MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 314

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Fabricio Werdum, Sage Northcutt, Benson Henderson, Scott Coker, Artem Lobov, Anthony Perosh, and Dave Meltzer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with...

The Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life. On this Monday, February 1st, 2016, Hulgin, everyone. I'm Mario Hawani. Inside our New York City studio, great to be here with you for another episode of the show. I am so very excited about today's show. Wow. There's a lot going on.

There's a lot to discuss. There's a lot to share with all of you. I am super excited. Super awesome excited Of course we're coming off UFC on Fox 19 Was it 19?

Yeah I think it was 19 Anyway it was UFC on Fox in Newark New Jersey The Big News Anthony Johnson defeating Ryan Bader In very quick and impressive fashion There's no doubt about it

He is the number one contender In the UFC's light heavyweight division How about Ben Rothwell Submitting Josh Barnett I think a lot of people thought that, you know, Ben Rothwell could win, maybe via decision, maybe via knockout. But submitting Josh Barnett, the way he did with that go-go choke that's now the most talked-about choke in MMA, his coach Luis Claudio tried it on me for literally a second and

at maybe 5% if I'm being generous. And it was incredibly uncomfortable. It felt like my Adam's apple was coming out of my throat. He hit Matrione with that. he hit Josh Barnett with that. First time Josh Barnett has ever tapped due to submission. Can you imagine if he gets a title shot

and can hit that on Fabrice O'Rourdome? Who saw this coming at a Big Ben Rothwell? One of the great stories in MMA right now and a great character as well. And then also Sage Northcutt losing to Brian Barbarina via Armed Triangle, a choke that wasn't really sunk in, only the fifth time in UFC history,

that that choke has been pulled off that way where the guy applying the choke was either in half guard or full guard, not even side control. And that has now led to a lot of criticism thrown Sage's way. A lot of people celebrating his loss, a lot of people celebrating his demise, a lot of people laughing at not only him, but the UFC as well. I have many takes on this, of course, and we will get into that throughout today's show as well. This weekend, as you know by now, it's no longer UFC 196. It's UFC Fight Night 82, UFC Fight Night

Vegas. It's no longer the heavyweight title on the line. It's Johnny Hendricks v. Stephen Thompson. This broke Tuesday of last week after Verdume, towards the end of our show, announced that he will be pulling out of the card this weekend. A mess for the UFC, but they have now moved the card from pay-per-view to free TV, cable TV, I should put it. That is FS1. Bell-Torhard show this weekend. There's a lot

going on in the world of MMA, and we'll be breaking some news as well. Let's get into today's show at around 305 p.m. Eastern time. We're going to be joined by Anthony Porosh, veteran Anthony Perosh. The Hippo himself will be joining us from Sydney, Australia, to discuss his recent announcement that he'll be walking away from the sport. He has decided to retire. Good for him. Nice little run in the UFC.

Always enjoyed watching Anthony Perosh for some reason. And he's kind enough to join us at 305. At 245, we're going to talk to the aforementioned Sage Northcutt in his first interview since that loss to Brian Barbarina this past weekend. Appreciate him coming on. That shows a lot of maturity, in my opinion, by the 19-year-old Sage Northcut. At 225, Scott Coker will come on to look back at Bellator 148. Paul Daly winning via knockouts, some brutal knockouts on that card Friday night in Fresno, California.

Also, we'll look ahead to Bellator 149. 205, we're going to be joined by Benson Henderson, the former WEC and UFC lightweight champion. He was in the corner of one Brian Barbarina this past weekend. I'll also talk about what's next for him. Artem Lobov will stop by at 145 to preview his fight against Alex White this weekend in Las Vegas. That is UFC Fight Night 82. That fight airs on UFC Fight Pass. And 125, we're going to talk to Fabricio Verdum, the reigning and defending UFC heavyweight champion,

who, as I said, will not be fighting this weekend, unfortunately due to a couple of injuries. Also, as always, we want to hear from you at around 325. We'll take your questions and comments all, so we'll look back at a classic interview in our y'all must have forgot clip of the week's segment. And how about Roy Jones and the HBO boxing crew fighting my style this weekend? As Jean-Pascale walked out to his eventual loss, but still, still very much a song that is in our conscious. So I hint it, I will say this without giving away too much. At some point in today's show, someone will be breaking major news on the show.

So I do suggest you tune in throughout. We'll be hinting at this throughout the show. But again, I repeat, at some point in today's show, major news will be broken. I do suggest sticking around. For now, though, let's go to the Skype Machine and welcome in our colleague, Dave Meltzer. of MMAfighting.com and, of course, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave, thank you very much for the time. How are you? I'm doing, Ariel. I'm not really that great, but I'm glad to be on the show. I appreciate the time, as always. Let's start. I think I know what you're referencing. Some very sad and unfortunate news just broke around an hour or so ago. My favorite pro wrestler of all time, Brett the Hitman Heart. The best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be. Canadian hero, Canadian legend. announced via his Instagram that he has prostate cancer. What can you tell us about this?

Yeah, I basically know he had contacted me last night and told me he would be going public with it, and he would be having surgery this week to remove it, and that's pretty much all I know past what he has said. I know that his brother actually has prostate cancer as well. I think we learned that older brother Smith, who we learned about that within the last two weeks, so it's a real tough time for the family. And he's, you know, he's a fighter. He went through a stroke and made a recovery far better than anyone ever expected he could, because that was a really nasty stroke that he had over a decade ago. So I just want to wish him the best of luck. Yes, same here. As you mentioned, a fighter 100%, a tough SOB, a throwback, if you will, one of those

guys who, you would wonder back then if MMA was around, would he have gone into that world? But most importantly, I do wish him the best. And that's a little bit. But it's a bummer to start the day, and I hope that surgery goes well. Do they know what stage it's at, how serious it is right now? Did he give you any of that information? I don't know. I'm going to try to actually find that out today. I didn't hear anything.

I think it's fairly early. I mean, at least I hope it is. Hopefully, yeah. Okay, so we wish him the best. I want to talk to you about this past weekend. I want to start actually with Sage Northcutt because, obviously, he was a fascinating story up until this point, and then to see the reaction to his loss, and to see how he lost, It's all very fascinating.

I want to get your take on this. And in particular, the way people have reacted to it. Are you surprised by any of this, or did you expect once he lost that this was coming? Well, you know, I mean, after with Ronda Rousey, I mean, I think that this is just the nature of what we're going to have is there are going to be people who are pushed very hard in this business. And because of that, when they fall, there's going to be a gang up on them. I mean, I think we're going to get that. This is just an example of the future. And so, yeah, I wasn't surprised.

I think that the nature of how the submission happened because it was in a move that a lot of people wouldn't have thought, and it becomes a big question. It's like, what does this mean? I mean, we all know that eventually everybody loses in this sport. And at 19, it's not the end of the world, and it's not. You know, I mean, it's just an early part of his career. He may rebound.

He may be a trivia question in five years, remember that guy. Right. We don't know. But I think that the, quick tapping and the way it was portrayed on TV and the way a lot of the fighters portrayed it as well. It throws a big question because, you know, to be a star in this sport, yeah, you have to have ability. That's going to take time to develop and all that. But if you're not willing to hang in when the going gets tough, that's not a good sign. Now, is this an isolated incident? Does

he learn from it? I mean, it's so early in his career. But it was something. And again, you know, one of the things, too, is from a fighter standpoint, and I think you know this, is there were a lot of fighters that resented what he made. And I never liked to resent what people make, you know, because it's just, it's not good for you anyway. And again, the on what you're getting paid is more on what the, you know, if you're going to resent somebody, resent the owners of the company for offering him that, not him for getting it. But that's not how it works. This, to me, was another reminder that there'll never be any kind of union in mixed-marry. martial arts because if you compare it to another sport, let's say there's a guy who plays for the New York Knicks, his name is Chris Staps Porzingis, he is 19 years old as well. When he was drafted

number four by the New York Knicks, and a lot of people thought that that was at the time too high, you didn't see the fellow draftees go to Twitter and say he doesn't deserve it. You didn't see people rooting for his demise. You don't see people, you know, other players, I should say, say, oh, look at him getting dunked on and things like that. Fighters, for some reason, there are a jealous bunch of times. And it was interesting to see who was laughing at stage and who was trying to stick up for them. The guys who are comfortable in their careers, the champions, the former champions were saying, don't worry, kid, you'll be back. The guys who are sort of in the middle who haven't quite figured out how to break through, who feel like they're being

underpaid, who don't get pushed as much, were then saying, you know, ha ha, you know, in your face to the UFC and to him. And so I thought it was so interesting to see his, like the fans, I get that, but to see fellow fighters, colleagues, jealous that he makes X amount. It's really not all that much. But in our sport, I guess for an unproven 19-year-old, it's too much. That to me was the most bothersome part of it all. And so then I'll ask you about the UFC. I'll ask you about, in hindsight, and that's the fun game to play. In hindsight, was it too much too soon? Or was it? Because, you know, not that long ago, everyone was saying, the UFC doesn't have enough stars. They don't know how to build stars. All the old guys are gone. And now here we are,

you know, with Conor Ronda. But it wasn't all that long ago that people were saying. So, do you understand why they did it? Or do you think it was too much too soon to put this guy in his third fight in four months on Big Fox. Okay, I think, I don't think you've got to go with what the opportunity brings you. I mean, a perfect example of him is, yes, UFC pushed him, but at the same time, when fans saw him on the first show, there was an immediate reaction to him, and you've got to follow the fans, and in fact, be ahead of the fans. Putting him on Fox wasn't a mistake.

I would have done the exact same thing. you've got to do it when you have somebody that um you know and again like just just with this one after the show there was more talk about sage north cut after the show than there was about rumble johnson absolutely now in line without a doubt yeah for a light heavyweight championship fight i mean it's like so it's he is what everyone's talking about and you know so so the public was already there um so i you know i wouldn't say that um you would say that you would want to protect him and not throw him to the wolves. I was worried when they put him against Andrew Holbrook. I thought that was a mistake. I thought that, look, you know, let's not get carried away here. Build him slowly,

like a boxer, like a prospect. Barbarina, you know, that was more of a surprise, and I don't think that they went in there. I don't think they went in there expecting that he would lose. He did. So that's what happened. But no, I'm putting him on Fox. No, not a mistake. I mean, what happened happened, but you've, you know, you've got to, you've got to do that. You've got to try. If you don't try with new people, then, no, you're not going to make new stars. And perhaps the mistake was having him fight at 170. Maybe they should have tried to find someone at 155.

And I always think a reclamation project, a guy making a comeback, it's just as interesting as a guy making a run. So I'm curious to see how he rebalance, what he does, how this affects him. I don't think it hurts the UFC. And again, it goes back to why I enjoy watching MMA more than, say, pro wrestling these days, the unpredictability. In the world of pro wrestling, Sage Northcutt would have never. lost that fight, right? I mean, there's no way

in heck, just looking at their physiques, right? But that's what makes this fun. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a sport and everything, and the thing is, is with MMA, and we all know this, is one lost us in end a career or anything like this. And the things, he is a star. People are still talking about him.

Now, again, my question more is, is like, what does this say about his future? Because skill-wise, like I said, he can improve. But if he doesn't have if he's if he's if he's not good at getting out of bad situations because every fighter's going to be in bad situations he's not good at that that's a question that's something that you know again time will tell on him but it's it it's just part of the journey I mean and

we don't know where it's going to be he may never amount to anything other than hey remember that guy Chris Horodecki remember when we had him he was supposed to be the big young phenom and he had a career and he's around but he never reached the the level of stardom that people expected and maybe sage will be You know, a guy who learns from his mistakes, trains hard, comes back, and ends up as a star when he's 25, 26, and it's kind of like this is just part of the journey. Who knows? How do you feel about his age? Because I will admit, it feels a little different because he is so young. He's so innocent. He's so wide-eyed, so respectful. I mean, he doesn't say a bad thing about anyone. He calls everyone Mr. or Mrs. Do you feel like it's wrong for us to say, like, the kid's 19. He doesn't deserve the same amount of hate as everyone else. or if you're in the UFC, you're in the UFC in its fair game.

You're a public figure, and this is part of the sport. I mean, it's not a question of deserve. It's like it's what's going to happen, whether we like it or not. So it's just like when you're in the spotlight, your successes are going to be magnified, and your failures are going to be magnified, and this was a failure, or, you know, a bump in the road or whatever it is, and it's going to be magnified because of that push,

and everyone is talking about him because of it. But it's not a good thing, but in the long run, if he comes back from it, it's not a bad thing either because, you know, he still talked about. People will still watch his fights. They're going to be curious as to what happens with him for a while. Now, if he loses several fights in a row, yeah, people will lose interest. But one loss, you know, it just opens up questions.

You mentioned Anthony Rumble Johnson. There's not really much more to add there. He's the number one contender. That was a very impressive win. So I want to ask you about Ben Rothwell. To me, he was the star of the show, to submit Josh Barnett, especially in the way in which he did it, was nothing short of amazing.

And now you have this log jam at heavyweight. The title was supposed to be defended this weekend. That was a mess. It's not happening. They promised Steepa the shot. Of course, Kane had the shot. He gets injured. Overeem's out there as a free agent.

He'll probably try to negotiate for the shot as well. And I think Ben might have the most impressive streak of them all, as far as the contenders are concerned. What do you do with him next? There's no obvious direction. because I don't know where, you know, again, how quick is Kane going to recover? How quick is Verdum going to recover?

Do you go? Kane's still the biggest name, but, you know, now you've got Rothwell, you've got Overeem, and you've got Steepa, you know, who all have had big wins since Kane's last fought. So, I mean, you could go with any of them.

You know, it's like none of them, to me, are like stand out where it's like, this is the one I'm going with. Because, I mean, Stipe, you know, what do you say, about his win over Arlowski. It couldn't have been better. You know,

Rothwell, the nature of that finish, I mean, yeah, what can, what can you say about that? Spinning Josh Barnett, it's never been done.

I was stunned watching that. I mean, it was just like, you know, usually I'm not blown away, but, you know, that fight I could have seen

gone either way. That wasn't an issue. Ben Rothwell winning that fight wouldn't have surprised me. If you told me Ben Rothwell was going to win by submission, I would say like,

you know, what 1% chance, zero percent chance? So that was, you know, I mean, it's a feather in his cap. And they could go with him, you know, I don't know. I don't have a strong feel for any of the four. But whoever it is, I think that the other two, you know,

two of the other three should fight each other. I mean, I could see Steep A against Ben Rothwell and then maybe Kane against Verdume or Overeem against Verdume, you know, something like that. But I could see Rothwell getting the shot if that's what they pick. It's just a hard one. And yeah, it's a hard one. You see, I have a lot of respect for Kane in my heart definitely goes out to him.

He's had a tremendous amount of bad luck. But I feel like it's going to be a tough sell to put him right back in that title fight. Because you brought up the best point of them all. I mean, all those other guys have had really big wins since his last fight, which was a loss. And based on how the ticket sales were going for 196, the now former 196, I don't know. I just feel like it's tough. I feel like the best thing for him would be to get him in there, get a win to get his mojo back, his confidence back. build them up in front of the people and then talk about a title shot.

But to put them right back in there, I think that's the most obvious answer. No, of them all. So you go with Rothwell and you go with Steep A against Kane? I'm inclined to go with the Steep A only because he was promised it, but then you're stuck with Rothwell Kane, which we saw already at UFC 104. And I don't know. But that's a long time ago, too. That was a long time ago.

Yeah, I don't know. I really want to see Ben Rothwell fight for the belt just because he cracks me up. And also now with the submissions against Redoom, it makes it really interesting. Yeah, yeah. You know what? Every one of those, it's funny because every one of those heavyweight fights that are out there that we talked about or potential in there with all of those guys, they're all interesting fights. So, I mean, we've got like three or four good heavyweight fights, and the whole thing's going to, you know, it'll clear out in time.

But right now, yeah, it's some interesting decisions. No one knows the pay-per-view business better than you. And that's one of the main reasons why I wanted to have you on this week. Were you surprised when the UFC decided to take next weekend's show off pay-per-view and put it on FS1? When they lost the main event, I mean, the precedent was set. I didn't see how they could keep it as a pay-per-view unless they could throw in a championship fight or a huge fight at the last minute. So, you know, there's a precedent. It didn't surprise me.

Putting it on FS1 is interesting because they've never done that before. If you remember with John Jones in 151, it's like the whole thing was, is, oh, you can't do that. You know, you couldn't do that, but they did. I think that one of the things that makes it made this an easier decision is that they were not going to have a, I believe it was a May pay-per-view. Remember to get to 200, we were skipping a month? Yeah.

So now what they can do is just go, hey, we're not going to lose a pay-per-view. Essentially, we're moving February to May. Yeah. And we're just adding a fight night. And so it's kind of smoother. But, yeah, they'd never done it to switch it to a, to a day. TV. And I like the idea that if, because again, this is going to happen in the future, you know, every couple of years or so, we're going to have a show where at the end a champion falls out

and we don't have a championship match. And if it can be saved and switched to TV, look, we all win it. We all win. The fighters win. They're not having to miss a payday like happened at 151. And as fans, we get a show. And from you, from UFC standpoint, they're not losing a pay-per-view. They're just moving the date. Okay. So in the interim, they are losing something because they're some kind of pay-per-view revenue, although I don't think this one would have done, you know, gangbusters, because I think a lot of fans might wait for the new 196, the former 197. But ramifications-wise, like, from a business perspective, we think it's so easy to mix a match. Like, how big of a deal is this? Let's say you're in-demand or direct TV. They've already, they've already set aside that real estate

for a pay-per-view on Saturday. Is that a major blow? Like, are those outlets? Are they, are they upset? right now or because you're getting another? Everyone's going to be upset. Yeah. But it's circumstances beyond your control. They really couldn't, I mean, they really couldn't have gone on with that show as a pay-per-view. It would have been, you know, with Steve Thompson and Hendricks is the main event. It would have been the worst drawing pay-per-view they ever did.

And I think that, again, everyone's probably upset over the sense that, hey, the cash infusion we were going to get in early February. We're all losing out on money. But this show wasn't going to do giant numbers. and they very well may put on a stronger show in May in its place, and probably will put on as strong as show. So, you know, this business is, like I say, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon in the end.

Everything's going to be okay. There's some money lost. It's the cost of doing business. Injuries happen in the sport, and, you know, it's unfortunate. It happened late. It's weird that, you know, two guys dropped out within two days of each other, but that's part of the industry. given the way things are trending right now,

their highest selling pay-per-view is UFC 100. Do you feel, we're getting close, do you feel like it's trending towards breaking at UFC 200? Because with no Ronda... It depends on the card. Yeah. Yeah, with no Ronda in, it depends on Connor. You know, look, if Rhonda Rousey was fighting Hollyholm,

I would say that they would break the UFC 100 record. I was pretty sure of it. Especially because you know they're going to load up the undercard. Without her, you know again if connor's not on the show i don't even see how you do it because without either of them i don't care what card they put on they may do very very well but they're not going to break the record but um if they have connor and they have say like um you know again if they put wideman and rock hold underneath um or whatever they're going to put on um if they get the heavyweight

championship there um you know there's there we got to find that we got to see what the card is i don't see it out of the realm of possibility but losing Ronda from the show takes it from a guarantee, put it that way. It sounds like they're going to put Wyman Rockhold in June, and they want to put CM Punk on that June card, which makes sense, I think, from their perspective, because everyone was probably going to skip $199 to save for $200. But if you have punk there, I mean, there's an opening there for a lot of new fans.

What would you do if you're the UFC? Do you put him on the biggest show ever? At least that's what they hope, 200, or do you use him to prop up that sister card that was probably going to be overshadowed? I actually would have put him on 200. It's like the first or second match on the pay-per-view. Yeah, yeah, because I would want to try to draw the outside audience,

and especially with Ronda Rousey not on the show, just someone that's going to get some curiosity for that big show, and then hopefully the magnitude of everything else and seeing Connor McGregor and everything will keep those people as fans, as opposed to propping up another show. Yeah, I would have gone with him on the bigger show. Perhaps one of the more interesting storylines this weekend is the CM Punk sweepstakes.

Mickey Gall is fighting Mike Jackson. Do you like the way that they're doing this, how they've been building to his debut? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it puts something in a match that, you know, nobody, two guys that nobody knows at all, and it kind of gives meaning to the match. And, you know, there's a showcase.

They put it on Fight Pass. I like it. I mean, I could see actually putting it on, you know, on FS1 with more eyeballs on it. But, you know, I mean, they're really gearing towards trying to build Fight Pass right now. By the way, is that a Roman Raines calendar in back of you over there? It probably is. My son got me a WWE calendar.

I said I need a calendar for this year, and they brought me a WWE calendar, of all things. What a surprise. What a surprise. Great stuff, as always, Dave. Appreciate it, and we'll be checking out the Wrestling Observer for an update, hopefully a good update in the days to come for our guy, Brad Hart. appreciate that very much. Okay, thanks very much, Ariel. I'm really curious, but it's going to happen

the rest of your show. Oh, yes, thank you for that plug as well. That is a good tease. There he is. Dave Meltzer stopping by of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and, of course, MMAFighting.com. So in a second, we are going to talk to Fabrizio Verdoom, the heavyweight champion of the UFC,

who took some shots from a few corners of the world because less than 24 hours after it was announced, or around 24 hours after it was announced that Kane Velasquez would not be fighting at UFC 196. The now former UFC 196, it's very confusing. He announced to a group of media members via WhatsApp, which I love that he did it that way, that he unfortunately would not be able to fight.

