MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 312

Episode Date: January 19, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Dominick Cruz, BJ Penn, Carlos Condit, Matt Mitrione, Paige VanZant, Duane Ludwig, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Mark Henry, and Chris Leben. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Inside our New York City studio, it is so great to be back for another edition of the show. Now, I know I left you hanging yesterday. I heard from many people who said, Monday suck as it is, and now you're nowhere to be seen. And I know, and I feel that. And you know me by now, more often than not, when I feel like I left you hanging, this is part of my Jewish guilt. When I feel like I left you hanging, I try to make it up to you and then some. And I feel like I've done that with today's lineup. 300S, super stack, top to bottom, nine guests in total.

I'm very much looking forward to today's show. And of course, the reason why we did not have a show on Monday, it was because I was traveling home from Boston. Also, I wanted to watch the Nick Sixers matinee, the double overtime thriller. at the garden, but really the real reason was I was traveling home. And I get nervous, even though I was technically home by one. A, I had not gone to sleep the night before, but B, you know, what if it snows, my flight gets canceled,

delayed, too much stress. So take a deep breath, take the day off, come back Tuesday, now here we are, ready to go. Of course, Sunday night in Boston, you know by now, Dominic Cruz, regained the UFC Bantamway title. He is now the undisputed 135-pound champion. Once again, a very close fight against Mr. T.J. Dillishaw's super, super, super-close decision. It was a split decision.

I had a three-to-two for Dominic, but so close. I would not hate them if they did this one again. I understand if they're going to go in the favor direction. There's a lot of options here for the UFC, and that's a good thing because not all that long ago. There were no options at 135, but take nothing away from T.J. Dillishaw. That was a fantastic performance. And take, we heard the music. We don't have to hear it again.

Say goodbye to the music. There we go. You know, it's Tuesday and we're a little off. But take nothing away from T.J. Dillshaw. Fantastic performance. And what Dominic Cruz did was superhuman. I feel like I said that a thousand times over the weekend on Fox. It was one of the greatest athletic achievements that I've ever seen in my life.

Without a doubt, the greatest comeback in UFC history. Three ACL surgeries, a groin injury. as well, other injuries to boot to come back and look like that and move like that. It wasn't just coming back. Moving like that. It's superhuman. It's incomparable. It's unfathomable. It's anywhere that you want to use to describe it. All of them very impressive. So we have a lot to discuss on today's program. Let's get right to it because as I said, this is a super stacked one. At around 4 o'clock, we'll take your questions and comments as always. So hit us up using the hashtag VMM hour or leave a question or comment.

in the comments section below. 345, we're going to talk to Mark Henry, who is the striking coach for one, Eddie Alvarez. A lot was made of this over the weekend. Eddie Alvarez now back in Philadelphia. He left the Blacksilians, still close to them, witnessed the fact that Henry Hooft was in his corner as well. But back home training in Philly

and train with the likes of Frankie Edgar, Frankie Perez, the recently retired youngster from the UFC, and he had Mark Henry, who is obviously starting to get a lot more attention for the great work that he's done with the likes of Frankie Edgar and now, Eddie Alvarez. Now, it wasn't the, maybe the fight that we all expected it to be. It may not go on an Eddie Alvarez highlight reel,

but he did exactly what he had to do in that fight. That was the perfect game plan. That was exactly what you need to do in this day and age to beat Anthony Pettis. So we'll talk to him about that. Mark Henry joining us at 345. Now, at 325, we're going to be joined by the Alphiq. aforementioned Dominic Cruz, so kind to join us once again, had the opportunity to talk to him

briefly on Sunday night, gave me that amazing answer about this not being the greatest moment of his life. He said that the greatest moment of his life was when he stopped, he stopped thinking that he needed the belt to be happy. And he said it in a much better way. But that took my breath away. I mean, wow, the maturation of Dominic Cruz, really an amazing story and one that we've seen in front of our eyes, a guy who is, you know, kind of not really well-liked and gets injured multiple times and all of a sudden he's now a baby face and saying what's what's on his mind, putting his heart out there on his sleeve. It's a lot of fun to talk to him these days. So we'll be talking to Dominic Cruz at 325 at 305. We're going to be joined by Habib Nirmagamadeoff.

I mentioned on the post-fight show that he reached out to Dana White to get an opportunity to fight Mr. Eddie Alvarez, and he'll be joining us from Russia to to talk about if that is in fact what he wants, and just to give us an update on his comeback. At 245, we're going to be joined by Paige Van Zandt. This is her very first interview since her loss to Rose Namayunis, and of course she lost on December 10th. It was a one-sided beatdown, if you will. She was bloodied up, but showed a lot of courage, and in my opinion, her stock rose after that fight. In my opinion, a lot more people gained respect for her.

And now she's, of course, on the comeback trail, a member of Team Alpha male. But I want to hear from her. We saw her at the press conference. I think that took a lot of courage. That said a lot about who she is as a person, said a lot about her character. But now that we are a month and change removed, want to talk to Paige Vantant about that loss and where she goes from here. 225. Chris Lieben will stop by.

He has a new book out. You could see it right over there. Also, fresh out of jail. So a lot to talk to Chris Liebent about. Carlos Condit, in his first interview post UFC 195, of course, spoke to. briefly after that fight, but now a couple of weeks removed, we'll talk to him about where he stands in his career. 145. We'll talk to Matt Mitreone about that controversial loss to Travis Brown, the eye pokes, how he's feeling, where he goes from here. Of course, he is now officially

a free agent. And at 125, we're going to be joined by Baby J. Penn, BJ Penn, now training at Jackson Wink. So much news over the past week since we last spoke. One of those big news stories, BJ Penn showing up at Jackson Wink in Albuquerque and wanting a piece of Mr. Nick Lentz. How about that? Crazy, right? B.J. Penn. It took a long time to try to get that. So he'll be joining us at 125.

In a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Dwayne Bang Ludwig, who is the head coach for one T.J. Dilsha. And I said this, I said this on the program on Sunday night. I think too much was made of the fact that T.J. was switching teams going into this fight. I said that it would be a big deal if and when he fights your eye of favor. But I thought too much was made of it going into the fight on Sunday because when you consider the fact that A, he trained in Colorado leading up to the Burau rematch in July. B, alpha male staples like Joseph Benevides, Lance Palmer, they were in Colorado with him. training for this fight. And also, Justin Buckholtz, who's become somewhat of an unofficial head coach of Team Alpha Male, he was in his corner. He was in Dillishaw's corner on Sunday night. So I thought a little too much was made of the fact that he had switched teams. Of course, the rivalry with Faber and all that, that's a big deal. But I thought a little too much was made

of how it would affect him in this fight because he had a lot of the same people around him. He trained in Colorado. He trained at Mussel Farm. He trained with Leicester Bowling and a little bit with L.A. Marshall and those guys leading up to the Borough rematch. So it didn't seem like, you know, like it was going to play. And look at the fight. I mean, I don't think he had his best fight ever. I don't think he looked as sharp. I think in large part that was due to what Dominic Cruz did. But I don't think that we can hang our hat on the fact that he was no longer with Alpha Male as a reason why he, you know, didn't do as well or didn't win that fight. It was super close. I had it three rounds of two. I had it first, second, and third rounds for

T.J. Dillosh. Excuse me, for Dominic Cruz. I had the fourth and fifth for T.J. I thought T.J. came on strong. Of course, in large part, due to the fact that Dominic injured his foot, he said afterwards that it was not the knee. He said it was plantar fasciitis that he had been battling, and it reared its ugly head if you've never, if you've never dealt with that before. A lot of athletes deal with that. That's actually sometimes. a career killer for athletes, in particular NBA players. Very painful. It feels like someone's sawing the bottom of your foot. Every time you walk, I don't know if that's the best way to describe it, but certainly a way to describe it. And so we'll find out from him later on in the program

when we speak to him at around 325, how serious of an injury that is. But now we have a whole new a whole new set of circumstances at 135 pounds. You have Dominic as champion. You can either go with the Uriah Faber fight, and I know he was kind of poo-pooing that on the post-fight show. Put me on the spot there. Put me on the spot live on television. And it's hard to remember just how many Faber title fights there have been in the UFC and how many that there have been in the WEC. But I got it right, on the spot, all by myself. How about that? Three in total he fought a cruise. at 132, I believe it was, and then he fought Barow at 149, and then he fought Barow at 169. I'm pretty sure those are the numbers.

But three in total, I think that's a money fight. I think Dillishaw versus Asunsao makes a lot of sense, because prior to this fight, a Sunsha was the only guy to beat Dillishaw since the ultimate fighter, and we still don't know what's going on with Al Jermaine Sterling. So they have options there, but it's going to be interesting. to see what the UFC does with both Dillashah and Dominic Cruz. All right, we have located Mr. Dwayne Bang Ludwig,

the head coach 4-1 T.J. Dillishaw. He's joining us on the phone right now. Dwayne, are you there? Yes, sir. Good to have you on the program again. Dwayne. I'm wondering, did you watch the fight? Again, have you watch it on television since you got back home

to Colorado? Have I watched it? Yeah, I'm going to sit down when T. T.J. gets back tonight and watch it with him and then just make some notes and see what we can approve on. Is there a reason why you haven't watched it yet? Like, is it too fresh? You strike me as the kind of guy because you watch so much tape.

I wouldn't have been surprised if you said you've watched it 10 times since Sunday night. Is there a reason for that? Just sitting back and it's going off of memory and it's kind of cooling off. It's been stuck in the brain so much the last couple months. It's kind of wait to watch with TJ and see what we can pick up on. Okay, so when you were watching it, and I know you're looking for different things, you're not sitting there like a judge. But when you were watching it, how?

How did you score? Like, who did you, honestly, who did you think won the fight? I gave the first round of T.J., rounds of two and three, to cruise because the takedowns in the wrestling. And then rounds of the championship rounds four and five to TJ. So I had three rounds to two for TJ. I felt we won the fight. Were you confident, like, did you think this was a no-brainer or in the back of your mind, were you thinking like, oh, man, maybe we could have done a little more.

You know judges these days they're so unpredictable. How are you feeling before they announced this record? I don't ever fucking trust the judges, you know? Yeah. I mean, as we shouldn't. I honestly felt we're going to be able to stop Cruz in the second round, not to be also whoever, but I just from watching and studying in the film

and working on what we were working on, I thought we're going to stop Cruz in the second. He proved to be a bit more tricky with his timing and his footwork than I anticipated, which made things a bit harder. But, you know, I still feel we won the fight, and I think with the fight being so close, and the immediate rematch is justified. Yeah, I wasn't there at the time, but was that you who got on the mic and asked Dana White for that?

Yes, sir. Yeah, so what do you think of his response? It wasn't much of a response. I'll let you know. I'm like, well, you know, last I heard, you were pretty high-ranking up in the company. Yeah, I like the way you preface that. Yeah, I like the way you preface that, without a doubt. Do you think they'll do it?

Are you confident? Like, are you hearing anything after the fact that that's the direction they'll go in? I haven't heard anything yet. I'm still waiting. You know, TJ and I text back and forth, like I said, he'll be in sight, and we'll sit down, we'll talk, and we'll watch the fight and see which direction. You know, we want to go, but from last time we talked, you know, in person, it was a rematch that's justified, and I'd definitely like to have that. You know, it was a close fight. It wasn't like, you know, either guy dominated the fight, but, again, I still still, we went three rounds to two.

And just one of those things, you know, some, these fucking judges, man, that I think they need to be a bit more education. before they take a professional career in judging the lives and the decisions of a professional athlete. These guys should be able to, or should have to train. They just be a fucking mandatory thing. Maybe they earned Blue Belt and Jitsu.

They train Thai boxing for, you know, a year, two years, maybe possibly they even compete, some kind of actual training for them. Yeah, I don't think that's the worst idea in the world. What about, I mean, this has become a hot topic, especially after 195 in this fight. What's your take on the,

10 point must system. Would you like to see that change? I would like to see that overhauled for sure. You know, have it looked at with today's modern information. You know, the sport is different. We're not a boxing match, obviously. Right. And when you just score accordingly. And I think the guys, you know, the judges

are, you know, they have the information to make sure they're going to have the damage. Obviously, they take downs, the cage control, the oxygen control itself. And Those are two different things to me. You know, as far as someone taking the center and keeping the guy outside of the cage, kind of running from him, would be, you know, optical control versus cage control, where you're actually controlling the guy against the cage.

I look at those things as two different aspects. Of course, the wrestling, you know, we did that. It was a four takedowns to one, so, you know, him getting two takedowns. I don't see that winning the fight. But, you know, he was tricky to it, man. You know, a respect to cruising the camp for what they would do on. They survived five pounds of T. which is a very rare thing.

You know, that hasn't happened yet. So Dominic, leading up to the fight, was adamant that this idea of cage rust. It does not exist. And I think, I didn't believe in leading up. I thought, I mean, it's a pretty obvious thing. It's a natural thing. You don't do something for a long time. You're going to be a little rusty.

In the fight, he seemed like he had just fought, you know, a couple of months ago. Were you surprised at, you know, how smooth he was out there, the performance that he put on, considering the layoff? No, yeah, he looked good. he was tricky for sure. It wasn't, it wasn't, it was not an easy fight for us.

And, uh, he looked at, and, but, you know, just like you said, though,

if you stop doing something for a while, you are less in tune with that, whatever it is. I mean, that is a fact. It's not like, ring rust, that definitely is,

is an aspect for sure, but he obviously trained properly and didn't have sparring rounds and had it longer camp in usual. And, um, you know, it paid off form, but,

um, I still feel TJ won't the strike and fight. According to fight metric, as far as significant strikes are concerned, what's that? Yeah, this is going to be interesting. No, I'm asking you, so Dominic, it says that he threw, he landed 112 and threw 302 significant strikes. And TJ landed 109 and threw 408. So that's a percentage of 26% to 37%. Were you surprised?

I mean, the output doesn't surprise me. We purposely drove strikes to get people out of position out of balance to create other openings. We're purposely missing strikes. What do you mean by that? Well, this goes back to, we did the interview years ago, and then I gave you the jit-to analogy where if you're in the guy's guard and you reach for his throat, he mainly does one or two things. He either tries to break posture or he goes to the arm bar.

If he goes to the arm bar, you can pull out the pass, anticipate the arm bar. Well, with that in mind, you know, let's say I'm going to shoot a double-aid for you. I'm going to shoot it halfway just to get you to respond for the defense so I can set something else up. Same thing with scenario for strikes. I throw a jab, not purposely to hit you, but to get you the slipper to defend that, to create other openings. So we're not always trying to actually hit these shots. Interesting.

So do you feel like he was being penalized for something that you were actually trying to do on purpose? They don't be being penalized at all, but, you know, we are actually trying to miss these shots to create other openings. So it's not, I mean, not every shot. we definitely miss some shots we're trying to hit him with. Yeah. But some of the shots were thrown to create other openings. Just like if I punch you in the head, you're going to do defending of the head

and then what's open the body or the legs, so and vice versa. Overall, as his coach, as his head man, was that the game plan what we saw from TJ on Sunday night? Did he execute it the way you wanted him to? He executed a lot of things that we worked on. And, you know, I'll tap with his performance, for sure. And there's always room for improvement. you know, you can look back at things and always want to redo things and do them better.

And that goes for our wins, you know, our previous wins as well. Always look back at those and look for things to improve on. That's the goal. It's always to just beat the opponent, but to also always improve. We call us who the opponent is our main opponent is ourselves. So I'm going to make sure that, you know, myself as a coach and instructor is always improving. I'm always improving. I want to make sure he's always improving.

Obviously, easier said than done. But it seemed like he had success when he was attacking the leg. In hindsight, you wish he did that more? That would have been to attack the legs more, for sure. You would have liked that? That would have been a good idea for sure. Was that a part of the game plan going in and the openings weren't there, or was that something that you guys saw later on that he was being effective?

We worked that in camp quite a bit to attack the legs, but then again, Cruz proved to be a bit tricky. So it was not like it was an easy task. Was Cruz better than you thought he would be? his, he's just trickier. You know, he was a bit, he's a bit trickier than I expected as far as, well, there's a couple things to this that I don't really want to say too much on, but I thought TJ did it really well.

Cruz did very good as well, and he proved to be a bit trickier than I expected. You know, his angles and the distance that he was covering backing up was a bit longer and further than I remember watching in the previous films. much was made of the fact going into this one that T.J. had never been taken down. 100% takedown defense in the UFC. Mentally, what do you think that did for him? The first cup line in total was four.

And you can make a strong case that nothing really happened once he was down, that those were just kind of bumps in the road. But mentally, do you think that shook him up at all? I don't know if that shook up. I know we did get frustrated a little bit during the fight, and the takedowns could have been a part of that. again, I'm waiting to say with TJ tonight and make some notes and

and talk and to see where our head of that now and where it was in the fight now that we had a day or two to process what went on. You know, because you're and then we'll look back to this fight a month from now and then have a difference of notes as well. It's always good to just make notes and keep reanalyzing and always improving.

But, you know, for me, me getting taken down, I don't want to get taken down unless that is a game plan to get taken out to get him tired. Right. You know, but, you know, there's always game pads, like Frank Schemach when he fought Tito Ortiz,

you know, he was letting him take him down so he could get tired. Was this part of the game plan? No, I would rather T.J. not get taken down. Okay. That wasn't part of the game time to get taken down, no. But, you know, he's not like T.J. was giving up to take down just because

that's really good timing. I mean, technically, he, I think technically is horrible, but he has the timing, and that's what it's about timing and accuracy. But then again, you know, so if he did extra timing, I think he had extra timing, land the cleaner shots, and it kept his position, and it was technically superior, but one of those things, you know, you get a couple

takedowns, and the judges think they went the whole round for that. When you say technically he's horrible, is that as far as his takedowns are concerned, or his stand-up? It's striking in general, it's just all over the place, but that, you know, when it's a fight that doesn't really count, you know, it's about hitting back, and that's what he's good at, and that's also what TJ does really good at.

So, um, it's just, you know, it's like looking at boxing matches, you know, you go to a boxing gym, they say your hands up elbows in, but then you watch a boxing match, and their hands are all over the place. So just about to find that natural fluidity and the natural intuition, just flowing off of that. Sorry, I talk fast as hell. No, no, I appreciate it.

Any serious injuries for T.J. following this? No, sir. I don't think so. In a perfect world, when would you like for him to come back? Again, I'd like to talk with him tonight and, you know, see where we're at with things. I'm pretty sure he's healthy. And, you know, take a month off. Yeah.

I'm not trained as hard. Just kind of sit back and then get back. to always improve in this, making sure we're focused on what we've controlled. That's us getting better each and every day. You know, TJ, better than most people in this world. Now in hindsight, all the

talk from Cruz, all the drama of favor, did any of that seep in there? Was that bothering him? Do you feel like that kind of threw him off a little bit? Going to all our previous fights, we had everybody on our side, we had a good fan base, and it was nice, and then, you know, if ever comes out and acts and says stupid shit,

just spills a bunch of lies. And I don't think that helped at all. And then, of course, with Connor saying, you know, the whole thing on the ultimate fighter, but what people don't understand is I was a guy who was dead to lay, holding a pads, doing the only things, for T.J. is always improving, and in mind,

I don't think they ever did much for T.J. But as far as, if you want to put on a loyalty stamp, I thought that's done a lot more than Faber has, that's for sure. So, you know, sir, go ahead, sorry. I don't think, I'm always going to back to his decision, and he's gotten a lot better under my guidance and the coach out here in Colorado than he ever did in Sacramento, other than under my guidance.

So it's always loyalty. What's loyalty? It's him making sure he's always improving and doing what's important for him, making sure he's doing what's important to put for other people. As in the sports, you got to do what's best for you, it's best for him to have high-level coaches, making sure he's improving each and every day. And that's here in Colorado.

It's not in Sacramento. So it depends on what you want to put that low with his cap on. And, you know, hearing the booze and all that, I was there and I was a little bit surprised. I didn't hear him. You didn't hear them. But what about the Wayans, all that? That didn't bother him at all? We didn't talk about it.

Okay. But then again, you know, it's one of the scenes. Go up into all our previous fights. You've had a ton of support. This is the first time we've had, you know, booze and a lot of negative stuff in the media. So he never said it bothered him? I don't think it did, but then again, it's something lost. I know what we have always had.

You know, we've always had a ton of support. Now we have, you know, 50 haters and supporters. Sure. That's just part of the game. It's just, you know, we're in the entertainment. We're not in the martial art business. It's a bunch of entertainers and, you know, just talking crap sells tickets. And maybe I'd be more of that and just, you know, realize, you know, we're not always going to have friends.

You're going to have, you know, it's going to be a 50-50 split for the most part and just have to come accustomed to that. And that's something I'm talking to myself, too, that's always going to make sure I'm helping people and, you know, leaving my example and doing the right thing. But, you know, just being quiet and humbles is not nice. You know, it's not always the right thing to do because you've got to learn and teach people to speak up

and to see what's right. And someone's still alive and talking shit, and you've got to, you know, you've got to put off the truth and the truth's going to come out here soon. So considering all of that, would you almost prefer that he fight Faber next and end this as opposed to fighting for the belt next? I don't know if that would end it or whether it's that

once stupid out thing that they were said it was that if he trained with a favor because they were fought him twice he would have done better I'm not quite sure exactly you know what he said he said before I understand he said he would he would have done better if he'd have done better to turn a favor like what the fuck man like I always to run classes and nobody wanted to turn that favors because you couldn't even hold the freaking combinations or had any insight on actual coachability

um so he just says just stupid shit but, you know, I think favor is calling that fight just because he wants to have another money payday. I mean, he barely survived his last fight against, you know, a touch tournament. You know, he wants to fight, you know, one of the number one fighters in the world, like, you know, get fuck out of her.

It's just a payday call is all it is. He just wants attention. And I get it. You know, it's all about money. He's at the end of his career. He wants another, you know, payday fight, so he can, I don't want to step away soon or what it is, but I want to understand, he probably should step away soon.

It's not good to get hit in the head that much. side of your brain. Final quick thing. I saw Benevides was there. Palmer was there. Are you hoping that any of the other guys come to Colorado from Alpha Mail to train with you full time?

You know, it's like the scenario with TJ initially. I didn't think, you know, he had to move out here, but training out here and making sure that that bridge is here and help each other out. And I just want to make sure

these guys is, what's best for them is making sure they have coaches watching them. So my door is always open to most of them, not to favor, but to everybody else it is.

I want to help them, and it's fun for me. I generally love and care for these guys, and I always want them to improve. So it's always there, but not full time. I'm not drawn the line where they have to try and there or here. No, I don't have a fight team. I have my martial academy. And the guys come. I go, I put my all into them, and that's just the way it is.

And I'm not going to draw the line where they have to go here or there. If they come here, I'm giving them my full attention and make sure, you know, we're doing what I feel is best for them. Right. I know. But what we feel is best for them, right? Duane, I appreciate the time very much. Thank you. Good to see you over the weekend.

Congrats on a great performance, super close. And for your sake, hopefully you guys get what you want next. Ariel, let me ask you, how did you score? I had it 1, 2, and 3 for Dominic, 4 and 5 for T.J. But, I mean, it's super close, but that's how I had it, yep. Yep, close fight for sure. Super close. Enjoyed it greatly. And I thought both guys don't take anything away from them.

Fantastic fight. Indeed. Good man, thank you, sir. Appreciate my friend. All right, there he is. Bang Ludwig head coach for 1, T.J. Dilshot. Okay, let's move along now. I am so excited. It is always a treat. It is always a pleasure to talk to the legend that is BJ Penn, and he joins us right now on the phone. There's a twist, but he is on the phone. BJ are you there?

What's going on, Ariel? Oh, aloh. Aloha. Aloha, brada. How are you? BJPen.com is here. BJPen.com is here. BJPen.com is here. That is right. You want me to refer to you. How you doing? Would you like for me to refer to you on? Okay. BJPen. You can... I'm just playing, Ariel. You know your... BJ, you can watch us live. I'm assuming you're not near a computer,

but right now on the screen, it says BJPen.com right next to your name, so people are staring at that, and I urge them to go to your great website. How about that? Hey, you're the man. Easy, BJ, easy. You're the man.

Okay, so we have a lot to talk about. This kind of came out of nowhere. Last week, around this time, a picture sent out of you and Greg Jackson and Albuquerque, and I start talking to Greg. He says he's excited. You had a meeting. But I want to hear it from you.

