in an octagon, trying to get the other to submit. And so I don't think the prevalence is any greater than other sports, because I've seen other sports where it's very prevalent. But, you know, I think what is unique here is how important it is to deal with the situation. Okay, so was it your idea, given your history, given your, you know, your great experience, battling,

PED usage in other sports. Was it your idea and were you the driving force behind linking up with USADA? I don't think initially it was my idea. They had USADA on the radar before I came here, but definitely when I got here, you know, I pushed them pretty hard. You know, I work with them really back to the beginning. They were an entity that I relied on heavily to kind of educate me on PEDUs, on on the anti-doping side of things, how drugs were detected.

You know, I saw them in action for 12 years, how they dealt with anti-doping in the high-profile cases they had. And, you know, I was exposed to them and anti-doping agencies are all throughout the world. And really, they're the best that there is out there. Their record shows that. So, yeah, you know, when they relied on me for that experience and advice, I definitely gave it to them. One of the byproducts of this partnership, of course, has been the IV ban that comes into play in October. And I've heard from people who said that this was kind of an unfortunate byproduct.

The UFC didn't want to get rid of IVs, but because it's banned in the WADA code, they have to adhere to it. Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean, the IV thing is something that took me a little bit by surprise. not necessarily on, you know, that the fact that the practice was banned and that it was used to defeat, you know, some anti-doping tests. I saw that kind of up front and center in some of my investigations, specifically, you know, in professional cycling where athletes were using it to defeat drug tests. What was surprising to me was the prevalence of its use in this sport,

not necessary, I think, to try to defeat anti-doping tests, but for rehydration purposes, that and the extreme weight cuts that were going on. So, you know, that was a surprise. Myself and you saw it over the last month, month and a half, had been working really tirelessly trying to put together, you know, as much information as we can for our athletes, showing, you know, proper oral rehydration techniques, showing the dangers of, you know, serious, severe short-term weight cuts, and, you know, not just

taking the IB away from them, but giving them, you know, solutions to it. So do you feel like this is something that could be rectified? I mean, I know you've heard this from other fighters. You've met with other fighters. They're kind of freaking out about this, right? I mean, a lot of them are very concerned that it's going to be unhealthy, that they're not going to be able to perform all that stuff. Is there no wiggle room here come October?

It's out? Yeah, IVs come October 1st in excess of 50 milliliters every six hours are going to be banned. That's a very small amount. No one would ever use that small amount to rehydrate. So it is, you know, something that they're going to have to deal with and whether it means, you know, walking around when fights aren't scheduled a little closer to that fight weight, whether it means, you know, which hopefully it does, is being educated through us and through others on how to properly orally rehydrate.

What the studies in science show is that as long as the dehydration isn't too severe, oral rehydration is actually better for you. It's safer for you. Studies show that you'll actually have, you'll feel like exercise is a little bit easier and that you're exerting less if you orally rehydrate. But, you know, I think the big thing is to avoid. those severe dehydrations. Now look, there are exceptions in the policy and in the law to code that if you need to be hospitalized, you can do that. You can receive an IV. You don't

need a therapeutic use exemption. Now, the catch-22 aspect of that is if you're hospitalized the day before a fight, you're going to have to inform, you know, the commission where you're fighting and your ability to be able to fight is likely going to be compromised. Is it easy to police this sort of thing? You know, Joseo Aldo recently said, you know, I'm going to do it regardless. How can you know if, you know, a fighter just goes the night before fight and does it? Yeah, you know, that's going to be up to Usada and I'm not a scientist, but in speaking with them, there are tests out there to help to detect it.

We use, you know, what's called a biological passport where over a period of time, Ussada will look at our athletes' blood and urine profiles and use of an IV would definitely affect an athlete's biological passport and that their blood and urine, you know, be severely diluted during that time. There's certain tests out there involving plastics in blood and urine, which are present in IV bags. and then there's always the case that under our policy and under the Waddeco, blood and urine samples are frozen and retained for long periods of time. So, you know, even if there wasn't a definitive test now, you know, there could be two, three years from now. And as often the case, anti-doping, they will go backwards and retest samples when new tests come out.

So that, you know, combined with what the sanctions are here under this program, as we get out, and, you know, go around and educate, we're asked these very same questions about, hey, well, can they really detect it and aren't people going to take the chance to do it? And really, you're, the risk versus reward under this program, I mean, someone's found out to have taken an IV and you're facing a potential two-year ban, which is a long time in the UFC and an MMA. So hopefully, you know, all those factors put forth that everyone will adhere to these rules. I know you've traveled around and met with a lot of fighters, camps, et cetera. What kind of feedback are you getting?

Because, you know, with great change, comes a lot of questions, uncertainty. Some, you know, some guys will freak out, whatever. Are you feeling like the fighters are open to this new era? Or are you feeling like more so than not, they're very hesitant? No, the feedback has been really, really good. You know, in all aspects. There's definitely questions and concerns. IV band being one of them.

But, you know, I think as we leave each of these education systems, myself and you saw that who's teaching them, feel pretty good about the message, you know, that we're delivering and the comfort level from our athletes. Okay. I know you were in attendance when Anderson Silva met with the commission last week in Las Vegas. What did you make of that case, that particular case, the defense that he brought to the table? Yeah, it was, it was tough to watch. I was in there in the front row,

and any time you see an icon of the sport like that, you know, have to publicly pay for a mistake. It's tough. I've had similar front row seats in a lot of similar occasions, you know. Yeah. And the congressional hearings where some of the high-profile baseball players had to do similar things. I've been in criminal trials where high-profile athletes have had to, you know,

disclosed for the first time, mistakes they made. Obviously watch television shows. This is Oprah Winfrey where high-profile athlete had to do that. They're all really hard to watch. You know, I think the only good thing that comes out of them is a lesson, a lesson, you know, obviously a lesson going forward for Anderson as he hopefully continues his career after his gear band. And a lesson, I think, for all of our UFC athletes.

And it really is a teaching point that we can use as we go out in an edson. educate. In fact, Friday, after that hearing, I was out at the Ultimate Fighter Gym here locally and had a chance to sit down to the contestants on the season being filmed here and talk with them for an hour, hour and a half about the program. And that was brought up quite a bit just to teach that lesson. So, I mean, that's really the only thing good that comes out of it. Absolutely. And, you know, as I also said at the top of the show, I feel like his defense team did him a major disservice. I mean, it just seemed like what they were bringing to the table of their story, just it didn't, it didn't make any sense. And then once he had the chance to talk and defend himself,

it was, you know, it was kind of hard to believe the story with the friend in Thailand and the blue vial. I mean, were you buying anything that they were selling? Well, God, I mean, if he was, you know, coming up with the story, you could have come up with one that was, you know, less sensitive and private, Matt. So, you know, I would tend to believe what that story was. I was a little bit disappointed that, you know, his expert didn't bring along with him the testing results or, you know, the actual product in question. But yeah. I feel like I know what you're going to say here, but I want to ask it anyway. I feel like more often than not, I call this the Andy Pettit case. If you just come out and say, I messed up, I'm sorry,

right off the bat, it's amazing how forgiving the public can be. No one ever talks about, you know, anytime you talk about Andy Pedron in his past, they bring up the fact that he came out, was honest, and he's accepted and still beloved by Yankee fans. And then when you bring up some of these other players or athletes that fight it and continue to fight it, everyone looks at them a weird way. Why do you feel like athletes have such a hard time doing this

or understanding this? Yeah, it's difficult. It's, you know, it's living in denial for so many years doing this. It's, you know, taking performance-nancing drugs is a very private thing. It's usually, you know, in my experience, not something that's done in the clubhouse in front of others. Many athletes don't tell their family, their friends, you know,

really no one knows about it. It's done in private, usually in the bathroom, in your residence. And, you know, when they're caught and brought to the table, it kind of takes a little bit of time to, I think, come to grips with what it was. I couldn't agree with you more just, you know, in the 15 years of experience I've had in this, those that come up right away, admit to it,

you know, like you said, I think the public is very forgiving in this area. And, yeah, I mean, if I had to advise anybody, that would definitely be the game plan. Do you have any idea how many fighters have been tested

since this came to play in early July? I don't. I mean, it's rolling out, you know, a little bit, gradually, let's put it that way.

We are, the emphasis on the beginning of the program is on educating our fighters to let them know exactly, you know, what they're facing. Our whereabouts program, which is a very important part of the program, so that USADA will know where our athletes are and can go find them 365 days a year. That's going to come online October 1st. But there has been testing going on. One really great thing about this program.

is the transparency. So as it moves along in the coming months here, USADA will post testing statistics on the UFC USADA website. So not only will all UFC fighters be able to do it, but the public will be able to do it as well. You'll be able to get on there in a month or two and see exactly what the numbers are. By athlete, you'll be able to see each UFC athlete

and how many times they were tested. Wow. And I think that's a pillar to a strong, program is its transparency. We're not hiding anything. Everything's out here in the open, and really all testing decisions and adjudication of results are done by an independent agency, USADA. So they have no business interest in the UFC. And because of that, you know, that's why we're calling it the strongest, most comprehensive anti-doping program in pro sports in the world. How often do the fighters have to check in?

So the whereabouts program requires them once every quarter, so once every three months, beginning October 1st, to give their whereabouts for the next three months. And what that means is where they're going to be residing overnight and then a couple of regularly scheduled activities during the day. So we're advising, hey, when you go to the gym, put your gym down in the hours you're there. athletes who may have a second job, that would be one. Athletes are going to school, that would be one. So it's not 24-7, but it's every day, and it's, you know, where you can be found overnight early in the morning and a couple of regular places during the day.

After, and I signed up for the whereabouts program and have been doing it for a month and a half, I figure if I get out there and I'm, you know, educating and telling our athletes, hey, it's not that hard to do. Here's what you have to do. I should probably experience it. So I've been doing it. And I'll be the first to admit, you sit down for the next three months, and it's very difficult to know where you're going to be two or three months from now, especially with the schedule our athletes have. So after filing that initial three-month whereabouts, usually on your computer or laptop, you then, the athletes then have the ability to download a mobile app onto their phone. And so as the weeks go by, they can check in to

see, ah, where did I say I was going to be, you know, two weeks out and see, oh, you know, my plans have changed, and they can do an update via the phone, which takes 20 to 30 seconds. So really user-friendly. But, you know, it is an inconvenience, but it's necessary. In order to run a good program and be able to test 365 days a year, it's one of the sacrifices, you know, that our athletes need to make so that they can tell, you know, the world that we have the strongest anti-doping program in it. What kind of feedback are you getting about that?

Because you know fighters, you know athletes, right? I mean, it's hard. I have a hard time getting them to agree to come on this show at the right time to get them to, you know, sign up and let you know where they are. I mean, they're just sometimes all over the place. Do you feel like that's going to be the toughest part to police them on that? Yeah, it's going to be a challenge. And, you know, you saw it has gone through this already with their population of Olympic athletes.

and so they definitely know the challenges. You know, that's going to be a big part of my role. It's a balancing act between, you know, this program wants to catch the intentional cheaters. But we also, you know, have to have things in place so that if an athlete says, I'm just not going to fill out, you know, my whereabouts or I don't, you know, it's not going to be accurate.

I don't really care about it. We need to prevent that from happening. So in the program, there's what's called a three-strike rule. And it's three strikes every, rolling 12 months where if an athlete three times either didn't fill out their whereabouts or their whereabouts was inaccurate and you saw that wasn't able to locate them, you know, they could potentially get those three strikes and that would be a sanction under our program. You know, what I'm telling athletes is I think my job going forward is when you sawda calls me

and said, hey, athlete A has strike one. You better believe I'm going to be on the phone with that athlete to, you know, rectify that situation. When I get the call that athlete has, you know, you know a has strike two I'm likely going to get on a plane and trail that athlete around for a day or two making sure that they're filing their whereabouts, you know, where they are. So that's going to be, I think, a big part of my role coming up when we go, you know, online with that October 1st. UFC middleweight champion Chris Wyman wanted me to ask you about what will be tested at a competition. Like when someone shows up to his house, you know, randomly before fight, four months before a fight, is it blood and urine? Are you tested? for HGHEPO, can you shed some light on that? Yeah, so out of competition tests. It could be either blood or urine. Usada will determine that.

