MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 324

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Khabib Nurmagomedov, Holly Holm, Tony Ferguson, Cat Zingano, Court McGee, Darrell Horcher, and Jeff Sherwood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the mixed martial arts hour with... Mix Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, April 11, 2016. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani inside our New York City studio. Another week, another episode of the show. I'm excited about this weekend. Wow, another crazy seven days between today and the last time we spoke last week. Remember when we said goodbye last week, the back and forth between John Jones and Daniel

Cormier on Twitter had not yet started. And wow, is that, who, that was an entertaining couple hours on Twitter, wasn't it? The gloves were officially off, maybe not for the first time, but a lot of it stemming from what transpired on this very program. So I guess we puffed our chest out a little bit. It was fun. It was nice. They were going back and forth. And it was notable because they even addressed each other for the first time on Twitter. Usually it's a bunch of sub-tweeting going on.

But last Monday, they actually addressed each other. It pretty much died off after Monday. But for that stretch on Monday evening, as a result of this very program, it was a lot of fun. Now, a lot of noteworthy things happened last week. Again, a very busy week in the world of MMA. The fun never stops on Tuesday, if you recall. Khabib Mugamagamedov found out much to everyone's dismay that Tony Ferguson was out of their fight. This coming weekend in Tampa Bay, UFC on Fox 19.

He was injured and for a minute we didn't know if Habib was going to remain on the card. There was some talk of Donald Soroni, BJ Penn through his name in the hat. In the end, two days later, they found relatively unknown Darrell Horcher, 12 in 1, the CFFC, the Cage Fighting Fury Championship lightweight champion. He will be fighting Habib Nurmaghamatov this Saturday night in Tampa Bay on nine days notice. He'll be making his UFC debut. We don't need to hear the music again. It was good the first time, but you can cut the music this time. There we go.

Just once is good enough for me. So yeah, Darrell Horcher, he's stepping in. He's fighting Habib Nirmagamadev on Saturday and Tony Ferguson, at least for the time being, is out. On Wednesday, we found out that Katzenegano will be fighting Giuliana Pena. Did we find that out? No, we found that out on Thursday, I think it was. On Wednesday, we found out that Misha Tate will be fighting. fighting Amanda Nunes at UFC 200. Zengano and Pena, that came out. If my memory serves me

correct Thursday, in short, we got some more fights for UFC 200. Some were met with enthusiasm, I think, the Katzangano fight in particular. Some were met with, again, some criticism, the Misha Tate fight, and of course we'll be talking about that on this very show as well. Frank Meir on Friday, the news comes out late Friday. I don't know if that was strategic or not, but they always say in the PR business, if you want to break some not-so-positive news, do so Friday night. And that's when a lot of people have logged off, taking a break from the internet. Well, late, late Friday, word came out that Frank Mir coming off his loss to Mark Hunt.

Word came out that he has been provisionally suspended by Usada for potentially violating their anti-doping policy. And again, hopefully we've learned something from. the O.L. Romero case, let's not call someone guilty before the facts come out, before he has a chance to test his B sample, before really he has an opportunity to investigate what went on here, because a lot of people threw some mud towards YOL Romero. And some of it is deserved because if you're putting something in your body, you got to know what's in it. But as we came to find out around this time last week, Romero was pretty much, you know, let go with a slap on the wrist, six months suspension. So we'll see what happens to Frank. He spoke about it.

it on his podcast phone booth fighting and he said if he gets the two-year suspension that they that he is potentially facing and that they are suggesting for an offense like this then his career might be over that would be a very sad way to end his Hall of Fame worthy career so that came out on Friday and then of course Sunday afternoon in Zagreb Croatia Junio dos Santos turns back the clock perhaps his most dominant and impressive performance since UFC 146 his win over Frank Mear maybe even UFC 160 against Mark Hunt But certainly he has not looked like that over the last three or so fights. His face was relatively intact afterwards, a virtuoso performance.

He turns back the clock against Ben Rothwell, skunks him five rounds to none. And wow, went to the body, something that we don't often see. He had the perfect game plan, and that was a much, much needed win for Cigano. So kudos to him, a massive, massive victory for the former UFC heavyweight champion. Derek Lewis picking up a big win. and now it looks like he'll be fighting Roy Nelson this time, maybe around this summer, I should say. We'll see what happens there. But those were the two notable performances, in my opinion, from Zagreb on a Sunday afternoon card here in the United States.

We'll talk about all that and a whole lot more. Let me quickly run down today's lineup and then get into our first guest of the day at around 305. We'll be talking to the aforementioned Katzengano about her fight against Julianne. And she teased that this would be an epic fight, an epic matchup. Does it live up to those standards? It's a great one. It makes all the sense to a degree. I'm not sure if I'd use the word epic. We'll talk to her about the fight and why she's been out for so long as well. 245, we're going to talk to Tony Ferguson and what I believe is his first interview since he had to pull out of that fight against Habib Rama Gameda. So we'll talk to him about that at 245. At 225, we're going to talk to Holly Home about not getting the rematch against Misha Te.

We've heard from everyone but Holly. So very thankful that she would come on the program, 225. 205, we'll talk to Habib Nirmagamadeov about fighting the little-known Darrell Horcher on just nine days notice. At 145, we'll talk to Cort McGee. He is in action this Saturday at UFC on Fox 19, but also it's a very, very notable and important milestone for him on Saturday. It's amazing how things turn out. We'll talk to him about that. He also has some fun things going on outside of the cage. So that's at 145.

Darrell Horcher will be stopping by at 125. So looking forward to talking to the UFC rookie about his debut this Saturday. But first, let us go to the phone lines and talk to a very special guest. You know, on this program, typically we have, when we talk to media members, typically it's members of the MMAFighting.com team, essentially because we have a lot of members on the team want to give them all a chance to come on the show and break things down and whatnot. but I really wanted to start this week off with Jeff Sherwood.

Jeff Sherwood is the founder of Sherdog.com. And a couple of years ago, the great Jack and Carnaceau of the Sherdog Rewind Show pretty much put it like this when it comes to Sherdog.com, he said, if you were a fan way back in the day when this sport was just, you know, blowing up, when it was evolving, when it was growing, if you wanted to know if a fan was on your level as far as, you know, being a hardcore into the day-to-day stuff of the sport, If you wanted to know if they were on your level, just ask them if they knew what Sherdog.com was. It was the site of record.

It was the very first site that I ever went to as a fan. The Fightfinder, where they post all the records, that is the gold standard. It still is today. And the words, legend and pioneer are often thrown out, you know, just like that without much thought and sincerity. But those two apply to Jeff Sherwood, who is joining us on the phone right now. It is an honor to be joined by him right now starting off the show. Jeff, how are you? I'm doing good. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

It is a pleasure, my friend. So, you know, obviously, you like when these sort of things happen, you know, coming off of good news. This is not the case. Last week, news came out that you were parting ways with the site that bears your nickname. You were known as Sherdog way back in the day when you were just, you know, a baseball player from what I understand. And you started the saying, and we'll talk about that in a second. But you have parted ways with Sherdog.com. Is that correct? Yeah, that is correct. I know you can't go into it too much, and I respect that, and I also don't really want to go into it too much. But is there anything you can say about why this is happening right now?

I don't know. I mean, basically, you know, how it is in big business sometimes. You know, they just need to make cuts, and they felt they needed to make a cut, and it was me. what is it like not being associated with the site anymore that bears your name i mean how how bizarre have the last few days been like for you um it's been really crazy i mean especially today i mean i woke up this morning and uh this is basically the first day that i've been unemployed probably uh since i was 23 24 wow so um yeah it's It's pretty crazy.

I don't think it's fully sunken yet. But, yeah, it's definitely odd. And that's the question that everyone's been asking me is, you know, how do you feel with the, you know, the site being there and having your name and you not being a part of it, which is a little strange. And I'm not even totally sure how, you know, how I feel about it. I guess maybe in the next weeks to come, I guess I'll figure it out. And just for some perspective, how old are you now?

I'm 48. Wow, so it's over two decades. And what a run it has been and the site continues to live on. So let's start from the beginning because I find this story fascinating. Like for me, you know, for someone like me who is an MMA media member, I don't know if these jobs exist, if not for sure, dog.com. And also, I think it's so important that your site and your work in particular is noticed because for the longest time, you know this better than anyone.

This sport lived online. It was nowhere else. It wasn't on TV. It wasn't in newspapers. It was only online. And I do believe after one press conference many moons ago, even Dana White himself, thanked the online media who kept this sport alive for so many years. And that was, again, in large part due to sherdog.com.

From what I understand, and I'd love to hear the story from you, the site was launched in 1997 while you were working for Boeing. And it was really just sort of like a forum, right? Is that accurate? Well, not necessarily a forum. And it was actually like early 96, but it was like on a free, a free platform back in the day. It was called GeoCities and you can just go to GF Cities and you can make a website about anything you want. And that's where it started. And that was sometime in 96. But nobody went there then. It was just me wanting to learn how to build a website and have fun and kill some. time. And that's how it started. And it started with a news page. And then the form was actually brought in a little bit later. But it was, it was a very, a very rough news page at the time. So 96, 97, the UFC is just three, four years old. The sport obviously isn't as, but I don't

even know, I mean, MMA is not really a household term. Why are you compelled to start an online website. Is it because there were no other sites that you felt were covering the sport right way? I mean, you weren't a journalist. You didn't have that background, so why even do this? Yeah, I don't know. It was something fun. And actually, funny, we referred to it back then as no whole bar. Right. So, you know, that was the real old school. But, you know, I knew that there was some stuff going on in Japan and things like that. And, you know, I took an interest in it. I started watching at UFC 1 when it was on and my buddy called me. He said, man, are you watching this?

And, you know, those were the times of the black boxes and everyone had one. And he's like, you need to put this on and I turn it on. And I'm watching this stuff. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, what is this? And I just became a fan instantly. And, you know, being at Boeing and being able to go online and look at things and look for news and everything, I was like, you know, there was a couple things out there. And there were, you know, the UG was out there for a message board and things like that.

But I was like, man, it would be really cool if somebody could create something and just have all the news from Japan and all over the world about, you know, what's going on in this sport. So me and my buddy decided to build a website and I built one about No Holds Barred. And at what point you start to realize that this is no longer just, you know, a little. little pet project for you, that this is actually gaining notoriety, people are coming to you for the news, and that more importantly, fighters, managers, et cetera, are paying attention to what's on the website. It's kind of funny because I remember the first day that I got 100 visitors. Wow.

And I thought I was, I thought I was, you know, the site was huge. I was like, oh my gosh, 100 people looked at the site today. That's crazy. And then, you know, I thought that was a big milestone. But, you know, it was probably. 98, where pretty much I could call anyone in the sport and they would take my call, I knew that people were paying attention, meaning fighters, managers. Once they would pick up the phone or they would call me back or they would send me an

email back, I would be like, okay, people are actually taking interest in this site, and that's kind of cool. And that's when I started to try and amp it up a little bit. How long before you leave your full-time job at Boeing and invest all your time in the website? Well, it was funny because actually I was let go there as well. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, but Boeing, you know, engineering, it was like every other week somebody was let go. I mean, these poor guys had worked for Boeing for 20 years and were scared to buy a house because they didn't know, you know, if they were going to be working there another five years or so.

So once I was let go there, I just, the site was growing and the store, when I started selling stuff in the store and it got popular, like people were ordering from all over the world videos back then with VHS. And I was like, you know what? It's now or never. It's time to just go all in and let's try and make it work. And it's a perfect opportunity because I don't have a job right now. So I decided to go all in. And, you know, that's when, when Garrett, my partner back in the day, decided to come on and be more active.

And we just went out at full board. And luckily, that's when the sport actually really started to grow online with all the hardcore people. And we just did it. It worked from there. When you introduced the Fight Finder? Ah, geez, I think it was probably 2001, I believe. horrible with dates, but I believe it was sometime around then. I know that one of the first people

we hired for the Flight Finder was a kid from Canada. He was in high school. He sent me a email, and he's like, hey, is there anything I could do to help you with? I'm in high school and I love MMA. And, you know, I would really try and I would really love to do something and maybe like an internship or something like that. And I was like, well, we're starting this thing. And there were some other people back in the day. Ryan Graham was actually the first young kid to have something like a fighter database online, and we brought him in as well. So I had a bunch of young kids working on the database right from the start, and actually Rob King worked all through high school, and that was his working job, and he loved it because he didn't have to work at a fast food place or anything

like that, and we ended up paying him for, and he actually just quit a few years back, and now he works for the postal in Canada and delivers mail and has a kid. And he started when he was like 13 with us. Wow, that is amazing. So the sport continues to grow, the ultimate fighter, all that stuff and more. Was there ever a point where you were like, okay, I can't even, like this exceeded your wildest dreams? Like, you remember when that was, when the site felt like it was on fire, when the sport was on fire, when, you know, the traffic? I remember when I first started at mMArated.com, my first real job covering MMA, I would go in, and I have no problem saying it. I think I got banned a couple of times.

I would go in in the forum and I would post my interviews, and they figured it out that it was me, so they banned me. But I knew that when I posted an interview there and it caught fire, the traffic that would come in as a result of the forum was just absurd. It was like hitting, you know, the biggest lottery in the world. The amount of people that were on that thing at any time in the day was just amazing. Do you remember when you felt like this thing actually exploded? Well, actually, I mean, you know, the ultimate.

Final Final one was huge. I mean, at that point, it was weird, especially when you were in the building for that, you know, during, during Bonner and Griffin, you could just feel it. I mean, you could feel it in the building, and you just knew, I, at least I did, I just had this feeling that after that night, things were going to be different. And that's when it started to go crazy. And, you know, if it would have been, you know, you'd post getting banned for posting interviews back in the day, you could have just got a hold of me and I had to post them in the forum, you know. I was never like that.

That's what's funny. Like, one of my best friends in the sport was Ryan Bennett. And he was back in the day, like, my number one competitor. And I was really good friends with Joel Gold from Full Contact Fighter. I had a subscription to Full Contact Fighter. And I was never into the whole, you know, us against them and things like. like that. You know, I had no problems. I used to bring a lot of people in, and I used to do a lot of things where a lot of people would be like, man, why are you such good friends with Ryan Bennett?

Why are you going on his radio show all the time? And I was like, it's really not a competition. He's doing his thing. I'm doing my thing. And we're all trying to get this sport to a better place. And that's the way I always looked at it. It's a beautiful way to look at the sport. And sometimes I wish that it was applied more these days as well. and we'll get to these days in a second. And we don't need to go into it all that much, but no secret that at one time there was some friction between Sherdog and the UFC.

Was there ever a point where you felt like it was getting too much where you didn't want to be a part of the site anymore? You didn't want to be a part of MMA media anymore? Was it too much to just deal with on a day-to-day basis? No, not at all. I mean, I think a lot of it was kind of blown out of proportion. Even to this day, like, okay, they decided not to give us credentials.

No big deal. We still had built the connections over the years. I mean, I even had fighters that were very close to Dana, and I would go to their house and do interviews with them, and they'd be like, yeah, you know, I get bitched at every time I do this. But, you know, you were there. We've built a relationship. I will continue to do this no matter what.

And even though Dana said a lot of things, you know, the famous quote was, we were going to be enemy. for life and everything like that. But every time I see Dana, he gives me a hug, he asks me how the kids are, and we have a few laughs. Everybody seems to think we totally hate each other, but it's really not like that.

For someone who is there pretty much at the beginning, you know, as far as media is concerned, which is amazing, and as a fan as well, to see where the UFC in particular is today, as far as the amount of shows, where the shows are being run, things like the Reebok deal, Usada, things like that,

Is this surreal to you? Have you been able to wrap your head around it? Because I can't imagine for someone who had been there from the days of where there were like three, four UFCs a year, a few pride, things like that, to where it is today. You know, how do you feel about the 2016 version of MMA as opposed to the 1997 NHB days? It's really incredible when you take a step back and look at it. I mean, back in the day, I remember going to a UFC to cover it, and you would just show up and walk in the back door. and somebody would be like, hey, there you are, hey, here's your seat. You know, you could sit right here, you can take photos right here, wherever you want.

And then there'd be like, there'd be like a thousand people, you know, 1,500 people in the stands. You'd be in some tiny town in Arkansas or something like that. And to where now, you know, you have to, it seems like a real sport in that, in that aspect. You know, you have to go through all the proper channels to be a media person, you know, back in the day. you would look around the media room and people that would show up and they would be drinking beers. They would be drinking more beers than they would be taking photos and things like that. And, you know, when they started to clean stuff up like that, I was like, you know what, this sport actually might make it.

And the big thing back in the day that we always used to say, the one thing I used to say is, you know, the UFC MMA needs to get on TV. Once they get on live TV, then things are going to get better. then things will start to climb and they'll move towards being a real sport. And that was kind of the case. I mean, you know, there were some channels that you can hardly find back in the day that they were on. But once that started happening, it seemed like that started the snowball effect. And it started, it started creeping up and getting bigger and bigger.

But, you know, as far as as as as many shows as they have these days, it's kind of crazy. You know, back in the day, kickboxing was kind of like MMA. It was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then it got like at its peak. And it seemed like they just started throwing it down your throat. And it seemed like people got turned off after a little while. It was just like it was like kickboxing overload. And people just kind of lost interest and kind of walked away.

And I mean, how much kickboxing do we see these days? Not a whole lot. I just hope that that doesn't happen in MMA. But, you know, with the Fox deal and, you know, the pay-per-views and everything and how many fighters they have. You know, they got to pump these shows out, but I just hope that, you know, a lot of people don't lose interest because there's too much of them.

Last week's events might affect your answer here, but I'm wondering if you enjoy the sport as much as you did back then. You know, it's certain time. There's certain things that I take from it. I will admit, when there was four shows a year, it was so much different because you knew the fight for, you know, three months and you could build up, you know, when you're doing radio or you're doing previews or interviews, you can build up to that fight and you had three months to do it. And I enjoyed that because it was like, it was like building up to the Super Bowl because a UFC back in the day or a pride back of the day to me was like Super Bowl. So I had time to build up to that.

And then when the night was finally here, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe it. Tonight's the night, you know, it's on. Now we see a show on Saturday and there's already, you know, a show next Saturday. Or, you know, even sometimes we see a show on Friday or Saturday and there's a show on Sunday. So it's a lot different in that aspect. But there are a lot of things and there are, you know, certain fights that I really get pumped up for and events that I really get pumped up for. And yeah, but I still love the sport and I still think that the fighters and the athletes and mixed martial arts are the best athletes in the world.

How do you feel about the current state of MMA media? It's gotten a lot better. I mean, I think that there's a lot of bickering and, you know, us against the world. And, you know, oh, I work for blank website and you're with Sherdog. we can't really we can't really be friends and hang out. I think there's still a lot of people like that, and I think it's a lot of the newer guy. But, you know, back in the day, all the media used to hang out.

I mean, that's what we did. We all used to go, you know, drink beers after the show or after Wands. It doesn't, there are some like that, but I think it's a very select few. So do you still want to cover the sport? I would still like to be in the sport somehow. I don't know, because I never call myself a journalist. I mean, I never had any official training or schooling or anything like that. But I feel that I've been in the sport so long that I pretty much know everything that goes on from the guy that, you know,

holds the cord to the TV camera to, you know, people making matches and people run an event. I feel like I have input for all of that stuff because I've seen so many people fail over the years. And I've seen so many people succeed and how those people succeeded and how those people failed. I feel just that I have a lot of knowledge in a lot of different aspects that could possibly be a good thing for somebody. And to be clear for those that don't know, several years back, you sold Sherdog.com to Cravely online, right? When was that exactly? That was nine years ago. Wow, nine years ago. Holy moly.

Yeah. So some might be confused as to why the founder and owner of the site would not be there. So you then became an employee. That was part of the deal. When you sold the site, you decided to stick on, right? Yeah, when that was part of the deal is that when they came in and they purchased the site that I would stay on and continue to be obviously sure. sure dog and uh you know that that worked great for for nine years what was there any discussion of you know as long as this site is around you get to stick around like were you completely blindsided

by this or did you see it coming you know what was your reaction um well i mean there's there's always bumps in the road where you kind of see things and you know there's there's some things that have happened leading up to this that uh you know i can't really discuss but you know you know When things like that happened, you're kind of like, ah, this is, this is kind of interesting. So I thought, you know, nothing lasts forever, no matter what. I mean, and I knew that going in. And, you know, that's why I was within, I was in negotiations with them for like two years to sell the site because I really didn't want to. Because I knew that once I did, I was going to lose a lot of, a lot of the power and a lot of, a lot of,

just the say and things. And it's kind of hard to go from the person that basically you can do whatever you want to having to answer to somebody. Yeah. Do you regret it? At the time, no, because the problem was the way that we used to fund the site

was by the Sherdog store. And as you know, there was a time where DVDs just quit selling, and you can get UFC DVDs at Walmart for four bucks. and and then, you know, just the little signs. I mean, I used to sell walkout shirts like crazy.

There's no walkout shirts anymore. You know, you're not going to sell thousands of dollars in Reebok stuff. You know, so there was just little signs that were telling us that it was time to do something different. And back in the day, like, you know, me and Charles from Tappout were such good friends that I would be like, hey, you know, what do you got new? And he would give me something new, and I'd make a banner of it, and I'd throw it on the site. So when that time came where I had to start selling banners and everything, I was always so cool to my friends and let them, you know, I would just put it up there for him.

It was kind of hard to ask him for money. It's amazing how this sounds like it was like 30 years ago, yet it was just like a few years ago when all these things weren't playing. And now they're, you know, they're pretty much not a factor anymore in the sport. So what do you do now? Are you just taking some time off? I'm sure people will be reaching out to you as news starts to trickle out. What's your plan for the foreseeable future?

Yeah, I'm just going to relax for a little while, a couple weeks. I didn't even watch the show last night. I kind of closed my computer on Friday at the end of beatdown, which was my last beat down. and I had to close it at that time because the emotions were starting to hit, and I ended it there, and I didn't open my computer all weekend. Wow. And I didn't watch any MMA. I haven't looked at anything.

When I was on hold and you were giving out the results, that was the first time I heard about what happened. Wow. So, yeah, I just kind of want to, you know, take a couple steps back and kind of take a deep breath. and, you know, just relax and not sit here and dwell on it, and hopefully, you know, everything worked out in the end. Well, end on this. I can talk to you for an hour about your career, and, again, I appreciate you coming on. I know you said, and I also suggest everyone who's watching or listening to check out

that last beat down with T.J. DeSantis, a very emotional one, but some nice cameos from the likes of Rampage Jackson and Josh Gross, Jordan Breen, etc. You said on that show that you hate talking about your favor moment, the greatest moment. But I'm wondering, is there something that sticks out as your proudest achievement as far as Sherdog is concerned? Something when you think back, you're like, I'm really proud of this moment. We did this, this decision, something like that. Does anything come to mind? I know it's a very hard question.

We're talking two decades here. But does anything, as I put you on the spot here, come to mind? Well, I do know that I was very happy the one moment when I had multiple commissioners, and it happened more than once. obviously. After Sherdog wasn't, the fight finder wasn't announced as the official record keeper. And I had multiple commissioners. I had just multiple people from the UFC, you know, and all these other events basically tell me, you know, they can make me pay these guys to put my results in there, but really you're the official.

We go there. And it's always nice, and I always make fun of people. And it's all in fun, is when, you know, when I did used to get to sit in press row at the UFC, you would see everyone's computer open. And when they would go to look up a fighter, it would always be shirtog. Yeah. So I would always joke with them or I'd try and sneak a picture and tweet it or something. And, you know, it was always funny to see a MMA fighting employee or our MMA junkie.

and it was all in fun, you know, with their computer open, looking at records on Sturdock. And that always made me happy. 100%. I use it on this show every week. Again, man, I really appreciate it. Congratulations on an amazing run, an amazing career. I'm looking forward to your next step. If there ever is an MMA Hall of Fame, you should 100% be in there. You are a pioneer of this sport.