And some people were saying, well, you were too honest. And I think that's a crazy thing to say, especially if you're a media member, we want honesty. Honesty is the number one thing that we should want. Don't tell guys to lie. That's bad. Anyway, we'll get into that and a whole lot more right now.

Fabišio Verduem joins us right now via the magic of Skype. Once again, from his car. And what is this? Maximum human performance. Hey. Thank you, man. How are you, man? How are you for Bicio?

Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate you coming on today. Anytime, man. You know, you my good friend like a long time. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Okay, so I want to actually go in order here. Last Sunday, Dana White tweets that Steppe Miochich is going to fight you for the belt this weekend

because Kane Velazquez had pulled out due to an injury. When did the UFC inform you of this news? Yes, the UFC don't see not about this for me, but my manager, Ali, call me, and I ask you, can Velasquez have an injury, and you fight versus Miotchi? teach. My manager asking to me. And what did you say when you heard the news, when Ali told you the news? My fourth reaction is, I, it's like, you know, this is number three. You know, the fourth time versus Stravingsbrow, and after then, very Mark Hunt, and this is number

three. But I understand that King Velaseman. He has a surgery today, I think so. I have a surgery in his back. I think he's, uh, he covered very fast. I hope so. And, uh, it's, at My first reaction is just called my coach, Raphael Cordero. My coach, Babaloo, my team, you know? This is very important. And I have an injury in my foot, you know, but very, it's, it pain a lot. I know I don't kick for two weeks, the right leg, because I have injured my foot. But I say, okay, I have a fight, man, no problem.

I have a fight because all the time I have an injury. All the time, I have a small injury or a big injury. But the last one versus Canvelastis, I have a big injury. injury my head in my balance I have it. Wow. Big injury. The last one is I know I know I know it's parted for 40 days. Nobody knows this because I know I know I know I don't say that this you know the last

time when I fought versus gave a losses I have a big injury my head man almost I I cancel the fight because I have a big injury. A concussion you suffered? Yes, co-coctioned my my ear my head. Wow. And I know it's part of four days and uh... almost Raphael said cancel the fight, but I say, no, coach, I mean good, I'm good, and after then I'm good.

I just parted one week before the fight, okay. This is okay. And I have an injury in my foot this time. I say, no problem, it's okay, and I'll kick the right leg, it's okay. But the last Friday, I have a big injury in my back. It's like an old injury, you know? I have my, how say, vertebra? Vertebrae, yeah, vertebrae.

Vertebrae, yes. I have an injury, but the old one. But long time, I don't have a problem for this. Long time, I don't have a problem because my back is more strong. I say, okay, no problem. But I feel it very bad, you know. And this is Friday. I tried the train again Monday because I rest Sunday.

Saturday, Sunday, I rest. Just a massage, you know, recover. Because I train a lot, man. I train a lot for this fight. And I train, but I know. feeling good man I have a lot of pain in my back too you know all the time I say the interviews I say it's very important your mind 100% your body is the same line it's very important connection you know when I have the injury in my back my body is not 100% like I

feeling 70% and then my mind it go down too you know my mind go like a 6% I say I don't have a this is very important you know this is very important when you have it Everything is 100%. Because this level, you have a... One step... A minute steak? How say... The steak?

You know... It's a... Yeah, one thing wrong is... Yes. It's done. Yeah. It's very dangerous, you know, man. This level is very high level.

And I talk with you, Raphael, my brother, everybody. I say, man, I know feeling good, man. My mind and my body, I don't know. But... And when I say the first time in interview, I say I fight versus Kvalax, but no, me or teach, this is not true. I just said, when I have an injury to my foot, I say this. You know, I have an injury, but when I have an injury my back,

I don't have a condition for a fight. Nobody this time, you know, I don't feel good, man. Not just my body, but my mind goes down to. So you injured your back on Monday when you were training, right? No, no. Friday, okay. And then it got, you just didn't start, you didn't feel good, right? It just didn't get better. Yes.

Yes. Do you need surgery? I told you. It's not like a new injury. Right. This is old one because I have a problem in my vertebra. I have a problem there. But I don't have a problem with this for a long time because my back is more strong now.

But I feel very bad, you know, because all the time I have a problem with the right side. This is my vertebra. This is the right side all the time. But this time is the left side. Yeah, you don't feel like because my muscle goes very, very tight. I mean, like an old man. When I stop at the train. I'm trying to stand up, very, like, you know,

it's so hard for breath, I breathe very hard. I feel very bad, man. I have everything, one day I have 100% everything, but next day I don't have nothing, you know, my confidence go down, my body go down too. I say, why I'm a fight like this level? You know, I have a, I fight for 18 years, 18 years I have a, I fight the Jiu-Jit, so,

grappling in MMA. And I never have my life. I never counseled one fight. Never in my life. That's this one. Wow. You know, because he gave a last counsel force. I have an injury.

I understand him, man. He has a series today. He has a surgery, you know? It's not like a joke. He would just say, I mean, I have an injury. That's it. No, you go to the doctor. My doctor, feather, talk with the UFC doctor.

and you know I have an MRI in my back. I have a problem in my back, man. He said, my doctor said, Verdun, have a true option. You, it's very important physical therapy every day, or you have a more muscle back, or maybe you have a more injured that, maybe surgery too. Okay, but right. No, no, I promise for you, I have a, I train more part of my back, you know.

No surgery you needed now, though, right? No, I know, no. No, he said no. No, not, no, but maybe happy again. Again, maybe two times, maybe have a big problem. Have maybe surgery. He said that. I say, no, doctor, I promise for you, I go to the physical therapy.

I just go now the physical therapy now. No, no, just stop my car for a talk with you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I have an 11 o'clock. I have a physical therapy now. And I say, no, doctor, I promise for you, I recover my back. I put more muscle there for, I don't want a serious, man.

Your back is very dangerous. you know. So when the UFC called your manager Ali Abdelaziz to tell them about the news that Kane Velasquez was pulling out, why didn't you guys then tell the UFC, wait, before you announced this new fight, we're injured too, let's see how this goes the next day or so. There's a chance this might not have. Instead of announcing it and then you having to pull out and then everyone criticizing you, you know what I mean? Why not tell them before they announced the news on Sunday? I don't know, man. I don't know. I just, I just got it. I just got a one, When Ali called me, he said, I told you,

Ken Velasca has an injury and a hit on fight again. Might have a miltage. I said the first time when he said that, I just called my coach, my coach, my coach, Rafael Cordero. He said, okay, no problem. But it's happened to the, I'm very excited for a fight, you know. I mean, I trained for three months for this, man. I spent a lot of money.

I invest a lot of money for this, not just a lot of money, everything you know I mean I mean waiting for this and one day you okay next day you know you know I feel in very bad injury you know yeah because I told you man when I have an injury I fight you know I have a fight because in the moment you you know I like this this is my life I I I love I don't go inside the cage because I just like it's my job no no no I like when I I'm enjoying you know just so watch my fight man I go inside the cage I'm in Because I like this moment. This moment for me is the best moment.

For me, the hard part is that I want you train every day. This is hard part. But you want to go inside the cage, for me, I enjoy this a lot, man. I love this. As you know, I have absolutely no problem with what you did. The decision to take the Miochich fight, I think you deserved more credit than you received and have no problem with you pulling out of a heavyweight championship fight if you feel like you're not 100%.

Yet some people were criticizing you. You know this. How was this past week for you? What was it frustrating that you didn't, you know, you feel like, ah, what is going on? Why are people criticizing me? I'm a heavyweight champion. I've never pulled out. Why is this happening?

Was it frustrating for you? Yes, for sure. For sure. 100%, man. I'm staying with my family, my wife, my daughters, in my home. I saw, for sure, because I love the internet. I saw social media. I saw the guys say a lot of things like bad things.

I say, why, man? The fans just stay with you in the top, that's it. When you go down, the guys, I have a lot of things like good things, too. A lot of guys say, Verdun, it's okay, he covered fast, I saw a lot of things with this. But I know instead the guy's saying, man, you have a fear. You fear about the field thing that's fear, man.

I fight 80 years. Fear. I just have a fear when my mom would say, anything, I'm very fear. I'm scared. I want me scared. One of my mom says something. I fear about, amen.

And the Mio Teach, I saw Mio Teach say something. Every doing, you don't know, the Rio Champion, blah. I extend the Miotich, you, man. Because he won a promotion himself for a fight for the title. So it's normal, you know? I say something for him on Twitter. I say a lot of things for him, but no, like a bad thing. Sure.

He's saying, you know, the real champion. I say, man, I fight with you any time, no problem. He said, okay, he said, I have a, this week I have a fire, fire memory. Yeah. And you go inside, you go in the truck with me and I give my belt for you. I say, okay, man, okay, fire, fire belt is okay. It's good for me too. Yes, I saw that.

I saw that, too. It's okay, man. It's okay. But, hey, Ariel, I mean, I'm good now. Just I talk with you because I feel it good now. But, hey, one week before, after then, this happened. I'm very sad, man. You know, I know, like, a me.

I say, why I'm sad? Because it's not my fault. I have an injury. That's it, man. You know? I never comes to my, my... Never comes to one fight in my history. Never.

18 years, man. Never, never in my life. But just one thing. But it's good because I learn, I learn a lot for everything, you know? For sure, I have more experience this, because I saw one of the defense. go with you one in the top and want you bad

or one decision. The guys say a lot of things, you know. I just want to say for this guy say a lot of things, bad things. Just look yourself. How your life, your life is okay? Or, you know, have a good job or the guy happy.

I don't understand. The guy say a lot of things, I don't understand the day, man. It's crazy, but it's okay, man. Have you personally talked to the UFC? Like, are you guys on on good terms now, after all? this. Dana Lorenzo,

did anyone reach out to you to see how you're doing? No, I don't talk with anybody because

this part is Ali. You know, my manager Ali, I don't say nothing, just Ali talk

with the guys. For sure, the guy said, man, this is normal. I work in UFC, man. I'm an ambassador,

Latin American ambassador. I mean, working TV, you know this? I mean, commentary. I'm a fighter.

I, hey, I'm staying in Mexico for two months the first time versus Mark Hunt it's okay maybe I say I don't want to fight with Mark Hunt I'm waiting for my Kevin Velas I say no no this is very important I think for the UFC because this is a big event

is the fourth event in Mexico the fourth event I say no no no this is very important I'm waiting for this 100% of my mind my body for sure I'm fight versus Mark Hunt No problem. But I think this time, I say, man, I don't fight this. It's a big problem for a UFC. I said, no, no, I'm a UFC guy. Okay, I'm a goal.

I fight, no problem. You know? But this time I saw, I feel it is not good time for a fight, you know? So just to be clear, if Kane was still in the fight and you were feeling as bad as you were last Monday, you would have pulled out regardless, right? No, no. I just said the foot injury. I have a two injuries, okay?

The foot injury, I fight versus Miotich and Ken Velazquez, anybody, no problem. Okay? I fight for sure. But when I feel in the, my back is hard a lot, you know, I feel it's bad injury. It's not, I feel I don't fight, no, I don't have a fight. Maybe Ken Velazquez or Miotici is so, so hard, you know. I don't have a feeling for a good feeling for the fight when I have a disinjury, you know, my back injury.

What's the foot injury? I just like when I try the kick, I think I kick like a, you know, my foot like this. Boom. Ah. And I have two weeks like a very bad,

I think it's like a broken, but I have the X or X, how say X. X-ray. X-ray. X-ray. It's not, it's not broken,

you know, just like a little bit, not broke, but I don't say, I don't say English, but it's not broken, but they have a fracture? Fracture?

fractured just a little bit, just a little bit, but, you know, it's nothing, it's like a nothing, but, you know, you don't give up 100%. I don't, I don't kick for two weeks. Wow. And zero kick in the right side, you know, just left side, but right nothing, zero. So what are they telling you as far as when you could return, you know, after you get better from these injuries? What do you look at at it? Yeah, I, the doctor say, I want to go next week, I go there for a look at, um, The doctor looked me again.

And I don't know when he said, I'm good for, for, start the train again. Because I don't train anymore. Okay. Zero training. You know, I want to train me because I'm waiting for this fight, you know. But I just waiting for the doctor, the UFC doctor. And my doctor, Feather, the guys say, if you're doing for training again, I'm waiting for fight too. Because I'm waiting for, you know, just like he covered my back and I'm waiting for fight.

I don't fight for almost one year. Yeah. You know, this is, I have a 38 years old now. I'm feeling good, but I want to fight, you know. My plan in my mind, my mind, I have maybe two or three fights in 2016. Oh. In my mind, you know. Now is maybe two fights.

Right. Two fight this year. Yes. Okay. So, and what do you want? Because now with Ben Rothwell looking good on Saturday and steep. it was promised and the canes out there in overreem. What do you think happens next for you?

Hey man. I don't know, Ken Velasquez I have a time for a comeback. Maybe he has a surgery today, I think so today. Yeah. I think maybe one or two months for he cover. For start the train again. Yeah. It's so hard that fight against him as Kay Velasca the next one.

Maybe Miotich is waiting, you know, he's there. And, uh, Ben, Ben, it's okay, too. I don't know, man. It's not my decision. It's like a UFC decision. I don't have my life too option. Everydo, what fight do you want to? Never.

Never the guy is asking me for me. Everdun, you want this, this? Yeah. Redund, you fight this guy? I say, okay, no problem. All the time, you know. But I'm just waiting. I'm waiting.

Who do you think deserves it the most? Ah, man, I don't want a promotion with the guys. Okay, fair enough. I don't like it. It is other thing, too. When Dos Santos, Junior Dos Santos, he talked too much about me before his fight the Overeign. Before he said a lot of things, oh, blah, blah. Verdon is no real champion, too, blah, blah, blah.

He lost. Right. He lost the fight about knockout. Yeah. And Arlovsky. Arlovsky, say a lot of things too. Arloves, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that he lost two versus Miotich, you know?

And then Barron, George Barnet, just lost two because he talked too much too. and the loss. Why? I learned this too much, a long time ago. I learned this before. The guys talk a lot about the belt for promotion, but the guys don't look at the next fight. The next fight is very important. This is why I don't like this. Say, the guys asking for me, I even know, after Ken Velazis, what do you want? I say, I said, I mean, the force think is this, I have this fight force. After then I, I think, after I win, I think the next one. This is very important, you know? Because I don't know.

Fight is fighting, man. Maybe you lose or you win. That's it. It's very hard. It's like a high level, man. Last thing, were you impressed with Ben, being the Jiu-Jitsu Master that you are? Were you impressed with Ben Rothwell's choke? Go-Go-Go-choke against Josh Barnett.

That's impressive, right? Were you impressed? Yes, it's okay. It's good, but I don't like his style, you know? And, you know, he don't have a base. He's like, you don't have one base. He, like, maybe in the middle, I don't know. Yeah.

I know how, I know like his style, you know. Interesting. But it's okay. It's very good joke for sure because Barnet is very tough guy to Barnet. You know, and the first time he tap in the cage, you know. It's for sure. It's good. Very good to Agliote because he heavy, heavy.

And Bell is like a very heavy guy. And I think he has a power, a crazy power, you know. Amazing. You know, like a. crazy guys have a crazy power too. I think this guy has a crazy power. Very well said. Again, Fabrice, I really appreciate the time.

Thank you so much. I hope you get well soon. Sad that you're not able to fight this weekend, but 100% support your decision and think that you made the right call. So get well soon and looking forward to seeing you fight sooner rather than later, my friend. No, thank for you, man.

I appreciate. And I'm very... I like when I spend everything. Now, it's my first time I'm explaining. Thank you. You know, my first time, I just playing for, because maybe the guys don't understand. The guys, I say something wrong, maybe.

I'm very emotional this time. Yeah. And the guys, ah, why we're doing fight versus game? Alas, it's no me who teach him, man. I fight anybody, man, no problem. I'm waiting 100% of my mind. And my body, it's okay, man. I fight.

This is my, I love this. This is my job. That's it. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thank you. And good luck in your physical therapy. I appreciate you coming on.

to explain everything to us. Obrigo. There it is. Fabrice O'Radoom, stopping by. Thank you very much to him for coming on to explain his situation. All right, in a minute, we're going to be joined by Artim Lobov.

Let me just fix this. What did people tell me? Artem Lobov in... Artham Lobov's going to join us in a matter of moments. He is in Las Vegas for the now former UFC 1-90. the new UFC Fight Night 82.

He is fighting Alex White this Saturday night. And the Russian Hammer is on the Magic of Skype right now. There he is. Artem, how are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you, Ariel? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for the time. You got to Las Vegas a little early, right? You got there on Saturday or Saturday night?

Yes, Saturday night you ever got here with John and here since. I guess that's because of the time difference, right? Usually people get there on Tuesday, but you wanted to get there a little early? Yeah, I don't know. Just kind of get here, you know, make myself at home and so good. I don't mind Vegas. I've lived here half a year last year. So this is becoming like another home for us now. So the last few times that you were there, of course you were part of McGregor Mania, now it's all about you. Does it feel different? Do you like the fact that you don't have to, you know, because he's fighting in a month, would you have preferred to be on the same card or do you like that you could just focus on yourself here?

Yeah, well, the good thing now is that I can walk through the hotel, no problem. I mean, obviously, when he fights, the place is filled with crazy Irish fans running around everywhere and, you know, they're excited. And it's great to see, but obviously when you're trying to cut weight, you know, and every trip to check your weight is like, you know, an hour of stopping and, you know, hugging and all the drunk people. And, you know, it's not the easiest thing to deal with. I mean, it's okay. you get on with it, but now it's just walk through, no problem. No one really here, so. So, but do you prefer kind of peeking at the same time where you're on his card, or do you like

that you're on a separate card? I think it's better now that we're on a separate card because I get to get my fight out of the way, and then I get to help him, you know, 100% with his fight. I don't have to worry about my own weight cut. I don't have to worry about my own fight. I can just help him. Of course, we last saw you tough finale in mid-December. Were you expecting to get a fight so soon,

a month and a half later? Soon. This is like forever for me. Oh, okay. I like to fight often. You know, I'm not like those other guys in the UFC, you know, that they want to fight once or twice a year. I want to fight every week.

In fact, when I was in the house, you know, that was the best time of my life. You know, four fights in six weeks, that's the way I'd love to have it, you know, train all week and then fight on a Saturday. So as soon as that fight was over, I was hassling the UFC for a fight. I was like, look, I'm ready to go now. I can, you know, I'm healthy. I can go now. next week, the week after, whenever we have a fight, I want to have a fight. So, yeah.

I really felt for you when everything was happening around 194 because obviously you're very disappointed about how the finale fight went against Ryan Hall. But then you had to put a smile on. You were obviously happy for Connor the next night as well. But you could see it's mixed emotions because you had just suffered your own personal setback yet you're happy for your friend and training partner. How difficult was that 24 hours for you? to be honest actually the fact that conner had a fight kind of helped me you know because it was like there's no time to you know uh be upset or you know uh sad you know so i had a little quick cry in the shower and that was it you know i was back to being 100% ready to help coner get that belt so

was the toughest part the fact that you felt like you never got to show anything in the fight i mean it was a very it was a you know we knew what kind of fight it could be given your style and his style but it just felt like you were completely neutralized given his style and that you couldn't really get going. Was that the toughest part? Would you have rather lost a complete war where you're bloody and all that stuff rather than a fight like that?

100%. That's exactly how I felt, Ariel. I pride myself on having some of the most exciting fights ever. Any of the shows I ever fought, they always wanted to have me back because I always had the fight of the night performance. And in my head I was imagining this memorable moment, you know, Forrest Griffin moment.

you know, of the Ultimate Fighter, and instead I got the most boring finale on the Ultimate Fighter ever, you know, so that was very, very frustrating. But, you know, fair play to Ryan, you know, I guess he did what he had to do, and, you know, I'm obviously sad that I didn't get to catch him with one of my bombs, but, you know, I have to give him his props. And for the record, as I said on this show, I actually didn't think it was a boring fight.

I mean, I always kind of found it interesting because I felt like you were one punch away from a knockout. he was one sort of maneuver away from a submission. So I like fights like that. I think I've seen many, many, many other more boring fights, including tough finale fights, but, you know, that's neither here nor there at this point. How is he with you guys? Is he going to come back to the team and train with you, or now that that happened, is that no more?

I mean, there's no issue on our side. I mean, he's a nice guy, you know, there's nothing bad you can say, you know, about a guy, and he's got very good jujitsu skill. I mean, he'd be more than welcome if he wanted to join. I'd have absolutely no problem with that. So if he wants to join, he's more than welcome. In a way, could that night have been even worse for you, had you not trained with him for that short period of time in Ireland?

Because it did feel like you knew what to expect to a degree, yet, of course, I mean, he's just so dominant and it's hard to stop it. But did that help you not get finished by him, not get submitted? No, I think what helped me not get submitted is that, you know, I don't know if you know this, but I've never tapped in any of the fights. You know, I've been choked out, I had my arm broken, but I just don't tap. So, you know, my philosophy is you get out of there

or else you get choked or, you know, your leg broken. So I just keep fighting the submission until I'm out of it or until I'm unconscious. So that was, you know, that is always my mentality. So, you know, I just kept fighting. And obviously I train in SBG and, you know, we have a lot of good black belts there. So I know really well how to get out of a submission.

So I got to show at least that part on the night. How long did it take for you to get over the fight and start thinking about the next one? Well, I wanted the next one straight away. You never really get over your loss. I mean, I remember every single loss I've had, you know, and you obviously, you know, you wish you could change something, but you can't. You just have to accept it. You just have to move on. But I never really fully get over the loss.