Okay. The substances tested for out of competition are your hard substances. So your anabolic steroids, your human growth hormones, your blood doping drugs, which cause more red blood cells to reproduce, those types of drugs. In competition, and the definition of in competition under our program, is six hours before the weigh-in until six hours after the fight, so really just those two days, weigh-in day and fight day. During tests taken during those days, not only will the hard stuff be tested for the steroids,

growth hormones, blood-doping products, but recreational drugs there. So the marijuana, cocaine and other stimulants, glucocortico-steroids. So kind of in reverse, those drugs, the marijuana, the stimulants, the glucocortico-steroids, will be tested for under our program only in competition, only the day of the way into really the day of the fight. In regards to marijuana, because it's a question that we get often, the threshold for a positive marijuana test in competition is 150 nanograms for a milliliter, and that may not mean a lot to a lot of people, but it's a pretty high threshold.

And to give you an example, the WADA standard used to be just two years ago, 15 nanograms for a milliliter. So it's increased, you know, at 1,000 percent. It's a pretty dry threshold. We can't advise, you know, we don't encourage any of our athletes to use any of these substances or drugs. But this program is not being put forward to play the moral police. It's to prevent, you know, an unfair advantage. in regards to marijuana, we can't give a day or a time period that if an athlete was using that, when they would need to stop to stay under 150 nanograms for a milliliter on an in-and-competition test,

different athletes, you know, process and metabolized things differently, but it is a pretty high level. It's funny. My next question was just going to be about marijuana, so you covered that, and I appreciate it. But just curious, you know, Nick Diaz is up next month. if you have a license in your state medical license, does it change for you? I mean, are there a different set of standards for you then? And by state medical, you mean a prescription? Yeah, exactly. No, no, it doesn't.

I mean, there's many drugs under our policy, which are prohibited, that could be prescribed by doctors, you know, if they would give you an advantage in competition, you know, WADA has done studies over the years, and that's why they, have the list and they would be banned. Okay, so there's no exceptions? Nope. All right. Well, I mean, athletes, we do have, you know, and state commissions have this as well,

therapeutic use exemptions. Yeah. You know, USADA has a board of independent medical experts and physicians that if an athlete wants to apply poor prescription drugs saying that, hey, there's a medical need and there's no other, you know, medical alternatives to using it. and that would outweigh, you know, the advantage they'd have in competing. They could potentially get a therapeutic use exemption. Not only would they have to get one through USADA in our program,

but USADA and I would have to work with the state commission because unless the state commission signs off on it, the USADA is really worthless. So it would have to be through both of those avenues. I've never heard in my experience in anti-doping in any Olympic sports or anywhere else of a TUE being granted for marijuana use. But I don't know. It could happen maybe.

Two last quick questions, and I really appreciate the time and the insight. Because as you know, this is a hot topic in the sport, and it's somewhat new to all of us. It's part of the evolution of the sport, and a lot of misinformation gets thrown around, so it's great to hear it from the source. My first question was, you know, Lorenzo Fertita said at the press conference to announce all of this,

that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Do you agree with him? We'll see. You know, I look at part of my job and my role here as we're going out and educating is preventing that, not on how many positive tests we get, but on how many we don't. You know, this program is meant to have a lot of deterrent effects up front, and we need to educate and pass that along to our fighters to hopefully, you know, stay that off on the front end as opposed to the back end.

So I don't know. I mean, it's a bit unprecedented in a professional sport to have, you know, a program this strong. My hope would be that even if there is an issue that our population of athletes looks at this program and see how effective and strong it is and how difficult it would be, you know, to get away with it here and looks at that and, you know, is deterred on the front end from doing it. But, you know, only time will tell. And up until this point, the UFC has done a very good job of working in unison with athletic commissions. But now you are putting out your own set of rules and punishments, guidelines, all that stuff.

What kind of feedback, if any, and in particular from Nevada, who is the gold standard and the commission that the UFC typically follows, especially when overseas and governing themselves? What kind of feedback have you received from the commissions? Are they going to work in unison with you now? Do you feel like it's going to get? get a little tricky along the way when you enter a state that doesn't want to follow these guidelines. How is that going to all work out? Yeah, it's a work in progress. We've had very good communication, not only with Nevada, but with other commissions. Back to Cab MMA down in Brazil

is a great example that they have basically signed on to our program and said, hey, instead of us in this game of anti-doping, which we don't really know too well, we're going to basically just adopt your program and you saw this program. I think what it all comes down to is, look, we're all in this for the same reason for a clean, fair, you know, sport. And that being the case, since we all have the same motive, I think eventually, you know, all of us will get on the same page. I look at as we're not trying to take over what the commissions we're doing, are doing in terms of anti-doping. We're trying to supplement what they're doing so that when, you know, after a year of our program having bed in place, we come to a fight in Nevada.

We can go to Nevada and say, look, we've tested our athletes out of competition for a year. So in addition to what you want to do, your enhanced testing for this bout or testing on the night of the bout, here's our years' worth of tests that we've done to show that our athletes, you know, are clean coming to a fight in your state. Tremendous. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the time and insight, Jeff, and I appreciate you answering the questions as candidly as possible. I wish you the best, and hopefully, you know, in a few months and a year or so, we can reconvene, see how things are going. It's a fascinating story.

I said on UFC tonight a couple weeks ago. I think it's the story to watch for the rest of the year and beyond. Looking forward to seeing, you know, what you do and how you clean up the sport and how it all evolves. So I really appreciate it once again. That sounds good. All right. All right. There he is.

Jeff Novitsky, the UFC's VP of athlete and performance. health, I should say athlete health and performance. But in the end, regardless of title, he is the man who has been appointed to clean up the sport, clean up the UFC, make sure everyone's for the most part on the same playing field. Tough, tough task. But he certainly has the resume to back up his action. So we'll see what happens. A very interesting time, a fascinating time. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. And when this starts to start. to really roll out, as Chris Wyman said, has not been tested yet. And you could tell that I really feel like October is kind of, I feel like July was the soft launch, but October is the real launch.

And I'm curious to see what happens then when these random tests start to pop up. Interesting times. All right. One more guest to go. Last week, speaking of Twitter action, Will Brooks, we were talking about him going, you know, a little bit haywire on Twitter last week. Also a very interesting back and forth, came out of nowhere. I shouldn't say came out of nowhere because it's been somewhat brewing for the last few months. But it was interesting to follow nonetheless. It was between CM Punk,

the of course former pro wrestler who is transitioning over to the UFC going to make his debut in a few months' time and Cahal Pendred. Spirited, very tense, interesting to fall along if you're into that sort of thing. They were going back and forth,

and I thought it would be interesting to talk to Pendred about it. And also, of course, his fight coming up in Dublin in October. So here he is joining us via the magic of Skype. Once again, Cahall Pendred,

joins us right now in the MMA hour. Kyle, how are you? I'm good, Arad, how are you? No smiling this time from you. All business. Oh, there it is. No, I'm smiling. I'm actually just thinking there.

It's funny, you imagine my fight coming on up but we're not here to talk about that really it's a chick magnet we're here to talk about let's be honest are you okay with that no I'm completely okay with that that's why I think chick magnet is great for the sport and I think

it's been a great business decision by the UFC to bring in the magnet to the UFC and you know people want to hear about him people want to see him and because he responded to me last week people want to hear from me now this week so let's be upfront about it. We're here to talk about Jake Magna.

So this is interesting because one could say that whoever gets the CM Punk debut fight. I mean, that's like a lottery ticket, right? You're going to get a lot of media attention. You'll have a good placement on the card. You know, I mean, this is a prime spot. Is this something that you want? Are you doing this to try to get that debut fight?

Because if you look at your resumes on paper, I don't know if a lot of athletic commissions would sanction a fight like this, because you have over 20 fights. and of course he has none. Nevertheless, is this what you want? Is this what you're getting at here? Well, you're stealing what I said,

because the day he got signed by the UFC, I said the Chick Magnet fight was a lottery ticket. He is the lottery ticket. And I think every fighter should want that fight that's in the UFC. There's a lot of money to be made. And, you know, I'm one of the guys that's in his division. So, you know, I definitely wouldn't turn it down. And if it was a possibility, I'd be well up for it.

I actually think I'm in pole position for it now because I think, like I said, most guys should be calling him out. Nearly every guy that's in either middleweight or welterweight has called the guy out and he hasn't responded to any of them. Why do you think he's... I didn't even call him out last week. I put up a tweet with a short clip of him hitting pads and I didn't use his Twitter handle or tag him in it or anything. I just put the video up and you know me, you've found. follow me on Twitter. As the Irish say, I'm always just having a bit of crack.

And I was actually more ripping the piss out of myself than I was than I was CM Punk. Everyone knows my stand-up hasn't looked too beautiful since my UFC career started. And I just said, look at this guy, he makes me look like Mohammed Ali in the pads. So

I was actually just insulting myself in a half-heartedly way. And then within minutes, which I never could have expected, because Chick Magna has, what, two and a half million followers on Twitter, I didn't even tag the guy. Within minutes, he's responding to me and, you know, insulting me and having it back and forth. I was having a great time with it, to be honest.

I thought it was brilliant. And, you know, that just makes me think maybe this guy is delusional as some of the fans that he has and actually thinks he could beat me in a fight. so if that's the case and then fricking the lines and that fight up it'll be all over I mean that

whatever current chick magnet ends up on there's going to be plus a million perper-view buys and the UFC have done something really really smart there they know if you were to analyze UFC fans

I would say between 80 and 90% of fans of the UFC have come or have been or even steal WDWE fans. That's where their base fans, the majority of them, come from. So they're being really smart here bringing Chick-Maggot into the

organisation. And I have no problems with the guy. I think he's great for the sport. He's bringing more eyes, more fans into the sport, and he's great for whatever fighters get involved in on. You know, Chick-Magat, thanks for tweeting me back last week. I didn't tag you in it.

You know, I was having a bit of fun. Thanks for having a bit of back-and-forth, but he's definitely put me in pole position for that fight. I'm down for it. He's won and done fight. Like you said, I'm way too advanced for him, but let's be honest, everyone in the UFC is way too advanced for him.

He's coming in to the top organization in the world for mixed martial arts, the pinnacle organization. The UFC are the NFL or the NBA of mixed martial arts, and they've done phenomenal things in the last couple of years to secure that position. They've got the Fox deal.

They've got the Reebok deal. These things have secured them becoming in the position they are now. The Pinnacle organization. And what Chick Magna is doing now, it would be the equivalent of a big star guy in MMA. Let's say, for example, Connor. Connor McGregor is a big star now in the UFC, and he decides he wants to play basketball on the L.A.

Lakers sign him and he comes into the NBA. So he's training away. He has to fight he has to fight someone in the UFC. It would be like if Conor became point guard for the LACers says it no, well he's not going to

we're not going to play any NBA level teams. We're going to have them play against high school teams when Connor McGregor is playing point guard. That's not the way it's going to be. The UFC aren't going to dilute their product by bringing some

some random guy in to fight him to fight chick magnet so chick magnet is going to have to fight someone on the occester he's coming in at the top of the sport and look credit where credit's due my hat is off to chick magnet he's you know that that takes him takes some balls and he's coming in he's trying himself at it so fair play to him well there's a lot to unpack there because i want to know right off the bat why do you keep referring to him as chick magnet well that's his name isn't that well yeah he's I mean, he's down on the UFC website as CM Punk and CM stands for shake magnate. I'm just calling by what he's known as. Okay.

Why do you think he responds to you? You know, as you said, a lot of people call him out. A lot of people have decided to take shots at him, but, you know, he responded to you, and you've been doing this for a little bit. Why do you think that perhaps you get under his skin? I genuinely feel like he's responding to me just because he thinks he might have a shot or else he just feels like he could maybe

at least he's not dying there with me because, you know, honestly I've seen a lot of his interviews since he's joined and I actually think he looks more scared now than he did I think he looks more unsure of himself now than he did when he first decided to do this I think he's in the gym now and he's having a hard time and he's realised

no, I've bitten him. off more than I can chew now. But he has to do it. He's signed up to it. He's publicly said that he's doing it. I don't know. I reckon he just he thinks Penderd is the way to go and if that's the way he wants to go

there's a couple hundred thousand reasons why I think it would be the way to go too. You tweeted out that clip, a short clip of him and I think, you know, in all fairness, I think it was an early clip, but regardless have you kept tabs? I mean there are some footage out there on him now. Have you tabs on what he's doing, what he's saying, how he's looking in the gym. Is this something that

you're interested in and watching? No, no, look, I'm not stalking the chick magnet. I'll leave that to the chicks. I'm, anything I've come across is just, you know me, I'm active enough on social media. If I see something regarding him, I'll just have a look. But I'm definitely not stalking him. So it's just something that you happen to come across. Where did you even find that clip? I don't know, it must have been somewhere on Twitter or on Facebook.