And for a media guy, you know, I actually said on the M.A. beat a couple weeks ago. I remember sitting down watching Josh's interview with Nick Diaz after the the Gomi fight, a video interview and saying, like, this is so cool to see an interview with a fighter busted up after a fight like that. That's, you know, I was sitting in my cubicle watching your content. So, congratulations, man. They can't take any of that away. And I really wish you the best. And I wish you a hearty congratulations on putting together, you know, one of the more important, you know, pieces in the history of this site. When they talk about the history of mixed martial arts, NHB before that, Sherdog.com has to be a part of that discussion.

So kudos to you on that and all the best in the future. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks, area. I appreciate all those kind words. All right. We'll talk to you very soon. There he is. Jeff Sherwood, the founder of Sherdog.com.

I appreciate him coming on very much and wish him the best. Okay, let's move along now. As I told you, Dow Orcher will be fighting Khabib Nurma Gamedov on just nine days' notice this weekend in Tampa Bay. But before we move along, let me quickly tell you about our friends over at Squarespace. So building a website can be tough. We all know this. and even if you know your way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well

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this is very important. Make sure to use the offer code MMA to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for your favorite show, the MMA hour. We sincerely thank Squarespace for their support. Now back to the show. Darrell, how are you? I'm all right. How you doing? I'm doing great. Apologies for the slight delay, but great to have you on the program. You know, it's interesting going through your Twitter timeline, and we have the handle right over there on our screen, if you're watching this live, Hortair MMA, and going back to March, you were talking to Dana White. You were tweeting Dana White. I don't think he was replying, but you were out there saying anytime, anywhere, I will fight on a day's notice, two days notice, whatever, and you stay true to your word. You got nine days notice to fight one of the toughest guys in the sport. When did you start to realize,

Okay, I'm ready for the UFC, and I could put this out there, just hoping that they take the bait. Probably one or two fights ago. I felt that I was ready. I was gauging myself to their top guys. I felt that I was ready. And I try to stick to my word. If I'm going to tweet about it or say about it, I'm going to do it. So when I said anybody on any notice, I meant it.

Obviously, there was better matchup that we could have on nine days notice than to be himself, you know. But anybody, he's just a man. They're all the same. So on Tuesday this news comes out that he is looking for an opponent. And in fact, one of your managers, Brian Hamper tweets out to both Damon Martin and I that he has thrown a name of the hat, but you're an outsider. You don't have any UFC fights on your record. And I asked him who it was, and he said you.

On Tuesday, when you guys did that, did you think he had a shot? No, honestly, my honest thoughts about that were we would throw my hat in the ring for Khab, they would pull somebody else for him, and hey, maybe that would give me my chance that gentleman's opponent. That was my thought on that was, uh, they'll pull somebody else a little more experience for a ranked guy, and they'll throw me in there with the other guy. When did you start to feel like you had a chance? You know, I didn't even really think about it at all up until they called me and said I had it.

I mean, they called me, I was actually at work and they called me and said, hey, welcome to UFC. You've got to fight. Like, let's do this. Wow. Who called you? Brian Butler, my manager. Yeah, another one of your managers calls you.

Was it on Thursday? Yeah, it was Thursday, Thursday morning. So from what I understand, according to UFC.com, you are a project manager for a sheet metal company. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's accurate. So you were at work when you got this phone call? Yeah. How did you react?

You know, at first I didn't really believe it. You're like, yeah, okay. I'm waiting for the call back to be like, oh, never mind. They found somebody else. And then that didn't really happen, so then I left work. So did you just like walk out of work? Like you didn't fulfill your hours, you just left? Oh, I didn't quit.

I worked for family, so I was able to just leave and go get ready and get prepared and get things in line and get things in order. I had to do a lot of medicals. I had to do all my medicals Thursday and Friday. So between those two days, I was running around and get my physical, my eye exam, all that stuff. So there was no yelling, there was no dancing, no. shouting, no calling up, a loved one, something like that. It was all businesslike? It was, for the most part. I mean, I called my wife and told her, and she's a redhead, so she blew up right away. She's like, are you serious? No way. So, I mean, she was the one yelling. I was

more like, I'll believe it when it happens. So when did you believe it happened? When you didn't get the call back saying it was a joke? Yeah, and when I had the contract in my email. Wow. So what about this sheet metal company? Are you? you're going to take some time off? They seem like pretty good people to work for you, said a family. Are they lenient? Are they understanding that you need some time off here? Yeah, absolutely.

I have, obviously, I have all week off. I'll be in Florida here tomorrow. I leave for Tampa. So, yeah, no, I can take off whenever I want. Prior to this, I would take off for training. I would take off a week here and there and go travel and train various places. How much did you weigh when you got the call on Thursday? Well, heavy.

What is heavy? Like 81. Holy moly. So 81, what do you weigh now? Well, I'm starting my water load, but right now I'm 74, 75, so I'm good as far as the weight goes. I'll make the weight no problem. This will be your 14th pro fight. Have you ever had to cut this much before?

Yeah, I had to do, I did 16 pounds one time on a day's notice. that was pretty miserable. Wow. When was that? That would have been my last Bellator fight. It was a big buildup. My fight was canceled and then back on and then canceled and then back on and then they canceled it on me like two days out. And then the day before way in, they called me and said it's back on to cut weight.

Is this the Phil Nover fight? Yeah, the Nover fight. So this is your only loss? Yeah, my only loss was that one and I had a horrible, horrible wake. I don't remember any of the fight. It was so bad. I was so dehydrated and drained. I don't remember walking in the cage.

So you lost that one on unanimous decisions. Since then, I believe you've won five in a row. Kind of a similar circumstance here as far as, you know, a lot of weights cut and whatnot. Are you worried about this? Is this a concern as far as mentally? No, I'm not too worried about it. Because prior to that, I mean, I had just got back to training a month ago, a month and a half ago. So my weight was slowly coming off, but I wasn't rushing inside, nothing lined up.

Okay. Now that, you know, it's a 60 catchweight. So that last five pounds, people understand that last five pounds is a big difference. Losing that last five pounds makes it really no stress. Well, that's interesting. I don't know if that's actually been reported or put out there. So this is a 160-pound catch-weight fight? Yes.

Was that a stipulation that needed to be put in place because of the short notice? Did you guys ask for that? I honestly don't know. I just, when it was presented to me, it was presented at 160. Maybe you have really good managers. Yeah, hopefully, I think that's what it is. When the dust settles and you're about to go to bed or whatever, you know, Friday night or whatever, is a part of you feeling like,

yes, I'm into UFC, I got what I wanted, I just wish I had a little more time to prepare for arguably the best lightweight in the world. Like, is it kind of a mixed emotion as you prepare for this fight? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, yeah, the short notice thing isn't a huge deal, but yeah, for somebody like this, it would have been nice to at least, have somewhat of a camp. I mean, I've been training 40s a week or four times a day since I got the call, but

what are you going to do in a weekend? Let's be honest. Yeah. How much should you know about Khabibh and Ramaghamedov before this booking? Not a lot. I haven't really followed him much. I know he's been out with an injury. I know he beat Dersanos.

I watched that fight, so I vaguely remember that. But I don't really watch footage on my opponents. I got, you know, my team. I got my training partners and my coaches all do that for me. So I just know that he's a good grappler and he's an explosive striker. And, you know, he's ranked where he is for a reason to train hard and go in there with my head clear. All that being said, though, do you kind of feel like this is best case scenario, you know, the fact that he hasn't fought in two years? If you're going to fight someone like him, might as well fight him when he's off for two years.

Like, do you believe in cage rust and all that stuff? I don't. I think it all comes down to how you train. I mean, I personally, I only fight every six months or so. and I'm coming off of seven months is my last fight. I think it's all in how you train. The K-Dress is a mental thing. You know, if you train hard and you spar and you wrestle and you roll,

depending on how you train, it transitions over. Are you a big Twitter guy? Do you look at social media? I'm not a big Twitter guy. I probably should be, especially now. But when this blew up, I actually shut off all my notifications. And I haven't really gotten on at all because I know there's going to be a lot of haters And, you know, Habib's a big name.

He has a lot of fans. A lot of people are talking bad about me. And I just, I don't need to read it. I don't need to deal with it. So I turned it all off and not paying attention. Yeah, I was just going to ask you about that. I was curious, you know, this was met. I personally think it makes all the sense in the world.

He gets a chance, you know, to fight. He hasn't fought in two years. He gets that paycheck. Here we have this, you know, it's cliche, but this rocky story, you get a chance, you know, on the biggest stage possible. Fox main card, you get a chance to fight one of the best. I mean, it's a great. It's a beautiful story.

if you can't put together the fight that you wanted, and everything's healthy. You know, the fact that you're cutting all that much weight, I will admit, it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. But I love the fact that you're getting this opportunity that he's still getting to fight. That being said, though, a lot of fans were, you know, saying, who's Darrell Horcher?

What is this? You know, they couldn't come up with anyone better than that. So I was wondering if you read that and if it discouraged you at all. No, I didn't read it. And like I said, it really wouldn't. Had I read it, it wouldn't discourage me because, you know, I'm a lower-level pro.

from a little area. You know, I fought on Belator, which is, at the time I fought on it, was nowhere near as big as even as now. But prior to that, I'd define regionally. So a lot of these guys, you know, the fanboys and the Key World Warriors, aren't really going to know who I am. And that's okay. You know, I understand that, and I would just, you know,

brush that off and ignore it and move on. Is it true that you tried out for the Ultimate Fighter and would have gone on the show had it not been for an injury? For this season? Yeah, I tried out the Ultimate Fighter and would have been on. the show. It wasn't an injury. I was injured going in, so I was heavy. It was really more or less the stress of making weight every two weeks or every week. I didn't think I could do it. And I'm not going to take a chance and go on to a show like that and not make weight and then be blackballs and

push side and never looked at. What season was that? Was that this past one? Yeah. I cut off for the one of the 55 prior to that as well and I should make it the whole way through. Wow. That is amazing. And now here you are, again, on the biggest stage possible of fighting, Habib Nurmaghamedov. Are you the kind of fighter who gets nervous? Like, do you think once you're at that arena in Tampa on Saturday, knowing that a couple million at least will be watching? You know, are you the kind of fighter that, you know, gets a little worked up,

gets butterflies? How do you think you'll react to all of that? Yeah, I am the fighter who gets, I get real bad anxiety for all my fights. It doesn't matter if there's 100 people out there or 100,000 people. It really isn't going to matter. I'm going to get nervous, and I know that. I've, you know, I got 13 fights now. I kind of know how to deal with it.

By the time I get in the cage, it just goes away. I'll be real nervous in the back. I'll be very nervous in the back. I can assure you. But like I said, when I get in the cage, it all just goes away. Do you think that you'll be able to even enjoy this? You know, it's a lot. And from what I understand, I've never been backstage at a CFFC event,

but I hear that they run a fantastic show. I know the great Bert Watson works for them backstage. So, you know, you get some of that, you know, that big league experience when it comes to dealing with the officials and whatnot, but do you think that you'll be able to enjoy this week, Tampa, doing the photo shoots, the media, things like that? Do you think that you'll be able to enjoy that, or is this too big happening too fast for you? I think it's happening too fast. I can't really settle in and enjoy any of it. But on the other hand, for that happening so fast, I also don't have that build up to get that anxiety, those

nerves, the stress. You know, the biggest stress I had so far was get my medical done. Let's get the medical to get the paperwork done, you know. Yeah. Do you get to keep your lightweight title, CFFC, lightweight title, or do you have to relinquish that now? Yeah, I've vacated that, obviously. They gave me, with the contract from the UFC, I've vacated that and moved on. Okay. I still have a nice little belt. It sits on my shelf. Uh-huh. And what about, you know, the future?

You know, of course, you hope for the win, but have you been assured that you'll get another fight regardless of what happens on Saturday because you are stepping up on such short notice? I do believe so. Yeah, I mean, it's not a one-fight contract. It's a multiple fight contract. Okay. So, yeah, I do believe so, and I don't really see, personally, I don't really see how, regardless of the outcome, how that wouldn't be possible. I mean, I'm stepping up on 9 days' notice when nobody else would to fight, like you said, already, the number one ranked lightweight in the world. Is your wife coming to watch?

Yeah, my wife will be there, and she'll be freaking out, so everybody's here. She screams really loud when I fight, so everybody, running all my family. When they watch me on TV, they just sit back and listen to her screams, so. Oh, I can't wait for that. So she's a redhead, so I'll be. be looking out for a redhead screaming at the top of her lungs. Hopefully she's the only one in Tampa Bay. Any other family members coming to watch?

Or what do you think it's going to be like back home? I've got some other people coming out. There's some friends coming out. Quite a few people. I was surprised that many people are coming out. But the big thing is going to be back home. They're throwing some parties and watching TV. And my family from Chicago, I'm actually originally from Chicago.

I have a lot of family out there. They're all throwing a big get-together and they'll watch on a big projector. That is great. It's very rare that I get to ask this question to someone on this show. But since a lot of people are learning about you for the first time, in short, what kind of fighter are you? If someone says Darrell Horcher is this kind of fighter, what's the answer to that? You know, I don't know. Maybe my manager even said at Bass when we were talking yesterday about this fight. I'm the type of fighter that when I get in the cage, I draw a line in the sand and we're going to fight. You cross the line, we're going to fight.

There's no quit in me, and I don't back down from any of the cage. If you're in the case of me, we're going to fight, you're going to know you're going to fight. You know, I don't care who I'm fighting. You shouldn't take me lightly. I'm not taking you lightly. That's it. And I know I have the power in my hands to put any man on this planet down.

So you definitely shouldn't take me lightly and know that we're going to fight. And in your mind, do you foresee a way of beating Habib? Like, I know you said you haven't been paying too much attention to him. This is a guy who's undefeated, has had a very solid run and a very dominant run in the UFC. but do you see a path to victory? Oh, absolutely, yeah. If I didn't see a path to victory on all of the top 10, top 15 guys, I wouldn't have even thrown my hat in and said I'd fight anybody in any notice.

I do believe there's a way to beat him. And he's just a man, you know. He can be beat just like anybody else. Wow. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it, my friend. Congrats on getting the fight. Good job putting it out there.

Long before this was even a possibility. Looking forward to it this Saturday. It's live and free on Fox. It's Darryl Horcher versus. Habib Nirmagamada Madov. Call me crazy. I love these stories. And I give you a lot of credit, my man, for stepping up on nine days' notice. Best of luck to you on Saturday. Looking forward to it very much. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. There he is. Daryl Hortcher. All business. No nonsense. As he prepares for his UFC debut, got the call when he was

181 pounds. And we just found out the fight will actually be taking place at 160 pounds. Important to note, I do not think that was put out there when the news broke on Thursday. So five less pounds to cut. We wish him the best. I think it's great for both men. Of course, if he's healthy, if the cut has done well. But also, for Habib, he hasn't fought in two years. Good to see him just get a fight, get another paycheck, get his career back on track.

I think that's very important as well. All right, let's move along. Let's talk to our next guest. He too will be going to Tampa Bay. this Saturday. He will be in action on Saturday. UFC on Fox 19 in Tampa Bay, the home of the lightning. He faces Santiago Ponzanibio, and his name is Cort McGee. He is joining us on the phone right now. Kurt, how are you? Fantastic. Wow, I like it. Okay, that really popped in my ears. Thank you for joining us. It's good to see you back, you know, what, four months after your last

fight. I say that because you had a pretty long stretch between your last fight, and, the one before that. You had a two-year stretch because of a very serious wrist injury. Does it just feel, is it a victory in itself to just be back in a normal time frame four months later? Your next fight is that kind of a victory in its own right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Me and my wife were talking about it today. She was like, man, this is incredible. Because it was so long and it was devastating and it was difficult. And I just thought, I don't know. And then four months later, I'm ready. And not only that, I didn't get it. injured after my last fight. So technically I've been training, you know, pretty hard since

September, October, when I found out I was fighting Marceo. Yeah. In December, you know, so it's been great. It's been fantastic. What kept you on the sidelines for two years, that was the wrist injury, right? Nothing else? Yeah, I had two surgeries kind of go bad and had to have them redone and so the process was drawn out. drawn out, drawn out, and the recovery was drawn out. And it was already a pretty substantial injury, so it takes a long time to heal. It's kind of like the ACL in my wrist. What exactly was wrong?

What was wrong? It detached. So the ACL of my wrist, which is the scaffoldunate ligament, detached from the scaphoid in the lunate and sucked back up in my forearm. And so my wrist was sloppy and painful, and I couldn't. I couldn't grip, like my grip strength. So like an average guy is about 100 pounds. And mine was at about 30.

And my other hand was roughly 200. Wow. And so it was, I mean, it was terrible. It was like, you know, it was like, I don't know, the grip strength of an elderly woman. And it was in excruciating pain. I literally couldn't pour a cup of coffee with my right hand. And so when I got it fixed,

I took the time to, you know, it was about a month. I had it all cast it up. It took the stuff off. And then after my first appointment, they said, it detached. And we need to revise the surgery. And I was like, oh. And then it was another two weeks before surgery. And then I had the revision.

And it messed up again. There was another issue. And they had to go in and change it to do something different. And so it was another month. And then another couple of weeks. And then six or seven weeks later, They took some of the hardware out, and then another six or eight weeks. They took the hardware out again, and then it was on the healing process.

So it just took extra, extra, extra long to heal it up to get it back to where I could use it. And then building it back up to where I can punch and grab and, you know, and submit and, you know, build up my grip strength. That just took a tremendous amount of time. Was this something that happened as a result of fighting? I mean, I'm sure there was a buildup in one. but did something specifically happen to your wrist and training or in a fight? I was fighting Ryan LaFleer, and I have one pitcher that was taken that I saw, and I was kind of, I leaned down. He did the South Pots, so he was throwing a left knee, and it caught me right on my right wrist.

And I don't remember it during the fight. I remember my hand hurting, but it wasn't, you know, he was a lot of adrenaline and stuff, and you get hit, and, and, you know, I don't know. Every fight's a little different, you know, and I didn't necessarily notice it until after the fight. But there's a big, nasty knee where my hands on my chin, the knee lamp square right on my right wrist. And it's just that's the only thing that I could like narrow it down to other than maybe if I punched him and it rolled it or something. So that's kind of from the doctor's advice, you know, or the doctor's opinion was, that somewhere during the fight, it got rolled or it got bent or pulled or hit at some angle or some way to where it just detached that scapulonate ligament.

Obviously, that's a very key part of, you know, your arsenal. Was there ever a point where you thought that this might be it, that if they don't fix this, they can't get a right, your wrist doesn't heal? I did it because I, the first, you know, after I did the therapy and I did the stuff, after the first time, and after about six or eight weeks, I kind of figured, like, at six months, I'm like, okay, at six months, I'll be ready to roll. So I kind of had it scheduled out, and I figured out. And, you know, after the first one, I just thought, holy cow.

And then after the second one, then I hit the year mark, and I was just, like, starting to do therapy. And I just thought, I don't know. I mean, you can train with one hand, you know, but it's just, it's not the same. like you can't grapple and you can't do the conditioning you need and you know uh i guess you can but i wasn't you know i don't know man and i and i just kind of uh it was devastating to say the least it was absolutely devastating and those thoughts did cross my mind you know okay what am i going to do what am i going to do after what if i don't have it anymore what if i you know what if i can't compete because i mean in this game man you're out for six months man you got new blood

coming in you got new people coming in new stuff there's People get in their shots. And everybody's so good now. And everybody has such great training that it's just like, I don't know, I started feeling a little less than, you know, and I just thought, shit, man, I don't know if I have it. And, you know, about that year mark is when I said, you know what, I don't know. I don't know if I should hang it up and go on to the next thing. or if, you know, and it just kind of came to me one night, like I just decided. I made a decision, and I said, you know what, I still have it, and I'm going to give it my all.

And so, I don't know, just one specific day, you know, I talked to my coaches, talk to my close family, some spiritual advisors that I have, and, you know, a lot of people that I surround myself with in recovery, and I just made a decision that, you know, I still had some fight in me. So that's what I was going to do. So I just kind of set everything aside and focused on becoming the crusher again, you know. During those two years, how did you support yourself and your family? Well, I used to be a commercial plumber. and at the wages, so October 26, 2007, I quit my job to become a professional athlete.

I was fighting and I was making about the same money. Well, roughly, a little bit less, but I was fighting a lot more often. And I just kind of, when I quit that job, and I made it into the UFC a couple of years later, I decided with some help from my accountant to pay myself what I was making as a plumber two or three years before that. And so I had a pretty substantial savings. And that's what I do. So kind of like I got asked last time, you know, what are you going to do?

You know, you renegotiated your contract. You're making a little more money. You won the fight. You have a pretty good lump sum. You know, what are you going to do? you know, I was like nothing, man. I said, I didn't make anything extra. CMFM Incorporated made pretty good money, December 12th.

I said, I got paid on the first, you know, and I pay myself a salary every month, whether I make 30 grand or 50 grand or 100 grand, it doesn't matter. I pay myself a humble salary, and that's what I live off of. I pay myself about 30 grand a year and then with expenses. You know, I pay myself about $3,100, $3,200 a month, and that's what I live off of, regardless. So I was able to float for a little ways, and then I started dipping into that savings. I don't know. I've listened to Dave Ramsey, so I did the Prudent Reserve stuff, and I had that backup.

And then I've been speaking for a number of years, and now there's some fees associated with me speaking. and so I kind of ran off of savings, and then I picked up speaking engagements, and they really started taking off. So how I supported my family was with good savings, and I started speaking. Wow, that is amazing. Motivational talk, recovery talk, stuff. Anywhere from high schools, junior highs, I've been to prisons, have been to colleges. I mean, I've talked all over the place. And I mentioned at the top of the show that April 16th is a, it's an important day in your life.

The most important day in my life. All right, so you tell the world, why is April 16th an important day? Well, given God willing, I make it there sober, I'll have 10 years of continuous sobriety. That means I haven't used or drank, including I stayed sober through all four of those surgeries I went through. And all four of them I went through non-narcotics. Wow. You know, it's just, it was the worst day and the best day in my life. It was the best day of my life because I quit using a drink and the worst day

because I didn't think I could go one day without a drink or a drug. That's how I lived. And that's how I, that was my, that was my solution to everything. You know, if I need, if I needed more energy, I would take this. if I, you know, my solution to life was getting loaded and it wasn't working anymore. And so the best day in my life, because I quit, but it took a lot of work. And it's been the most difficult thing I've ever done, but the most gratifying thing I've ever done. But yeah, if you would have told me 10 years ago, you know, Court, you're going to be on a Fox card fighting in the UFC.

You know, you'll have a family. You'll have a wife and two kids. You'll have your own vehicles. You'll have your own fishing pools. You know, you'll have taught your kids all kinds of great stuff. You'll have a relationship with your family, both families, your wife's family and your family. I mean, I didn't have anything. I didn't have shit.

I was homeless, unemployable. I had nothing, man. I had nothing. I had no wife, no kids, no friends, the one or two friends that I had since. One spent a significant amount of time in prison, and the other one passed away on my six-year sobriety birthday. Both of which I share when I speak and share my story. you know that's kind of the group I surrounded myself with and that's who I was

I was just as just as confused as they were you know did you know you would have told me 10 years ago man I would have said no way no way I wouldn't have given myself a shot in the world did you know that the UFC had a card on April 16th or did they offer you that and then you know I had no idea As a matter of fact, I asked for that Tim Means got injured, and he was fighting at 170 against Donald Serroney.

And I had been helping Steve Seiler train for his title fight. And Steve Seiler and my other teammate, Dan O'Rester Zobble, have went and trained with Benson Henderson when he was fighting Donald Serroney. So they're like a good, I'm not going to say they mimic, but their style is a lot like Donald Seroni. So I've been helping them train for a title fight outside of the UFC in Titan. And so we were going for five rounds, you know, and when Tim Means dropped out, he was like, you should ask for that fight. So I asked for it, and they said there's a possibility, so just be ready. And I said, absolutely, you know, and I just offered, offered to take that fight.

So I started training for that title fight, or not title fight, but main event fights, and it was going to be five rounds. And I was already training for it. So, like, I was really, you know, stepped up and ready to go. And then the other cowboy got to fight. And I don't know, man, I've just been ready to roll. Wow. and then when you realized that it was April 16, you know, you got that offer and that it coincides with the potential 10-year anniversary of this incredible milestone, how did you react to that? Do you believe in these kind of weird coincidences?

I don't know, man. There's been a lot of coincidences in the last, you know, almost 10 years. But Joe Silva said, you know, we're not going to have you for this fight. Maybe we'll schedule you for March or April. And so I said, Okay, cool. And I remember I didn't hear much about it. And then I just had a feeling like, I bet you money that they're going to schedule me for April 16th. I just have a feeling. And then I booked the speaking engagement here in Utah. So I'm speaking for the juvenile justice, everything. So this big assembly they have once a year. And it'll be kind of my foot in the door to every juvenile justice center in Utah. So I can talk to the kids who are already. struggling that are, you know, locked up in facilities that are going through the things that I went through when I was young. And so I'm speaking to, you know, that group. It's, it's everybody who runs juvenile justice. I mean, there'll be all kinds of, you know, probation officers and this and that there. So I booked that for the 22nd, and I thought, you know what, they're going to schedule it for the 23rd, and I'm not going to be able to speak. I hope that doesn't happen.

And then I got the text message to April 16th. And I was like, no shit. Wow. And then I text back to Joe, and I said, if I make it, I said, that'll be my 10-year sobriety birthday, man. And he said, wow, really? And I said, yep. So I don't know, man. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, to say the least.

How do you, and forgive my ignorance, this is just a little new to me. How do you, for lack of a better words, celebrate that day? Like on Saturday, do you do anything to, I don't know, is that just, I mean, obviously it's not just another day, but do you do anything to honor the day? How will you be on Saturday? And especially now as you are preparing to actually fight on the same day. Well, I mean, so in my first, you know, year of sobriety, a lot of it, a lot of it was for me to show me. And now, you know, it's like the longer that I, that I've, that I'm in recovery and the longer, uh, term of sobriety I have, the more I realize that life is a one day at a time thing,

recovery is a one day at a time thing. And the most important thing is my deep, dark past, and that past is kind of the key to my success for helping somebody else who's struggling. You see what I'm saying? So I can work with somebody who is at their, deepest, darkest, and I can talk to them, and they know that I know where they are. So when I, like, celebrate that day, I don't, I'm not necessarily, like, yeah, it's a celebration, but it's more, I guess it's more to show that it's possible. And there's a lot of stigma surrounding addiction. You think of an alcoholic, you think of the guy.

panhandling on the street. When you think of a drug addict, you think of a guy breaking in my house, stealing shit out of my garage, shooting dope. And like when I stand up and I speak and I say I'm court and I'm a person in long-term recovery, you know, when I tell my neighbor, you know, it's like I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict, they're just like, no. You know, you're such a good guy and you're why. And I said, yeah, man, I'm in recovery. And I said, you know, a lot of people like that are, are, I mean, everybody that I know who's in recovery. are incredible people.

And we are. We're incredible people. We can do incredible things. But when we're not, you know, loaded, when we're not drunk, when we're not, you know, shooting dope. You know, I'm a great person and I can do great things. But I can't when I'm on heroin. I can't when I'm snorting oxy-cotton, you know. And I'm one of those people who can't drink normally.

And I have friends who do drink, you know. My dad is a normal drinker. You know, I have family members that are normal drinkers. People, I just can't do it. I can't have one. It leads to one more and it leads to there's not enough in this world. And then it leads to the chaos that I came from. Part of the reason why I speak, man, it's to not forget where I came from.

You know, and I relive a lot of those things that happened. I used that little sports center piece that ESPN did on me as my introduction. And when I see that, man, I just see the devastation I put my family through. My mom standing over me at the ER, you know, after they'd done defibrillations and CPR and just thinking like, you know, now me as a parent, you know, I think of what I put my dad through, you know, standing over me. And my dad is you, like, he's been the hero of the city. He's donated almost 60 gallons of blood.

tired, you know, he's one of the most wonderful individuals and caring individuals in the world. You know, I look up to my dad more than anybody else in this world. And the same thing goes for my mom. She's a nurse. She's a caregiver. She's phenomenal. They've been married almost 40 years. They didn't do anything wrong. I mean, they raised me right, more than right. I'm an alcoholic. You know, that's the only thing. That's the thing. It's nothing they did. You know, wasn't one specific time in my life where something happened that made me it like I think it was inherent in my personality long before I drank or used and so when I drank at 15, 16 years old and smoked the marijuana and took the pills, you know, it's like I triggered an allergy.

And, you know, right at first it was fun. But as soon as I left high school and found out that I wasn't going to be able to rest in college, you know, the next best thing was like, okay, listen, I'm out with some alcohol. Let's start partying, and my party just didn't stop. You know, it started on Monday and ended on Sunday, and it just didn't stop. And I lost everything really quick. You know, I went from graduating high school with honors and being an outstanding wrestler in Utah to homeless.

Man, what an inspiration. It's amazing. And I hope that they mentioned this on Saturday. If all goes well, as you said, God willing, before your fight during your fight. I mean, the world should know this story, and I really appreciate you opening up there. A quick side note,

and I wish we can talk about this more because I know that you just talking about it gives a lot of people a lot of hope. You've also started your own business, which I can definitely get behind, something that I love. Tell the world what this is. This is great.

The Old Abe Beardco. Yes. Yes. So we started an Instagram, old aide Beardcoe. And you can kind of check it out on there. Yes, we're actually showing a picture of it right now. Oh, nice. Okay.

Yeah, and then old abearedco. It's our website, and I want to apologize in advance. It's less than satisfactory. It's a square up account, but we had to start somewhere, and the product photography came from my iPhone. That's fine. But it works. It's effective.

and there'll be lots of little things to figure out and fix, but we wanted to start with, I mean, we wanted to start with something that worked. So we wanted to start that a lot of my friends that, I don't know, man, I've been the beard guy, I've been kicking people and punched people in the face for, you know, eight or nine years now, and I've always had a beard, I've always rocked the beard. That's my thing.

Since I was a little kid, you know, after my grandpa retired, Lieutenant Colonel military, he grew his beard out, and he was a farmer, and I was like, I'm going to be like my grandpa. And my dad, you know, every six months, he had to have a respirator fit up on Hill Air Force Base. So he would grow his beard out and then have to shave it, you know, and when he retired, he's got this great big beard. I just always knew as soon as I could grow a beard, I'm going to grow it. And I've only shaved it once since I could grow a beard.

And that was when my first son was born. And then my wife never asked me to shave it again. So I will always have facial hair, and I've been rocking the beard since I could. And I don't know, I've been sponsored by a couple of beard products and beard product companies. And I finally, just between me and my friend, we've been talking about it for a while, we decided to start something. So we started and we wanted something that was effective that would stop the itching and like beard dander. We wanted it to work, number one.

and then number two, we wanted it to, like, not smell like fish or lasagna. I used a couple of them, man, and I would wear it, and it smelled good at first. And then, you know, an hour later, it was kind of like it would smell fishy, like it smashed up an omega-3 into my beard. And so I just thought, man, there's got to be a better way. So we found, you know, a blend that we liked. We started messing around, kinkering around with it, and we got it worked out so that it was effective. And then we started to work out, you know, with some essential oils and some smells and came up with a pretty good proprietary blend. And, I mean, it was just, you know, it took a lot of work.

So we did a beard balm. We did a beard oil and a beard wash. Wow. And that was kind of what we started with. We just came out with our second oil, the Kentucky bloodline. Our first one's smoking, smoking jacket, so it's a tobacco and vanilla. But our base, like, that's good for your skin, mix as well with those. And we wanted to mix those with a smell that was like, hey, this is the smell we're going for.

And when you smell it, you automatically think, okay, that, yeah, that's smoking jacket. Not to mention the effectiveness, you know, it's nice, soft beard, clean, looks good, but is it effective, you know? yeah so I don't know we did a lot of work and a lot of uh we put a ton of time into it and uh there it is well I wish you the best with it uh court that is a that is a great idea old Abe beard co and uh you know if you want to support one of the good guys in the sport definitely support that whether you have facial yourself or someone that you know it's a fantastic idea and I'd love to try some I don't have a beer quite like yours but I'd love to try some as well I wish you the best You know what? You got the best journalist beard.

Oh, thank you. That means a lot. There's an award for that. Boom. Thank you, my friend. Good luck on Saturday. Again, thank you for sharing the story. What an inspiration you are, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in action in Tampa on Saturday. Thank you, Court. Hey, thank you for having me.

All right, there he is. Cort McGee stopping by. Okay, the original main event for that card Saturday in Tampa Bay, as you know by now. It was supposed to be Habib Narragamatov versus Tony Ferguson. That fight is no longer happening. It's now Darryl Horcher. versus Khabib Nirmagamedov wanted to have Khabibam to talk about this news

and a whole lot more. It has been a while since we have seen this man in action, but we are now just five days away from finally realizing that Khabib is on the phone right now. Khabib, how are you? Salam al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-brother. Thank you so much for coming on. Wow, what a last few days

it has been for you. You thought you were going to fight. Tony, a lot of people are looking forward to this, a lot of friction there, and then he gets injured. What was your reaction when you found out that Tony was pulling out of the fight? You know, I'm so upset about this because I finally won't fight with Tony Ferguson. And before, in December, we're supposed to fight with him. And I have injured now.

He has injured now. I'm a little bit upset because he's one of the best lightfoot in the world now. He has seven wins streak in Lightfoot Division. and I really want this fight, you know, but he has injured. I hope we have wish to cover, and now I have new opponent. So for two days, there was a lot of speculation as to who you will face, if anyone. And as you know, for a minute, it seemed like Donald Serroney was going to be the guy, and of course you have a history with him as well.

On Wednesday, everything blew up. You guys were going back and forth on Twitter. from your perspective, were you told that Saroni was going to fight you on April 16th? No, I call him. I call him. You know, for this fight, I'm beginning my training in January. You know, I'm training almost 100 days for this fight. And I am in my best shape in all my career. I feel very good. I feel like I'm unstoppable because I feel this. I feel because I training very smart. I'm training very hard. And that's why I ask,

UFCA, give me anyone, anybody, any weight class, 155, 170, I'm ready for going to, like, 70 kilos, 77 kilo,

no problem. I ask RDA, but I know RDA is not ready now. I ask Pettis, like Alvarez, I told U.C. Alvarez, Pettis, Donald,

anyone, any weight classes. But I don't know you, U.S. give me this guys and I know understand why but now I have new opponent I am focused for this guy and 16 April I have to win and just to clear something up were you told that he injured his ribs because you tweeted that but then he said that's not true and he's ready to fight you why the confusion there what happened my my brother my manager call me say hey don't Soronanin injured but I sign I

signed I signed I always signed this contract you see send me contract fight with Donald Serrano 117 kill or 170 a pound I say yes let's go I sign and I sent and after after a couple of hours my manager call me say he has injured and after I'm you know I'm very upset too and I pose this after Donald Serrani post he's okay but I say hey I sign contract and I show him I say show me your contract how you sign but he didn't show me And I know understand who play game, UFC or Donald Salone, I don't understand, but the UFC gives me a new opponent in catchweight 160. One 60.

And now I'm focused, and I want to say thank you for Dana, Lorenzo, UFC, Josillo, for giving for me this chance because I don't fight two years. I need fight with somebody. I need fight because my old friends waiting for my fight. My friends is tired because two years I don't fight, injury, injury, injury, surgery, you know. And this is very hard time for me. I need feel blood.

I need feel cage. I need to feel somebody in the cage. I have to cut weight. I need to feel this. I have to come back. That's why I escape. Please, UFC, give me fight. Give me fight, please.

All the time I send message for Diana, Lorenzo Jocel, please, please keep my fight in this card. I need fight, fight, you know. and you have to give me new opponent. And this is what we have now. What was your reaction, Habib, when you found out that it was Darrell Horcher, because as you may know, the MMA community, they were saying, well, who is this guy? Habib should be fighting someone better.

He's, I'm assuming you didn't know much about him. How did you react when you were told, okay, this is the guy that we found for you? I have new opponent. I have new name. You know, I have new weight classes, 160. And my reaction, like, I think, oh, I have to watch this guy. Who this guy? 12 win, one loss.

He has no bad record. He's somewhere like some organization like a champion. And I watch his fights. He's softball. He has very hard left punch, left kick. Like, he's more striking guy. But I don't know. I don't know.

But when I go to the cage, I go like. championship fight because if I lose this fight I lose everything. I have to win you know I I cannot now relaxing or think oh these guys have a debut this guy new guy in UFC you know like this I don't think like this I have to focus on my fight focus on my opponent like I have cowboy Tony Ferguson or a beer like this something like this and I have to come back and I have to win this fight Had you ever heard of Daryl Horcher before they offered you him? No, I know, no.

No, and it honestly didn't matter to you. I mean, because you say, you know, if you lose this fight, you know, everything goes away. It's not Tony Ferguson. It's not a big name like that. For you, the most important thing was just a fight. You needed to feel that. You need to get paid as well, right? Yes, yes.

I, you know, I agree with this guy is not big name, but, you know, know, these guys never fight in the UFC, but he have a lot of good fights. He have good records. 12 wins, one, lose. But, you know, I have to focus this fight. I have to focus this fight. I have to make weight 160, Friday, and Saturday night, I have to win this fight. He told me just a couple of minutes ago that when he got the call to fight you, he weighed 181 pounds.

So he has to cut a lot of weight to make the 160-pound limit on Friday. Do you feel like that's something to your advantage? Are you happy to hear this? No. I think my weight now 181. Really? No. Not like 181, maybe 180.

I don't believe you. Did you start eating a lot? No, but I'm very big like you too, you know. Yeah. But, you know, I don't think about weight, you know. I'm professional and I have to make weight 160. 160 is not bad. 1.7 is not bad for 155.

Any weight. You tell me I have to make this. But 181, you know, this is not my problem. I don't think about this. This is his problem. What was this training camp like for you, Khabi, considering all the setbacks that you've had? had, were you, did you feel like you were a little tentative? Was it hard to go 100% just because

you wanted to get to the fight and not have something else happen? No, no, no. I'm 100% ready for fight. I have like, you know, like 12, 14, hard training week, hard and smart training week. And, you know, I'm very exciting about my comeback because two years, this is a long time, you know, long and hard time for me. But now I have opponent. I don't think about my opponent, top 10 or top 20, top 50. I don't think about this. I have opponent.

You know, I have opponent. And I have a opponent and I focus this fight. And I want to beat this guy. I want to keep my wing streak and keep going. In a weird way, is this actually a blessing for you? Because you get to fight someone who's making his debut on 9 Days Notice, who, as far as we can tell, isn't as tough right now as Tony Ferguson and also it's not a five-round fight.

Considering you've been away for so long, is this actually better than your original situation? No, this is not, for me, this is not better because I'm ready for five-round fight. This is better for my opponent. If you go with me five-round fight, this is better for me because I'm ready for five-round. But now my opponent,

this is not my event fight. three-round fight, but I really won't fight a five-round fight before title shot, you know. I want to watch how I feel when I'm fighting five-round. And, you know, but three-round is not better. It's okay. I can fight with somebody, anybody, anywhere, five-hound or three-round. This is not a problem for me. I never tired.

I, you know, all my career, I never tired in my fights. And condition, this is. not my problem. Did you ask the UFC to keep this as the main event to keep this as a five-round fight? No, I don't ask this. Keep main event. I ask, please keep this fight because USC say maybe you're no fight. This is not about main event or common event. This is about I'm fighting or no fight. I ask, please keep me on the car because I need combat. I need feel cage. I need feel everything. I need to how I can. cut weight, everything. And I want to watch how I feel when I come back. When you're training

in the gym, it's different. When you're starting in the gym, this is different. But when you come back to the cage, this is different time. This is different feel. Different people, different, like, everything different. And that's why I ask, please keep my fight in this card. I want to come back 16 April. A lot of my friends upset and waiting for my next fight. If I have next fight, if I have next fight after two months, maybe my friends never believe I come back. That's why I need five is six in April, and I want to come back. Is the plan right now, if you get by Dow Horcher, that you will fight Tony Ferguson, May 29th. There was some talk that they were targeting this, and then the next day they said,

all right, now you're going to fight Darryl Horcher. But have you been told that your next fight will be Tony Ferguson if you win this one? You know, I cannot think about this. I cannot think about Tony Ferguson, Calfoy, Artie. I cannot think about these guys. Now I have my opponent, and I want to focus my opponent, because I cannot think about other stuff. I cannot think about other guys when I have my opponent.

And I want to respect my opponent. I want to give him respect. I want to give him, like, everything. I want to beat this guy, and we'll see what happened after. Okay, so do you feel like you need to do. do something, you know, not so much spectacular, but get a really dominant win to prove to everyone that you are the

best lightweight in the world. Again, your last fight was against RDA, you beat him convincingly, and then so much has happened since then we don't have to go over it. But, you know, is that part of your mindset? Like, I need to do something on Saturday to remind the world that I'm the champion without the crown, that I'm the champion

without the belt. Is that part of your mission? No, you know, I have a little bit pressure. I have a little bit pressure of this. You know, because this guy's no name. This guy is never fighting in the UFC. And I'm number two-ranked. I beat current life's champion.

A lot of guys say I am the champion in 155. And this is a little bit hard, but when Cage calls, I don't think about this guy. Darrell, Tony, Cowboy, or RDA? I don't think about this. I have opponent. And I want to beat this guy. My plane is dominate.

finish or dominate three-round and we'll see what happened after. Are you the kind of fighter that will watch a lot of tape on your opponent, and if so, have you been watching a lot on, Daryl? Do you feel like you have a good sense for what kind of a fighter that he is now? Yes, I watch his couple of fights. I watch his couple of fights. Are you impressed? I don't think he like easy money for me.

I don't think like this. And my mind thinks this is hard fight for me because I have to. to think like this. I cannot think, oh, these guys, easy money for me. I cannot. This is very bad for me. And I think about these guys very tough. I think about this guy's softball. I think about he has a very hard left punch. I think about everything. And I have planned. I have planned. I have planned. Pressure. Move forward. Dominate. And we'll see what happened after. What did you miss most? Now that Fight Week has begun, I believe you're in Florida. now, you're about to embark

on this journey up until Saturday. What did you miss most about all of this? I don't understand. Is there something about preparing for the fight? You've made it to the site of the fight. You've made it to Florida.

You're just five days away from the fight. I'm just wondering if there's something that you missed. Is it the morning of the fight, being in the locker room, the actual fight itself? What did you miss most about being away from the sport? You know, now I'm in Florida. because this is different climate I come here one week before fight and I think I miss Wayne when Joe Rogan sent 155 like this I think I miss I miss Bruce Buffer when

you say my name win my name you know I think I I miss everything I miss everything. I miss, you know, like, I don't know, but I miss everything. I have to make weight. I have to go to the locker room. I have to walk to the cage. How I go inside, how referee, you know, everything. I miss everything. I'm very exciting for this fight. I'm very excited for my comeback. And I know a lot of people behind me, a lot of friends behind me. And I want to show my time. performance. I want to show how I'm different fighter than two years ago. Well, Chabeeb, I think

I speak for the entire MMA community. We miss you. We miss seeing you fight. We miss seeing you in action inside that cage. So very happy that you have remained on the card that you got what you wanted and very happy that it would be fighting in five days' time on Fox. Good luck to you, my friend. I look forward to seeing

you in Tampa Bay. Can't wait for the fight. Welcome back. Thank you so much, Ariel. Thank you so much. See you after fight. Al-Ahm al-Aqa. Yes, Salam al-Aqa, my brother. We will do an interview after the fight. I look forward to that.

There he is. Habib Nirmagameh Madov returning to action. Saturday in Tampa Bay at the Amali Arena. I believe that's how you pronounce it. The home of the Tampa Bay Lightning, they are in the playoffs. They are playing against the Detroit Red Wings. He now faces Darrell Horcher,

the four-fight main card. Rashad Evans versus Glover Tashara. You've got Habib Nirmatimadeov. versus Darrell Hortez, I said, Rose Namajunis versus Tisha Torres, and of course, Leota Machita versus Dan Henderson. That's the four-fight main card live and free on Fox 8 p.m. Eastern this Saturday night. All right, let's transition now. As I said at the top of the show, one of the big stories of last week was the UFC announcing

that Misha Tate will be defending her newly won UFC Women's Bantamweight title at UFC 200 against Amanda Nunes. And a lot of fans were very surprised, perhaps a little disappointed as well, that it was not Misha Tate versus Holly Home. We've heard from Misha. We've heard from Amanda Nunes, heard from their managers, have not heard from Holly Home, so I really wanted to have her on the program to talk about this news and what's next for her. And she is kind enough to join us once again on the show.

Holly, how are you? And again, thank you so much for coming on the show again. thank you as always thanks for your time i'm doing good just uh training and that's not it it's like every two weeks now we have you on and it's always great to talk to you unfortunately um coming off perhaps some some frustrating news i'm wondering how holly home felt when she found out that she was not getting the rematch you were on this show just a couple weeks ago saying that's what you wanted and when you found out that wasn't going to happen what was your reaction Of course, that's what I want, you know, and I know that I can't really, when you lose the boat, you can't sit there and, you know, try and, you know, I kind of lose a lot of my pull on what I would like to do.

But I really felt like that was the fight that the fans wanted to see. I felt like it was a good rematch to put together. I think that a lot of people wanted to see it, so it's not even something that was just me wanting it. I think the fans wanted it too, so I was really hoping they would put it together, and I was kind of bonged out, you know? But I guess I just have to keep training, and who knows when they're going to give me another fight. Were you giving a heads up before they made the official announcement, or did you find out, like, the rest of the world? I think I found out, like, the rest of the world. I think that, I mean, it was probably pretty much the same day that they had talked to.

with, you know, my management about the time that they were announcing it with everybody else, too, that she was going to be fighting Amanda Minya. So I was fond, and I thought, well, maybe, I guess, if I can't have that, maybe they'll set up something else, you know. And we even thought, like, they might have offered something like Casmigana or Julian Opinion, and then they set them up to fight each other. But, I mean, right now, obviously, I don't. just really, really want the rematch.

But, I mean, this fight is going to be taking place, and that's just all there is good. So, and you never know. Somebody could get hurt, I guess. They all want to keep training and be ready. So there was some talk that, you know, she turned down the fight, she was never offered the fight. It keeps going back and forth from your perspective, from what you understand. What happened? Were you ever offered, Tamisha?

Do you know that for a fact? Were you ever in play here? You know, I think at first it kind of said, yeah, this is, you know, this is a great rematch. You know, we'll try and set it up and then the longer it took for them to call back and tell me if I had to fight or not, the more, I was like thinking, I don't think they're going to give it to me, you know. Otherwise, I think they would have just set it up right away. I don't know. I don't know if it was Nisha that wanted to decide, you know, to have a different flight or I think it was the USC wanting to have a different match-up.

I don't know. I just, I know I was asking for it, and my management was constantly talking with the UFC. But I guess it just has to be patient, you know. I mean, what can I do from my standpoint? I just have to kind of wait and see what happens. Have you been reading some of the things or seeing some of the things that Misha has said as to why perhaps you're not getting the rematch? And if so, what do you think of it? If not, I can read some of it to you, but maybe that's not necessary.

Essentially, she's saying that, you know, you weren't a long-reaning champion. It was your first offense, and it wasn't like you were dominating her, so there wasn't a great need for the rematch. Have you seen any of this stuff? You know what? Obviously, I mean, that's not any big news. I won the belt and then I lost it. I mean, I don't know. You know, that's just obvious fact.

But as far as, you know, how she won the belt, it wasn't like she was just dominating me. You know, I was ahead. I was winning that fight. And, yeah, she totally had round two and dominated round two. But I think that's why a rematch made in my eyes. and I think most people realize that's why a rematch makes sense. It's because it was, you know, it wasn't like really one side. I feel like I was winning, and then she came with a commission in the end.

So I don't see why they wouldn't want to see a rematch with something like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm not just saying it because you're on the phone. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is because I feel like of all the potential rematches that are a play and the ones that they've made, this was the one that made them. most sense. That's what I feel. It's... I definitely feel this makes the most sense.

I mean, I feel like our fight had more competitiveness than the main event that night, as far as, you know, yes, I lost my belt, but I was winning a fight, and so it kind of creates more of a curiosity of what would happen in the rematch, you know?

I don't know. Hopefully, hopefully don't want to put something together. I just, obviously it's going to be a while. And then after QFC 200, if she saw as a belt, who knows how much time she's going to want to take off? I mean, I don't know. That's what's frustrating about it is because it's like, man,

I want to fight for that rematch, but that might be a while. So I might have to start seeing if they're going to want to give me a different fight. That's why we thought maybe even, You know, Zanano or Pena, but they put them together. So right now I'm looking like I'm just going to be hanging out Pannon for a while. Frustrating. Speaking of that main event, the Connor McGregor and Nate Diaz fight, do you feel like that worked against you?

Because they made that the main event of UFC 200, did you think once you saw that news that it was going to be tough to have the top two fights the same as 196? Do you believe that was a possibility in working, against you here? I do feel like that's who wants to pretty much see a repeat. It's exactly the same.

Right. So, yeah, I think that, and you know what? Connor sells a lot of tickets. So I guess it's a promotion. I can see why they would want to put him on, you know, for UFC 200. I mean, I'm not trying to say that what they did is wrong.

I mean, if you're in a promotion, you're going to try and, you know, make the most successful. And so I'm sure that that's what they want to put in there. But I do know that with Nisha and I on the card, it was, you know, record setting. So I know that we had a little bit of pull on that. It wasn't all just one person, you know. So, but, yeah, once they put that one together, I figured I don't know if they're going to do the same all over again, you know. Do you believe, you know, to be as blunt as possible, do you believe Misha should return the favor? You gave her the title fight when you could have waited for Ronda Rousey and, you know, your bosses think you should have waited for Ronda Rousey.

And you fought her four months later. Do you believe that she should have done the same, she should have given you the fight next in her defense, first defense? I feel like it's something that would be like in the sport and, and like in a way yeah I would I would hope that she would want to give me the chance like I gave her the champ but I also feel like I I mean I like to take responsibility

for a lot of the things that I do and I'm the one that lost the belt so I feel like I've lost a lot of my kind of I don't know kind of my pool of what I can wish and hope for and push for Yeah, I was hoping she would give me that chance, but she's also got her own career.

She's going to focus on them with maybe what she wants to aspire to do, so I can't really judge her for that either. But I guess on my part, I was just hoping she would, you know. I guess I'm not going to be mad at her about it or anything like that. I just, I was hoping she would. So you look at the ranking. right now. And Misha Tate is the champ, obviously, you're number one. And then Ronda's two. Cat is booked. Amanda is booked. Amanda is booked. I is booked. Betcha's booked. Karmouche is kind of taking some

time off. And then there's Kauffman, who's your friend, who you're not really, you know, too keen on fighting. She's a training partner. It doesn't really make sense at the moment. And she doesn't even have a contract. So how is it possible that Holly Holm is the odd woman out here? Outside of Ronda, you can make a very strong case that you're the most popular fighter in this division and you know you were hotter than ever as far as momentum and all that stuff and now here you are odd woman out is this is this a tough thing to wrap your head around makes sense as far as I don't you know I mean you would you would think that they would want to have thrown me in the mix somewhere in there um I was hoping anyway um and like I

said, I know that the last two that were really there were the, you know, Katzangana and and Peña, and we thought, well, maybe they'll set me up with one of those girls since obviously my fight with Nisha's not going to happen any time soon. Now she already has this been ahead of her, and like I said, after that, who knows how much time she's going to run off. So then when they set those two up to fight each other, then it was just like, well, okay, I guess I'm just going to hang out and wait, you know. I'm always wanting to get better, and I figure I didn't have to make the best of what decisions or what opportunities come. So whatever opportunity comes, that's what I want to make the most of.

And in the meantime, I don't want to waste time. I want to keep getting better and just go forward. You know, I always like to stay active in fight. That's why, you know, I gave Misha a chance for the belt sooner than waiting. and I don't regret taking that fight. I always want to stay true to how I feel and what I'm passionate about and I wanted to keep fighting.

Just a lesson learned for me really cost me a lot to learn this lesson, but I'm just going to keep training and I'm just going to hope that they give me a chance of a fight. And like I said, you mean, you never know whether the fights might fall through and if something might happen, and I just want to be ready. What's the lesson, Holly, that you've learned?

Well, I mean, I learned a lot in that fight. And I'm not saying that her skill is not there, but I feel like in that whole week of the fight, the main thing I was telling people is, you know, how she really can be down in a fight and still come back and come from behind and win. and she was a real scrappy fighter, and I should have been listening to my own words because that's exactly what happened in the fight, and I should have been acting with the same since the emergency in the last round of the last time as I was in round one. There were some reports that you were in discussion

that there was some talk of them offering you Chris Cyborg. Was that ever a real thing? Was that ever brought your attention? Yes. And I'm not against buying Chris Cyborg. I definitely, you know, I guess I was just really hoping at the time that they were going to get a fight for me for my rematch and that's what was on my heart. And that's what I was, like I said, what I was really pushing for.

I'm really not against fighting Chris Cyborg, but I was really wanting to see if I could get this rematch instead. So, you know, I just said, yeah, I'm not against fighting her, but right now it doesn't really, I think that I wanted to stay focused on getting the rematch and you know if it winds up being a fight in the future then maybe but it just didn't really seem to make sense at the time. If you knew that you weren't getting the title fight, would you have taken the fight? Like in other words, do you regret not taking that fight now? Maybe. Fighting her in Brazil, fighting her in Brazil at 140 all that, is that appeal? feeling to you?

The thing that definitely, I think it would be definitely like a big challenge. Not against the big challenge. And with that fight, I kind of just let my management kind of, I said, you know, if you guys think let's do it, do it, and it's not, then, you know, like I was like, I kind of want your guidance on this one. And we just kind of felt like, you know what, maybe that fight would be for the better a situation in the future, you know, and kind of see how things go right now. Like I said, I really was so focused on really wanting to get the three-match,

but I guess we'll just see what's next. Now, here's my crazy theory. I'm trying to have a silver lining in all of this. Is it possible that they're saving you for Ronda Rousey, that they're just going to have you guys fight right away to not, you know, screw this up and just finally capitalizing? lies on this rematch, even if it's not for the belt right now. Is that possible? Do you think that's why you didn't get booked in this rematch?

You know, it's very possible. It's very possible. You know, I don't know what their real thinking is, but they're obviously a successful business for a reason. You know, there's successful promotion, and they usually have their reasons behind everything. You know, I'll be ready either way. If I rematch with Rhonda, I'm going to train my butt off. If I rematch with, you know, Tate, I'm going to train my butt off.

Give me one of the other top girls in the meantime. I'm going to train my butt off. And I feel like at this point not having the rematch, which is what I really wanted. I kind of have to change my train of thought that just be open to whatever. You know, I don't want to be so focused on that that if something else comes in my way that I don't take advantage of the opportunity. So, and that could be it. They could be waiting for that.

And then, you know, because I have created a round Robin, really, by me beating Rhonda and Nisha beating me, it's kind of created that trio there, that round Robin to see who's going to be the one to come out on top in the end. And, you know, they could be waiting. Who knows? Maybe they'll put Rhonda and I together and then the winner of that go for the belt. Who knows? But to be clear, you haven't been told.

that, right? No. Okay. Is it hard to go to the gym now and be motivated, knowing that you lost out on, you know, the rematch that you wanted right away, which was the Misha Tate fight? Like, did you need to lick your wounds for a second,

or you were right back in there? No, I have no problem going to the gym and training and getting better. I just left the gym right now. I'm motivated to train, whether it's, you know, for a fight or not. And actually, sometimes when I don't have a fight scheduled, I tend to work on

more of a variety of things and not just you know game plan for that specific you know opponent so in ways it can be even more fun to train when you don't have a fight coming up

I like having a goal I like having a fighter and a fight to look forward to but if not I just like to enjoy training Have you read your I don't know And by the way

Did you notice that your Twitter Is now at Holly Home No More underscore I'm sure you noticed that right You know what They told me they kept trying to fix it And so I guess they finally did it Wait a second They didn't tell you why they fixed it

When they fixed it I just told them yeah that'd be cool If you set it up I don't know when they took it over That's not cool That's not cool when you won the belt I said it's about time That the champion

of the UFC's Women's Bantamweight Division has a proper Twitter handle. So I said it's time to get rid of the underscore. I called them out and then they fixed it like two days later. We moved mountains for you, Holly. I just wanted to point that out. I'm not the kind. Thank you. I'm not asking for a pat on the back, but I just, you know.

Do you want to know what else would help me out? Yes. Okay, so they keep saying that they're going to take care of my UFC fight pass, but I still pay for it all the time. Are you kidding me? Holly Holmes still pays for her UFC fight pass. That is absurd. That is sacrilege.

Every month? 999. I take one every month and they always tell me they're going to go and fix it. Okay. Eric Winter, who I know listens to this show, watches it every week. You heard it right there from the true number one contender in the division. She needs to get comp, UFC pipe pass. Come on, let's make this right.

I'm starting to think like there's some conspiracy theory against you here, Holly. I'm not going to go there, but if you're paying for a UFC fight pass, that's not cool. That is not cool at all. I'm just wondering, though. Actually, I think my year membership just ran out this month. I tried to log in yesterday. And I was like, do I sign up again and pay every month or should I just call them? This is, I mean, talk about adding insult to injury.

Geez. I'm insulting my room. Yes. But about the social media stuff, have you read your social media? I see a lot of people supporting you. Do you go on and look at that stuff, or is it too crazy now where you don't read that anymore? You know what? Mostly look at Instagram.

Okay. I'm really terrible at Twitter. I'm so bad at that to go through and read. I know I need to be better about it, but I just don't have time to read through all that. But Instagram, I mostly just look at photos, so then I don't even really read a whole lot of it every now and then I see stuff. But I do have to say that across the board, there's always going to be negative people out there. There's always going to be what they call, you know, the haters. I really truly feel like I have a very, very positive support from, you know, all the fans.

And I feel like the majority of it is positive. And I do see them and their support and they back me up. And I really appreciate it. You know, I really do. And it also helps me keep motivated. I don't want to let these people down, the people that support me through thick and then good or bad, you know. So I definitely feel like to support. some positive, and I don't overlook that at all. I really appreciate it. Yeah, they really had your

back last week, so I was curious if you saw that. Final quick thing, and again, thank you so much for the time. It's always great to have you on. You are a class act. Thank you. Are you, are you hoping that Misha beats Amanda or the opposite? What are you looking for? Like, what do you want to happen at UFC 200 now? You know, I would like to rematch Misha, and I would like it to be for the belt, because he doesn't want to get that back. So I guess that's what I would want. Okay. I wanted to win and swap the belt so that I could rematch her and get the belt. Because I'll rematch her regardless.

Right. It would be even clear to open the belt. So, yeah, I hope she wins. And anybody that beats me better beat everybody else. Fair enough. Fair enough. And I'm guessing you'd rather that Misha fight than the Ronda fight at this point. You want to beat the person that beat you?

Yeah. Of course. That's what there's bitter face in my mouth, you know? That's what I want. But like I said, whatever, if they, hand the other one first and that's fine. All right. Holly, appreciate it. Thank you so much. I know it's not the best of times. I'm sure it'll all work out. Really appreciate you coming on and talking about all of this and best of luck to you and keep up the great training. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

All right, there she is, Holly Holm, the former women's Bantamway champion. I thought, with all due respect to Amanda Nunes, who's had a nice run, I thought they got it wrong on this one, but I wonder how much Connor Diaz affected that. Crazier things have happened, so let's see how it all pans out. All right, let's move along. Let's welcome in our next guest. As we've been talking about all show long, it was supposed to be Habibnur Magamadav versus Tony Ferguson in Tampa Bay.

One of the more anticipated fights of the 2016 UFC calendar, unfortunately, we have to wait a little longer to see that fight. Unfortunately, Tony Ferguson had to pull out due to an injury. We really wanted to speak to him about that, how he's feeling and where he goes from here, so he is joining us on the phone right now. Tony, how are you? Doing good, Ariel. How you doing? I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much.

So tell us, not a lot has come out regarding your injury. What exactly happened to you? Oh, man, it's just a freak accident, dude. They didn't over-trained. I've always been pretty careful, and I haven't changed anything up. It's just, you know, one of those things where a shot just slipped and hit the perfect spot and caused trauma and end up having fluid and blood, you know, trapped in my lung.

Wow. What you do? Are you listening to Bob O'Reilly right now? Yeah, I got my music in the background. It's like you're preparing for your UFC fight. That's the song that plays before the main cards. Oh, I just, I threw on my computer, just trying to stay busy. This resting kind of thing is in my bag.

So when did this injury happen? I noticed it a couple weeks ago, like on a Wednesday, and it just accumulated through. And just like any other time when I ever, if I get hurt or injured, there's a difference. And, you know, at the time I was hurt and just got worse and worse. and finally had to go to the hospital, dude. Wow. So, yeah.

Did you have to stay there overnight? No, unfortunately, I didn't. I wasn't going to either way. I just knew I was like, you know what? I'm going to just give me whatever I have to do, give me my scan, and tell me what's going on. The first time I went to the ER, the doctor really, she wasn't a specialist, and they were around closing time. So she was kind of on a rush on the way out, and so they figured out that they thought I had a collapse alone. Wow.

And so I thought there's something about a little fracture, so I ended up calling one of my doctors, got a second opinion, and it ended up being a hematoma in my lung. There's a specific term that they had. But shit hurt, man. Sucked. And I couldn't 100% hear you the first time. So how exactly did this happen? It was just a freak action, man. It was from training.

It wasn't from just doing anything different in camp. Okay. It just overly happened. And it happened, I don't even know exactly what day it happened. It's just one of those things where the pain just started increasingly over time. Like it started on a Wednesday. Yeah. It just accumulated through.

And I told my wife, I had a shortness of breath on Friday. I felt like a heart attack. Whoa. And, you know, I've been eating healthy this whole camp. And a matricianist made my food. So it wasn't like I was snacking down on fast food or Taco Bell or anything. I was been pretty careful with my stuff, you know, preparing for Khabib. I was all ready.

It just suck, man. Just kind of accumulated until I just couldn't take it anymore. Got the scans and everything else. And no shit, no wonder why I'm kind of in pain. Now, is this at all life-threatening or career-threatening? Like, how serious is this? No, it's not career-threatening. We got the test back from after I went to the specialist.

They ended up taking a deeper look at it. The big focus was to not have a fractured rib. But if it wasn't fractured, I just had like a little, like, like just something just wrong i was gonna fight i was gonna power through it any other time i've ever had little bumps and bruises that's all i've ever done i've never pulled out of a fight area ever this is like a first for i mean for me and i'm sure all the fans are shocked you know i know my bosses were shocked they called me and asked me what's going on and you know i didn't have a reason for him and they were like well you need to train careful and i'm like well i train the same way

and i train pretty hard but i know how to rest too how do you know it's obvious i mean massive everyone was looking forward to it. Main event, Fox, I don't need to tell you about how big it was. How did you deal with it when it was a reality that you were not going to be fighting? How did you react? Well, first of all, when it was reacting, I just knew I was trying to look for a solution. You know, I asked the doctors, I was like, well, this was obviously like threatening. You know, it was just something I should worry about and blah, blah, blah. Asked the questions, got the answers that I needed from different doctors.

I went to the hospital probably like three times. Wow. And just, I went to the hospital. to my managers and the fight could have been saved and moved to May 29th in Vegas. Yeah. You know, Kabee was given that option and the UFC even asked me about it.

So, you know, I feel, I mean, for me, on my end, I was like, look, man, you've pulled out of this fight a couple times already. You know, I don't know exactly what injuries he had or how serious it was. I never asked, you know, those questions. I was just like, look, let's, I'm going to try to move on. I'm going to try to, like, figure this out

while you heal. So I thought maybe, for instance, that he would have been like, All right, cool. I'm not going to take an easy fight. I know we both have been training. You know, you saw on his Twitter where he said, you know, now I know how you feel. And I'm sure he does.

But, you know, on the May 29th, he would have showed up. He would have got his show money. And I think, you know, I would have been more than prepared for it. Because right now I'm starting to heal. I have good days and bad days. But I'm so determined for the May 29th fight. You know, I just kind of bummed that. You know, he was given that option and he ended up taking a fight.

with the guy that has half of his fights and making his UFC debut. So we actually had him on just a few minutes ago, and I asked him if he was told that if he gets by Hortcher on Saturday, if the May 29th date is his against you, like if that's still in play,

his response was he didn't want to talk about the future, he just wanted to focus on the fight, and I understand that the fight is five days away. Have you been told that if he wins and is healthy and looks good and all that stuff, that you guys will be fighting on May 29th? The dude doesn't want to talk about the future yet. talking about fighting RDA at UFC 200.

You know, the guy goes back and forth. He doesn't want to fight me, and his camp doesn't want to fight me. I'm a very intense person, you know, but it's like, I don't know, I think it's a little ridiculous, but if he comes out of this fight on Skate and there's no reason for it, it's before his holiday, then I'm down for it, man. I haven't been eating shitty. I've been eating good. I've been focusing on everything, been watching film.

The same thing I've been doing, but I haven't been able to compete in the action. actively go out there and do all the stuff that I want to do. So it's kind of a bummer like he didn't take a fight, but I know he doesn't want to think past this guy, but I'm on his mind. And I know he doesn't, I know he had a big sigh of relief after he heard that I wasn't going to be able to take the fight. What was your reaction when you found out who he was fighting, that it wasn't a Soroni type or someone like that, that it was a guy making his UFC debut and Darrell Horcher.

What did you think when you heard that? Well, I think it's a little bit kind of crazy I mean, there's different options You know, in one of the fights It's been Yald Derry years You got a shot at somebody And I just believe there's other people That they could have threw at them

Because it could be losers I mean, there goes as credibility And then obviously I still want to fight the dude Because I know I want to put him in this place But it's It's hard to talk bullshit when you're injured, man You can't say too much Because, you know, I don't believe in karma

But I mean, shit happens for a reason, dude I'm having a baby and you know with my wife and these things just like I said these things just happen

for a reason so and the reason I fight is to provide for my family and to be the best in the sports history I may not be

flashy on the mic I may sound angry all the time because you know because I'm just so focused on whoop an ass you know and just being the baddest

fighter in the planet if memory serves me correct the baby's coming any day now right isn't this the the month that you're yeah yeah what when is it around now no april 24th was a due date okay so the plan was to go in there with some ass yeah come home to mama and deal with it and not deal with it but have fun and be able to relax and to enjoy different things so now it's now it's i mean it's a bl like i said it's a blessing

and i can't look past it you know i just it's one of those things and god just wanted me to be able just to focus on everything right now so that's what i'm doing i'm i'm trying to take chill, chill, chill, relax a little bit, and learn and grow from this. And this fight was very, very long camp. And the fans out there, you're just crazy. I love them. Every fucking one of them. And so it's a cool little experience that we had, but it's a bummer that, you know,

this is our third time, fourth time. Yeah. Trying to fight. And like I said, hopefully we can defend, we can give the fans exactly what they want, man. I know you want to see this fight. Oh, yeah. I want to see this fight. Oh, man.

Yeah. Everyone was very bummed, especially, you know, coming right off the John Jones, D.C. news to lose two main events back to back. There's, you know, there's a fun dynamic between you two. Definitely bad news. But, of course, you know, when you hear about something like when you put that statement out, I was like, wow, this is, you know, it's scary stuff. Are you able to say exactly how you suffered this injury? Because it's not something that you hear about often. It's like I said, it's a freak accident. The doctors didn't know. Wow. You know, it wasn't just from trauma. They said, you know, it could have been from dehydration. And I've heard every excuse error. And the only thing that it gets me is I'm pissed. It happened. And how it happened, I really don't have a direct answer

because it happened in the middle of the week. And supposedly, and I started noticing it more as I went on. And nothing changed in my camp, and that's what's the trippy part of it. So it wasn't from, you know, standing on the ball, doing my hammer swings around the world or kicking a tire or lifting a tire. I had nothing to do with that shit.

It was just, like I said, a freak accident to happen. And, you know, hopefully my body recovers best, you know, better. And I know it will. And I'm not a quitter. For this first time to ever, something like this happened. It's kind of, like I said, it's a bummer, dude. It's a bummer for the fans. And I feel for these fans, they bought their tickets,

and they have their hard-earned what money in their want to see-me fight. and I get these messages, you know, like, hey, we were looking forward to watching you fight. You know, you're our favorite fighter. You're a fighter's fighter, and you give it everything you got inside there. Win or lose. And they're right. And my fight against Michael Johnson, I broke my arm in the second round. And I couldn't feel it, but I used one of my arms to fight the dude back.

I almost beat the guy. I lost my points. But I wasn't going to have a T.K.O. Or a K.O. or a blemish like that on my record. I feel much pride I have in the sport. Is there a possibility in your mind? Crazier things have happened that, you know, given the timing and everything,

RDA still doesn't have a fight, that you might just get a title shot now? I mean, your resume certainly warrants it, given the winning streak and who you've been. Is it possible that this thing works out where you don't fight Habib anymore and they just put you in a title shot? Has that been discussed?

I'll whip his ass too. That's plain and simple, man. I prepare every fight for differently for as far as mentally and as far as watching film and my game plans. I always go in there with an open mind, and if it's either RDA, even if it's Alvarez, and they want to give me Alvarez in one of the fights. He's not looking to sign on the dot line anytime quick. You got Pettis fighting Barbosa, and I guarantee you Barboza's going to whip his ass too.

Wow. So it's a hard little one, man, and I'm ready for whoever they give me, put it that way. and I have never taken an easy way to the top. Any time that they've ever given me a fight or they ask me who I want in the fight, I ask my bosses, like, hey, you guys tell me who you want me to fight. You put them on the dotted line, I'll sign it, and we're going to go in there, we're going to do business.

And I'm a company, man, and I've always been that way, and my relationship with my bosses have always been pretty serious because they know them all about doing it taking care of business. You can't bullshit hard work, and you can't bullshit finishes. My record speaks for itself, and I'm a finisher, man. I don't grind out fights just to grind them out. If somebody pisses me off, I'll make them go the full three rounds with me. And, like I said, I hate to talk like this because I'm injured, you know,

and you can't do shit about it. But if they do give me that title shot, I'll take it. And it's no doubt about it, man. I'll go in there and I'll finish that, dude. This is M.A. And I'm a thinker, and I love to go in there. my conditioning is always on point. Yeah, one thing I found out is I have long lungs.

So every one of my doctors is like, you must have great cardio. I'd imagine, though, that you do want to get that Habib fight in at some point, right? I mean, too much has happened. It's been discussed for so long. That's something that you want to see happen, I would imagine, right? Yeah, I want to see it happen. A lot of time and energy in that fight. Yeah.

I would love to do. It's a lot of invested in that stock, man. I want to cash in my checks on that one. and put a blemish on his record and send him on his way home, dude. There's a lot of hype behind this guy saying, you know, the beep champ and this and that and blah, blah, blah. He's, you know, you haven't fought real opponents, Tony.

Get out of here, man. I fought top five opponents, top ten opponents. Even when I was ranked number 70 or something like that when I broke my arm, I fought my way back, you know, every step of the way through a ladder. You know, like I said, if I was a little bit more flashy on the mic, I'd probably have an easier way. but that's not me it's not my bag

I'm about being focused taking my skills to a new level getting that mat time during certain fights and then when the real fights come around it's about dealing damage and going in there finishing these guys so that way there's no objection to that that they don't want to rematch they don't want to

face me again and they're looking for different weight classes and going to fight will you be watching his fight on and if so are you rooting for for Habib to win so that you know your fight with him can remain intact. Nah, man. I'm going to go for the underdog.

Of course I'm going to go for the underdog. The dude's 12 and 1. I don't really even care about odds or betting things. I don't really pay attention to that. But this kid's got a shot, man. It's the debut. I wish all the best luck to both of them. I hope none of them get hurt.

You never wish that. Yeah. And I really hope that we see a good fight. I don't want to see a lame-ass fight with somebody I got replaced by. Hopefully this dude's in shape. and he's got his technique down on Pat and he's avoiding all the negative talk

from all the fans which I'm sure he's probably gotten an attack because they kind of used up on me which honestly I love it it grinds man I don't think the fans realize it that when you do something like that it fuels the fire to train

and to prepare even if your opponent's not you know saying anything in the ultimate fighter house I had everybody against me and then I knocked everyone out this is a fight game man it is what it is so they're talking smack to you about pulling out

that's what happened I get either way man it doesn't even matter fans are gonna be fans and trolls are gonna be trolls right keyboard warriors by behind the desk and with their chito fingers and whatever else I do behind that desk so I'm here doing what I do best in it's preparing for the next opponent so you know I have my home gym right here and I haven't been able to do it because the doctor says I need to rest

but as soon as I get a little bit of just that that little bit of okay I'm a doc and he says go ahead and start training I'm back after it dude I'm gonna realign all of my camp I'm gonna pull in some actually I'm gonna pull in some different UFC fighters

for this I'm gonna hire a couple different trainers and uh let me make this shit happen dude I'm one of the world's best fighters you know with a great finishing rate and I am to please when I go out there and I hate being a boring fighter put it that way

I'm a flow fighter. And speaking of that, do you have any kind of timetable as to when you will be 100% when you can go full on as far as training and all that? Have they told you that yet? Well, it would be two to four weeks is what they said. They said four weeks probably max. And that's why I said the May 29th car was then perfect. If I did that, it would have gave me like, what, four or five weeks to train, including fight week.

And I'm already in shape. I'm a great shape. I was close to wait. I was fighting to make 170 for the fight. you know, eating as much as I could and staying hydrated, drinking my gallon water a day, and getting all my, you know, my supplements in.

Dude, I was prepared for this guy. And I still am. I'm not going to get unprepared and start eating shit and start feeling sorry for myself because that's not how I am. I'm a champion, dude, and a lot of people just don't know it. And it's fine with me.

So as long as I have a job here, provide for my family being able to go out there and kick some ass, I'm going to do what I do best and finish these guys. Final thing, it's obviously a setback. It's a slight setback, but you appear to be oh, so close to reaching that promised land. Are you the kind of guy that envisions things?

And I'm wondering if you feel like by the end of this year, do you believe you'll be the UFC champion? I mean, it feels like you're just one-win away from either being in that fight or from, you know, just going into the fight. I mean, just one-win away from being champion. Do you feel that it's imminent, like it's going to happen in 2016? It could. They're really good.

But if I was focused on that belt, I would, you know, go take some classes being flashy on the mic and whatever. I'm not trying to take an easy road anywhere. You know, with RDA for USC 200, that would be great. You know, and I would not disappoint, honestly. You have Alvarez, possibly Chicago in July. You know, that would be my second. Okay. But, you know, you have Alvarez who's waiting for the belt.

That dude doesn't want to fight nobody yet. His last fight looked like shit, his conditioning looked like crap. But nothing's been confirmed. But I'm excited to have anybody in the top five, including a title fight, and not having to wait. This injury is unfortunate, but it was out of my control. Well, I wish you the best, man. I hope for a speedy recovery. Again, you know, everyone disappointed that this fight didn't happen, at least for this weekend.

But obviously, you want to hear that you're okay and you can get back in there sooner rather than later. so I appreciate you coming on and clearing the air and talking about it. And good luck to you guys. I know I spoke to you and I said this last time, but again, good luck with the baby coming up. It's going to be great. Enjoy that and get well soon, my man. Hey, thank you. And to all my fans, I will be back.

I will be better. And just wait. You guys haven't seen nothing yet. All right. Looking forward to it. There he is. El Kukui. Tony Ferguson, he was supposed to fight this weekend.

Not going to happen. Crazy things happened in the sport. And it was back-to-back for the UFC. Of course, you want to wish him well and see that everything works out okay and that he's healthy and gets back in there. I truly believe that he is one win away from fighting for the belt. I mean, you'd have to think a win over Habib would have got him that shot. Let's see how it all pans out. Okay, one more guest.

A lot of people very excited last week when the UFC announced that Giuliana Pena would be fighting Katzenegano at UFC 200. It seemed like every few weeks I was getting questions from fans, where's Katzengano? Where's Katzenegano? We have not seen her since UFC 184 last February, February of 2015. Well, now you have the answer to that question. She will return to action July 9th in Las Vegas against the aforementioned Julianna Pena. Really wanted to have Kat on. She is kind enough to join us.

I believe she's in transit right now, so we appreciate her taking the time. Kat, are you there? Hey, yeah, how's it going on? I am doing great. Thank you for the time. You're coming back from the Olympic trials, right? Yeah, yeah. I was out in Iowa City of the weekend.

My best friend was a wrestling of the Olympic trials, and so I went out there to support her and kind of revisit and reunite with all of my old wrestling colleagues. And I don't know, watch some awesome matches, and now I'm on my way home. What is your best friend's name, and how did she do? Randy Miller. She lost one match, so she ended up taking third.

Not, you know, the plan, but sometimes that just happened. She lost to someone. She doesn't lose to typically, but it's anyone's day, anyone's games these days. So it's a big. You know, it's all right. She's good, and I know she'll be back doing what she loves. All right. That is good to hear.

And, of course, it's great to hear that you're back in action. I was saying that I used to get questions every, you know, so often. Where's Kat? Where's Kat? When she's coming back? Is it nice that you can finally give people an answer that you can stop getting those questions? Because I would imagine you were getting those multiple times a day. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's nice to give people an answer.

It's nice to come back and return. Like, a part of me, you know, I never stopped training. I was constantly still trying to, like, improve on my skill set and everything I had, some injuries. And I just wanted to take care of my head, really. A lot's gone on in the past few years. And I took the time to move through it healthy and, you know, have some balance with things. and I wanted to come back a stronger fighter in every aspect of the word. And I feel like I can do that right now.

So, you know, I'm happy to be back for myself. I'm happy and inspired by the fans. I'm happy to be inspiring to the fans, you know, and all of this ultimately is just exciting. Was there a specific reason why you were out for so long, or was it a mix of all those things that you just alluded to? There's some specific things, you know, but nothing that I really want to bring up at this time,

time. Okay. I think that, you know, for the most part, it's just, you know, getting things right with me. And when I'm, when I'm balanced, when I'm in a good mood, when things are right for me, I'm very dangerous. And, you know, I wanted to make sure I got all of that on point before I put myself back in there. Was there a point where you felt like, okay, now I'm ready, like you started to get that itch again, where you started to feel, okay, mentally, physically, I'm ready. And was that, like, did you tell the UFC, okay, now you can start booking me, now you can think about plans for me. How did it all happen for, you know, for them to come and say, okay, we have a fight booked for you?

Well, the entire time, I mean, I've had the itch to go in there and fight again. You know, I really hated the way that I lost. I hated the fashion in which I lost. And, you know, it really, really sucked. And I wanted to get, you know, I needed to take care of things that went into being my best at this point, you know, and going, I don't know, I decided to take a trip, took my son and myself to Thailand, and really immersed myself in the stuff that I wanted to learn and the things that I wanted to improve on. And when I, you know, when I got a taste of that motivation and that inspiration as far as what I wanted to see my body do,

I immediately was excited about it. I mean, and I felt motivated. I came home. I talked to my manager, Ed Sores, and, you know, he was excited about how I sounded. And, you know, I watched Misha's fight against Holly, and I was super pumped about all that. And I just, I don't know, just the feeling that I had inside told me that, like, now's the time to get moving again. And, like I said, I've been training the entire time. I barely took days off.

I just, I don't know. I feel good. I feel ready. Do you feel like you're over the Ronda fight? I mean, that was your last fight. It feels like it was 10 years ago, just a year and a half or so ago. Do you feel like you're over it, or will you only get over it once you're. fight again?

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, what is there to do? It's water under the bridge. I mean, I can't sit here and, like, regret anything. I can't change anything about it. What happens, happens, and really all I can do is move forward and, and learn from it, you know, it's, it, it, I, I, I can be stubborn and, and, and there's things about the fight that I was being stubborn about, and I, I, I, I didn't necessarily want to look at, um, but, but, you know, here I am now, seeing what I needed to see from it. I'm removed from the situations, all emotions aside,

and was able to look at it strategically. And I don't know, like, I feel like I've been able to fix and maneuver what I needed to do in order to go back to that fight, but that's not the fight that I'm going to have now. What I have to do is a different opponent, and I don't know, I feel like a different me, a different skills, different mindset. It's all, you know, it's humbling to lose.

and it's humbling to lose like that. And, you know, it's a really, really good thing, honestly, because it definitely put me in check, and I just can't wait to go out there and see what I'm like now that I hated that so much, you know. Just curious, what was your reaction when she lost, when she lost to Holly Home? Were you watching that live? How did you react to that? I was watching it live.

I actually thought Rondo was going to win. And I was surprised when she didn't. But I do think Holly is an incredible opponent. You know, Holly's got some really good stand-up, and I know that she's extremely strong and powerful with her striking. So, you know, I was shocked, but also pretty proud of Holly at the same time. I mean, that was a really good game plan, and I feel like her camp did a good job of, you know, I guess preparing for that

and implementing exactly what they needed to do. and yeah, it was a good show for sure. So a couple weeks ago you did an interview with Access TV and you teased that you had an epic fight coming up. And that, of course, when you tease the fans like that, then the speculation flies and everyone's trying to figure out what it was. A lot of people thought that it was going to be maybe Cats and Guy, excuse me, Chris Cyborg or Rhonda Rousey when you hear that word epic.

What exactly were you referring to? I mean, the Giuliana Pena fight is a great fight. The card is an epic card. that's a historic card. Some people were, when they found out the news, they were like, okay, well, this wasn't maybe what we were expecting because you said Epic. Were you referring to the card? What exactly were you meaning when you said that?

You know, I think that it's a really, I think it's going to be a really, really good fight. You know, Juliana is very game. She was the ultimate fighter winner. Everybody got to see what she brings to the table. And, you know, stylistically, I think the matchup is going to be for a very exciting fight. We're both brawlers. We're both gamers. And what I plan to bring in the table, especially after, you know, the training that I've done, the work that I've been putting into my body and my mind, like, I refuse to put on anything less than an epic performance. You know, it could have been

anyone that they put across from me. This fight will be epic. This fight will be intense and it will be powerful and it will be moving because I'm committed to that, you know. So this is, Because, yeah, it's going to be epic. And you'll see. I'm sure it will be for itself. Now, when Misha won the belt was a part of you thinking, I had a quote-unquote epic fight with her. I beat her.

It was great. A lot of people have wanted to see it again. She's wanted to see it again. Did you think that maybe you would get the next title shot because of the fact that she was now the champion? Were you pushing for that? Well, I was pushing for it. I guess, you know, if I put it in perspective for myself,

If I were champion right now, I feel like I would be calling out every single person that ever scored on me ever. You know, you hand me the magic wand of I get to be champion. Like, I want to avenge everything ever. And, you know, I was honestly surprised because I know at different points in Misha's career, there were points where I was actually incapable of fighting, whether it was injury or personal things going at the time. And Misha did say that, you know, at some point eventually she wanted to avenge her loss. So naturally I thought she might say something like that. But it seems that I'm, I feel like I'm the only person that she doesn't want to fight right now.

Rhonda is off the charts because she's doing what she needs to do to get herself ready for, you know, life and what she wants to do with the sport and stuff. And, you know, so I, I don't know. If I were, Misha, I would want to avenge my losses. but I don't know what her plan is or what her point is. She, I guess, is doing what she's doing. Obviously, you're excited about the Pena fight. You're excited to fight at 200. Who can blame you?

But did you have a moment where you thought, like, wow, it's a little funny. I beat both women who are fighting for the belt, and I'm not fighting for the belt here. Do you think that's a little funny or do you understand why that's happening? I mean, I get why. I, you know, one of the things that I was definitely trying to make clear when I was showing my interest in wanting to fight, Misha, was like, you know, we're trying to talk about Kat doesn't deserve this. I've been out for a year. I'm coming off the loss. Okay, well, you know, I get that. But, you know, Ronda was, or Misha was handed my fight when I was injured to Ronda off of a loss. So, you know, I don't feel like the loss is really matter as far as what's fair. The time off, yeah, I get it. It's been a year. I didn't I didn't just stop. I didn't do nothing. You know, I was, I was training. Yes, I wasn't actively competing. And, and I do think that if we're talking about deserving it, yes, I beat Amanda and she fought her way back up. And yes, I beat Nisha, but she also fought her way back up.

These girls have won every fight since they fought other me or Rhonda, you know, so I get it. And I never said it was about deserving. The UFC is typically not about deserving. It's about earning. And earning is different. If you can talk to talk, if you can, you know, put out your examples of why you think something was a good reason to happen, then, you know, sometimes we'll give it to you. And I felt I had a valid reason. And, you know, I'm definitely game. And I think the fight would be interesting. And I wasn't, you know, trying to discredit or take away from what everybody else has earned at this point as far as fighting their ways back up.

I'm talking about putting butts in the seats and putting on a great fight. I know everybody would love to see again. I love it. That is great. Since you've been in there with both of them, I'm curious, who do you think wins, Nunes or Tate? You know, man, they're both warriors. That's the thing is, because I feel like Misha is really good at taking a hit, you know, and she'll just go, go, go, you know, she'll stay in there. And Amanda, she can deliver a beating. And I don't know, I think stylistically, like you have two extremely tough women. They're both very powerful and they're both very games.

So I don't know. I see Amisha winning it. Just out of pure experience and her knowledge and just like I think she wants to be champion longer, you know. But if Amanda is a champion, she will definitely be a good champion too. So either way, I would really want. to be considered in what happens next with that after that fight. Have you been told that if you beat Julianna Pena, you're the number one contender? Have they said anything like that to you?

No, I haven't been told that, but that's definitely something that I'm going to be trying to fight for. Right. How much should you miss all of this? Like just being, you know, having a fight, having to think about an opponent, you know, counting down the months, the weeks, and then actually getting to fight week and all that. Can you sincerely say that you missed all of this? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was grueling.

It was grueling and to watch the show go on without me. Yeah. But at the same time, I, you know, I know I was doing what I needed to do to come back at my best. I didn't want to come back, you know, a 50% happy athlete. I didn't want to come back with, you know, all this other stuff on my plate and just make it work. Like, I wanted to come back, like, hungry for it and missing it and desperate for it and longing for it. And that's what I did. And I waited long enough.

And when the timer was right, it just hit me. like a ton of bricks and and I knew, you know, and that was the pinnacle I was waiting for. That was the moment that I was waiting for, you know, and it happened to be at Misha's fight, and I was like, I'm ready. I can do this. I can beat her. Like, I'm ready. And that's, that was the bam I needed to hear and I heard it.

So I'm excited. I'm excited to be back in a mix. I'm excited to be inspired by the fans. I think it's a great time for women's MMA right now. and it's just great and it's epic. All of it is epic. So you were at UFC 196. You were there in person?

No. Oh, okay. I thought you meant okay, you were just watching the Misha Tate fight. Yeah, yeah, I was watching the fight. Okay, okay. And now you come back. Your team is on fire as well. I feel like you guys are getting a lot more attention. You know, TJ joined the team and Neil Magni has been killing it as of late.

Would you agree that? It feels like when you fought for the belt, the team that you were training out of in Colorado. Colorado wasn't getting as much attention as it currently does. Things have changed a little bit since the last time you fought. Yeah, I feel like, you know, elevation was in kind of a transitional period. You know, we had just gotten everything kind of consolidated at Muscle Farm, the Muscle Farm facility. We were trying to figure out schedules where the coaches fit in at what time, you know,

and a lot of fighters, I mean, obviously fighters, they have their individual preferences. and there's definitely a sliding scale as far as a learning grace period for people. So I think they're getting it dialed in, and right now everybody's excited and happy. Training's been going good. People are all playful, and that's what we need. Everybody just likes being in a good mood when they fight because you're way more dangerous when you're happy doing this, you know? Yeah.

Last thing for you, and again, thank you very much for the time. over the last couple of years since Juliana Pena joined the UFC after winning tough how much have you watched her how much you know about her right now and if you do know a lot is there anything that she does that concerns you you know I'm not focusing on her

I'm focusing on me I can't really tell you much about her I know I know she's a she's a brawler I know she's intense and I know I'm a brawler and I know I'm more intense you know so really I'm just improving staying and maintaining everything that I'm doing right now.

And I show up and I plan to take whatever I want. So really I'm just focusing on me right now. All right. We will leave it at that. Kat, welcome back. It's great to have you back in the mix. Looking forward to the fight very much. Of course, UFC 200, great card.

A very, very, very good addition to the card. Appreciate the time, especially as you're driving back home. And good luck in training. Good luck as you prepare for the fight. looking forward to it very much. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, there she is. Katzangano, stopping by. She faces Julianna Pena. UFC 200. That is July 9th in Las Vegas at the new T-Mobile Arena. That officially opened last week.

If you're curious, it is right next to New York, New York. If you know anything about the Las Vegas Strip, the T-Mobile Arena is right next to the New York, New York, Hotel. Not that far away from the MGM. From the looks of the videos, the pictures, it's a real deal arena. 20,000 or so seat stadium. You know, the MGM and Mandalay, they're smaller. MGM is around like 16, 17,000 seat capacity. Mandalay is around 11 or 12 or so. This is legit.

They can, they built this with the possibility of getting an NHL team there in mind. So they really want this to be a, you know, a major league arena. So that's another layer to what makes UFC 200 a very interesting event to cover. Of course, they're going to have the event on July 8th, Yawanna Young-Jech against Claudia Godelia for the Strawaway title and the tough finale. That starts April 20, what is it, 26th or something like that, whatever that week is, 27 on FS1.

and then there's supposed to be another event before that on the seventh on FightPass. Speaking of FightPass, I actually got a text from Eric Winter, the executive who heads up Fight Pass. You've heard him on this show. He said email in Human Resources inbox for the Holly Home comp as of 3.18 p.m. Eastern Times. So I told you, I told you Eric Winter listens to the show. We get things done here. We got Holly Holmes, Instagram, and Twitter name changed. And now eventually we're going to get her comped.

He tweeted to me and someone else a few minutes ago that no UFC fighter should have to pay or is required to pay for FightPass. So this isn't just someone asking for a freebie. Holly Holie Holme deserves it. All right. Okay. It is y'all must have forgot time as Nico the Greek reminds me on Twitter. Okay.

So last weekend, John Fitch, and this got virtually no. fanfare or attention. John Fitch became the World Series of Fighting Welterway champion. And this happened at like 1 a.m. Eastern time. For some reason, World Series of Fighting on NBCSN had their main card start at 1130 p.m. Eastern time, which is kind of an absurd time. I was fast asleep. Actually, I just, I was about to go to bed right as the main card started. I was watching the final four. But it's just hard to, it's hard to stay up, especially with so many Saturday nights that are occupied. Like someone asked me if I watched the Manny Pachial fight this weekend.

And I would have liked to watch it, but a rare weekend off or Saturday night off, there was UFC on Sunday in Zagreb, rare Saturday night off with no UFC, I got to go to bed early. If I could go to bed at 8.30 every night, I would be a very happy man. So anyway, two weekends ago,

John Fitch becomes a champion. He wins the vacant title. And that got me to thinking about the fact that throughout his pretty illustrious career. Yes, he was never a UFC Welchway champion, but John Fitch has fought him all, and he's done so with pretty great success. Throughout his illustrious career, John Fitch has never been a champion of any major organization. Forget major organization. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here. I don't think he's been a champion of any organization, even like a small one. So him winning the World Series of Fighting Welchway title, I thought that was notable, and I made a mistake.

by not mentioning it. So I want to congratulate John Fitch on that achievement. As he reaches sort of the twilight of his career, he is 38 years young. He just turned 38. A nice win for him, and it's well deserved. Great that he gets a belt. That got me to thinking, especially with everything that was going on in my career, about one of the craziest days of my career. Now, I don't know if I've ever told this story on this show. New York, Rick, you may correct me if I'm wrong here. I don't think I've ever told it on this show. In November of 2008, now I wasn't, that time when I was working for MMArated.com, I wasn't credentialed to UFC events. So this is end of November 2008. I'm working for MMArated.com for around seven months. And the site is going great. Month prior, we had

just broken the news that Ken Chamrock was out of the Kimbo fight. That was huge, doing videos, things like that. I'm going on the Sherdog forums, posting my videos, getting a ton of views, all that stuff. And I still can't get credentialed to UFC events. A couple weeks prior, it's UFC 91, Brock Lester versus Randy Couture. It was tough being an MMA media member, at least thinking I was one, feeling that I had the credentials and not actually getting credentials to cover that event. So instead, and this is why I'll always be thankful to the likes of Scott Coker and Micah Framowitz at Strikeforce, Jerry Malani at the IFL, the guys over at Elite Dex C and Affliction, those promotions allowed me to cover their events.

That's how I was getting to meet fighters and managers and things like that. Without them, you know, who knows what would have happened. So I covered a Strike Force event in November of 2008 that was headlined by Bobby Southworth versus Henato Babalo Sobral. This was a title fight, a light heavyweight title fight that aired live on on HDNet. And also, who was it? Let me see, let me see, let me see. It was Kim Couture versus a woman. This was November 2008, November 21st, 2008. Bobbulous Abrault defeated Bobby Southworth via T-KO stoppage. Dwayne Ludwig defeated Eve Edwards. Scott Smith defeated Tony Martin, excuse me, Terry Martin, I should say. Joe Riggs

defeated Luke Stewart. And Luke Rockhold also won via first round, Rear Naked Choke. Not a bad card. Kim Kattour fought Lena Kov, and at the Wayans, prior to the Wayans, Lena Kov was seen smoking a cigarette. No joke. That's how, that's how, you know, Wild West this all was. Anyhow, I got to San Jose. This event took place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, November 21st, 2008. I got to San Jose on, so the 20th is the, 21st is the Friday, 20th is the Thursday,

19th is the Wednesday. I got there on the 19th. I land in San Jose, and Kevin Ioli writes a story that John Fitch, coming off his UFC 87 title loss to George St. Pierre, has been cut from the UFC because he would not sign whatever agreement they had in place for the new UFC video game. And not only that, other members of AK were cut as well, including Kane Velasquez, who was like, what, 1 in 0 or 2 in the UFC, Mike Swick decided to sign it. It was a tumultuous time. John Fitch was one of the best. Welter rates not named GSP, and all of a sudden he was gone. And I just so happened to be in San Jose home of the American Kickboxing Academy.

Wow, just my luck. So the next morning, November 20th, that Thursday morning, I believe it was either the 20th or the 19th. I can't get it exactly right. But you get the point. I go to AK and I just kind of chill out there. And it was a crazy scene. Everyone's on edge. Some are disappointed.

It feels like there's a line in the sand that has, been drawn. I speak to Javier Mendes about, you know, can I just camp out here? And really, no one knows who I am. I mean, there are some people who know, Javier was cool enough to allow me to stay there, said you could talk to anyone. And in fact, right, I think it was before their practice, maybe it was after the practice, either before or after, he gathered the team and gave them this pep talk about how we're a family and things might be happening outside and there might be some drama, but we're always going to stick together. And he actually let me record that.

Not only that, he held onto my microphone as he delivered this speech. It was surreal. Now, here's the craziest part of it all. So all this is happening. It's trying to get worked out. It's the biggest news story in the sport. And I get the call on that same day that the following day, November 21st, MMArated. com is no more.

That the site that I had been working on to build up all that stuff, I had just flown to San Jose. That site was getting shut down. That's how crazy the life of an MMA journalist and any kind of journalist, especially the ones working online is. You fly to San Jose, and I'd even get a call reminiscent of something else going on in my life these days. I did not get a call from the people I was working. I just got like a message. I think it was an email saying that as of tomorrow, you are done with the site.

We have sold the parent company to another site. They don't want anything to do with MMA. The site is no more. Just like that. It was surreal. So here I am facing the fact that in 24 hours I'm out of a job. and all these guys at the gym are also out of a job. It was crazy.

But I was there. I wanted to get the interviews and it was one of the most memorable days of my career. So Javier allows me to stick around. He allows me to talk to the fighters and whatever. I didn't get a chance to talk to John Fitch until the end of the day, maybe five, six o'clock John Fitch emerges from this office to announce to the world via me that he is back in the UFC, that they figured it out. They had a talk.

He spoke to Lorenzo, Lorenzo Fertita, CEO of the UFC, and he's back. And that's my y'all must have forgotten. You could see on his face that he is drained, he is emotional. He doesn't know what to make of this whole situation, but he signed on the dotted line. The whole video game thing was over and done with. And then after that, Kane and all those guys were welcome back as well. A crazy footnote in the history of this sport,

and especially when you consider where AK is at right now with the UFC with the likes of Daniel Kormier and his relationship. relationship with the UFC. It was just a surreal thing to be a part of, especially because, you know, what are the chances that I'm in San Jose? And what are the chances that I lose my job on the same day as well? I can relate to those guys. And then the next day I covered the Strikeforce event and that was pretty much it. I think the last interview that I ever did for MMArated.com was a Gina Carrano interview, fittingly enough because she was one of my first. She was at that event. We spoke about, you know, what's next for her. And I think Elite XC had already shut down. So there were some rumors of them going to

strike force and all that stuff and going on show it was just crazy what a time so in honor of john fitch winning that belt this is my long story to get to the point in honor of john fitch winning that belt last week his very first significant title in m m m i wanted to go back to that time in his career where things seemed all out of whack and uh i just so happy to be at the right place at the right time woody allen once said 80% of success is just showing up i was just lucky enough to be there and it's something that i'll never forget so here it is november of 2008 y'all must or forgot john Fitch announces to the world that he is back in the UFC. Ariel Hawani here for MMA rated.com at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose

with the most talked about men in MMA in the last 24 hours. John Fitch, so John, I'll start off. I hear there's a new breaking development in this story, so give it to me. Yeah, communication kind of broke down with Dana. So we talked to Lorenzo. Just got off the phone with him a little bit ago, straightened some things out and came to an agreement. So we're going to move ahead, and I believe I'm going to be back in the UFC.

So you're back? After all that, you are back in the UFC. That's the case is we're going to sign off on the video, and I'm back. Yeah, so. So what was the sticking point? I mean, what changed between yesterday and today? Like we said before, it was never even about the agreement or the contract. It was nothing we had a problem with that.

It was the approach that we felt that Dana was a little hot-headed and was threatening us right off the bat. and, you know, it didn't seem like a professional way to do things. So that was the big reason why we didn't sign off. Have the terms of the agreement changed between yesterday and today? No, and we never had a problem with terms of the agreement. We were asking to renegotiate, but after talking to Lorenzo, it's not a big deal. More or less, it's just getting a phone call there. No problem.

I was a question again. The question was, have the terms of the agreement change? Because obviously a lot of people were saying that maybe you didn't want to sign your life away, so to speak. So now just trying to figure out why things are different 24 hours later. The reason for that is it was never really about the agreement. It was about the way Dana approached us with the agreement. It didn't seem professional. We didn't want to sign off on being treated that way.

But we talked to Lorenzo. He explained the agreement first. the video game it's not a big deal it's not like I've got video game companies knocking down my door to do video game deals with me so a lifetime exclusive it's not a big deal and Dana gave us his word or Lorenza gave us his word that it's not it's not a permanent thing if we ever did want to leave there's a possibility that they would they would allow us to leave and do something else so yeah I mean it was never about the agreement it was about the way it was brought to us and

in the last 24 hours Dana has actually echoed those sentiments that it it wasn't about the agreement and that he's had some issues with the gym itself and that it's been more of a management issue. So does this mean that everything's cleared up between the UFC and AKA? Well, I mean, that's the thing is like Danny can't really blame the management for all this because they had been telling me from the beginning to sign off. But we, the fighters, felt that it was inappropriate the way they were talking to us. There might be miscommunication, whatever. But yeah, that was the whole principle, the whole thing. It was just we didn't want to be talk to you in that way. Now everything's done. You look back on the last 24 hours. Do you wish things

could have been, you know, handled a little differently? And, and really ultimately, does this change your relationship with Dana White? I mean, I never had that much of a relationship with Dana in the first place. You know, we spoken briefly throughout my career. But I've actually spoken more with Lorenzo, especially lately. So, you know, as long as we have someone to go through and somebody to decipher what's going on. It'll be a big help. All right. And so let's talk some good news. UFC 94. Is it official you'll be fighting at Kahiro Gono? Hopefully, yeah, we haven't worked out all the details. Like the dust is still settling, but hopefully that should be the fight. When you think back now, the last 24 hours,

now we're talking about you fighting, were you worried there for a second, ultimately, that maybe your MMA career could have been over because not a lot of welter rates outside of the UFC, not a lot of options outside of the UFC, and now things have changed on a dime here in the last 24 hours. I've had to fight up in weight class before just to find fights because, you know, early in my career, I couldn't find anybody to fight me at 170. So, I mean, if I would have to put on some weight and fight other places, go to Japan, you know, I'm a good fighter. I sell, I sell tickets. I was not, I was not worried in one bit. But, I mean, UFC's my home. It's where I want to fight. So, I mean, that was a little heartbreaking to be released in such a hurry.

Right. How many times has the affliction called you in the last 24 hours? Bob has handled a lot of phone calls from a lot of companies, but he told them all just to settle down. We're still talking and let the dust clear first. So, yeah, it's not like we were looking to move on right away. All right. Well, great news for MMA fans. John Fitch is back into UFC after 24 hours out. Thank you for the time.

Answer your phone and the best of luck to you, John. All right. Hey, thanks for having me, no problem. How about that? Isn't that fun? So much to like there. A young John Fitch, you can tell he's very emotional. you can see Bob Cook in the background, fielding calls, he's getting calls.

A young Kane Velasquez is in the background. I'm wearing a T-shirt. That was something that I experimented with. I was like, you know what, I'm going to gyms. Maybe I should dress down a little bit. Clearly not the right call. Although it was a sweet-ass NOMAS T-shirt, the best brand out there. The Routte Fight before there was a Routte to Fight.

And that was a say-no to Drugs Barry Bond's shirt in case you're wondering, which is an all-time classic. But yeah, that was, I mean, just hearing affliction. I mean, what a crazy time? What was that? What did we? Yeah, eight years ago. Eight years ago this November.

How about that? New York Rick was what? Twelve years old when that interview was conducted? How old were you, New York, Rick, in 2008? I was in BJ Penn's dad's nuts. That's right. How about you even remember that at all? Do you have any recollection of that?

I do. I remember that very well. And also, sorry to burst your bubble, but you've told that story not only one time, but multiple times. Come on. Especially when we have Javier Mendez on. You always like to reminisce with him about that time that he allowed you to stay there. No, but I think we got a little more in depth on this one. Well, why didn't you interrupt me?

Well, I think it's a good story. And I think it's worth telling again. And that clip hasn't been shown when we've talked about it. So, excuse me, I'm getting a little choked up. Wow, how about this? No, it was, it's a crazy time. And, I mean, I feel like, you know, we've had situations where that might have been close to happening before. I'm sorry, not before, since.

Oh. So it was definitely an interesting time. And probably like the first case of that where rights came into play. To put it in perspective, I mean, that would be kind of like, I mean, that would be like, what's a, give me a title fight that happened to me. I was going to say Holly Helm, but she was the champion. A title fight. What was it? So where it was vacant, you mean?

No, no, no. Like a title fight where the champion retained. What's a recent title fight where the champion? John Jones versus Daniel Cormier? I mean, I guess that wasn't that recently. But yeah, it's like Daniel Cormier getting released a few months after fighting for the belt. You know, it's just John Fitch wasn't. We think, you know, obviously it's been a few years later, but John Fitch was the best welterweight in the sport not named GSP.

Speaking of which, there's a great documentary about that fight, the road to that fight, which I've definitely mentioned on this show before. It's called Higher. Such great heights. Such great heights. Look at you. Come on. All done.

That's a great. Have you seen that one? I have seen it, yeah. Man, those times, maybe it's Jeff Sherwood being on the show. And I haven't been around as long as him by far. I mean, he was around 11 years before me, which is crazy. But that, like, UFC 107, that was a fun event. They had a screening for that documentary there.

That was in Memphis. That was BJ Penn versus Diego Sanchez. And I remember, it's just, I don't know. It felt a little different. I'm not here to say that I'm reminiscing about the old. times that I missed the old times that I you know all that stuff but uh it definitely was a little bit different back then I don't even know how to like I don't even know I don't even know I don't even know what I'm trying to say a couple of things that I wanted to tell you though before we got to the

questions um let's see how it plays out but I'm hearing a lot of chatter that in this neck of the woods not that far from here later on this week or maybe next week that this whole MMA New York thing is going to be signed sealed and delivered, that they're going to have a signing that, you know, we said that the last thing that needed to be done was the governor, Andrew Cuomo, signing the bill, and then it's in play, and then we got the 120 days before an event can happen.

I'm told that this is imminent, that it could be happening as soon as maybe this Thursday, that some big names are going to be there, big name fighters, big name executives. So stay tuned for that. It's not 100% just yet, but this is going to happen sooner rather than later, and they're already talking about that first event in November

and all that good stuff. So I wanted to mention that to stay tuned for that. And also I wanted to mention that this past weekend, I was at the Beacon Theater. Have you ever been to the Beacon Theater? I have, yep. The only two times that I've been to the Beacon Theater was for UFC pay-per-view.

No, was it? I was there for the World Tour. Remember the first World Tour that they had? I don't remember what it was, but it was like Rhonda was there, GSP was there. John Jones and Gustafin were there. It was before they gave it like a name,

but they stopped in New York. They had one in L.A. and one in New York, maybe somewhere else. I think they had the UFC on Fox 3 pre-Five press conference there. And they just had the Connor McGregor, Jose Aldo one when they had the world tour last year. That's the only time I've ever been to the Beacon Theater. And a bunch of rowdy, MMA fans and all that stuff. This past weekend I returned to the Beacon Theater, which I didn't realize it was the same place until I got there for Peppa Pig Live. I don't know if you're familiar with Peppa Pig.

Not a clue in the world what that is. Peppa Pig is a fantastic kids show. It's a pig family, a British family. My kids love it. And I just wanted to say if anyone... British. Oh, yeah, they speak. They're British.

They have the accent and everything. No, no, no. It is so endearing, but I just wanted to say to the people out there, like, I bought these tickets in September. In fact, our good friend John Beer alerted me of the thing happening. Peppa's first trip to the United States because he got some Ticketmaster alert. And I bought this in September. I don't think I've waited so long for anything in my life. And it finally happened this weekend, and I was a little worried.

You'll find out one day when you have kids. Keeping them in a seat for two hours or whatever, you know, occupied and focused and entertained is a very tough task. They were eating out of these characters' hands. They were crying when it was over. It was so much fun to just see how happy they were. So I just wanted to share that. If anyone watching, because I know it's very popular in Europe and also here as well, I mean, it was sold out and all that. The performance that these characters put on that these, you know,

presenters put on was just was fantastic stuff. It was just funny being back there for something not MMA related in this like innocent state with all these, you know, young kids loving every single thing. If you can go see Peppa Pig live, Peppa Pig's Big Splash, I think it's called. Go out of your way. It's a fantastic time. They're not paying me to say that by the way. I just felt like I need to share that with her. And New York Rick says, buy American. What does that mean? Go watch, you know, Sesame Street or something. Get the F out of here. What's wrong with you? I mean, this kind of, don't be a turncoat. This kind of line of thinking is going to get you nowhere. in life. I remember when I was a kid, the big thing was on ice. They would put everything on ice.

It's still going on. And I saw Power Rangers on ice. And I think I got emotional at that too. Well, that's just weird. I thought that those were the real Power Rangers in there. Well, you didn't mention this a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about the Power Rangers. I didn't know. I was very curious. I was asking you all about it because I didn't know it was still on. I got a tweet from a guy in New Zealand who says that he listens to this show every week while working on the Power Rangers sound effects and graphics that I mocked on the show.

Can you believe that? We need to go through your Twitter timeline. We need to find this guy. He was an egg. He was an egg. And I said, get out of here.

And he's like, yep, I work for this company. He's the soundtrack to my childhood. I mean, if he was working on it back then. Could we update those bad boys? I mean, it's still in 1997.

No, no, no, no, no. With all due respect. That's how you do it. That's how you do it properly. Isn't that crazy? That is an incredible story. love Power Rangers to this day, and I hope that we find this egg. I hope he tweets us again.

All right. Let's talk. Let's get back to the NMA. Were you the guy who was hoping that the Power Ranger got the fight in the UFC against CM Punk because of your affinity? Was it that air? No, no, no. I've grown out of it since.

I care much more about seeing legitimate fights than the Green Ranger getting a shot. What's his name again? Jason, David Frank? I think that's right. I think that's right. Whatever. Okay. Okay.

First question. This one's lengthy. I'm going to distill it down. What are your thoughts on JDS's performance? Oh, yes. And what's next for him? Do you see him going against for Doom? Velasquez?

Does he even get another fight with Velasquez, even if, you know, that might make sense in the rankings. Do you want to see that again? No, no, no, no, no. Other than JDS, by the way, you know who the big winner yesterday in Croatia was? Well, if it's a heavy, if you're about to say a heavyweight, save it. Well, it's certainly not a featherweight. Well, then save it, because we have our next. question. Well, this is my, I have to stay with my thought. It's Alistair Overeign. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Alistair Overeign was the

big winner. Alistair Overeem is now the last man standing. If he can get by Andre Arlowski on May 8th, he's going to get that title shot. There's no doubt about it because Rothwell had the win over him. He beat JDS already, so, you know, he beat him back in December. If he gets by Arlofski, his teammate, and also, we've talked about this time and again on this show. Timing is everything. That fight is a week before the Miocchich Verdum fight. You don't think Overeem Verdome 3 is going to be the fight or even Overeem Miotich is going to

be the fight. If he wins, he's got it. I think more than his wins over anybody is the timing. As we've said and seen his name. You know, Ketzengano has beaten two people that she potentially could have been fighting for the title and she's not now because of the timing.

So the idea of you beat this person and therefore they're lower than you is not a realistic thing to say anymore in the UFC. No, but that whole heavyweight division is kind of a mess because like this guy beat this guy who lost to this guy. Right, and that's why it's irrelevant. And that's why timing is the only thing that matters.

No, because of Ben Rothwell, I mean, Rothwell against JDS has happened, you know, it happened what, like a little over a month before the Miyochich for Doom fight, right? If Rothwell would have won that fight against JDS, he had to get the next title shot over over him. He beat over him, not that long ago. So what? It doesn't matter. No, no, no. It's only a month.

It's not that big. It's not like four months. So he was going to get that title shot. Now he loses, and the guy who beats him has already lost to Alist's a big winner. What do you mean? It's irrelevant. What do you talk about? Overeign is number three.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Wins over the opponents who are also competing for the title shot mean zero anymore. They mean zero. What are you talking about? Anybody can get thrown into the title shot. It doesn't matter if they just lost to the guy who's also on the verge of a title shot. It means zip. means nothing. Title shots almost

in and of themselves mean nothing anymore. Oh, look at you. Now you're taking shots at the UFC brass. How dare you? Zip. Anyway, I thought Overeem was the big winner, but enough of that. JDS, what a performance. I mean, you agree with me? That was probably his most dominant and impressive performance since UFC

146 against Meere. Maybe 160 against Mark Hunt. I thought Mark Hunt was a better performance. I mean, the ending was great. I felt like it wasn't as one-sided. This was a five, nothing skunk. Mark Hunt is a significantly better striker and a much more a much harder matchup for for a striker like junior than ben rothwell is um the the hunt performance is probably junior's best and and and best in a long time

um this one i'd say was a little bit underneath that uh just because i don't see rothwell as dangerous um but it was certainly good it was certainly nice to see this versus what we've been seeing lately well i i got to tell you the game plan that they had going to of the body like he did. Sure. I think it was end of the first or second, maybe the first, that, that teep that, I mean, it looked like, kicked him out of the cage practically. I mean, that was like straight out of Mortal Kombat, right?

300, kicked him into the pit. Have you ever seen Ben Rothwell, you know, Ben Rothwell when he fought Kane Velasquez and his debut at 104 was kind of ragged all a little bit, but this was something else. And he knew Ben Rothel. He's completely different. He's clearly, clearly a significantly better fighter than that one that faced Kane Velasquez. He's come a long way. But I don't think he's ready to crack at upper echelon of fighters with Overeem and Jr.

and Cain and Verdum. Who's this? Ben Rothwell? We're talking about it? He beat Overeem. What are you talking about? I'd take over him in the rematch. I'd take over him in the rematch.

He'd be the betting favorite. Guaranteed. You think so? Guaranteed. You're saying this is a revisionist history. You're saying this after he lost. It's a guarantee. What about that game plan?

Fantastic. Go to the body the way he did? Who does that? I think that Roth, you know, if it comes down to a situation where Rothwell is going to be standing with Junior Dos Santos, he's going to lose that fight every time. That's the reality of the situation. Even if it was Junior that didn't look as sharp as he did. But he looked really, really good and, yeah, completely controlled that fight. It was amazing.

To see a heavyweight box like that. So how about, let's say Verdome loses. Is that the fight to make for Junior? Junior versus Miochich? No, Junior versus Verdume. You're saying title shot. I'm saying... This thing evolves so crazy.

I mean, I don't know what to think at this point. I'm saying, let's say... I was ready. I was uncomfortable. Okay, he gets knocked out by Overeem, and it was kind of like this listless fight. They both weren't pulling the trigger. I mean, he criticized himself on this show. But to see his face after the Miotich fight,

to see him getting knocked out, he was concussed afterwards, to see what happened to him after the last two Velasquez fights, I mean, I thought this guy was pretty much done. I thought he was irrelevant. I'll say this. I do agree. He's made this point before, and I agree with him, that he does cut a little, he cuts easily,

and he's going to wear some damage in a way that some others won't, that are easier to hide it. So by looking at him, it's probably more ghastly and more of a sight thing than necessarily him being beat up. Granted, he was beat up. No two ways about it. But I think it looked a little worse than perhaps, you know, somebody else might have. And he's gone on to say that himself.

But yeah, he did not look like he was, you know, still relevant in that title picture in the same way he was two years ago. So it was good to see him back in that. But I think that, I mean, you could sell a rematch with him and Verdume, no problem. Very easily. Hell yeah. I mean. Very easily. Well, here's a question.

If he, if Verdume beats me, Ocich, do you do that title fight? Well, you're saying over him. It has to be over him. You said it has to be over him. It has to be over him. It has to be over him. It has to be over him. It has to be over him.

I think Junior could get it. And they fought twice. The last one was a little bit of a weird one in Dallas when Verdum kept going to his back. But Verdum versus JDS is the fight that I think a lot of us have wanted to see for a long time because if you recall, JDS was the one who knocked Verdum out of the UFC.

Yep. What was it? UFC, wow, I can't believe I'm forgetting this now. UFC 89? Jesus. What has happened to my memory? No. Wow.

I am so disappointed in myself. right now. U.C. 70. The heck? This is really bad. This is very bad. I've never made a mistake like this before. You're struggling on air. But we do know that come the third hour of the show, all bets are off.

I mean, we were talking about something. I had no recollection of it. We don't have to go into it what it was. But UFC 90. I knew it was a, of course. You know why I said 89? 89 and 90 I missed because I was on my honeymoon and they were back to back and it was the first time in like forever. that the UFC had events back-to-back weeks. Now it's weird when there aren't events on back-to-back weeks. So that's why I said 89. 89 was in Birmingham.

That was Leibon and Michael Bisping. But 90 was the one in Chicago, Patrick Cote against Anderson-Silva. My bad. So we've solved nothing because we don't know who's getting the next heavyweight title shot. We don't know what this means for junior. Well, here's the thing. If Arlowski wins, everything gets thrown out the window. Then it has to be junior, doesn't it?

for a title shot yeah i guess well who else is there i mean i don't know i could see it would if cane beats brown no i man i mean i wouldn't put cane in another title shot if i was the ufc because he keeps pulling out yeah it just can't yeah stay healthy i love that brown fight for him that's the perfect fight for him okay and it's a great fight on u s c 200 yes uh here we go it might be the the fight that makes the most sense of all the fights that they put together on that card. Heavyweight prospects. This is specifically from the previous event, excluding the main event. So we're not including Ben and Jr.

Which are the winning heavyweights from yesterday's card? Derek Lewis, Francis, Ngano. I think that's how you say. Engano. Engano. Timothy Johnson and Jared Canineer. Do you see potentially having the biggest impact? So of those four guys, who's the biggest prospect?

who do you see going furthest? Okay, here we go. Derek Lewis, Francis enganon, Timothy Johnson with his fantastic mustache. That's about it. By the way, Jared Canineer held up a little Jewish thing, and I was given the explanation as to why, and I tweeted about this. So I wanted to relay that while we're speaking about him. Okay, Tseatsitsits.

which is, I don't really know how to explain it. It's something that people wear and that has the things coming down. Religious people wear that. He is not Jewish, but as he put it, the Torah has it all, and he's fascinated by the Hebrews and the Old Testament, said he has a co-worker that got him into it, said he doesn't discount Jesus as the Lord and Savior, but the Torah...

No for Gay Jesus. Has all you need to know. That's the reason behind it. So that was pretty cool. I'm going to go with Derek Lewis. I think he's just the hottest right now. we're probably going to get that Roy Nelson fight. He has a ton of confidence, another great performance.

Getting a little uncomfortable with seeing Gabriel Gonzaga get knocked out this many times, but that's a different discussion for a different day. I'm going to go with Derek. You know, I don't know if he has the complete game, but man, can he punch? And he, without a doubt, has the most terrifying celebration in MMA history. I mean, that thing, I'm surprised that he doesn't break the cage at this point. you really don't need, I mean, you know, saying he's got that power, you don't really need a complete game when you can crack like that.

If he touches you, you're going to sleep. And in the heavyweight division, there's not as much technique, you know, punches are flying very quickly and very, and with great dangerous intent. And I think he's, you know, he's got potential to really do something if all the chips fall right for him. So, and needless to say, he's great on social media. He can really promote. He's good at selling fights.

I mean, he's already calling out Roy Nelson a fight that they've kind of been trying to sell already. Too bad he didn't get to say it on the mic. Well, I mean, that's a separate issue. But he's the complete package. Brac-Francise, I mean, he's looking pretty damn good. Yeah, he's looking good as well. He hits harder as well. And I think we just know a little less about him.

But right now, you've got to go with Derek Lewis as a potential breakout star, for sure. Who do you favor in that fight? If he fights Roy Nelson, who do you got? I got to go Derek, man. Wow, look at you, jumping off the bandwagon, just like that. What do you mean off the bandwagon? Who do you got? Tell me.

You know, I have learned that if you make predictions, people get very, well, you don't have to face these behemoths in person. So what is in it for me? For your jollies, I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to be put in time out. I'm not going to do that. By the way, I sent you a pick for later. we show it if I sent it to you now or is it too late? Yeah, yeah, we could show it. Send it to me.

All right. Okay. Yeah. All right. Hey, at least there's some new blood. It's great. It appears coming through because it seemed like it was getting a little bit stale there for a second. You could always use Jared Rochalt.

Okay. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Hey, I mean, he was a decent heavyweight. It's a little rude. Rothwell's best walkout. It was Sunday or I guess Saturday over there was that Rothwell's best walkout? I don't know. I mean.

The music was good. I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah, but it's not the same if he's not wearing the black thingy. Didn't he wear that before the Matmetryone fight before the Reebok deal? They have to let him do that. Get one with a massive Reebok logo on it. But the fact that they're not allowing this is so short-sighted. In the fight, uniform, great.

I'm trying to think it's like, okay, this is not the best example. But back in the day, in the 90s, there used to be a basketball player named Cliff Robinson on the Portland Trailblazers. Now, before every single player wore a headband, he was the only one. And that was part of his identity. Kurt Rambis, the horrendous coach of the New York Knicks. He wore goggles. That was part of his identity.

Horace Grant, same thing. This is part of his identity. Now, once the game starts, he's wearing the jersey, he's doing what he's being told to do. Let the guy wear his robe. You know, let Brad Pickett come out and his get-up. You know what I mean? Who else is there? If Tom Kong Watson was still in the UFC,

I don't even know if he's not in the UFC anymore, but you get the point. Let him wear his gorilla mask. You know, these are things that don't really matter. Not unless they're Reebok gorilla masks. So put a logo on it if that, but to me it's like if you're walking to the cage, it's one thing.

It's not the same as the actual fight. In the actual fight, it's like those guys, those football players who wear the, you know, all the black paint. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's good to have. have a little, you know, little things here or there that differentiates the fighter that gets you emotionally attached to them. So the walkout is great. The music is great. The look on

his face was great. But what's next? You know, if I'm Apple Beats and I strike a deal with the UFC and say that I want everyone to come out to this music, is that next? You know, that's the fight game. That's, you know, Mike Tyson was wearing, you know, the black shorts and the black shoes with no socks for years. Now, that's the actual fight. Okay, fine. But people, that was something that people related to. Yeah, but it's it. I mean, you know, just logistically, like the UFC is the organization that's running all this. And if they strike a deal with Apple, then you have to suck it up and do that.

Yeah, but this, what he's, what he wants to do is not affecting the in cage attire. That's the thing. He's not saying like Donald's running, like, I want to wear this. And they're like, no, you can't. Fine. I get that. He's just walking to the cage. This is part of his get up.

But look, maybe they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, At the end of the day, I don't feel like enough people now are wearing the warmups and all that where it's not going to like, it's not going to hurt their bottom line. So maybe this is a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope. We have to look at it that way. Fine. I know, I know. I don't know.

Come on. You know, it's the no fun police. They have to enforce it and it's just the way it's got to be. I am looking forward to by the way. I'm hearing that, you know, come July or so that, you know, it's kind of going to be like an every year thing. They're updating it. They're making it better. Let's see where they're at, you know, different colors, different looks.

I'm looking forward to that as well. Because I've said many times on this show, we got to wait a couple years before we really, we really sort of judge the look of it all. I mean, the finances, the behind the scene stuff, it's hard to even know that stuff because, you know, we're not privy to that. But the look hopefully gets better because it just looks to the same. I mean, it's just too similar now. Real quick. What's next for Ben? That is a good question.

Hmm. You know it's a fight that I've wanted to see in the UFC for so long? I mean, these two guys were pillars of the IFL heavyweight division. Now, I know Roy Nelson is going to fight Derek Lewis, but after that fight, I'm imagining that Derek, excuse me, that Ben is going to take some time off after this fight, and maybe the timing doesn't work out. But I've always wanted to see that fight in the UFC, Ben Rothwell versus Roy Nelson. So Roy Nelson's booking fights left and right. Here we go. I love it.

No, I don't know. I mean, there's fights out there. Struve is fighting Bigfoot soon, so maybe, you know, the loser of that, you know, there's options there for him. I mean, Arlofsky Rothwell, you know, if Arlofsky loses to him, that's a fight that people have wanted to see again. Remember that in affliction back in the day, so I'm not worried about Ben. I mean, you really have to feel for the guy. I thought he was super close to getting a title shot. He took this fight when it didn't necessarily make sense right off. off the bat. He went to Croatia. I mean, he's really become a fun character to watch, to interview,

and I felt for him. It just felt like he couldn't get going. And, you know, a lot of credit goes to JDS on this one. But I definitely, as, as, as I am for JDS, who's really, truly one of the great people in this sport. I mean, I mean, the smile that this guy has, it's amazing. He's just a joy to be around. As happy as I am for him, I really do feel as badly for Ben Rothwell. John Jones is on record as saying the OSP fight is not a tune-up fight. Yes. Two questions from our friend James Glory. How good are OSP's chances?

And how big, you know, in the whole scheme, you know, accounting for context, the fact that this is Jones' first fight back since being stripped of the title, all that, you know, his legal troubles. How big would have lost by Jones be? So let's address the first one up front. Well, now you just want me to get in trouble. Look, I don't think, okay, so... I don't think OSP is going to be John Jones.

Fair. I agree with it. I just have too much respect for John Jones. Now, is it possible that the outside circumstances will affect that, that John Jones's time off and John Jones's legal issues will affect how Sharpie looks in the cage? At some point, this is going to catch up to him if he keeps, you know, acting this way. I don't think that time is now. And I don't know if this is the... I don't know if this is the time. You know, I don't know if this is the opponent. I will say this. Do you know what the line is? Have you looked at it? Yes. When it first came out, OSP was a 6-1 dog. Let's see where it stands now. No, I wanted to play the game. Oh, well, I mean, he's a significant underdog.

It's not as big. I mean, he's a plus 450. Yeah, I mean. Jones is a minus 390. I'd be all over Jones at that number. I think Jones is going to smoke them. No, you know, no disrespect to OSP intended. I just don't. don't think, I think John Jones is not only going to look good. I think he might even look better because I think that he's dedicating himself in the gym in a way that, now, granted, you know, you hear that storyline, you hear that line of BS. This is my best fight camp ever, blah, blah, blah,

but the proof is in the pudding and I truly actually believe that John Jones is really dedicated and focused on this fight because he doesn't really have an alternative. He really has had to mind his peas and cues and kind of keep the outside distractions to a minimum. um certainly you know the the legal issues have crept in there but i don't think that that's a thing that's keeping his focus off fighting and i think for once he's actually almost solely focused on fighting which is a scary thought because i think he's uh he's going to be very sharp um certainly you know getting in practice and getting in the cage is two different things but john jones has always shown above all else that he's able to adapt and i think that's one thing that the highest highest level

of fighters do that others don't is once he steps in there he's going to be able to be able to able to react to how he's performing and what he's, you know, kind of lost since stepping out of the cage and adapt. And I'm expecting a really sharp performance from Jones. So I think he's going to blow his doors off. Needless to say, I think Jones is the best. And how big would a loss be, I think it would be huge. I think it would be huge.

I mean, it messes up the rematch with DC, all that stuff. How about that back and forth on Twitter last week? I mean, how much pride did you take in all of that? It was us. We did it. I mean, that was like an episode of Monday Night Rawl. week. It started off with DC making the offer. Then an hour later, it's OSP respectfully declining, and then an hour later it's Jones crapping all over DC for it. You almost have to feel for OSP.

It's his fight now. He's just in the middle of, you know, John Jones and Daniel Cormier, like he's going to be. It's unfortunate, but I think a lot of people are looking at this as a tune-up fight, even if he's not. And that's the right mentality to have. If John Jones was looking at this like a tune-up fight, then he's in the wrong mindset. But I think if anybody's going to be prepared is going to be John Jones. And this loss would be huge, not only for that, but John Jones, many people disregard the Matt Hamill disqualification as a loss on his record. If OSP can do it, that's the first real, quote-unquote, loss on his record. So that would be, that would be monumental.

Forget about all that. I love, I mean, the positivity that James Glory has infused in the comment section is just a, I mean, he's amazing. He's the king of the comments. He's like Mother Teresa over there, considering some of the characters over there. So he is the man we love having him around. Okay. Cormier. Yes. Let's say he loses to John Jones again.

Okay. Let's assume. There's so much assumptions. You know what happens when you assume? Do you know what happens when you assume? Are you going to say this corny? You make an ass out of you and me? Why so many assumptions?

Okay. John Jones beats OSP. Then John Jones beats Cormier. What does Cormier do? Jesus. Two assumptions in this question. John Jones beats OSP. This is next question.

Time for these assumptions. Okay. We actually will move on because I feel like that's probably been addressed before. I mean, holy moly. Tate versus Nunes. Yes. What are your feelings on that fight at UFC 200? It should have been Holly Home.

And are they taking a risk by putting this match together? That's exactly the great point. That's the point. That's the point that I made on the MMA beat. Okay. The only fight that you could have made for Misha Tate at this point, while Rhonda is still out, but it appears as though she's getting closer to coming back. There were two fights.

There was Chris Cyborg and there was Holly Home. Those were the only fights. Why? Because Rhonda has a history with those fighters. If Amanda Nunes wins, Rhonda has no history with her. Now, Ronda Rousey coming back is a big story by itself. It doesn't matter. But it's an even bigger story if it's against either Misha Tate as champion, Chris Cyborg, or Holly Home is champion, even not champion.

That's the Cyborg and Holly Home. Holly can not be the champion. It doesn't matter. It's still a big deal because of the history there. And because Holly beat her and because Cyborg is not going to fight at 135, you heard about that last week on this show from George Lockhart. To put Amanda Nunes in, who can very well beat Misha Tate, who's no slouch.

This is nothing against her. But you do sometimes have to book with the next fight in mind. I know you don't hope for things. I know you don't like to look too far in advance, but you do have to book with that in mind. Also, of all the rematches available out there, I do kind of feel like Holly Home versus Misha Tate is one. with all due respect again to Misha Tate,

her reasoning as to why this fight isn't happening is a little bit off. Who cares if she's only defended the title or not defended the title yet successfully? She was 90 seconds away from either winning that fight, Holly Holie Holm, or that fight ending in a draw, which means Holly Holm gets to keep the belt.

Misha Tate was not 90 seconds away from winning that fight. If that fight would have went the distance, she does not win that fight. I don't care if you got the 10-8 round. So this idea, and on top of that, Holly Home is the bigger draw. She is 100% the bigger draw between her and Amanda Nunes.

Now, I do think two things came into play here. I do think that the fact that Conn McGregor and Nate Diaz were the main event or are the main event for UFC 200, I think it's a little strange to have the top two fights the same as UFC 196. And maybe, you know, some of the dealings with Holly's management came to, you know, to bite her in the butt, so to speak. Who knows? But I do think that of all the rematches out there, this was the one that should have happened. and they made some others that were kind of headscratchers, Dillushab Brough too, Verdum Cain, too, many more come to mind.

This one, this was the one to happen for all those reasons. If home wins, you got the Ronda fight coming up in November or so. If Misha beats home again, tremendous fight, okay, now you got the Rone. But Amanda kind of can screw all that up. And maybe kudos to them for not caring about all that. If I was in charge, I would have gone with the home fight. You don't like U.S.C. 200 run it back? You know, there's a fun thing.

theme there that they could have played off of. But, I mean, they got the Frankie Edgar fight, the top three fights. There's something to be said for fresh fights and fresh matchups, I should say. I don't know. Don't you agree with me? Wasn't this the fight? That was the fight, for sure. We may revisit that.

Let's move to a different fight. We had Kat Zingano on today. In a normal situation, I imagine this is an assumption of sorts, the winner of Katzangano versus Giuliana Pena would be the number one contender. But with Rousey, Home, and now Amanda Nunes, what does that mean for the winner? Who knows? I mean, there's so much at play here. Ronda, when does she come back?

You know, what happens between Tate and Nunes? What happens with Holly Home? There's too much at play here to even know what this means. I mean, again, I believe UFC 200 is a fun card. If you look at every single fight on that card, there's a name there, at least one. If not two. There's no sort of, you know, prospect fight, you know, a couple of heavyweights you never heard of. Every single fight on that card is going to mean something from the fight past prelims to the main event.

I just feel like they got this one. Tate versus Nunes, I could have lived with it. I guess if it was, you know, 201 or whatever, but still it doesn't make sense to me. No, no, no. You're talking about the wrong fight now. We're talking about Pena versus Ingano. No, I know. I'm just saying this is one of the reasons why I think it's a great card.

This is a great fight. It all makes sense. But it just feels like, I don't know. If you're Zingano, you can look at this fight, you know, the Tate fight and be like, I beat both these people. Why aren't I fighting for the belt? Well, this is what I was saying earlier when we were talking about how you get a title shot. Zingano has beaten both of these people, but I don't think she's going to end up with the next title shot, even if she wins. It means nothing.

It really means nothing anymore, which is unfortunate. I understand why Katz not getting the fight. Certainly. long time ago. Yeah, a long time. She's coming off a title fight, blah, blah, blah.

But I don't know, I've just, I guess I've taken this opportunity to address some of the criticisms that UFC 200 has received. I think the expectations for this card were through the roof, perhaps because it was announced

a year ago. I think people will like it when it's all said and done. Who's calling now? Someone, someone's calling my phone as well. I don't know. Scale of one to ten. What do you rate the card?

What's a 10? Give me what a 10 is previously. I don't know if the 10 exists. I mean, there's no perfect card. It's definitely not a 10 because it's not the best card that's ever been constructed. But if you look at 100, I think there's a lot of people who are forgetting that the bottom half of that card was just another card. It wasn't just, it wasn't fight. They're thinking a culmination of like all these crazy fights.

In this scale, let's say UFC 100 is the 10? No. Okay, fine. Just to gauge it. I would say that this is a 10. well for sure well now it's like now it's like the the the the the done competition where everyone gets a 10 they can't work that way well I personally like this better than than 200 but do you I mean then one

100 because I do I didn't think Mere and Lesnar would be competitive and I didn't think Alves and GSP would be competitive top to bottom 100% now Lesnar Mier was something special it was it was a site it was a spectacle But I didn't think it would be competitive. No, but top to bottom, it's not even close. It's not even close. So, yeah, then, I mean, this is a pretty damn good card. Let's not turn this into Batman versus Superman, where the expectations are through the roof.

Did you see that? All of a sudden people are panning it, yeah. Was it good? It wasn't great. It wasn't a very good movie. But it wasn't this, like, people had the expectations that it was going to be fantastic. And now they're saying it's the worst thing ever. It's not.

It's fine. It was a fine movie. And I think that USC 200 is a really, really strong card. let's not get too wound up about the actual number of the card. As they say in the business, slow your roll. Slow your roll. Oh, no, that's no, you're all. I was going to say, know your roll and shut your mouth.

No, that's the rock. Yeah, that's the rock. We've addressed this a little bit. What would you do with Holly now? I don't know what to do, to be honest. Do you know what to do? I mean, I just went through the rankings. I think she has to wait to see if someone gets injured.

Well, or not even injured, but we have to see how these fights shake out and then we'll know more about what her next move is. Who do you think is a bigger name outside of the MMA bubble at this point? Holly Home or Misha Tate? Holly Home. Easily. I mean, she's the one who beat Ronda Rousey and she's done the media tours and all this stuff.

Okay. Isn't it weird that the most popular person not named Ronda Rousey is left without a fight after all these fights are booked? Weird. No, not really. What? It's just... How does she not have a fight?

Yeah, I mean, Is it weird? No, I don't think so. I mean, this is the way it goes now. It's just we have to get used to the idea that not all of these fights are going to be the best or biggest star gets the other best or biggest star. And I just think that, you know, timing didn't work out in her favor in this case. Could she, now, there's many cases where you could say that the timing was off and you couldn't have put that person in this fight. You definitely could have put Holly Holme in this fight. So in that sense, it's a little strange.

But she'll get a big fight next, and it'll be back to business as usual. I'm not concerned about Holly Holmes' earning potential or next fight or anything like that. Once she does get a next matchup, it's going to be just as big. That's a positive outlook. Yeah. As you said, she's a huge star now. Well, they need to capitalize it. I'm sure they will in the next fight.

Lawler, speaking of huge stars. Yeah. Haven't heard much about Robbie. Yes, yes. He was one of the first ones rumored for the USC 200 card. Not looking like that's going to happen. What do we think is going to happen with Robbie? I have tried to get him on this show multiple times.

The man is not a huge fan of talking to the media. He's gotten a lot better, though. I think we'll find the answer to that question relatively soon. I think that the names at play right now are Condit and Woodley. I think it's come down to those two. potentially for 200 to make it crazy. I think that's too many five-round fights. But, you know, what do I know?

There's three right now. Four would just be bananas. WrestleMania went like six hours long, so maybe they'll switch this one up. But, you know, at some point, you're going to have to book 201 as well, you know? So, you know, this idea of Woodley and him at 201. Look, you can make a very strong case that Conda deserves that rematch.

I thought he won the fight. It was a tremendous fight. It still might be the fight of the year. It still might be the round of the year. stuff. But you know, you could also make the case that Condit didn't necessarily deserve the fight to begin with, that Woodley deserved it, wouldly beat him. Oh, no, enough of that. Anyway, I'm just saying, I don't even know what to, I just kind of want him to get booked, him and RDA, so that we can stop speculating and move on with our lives. Sure. This is unrelated to anything we've been discussing.

Yes. Is Connor McGregor ever going to get it? Let's make a bold prediction. Is he ever going to get that fight in Croke Park? Yes. Interesting. Yes. Before it's all said and done, you will get that fight. Where or when, as far as, you know, time frame, who, what, why, how, all that stuff, I have no idea. But yes, I do think it's going to happen. Okay. That's great news. Thank you.

Thank you for your prescient. Okay. Now, this is a deeper question about the roster in general. is it the USC's fault for having fighters talk trash in order to become more famous or notorious? No, this is a stupid question. Well, hear it out, hear it out. There's a point to be made here. No, there isn't.

The UFC mainly focuses on promoting. And now, I don't think this is specific to the UFC. Let's call this MMA in general. MMA focuses on the quote-unquote bad guy attitude. And they've avoided, you know, they've made it harder for someone who's quiet to turn into a star. For example, a war. world tour for a guy like Demetrius Johnson. Are we going to ask if this is the Connor McGregor effect that BS again?

But do you think, let's say a world tour for Demetrius Johnson, is that something that they could use to promote him, but they would be reluctant to because they know he wouldn't be able to ramp up the trash talk. You got to do what you got to do to make money. They know what makes money. They recognize that. You can't just do like today. Perfect example.

They're in Ottawa today with Roy McDonald. and Patrick Cote and Wonderboy. You got to go to the market to sell tickets, to get the media on board, all that stuff. To do a world tour with DJ when he just isn't that kind of fighter with that kind of backing behind him, it doesn't make any sense.

That stuff costs a lot of money. It costs a ton of money to do that stuff, so there has to be a payoff. Isn't that how you built him into that point? There is something to be said for them doing a little more with more people. Absolutely. With them pushing more, you know,

getting a little creative, you got Mighty Mouse, I think that he is very, very under-promoted. There is 100% a point to be made there. But the whole, like, at some point you got to try yourself. I mean, to think that

the UFC did this all for Connor is crazy. Connor forced them to do a lot of this stuff. He showed up to the press conference with the Dickie Bow and the watch, and he was doing all the media and all the sound bites were coming from him. And then they were like, wow, they didn't create Connor McGregor.

No, no, no. What? You disagree? No, I'm agreeing with you. Clearly not. He did not push this. So you got to take some interest in it. But you will admit that there is a thing where Demetrius should get a push and that may propel him toward a different stratosphere. He should be pushed more.

But there is a case to be made that he doesn't like take the bait all that much. He hasn't had a great dance partner, really. I mean, so who to. It's just you have to recognize who's into what, what the people are reacting to. Can they promote more? And do they sometimes focus on the same three, four, five people? Absolutely. this is again a problem of you know putting on too many events you go from zagreb to

Tampa to to Vegas and then you're in Rotterdam and then you're in Kuritiba there's just only there's so much manpower you can't you can't you know it's impossible Jeff Sherwood said something that was you know spot on and I remember this back when I was a fan even when I was doing my radio show in Syracuse used to have three four months to talk about one card It was three, four months of building up all eight, nine fights on that card. So by the time the fights actually happened, it really did feel like the Super Bowl. It felt like something that you had been talking about for three, four months. Think of that.

Now it's like one week that you have to build up a card. So it's just a different time. So you've got to do a lot of the stuff on your own. How about this? As a suggestion, if Demetrius breaks Anderson Silva's record of title defenses, is that something that will take him to the next level? to a degree Look

Time and again These fighters who have not connected With people who have not made money It's because they haven't had The right opponent to bring it out in them That's why I said Aldo needed McGregor More than McGregor needed Aldo

That's why Silver, Anderson Silva owes a lot of the money that he made In the latter portion of his career To Chale Sunnan Anderson Silva was disliked He was not much of a draw Before he met Chale Sunnan at UFC 117

after 112 in Abu Dhabi, he was kind of viewed as one of the more disliked champions and fighters in the UFC. Remember that whole scene? They didn't trust him to main event to show. He beats Forrest, he's back on track, and then he has the whole 112 thing happen.

So he just needs someone to bring it out in him. I don't think that flyweight is the issue. Featherweight and flyweight aren't that far away from each other. He just, you know, for some reason, some fighters connect, some fighters, there's magic there with the opponent. it will happen. And if it doesn't happen, as I said to him a couple weeks ago,

Demetrius Johnson is going to be a lot more respected and admired once he's long gone. We'll look back on his career with much more admiration than we currently do. That's just the nature of this beast. What do you make of the Frank Mears situation? Yeah. If people aren't familiar, there was a notification that there was a tainted drug test. But, you know. that he violated the

the USADA anti-doping policy. This came out on Friday, as I said. It's unfortunate. You know, it's here you have a guy on, you know, at the end of his, here you have a guy

at the end of his career towards the tail end, coming off a bad loss, and this happens. And if he does get a two-year suspension, this could very well be it for Frank Meir. As I said, he addressed it on his podcast.

I've tried to reach out to him as well, but he went to it, you know, he went pretty deep into the whole thing, so maybe there's nothing more to be said at this time. It seems like he's going to be awaiting the results of his B sample. And let's see. I mean, is it a tainted supplement like Ewell Romero? Does he get, you know, some leeway here or there? We'll see what happens.

But, you know, I know some fans were saying on Friday and, like, why do they put this stuff out there? And there's, and I've talked about this as well. This leads to a lot of, you know, guilty before innocent talk. Well, they can't really, they can't really. they can't account for that. I mean, they can't worry about how, you know,

the crazy people online are going to react to this sort of thing. And I honestly feel like Mir got off a lot easier than YOL Romero because maybe UL's less liked or he's had, you know, less suspicion surrounding him or whatever.

And maybe because it just happened, you know, Friday night and there's less people online. But I, I appreciate the transparency. I appreciate the fact that they're telling us every step of the way what happens.

I get it, why a fighter, but look, Romero did ingest something. It just so happened that that thing was tainted. Good that he found out. Good that the world found out. But he did take something.

They're not saying, hey, you over there, you failed. And the guy's like, I didn't take a thing. Something was put in your body. Let's find out what it is. But we don't need to know that first step. We don't need to know. Look, I see where you're coming from. And I am sympathetic to it.

And I feel bad for these fighters who right off the bat are being told, you know, you're guilty. As a media guy and I have to look at it this way, I appreciate the transparency. That's what I'm going to say. But why? Because throughout the UFC's run, it has been anything but that. When BJ Penn fought Joe Stevenson at UFC 80, they did not mention the fact why this fight was being held for the lightweight title.

They did not explain the fact that Sean Shirk had been stripped of the title or was on a leave of absence, suspension. And then eventually, you know, he fought Sean Shirk at UFC 84. They never even addressed it. And as a fan who also watches HBO boxing and they address everything, sometimes to a fault and they send Max Kellerman back there when there was like, you know, some discrepancy with Manny Pacquiao's raps. I love that stuff. Again, coming from this journalism background. So as a journalist, I want to know everything.

I want to know everything about everyone. That's just my inquisitive mind. So I want to know this stuff. Like what Bradley and Pacquil are having for breakfast the next morning. I want to know it all. I'm, I think, a little more level headed where I could say, okay, this came out. Frank Mear took something that was flagged. He's awaiting his B-Sem.

Yeah, but you're not everybody. Yeah, but that's not, again, that's not, that's not, that's not our fault. No, it's not, but I'm not going to call Frank Meier cheetah. There's a responsibility that needs to be upheld where we, the, the court of public opinion is going to condemn Frank Mear right away when they hear that. That's just the reality of people. Okay, but we have to account for stupid people. No. That's, yes, of course.

I can't do, you're asking my personal opinion as a journalist. Well, okay, but you're saying as a journalist, you need that transparency. For what, though? Are you, you're dissemining information. disseminating information that doesn't need to be disseminated. Essentially, we don't need to know about that, and you don't need to be the one to convey that. I want to know, it's not so much that I want to know about Frank Mears' personal life.

Like, you know, if Frank Meir was taking Viagra or something, like, that's none of my business. Yeah, don't want to know. Don't care. But I want to know what's going on with the USADA deal. Is this on the up and up? Like, this transparency, you can't pick and choose. So by them going on their website and listening, everyone who has been drug tested, I want to know more.

I want to know what day they were telling them. I want to know if it was for blood and urine. That's called transparency. And when it comes to drug testing, you're either all in or you're not. And they haven't been for years. And they've relied on the athletic commissions. And they weren't up to snuff. So now they're all in.

And being all in means, you know, these uncomfortable situations. Trust me, more often than not, I side with the fighters. You know this. But you've got to be careful. Can't we have a system where it comes out after the B testing? You get all that information, exactly what was tested. All the exact data that you're getting now, except waiting until the B sample has tested. And then there's a way to communicate that.

In the past, and this happens when it's not related to the UFC, the athletic commissions don't wait for the B sample. They don't. So that's the same thing. I'm saying why can't we change this? I understand the idea of wanting to have the transparency. Believe me, I'm completely on board for that. But I think there has to be a more concrete process, and there needs to be something implemented where, The initial messaging on this isn't, well, they pop for something,

we'll let you figure out how to handle that. That's not sufficient. They aren't telling us. It's not fully transparent because they aren't telling us what it is. And I think that would actually help more than it hurts because if they explain to us what it is, then we can look into it and see, okay, maybe this is a shady thing or why was he using this? I mean, there's an explanation for everything. Yeah, maybe that's the answer, being even more transparent.

Okay. I mean, but my thing is, I don't, the ambiguity of this is what's the problem. There is ambiguity. And it's not, if it's a case where the B samples tested and all the information is clear, then release that. Or release everything that is available up to that point. The ambiguity is what allows people to say, well, Frank Mears a cheater now and that's it. Well, Lorenzo Fertito, when this deal was announced, said that it's going to get worse before it gets better. And I actually think it's gone better than I expected.

Like I thought it was going to be every single card someone popped. So it's not gone as bad as I thought. And maybe, you know, other people would agree with me as well. The point that I'm trying to make is that, you know, if this happens every single card and it's just like all these provisional suspensions, then it gets a little bit weird. But right now, I don't think it's happening as often as maybe a lot of us thought. So I like to know what's going on. And I want to know that the USADA thing is actually working, that they're actually doing what they told us they were going to do.

You know, there was, there was a lot of ambiguity with the Reebok deal. And I don't know if that's really panning out the way we were told it was going to pan out. There's a big difference there. I'm okay with the transparency, but not at the stake of the fighter's reputations. And with the Reebok deal, that's a completely different thing. I'm with you to an extent, but I think there needs to be some kind of protocol in place where the fighters are protected. It's fair. I believe I was the first one to mention this to say that it was coming out a little too soon.

But after thinking about it, again, I can't worry about what other dummies think. I do not think of Frank Mear any different. I want to see what happens with the B sample. I want to see what happens if he appeals this. If he took some supplement from G&C that they find out like Yo-O Romero was tainted, I don't think less of the guy. I don't think less of the if. We don't need the if.

This needs to be the full story right at the same time. You don't think Y'O Romero's case taught some fighters a lesson. You've got to be careful about what you take. Yes, but that same lesson would have been taught without the initial. I like the complete story. I like, yeah, but I like learning every, you know, in journalism in life, we don't get the complete story. Like, we didn't find out that OJ was acquitted before finding out about everything else. That's just news.

It happens in pieces. So I don't like them withholding information and then just telling us, oh, by the way, while you were sleeping, all this stuff was going on. Again, I'm looking at it from a media's perspective. You don't find out the whole story. You find out as we go along. And that's just the way, you know. Even that, though. OJ was judged in the court of public opinion.

Okay, now we're getting crazy. Yeah, I mean, look, it's not a one-to-one comparison, but I think that the fighters need a little more protection here. That's my feeling on it. Well, you know how they can get that protection? Not cheating? Well, that too. But, you know, if this was any other sport, let's be honest,

there would be an association, there would be some collective bargaining. And they would say, look, this we want out there. If we don't want out there. That's a fair point. That's how this thing is done in other sports. Okay. Dan Hardy, have you heard anything about Dan returning? I mean, he's talked about wanting to return.

I think he has to go through a battery of tests before he's cleared. Wolfheart. So, yeah, so until that happens, I mean, he's a great analyst. He does a great job. Would you be up for a fight with Nick Diaz if he came back? Do you like that? I like it. I mean, I don't know if Nick Diaz, honestly, is going to be up for that.

He wants big fights. And, you know, this is a big fight. You could sell that. I'd like to work him up a little bit, you know. It's not, when I think of both guys, it's not the first fight that comes to mind. Sure, that makes sense to me. Same here. Speaking of BJ Penn, any update on BJ Penn.

Well, I tweeted late last week that I think this is imminent. I think the investigation, quote, unquote, is coming to a close. I don't want to go into the investigation. I don't think that's fair to BJ. What? What? No, no, no, no. Hey, now you're actually going to piss me off because what was, you know, that's an accusation about a very serious.

thing. By talking about it, that's lending credibility to that. So do not compare that. Honestly, that's a very dangerous thing that you just did. I see the comparison. What do you mean? You want to get into this? What do you mean? I see the comparison where all the info is not out. People aren't privy to this info, right? If all of a sudden people became privy to this info, judgments would be made. He has been accused, but by me talking about it, a very sensitive matter, that's giving credibility to it. That's just crazy. That is out there. What do you mean?

What is that? The accusation is out there. Yeah, the accusation is out there. I'm not going to talk about it. No, the accusation is out there. Yeah. But if all of a sudden there was info without the full story being put out, then people are going to make their own judgment based on that.

The same way if the full story. The due process is what's missing in the in the case of the. Again, you're accounting for dummies. The due process is out there. He does have a chance to get his B sample tested. He does have a chance to appeal. So who cares what other people say about him? That's just idiots online that you're listening to.

The BJ Penn situation is very different because someone has accused him of something very serious. And again, I feel uncomfortable even addressing it and talking about it. And from what I understand, it's going to come to a close. Relatively soon, there will be a resolution. And hopefully, you know, for his sake, he can get in there and resume his life. and his career, completely different. If you believe the people around him, he did nothing wrong. He did not even, anyway, I don't want to talk about this.

I can't even believe that you made that comparison. I mean, it couldn't be more apples and oranges. Are you crazy? I see a similarity. There is no similarity. In the release of info, I see the similarity there. No, because, okay, let's move on. I mean, this is just, in all the years we've done this show,

that was the dumbest thing you've ever said. Disagree. Yes. But what about BJ Penn in terms of... It's irresponsible is what it is. What about BJ dependent terms of fighting? It's going to be soon. If he gets cleared, it's going to be soon.

It wasn't, you know, it was supposed to be at 196. Didn't happen. It was supposed to be at 197. And then, you know, they had to go into this investigation, which they did. And which was, you know, fine. You know, that's an important thing. You have to make sure that everything is kosher. But he's still, I mean, he's still in Albuquerque.

He's still at Jackson's. He still wants to fight. fight. And I even saw him say recently that maybe in hindsight having a little more time, as we had talked about before, was a blessing for him because being there for just six weeks, just not enough to get back in there when you were out for so long. So he still wants to fight. There's no doubt about that. Okay. Do analysts lose their credibility while they're fighting? So maintaining an analyst role and a fighting role at the same time? I don't think they lose their credibility. I mean, it's different than other sports.

These guys are fighting two, three times a year as opposed to competing 82 times a year if you're a basketball or hockey player, 162 if you're a baseball player. So there aren't as many opportunities to just take a step back and start analyzing your teammates or your colleagues. These guys, you know, they have to remain active. That being said, I do like it better when it's retired fighters because, you know, you'd think that, okay, they're not technically working for the UFC, so they're not going to be as critical as the retired fighters who are out of the game who don't really. lie on the UFC booking them in fights and, you know, giving them bonuses and things of that nature. That's not a factor for an Eve Edwards. That's not a factor for a Kenny Florian.

That's not a factor for a Pat Militich or, you know, any other name that make a boss root. You know what I'm saying? So I like it, but sometimes you wonder if they're being, you know, on the real, if they're still an active competitor, especially one in a, you know, in a top position with something to lose. I think it's better for all involved at some point if it's all retired fighters. Isn't there a middle ground where they could just not comment or weigh in on the specific thing that might be related to their fighting career? That way, they can easily comment on

anything that they have deep intimate knowledge of on the fight side of it. And then that way they don't have to mention anything that involves their division or anything like that. I want an unfiltered analyst. You know, that's what makes inside the NBA so great. That's the best studio show in the history of studio shows. It's not even close. And the fact that more people don't try to copy that is just baffling to me. I mean, the blueprint is out there. And yes, you need the chemistry. Yes, you need the names. But the blueprint is out there. And everyone seems to do the opposite. And what's so great about that show? Obviously, the chemistry, but also just how unfiltered they are. They don't care. There's no, there's no, there's no worry about

pissing off another boss or anything like that because their only boss is TNT. And so you can't really go all in. And also, like, Barclay doesn't have any teammates. You know what I mean? He's just a retired player. The fighters who are still active have teammates that they have to face in the gym the next Monday or whatever. So it just makes for 100% not exactly the, you know, the... But even retired, aren't there going to be some biases?

Like, are we overthinking this completely anyway? Aren't there going to be... So let's say it's a retired person. Aren't there going to be some biases there? They're going to have one view on one fighter over another, active or retired. Yeah. Aren't there going to just be some situations where they're going to like or not like somebody, and are we overthinking this?

Does it really matter that much if they're still active? Look, to a degree we are, I don't think this is a huge problem. I mean, you're the one that asked me the question, so it's not like something that was really on my mind. I'm just asking a question. Yeah, no, no, no. I do think that it's not a huge deal. I mean, look, this is getting dangerlessly close to me talking about my... Okay, let's...

I don't know if you're trying to bait me into this. Let's move on. But I will... This is specifically about fighters. Yeah, but a fighter, where are they appearing? So I will say there's more work to be done in, and the reason why I don't think it's a huge issue for people is because people know what it is. You know what I mean?

Yeah. People know what they're getting beforehand. People know that Dominic Cruz is not going to talk about Yoriah Faber and say how great his... Is that good or bad? I mean, the fact... I think it's neither. I really don't think it's either. I don't think the, I think the bias is something that people will be able to interpret and not, they won't get too lost.

Now, if somebody's tuning in casually, they'll be like, oh, why does that guy not like that guy? And maybe that'll lead them to actually look at the fights. I don't, I'm not sure. But I think, you know, retired or not retired or I think it's unavoidable when you're using the athletes. I think it's unavoidable. It's not so much Cruz talking about Faber. it's you know if this is a mismatch if this guy is coming off a bad performance

you know things like that yeah that you know you don't really hear a lot of and you'd like to you know to me when Barclay says that the Lakers suck and that first half was horrible it doesn't make me necessarily want to change the channel you just want to hear the truth yeah and that's why they're put there so

I think sometimes we're afraid of the truth when it comes to these sports shows and, you know, I think the fans, you know, it's not going to turn them off. In fact, I think it would actually draw them in more. Here's a question that you specifically wanted. Oh, yes. Why don't MMA journalists participate in the U.S.C. rankings, but participate in rankings that benefit their website.

So why would MMA fighting do a ranking but not participate for U.S.C.'s rankings? Well, for the record, we haven't done a rankings thing in a while, And I think it would be a good thing to come back. I mean, it's actually something that I've wanted to see happen for a while. But that being said, I mean, the real question is, why don't we participate? Well, I can only speak for myself. First of all, there's just a lot of events. So I feel like it's a lot of work.

Now, if you do it once and you just kind of move this guy here or there after each event, it's not as daunting as it may seem. But I just don't feel like, look, the rankings were always something that was talked about that the UFC never wanted to put in place because it only works against them because the guy can say, look, I'm the fifth-rank guy and this is the sixth-rank guy, why isn't he getting, why aren't I getting this fight and why aren't I getting paid this much? It's only something that fighters and managers can use against them in negotiations, not so much the other way around.

It has sometimes, like the Benson-Henderson thing, where he was kind of getting split between two divisions, and they were saying, look, you're 12 and lightweight and 14. In Walter, you're not that good. That's not the case. It's silly to split a guy because that only hurts him in both categories. So I always felt like they shied away from it because they didn't want that extra headache. And that made sense. But once they got the Fox deal, sports executives, they want to see that number because that's something that they're used to seeing when it comes to college football or college basketball.

It's an easy thing to sell. This is number five versus four. This is two versus one, et cetera, et cetera. and especially that, you know, you don't rank the champion. So now you can say, oh, this is the number one guy. It's all very sexy for television. And that's why they introduced the 15 because 10 wasn't enough. Oh, this is 13 versus 12.

This is, you know, 14 versus 11, et cetera, et cetera. But the UFC is not necessarily the ones who were pushing for this. So it was done for TV purposes. And once they started to do things like take out Nate Diaz because he refused a fight or two, but had fought, you know, four months ago. and keep Dominic Cruise in, even though he was out. I mean, it just felt like it was something that was being used as, you know, this promotional leverage tool.

Which is, it's not 100%. It's not, it's not as pure as perhaps we were initially convinced that it was going to be. And to me, it's like, what's, honestly, what's in it front? Like when they started to tie the Reebok thing to it, that made it even more uncomfortable. To be fair, So that is, I mean, how else would the UFC use it? I don't think that it's being misused. I just think that its application is limited.

It doesn't include people outside of the UFC. I would love it if it included people outside the UFC, but I can understand why they wanted this to be the UFC rankings. I think it's used in the way that it has to be used currently, but it's limited. It has to be complete. Who is overseeing these rankings? Who decided that Nate Diaz should be pulled? Well, that's, I mean, that's one very bad example.

Not a bad example. That's one very good example of a bad thing that was done. I mean, but that kind of said at all. If they had pointed someone, if they said, okay, Ariel, we want you to head up the UFC rankings, and we are going to completely let you run this thing. And you can't, you know, whatever you say goes, this is going to be on our website. It's going to be on Fox, but this is all you. And if a guy gets suspended, you know, we would suggest that blah, blah, blah, but this is all you.

And you get to pick the committee and all that stuff. yeah, maybe it'd be a lot more appealing. If you look at the names, initially it was, you know, every single person who has ever credentialed or wrote an MMA article was invited to be a part of it. And now what is left is like 30 or so names

that I personally have never heard of or wouldn't recognize if they were standing in front of me. So I don't want to be associated with that. They make the craziest decisions. It's just... I get the thought, though. I understand why you'd want more people because then you get to the, you know,

the biggest, you get the best, most distilled number. you get the closest to the consensus. I just think it's a difficult thing. It's a difficult thing for an organization to rank their own talent. It's very difficult. It has to be completely impartial, 100% independent. And it would be great if one day the media can get together from MMA junkie to Sherdog to weekly to us. And every other website under the sun included, you know, the major ones and have legitimate rankings.

But then you're looking at a thing like how do you determine what the major one? is there's never going to be a perfect system, but there is a better system out there. That is a better system. There is a better system. But it's never going to be perfect because you could say, why is this site on there and this site not? There's always going to be, there's always going to be some upheaval. But as long as there's enough of a strong presence where everybody feels like, you know, everybody who is in this brain trust or committee or whatever the decision making is agrees

that it's the closest to something fair. But, you know, it's never going to be perfect, just like judging. Never going to be perfect. But we have to work toward what the best solution is. College football knows all about that stuff. But the current solution is not one that I think any journalist who does this full time feels comfortable being a part of. For sure. For sure.

Okay. And now, let's say you were not an MMA journalist. Yes. It's hard to imagine. This person says it's hard to imagine what the game would look like without you. But what are you doing if you're not an MMA journalist? Wow. That is a scary thought.

And believe it or not, it's one that I wake up. thinking about in a cold sweat every morning because as I outlined earlier in the show, MMA radio was taken away from me out of nowhere. I mean, this still doesn't feel like a real job, if I'm being honest, as great as it is. It just crazy things happen when you're in media and in particular MMA media. So what would I be doing? I probably would still be in TV production. I was doing that before I got into MMA Media. When I graduated from Syracuse in 2004, I went to work for HBO Sports on a great documentary called Perfect Upset about the Villanova Georgetown 1985 NCAA NCAA championship game, Villanova, who just won last week. That was the first time

that they won back in 85. It was great. I got to meet my main man, Patrick Ewing. What a time that was. That's a story for a different day. I also got to work on one about the 1999 women's soccer team. Then I had to leave HBO Sports and I went to work on a show called Classic Now for ESPN Classic. that was, well, that only lasted like, I don't know, six or seven months. Then I went to work for a production company. And eventually I ended up at Spike, and that's when I decided it's time to start my MMA journalism career. So when I started that website, Jerry Park.com, from a cubicle at Spike TV, I gave myself six months to get noticed. I said, if I don't get noticed by April 1, 2008, I'm going to go back to TV production.

And in fact, come March of 2008, I wasn't getting any jobs, any offers, any opportunities. and I started to look again for more TV jobs. And thankfully, March 28th, as I said a couple of weeks ago, I got that job at MMArated.com. And when the MMArated.com job went out the window. I actually went back to TV production. I worked on the very first UFC prime time with my main man, Jason Hare. That was GSP BJ Pen 2.

And I worked on that. And that just reminded me that I do not want to work on TV shows and TV production. I mean, it was just all. It was that job. particular was really tough. It was like seven days a week for like, I don't know, 18 hours. It was nuts. It's everything that you've heard about that show and 24-7 and all that stuff. And then thankfully, I got a job at AOL and Versus, et cetera, et cetera, and the rest is history. So to answer the question, I'd probably be doing some TV production stuff, dreaming that I was a journalist, dreaming that

I was a media guide. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about that, at least right now. I hope I have not worked. There was a time where I thought I was going to be working for my dad. at his textile company. And I actually worked there for one summer. I lasted two weeks. And the guy, listen to this, the guy that I was working for, who my dad put me to work for said that I was sitting on my chair and we were eating lunch and it was quite depressing.

And he told me that he hoped that my chair fell and that I cracked my head open. He's telling this to the boss's son. Sounds like a really, really nice guy. It was awesome. I felt very, very wanted. He really didn't like the fact. that he had to show me the ropes. It was a very strange summer job.

I mean, that's just something. Why didn't he, you know, take it into his own hands and push you off the chair? That's very passive, aggressive. I just hope you fall off the chair. And now, last thing, before we go, we have this picture that you asked for. Okay, wait, before I go, I wanted to say, congratulations to my boys, Lester City, on winning yesterday. The Foxes are just killing it.

Three more wins, and we run the table, and we are the champions of the people. premiership so I'm just I'm just so so so so so praying and and nervous and anxious I just hope that the foxes can do it but what wait wait wait nope nope before we move on from that sorry we can't what what is this what are you talking about tell me what this is about LCFC tell me Lester city first of all you got the you got the initials wrong no no it was it was a it was a typo on my iPhone yeah yeah where is this coming from why why why this why this what are you talking about on Lester FC. Jamie Vardy is having a party also, and this is only for the hardcore fans out there,

chat shit get banged. You know what I'm talking about. What? You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. If you're a true Lester City supporter who has been following the foxes since day one, living and breathing. Look, I don't want to tell you everything about my life. There's some things I like to keep for myself.

My love for Lester City and this amazing run that they've been on. I implore you. If you are a fan of Lester City. Yeah. Do not let this happen. Do not let him co-ops your team like this. Chat, S-H-I-T, get bang, if case there are any kids listening. Let's look at this picture we have. This is my good friend Claire Hammond from Australia. This is UFC 127 back in 2011.

And this is a longtime friend and supporter of all things, MMAFighting.com, and all things, Ariahawani as far as mixed martial arts reporting is concerned, when I got the Halwani Nose t-shirt out there. She bought it. When my kids have had birthdays, she has sent me presents from Australia. I kid you not. This is a great person right here. And today is her birthday, her friend, Ben, who I hope is not upset that I am, you know, putting him out there.

Ben Reagan, he alerted me of this and he wanted me to send her a message. But I said, you know what? Let me do one better and give her a shout out on the show. And in fact, she has written to me a bunch of times afterwards, and I had no idea that I've ever met her. And he told me about this picture that we did in fact meet. And here she is. Claire Hammond, my good pal from Australia. I believe she's from Sydney.

She is celebrating her birthday. So I want to wish her a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Claire. And all the best and well wishes and all that good stuff and more. So there she is. Claire Hammond. How about that? Happy birthday.

That's awesome. Happy birthday, Claire. There was another thing I wanted to say before I go, but I think I forgot about what it was. I think we've said enough for a little. Yeah, you got wrapped up in the Lester City stuff. Lester City, the Foxes is. Peppa Pig, all that good stuff. Pemann.

There it is. Sean Sheehan. Chat, S-H-I-T-Get-Bang. If you're a Lester City supporter, you know what that's about. Jamie Varty, let's do it, boys. Okay, you can hit my music. We have run out of time.

UFC on Fox 19 is this Saturday in Tampa Bay. I will be there doing my thing, covering the great sport of M-M-M-A once again. I will say this right now. I will say this right now. Now, there's a media day on Thursday, it's Glover Tashara and Rashad Evans and Leonezsche Dan Henderson. That's the media day as far as workouts. We need to get Rose Nama Yunus and Tisha Torres. Unless they've said they don't want to be a part of it, okay, then fair play to them.

But that is the most intriguing fight now on that main card. I mean, Habib's involvement on the card is still very, very notable and important, but Rose and Tisha need to be pushed. This is a number one contender fight, in my opinion. Where's the love for the straw whites? so let's see if that gets fixed. Anyway, we are done. Thank you very much to Jeff Sherwood. Again, I echo everything that I said earlier in the show, a pioneer legend.

Not exactly sure, and I didn't want to pry what happened there, but I wish him well, and I thank him for everything that he has done for MMA fans and MMA media alike. Thank you very much to Darrell Hortcher. Good luck to him this Saturday. What a story that would be. We'll talk about it next. week. Good or bad. Thank you very much to Cort McGee. Fantastic stuff, riveting stuff. Appreciate that

very much as well. Thank you very much and good luck to him. Good luck to Habib Nirmagamadov this weekend. Long time coming. Wish him the best on Saturday. Thank you very much to Holly Home. Thank you very much to Tony Ferguson. Get well soon. And again, thank you very much to Katzengano for stopping by as well. Back next week. Don't forget to rate us on iTunes. Until that I say, peace. I'm out of you. Support for this show comes from Chase. If you're a fan of women's sports, you're always looking for ways to get closer to the action. And your Chase card can get you exactly that.

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