Okay, so you get Alex. It's always there. Right. And I'm assuming it gives you motivation and fuels you as well. So you're fighting Alex White. What did you know about him when they offered him to you? Yeah, when they offered, I didn't know. I just said yes.

You know, I never, that's, you know, as far as my conversations with matchmakers go, you know, they send me a name and I just say, yes, it doesn't really matter to me. You know, just let me know when and where, and I'm going to be there. So that was the same thing here. I just took the fight. I had a little look at him, you know, had a look at his record. Perfect. He's exactly the kind of guy that I don't.

don't like the guy that I don't feel had much of a challenge in his career you know just padded record you know got into the UFC had a few fights there you know didn't really didn't manage to pass the challenge and now he's here you know so I feel that they probably want him out of the UFC and that's why they're giving him to me I feel that they probably felt sorry for me after the finale they know that I can knock guys out they've seen that on Dultzmouth Fighter so they they probably thought okay let's let's give Artim a good one now. Let's give him one where he can show his true potential. So it's interesting that you talk about his record because, as I'm sure you know, people look at your

record and say, oh, you know, 11 and 11, he's a 500 fighter. The only reason why he's in the UFC is because he's Connor's friend. Does that get annoying for you? I see you going at it with Twitter people sometimes and responding to the quote-unquote trolls. Does this get annoying at all? No, that was just like sometimes I reply, if I'm really, really bored and I just want to have a bit of fun, I reply. But that doesn't bother me at all. You know, because let's be honest here, 99% of MMA fans haven't got a clue what's going on. You know, they don't understand the game enough to comment on any of that. You know, they don't know how easy it is to have an impressive record.

I could have 10 guys in my gym tomorrow, beat them all up, and there's 10 wins for my record. It is that easy. It is that easy to become 10 and 0. What I did is very, very hard. Not many people do it. In fact, very few people do it. I can honestly say that if you look at people's outside of the UFC records, I have the most solid record in the UFC right now.

That's a fact. You know, I went out there looking for the challenges. When the phone rang so many times and they said to me, look, we have this guy that's really good. Nobody wants to fight him in Europe. We'll ask him take him. Every time I said yes. You know, no one else wants to do it.

It's easy now in the UFC. Everyone will fight for $50,000. You know, if you say, if you go on the street now and you ask somebody, well, you'd fight for $50,000. Most people will say, yes. But I done it when the money was zero and the challenge was hard. Because that is the way a warrior does it. If you want the challenge, you want to be a true fighter, that's how you do it.

In fact, they should print out my record and call it the fighter Bible, the warrior Bible. And all those guys with parted records should read it every day. And then they should post my pictures on their wall. there, the Jesus Christ of MMA. I like it. So you don't regret that path because you can you say you could have a 20 and two record right now or something like that. You don't regret not having it. No way. I would be ashamed to pad my record. Do you know how many times I was offered easy fights?

Million times. Anytime I was offered let's say three or four fights at the same time, I find the hardest guy out of them and that's the guy I take. I would never ever put my record. Never in a million years. I have so much respect for myself and I pride myself as a true fighter. I would never, ever take an easy fight. And then I'm also curious, speaking of the critics, when you get these comments about your stance and keeping your hands down, I know you get a lot of that as well, as does your coach, John Kavanaugh. How do you deal with that when you get these people who have never been in the fight trying to give you the fighter tips on how to fight? well i mean i hope i mean they don't understand fighting that's far enough but surely they can understand maths i hope so at least and if they look in my almost 30 real fights i've never been knocked out so surely i'm doing something right that is true that is a great point as well um by the way

leading up to this fight did the uh the master sensei idoportal help you prepare move anything any of that i feel like that could be a big thing uh in your favor going into this one was present at the camp? Well, he was at the last camp. He wasn't really around this time, but he gave us some drills to do. And it was good times with him. He showed us some cool kind of movement drills. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

Well, maybe he was the problem then, because you lost that fight. So now that he's not around, maybe you go back to the old winning ways. Yeah, I didn't get to move much in that fight. Were you doing some of it? Were you actually doing some of it leading up to this one? Like, have you incorporated it into your training? Come on, Ariel. I've got five years of ballroom dancing.

I was teaching Edo Portal how to move. Wow. Do you really have five years of ballroom dancing? I do, yeah. Wow, I didn't know that about you. Yeah, when I was a kid, like, when I was a kid, I always wanted to do like fighting sports, but my mom would never let me. She said, like, no, you'll get your nose broken.

Actually, funny enough, my nose is the only part of the body that I never broke. But yeah, she had me do ballroom dancing instead, and I spent like five years doing it. To what age? I used to be cool. I used to be surrounded by beautiful women. I wrestle sweaty men, so I don't know what happened there. To what age did you ballroom dance? From like seven to 12, 13. Wow. Does that footage exist anywhere? I want to see you on your light on your toes. Yeah, there's a, there's a picture of me on the web somewhere back in my ballroom dancing days. So now what does your mom think about your career now? Does she watch? No, she doesn't really watch fights. Even like when I win, she wouldn't really watch the fight.

But she doesn't mind. I mean, Connor was a big part of getting sort of accepted as a fighter, you know, because before, like when you told people, they didn't know what the hell is this. And they're like, what? Are you crazy? Whereas now you can just say, oh, do you know, Connor McGregor? Of course you do. Well, I do some, you know, the same thing that he does. And then it's all good. What is it like these days? I mean, is it a little bit distracting at the gym? Are people coming now because of Connor and you were on the reality show and Ashton Daily, Juan, in Dublin? Like, are you guys becoming too big for Dublin or do you still have your own space when you go to the gym? No one bothers you? Well, we train at like nighttime when there's no one in the gym.

So it's not too bad. And then we have like a policy in the gym where you're not really supposed to hassle the virus too much. you know, with pictures and all, because, you know, everyone understands, you know, we have to train, you know. This is our job, you know, we're not just there to look pretty, you know, we're there to do work. So it's not bad. Yeah, it's so good. Everyone understands. But you don't have people coming in, like, just right, because it's just right there in the open, and people can find where the gym is and walk right in, right? Yeah, well, we have John's sister, Anne Mulligan, you know, guarding the gates.

Oh, wow. She don't let no one in just like that off the street. Okay, that is good. Yeah, no one wants to mess with John's sister, I would imagine. I've never seen her before, but I hear she's very tough. Yeah, no one messes with them. So do you feel like you need to prove something? Like, is it possible, given, you know, regardless of what you were saying,

is it possible that you're fighting for a UFC career here? You know, you don't want to lose two in the row, two in the UFC. Do you feel that pressure? Not pressure, but that's, you know, that's the way it is. You know, even when people ask you, ask me the call. how many fights did they sign you for? Look, this is the way it works in the UFC. You perform good, you know, you win fights, you're exciting,

you stay for as long as you want. And then if you don't, well, then you go. And that's how I feel it is now. You know, there's always pressure to perform. You know, you always have to deliver exciting performances. You always have to win the fight. So that's exactly the same situation now. Yeah.

I know that you worked very hard to get to the UFC and you went through many regional promotions in Europe. that you've tasted a little bit of the, you know, the glamour life that is the UFC, is that motivation as well to not have to go back to working your way up and, you know, fighting in these small shows? Yeah, of course, I mean, my main reasons for being in the UFC as well, one is that's where they say the most challenges are. So that's one of the reasons.

And the second reason is pretty much the only place where I can just fight and not have to worry about anything else financially. Right. So, you know, I mean, how great would that be if I can just. fight. I truly love fighting. I want to do it as often as I can. I don't really want to do anything else if I don't have to. So that would be a great life. So I'm fighting for that life right now. And by the way, I'm curious to get your take on this because you're a veteran, you've had to work very hard to get to this spot, yet you're still kind of at the same spot as a Sage Northcut.

I know you were traveling when he lost, but you probably heard what happened to him. What was your reaction to that? Were you one of those who said, you know, hey, you got what you deserved? You tapped in half guard via arm triangle. You're getting. all this money, you're on national TV, it was too much too soon, do you feel for the kid? What's your take on it? Well, you know, it's not like the guy stole it, you know, he was given that. It's not his fault, you know, he's athletic, it's not his fault, you know, he's good-looking, very marketable, you know, guy.

So, I mean, if this was given to me or anyone in the world at 19, everyone would take it. Everyone would be in that position. So, I mean, he's only 19. He's got, he's going to learn, I'm sure, and he's, you know, he's got a lot of potential, I'm sure, so that's no big deal. And I'm sure even I could see his reaction as well. He's probably not too bothered by it because he realizes what the situation is. He's 19 making more money than most people in their lifetime.

You know, so the world is his oyster. You know, he's going to have a great career, I'm sure. Where's my man John at? I hear him laughing in the background. You're bunkmate. Oh, there he is. So we have completely done away with the robes now, no more. Oh, sweet this time.

You're trying with the Russian hammer. I like that. You know, going back to the roots here, no McMatch, you know nothing. Let's be in a crappy Vegas hotel. You should have seen some of the places I was in when I was fighting on all those regional promotions in some communist state hotel where there's no hot water, no tea, no nothing. So this is luxury compared to some of the places I fall in. So it's not weird for you to come back to this. Even being at the McMatchion, this is okay.

this is still a palace to you. You're talking to a guy born in Soviet Union. That is true. Come on, Ariel. This is luxury for me. Well, I wish you the best. I like the fact that they're putting this on Fight Pass as well. This is going to be on Fight Pass, right?

So your European fans could watch live. Is that accurate? Yep. Fight Pass. So you're still on Fight Pass. By the way, were you sweating when all the news came out about 196? It was going to be canceled now. Were you nervous about it?

Not really, because I know I'm ready to fight all the time, and I knew that there would be a fight for me somewhere. Okay. So, you know, that didn't bother me. I know UFC have events every week, so I was sure that, you know, I was going to get sorted with a fight. Well, that didn't bother me at all.

I look forward to seeing how you rebound from the Ryan Hall fight. Always fun to watch you fight. And this is, you know, I've never had a chance to see an Artem knockout in person. So perhaps this is what we'll be seeing on Saturday. I'm sure that's what you're calling for, right? I'm sure you see one. Okay. Thank you very much, Artem.

best of luck to see you out there and also john thank you very much for the Skype appreciate it as always thanks very much ero my bye bye all right guys take care there he is artan lobov of team SBG stopping by great stuff from him as always all right um let us move along what is going on here okay uh let us move along now and uh welcome in our next guest big weekend for him just one second okay big weekend for him and his team this past weekend in Newark, New Jersey. Their teammate, Brian Barbarina, stepped up on just eight days notice and defeated Sage Northcutt. A great moment for the lab in Arizona. They were all very happy.

I thought they handled it very well. Benson Henderson was in Brian's corner. A very nice moment afterwards between him and Sage. We'll ask him about that. And a whole lot more right now. He joins us online, number one. Benson, are you there? Hey, what up, Ariel?

I'm right here, man. Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it. As always, always great to talk to you. We'll get to Brian's win in a second, but I do believe, I do understand, that you have some major news to share with the world. So the floor is yours, my friend.

What do you got? Oh, yeah, just a naked official, man. The move everyone's been hearing about, been talking about for a while. First time, a former UFC fighter, going off a nice little wind streak heading over to Bellatory.

I'd like to officially announce my move over to Bellsworth, M.M.A. Wow. I'm beyond excited for this next phase in my career. It's a big move, like any move when switching employers or jobs after having worked for such a long time. I got to thank the big man upstairs for putting some amazing people in my life. My wife, the old person, foremost, of course. A lot of truly smart and insightful people behind the scenes who help make the connections

and negotiated this deal to bring it to fruition. I'd be remit to not thank Dana White, Lones and Petita for the opportunity. They presented to you guys to help me change. my life for the better and to be able to provide my family the things that I didn't have while growing up. You know, for that I'll always have the utmost appreciation. Thanks also for all the advice you guys gave me, both

business-wise and personal, you know, and last but not least, this is who I think about when I think of the UFC. So definitely last but not least, this is who I think of. This is the UFC to me. Everybody behind the scenes who I personally dealt with every time I reported in

or how to go do this or go do that or how to email them, this paperwork, the guys I dealt with. I want to say thanks to all those guys. Mayra, Melissa, Dave, Chris, Nick, Tracy, Joni, Mora, Tony, Heidi, Ryan James, Dave, Kaya, Bert, Rob, Rudy, Stitchhouse, Mike, Susie, Dean, Donas, Ariel, Sean, Joe, Brad, Jasmine, Candice, Michelle. Of course, Reed, you know, sorry I can't name everybody.

Otherwise, this list will go on forever, you know. But there's so many people behind the scenes at the UFC. They're the ones who make the UFC what it is. They're the one to allow us fighters to go out there and show out and do what we love so much. So thanks to all those guys. Thanks everybody in the UFC behind the scenes who always, you know, took care of us, fighters, took care of me. And to all the fans, thanks for love and support. I'll be doing the same thing I was doing inside the UFC, Octagonal,

I'll be doing the same thing inside the Belfare cage, open up my heart and soul, and giving everything I have. I'm super excited for this next chapter. You know, I'm excited about building new relationships, you know, guys that have heard nothing, but great things about like Scott Coker, Rishow, Mike Hogan, all of the Belter staff. You know, I've heard good things about those guys. So, you know, this is, this is Chapter 2 right here. I'm excited, man.

I'm excited, Ariel. Well, again, congratulations, or I should say first off, congratulations. Very classy stuff from you. This is gigantic news in the world because as you laid it out, it's very rare for someone with your resume to make that move. so I'm curious right off the bat how difficult of a decision was this for you because you were in a good spot in the UFC

you seemed comfortable, you seemed relatively happy now you're going to the unknown that comes with the territory as you mentioned how tough was this for you? I'd be lying to say it was a little bit tough for sure it was a little bit tough coming to make the decision but ultimately it was best for myself and my family

and Bells are presented and what heck of an offer, you know, you couldn't say no to. So ultimately, they made it pretty easy on me. They opened up the red carpet. They, you know, were super nice, you know, just very much taken care of me and showed how much they wanted myself on board, wanted myself a part of their team. So when you get that sort of reception, you know, hard to say no.

Did they offer you anything? Did it come down to a... serious negotiation. How did it go? Oh, yeah. There was actually a pretty detailed negotiation period. I brought in a bunch of good people, you know, some higher-ups who guys perhaps haven't heard of before in the mainstream media, guys who I don't think necessarily want to be named, but higher-ups who normally deal with, you know, Data White Lorenzo, Scott and Mike Kogan on a daily basis, you know, getting big deals done.

So I was lucky enough to have relations with those people, and I was able to bring them on board my team and, you know, get a pretty thorough negotiation done. Are you happy with the deal that you got from Bellator? I am. I'm ecstatic about this deal from Bellator. Really? It's not your normal, typical...

The thing with this deal, I think it's not your normal, typical run-of-the-mill, like, you know, you go to whatever organization like, oh, here you go, here's our offer, this and that, and that's pretty much an offer they have. It's the same offer as everybody else. I wanted some different things. I wanted some things that, you know, unheard of in the MMA world, you know, like not just, oh, just a win-in show, but, you know, some other clauses, some other details in the contract. And Belator was open to those ideas, and we were able to go from there. Wow, well, that is exciting.

And, again, congratulations on that. Can you tell us a little more about what makes this contract? unique? I don't know. What makes the card is unique is that it's just, you know, a fighter coming off, you know, two-fight wind streak, going up a way class, leaving the UFC on a good, positive wind streak and going over to somewhere else. I think that's the story of this deal.

To me, I was, that's the only thing I can think of, like, you know, the deal of the contract itself is good, you know, nothing but positive for myself. about just the storyline behind that for me is just, you know, heading over to Belator. I'm going to make some big waves. I want to make a whole explosion over there for Belator. Yeah. Well, I'm curious, speaking of your debut, will you be debuting as a Walterweight or a lightweight? I think we're still in talks for that.

I don't think I'm allowed to disclose or whatever, you know, but I will say I will be fighting at both-way classes. Something that I wasn't exactly, I'll be bouncing back and forth, 175, 175, 170. I get to have some fun over there. I love that. I love being able to have the option to bounce around and not just being stuck here or stuck there or you can't do this or you're not allowed to do this, but having the option, the ability to, you know, get creative and kind of do what you want to do. I love that, man.

Belltor is all about that, making it fun for fighters doing stuff that, you know, they want to do and that they're interested in doing, knowing that, you know, the fighters are interested in doing it. If some of the fighters want to do, it'll be more than, of course, interesting for fans to watch. But since you've had success in your last couple of fights at 170, do you want to keep that going rather than cutting weight,

you know, down to 155? Are you open, like, do you have a preference if it was up to you where you would debut? Um, a preference for me? No, for be honest, I'd only have a preference one way or another.

Okay. As long as I get in there, I, Again, as always, just after great performances, I'm hoping to have nothing but great performances inside that bellatory cage. That's all I'm after, whether it's at 170 or whether it's at 155. I'm wondering, you know, it's a different time these days, as you know, in the UFC in particular. Reebok, Usada.

Did any of those play a factor in your decision? Usada absolutely played no decision in my factor. I think you saw that is a great, great, amazing thing that U.S.C. should have done five, six, seven, eight years ago. The other thing, I might have played a little bit of a factor into my decision-making. The Reebok deal that U.S.C. did, you know, affected all of the fighters, and affected myself. It was definitely a positive, even. The Reebok deal was a positive for some fighters, for some fighters who had a hard time coming across sponsors and we had a hard time, you know, negotiating in good faith with sponsors

and getting those sponsors to actually pay up what they were supposed to pay them. You know, a lot of times you hear these horror stories about fighters not getting paid, you know, Reebok made it good for a lot of fighters, some fighters, or a lot of other fighters. It was, you know, not the best look for us. So for me, yeah, I would say it definitely affected my decision in the grand scheme of things. Obviously, you were there in New Jersey for your teammate, Brian Barbarina and his big win. Again, congratulations to you and the team on that.

And obviously, you knew that this was happening. Was it at all awkward for you to be there? You know, you were at the Wayans. You, I think, shook hands with Dana. I mean, what was it like for you now as a almost soon-to-be or maybe officially former UFC fighter to be there with your guy when all this is going on? No, again, like I said, you know, talking about the people behind the scenes at the UFC, Tony, Mayor, Gene, all those guys, you know, like, they all heard the rumors as well. They knew, you know, there were some talks of this and that and yada, yada, yada.

But they're all just awesome, amazing people. So they didn't really treat me any different. It was the exact same that I could think they all like me or they have positive opinions of myself. And, you know, I definitely have positive opinions of them. they're all-around great people. They work their butts off. The guys behind the team of the UFC worked their butts off. They bend over backwards, not only for the UFC VPs,

the UFC, you know, their bosses who yell at them and tell them, you got to do this, you got to do it this way, you can't dress this, you can't say this, you can't post this, but they bend over backwards for us fighters helping us do, you know, be able to do what we do at our optimal peak levels, you know. A fighter says, oh, I need, yeah, One of the UFC guys is they're all over it. They're taking care of it.

So you see, I feel like, and I said this before this news obviously came out, but as we were anticipating 2016, free agency and MMA is the story to watch this year because we're finally starting to see fighters play out their contracts and test the market. And I think people need to learn this, that it's not an animosity thing or a fighter rebelling or being a Benedict Arnold.

we see this in every other sport. This is a common occurrence. And so it's going to be really interesting. And I think that your move now potentially creates a snowball effect. Did you look at it that way? Like, do you think, and maybe the way you prefaced it is a preview of what your answer is going to be, but do you feel like, you know, you're going to create this snowball effect and be a pioneer and other young fighters who are now free agents or soon to be free agents are going to be like,

wow, Benson Henderson, former champion WC and UFC now did the job. Now it's okay for me to go. Are you trying to create? that kind of movement here so that there's, you know, this open market in our sport? I wouldn't say I'm trying to create the movement, you know. I would think that it would be silly for fighters. I know us fires were not always the sharpest tools in the shed, we're not the brightest bulbs, you know, but we're relatively smart individuals.

It would definitely be foolish of any fighter to not at least take a look at his options. if you don't take a look at what you could get potentially elsewhere, it'd be, you know, maybe not the best idea. But for some people, maybe that is what they want to do. That's the route they choose. But you're right, though, like saying that it's new to the MMA, because MMA is such a young sport still. It's such a young sport.

But in, you know, the professional soccer or, you know, the world football, you know, you see guys leaving from the English Premier League to go to, to the MLS, so you see guys leaving the MLS to go to the English Premier League. Basketball, you see it all the time. It's the same thing. Well, people need to understand, and sometimes they have a hard time understanding what, you know,

me as a fan of sports, I have a hard time understanding for a long time is that the business side of sports. Like, in the long run, sports are amazing. It's, you know, transcendent stuff, but in the long run, the owners of the teams, the owners of the leagues, the players themselves, it is a business.

You have to make the best business decisions for yourself, for your family. If you have a chance to make this much money or to be able to take care of your family in this way, and then you lose out on it just because you are strong-arm, so speak, or is looked down upon to look at your options. I'd say look at your options, man. Look at your options. Was this a two-horse race between the UFC and Bel-Tor,

or did you consider any other promotions? That was what took so long is because I considered all other options. I had a nice long, a couple of long conversations with Hume for one FC. They presented a very, they presented actually a strong offer.