I don't know. I just saw it and I thought it was funny. Like, honestly, like I know, look, like I said, with the tweet myself,

I was actually ripping it out of myself. My striking has looked atrocious in the UFC so far. And, you know, that's the type of guy. I'm, I've no problem ripping it out of myself.

But that, that made me look good. And I've seen, I've seen, um, you know, boxer-sized classes where those people hitting pads looking better than that as well.

So, I mean, you say it's early enough, but fair enough. I'm sure he's better. I hope he's better for his own sake because, like I said, he's got to fight someone soon.

He can't keep just doing interviews and media appearances for DFCs. He's eventually got to step in there and fight someone and so on. You know, from what I've heard, I'm not keeping tabs on him, but I've heard he's training hard. He's moved down to

what's the, Rufus's gym Rufus sport, yeah. Rufus sport, yeah, and he's training there every day.

So, no, I'm sure he's gotten better and I'm sure he'll be, there'll be in some sort of addition shape going into the fight whenever he does decide to fight. I don't know if you saw this,

but does it bother you that people are actually debating this fight? Like, oh, you know, punk maybe could be petty. I mean, the fact that, again, you have 20 or so fights and he has none,

you know, if it's Anderson Silva in his prime against some guy making his debut. Of course, everyone's going to be like Anderson's going to murder him. But here we have some people that actually debate whether or not he has a shot against you. The fact that that's even a topic to debate, does that bother you?

No, that's even better. That makes it even more likely that I could possibly get him. You know, if there's people actually thinking that he could win the fight, you know, people are going to buy the preview and tune in to see if Jake Magnin can be punished. So, you know, I'm happy enough with that. I'm hoping eventually that that possibility, you know, could come to fruition. So we'll see what happens.

But, you know, a lot of these WWE fans, that's the reason they've brought him in. A lot of these people are new fans. There are people who've never seen Meafo. The people who haven't watched UFC and they've just seen Chick Magnet fighting or wrestling in the WWA. And they're off the basis of that, they think he's going to keep my ass. that's fair enough if they got to do it. But that's the great thing. These are new fans coming in and they're wrestling fans,

W.W.E. fans that have never watched UFC, but they are convinced that Jake Magnet can beat me in a fight and they will buy the pay-per-view to see what happen or hopefully see that happen. So that's the reason that the UFC have done this. So that kind of highlights the point. It's crazy. I've actually screened out of some of the crazy

tweets that I've been getting off the fans, the WWWB fans, they're quite funny. I might put a few of them up, but someone I'm like, oh my God, Chick Magnet is going to, you know, beat the crap out of you. Look at Brock Lesnar. You came in and was a UFC champion within three or four fights and stuff like this. You know, these guys clearly don't have a clue what to talk about when they're even comparing Chick Magnet to Brock Lesnar.

Rock Lesnar was a completely different animal. But, you know, even though Brock Lesnar was a completely different animal. a completely different animal. You look at the UFC, what they did, his first ever fight in the UFC, he was one and all coming into the UFC, haven't fought anyone particularly great, but his first fight was a former UFC champion. And, you know, the UFC went, you know, protect, some people seem to think that the UFC are going to protect Chick Magnet and, you know, allow him build up some sort of record and maybe go on a title one. But, you know, they're the delusion of, they think that's the case. The UFC aren't going to protect them. I'm pretty sure the

UFC know that Chick Magnet is one and done. He's going to be in there. They're going to get one big card out of him. They'll put him up against some fighter on the roster and he'll lose. A lot of paper views will be sold. It's a win-win scenario for the UFC, really. I mean, if Chick Magnet

was a win, which some of the WAA fans think he will, they're creating a new start. If he doesn't win, you know, the UFC shows, look, this is the some of the best athletes in the world in this sports sports league and you can't just come in here after a year's worth of training and think you're going to get a win. So it kind of, you know, whatever happens to UFC win,

so I don't think they're too worried about who, you know, about giving chick magnet an easy road. So are you thinking I got to get him in his debut or else I'm never getting this fight because you just said you think he's going to be won and done? So you've got to do whatever you can to get him for his first fight? Look, I'm not like, I would love to get the fight. It's a lottery ticket, like I said, I don't play the lottery though.

I think the lottery is, the odds in the lottery aren't worth the money that you pay for. So I'm not a lottery person. I would love to fight if it was possibly possible, but I'm not chasing it. Like I said, last week I didn't, I put that tweet up and I didn't tag CM Punk or the UFC or anyone. I just put it up having a laugh, having the crack. and then Chick Magnet came back to me so you know I'm not chasing this fight if this was to present itself I'm all over

like every single fighter in the UFC should be because regardless if you're the number one contender or you're at the bottom of the division this is a massive fight because whatever card chick magnet is going to be on is going to sell 1 million plus pay-per-view so you know it's a massive if you've any sort of intelligence you know this is the fight you should take so if the opportunity presents itself, I'm all over.

Do you regret taking that fight a month after 188, the John Howard fight in hindsight? Do you wish you didn't do it? Yeah, I've thought about that a lot, but I just said it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. It was a great card. I was a fight. I felt confident in, and I thought John would bring the best out of me.

But in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have, but I don't, I won't regret it at all now. Was it different? Go ahead, sir. Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, if I was offered it again, I would say, yes. It was too big of an opportunity. I respect you saying that.

Was it difficult for you after the fact? I mean, Connor wins. It's a lot of jubilation, a lot of happiness. You know, people are very excited, culmination, and you just suffered your first UFC loss. Was it hard? I know you were happy for him as a friend, but you're upset because you lost.

Was that a tough night? I have to say it was one of the most strangely, emotionally was one of the most strange things that I've ever gone through. Obviously, I hate to lose. You know, before even I got into

my losing, it's just something I hate. And then my first UFC loss on this massive card and just not being happy with my performance once again and I was feeling it didn't show up. I was disgusted with myself and was completely down and then and then I got you know we ended the background kind of chilled out for a bit and then I kind of just realized

one of my close friends who have been training with since you know myself I've kind of been training since before we even turned professional we were you know we've come up through the ranks together he's fighting for a UFC title so I got myself together I went outside and and then I stood in one of the two years. tunnels, you know, where the fighters walk out, watch the fight. I'm not ashamed to admit. There was tears in my eyes when

Conner and Holland got raised and the belt got put around them. It was a phenomenal night for not only our country and our team, but, you know, Connor himself, so it was amazing. So I went from literally the lowest of the law to the highest

of the high, just being so proud to be his teammates, and to have seen him gone from where he was to where he is now so it was amazing then on top of it afterwards all the team got together we got into the dressing room

and he walks in only my childhood hero Arnold Schwarzenegger so that was pretty amazing to kind of sugarcoat the whole night got a little selfie with my childhood hero

that was amazing so it was a strange night but as far as if it was ever take a loss it's nice to it nearly eradicated in a little sort of way just to see something like that

yeah perhaps it all happened for a reason it helped ease the blow of the first loss in the UFC and of course afterwards when the dust settled I'm sure you were equally upset still probably upset right now so you return in October

you return against Tom Breeze this is the big return to Dublin I know tickets are going on sale very soon but you did mention that I don't know if you were joking or not You said you wanted to take six months off to take a boxing match to improve your striking. Was that a joke? Were you having a laugh?

No, no, that was a serious. I actually was, I was investigating that possibility. I was in contact with different gyms and stuff. And I was kind of putting into works. It wasn't that. It wasn't the media. I knew the UFC was happening in October, and, you know, there's no way I would miss out in the UFC events in Dublin. I was trying to fight and that.

and then taking six months out it's something that's always been on my book list regardless even you know I've always wanted to just take professional boxing fight but it's apparently it's not possible my UFC contract it's not going to happen so

it's something I got to put on a long finger but definitely at some stage even if I'm 45 years of age I'll do with James Tony and jump sports and get a and get a fight in we just had Jeff Novitsky on the show talking about PEDs and all that stuff.

Now you have fought two guys who are on PEDs. Mike King, Dodger Montanio, do you feel like this is a pretty serious problem? What kind of a reaction does someone have when you say, I was just in a cage with a guy who was cheating? Yeah, look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's a problem exclusively with MMA because it's not. It's a part of all sports.

I think it's more important to eradicate and make sure that people aren't on PEDs in combat sports because, you know, as much as we like to say, this is a safe sport, which it is, it's safety regulated as much as possible, but I think the PED side of it needs to be more regulated. And I think the steps that the UFC have taken now, bringing you SOTA in, you know, with the random testing, that's going to make it a lot safer for us as fighters, which is the most important thing. And so, you know, I'm delighted as a clean athlete. I'm delighted to. I can't wait for these guys to be knocking down my door at 6am to, you know,

P in the Cup. You are, and we've talked about this, somewhat of a polarizing figure in the sport. Coming off your first loss in the UFC, is October 24th do or die for you? Every fight is a must-win fight for me. So I suppose, you know, If you're looking at it from the outside, maybe that's the way I're thinking. This is a must-win fight. I'm at home.

I've never fought in Dublin and not won. You know, this is, this guy is coming into my fortress. I've got a nation behind me. There will be 10,000 screaming Irish behind me. And, you know, it doesn't matter that much to me. I'd still want to win if there was zero people there, and I was just doing it for myself. But to have that extra.

pride and it just makes me want it even more and I think I think this guy is I think this guy's a good prospect but I just think he's jumped in too far too soon he's coming up against the season guy like me I've been I've been very disappointing in my UFC career so far and that's by my own standards but I've had some issues that I didn't even

I didn't even know about it up until after my last wife and I've they've been identified now and thankfully with the UFC insurance and stuff I've been able to sort out those issues like what?

Just the health issues that that have occurred in my train and I had a fractured vertebrae for my last two fights and I've been able to get that sorted on I'm just back training this week now.

I've been out for the last while, just rehabbing that. It's not as bad as it sounds. Sounds horrible. It sounds very bad. I could do a Mike Tyson right now and tell you I broke my back. Sure. You could ask me what sort of injury was it? Was it a vertebrae?

And I would say, yes, it's spinal. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like, you don't need surgery for something like that? No, apparently not. apparently it's not when I first got told what it was like

I was thinking shit I'm out for two years or something but it's it's not as bad as it sounds and

I'm back training I'm back training now from this week it was just doing rehab work and staying I had to do spinning classes

and stuff for the last that was the only form of exercise I could do for the last couple of weeks they're actually

I don't know if you know what spinning classes are yeah on the bike man they're killer I actually might keep them up for my camp It's a nice way to start off the day

You get up and they put on some Some cool techno music And you blast out in the spin class So I might keep that going Well, as they say in your neck of the woods The crack was 90, Mochara Mochara Okay, I'm learning

Enjoyed having you on, Cahall It's a slow process for me learning the lingo over there. It's a whole other world for me. No, I love to, I love to here getting involved. We're going to have to... You know, there's a region in Ireland called the Gail Talks. We'll have to bring it out to them.

They speak Gailga. Oh, yes. Soles. Yeah, we'll have to bring it out there. One of these days. For now, we say goodbye. I wish you the best on October 24th. Big fight for you.

Looking for a big performance. And, well, good luck with whatever you're trying to do with Mr. Punk. I'm not trying to do anything. I'm not trying to do anything. Okay, fair enough. Although you did send you. him the tweet. I don't have a lot of me take it. If I win, I don't. I don't. There it is. All right. We'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon. There he is.

Cahal Pendred stopping by. Clearing the air to a degree about his back and forth was seeing punk last week. Interesting. I think the most interesting thing of the whole thing is that people still talk about, you know, what would happen in this fight? And apparently he doesn't get offended about that. I could see someone getting offended, but he doesn't. So we'll see happens. Speaking of the Irish, today is the second year anniversary of the launch of Fox Sports 1. It was on this day in 2013 that Fox Sports 1 was launched. And the big draw on that day was a UFC event in Boston. Headlined by Chil Sunan versus Shogunha. That was the big draw. That was the way Fox Sports won, who I work for very proudly, was going to roll out the red carpet for the world

to see. And Chale Sunnan, who was also an employee of Fox Sports One at the time, he stepped up to the plate big time. He submitted a Shogun. He unleashed a killer promo afterwards for Foxwood. It was just great. I mean, they couldn't have scripted it better. And it was a fantastic card. Remember, Travis Brown, Alasio Overeign, Uriam, Yerai Faber was on the card, Joe Lozahn was on the card. But perhaps the fighter that got the most attention leading up to that card was Cona McGregor. He was supposed to fight Andy Ogle. Ogle got hurt. He was replaced by Max Holloway,

which is interesting to note because Max Holloway is fighting this weekend in his first UFC main event against Charles Oliva, this Sunday in Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. I still can't believe the UFC is going to Saskatchewan. I don't know why. I'm very happy for the people of Saskatchewan.