What led you to go to Albuquerque from Hawaii? Yeah. That song, it goes. Like, say, to pieces, this is my last resort. You know, I didn't like how my last question. It's not, but, you know, pretty kind of many a times, you know, great. and in the opposite corners over the year many times. And, you know, we ended up having a conversation and talking.

And just it's kind of made sense for me to, you know, come out here. I've been on a two big team. John was a while back at American Kickboxing Academy. Hey, BJ. I don't mean to interrupt you. But the phone is cutting out a lot. I don't stand outside. Okay.

I'm going to stand outside. I'm sorry. Because I'm hanging on every word here and I want to hear what you have to say. Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. That's good. What about now? That's nice. That's nice.

Yeah. You know, just every, well, of course I, you know, I always dream of, you know, being the champion. I mean, once you're the champion, I don't think you ever can get a thought like that out of your head. But, you know, me, Greg. when Greg had a talk, and I could tell his excitement that he really wanted to work with me. And, you know, I showed up over here, and, you know, he seems like he's happy with what he sees. And, you know, I make sure to tell Greg, I let him know the other day that if I can't do this, Greg, in any way, shape, or form, you feel that, you know, BJ doesn't belong in the ring. Please let me know. Please let me know.

and, you know, he's very confident that we can get something done. And when somebody like that, who has so many champions himself and has done as well as he has in this sport, you know, when he tells me that I know you can go out and I know you can beat all these guys, you know, it gives me a lot of confidence and, you know, and just surrounded with a lot of great people in the gym and just a really exciting time for me right now, Ariel.

So you're there right now, right now, right? You're in Albuquerque right now? Yes, I'm here right now. Yes, I am. How long had you been thinking? Like, when did the itch start to come back? You said, all right, I'm going to pick up the phone because I know it's a big deal for you to leave your family. I saw you posted something on Instagram saying you were missing your beautiful girls on a Sunday.

How long had you been thinking about it and how difficult was it for you to actually leave Hawaii and come to Albuquerque? You know what? I've been kind of thinking about it for a while. But, you know, this is my last resort. and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it everything I got, you know, and, and, uh, I just, I don't know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just trying to feel real good, real good about everything. So a week in, you're actually feeling comfortable. You're going through with this. You're coming back.

The retirement is over. Yep, I'm going through with this. You know what? If I didn't have somebody like Greg Jackson to come out and talk to me and tell me that I can do this, I mean, of course, you know, I mean, really, you're always going to believe that you're the best. You're always going to believe that you can be the champ. But, I mean, once in a while, you do have to step back and get someone else. is outside opinion, you know?

And somebody like Greg, you know, he tells me something like that. I look at them and who cares what everybody else is saying around the world? Have they done what Greg Jackson has done? You know, do they even know the game at all or whatever and this and that? So it's just going to be fun, Ariel. It's going to be fun. What's your motivation? Is it to prove that you're once again the best in the world?

Is it, you know, something else going on? I mean, why you've done it all, you've won it all. In fact, how about this, BJ? I don't know if you know this, but eight years ago today, today, January 19th, 2008, you became the second man in the history of the UFC to win a title in two different weight classes. You defeated Joe Stevenson or UFC 80. How about that? That was today.

That was today. In Newcastle, I remember, licking the bloods. That was amazing. Everyone wants to see that BJ back. But why come back at this? What's the motivation? That's who I am, Ariel. That's who I am, you know.

That's what I do. And the motivation definitely, you know, I want to go get that 145 pound belt. You know, that's definitely a huge motivation for me. I believe, you know, with Greg Jackson's help, I can get that done. and I believe that I will be able to walk away the only man with three titles

and three weight divisions. So you want to stick around on 145? You like that, really? Why? Yes, I've never took an IV because of just what I said. That will be the only guy with three belts and then me and Greg were talking about it and then we can tell everybody, okay, good luck, guys,

good luck, do that. Do that, guys, good luck. How much do you walk around at now? Right now I'm 158 pounds. Oh, wow. Okay, so... I'm 158 pounds, yes. Okay, so that's one part of the story.

So you're back, you go to Albuquerque, you meet with Greg, you're feeling great, and then the other part of the story is maybe 24 hours later, you post on your Instagram at BJPen on Instagram. Again, BJPen.com. Tremendous site, you should go check it out. You put out the challenge. March 5th. you want to fight Nick Lentz.

You've had this simmering feud with Nick Lentz. And I don't know if a lot of people really understand where the beef comes from with Nick Lentz. Can you explain that to us? You know what? It all started with the whole Dolce thing. I mean, Nick was, I don't know, he's kind of a quiet guy where he came out to Hawaii.

He seemed like a real, like, kind of a punk. I don't know. I don't know how to explain them, but, you know, but besides that, you know, Nick was just the first guy who came up in my head when I was talking about Dochi. And then he's the only guy that, I mean, I knew Dochi, that anybody knows that Dochi trained around in that weight. But, you know, I ended up speaking. I guess it got Nick Lens fired up.

So he went and took a picture on Instagram and showed a Shaka. And, you know, everybody in Hawaii is like, hey, make sure he never showed that Shaka again. That was terrible. and uh um and anything that said i'll fight bj anytime but i think he forgot what the word anytime means he says he's a he's some kind of vocabulary genius or something but i think he forgot what the word anytime means and then he was saying bring pen back so i mean i mean truth be told ariel i could care less if he writes 50 poems i don't care what he thinks he is kind of making me think he's smarter than i thought though because he's not getting in the ring because i

I could care less what he says. Sticks and stones, you know. The lion doesn't care what the sheep says, but it's just, you know, it's really, I wanted to use him as a punching bag. To get some ring rust out. I've been gone for two years. I wanted to, you know, use him as a punching bag.

But I kind of think he's smarter than, than I thought, because he's smart enough not to get in the ring. So I don't think he's going to get in the ring. I'll tell him right now. Nick, I'll fight you at 155 pounds. since you keep crying about the weight, let's do it. But Nick better believe

if I fight someone else, don't ever think I'm going to fight him again. Don't ever think he'll ever get this opportunity. He sits around. He tells people how hard his life was. He's so jealous of me. He's jealous of my accomplishments. He's jealous of my life.

I think he came down to Hawaii. He was like, man, all these Hawaiians, they live so happy and this and that. This can't be like this. This can't be like this. He's just a real jealous, person of me, though. I mean, it's obvious when you just hear him talk. But besides all that, I just trying to go to him to get into the ring. I mean, who cares, you know, who cares

what he says? Let's just fight. And I tell him, I always direct message him and let him know. No one gives the, no one gives the crap about all this stuff you're talking about. They just want to see somebody get their ass kicked, you know? And it's just, it's funny. It really is funny, but he's going to lose out on the biggest opportunities he's ever had because I'll forget who he is. As soon as I get my next opponent, I'll forget who he is, I'll forget he's even alive, and we know he's not going to, we know he's never going to run into me later. So Nick, you want to sit there and tell everybody how hard your life is and how bad it is

and how spoiled I am and this and that, well, here you go. You got a chance to hurt a spoiled kid since you're jealous of every spoiled kid, and you got the biggest opportunity in your life, Nick. But is he going to do it? No, he's scared. He's either too scared or too smart, whatever you want to call it, you know? But there it is. That's what's going on.

I could care less. I'm not finding the man who says the words. I'm fighting the man in his skills. And we'll walk through him. Easy, easy fight. Have you read his... 155 pounds. You've read his last letter to you, right?

No, no. You did not read it. I didn't, no, I did not read his last letter to me. I'm assuming you have no interest in reading it. Well, I mean, the lion doesn't care what the sheep says. The lion doesn't care what the sheep thinks. The lion just wants to eat him, you know. I don't care.

I don't speak, bah, whatever the sheep speak. You know, I just want to eat the sheep. But that's just, yeah, and it's crazy. Is he not crazy, Ariel, not taking this opportunity? Or do you think he's smart for not getting, going in there and getting his ass kick? What is it? It's crazy, right? Like, you're going to sit there, you're going to say, bring Penn back, I'll fight him any time.

And then you finally get the fight, and then you don't want it. And so don't sit around and tell everybody how hard your life is when you pass up every opportunity that comes by. You know, it's funny. It's funny. But with all that said, I'm mad at Nick Lent. I just want to use him to beat him up, you know. Good for Nick, good for Nick. I'm glad he knows how to let people write poems for him or whatever he does, you know.

Good for him. Good for him in his whole deal. But he ain't going to get this opportunity again. He should jump on it. You don't believe he's writing that stuff? I don't know. Maybe, I mean, I don't know. Is he as stupid as he looks?

I don't know. I mean, he looks pretty stupid, you know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know too much about the guy. He's a real quiet guy. You know, I kind of thought he was a punk, so I left him a bloody mess in the gym.

He ran out of the gym screaming. He ran out of the gym screaming. Dochi, please stop this, stop this. He jumps on the next airplane home because he doesn't want that to happen again. He's a bloody mess. And you know what really broke him? It wasn't that I bloodied him up and smashed his whole feet.

It was that I passed his guard and mounted him and he prides himself so much in his ground game, but he's a white belt. It felt like I was grappling with a white belt. But anyway, he wants to go and say all these things, so I'm giving him the opportunity first. So we'll see what happened, you know? But yeah, I made sure to do that to him when he came to Hawaii

because he just seemed like a punk. He seemed like he was high, what do they call that? They call that a high makka faka in Hawaii. He's a high maka faka, and he fucking, that's what? I felt he thought he was better than everybody. So I left him a bloody mess, and he ran out of the gym screaming, stop this, so gee. That's the last I seen in Nick Lentz, now he's a poet.

He wants to be the fighting poet. It's a pretty, that's a pretty weak thing to be, but I'd rather be the champ than the fighting poet. Now, here's the big question that everyone's wondering. Have you told Dana White and the UFC that you are back, that you want to fight at 145, that you want him? and if so, are they on board with this idea? Yes, me and Dana have talked a few times about me coming back.

But I think like everyone else, you know, Dana wants to make sure, if this guy's coming back, there's no sense for BJ to come back and get beat up. So, you know, I kind of, I try to make the right moves, period, by coming out to Jackson and, you know, I mean, people are going to know if you're taking this serious or not. If I was sitting in Hilo, you know, challenging, well, Nick Lentz, I mean, that, I mean, that fight is so, such an easy, insignificant fight. Nobody cares where I would train for that fight. But if we go in, but when we go out to start moving into some tougher opponents, you know, people are going to want to know that I'm properly prepared.

And that's why I'm up here at Greg's preparing properly. And so, do you feel like March 5th is enough time to be at your best? Why do you want to come back so soon? You know what? Because what everybody's seeing is just me saying that. I've been preparing for months. Okay. I've been preparing for this for months.

And then one day, Nick gets a direct message, and I let him know, hey, let's do this, man. Come on. This is weeks before I, this is a week before I put the challenge out. Send him a direct message. and I don't know. I don't know what's running to the guy's mind. Just don't go around and tell everybody how hard your life is when you're the one who passes the opportunities by.

It's all I got to say to that guy. You know, I could care less. Whatever he says about me, it only makes him look stupid. But besides that, you know, we're just waiting. We're just waiting now, Ariel. We're waiting, me and Gregor talking, and we're seeing what the next step is. Okay, so how long is this offer going to be on the table for?

I mean, if he wants to play games and go back and forth with letters, are you going to move on at some point? I'm going to move on after today. Nick, you got your chance. Call in right now. 155. Call in. You got some guts.

You got some guts. I mean, I don't know where I'm from. If you say something, you have to back it up. You have, I don't, I can't, it doesn't even in my brain how he does not want to walk the walk. It doesn't fathom in anybody in Hawaii's brain, I don't think. Everybody looks at that and they're just like, does that even make sense? You'll fight him any time, but you won't fight him now. It's just the strangest thing, Ariel.

The strangest thing. Well, BJ, my producer, New York Rick in the back, is in fact trying to call Nick to see what he has to say about this. But thus far, we have been unsuccessful in reaching him. But the best thing for Nick, he'll look stupid unless he calls and say, okay, BJ, I'll fight you on March. If he doesn't say those words, he'll look like a moron. You know, he looks silly. That's what it is. If he doesn't accept this, do you want to fight on March 5th regardless?

You have to move on. And I'm going to go talk to Greg Jackson. I'm going to say, what's the next bull? You know what? People have always wondered, you know, how does BG operate? How does this? How does this work? Well, I'm telling you how it's operating right now.

Greg Jackson's running the show We're listening to him And you know what's funny Is everything I tell Greg? He says yes But we all know Greg ain't a yes man But you know

It's just Hey man life's life Greg smart Greg wants to keep me happy Greg knows if I'm happy You know these guys don't stand a chance And Man come on Nick

Call in man Walk to walk Talk to talk walk walk Step up Grab that opportunity grab the bull by the horns, take a chance in life, do something. Let's do this. Let me pump you up.

I got a pep talk here. Maybe I should start changing my angle. Let me pump them up, you know. You're pumping me up. You're pumping everyone else up. It's just, have you ever seen anyone? I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone see.

I'll fight you any time. And then they makes a hashtag, bring pen back and this and that. But Nick also has to know it too. I don't care about that. I just want to use you as a punching bag, buddy. That is the truth. So just to be clear, if he doesn't accept, you want to fight March 5th regardless,

that's the plan you want to be on that card? That's what we were shooting for, and I don't see why we should change. I'll go down and sit and talk with Greg Jackson to make sure how everybody says, you know, BJ was listening to his yes, man. No, no, BJ was listening to Greg, and we're going to see where we're going to move on from this point.

But after today, it's Nick who, Nick who? And what about who? Nick who are you talking about? I mean, it is still Nick who? No one knows who Nick is. You know what I mean? It's Nick who? That's his name.

Everybody from Hawaii, that's what they're telling me. Who is it? Nick who? Nick who? Nobody knows that guy, you know? So it's just amazing, man. When you get the dice, just roll it. Just roll it. It's what I've done my whole life.

Well, I've done my whole career, you know? people that's why people remember me if I care all these people are talking about this and that if I cared about legacy I would have never fought all these guys I would have never took these fights I think they're confusing me with someone who actually cares I don't care about that stuff I just want to scrap I just like fight I could care less about any of that doesn't mean nothing I'm not going to retire early to try to go out on top that's not me I'm going to go down in front of everybody. And people are going to talk and people are going to say thank you for showing up.

You know, so. But you have pride though, right? I mean, the BJ that we saw against Frankie, that wasn't, you know, that wasn't the BJ that everyone loves. So you don't want to be a shell of your former self too, right? That's why you're going to Jackson's, I'm assuming. Well, yeah, exactly. I don't want to be a shell of my former self.

And I told Jackson, I said, if I can't do this. Right. You let me know. You let me, you come straight to me, Greg. You see me sparring one day. You look in me and you say, this guy just don't got it. anymore, pull the plug right now. I got a wonderful life back in Hawaii.

I love my life, but I love fighting more. And what is it like for you because it's been so much fun to see John Jones, Holly Home, Donald Soroni, Alston, they're all tweeting about you. It's like these superstars right now in their prime are wide-eyed

in front of the legend BJ Penn. What's that been like for you to be around these people who are champions and whatnot? You know what? You know what, Ariel? That's it. You hit the nail on the head, man, to be around someone like John Jones, Holly Home, Cowboy, number one contender right there, Greg Jackson, Mike Winkledon.

All these people are looking at me like I can do it, you know? What do you think? How do you think that makes me feel? Yeah. How do you think that makes me feel, you know? I'm pumped, I'm pumped. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go.

People from Hawaii, they would see me right now walking around up here. That's a different man. That's a different man than how I live my life down there. You know, I'm pumped. I'm glad I'm a part of a big team, you know? Usually I have one or two people around me and then I got to do the rest. I got nothing on my plate. All I got to do is go is show up and learn.

Show up and learn and go finish this off. Are you- Are you staying in Albuquerque? I'm ready for it. Go ahead. Are you staying in Albuquerque until the fight? Yes, of course. Of course.

Of course. And I saw you have your- I can't go home. Go ahead. No, no, I don't mean to interrupt. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, no, no. I can't go home in. I can't go home.

beat up anymore. I got kids to face. I can't go home with black eyes, smash face. I'm staying here the whole time. I'm going to come home clean with a smile and tell my kids just go eat dinner. And I see you have your brother there with you. Are you bringing anyone else? I believe you have Reagan there with you, right? Yes, Reagan came up here with me for mental support. Yeah, cabbage, Wesley Correa is up here with me. Oh, nice. Support. Yeah, old friends. Yeah. And yeah, we're just up here and we're just doing our thing man we're up here i got my meditating coach with me sean shan serks almost just like sean shirt but uh yeah i got my meditation all i did was bring a meditation coach with me and jackson is going to handle the rest and i have 100% complete faith

because i fought against jackson and i know every single time i went against him man that guy was ready so i know i know i'm ready i'm going to be ready Just a couple more minutes with you, and I know your time is precious, and again, thank you so much, BJ for this. Hey, for you, the Howard CoSalle of M&A, come on, man, come on. I'll take my time for you. Thank you. I feel like a real turning point for you as far as this new venture, this decision to come back, was the Hall of Fame in July. I got the feeling you weren't totally comfortable with everyone closing the book on your career,

and that made you realize, you know what, I still got more fight left in me. Is that accurate? You know what? You know what? There's a lot of accuracy there, Ariel. If you've seen that, it was there. You know, but don't, but make no mistake. You know, the stakes are higher than ever with everything, how big this sport is, and everything's there.

You know what? But I'm coming back for honor. I'm coming back to do this. Give everything I got. And when I look back, you know, everybody's going to say, you know what? Fucking BJ fucking did it. BJ fucking stepped up. He didn't talk to talk and not walk to walk.

He stepped up and he gave it his best effort. A lot of people might say, you should have did this 10 years ago. Hey, you know, there's a time and a place for everything. There's a time and a place. And I believe I've only been fighting one fight a year for the last three years. And I think I saved a lot of myself there. I think I saved myself.

How old is the UFC champions? You know, Bredoom's my age. You know, I think this is going to be good, Ariel. I think it's going to be good. And you know what? I know that inside, you're going to be rooting for me to win every single fight, even if you got to pick against me, because, you know, my heart is there, and fighting is my whole life.

I would never say something about anybody and not back it up. That's just me. Like I said, I have a wonderful life at home. I can go to the Terrell fields. We can make poil all day, but fighting is my life. And so now that you're 37, do you have any idea how many more years you want to fight for? Or is it unlimited? How many more fights have you thought about this?

I, you know, I would probably say I got two years left, Ariel. Okay. Two years left, you know, 37 and 38. That's what I would say. Who knows what happens? I'm a natural athlete. You know, I've been a natural athlete my whole life. Maybe I did decline.

Maybe I did decline naturally. maybe I just never gave myself the best opportunity that I should have to go out and beat these guys. And the game changed so quick on me, Ariel. I'll sit here as a man right now and I'll admit that the game changed so quick. These guys became so hungry and all these different things added up and all these things, you know, and, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say,

oh, the reason why I'm not the champ today is because of this and because of that and because, no, the game changed. And all these guys got way more hungry than I. I mean, they're literally, they're literally hungry. They go to the grocery store and they say, I can't buy that, but I can buy this. And they want to buy that. They don't want to buy this. They want to buy that.

And these guys are literally hungry, and I realize what I'm up against, you know. Look it, I mean, these guys, you know, I'll go out right now and give all my respect. These guys are animals. These guys are the best athletes in the world. And I want to go and take my place among them. And so finally, if he does not accept, and it doesn't look like we're going to be able to get him while you're on, maybe later on the show he'll call in. But if Nick does not accept, can you... Of course, Nick, Nick is going to call in as soon as I get off.

He's so scared. He's so scared because if he comes on now, he'll get put into a position where he's going to have to take the fight. You know, and I mean, Ariel, I know if you told somebody anytime, anywhere, you would look at you. me, I know you would do it. So you should ask Nick, why wouldn't you, Nick? Why wouldn't you? You know BJ's whole deal. You know who this man is.

You know how he lives. You know how he reacts to everything. So if you tell him you want to fight him, you know he's going to want to fight you. Why back down and get that answer from him? But he better. He's got a couple more minutes before you kick me off this show. And then it's going to be Nick who? Nick who?

And if that's the case, can you confidently say to everyone who's listening that you will be fighting in 2016 in the UFC? They're on board, you're on board, this is happening? No, 100% I will be fighting in 2016 in the UFC. Wow, this is something. I think we should leave it at that. BJ, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. Ariel, I always told you you would get to the top of the MMA media, and you have reached the BJ Penn status of MMA media.

Just kidding, Ariel. I'll take that. You know, I said last week on this show, I've only been Starstruck once, interviewing all these people, and it was when I interviewed you for the first time. You have been so very kind to me. Thank you so much.

Welcome back. I hope you get what you want, BJ. I really appreciate you coming on. I wish you the best in Albuquerque. I also said last week, if there's one man who can do this, if there's one man I trust, it's Greg Jackson,

and I think you made the right call. So all the best to you, my friend. I wish you great success, and I hope to talk to you, right before your return to the UFC. Hopefully it will be against Nick Lens because that's what you want. Hey, you're just telling me that Greg Jackson is the one man who I know can get this job done. You just gave me chicken skin all over my whole body, man.

We got this, Ariel. Easy, brother. We got this, sir. All right, thank you. Take care, because. Okay. All right, talk to you soon. Mahalo to BJ Penn.

Check him out, BJPenn.com. Holy moly, that was intense and incredible at the same time. Welcome back to him. Appreciate his time. Okay, let's move along to our next guest. Had a frustrating night on Sunday in Boston. I went off a little bit because I felt like he was wronged, and I felt like the referee in question one Gary Foreman wronged him as well.

I'm talking about Matt Mitrione, who lost a controversial third round TKO to one Travis Brown in Boston. Now he's joining us via the magic of Skype. I do believe there he is. Matt Mitrione in his car. Matt, how are you? What's up, A.H. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. That was a little loud in my ears.

I don't know if that was for everyone else, but we could turn him down just a touch. Matt, you're of course wearing sunglasses, and we all know about the eye. We saw the pictures. Oh, there it is. Holy moly. How is it feeling right now? I can open it now, which is really good.

So it feels fine. I don't feel any pain in it at all. It just after the fight I went and got a CAT scan. They told me I had to break in my overall floor. And so it's just, I just have to get some surgery on that, probably unless it's not that displaced. And then kind of see what happens from there. But, I mean, it is what it is.

I've got feelings about it. But, I mean, what now? Well, no, I was saying, yes, please share them. I'd love to hear your feelings. You know, all right, let me close this door before I get into this. So, I feel that I've never been poked in the eyes before. So I don't really understand the significance of it and how it can change the balance or the ebb and flow of a fight.

So, and I'm not, please don't, please do not take this as an excuse that I lost because I lost because I chose to continue fighting. And that's the reason why I lost. With that being said, I feel that the referee, who I never knew before that, I think the referee and I feel that, I feel the rules should be changed. And there's a reason for that. And I could, I could, I hope this, hope to God this doesn't come off as I'm a whiny. bitch. I really got, I hope it doesn't. But I guess I'm taking a chance on this. And I feel that I feel that I'm a competitor. I'm a lifelong competitor. And I know that I'm losing a potential of getting half of my other half of my paycheck if I say I can't go anymore. So I'm going to do everything I possibly can to continue fighting, even if it's not the best option, because I need just one chance to get it, right? But in the middle of that fight, after the first I poke, I was fighting with one eye closed,

with my lead eye closed just so I could see one Travis. You know? That's not a safe way to fight at the highest level in the world against people that are takedowns, kicks, punches, everything in the world. So I feel like once that was seen after the eye poke and I had my eye closed for however long it was closed, for like a minute or something like that, and I think it was in the first round,

maybe the second round, I can't remember. Like, that should have been assigned to the doctors and or the referee, but like, all, hold on. Dude's closing his eye

because he can't see, because he can't focus. We need to cause this in no contest. Like, we need to save him from himself and step in and do something about this because I'm not going to do that because I'm too grimy and gritty

and I want my paycheck. But that's not a safe way for the, for the sport to evolve. It's not a safe way. And like I said, I'm not going to blow the whistle on myself and remove that chance of me getting my other half of my money. And I don't think that it's, I don't think it's as it should be. And it's another thing, too, like, I think that there should be some form of instant replay where if you react in any way adversely, right? Like, for example, I finally got the straight left.