They presented a very strong offer. Number two in the offer sheet was, you could say it was one FC. They came to a strong offer. They rolled the red carpet also. For these other organizations to be able to have the chance to scoop up a free agent like, you know, former UFC yada yada, whatever, you know,

like they all jumped up the opportunity. They all came with some strong offers. And, you know, I wouldn't say it was just a two horse race. There were a lot of other organizations that we, you know, took off for some. It wasn't just, you took a couple offers from kickboxing organizations. I was looking to want to just having a couple kickboxing fight. Yeah, the money there wasn't. wasn't the same for MMA,

about outing offers from everybody. So that's what actually took so long. I know that Beltaur might be getting into the kickboxing world soon. Is that on the table for you? That is. There's a clause in the Belcher contract for me to be able to do their sister organizations, that's the organization that they have relationships with. Okay, yeah, yeah.

And most importantly, I wanted to have my love of the game clause in there, so I'll be able to continue. do it. I was getting not browbeaten, but I was doing juicy tournaments. I love doing juji tournaments. I love same thing basically. I love competing doing marathons and trathons. Start going into that.

So there's a love of the game clause in my contract with Beltor that allows me to do juicy tournaments and other things of that nature. So I was pretty excited about that too. So you said that 1FC was number two. I'm assuming that Belator was number one. were you disappointed that you didn't get a better offer from the UFC? No, the UFC came with a strong offer.

It was actually, it was a very strong offer from the UFC. It would be the highest-paced, a lightweight fighter on the roster, or probably one of the guys said, one of the UFC VPs, not Dana, not Lorenzo, but one of the other VPs of the UFC was telling me, like their offer, like, oh, hey, we gave you this offer, but if you look at it, you know, it makes you the highest paid lightweight, obviously not the bell holder.

I think it was like top, top seven for the wealth wage, something like that. I don't remember exactly, so I don't be quoted on that, but it was around that range. You know, you used to came with a strong offer, but it's the intangible. It's the, you know, sponsorships. There's other things. It's not just the base price. The base price, the winning show money, that's the,

probably the last thing that was, not the last thing, but one of the lower things I was considered, you know, because there's a lot of other intangibles that go into a contract. And Bellsore came with a lot of other high intangibles that the UFC just couldn't quite, you know, match. Are you a fan about, like, have you been following Belvoir? You know, I don't know, Will Brooks, their lightweight champion, just tweeted to you, I'm your Huckleberry, which is kind of a nod to something that you like to say to people. Are you excited about particular matchups?

Is he at the top of that list? What are your thoughts on the promotion as it stands right now? My thoughts on the promotion, I have watched Bellator. They're a great organization. They've been around for a while. They do things very well. They position themselves. They do think smart, and they position themselves very well

to have to test these next couple of years to be able to negotiate and have the funds to back it up and be able to offer fighters, different things that other organizations. might not be able to match or to offer these fighters, you know. So I'm really excited about, you know, the opportunities I'm going to have at Bellator, if Iacom. And, you know, as far as the weight classes, 55, 70, man, I'm coming to make me a close. I'm coming to make some waves.

So 55, 70, anybody there, you guys know me, anybody, anytime, anywhere. And some people just talk that. A lot of people just say, oh, yeah, anytime, anywhere. and yada, yada, yada, yada, and then UFC or somewhere at my last mold, you want to fight, you know, two weeks from now, and then what's their answer? Oh, no, I just make wait, or, oh, no, I can't do this. I can't, I can't, yada, yada. No, I'm not like that. When I say anytime anywhere, I meet it, and I'm coming after belts in Bellator, so whoever has the belt at 55 Will Brooks, the bell holder, I won't have, I'm coming after him, too.

I'm just excited, man. It's, like, you know, anytime you go somewhere new, different, you have your period of being finally nervous. and that sort of stuff. I reach the point where I'm just excited. I'm excited for the opportunity. I'm excited for new things. No more rematches, no this, no that old stuff, you know. But for me, it's all brand new.

It's exciting, man. I can't get over how excited I am to enter this chapter. After your win over Mazvedal, you said that you intend on retiring in the UFC. Is that still the plan or has it changed now? It's a fluid. It's a fluid plan. Okay. That changes in it goes.

with the course. Belator, I hear great things about Belator. I imagine I'm not going to have any problems at Belator, and I won't have any fuss from their lawyers or anything like that. So if it comes down to it and this is the last contract, then this is the last contract, and that'll be retiring from Belator. If there's one more contract after this, then, you know,

that's the whole problem also. I can do one more contract after this with whoever, you know. But that's a long ways away. That's a long ways away, so we'll see. Okay, so then let me ask you this, because you know I pay attention to this stuff. You have long said that you want to retire at 33 or 32. Is that still the plan? That's the part I'm having a hard time with.

There's some other things. There's a lot of the things I wanted to do before I got to be too old, so to speak, and I was capped by age limit. I'm going to see if I can still sneak those things in. It might be kind of hard for me. but I was talking, I was in conversation with, I was able to get a hold of some of the higher higher ups of what I want to do, and they were open to, they say they can make special conversations to allowing someone of a higher age than their age limit get in.

Oh, what are you referring to? What are you referring to? I feel a strong civic duty. I've always had a strong civic sense. I always wanted to, you know, give up myself to my country. So whether that's, you know, everyone always says, oh, I was going to join the Army, I was going to join the Marines, I was going to join something.

For myself, there's a limit to how old you can be when you join the Army or the Marines or the Air Force or something like that. But for myself, I wanted to retire up at age because you can still sneak in before the H-CAP at an age limit. But I was able to talk to some of the higher ups and they said that they do make special conversations to let people in who are over the age, you know. So if I can do that, I'll be going past 33. Wow, so you want to join the Army?

We'll see. We'll see. I want to say that exactly because it's going to get all in the Army or whatever. But I feel a strong to the Pacific sense. Wow. I've always felt that way. It's something I think every person, whether you're a man or woman, you should give back to your country, you should in some way, shape, or form, you know,

whether it's, you know, whatever it is you decide, something to do. And for me, I think I could help a lot with armed forces. I was sponsored by a body arm, body armor company, so I did a lot of stuff for our troops. I love all our soldiers, all our Marines, all our seamen, all of our Marines. And I've done a lot of things with armed forces before, and I would like to give back to our country, to my country. By the way, a quick side note.

Love the moment after Brian's win on Saturday where you seem to have gone up to Sage. We have a great photo of that from Esther Lynn. What did you say to Sage in that moment? I know you're just, you know, pretty heartbroken at that moment. So a lot of what someone says kind of goes in one year and out the other. But I was trying to get his attention, get him to really listen to what I was saying.

I was saying, hey, man, sucks. We all do. It happens to everybody. But use it. Use it to help make you a better fighter. Don't let this be a defining moment. Let this be a small step to making you better. Let it help you fuel you to drive you to do things that you don't want to do.

Normally you want to, for boxers, they want to box when they get into MMA, and they want to do the ground game. Let it fuel you to be your drive to get in there and do judicial classes. Put a Gion for judicious guys who get into MMA. And they just want to do ground stuff all the time. They want to hit mid, you know, if they lose, you know, let that fuel you. Let it fire you up to get in there and get in your mid sessions, you know. So I was just trying to express them, you know, to bounce back to stay strong.

And, you know, yeah, just all that nature. It was kind of hard, it's kind of quick, you know. I was only able to talk to about 30 seconds or so. So I try to, you know, express all that in less words. By the way, I didn't ask you this before I let you go. When do you want to debut? As soon as possible. I want to debut next weekend, if possible.

Okay. Where the next Beltor, sure, where it's next year, I'm ready to go. When I say I'm in the gym all the time, I'm always training. I'm not lying. I'm in the gym all the time. I'm always going to be ready. So I want to get this, you know, get this show on the road. I want to get in there.

I want to put those Beltor gloves. I want to get in that cage and go have a great performance. Well, a fun little moment here. We actually have the president of Belator. MMA, Scott Koker on the line. I thought it would be nice if he can officially now welcome you to the team. Scott, are you there?

Yeah, I'm here. Scott, we got Benson on the line as well. How's it going, how are you? Yeah, I'm so happy that you signed with us. You'd be a great asset to our company. And believe me, of all the free agents that are out there, I said to my guys, we've got to go after Benton.

He's our number one target. So welcome aboard and welcome to the family, and we're going to have a lot of good fun together. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. I'm excited for these next couple of years, man. It's going to be great. Okay, well, that was a beautiful moment right there. I'm going to pepper Scott with many more questions now. So Benson, I will let you go. Can't thank you enough for coming on and talking about this with us first. And most importantly, congratulations to you and your family. One of my favorites ever to cover. You're a class act, my friend. You deserve it and then some. So I'm really happy for you and this new deal.

Good luck in your debut. I'll probably talk to you before them. But good luck and congratulations again, my friend. All right. Thanks on, Ariel. I appreciate it, buddy. All right. We'll talk to you soon. There he is the newest member of the Belator MMA team, Benson Henderson. He has now officially signed with them. He is joining the team sooner rather than later. So who better than Scott to ask when he will be debuting with Belator. Scott? Again, thank you for the time. Congratulations on this news. When will Benson Henderson make his Belator debut? You know what, Ariel, that's still up in the air.

But, I mean, we've, you know, got the contract in not even 24 hours ago. And, you know, we're going to meet with Rich and the guys today. But I think that you'll see Benson, you know, fighting probably in the next, you know, two months. That's kind of our game plan. And who he's fighting and where he's fighting. We really don't know yet. But as soon as we know, I'll let you know first. So, you know, you said something very interesting to Benson.

You said that of all the free agents, he was the one that you really had your eye on. Why him? Why did he intrigue you so much? Boy, I tell you, this guy has done it all. He's fought everybody. You know, we had some really good lightweights in Strike Force with Josh Thompson and Gilbert Melendez. And, you know, he beat both of those guys. He had some epic battles. And he's dug nobody. And I've always liked him because he's such a class act and such a great guy, too.

I thought he'd be a great fit for our company. And I told my guys, listen, I really want to get this kid. So let's go out and get him. And I'm so glad that we did. How was the process, you know, considering the fact that you wanted him? Was it, you know, was it tense at times? Were you confident from the get-go that there was a good match there? Like, you know, this is a new thing.

And, you know, I have to say, Scott, I think that this is the most significant signing by another promotion. As far as a UFC fighter, you know, going to sign somewhere. else since you signed Dan Henderson to strike force. I really feel that. And you could make the case that it's even bigger, considering the fact that he's a former UFC champion and whatnot. How was the process for you? Yeah, I mean, the process was back and forth, back and forth.

I mean, you know, the fighters have choices now. I mean, they could stay where they're at or they could come over here. And, you know, we, I think we made a compelling argument of why we would be a really good home for him. And, you know, at the end of the day, he decided to sign with us. and, you know, we got some good fights from out there, and, you know, we're excited. But, you know, at the end of the day, Errol, I think this is just a tip of the iceberg. And, you know, fighters are fighting the contracts out. They want to negotiate.

They really want to see what their value is. And we're going to help them, you know, define what that value is. Because it's always healthier for the industry to have more than one bidder. And, you know, I think that we're going to be out there. We're going to bid for the guys that we want. Some of the free agents we won't bid for, and some we will, some will get, some we won't, and that's just the nature of this business. And I've always said, look, we're going to build our roster from the ground up,

and then we're going to buy the free agents from the top down that we want. And that's really our game plan, and it's worked for me in the past, and I'm bringing that formally here to Bellator. Why do you think that this is the thing now, that fighters are starting to, you know, want to just play out the contract, they may resign, they may not? Why do you think that this has become a trend all of a sudden? Well, you know, I think that, you know, they want to see what their value is. And at the end of the day, the fighter, you know, wants to make money and provide for his family and have a future.

And so I think that, you know, we're definitely a company that can help accomplish those goals. And, you know, it's like they want to test it out. They say, okay, well, what do you want to pay me? Well, what are you going to pay me? And it's not just about money, but, you know, a lot of times it is about money. and we don't have some restrictions that maybe other leagues have. You know, we don't have a, you know, a t-shirt deal that they have to wear. Right.

You know, we let them go get their own sponsors so they can make even more money. So, you know, we have a little bit more freedom and we're not as restrictive. And I think that's attractive to a lot of fighters today. You mentioned maybe this becoming a trend. You're going to, anyone else you could tell us that you're interested? There's a lot of interesting names out there right now. Yeah, there are. And, you know, we are talking to a lot of, a lot of,

free agents out there and we will make some offers on some, some we won't. And, you know, it's a constant negotiation process. Yeah. But, you know, we made it, you know, pretty publicly that we're talking to Vanley's to see what he's planned for the future. And, you know, we'll, you know, we're talking to all the other names that you know and we know out there that are free agents that are negotiating with both sides. So, you know, it's good.

I think that, listen, like I said, you need to have at least two bidders to keep an industry healthy. And we're going to do our part. Regarding Vanderlai for a second here, isn't that tricky because of his relationship with the Nevada Athletic Commission? Won't that be hard to promote him in America? Oh, yeah. I mean, he's going to have to clear all that up. Okay. You know, that's going to be part of the deal.

And, you know, I know that Ryzen wants to sign him as well. and, you know, so there's going to be a couple bidders out there for Vanley's services, but, you know, between Risen and, you know, Bellator, when he gets cleared in the U.S. to fight, you know, I think that Van der Leight could probably say pretty busy as busy as he wants. I know he's in Brazil right now, but when he comes back, we're definitely going to have a serious conversation. Back to Benson, do you think he'll debut at 155 or 170? That's really going to be up to him, but my understanding is that he, He, you know, wants to fight at 170.

Interesting. Because, as I said to him, Will Brooks, your champion at 155 seems very interested in that fight. And if you're asking me, I know you didn't ask me, but I feel like that's the most interesting fight right off the bat. Will Brooks, Benson Henderson. It doesn't sound like that's going to be his debut fight, though. Yeah, and it could be.

I mean, really, we are, you know, like I said, less than 24 hours a time. Yeah. And I still owe Benson a call. Just to talk to him about some of these details that you're asking me right now. So this all happened so quickly, and he wanted to break it on your show. So we said, okay, let's break it on Ariel. It would be a lot of fun. So, yeah, I mean, you know, happy to do it.

And he's a great kid. And after we get out the phone, I'm going to call him up, and we're going to have that conversation about weight class and time frame and venue and, you know, the whole thing. If you want, we could call him right back and we could do the conversation on the air right now. What do you think? You know what? I think that's a private conversation which you probably have.

Fair enough. Okay, well, let me ask you this. Has he warranted an immediate title shot? Would you be okay with that, or would you want to build him up a little bit? Oh, no. I mean, to me, it's really up to him. I mean, if he wants to go for the belt,

I mean, come on, the guy has done it all. Yeah. How could you say he doesn't deserve a shot? I mean, he's already been there and done that. So, for me, we would have no problem doing it. Can you just do me a favor? Can you tell him no more toothpicks while you're fighting? I know it's a commission thing, but it just kind of freaks me out.

I'm afraid he's going to puncture his throat. It's a very dangerous thing. He's an unbelievable guy for being able to pull this off, but it's not, I don't feel like it's very safe. I'm going to tell him, Ben, you know, Ariel's really worried, so we need to stop this behavior. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Hey, by the way, a great show on Friday.

Paul Daly wins. He goes, you know, he starts going back and forth with Kosteck, who's in his hometown. It was a very fun scene. Are we going to do that fight next, or do you still want Josh to have another fight before potentially fighting Paul? No, you know, I got to talk to Josh about that, but our goal really is, you know, to have that fight happen as soon as Kashak's healthy. And so we're hoping sometime in the summertime, maybe we'll put those guys together. And we've been very public about that saying that's the fight we really want, the fight that the fans want to see. And we're going to put it together at some point in 2016.

And what about Melvin Galard's situation? Is he without an opponent for February 19th? You know what? Right now he is, but we're going to fix that today. Oh. Do you want to announce something? Well, we haven't, we don't have anything signed. Otherwise, I would, you know, break it on your show.

But I could definitely let you know, you know, through text later today or tomorrow. Is it Pitbull? He's been really campaigning for that. He won in a pretty devastating fashion. Does he have a shot? You know what? it's definitely a possibility, but you know, I got to sit back and

talk to the guys here and figure out who is going to be. But we just don't have anything to announce on that fire. Okay. Is it true that your voice is hoarse because you were cheering on your Golden State Warriors against my New York Knicks last night? You know, we had you. We were winning in the first quarter. I don't know if you saw that, 2018.

I was watching. I was watching. Is that what's going on? Why does your voice sound the way it does? Yeah, you know what? It's not a funny story, but when I came back from Japan a month ago, I got a little bit sick and the flu, had pneumonia, the whole thing. So it's been a constant battle. But I'm finally through the back end of this thing,

and the only thing lingering is my voice. Sounds like Barry White. Yes, I actually like it. It's very soothing. But I feel fine. I'm ready to go, man. I'm really excited about 2016. I mean, we got the Hoist Gracie Houston fight against Ken Jamrock,

Kimball Slice. You know, we got some good things we're going to announce in the summer here coming up. We got San Jose to announce. So we're excited about this year. And believe me, our roster is just going to grow and grow and grow. And by the end of this year, I think we're going to have a really good roster on our hands and have some big fights ahead of us. Is there any concern honestly?

And I know some people say, I felt like this one is authentic. Is there any concern security-wise about Kimbo and Dada? If I had Kimbo on my show, he did not seem like he's a huge fan of the guy, and that's putting it mildly. Like, are you guys going to have to beef it up in Houston on fight? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, I learned my lesson on the last one.

That's true. We're going to keep them at separate hotels, and, you know, we're going to have security for those guys. And it's going to be locked down. Everybody's going to be locked down the minute we get to Houston. So we're not going to take any chances. and we're going to let them get in the cage and see who the better man is. Kimbo now holds the record for the most watched Bell Tour event on Spike. Will you be disappointed if this one, considering the names, doesn't break it?

You know what? I have high hopes, and I think that we can break it. But, you know, it's going to have to be a situation where we go and we prove ourselves and promote this properly. And wait until you see the back pieces that Spike TV and, our digital department have created about Hoyce and the past and has great footage of his father. And just, I mean, just amazing footage that I've never seen before. And it really was a historical documentary on his life and the whole MMA scene back in 93. And then before that, his battle with Ken.

But the footage of his father training and fighting and grappling, I mean, it was a magic, magic, footage there and uh and then we got some great pieces on kimbo coming out and thought of coming out and you know i think by by the time uh february 19th rolls around this whole country is going to know about the fight and and we're hoping for a big tuning number back to the benson deal for a second um this may not be a story that comes to mind when people are talking about it but for you personally and perhaps the team that you brought in is this a major milestone in the in the sense that like now you got bellator to the point where they can be in play for a guy like benson

Henderson, not a guy coming off of two, three losses, coming off of wins, former champion in multiple organizations. Like, do you feel like this is the snowball effect? This is the beginning of that. This is the feather in your cap that you needed to now go out and tell other people like, look, Benson's here, this guy jumped. You can jump as well. Do you view it that way?

I think that, you know, all these free agents that are out there are not just testing free agency, just to test it. I mean, there, you know, there's other fighters out there that I think that we'll get, and, you know, fighters are going to fight out their contracts, because. because they want to see what they're worth, what the value is. And that's going to go both ways. I mean, that's not going to just happen, you know, from one league to our league. It's going to happen from our league to other leagues as well.

And that's really what I think is going to happen. But, you know, I mean, Phil Davis, I think, was a great signing. Yeah. And, you know, he's had tremendous value in Bellator winning the tournament. And, you know, Benson. But Benson is probably, you know, the most accomplished, you know, free agent that we've signed. But, you know, is it going to have a snowball effect? What it will do is it will have a big situation where we're all going to have conversations with these people.

And like I said, some fighters that we really want will go after. Some fighters we might not want and we might not go after. So it all depends and it's going to be on a per case basis. But listen, we're really excited to have this guy on our team. And he has done it all and fought everybody. and, you know, beat my two guys, which I thought were really, really good. And those were close fights. Don't get me wrong, but, you know, at the end of the day, he was a champ, and he stayed the champ.

But for him that come over to Bellator, I think it will set a little bit of precedence as, hey, you know, you can go over there and you can have a good home, too. It doesn't have to just be the one buyer. Now there's two buyers. Right. By the way, Chris Levin, interested in him? You know what? I'm not sure I think that Rich is talking to as management, but I'm not sure how serious it is right now. Okay. All right. Well, this is a very big day for Bellator. Again, congratulations, Scott.

What a 24 hours for you. You beat the best team in the NBA via pretty big margin, the Knicks. And then you signed Benson Henderson. Wow. Your luck continues to get better. Well done. I tell you, I'm telling you, man. I'm excited about the Warriors and I'm excited about Benson Henderson. Yeah, this is huge. This is a very interesting time. Congratulations. Congratulations. I think the world of Benson have enjoyed covering him and watching him fight since the WC days. One of the very best at 155 and at 170. I think they have him wrong in the rankings, to be honest. That's a different discussion for a different day. But yeah, this is huge for you guys, and I'm very curious to see where he debuts and which division against two. Super interesting stuff. So again, thank you for the platform and for coming here and for talking about it with us first.