I just never thought they'd go there. Anyway, this was an interesting fight because it was McGregor's second pro... excuse me, second UFC fight, he had just defeated Marcus Brimidge in April in Sweden, comes back in Boston, and of course the Irish connection in Boston was, you know, was an obvious, it was very smart to put him on this card, even had his own media day at Peter Welch's gym, and he was on the undercard. He was on the Fox Sports 1 undercard, but it wasn't the main card, it wasn't the low domain card. He was pretty low on the card, maybe like the, I don't know,

fourth or fifth fight, something like that. And despite that, they gave him the main event walkout treatment. You know what I'm talking about, when they follow the fighter from the locker room, and they turn down the lights, all that stuff. It was a great scene. The crowd certainly treated him like a star. They loved him over there. And, of course, he would come back shortly thereafter in the main event,

a show against Dennis Siever. And then he really felt like a star, and, of course, was the main event as well. He was, just for the record, he was, at the time he was 13 and 2 going to the fight, He was the second to last fight on the prelims, so to speak. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 fights in prior to the McDonald picket fight. Then there was Michael Johnson Joe Lozahn, John Howard, Uri.S. Hull, Mike Pyle, Matt Brown, Uri Fabor, Alcantara, Overeem, Brown, Chale, Shogun. Fantastic debut for the UFC on Foxbridge 1.

The ratings were great, but again, the big story going into that fight for many people was Connor's second fight, and the big story going out of that fight was Connor's second win, but also what was going to happen to his injured knee. He talked about feeling a pop. He talked about being disappointed that he wasn't able to get the finish, but we didn't know just how severe that knee injury was. That's the only fight of his that went the distance in the UFC, and of course he injured the knee midway through the fight, but we didn't quite know. We would come to find out that he required ACL surgery and would come back, what, 11 months later to defeat Diego Brando in Ireland. So he was out for some time, but did a fantastic job of remaining relevant,

keeping himself in the news via interviews, Twitter, and all that good stuff. So anyway, on this two-year anniversary of that debut on Fox Sports One, I wanted to look back at our post-fight interview with Connor McGregor in this edition of Inside the Vault, it was, it's really interesting to to look back at what he was saying, his demeanor, everything coming out of his mouth just exactly two years ago and where he is today. A fascinating look back, not that long ago. Usually inside the vault, we like to go four or five years.

This time we're going two years today, August 17th, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts, TD Garden, my post-fight interview with Connor McGregor. Here it is. Ariel Hawani Post-Fight at UFC Fight Night 26, alongside Connor McGregor, who just defeated Max Holleyer, Holloway and Connor, congratulations on your second UFC win. A lot of pressure on your shoulders going into this fight.

Whether you wanted to admit it or not, were you happy with your performance? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not happy with the result, you know. I wanted to finish, but... What do you mean what I'm happy to admit? I admit it. There was no pressure on me. I felt no pressure. I'm admitting it. People were putting pressure on you. You may not have felt it, but it felt like there was pressure being put on you. You didn't feel any of it. No, I just listened to my team, listen to my training, listen to the people.

in my circle, everyone else, they don't exist, you know what I mean? So that's why I have confidence all the time, you know, because I know the training I put in, I know what we do back home, I know, I know the support I have, you know, and I just go with the flow, get in there, doing my thing, I really wanted to finish. I can't stress that enough, you know, I'm here to put people away. Every single one of them is in danger, I mean, all times are the fight, you know, but it is what it is. I injured my knee and fuck it.

Do you think you'll need surgery? Is it that serious? No, it just felt steady. I just felt unsteady. It was a big pop. When I was just passing into side control, he bridged and rolled, and he had my foot, and it just had a hit of pop into side control. I went. And then whatever happened, we scrambled back to the feet, and then I literally knew it was unsteady,

so I just had to readjust. I tried to play around with it. I threw a little sidekick, threw some shots. But any time, it was, it was wobbly. So, fuck it, what can you deal? I'll get it again. You've been the story all week here in Boston. Did you notice that you got a main event type of,

walk out. They followed you from the locker room with the lights down and everything. Did you notice that? Yeah, they said, they said, because Max was a little bit ahead of me and then the guy came up, no, no, Conno, you're going to walk back here. And I said, yeah, like champions. So I knew, you know what I mean? I feel like a champion, no. Honestly, man, put me in my anyone, anyone on the world and I'm dangerous for the mall. I'm just looking for my time to prove it. And it will come. You know, there's been some talk that you want to fight on the Manchester card coming up in October. Is that accurate? And if so, against two? Well, I never said that.

There's this thing. I said it. I didn't say, Jack Shea. If anything, I'd probably rather find the Vegas card December 28. Viva Las Vegas, you know what I mean? But fuck it, I'll fight in Manchester as well. Look, I don't know. I'm just going to go back and think and see what the story is with this leg.

See the Dom 1 and tell them I'll get the finish next time for him. You took a very big step after the Brimwich fight. Do you feel like you took an equally large step after this fight? I feel on top already, so I don't know. Can I go further than number one? Because I feel like I'm number one already. You can go further to number one, well, then I went further. So December 28, title shot?

Well, man, tomorrow night, right now, title shot. What I mean? December 28, title show, of course I'll take that. I'll take anything, you know what I mean? I stay ready like I say, you know? Stay ready so not to get ready. I'll wrap this bad boy up and come back as soon. last. Final question, we have a lot of Irish fans. A lot of them waiting for this interview.

Our first in person together. Anything? It's nice to meet you. It is a pleasure. I like to check with the blazer. I like that look. You're going to see my one now. Hopefully, if I get this out at the press conference, you're going to see a real tree piece. You're going to see style. So, tuning and take notes. Anything you want to say to them? To the Irish fans, man, I can hear the place rumbling. I'd say it's crazy back home. I look forward to getting back home celebrating this with my country, you know what I mean? I carry that tricolet high.

That's another reason. I want to get in there and shout out. We are not to be messed with it. We are a fighting nation, and we can do it. We can more than do it. I mean, so I hope my countrymen are proud of me.

Thank you, Connor. Get well. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. Thank you, man. Thanks so much. So I know that was just two years ago, but that's the kind of stuff I talk to people about

when I say, Connor is the exact same guy. Like, we want to believe that he has changed, that he sold out, the suits, the Louis Vuitton, that stuff. And I know that's UFC Connor. That's not Cage Warriors, Connor, or anyone before. But he's saying the same thing. He has the same confidence, the same demeanor, the same aura, everything.

It's all the same. It's pretty amazing how consistent he is and how confident he was and his abilities. Even back then, Tuna and the UFC saying, give it to me all. Of course, he didn't know how serious that knee injury was, but it's, I mean, you close your eyes and you listen to that, a few things here, there, little minor things have changed, but for the most part, he is spinning the same exact game that he was back then, which I think is important to note and pretty remarkable,

considering how far he's come in a very short amount of time. All right, let us go to your questions and comments now. I know some of you have complained that we don't devote enough time to this as of late, and that's not because I don't want to, it's because there's, been so many UFC events, so much going on, that I always keep adding more and more guests because I feel like, oh, I need to talk to this, but I need to talk to this, right? There's something that I don't want it. I mean, back of the day, we'd go as long as possible, but now that we have the hard out, certain things get, uh, get sacrificed. But today,

less guess, more time to talk. Mr. New York Rick, are you there? I'm here. The people demand the New York Rick time. I don't know if it's so much the New York Rick time. I think it is. I think it is. Um, speaking of demand, I feel like for those that have, um, what's up? stuck with us on this particular show. Can we explain why the technical difficulties at the top of the show? I feel like they demand an explanation. They are owed an explanation. Can I explain them?

I mean, I don't... Just from your vantage point, you're back there, you're seeing what's going on, what can you tell us? I thought the days of technical difficulties were over once we moved over to YouTube. Well, no, no, no, no. We're still in beta with YouTube. Okay, fair enough.

So I think there was a there was an issue with the stream not sure if it was on our end or YouTube streaming, but sync was out and now it was it is back. It has been pretty steady for the rest of the show. Pretty steady, not 100% steady. There were some outages here and there. No, since we fixed it. It's been steady. And how does this affect if you know, for those that missed the Wyman interviewer couldn't really get the whole thing? How does this affect the replay? Do you have any ideas? Yeah. We're going to put it back up. The replay wasn't affected. The on-demand portion. Yeah, the, if you're panning through the show right now,

it may be affected, but we will upload a new file at some point. Okay. And we'll be able to see everything. And we'll also, as usual, have our clips and, you know, the full audio replay and all that stuff. So you didn't miss anything. We will get it to you. And we'll get it to you as quickly as possible. So if you're freaking out that you miss something in the end,

You won't miss anything. Have no fear. All right. And it is not just me in the back here. There's a whole team working on it. But I know, but you're kind of the spokesman. But I want them to know that the whole team has their back. I do nothing.

New York Rick is just a vessel. Perhaps that's the problem. That you do nothing. That's unnecessary. No, I'm just kidding. You do a lot. But that being said, it was frustrating. You know, here's the thing.

The fancies are you. Oh, I'm not watching your show. Like, they're so, it's so dramatic. I mean, do you think that we want to put on a show with a bad stream? You know what I mean? I don't get these ultimatums that they throw out. Do you think it makes it better by you threatening to never watch a show? You know what I mean?

Sure does this? Why does it have to be so dramatic? Why does it have to be so absolute? Anyway, I'm glad we figured it out. Yeah, let's move on to the positives. I like to harp on these things. Sort of like, you know what really bothers me? I'm such a germophobe, and I wash my hands.

I take a lot of paper towels. I then go to the thing, you know, the handle. I was just in the washroom, and then I touch the freaking handle. So now I have to go back, wash my hands again, touch it again, go back a third time. That's what just happened. Do you realize what just happened? Three times I had to just wash my hands. So I need some good questions to lighten the mood a bit.

What do you got? Let's start with Anderson Silva's fiasco. Do you think he will ever fight in the UFC again after his NSAC hearing fiasco and losing all the credibility he had left? I'm very skeptical that he fought clean all his career when he was never tested out of competition and how he began to crush people in his 30s when most fighters are all on their downslope. Thoughts? Well, you know, I don't want to do a revisionist history.

But, I mean, you do bring this up and why we are allowed to even bring this up and discuss this, which I think is fair, is because he said it himself. This was the first time in his career that he had been drug tested outside of Fight Night. In my opinion, that puts a black cloud over his entire career. You know, if someone else gets popped tomorrow, there's nothing new with Anderson, but if someone gets popped tomorrow, they had a great career and said the same thing, I would feel the same. How can I not feel the same? The first time you've ever been tested out of competition, you test positive, and then we'll all due respect, that's your alibi? Come on. My friend in Thailand that I just met,

I mean, that was the worst defense that I've, and even if it was true, even if it was true, bring your friend. Tell us what the name of that company was. Show us the vial. Show us what you took. Where is, where's the back? Where's the facts? Where is everything? This is your reputation, my man. This is your career. This is your legacy. If you don't care about it, if you don't care. And let's be, let's be, let's be fair. He didn't bring the initial translator, the woman. That was provided by the state, right? He did I have Ed there, and that's fine. But if you just look at the back and fourth that they had initially when they asked them about, you know, can you explain why you took this unmarked vial? He gave her like a one or two-word answer. He couldn't have said much. And then they came back after the recess and said, you know, that's not what he meant. He wanted to explain, blah, blah, blah. I feel like someone got in his ear and said, look, man, we got to, we got to defend ourselves here. And did they not talk about this beforehand? I mean, the whole thing was like, here he is the greatest of all time in many people's eyes. And he stumbles this

way and this is his chance after what? January, so it's almost, what, seven months later? This is what we're bringing to the table, my friends? This is how we're defending ourselves. What do you make of that? Make sense of this for me. I couldn't understand it. This is what we waited so long for? Like, I thought, all right, we're delaying this thing because we got something. We got some facts, some figures. We got some real hardcore evidence which suggests that Anderson Silva is innocent, that something went awry here, that he's a clean fighter. He took a blue vial from Thailand, from a guy that he trained with once or twice. What?