I was waiting on for Travis, right? I finally got it, and it was time for me to go for the kill. I started going in for the kill. I throw my long hook followed by straight, and that's when I get poked in the eye. And then I kind of bail back and I cover my eye up, right? And the referee lets it continue. And as Travis tried to jump into it,

and then I got to start swinging and letting fly to protect myself, right? As soon as I react, and I don't know how long it was, I haven't watched the fight, as soon as I react that, or like, we start scrapping off, right, or whatever. I react to my eye, and then I realize that Travis is about to jump on me because I can hear his corner yell, try to finish him. So I start swinging, and then however long it was, I have no idea. It could have been five seconds could have been a minute. I don't know.

And then I think I finally bailed out, and I was like, I can't see. I think that's when they stopped it to have the referees come back in or the doctors come back in. Well, like, in any situation where that comes up, if the fighter reacts adversely, like something that's not normal, that fight needs to be stopped at the moment, if that happens, and then check the replay on the screen because they played it immediately afterwards. And then be like, okay, look,

you didn't get poked in the eye. You just got punched to carry the fight on. Or, oh, yeah, no shit, I miss that. You got poked in the eye. Take your five minutes, right? And then see if you can go on ahead. And then in that situation, they should have let me speak to my corner,

not strategically, but to be like, hey, coach, I mean, I can't see shit. I'm seeing, I'm seeing, I'm seeing double and it's eight inches apart. And Henry's going to be like, look, dude, you do not need to finish this fight because he's going to step in for me and protect me.

Whereas me, they're putting pressure on me saying, hey, look, can you go? And I'm telling them, look, dude, just give me five minutes so I can pull my eyes back together. Right. And from what I understood that was audible. Like, you could hear that on the TV copy. Like, look, just give me five minutes

so I can pull my eyes back together. Like, that's how far my double vision was. And I think, like, I think I can even, I think they even hear me saying, like, I believe I remember saying it. It was all a big rush, you know, but like I focus on something. I can see one of it, but I can't focus that hard in the middle of something. So like, just give me some time to focus.

And they wouldn't award me that time. But it was obviously I got poked in the eye. Just because the referee, who I'd never seen before, didn't even know he rough fights. Just because that referee missed that doesn't mean I should be punished. Even if when it's clear on TV and on the replays that are playing immediately during this conversation, that they validate my position. I got poked in the eye. I deserve my time to recover.

And then, like I said, I'm not going to give up my chance. So, yeah, I got punched in a face. And I got the hematoma, and I got slammed on my shoulder, right? And I got ground and pounded. But that's some bullshit because I don't believe that would happen if that situation hadn't occurred. Like, why would I throw a lead hook like I normally do and then not be able to see anything coming out of my right side and turn my back to him running away? because I can't see what's going on to the side of me.

You see that? And like with any with any fight I've ever had before, I don't get punched like that. Like, and if I see something, Travis, Travis is a good dude, right? I don't believe Travis did anything intentionally. I just think that he was bailing out. And I got poked in the eye. Like, I don't think he did a malicious.

I don't think anybody has the intent on at that moment, except for maybe BJ Penn and Nick Lentz, right? Because maybe that might get. But like, I don't think anybody has the intent at that moment. moment, like, oh, F him, I'm going to poke him in his eye. You know, we're like, oh, I finally just got rocked. Let me stop his momentum. I don't think everybody has that thought.

But the fact that it happened, you know, it really changed quite a bit. And it changed the flow of the fight. And the fact that I'm in there fighting with my lead eye closed, that should have been assigned to somebody to hate to protect this guy because he can't protect himself because he's in the mix right now. And I don't think that was, I don't think that was the best way to go. And I think there could and probably should be a rule change. for that.

Did the thought, and so much is happening, you're in pain above all, but did the thought ever crossed your mind, look, I'm on the final fight of my UFC contract. There's a lot riding on this. I have to win this fight. I can't just walk away with a no contest or try to roll the dice and have them call it a DQ. I need to win this fight. Did that ever cross your mind?

Like, if you're four fights in, if you have four fights left, you just sign a new deal, do you maybe say, you know what? I'm not going to continue as opposed to what you did on Sunday? I don't know. I know that the thought that thought directly did not cross my mind the thought of losing my other paycheck yeah was on my mind like that was on my mind like but not like dude I'm not going to I'll go blind for my money but I'm not going to go blind for the company you know like like so like I feel that no I didn't I didn't think of that but I guess indirectly I did because I'm thinking about winning and I'm thinking about look I even though I knew at the moment I knew it wasn't the safest to say it's for me to go ahead. Like, how can I fight the number of whatever guy in the world with one eye closed? Like, and I'm seeing double if I open my other eye. Like, how though can I do that safely? There's no way. And I'm not going to, like I said, I'm not going to blow the whistle on myself to be like,

hey, I can't do this. Like, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have that in me. I just don't. So I don't know, man, that makes a really complicated scenario because I don't, like, I didn't think about it, but I guess indirectly I did. Let's say this ref actually refs it the right way. Let's say he gives him a warning after the first eye poke. Let's say he calls the fight in the second round, and he calls it a no contest because if it's unintentional as far as the ref is concerned, it's a no contest as opposed to a DQ. In hindsight, do you wish that is what would have happened?

Do you wish you would have come to the conclusion, whether it was with you, like, just kind of swallowed your pride, spoke to your corner? Do you wish you would have said no? Was it, was it not worth it to roll the dice in the third round? Well, that's the thing, right? It shouldn't be up to me, the competitor who lives his life to compete to make decision. It should be up to the commission, the doctors, and the referee to realize that something's not right here. Like the dude is fighting with one eye closed and he's complaining about seeing double, right?

And like I said, man, I really hope this doesn't come off as whining because, dude, I'm accountable. I chose to keep fighting. Yeah, I think it's my. So I hope this doesn't come off as whining. But if you're going to do this, no matter if you have devil vision or not, how many fingers am I holding up? There's only one hand, dude. I see four fingers. I know that's two.

Like, come on, guy. Like, this is one, that's two. No matter how bad your devil vision is, come on, dude, let's figure that out. So, like, that's bullshit, you know, like, that's window dressing. And if I'm over here being like, dude, can I please just get five minutes so I can pull my eyes back together? I'm like, no, we can't do that. But if we inspect you a little bit more, we can buy you a little bit more time. Like, dude, that's not right.

Was that said? Was that said? I don't know what the camera's caught, man. I don't know what the camera's caught. Okay, fair enough. So I'm just saying, in that situation, you have to protect me from myself. You have to. That's your job.

That's what the commission and the doctors are there for. And the referee, that's what is there for. Otherwise, it's a fair fight. There's no need for anybody else. But if something comes in the mix, that is a curveball, a variable that wasn't expected, and there's injury to a fighter, well, of course, dude, that's my money. Of course I'm going to go,

I'm going to do everything I can to get my money. Like, look at, look at Jamie Varner. Why in the hell did they let that dude fight with his ankle flopping around like that? That wasn't good for him. Everybody knows that wasn't good for him. Like, dude, sorry, your legs flopping around like,

like it doesn't belong there. Dude, we got to stop the fight, guy. I don't care how much heart you have. Good for you. You're going to live to fight another day, because I'm going to stand up for you and protect you. Yeah. And that's what we needed.

And that's what I needed in that situation. And look, if that happened, I wouldn't have a broken orbital bone. I wouldn't have a separated shoulder because that shit didn't happen when I was capable. It happened when I was not able to see it in my right eye and I was doing things differently. I was behaving and fighting different than I normally fight. Everyone was focusing on the eye, but if you notice the shoulder, it was gruesome as well. When did that happen and how is it feeling now? It happened on the slam.

When I threw that hook and I kind of turned my back to it, him and I had to run off. Yeah. Or I ran off. He got a body lock on me. Did a great job. It was a great slam. In the middle of it, I was like, oh, shit, this is going to look terrible.

But he slammed me and then pop my shoulder out. But from football, I've had separated shoulders several times, you know. So that's why I have such big AC joints on his shoulder. Okay. So it's just, it's more the same. It's something I've always had. So it's not a terrible change. How is the feeling now?

I just saw a picture you posted of it getting drained. And I know that you had to fly home with this. I mean, how are you feeling right now? I feel fine. I can open it. You can, like. Yeah, wow. That is wild.

Like, dude, it's changed drastically in the past couple of days. Yeah. Incredible. But I'm doing, from where it got Lance, I got Lance. I don't know if you can see it up here somewhere. Yep, yep, yeah. Right there, it got Lance up there. And it's been leaking steadily.

I'm actually happy it's not leaking right now. Okay. But I'm icing almost, almost continuously. I'm putting pressure on it and try to push it out. I'm sure you can see like this side of my face has swollen here. Yeah. So like all the blood and everything else is starting to trace out. And it's leaving a lot of my top eyelid and going down to my bottom and then going to lead out through my face.

But no detached retina or anything like that, right? They do not believe I have a detached retina. They believe I am fine. There's no detached retina. There's no permanent damage. I saw an ocular specialist yesterday in Boston. And then I'm going to see, I broke my orbital floor against Brennan Schaub. before and so now I'm going to see that same doctor down Florida today right here so it's unclear

whether you need surgery yet yeah it's unclear it's clear that it's broke I'm sorry not today tomorrow it's it's broken but I don't know how displaced it is but one thing they said they're quite confident in is that it's not an impinged break which means it didn't trap my eye muscles so I still have full movement of my eye okay um you know a lot was made of our our pre-fight interview where you talked about your decision to write out your contract and, you know, your future as a fighter and all this stuff that caused a big reaction, I think. But you did tweet after the fact, and, you know, I'm happy you did because I think it's always fair to do so when it's applicable that the UFC took good care of you in the locker

room. Is that accurate? Yeah, dude. The UFC took great care of me, man. And that's a thing, man. I really do. I believe I'm as honest as they come, right? Like I express an honest, genuine opinion, whether I agree with the UFC, what they're doing, or how they're treating something, or if I don't. Right? So like, the UFC and I don't necessarily see eye to eye

on my individual contracts or on some things I see some kind of forms of that can be improved on or hypocrisy of some form or something else. And I'll speak on that, which I believe is an honorable trait. Yeah. But regarding the way that they handled all these medical situations, the UFC was spectacular. I went to the hospital immediately afterwards. I had to do some immediate checkup stuff to the point where I was frustrated. I was like, dude, it's like, just get me out of this little tiny curtain cell.

I feel like I'm in prison. Just let me walk somewhere and cool off a little bit. Reluctantly, they let me go do it. They let me go back to my locker room, get some stuff, then jump in an ambulance, head over to the place. I was there for about four hours in the hospital, waiting on cat scans and x-rays and blah, blah, blah. And the UFC went, once I got it, once it got cleared, that I just got a broken, there was nothing more they could do. They went and bought me food.

And it didn't, it's not like they sent me a bill, you know, like they bought me dinner. They had a lady that was there with me the whole time. Me and Ben Saunders were in there chilling. You know, and the UFC was great about that, man. And it's like, I can't complain about that. It was, they were better than I could have even hoped for as far as professionalism. them when it came down to my injury. They were money. What's your hope now? Do you hope to resign with them? Are you going to test the market? What do you want to see happen now?

I don't know. I don't know. You know, like, the U.S. is the only thing I've ever known. I've never fought for another organization of my life, right, like of any form. So I have, I have fear. I have trepidation of going somewhere else, but I also know that I'm losing money, right? you know and uh having lost this fight i've lost two in a row now i'm coming up for a free agency thing like it's not a good position to be in and maybe i lost some bargaining power but then again maybe i won some because i fought my ass off that last fight and a lot of people were to take a no easy way out yep and i think um and i think that i in the in the court of public public opinion and fan approval i think i came out of the winner there like uh like uh oh like i was sincere i'm always

sincere in what i do and i think that's the reason why i have such a good fan base and why even that People that don't like me, people that don't like me don't like me from the Ultimate Fighter. They're holding on to a judge from six years ago. So they can kiss my ass. If you don't like me, go fall on something sharp. But if you like me, that's because you waited through all the Merck and saw that I'm a genuine human being. I'm a decent person that's intellectual and compassionate and sincere. And that's how you develop a fan base.

So I don't know what the result will be. I don't know if Bell-Tor or Rye or Ruff. I don't know what's going to go on. No clue. I don't know if the UFC's going to pony up and be like, hey, look, man, the way you showed yourself, that's what we need an organization. And if Travis Brown is number six in the world, then I'm right around there. Like, I'm not number 14. That's for damn sure.

But then rankings don't mean shit. They're completely arbitrary. I don't even know who does the rankings and where they come from and what criteria. Don't pay attention. So I really don't get up. But I believe I was beating Travis. I believe that it was, you know, without the eye poke. I believe it would have kept going the same thing.

I believe that he would have kept playing safe and I would have attacked. Maybe it would end up an decision. Maybe I'd end up starching him. I believe I was on the cusp of starching him and really put hands on him when I got poked on the eye the second time. And I believe I smelled the blood in the water and I felt it. I felt it was time to let it go. And that's when I started doing that.

But you never know, man. Like I said, if he's number six in the world, I'm somewhere right around there. And I think a lot of people want six in the world on their team. Yep. Final quick thing, I just want to put a bow on this because you know, again, it was brought to light in our interview. I do understand that a couple of Reebok officials tracked you down at the way-ins to talk about the whole thing with the sandals and you going barefoot. Were you happy with that conversation?

Yeah, I wasn't mad about it. You know, like it wasn't some silent planned protests that I had, you know, to kind of stick my middle finger up at the UFC passively. It was just, you know, I wear Jordans. They fit my feet really well. I've got size 16 that are, you know, quadruple. He's got big feet. And they didn't have those. All they had was size 15s that kind of squeeze my feet so I don't want to wear them.

And that's what I had. So I took my shoes off. Well, then the Reebok ran out there and actually had a pair of flip-lops made for me. Like, really genuinely had a pair of flip-lops made for my feet. Wow. Dude, I can't argue with that company that's willing to do that. You know, like, I can be upset about the parameters of the deal. But as far as the professionalism that they showed to get to the commitment to their craft,

they did a damn good job. I may not like the deal that was struck. Sure, sure. But the way they went about doing their end of the bargain, it was completely professional and perfect. You're a good man, Matt Matreone. Thank you for the time. I appreciate you doing this off the side of the road over there.

And again, I think you were wronged on Sunday. I hope everything works out. Most importantly for your eye, please do keep us posted, whether it's on Twitter or whatnot, on how your appointments go. And I hope you get what you are looking for as far as free agency is concerned. Always appreciate the time.

Good to see you. Good to see that you're in good spirits. And we'll talk to you very soon, my man. Most definitely. Hey, thanks a lot for having me on, man. And like I said, I hope it doesn't come off like I'm whining. But I think those are kind of legitimate positions that I never had to have had to view before. So we'll see how it comes off. All right. We'll talk to you soon, Matt. Get well soon. All right, there he is. Matt Mitreone stopping by. I wish him the very best. And definitely do echo a lot of the things he said in that interview. Okay, let's move along. We are a little over two weeks removed from UFC 195. Of course, on that night, Carlos Condit fought Robbie Lawler to a very, very, very close split decision. In fact, said on this show right afterwards, I thought Carlos Condit won that fight and should be the Walterway champion.

Unfortunately, he came up just short. Wanted to talk to him about that and a whole lot more, so he is joining us right now on the phone. Carlos, how are you? I'm doing well, Ariel. How are you doing, man? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for the time. So like I said, we are around a little over two weeks removed from that fight.

Have you watched it since it happened? I did. I think I watched it twice. And what was your takeaway? Do you think that you won? I do. I do feel like I won. But it was super close, man. You know, and MMA judging is subjective. There's no real, I don't know, no standardized way that they're judging things. So, I mean, it was close. I thought you handled it so well. I mean, it was just amazing. You put up. the blueprint how to handle a heartbreaking loss. But as you watch it twice at home, from the comfort of your home in Albuquerque, you get really upset that you were that close.

A lot of people thought you won. Does it bother you that you don't have that Welterweight title? Here and there, you know, when I watched the fight this weekend with Dominic Cruz, you know, watching him walk away with the belt, you know, that got me a little bit. but for the most part I'm I'm okay with it I guess it felt to me and correct me from wrong like you were almost at peace like you did what you needed to do to potentially be champion

you fought as hard as you could you showed incredible heart your chin I mean I don't know what that thing is made it like it's almost like you were saying in your mind you know what these three guys sitting around the cage they could think what they want I know what I did out there and I can live with that is that kind of accurate it? Yeah, I would say so. I put my focus into preparation for the fight and going out there and competing to the best of my ability. And in my experience, sometimes you win, sometimes you

lose. But really, my goal, every time I step out there, is to leave absolutely everything in the cage. And I did that, I did that a few weeks. So, and I know this is, and I know this is, it's tough for a fighter, but I've been asking a lot of people of this question, and I wanted to get your take. This has become a very hot topic after your fight and Dominic's fight, the state of judging. Whether it's having more judges, changing the system, do you have any

thoughts on what you could do, or do you think it's fine the way it is now? No, I think that things need to be changed a little bit. You know, for one, I feel like the 10-point must system in MMA is not, it's just it doesn't work well.

Some fights it doesn't guess, but mostly it doesn't because, you know, maybe a guy eeks out a round and gets, you know, wins the round. But it's very, very competitive. And then the next round, a guy, you know, the other guy absolutely dominates and has a huge round. You know, he's getting scored the same as the very, you know, as the other guy in the very, very, very, very close, close round. You know, I think that they don't give enough 10-8s. That would make things, like, a little bit more accurate instead of, you know, these 10-9 rounds constantly.

But I would actually like to see the 10-point must system, you know, changed, you know, amended quite a bit. I was actually thinking of you on Sunday when Dominic won that close fight. I was wondering if you were at home thinking, why couldn't I got in the benefit of the doubt like that? Were you ever thinking that while watching it? No. Not really, man. I'm not dwelling too much on the decision.

It is what it is. We all know that MMA judging is, you know, it's wonky. You know, sometimes, you know, you just never know what the judges are seeing. Somebody, for you who was on the post-fight show, was actually with you, was talking about the judge's perspective. perspective, and if they're on the wrong side of the action, they're not necessarily seeing what's really going on in the dominant cruise fight. You know, he slipped and avoided a ton of punches, but by, you know, centimeters at times. And if you were on the wrong side of that, it may look like he was getting hit.

And so I think that, you know, that sort of thing needs to be taken into account. Yeah, that is a great point. Brian Stan made that point, and I couldn't agree. with him more. When you're watching the fight, did you think, okay, in this round, that round, I could have done a little more, I should have done this, shouldn't have put myself there. In hindsight, you wish you did things differently? Oh, yeah. I mean, from a technical standpoint,

I'm always critiquing my fight. You know, there's always things that I'm like, okay, that worked well, and then other things that I'm like, oh, man, I definitely could have done things different. there's always room for improvement. I think I'm the biggest critic of myself. But, you know, technique-wise, you know,

that's just like the little stuff. But, you know, overall, like I said that night, I'm proud of what I did. In particular, is there anything that comes to mind that you can tell us from your perspective? I'm curious just because you are your harshest critic that you wish you did differently? So there was,

there was a, there's a technique that worked very well in the first round. I actually dropped Lawler with it, where it's kind of like a, a, use a switch footwork like a switch kick, which is thrown uppercut instead of a kick, and dropped him with that in the first round, and then I kind of went back to it over and over,

and I got myself in some trouble, um, because I think he made an adjustment. And, you know, it, it worked for me and I didn't, and I just,

stuck with that. So that was one thing. I worked a lot of my wrestling for that fight and feel like, you know, if I got a take down or two, I would have definitely solidified those rounds in the judge's eyes for me. So, you know, stuff like that. But, yeah, you know, that's, it is what it is. It happened the way it did. And, you know, it's all good. After his fight against Robbie Lawler in July, Roy McDonald said that was the best moment of his life. Like, he was so happy throughout those 23 or so minutes, even though he was getting his face smashed in. Do you echo those sentiments?

Like, did you actually enjoy that whole process, even though it truly felt at the end you guys were hanging over the cage? Like, you had absolutely zero left in you? That moment is why I do this. I'm in this sport to win and for, you know, for the glory and the money and all that. I'm not going to sit here and act like that's not, that's not, you know, part of the reason I do this. But really, it's about pushing myself to, you know, to and past, you know, these thresholds. And seeing really what I made of and testing myself against these other guys that are doing the same thing. And so, yeah, I would say that I did have a blast.

I had fun, man. I feel like, you know, that's what I live for. I lived a fight ever since. I've said in other interviews. So the first time I got punched or I punched somebody else, the first time I mixed it up with somebody, I knew that I loved to do this thing. And so that leads me to the obvious next question.

Afterwards, you said it might be it for you that you were considering retirement. Have you thought about that anymore? Do you have an official answer, an official stance on where you stand? do not have an official answer, no. So I still love what I do. I still have a lot of fight left in me.

But, you know, from a long-term, looking long-term, I have to, you know, do what's right for my health, for my family. things have been difficult the last couple of years. My wife's had some health problems. They're fairly major. And, you know, these fights are super stressful. And like I said, I absolutely love what I do. But, you know, I've got to do what's right for my family.

And I'm still, I'm still weighing my options right now. Are you leaning towards retirement, though, considering all of that? I don't know. Part of me is, part of me is, man. But, you know, I think there's one or two fights that would definitely, you know, get me interested and probably get me back out in the cage. If Dana White called you today and said we're giving you the immediate rematch, right away we want to do this again, does that get you back in the gym? And does that get you to say yes? An immediate rematch with Loller is about the only fight that raises my pulse.

Okay. That I could get interested in. So it's not Nick Diaz, it's not GSP, it's not any of those guys, it's immediate rematch or bust essentially at this point? Those other fights are a little bit more, the rematch with Robbie is something like, boom, I would have a, I would have a bout agreement in my box real quick, and we could get that done. The other ones are kind of like, you know, like a little bit of a fantasy. Right. You know, I hadn't thought too much about those other ones, but those are big fights, big pay days.

I'm trying to, this is what I do for living and trying to make money to support my family. And if the risk to reward ratio is there and it looks good, you know, it's definitely something I'll consider. Have you expressed this to the UFC? Like, did they call you after the fight in the last few days and see where you're at? I have yet to talk to them personally. I know my management has been in contact with them. So I think they know my stance.

Yeah, and what are they telling you as far as their take on your stance? Like, are they open to the rematch? Are they talking about it? I don't think anyone would be upset with the rematch, to be honest. What are they saying to your management? We don't have any, like, we don't have any solid answers, but I think it's definitely a possibility. Do you have a sort of deadline as to when you'll move on,

as to when you want to hear back? Are you thinking in those terms? No, not necessarily. I mean, I just spent, you know, six months at least training for that fight, went in there, had a war. I'm not in any rush to do anything right now. What would Carlos Konda do if he stops fighting? Do you have any idea?

I think I do. I have a lot of different interests. I would definitely still be involved in MMA. I would like to coach guys and be around the sport in that capacity at least. I got some other things too. but, you know, I'll wait until they materialize before I talk about it too much. Any chance you follow in your father's footsteps and going to the political world? I don't know. I don't know. Like, I definitely not like in the sense of like an elected official.

He's trying to get me up there this legislative session to kind of go kick around and hang out. Yeah, just, and I've been doing that since I was a kid. Just, you know, just listening to stuff. He always likes me to go and schmooze a little bit. But, I don't know. We'll see. I guess, yeah, it's in the realm of possibility. What is your family saying to you as far as your future?

Do they want you to keep fighting? You know what? There's no really push either way. Oh. They kind of support me no matter what I do. They give me advice. but there's no real push either way. I think they just kind of present me with different options and different things to think about,

and then ultimately the decision is mine. And when you talk about coaching, you want to do that eventually. Have you talked to Greg and Winklejohn and Brandon Gibson, those guys about it, or would you go off and do your own thing? Have you gone to that point? Like, would you go under their band? Would you just be a coach at the gym, or would you like to open your own gym and have your own students and go that route? I would probably not want to do my own gym.

I would, uh, no, I think most likely I would, I would stay under the, the Jackson's Winkle John Banner, but yeah, and I probably not, not do my own facility. Um, maybe do, maybe do my own fighters, you know, you know, you know, you know, boxing used to be where it'd be like, you know, different camps in, in the same, you know, training facility, but they're not all necessarily on the same team. Right. Speaking of which, we just had a few minutes ago, BJ Penn on the show, who officially announced that he is coming back and he's been at the gym for the past week.

Have you run into him at all? I have not been down. Okay. You know, I've been doing some other stuff, and I have not been down to the gym in the last week. But I've seen the pictures. Yeah, it seems like everyone's posing with him and very happy to have him. Is that, do you feel like that's the right, I mean, not knowing the guy, but just I feel like, if BJ Penn would have announced he's coming back,

kind of been like, but BJ Penn teaming up with Greg and Wink, I feel like, okay, if those guys are signing off on it, I can feel comfortable. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, he's always had, you know, all the talent in the world. And, you know, I guess the criticism in the past is, you know, his motivation or his, you know, where he's training, who he's training with, whatever. You know, that, you can't really question that if he's, if he's here training with us. I think we have a great formula for success. And you plug BJ Penn into that.

I think it's pretty exciting. Typically after a fight like the one you just had, how long do you stay away from the gym for? I have been lifting and doing my strength of conditioning and moving around a little bit. I haven't been down at Jackson's. Not for any reason. I've been busy.

I've been doing other stuff. come. But, you know, a week, two weeks, I'll probably be back in this week. Okay. By the way, I wanted to ask you this before I let you go. I meant to ask you this before the fight. All this talk about Connor McGregor and his movement, Ido Portal. You were kind of doing that before anyone was talking about it, right? Like a year ago. Is it what you do, is it similar to what, I don't know how much you watched of his stuff. Is it similar to what the stuff that Edo and Connor are doing? I think there's different approaches. Yeah, I've watched I've watched Ido Portel a little bit.

There's different approaches. I think the goal, the end goal is the same. It's, you know, mastery of movement in really any situation or any plane. And, yeah, and it's a cool thing. And I've been training with Erwin LaCore with the Move Nat program for a while, but even before then, I was, you know, I was working with the guy named Jake Herbert, who was a 2012 Olympian, who, you know, is very much into movement himself, you know, Olympic wrestler. And he's developed a movement program for youth wrestlers.

He incorporates that big time into his training, his coaching. So there's a lot of different people. And on another note, Ricky Lindell has been doing the same thing. they've been doing very, very similar things. So, you know, and I don't think anybody's copying or jumping on a bad wagon. It's just more like a great mind-think-a-like kind of thing. Right. Okay.

Finally, you know, just to sort of wrap this up, is there a reason why Carlos Condit is not banging the drum and jumping on, you know, I don't know if you look at social media, but a lot of people are in your corner supporting you, trying to get you that rematch, arguing, saying that this was, you know, a robbery in all things equal to that. Is there a reason why you're not going out there and banging that drum? Is that just not your style? You're not comfortable with that? Is it because of where you're at in your career? Explain to us why you're taking this stance.

I guess it's just not my style. Yeah. You know, we're, I mean, I just go about things different, you know, in different ways. Yeah. You know. And I respect that. Yeah, may happen. But, yeah, I was just, I guess it's just not my style.

And if someone says to me, okay, where is Carlos Condit at in his career right now? What's the proper way to describe the state of your career? Like where you're currently sitting? It's a good question. I don't know. I have to think about it. When you're asking me next time. Okay.

Fair enough. We'll leave it at that. That's a good cliffhanger. I do appreciate you coming on, though. Thank you very much. Again, congratulations on an amazing fight. In my opinion, right now, as we sit here, I mean, that very well could be the fight of the year, the round of the year.

I mean, unbelievable what you guys did just a couple weeks ago. go. Thank you, Carlos. Enjoy the time off. And again, I hope you get what you're looking for. Thanks, man. I appreciate you. All right, there he is. Carlos Condit joining us from Albuquerque, which appears on some days to be the center of the MMA universe. Okay, let's move along. Chris Lieben, you see it right over there. It came out with a book recently, and it has been very well received. And unlike some other books that you see from athletes, I mean, this one is, and we shouldn't be surprised, this one very much, very much the real deal, very authentic, a lot of eye-opening stuff, but that is who Chris Leibon is.

He's had a very interesting life to put it mildly, and it's all out there. He shares it all in this book, so I do suggest you checking it out. It's called The Crippler, Cage Fighting, and my life on the edge, and the aforementioned Chris Leibon is joining us right now via the magic of Skype. There he is from the gym. How about that? Chris, how are you? I'm doing good, man. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us. So it appears as though the reaction to the book has been fairly positive. What do you make of it? You know, it's actually super good. I guess, you know, sales and everything have been really well. Reviews have been great. And not just some fighters. I mean, like, I got reviewed

by like the book, the review of librarians, a bunch of librarians and write reviews. And they absolutely love the book. They say, you know, you don't have to be just an MMA fan to enjoy it. Like you said, I'm kind of an open book already. So, you know, it's more of a life story than just, you know, wins and losses in the cage. And, you know, not to give too much away, but there's a lot of eye-opening stuff there. I mean, really, sometimes shocking to read. Was it difficult for you to put yourself out there and were you kind of anxiously? Because it's not like you do an interview like this, you know, get instant feedback.

You have to wait for people to react to this. Yeah, it was really hard. hard, but, you know, Daniel Patinkin, my writer, he had a way of kind of getting the information out of me, you know? Obviously, I didn't, you know, I had a ghost writer, like every fighter does when they write the book. English isn't my, my forte. But he had a way to get the information out of me, and it was, I'm not going to lie, a lot of spots are really hard in the book. Like, I might be able to sit for like 30 minutes going over so then we'd have to get up and take a walk. Wow.

Like take a walk, air out, then like come back, get back to it. You know, and he would always find a way to, you know, to bring me back, maybe change the environment that we're sitting in so that, you know, so that I could go over a lot of this stuff because, you know, on one hand, yeah, it's, it's therapy, you know, on the other hand, it's kind of like let sleeping dogs lie. Yeah. So, you know, but, you know, the books, the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, it's all there. and, you know, keeping everything as, you know, as true and it's crisp and as clear, as I can remember, you know, was a big goal for me.

Was it difficult to remember some of the stuff earlier on in your life? I mean, you'd been punching the head a lot. Well, not just punching the head, but some of those stories in that book are through a filter. You know what I'm saying, you know. You know, so, but the nice thing was, you know, I gave everybody that's in the most, most of stories, unless obviously they hate them. But for every, every story, everything that went on, you know, I gave my writer a ton of different people, you know, and he was, when he was doing my radio show, he commented that, you know, I hear Chris tell this story. And I think this, it's unbelievable, you know, this is just crazy. But then I'll go and I'll call, I'll call Ed Herman, I'll call Sam Song or I'll call his friends and the, you know,

his training partners, and they'll validate it. Yeah. Is there a story in particular that you were really nervous about sharing with the world, that you were kind of like, oh, man, I don't know if I should put this out there? You know, the hardest stuff was my childhood stuff. You know, that's stuff I don't really talk about a lot, you know. And it was hard for me, but, you know, the fact of the matter is it's something that got me to where I'm at that caused me to go down the path that I went down.

And, you know, it's an important part. of the book. But it's not something I sit around the table and share with people. You know, the last time I had you on my show was in April when you came out with the news that this was coming out that you can pre-order and all that. Since then, of course, a lot has happened. You were just released from jail not that long ago. What was? And that was a little shocking because it felt like you were turning things around and you were happy. What happened? I am. I am and I was, you know. And I'm actually, I'm in a better place. in my life now than I ever have been.

Unfortunately, I'm going through a divorce, you know, with a newly made lawyer. So she more or less turned in an illegal firearm that I had. Yeah, you can't have machine guns in Southern California. Apparently, that's illegal. That's my bad. You know, I'll claim that one. But, you know, she turned it in and then kind of wrote a bullshit TRO.

That they threw out, they threw everything out, obviously, because nothing was true, except for the fact that I did have an illegal firearm, which is my bad. Can't do that. In total, how many days were you in jail for? Like 60. 60. And was there a moment? Something like that. Was there a moment when you were sitting there and you were like, what, what happened?

How did I get here? You know, like, did you have any of those moments where it was really tough for you to get by? You know, it's hard when you go to jail. I mean, between us, this is my 15th trip to jail. Wow. Not my first time. But it's been a few years. Yeah.

I've been doing really good the last few years. You know, I've been, since I got out of rehab, you know, I've been really, really straight and no trouble at all. Amazing how that works, right? Right. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, life is going. It's going around. Everybody's on the merry-go round. And then it's like you just get put off.

It's like adult time out. You know what I'm saying? Like you just go lay in your bunk and then, you know, you're going to get up and walk in a circle. You eat crappy food. You know, you're locked in a room with these guys. You know, San Diego was kind of rough because, you know, all the gangs and the prison, the jail politics, you know. You're right here by the border. So you've got the different Mexican sets.

And then, you know, you got the brothers and the others. And then I have to sit with the woods, you know. So all that stuff gets annoying, you know. But it's not unbearable. I mean, it's not, there's nothing too terrible about it. You just, you're just on time out. How do those? Certainly doesn't rehabilitate anybody, I'll tell you that.

How do those people that you just mentioned treat Chris Lieben? I mean, you're a celebrity. You're a very recognizable face. How do they treat you? Well, I'll tell you, actually, I got a little funny story for you from the last time I, before I fought Bisbing, I had to go to jail. And it's always the same. Once they find out, I'm a UFC fighter, everybody's a fighter.

They're all going to come train with me. They're my biggest fans. And, you know, most of the people in jail, 99% of them are good people. Down here in California, 99% of them are in there because they're good people, but they're drug addicts and their probation officer caught them, guess what, doing drugs? So they throws them in jail, then they lose their job, and then what do they do? End up on the street doing drugs. But that's my personal opinion.

Well, they started talking to me about doing how to do a rear naked choke. So next thing I know, I'm kind of, uh, I've got like 10 They're like all tweaker guys Like standing in front of me Well so you just got to cut up the crud artery On this side and they cut it off on this side And then

I'm like right about the time I'm thinking like this guy should be tapping out Like he just goes limp in my arms right Like he's passed out you know And I look up And there's the closed circuit jail camera right there Like I just choked this guy out on film in the jail So I drag him into his

into his bunk. I lay him down in his rack, you know, and of course one guy's got to go, is he going to die? And he was actually out, I would, like 30 or 40 seconds. He was out for a while. So I don't know how long I was choking him

after he went out, but I didn't realize that, you know, it didn't cross my mind. He didn't even know what tapping out was. So he just, just calmly sat there and let me choke him unconscious. I could have stayed in for another five years. Oh, man.

That would have been horrible. okay so now you're out and it's it's very interesting that you're joining us from a gym because it seems like there's some there's some talk out there that chris leban wants to fight again is that accurate this is my living room what are you talking about yeah that's a sweet living room yeah i just keep a cage in the background at all times um you know it's funny you know just you know i kind of you know i kind of you know, I kind of feel like I got a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, you know, like I got a little bit of a fire in me, you know, and maybe, you know, I was in there for, you know, 10 plus years.

I was married and happy. I had to, you know, everything was going well. And now training, training is what saved me in my whole life. I mean, wrestling, being on the wrestling team is what got me through high school. You know, what I think kept me alive was, you know, straighten it up for, you know, at least a couple of weeks. getting ready for my fights, you know. Training is what centers me. It's what it. I love it.

I love being in a gym. I love the camaraderie. I love meeting everybody. It's clean. It's wholesome. It's healthy. So, you know, with where I'm at now, I just, I find myself in the gym most of the day. It keeps my head clear. So are you planning to fight again? I'm not ruling it out. Okay.

have you reached out to the UFC you last fought for the UFC have you reached out to them to tell them hey is there any plans for me I'm thinking oh god Dana doesn't want to have anything to do with me you know he uh he said he was going to you know when we were writing the book when last time I talked to you Dana was emailing my agent you know oh yeah I want to support the book and gotta die and then we're going to put it up on our Twitter and everything else and then the book came out send him a copy and he's like I don't like the book, I'm not supporting it. You know, he just totally backtracked on that.

But, you know, I'll take a polygraph on anything that's in that book, man. I don't know what it is. He doesn't like what Dana doesn't want the world to see. But, you know, there's something that just makes he's not happy with me about something, I guess. I don't know. Apparently, it's in the book. Are you free to sign anywhere you want right now? Are you still tied to them?

I'm free to sign. Okay, because did they release you? you know yeah yeah they did okay well i i i i i i i i reached out to them and got released recently yeah oh so that that that would imply maybe that the wheels are in motion here yeah your deductive reasoning is amazing thank you uh and and was that a difficult thing or did they not put up a fight uh yeah they didn't put up a fight which is which is good you know what i mean because apparently they own me for life. And just curious, why are you hesitant to say I'm here, I'm a free agent,

may the best offer come, I'm back, why do you seem hesitant to say that? Well, because, you know, I may be talking to a couple different people right now, you know, and I don't want to say who or what or where or when, you know. So that's kind of the main reason I'm leaving, I'm trying to leave all my options open to me. Fair enough. And I respect that. Just if I may, I mean, a guy who was on the first season of the Ultimate Fighter on a certain network, I believe they're called Spike TV. If you're talking deductive reasoning, I feel like we might see a good fit there.

Am I off? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Where are you now? What gym are you in? I'm at Arena. Okay. Is that where you'll be...

Yeah, absolutely. They got phenomenal coaches, great instructors. Just an awesome program here. Great team. so I'm really happy. And who would be in your corner, who would be guiding you in your comeback? You know, like coming out to wherever,

I haven't even gone that far. Okay. You know, right now, right now I'm just, you know, training with the fight team here at Arena. I just got done doing Barrett Yoshid's grappling class. You know, there's just, there's some great coaches here. All that stuff would still have to get hashed out. And for a fan out there who sees this and says,

I saw Chris Levin, his final days in the UFC. That wasn't the crippler of old. That wasn't the guy who beat Vanderlake. Why should people believe that you can actually make a run again in your career? Because it's huge. You know, I got out of rehab, and they put me on a drug called Suboxone, which is basically what they give heroin addicts. And it slows you down.

It makes you dossile. It's also the most addictive substance of the planet. Hardest drug to kick in the world. And you can Google that shit, if you don't believe me. It was horrible. I had to come off when I was in jail. It was horrible. But, you know, I would never, the stuff they give you to get off is worse than the stuff that you're on, you know.

So, you know, when I moved here to San Diego, you know, I didn't drink for two years. You didn't do anything but take my medicine from my doctor. I would have told, you know, I was doing meetings and everything else. I would have told everybody was 100% sober. But I wasn't. I was in a haines. I was cloudy. I wasn't motivated.

and I'm just so much meaner now. Like I'm pissed off. Like legitimately pissed off. And now like before where I was saying, hey, slow down. Let's spar lighter. When guys want to start banging, it's like I'm putting my head down. I'm moving forward. You know, and also, you know, I'm living on like vegetable juice right now.

Vegetable juice, a little bit of chicken, a little bit of fish. So, you know, eating clean, training hard, and having, you know, Zero prescriptions, nothing. I'm taking nothing. I don't take I be propein, I don't do anything. You know, I'm angry. Training is my drug, and fighting is my drug, you know. How much you weigh?

It's coming down. Okay, fair enough. It's coming down. I'm at 228. Okay. You'd like, in a perfect world, fight at 185? Yeah, in a perfect world, fight at 185, yeah. Yeah, and I think I can't.

You know, when I showed up too, Alliance when I first moved here to San Diego, I was, I was 2.32. Oh, wow. So I've made the cut. But what you don't realize is I was 248 when I came out of jail. So I've already lost 20 pounds. How long have you been sober for? Well, I was, I was dreaming a little bit before I went to jail.

But since I got out, and, you know, the great thing is I've got this awesome new coach, and he does make sure I don't drink. He's called a probation officer. Oh, I've heard of him, yes. You know, and random, you know, they've got this three-day test now. Oh, wow. So randomly, you know, they can check me. I don't want to drink any with.

Me and alcohol don't mix. I think I'm the greatest guy in the world when I drink. Don't get me wrong. But it's just everybody else. How long is your probation for? 18 months. Okay. Does that preclude you from fighting, you know, outside of the state?

not outside of this no okay outside of the country you know they understand that it's it's the way that i uh i make a living you know so i i've spoke with them about it you know so there's certain rules and exceptions can't be made um in a perfect world when would you potentially maybe if the stars align fight again if the stars a lot okay um you know honestly I feel good. I think May. Okay. I think May I could be in fight shape.

And just to clear something up, when you say you're angry, what are you angry about? Like, will that translate? No, I'm just pissed off all the time. Why? I'm just like. Because you're. That's not good. Maybe because I'm not sedated like I was, you know?

I'm just a little bit grumpier. But it makes for a good athlete. Sure, but that could that trend, like if someone cuts you off on the street, you know, could that translate? Dude, I've never been that guy. Okay, okay. It's funny, you know. I, I, I, I, I punched a 309 pound bouncer one time in, like, 2003.

I've never, ever, other than that, I've never been in a street fight, you know, and everybody says the same thing when they come in, you know, and they train with me. They go, oh, you know, I thought he was going to be a fucking asshole. I thought, da, da, da, da, but, you know, you, you, he has good technique. He's really, you know, he's actually relatively nice, you know. Everybody still remembers. a drunk kid from 12 years ago on the first season of the Ultimate Fighter. Right.

You know, that's it. That game was gone a long time ago. Finally, you mentioned Ed Herman. I don't know if you saw he had a big win on Sunday. Yes, huge. Tim Boch. Yeah. When you see that.

That was great. I liked your comment about his man bun, by the way. Oh, it was nice, though. I got to give him props. He still got it. But when you see that, does that fuel your fire? I mean, you're like, look at him. He could do it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. you know me you know both eddie and and and dom cruise man yeah i mean eddie me and edie we we started we were training together before either one of us had ever had one fight you know we we started at as the original couple people at team quest you know yeah um so seeing him in there and and and doing well um you know that's absolutely motivating you know dominant cruz never ceases to amaze me to one that fight was just amazing yeah but to watch to watch him go in there and having one fight in like four years or whatever it is, you know,

and just incredible. Any chance to go back? Sorry. What's that? Any chance you go back to Alliance? Definitely for some training and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I like everybody down there. Yeah. I mean, I may work it in. You know, it's just a little difference in, in, in, I'm doing like a lot of classes, a lot of, a lot of technique right now. Yeah. And I'm sparring, like, twice a week, you know. You got to be, you know, when you train in the alliance.

to be 100% top level shape, you know. Yeah. You know, it's high-level athletes, but, you know, I'll talk to Coach E, you know, and hopefully, you know, get in there and get some rounds with some of those guys for sure. Well, again, Chris, I can't recommend the book enough. It is called The Crippler, Cage Fighting, and My Life on the Edge. It is a fascinating look into a fascinating man, and I appreciate you stopping by in the middle of training here to talk to us.

It's great to talk to you. I hope everything goes. I'm sweating everywhere. No, I like it. I like it. It's raw. I hope everything works out for you, my man, and I'm sure we'll be talking soon. Awesome. Thanks, man. We'll touch you. There he is. Chris Leibin's stopping by. Great stuff from him. And I do. I'm not just saying it. It is a very well-written book. It's interesting. You know, you hear that he is a free man, and you see what they're doing over at Bellator. One would think that he is a good match over there. In particular, you know, you forget it. It has been some time.

time, you had a little bit of a feud with one Josh Kosteck, right? And I know Josh has his, uh, his, his feud with Paul Daly that is still simmering. He was actually supposed to fight, I think, next week, but that has been delayed. Daly will be fighting, not Kostchek, um, but hey, that's another guy. So it's, it's, you know, to me, it feels like a, a no-brainer for Belator, but we'll see what happens there. Appreciate his time. And, uh, again, I do suggest checking out the book. Okay, in a minute, we are going to be joined by Paige Van Zent, who, as I mentioned at the top of the show, is coming off her first UFC loss that was to Rose Namibunis in Las Vegas. It was on, I believe, December 10th, the Thursday before UFC 194.

And one of those fights where, of course, she lost, it was one-sided, but it felt at least to me. And I know to a lot of other people as well that, you know, her stock went up after that fight, that people actually, for whatever strange reason, people actually started to respect her more. And not just because of what she did in the cage and the heart that she put on display and that she refused to quit and that she went, you know, almost the distance with a very tough contender like Rosam Yunus. I think it's also because she showed up to the press conference. She put herself out there. She was not, you know, afraid to speak to the press afterwards. was obvious that she was in a lot of pain, you know, obviously physically, but also emotionally

it was, it was tough to do. It is very tough. I think we take this for granted when these athletes, you know, put everything on the line, trained for eight weeks, three months, whatever the case may be, and, you know, they fall short, whether it's in spectacular fashion or, you know, the way T.J. Dillishaw fell short on Sunday. And then for them to show up to these press conferences, that always amazes me. You know, no one, no one will, I don't, I don't, I don't begrudge Ronda Rousey for not showing up to that press conference. Of course, hers was on a much, much larger scale, a lot more people watching. A lot of people may be rooting for a demise, but for these athletes to show up to these post-fight press conferences and have

to listen to us, ask questions, you know, sometimes smart, sometimes not, and just sit there with grace and humility more often than not, as TJ did, as Carlos did, as Paige did around a month ago. That to me is a very impressive sight. And I, I know a lot of lesser people could not pull that off. What she did at that press conference was very impressive. So I wanted to talk to Paige about that fight and a whole lot more. She is joining us via the magical Skype right now. There she is, sporting that now famous smile.

Paige, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing great. I really appreciate you coming on the show. It is good to talk to you as always. So we are a little bit a month removed from the fight. How are you feeling about it all now?

Do you think about it? Are you over it? What are your thoughts on it? Yeah, definitely not over it yet. Right after the fight I talked to your riot right when I got out of the cage. And instantly he told me what I did wrong and what I need to work on. Of course, he gave me a hug. But yeah, that's just what we're working on now is getting back into the gym

and figuring out what I did wrong in the fight, so it won't happen again. How much time did you take off after the fight? Just a break from MMA, training, etc. I took some time off. You know, you're required to. I have the medical convention. So I took what I had to off. I stayed working out though

I keep going to my crossfit gym here in Reno Double Edge CrossFit so I've been doing a lot of that just to stay in shape and then getting ready to go back into full training So you're in Reno right now I am yeah So do you only live in Sacramento while you're training for a fight? I do yeah once I get a fight set

And then I go back to Sacramento but I have such a good CrossFit gym here Double Edge was huge for my UFC debut They really helped me out and I have a personal trainer there. So I really like to stay here in Reno until I have a fight set. My family and friends are here. And then once I have a fight lined up, then I head back to Sacramento and train. In hindsight, um, you look at, by the way, how many times have you watched the fight? I haven't yet. You haven't. Wow, that is super interesting. Is that, is, is, did you make a conscious decision? You don't want to watch it? Why is that?

No, I think it's very important for me to watch it. So I can see where I went wrong, the big mistakes that I made in the If I'm going to watch that, I think I'm going to watch it with Uriah so he can point out what I did wrong. I'll watch it here pretty soon, but I wasn't quite ready yet. Okay, so you don't have the benefit of watching it, but in your mind, are there a few things that you're like, you know, if I would have done this differently, things could have started out differently? Like, do you have things already in your mind, or do you need to watch it first? Yeah, I definitely already know a lot of the things I did wrong. I was very predictable in that fight.

You know, I went out there and did what I did in my last three UFC fights. So I think that was a big mistake on my part It's just being very, very predictable And then other than that, there's just technique. You know, there's a few technical errors that I made And working on my stand-up game, ground game, A little bit of everything. Do you feel, again, in hindsight,

that it was too soon to fight someone like Rose? That was the big talk going into this fight. Yeah, you know, definitely not. I think it made sense at the time. It was the next step. I had won three fights in the UFC, beat Felice Herrig, some big names. And I think it was the right next step for me.

of course, I took a loss, but I'm going to get back in the gym and work on what I needed to work on. After the fight, we spoke to Lance Palmer, who obviously was in your corner and helps train you at Alpha Male. He was gearing up for his title fight. He said that one of the things that he'd like to change is he feels like sometimes people, because you train with a lot of men, they don't push you as hard as you should be pushed. Do you agree with that? Do you think that's a problem that needs to be fixed? I definitely do that.

I think that it's a problem with some training partners, but I do actually. have really, really good training partners that I like to work with for every fight. I have my training partner, Miko. He's been working with me for my UFC debut all the way through all four fights. So I like to keep the same partners for a few of them just because they do really push me. They know me really well. They know my breaking points. But I mean, I guess, yeah, when you work with some guys, they don't like to hit you very hard.

They don't like to go hard with you. And I think that is a problem. Would you like if there were more females, in particular in your weight class or around your weight class at alpha male, do you think that's necessary? You know, I don't think it's necessary. I do have a really good training partner that's a female. Unfortunately, her arm was broken this year, so I wasn't able to work with her at all for this fight. But I do have a really, really good few girls that come into the gym. They're making their way back here pretty soon.

I recall, I think it was after the first round, and you were bloody, you had the cut on your face. I recall seeing you look up at the screen and you were kind of not fixated, but it was clear that you had recognized that you were bleeding. What was that moment like for you? Because we had never seen you like that before. Yeah, you know, I kind of always told my training partners and a few of my teammates that I wanted to get into a war like that just to see what my breaking point was. And, you know, looking back, I posted a few of the pictures where I'm covered in blood just because I think it's awesome. I don't know. I thought it was awesome. And I think I was just looking. I was like, I needed to see how bad the cut was or where it was because I wasn't really sure.

And I saw it was under my eyes, so I was good to go for the next five rounds or four rounds. So it didn't rattle you? It didn't freak you out that you were bleeding that much? No, no. I just noticed that there was a lot of blood. I didn't know how significant the cut was. Luckily, it wasn't that bad, actually. It was just a lot of blood for a very small cut.

Right, right. And at any point of the fight, was it actually bothering you? Look, was it going in your mouth? Was it making things difficult for you? Yeah, it definitely was. I mean, you can see from a few of the pictures, especially because we did go to the ground a lot. I couldn't see it at all. And the blood completely filled my ears.

I was blue blood out of my ears for three weeks after the fight. Wow. So I couldn't hear anything. So I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything. I mean, no excuses, but yeah, definitely a lot of blood. So you said that, you know, you've told your training partners in the past that you wanted to get into a war like that. Did you surprise yourself?

because I think you surprised a lot of people how tough you were. I think the jury was still out on you, and that's no longer the case. Did you actually surprise yourself on how tough you actually are? No, I mean, it's awesome that I get to go back and see that and just see how much I pushed through. But, I mean, it didn't surprise me. I knew I had that toughness in me. And a few of my training partners have seen it, and especially my one female training partner, Cynthia,

me and her actually had to go against each other in a jiu-suitous tournament. And she knew that she was, really scared because she knew if she got me in a choke or anything that I wouldn't tap out. And she was afraid to do that because she didn't want to hurt me. So I definitely have a very no give up attitude. So it didn't surprise me in that sense, but it was definitely a good test. Yeah, I would say you have a very strong will and a very big heart. Was it almost at that point, like you knew that you were losing the fight and you go into the fifth,

do you almost feel like, all right, let me just make it to the end? Like, did you want that? Did it bother you that she was able to finish? issue in the end? It did. You know what? I definitely am really mad at myself that I gave up in the end. I tapped out. That was me giving up. I'm really mad at myself for that. But I mean, definitely going into the fifth round, I had new, I knew I lost the fight. My teammates, or my corners told me I lost the fight, so I needed to go out there. So I went out there and I threw a spinning back fist. I was just like trying to get lucky with absolutely anything. So I figured whatever

I was doing in the first four rounds wasn't working, it might as well get a little crazy in the fifth. Yeah, I ended up, she ended up submitting me. But I learned a lot from the fight. First time in your career that you have to fight in the fourth and fifth, how did you feel about that? Were you ready cardio-wise for that? I definitely was. I don't think cardio was too much of an issue. I've been able to go three rounds very easily.

I said that before in the past. Honestly, once it got into the fifth round, I thought it was the third round. I had no idea. I was a little rocked in the first round. I didn't really know what round it was once we got to the fifth. But yeah, cardio wasn't an issue. Physically now, how are you feeling? Any serious injuries coming off of that? No, no serious injuries. Actually, everyone thought my arm would have been hurt. Yeah. Arm was fine. I got six stitches, but you can't really tell. They did a great job stitching me up.

Yeah. So no injuries. And so this was the interesting thing. Like I said before you came on the show, you've been compared to a degree to Ronda Rousey. Of course, her loss. was on a much bigger scale, pay-per-view, millions of people watching 55,000 in the stadium. And she was somewhat criticized for not, you know, doing an interview after and not showing up to the press conference. And her injuries appeared to be more serious than yours. But you showed up. And you were there, and it looked like you were having a tough time being there. You were very emotional, but you still had that smile on your face.

How difficult was it for you to sit at that press conference and answer questions about the laws? You know, it was definitely hard. Just because I was still taking it all in, I went from being punched in the face. five minutes ago to being in front of all these interviewers answering questions. So it definitely wasn't easy and I really tried to hold myself together. I cried a little bit, but I think that is a very important part just to show up. It's a business more than, it's more than just fighting. There's a lot more that goes into this business. Did someone have to convince you to go or did you say I'm going regardless? I said I was going regardless. I actually didn't talk to anybody like as far as my

parents were there and I told them to go away. Oh, really? I knew if I saw my parents and I would start bawling and I wouldn't be all to stop. So I made sure my parents left, my manager left. The only person I talked to really was Eriah and the doctors and I just walked up there by myself. Wow. What did your parents say afterwards about seeing their little girl get, you know, bloodied up like that? Was it, was it difficult for them? Yeah, you know, my mom told me she was really proud of me, of course, which is something you don't really want to hear after you take a loss right away. My dad, I heard him and Pat Berry got into a little yelling argument during the fight. Wow.

But yeah, he definitely is very invested in my fighting career. I don't know, he was proud of me, but then also after the fight, he made sure he told me what I did wrong and just wants me to get better. It seemed like Dana White said a few things to you up there as well. What did he say to you? Something about him awesome. I don't know. Yeah, I don't really remember now.

Yeah. You know, another thing, I don't know how much you, I'm sure now you've gotten it, but it felt like to me, even though you lost, you know, it was pretty one side and everything, you gained a lot more respect from the MMA community. Like, no one questions your place anymore, your stock rose. It was a very strange thing, but it felt like you came out almost a winner in that regard. Did you get that sense as well? I definitely did.

you know, I really didn't expect that much support. I thought I embarrassed myself out there and I put on like an embarrassing performance. But then afterwards I had all these positive articles and positive. I was reading a lot of positive things after the fight, which it felt really good, you know, especially after taking a loss not to get a ton of criticism for it. Yeah. So it was really neat that I still had a lot of fans come forward and my stock grew even after a loss. It was neat.

It was strange. It was almost like more people were talking about your heart than her win. Yeah. Did you notice that? I did, you know, but you know, again, she's a great athlete, put on a great performance, and I can't wait to see where her career goes as well. So I understand you stuck around the next night to see Chad's fight, right? But you didn't really want to initially.

Is that accurate? Yeah, that's true. Initially, I didn't want to go. I wanted to go straight home. Of course, my manager's like, you know, whatever you want, just let me know. I laid in bed for a few hours, and then my mom told me, just get up. You know, you can't sit there and cry over something that's in the past. only grow from it. So my mom told me to get out of bed and put my big girl pants on and

handle what I needed to do. So yeah, ended up telling them, yeah, I want to go to the Chad's fight. I have to support my teammate. Went to my after party and really just sucked it up. Obviously, that was not a good night for Chad. It's something about that building. I don't know, because Lance, the following week as well. What was that like for you? Okay, so you go, you go support your friend and then that happens? You know, it was very devastating. I think as a team, we really came together and looked at what's wrong. Like, we're not a team that loses like that.

And so we had to come together and realize what's, there's something going wrong in the gym. There's something going wrong. So we really pulled together. Luckily, Uriah had a great win, which was really good for him. He's the one who pulled it together for us. So, yeah, we're just all reevaluating things, getting ready for other teammates' fights, and we're going to just be stronger from this. So what is the state of the team in your opinion? Because, of course, a lot of it was brought to lay with the whole TJ thing this past weekend. And we've seen, you know, Lance and Benavides and Albuquerque. Where are things right now in your opinion?

Oh, there's definitely, there's something going on. And I try not to stay a part of it. Of course, I wasn't a part of the whole brotherhood. I've only been with the team for about two years now. So I've seen people come and go that weren't as big in names, you know. So I don't know. There's definitely something happening. And I hope that the team pulls together and we stay strong. And we do have very good coaches still. It's still going to be a strong winning team for whoever stays at the gym. But as far as who's going to, I don't know. Are you staying at the gym? I definitely am. Yeah, you know, Uriah has been there for me from a UFC debut.

And he's a huge contributor to my success inside and outside of the cage. So I'm with Uriah no matter what. And I know he still has a lot to teach me and I have a lot to gain from him. Did you watch TJ's fight on Sunday, and was that strange for you at all, considering everything that's happened? I did watch it. Actually, before the fight, I said I thought Dominic Cruz would win. And he did. He pulled off an amazing win.

So it was definitely weird to watch to know that TJ wasn't a part of the team. But again, I wasn't really that close with him. I didn't train with him a lot leading up to either of our fights. Okay. To wrap this up, when in your mind? Have you started to think when you'd like to return yet? Of course, yeah. I'm really excited I want to return soon, but I have some other big things happening outside of the cage that I'm waiting on.

So once I find out on those, then I'll set my fight. So it's interesting that you say that. I was just about to ask you. I saw via your Instagram that you were with your manager, the great Mike Roberts, one of my favorite in the business. You guys went to L.A. for some meeting or something. You hinted. The floor is yours. What is going on?

I can't talk about it yet. That's not fun. Of course I can't. But yeah, I'm really hoping I have some really, really awesome opportunities coming up. Okay. I hope they go through it would be great. And then once I find out, I find out this week that I'll get my fight set. Okay.

Well, I wish you luck. Does this delay your career, your fighting career, whatever's going on? Is it that big? It is. But only by a few months. Okay. All right. Nothing too serious.

I won't be out. for a year or two. It'll just be a few months. All right. So you're not retiring. You're not going Gina Carrano on us or anything. No, definitely not. I can't wait to get back in the cage. Okay. Have you started to think who you'd like to fight in your return? No, you know, I think for me I don't really like to call people out. I have a list of people that want to fight me. Yes, that is true. Whatever the UFC tells me, I just take it. Okay. So this week, you're going to find out this big news. If you get the news you're waiting for, you're going to take a little bit of a break and you're hoping for that and but you'll be fighting again this year is that is that fair to

say yes definitely 2016 okay um so when can we find out about the news when when do you think it will come out no idea okay i don't know i'm still waiting i have nothing i know nothing all right i don't want to jinx it so we'll leave it at that but i wish you the best with it good luck i'm i'm hoping that we'll find out what it is sooner rather than later so uh again congratulations on you know just just just showing the heart that you did. I mean, it's rare for someone to congratulate someone else when you lose, you know, especially in that fashion, but I think congratulations were in order. You, you proved a lot of people wrong. And again, I think you gained a lot of respect. So thank you very much for coming on. Thank you for talking about it. And again, good luck with that big piece of

news. Maybe if it's huge, you can come back on and talk to us about it. Definitely. Okay. Thank you. Paige. All the best. There she is. Paige Van Zanz, stopping by. Great stuff from her. I wonder what that is. Big news. You know, you know, know if Mr. Mike Roberts is involved, it is big news. But I do agree she handled herself very well, and I'm curious to see what the UFC does with her next. Just alerting the world that Habib Nurmaga Madov is up next as we continue this super stack show, a reminder that in a few minutes' time we will be joined by Dominic Cruz, the now new UFC

Bantamway champion, the new slash old UFC bantamway champion following him will be joined by Mark Henry, the coach for one Eddie Alvarez, striking coach of course for one Frankie Edgar. And I also have a little bit of a treat for all of you after those interviews as well. But for now, let us go back

to the Maghka Skype. Let's go all the way to Russia where Habibn Mugamadav is stopping by, but it looks like the picture is not... I don't know if he's in a dark room or whatnot. I'm here. Chabibib, are you there? Yes, I'm here. It's a little pixelated.

So let's see if we could fight through this. If not, maybe we'll do it via the phone. Where are you right now? I'm just finished training. And I'm here with you now. Okay, are you in a car? Yes, I'm in a car. Were you training with the bear over there?

Okay, I don't think this is going to work. I'm just finished running in the beach, Caspiancy. You were running in the beach in January? Where are in Russia? Yes, I'm in Dagestan. Okay. I'm in Dagestan. Okay.

And I'm finished. Okay. Is it possible, could we call you on your phone? Is it possible to call you on your phone? It's hard to hear you because it's very pixelated. I don't know why. maybe the connection isn't good can we call you on your cell phone

is that okay yes it's okay it's okay you can call me okay we're going to call you right now okay and catch up with Mr. Nirmagamayanov I think he said UFC 198 there

running in the beach in January in Russia that is that is and right now in Russia I believe it is 1117 PM so kudos to him of course we have not seen Habib Rima Madhav since April of 2014 when he defeated the now UFC lightweight champion,

Hafeuio Dosangios. That was in Orlando, Florida, UFC on Fox. The man still ranked in the UFC rankings. Still 22-0. Wins over. Dosangios, Pat Healy, Abel Trujillo, Tiago Tavares, Glein Tebow, Kamal Shalurus, those in the UFC alone.

And maybe we're having a hard time reaching that's all what's going on. Newark Rick trying to figure this out, trying to navigate the waters over there in Dagestan. We could try the Skype connection again. Maybe do audio-only Skype? Maybe that will work?

Tough when you're traveling. But what a show so far with BJ Penn laying down the hammer. Chris Leibin hinting at a comeback as well. Carlos Condit still on the fence about his future. Bang Ludwig bringing it strong. My oh my. this weekend, of course, a bit of a break. Actually, there is World Series of fighting this weekend,

but as far as the UFC is concerned, a bit of a break. They're back next week, which I'm very excited about because they are back in Newark, New Jersey, which means I don't have to get on a plane, and that excites me greatly. That card kind of flying under the radar, and not in the traditional sense. Like, I feel like we always say every card is flying under the radar, you know, because it's not getting to the pub, but it's, there's something, you know what I'm saying? What a chos who's saying? Kekshosk you monk.

Rumble Johnson, Ryan Bader, Sage Northcutt returning, Ben Rothwell versus Josh Barnett, that's a very important fight in the heavyweight division. Tark Safferdeen making his long away to return. He hasn't fought since October of 2014.

Been a while since we saw Tarek Safferine. He's fighting Jake Ellenberger. And then after After that, it's UFC 196. Boston was nice. Thank you for asking. The people there in Boston are,

they're an interesting bunch. I really enjoy Boston. I think it's, and it's not just because it's a short flight. It's such a charming city, but they get, they're very sensitive about their sports teams. Like they really,

when I was wearing that Canadian's sweatshirt on the preview show, like people were very offended. I mean, it's a free world. You can wear whatever you want. I wore it to a basketball game also with the man in the hat. They're a very sensitive bunch when I mention, you know, Patrick Cote, Canadian, going into the Boston Garden and, you know, being victorious there.

They got all up in arms. I don't know. I just felt like everyone, it's like lighten up over there, guys. You guys, you've won. How many championships have the four Boston teams won in the past decade? Celtics, Bruins, Patriots, Red Sox. It's got to be at least 10, right? why are you so sensitive? What's going on? But I did enjoy it. And the crowd was great. They supported

Eddie Alvarez. They were a very knowledgeable crowd. That's what really impressed me. You know, often when the UFC goes to markets, and maybe it's because they're outside of Vegas, and Vegas isn't more often than not the hardest of the hardcore, at least on Fight Night. They're not up to speed. But these fans were very up to speed with the news. They were booing Travis Brown for obvious reasons. And I know a lot was made of the fact that I did. People were saying that Ariel didn't know why he was getting booed on the Wayan show. That wasn't the case. I was surprised he was getting booed that much.

I didn't think they'd be that all up to speed. I mean, it's not like him and Rhonda have been, you know, very much out there in the news together. It's not like his, you know, the accusations, the domestic violence accusations, allegations, were, you know, being covered by, you know, ESPN Sports Center. So I was surprised at how up to speed the, in particular the weighing crowd was. was, booing T.J. Dillishaw. T.J. Dilashaw was not booed when he fought Henna Brow in Chicago. That's a very up-to-speed crowd. And so that's what I was talking about. It wasn't that I didn't know why. Come on. If anyone knows why, it's me. Trust me. Everyone's so, you know, it's a funny

bunch. But even, you know, the way they were cheering Eddie Alvarez and react, it was a very good crowd. It wasn't a packed crowd. It wasn't a sold-out crowd. It wasn't quite Conner versus Dennis Siever exactly a year ago, but it was a very knowledgeable and smart crowd. Not a lot of booing. There was one point, I think it was in the Mitrione Brown fight where I thought it was a little too much booing, but I mean, they gave freaking Dominic Cruz and T.J. Dilshaw a standing ovation in the final minutes, and I thought that was obviously very well-deserved, and it was something that you don't often see in these fights. So I like the Boston crowd very much, despite their sensitivities.

also announced on Sunday on the Fox Sports One broadcast or the FS1 broadcast, as they're known now. Yawani Yon Jacek and Klaugdelia will be the coaches on the Ultimate Fighter season 23. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be male light heavy weights and female straw weights. So the strawweight queen, Yawani Yon Jacek of Poland, will be coaching opposite Klaugadalia, in December of 2014, they fought to a very close decision. Everyone agrees, in my opinion, that Claudia is the number one contender. There's no doubt about that. They're going to be coaching. It's interesting. I can't recall, as far as the domestic ultimate fighters are concerned,

I can't recall a time where they had two foreign fighters as coaches. Both of them, their English is fine. But, I mean, that's, you know, that's something a little bit different. But you're having the female straw weights coach male light heavy weights. So it's going to be co-ed again in the house. And that premieres April 20th on FS1, and they'll be fighting in their rematch this time for the belt on July 8th, my birthday in Las Vegas. So something else that was announced. But the big news, of course, on Sunday in Boston was that Dominic Cruz came back and won what he never lost. He is now the new slash old UFC Bantamway champion, the undisputed bantamweight champion he won via split decision.

It was inspiring. Just him getting to that point, being in the Cajun fighting was inspiring and then seeing what he did. Considering the time off, considering the injuries, was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in all of sports, period, in my 33 years on this earth. And I am honored that he is joining us right now via the phone. Dominic, are you there? I am here. What's up, Ariel? What's up, man?

Congratulations. Wow. What an amazing, it's hard for me still to truly digest what we saw on Sunday. Now, you know, a little less than two days later, what's it like for you? Are you on Cloud 9? How would you describe your emotions? You know, it's, yeah, I feel pretty good just because when you get done with fighting like that, it's just nice to have some days off. I got to sleep in today until 11. I didn't have to wake up and train in the morning. And it's just nice. nice to kind of be off. It's just like being off work, you know? It's like a couple days of vacation. It's nice. What about the feedback? Oh, go ahead, sorry? No, I was just going to say other

than that, it's just, it's weird because my life doesn't really change too much whether I'm in camp or I'm at a camp. It shows me how much I actually enjoy what I do. Where are you now? I'm at home. I'm in my bedroom talking to you in my altitude tent. Okay, so I think we need to get, you know, this out of the way right off the top. Physically, how are you feeling? Because a lot of people are concerned, of course, with the limping and all that. What's going on? Yeah, well, people are concerned as, you know, Dana at the press conference says that I'm injury prone and I'm hurt again, and he doesn't even know. I just had that my foot hurt. I just got down with a five-round fight. I want you give me a second to, like, feel my body out. I was still in the cage when he was

asking me. You know what I mean? Yeah. So adrenaline has wore off, and I've had a couple days to let everything kind of settle. And it was just my foot that's hurting the worst right now. I mean, I took leg kicks, and of course, you're used to taking leg kicks. So that honestly wasn't the big worry. It was my left foot. I came into this with a tendon injury on the bottom of my foot because I just do a lot of hopping around, and it wore down on my foot throughout the camp.

And if you look at pictures and anything like that, you can see I almost always had one shoe on the whole camp. Everybody was like, why you only have one shoe on? I was just trying to keep and preserve that foot for a fight night. It's all good to go. I think I just got to go get an MRI. That's the next step. I see a foot specialist later on today. And, you know, I really think it's going to be fine, but you don't know until you get MRI because tendons are weird.

There's no break, though. When did you suffer that? Uh, well, I mean, it started hurting me right at the very beginning of camp. It's called plantar fascia tendonitis, and it's basically real bad swelling of the connection point to the arch of your foot to your heel. So you have like a tendon that goes all the right through the arch of your foot. And where it connects to your heel, it like tears off the heel right there and it creates inflammation. It happens on football players, like a lot of quarterbacks where they post on that back foot before they fire the throw you. you know, it'll happen to them.

I happen to runners a lot. And I've been, I run a lot in my camps. I do a lot of footwork, so my feet take some abuse. And I think, you know, it just got a little bit inflamed. But once I check it out, make sure nothing tore off there. It should be fine. And you should let the inflammation go down. How would you assess the dynamic at the press conference?

Because you mentioned again, you know, Dana saying what he said. I don't know. Maybe I'm looking into it too much. and, of course, you just fought, so, you know, got to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it felt like there was a little bit of tension there. Is that accurate?

With what? Between you and Dana. I don't know. I always feel a little tension from Dana to me. I don't know why. He just, you know, he never really completely, I feel like, takes my side

when it comes to, you know, sometimes decisions of fights that have made. You know, I think that he believes that that fight could easily go on the other way, and you never know what, Dana. He likes certain styles. He likes certain fights. And you just hope that he backs up somebody like me who's done so much on Fox to promote the UFC, promote all these events, even when I was injured. I do everything I can to do what I can for his company, you know, as an employee. And then I

went in there and did that the other night. And I hope I have his support, but you just can't ever tell with Dana. So it's nothing personal with me. It's just a question of you never know what's going through Dana's head at any given time. He could be upset about very many different things. You guys got a lot of responsibilities. So I'm not going to sit here and try to pretend. I know it's going to Dana's mind. No way. After the fight in the back, did him or Lorenzo, anyone come up to you and share their

thoughts on the fight? Congratulate you? Anything like that happened? No, it didn't happen. Were you expecting that? No, you can't expect that from those guys. Those guys, think of how many shows they go to, Ariel, for one. and then you got to think, like, after they get on their show, they're probably ready to just get on their jet and get out of their ASAP, I would think.

I mean, they have big jobs. They got big money to make in a million different places, and, you know, well, it's a, it might be one of the more important steps in my life for them. It's just another fight show. So it doesn't really surprise me that I didn't hear a whole lot. They shook my hand when I was in there, and the one thing they did ask me was how I was after the fight. Right. And that was it. And I was in the cage when I was still hurting, you know, and my journal was still pumping. I remember there was a little bit of frustration when I was celebrating after the wind. He's just like, here, you put it on. He gave them the belt, didn't want to put it around my way because I was hopping around too much.

So you just don't know. I mean, you just, I need to sit down and talk with those guys face to face and see what's going on. You know, I mean, excuse me, my contract was set under a lot of different stipulations from four years ago from when I was, you know, competing. And I was still on the WEC contract when I renegotiated my contract four years ago to what my contract is at now. So it's like, you know, there's just a lot of talking we've got to do. And I think that, you know, I do a lot for this division and I've done a lot for the UFC and not just for myself, but for their, organization. And I just want to make sure they know I'm a team player, and I'm trying to do what I can to help them out, too.

Yeah, last thing on this, you mentioned if you were a golfer, you can make more. Has this been bothering you? Like, did you feel, okay, this is bothering me, but I'm going to wait until after the fight, and then I'm going to sit down. It felt like you were getting some stuff out. Is that...

You know, well, you just see... You see... The only thing that happens is I get done with the fight, and then they shove microphones in my face. Right. I fought for five rounds. You know, it was a tough fight. A lot of energy was exerted.

My adrenaline's pumping. I'm just out of the press conference. And then you're going to shove a camera in my face, and you're going to put a microphone. I mean, so you know what ends up happening, Ariel? It's on me. You get me. You just get a thousand percent me.

And sometimes it's better if I just, you know, could keep my candy coat shell on sometimes because it kind of saves some lives. scenarios. But I guess when I was in that situation, I was just speaking my mind, speaking my soul. And when it comes down to fighting

and making money and playing golf and making money, it's not like I lied. I mean, telling me that playing golf isn't easier on my body and more money. I mean, I don't think that's an argument. So it's not that I was trying to bash

anybody, but it was that I said that golfers get plantar fasciated. and their foot, and here I am with it in fighting, and the only difference is the workload on our bodies. So it was just me talking that. It was just me being me. I mean, at least you know I'm not out there trying to pretend something I'm not. Oh, no, and I think it's very well received, as I asked you in the scrum at the media workouts. It's amazing how just being yourself can lead to such positive feedback. Like I said, I mean, I'm not just saying it because you're here. You've become one of if not the most interesting interviews

in the sport just because you're being yourself and you're a pretty damn interesting guy and people like the truth and I think people can see when someone is being truthful. I don't know if you read the comments and you see the feedback but it's almost been this revelation like wow where is this Dominic been? Do you read that? Do you see that? And does it make you want to do it more?

No, the thing is, I haven't been trying to do something different man. I'm in the spotlight again and I haven't been in four years. Yeah. Everybody's so shocked about this, but I mean, I mean, come on. How much have you changed in the last four years yourself, Ariel, with just the things you learn, the life you've led?

Now, I've had to really, really, like, gather myself together from several different occasions throughout the last four years. And not just that, but I've had a different outlook. I got to sit on the outside, on the other side of the cameras, and learn that perspective also and learn, you know, what's important to the UFC more than fighting ability and what's important to selling tickets more than fighting ability and people want to hear your opinion.

That's what sells. People want to hear what you think of yourself. That sells. And it only sells because people like coming up right now are scared to do it. So you don't see it a lot. It's a scary thing to say what you're going to do and tell everybody what you believe. leave because then people have a choice to make an opinion about you.

If you just ride the happy medium, ride the fence, and try to play Mr. Nice Guy, even if you're not that, people feel that. They feel your insincerities and they know that you're not being real up there. You know, I mean, the best example I could give was when Dill Shuff said that I wasn't being a great example. It wasn't being good role model because I was trash talking before the fight. It's like, that's just his own. brain telling him that.

None of that's real, because if I sat in a room with T.J. D. Sean said any of the things I said, he'd fire right back at me. The only reason he does him is because he's scared of the judgments he's going to get when he does that on camera. And that's his problem, not mine. Have you watched the fight? Yeah, I watched it. What's your takeaway?

How'd you score it? Yeah, I mean, I'd see me going out there in the winter. I mean, if anything, if I could see it going anyway, because it was back to the fourth, I would give me the first three easily, and then the fifth could be a draw, and I'll give him the fourth. Okay. I'd definitely give him the fourth round. He got me with some good leg shots that I didn't make the adjustment to, but, you know, that was later in the rounds.

He had to figure that out because he had to give up on the head hunt. She normally goes the other way around. He was so confident in getting the finish. because Ludley was looking for the left and the right high kicks off of the flow, that he went for the head kicks more than he went for the low kicks early. And by going for the head kicks early, that's just usually, it usually in kickboxing goes the other way around. They start low and go high because that gets the guys to drop the hands and make different reeds.

But instead, he started high and then went low later. So the adjustments had to be made on both sides. He made the adjustment to do that in the fourth round. and I made the adjustment with the takedowns when he started throwing low. So between the two of us, we were just making adjustments, the entire fight. And I knew that that's what the fight was going to come down to. I said that in all my interviews. But, you know, he's a fighter.

Sochall's good. I'm not going to say he wasn't good. I'm not going to say he didn't go out there and throw down. But I win because I give credit to the abilities of my opponents. You know, I may not like T.J. Delshal, the human being, because I think he's fake and just kind of. to plays what he thinks people want to hear more than he plays himself. But it doesn't mean I don't respect his fighting ability, and I know what he's good at.

I study what he's good at. I knew exactly what he was going to be bringing to the table. I've had very many looks in my camp to create T.J. Bill's shop. The biggest thing you've got to make adjustments to and the reads to in the fight is the speed, the timing, and what punch count he likes the best. and once I could get a read on that in the first round, I was good from there. Did he surprise you with anything?

I think the only thing he surprised me with was the way that the kicks came off and how much he committed to them. Like, even though he was missing kicks, he still committed to the high kicks over and over and over. And I expected him to probably just let up on the high kicks because he was missing so much, but he didn't. He just kept trying for him, but, I mean, somewhat to his demise, but it was, that was probably the only thing is he just kept kicking and kicking.

Two-part question about the takedowns. A, when you got the first couple, did that increase your confidence? And B, let's say you're a judge, how much weight should we put into those takedowns? Because it does seem, and for the record, I think I told you this on the set, I scored it one, two, and three for you, four and five for him. How much weight should we put into those takedowns? Well, I mean, first of all, he's never been taking down in his entire career. Yep.

So that's one thing you got to think about. I took him down four or five times in a fight and two times in one round back to back. Yep. So that's me pushing the aggression. Then you have to think only people who wrestle understand the amount of energy that goes into that and why you don't see a lot of people trying to wrestle T.J. Doshaw. Okay, now, looks like that into that further as an analyst. The reason why people don't shoot on T.J. Doshaw is because he's an offensive fire.

Pure offense is his defense. He throws such a high volume and such a high rate with such power that he keeps you from being able to time any kind of take down or read any kind of take down, because what is it take down? A take down is offensive yourself. people are scared to use their offensive takedowns because they're too defensive from his offense. When he output so much, you end up using up your energy trying to not get beat up by T.J. Dale Shaw. Well, I had energy for both because I knew that.

I knew he was going to be coming hard. And I knew that his offense was going to be the one thing I had to use against him because his defense wasn't as good as mine. So what's the best offense is a good defense as mine. mindset. If you can't hit me, none of your offense is going to matter. If you can't hit me, none of your power is going to matter. And to be honest, the only way it matters is against him. So he beats himself essentially, as long as I can make him miss. And that's what I had to do. I mean, he landed some, but on the percentages, you know, I beat him in the numbers pretty much

everywhere. Take down submission. I did have a submission attempt that I stepped off the top of. you know, I landed at a higher significant strike rate, and he had more output, but I made him have more output without it paying off, which ends up working against him. To that point, you know, it was obviously back and forth, and I know that you never liked when people would say that he was copying yourself or he was like you were better than you. It seems like they want the rematch, and that's no surprise. We had bang on earlier in the show, and he was saying, you know, to a degree sometimes when he was missing you, that was actually part of the game plan to set up other things. He also said,

if you're wondering that technically as a striker, you are quote-unquote horrible. Do you feel, though, that you proved your point with all those misses? Do you feel, though, by winning and getting the takedowns and doing what you did that you proved your point, would you like to move on from T.J. Dillishaw at this point? Oh, man, I mean, this is a fighter, so you got to know that the excuse to come, especially from Silly Twain-Lew-Lewke. I mean, that guy's been talking the whole time, and now he's got all the trash top. You know what I mean? He's talking about being Mr. Nice guy. And the true colors come out of these guys when they get upset. They're very emotional. And that's what I used against them to beat

them. And they're pissed about it. And I told them they were going to have a hard time finding me. He said missing me was part of the game plan. But okay, so be it. That's how he lost, too. I mean, there's just so many different ways you can look at this. Quote on quote, my striking Um, it's, it's horrible in his opinion. Well, that's his opinion, you know, um, when I look at fighters and I look at styles and I look at body types, I'm not going to fight like T.J. Delshaun, Delsha's not going to fight like me. We have two different body types, two different skeletons. I've used my body the best of my ability to become a winner with what I have.

That, and that's what I've done. And T.J. has done that up to this point also. Um, you know, he might say I wasn't good as a striker fundamentally, but it's not like T.J. Dilshov's face looked particularly pretty at the end of the fight either. So I still did the damage I needed to do, and I proved the point that as much as you want to just walk through my punches, you can't. Because you'll get lit up, taken down, and beat up. The harder you come, the more I'm going to hit you. I know in the moment you weren't, uh, you weren't too willing to talk about your eye favor.

And by the way, for the record, it is in fact 0 for 3 in UFC title fights. You were putting me on the spot there, but I got you. You can't rattle me. Yeah, you got me on that one. Well, we were counting the WEC, too, in our Reebok deal, so why wouldn't we count the WEC in the fight deal? Fair enough. He had one against Aldo.

He had the fight against Brown that he lost. But anyway, regardless. So five. In a row. What sells the most? And also he also had the Brown rematch, so you can. You can have that, but that's besides... What sells the most...

I'm just being honest here. I'm not trying to... No, I know. ...it's just six title shots in a row, and he gets these title shots because of the talking and the running that he's doing now. He just... He's a strategic salesman. But that's the fight game, right?

That's why I asked that question. That's why I asked that question, you know, because that's the point I'm trying to make. He's a strategic salesman, and yes, that's why he's a money fight. That doesn't mean that he's as great as he says here. Sure. mean, these are strategic salesmen. And for that, you'll give him credit.

Have you put further thought into what you'd like next? Yeah, I don't really care, man. I mean, the fans want to see Faber because we're supposed to have that third outing. He's the only guy who beat me back in 2007. So I don't have any problem with facing favor. I don't have any problem with facing any of these guys. I just want to be compensated for it. And I want to make the best out of it.

I think that at this point in my career, with the things that I've been able to be blessed enough to do and keep my body for, you know, it's definitely been not the easiest for me to stay in there and stay busy. Yeah. So I just want to make the best of it, you know, and I want to make the best it with the best fights I can. Quality over quantity, if need be. TJ just posted on Instagram like a couple minutes ago, amazingly, about the fight and

there weren't any excuses or anything there, but he did say something that's garnering some interest. He said that he thought that the commentary, and particularly Joe Rogan was biased against him, that he was favoring you. I disagree completely. Why?

It's funny, because it's funny that he, of all people, is going to say that, you know? Because it goes, Joe just says what he's going to say, but there was no bias whatsoever. There were times where he took DJ's side a lot. And besides that, judges don't hear Joe Rogan. Fans do it at home.

So it's like you can't worry about what Joe's saying. You just got to go out there and do what you're doing. I've had fights where I haven't had the better end of the commentary, definitely. But you've got to understand, too, that, you know, Joe doesn't necessarily have the most, understanding of the striking realm. And that fight was a very high-level striking match. That I guarantee you Joe didn't see everything that TJ was reading. And Joe didn't see everything that I was reading.

Because then you're going to think that both of me and TJ are working off our instincts in there a lot. Because we're moving so quickly, switching so many stances, it's hard to make a lot of reads. So that forces instincts to come out stronger. And that's where I fight at my best. And that's how I made TJ fight. I made him fight off instinct. of the reeds and the wants that he wanted from going to win him ludwig and his instincts lost in that fight and my instincts won me that fight um joe rogan i don't think he picked a side

at all i mean joe's i've i've hung out with joe a couple times i've never been on his podcast those guys have been on his podcast millions of times so i know joe has no problem with tj i know he respects t j and he likes his style um so i think joe is just doing his job he could have commented more towards me or more towards him, but I think that TJ is just really breaking things down because he knows it was an all-out war, and he just is really looking at it pissed off right now. He needs to let the emotions settle a little bit and watch it in a month or something because that's always what happens when you first watched fights. Emotions are still very high, and I think that TJ is just very emotional right now.

I'll ask you this question before we wrap this up, and I know you're no sports historian, but did what Dominic Cruz accomplish on Sunday in that cage? Is that, in your opinion, from what you've heard, I don't know if you spent time reading about this stuff? I learned over the weekend that there's a guy named Thomas Davis on the Carolina Panthers who suffered three ACL injuries in the same leg, so not quite like you, but similar, is what you accomplished one of the greatest athletic achievements in the history of sports? because I can't see, I can't find an equal. You know, the thing about that aerial is,

it's so hard to say that because people criticize you so much for being injured. I mean, you hear Dana is a big example of that. He's, you know, I'm injury prone to him instead of, I go out there and lay my body out on the line. There's two different ways you can look at it, right? Well, a lot of people will say, because I've been injured so much, you know, that's it. I'm just, that's all, that's all I really am.

And then other people would argue it's harder to come back from all these injuries and do what I've done. I think that because I've lived it, I know the truth. And I know what I did was not my best. I know that I could be better. I know that there's things that I can do much better than I did on that night. And while I wasn't rusty, I'm better than what I showed. And that's what I look forward to coming back and doing. It's showing a better version of me with more time, more rounds.

I had to do a lot of this on the fly, man. I came off of knee surgery and went straight in the camp. I didn't have an adjustment period, so that means I had to go from not sparring at all to sparring five rounds. There's no leeway in that, and I had to be able to keep not just do that, but I had to be able to do it with somebody who so far has kept the highest offensive pace of anybody in the division besides myself. So, yeah, what I did, in my personal opinion, was high.

harder than anybody's going to ever understand it, give me credit for it. But that's why it's important that the things that we do have to be for ourselves, because somebody else is always going to downplay what you're doing forever for the rest of our lives. I've watched the very end of our interview on Sunday, maybe like 30 times where you said that the best moment of your life, I've asked that question to people before in that spot, and it's always, yes, this is the best moment. You threw me a curveball, and you said the best moment was when you realized you didn't need the belt to be happy. And we were kind of running out of time, so I didn't want to follow up.

So I'll end the interview the way I wanted to. When was that moment? When did you realize you didn't need that belt to be happy? After I blew my knee out the second time, when I finally gave up on it, I said, I finally had to say, you know, Dom, you need to just stop because you have to find another way to live. It's real, I don't know if everybody's like this, but the way I am, I just go all in on something. So when I'm fighting, I'm doing it with every ounce of my ability. When I'm breaking down fights, I do it with every ounce of my ability.

When I'm, you know, doing color commentary next to Rogan and Michael, I know all the fighters. I mean, I just make sure I'm ready. So before I got hurt, I didn't know how to live really any other portion of life. I didn't know what I was without fighting. Fighting was my, it was like a drug for me. And when it got taken away, I was forced to deal with sobriety. And sobriety for me was vicious. It was very hard for me to deal with.

But when I finally wrapped my head around it and finally realized that I was stuck in sobriety without fighting, that's what I mean by sobriety, life without fighting. Yep, yep. it really forced me to deal with a lot of my own issues, like a lot of the stuff that's inside me. And what's crazy is my gifts or my curse. Yeah. So everything that makes me what I am as a fighter

is also what makes life outside of fighting so difficult for me. But all those things were learned over this time. And I didn't have my belt, and I was talking about T.J. Dilshawn, the great things that he's been doing to earn that belt while I was out, Henan Brown and the great things he was doing and all these other athletes, I had to set myself aside, set my own issues aside, and put my focus on them at that point. And the only way to do that was to really give up on the fighting portion of things so I could

let go of my competitive nature. And during that whole time, I just really learned that I didn't need to have that belt to be happy because I was living every day just fine. Going to rehab to fix myself, going to Fox, working with you guys, taking notes, leaving, coming home. I had a good life, and I was happy, even if I couldn't ever have fought again. And now I get to come back and fight, and it's like a cherry on top. So I don't have so much pressure in that belt anymore. that belt while I want to have it because it represents what I've done for myself and I'm one of the best in the world,

town for pound, and me best in the world at 135. While that's good to feel, I won the competition, but the real competition that we're living is life, evolving, being happy in life, and that's the hardest thing to do, and that's what my goal is. And so now I envision you just sitting back and just staring at that belt. You don't need it to be happy, but it's pretty damn nice to have it back home, right? Yeah, it's just nice. I needed to know, you know, doing that is bigger than the fight. It's about something that I have in myself now that I know I have.

Like I have a different type of will. I have a different type of toughness. I have a different type of mentality, and I know that, and I proved it to myself. So that's two different things than before I had to doubt. You know what I mean? I still had to prove it. I still had to tell myself that I had it. Everything that I said leading up to the fight is what I believed,

but I also knew that I still had to prove it. You know what I mean? And I went out there with that on my mind for 12, 15 weeks, three years, however you want to call it, that I still had something to prove to myself. And as long as I could prove something to myself and everybody else would be shocked right along with me. Yeah, it is a beautiful thing what you accomplished there, man.

I really, really appreciate the time and really happy for you. It was amazing. I was just honored to be there watching it in person. Congratulations on everything. Congratulations on getting the belt back. Congratulations on coming back, proving a lot of people wrong. Enjoy being champion again, and I hope that you get what you want when you talk to the UFC. I certainly think you deserve it.

Who the hell am I am just blown away? It's really hard, so I don't know how you can do it. It's hard for me to digest it all. Again, congratulations, Dominic. Happy for you, and thank you for coming on the show. I know you're very busy today, so it means a lot. Thanks, Ariel. All right.

Talk to you soon. There he is. Dominic Cruz, stopping by. Great stuff from him. Once again, he is the Bantamway champion in the UFC. Okay, let's move along. A big night for Eddie Alvarez on Sunday, and one of the men who was in his corner. One of my favorites in the business, always great to see him.

Remember him many, many years ago. not that many, a few years ago, he stopped by and hooked us up with some pizza. The man behind Pino's Pizza, the great striking coach for the likes of Eddie Alvarez and Frankie Edgar, Etzen Barbosa, Marlon Marais, and many, many more. The great Mark Henry is stopping by.

Mark, are you there? My friend, what's going on, buddy? And we're not talking about sexual chocolate, Mark Henry. We're talking about Pino's Pizza, Mark Henry, right? That's right. Well, congratulations to you guys on the win. I want to start before the win. how did you link up with Eddie Alvret?

I know he came back to Philly, but how did this union come about? Well, Eddie, we've known to a while, man. Frankie and Eddie were both, I'd tell you about seven years when they were both champions. We used to work out together a lot. We go up to Philly and Spar. They come to Ricardo's and Spar.

So, you know, we're always kind of like giving each other input, helping each other out, you know, when they would spar after sparring be over. you know, we'd say what we'd say. So we always kind of been, you know, had each other's backs and had a, you know, union in that way on their career, you know, coming up and both getting belts. And, you know, so it's basically off the sparring, I'd say.

And even like Jiu-Jitsu, he'd come up, do some Jiu-Jitsu at Ricardo's Monday or Friday. But, I mean, we've known any for years, man. So when he asked us, originally I think he was going to do his usual thing at Philly and then he was going to go back to Black Zillions for the last few weeks. But, you know, he's just such a family guy and such a Philly guy. I think kind of with seven weeks out, is when he approached and asked if, you know, said that he wanted to do the corner. And up to that point, we never did his corner before.

A lot of people think that we have, but we haven't. And so it was the first time Ricardo and I were in his corner, and it was a total honor. You know, we've known any for a long. time and really loved them. And it was a rough camp, too. My father-in-law, on stage four cancer and passed.

So there were some days I had a miss one. Yeah, my father was a great man. Pino, you know, my son's named after. And I was, you know, I named him after my son. And my son after him, and he's an amazing match. So it was a really, really rough, you know, camp. Plus, Eddie cut his eye really bad, I think seven weeks out. So he couldn't spar for a couple weeks.

So it was a really rough beginning of camp. And then, you know, we started with, you know, game plan. And Eddie, you know, last six weeks was just amazing on how much he progressed, Frankie, and kept talking about how well he was doing up against the cage and takedowns off the cage. And so that six weeks was amazing how well he was doing and how much better, you know, he got.

You know, we had a pretty decent game to. I really thought that Anthony was going to come out south. and then, you know, fight mostly Southpaw. And, you know, sometimes you're lucky that it works out the way you think. So we had them really prepared for South Paul. And it, you know, worked that really well. Well, first things, first, before we get more into the fight, my condolences to you and your family on the loss of your father-in-law.

Very sorry to hear about that. And obviously, congratulations on the win. I said afterwards that, you know, this may not make the ultimate Eddie Alvarez highlight tape, but I think he, A, won the fight, and B, did exactly what he needed to do to win the fight. So sometimes it's not going to be pretty, but you need to get that W to advance your career. Was that exactly the game plan? Did he execute it perfectly, in your opinion? Yeah, perfectly.

That was pretty much, you know, how it went down is pretty much how he did it, you know, when he went South Paul, you know, stay a certain area. And, you know, if he's near the black line, you know, we call it the warning track, you know, Pretty much a lot of the codes we have were directed towards that. So it just worked out really well, you know. And to Eddie's credit, man, and he listened phenomenal. And, you know, Henry was in the corner, and it was great deal with him. I did a corner with him when I was in Rashad's corner for Chil Sonan.

Right. That was my second time with Henry, which worked out really well. And, you know, Ricardo's phenomenal. And, you know, Eddie was great, man. And, you know, he beat pretty many people. Yep. You know, who was highly ranked. and now he beat the number one.

So, you know, he's doing great, man. He still has, you know, a little jitters of coming from Bell toward the UFC. And I think now they're about gone. And, you know, I think he can progress so much more, you know, and we've had him, you know, doing some new things. I think he's even going to be real better than next time. Is it tough with a guy like Eddie? We've seen him in some wars, some great fights back and forth, these firefights.

Is it tough? Like, are you worried, man, okay, this is the... the game plan, but when you're fighting a guy like Showtime Pettus, that maybe his ego is going to get the best of him. Not because he has a big ego, but just, you know, we all want to put on shows, the fighters, you know, you want to entertain all that. Are you worried

that he's going to stray away from the game plan? There are booze. People are, you know, complaining he hears it in the crowd, and then put himself in a tough spot and not do exactly what you guys worked on. Did you worry about that at all? Oh, absolutely, because, you know, we never cornered him before, so we had no experience on, you know,

what he would do. And as you said, you know, I mean, sometimes we'll just go at it. So, you know, we were definitely worried about it. I mean, I think he was a minus 350 underdog, and Pettis is very dynamic. And, yeah, definitely didn't know, you know, didn't know. And, you know, it's kind of MA, you know, it's not, you know, it's not, you know, ball and some bar.

It's MMA, you know, wrestling and cage work, and, you know, they're a huge part of MMA. And that's why, you know, MMA is, It's so special, you know, because there's so many different techniques in ways, you know, that maybe you could be one guy, but the next you can't, you know? What would you like to see next for him? I'd like to see the title next for him, you know? He beat Melendez.

He just beat the number one, you know, or a little gym, you know, your buddy Conner's whole thing is kind of up for us in different direction. I don't know if, you know, what the UFC's playing is on with Eddie anyway, but, you know, You know, we'd like Eddie to be 55, Frankie to be 45. And right now we're stuck in the middle of going nowhere. That is a very good point, and we'll get to Frankie in a second. But were you around, like the UFC brass go up to Eddie, Tom? I know he was, you know, he was calling for it.

But did you get a sense of where they're leaning? Nothing, nothing. Nothing has them now. Well, let's talk about Mr. Edgar, because tomorrow in Las Vegas, they are holding a press conference with Connor, with RDA. That's the fight. It's going down March 5th. And I know Frankie was upset. He was on this show and very upset, but it takes a lot for him to get upset.

I've talked with you a little bit. I think you are equally, if not maybe more upset than him. Can you put into words for me how you felt when you found out that Frankie after the win over Chad Mendes and what you guys were told was not getting the title shot? Well, you know, it was kind of a prompt. And you know, you know, you know what's better than anybody, you know. And, you know, we're lucky that, you know, we're right up the block from you. and, you know, so you've been around us a while.

And, you know, we're not really talkers, you know. Yeah. You know, we're not like that at all. But, you know, it's kind of what, you know, what you have to do these days, you know, I guess, which we'd rather not, but I think, you know, there's just no other option. But it's not just about the talk, and it was a process. It was like, if Connor, you know, was freaking getting the next shot or out, that was the first thing.

You know, Connor obviously has to defend the first thing. belt nobody's you know he hasn't defended the bell once at 45 nobody's at the one fight and gone up you know DJ dominated you know 55 before he went up so you knew he was going to happen all of a sudden you hear well wait a minute he wants to go up so that was the next step you know he might he might not you know so then we were talking about that is just the whole thing for us is you know could really care less about Connor you know it's about the belt you know Conner's supposedly going to make history for two belts will get that what, you know, Frankie is also,

Frankie can go three. You know, Frankie did it the hard way. You know, he's four to 55. I mean, to put in perspective, if Frankie drop O'Connor drops, he'd get 125. So, you know, that's real,

you know, those are real numbers. And, you know, it's just, it's frustrating. Like, for me, if you want to go up and fight people where you should be fighting anyway, just leave the dang belt,

you know, just leave the belt. You know, uh, you know, I know you have kids, you know, Oliver and Walter, they look with beautiful children. Thank you. And, you know, I know they get scared a little bit, you know, they need their binkie and their papa. You know what I'm saying?

They're scared to go to bed at night, but you kind of break them from it, right? You and your wife? Sure. You know, and you say, leave the binkie. Leave the bapa. Well, I don't understand why he needs the belt. You know, obviously he set himself up for losing already. Because if he needs to go up, I don't understand why he needs to hold on to that 45 belt so bad.

So I guess that's kind of what we're upset. about, you know, and he just needs, I don't know, sorry, you know, everybody's drinking the shamrock shake, you know. Do you think that... Like a Mickey Deez. Do you think that it's also, you know, that it has something to do with Frankie? Like if it was some other guys sitting there, some other number one contender that he would have fought him,

do you think that's the reason why he's going up? Hey, you know, he definitely had an opportunity to fight Frankie when Algo got hurt. I mean, we called up instantly, you know, and said Frankie's right. Right? You know, he's in shape, yeah. You know, train all year round. Of course he is. You know, Chad, he was doing, I think, a hunting show. Yeah.

It definitely wasn't his shape, you know. And, you know, and he did not pick Frankie, you know. And now again, he's not picking Frankie again. So, you know, I don't know what's answer to that. You know, every time it seems like Frankie's, and then he even said in an interview, you know, if Frankie wins, and he just, you know, he just, deserves it, and I'll be fighting Frankie. Well, I guess, you know, he's not a man of his work.

It's that went out to window, too. You know, it's just frustrating, too, because, you know, you hear his coach, you know, Frankie was ready to go into the Octagon. They had him, I think, right by Cache side after the Conor Algo fight. So Frankie was ready to go up, and I believe that his, and I could be wrong in this, but I believe that his coach

said he can't make 45. So they told Frankie to go sit down. But, you know, first it's the first day If you can't make 45 The second day is he needs a rest from making a 45 Now you hear it You know, maybe we'll go to 170 You know, I mean, it's ridiculous

You know, it sounds like my wife You know, not my wife, I love my wife to death But at night times she loves me And all of a sudden sometimes in the morning You know, she's mad at me for something You know, I'm sure you've been through it too So I feel like, you know, that's what's going on here You know, it's frustrating that, you know

You keep hearing different things And that's what I'm saying, you know, drop the belt. If you don't want to do it, let go with a babba. Let go with the binky. You know, I know a lot of people are sipping on the Shamrock shake, but the Shamrock shake is seasonal, you know? I'm here for St. Patty's Day and it's gone, brother.

I understand Frankie met with the UFC Brass last week. What did he tell you about that meeting? What did they promise him? Well, you know, not going to promise anything. I think we're just waiting on March, you know? Okay. See what happens in March. and then, you know, then take it from there, you know.

So, you know, you try to, you know, talk a little bit. You know, like I said, we've never done it. I'm not too good at it. I tried it. Man, I'm getting murdered by piranis, Irish piranha, man. Holy cow. I enjoy it. I think you're doing a good job.

Oh, man, but as Irish guys, man, I've got so many new freckled friends now. I don't like me. But it's funny. Yeah, they're passionate fans, it's great. He has not shown us a lot, but how would you assess his striking? Are you impressed by Connor's striking? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

I think he has by far some of the best strike in MMA. But it is MMA. You know, you need to combine it all together, you know. Look at Dominic, you know. And I think Frankie blends everything very, very well. I think the main thing about Frankie, that I'm so happy. about is that he's just gotten so much better in the last few years

you know and his power you know he's working on his power a lot and um you know his ground and pound his wrestling jihits like everybody's really they're so passionate about Frankis Frankie's like he's our captain man Frankie's awesome like you know I think the other day

he had a ghost I think this morning he had to go somewhere but he still rushed to the gym to help out Marlon Marius you know the WSOF champion who's uh you know who's uh you know who's going to be hopefully fighting soon. So, even rushes, you know, he's just such an amazing, you know, an amazing friend and champion and, you know,

any hat that he puts on that, you know, we all want it so bad for him, you know, that, you know, everybody's out there as hard as they care Ricardo myself, Anderson Franca, you know, we're just, um, Chris Laguerre, we're just really pushing, you know, to just make him better and better. And it's like he's, that's such a, a white-down mentality, you know, like I could be training an amateur, and Frankie comes in after, the mentality is the same. Wow. You know, and it's awesome.

You know, he's a very special person, Frank. You know, very special. Yeah, you see the way people around him talk about him, and I've been around him enough. The guy really truly hasn't changed. The exact same guy from day one. So is the plan to wait, see what happens, and hope to get the title shot after March 5th. Is that what you're hoping? Because it could work out if he fights at UFC 200.

This could all work out. You get that, you know, that big stage. Yeah, you know, my personal game plan is, you know, wait for March, and, you know, I'd love the 45 and the 35 right after, you know. That's me, you know, I'd love to see. So win the 45 and go down? Yeah. Wow, right away, not defend it?

Yeah. Well, no, get three belts, be the first person ever. Wow. And I think if you want three belts, you'd have to be the best fighter on. on the face of the planet ever, you know? That is true. You know, it's a massive, you know, it's a massive undertaking. Dominic is phenomenal, incredible.

You know, I shouldn't be talking about him. Now, I know 45 is tremendous in itself, but, you know, for me, I always see Frankie as being able to do, have three belts, and I believe it 100%. And I only believe it because, like I said, the last few years, he's gotten so much better, you know? His last five fights, he has three stops in three different ways. You know, one ground and pound, one submission. and one knockout.

You know, and that's what I'm saying. Five fights, three finishes and three different ways, three different techniques, you know. So, you know, I believe wholeheartedly that he could definitely do it. And that's all I'm pushing for, you know? And he can make that wait? Yeah, definitely. He, now he comes, I think, the, I mean,

he's true, the day of the lanes, I mean, we're doing rounds. The night before the lanes, we're doing five, six rounds. Wow. And he comes there, like, you know, he gets there like only five over. Well, that would be something. You know, he walks, I think Marlon's a little bigger than him. Right.

Marlon Mariahs is maybe a couple pounds bigger than him, you know? Last quick thing, before we get to Chabeeb here, who's waiting for us, how's the Ariel Hawani pizza selling over there at the shop? Oh, brother. Ariolwana pizza's always on fire. You're the man, bro. I want to see the picture of it on the, on the, whatever, what do you call that thing? The case, the display?

what is it called? It's play, that's right. You know, you're only one that we had the name there, too. Well, yeah, I think it's time to bring it back. It's not even a Frankie one. Wow, I am honored. I am honored. You're my son's hero, man.

You're not far from Frankie at all, my son, guy, my son, my son, you know, I'm serious. I feel bad for you, too, because anything you say bad, you know, I'm feeling it now from these Irish piranha, and I felt a bad deal. I'm like, man, now I know Ariel feels when he said something bad about Frankie, my son's all over him. Well, something tells me you're about to hear from those Irish fellows after this interview. So good luck with that. Enjoy that.

I appreciate the time greatly. Congratulations on the big win on Sunday, and good luck with Frankie getting the title fight that you guys want. Great having you on the show, Mark. Thanks, but I'll be if I said hi, hi, my man. We'll do. Thank you very much. There he is. Mark Henry, great striking coach.

Check him out if you're in Jersey. Pino's pizza. You can get the Ariel Halwani slice. All right. Let's go to Habibir Maghamato. I do believe he is back with good audio this time. Chabib, are you there? Yes, I'm here.

Okay, my friend. Good to have you. Thank you very much. It's late over there, right? Isn't it? It's almost midnight. Yes. Now 12 night.

Several night. So, okay, so let's talk, because I want to get an update. You were saying that you were figuring things out. You were changing training. How is it going? How is your rehab coming? How are you feeling?

Now I'm... 10 days, I begin 100% training. Oh. Wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, sparring, everything. And I have to make my body good

and become shape. And I'm beginning my road, road to come back. Now, will you be doing all of this training in Russia? Are you coming to America to go to AKA?

Now I'm beginning in Russia with my father. After, I'm going to Bahrain. two weeks for make my training camp here

in Bahrain with my sparring partners and after that middle of February I come to ACA and stay here

two months before my fight now I was told and correct me from wrong that you texted Dana White on Sunday

and asked him for Eddie Alvres is that true? Yeah this is true I watch Friday Eddie Alvarez and I sent

a message I want to fight with this guy because this guy beat two big names in Wighter Division Gilbert Melendez and Edentidis and Tedis and he number four rank, he very close with me. He won the contender, Lighter Division

and, you know, I want Alvarez or Tony Felbyshan and no, no problem. If UFC give me Tony or Alvarez I take this fight and because this is two contenders and I am contender too.

And I want to take one of these guys and after this fight for the belt. Which do you prefer if you had your way, Alvarez or Ferguson? I think better Ferguson because Sergis is the seven-wing streak. Ferguson big, Kibow, Trujillo, Petcom Barbosa, Josh Thompson, a lot of tough guys. He finished almost all his opponents. A lot of people talk about Ferguson. I like challenge. I like a tough opponent.

And I think for me, more tough match versus Ferguson. That's why I want to take this fight. So then why did you text Dana White about Eddie Alvarez? You know, after this fight, I am like emotional and I want to fight with him, you know. And I think that's why. Okay. But Alvarez is good opponent, too. If you have to give me Alvarez, I'm happy to.

Alvarez was only to this guy. Did they respond to you when you wrote to them? Did they write back? Did they say, okay, we like this idea, or we have this plan for you? Did you get a response from the UFC? U.S.D. I have a fight in April. Oh.

And we will see what happened. but, but I think for me is good Tony Ferguson and Ferguson sent me a message in Twitter, you say, hey, why you know fighting in March and like this,

something like this. And I don't know, you know, I don't know that two guys, Eddie Alvarez or Tony Ferguson, let's go. Yeah, I saw the... I'm ready, I'm ready, and I, I, I need 12 weeks for preparing and for comeback because I have a lot of injuries,

a lot of surgery, and I need time. You know, I need time. I have to take time, become good shape, and because I know when I am good shape, nobody can beat me, nobody. When you were watching on Sunday or Monday in Russia, when you saw what Dominicruz did, Did that inspire you? Did that give you confidence because he's come back from major injuries as well? Yes, you know, because a lot of people talking about when you're injured, when you know, no fight big time, you have a problem. But, but I am, every day I'm sparring competition with a lot of tough guys in the gym.

But, hey, this is different. When you go to the fight, this is different. I agree. But if you have mental like Dominique Cruz, like me, this is no problem for you. If your mental is good, this is problem. But I'm confident guy, you know. And I know what I do. And when I go to the cage, I enjoy.

And I love competition. I love challenge. That's why for me is no problem. Only what I need now become my good shape. That's it. And when I come back, I can beat anybody in my division, in larger division. And now I need 10 or 12 weeks, and I come back.

Are you doing anything different in training to avoid injuries this time? Yes, I change a lot of, you know. I change something. I change something, but I cannot, I don't want to speak about this. Oh, okay. I understand. And obviously the lightweight title is going to be defended in less than two months. RDA, Hafelde de Sanjos, who you beat in your last fight, is fighting Connor.

Who do you think is going to win? Very good questions. You know, my opinion, in life, To division, Conor McGregor more strong guy than Fidelis because he no need cut weight, too much cut weight. And I think he have more take down defense good because his power becomes. And he has, this is my opinion, he has more punching power, kick power. But you know, Rafael Dosanis is very tough guys. And if five round, my opinion, Rafael Zahnis wins.

But first, like first, first round or second round, I think Connor win. But my prediction, I think Connor beat him like Macau. Wow. Early? And this is my prediction. Wow. Are you hoping he wins? Because Connor obviously is, you know, he's a big draw and he makes a lot of money for people.

Are you hoping that you get a chance to fight him soon? I never think about money. I know a lot of, a lot of fighters think about money or maybe I can make money, but this is no material for me. Really? And this is about my spirit, about my blood. You know, I never fight about money and I never think about money. This is what I do and this is my life.

I want to competition with the best guys. And when I beat somebody in April, I want to... fight with winner Kapaldo Sanos, Conor Magrigger. And I hope and I think Connor McGregor beat him and I beat somebody in April

and you and me versus Connor did the biggest match in the U.S. history because Connor McGregor has a lot of he, behind him in Ireland

but behind me Russia. Russia and a lot of people lot of friends because I know I have biggest fan group in the world. And I think this is the biggest match in the U.S. history. But first of all, I have to win, and Conor McGregor have to beat Rafael Dosanos, and we'll see what happened.

Do you like the idea of him going back and forth, featherweight, lightweight, or would you rather him, you know, stick to one division? Well, you know, I want to watch fight. Thank you, Edgar versus Connors, because for Stylistic, this is very bad matchup for Connor Magrador, this is my opinion. And this is like for friend, for me, it's very interesting fight. But I think for him, better if he stay in the fight or in light, because he no need to cut too much weight because, you know, when you cut too much weight, your injuries become

very easy. And this is kill your body. Cut waiting, this kill your body. And I think he makes, like, a very good decision and smart decision. He keeps one belt, and he keeps fatherweight belt, and he comes to Whitehead belt, fighting for a light head belt. I think he makes, like, a very smart decision. But we'll see what happened.

I think if he would, he go to the fatherweight division. Right. But my opinion, he wins. My opinion, you win. Just curious, what do you think of his take-down defense and his wrestling overall? Do you think that you'll be able to exploit that if you fight him? Everybody talking about his take-down defense, but Chad Mendez is one of the best wrestle in the U.S.C. And he takes down like a couple times, like four or five times.

But it's okay. I think Chad Mendes can take down. anybody in the side of the way. And Rafael Dosanios and Chad Mendez have different different level in wrestling.

And Chad Mendez, more good wrestling guy than Rafael Dosaynes. But Rafael Dosanis have more good top control than Chend Mendes. And if Dosanios can take him down and keep him in underground, he can be

Conor McGregor. But, but in my opinion, in Whiteway, he's most strong guy, Conan McGregor. And I think when fight beginning,

if Rafael Dossan is going to striking much, Colin McGregor knock him out. Wow. Fascinating. So in a perfect world for you, would you like to fight maybe on the same card as Daniel Cormier?

your teammate at AKA, he's probably going to fight April 23rd. Is that what you're looking for? Maybe you fight against Ferguson on a card like that, a big card? Yes, I want to fight tonight with Daniel Colnard, because we're training together, and they're like very good friends. He matrivate me. I am a matripeerate him too sometimes. Your teacher.

I think this is good idea. This is a good idea, and this is very big fight cards. I think because John Johnson says is called me watching a lot of people. This is one of the biggest match in the U.S.C. history very much.

And we'll see. We'll see what happened. But U.S. say maybe you fight in USC 198. And this week you used to give me an answer

about my opponent, about my bait. Okay. So the Eagle is coming back. you are letting everyone in the 55 division know the undefeated, the 22-0 fighter from Dagestan is coming back. You are ready to resume your career two years later.

Yeah, you know, who, this is these two years, almost two years, this is very hard time for me, you know. I think people don't understand this, but I think this understands only Dominique Cruz. Dominicruz understand my mind and what I feel everything.

Yeah. This is only one guy who understands me. You should talk to him. Have you ever talked to him? I'm very hungry. Have you ever spoken to, Dominic Cruz? No, I never speak with him. I never meet me to this guy too.

But, you know, this guy is one of the greatest of all time. And I think I want to meet him. I want to meet him, speak with him. But I speak with Daniel Komi about him. Daniel Kormer, he's a very good guy, very humble, and he understands an M. very good. Yep.

And, you know, I think that's why his mental is... My opinion, his mental is very tough, you know. Nobody can beat him about mental. And I think that's why he comes back very strong. Well, Khabib, very happy to hear. that you are feeling good, that you started your camp, that you have a month in sight, perhaps an opponent in sight,

that you're on the comeback trail. We have missed you. I think it's going to be very interesting when you come back to the lightweight division. Thank you. I know it's very late over there, so we'll let you go. Thank you so much for the time.

Great to talk to you as always, and good luck with your training. Thank you so much, Al-Av. Okay. Salamalekum. Okay. Al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-oh. There we go.

Chavibibir Maghamaghamadav, stopping by from Russia. Great to hear from him as always. All right, what a show. Still got some time. Big Alex in the back has given us 30 more minutes because we went a little longer than expected. And this goes back to what I was saying at the top of the show. We like to make it up to you when we leave you hanging on a Monday. So let's get right to a great guest. Wow. What can I say? Let's welcome in New York, Rick. the unabashed BJ Penn supporter are you there?

There it is. Okay, I didn't hear the the buzz of your microphone. I think a lot of people wondering actually, believe it or not, this might be a first in the show's history, people actually wondering

what you think. Your man came on, officially ended his retirement right here on the show. No Nick Lentz, right? You did try to reach out to him? Yeah, called him many times. No Nick Lentz.

But what did you think about? What do you have to say? I'm still, you know, I'm still a little hesitant, I'm still a little cautious, but, you know, I said this when he first, you know, walked away, that he's one of these guys who can't stay away. If he was to make a clean break from MMA, he would have needed to go to a remote island, not unlike Hawaii, and just never think about MMA again. But he's not that kind of guy. This is why he was so great because he, you know, couldn't walk away from a fight. and now you know you can hear the difference when you when you talk to him last time i forget you know when it what month it was exactly it was in june but he sounded terrible yeah he basically sounded like he you know was depressed and despondent and you talk to him now and that's a different kind of guy um he sounds completely different sounds like he really you know has a goal in mind and now we've heard the jokes about you know quote unquote motivated pen before um but it just

seems like when he's not fighting, he's not happy, and when he's fighting he is. So I'm happy for him to be happy, but I'm obviously cautious about having my heartbroken by another beatdown. That said, the last three opponents he's had are some of the best in the world. So it's not like he was going out there and losing to, you know, the bottom of the barrel and just couldn't hang anymore. I'm happy that you mentioned his tone because I noticed that as well. Completely different tone this time around. I mean, it felt, last time it felt like he was in a dark room. He was depressed. He was uncomfortable with the idea of being a Hall of Famer. This time, like, it's almost like you can from the get-go feel the clouds open up. And he was, you can feel the smile on his face. What he was saying,

the way he was saying it, that's a great point. And of course, you can't read too much into that. He does actually have to go there and fight. But I don't think we should take the fact that he is with Jackson and Winkle John lightly. That is a very big deal. For a guy like him who is so sad in his ways, the reason we all talk about motivated BJ is because we've all felt that if he can get in the right program under the right coach that, you know, and we've seen glimpses of it, you know, that he can actually be a legend. Now, he is a legend, but that he often was, you know, selling himself short. You know, a lot of people might not know this, but I've talked about it a little bit. Part of that fight against GSP, the second one, UFC 94, I was working on the production side of things for UFC primetime. I was in between jobs, MMA rated, just closed down. and I was trying to get back in the game. Thank God, the good people at versus.com and AOL.com. And Brian Tucker, who's still with us, gave me the opportunity to resume things. But in between that time, my job was to work on UFC primetime.

And in particular, I had to log. Now, logging means all the footage that comes in on a daily basis. You watch it, and you have to actually type out at, you know, three minutes and 45 seconds, this happens. So that when the editors and producers go in to make the show, they know where everything is. So I had to log all of BJ's training footage. And he was not very motivated going into that fight. He was not pushing himself. And it's surprising it was such a big fight because, you know, maybe he had, you know, maybe guys who weren't pushing him. He wasn't under the right system, whatever the case may be. Greg and Mike and all the people that, they're not going to let that

happen. They're not going to attach themselves to this. Look what they've done with others who all of us counted out. I feel a lot better with them signing off on it. And, you know, who are we? You know, I see a lot of journalists and people like waxing poetic all show long. Who the hell are we to say that BJ can't go in there and make another run or at least be competitive and fight the Nick lenses of the world? Who the hell are we to determine that? You can have your say. You can weigh in on it. But how can you definitively say that this guy has no place in the UFC Octagon? Really? Honestly, can we really actually say that? Are we there with him? Do you think Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn with all they have going on are going to attach themselves?

to this disaster waiting to happen as some people are putting it. You really think that they're going to do that with their reputations, with the amount of champions they have in that gym, with the great fighters they have coming up, it's not happening. So that's just say a lot. He's not just going to any gym and having yes men around him. He's having two guys who have nothing really to gain from this.

They don't need this. You know what I mean? And I talked to Greg a little bit. He's super excited. He is on board. If he's on board, I'm on board. I'd like to see what people were saying about Robbie Lawler, you know, right before he went.

on his run. Oh, yeah. I'm sure the talk was pretty similar. That said, I don't, you know, everything you're saying is valid, but I don't think BJ Penko compete at the level that he was trying to previously. Nick Diaz, Frankie Edgar, those guys are in a different class at this point. Yeah. And I think he...

It would be criminal, though, to put him in those fights at this point. Agreed. Nick Lentz is the perfect opponent, and that's it. Maybe not the perfect style, not the perfect style, but the perfect ranking, right? Yeah. see him fight, you know, guys that are not the title contenders or the upper echelon of the sport and see how he does. You know, do I think that there's the potential that he could be, you know, past his prime? Sure. Of course. But I'm not at the point where I think this is,

you know, an outrage. I said last week on the MMA beat that I'm worried, like, what's the motivation? Right. Where's this coming from? Is he doing it because of a beef? Is he doing it because He needs money. Is he doing it because he's having troubles at home? Just by listening to his voice, and we can all be swayed by an interview here or there. But just by listening to his voice, he seems like he's in a good spot. His brother is there with him. That's a big deal as well.

So his family is behind him. Again, who are we to say that he is incapable of doing this? This is the prodigy for a reason. You lose some of that. Yes, he's not going to go out there and, you know, become a two-way world champion tomorrow. I know that. He's not going to do what he did to Joe Stevenson and Shunch. I know that. Time has moved on. We get older. But again, if they say he can do it or if they say that they're comfortable with him training to do it, then I feel 100% comfortable as well. Last thing, he was going to do this regardless. He can't not fight. I think we all almost knew that. We were hoping that it wasn't the case, but we all almost knew that when he stepped away, that he was eventually going to come back. He can't not fight because that's who he is.

That's who BJPen is. He even alluded to that or straight upset it in the interview with you. So the alternative is not doing it properly or doing it with a team like Jackson's who have revitalized guys' careers and, you know, execute really, really smart game plans. I think that, you know, if there was a way to do it, this is the way. So let's see how it plays out before we count them out. All right. Let's get to some questions. I'll paraphrase them.

So you just weigh in. Did you agree with the cruise, Dillishaw? decision. Yes. I got, my scorecard was one, two, and three for Cruz, four and five for Dillishaw. And again, I mean, these were, this was even tougher, in my opinion, than the Lawler-Condit fight. It was so close.

Like, one, two, and three, I'm sitting up there with Stan and Anik, and I'm like, well, I, okay, I'm picking Cruz for this reason, that reason, take down here and there, but it was so damn close. I don't know. It's tough. I fell for those judges that night. How do you have it? I mean, it's pretty clear how tough it is just based on the fact that the Lawler Condit fight came down to one round.

All the other judges, the judges, all three judges had it the same, except for what was it, the third or the fourth, I forget. In this fight, the scorecards were all over the place. Nobody really had any rounds the same, except I believe the fourth round to Dillishaw, all three judges had. I had it for Dillishaw. I thought he won three rounds, possibly even four. I know four and five are very clear for me. Dillishaw won four and five. I think he won two and three as well, but I could see a case being made for Cruz in either one of those. I haven't rewatched it, so I wouldn't be able to weigh in and say, I'm 100% sure, this is exactly what I believe now,

but when I was watching it, I believe I had Dillishaw pulling away in the last four rounds, and possibly only the last three. But either way, I felt like Dillishaw won that fight. I rewatched it last night. They replayed it on FS1. and I had it the same, but I'm still not sure. You know, I... Look, I'll say this.

Does anything come up about Matt Matrione, by the way? About his eye? Not specifically, about eye pokes in general. Okay, so then I could... I spoke to someone who's very, very in the know, whose opinion I respect, but he wanted to remain anonymous. And this is a guy who's in the sport, a legend of the sport. But from the official side of thing, and he agreed with me.

He agreed that it was one, two, and three. So once I heard that, I was like, all right, I'm cool. I could sleep well. Dominic Cruz is the champ. No doubt about it. I mean, regardless, the story for Cruz is incredible. Even if he had lost that fight, is anybody walking away saying Dominic Cruz is done? No, the guy came back and had an all-time performance.

What's next for each of them? What's next for Cruz? What's next for Dillishaw? Or does that depend? because one may influence the other. Well, I do think that fans are a little tired of immediate rematches, especially when they're so emotional going in and there's a lot of back and forth. I would not hate.

This was so close and it was so much fun. The buildup was fun. The fight was fun. The aftermath is fun so far. I'm okay with an immediate rematch. Absolutely. I would also be okay with this scenario. Cruz Faber 3.

Obviously, there's animosity there. one last shot for Faber. I know people think that he... I like how people are criticizing Faber for talking his way in or trying to make money. I mean, that's what this game is. You're trying to make money. It's called prize fighting for a reason.

That's what it is at the end of the day. The belts are just, you know, an indicator of who at the time may be the best in the division sometimes. So I don't begrudge him for that. I don't mind seeing that third fight and then seeing Dill Shot fight a Sunsale, maybe even on the same card.

Sunsau beat him, close split decision. and then that fight is the number one contender fight. I don't hate that at all. And then you got Garbrandt Linneker, and maybe if you can re-sign Al Jermaine, have him fight Almeida. Wow. Look at 135.

How would you feel about Faber and Dillashaw before? Yeah, that's interesting. Well, I guess it depends on how injured Dominic is. Doesn't sound like he's too worried about it, but you never know. I love that as well because I want that to be a main event, A, so that we see five rounds for sure with those guys. But, yeah, I would be,

down with that, but then what do you do with Cruz? You can't... Maybe a little extra time off. I mean, I believe in the interview with you, he said something about 180 days, right? Yeah, but you know what I mean? You know, those things you can... No, sure, you can prove yourself before the time comes. But, um, yeah, I mean, I think there's so many options here, but personally, I'd like to see Dillishaw and Faber, and then the next one gets the title shot. Dillashaw Faber, and then just keep Cruz on the sidelines? Yeah, well, I imagine Dillishaw can get in there pretty quickly. Fabor is a guy who's always ready quickly.

I know. If he is healthy, I don't like the idea of keeping crews inactive. That's fair enough. I could see that. Also, on immediate rematches, I'm sick of them. I'm done with them. Let's not see any more of them. Yeah, we're about to get one. It gives credence to this idea that the judges' decisions aren't final. And they are.

Regardless of how we feel, whether it's controversial or not controversial, it's almost like, oh, well, whoops, let's see the real one. I'm tired of immediate rematches. Enough of them. Fair enough. So then let's go final answer. Let's go final answer. Cruz, Faber.

Yep. Dillasha Sunsel. I'm cool with that, completely. I spoke to Sunil, by the way, at the event he was there. Puts himself at around 85%, but hoping to return soon. That interview, at least a portion of it, I think, is going to air on UFC tonight tomorrow. Dominic Cruz's comeback. How do you feel about it?

Was it one of the biggest comeback stories in UFC history? Is it the biggest? Just encapsulate your feelings on it? the comeback itself. Forget about UFC history. I think it's one of the greatest sporting achievements that I've ever seen in my life. Is that crazy?

It's not because of the circumstance. Because of how many times he had to pull back. Pull back and then come back at that level, that stage. And then, okay, he gets back to the stage. And yes, there's some matchmaking involved. But then he comes and fights like that and moves like that. ACL injuries we're talking about. I believe it was Luke Thomas.

Forgive me if it was somebody else I saw on Twitter that just said, and I thought this was an apt point about how how ahead of the game Dominic Cruz had to be before he left to come back and still be relevant and still be this good, which is really a testament to how smart he is and just how hardworking and dedicated. And I mean, I said this when we were talking about the odds that if anybody, if there was one person who could do this,

Dominic Cruz was the one. If there was anybody who could come back and not look rusty and still be the same, It was him because he's a different, he's a different kind of guy in terms of motivation. And also, it was, it was very revealing your interview with him where he said that his motivation wasn't to even get the title, it seems. He was okay without the title, which is incredible. He's, he's a different kind of dude. And, you know, it's only, like, you have to be kind of objective when you're talking about these things, but you can't help but be happy for a guy who, you know, worked that hard and came back and got it done.

It's, I mean, you could come up with any superlative. I feel like I've thrown them all out. It's mind-blowing what he did. And for him to come back and fight the way he did, to me, it's the greatest thing I've seen out of an athlete in my lifetime because an ACL injury, one can end your career, let alone three. And the other thing about it is, let's say a guy blows a knee or something in other sports. Typically, people aren't going to be attacking that.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. This is a sport where you're going after that injury. Your goal is to harp on that injury. It truly is one of the best sports things that I can think of. I feel bad to a degree for T.J. Because T.J. broke another record. Going into this fight, he was the only man to land more than 100 significant strikes in four straight fights. He did it again, even though his percentage he threw a lot.

So I feel bad he actually fought pretty damn well. He just, man, Dominic Cruz is the man for a reason and was the man for a reason. and that's why I don't hate the idea of the rematch. I do like freshening things up, but yeah, I agree. I think people are criticizing us on the post-fight show for being pro-Dom. We're not being pro-Doh-Doh.

It's just so mind-blowing what he did, but T.J. deserves a lot of credit as well. He fought a great fight and probably fought Dominic tougher than anyone had up until that point. Pettus at 145. What do you think about him going down now that he suffered two losses in a row at lightweight?

I mean, let's remember that two ago was the championship fight. Sure, sure. I don't like that. I don't like that. Look, even though he's flirted with it. He only flirted with it because of the Aldo fight. He couldn't get going. Credit to Eddie.

He's working with Izzy Martinez and he had one camp with him. Let's see what happens in the next camp. I don't think we need to reinvent things here, throw the baby out with the bathwater, all that stuff. This is a tough fight. Look, the blueprint is out. Look, with Clay Guida, with RDA, who did it better than anyone. And now with Eddie, you know, Anthony has to be. prepared for that. And anyone who just tries to stand and

trade with him is doing a disservice to themselves. So the blueprint is out. Let's see how you responds, but I would not go down to 145. Eddie Alvarez's ceiling in the UFC. He beat Melendez. He beat Pettis. And I think he was the underdog in both of those fights. How far do you see him going?

Man, look, he's got to be knocking on the door, right? By the way, let's just give the guy some credit for actually coming into the UFC and fighting Soroni, Melendez, and Pettis in his first three fights. I'm speaking off the top of my head here, but that's going to be, as far as, like, UFC debuts are concerned, first three fights, as tough as anyone, right? So give Eddie a lot of credit at this stage of his career, what he has, what he has done up until this point to come in there

and not try to build himself up. He went right in there. I mean, without ducking anyone. So now, okay, so let's say they do, it sounds like Habib knows a thing or two. Let's say they do Chabibb versus Ferguson, right? And Eddie just, fought Pettus. He fought Seroni. He was fighting at 170. Was Pettus number one? He was number one, yeah. I mean, how can you, Eddie's got to be right there? So you think he fights the winner of... What's Eddie? Five, six, something like that? He's four, but this isn't the new one, I think. I think he'll probably... I mean, it has... What else do you do? He's earned it at this point. He has. Of course, the title fight is being defended.

There's the press conference tomorrow, which should probably be very entertaining. That's March 5th. And then let's say, let's say Connor wins. Then he goes down to one. 45 defends that, it might be a little bit. You know, it might be some time. So I'm curious to see what they do with them. I mean, I would, if I was Malinda, I'm sorry, not Melendez, if I was Alvarez, I'd wait just wait for that shot. I wonder if they give it to him after that fight.

Because I don't know if he'll get another one. Now, granted, people waiting for title shots with the UFC hasn't always gone well. Sure. But, I mean, you know, you're playing with fire, taking another one before, before the title shot. That said, I could see you being right in them not wanting to give them a title shot. It's not like any of the, any of the title shot. these wins were, you know, ridiculously impressive.

You know, let's be fair and critical. Sure. He didn't look great in any of these. He looked good. He got the job done. But it wasn't like he came in and blew the doors off these guys. A lot of people think he lost against, was it Soroni? I think that fight was the one where it was controversial.

Well, he did lose to Soroni and then Melendez. Some people thought he lost the Melendez, remember? Yeah. Oh, so he lost to Soroni. He lost to Soroni at UFC. 178, came back to fight Melendez at 188. That's, yeah, so then that's the controversial one that I'm talking about. So, you know, not, you know, not the best case.

He didn't put himself in the best position, but it seems, you know, ranking-wise, there's almost no other option. Patrick Cote, he wants to fight Nick D.S. What do you think of this? Well, first off, major credit to Cote for reinventing himself at 170. Now two straight finishes prior to his last finish. in August, had not finished anyone since 2008 in the UFC. Fought a tough guy and Ben Saunders, I mean,

I read an interview with him leading up to this fight where he said, and there seems to be something to this, especially when guys hit a certain age, like he just stopped sort of caring and overthinking things. And look what he's doing now, 170. So a lot of props to Patrick Cote. I don't think he's going to get that fight, though. I think Diaz is coming back for big fights, big names, and I don't know if that's the one that's going to entice him.

Credit to him for calling him out. That's what you should do. And I'm surprised more people don't do it, but I don't know. I don't think so. I poke's in MMA. Yes. Why do you think the refs are so hesitant when it comes to deducting points for that? Man, that is a good question. I think the real question is why is it so inconsistent? I think others are more prone to doing it than other referees. Here's what one, again, very respected person in MMA said to me, okay?

I asked him this question. in the Brown versus Mitriam fight, I'm not sure if Travis had been warned about his open and extended hands, but he should have been warned. That is setting up your ability to quantify why you end up taking a point if you do later on in the fight. After the second poke, which was handled poorly, I probably would have taken a point to help level out the damage. Matt's eye has been poked twice, which is degrading his ability in the fight, so I would level things by taking a point and degrading Travis's ability on the scorecards. That's just the way I look at it, and I'm sure you can have someone give you a different opinion. And then I asked about DQ, no contest, because that seems to be, you know, a bit confusing to some. And he said, that all depends on the call of the referee. If the referee says it was intentional, it would be a DQ. If he said it was unintentional, if it was in the first or second round, it would be a no contest. If it was in the third round, it would go to the judge's scorecard for a technical decision. So, and I agree with this, obviously, I went to someone who knows more than me.

Should have been warned for opening the hand and all that. Should have been warned after the first. And I also think that maybe you should just be worn beforehand, like we talked about earlier. Why can't you just be warned in the locker room? It's not that many things to go through. And then you take away the point in the second. And Mitreone brings up a great point. Someone should have saved himself from himself. And then the fight ends in a no contest. That's probably what should have happened. why give the first warning? And this is a question for you to play devil's advocate,

because I know you've said in the past that you don't think there should be a warning in the cage. You think it should all be ahead of time. Yeah. I mean, is this not also being hesitant, that first warning? Because the second one is just as accidental. It's not like the second one has more malicious intent. It's exactly the same foul. So to play devil's advocate, it should probably be taken away on the first eye poke.

I agree. And by the way, how do you know? what's, you know, intentional or not. That's a great point. You know? That's a great point. So, so I kind of feel like, look, here's the guy who got poked twice, can't see,

is fighting, has his moments, it looked like he rocked him. Why is it a no contest? He's the one, you know, he's the one that got hurt by this and, you know, the rules were, quote, broken, you know, why should he suffer? As it stands. He had been disqualified from the fight because of these injuries. So why, I feel like it should be a DQ. As it stands, there's no deterrent from cheating.

There's absolutely no deterrent. what I said. It pays to cheat sometimes. You know, whether it's accidental or on purpose, we hope that, you know, nobody's poking people's eyes on purpose, and I don't think that that happens a majority of the time. But there is a thing about being aware of where your fingers are at, and there is a thing about closing your fist, and there's no incentive to do it at this point. Yeah. Even John Jones is, like, joking about it.

I know. And, you know, it's not, it's not, it ended up affecting this fight greatly, in my opinion. And you could say that this would have played out the same way, but in my opinion, it affected the fight. How do you know? And by the way, and the referee shouldn't think about this in the moment, but let's think big picture. This is a guy who's 37, who has a family who has no fights now left on his contract, and he's going into negotiations on a two-fight losing streak. Thoughts on Lombard versus Magny?

They just made this fight. What do you think about that fight? And are you disappointed it's not going to be Rory versus Lombard, the fight that we... Yeah, I wanted to see that fight. I know that there was a sentiment out there that, look, Lombard was suspended. he doesn't deserve the Roy fight. And I'm not going to argue against that. I think that there is something to be said for that.

I know that's what they were talking about. Rory is taking a little more time because of everything, and I get that. And maybe there wasn't a huge desire to go all the way to Australia to fight Lombard. I mean, you're really playing in his backyard. And I know they talk to other people as well. I can say that Magny wasn't top choice, but he's always game. And you know what? The more I think about it, I don't hate it.

I think it's an interesting styles matchup. and I think that it's a fair kind of fight in his return for Lombard. It's a big step up for Magni. Why not go for it? I don't hate it as a co-main event of a card like that headline, of course, by Mark Hunt versus Frank Murray. Don't hate it. What is your take on the new ultimate fighter that coaches were announced,

Yona and Claudia Agadalia? What do you think of that? Just a quick other thing. I do wonder where they go with Roy, because if you look at the top guys, not a lot of obvious choices for him, at least as of right now. We'll see what they do. So, excuse me.

Sorry. Ultimate Fighter 23, as you said, Yohanna, Claudia, coaches. I guess I'm somewhat intrigued. I still feel the same about the ultimate fighter. I still feel like it's a stale concept. If they're going to do the same thing, to me, it's going to be interesting for one or two episodes, and then it will fizzle out. I think that looking for a fight is a much better way to find, you know, free agents, much better way to develop talent to get people emotionally invested in talent.

I don't know if the show can sustain in this day and age with all. See, again, back in the day, the ultimate fighter was successful because there was a UFC pay-per-view once every two months. There was a free show on Spike once every quarter. And it was just such a great treat to have the UFC for free for 12 straight weeks or eight straight weeks or 10 straight weeks or 11 straight weeks. There's a UFC on essentially every week. And there's seven hours of it.

And there's other programming and there's shows like, I mean, you get your fill. So that's why I feel like it's just hard to sustain. And the talent pool is much bigger in the UFC. they have more fighters on the roster. So all these guys who might be fighting for a chance to fight in the UFC via the ultimate fight are already on the roster. I guess it's interesting that 205 men and 115 women are going to be on. I get it.

I understand. I like the fact that someone like Yawanna is getting an opportunity like this, and then it's all culminating on FS1 with the title fight. With what they're playing with, it all makes sense. But at this point, I feel like the show needs a bit of a break and just looking for a fight be that vehicle. and go from there. So, you know, that's kind of my thoughts.

You know how I feel about tough. Yeah. Okay, let's do Twitter. Yeah. Then we'll get something special from you and then we'll be out. Yeah. This weekend, Invicta was in an airplane hangar. How compelling is it for the smaller organizations to book interesting venues?

Interesting venues. I mean, well, you were there. Tell me about it. It was a great venue. Yeah. I like that venue. Invicta's done it before. They went to a venue in Iowa that was very similar.

airport hangar, airplane hangar? Formerly, it was called the hangar. Yes. Big open space with, you know, doors that you would assume that open up to let airplanes in. Was it cold? Well, no, you can close it. No, but, like, you know, like... A big airy space.

Yeah, it's just kind of tinny. You know, like... It was nice. It was well done. Okay. And I think that, yeah, smaller shows should pay attention to stuff like that and not just kind of fall into... But more importantly, though, I don't think it's... because of the venue, I think it's booking your shows where it makes sense. So Cyborg is a big draw

in Orange County. Go to where she is a big draw. Don't make her fight in Kansas City. I think that's the real point here, right? Absolutely. And people showed out for that one. Yeah. Was it sold out? It was. Confirmed sellout. What is, what is the sellout there? I think it was 1500. Well done. Yeah, I mean, Cyborg got it done, of course. Yes. Can we please talk about the Florian plagiarism? It wasn't just one bit he took. He stole. word for word other segments too. Oh God, this is a heavy-duty topic with six minutes left in the show. Okay, this is what I'll say about the Kenny Florean situation. Plagiarism is a big offense as a journalist. Now, whether or not you want to consider yourself a media member or not, a journalist or not,

if you're writing articles for a major outlet, if you're, you know, if you're being used as an analyst or a commentator, I think the rules apply. And so I haven't had a chance to interview him about this, talk to him about this. I have sent him a text in support because I do consider him a colleague and a friend as well. I think it was interesting to see the reaction to the news. And a lot of people, they're always going to be some, but a lot of people weren't dancing on his grave. Kenny Florin is a very well-respected member of the MMA community because of what he did as a fighter and because of what he's done as a commentator.

not a lot of people have bad things to say about him and to be honest it's it's because he typically shoots it straight you know he's not controversial he's not going out on a limb and picking and prodding like others and i think so in turn when something like this happens you know he doesn't get a lot of heat for it but um what he did was you know it was a mistake and i don't know if he did it on purpose if he was lazy if he forgot if he if he meant to say i i don't know the reasons why he did what he did but i will say this i do feel as though he could have avoided some of the later criticism that he received and avoided making this into a bigger deal if his initial apology was better crafted. I think that he didn't show enough

remorse. People want to see remorse. I think back to the Andy Pettit situation when he was caught using PEDs and, you know, on the grand scheme of things, this is not PEDs. He didn't beat someone up and things like that, but he did, you know, he did foul here. He said the only one who deserved to be upset was the man in question. I believe his name is Lee Wiley. Lee Wiley won. I think his Twitter handle is, and he does great work. I've checked some of it out, and I had no idea who he was, but kudos to him for doing what he does on YouTube. And he said, the only person that, you know, deserve to be upset was him, and they'll talk

about it on show. And people were like, wait a second, I'm upset because I'm a fan, and I feel like I was duped, and now you're going to plug your show on the back end. And then he came out with the second statement, and then had a tweet after that, which, in my opinion, may have negated the first one. So I think if he would have come out and said, look, I'm sorry, I messed up. was an oversight. I've never done this before. I feel horrible. I'm sick to my stomach. And I will regain your trust. And by the way, I'm going to have Leon on my show. He deserves the platform.

I want to talk to him about the fight. I want to apologize. I think it could have just been done. And Kenny's that kind of guy. He is that kind of guy. He is a great guy, great heart. And I think if it would have been handled that way, he would have avoided some of the backlash that he has received. At this point, you know, he's paid a price. There's no doubt about that. And I hope, you know, nothing further happens to him, and I hope he learns his lesson, and he can move on. But yeah, it's a serious thing. I mean, I think a lot of lesser-known people would have gone fired for it. That's, you know, that's been the thing, and I'm not advocating for that. Please, I am not. But I just wish the aftermath would have been handled differently. People who haven't gone to journalism

school, who haven't gotten a degree, that's like the number one rule. You know, that's a big thing. And, you know, this is a guy who was a fighter and learned the hard. way. Well said. Let's move to something more exciting and fun on the brighter side of this. Yes. The thing that I didn't find out until I saw it on Instagram. Well, you know, sometimes, you know, I got to keep secrets. So in exactly one hour, if you are watching this live, how about this? How much fun is this? In one hour on FS1, if you love me, if you love me, you'll support me on this one. I don't ask for a lot. I never ask you to subscribe or rate, even though it would be nice if you do that because I feel like you go up on the iTunes charts. tangent right here. Yes, it would be nice. I'm just saying. I'm just throwing that out there. If you love me, you will check out at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific on FS1.

There's a new show called In the Clinch. New show called In The Clinch. And our first episode is with Matt Serra. And the premise here is that we go to different fighters' hometowns to see where it all started for them, to see their humble beginnings, turning points in their lives, crossroads. So we started with Matt. This is a pilot. So a pilot means that it could just be one and that's it.

or if it's successful and gets good ratings, we keep doing more. So I appreciate everyone congratulating me and giving me props, but it's really just a pilot. Let's not get too crazy here, but it's nice. Anyway, I have a sneak peek

that I wanted to show everyone. The first one is when we met, right? The first one is when he came to pick me up at the train station on Long Island. Again, this is airing in one hour on FS1. Here's a quick sneak peek. I was choosing the right band. Instead, my band chose me.

I have a lot of stories from another great place. There he is. How excited are you? Look at that smile. Look at this guy. Matthew John Sarah in the flesh. My full name, you and my mother? Come give me a hug.

Oh, God. What, oh, wow. You're ready? What a pleasure. How many times have you invited me? How many times have you invited me? Never. I'm.

I don't think I invited you this time. But we're going to have a good time, though. That's true. How old is that cup of coffee? That's new. That's brand new. Don't touch it. Smile.

So that was our initial greeting. And it's kind of like, an extended version of our walk-and-talks. But a little more, you know, we do some other things. He tells a story that I've never heard him tell before about, I mean, and we go to the spot where it all went down. It's actually riveting stuff. But we also go get pizza.

And let me tell you something. I forget the name of the place. I'll be reminded when I watch it. I haven't seen it the whole show. Greatest pizza I've ever had in my life. No doubt about it, hands down. I'm not just saying this. I swear to you the greatest pizza I've ever had in my life, this is us going to get that

pizza. In order to truly understand, you know, what a man is all about, you got to go to his hometown. The only thing I want to do before my days are done is to share a slice with you on Long Island. Oh, I feel like that's... I know where to go. It's called the drunken Sicilian. Okay. Oh, no, listen, I get excited.

I'm starting to... I get excited. Look how happy I get. I'm starting to... I'm not you waiting these days, by the way. Right now? Yeah. Honestly?

Yeah. I'm like 215. 250? 215. 2.15. Don't listen. Ariel. My desire for abs in my post-fight Korea is not as strong as my desire for a slice of drunken Sicilian. So that's the spot right there.

That place, drunken Sicilian, is phenomenal. I urge anyone who's ever in the New York area to go get one from there. So it's premiering in one hour on FS1 in the Clench. Check it out. If you can't, DVR it. Do me a favor. And then tweet to everyone who works at FS1. that you love it and we'll do many more.

Okay, great. Thank you for that. N.YN. Rick, do you got anything else for me? People watch the show. Oh, another thing. Yes. Come on. MMA awards are coming up. Oh, yes. There's only awards.

Yes. MMA hour is up for one. If you love this show, vote for us. Yes, if you love us. We'd like to win the award because we put a lot of hard work and time into this show. Are you guys going to the awards because we're nominated? Sure. Okay.

I'll co-accept it on. stage. We are nominated. That would be very nice to win, and I would love for you to co-accept it if we win. M.M.A. Fighting is nominated, and myself and Chuck Mindenhall are nominated as well. What do you do there? I mean, there's... Listen, just vote for M.A. fighting. There you go. You know, I've, you know, I just urge you to get out there and let your vote here. I appreciate that. Yes, that would be very nice. Great plug there, Mr. New York, Rick. And we'll end on that note. All right, you can hit my music.

Thank you very much to the guys in the back for letting me go a little longer. I appreciate it greatly. So we were off last Monday, which is yesterday. And we did this special Tuesday show. It seems like all of you liked it. But important to note, we're back next Monday. Same time and place. Everything goes back to normal next week.

I look forward to that greatly. For now, I have to say goodbye. As sad as that makes me, it's been a fun four hours with all you. But I got us to go home to watch In The Clitch on FS1 at 6 p.m. I want to thank Dwayne Bang Ludwig for stopping by. I appreciate his time as always. BJ Penn,

holy moly. I'm going to go home and re-listen to that tonight. That got me all excited inside. I can't imagine what was doing back there to Mr. New York, Rick. Thank you very much to BJ and good luck to him. Thank you very much to Matt Matrione.

Tremendous stuff, as always. Took a lot of courage to come on and put himself out there and I appreciate it. Appreciate Carl's Condit stopping by as well. All the best to him. Good luck in whatever decision he makes. Thank you very much to Chris Lieben. Check out his book. It's on Amazon right now. Just type in Chris Lieben. It'll come up. Thank you very much to Paige Van Zand. Great stuff from her.

Appreciate her time and good luck with that big news. I hope she gets it as well. Thank you very much to the great Dominic Cruz. Congratulations to him. New champ, old champ. He's back. Great stuff from Mark Henry. Watch out for those Irishmen. Good luck to him as well. And congrats on the win for Eddie Alvarez. And of course, thank you very much to one, Chabib. near Maga Madov for stopping by. Tremendous stuff, as always. Good luck to him as well. If you missed anything, check it out.

iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, all that good stuff, and more, of course, YouTube as well. Back next week, same time and place, same day as well. Monday, we're back. Until then, I say, pace. Support for this show comes from Chase. If you're a fan of women's sports, you're always looking for ways to get closer to the action.

And your Chase card can get you exactly that. With a Chase card, you can experience more. That means access to pre-sales, preferred seating, and more savings. For more information about how to step into a world of more with Chase experiences, visit chase.com slash experiences. Benefits available only to eligible Chase card holders, deposit and credit card products provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A, member FDIC. Terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations apply. Defenders in cybersecurity are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor.

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