Congratulations to the whole team and looking forward to what else you have up your sleeve. by the way, good luck February 19th in Houston as Hoyce Gracie and Ken Shamrock meet for the third time and Kimbo Slices meets that at 5,000 that taking place at the Toyota Center. Appreciate it, Scott. Hey, my pleasure, Errol any time, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

All right, there is, Scott Coker. President of Bellator MMA stopping by a big afternoon for them, a big signing. Benson Henderson has officially joined Bellator MMA. Okay, let's move along now as we talked earlier in the show. Big show for the UFC on Saturday They were in Newark. Of course, big story that night. Brian Barbarina defeating Sage Northcut,

first loss for the 19-year-old Super Sage Northcut. And how about this? He has agreed to join us right now on the show, showing a lot of poise and maturity and appreciate that wholeheartedly. Sage, thank you very much for coming on. How are you doing? Thanks, Mr. Hawaii. I'm doing good. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure, as always. So how can you put the last 36, six hours or so into words. What has it been like for you coming off your first pro loss? So first off, sorry if my voice sounds a little bit funny, I don't want to make excuses for my poor performance out there, but I actually had strep throat three times in the past four months. And then when I actually got down to New Jersey, I had been on multiple different

antibiotics. And then in New Jersey, two days before my fight, I had a real bad relapse of the strep throat and I had to go to the emergency ready clinic where the UFC had to take me and then Dr. D actually had with the UFC had to write a prescription for me for more antibiotics stuff like that so really I really couldn't explain how I felt out there I felt really horrible obviously don't want to pull out of a fight before going out there to actually fight that's that's not good and I just had a hard time breathing out there I really wasn't myself so that wasn't the sage that you would normally see out there in the octagon and even after the first 30 seconds or the minute out there in the octagon, I couldn't breathe.

It felt like my legs were cement, and it just wasn't me out there. So I know that I'll be coming back better than ever, and I'm still healing up from being sick. So in a few days, I'm going back to the doctor again and trying to heal up from all this. What did that do for your confidence in the fight? Like when you knew then the first 30 seconds, you just weren't yourself, you weren't feeling like yourself. Did that start to play tricks on your mind? No, sir. It really didn't play tricks in my mind.

mind. It's just that when I was out there, I was really the main thing is I was having a hard time breathing. And also, I had to, like even Jeff Nivinsky, Mr. Nivinsky with Usada, we had to call up him. My coach said to call up him, even call up the UFC and figure out what kind of medicine I could take. My nose and nasal congestion was, that's probably why I sound kind of funny right now, was so clogged up and bad that I had to take a bunch of different medicines and different things that I could underneath the Usada rules to try to be able to breathe out there. And also my ears, it sounds crazy,

but I really couldn't hear anything. And I know, I don't know if you've had strept out or anybody that you know has ever had strep throat, but anybody that I know that ever has strep throat, they really can't even get out of bed to go to work. So it's definitely, it was definitely pretty tough, but I'll be back better for sure. How close were you to actually pulling out of the fight?

So once actually my original opponent broke his foot to fight at 155, we got a fight scheduled at 170. So I was already sick at the time. And I figured in sort of my coaches, they also figured that going down, cutting the weight, it'd probably be best even to fight at 170. That's okay because having my body drained with the energy of having strep throat, having to relapse with that coming, that being able to eat more food and not have to cut weight would actually help out my body and recover a little bit more, and hopefully I would feel better out there. So obviously, having the relapse of the streptode and everything, just two days

before the fight, going to the emergency care clinic with the UFC, it wasn't what we thought, I guess, trying to recover is the same. So I guess I'm starting to get better now and heal up, but I know next fight around I'll be good. Hindsight's always 20-20, but in hindsight, you wish you didn't take the fight. Well, the thing, yes, sir, well, the thing is you obviously, with the UFC, having a fight like that and having to reschedule a last-minute thing, moving up a weight class, you're there to fight. So that's my job. You don't want to pull out of the fight when you have so many people and fans and friends, family, everybody, especially the UFC being my job, to be able to go out there and fight for them. You don't want to pull out and have that ruin the outcome of the event for the amount of people that came to support you and watch you and support you and everything.

So that once have been good. And obviously, you never want to pull out of that. At least I won it. So go out there fighting. I thought I could do it. And I wish I wasn't sick out there. I know I would have been in a different stage, different me out there fighting. I know you're only 19, but you've been competing for a very long time.

A lot of people might not recognize that. Have you ever felt this way in a fight before? where you were battling just a normal thing like breathing? No, no, sir. I've never felt like that ever before. It felt like really, believe it or not, not just the breathing. It felt like I couldn't concentrate. I wasn't my normal self.

I was having a real hard time hearing. Like you can imagine like if you fly on an airplane and your ears get stopped up where they feel like they have to pop, it felt like that, but times two or three where I couldn't even hear my coaches what they were saying. even like face to face I couldn't hear anything coming up the week for the UFC

I always try to keep a smile on my face and act like there was nothing going on so that way no one would know that was even sick or anything like that the UFC knew I was sick because I had to go to the emergency clinic but really I was just laying down in bed and sleeping the whole time coming up to the event

besides going out and doing the media that I got to do and had to do for the UFC Yeah what were you like in the locker room like in the minutes and hours before the fight Were you freaking out? You're always very calm, cool, and collected, but were you kind of freaking out, given the state of your health? Yes, sir.

It was a little weird to tell you the truth. And back there, I actually had to do, I had this nose spray. I've never even used nose spray before. Special kind of nose spray, I'd take these decongestant pill things. They didn't actually really work. So my voice sounds funny, couldn't really breathe and talk, and I was up to spray this stuff in my nose to be able to try to breathe better before we went to the event. And that didn't really seem to work, but I tried it.

And so that was a little weird. I just didn't feel like myself even coming into the event. And I'll always try to keep a smile on my face and, of course, have fun out there, but I wasn't myself. So, of course, the finish has been much talked about because we don't often see finishes like that where the fighter who's in control is applying the submission, is in either half guard or full guard, not quite side control. when trying to score the arm triangle. There have been a lot of theories thrown out. You panicked. You've never been in that position before.

But let's hear it from you. Why did you tap when you did? What did it feel like? So, sorry. So really, it wasn't the fact about panicking. I felt very calm. The thing was having the hard time breathing and having a mouthpiece in when it really felt like my energy level,

it wasn't the same energy level like I would even have. I fought as a 155 or really. Wayne 170 is what I weighed when I walked out there, actually. Just like I weighed in at the wayings. I got to eat breakfast coming into the wands and stuff. I'd already cut my weight pretty much coming into the event. So I didn't have my same strength as I had. But when he was on top of me, it was having his shoulder, I guess, in my throat for that.

I know it wasn't like a traditional head and arm choke from side control. We get to really apply the same kind of pressure. But just being able to have your jaw shut and then trying to breathe your nose for this time during the fight, I was so congested to tell you the truth that I couldn't even breathe, much less standing up really. That's why I wasn't able to move the same, wasn't able to keep the same. What I wanted to do and what I thought in my head about doing out there, I wasn't able to actually act it out and do it because my body wasn't able to keep up. and it was like your heart was racing because it's like breathing through a straw.

That's what it really felt like. So down there in that position, even though it may not have been the best lock and the hold, I was having such a hard time breathing that it was just as tight as what it might have been if I wasn't that kind of position if I was sick, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. It makes all the sense in the world. And I'm so happy that you were able to explain that. After the fight, you know, he celebrated and he celebrated the way he did.

in the moment, before you get to the back and everything, how are you dealing with it? Like right then and there, did it sink in right away that you had just lost? I know you felt horrible about it all, but how did you deal with it internally? Yes, sir. I felt like I let everybody down and let the UFC down. I let myself down for obviously doing that. I know I went up away class to fight, and I went in there sick, which many people did not know about me going there and coming over a strep throat and then relapse and just it was a hard

even me get out of the bed doing the media coming up to the event and like the open workout and stuff like that always trying to keep a smile on my face so I went out there and fought but afterwards I know I have a lot to learn so I'm definitely going to learn a lot and I'm excited to go to Canada and go train at a try start and learn as much as I possibly can so I'm definitely to be learning a lot and be the best that you've ever seen me for the next fight will you be going there full time now yes sir I'll be I'll be up there full time and look at like I have, I do have school work still because I'm still at Texas A&M, so I'm trying to figure out how exactly that's going to work if I need to come back to do certain tests and

quizzes or how that's going to work out. So I'm still playing out that schedule, but yes sir, I'll be training at TriStar. Now, have you paid attention to social media at all? Have you seen the reaction good or bad to this loss? A little bit, yes, sir. Not too much. I made a post on my Instagram and my Twitter. my Instagram and my Twitter and I got to see a lot of positive things

that were uplifting so that's always nice to hear some comments from the champion at 155 Raphael de Sanchos Donald Serroney he's awesome just so many different people

that are so nice and sticking up for me so it really means a lot I know you're sticking up for me and just all the support it means a lot Yeah, and you talked about this actually on Thursday where you said if you see something negative, you just move on to the next one. But as you may have heard, a lot of the fans, we know that they're going to be this way.

They're like this all the time. It's a part of the game. But a lot of your fellow fighters sort of celebrating the loss and the way in which you lost, do that hurt you at all? Were you, does it break your heart? Does it bother you? How do you react to something like that? Because it's a rare thing to see. Right, yes, sir.

And no one ever likes that, that someone's celebrating, that someone lost. So obviously, sorry, it was kind of hard for me. No, it's nice. Obviously, it's not something that you want to hear, you don't want to listen to, but, I mean, it's a sport of MMA, so I understand, I mean, they're talking this or that or whatever, it might not be positive about me, but there's people that are lifting me up and saying great things. So I'm focused on those things.

and I know that I have a ton of heart out there So if people think that I was tapping out there Because I panache or I pressured, it wasn't that It was the fact that I was extremely sick I actually stepped up to fight up a whole weight class Step up to fight while I was actually sick Which people didn't know And coming over strept throat

Actually have a strept throat in the octagon So just all those different things Barely be able to breathe I felt like you're breathing through a straw Not be able to breathe really on the ground at all like taking like a little whizzing breaths, does that make sense? Just I had to step up so much to be able to do that. And for the next fights to come, hopefully I'm, hopefully I'm completely well,

I'm not going to be sick, and I'm going to be training smart and learning as much as I possibly can. Why do you think that at this point you're such a polarizing figure in the sport? Like, it's amazing. You were the top story coming out of that, and you're so young and you're new to the game. And like I said, you don't often see the fighters react this way. Why do you think that is? Do you think it is because of your purse, how much you make? Is it another reason?

Why do you think that is? Oh, thank you. I think it could be because I'm very young, like you said. I'm very young. I do have a lot to learn. So now I'm going to get to go up to try to start and learn as much as I possibly can. And I think that has a big fact of everything. Just being 19 years old and being able to be in the UFC has a big effect on every single thing that people look at.

So I'm honored and blessed to be in the UFC, much less be 19 years old in the UFC, knowing that I have so much time to learn, so much technique to learn everything all around and make myself better. I think that has to do with what people are looking at or picking at. I know not that long ago you asked Benson Henderson if he gave you permission to use his walkout song, which was a respectful thing to do. And then there's a great picture, as we talked about with Benson, taken by our Esther Lin, where it's clear that he's telling you something after the fight.

And his guy beat you, so he's obviously happy, but I thought it was really cool of him to come up to. Do you remember what he said to at all? And did you appreciate the fact that he did so? Oh, absolutely, yes, sir. So I appreciate the fact that he lets me use a song, Awesome God, because I'm a Christian and just be able to use a song. That means a lot to me having a song of worship,

just going out there in the Octagon. So that's very nice of him. Him coming up to me afterwards and tell me to keep my head up. pretty much what all the great fighters have been saying and the UFC that had been supporting me and backing me up and all the people that have their support behind me. So that was very nice for him to say. And he's just a very, very nice guy. And I'm very thankful that he was saying something nice and positive for me and lifting me up.

Did you get a chance to talk to Dana White after the fight? And if so, what did he say to you? I got to see Mr. White after the fight just only for a second. and so obviously I was telling them how I told everybody I felt like I let everybody down let the UFC down and Mr. White along with the UFC Mr. Da Vinci, Dr. D who's the doctor for the UFC, they all know that how sick I was coming into the fight that had a relapse and my coaches actually had to contact Mr. White speaking about Mr. White had to contact him a few days before the fight to take me to the emergency ready clinic for my strep throat and the relapse.

and everything, my congestion, every single thing. So he knows all about that. And he was just, he was obviously happy that I was, I was stepping up and take the fight in a high-of-weight class and staying in it while I'm sick. So, um, that was very nice of him. I see you got some stitches, right? Oh, just a little tiny one. Is that the first time in your fighting career that you've had stitches? Yes. Yes, sir, first time. How do you feel about it? It's okay. It's very little. Hopefully never happens again. By the way, a few people said this to me over the weekend, but I wanted to ask you, because there's always these crazy rumors about you for whatever reason.

Do you spar leading up to fights, or is it true that you don't? No, sir. Normally, I do not spar leading up to fights, and it's just kind of protecting yourself from injuries. And for the moment being, I haven't been at a gym where there is any sparring or any MMA fighters actually at the gym. So the gym that I'm specifically at is a Gracie Vaha gym. So in the future, obviously, I will, I can spar and train my technique in different ways,

go up a TriStar, getting different training partners, different UFC fighters that are in there, very well talented, and getting to learn the most I can out of everything. Okay. What's necessary? Yeah, absolutely. I know you said you wanted to fight three times, get another fight in before your 20th birthday. But that was a pretty amazing stretch for you. Only in the UFC, like October, December, January.

In hindsight, again, do you feel like you put too much on your plate? No, sir. I don't feel like I put too much on my plate. The only thing is I may have overrun my body just a little bit, maybe with the training, to be able to come down. I never get sick normally, but coming down with the sickness like this. Yeah. Like I mentioned, having a strep throat three times and four months.

that that's pretty crazy and I wish I could show you a picture on my phone of my my tonsils or I don't know if you can really see my tonsils but they have it's pretty gross they have all this this white stuff that's falling like the little pockets of my tonsils so I might actually have to go get my tonsils removed oh wow which is pretty crazy I'm not to see how that works exactly because that's that's really bad so um just just coming off of that if if I would have been well I would have been a different stage out there and then obviously, I'm just going up away class, that's obviously different. If I would have fought a 155, that could have been better and just being a totally different, me out there, being my normal

self. Have you thought about when you'd like to return, if you'd like to take an extended break now? What are you thinking? Well, I am going to let this heal up just for just for a little bit until it's strong. And I haven't really thought about it too much. I would like to go down a try start coming up soon, so probably within the next month, and then be able to figure out what I'm going to do at school at the same time. So try and try to start long enough, get my technique, add the things I need to correct, make myself better, and everywhere that's necessary, and then get a fight in when I can. All right, well, you know, I feel bad making you talk so much, especially with your throat

bothering you, so I will let you go, Sage. But again, kudos to you, my friend. A lot of people wouldn't come on and talk about a loss less than 48 hours later, especially with the pressure that you are under. I really respect you and I really respect the way you handle yourself. You're an unbelievable young man and you're a role model for a lot of people out there and it's great that you don't let the negativity affect you. So keep your chin up, my man. Nothing to be ashamed of. You've done a heck of a lot at 19 years old and I'm looking forward to seeing you grow into a tremendous fighter, especially going to a great team like that. Again, don't worry about it. Just let it go, move on and you don't need me to tell you that because you're doing a great job

of dealing with it all. Appreciate you coming on. Get well soon. and we'll talk to you very soon, looking forward to it as always. Thanks, Mr. Hawwani. I appreciate it. You're the man. There he is. Sage Northcutts stopping by. Like I said, very rare to see someone, anyone, after a loss come on, let alone 48 hours later. Cudos to him. He is a special kind of kid, and he is just a kid, and it's important to remember that. And it's not that he has to play by different rules because he's 19. But that's just, you know, especially now, I'm 33 years old,

looking at a 19-year-old kid who's, you know, put himself out there and he's taking all the good, so the bad comes with it as well. There is absolutely no doubt about that. But at the end of the day, he is just 19 years old. And I don't think it's bad to say that 19-year-olds, you know, should be subjected to the different set of rules. It's a freaking kid.

Took a fight on short notice, on Fox. He was sick. Come on. I understand the vitriol from the fans. I understand you see a guy who's getting all this attention. He looks the way he does. He's so positive. Where's where's the, where's the catch? Where's the negativity? Where is it? It's in order to be found. It's a crazy. In our world, we think, there's got to be a catch. There's got to be a catch. So he loses and he loses in that fashion. I understand the fans reacting. The ones that

disappoint me, and they have every right, you have every right to react the way you want to react. You can be jealous. It's fine. No one's telling you not. But the ones that disappointed me were the fellow fighters. You should be happy, especially if you're in his division. You should be happy that he's making the money that he's making. You should be happy that he's getting the attention that he's getting. Rising tide lifts all boats.

Fighters need to stop thinking, yeah, certain guys are going to get push more. That's the fight game. And if you don't like it, give us a reason. to push you more. Give us a reason to talk about you more. Give the UFC a reason to get behind you more. It's on you. It's not just about wins or losses. It's not. If you thought that that was the case by now, you are sorely mistaken and someone needs to wisen you up. You're seeing it more and more guys getting out there and doing what they need to do to get fans emotionally invested in them. Sage, without even trying, did that. And yeah, he had a lot of help from the UFC. Absolutely. A ton of help from the

UFC and Dana White in particular. But look, the number speak for themselves. People are interested in them for whatever reason. Maybe because he appears to be superhuman. I don't know. And maybe that was the appeal of him losing the way he did. But for his fellow fighters to celebrate his demise, that to me was surprising. And maybe it shouldn't have been. Everyone's trying. There are guys who have been fighting for 10 years dreaming about that spot, dreaming about that money. I think it's a bad look to openly celebrate that. Do whatever you got to do in the privacy of your home with your family and friends, but to openly celebrate someone's misstep is just a bad look. And to me, it speaks more about you. It's not a good look. I thought he handled that very well.

We'll talk about that a little more in the show. For now, let us go to our last guest of the day. You know, it's interesting. We go from the super young, Sage Northca to a man who just called it quits. Nothing to be ashamed of as well. A great run in the UFC, as I said. One of my favorites to watch throughout the years. And a man who is waking up rather early. to join us, which I appreciate greatly. It is around 7.09 a.m. Tuesday morning in Sydney, Australia. The hippo Anthony Perosha is joining us right now. Anthony, how are you? Good, good. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you for the time. I appreciate it. Looking forward to talking to you. So you announced last Sunday, not this past Sunday, last Sunday, that at 43 years young, you have decided to call it quits, that you're walking away from the sport of MMA. Why did you decide to do that now? You know, like you said, I'm 43 years old, and, you know, the last, you know, even the last two, three years, you know, a lot of interviews ask me, you know, when you're going to retire, when you're going to retire. And I always tell them, you know, when one of three things happen, you know, if my body can't keep up with the training, you know, I'll give it away. If I, if I lose more than I win, you know, I'll give it away. and the last one is, you know, if I don't want it mentally, if I don't, you know, 100% want it, you know, I'll give it away.

And this last camp in particular was really hard mentally and just kept second guessing myself during training, you know, do I want it? Do I want? Do I, yes, I do, no, I don't. And I knew after I lost the last one, that it was time to give it away. And that was UFC 193 not that long ago against John Volante. in the cage that mid-morning afternoon. It was on, you know, it was on a Sunday, of course. Did you know right then and there that that was it for you? Yeah, halfway through the camp, you know, about a month before, I said, you know, I was telling myself... Oh. Did we lose you? Anthony, are you there? Oh, okay. Let's shut that off. That's a nice sound. All right, we'll get Anthony back on.

Coming off that loss to John Volante, that's his second loss in the row in the UFC, second loss in a row, I should say, in the UFC. That was a first round, KO against John Valante at 256. Prior to that, he had lost to Sean O'Connell. But this is a guy who, some of you may forget, six years ago, almost exactly six years ago, a UFC 110. He took a fight on very short notice, just days notice, against Mirko Krocop. That was in Sydney.

and he took that fight at heavyweight, and Mirko was scheduled to be on the card. His opponent pulled out, and Anthony Poros, veteran of the sport, at that time he was 10 and 5, got the call and stepped up on super short notice, and who would have thought that it would have continued for him in the UFC for six years?

Probably his, he had some great ones. He had that 14-second knockout. I remember that one against Vinny Magalyesh, the one in which Vinny said that he would retire if he lost, of course, he didn't stick to that one. But we do have him on the phone right now. Anthony, are you there? Yes.

Okay. No problem. So I was asking, I think that's when we cut off. Did you know right then in the cage that that was it for you? Yeah, about halfway through that camera like a month before the fight. You know, I told myself, you know, mentally it was going to be my last match. and I was willing myself through that camp. Come on, Anthony, this is it.

It's the last fight, last camp. You know, let's do this. And, you know, I was hoping to go out on the win, but, you know, it wasn't to be. Oh, wow. So even if you would have won, you would have called it quits? Yes, yes. Wow.

Yeah, it was too much, like the last camp, was too much, like I said before, second-guessing myself. and in all my other fights like it's either been yep I want this I want this bad and you know I'm here to win but this last can was just different for some reason and I hated feeling like that

and I was desperately trying to think back to my past fights and past wins and how I felt like that I was trying to you know duplicate it and force almost force it but it just seems to make it worse sometimes So I knew about about a month before, like, during the camp that I was going to, I was going to retire. We'll lose.

In a sense, is that almost the, you know, the final confirmation? Like, I've often thought once a fighter commits to retire, when you have that foot out the door, it's often in your best interest to not fight. Like, like, in a way, did you almost think, like, you know what, maybe I shouldn't fight this fight? If I don't have it, if I'm even doubting myself for a second, that is a problem, did you consider pulling out of that fight? No, because not, not, when I say doubt, it was like, like, I want, I, I wanted to do the fight. I wanted to be my last fight, but, but I was more thinking,

doubting about the future. That's kind of what I was thinking about is doubting my longevity, you know, in the UFC, in the sports, and I knew that, you know, I hate doing things half-fast. So I want to make this a great show and best I could. And, you know, I went in for the win, but just, you know, didn't get it. You've been fighting since 2003. Did you think that you would last this long?

Like, did you feel like you were playing with the house's money here fighting at 43 years old? No, actually, I thought we were going to retire, like, about around 40-ish. but back around that time I had a couple of good wins in a row around that time so I thought no I'm not going to feel great and winning and going to keep going so I never really had a time you know how you know I wasn't going to say I was going to retire out of 10 years or 12 years or 15 years

it was just you know when it was time was time like in terms of you know for me it was just mentally and and it was time to return. tire. So, I've never actually had a chance to talk to you about this, but I love the story about you and UFC 110. Yeah, sure. You recall that?

Like, how, how many days was it? Was it less than a week? Was it two weeks? How many days out was it? It was two days. Two days. I remember, yeah, I was standing in the lobby. It was a day before Wayne, and I was just hanging out in the lobby with the other

fighters, and Joe Silver comes up to me, and he looks me up and down. He goes, do you want to fight? I went, yes, of course. He goes, do you want to fight Krokop? I go, no. And actually, I turned him down because on that car, there were three Croatian fires. I was born in Australia, but my parents are Croatian. So all the Croatian fires are actually training at my gym.

So, so Igor Pekiahs, Relych and Krokoop, they all trained at my gym in those few days before, UFC 110. And then, so I didn't want to fight Crow Cop. I consider him, you know, a friend. But then about two hours later,

I was, I was just sitting around. I thought, what have I done? I've just turned down fighting on the first UFC show in Australia on pay-per-view in front of a sell-out crowd

against one of top fires in the world. And Australia way, I called Joe Silver back up, said, you know, let's do it. I want to do it. Wow.

And that's how it happened. Did you think it was going to be one and done? Or did they tell you, you take this, you know, this fight and, all right, and then you can, you know, get a full camp under, like, how are you taking it? Um, I asked, I asked Joe Silver the same thing. And, you know, before the crow cop fight, he made a four-fight contract. Oh, wow. So, so the crow cop fight was the first one.

and then the second one you know UFC stuck to their word and they gave me you know a full camp for my next fight in the light heavyweight division and it was against another newbie

Tom Blackledge like you know myself and and so you know UFC stuck to their word and I'm sure if I lost that fight I would have been from the UFC but you know I won that one and the next couple as well

yeah and you went on a very nice streak the thing that I always enjoyed about watching you fight is that typically except for I think one time the beta fight your fights ended there was a finish

either way whether it was a submission but some of them I mean let's be honest some of them were like these spectacular finishes whether it was you knocking out Vinnie Magalyesha

unfortunately you were on the receiving end were there any health concerns at any point especially after the last two the last two knockouts about you know given your age and everything

just taking blows like that to the head no like I guess that's you know everyone, other people too, like I've said, you know, I'm glad you're retiring now. Like, you know, don't end up like, you know, other fighters out there. And, you know, I'm retiring with all my, with all my wits and healthy, healthy as, you know,

physically, mentally and emotionally. And so it's good. Yeah, so to answer your question, no, I didn't have any, there wasn't any bad concussions after the day after the fight. It was just like a normal day. so, you know, I was lucky there. But you didn't ever worry about that? No, no, no, not really.

You just kind of take it as part of the sport, and you do as, say, you know, being 43, like my whole camp is, you know, scheduled. So, you know, I want to make sure I know what I'm doing every day, you know, twice a day, what I'm doing during the classes and training. and you don't spy around. I'm not getting punched in the head every day for eight weeks in a camp. You know, you spire once a week, twice a week. And, you know, and with, you know, full padded protection as well.

So, you know, I make sure I take care of myself during training because that's really actually where the damage is done because a fight sometimes can last a short time or a long time. And, you know, I think the most damage is done at training. Looking back now, what's your favorite moment in the UFC? I have my personal favorite. What's yours? Well, I guess the first one is always, you know, my first win in the UFC was just, it was just such a, it was like a long time coming.

And it was just such a massive relief and, you know, elation for me, my first win in the UFC. But, you know, I think a close second is me knocking out Vinnie. Was it because of all the stuff you were saying leading up to the fight? Yeah, well, it definitely made the victory a lot sweeter. And back then, I was telling about how I felt meant to this last match. But, you know, a couple of years ago, and I was just 100% focused, you know, there was no chance of me in my mind losing that match.

And for him to say all that sort of thing and, you know, just really made the win a lot sweeter. Are you a little annoyed that he never stuck to his end of the deal and actually retired? Well, I knew, you know, unfortunately people, you know, run off their, run their mouth off a lot, you know, before thinking about what they're going to say. But at least the good thing was, you know, he was released from the UFC. So, for me, it's a win in my books. Fair enough.

So what does Anthony Proce do now? What are your plans? Now, you know, I'm fortunate enough. I have two really big MMA, BJJ schools here in Sydney. And I have about 650 students at the moment, you know, cross-boat schools. I've got a, you know, a good team of about 20 MMA fighters, you know, half pro, half amateur. So I'm hoping that my next goal, my next plan, you know, I've had 12 fights in the UFC, but I'm hoping to be in the UFC another 25, 30 times.

I'm hoping you see me a lot more of me, but this time, you know, walking behind my students. Sure. Any names we should look out for? Not yet. Not yet. They're all kind of newbies. So, you know, I think you'll probably see me in about, you know, three to five years' time, I think,

because they're all still around that five, you know, five, six matchmark. Okay. And, you know, they're getting to the top of the Australian division and maybe just need a couple of international matches and get to about 10 matches. So no one yet. What's the name? I hope it's called Team Hippo.

Oh, my nickname? No, no, the name of the team. Oh, no, no, my school is called SPMA. S-PMA, Sinic Parosh martial arts. Oh, so with Elvis Sinsic? Yes. Oh, that's great. He does some TV work I know in Australia.

Are you interested in that as well with Fox Sports, I believe? No, I have other goals myself and a few other little side projects, or martial arts related, but no, I'm not interested in that sort of thing. Fair enough, all right. Well, again, it was a lot of fun to watch you compete, Anthony, and I like the fact that you're now going to develop the team

and hope to get in the UFC. By the way, last quick thing, and especially when it comes to being a gym owner, and I know Sydney and Melbourne are two very different places and they're not that close, but did the boom of UFC 193 and what happened with Ronda Rouse and all that, have you noticed a trickle-down effect there? Like I know the UFC has been successful in Australian. In fact, they're going to Brisbane not that long from now,

but have you noticed an increase in interest? Did it go down? What's your take on it where it stands right now? Well, every UFC you always get that big spike. You know, for example, you know, the UFC was in November. So, you know, that Monday after, that week after, you know, I get a big spike in calls and emails saying, yeah, I want to be, you know, like, you know, Ronda Rouse or Holly Home or, you know, one of the other fighters.

But definitely, it's slowly coming up. But after every UFC, you always get a little increase. And then after every UFC, like, we always get, more, more, more. So, for example, you know, last year I'm only getting a few, but now it's really a big increase. All right. Anthony, wish you the best. Thank you so much for the time. Congratulations on a great career. I appreciate you waking up early. A lot of fun to watch you fight. I thank you very much. Sincerely always enjoyed it, because you always knew you're going to get something memorable. And, you know, you always broaden it. It's always fun to watch some of

the older fighters, you know, keep going and fighting hard and whatnot. so I always appreciated your efforts inside the cage and wish you the best with the new team. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thanks very much for the support. All right, there he is. Anthony Perosh stopping by from Sydney early there.

And so I appreciate him waking up as well and jumping on the phone with us. All right, that does it for today's set of interviews. I do understand that there have been a slew of technical difficulties. So if you happen to be watching this live, I don't know if you can even watch it live at this point. I apologize for that. Typically when this sort of thing happens,

the replay is all well and good, and we'll have that full thing up for you. The timing, I believe, was somewhat unfortunate, given the fact that we had the big Benson news. But, hey, these things are going to happen when you're streaming on the internet. We thank those who have been patient. We give a big one-finger salute to those who have not been so patient. Mr. New York, Rick, are you there?

I'm here. I don't feel like doing the Y'all must or forgot. Okay. Because then I'm just going to pepper you guys with questions, and it's just going to make me more upset. Sure. I'd rather go to the questions. So let's go to some questions.

Let's do it. Actually, let's take one beat for one second, and then we'll go to the questions. Pause now for station identification. Correct. All right. We're back. It would be nice if we had an actual sponsor there.

That would have been perfect. Actually get paid. We are sponsored by nobody. One day. Okay, here we go. First question. Question of the day, obviously. What are your thoughts on Benson Henderson going to Bellator MMMA?

We've seen some fighters make the move to Belator after the UFC tenures, but do you think this will result in other top ranked fighters making the same move? I think this is the biggest signing as far as a UFC fighter going to a different organization since Dan Henderson's. signed with the UFC. Now, I'm not sure if it's bigger. It's really not that important, but the Dan Henderson one was very big, if you recall, because he had just knocked out Michael Bisping at UFC 100. So that was a massive stage. He was a coach on the ultimate fighter. And, of course, Pride Legend, all that stuff, had a nice run in the UFC as well, although he didn't become UFC champion. This is pretty damn big, because here you have a guy

in his prime who's a former WC champion, who's a former UFC champion, who always rates well, whether it's on Fox or FS1, he's winning. In my opinion, he had the submission of the year last year, as you heard a couple weeks ago when we gave out our awards, had a solid win over Mazvedal. I think this is a fantastic signing by Bellator. You know, Belator has been criticized for signing older guys, for being a little too pro-restlingy, all that stuff.

You can't say that about this one. There's nothing you could say about this one, in my opinion, negative, right? I mean, this is a guy who's a tremendous mixed martial martial law. artist who's in his prime, who's winning, who's a former champion, who should be, you know, you can make a case that he should be on a longer winning streak because some people thought he deserved to beat Donald Seroni. He's had some other victories like the Josh Thompson fight, like the Gilbert Melendez fight, where maybe he got the favorable call. But I've always enjoyed watching him fight, and now all of a sudden, I mean, Benson Henderson versus Will Brooks,

to me is the fight to make. Now, if they don't want to go into that right away because they have some options at 155, fine. They want him to fight for the 170 belt first and then go down to 155 to make that one bigger and better. I get that, but just his presence is big for the promotion alone. And now you talk about the trickle-down effect. And now you talk about the snowball effect. And you talk about some other free agents being out there. And free agents, by the way, who are represented by the same people. He's represented by first-round management, Malky Kau and those guys. Al Jermaine Sterling falls under that umbrella. Alistair Overeem falls under that umbrella. And then there are other guys out there as well. There's Matrione out there.

there and, you know, there are more to come. Trust me, there are more to come. So now I feel like, okay, now fighters who are going to say, all right, well, let me see what's out there. And, and again, I hope people recognize that it's not an adversarial thing. I don't think it's an ungrateful thing. I mean, look the way he said, he did it perfectly. It's just about getting what you're worth. Dana White talks about it all the time, the small window. You got to get what you can get, especially if you're a parent, if you have kids, you have a wife, you have a husband, you got to get what you can get. And Benson played it perfectly. He rolled the dice. He went into this as a free agent, Juan Big, and now hopefully he gets to reap the reward. So there's

not that much that you can hate about this. You know, you could say that, you know, it kind of sucks. We don't get to see him fight some of the top guys at 170. I was curious to see how far he goes at 170 and the UFC at 155 as well now that there's a new landscape without a doubt. But I think competition is great for everyone. Like I said before, rising top. lifts all boats. This is good for the sport in general, not just for Belatorre. I think it's good for everyone. It's healthy. So yeah, this is big.

This is big. What do you think about it? Did I lose you? No, we're here. All right. What do you think about it? Obviously, the implications are huge. You know, it evens the playing field a little bit. I don't think it completely evens it. I mean, but it's a step

in that direction. Yeah, it's a step in the direction to even the playing field. Let me ask you this question. Are you surprised he's signed? with Bellator? Without, I mean, without knowing, you know, the financial implications of it, it's hard to, you know, weigh in there just because his value may have been too great. Basically, the numbers may have worked out that his value to Bellator made sense and his value to the UFC didn't.

So without knowing, you know, hard numbers, it would be impossible for me to kind of say I'm surprised or not surprised. Without knowing numbers, everything, you know, everything financial aside, I would have thought that the UFC would have kept him. But again, his, you know, his values determined by the market. And if Bellator is willing to pay more than the UFC is for him, then we got what we saw. It's just, to me, it's just so interesting now, this whole free agency thing. Like in the past, we could talk about all we want, but if there's no other option, then it just doesn't exist.

And so him making that leap, for better or worse, it just opens that door a little bigger. You know, now it's like, oh, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, let's say, Mitrione, you know, you're like, oh, this is interesting. You know what I mean? So it just, it now creates this back and forth to where we really didn't have it once Strike Force went away. And that was a pretty good stretch. That's five years ago now. Yeah, I mean, we had this kind of momentum building toward this. And now the flag has been officially planted where it felt like, okay, well, all these people were kind of using Bellator as leverage that the

fact that there's other organizations out there, and now we finally have a very, you know, big name still in the sport, decide that this is the spot for him. And it's a watershed moment. I never felt like Belator was a serious option in the Bjorn era. Like I know, this is probably their biggest one since Roger Huerta, but he was coming off losses and his stockout, not a former champion, all that. But to me, what was hurting Bellator was the tournaments. Like, a guy like Benson Henderson, is he really going to say, all right, I'm going to go in this tournament and have to fight four times before getting a title shot. Like that felt like they reached a point where they were holding themselves back

with the whole tournament thing. Now that they don't have that anymore and it's cocker and it's different, I think they've really opened themselves out. And you can maybe throw it the other way with the Reebok deal. Is the Reebok deal going to hurt the UFC in the long run? We'll find out. Before we get to our next question, we have some guests in the studio. Oh, yes.

Why don't we? Maybe they're to blame for our technical issues. Are they? Technical, usually, yes. I see the laugh. I hear the laugh. There he is. Wait, you couldn't see him before?

I know, I didn't see him at all. Oh, there's Esther. I can't really see my monitor. Hey, guys. Do you have headphones on? They do. Oh, you guys can weigh in as well. What do you think about Benson?

I want to hear Casey weigh in. He's always very opinionated. This is the mic. What do you think? Wait, let me introduce who you are, because there are some people. Is this your podcast? This is my podcast. Yeah.

It's fitting that the one time you actually show up, you know, the whole thing goes to shit. So I don't know if you brought this. This doesn't happen at Sherdog. It's usually flawless at Sherdog. But this is Casey. Our videographer does a tremendous job who's been with me for many years. And there's Esther All Elbows, the more famous one of the couple, let's be honest. Hello, guys.

How are you? Hey, Ariel. I actually wanted you in studio, but you turned me down. The stream issues. Sure, right. Yeah, you can. You have a level of. You can, yeah, you can subject yourself to this.

Okay, what do you think? Benson, Hedartar, your thoughts. Yes. Awesome. I love it. That's your thought. Everything this man said. It's a good thing you're in back of the camera. We set that up and we got, yeah. Esther, what do you think?

Anything for more leverage towards the fighters. Right. All right. That's that. You did get that great photo of Benson talking to Sage. Did you know that was coming? No. I didn't. But when I saw, I just hope that they were doing it long enough that I could focus. Right, yeah. Most impressive in that photo is Benson's man bun. By far.

It was a nice man bun. I will say this. I didn't want to bring it up to ruin the good vibes, but it did seem like he sort of out-scooped us. Didn't it? Did he go on his website beforehand? He did. The hell is that all about?

I've been sitting on this damn thing for like a week. He couldn't wait. I thought that news on bloody elbow. Thanks. Couldn't wait to break it. All right. All right. Let's get to our next one.

Yes, yes. Riveting. Heavyweight title shot. Who do you think should get the next heavyweight title shot? with Ben and Steepa, both coming off impressive wins, feels like someone's unfortunately not going to get that shot. So who is going to get it? I feel for Stepe because he was offered it.

It was dangled in front of him. He agreed to it on short notice. I feel for him. I do think if we're looking at resumes and streaks and what has been accomplished, I side a little more towards Ben, but it's kind of like six and one, half dozen the other. I just think like submitting Barnett,

the way he did submitting Mitreone, way he did. That is just, I mean, it's just, especially the Barnett one. That to me is mind-blowing. I echo everything Dave Meltzer said. But Steve-Base coming off a great knockout, and he's looked good as of late. I think he actually deserved to beat JDS, even though it's officially lost. So if they want to go that route, I'm cool with it. If they want to go to the Ben route, I'm cool with it. The only problem is the cane factor. I just think that they're going to have a hard time selling that rematch. And I think that unfortunately for him, he doesn't lose, but he's kind of losing here because he got injured.

I think he's going to have to go just one step down, not back, you know, bottom of the ladder, one step down, get a win, build himself up. Hopefully the surgery goes well, and it's, you know, not too serious and all that. I don't love, the problem with all this, I don't love Kane versus Rothwell. You like that? Yeah, that's awesome.

Why is that awesome? We saw it already. And I know it was a different time, different time, but I don't know, I want to see something fresh. No, that was a long time ago. So you was like he's new. dances better, he's sexier. Yeah.

He was a much different fighter. I think that was his UFC debut, UFC debut in 2009. The first time, yep, that was our debut. That was our first date. That was our first date. Los Angeles, 2009. That was so long ago that the prelims,

remember Chale Sondon fought Yushin Okami on the untelevised prelims. Wasn't even on Spike TV. That card was the birth of the Chale Sondon persona. By the way, congratulations to him for the celebrity apprentice. to steal. But that's how long ago that was. And that was only six years ago, maybe five and a half.

Isn't that crazy? That there were un-televised prelims. No Facebook, no MySpace, no fight pass, no Friendster, nothing. Untelevised. Chale Sun and Yushinokami, arguably top five middleweights fighting, and they were not shown anywhere. Crazy. Unbelievable. Anyway, all right, so what do you think, New York, Rick? Yeah, I think that, man, it's tough because I feel like Steepay struck first, which I think oftentimes matters a little bit more. Even though if I was grading them, I'd say beating Josh Barnett that way is probably more impressive. And overall, having the win over overreem matters as well. But I think Stipe's timing is going to work in his favor. I think being first is going to be the difference here. And you know, the other thing is, I often felt like leading

up to this fight, no one was talking about Rothwell. Like, he needed to do something like this to nudge his way into the conversation. It felt like people forgot about the Overeem fight, maybe because Overeem just had a nice win over JDS. I don't know, it was a weird thing. Like, he wasn't getting any of that attention. It had been a while since he thought. It was June.

He was supposed to fight in October, if you recall. Rothwell-Stepe is a fun fight. Sure. Right? Imagine if they did that one. If his back, if Redoom's back is bad, I wouldn't hate that one either. But then you also kind of cancel one out, so I don't know.

Maybe that's the way to go. That was already booked, right? That was already booked for Dublin. Just grab the contract, change the date, and it's done. Yeah. They're both healthy. That's how it works, right? That is how works.

That's right. I think Steve, yeah, I don't know. I definitely feel bad for Steve A. It's, as we talked about last week, it's a tough spot to be in, but it's actually a good thing. Like, the UFC's heavyweight division is probably more interesting now than it's been in a long time. The one thing that they have to work on is just getting people to care.

Like that Nate Diaz-Anne-Pettus fight that they talked about, it was a real thing to save the day. for the now former 196, I think that would have sold more pay-per-views than Verdume v. Stepe. And that feels like a problem when you're talking about the heavyweight title. Hold on one second. Our next question. John Jones at heavyweight. Recently, John Jones tweeted that he likely has three fights left at light heavyweight by this time next year when he moves up. This is assuming that he, you know, sticks by that. Will there be anyone left at heavyweight to even make it exciting for him, considering the age and steady decline of the current heavyweight crop? Seems like heavyweight marketability is at an all-time low. I don't know.

I don't like this whole three-fights. It's sort of like Benson with his like, I'm going to retire at 33 thing. You know what I mean? Sure. There's a lot of stuff that can happen in three fights. I do think he's going to fight a heavyweight at some point. And I do think it was a real thing that he was,

you know, he was throwing his name in the hat. I do think he threw out some, to me, it was a great PR move on his part. The guy who killed 151 is now offering to save 196, and he's getting back in the good. graces of the UFC, I thought it was brilliant. And it's something that he didn't do in the past, and there was a very small chance of it happening. I mean, why in the world would Sipay Miochich versus John Jones be for a title? It didn't really make a lot of sense. But I love the fact that he did it.

It was great. And I would love to see that fight too from a, from a styles matchup. I think it's a great fight, but I want to see the D.C. fight, and I want to see the Rumble fight. So I'm not quite ready to commit to John Jones at heavyweight. I think there is something to the idea that by the time he does go up to heavyweight, we're going to be looking at a different crop. But maybe it'll be better. Maybe there'll be some new heavyweight that's on the horizon that we're not ready for. Or maybe Ben Rathwa will be like reigning champion by that point. We don't know how it's going to look. What about this press release from Belator? Belator's new signing broke the internet this morning. Oh boy. They said the signing was scheduled to be announced today on the MMA hour,

which is hosted by six-time MMA journalists of the year. Maybe they know something that I don't because it's only five-time. Ariel Hawani, when news of the signing broke earlier than anticipated, the flood of traffic to the website may have been responsible for technical difficulties causing some of the interview to not stream live. However, the interview will be available in its entirety this afternoon at MAPFIN.com. Wow, we've come a long way from them calling me a UFC reporter, and I'm going to go with that excuse. I'm going to say that Benson broke the internet. Hey, you're off the hook. Yeah. Thanks, guys. I mean, I don't even know what to say that. Well, congratulations. Actually, congratulations.

Congratulations on your sixth award. Thank you. Hopefully the MMA hour wins. Hopefully they're disregarding this. And, uh, yeah. Great, uh, technical advice from our friend Joe Daddy in Houston. What's he saying? He's telling Casey, who is a videographer and should know better to get closer to the

mic, A, he's right? And also, happy birthday. I forgot about this. Your birthday, right? Today? Is today a birthday? Yes, it is, sir. Wow.

And, um, Ronderville. Apparently. Wow. UFC didn't tweet that out just the Ronda part, but yeah. I've been more UFCs than Ronda has, but whatever. That is true. That's another good point. How old are we today?

38. Wow. That is unbelievable. Yeah. Well, happy birthday. Thanks, sir. All right, our next question. Esther, did you have anything on that one?

No. Great. You know, happy birthday? Our next one, Sage Northcut haters. I think everybody will have something to say on this. What did you make of the majority of fighters celebrating the loss of Sage Northcut on Twitter? I thought it was pretty weak,

considering the guy is 19, and jumped on a deal that anyone would have in the UFC. This is our... The happy birthday song. Yes. Strawberry Shortcake, Dutch. You know this video has 46,000 views in large part due to Alastair Overim? For sure, it's half of that.

Well, if you go to the comments on YouTube, it's all about Overim. How many of them mention the iPad, though? Do any of them? I haven't looked in a while. Oh, ha ha, funny, that Overeem gets this video for marijuana. Okay. I'm just going to keep it in the background.

Well, I sort of weighed in on this, so I want to hear your take, and then I'll react to your take. Because you think that I'm actually being a little bit of a white knight, as you put it. I do. Yes, please. I think that the idea that because he's 19, he should get some kind of pass is kind of soft. Fair enough. Him being 19 or 38, like our friend Casey over here, celebrating his birthday, shouldn't be relevant whether we're going to critique him.

Now, if you're going to revel and celebrate his loss as if it somehow benefits your life and that that's something that impacted you, that's where I'd take exception and that's where I'd draw the line. I wouldn't personally do it. But the idea that because he's young and because he's respectful and because he's 19 that we shouldn't be able to criticize him, I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. I don't know if that's the real story here. I think it's part of the story.

Well, I mean, it seems like you, when you tweeted it, you said it, this guy's mentioning it in the question. The idea that he's 19 to me is irrelevant. Really? Because, yeah, of course. You don't think a 19-year-old should be held to different standards than say a 30-year-old? If he wants to be in the UFC and held to the same standard as the other fighters, then... But not all fighters are at the same spot.

They may be, you know, they may be all in the main card or whatever, but they're not... He's at an elevated spot, higher than those that are below him and have the gripe with him and are the ones that are assaulting him on Twitter and attacking him on Twitter. So you have no problem with fellow fighters celebrating his loss, openly like mocking him and saying, oh, like a T.J. Grant or, you see, this is what was most interesting about the whole situation. The fighters who are comfortable in their place in the UFC, who have either made a great living, who are champions, who are former champions who are at the top, if you notice, they were all offering words of advice. They're comfortable with who they are. The youngsters, the guys in the middle,

the ones who are trying to make a name for themselves, they're all, they're the ones who are jealous. And I understand why they're jealous. And they have every right to be jealous. That's fine. But to go out publicly and laugh at him and mock him, that to me is just a bad look. Like, that's not, you're not going to gain any new fans by doing that. It's just, what is that? Who celebrates a peers, demise, misstep? It's just such a bad look. Is the instance of this unprecedented? I don't think so. I think there have been many times where fighters have lost in any certain way and been mocked.

This one was up there. I mean, the Ronda one. But Ronda one's different because Ronda, she rubbed people the wrong way. There's no doubt about that. And she didn't handle it well, in my opinion. She didn't show up on anyone's show 24 hours, 48 hours later. Okay? What did this guy do? He shakes everyone's hand. He calls everyone Mr. or Mrs. He doesn't say a bad word about a single person. The worst thing that he said was maybe you should have something

else to offer. That's the big thing that everyone's jumping on. That of all things, come on. I just think that I get what, I get it. I'm not naive to it, but here's a kid who was given a great opportunity, who has a different kind of look, who has a different kind of fighting style, who is just kind of different

personality, he's a breath of fresh air, and you're going to laugh at him for losing? I just think it, you're the one who ends up losing in that case. Interrupt here. I think that the animosity is misdirected. I really think it should be, if you're upset about how much you're getting paid or how

Sage is getting paid, you should be upset with the UFC for underpaying all the other fighters, not overpaying Sage. Right. And maybe that's the underlying sentiment here. Maybe that's where everyone's coming from. And I think, like this, I'll be a naive. It's probably that. They just don't want to go, ha-ha, Dana White, because he's.

the one signing his checks or her checks. You know what I mean? So it's easier to, it's easier to make fun of Sage in this case than to make fun of your employer. I get that. While we're pointing out, you know, how people went out of their way to make fun of him, we're also pointing out how there's some, or we're not pointing out, but it's very evident how so many people are going out of their way to defend him. It's a beautiful thing. I love it. Thankfully, finally. It's the give and take of it. his, you know, he came into the UFC at a different point than a lot of other fighters have been afforded the opportunity, and that comes with increased scrutiny. Now, the idea, as I said, you know, celebrating somebody's loss, that's not my forte.

That's, you know, that's not something I necessarily think is the way to handle it. But you have to accept that as a reality of his position in the UFC currently. And here's what's super interesting to me. Because of his age, I think it compelled the, Saroni's and the Wyatmans of the world to say what they said about him. And what I mean by that is when Fabrice O'Roodom at 38 years old pulled out of his fight, you didn't see that many champions saying, you know what, I would have done the same thing. Right.

You saw people actually saying he saw, like no one's coming to his defense. That's MMA. No one sticks up for anyone. And so I feel like because these guys are so much older, because he is 19, some people with a good heart, said, you know, I'm going to try to uplift him. I'm going to try to send some good vibes his way. Do you get what I'm saying? So the 19 thing actually plays a big factor in all this.

I do. And I think, let's say he loses again and Rhonda loses again. I think Rhonda will take a lot more heat. I think it'll be she's done. She was never any good. And I think Sage will be, well, this one's over with. He's 19. He'll get it back.

And I think part of that is also his personality. The fact that he's not kind of hiding from the defeat. Now, I don't know how I feel about him saying, I don't want to make excuses and then going into being ill. Certainly I take him at his word, and I believe he was sick. it seems that there's so many people that can corroborate this story. But I don't know if that's what I would have led with after saying I don't want to, you know, make excuses.

Yeah, I mean, it's a tough spot. If you're going to do the interview, it's going to come out, you know. So obviously I'm happy he came on the show. I'm happy he talked to us. I'm asking him these questions. It's not like he put out a press release or something and did it himself. He actually sent me the picture of his lungs. And I'm no doctor, but it does seem like a lot of gross things in this picture.

So I know what people are going to say, and I see it already. Like, oh, look at you, making excuses, making excuses. No, I'm the one who asks them these questions. I'm the one who asked him to come on the show. He didn't ask me to come on the show. He didn't come out with this first. And that's the fight game. Things are going to happen.

And oh, by the way, it wasn't like he said I had a bad foot, right? Yeah. What he was dealing with actually now makes the submission, you know, now makes all the sense of the world. Sure, directly affects the thing that he was. talking about. So I don't know. The whole thing just made me feel a little weird. And yeah, maybe I'm guilty. Like, I see his kid who has been nice to everyone and it just kind of felt a little, I don't know, it felt a little icky because of his age. I don't know what it is. But yeah,

I think Esther is 100% right. It's people who are upset at the UFC for pushing him. But again, all we talk about is they don't create enough stars. They don't push people. So they're finally pushing people. And then people are rooting for the people that they're pushing to lose. You know what I mean? That seems counterproductive in this whole thing. Like, if there are stars like Sage, and page and if those stars exist, that's good for MMA. We need those stars to make the sport bigger. So stop rooting for them to fail. Just hope that you could come along for the ride and then beat them and get bigger yourself.

Don't root for them to lose to other people on a random Saturday night. It doesn't affect you at all. All those people don't gain a single thing by the fact that Sage lost. Yeah, it doesn't help. Doesn't help. Last word from the birthday boy? Yes. I got nothing.

Got nothing. Awesome. Go ahead. I didn't watch any of this age thing because the stream was down. Oh. Oh, come on. Eye pokes. Once again, eye pokes are part of the narrative on the Fox show.

What can referees do that will be more forceful to stop these things from happening, but without it being too costly for the fighter involved, should fighters be warned once for not closing their hands? And then even if they don't actually poke an eye, should they be penalized for not keeping the fingers retracted? As in so, they don't even actually have to stop the fight or poke anybody. Let's say they get another, you know, the fingers are out again, then at that point they can take a point.

Thankfully, nobody has been blinded by it in the UFC yet, but something has to be done in my opinion. So what do you feel about that? Well, I think it's the same thing that we brought up before. I think it's, you give them the warning in the locker room, you do it once, you get a point taken away. It's pretty, it's pretty kind of dry. It keeps happening.

How do you feel about the idea of even if your hands are extended, kind of enforcing something there? Not the actual action of poking the eye, but extending it after you've been warned. Oh, man. And you get a point taken away from that? I mean, that's not exactly legal. I mean, you're the one who's the harshest on this?

I would say that... No, but if you actually poke someone in the lie. I mean, like, if you want to play that game and, you know, skirt the fence, fine. That's okay. But once you poke someone, then boom. That's fair. That's fair. I mean, you can, you know, you can play that game all you want, but as long as you don't cross the line.

Yeah, I agree. One, if you've got your hand, you're defending with one hand. out like that, and as soon as it touches an eyeball, yeah, point deduction, and then next week there are no more eyepokes. That's all. What do you mean next week? Well, I mean, the next following Saturday, you know, like, once, like the

Reebok stuff, you know, like, they gave all these crazy fines for the, you know, all the rebugs stuff. Oh, I understand. Yep, yep, yep, and then the following week. Of course. If they went in the locker room and told the fighters, the second you point poke someone in the eye, a point will be deducted, you know, there's

going to be accidental. There's no doubt about it, because that's just the nature of the game. The fingers are out. But we'll see way less. 100%. People will think twice about it. Especially when they're standing. I think in scrambles, you know, there's going to be some eye poking and accident.

I think those can accident. But especially in the standing part, yeah, that's easy. It's time. I mean, it's just, it makes all the sense of the world. It's, the way it is now, it pays to do it. Like, even someone like, like Ryan Bader, right? when he was in that tough spot on the ground,

if he would have poked Anthony Johnson in the eye, he wouldn't have lost a point, but Anthony Johnson would have had to stop doing what he's doing, you know what I mean? At this point, it actually pays to cheat, and that's messed up. I get your point. I don't know if I agree with that.

I think if Bader was mounted and turned around and poked him in the eye, I think he probably. You know, like when he was going for the Camorra and there was this little scramble on the ground after the failed takedown attempt, like if someone, if something,

or you would have got nailed in the balls, I don't know. But you know what I mean? The action would have stopped. I can almost assure you a point would have been taken away. Yeah. Cheating pays for now. That's crazy.

Speaking of Bader, good segue. It seems like he's at a dead end in the light heavyweight division. It doesn't have the staying power of a Benavitas or Misha Tate. I don't know if I agree with that, but let's just say he's in a similar position to them. I think he's a bigger name than Benavita's. What do you think should be his next move? I mean, I think, look, he lost to a great fighter. He was on a five-fight winning streak.

it seems like he can't get past that five-fight winning streak. Last time he had a five-fight winning streak, he lost to John Jones, who then became the light heavyweight champion less than two months later. I don't think he needs to retire. I think he made a really big mistake. And I can assure you he probably wishes he had that back. I think that, look, I'm no fighter.

I don't like to give advice. But usually, I was talking to Kormey about this yesterday on the phone. He agreed 100%, so I feel comfortable enough saying it. I mean, you can't just shoot in right away. And I also think that Johnson's, take down defense is actually quite underrated. I think people like to make a big deal about his takedown defense. It's not that bad. It's really not that bad. I'd say it's better than not that bad. You've got to set it up. You got to mix it up. You got to give him something else to look at and to worry about it and then go for the shot. So I don't know. Maybe the moment got to him. I don't know what it is. But yeah, that was a big mistake. The fight would not have ended that quickly. If he had done what he did against the likes of Rashad Evans, he had grown comfortable on his feet.

So I don't know why he went away from that all of a sudden. Yeah. Rumbles never had bad takedown defense. It's that, you know, after the first round, his takedown defense gets a little worse, than the second round a little worse, than the third round a little worse. But I don't know if shooting on him that quickly was the right strategy now, you know. Hindsight's easy, but. I feel like if you would have stood up in the first minute got knocked out,

we'd be saying the opposite, we'd be like, oh, why don't you shoot on him? Exactly. You know, it's the way to beat him. Fair enough, but right out of the gate, like, boom, just like that. I mean, look, it worked for BJ Penn against John Fitch, but I don't think that people were expecting that at a BJ. Like, I think that there is something to doing that right off the bat. But I also think that Rumble actually has pretty good...

Like, that was a big thing that he kept talking about at the scrum on Thursday, and I didn't understand it. I think statistically, I looked this up before. I think he has similar takedown defense to Ryan Bader. So it's not like it was some kind of wrestler versus striker matchup. They're pretty similar in the sense that they can be. both keep it standing and both have big power. Although Bader has been a little more measured and focusing more on combinations than that one power shot like he used to. And so also, I will add

that I think business-wise for the UFC, a lot of people want to see Rumble versus John Jones. I think more people would be into the D.C. fight, especially because that fight was put together on short notice, and he did rock him in the first round. I think business-wise for the UFC, this was probably the better result. All right, we've got to get these two out of here. pretty soon. Okay. So we're going to take a quick break, not in the show. We're just going to take a break from the questions in this moment to bring over.

Yes. Oh, what do we got? We got a presentation for Casey. Oh, yes, we do. Look at that. What kind of cake is this? Yeah, what kind of cake? Green tea crepe cake.

Green tea crepe cake. I've never heard of such a thing. Because I'm Asian. It's because it's magic. Oh, gosh. I can say that. What's it taste like? I don't know.

Casey? Why don't you just lick it? Do you got any candles? Anything. Nothing. No, no candles? Can you play the birthday song?

Yes, something. No, I'm talking to you. Yes, it's, yes. At this point, we probably have like five people watching. Will you sing for me? You sing for everyone else. No, no, no. Really?

Wait a minute. I don't sing on demand. There it is. Oh, wait, there's my show. Maybe he is working all of a sudden in the stream. There it is. But no, not even a single candle. There he is.

It's a small cake. We can't fit that. that many candles on there. Diving in, 38 years young. Wow. Look at him now. He broke it. The review is in. Green tea. What a strange combo, but an intriguing one. Now, where are we off to? You guys are going to Las Vegas or are you going home? Going home to see you again. For the big UFC Fight Night 82 card. I'm excited about that. It's a fight night. Yes, it's big in Las Vegas. the co-main event. It's awesome. What, Jared Rochelt?

See, this is my take on the co-main event if I can. Like, if Bruce Buffer says co-main event of the evening, that's just not right. Right? I mean, not every card has a co-main event. Right? I mean, not right. I disagree with this.

And now for the second, the last fight of the night. Wait, you disagree? No, just say up next. Wait, wait, you disagree? You think that he should call that the co-main event? You should call it if it's the second from the top. It's got to be a second. the co-man event? Not every, look, Wyden-Roccold,

that was a co-main event. That means, look, if, if, well, this is a weird case, but like if Hendricks-Thompson falls through, is,

is Roch-Shalt? Well, so there's no main event? But, I mean, that's just a process of elimination. Tell me the answer. Is there no main event means that, the co-main event to me means that if,

whoops, co-main event means that if, if, if this second-class fight was just alone as it's, it's that good. This could pass as a main event. And not every card has that.

So why should they all be co-main events? Because the main event is done the same way. The co-mean event should be done the same way. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Is there a card without a people's main event? Has that happened? No, of course not.

There's always a people's main event. There's always a co-main event. Always. This is a very tricky one. Is Mickey Gull the people's main event? Because, I mean, this is a guy literally plucked out of obscurity. Or is it our time? I don't know.

I don't know if it's Mickey Gull. might be Mike Jackson. Well, I mean, the people's main event takes two to tango. Yeah, there's two in there. Sure. Although, it's a little weird that Mike Jackson is not playing by the same set of rules. Houston's own, Mike Jackson, I might add. Yeah, Houston's...

But you know what I mean? It's like, why is the stipulation just for Mickey? What if Mike Jackson wins? And we have to go through this whole thing all over again? I think he can make himself a case if he wins and say, I want that shot. I mean, all it took was Mickey Gall saying it once and he got the shot. Can I just say this? I think it's a mistake.

it's a mistake having CM Punk in attendance for that fight. Like to have him sit there feels like he's a trophy. You know, a trophy for like a pre-limbler. Is that so far from what it is? I mean, he's a lottery ticket for these guys. It's just a little weird.

All right, one more before they take off. Okay. Wow, you're really teasing this. Here we go. It's like the whole thing. Actually, it seems like the stream is pretty good now. Yeah, come on. I fixed it. Casey fixed it. Thank God. Terrick Safedine, Jake Ellenberger.

It was great to see Tarrick finally making a comeback after an injury layoff. What do you think should be next for him following his win? Conversely, Ellenberger has now lost five of his last six fights. Do you think we've seen the end of his UFC run? Well, I'm going to talk about Tarrick first. Actually, this never aired. I don't think it aired on the post-fight show. I interviewed him for Fox Sports.

And he actually almost didn't make it to the fight, believe it or not. At the 11th hour, they realized that he didn't have the right visa or it had expired. It's something strange going on. because, you know, he was in, he's from Belgium, but he was in Canada at TriStar preparing. He had to fly back to Europe to get a different kind of visa and then fly back to Montreal and then fly to Newark. And I know Newark and Montreal are close. But he actually said he was very close to having to pull out of the fight and the UFC's lawyers helped him out with that. So, wow, what a tragedy that would have been, right?

This is a guy who hadn't fought since October of 2014. And he would have had to pull off for something crazy like that. injury-related and he's been hit with injuries. Nice win for him. I thought he deserved to win. Good to see him back. I still think he's somewhat of a player at 170. It just feels to me like Ellenberger, there's something missing there. I don't know what it is. I won't ask you because I know you didn't watch the card. I did, actually. No, you didn't. I did, actually. When did you watch it? I have it on my DVR, and I watched it after I got home from family activities. What was so important that made you miss UFC on Fox 18? A baby shower. Welcoming life into

this world. How about that? Nighttime baby shower? Never heard of such a thing. That was in the afternoon. and then we went out with the family after. He could have said, you know what? I need to watch this card. I'm on a live national broadcast, breaking it down afterwards. My thoughts will be welcomed. Yeah, I could have said that, but I have a family. So what did you think?

First of all, that would have been a damn shame if that fight didn't happen because of, you know, issues outside of injuries. I mean, obviously, Terrick looked like, you know, I wouldn't say he looked as good as he did before. before he left, but, you know, in terms of the skill set and what he was still bringing, um, he looked like Tarrick Safferdeen just a little bit. He needs to shake the rust off. But as far as following the game plan, being tough as nails, I mean, Ellenberger landed a few clean shots on him. Um, it, it was still there. The package is still there. And I'm still, you know,

excited to see what, what Tarrick has, has, uh, coming up. And as far as Ellenberger goes, that I, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't think, um, I don't, I don't, I don't think he's been the same since he went on this kind of losing streak. And I'm not sure what it is. He's changed camps. Chants camps, yeah. You know what? I really didn't pay attention.

I don't know if you guys saw Casey or Eric or Esther when she gets back in there. Who was in his corner this time? I forgot his name. His striking coach. He teaches, he's a boxing coach in downtown L.A. It's a place called Strong Sport Gym. It's a really good gym. I mean, I go to there a couple times to do Muay Thai.

Oh, look at you. Yeah. That sounded like another media member. pumping up his I train UFC skills. Well, I'm just... Also, I think Kenny was in his corner, right? Wasn't Kenny in his corner?

The wrestling coach? Was he? Maybe. Okay. I just know this boxing guy. But it wasn't Edmund. No. It wasn't Edmund.

And he wasn't with Edmund for the last fight either. Right. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm curious to see. I mean, they just released a couple of guys. Actually, they released like 9 or 10. Yeah. At least those are the ones that came out. People get released all the time, and some of them just don't get noticed or reported.

The notable ones, Danny Castillo and Mike Pierce. So that is the lightweight division. This is Walter. What the hell am I talking about? Anyway, yeah. Do you watch fights? No, I don't. A tough spot for him, but good for Tarek Safedin.

Okay, this is Jake should still be around. He still isn't lost to a guy outside the top ten. Until you do that, like, you're losing to, you know, those guys. Sure. I don't know. I still think he's just losing to the top guys. maybe he's just a top 15 and not a top 10. It would be, I have no problem with those guys who are like in title contention

then going all the way to the bottom and seeing them get built up. I think that's actually kind of interesting. You know, that's why I feel like tangent, but the sage thing, like I'm still super interested to steal his nickname in his, like to me, seeing how a guy rebounds is just as interesting as a guy in a winning streak. They both have their, you know, their, their interesting qualities to me. And so for Ellenberger, if you put him, like, let's say there's 50 welterweights. I don't know what the number is, but let's say there's 50.

If you put them up against, like, number 47, to me, that's interesting, too. Can he make that climb? Because I think that the UFC has become its own farm system. Really, that's the case. Like, there's 500 fighters under contract for the UFC. Anyone who says, like, oh, that's what Mickey Gall doesn't deserve to be there. No. The fact that Mickey Gall or any other fighter who's 5-0 or 2-0 or 3-0 is on the UFC roster

doesn't take away from whoever's in the main event. So they've become their own farm system. So just put them back down. and build them up. You don't have to give him away. You've invested a lot in a guy like Jake Ellenberger. He's been in main events. You don't have to give him away to someone else.

Now, if you have, you know, if you have space that is needed and you need to get rid of him, you don't see a future, fine. But I don't think there's anything wrong with that as well. They don't always have to fight top ten. He certainly has not gotten that step down. Everybody's face has been tough. Ellberg versus the loser of Gall versus Jackson. No, see, I wouldn't do that.

That's a little crazy. Okay. How much do you... If you're going to be on the show, you have to actually... Are UFC fighters? How much do you think the change of Hendricks and Wonderboy to five rounds, previously three rounds, will affect the fight? Hendricks can barely, this is commentary that may be unnecessary, Hendricks can barely fight past the third round. That means Wonderboy will have a much better chance.

But how do you think that will affect the fight? Well, contrary to what had been reported, the Wonderboy camp, and in particular his father, really wanted this to be five rounds. And it's obvious why. They want to test his cardio. And let's not forget, Johnny Hendricks has been in five-round fights. In fact, he's been in many more than Wonder Boy. Wonderboy, in my opinion, was scheduled for just one against Ellenberger, and that didn't go five-round, so it didn't really matter. But he's been in there against Lawler twice.

You know, he's at a GSP. So I think people are hanging their hat on, or at least his camp, that, you know, the weight cut is going to be a problem and all that. But by all accounts, what his manager is telling me, pictures, all that stuff, that he's figured it out. So let's see. He's doing it on his own. Dolce is not with him. And that's sometimes a little tricky. I can understand why Wonderboy's never had a problem with that.

So I think, but I do think a little too much is being made of it. Let's not forget, this guy is a former champion. He's been in five-round fights before. Yeah, I don't think this will drastically change the fight, I think. And also, don't forget, he won a five-round fight in the final minute. Like, that fight against Robbie Lawler went down to the final minute of the final round. You could make a legitimate case that he beat GSP over five rounds and beat Luller twice over five rounds. Twice. Good point. Yeah. You're 181.

I don't think the idea that Johnny Hendricks can't fight five rounds is accurate. That said, I would think it would favor Wonder Boy, but I don't think that that's necessarily. Not only that, but just because even though Hendrix can get through five rounds, he is going to fade a little bit. He's stocky. He throws a lot of heat in the first couple of rounds. and he kind of relies on the wrestling more and more as the fight goes on because his stand-up is getting a little more sluggish and I think Wonderboy will probably be fresher if it goes to five rounds but I don't think it'll drastically change this fight

Did you want to say something, Casey? Oh, we got to go. I got to catch a fight. Oh, okay. Peace out. Are we holding you up? Thank you for coming. I'm sorry for holding you up. It's not like you're a little upset there.

Thank you for coming. Happy birthday. Great to see you. It graciously gave us some cake. Oh, yes. I'll have that after. Eat it now. Well, no one wants to see someone eat on television. I learned that when I did my preview show with Mark Romandie.

Safe travels. Thank you for coming. I'll see you in a couple days. All right. There they are. The dynamic duo known as Casey and Esther. All right, what else we got? Okay.

Team Alpha. What in the world is going on with the team? I know you have some nuggets for us. Lots of strange tweets lately. What do you got on Team Alpha? Alpha Mail. Okay, can I just say that one of my least favorite storylines going on right now is these tweets from the maybe members, not so members, sometimes members of Team Alpha Mail? I mean, what's going on? Do they feel a little passive-aggressive to you with the emojis and the sub, you know,

there's like these subcontext to them? I don't know what's going on, but like, can we just come out and say where we stand? If we do stand any, I don't know. Do you get what I'm saying? I do. You're saying it's sub-tweeting. You want to see the real deal. You want to see them saying... We're just telling me what's going on. This is where I'm standing. This is my camp. But I think it's...

Imagine you're in their position. I think it's a very difficult kind of thing to navigate. Well, look. Do what's best for you. Yeah, but we've seen how the results of that go. Every time T.J. Dillashaw opens his mouth or on social media post something, we've got a thousand snake emojis posted.

Well, should those guys get that same treatment? I don't think so. I don't think it's fair that he gets it to begin with, but we know why. I think that that team is probably in a... By the way, I don't really have the scoop. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist. Team Alpha Male is looking for a coach.

There's obviously a state of transition going on. T.J. Dilleshaw, is a good friend of those guys. He's had success with those guys. Dave had success with those guys. And in particular, I'm talking about Bang Ludwig. for Joseph Benavides to go where he's had great success, Colorado with Bang, before this fight, and then also to split some time with arguably the best team in the world in Albuquerque, that's nothing but smart.

Sometimes you have to evolve. He hasn't reached title status. He got super close twice. You have to evolve in this game. And that takes guts, that takes confidence. So he's doing what he has to do. And that's pretty much it. but if this is the, like, I don't know.

And I know they probably get a lot of crap because it's a byproduct of the whole TJ thing, but it just feels like there's a lot of like, there's like a lot of code reading that needs to be done. And then in turn, like, like Mussel Farm will send out a picture, welcome to the team. And then I'll ask Lance Palmer about it. And he's like, no, no, no, that was worded incorrectly. We're still part of the team.

Like, what the heck is going on? How could you allow them to tweet something like that? And then not even take it down. It's just, that's, the muscle farm people know what they're doing in all of this. Let's be honest. They all know what they're doing. I think that's one of the downsides of social media, though, is that a lot of times things are coming out before they're ready to come out. We see this all the time where because we have this instantaneous method for, you know, breaking news and giving people information, there's this push to do it quickly.

And sometimes it's not the right way to do it. Yeah. So maybe this is stuff that's not supposed to be coming out. And it's not supposed to seem so murky. You know, maybe it's just control of that. But they're under a finer microscope these days because let's see what happens in this fight. He's fighting Zach McCovsky this weekend. If he loses, everyone's going to say, oh, you turn your background team.

If you wins, people are going to say, oh, look, the new team is better. It's a, it's drama. Believe it or not, I don't like this drama. This drama has been going on way too. long. I know some people think that I love the drama, but this is the kind of drama that I feel like has run its course. But hey, also, it's their life. Maybe it is actually, you know, dragging on, and they want to figure it out as well. Who knows? This question is about helping retired fighters. I'm going to expand the scope a little bit after I read it. Hi, guys, with all the improvements to

professionalism in the UFC and MMA in general, do you think the next step is to make sure fighters are prepared and looked after retirement? I ask this now as a UK fan who sadly watched an ill-aging Frank Bruno, be interviewed today saying you wanted to return to the ring at 54. When fighters give their bodies and health to a sport or company, do you think that the fight organization or athletic commission has a moral duty to go after them when they exit the ringer cage? You were talking a little bit earlier about fighters not looking out for each other and being in it for themselves. Let's expand this from, you know, the organizations looking after them in retirement to looking at, to the fighters looking after themselves as well in the

form of a union. What do you think could be done to kind of of, you know, reduce the tension between the individual fighters and how they could look after, you know, themselves in retirement. Yeah, this is a heavy duty topic. And I think it's something that a lot of fighters struggle with every single time, you know, they reach a point in their career. Like a guy like Anthony Proch, does he deserve, you know, the smart ones have something waiting around for them.

They've done the right things to get to this point. they've looked past their career while they're in the midst of their career, but not everyone's in that boat, and sometimes the end comes quicker than you expected. I do think that it would be, look, there's so many fighters out there, and it's a different sport than the major sports, NFL NBA and all those leagues.

So, you know, where do you draw the line? Who's benefiting from all this? Is it just people in the UFC? I don't know. It's not as cut and dry. I just wish that there was just some more unity. and I don't know I really don't know what the answer is to this question

I don't know how like the UFC has picked some guys that they've helped and I think that's a very admirable thing guys like Matt Hughes and Forrest Griffin and recently BigNog and I think that there are others by the way that we don't know about that they've also helped when they needed to retire

there are others that you know we saw when Sam Stout was on and he said like he'd even get a call or anything and where does he go from here and he's like 30 years old so I don't know what the answer is. But do you think there has to be some kind of effort from the fighters' end to make this happen? But what can they do? They're looking, in that regard, they're looking out for themselves. They have their own situations.

What are they going to do? Donate to these fighters? I don't know. Like, is there a pot? I don't know. I really don't know. How do you fix this? I think it has to be a combination of the fighters banding together, the organizations banding together.

There has to be a big, there has to be a, there has to be a, bigger movement in mind than, you know. Yeah, then the present. Perhaps your tenure is a factor, you know, like, perhaps if you have five UFC fights, you're subjected to this amount, you know. I don't think it's only UFC, though. I think it's, you know, MMA is a community. Like, if, you know, across organizations, there may have to be some kind of, you know,

cooperation. It's a, it's a bigger idea and a bigger, a bigger impact than just, like, you know, the way the Reebok deal works where your tenure pays you X amount. I think there has to be a really significant effort from everybody involved in the sport, not just certain organizations and not just certain levels of fighters. It's going to, it's going to take a lot. Yeah, I don't know. I don't see it. By the way, I don't see it happening anytime soon. And again, the Sage Northcutt thing just just reminded me that it's never happening, or at least it's not happening anytime soon. I just, and I don't know if I'm verbalizing it the right way.

And I have no problem with saying that, yeah, maybe it is because he's a kid and because he's so respectful. But it's just, to me, it feels weird to see people, the only people who truly know what he is feeling are the fellow fighters. And to laugh at a kid. And again, I keep saying that. And it's weird for me to say it because I feel like I'm a kid as well. But he's 19 years old.

To laugh at him, yeah, you don't want to laugh at Dana. You don't want to laugh at the UFC. Fine. But laugh to your friend. laugh your wife, laugh to your peers. Just, I don't know. Yeah, it's mean.

It's just mean. It's vicious. These are Twitter questions now. Let's run through them quickly. Then maybe we can take a quick preview of the upcoming card. Loller versus Connor McGregor might be a reality sooner rather than later.

What do you think about that? Connor fighting for the 170 belt. No, I don't like that. That's a big jump. I mean, for now, he's got the 145. I think juggling between two divisions is cool. Three divisions is asking for a lot. That's too much.

Don't you agree? I mean, let's see him at least pull off the other one first and then. No, I know. I think this guy's assuming that that happens. If that does happen, it's definitely not. I don't think they'd let him anyway. This is Artem? It's incredible.

Yeah, this is the picture. That's hilarious. is. Well, if you're only listening to this, we have a picture here of Artem Lobo, a very handsome Ardham, by the way. This is a fine, looking young woman as well. And he liked it. Yes, he did. And yes, with a fine young woman. I wonder, I guess he's probably 12 or so here, as he said. He's wearing a puffy shirt, made famous on the Seinfeld show. And he looks great. He actually, I kind of thought he was joking, but no, he's not. No, this is the real deal. Good fine. And our final question.

Oh, that's it? From Twitter. And then, as I said, we can take a look at the upcoming card. What's your prediction for the Super Bowl? You know, I used to look forward to the Super Bowl. Uh-oh, here we go. I just... Here we go.

I want Cam Newton to win because they've never won before, and he seems to be some kind of polar... Here's an interesting one. How do you feel about the hate directed at Cam Newton? I think it's ridiculous. Well, I will say, like, I guess his own league makes him, you know, the bad guy saying that you can't celebrate. What the heck is that? What does he do that's always, like, what is he doing that's so wrong? He's giving kids balls.

No fun league, man. What is that? That's one of the many reasons why I don't really care about the NFL. I used to count down the days to the Super Bowl. Like, this week was the best. I used to consume all the media, all the talking, all that. Are you on record right now saying you're not going to watch it? No, no, no.

I'll watch it. But, you know. I'll watch it at 618. I'm not watching no kickoff special, no blah, blah, blah. It's fun. It always feels big. I really, I'm really starting to develop a disdain for the NFL. And probably, you know, a major reason for that is, you know,

my Buffalo bill is not making the playoffs in the 21st century, having the longest playoff drought streak in North American sports. So that probably makes you a little jaded. Like if they were kicking butt and winning Super Bowls, I'd probably feel better about the whole thing. But there's so much that I dislike about the sport and the way it's covered and the way we have to hear about it all year around. Like, yeah, count me out. But anyway, I'll pick the Panthers. Who are you picking?

I got the Panthers. And if I was a betting man, I don't bet on football. If I was a betting man, I'd probably give up the points. What is it? I think it's like minus seven Panthers. I'd probably give that up. What does that mean give up the points? Like the Panthers are giving seven points to the Broncos,

meaning Broncos score end of game plus seven. If the Broncos win with those extra seven points, they win. No, I understand that. So I'm saying I would take the Panthers minus seven. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Because I don't think the Broncos are that good. They do seem like... And I think Cam Newton is kind of built for this.

Are there any fun parleyes yet? I don't... Wouldn't know. Haven't looked into it. Don't care about football betting. I feel like the game is kind of... You're not going to bet on the Super Bowl? Get out of here.

What? No way. Really? No. But isn't it fun to do like who's going to, you know, is it going to be heads and tails? Who's going to sing, are they going to sing the national anthem for longer than a minute or hold this note for 30 seconds? There's all kinds of weird stuff. Yeah, you don't like that?

No. All right. Not my, not my forte. Okay. Not into it. I am into betting fights, though. Yes. I've just looked at the odds. Have you looked at them?

No. I don't understand why. I mean, this is kind of weird. There's only four fights. That is an interesting thing. Because we're only a week out. That is weird. I don't know. I don't have an explanation for that. Well, let's go with what we got. Okay. Zach Mokovsky versus Joseph Benavides.

Joey B. Yeah. He's a big. one. Minus 417, actually minus 405 and plus 358. Ovin Saint-Pru

versus Hafejel Féjau-Cavalte. I'm going to go with OSP. Yeah, another big one. Minus 340 plus 309. The co-main event of the evening. Yes.

Jared Rochalt versus Roy Nelson. Roy Nelson. This is a smaller one, perhaps surprisingly. Minus 157 plus 143. It makes sense to me

just because of Rochal's style. You know, that it's hard to stop and he's tough, he can take a punch, but it's hard to stop his,

because he's kind of, you know, heavy wrestling game. I don't think it's going to be a problem for Roy Nelson, though, I think he'll come. You think he'll win?

I think it'll win, yeah. Actually, I was about to say, you know what it is? I feel like, Stephen Thompson is kind of trending up. Trending up, yeah. I think Hendricks will be a slight favorite.

What is it? Yeah, you're right. Hendricks' slight favorite. Minus 2.11 plus 186. That's a little higher than I would think. I would think that Thompson's live there. Yeah, it's a tough fight to call. So then you're saying he's a live dog.

He's a live dog. Do it. What do you mean, do it? Bet it. Oh, great. You're going to loan me the cash for that? No, no, no. This is, I'm saying, you're telling the world. You're telling the world? Yes. I like, remember, if we go, if we flash back to the last show, we were talking about, what fight was it?

There was a fight where somebody was a huge, oh, no, it wasn't a huge thing. It was a guy asking about a parlay, and he was saying, Wilson Hayes, he was saying Dustin Ortiz is part of the parlay. And I think it was Barnett, Ortiz, and somebody else. And I was like, no way. Wilson Hayes is super live, and I wouldn't bet on that one. And Hayes ended up having a really, really good performance. For this one, I think Wonderboy might be worth throwing some money down on. Wow.

Sage Northcutt 2.0 right there. I don't know about that. He's a lot younger. Excuse me, older than Northcutt. He's also had like 50-something pro-kickboxing matchups. Are you just saying, because? of their boyish charm. And the karate style.

He's a, he's a bad M-Fer, that guy. He is. Wonderboy. Okay. True or false. Does Sage Northcut rebound from this? Give me, give me like what that means. Well, like, does he actually go on to having, you know, an actual career in the UFC?

Not even, not even a question in my mind. The guy is 19 and has all the physical tools to do whatever he kind of wants in this sport. I don't think, I don't think there's any question. that if he puts together a good game plan, gets in a good camp, continues to progress, and doesn't fight, you know,

short-notice fights where he's obviously feeling ill, there's no limit to how good he could possibly be. He's got all the tools, and that's half the battle. You know, there's not a lot of guys who have been blessed with his kind of athletic ability and, you know,

started in the UFC at 19 years old. There's just not a lot of guys who are afforded that. So no question in my mind now, he can't go back to, you know, fights in the main card of, you know, a big event. He needs to take a step back, fight somebody, you know, a little more his speed, and then build up from there. But no question, at some point, he will be, you know, a bigger deal in the UFC. Do you get what I'm saying, though, and in particular the poor Zingis comparison, because they both are 19. years old. Like, you don't see fellow rookies who were drafted after him. I can't think, like, a Devin book or whatever. Right. Tweet out, like, when he gets posterized, and it was like, look at this

scrub. You know what I mean? You won't see guys in those sports, you know, to be fair to this comparison, you won't see guys in this sport tweeting as much as, or being as active on social media as the other fighters in this sport, in our sport. They just don't have time. And that's a good thing. I'm happy for that. The NBA is too much of a full-time sport for them to be doing. that and you know, MMA for whatever reason isn't like that. But you get my point? I do get your point that they wouldn't necessarily be reveling in it. Yes.

And I completely agree that that's where the line is crossed. But as, you know, I still will maintain that him being young is not a reason for him to be able to avoid this. Yeah, I mean, look, he's playing under the same rules and the same work. I get that. I just feel like there's a human side to it. Yeah, the question to be asked is why? What does it help you to make fun of, you know, Sage Northcutt? I think the idea of, you know, him is very refreshing, and there were a lot of jokes, you know, at that last fight night event, there was the thing about him not using the internet and all this stuff.

That stuff is funny because it's good nature. It doesn't come from a mean place. Right. Whereas the people who are celebrating him losing, it comes from a very mean place. And that's, you know, that's the difference there. I think there's a way to have fun with, you know, Sage Northcutt's presence in. MMA and there's a way to just be mean and that's what we saw on Saturday. It's just people being mean. Yeah. And look, it's a fight game, you know, like it's not the feelings game. And it's, it seems like

he's handling it in stride. Unbelievable. Like, you know, it didn't seem to affect him too much. He had a great person, you know, I talked, I talked to him for a minute before he came on the, on the show and he's the same, you know, on camera, off camera, he sees, he's an upbeat guy and I think that there's people who just don't like that. I will say I was surprised that he agreed. agreed to come on. And look at, I mean, yeah, that's, that's, he didn't have as much to lose as some of the big named fighters, but to see at 19 years old that he's keeping in perspective and having, like, I think everyone wanted to see him cry, right, and see the negativity come out and just wait, you know, that's part of the, I think the appeal here because he's just so squeaky, clean and

positive all the time. They wanted to see, how is he going to react to this? And the fact that he's not, um, and he's still pretty much the same is a, is a, is a, is a, pretty cool is a pretty cool thing to see. And I don't think if, let's say he hits another, you know, speed bump, I don't think that we'll see quite the same backlash. I think this was a one-time thing because it was like Ronda Rousey, where it was undefeated, we're building toward this big thing and then the cards are all shuffled. I don't think the expectation will be as high, you know, or the push will be as pronounced

for Sage until he's back where he belongs at that point. So I don't think we'll see that again. There is something about this guy. Like, we've hardly talked about Jimmy Rivera winning his 18th fight in a row. Congratulations to him. Ben Rothwell, once again, with a huge win, submitting Josh Barnett, something that no one thought could be done. And now one step closer to that towel shot. And again, Anthony Rumble Johnson with another dominant win, he is, without a doubt,

the number one contender in the UFC's light heavyweight division. All right, we're done. Is that it? That's it. All right, here we go. Okay, you get my music. Again, if you're listening to this afterwards, stream stuff doesn't really matter. but if you are trying to fight through this entire show,

I appreciate your patience. And your loyalty. It means a lot. What an interesting day. Benton Henderson, now the newest member of the Bellator MMA roster. Is this the beginning of that snowball effect? It's going to be a lot of fun covering this. It's a very interesting time in the world of mixed martial arts.

Congratulations to him on his new. deal and appreciate him coming on, especially with the issues. Appreciate him coming on. I am going to stick to that story. He definitely broke our show. He broke our stream. He broke the internet. He's that big of a deal. Anyhow, thank you very much to Dave Meltzer. And best wishes to our man, Brett the Hitman Hart. I hope everything goes well for him. A legend in his own right. And my favorite pro wrestler, so he's had a tough run. I hope he gets well soon.

Thank you very much to Fabrice Radoum for coming on and explaining his situation. I appreciate it greatly. Thank you very much to Artem Lobov. Good luck to him this Saturday. UFC Fight Night 82. It airs on Fox Sports 1. His fight airs on Fight Pass alongside Mickey Gall versus Mike Janskin, but the entire card is on Fox Sports 1 against he's fighting Alex White. 205.

Thank you very much. Benson. He stopped by. Again, congratulations. Scott Coker, thank you very much to him. And congratulations on the deal. I appreciate stage Northcut. Very much.

Thank you for stopping by. And thank you very much to Anthony Proche. Happy Trails. If you missed anything, iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, all that good stuff and more. See you next week. Until the I say, page. Come out of you.

Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way. Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit. Zax is where you can find everything. From the perfect Chloe bag for your hard-to-shop for a sister to a prodig jacket for a fancy holiday dinner. And if you don't know where to start, Sacks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping. Make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.

So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-free at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com.