Really? In the history of defenses in front of commission, Congress, all these people, what we've seen in the last 20 years or so, that might have been the worst. Can you think of a worse one? It was bad, but I think, I have a few thoughts on this. One is for as much of a debacle as the defense was, it doesn't seem like his punishment was very much harsher than it would have been had he pled the fifth or not even contested it. So if that's the standard, if you can come in there and make a mockery of it and not get punished much more severely, then what incentive is there really to even defend yourself or take it seriously in the future? perhaps the, you know, the stricter regulation and the stiffer penalties will affect that.

But correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that nine months was what was suggested initially and the same kind of fines. Is that accurate? This is way more than bad. If this happened two years ago, he probably would have got nine months first offense and like a $2,500 fine. This time he got $3.80. And you know what's interesting? And this just came to mind. You know how we hear more often than not that fighters make a lot more than what is recorded to the state, what has announced what's made public?

Right? Sure. They go off of what's announced, what's made public. So, you know, they take a percentage. I think it was 20% of his show money. So that equals out to 180. But was that really his show money? We'll never know.

You get what I'm saying? Sure. That's just a weird... It's weird, but there's no way to account for that. that's what he makes on the books. And that part, to me, is not as big a deal as the fact that if, you know, if this was as big a fall from grace as people think it was from the outside, then why did he only get 12 months? It seems like, well, I don't think one has anything to do with the other. Let me ask you.

It does because he presented, he presented a terrible case. It was awful. It was, it was. But that's on Nevada for giving him that punishment. That's what I'm saying. If this is what a mockery. earns you is three extra months of suspension it was originally i believe suggested nine months and then it turned into 12 then how much worse could it possibly get it's going to get worse next month

but my say okay so i could walk in there and you know make a make a joke out of it and get three additional months then you know there's there's no incentive for accountability uh do you view him differently do i view him differently uh certainly um not based on this though not based on the actual defense because that really probably wasn't in his hands at all. That was in the hands of the people around him. I view him differently for the positive test, but not for the hearing. Yeah, but I mean, come on, he's master of his domain.

I'm sure he was on board with what they were selling. I have to guess not. If they told him, hey, we're going to go in there and not really put up much of a defense at all, except to say that there was a random blue vile. I can't imagine. You don't think, smart guy like Anderson is like, wait a second,

no one's going to buy this? Nope. Well, then maybe that should affect the way you think of him because if someone told me, look, man, you test a positive and this is what we're going to say to the commission, I would say, I'm going to be embarrassed. I'm going to turn it into a laughing stuff. I think you have to be the butt of jokes.

I went on Anderson's Instagram. Look at what people are saying to him now. This is the goat. You have to trust the professionals around you, and I think he did, and I think he trusted the wrong professionals in this case. but I don't think differently of him because of the hearing at all. I think of him as a fighter.

I don't care about the outside stuff. I care that there was a possibility that he tried to cheat in a fight. He's claiming he didn't and his team is claiming he didn't. And that part changes how I view his legacy, but not this. I mean, this was just unfortunate. In fact, I feel sympathetic toward him because it seems like he left it in the hands of people who couldn't handle it. I think you bring up a very interesting word, sympathetic, because Anderson had the perfect out. He had the perfect out.

I just snapped my leg in this very arena 12 months ago. And I came back, and I would come back earlier. Remember, he said he wanted to come back earlier. And I freaked out. I didn't know if I had it. I didn't know if it would be healthy. I had nightmares. I had to see a psychiatrist.

I freaked out. I thought the same thing would happen once again. And I freaked out and I'm sorry. and I guarantee you, I guarantee you, I'd put anything on the line to bet that people would have been sympathetic, that people would have said, we get it, you're human. You know what, for the first time, Superman look human. I think people would have actually applauded him for that. I think he would have come out looking like roses.

How would that have affected the hearing, you think? Look, I think Nevada, as tough as they, you know, like to be. in front of the cameras and all that, I think that if you come in there with the puppy dog face, like those two boxers who came in before him, different circumstances, different fighters, all that, whatever.

They came out and were very sympathetic. They were very, um, they were very apologetic. And look at the, the punishments they got. They got seven months. They got, and less money,

all that stuff. Nevada likes to, if they feel like they are being played, they're going to bring it on. They're going to give you the face. They're going to give you the stern talking to all that stuff. But if they feel like you're coming in there to tell them, you got me, let's move on. Look at what they did with Van der Leis Silva. They gave him a lifetime ban. Van der Leis Silva, we don't know what was in his system. He ran away. He has a case. He wasn't licensed. That's his case. It's playing out once again. He got a lifetime ban for running away. But a guy who tests positive doesn't get a lifetime ban? well that's my that's my confusion is if they were trying to make an example of them they didn't make a very good example especially with how piss poor the sure but my point is the case he presented was they're mad at Anderson excuse me they're man of Vanderlai for running away from them for trying to trick them for for defying them they're mad at Chale he did it twice you know all that stuff but with Anderson

if he would have just come in there and said hey I messed up I bet you he'd have gotten less I'm sure he would have. But how much less? I'm thinking it's negligible. Because this doesn't seem that bad to me. He'd be free. He'd probably, if you would have gone nine months, he'd be free to next month. So now he's four months.

It's the same. Yeah. And look what happened. He became the butt of jokes. Well, that part. Well, that's the bad part. That's not the commission part, though. That's, that's his team's part.

They, they, you know, bunged that. No, I know, but the whole thing was just, uh, it was just handled poorly. Absolutely. On his, if that, if that is what they came up with, they should just come out. out and said, you know, we messed up. If he would have played that sympathetic card, if he would have played that, it's amazing how people would have viewed him differently. Now that he did this, I actually have no problem with Nevada on this day. I actually feel like, you know, they were

pretty fair. They asked the right questions. They got out of him that it was the first time that he'd been dead. I'm upset that they didn't do the whole Mazagati thing and they're still not willing to police themselves. You know, they gave shields and Poliaris temporary suspensions. Their disciplinary hearing is coming up. I'm upset that they wouldn't look at at Mazegadi and just say that, you know, we talked to him moving forward. There's still a lot of work to be done there. No question about it. But as far as the Anderson hearing was concerned, I actually think it was one of Nevada's finer moments. Now, luckily for him, it's not next month where he would get a much stiffer penalty. And I shudder to think what they're going to do to Nick Diaz, who now has his third

offense with marijuana. You know, I think, sometimes I think that the cameras make them, you know, act a little too tough. But as far as Anderson is concerned, I actually think that they were pretty on point. Is being the co-main on a card headline by Connor the best gig in MMA? I wonder if McDonald and Lawler's fight was made even better by the fact that their media obligations and time spent away from training

was kept to a minimum compared to what it would have been had they headline the show. Likewise, I think Wydena Rockhold will deliver big time with an exciting fight and they will be at their best with a decreased media obligation schedule. Not sure how the co-main event affects Wydenman's paper viewpoints payout, though. Insight would be greatly appreciated. I don't think Lawler and McDonald doing less media had anything to do with that fight being as great as it was. I think Lawler and McDonald were the perfect guys for that scenario because they don't like doing media. But you heard them on this show.

Wyman just said, I hope they remember that we're on this. card. I hope they give us a push. I hope they give us the attention that we deserve. So I don't think he wants to be forgotten, especially now, especially what he's been through. I do think, and I'll ask you this question because I said it myself, I think that Connor versus Aldo, Wyman v. Rockhold, is the best one-two punch in UFC history. As far as talent versus talent, prime athlete versus peak, I don't think the UFC has ever presented two better title fights than that. Can you think of any?

I know I'm putting you on the spot. Yeah. But even like, look at UFC 100, which was, you know, considered one of the greatest. Mir versus Lesnar. At the time, you could make a case that that was... It was tremendous. I'm not devaluing.

Mere versus Lezner, and then you had GSP versus Tiago Silva. That does... Alves. Excuse me. Tiago Alves. Excuse me. That doesn't stack up.

No. To Wyden Rockhole. Conoraldo. It doesn't. This is, I'm struggling to think of anything, you know, even non-title fight, just two fights that, that are this big and I'm struggling. I think this is, this is up there for sure. This is, this is probably number one. Unless I'm like, you know, blanking on something completely, this is, this is an incredible top two fights. You know, you think about the UFC doing two title fights on the same card. There are a few of them. They're doing them more these days with more champions, but, you know, let me know if you disagree or if you can think of one better than

this. So I don't think that Wyman, you know, look, in a perfect world, I think he should be main event, I think he should be the star, and especially this fight. But this is the one fight that I think they could get away with. Conrado is the more popular fight, the more talked about fight. There's more history there. So I don't think that he should be upset about that. But I'm curious to see how they promote it. How can you be upset about this? The numbers don't lie. Yeah, yeah, he's going to make more money off it. He's going to make more money. And Connor has earned this spot. There's no debate about it.

Connor and Aldo have earned, you know, more so Connor's push. But Wyden and Rockwell deserve to be a main event. I mean, that's obvious, right? They deserve to be a main event, but they're willing to not be the main event. I think they know going in that this is not the main event. I like how he subtly blames it on Luke only being on one pay-per-view. Like, he's not a big enough draw. Like, he brought him down.

Right. I mean, they both agreed to fight on this card. They know what's on this card. So it's not a thing where they got blindsided. Oh, all of a sudden, Connor McGregor and Jose Aldo are on this card and now we're bumped down. That was going to be the headliner the entire time. So if you deserve to be a headline pay-per-view draw, then don't fight on the card and, you know, fight a different time and be the headliner. But I think, you know, the money speaks and they're going to get paid handsomely.

And Connor and Aldo earn this spot. It's a no-brainer to do it this way. and it's a no-brainer to want to be a part of it, even if you're a champion fighting in the co-main event slot. I do think Wydenman Belfort should have been the main event for 187. I don't know if that's the reason why it didn't do as well as people thought maybe it was Mayweather being the same month, but I do think the real title fight, not a fight that was stripped

and, you know, like that was the original fight. I think that should have been the main event. Also, I just want to say, I'm very much looking forward to the back and forth between Rockhold and Wyden. I feel like it's going to, it's a different kind of back and forth. the two guys who, you know, kind of think their shit don't stink. They're the best in the world.

Young guys, like I said, in their prime, there's no excuses to be had. They're super competitive. There's this, like, rivalry between them. I just feel like that back and forth is going to be really interesting. And by the time we get to December 10th, 11th, whatever, you know, those stare downs are going to be fun. It's like when you play your brother, your friend, you know, back in the backyard at basketball, and, like, yeah, okay, I can, I can accept losing to this guy.

There's no way I want. want to lose to that guy. And it's just going to be super, super competitive. I can't wait for that. I love that fight. Next for the Holloway-Olivera winner, do you believe that the UFC Saskatoon main event is a title elimination bout? If not, how many fights away is the winner from a title shot? By the way, my friend Jimmy says UFC 168, that's Tate Rousey 2 and Anderson, Wydman 2. That was huge. But again, talent-wise, and just, you know, who these fighters are and where they are in their careers, I don't think it's close. No, right? I agree with you.

Holloway-Olivera winner. That is a good one, though. That was a very good suggestion. Yeah, that is a good one. And not that long ago. Yeah. Hmm. Well, here's one more. UFC 79. GSP Matt Hughes and Vanderley-Chuk. Not even close. It's not even close. Van der Leachuk were past their prime. Yeah. And GSP Hughes was an interim title fight. It was supposed to be Sarah Hughes.

Okay. Keep him coming, though, if you want. You know, that's an interesting. question. Is it possible Frankie Edgar? Ooh. But, you know, and I know he fought Oliver, but Max Holloway? Max Holloway, Frank Yeager would be a very fun fight. And I think, you know, for Holloway, this one is the next step is, I mean, it has to be an Edgar or somebody of that caliber. And then another is after that is a title shot. He's on too much of a role right now. He looks so good. Oliveras, I think, in a little different of a position. I think you could

conceivably have another two or three for him. But this is a big fight for both guys, for sure. I feel like there's a bit of a sweepstakes going on. You know, between these guys, we'll see how this plays out on Sunday. Jeremy Stevens is out there after his win, and then there's Frankie and Chad. And I can see maybe the loser of this fight, maybe fighting Chad, maybe even the winner. I can see the winner of this fight fighting Frankie Edgar. I can see a winner or loser of this fight fighting Jeremy.

I mean, I feel... There's a lot here. Yeah. It's a great main event And like I said with Connor You know Max Holloway's last fight Was excuse me

Last loss was to Connor McGregor Exactly two years ago today Since then he has won One two, three, four, five, six Against pretty solid competition Will Chope Andre Feely, that was a huge win for him And I don't remember what the odds were

But I feel like a lot of people were picking Touchy-Feeley They were Clay Collard Kaurasani Cole Miller Swanson that was just that was a legacy win for now. He's looked fantastic. And again, at the time, it didn't feel like a big win,

but, you know, Max Holloway is no joke. And he's finally coming into his own. I mean, how old is the guy? 23 years old. Yeah. He's only 23. Made his debut. Damn.

2012 made his debut. UFC 143. He's had a crap load of UFC fights. Yeah, he's very active. And, you know, it's important to remember that he was also hurt or, you know, he wasn't at his best coming into that Connor McGreg. Gregor fight. So I think you could conceivably sell, you know, that fight down the line. I think if he wins this fight, one more and then he's there. That's my thought as well.

Like a Frank Yeager, like we mentioned. Or chat. Cain versus Verdume 2. Do you think the UFC made a mistake booking Kane versus Verdum 2 when there were many other matches they could have made? Feels like they are risking killing off the contenders they have for the sake of a match not many people seem too excited about. You know, I don't know. I think when this fight is finally going to happen, people will be excited about it. I do feel like it's a bummer to keep Kane on the sidelines for so long, especially coming off a loss. The best thing that Kane could do right now is just get back in there.

And he wanted to fight in October. I know this for a fact. So now he's going to have to wait until, okay, at least January, maybe February, maybe even March to get back in there. And this is a guy who has been out for a long time prior to his fight in June. Last time he fought was October of 2013. It had been 20 months. And I feel like he's been linked to Verdu.

for so long, like, I just want to see him fight someone fresh. I just want to see him get back in there. You know, I just want to see him remain active, get his mojo back, get his confidence back. That's really, you know, the only way to do that is to get in there and fight. So I can understand why, you know, I can understand why, but look, now you have so many fights, it's a different time. The UFC has to really roll the dice. We were talking about this on the beat last week. There are no, there are no warm-up fights anymore. There are no, you know, what is the word? Cupcakes, gimmies.

No, it's, um, gosh, I'm blanking. Damn it, what's the word? What's the word when you, uh... Give me a second. What are your thoughts on it as I look up the word? Don't love it, but, you know, it's important to remember that, you know, uh, junior starched cane, uh, on Fox and then came back to, to one. Tune up fights.

There is. There's a damn word. Isn't that what you said? I said, warm. Oh, okay. And then Kane came back to win the next two. So I don't think, you know, I think people's objection to this is that they just saw Kane essentially, you know, get dominated by Verdume. But I don't think that that necessarily means that we're in for the same type of fight.

I think there's intrigue there. And I think, you know, look, it's the heavyweight division. There's not a lot of options here. It seems like there's a lot of options, but are these people that are actually going to draw on pay-per-view and people that, you know, fans are going to tune in to see. I'm reluctant to say yes. I think Kane is one of those guys. Kane and Verdum are up there.

So I don't have as much of a problem with it as, you know, most fans seem to have. I saw a lot of, you know, backlash against it. But I don't love it. I don't think it's, you know, necessary at this point to do an immediate rematch. But of all the options out there, it's the best one in terms of competition. I think Kane has the best chance to beat for B. Fair enough, but we can't continue to throw Kane out there every time. Of course not.

And especially, you know, he didn't win another one. Last time, before he fought junior again, he beat Bigfoot. Right. So, you know, I don't love it, but I don't hate it. I don't hate it at all. $191 needed a commain, so they put Arlofsky and Mir there, which I think is a fine comane. It's a fight that's 10 years into making all that stuff.

And then they put Miocchich Rothwell, you know, in Ireland. I think that Miocchich had to win at least one more to get a title shot. But I think Overreem and JDS, especially what's going on today on Twitter, I think they're destined to fight, and they will fight around December, hopefully. And I think it was too early for MIR. So to me, the only guy who, you know, you can make a case for was Arlofsky. And quite frankly, he wasn't really banging the drum. And maybe he was behind the scenes, but I didn't get the sense that he really wanted it right now.

I think maybe he wanted one more. He certainly had a lot of opportunities to bang the drum, and he wasn't doing so. So I can't hate it. And I sincerely think that once the fight, you know, comes together and we're just 24, 40 hours away, I think people will be into it. And I think there are a lot of things to chew on there. The layoff, the altitude. All that's, you know, Verdoom's, you know, first fight as champion. It's intriguing enough.

You know, you tell me, tomorrow's Verdume came too. I'm all in. I'm into seeing that fight. It just sucks. We have to wait so long for it. A bellator question. Who do you think will win? the four-man light heavyweight tournament.

And if you're not comfortable with that, what do you think of the light-heavyweight tournament? I feel like we've talked about this before. Phil Davis, Emmanuel Newton, King Mo, and... Yeah. Who's a favorite right now? I mean, I'd say...

You've got to think Phil, right? Yeah, I'd say Phil's the favorite. I mean, again, it's tough to predict in a sense because you're fighting twice in the same night to what happens in your first fight. Exactly. I don't think Phil takes a lot of damage,

so I think he should be okay in that sense. I think it's interesting that they're only going to find out, you know, closer to the fight who they're going to be fighting. So that's interesting. You know, I still think King Moe is very good, but then you have the Emmanuel Newton thing. Like, I feel like Newton is the favor, excuse me, is the Mike Brown to his your eye favor.

There you go. Or the Wyden to his Anderson Silva. So it's going to be, you know, if he gets Amanda Newton in the first round, he might be in trouble. So I don't know. I guess I'll still have. have to say Davis.

I'd say Davis is the favorite and likely, you know, winner at this point. But I think it's a very evenly matched tournament. I really like it quite a bit. It's a very exciting prospect. And it's the kind of thing Belator needs to do more of. Whatever you can do to differentiate yourself from the UFC, do it. Again, you can't do women's fighting anymore. And quite frankly, I don't know how I feel about their women's.

It doesn't really feel like they're all in on it. It's weird. I think they tried to do 145. maybe to get cyborg or Gina, and it hasn't really worked out just yet. So whatever you can do to be different, this dynamite shows the perfect example of that. What are your thoughts on Kimberly Novese fighting and winning an MMA championship in Brazil whilst pregnant? Thankfully, the baby was unharmed, but should this ever have happened? Of course not.

I mean, that's kind of a no-brainer. Our good pal, Guillermo Cruz, wrote about this yesterday. Very strange, where is it? Where is it? I could read it. here it is. He posted this yesterday on the site. If you missed it, here's a snippet.

She was expected to make her RFA debut next week against Jocelyn Jones. Liebarger, but won't be able to step in the cage. The Brazilian straw weight had some trouble-cutting weight as soon as she signed her bout agreement to fight on August 21st and eventually found out that she's six months pregnant. 12 weeks doesn't equal six months, though. right? No one does not.

When she did the math, Novavius realized she fought and won an MMA fight. Oh, okay, there it makes sense. See? Why did we ever question Gilaireme? She found that she six months. She did the math.

She found out that when she fought, she was 12 weeks pregnant. She's having a boy, by the way, just in case you're wondering. So anyway, I think this is a case of commission. Here it is. this event that she fought for isn't regulated by the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission and the promoter Bruno Barros admits he's the one to blame for the entire situation.

I didn't ask for the exam. That's the truth. I didn't even think about the possibility of a woman fighting while pregnant going through a camp and dehydrating and everything. This was my first event. I asked for HIV and hepatitis. Lesson learned, good to be regulated by commission and bad not to be. And if you are putting on female fights, don't just ask for those tests, ask for the pregnancy test too. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

UFC fight pass. It feels like this year there have been significantly less fight pass only cards than last year. What would you attribute this to? Are the UFC perhaps beginning to lose confidence in it? What changes would you like to see made to the service and how big do you think it will grow over the coming years? So remember I asked Marshall's Lasnik about this. And I think the UFC is,

slowly but surely and also quietly figuring out their schedule. Remember last week I talked about this a little bit? And also, pay attention this year, no two events on the same day. Remember that phenomenon? I think we did it three times last year. Wasn't good. And they've recognized this clearly because there are none this year. And every time they did it, there was a fight past show and then like a Fox Sports 1 event.

I just think it's overkill. It's too much for the fan to consume. and I think one show inevitably suffers. I think there are enough fight pass events now, and especially with the prelims, and they're signing other organizations, Titan. I think that's the key that they're adding more content from other organizations as well.

You need, if you're, you know, Fight Pass is perfect for prelims, these other leagues, and then, you know, every four or five months a show, European show, overseas show. But I think that if you can put those events on television, especially here in the United States, that's the way to go. They're going to be seen by more people.

So it just makes more sense to do that. I actually think that they've kind of found a pretty good groove rather than, you know, it feels like they're losing confidence. I feel like fight passes is right where it needs to be. They're figuring it out perfectly, you know, putting on the preliminary fights and then, you know, putting on Invicta and Titan and all these other cards. As well as, you know, continuing to build the library and adding additional content that you can't find, you know, just on the UFC's YouTube channel or anything like that.

So I think that they're in a good spot right now, even though, you know, the number of fight pass only cards has been reduced. I do love the fact that when it's a fight pass only card, it seems to fly by. They don't have to stick to any commercial times or anything. And that applies to these other organizations now. Invict the cards and Titan FC cards, they're not constrained by commercial breaks. Yeah. Recently, John Kavanaugh tweeted that he doesn't understand how a fight.

like Gunner Nelson isn't booked for the Dublin card. What do you think about that? And do you think you should be on that card? Well, it might just be a case of bad timing because they won him on the card. As I reported last week, they wanted him to fight, or at least they reached out to Damien Maya about fighting Gunner, which I think is the fight that everyone wanted to see.

Yeah. But Damien Maya has a pretty bad, I mean, pretty gross, staff infection on his left thigh. I tweeted the picture. It was on TV. I mean, it's not good. So he can't fight. And then they inquired about Wonderboy, which I think was the second best choice, and he's banged up as well. So I can't really think of a great option. I mean, there are options, but to us, there's options. There's Mazvedal, there's Lorenz Larkin,

but who knows what their plans are for those guys. Do you think it's worth putting him on the card, no matter who he faces? And do you think he would take a fight against somebody, you know, who's like a lesser opponent just to be on the card? Yes. I don't really think Gunnar Nelson is the kind of guy to look at, you know, that sort of thing. Sure. I worked up about it. But I do kind of feel like for a fight pass card, I really think that the card is pretty well secured. I mean, the co-main event, Rothwell Miotich is fantastic. Duffy versus Poirier makes a lot of sense for that area.

You know, Gunner, let's look at where it's at right now. I mean, Gunner certainly would add to the card, and he's considered this honorary Irishman because he trains at SBG and he's been there for a long time. I don't think they need him. I don't think it's a failure of a card. I think it's just, you know, an extra added bonus. bonus. But, you know, by the way, Mazvedal, Larkin, if those guys aren't booked, I'd be down with that.

Yep. Right? Where is it? Here it is. Right now, according to UFC.com, this is where we're at. Porier, Duffy, Miotich, Rothwell, Dalby Till, which I think it's great to put Till on this card. Patty Houlihan versus Luis Smolka is a very important fight at 125. Norman Park versus Reza Madadi, which is also interesting. Stevie Ray are good pals. against Lebu. So now, and then now you get to the fights that are inevitably going to be on the quote-unquote prelims. But I think for a fight pass card, which typically only has four fights on the prelim, excuse me, on the main card, right?

Porier Duffy, Rothwell, Miochich, Dalby Till, and Hulhanzumoka are pretty much, you know, I mean, those are main card fights. And then you have Park Madadi, which also could be a main card. I do think it's funny that Miochich, Rothwell, is a super. important fight at heavyweight, and it's the co-main event. It's one of those rare times where the co-main event is actually, you know, rankings-wise and title picture-wise, more important than the main event, right? That's a big fight. And I wonder, given the size of that stadium, that arena, if it's going to be the small arena, I wonder if it's going to be the small cage. And if so,

Rothwell-Meotchich in that small cage is just bananas. Yeah, it's going to be, That's going to be interesting. Yes. Speaking of heavyweights, Junior Dos Santos has said, make it happen to Alastair Overeem. I hope they make that fight happen sooner rather than later. This is from our good friend James Florey, by the way.

What a fight between two mighty giants with elite striking? I'm really excited at the thought of seeing them go to war. What do you think? They're going back and forth on Twitter all day. It's the fight that's going to happen. It's already been reported. It's the fight. They just have to figure out the time.

And, you know, to be honest, from what I know, the delay is that Junior was injured. So I don't know if we can say that, you know, Alster is running or afraid or ducking, and I know they're going back and forth with the steroid stuff and all that. Just sign the contract. Remember what Mike Tyson once said to Bob Sap? Sign the contract. Sign the contract.

Let's see the damn fight already. We were supposed to see it at UFC 146. Remember that? Of course. It's very unfortunate. So I just want to see it already. If Rothwell beats Miochich in October, is there a scenario where he can realistically get the next title shot? And would he be a pay-per-view draw?

Well, here's the problem. If Verdume Kane is going to be January, February, and he's fighting in October, he's going to have to wait. Does he want to wait? That's what sucks about Arlovsky-Mir-Rothel-Meochich kind of happened around the same time. But then the title fight happens, you know, at least three, four months later. So these guys are going to be faced with a tough predicament, a conundrum. Do you wait? Do you book the winners against each other?

Tricky. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't think unless they're told that they're getting a title shot that they'd wait. You know, I think they'd have to step in right away. And also, I mean, excuse me, if Redume wins and then JDS wins closer to that title fight, I think he might have the inside track. Sure. That rematch is very sellable, in my opinion. Absolutely.

And final one from Twitter. What's your prediction on the pay-per-view numbers with two great title fights on the same night for USC-194? That's a really good question. and I'll bring up something that I brought up on Thursday, excuse me on Friday on the MMA beat. I'm not ready. I don't know why. Like I don't feel the same.

Okay, we are four months away from UFC 194, right? Almost to the day. I don't feel the same about that fight, the main event, as I did four months before UFC 189. Is it because I'm just getting over 189? Is it because 189 was such an emotional roller coaster? Is it because it was such an emotional roller coaster? is it because it was such an emotional night.

I mean, I don't even know what it is. But you get what I'm saying? Is it because I don't want to get hurt again? I don't want to get my hopes up again. I don't want to get excited and then disappointed that we're not going to see the fight. Why don't I feel the same about the fight four months out than I did four months before 189?

Do you have any idea why? No. Do you agree with me? I think I lost it earlier than that, but I don't know. What do you mean you lost it? Like, I'm not as excited. I was already not as excited. For 189? For 189?

Yes, 189. Aldo McGregor. I'm asking you, why don't I feel as excited for Aldo McGregor in December, four months before the fight, as I did four months before their original fight, 189, July 9? Yeah, and I'm saying I was less, I was not as excited about the fight even four months before 189. Like, I'm equally excited now as I was back then, but I wasn't as excited. Why? I just remember when we were doing the rankings last week of, you know, which fights would be the highest?

It was, you know, Ronda and Cyborg, McGregor Aldo, Wyden & Rockhold, Jones Cormier and all these other ones. And mine was, it was somewhere in the middle of the pack for me. I just, it doesn't, it doesn't have that appeal for me. as a stylistic matchup. Now, once the promotional machine gets behind it and it starts kicking into effect, and I think maybe that part of that was the World Tour that had everybody so excited, once that kicks into effect, I'll probably be more excited for the fight. But there's better matchups that I'm more excited for, like Widman Rockhold.

Fair enough. But you do realize that four months ago was the heart of the World Tour. I feel like you might be forgetting about the timeline. What do you mean? what I'm saying. I'm saying during that. That's when you lost it. You felt like it was getting to be overkill? At the end of it, I was burnt. I was burnt out.

Yeah. But, you know, at the start of that, that was great. Those embeddeds were... But that's, you know, some of the... That's, give or take, you know, eight to nine days. That's enough. If I'm getting it every day, the, you know, the constant beating over the head. But I think that, you know, once those do start back up again, and I'm not sure, you know,

what they would have planned for, you know, lead up. I don't know if they could do another World Tour. Maybe they don't think, I mean, that's what I'm saying. I'm already burnt out on the World Tours. Like, if they tried to do that again, I'm not sure I'd be all in on it. But I think once the promotion does start and we start getting those promos again, you know,

the commercial that they cut last time was incredible. If they start, you know, putting in the work like that, I'm sure I'll be as excited. But, you know, for me, it's like an 8, which is a really good number. I think it's a great fight. But, you know, I think Rockhold-Widman is a 10.

I think my revelation is that, remember how everyone said now the fight is bigger after 189 because he beat Chad and he answered those questions? It's definitely true. But for some reason, like I said, it was not the first time. It was such, yeah, exactly. It's not the first time. So in a weird way, Wyden-Rocold makes me more excited for that fight

than I was a week ago when it was announced. You get what I'm saying? Now I'm like, Wythman Rockhold is, and I ask anyone to prove me otherwise, is the greatest co-main event. And it's a legit co-main event because if that fight, for whatever reason, falls through, that's a legit main eventer, no doubt about it any day of the week. It's huge. Wyman Rockhold is the greatest co-main event in the history of the sport, period. Yeah.

It's the best. And it's like a rising tide lifts all boats. It just makes me more interested. So in a weird way, Wyden Rockhold is actually helping Aldo McGregor. Who'd have thought? I hope I'm verbalizing this. No, I think most people are with you in terms of. of their position on this fight.

That said, you know, once the promotion starts up, I think you'll be more excited again. Yeah, maybe. It's far out. Once it gets closer, you'll be back. Once McGregor starts doing some interviews, once Aldo starts responding, you'll be back. I think it's because I'm so excited about the UFC's debut in Saskatchewan,

Rough Rider country, that I can't allow myself to get excited. You know, You're taking it one fight at a time, at a time, as they say? Because it's amazing what a week off does. It actually allows you, like, I'm excited. I actually missed the UFC this weekend. Speaking of which, since we had some time off, I said to, look, we got the lines out. It's very rare that an entire card is out there, especially a fight night on a Monday, right?

They've had time to digest. So I said, let's get some picks. Sure. Do you got something? I got a few. There's some fights I'm looking at. you know, you know, this fight, this card is

is heavy on names that you recognize at the top and then lower at the bottom. It's not terrible. I think it's a solid fight night. It's a solid fight night card. It's a solid fight night card. The thing is, there's a lot of flawed fighters, you know, with deficiencies at the bottom where

it makes it harder to kind of predict betting. But one of the ones that I, that jumps out at me is Marcos, Rogerio De Lima, and Nikita Krilov. I think I think DeLima is going to get it done pretty quickly against Krilov. I mean, Krilov? I love him.

He's an exciting fighter, but I feel like a lot of the excitement comes from putting himself in bad position sometimes and not being as technical as he might be in the striking. And I think Delima's going to take him out. So the line of minus 140 is jumping out of me. It's a little appealing. I wouldn't be surprised if it climbs. you know, higher. So now might be the time to get on.

But I also wouldn't be surprised if, you know, Krilov has a name that people recognize and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually goes closer to even. But I like Delima there. And then, you know, outside of that, I see a lot of close fights that I'm not really, you know, liking any betting until we get up to, to Aubin-Mercier and Tony Sims. Where I like Merci A. I think he's going to get it done.

I think it could be a competitive fight with Sims. but what I like is Mercier is a minus 240 favorite but Mercier inside the distance the submission prop isn't out yet at least according to five dimes Mercier wins

Auburn Mercierge inside the distance is plus 216 so I think if he's going to get it done he's likely going to get it done by submission so you're getting pretty good value on that I like Aubin Mercier inside the distance I think he'll get a submission at plus 216 so I think that's a decent value

but I also think Sims could be competitive in this fight. So I would play that small if I'm going to play it, which I might. LaPrice, I like, you know, I like him to win. I think, you know, Trinaldo's, he's, Trinaldo, I think, has been getting less, you know, impressive as time has gone on. He, he looked like he was a, you know, a complete package. I think John Anick went so far as to say he might be a future champion at one point. And now it seems like he's kind of cooled off in the sense that his game is not so explosive and not So first round power heavy. He's kind of been a little less aggressive.

So I think LaPrice is going to be able to outwork him to a decision. I don't love the line on LaPrice. He's a minus 335 favorite. But I think he might be somebody you might want to throw in a parlay, perhaps. But is he the biggest favorite on the card? No. Second biggest, it looks like, behind Misha Kirkanov. Yes.

Who I know nothing. about. So LaPrice is a relatively big favorite. I like him here, but I might play him on a parlay rather than playing anything straight. You know, then we go up to Birkman-Kote. I don't know what to make of that fight, mostly because both of these guys are kind of in the same position, tough guys who are pretty well-rounded. But the problem is, I think Berkman has better skills, but I think, you know, sometimes

he makes weird decisions or fights in a strange way, like, you know, against Hector Lombard. He decided to stand and actually did pretty well. probably would have had more success mixing up his game a little bit. So I think Berkman could possibly get it done, and I think he's a rightful favorite, but I think Cote's a little more consistent. Now, I'm certainly scared of how many fights he's been in and how many wars he's been in. But, you know, Berkman's decision-making sometimes gives me a little bit of pause.

But I think that's a great fight. I wouldn't bet on it either way. It's just a little tough. And then we get to Eric Silva and Neil Magny, Neil Magny, taking it on short notice. Looking at the odds. Silva's minus 170, Magnus plus 150.

I think that's about right. I mean, maybe I'd make a small bet on Silva just because Magni's taking it on short notice. I think this is kind of a, this is kind of a matchup of two guys who couldn't be more opposite in the sense that Neil Magnus super, super tough over three rounds.

He kind of gets better as the fight wears on. He's able to survive, you know, difficult situations. And Eric Silva is notoriously like a first round fighter. But I think it's a bad recipe if Magny's filling in on short notice. I think Rick Story would likely have beaten Eric Silva. I'm not so sure Magni can get it done on short notice. I think he's live. He's definitely a live dog.

If he can survive early, I wouldn't be surprised if Magny was able to put together a really solid round two and round three and beat Eric Silva. But I think getting over that hurdle in the first round is going to be super tough and especially on short notice. So I'm thinking Silva there, maybe a small bet, if any. And then Holloway... Can I ask you a quick question before you get to the main event?

What exactly does live dog mean? I always hear people say this. There's dogs like Bechkohea, and then there's dogs like, you know, Neomagni versus Eric Silva. Okay, so one has a chance, one doesn't. Yeah. One's a dog that can fetch. One's a live dog, and the other is...

Is a dead dog? Yeah. Jeez. It's very morbid. Where does the term underdog come from? I don't know. I think I've looked that up at some point, but I don't recall off the top of my head.

I'm going to look it up while you talk about the main event. Okay, main event. Max Holloway, he's a minus 220 favorite. I think that's about right. I think he's going to, Olivera is going to give him, you know, some trouble in certain positions. He's going to, you know, he has such an active submission game. There's almost no way to avoid at least, you know, a scramble or, you know,

at some point on the ground, Olivera making a nice play on a submission. But Holloway is just too good right now, I think. I think minus 220 is about right. I think he's just going to, over the five rounds, he's going to eventually break Olivera similar to the way he did with Cub Swanson. His pressure and his ability to mix in unique combinations is going to be a little bit too much for Olivera. He's still, you know, his striking is decent and he, you know, he's dangerous, but he doesn't have the level of striking that I think Holloway does.

And Holloway's likely going to be able to keep it on the feet. although if Olivera is aggressive with his takedowns, I could see him getting it to the ground. And in that world, Olivera is much more dangerous. But I think more likely we're going to see Holloway keep it standing and either finish him late or get a pretty dominant decision. So, you know, I don't love it. I don't really love any bets on this, but I think, you know,

Auburn Mercier by submission or inside the distances is relatively good. and I like DeLima. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if Krilov pulls off something crazy because that's how his fights usually go. LaPriest by decision, but, you know, the odds are a little off on that. So betting-wise, I don't think that this is a fantastic card. It's not the worst card either, I think. But I think there are a lot of close fights, especially lower on the card.

And then near the top, we've got some easier fights to predict. What about you? What do you think? You didn't really touch on it, but I'm really curious to see. the return of Marina Morose. Sure. I think that's a difficult one because I really don't have a great gauge on her. Yeah.

What was that? Who knows? Yeah. She beat Joanne Calderwood in Poland, came out of noise. She was a gigantic underdog. Yeah. And now she's a favorite.

She's a favorite against Valerie Little Kno. By the way, speaking of the term underdog, according to Wikipedia, it was the first recorded use of the term occurred in the second half of the 19th century. Its first meaning was, quote, the beaten dog in a fight. Makes sense.

Makes sense. Live dog. Live dog. There it is. All right. Now let's turn the tables on you. Yes. This weekend.

This Sunday, by the way, a very busy night in the world of combat sports. This Sunday. SummerSlam. Do do do do do do do. That was like the rest of the movie. I don't know what that is.

That was the WrestleMania song. Yep. I don't know the SummerSlam song. But very exciting. It's actually in our neck of the woods. in the BK. Are you going? No, I'm not going to SummerSlam, but... Why? Because of the UFC?

No, I think this is like a difficult ticket to get. Yeah, sold out. Also, NXT, I heard, is sold out, which is like the, not the minor leagues, but, you know, like the developmental program. That's also a fight night. Yeah, and that's sold out too. Yeah, tough. Good comparison there with Fight Night. I thought someone would give me a ticket, by the way, because I essentially made the

Brock Lesner Undertaker fight. I thought someone... That's right. You know, but it's because it's because... in which, do we have the clip? We have it. Let's just remind the public who's into this whole thing, this nonsense known as fake wrestling. Oh my God, he said fake. Let's remind the public how this fight got made in the first place. It was UFC 121. October, what was it? October of 2010, 2009, 2010. October of 2010, UFC 121, Anaheim, California. Brock Lesner loses to King Velasquez. I am interviewing Undertaker and who walks by Brock Lesser and that's where it started and they're

fighting again this weekend. Let's remind the public. Here we go. Ariel Hawani, post-fight at UFC 121 where Kane Velasquez just beat Brock Lester and we're here with The Undertaker, sir. What are your thoughts on what we just witnessed? I'm a little bit shocked, you know. I thought Brock was going to come out strong like he did. I thought Kane's chances would be better if they went in, you know, the fourth or fifth round. I'm a little bit shocked. I thought Brock might have got to him early, but you know what?

Cain's a hell of a fighter, and he did a hell of a job. Do you think considering the size difference that he'd be able to manhandle him like that? No, I didn't. I didn't think so. I think Brock's strength and size would over match him. I thought it would have to go into a cardio battle, and I'm actually very surprised.

It's almost like you're at a loss for words here. You want to do it? It was Brock Lesnar right there. What did you just say to him? It's kind of a personal thing. You know, I think maybe he needs to, you know, I think he needs to train a little harder. Are you guys cool?

Personal. Who are you rooting for tonight? You know what? I got background with Brock, But, you know, that just showed you something right there. Are you fan of this sport? I'm a big-time fan. You're one of the first guys to actually introduce MMA to pro wrestling,

the gloves, the go-go plata. Oh, yeah, I'm a big fan. And I like to, you know, the things that I can bring from MMA into what we do. Obviously, there's not many people prepared for it, you know, and, you know, it's a... I just, I'm a big fan. Perhaps 20 years ago. I could do a whole show on just that interview alone.

You see him looking off to the side. Why did Brock walk past us there when usually they go the other way? I mean, the whole thing just blew my mind. You want to do it? What is going on here? Is he challenging him to a fight? I don't understand what's happening. Young Ariel Hawani in 2010 had his mind literally and figuratively blown on that night at the Honda Center.

And now here they are. I know they worked the match or whatever you want to call it, WrestleMania, but here they are in Brooklyn, and no one has reached out to me, no one has asked for my footage, no one has asked me to be ringside, no one has asked me to be the guest timekeeper, no one has asked me to be the guest ring announcer, no one has asked me to be the guest enforcer, no one has asked me anything. I made this match. I made these guys. It's unbelievable. Anyway, I had to get that off my chest. Well, speaking of that match that you made, that you made, one our buddy Scott Cohn says

he did some art for SummerSlam that may appear and also appear on Raw so that's pretty cool what do you mean he did some art says he did some artwork they must have commissioned him to do some you know some drawings it's incredible the guy who did this thing right here that's right wow

so be on the lookout for that and now we're going to ask you the odds of the SummerSlam matches no you know what we're going to ask you the odds of the NXT and the SummerSlam matches sweet Moses okay here we go running out of time here. Who is the favorite in Finn Baller?

Yes. Baylor? Baller? I think it's Baylor. Finn Baylor versus Kevin Owens. Oh. Fight Owens, fight. And preface this.

I recently canceled my WW network. I got it to actually watch Kevin Owens go up against Sammy Zane in February. Never watched it again. And I haven't watched Raw on over a year at least. A second of it. That being said. My man Kevin Owens. You're incorrect.

What? Get out of here. By the way, where are these odds? Legit places? They are at Patty Power. The hell is that? That's a UK book. The U.S. books don't have...

They don't do wrestling? They do, but not yet. Okay, okay. Patty Power is typically the ones that get the WWE stuff up quickly. And when is NXT? The night before. August 22nd. Saturday.

Okay. So Finn Baller. By the way, is it at the Barclays? Is that the Barclays as well? I think so. I think it is. Crazy. I think they're both there.

He is the favorite. You bet 15 to win 8. So roughly, you know, he's roughly a 2-1 favorite. Sasha Banks versus Bailey. I've heard of Sasha Banks, so I'll go with her. Hello? Bailey is the favorite, I believe. Okay.

What do you mean you believe? You're looking at it. Yeah. What's wrong with you here? It's all in, it's in, what's it called? Fractional form. which is like the UK version. Oh,

I would be really bad at this. Makes it much more difficult for me to analyze. Why does everything have to be so difficult? Um, wait, so win seven. Oh, this is going to be,

betting for, this is how we're going to do this? Yeah. So wait, she's not the favorite, Sasha Banks? No. BS.

Okay, next. Um, Tyler Breeze versus Jushen Liger. Okay. What, Juschen Liger is in NXT? Jusian Liger is a legend.

What is going on here? He's in NXT. Jusian Liger. By the way, that's what it says. Can I just say something? Juschen Liger, you know his nickname, is Thunder. Okay. Yushin Okami.

Yes. God his nickname from him. Is that true? Yes. Big fan. That's pretty cool. Juschen Liger was a huge star in Japan. Juschen Liger is like a legend.

What is he doing on an NXT? That's pretty cool. I might have to actually watch it. it's got to be Liger Thunder No, Tyler Breeze What the F Win 8 for betting 11

And Juschen Liger is Even Money I don't believe he's going to be there What kind of a Samoa Joe Versus Barron Corbin Can I just say The NXT card is way

More interesting Than whatever you're going to say About Somersime Samoa Joe Uh yeah Samoa He Nope

He's not the favorite Baron Corbin I think you're reading the odds wrong This can't be right Can it? You did you get, so you've guessed the other guy. I've gone wrong. Every single one.

Yeah, so maybe I'm reading the odds wrong. You don't know what you're doing. Okay, what else you got? This is a great card. I want to watch it. Wait, let me, let me think about this for a second here. You're supposed to win? You're wrong.

I got to be right. Someone let us know if we're right. Let me know the rest of the card. I'm dying to know. Okay, well, no, that's it for NXT. Oh, it's a great card. SummerSlam. I might have to re-sign.

Okay, yeah. Brock Lesner versus the Undertaker. Oh, we're starting with the main event? That's just how it's listed in order, so I'll go from the other way then. You know, this is interesting. Wait a minute. Okay. In the other order, Cesarro.

Yeah. Versus Kevin Owens. He's fighting twice? But he's fighting twice, I guess. He's that damn good. This is historic stuff. I'm going to go with Kevin Owens. I got to.

I wish I could tell you if you're right or wrong. Oh, stop it. I really don't know. Okay, what else you got? Seth Rollins versus John Cena. Sina always wins. That's why WW sucks. Wins all the time.

Based on what I understand, Rollins is the favorite. And I feel like I'm right about this. Okay, I guess I'm wrong again. I think the first number is the one you win, and the second number is the one you bet. Give me a call when they turn Sina Heel for once. Can we do that already?

What's taking so damn long? It's so boring. And now, oh, so the next one is not a fight, but it's rather shameous to cash the money in the bank contract at SummerSlam. Oh, the odds on that? Yeah. Eight to five. Yeah, I don't know.

They actually have two numbers for that, which doesn't, I don't know if that even makes sense. But anyway. Yes. SummerSlam. Stephen Ammel and Neville versus Stardust and King Barrett. By the way, someone's telling me that you can actually change. Oh, that'd be great. I'd love to do that.

You just completely ruined this whole game. Here we go. Oh, that's great. What a joke. Uh, thank you to, uh, Wesley Gorman for that tip. You don't need to tweet him right now. Not tweeting him? Running out of time here.

I gave it to you. What? Stephen M.L. Oh, yes? And Neville versus Stardust and King Barrett. Uh, the, the latter. That means the second group. Yeah.

Uh, no. Stephen M.L. And Neville. Their odds take into account, like, where they are in the program and who beat who, blah, blah, blah. So it's not really who. who's the best. I'm going with who's the best. Roman Reins and Dean Ambrose versus Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper. Roman Raines? Definitely the first guys. Reins.

Yes, Roman Reins and Dean Ambrose. And finally. Brock? The biggest of them all. So this is the interesting one. Will Brock just, you know, I think he can't win again because you need Undertaker for WrestleMania one more time, right? So I think Undertaker has to get revenge. That's what they have. Undertaker as the favorite. Big? See, now it's decimal.

So not big. How weird is it that this like old man, you know, who's done it all, who's accomplished it all? But let's be honest, he looks kind of old. Is it going to beat Brock Lesnar? It's got to be some sort of screw job, right? Paul Heyman turns on him, something like that. Let me just verify this.

Maybe we have Brock on the show in studio next week. So I was doing it correctly, which I guess you don't know as much about the wrestling. No, I don't. Well, I just said I haven't watched. No, but last time we did this, you were. You were good. I was killing it. You were spot on.

This time, not so much. Your boy, Kevin Owens. He's going to lose on Saturday, but win on Sunday, at least. According to the odds makers. According to the odds makers, which matters. I feel like we've lost all our viewers. No, they're excited for SummerSlam now. They're excited to hear me do the odds in fractional form for SummerSlam.

Well, it's a busy night in combat sports on Sunday. UFC going up against SummerSlam. How about that? Very rare that happens. Rare Sunday night show going up against a big, W.W. Pavee. Is that it?

That's it. Those are all the fights. Okay. Matches, fights, it's all the same. Thank you for your insight, Mr. New York, Rick. That does it for us. We're back on Monday, and guess what? It's like a post-fight show because we have a Sunday event, which is fun.

I like that. Everyone's going to be all, you know, worked up. That's the way it is on Twitter after a big UFC or any kind of UFC. Everyone gets all worked up. The sky's falling, getting all freaked out about things. And so then we can come on the show and, and talk about it all on Monday, so that's fun. You can hit my music. I am done.

Well, it started a bit slow with some technical difficulties, but you know what? We fight through those things. As per usual, we come back stronger than ever. I want to thank Chris Wyman for stopping by. The best co-main event in UFC history. The history of the UFC, this is the best co-main event. that's like being the the hottest bridesmaid

sort of anyway thank you very much to Chris for stopping by thank you very much to Roger Huerta and I wish him the best of luck on September 1st won championship that was an interesting interview Under the Stars

on a hammock in Thailand nothing beats it great stuff as always from Will Brooks good luck to him on November 6th thank you very much for the time Donald Serroney and the insults I will prove you wrong, Donald Soroni. I will prove you wrong.

You should see me around the house. I got the belt buckle, the low pants, the plumbers crack, the whole deal. You don't know. Don't judge a book by its cover, Mr. Sharone. Don't judge a book by its cover. Thank you very much to Jeff Novitsky. Great insight. Really great insight.

I really enjoyed having them on the show. And great stuff, as always, from Cahal Pendred. Cahal Pendred might be the most polarizing figure in MMA right now. Maybe not Demos, but people have strong takes on him. Anyway, UFC's back, so big show on Sunday, we'll talk about it on Monday. Charles Olivaura versus Max Holloway,

Saskatoon, Rough Rider Country. If you missed anything, check it out. iTunes, Stitcher. SoundCloud will go somewhere to the way. Hey, baby, somebody out. Support for this show comes from Nordstrom. Cooler temps are here, so it's time to level up your wardrobe at Nordstrom.

You'll find the best cold weather must-haves, including thousands of styles under $100. Shop had to tow cozy from faves like Og, All Saints, Nordstrom, Skims, the North Face, and more. Plus, free shipping, free returns, and quick order pickup make it easy. In stores or online, it's time to go shopping at Nordstrom. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game

right here in the U.S. From Deaf and Power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem. They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give

these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf.