MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 329

Episode Date: May 16, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Demetrious Johnson, Junior dos Santos, Roy Nelson, Will Brooks, Bryan Barberena, Darrion Caldwell, Brendan Schaub & Bryan Callen, and Guilherme Cruz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. It's the mixed martial arts hour with a mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, May 16, 2016. Hello, everyone. I'm Mario Hawani. Inside our New York City studio, I forewarn you right off the top.

I'm all kinds of fired up today. I am fired up today for this show. I'm fired up for this week. I'm fired up after this past week. There is a lot going on, another dizzying week. of MMA since we last said goodbye last Monday. So much has happened. What am I most fired up about? Am I fired up? This is a taste of what transpired last week. Am I fired up because Gray Maynard? Remember Gray Maynard? You didn't think I'd start off the show with his name. He's moving now to 145. Am I fired up because there's a new season of the Ultimate Fighter? And they're doing it with Joseph Benavides and Henry Sohudo. Am I fired up because BJ Penn is now fighting Cole Miller on the FS1 prelims? Am I fired up because ESPN is reporting that the UFC is in advanced talks?

Advanced talks? What does that even mean? To sell the company finally, after all these years, all these rumors, is it actually going to happen? I have a lot to say about that in the third hour, by the way. Am I fired up because Frank Mears B sample came back positive as well? Am I fired up because of the new weight-cutting rules that the UFC's instituting? Am I fired up because Floyd Mayweather refuses to stop talking about Connor McGregor? Am I fired up because Antonio Rodrigo Nogera is now in the Hall of Fame

or going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame the day after UFC 200? Am I fired up because Bellator has decided to strip two of its champions? And by the way, released one of them too, Will Brooks. They released them. They stripped them. Remember last week on this show? Scott Coker saying, I don't really want to talk about this. They actually released the guy.

Am I fired up because Phil Davis beat King Moloal? No. Am I fired up because the UFC 198 was a tremendous success for the UFC because Steve Bameyotich is now the UFC heavyweight champion? That title keeps getting passed around, although it feels like once every year. It does get passed around once every year like a hot potato. No.

Shogun Huah gets the somewhat... hometown decision, no. Jacques eree beating down, Vitor Belfort, no. Matt Brown getting beaten down on the way to the cage. The next day, getting submitted in between by Damien Maya, no. Chris Cyborg's debut couldn't have gone any better, although she'd drop the ball after the fact. No. Brian Barbarina, the prospect killer himself beating Warly Alves, no.

Little Nog, turning back the clock, no, no, no, no. I'm fired up because New York Rick is back. Yay! He is back, though. He made the very amateurish move of after a two-week vacation. Taking the red eye on the Monday, you're supposed to be back. I mean, way to negate your entire vacation. You talk about a rookie move on his part, but, you know, one day the kid will learn.

He is back. We are back. We have a lot to discuss. No time to waste. That's just a taste of what we'll be sinking our teeth into this week. So let me give you the rundown. and let's get right to it. At 410, we're going to be joined by Brian Barbarina. Brian Barbarina walks into Cordiciba, Brazil, everyone, including myself, I will admit, everyone including

myself says, you know, what are they doing? Are they punishing the guy? Because he beat Sage Northcut. Putting him up against Alves, who has looked very good in the UFC, big time prospect, world beater, if you will, or soon to be one, in his home country, and for the 45,000 Passionate fans, what are they doing to poor Brian Barbarina? Well, he survives a guillotine choke and then survives a questionable first round as far as his performance is concerned. But then second and third, the man shows balls of steel, a chin, you know, tougher than granite and actually picks up the harder and win. We'll talk to him about that. He just landed in the United States.

He'll be joining us. Bam Bam. Right over there, you see the lunchbox right over there. Bam Bam. He brought his lunchbox to work on Saturday. 350, we'll talk to Darren Caldwell, bantamweight fighter extraordinaire. He has some news to share with us. So stay tuned for that, Bell to our own DC, Little DC, Darren Caldwell.

At 2.45, we're going to be joined by Brendan Shob and Brian Callan, aka the fighter and the kid. Truth be told, I have a teensy-weency bone to pick with them. I will address that as I like to do things face-to-face mono-imano, Skype man to person. they'll be coming on at 245. Very kind of them. 225 are going to be joined by Roy Nelson, a man who's actually fought Steepa Miochich and

Fabrice Over Doom. He fights Derek Lewis in July. We'll talk to him. It's been a while since we had big country on the show. 2.5 will talk to Junio D' Santos. Remember him? He actually has a win over Stepe. It was a close one. I actually thought Stepe won.

He's coming off a win over Ben Rothwell and he had shoulder surgery. so that's a bit of a mess for him, but still very much in play right now, especially with Miocch as the new champion in that heavyweight division. 145, we're going to talk to Will Brooks in his first interview since getting released

by the Bellator organization, Will Brooks, now the former Belator lightweight champion is going to join us at around 145. At 125, we are going to be joined by Mighty Mouse himself, Demetrius Johnson, to talk about his recent win over Henry Sohudo, And oh, by the way, Mighty Mouse has some news to break as well. Isn't this amazing?

Mighty Mouse Johnson has now eight consecutive successful title defenses. The next best in the UFC is two. Two. Robbie Lawler and Yoniozscheck. Meochich, zero. He just won the belt. Cormier won. Rockhold, zero.

Lawler, two. RDA won. Connor, zero. Zero. Cruz, zero. Misha Tate, zero. Yohanna, too. Isn't that amazing? Doesn't that make you appreciate Mighty Mouse Johnson? All these titles changing hands. It makes me think, oh my gosh, this guy's even better than I thought. That's who I thought of on Saturday. That's why I wanted to have him on the show. Anyway, I'm fired up. I want to talk about UFC 198 right off the bat. And for that, let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in my good pal. Gilaireme Cruz, who was in attendance on Saturday, did a fantastic job. of covering 198 live and in living color from Curitiba Brazil. Here he is now on the M.A. hour. Guillermo, how are you, my friend? Bomjia.

Bongia. I'm doing fine, man. I'm doing great. Okay, so this is the big question right off the bat, and this is one that I've been dying to ask you for the last 48 hours or so since 198 finished. Compare for me the assayi and Curitiba to the one in Rio de Janeiro that I love so much. Does it hold a candle? No, it's nowhere near. Okay. Did you try it? Yeah. Not even close. There's no way to know.

Good to know. Spoken like a true... You're skipping, right? That's why... 100%. You told me, in fact, I asked you, how's the SAI and Korychiba? You said it's nothing to even sneeze at.

I said, all right, I'm not going to this event. Okay, let's get serious, though. A lot happened on Saturday. Like I said, you were there. You were in the stadium when Steve Miochich knocked out for B. Silver Doom in the first round. Can you tell us what the atmosphere was like?

What did the crowd? How did they receive the news? How did they digest it? How did they react to the news when they realized right off the bat that Verdum is no longer the champion? And he fought a completely different fight than any of us expected. And we'll get into that in a second. I just want to know initially what was their reaction. The first reaction was just complete silence.

They didn't say they didn't boo. They didn't do anything. Just when they're staring at it was crazy to. I've been to several stadiums and experiencing losses in other sports and like Bess Correa losing to run a rousey, but the crowd was pro-rousing in that event, but that was something different than anything I've ever seen, like 45,000 people just in silence watching Virginia down and steeply celebrating. It came across that way on television, but then moments later, like 10, 15 minutes later,

as they're leaving the arena, what was it like? Was it like a funeral or did they start to get a little unruly? Like how did they handle this sort of thing? Because we've often heard if the champion loses in Brazil, it's going to be dangerous for the guy who just won. What was that like? No, no, they just clapped hands for Miotich. Wow. Seconds later.

And then when Verdun was doing his post-fight interview, they also cheered for him. It was better than I expected it would be a Brazilian losing UFC Belgian in Brazil. So it wasn't like they were booing him saying he's not good anymore. It was better than I expected. So this was a huge success for the UFC. Again, 45,000 fans in that stadium. A lot of the Brazilian idols, as you guys like to call them, did well, some not so well. But I'm wondering, do you feel like this, the way this card ended in this shocking fashion

where the Brazilian heavyweight champion, now we're left with just one Brazilian champion in Hafeld de Sanjos, do you feel like this now hurts the Kourichiba Mar? and the Brazilian market at large because the fans go home unhappy. Sort of like what happened in Sweden with Alexander Gustafin. Like that's the final taste in their mouth. Do you think that this will have a trickle-down effect? I don't think so because the biggest stars in Kutiba, like Kriyibu, Shogun, they won. So the biggest reaction, the night for a victor was Lidonar.

Wow. It was big. Yeah, I was surprised at that. But I don't think it hurts. Kourgirchukh Kachisb is a huge market for MMA overall, not only the UFC. So it doesn't hurt them, especially because Chris Seiburg got a huge win. Shoggan got a victory even though I don't think he deserved that, but he's got to win. So overall, but Brazil won the majority of the fights.

But that last one was bad for the fans here that went to the arena. but I don't think it hurts the market at all. If Curitiba is such a great market for them and they can sell so many tickets and fill up a soccer stadium, why is this the first time that they hold an event there? After all these events that they've been doing since 134, why is this their first time there? I don't think they have a small arena.

Aalya has, Somalia has like 15,000 fans. They only have, I guess, three soccer stadiums. And this is the pretty, the, the first Latin America soccer state with the roof. So that's, they, they finally have a chance to, to bring it and then to Curitiba. That's why it takes so long for him. So they, they have a winners, but it's like 5,000 people always. Okay.

Was the roof open or closed on Saturday night? It was closed. It was freezing. Wait, wait, sorry. It was closed. Interesting. Okay. And it was still freezing.

Do you think that affected the fighters at all? I don't know, but it was extremely cold. Wow. Okay. Okay, now let's talk about the main event, because to me, watching at home sitting there, that felt like a completely different Fabriceo Verdume. It did not look like the Verdum,

who, you know, shocked us all from his return to the UFC after Strike Force up until this point, you know, beating Kane Velascus and just looking like a completely different fighter against Roy Nelson and Big Nog, and the list goes on and on. Travis Brown, he fought a completely different fight. He had no pay for,

He starts bum rushing Steepi Miochich. Let's be honest, he looked a little bit out of shape as well. I thought that this was a rather shocking, you know, effort from start to finish, even including his physique from Fabrice O'Roodoom. Do you agree with that assessment? Yeah. And he even admitted at the post-fri press conference that he was too reckless. He couldn't focus on the fight. And I was shocked because he ate, I guess, was an hypocrite, like a minute early before the finish.

And he just kept going forward. He wasn't patient like he was against Straggis Brown. And another Friday's with heavy hands. And he just moved forward. I guess he was too anxious to get a finish and celebrate again that he forgot that he had to fight. Yeah. He had to win. So it was like, I guess was his worst performance since the Overeign fight.

And you can make a huge mistake like that against a guy like Miochitz. Last week on this show, there was some talk like, you know, will the crowd affect Miochich? Because he's in enemy territory, get him off his game. In essence, you think that Verdume was saying that the crowd affected him? Like, the fact that he was fighting in front of $45,000 is the main event, that made him fight a different fight? Yeah. I think so, yeah. He wanted to please the crowd, man.

He wanted to get a big win, and he forgot that maybe he went out of his strategy in the fight. Wow. That's up for him. What a massive mistake on his part. I mean, it's amazing how different he looked and how different he fought and to rush a guy. Like, Miyocchich was backpedaling when he knocked out for Doom, a guy that's taken a lot of big shots as a heavyweight contender now, and a champion. And again, here we have another, you know, another instance. The fight is being, you know, there's a heavyweight fight, heavyweight title fight, the title is being defended,

and the title changes hands. It seems like almost every time there's a heavyweight title fight, no one has defended, I don't know if you know this, no one in the history of the UFC heavyweight division has defended the title more than twice successfully. Do you think Steve Amiochich has a long run in him? He said this afterwards, that he's not going to give up the belt for a long time. I expect him not to say anything else. But do you see that in him? Do you think he has what to keep the belt for a while? It's weird because we don't even know who is next. If I wish to ask for a title shot, I don't think, for a rematch.

I don't think the UFC's going to do that. Maybe Overeign. I think I would favor Steve against Overeign. But like Travis Brown and came the last because I don't know who would be next. And how would they look when they're getting that's challenge, that, the title shot. So it's hard to say if he's getting. just getting to defend more than twice. I think it has to be Overeem.

I said this last week on the show. Kane has to prove that he can get through at least two training camps, in my opinion, healthy. And let's be honest, this division has stagnated. You know, it's like we have to wait literally a year between title defenses here. They need to get some new blood in there. Hopefully Miotich can be healthy and keep fighting and wants to fight and be active. So I think you've got to go with Overeem. I think it's a fun-style match-up.

And look, that UFC 200 fight is almost two months away. You know, book the fight now. You know, of course you want to give Miotritch a chance to celebrate, but book the Overeem fight now for, you know, September, October, etc. So I agree with you, by the way. I don't think Verdume has any chance of getting an immediate rematch. I get the impression the UFC isn't, they're not huge fans of Verdume, dating back to when he won the belt that was talking about going to Cancun and Dana White's face.

You got what I'm saying? And with the face that he makes, I think he went to the well one too many times. with that face like he he did it a little too much it looked like he wasn't taking it seriously do you agree yeah I don't know because he's he's a funny guy he likes to make jokes at the time so I don't I don't think like that he he was under under a other underestimating new tich and not being the respect that that he deserves and just having fun all week but and I and I don't think that the fact that UFC banned his mark his his his mask also affected him

But it was, he was clearly disappointed that the fans wouldn't be able to get in the stadium with it. Why did they not let the fans go into the stadium with that mask of him doing the Verdume phase? The UFC just ignored me. I asked them several times about it, why they would do that. But I believe Brad Okamoto or ESPN, he tweeted that the UFC told them that's because of the sporting bat, the logo, and the mask. Yeah, I imagine that that. that it would be the easier. There was a sponsor there that they did not approve of

so they didn't want that to be shown on television. I understand why the UFC would do that, would ban the mask with the sponsorship. But the UFC in Brazil, like all week in the workouts and weighings, and they were also helping promote the mask. Like they posted pictures on Twitter with Virjuna, a lot of Virunos and fans using the mask. They tweeted about it all.

week, if you are not going to allow fans to use that. So don't, don't treat. Don't, don't make it a big thing in the UFC. In the Komen event, Jacquet wins. Tremendous performance. He wins in Mount, raining down, ground and pound on a bloodied Vitor Belfort. I said afterwards that it was a very impressive performance. He's very close to a title shot, but I still feel like you got to go with Michael Bisping. Do you think that win should get him the next title shot? I don't know. This this middleweight division. Now they had your Romero that hit

Jackarola that used other thing. Bisping also got a big win over Anderson Silva but they went with a rematch that I think didn't make much sense. Right.

Rockwood and I think they should have gone with a different fight. Maybe Bismar right away. So I have no idea I mean they're fighting in June and how long it would take for them to come back.

And you have Bispen that's, fought in February. Right. Romero that's from December and Jackarra that just fought. So I maybe do fight with between one of them like Jacarria against Bisping or Bisspink because Romero do something different because you have a long time for them, like to ask Bisping to sit from February to maybe November or December to wait for a child

shop. I think he would do that. He would. He would. He did for a bad for him to wait like 10 months before tonight five. I think at this point, at this stage of his career, he would wait. I don't mind the idea of doing Jacques-Romero, too, because I think Jacerre won that fight at UFC 194. Do a five-round main event fight with them, right?

Yeah. Maybe in Brazil. Yeah, they're probably doing an event here in September, but maybe that's a good event. I don't know if Romero can live American. Can he? Yeah, I think he can. Because of his issue with leaving Cuba and Germany? Yeah.

Last time I asked, someone ATTs told me that he couldn't leave America. Okay, well that's a problem. Wow. All right, well look into it. Although he is free to fight come July. Okay, so that's your take on the middleweight division. Let me ask you about Chris Cyborg. Her performance was obviously great.

Do you think that the finish was a little early, a little premature? Yeah, I agree. Maybe just give her like 10, 10, 5 more seconds. Yeah. It wasn't in a position like Jacaray against Vitchard. She wasn't mountains. She was just landing heavy shots. It was on her side.

She was trying to land punches, but it wasn't that many hard punches. So maybe give her like five or ten more seconds. I think that way. And when I got the list of referees and judges, and I saw that Eduardo R.G. Would be the referee. I knew something like that. Why? Why?

Because he was the referee for Luis Buscapeer against. Drew Dober fight. He just in Rio. So I imagine that something like that could happen, especially in that fight that, I guess, Cyborg is an aggressive machine that would come forward. So I guess something like that could happen. It's good to see that they

rewarded him with a very big fight. No punishment at all for botching that Dober fight. So I thought that the week couldn't have gone better for Cyborg. She came across as a massive star. She was covered like one of the big stars. Back here in the United States, like I opened the New York Post. big newspaper here in the United States, here in New York.

And there's a huge spread on just her. Like, she's the main event. She makes weight, although she looked a little sucked in. She made the weight, 139. All as well, she wins. She's dominant. I thought she dropped the ball, though, in the post-fight interview. And this is why I think she dropped the ball.

She dropped the ball because she could have called out Ronda Rousey, and that fight would be gigantic. It would be bigger. The UFC has trained us now to not really care about the belts anymore. I mean, let's be honest. Look what's happening in the light. Heavyweight division, the featherweight division. Look what Beltor is doing.

doing with Minnikov and Will Brooks, belts mean nothing in 2016. Everyone wants to see Cyborg Rhonda. It's the fight we've been talking about. It's our Pac-Yahu versus Mayweather. She should have called her out, just said, you know, Rhonda, stop running, here I am. I'm finally here. Meet me at 140, whatever the case may be. And what makes it worse, what makes it worse is that, and I know it's not her, but she

goes on Twitter the next day and then she talks smack. I mean, if you're going to do that, if you're going to play that game, then, you know, come on. Then say it in the cage, too. If you're not going to say it in the cage, then don't play that game. Do you agree that she kind of dropped the ball there after the fact because that would have been replayed everywhere? Yeah, 100%. When I asked her at the press conference, why she did, you know, she called out Ronda, she had, she had, it was her moment that she was celebrating her in.

But then, like, hours later on Twitter, it's not her. No. It's like someone that's doing her Twitter and her Facebook doing that, like, she doesn't help her because they, they portrays someone that she's not. She's not like this, this crazy girl, like, treating him. She's a nice person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Like, if she wanted to call out round her, she wouldn't do it at the press conference,

talking to Randolph-10 F35, not on Twitter only. Yeah, stupid. We're a fraction of the audience is watching. That kind of got under my skin. Let me ask you about the Matt Brown situation. So he flips off the crowd, he turns his back to them at the way in, they boo him, it's obviously a very hostile environment he goes to the cage and literally

gets punched in the head multiple times and somehow is able to block this out and fight valiantly he gets submitted with around 30 seconds left but the next day he gets attacked by a former coach in the hotel what can you tell us about this situation and where it stands right now yeah the first one that got out it was like a random fan that

got into the lobby hotel and attacked him and then we we find out that it was his former coach Rodrigo Bochie, that they had an issue in the past. Bolte claims that he attacked him in the gym and almost got him blind. Matt Brown says he's lying. And that was pretty much it, like a year ago or so. And I saw that Bochie was in Cochiba because he posted on his Facebook that was here.

And also posted like, War, Damien Maya, who was reading for Damien? Okay. against Matt Brown, not surprisingly. And, but then I called the police and got all the information like, Rodrigo attacked him, Matt Brown at the hotel, and then just ran away. And one of Matt Brown's friend went after him and caught him and also punched him in the face several times. That's on video. Yeah.

And Rodrigo Boz is the one pressing charges against Matt Brown's friend. Oh, his friend. Charges. His friend, yeah, his friend. And Matt Brown left Brazil. I asked the police if Matt Brown wanted to press charges against Rodrigochi, he should have been, should have went to the police station on Sunday to press charges. But I guess he was, he doesn't care.

It won't go anywhere. Right, right, right. But what's charges won't go anywhere because it won't go anywhere because there's nothing big. It would be like, yeah, nothing, slap in the wrist. something like that. So yeah, but I'm just surprised that what you both decided to press charges, even though he's the one that started everything. You get the impression that Matt Brown just wanted to get the heck out of there and not have to like stick around after the Saturday night that he had. Yeah, I don't blame. I mean, I don't blame him either. Okay, Little Nog beats Pat Cummins.

Brian Barbarina beats Worley Alves. Shogunhua beats Corey Anderson. which one surprised you most of those three? Barberin. Yeah. Barbarian. I thought like Worley Alps would just smoke him. Really? It started off well.

Yeah, yeah. But that was surprising. Little bit I also expect Patrick Cumm's win, but I know that his boxing could become a problem for Cummings. So that was okay. And Shoggan, I think he lost. You think he lost? What he was surprised? What would you do?

You thought Shogun had the first round and lost the second and third? First round? Yeah. He was the first round until the last second. Yeah, yeah. He dropped him. And the second round, he also dropped him in the end, but it wasn't enough for him to steal the round. And the third one, he lost it.

Yeah, fine. So I think it was rounds two and three for Koreans. Very, very close fight. It reminded me of UFC 134 when they booked. Brendan Shob against Bignog, where they wanted the young guy to sort of get the win over the, or that's how it was booked against the legend. And then the legend says, you know what, I'm not done just yet. You know, credit to Shogun. It was a close fight. I agree. Although you can make the case. If you're going to give him the first round, you can make the case that he may have stole the second with that knockdown.

So a great moment for Curry-Tiba's own Saturday night in Brazil. All right, Guillermo, great stuff, my man. I appreciate the time. You killed it last week. Very, very, very well done. And always great to have you on. so thank you very much for the insight. Thank you, ma'am. All right, there he is. Gilaireme Cruz of MMAFighting.com talking about UFC 198. But before we move along,

let me quickly tell you about my good friends over at Seekek. You know by now, I love these guys. Surely, in the past, you've been frustrated trying to buy tickets online. We all have.

Most sites make it very complicated. They all try to sneak in huge fees at the checkout. That's why, my friends, you need to try Seekek. They made it easier than ever to buy and sell sports and concert tickets.

This is perfect for MMA fans. UFC 199 coming up. UFC 200 coming up. 201 in Atlanta. All those events in Las Vegas. South Dakota. Want tickets? Go on Siki.

Download the app. Make it happen. It's super easy. They've taken all the work and hassle out of shopping for tickets. They pull all the tickets available on other sites into one place so you save time and never miss a deal.

You can even see. set alerts for upcoming events and Seekek will let you know if ticket prices fall. Even better, every ticket on Seekkeek is ranked based on values so you can immediately find underpriced seats. And before you buy, you can use Seekek's detailed maps to see the view from your seat. It's a super cool technology. I highly recommend it. Best of all, Seekek is always honest and upfront about the price. Unlike StubbHub, they show you the full ticket price from start to finish and never try to trick you with huge fees on the checkout page. You know that happens as well.

Now here's the best part. My listeners, listeners of the great world-renowned MMA Hour show, get a $20 rebate off their first Seekek purchase. You heard that right. To get this $20 rebate on tickets, A, download the free Seek geek app on your phone. B, go to the Settings tab and click, Add a promo code. Add a promo code. That's what you need to click. C, enter promo code MMA. And D,

Seekek will then send you $20 after you've made your first ticket purchase. That's it. Download the free Seek app right now and enter promo code MMA for your $20 rebate. Support them. They're great people. Big fans of our show, big fans of them. Anyone who's a part of this family, you got to support and I appreciate them doing so very much. Now back to the show. Very excited, as always, to talk to the reigning, defending UFC flyway champion, a man that is finally, finally getting the respect that he deserves in this business. The one and only Mighty Mouse, Demetrius Johnson, is on the phone. Demetrius, how are you? I'm good, Aaron. How are you, my friend?

I am doing great. What a pleasure it is to talk to you. You know, I said this at the top of the show. You probably heard it because I know you like to listen every week while you're doing the dishes. That's your chore for the day. You're doing the dishes, I'm told. Is it raining over there in Seattle? You know, unfortunately, it is raining right now. Last week, we were blessed with beautiful weather, 80 degrees. Chambers out there working on his pan, looking good.

So, yeah, I'm training right now. I love it. There's something, you know, I got to say, I'm going on a tangent here, but there's just something about you and these chores, the fence washing. I don't know what's, okay, let's go through it. We've conquered the fence washing? The bent as washed, it just needs to be stained. I still got a pressure off the concrete, so that's the chore.

That's my goal when I get back home from my trip with the life. Okay, but what, why did it take so long to do this? Like, why was this like a four-day process for you? Why can't you do it in one afternoon? Because I have two kids, and I have fucking, like, 30 panels to do, and very tedious work, and I run out of gas, like, refilled, and the kids got to put them down for it. nap. So, you know, I still have my other, you know, family, uh, chores to do as well. So that's just

an extra on the top of everything else. And I can't just drop everything else. You know, I still playing video game still twitching and doing pressure wash it too. So I even took two days off, but that's why I took so long. I love, I love the fact that I think for the first time my life, I heard you say ran out of gas. I never thought I'd hear that out of your mouth. though I will say like it just feels like washing a fence is something that could take an hour or so and then your head

what went wrong with your head like what was going on over there was it was it sunburned what was that white stuff on your head we just showed a picture of it what was that it was basically the wood particles off of a fence so my face hasn't been planning for three years straight so I have to basically strip off all the old dead wood

and you know I'm basically doing it usually when they have pressure watch They wear like a full suit, so, you know, they put the seat on, they pressure loss. You know, when they get down, pressure wash, and they take suit off. They're basically clean. I go all organic, my friend. No suit needed. Just take my shirt off and blast away.

And then the wood particles get on my face. So that's why my wife going to do it because she goes, I got hair and shit. So I don't want that on my hair. I was like, no problem. I would do it myself. Do you wear goggles? Oh, hell yeah. I wear goggles, yes.

Okay, good. Do you get splinters on your head? Oh, yeah. Splinters. I mean, not splinters. But the wood particles on my head yet. They don't, they don't, they don't, packed this beautiful bald head of mine.

But you're out there washing that fence shirtless. You got your eight pack, you're rocking that, you got the sandals, the whole bit. Are people coming out of their house watching this? Because I feel like, you know, like the ladies of the neighborhood would just watch you do this. This is a big event for them. No, the neighborhood and the ladies aren't coming out

to watch me do this. They have husbands of their own. I keep them very happy. So I don't think they come down there and watch this chopper man and work on the fence. I think they're all satisfied at home. But it's not every day. It's not every day that someone, you know, as ripped and built as you is out there working hard on his, unless that is something that you do every day, is it?

But that is something I do every day when I'm home. I'm always outside with the kids and doing something or playing with them or working in the yard doing something. I'm a very active guy, you know, when I might get rid of my fights or I don't have a fight book. I'm always outside doing something. You know, I don't like to travel or I'm not doing movies or run around doing these interviews or press conferences and stuff. I'm at home, you know, spend time with the family. How much was this weighing on your mind as you were preparing to fight Henry Suhudo? Because I don't know if you noticed this.

You mentioned this almost in every single interview that you had to go home and wash your fence. Because good, dude, I'm not going to lie. It's good that it's not going to lie. I don't have to worry about doing anymore now. Next thing is take care of the concrete. And, you know, I always, you know, I've always tried to make sure we set goals for ourselves to do something in the yard. you know, we got a water trap to put in the front yard, so that was a big goal. And then now the fence is done, we've got to stain it, and then we've got to put

a cap on top of the fence post. You know, we want to, when you drive home, you work so hard to make your house look nice. And when you come home from the gym, when you come home, whatever you're doing, you pull up to your house, and it's a nice house. I mean, I guess I could pay for you do all this stuff, but there's some about, you know, putting that elbow grease in and, you know, let it be done, doing yourself. What an inspiration you are to men across this great country. Okay, so what's next?

The concrete, that's next? That's next. That's next. Are we going to continue to chronicle this for the man like myself who is very inadequate when it comes to housekeeping and things like that? I'm almost living vicariously through you, not so much because of your fighting skills, just because of the way that you get things done. I mean, I text you, hey, we're going to call you at 125.

You tell me, yep, I'm just doing the dishes. I mean, you really are a Renaissance man. You're the 2016 man. You should be man of the year, for God's sakes. I appreciate that. And yes, I'll do a special video for you. Oh. Oh, Ronnie, when it comes to pressure washing the coffee, I'll take care of it.

I'll give you something next to you'll like. Okay. You have big news to break, right? Yes, if you like me to break it. I mean, you can give me the introduction, not trying to have that apart. Okay. Demetrius Johnson, as I've been saying, time and again for the last few years, is the most underappreciated champion in UFC history.

He is not getting the love that he deserves from the company as far as promotion is concerned, from the fans, from his opponents. I mean, for God's sakes, we've got two opponents now who he just beat. They're going to go teach other fighters how to beat him in a reality show. It's all crazy. But things are changing for Demetrius Johnson coming off that fantastic win over Henry Sehudo. Not only are they saying that he's potentially the pound-for-pound king, but the UFC is getting behind their guy. They're making things right. Is that not right, Demetrius?

Yes, absolutely. they're always, they've always been behind me, you know, the chance to sign, you know, a new contract with the UFC, eight-by-deal. I'm very excited to announce that. I think it's great things to come in the future. You know, I think it's a great thing that finally the UFC is given the ultimate fighter for now, well, the fighter show the flyweight.

I think you're getting to see a lot of great competitors. You know, they're going to go around and grab the best flyways out there. You know, a lot of people who follow me on my stream or talk to me, I'm probably one of the most humble people on the world, and I will continue to be humbled. There's always a bigger fishing to see. The world is a huge place, and there's always a diamond and a rough, and I'm sure the U.S. you will find it, and I will walk home with this gentleman eventually. Okay, we'll get to that in a second, though.

How many fights? That was all well and good, but how many fights did you have left on your old contract? I had about three going in the fight with Henry Zahudo, so I beat Zahuto had two left. Okay, and as you know, free agency testing the market, all that stuff, it's the flavor of the week or year in MMA. Did you consider doing that as well? Yeah, at one point, but at the same time, I think with fighters do that, they want to see what they work, but at the same time,

if they're going to negotiating with BFC and they get what they hear what they like, then there's no point of going out testing free agency. And the thing is, too, I don't care what anybody says, even Rampage Shast said it before. You know, nobody teaches you better than UFC. I mean, every single time I'm going to a place, and when I did a flight week, I am the first person to check this girl in the morning,

and I can just call somebody in the U.S. you like, hey, Tony, the doors are locked in the workout room. Can I please get in? I'm like, absolutely, champ, we'll get you somebody down there. Even before I was champ, you know, they were still treating with courtesy and make sure if I needed something, they would take care of it.

And that goes a long way. When I need to do my video production or my shooting, I'm like, hey, can I get this done in the morning? I want to get all my schedule done in the morning because I'm with the rest of the day to relax and train by do my workout or whatever. And they've always been accommodated me. You know, I don't really go on a record in Spain all that stuff because it's always business, how well do you treat me. I don't need to go out there as far as how well they treat me. Yeah. It's something that they just do.

That's great to hear. How were the negotiations? They're good. handle that Matt Hume does. So you had no part in any of it. They never asked you to weigh in, get your thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. They do, but at the same time, you know, that I don't weigh in with the U.S. That's what Matt Hume does for me, and so is Brad Kirtin, and we all sit down and we talk

and we discussed it. Prior to me going into fight, you know, Himasu-Hoodo, you know, we're already talking about negotiations and what I wanted and, you know, went out there and fought Himmi-Sahudo and did my job. And then, you know, Matt Hume steps in. That's his part. And my job is just the fight. That's my job.

From day one, he was an amateur. One of my coaches instilled in me for the longest time, same as Matt Hume and even Daniel, Dana White. Well, Dana White didn't instill it to me. But, you know, I was like, dude, your job should have out there to fight. Just go out there and fight and win and everything will take care of yourself. Even, you know, a long time ago, I was in, you know, Dana White and Lorenzo's office, you know, talking to him.

And he was like, Laurenstude was like, dude, you're so fucking dominant. Like, we need to make people believe you can lose, and that would be able to tune in. And I'm like, dude, I'm trying to do everything I can to let the world know my personality. This is who I am. You know, I'm not going to be – I'm probably never be a shit-talker because somebody comes to my face goes, You can you fucking stuff. I'll figure out.

I'm like, okay, now, bye-bye, thank you. I'm going to go this way and go through something else. You have a great life. And that's as far as soon as my trash talk, because there's no point of it. You know, here's you, who knows. He says, I am the big cheese. I am the mousetrap. I'm going to catch all.

You ain't catch the shit, dog. I mean, I could have said that, but, you know, I didn't want to waste my energy and do it. I love it at that. So, but, yeah, you know, why was I do? You just keep on winning, you know, energy southern didn't get, you know, popular until you fought Chil Senate. And, you know, he had that five-hour war with Chil Senate, and they had that another fight to rematch it. Chil, Anderson will out the water. So for me, I might pick the world starting out and catch my personality that I'm just a down-ear-up guy and watch video games and fight.

I love the fact that the UFC got this done before your contract was up, instilling that confidence in you, letting the world know that this is, you know, this is a fighter that we want to get behind. But did you realize this, Demetrius, as I was going to say at the top of this interview and I said at the top of the show, you have the longest, I mean, I'm sure you knew that you have the longest title defense, current title defense streak in the UFC, eight in a row. This is something that means a lot to you. You want to break that Anderson Silver record. Did you know that the next best person has two in a row? Yeah Somebody told me that the other day That's insane

Like I said Well you know It's part of the sport The sports are evolving And that's what I'm always trying to do You know Working out with Matt Hume and Brad Kircherton You know

I've gone to the same gym For 19 years I've never wanted a different gym To train with a different coach You know You see a lot of fighters do it And I think they're I've gone after trying to find something

But if you're at the gym You know I always believe When I lost And that was okay This is the reason why you lost And I could have picked up and just left, like, oh, I'm not, you know, getting what I need here, or this and that, or I don't have a physical therapist, or I don't have a parloricine for them,

or I don't have a dietitian, all that stuff. I said, you know, I was, okay, how can I read a book to make my diet better? How can I fix this probably of my skillset together as a team instead of going somewhere and using somebody as a crutch to fix my problem if that makes sense? But yeah, it's a credit to my team and Matt Hume and Black person You know, we're going to continue to keep on working hard regardless of whoever we're fighting next

And go out there and do our best And that's how it's always been from day one Before we defend the title for the first time You can make the case that in 2016 Titles haven't meant this little in MMA ever I mean with all the interim titles And people in other organizations getting stripped For whatever

I mean crazy reasons And you can make the case Because the title moves so much as well that becoming champion doesn't mean as much. I would argue that becoming the flyway champion means more than becoming champion in any other division because you have been so dominant. Someone beats you, that means something.

You know what I mean? You can make the case that, yeah, maybe you don't get the pay-per-view buys and all that stuff, but your title means more than any other title out there. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, the biggest thing is, like, you know, a lot of people might not even care about me breaking

and it's a solo's record, but for me, it's a goal for myself. that way, on times and times you're telling 10 years down the road in the UFC, you know, I'm sure there's to be running that. You know, my goal are and Joe Rogan are like, you know, and we look at the title of

offense who has the most record. And still, he's dropped and the man is retired. He still has a Joe Rogan three head time of that. Yeah, man, like I said, we said, we've got one of the best crowd fighters in the world of these times. I still believe he is, you know,

it's going to be cool to hear that. And then that's one of my goals. Just that, like I said, stay healthy, keep on learning. head of the gym right now to go train with Matt and keep on evolving as a fighter. Okay, so you mentioned tough. You like this idea?

You think this is good because some people were like, what, they're going to give a title shot to a guy who's not in the UFC? What does this mean to the other guys in the division? And I know you beat many of them, but as champion, I want to know if A, you liked the idea, and B, did they give you the heads up this time, or was it like the last time? Yeah, absolutely.

A, I like it because I'll see that. guys why and B, um, yes, they did, you know, after, before my fight, I was hearing Cuedo, you know, we sat down, I, I, I basically approached the way, I was, hey, dude, you know, I think you got off on the wrong foot about this whole, uh, alternate fighter show. And I think, uh, I was, I want to say I was blinded at it, but kind of by, you know, people, you know, not you, but people on stream to where I should have taken the chance to, uh, read about it before, well, I did read about it and give my opinion about it. But now that I know the truth, the true facts is, you know, the truth,

the details about what's going on, you know, that they're going to go around and get every single champion around the world. So here's the reason. I like it. So you have one S-seat, you have Della Tours. You have World Series of Fighting. You have all these organizations in the world. They all have a middleweight champion. They all have a World Tweight champion.

They all have a flightweight champion. Now, we don't know who is the best in the World War II division. You've got Ben Asper over one S-seat tearing people up. I would love to see Ben Aspen's fight, Bobby Lawler. But that would never happen unless he did an ultimate-o-fighter show. of the World's Way. Well, that gets to happen for me at the Flywood Division to where they get to go out there and try to find every big fish and see a home in a house, they can fight,

and then the winner of that will get to fight me. Now, if I'm able to go out there and beat this person, then that will certify me as a, you know, true king. I mean, I don't get wrong. I think, you know, the U.S. he has the best athletes in the world, but there's still so many guys they can have already the roster that, which gives other organizations to have their pawns filled. because that makes sense.

Yes. So is Demetius Johnson the most active champion in the UFC right now going to wait until December? What is that? That's in seven months. You're not going to fight for the next seven months? Well, she would happen.

You know, like I said, my job is to stay healthy and stay active. I want to mean by active doesn't mean just fighting in the offensive but stay active as and continue to learn my crap and hone it and make my skills a lot sharper. So if the UFC calls me and it gives me an offer to fight somebody, absolutely I'm going to take it. Even though they have the show that, you know, based around me, I'm sure the show might be based around, you know, they're just going to get a towel shop regardless.

I mean, the show hasn't any air yet. So for me, I'm focused on myself and continuing to get better. Have they talked about what's next yet? I mean, have they sat down and said, okay, this is what they want you to do. Have you had that discussion? And where does the 135 talk fall into that? Because, as you know, after the fight, everyone was talking about 135 for you. Yeah, obviously, you know, we just got the deal done, so don't talk to the top between me and your feet.

As far as you know, 135, you guys, you guys can pause the shooting to go back there. Like I say, guys, I was a small guy. I mean, I woke up last night, Wayne, I mean, this morning, weighing 138. So, I mean, that's like three pounds to me to cut. I mean, with Carter going up to, like, 170. I mean, him fighting, him winning at 169. I've never hit the scale, woke up Wayne 145 in my life. So for me to go 135, it's like three pounds.

So I'm truly fighting the bigger man when it comes to that. What that being said, like I said, we will see. You know, there's things in the future that can leave me back to 135. I'm only 29 years old, so if I keep on fighting and beating the guys to 125, maybe I'll go off and do one offer up at 135 and maybe fight whoever the champion is up there. But we'll see. You know, there's a lot of killers at 135 that, you know, they deserve their shot first. So I could just, you know, jump the line.

And I'm a very honest scenario when it comes to doing that. Like, I'm not just like, hey, I'm not just like, hey, I'm going to start. What's going on, Doug? Hey, hey, hey, let's step aside. I'll get this crack, little bit, dog. And then after that, if I win, we can fight. I lose. You can jump back in front.

But is it fair to say that you want to break that Anderson record first and then go to $1.35 and toy around with that idea? Or could you do that in the middle? No, I'm going to do that first. Okay, so you've got two more until you tie it, right? Two more to tie it. But then one, so I got three more to break it, two more to tie. And that's it.

I mean, who knows, I can go out there and fight my next fight and freaking lose. The next day I'm like, fuck this. Let's go to Bandaway and try myself, go up there and do that. Or then maybe I might win, you know, win it Bannerway. And I was like, you know, I'm saying, you know, anything is possible. So nothing's set in stone and engraved. So for me, my main focus is to beat the anniversary of a record. And then once I do that, I will, you know, I'll take a step back and evaluate things.

A lot of people don't understand, like, when I fight at Banoe weight, I'm fighting in Bigger, I'm taking more damage. Another great example is Frankie Ager. Then I talked to his father-in-law, and he was like, dude, when Frankie fought in 155, he would end up in the hospital because he's truly fighting bigger dudes. And, like, they hit harder. And he was in a hospital. When he fights at 45, no more hospital days. No more damage, which means he has a lot of career. So, I mean, you have to weigh the pros and the cons when you fight.

I believe I'm going to do. I mean, so don't worry. That's something I'm going to take consideration as well when the time comes. And also, I mean, things are going pretty well for you these days at 125. What's the point, right? I mean, yeah, you know, you're smoking everyone there. Why change things up? It ain't broke.

Yeah, I think it's to take the things on the edge of the seat. Yeah. to challenge myself. Don't even wrong. I am challenging myself at World 25. Yeah. You know, it's not easy by not meeting these guys and then, you know, coming out, helping, being helping in the gym.

But my main goal at 125 is to break the end of the Silver Record. And then when anybody out in the world speaks of flyweight, you know, I just want the initial jobs to come out of their name. Like, I want to be the household name for the Firewood Division. I might say, you already are. But, you know, I was, quick, quick story. I was playing Tarnassark on my stream on Twitch, and my fans were saying,

hey, ask these guys who they know who to be shopping? And I was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, guys, do you guys know who did you guys know who Demetian Johnson? I was that? I was like, and I just kind of laugh and super loud. And then my fans are like, the Twitch team was like, hey, after we know who Kna Rigger is.

And I was like, do you guys who kind of a greater is? They go, post you know what the fuck that is. Then you think I'm a little on the rock. I was like, Jesus, Christ. I didn't get my name on that level. By fighting, being good, not ruffling feathers. just by my skill set. And it might never happen, but I believe I can get there just with my skill

test. Well, I think you're on your way. The tide is turning in your favor favor. Last thing, just curious, because I'm a curious guy. Did you get them pay-per-viewpoints? You are a nosy man. Well, I do. You are a nosy man. I have a big nose. Let's say I'm good, man. Let's say I'm happy. Like I said, I've always a humble man. I came from working, you know, a full-time job making $20,000 a year. I mean, I don't ever see. Let's just say the chance might not have to go work and fucking pass back through these ends up. Let's just say that. Great. That is tremendous news. I am happy to hear that, my friend. Very happy for all

your success. Keep it up. I'm looking forward to your next fight. You're not going to appear on the ultimate fighter, are you? That would be a little weird, right? We'll see what happened. Okay. All right. Keep me on my toes. Thank you for breaking that news on this show. Congrats on the new contract to you and your family. Great job, my man. And always great to have you on the program. I appreciate it very much. Absolutely. Bigger, Your Honor. Please. Yeah, by the way, keep up the yard work updates, okay?

Don't worry. I'm going to take care of you, you're the man. There he is. Mighty Mouse Johnson, appreciate his time. Just signed a new eight-fight contract with the UFC. How about that? They got it done. Well done.

Curious to see what they do with them next. Do they keep them on the sidelines until December? Do they have a fight in the interim? Interesting times for Mighty Mouse. He wants to get two more before he ties Anderson Silva's record, and then one more before he breaks it. And then let's see what happens with 135. That's a long time, especially in that division.

A lot can happen. Okay, let's move along one of the big stories of last week. Bellator coming out, a very savvy PR move on their part, breaking this news on a Saturday afternoon before their own event and UFC198. They announced that Will Brooks has been released from the company that they parted ways, I should say, with Will Brooks. And in doing so, he has been stripped of their title. Now, his contract was coming to a close.

It was going to expire this summer. So I guess they got ahead of it and wanted to control the narrative. but here we have Will Brooks joining us via the magic of Skype right now on the program. Will, how are you, my friend? I'm good, man. I'm blessed, bro. How are you? Well, I'm happy to see you smile.

I'm happy to see that you're in a good place. Did you know that Bellator was going to do this on Saturday? No, I didn't. I wasn't, you know, I knew my management and Bellator were in talks. You know, we requested the release and they were talking about trying to get it done. And we kind of had the feeling that it was going to happen, which I appreciate it, you know, But I didn't know it was going to happen yesterday or not, what is it, today's Monday. Yeah, I didn't know it was going to happen Saturday or whatnot, but, you know, it is what it is.

I'm just, I'm happy it's done. I'm happy to, you know, I appreciate them, you know, getting that done and allowing me to move forward and accomplish other goals that I've set for myself. And I'm just ready to move forward, man. I'm jacked up. I'm so excited for the future. So you requested the release. Do you think they wanted to keep you? Yeah, I mean, they offered me, they offer, and I think I did an interview with you before a little.

a while back and I had mentioned like they offered me a contract you know and and it was it was a substantial it was a quality contract you know but uh I I've never I've I've always been a guy that has been really dedicated to accomplishing his goals you know and um you know I I we you know we gave them a you know uh thank you very much but you know at this time we try to move forward and try out free agency and whatnot and that was something I decided to do so you know here I am so why did it take so long for them to release you because we talked several months ago I think it was because we actually, after sitting around and thinking about it, me and my management were actually thinking about, you know, maybe we take another fight,

you know, maybe we take another fight, see how we feel, and then come back to the table and talk about the, you know, contract stuff, and maybe my mind would have changed, you know, and it was just something that we wanted to hang back and see what happens. And I had a lot going on, you know. I had my brand new baby girl came along, you know, and me and my fiancee needed to finish up getting ready for our wedding in July. You know, we started house hunting and different things like that.

So my life got real. Like, these got real really fast for me. So I needed to take a step back and really sit back and think about things and not just rush into something. So, you know, it is what it is. Well, obviously, congratulations on being a father now. That's tremendous news. And you can see from your social media how happy you are. So I'm very happy for you guys.

And you say that you're getting married as well. You're a dad now. You're a new dad. This coming in the midst of all of it. Does that make you a little nervous? Like, are you kind of freaking out? You're jobless at the moment. Yeah, not at all, man.

I'm a blessed man, bro. Like, I genuinely believe, and I, you know, we all have our different faith. We have our different beliefs. I believe that, you know, I believe that the big man upstairs, he's got his hands on me. You know, I got an amazing fiancé who's always willing to have my back. And, you know, I've got a beautiful, healthy baby girl. I've got my fiance's mom. My mother-in-law is out here from Illinois.

She came out here. She's been out here for almost three months now, just helping us with the baby and everything. And I'm just a blessed man. I just, I can't put it, I can't say enough how blessed I am. So being jobless right now, I'm not concerned with that because I come from a family where we know how to work, man. We know how to get things done. We know when the going gets tough, we know how to put our hands down and just get back to work. So my baby, my baby girl will never go without eating. She'll always have a roof over her head. And my fiance will always be taken care of. So I'm not worried about nothing. at the 11th hour did Bell Tor try? Because I feel like releasing the champion and stripping him of the belt devalues the title because now the two guys who are going to fight for it, Patriki Pitbull and Chandler,

they're fighting for a vacant title. They're not beating the guy who had the belt. To be the man, you've got to beat the man and they're not doing that. And they're just doing what they're being told and they're obviously going to seize that opportunity. But I feel like, look at that welterweight division. I think to a degree it has been hurt by the fact that they released Ben Ascran and vacated the title. and now Koreshkov still has that Ascran fight hanging over his head. I'm wondering if at the 11th hour they tried to come to terms with you, they tried to sign you, or was this a done deal a while ago? Honestly, I couldn't even tell you.

Really, when it came to that stuff, I let my management take care of all of that. You know, he gave me summaries of where they were at in regards to what they were negotiating and things like that. So in the very last minute, like that just came back and it just was, that was the final deal. And again, I appreciate it, man. I didn't have any time to really think too much. as soon as I found out about it, I was like, yo, like, I was just so happy and appreciated just the idea of being able to approach or, you know, pursue other goals in my life, man, just because I just got this, I just got this filling in my bones that, you know, the next

place I end up, man, I'm going to be a problem for everybody. I want to be something different, man, and I'm just, I'm just ready to go, you know, I don't know, man, I got the words, I got the words for it. I'm just, I'm excited, bro. This is great. I'm very happy to hear that. So you don't feel. like your leverage has been hurt at all now that, you know, so, you know, sometimes when you're about to become a free agent, you have different suitors, including your current company, you have leverage. But by getting, you know, parting ways like this, you don't feel like that's hurt your leverage at all? Man, I don't know, man. I'm sure it has, you know, but that's not

something I can concern myself with. All I know is I know how to win. I know how to go in that cage. I know how to compete. I know how to get my job done. And I know how to get the gold. You know how to get to the goal. That's what I know how to do. My management, he'll deal with the rest of that stuff. That's why I got him. That's why I paid him his money, you know what I'm saying? And he does a great job. And let me take a minute and thank Monty Cox. That's my guy, man. He's been there for me since day one. He took a risk on me. He didn't really know if I was really going to be what he thought I was going to be when we first got together. But I told him a long time ago, man, you do your job, you let me do mine and I'll bring championship belts home, you know.

So he's done a great job and I've held up my end and we'll continue to move forward. And again, I'll let him deal with that stuff. And I'll just be in a gym, getting ready to compete whenever he tells me it's time to go. Yeah, a true OG, if you will, in MMA management. Monty Cox has been around forever. Okay, so it's been around. I bet he's listening to it right now. He's going to love that.

He's going to text me about that. Monty Cox, he's been doing this a long time. He's the man. I like him very much. Okay, so 48 hours it has been since they came out with the news that you're a free man. Has anyone offered you anything? Where do we stand? What are we talking about?

I honestly, I don't know. Oh, come on. You know, Will. My manager is taking care of that stuff. You know, I let him know that, you know, I let him know that, you know, I'm not in a hurry to figure anything out right now, you know, especially, you know, I do still have a lot of things I have to figure out in my own personal life right now. And we do, look, I'm getting married in July, man. And, you know, I still got to finish up organizing the wedding and helping my fiancé with that. She's got school things going on. I'm still trying to be like, I'm still running my daddy daycare.

here with the baby girl. So, you know, all I can tell you is I'm going to be in shape. And whatever happens next, I'm going to give them the best that I got. You know, wherever I end up, whatever organization I end up with, they're going to get the best Will Brooks that anybody's ever seen. So that's where I'm at right now. Again, me and my management will continue to talk back and forth and we'll figure out what's next. So the last time you're on, you sort of insinuated that you want to be in the UFC. I mean, they are the top dog. You want to be a UFC champion, right? Is that the case right now? You want to be the UFC champion? Yeah, I will never, I would never, you know, shy away from that.

I've let people know plenty of times, and I'll continue to say that. I believe that I can go out there and beat anybody in the lightweight division of the UFC and, you know, seize that title, you know, and be the man on top. I just have that belief in my body, and I have that in my bones, and I can fill it, and I know I can do it. So if that opportunity presents itself, I would definitely seize that moment. I will take that opportunity. But, again, you have to have an open mind, and you have to be open to whatever it is,

universe wants to give you, you know? We have things that we want, but there's sometimes the man upstairs in the universe that size that it's going to give you what you need at that time. And that's what I want to do. I want to hang back, control the things I can control, and allow other things that fall in place. As far as you know right now, are you aware of whether or not the UFC has interest in you? I'm not sure. I mean, again, this is something that, this is a brand new for me. This is a new place for me. So again, I don't, I haven't been, I guess I, it's so, it didn't feel real. It still doesn't feel real that I'm in this position ever. When I first signed with Bellator, again, it gave me a great opportunity to build myself up and compete and become

a champion, you know, and I had, for a long time, I had that idea that I was going to be there and retire with Bellator or whatnot. And, but then I started getting older, you know, and I'm like, man, I want to trust myself out. I don't want to say that I beat everybody, you know? So then that's when my idea of going into free agency came about, you know. So again, right now I'm just trying to get used to where I'm at right now. Like, I'm jobless. I'm trying to figure out, like, I don't know, man.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing right now. So, again, we'll see what happens, man. Well, it seems like Justin Gaichie, the World Series of Fighting Lightweight Champion, is interested in you. I see you guys going back and forth on Twitter. Does that interest you? Look, man. ever notice how everybody's got something to say when they think that you're down, when they think that, like, you might be in a bad place. They all of a sudden got something to say.

But a while back, before all of this, I was all over Twitter. Yeah, yeah. Like, Ali, that helps, I don't know if he's running the World Series anymore, but he's all talking about how their guys could beat Bellator guys and blah, blah, blah. I was the first dude to volunteer my services, like do a crossover promotion. and this is what they jump on Twitter like Ali all of a sudden Oh no man I respect you I think you're a great champion Oh like you know we'll see what happens

All of a sudden his attitude changed Then I yell at Gagia I'm like listen Gatji I'm like we're both champions Let's make something happen I'm sure Bellator would be in the mix It's a cool idea I'm sure they think about doing it Why don't you go ahead and talk to your people He wouldn't say a word He wouldn't say a word at all

And now of a sudden he wants to try to get all He wants to bring some attention to himself because now I guess it's like I miss a popular right now and now he's trying to ride my co-tel and get his name out there but I'm not worried about that bum he's all right he's all right he'll be okay he's okay speaking of which what's going on with your Twitter one day it's deleted then it's back and deleted what are you doing with that thing

it's one of those things where I've recognized with myself that I'm a very impulsive guy I'm a very spontaneous guy and I wear all my emotions on my sleeve. Yeah. So what I'm starting to recognize, I can always tell when I'm building up to like one of those cranes. I'm building up. I'm about to like go off and lose it.

And that's when I delete it. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to step away really quick. I'm going to go find something else to do it myself. Just because I feel like, man, like Twitter would get you in trouble sometimes, man. It's a trap. It's a trap. Like, for example, the little tweet I put up the other day about the target

thing. Yeah. You see how fast that turned into something else? Yeah, yeah. Like I straight up taking a joke about how expensive it is and take care of my baby girl. Yeah. And turned into something else. I'm like, oh, man, like, you can't mess with Twitter.

So I take a break once in a while, you know? Well, then once you put it out there and delete it, then people take screen grabs of it and they're trying to see their seat. Yeah, that's what, that's like my, this last time I deleted it, my coaches and my management, like, talk to me and it was like, Will, like, you're a magnet for trouble, man. Like, you can't, like, you can't say nothing with anybody, like, jumping on there. I'm, like, begging them, like, swear. Like, look, like, I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm not doing anything. But they were like, look, just take a break, just be easy. Like, you know,

like, just hang out for a little bit. But I, you know, I hop back on there and they let me get back on and do my thing. And I might stick around for a little bit. Let me ask you this two-part question. Do you think Twitter ruined your relationship with Bellator? and do you think you saying that you intended on testing free agency made them go, all right, we want nothing to do with this guy anymore? No, I think, honestly, if I had to be 100% honest, I do think some of the things I said on Twitter, some of the things, the way I went about doing things was very unprofessional, and it wasn't in my nature, you know.

I think I just got consumed by a lot of things that were going on, and I stepped outside of who I am as a person, and, you know, it was a, outside of the relationship with Bellator, just seeing the things that I was saying and seeing the way I was carrying myself just really bummed me out. I wasn't even thinking about everything else. It was just, man, I was so embarrassed by some of the things I was doing, you know.

And again, I always go back to this. There was an interview we did, and you had said to me, I can't wait to see the old Will Brooks come back. And that's always stuck with me. And that's something that, you know, I was looking at all those tweets, and it's like, man, like, I straight up that's always stuck with me. So I'm like, man, how do I find that balance in my footsteps again? How do I find

my old self and get back to that? And that's, you know, that's what I've been really taken from that whole thing. Not really focused on anything with Bellator. To be honest, I'm sure that, you know, I'm sure I upset some people with some of the things that I've said. And, you know, I apologize for those things. I had an opportunity to talk with Coker and talk with the different people. And we all, you know,

we work things out. We got things figured out. you know, move forward. So it is what it is. But, you know, I'm just trying to, again, get back to who I am as a person and just remember what my character is and not, you know, let people decide what my reputation is. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. You know, I made a, I made a little bit of a negative reputation for myself, you know, and that's not who I am. It's not in my character, so I'm just trying to get back to who I am, you know? In a perfect world, when do you want to sign and when you want to fight again, considering all this other stuff that you got going on in your life?

in a perfect world i would i would probably wait until june you know just because we we we close on our house june 3rd okay so we're still going through all the mortgage stuff all that like hoa all this all this is all this paperwork so that's i didn't i didn't realize how much stuff it took the house man they're all in my what's your bank account how much money you're making a year of all this stuff so uh i would like i would i would really want to dive in sometime in june once we get moving into our new place and we calm down a little bit and then uh and then uh maybe pursue some different things there but uh you know i i heard uh heard through the grape line like everybody else that ufc is going to Chicago oh um I just happen to be a guy from Chicago oh you never know man you never know if they

give me that opportunity I'm definitely going to take it but yeah oh yeah sometimes soon sometime in June is when I really want to you know really want to dive into this and get back into it but right now I'm just staying in shape though. I'm standing in shape because you never know. My mind might change. Something might happen, but, you know, June is definitely a target. Wouldn't that be something? July 23rd, live and free on Fox, United Center in Chicago, the now former Belator lightweight champion, the man who's never beaten to not become the champion anymore, walks into the United Center on Fox wearing the Bellator gold. Will you walk around with the Bellator strap? Will you do that? I don't think, I don't think Reebok will let me do that.

That's true. Maybe you know what I'll do? You know what I'll do? I'll give it to Reebok. Okay. Put a logo? Put the logo? Wow, what a company guy.

How crazy would that be? What a company man. That would be... Where's the belt? Where's the belt? The belt is actually is right here. Let me see that thing. Let's see that belt.

They didn't take that away from you. It's right here, man. Look, look, let me say this. Regardless of all the ups and downs and all the different things, that happened with me and Bellator. We were able to get things worked out, and this thing means a lot to me, you know. This is a lot of hard work.

A lot of sweat, a lot of blood, a lot of ups and downs, and competing and going against really talented guys, you know, and, you know, so this thing really means a lot to me, you know, and I always, you know, I'll always have an attachment to this. So Chandler and Pit Bull can go fight for their,

they can go be false champions if they want to. Oh, snap. There it is. This one right here. That's the real deal. Yeah, right? They got to go to Coconut Creek to get that. You know what?

It might be Eddie. Eddie might have the real one if you think about it. Oh, well, that's perfect, right? Eddie wins the belt on July 7th. Eddie Alvarez Will Brooks champion versus champion. What about that, huh? Look, man, Eddie don't want those problems. He knows that he knows I'm coming from.

He knows he's on my list. We talked about it. I let him know. He's a good dude. I let him know. He's still on the list. I'm still looking for him. Remember on this show you guys were on together?

Yeah. It was fantastic. Yo, it was a good time. And I love talking trash with guys who just like, he's got a good sense and humor about it, you know? And it was fun. But I tell you this much, man, when it's time to go, I am head hunting for him.

I'm looking for him. He's on my list. All right, there you have it. Well, Will, I'm happy that you're taking this all in stride, that you're in a good place, that you're happy, that everything's going well at home. Proud new father, new homeowner, all this stuff. I mean, it is good to be Will Brooks,

and you are a free man. so I'm curious to see how this all plays out. Thank you for coming on this show to talk about it and keep us posted on everything. And keep the Twitter, man. Look, if you want to do something crazy, ask me first. I'll let you know how it is

if it's bad or not, and then we'll tweet away, all right? Hey, you know what I actually do? I send it to my, I send, whatever I want to say, I send it to my manager now. Smart. And I ask me, yo, is this okay? They'll be like, okay, yeah, you can say that. Or I'll give it to my old lady

and she'll tweet it and all that stuff. So I'm figuring it out, man. I'm figuring it out. Like me being emotional and having my emotions on my sleeve and being impulsive, it's never going to change. I'm 29 now. That's in there. That's who I am.

But I can double check with people. You're growing up in front of eyes. Great stuff, Will. Appreciate it very much. Good luck with everything. Keep us posted. All right, man. Take care.

Ill Will Brooks in the house. The now former Bellator Lightweight Champion, going to be very interesting to see what they do with him. Or I should say, what happens to him next? If I'm the UFC, I'm signing him. If I'm World Series of Fighting, I'm trying to sign him as well, because Lord knows they could use a big name lightweight. And they could claim to have the, you know, the Belator champ.

You do him versus Gaetia. I mean, if I'm World Series of Fighting, that is a no-brainer. If I'm one-fc, if I'm any organization I'm trying to sign him, that is a supremely talented man. It would be cool to see him in the UFC, though. They didn't do it with Ben Astgren, and I wonder if they're going to do it now because for the UFC, it's a weird spot. Do you sign the guy that Belator didn't want anymore?

And then if he does well, Beltor can say, well, look how good he's doing in your organization. You know, that's a weird spot to be in. But still, very curious. And I do think it devalues that title. I'm curious to see what they're going to do. You know, Chandler, Patriki, that's a great fight. But you want to have someone beat the champion. And then so it didn't work out.

Shades of the Jake Shield situation. Shades of Ben Ascran. And now this, Vitalian Minikov. So the title just doesn't mean as much when that happens. But happy to see that he's happy with the whole situation and very, very interested to see where he signs next. Okay, let's move along. I've been wanting to talk to our next guest for the last several weeks. Okay, we are going to go to Junior Dos Santos in a matter of moments.

But if you recall, JDS picked up a massive win over Ben Rothwell. He turned back the clock around a month ago in Zagreb Croatia. he defeated Rothwell via unanimous decision and just looked spectacular. I would argue that that was the best Junior Dos Santos looked since maybe UFC 160 against Mark Hunt, maybe UFC 146. I mean, that was a tremendous performance in a very, very important spot for Junio Dostos. And let's not forget, this is a man who back at UFC 90 knocked out Fabrizio Verduim, so he knows what Sipemio Mioch experienced this past Saturday in Kourich. He joins us right now via the magic of Skype. there he is. Sigano himself, Junior Dos Santos. Junior, how are you?

I'm good, Ariel, and you. I'm doing good. I'm doing great. Great to see you as always. I want to congratulate you first and foremost on the big win against Ben Rothwell. Do I see something on your shoulder over there? Is that your, yeah, you have, what is that? Oh, wow, there it is. Yeah, I did a surgery on my right shoulder. You know, I was feeling that. So then I did some exams and was a problem there. Then we did a surgery. But thank you.

Thank you. That fight was good to be back, you know, to actually be back winning again, you know. Yes. It was really good. And we're going to talk about the fight in a second, but let me just ask you, did you injure your shoulder in the fight against Ben or was this a problem that you were having for a while? No, it got very worst in the fight. I don't know why maybe, you know, I didn't feel too much, but after the fight, I started

to feeling a lot of pain. And when we went to check it out, I have a partial torn on my bice tendon. Wow. So then we need to do a surgery. How long do you have to be in that sling for? For wearing this thing for six months. months. Whoa. No, not for six months, for six weeks. Oh, okay. Then more six weeks to doing my physical therapy and everything to get back to the training.

In that fight, I said after that fight that was the best you look since either your win over Mark Hunt or your win over Frank Mear at UFC 146. Like you just really, there's a phrase turning back the clock, like you go back to your old self. That's what it looked like in that fight. Would you agree with me? Like, when's the last time you felt that good and fought that well in Europe? opinion? Yeah, I can't remember right now, but yeah, I agree with you because I was feeling very well, you know, very good, because I was, you know, I was maybe worrying, a very worried about using my jiu-jitsu and my wrestling skills, and I forgot about a little bit of my boxing skills. It was made myself champion one day, you know. So in that fight, I bring it back, you know, to the moment, you know, and I used my boxing skills because I knew I couldn't collide against a guy that big, you know, like Manorato.

So that's why I think I did good, you know, because I did what I used to do very well, you know, what I loved to do using my boxing skills. How early in the fight did you realize that you got him, that this was your night, that you were going to start. skunkum five rounds to none like did you did you notice in the first round that you're just the better fighter that day no no at the whole time i was very you know careful you know at some points of the fight i was thinking man now maybe i have to go a little harder now you know try to knock him out or something like that and i told that i told this to my coach

during the in the corner you know but he told me no no no keep doing what you're doing because you're doing, you know, you're doing well. So I'm glad because I could keep myself in the same position, doing the same thing, not worrying about getting tired, not worrying about anything, just defending myself from the hard attacks from Big Ben. And, you know, moving a lot, throwing my hard shots and make sure that I'm. I could win the fight very well. Wow, what a performance it was.

And in particular, the body shots. The body shots were just amazing. I mean, it really was an unbelievable performance. I don't know if you heard last week on this show, Ben Rothwell was on the show. He wasn't too impressed with your performance. He did not give you a lot of credit. And he also, to be honest, insinuated that some foul things were going on. Did you hear these comments?

And if so, what do you make of them? Yeah, I heard a little bit of this. But I think, you know, Ben Rotho is a really good fighter, you know, he's dangerous, but he didn't, he didn't find himself in the fight, you know. I was maybe too fast for him, you know, at that point, you know. But, yeah, I think he's a good fighter and he's going to come back, like, stronger. And I heard that he said wasn't a good decision to accept the fight, you know. And, well, I think it's very, you know, very hard to say. But if you're winning, you have to fight with anyone. If you want to beat the champion, you can't pick opponents, you know. So if he would like to be the champion, you know, at some point he should fight against me or, you know, other guys. it's part of the thing, you know, to be champion.

Right. So you don't, you don't, you're not bothered by anything that he said. You don't take it personally. No, no, of course not. Actually, you know, it was, it was good to know about him a little bit more there at the fight. I was studying about him. And also, we have, you know, to do all the media things. And I knew, like, how can I say that? I got a little closer to him, you know. It was good. He's a really nice guy. Yes. It's good to keep your enemies close. I've been told that. Yeah, I heard, like, there's a phrase that say, keep your friends close, but your

enemy is even closer. There you can. Did you watch UFC 198? Yes, I did. I was actually commentating here at the TV, Brazil. I'm doing, I'm doing some things here, too. I like it. You're the best. Were you in? Kuritiba or were you in Rio or Sao Paulo? San Paulo. Okay. So you didn't go to the event, but you were still, you were watching it on TV, I guess, doing the TV stuff.

Yeah, yeah, we had some TVs, as always, you know, when it happens in United States and all the other places, we have TVs in front of us, and then we come, we do the thing. So you have a win over Verdum and Miocchich, right? Yes. What did you make of that fight? You know those guys very well. Were you surprised that Verdum fought that? that way that he would run after him? What did you think? Because I thought he just looked off.

It didn't look like the Verdume, who, you know, the last few fights against Kane Velat, it looked like a different man, right? No way. No. He looked the same. He looked the same. He looked the same. Really? He's not a striker, Ariel. He's not a striker. He can't strike with a specialist as Miochich, you know? And man, if you try to remember, he was getting beat against Mark Hunt. Very bad. He lost the first round. and he was losing the second round. Then he threw a very hard knee, and he won't fight,

but he was losing. You know, against Velazquez, he did pretty well. You know, he did way better, you know. Travis Brown. He got better with his stand-up skills. But it's not the same, you know, when you fight with a specialist, I strike specialist as a teacher, in my mind, he should try to take him down and use his jiu-jit.

but he was accepting the fight and when he was you know when he got knocked out he was walking far away like yeah with no you know no defense something very strange yeah well that's what i mean i mean against Travis brown too on the feet he was very calm he was picking him apart right i mean his striking has gotten better since when you fought him at ufc 90 he's gone a lot better since teaming up with cordaro but i just felt like he was he was impatient running like that against a guy like miotchic doesn't make any sense. It's not the patients that, right? Yeah, for sure.

You know, and he was, he got, you know, shot at the first with the same thing. He got shot once before he got knocked out. He got shot once with a straight ride with, you know, that Miochich threw against him. And he was, he kept going. Like, he kept walking towards Miochich without. thinking about it, you know, he was doing something dangerous. And yeah, that's, that's very strange. But as I, you know, as I used to say, as a striker, he's a good jiu-jitsu guy. Right. Why do you think no one, did you know that in the history of the UFC heavyweight division, no one has defended the title

twice in a row, more than twice in a row. No one's gone three times, including you. Why is that? Why is it so hard to defend the title more than twice? man this is this is a very dangerous division you know even when you have uh favorites yeah you know it doesn't mean that guy is gonna win you know as soon as you get punched you know things change so it's a very it's a very hard division you know and uh but in my mind you know i i i gave all the advantage for me or chitch before of the fight You know, and, you know, I was, you know, I was waiting Verdun to come with a different strategy, you know, trying to take him down to get closer, not allowed Milchich to move and using his boxing skills. But it didn't happen.

Do you think the moment got to Verdum fighting in front of 45,000 Brazilians, the soccer stadium, like he tried to do something spectacular and not fight the right fight? I don't think so, you know, maybe, maybe. He was, you know, he was at his walk out to the octagon, he was looking, you know, very happy and relaxed. So, yeah, the way I see, Miotich was just better than him. What do you think of that Verdume face that he always does? Do you like it? I prefer not comming. I'm not thinking about it.

Were you happy with this result? Well, it's funny. It's funny. You like the face? Were you happy with this result? Like, is this good for Junior Dos Santos that Miotich is the champion now? I don't think so. It would be the same, you know, even if Verdun could win the fight.

you know, I think it would be the same for me. Okay. You know, because, you know, yeah. For me, it's the same. I just think it was good that Neuchichu won because he deserved it, you know. As Ben Rato, he's a nice guy. Oh, wow. As nice as Ben or nicer?

Yeah. I think of the same. I don't know them very well, you know, but the little things that I know about them, you know, I think they are nice. So now it seems like they're going to do. Overeign, Miotich next. Are you okay with that? Do you think that that's the right move? I think, yeah, I think that could be good, you know. I think it could be a good fight, but if it happens, I'm going to give the advantage to Miochich again, you know?

Really? Yeah, Overeen. I don't think Overein has got what it takes to beat Miochich. Beochitz is really hard. Do you remember my fight again? Against him? Against who? Miochich? Yeah, of course, of course. Great fight.

It was one of the toughest fight I've ever had. You know, he hits very hard. Right. You know, he got some, he got pretty heavy hands, you know. So I think, you know, when I watch Milchich fighting, you know, and Overein fighting, I think Miltich is way better than him. But what about, did you see Overeem against Arlofsky? He's jumping around, karate kicking.

He looks like a completely different guy. You're not impressed? you don't think that he can beat Miochich? I don't think so, but he did well. He did very well, you know, against a very tough guy, you know, Arlobski. And actually, Overeux he's coming from a good moment. He beat me, he beat Arlobsky now. So he's doing very well.

Yeah. But I don't be, you know, you know, like I said, I give the advantage to Miu Chich, but you never know. It's M.A. Sure, sure. There is for sure Overeign have a lot of chances to be the next champion. But I think it's going to be hard for him. Is that,

is that the loss that bothers you the most, the Overeign one, because you just don't like the guy? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, man, that, no, no, actually, you know, that was something I have no words to explain, because it's, that was hard, you know, that was hard for me. You know, not saying that he's not good. He doesn't deserve.

He deserved the victory, you know, he won. The fight, he was better than me. But, man, you know, even watching this fight now against Arlovsky, you know, I said, sometimes I say, you know, how? I lost that guy. But, you know, I think it's part of the team. I'm not being disrespectful to him, you know. I think, you know, he's fighting for a long, long time. But, man, would be great to have this rematch.

I'm Dana White. I say junior. I like you very much. I want to make you happy. I'm going to give you either a title shot next or a rematch against Overeem, not for the belt. Which do you want more? The belt. The belt is always my goal. My biggest goal. You know, I don't care about anything what's happening about all the guys. You know, sometimes I try to be a bit, a little bit more, you know, aggressive with my words, but I don't know how to do that, you know. My main objective, in UFC is to become the champion again. I know that I can do that and I will do that. So if then I want to give me a gift, give me the title shot.

Okay, so what do you think is going to happen to you next? Like what's the perfect scenario? I know you just came off of this surgery, but when would you like to return and in a perfect scenario against two? Well, right now I'm not sure about it, you know. I don't know what's going to happen with the Devin. We are talking about Overeign and Miochich for the title shot, but we have to remember that Velazquez is fighting now against Travis Browning at the UFC 200.

And, you know, if Velasquez wins, you know, maybe we have seen. give him the shot to, you know? We never know. Right. But let's see. I'm not sure about who's going to be my next opponent, and I really don't care about it. Any one of them is going to be okay for me, you know.

I think at the end of July I'm going to be able to be training again. Okay. So I need two or three months to get prepared for a fight. I was thinking about, you know, with myself, thinking about fighting on... New York. Oh, yeah. Right here, right here.

Eight blocks away. I'm in New York. Madison Square Garden, eight blocks away, the world's most famous arena. November 12, 2016, UFC 205, that's when you want to fight.

Would be amazing for me to participate. It's exactly the time that I need to be 100% again. And by the way, I don't know if you recognize this, but if my memory serves me correct, November 12th, 2011, Junior Dos Santos became the UFC heavyweight champion on Fox, UFC on Fox 1. Five years later, you fight in New York.

Am I right? Am I right with the date? Yeah, you're right, man. You're right. You're good with that. I can't remember anything else except for those things. Yeah, it would be. That was the first event for free TV, for network TV in the whole world.

I remember. So it's amazing for me to be part to making, to make it. be making history again, you know, participating of the first event there in New York. Wow. I'm just so happy that you're happy again because it felt like after the Overeign fight you were lost, you didn't know who to listen to, but you feel like you're back. Junior is back, right? Yeah, Junior's back.

Because after the fight, you're right, after the fight of Overeign, you know, I was the whole time thinking about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was bothering me a lot, man, because I didn't fought my best, you know. I wasn't. I don't, too much things happening and I wasn't feeling very well. I was prepared for the fight. I'm not saying I wasn't prepared.

I was prepared. But, you know, things were different, you know. I just moved to 8 to T at that time. So everything was new, you know, but now I'm back. You're back. What a great thing. Beautiful smile. Junior, it always is a pleasure to talk to you.

Good luck with the rehab. I'm happy to hear that everything's okay now after the surgery. congratulations again on the big win over Ben Rothwell and keep us posted. I'll try to make it happen for you. You know, I have a lot of power here in New York with the politicians and everything. So November 12, I'll tell them what this date means to you and they can get you on the card at MSG. That would be great. Help me yourself. Okay. Thank you, Junior. Thank you very much, Ariel. I appreciate it very much.

Oh, thank you, my friend. There he is. Junior Dos Santos, the former UFC heavyway champion. How about that? What a story that would be, right? Amazing. Five years after he became the champion live and Freon Fox. he gets the fight at MSG. Okay, let's keep this heavyweight theme moving along, and let's talk to another perennial contender in the heavyweight division. It's been a while since we talked to Big Country, Roy Nelson, and he's joining us on the phone right now.

Roy, how are you? Pretty good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's been a while. Good to have you on the program again. So we're talking about 198. It was Saturday night and Curitiba.

You were watching, right? Yeah, it was right after the Bellator fight. Oh, yeah, that was your friend. What happened with King Moe that night? You watched that fight. King Mo lost to Phil Davis, number one contender. That's a good friend of yours. What happened?

You know what? I think he was just coasted. I think he thought he won the first two rounds and just kind of was just coasted a little bit. He didn't pull the trigger? Yeah, well, I think, well, Phil Davis is one of those, I guess, we'll say not a fighter,

but one of those MMA athletes. so you don't think he engaged no I think he I think he you know the point fight you know my pot shots run you know pot shots run did you train with Mo for this fight

I did not train Mo for this fight so you think that from from an outsider perspective you're watching that it just he he it takes two to tango Mo showed up to fight Phil Davis did not Phil Davis

does Phil Davis that's how Phil Davis fight Phil Davis that you definitely it's kind of like Like, I mean, for example, it would be like Steppe. Steepay doesn't fight either. He does the point fighting.

Really? That's interesting. Stipe Miotich, who just knocked out, Jr., excuse me, Fabrice Overdume on Saturday. You think he's a point fighter? Did you not see him run? He actually ran, like, first he ran and turned his back, like, over him. Like, it's that new, like, I don't want to say the Greg Jackson, you know, that point fighting thing. Where it's not, like, I'm an old school fighter.

Like, you know, like, fight on the mouthpiece and just, you know, let's just go. Wow. So fair to say, Roy Nelson not impressed with Miotich on Saturday. No, I was, you know, I would impress that he, you know, not because Redouma on because I didn't, I didn't see that actually coming. But at the same time when you got, you know, a 240-pound man running at you and you just take your hand out, you're definitely going to hurt somebody. Dare I ask, do you think that that was a lucky punch? No, I don't think it was a lucky punch. I just think Radoom wasn't so bright by, because he was just, just very, like, stand there, man, this fight. Right.

He was running at him. He just ran at him. So we just had Junior Dos Santos on, and he said that he thought that Verdum had the wrong game plan. He should have taken the fight to the ground, not, you know, pardon the pun, fight fire with the firefighter and Steepiomiotich on the feet. Do you agree with that assessment? No, I think if Redoom just doesn't, like, just played it, I want to say safe,

but played the playing fighting game too. I think he was out, he was already out pointing Stebei Bay anyway. So he just was like, you know what? I want to hit him. Do you think that he had, though, like, something felt off, like he seemed impatient. He just, I don't know, he didn't seem like he was in the best shape.

He just seemed like he was not himself, not the Verdum since coming back to the UFC. You get what I'm saying? You fought him in his return to... No, I think he was, you know, in a Brazilian crowd of 45,000 people, and you're like, dude, I want to make some things happen.

I want to do fireworks. Yeah. And when you want to do fireworks for the fans, you want to, you know, put on a show for the fans, you just kind of, sometimes you just get a little over-anxious, you know? Did you know that, no. I know that feeling. Well, when did that happen? When do you recall that happening to you?

Like, getting sort of... You know what? It's happened so many times where I'm just like, I just wanted to knock this guy's block up. I mean, all I know is Steve-Bade gave me inspiration, because if Steve-Bade can be a UFC champion and they actually gave him a title shot. I was like, oh, I do have a chance. Yeah, because, you know, it feels like moons ago, but it was just three years ago that you fought him at 161, and that was a super interesting fight. Remember that whole thing, that your contract was expiring, and they put him in against you, and he was relatively unknown at the time.

You were very frustrated after that fight. You felt like he didn't engage, right? So now here you are watching. Yeah, no, he did the point in fighting with me too. He ran. You can actually see him. Like, I think that's where, like, the people that are, you know, track stars, you know. But, like, I would love to fight Steve A, again, especially now since he is champ, with actually a full camp. So you're sitting at home. I would love a full camp.

You're sitting at home. You're happy with this result, right? This opened some doors for you. No, it, no, it just, all this is give me inspiration that, that if Steve A can actually make it to that, you know, to the upper tier of the championship, then I know I can. Considering you fought him, are you surprised on this Monday, May 16th, 2016,

that he's the actual UFC heavyweight champion? Are you surprised that this happened? No, I'm not surprised. The thing is about anybody in the headway division can be champion any day just because of one punch. That's definitely, you know, I know, like, top tier, that's just exactly how it is. But what I'm actually, the inspiration that I have is that Steve-Bay actually made it to the championship because it is about politics.

Right, you feel that if he can make it there, that I know I can't. Do you feel like that's been holding you back at this point? Like you should have gotten it a long time ago, but because you don't play the game, you haven't gotten it? Yeah, I think, I think he just, it just, the card just fell his way, just like, you know, Kane got hurt. Yeah. And then for Doom, they don't want to fight. and they're like, okay, well, we're going to make that fight happen anyway. It's just like how Steve A and Ben Roplow, you know,

I haven't fought, you know, just because, you know, Steve Aves was ducking Ben Roflo for, like, so long. Right. You know what I mean? So it's just one of those, like, everybody played that, you know, political game of, like, well, I don't want to fight that guy because I'm going to politically try to fight, you know, to just say, hey, I'm going to fight. But you got to say, I mean, knocking out Arlofsky and then what he did to Mark Hunt,

That was kind of impressive, right? What? He did out last Mark Hunt. That was a pretty, I mean, I thought that was a pretty one-sided beating. Yeah, no, because all he did was just take him down and just take him down and take him down, you know. He didn't, you know, put on the show that the fans wanted to see with Mark Hunt. What do you want to see? People throw him a leather.

Sure, sure. So the last time you fought... It's like going on with Mayweather and going, you know what, I'm going to wrestle Mayweather. Right. You know, it's just not going to happen, but you know he's going to run. Well, you can't really wrestle Mayweather. Huh? You can't really wrestle Mayweather because it's boxing.

But you mean, like, just tie him up all the time? Yeah, you know what I mean? Okay, now I'm just, I feel like you've baited me to ask, who wins, McGregor or Mayweather? What are you talking about? Who wins in a fight? Boxing? Or MMA or what? Boxing and then MMA.

Who's your pick? MMA, I go, Connor, Mayweather. I'll go Mayweather, and then at the end of the day, they're both winters because they're both getting paid. Yeah. Do you think this ever happens? Actually, from what I saw, like, I read an article. I forgot which article was, but it was actually a pretty good article because it has, if you do a, as, if you become a boxer, and then you all of a sudden get the Muhammad Ali Act behind you.

Oh. Yes. Yeah, it changes the whole gamut of making things illegal and legal and what. that's not legal. It's pretty interesting. How many fights you have left on your contract, Roy? Oh, a few. A few?

Yeah. Is that more than three? I think it's three or four. Three or four. So you got a few more to go. Are you happy? Yeah, no, I'm definitely happy. I definitely would be happier.

What would make you happier? You know what? Just, right now, what would make me happy is, you know, just right now I'm focused on Derek after get past Derek, then just, you know, keep on moving up the race and then hopefully, you know, get back an actual touchdown just because, you know, what I saw Steve do, because I can do that all day. Mm-hmm. You run at me, I'm going to punch you do.

But nobody runs at me to run away. Do you like this Lewis fight? Like, do you feel like considering what happened in the Rochalt fight and how frustrating that was for you. Do you think that, all right, this is a guy that's going to engage. She's knocking people out. He's a scary man. Those celebrations are, you know, something that you don't want to dream about. Do you like this? Are you excited about this fight? No, like nothing to take away from Jared. Jerry is a UFC athlete. He was a UFC athlete. He was an MMA athlete. He was a MMA fighter slash athlete. He's one of the, he's one of the,

that new breed. Yeah. And nothing to, you know, he's good at what he does because, you know, beat Stefan Strue. Like, he's a guy that can beat a lot of guys. But, like, for me, it's just, I'm an old-school guy, and, you know, but I'm how, after re-watching my fight with Jared, I did everything that I was supposed to do. Sure. And you won the fight. It was, it was, like, like, I guess, what do you got?

What is it on the fans call it, fighter IQ? Yeah. And, like, the perfect, you know, fighter IQ of, you know, 160. Is that, is that perfect score 160? I don't know. I just know that I think that's genius is 160. Were you surprised at the UFC released Jared Rochalt after that fight? Surprised, yes, but not.

But, you know, it's all about still putting butts in the seats and putting on a... And, you know, we definitely still entertainment. That's the one thing that I think a lot of fighters forget is not about just winning. That's why I think sometimes our fighter pace should change it because it's about not about... winning or losing, it's about putting butts in the seats and putting on a show. Roy Nelson puts butts in the seats. That is true. That's what, that's what you're, I mean, I love fighting in, we'll say, New York, because when I fight in New Jersey, I know I get the, you know, the home crowd behind me.

Really? Because that's technically not, you know, New York, but it's literally, you know, over the bridge. Right. But do you, why, are you, are, are, are, do you have ties to this area? Yeah, I'm American. Okay. What did you make? What's nothing to an all-American in New York?

Well, I mean, yeah, I guess. But if you're fighting... Exactly, I mean, it's a big melting pot, but that's like, that's where, you know, the American dream starts. That's true. That's true. I know it better than anyone. So, Lewis, have you been impressed with him, and in particular his last win over Gabriel Gonzaga? Like, what do you make of this guy?

Yeah, you know, the one thing about Derek is he reminds me of, like, a... a bigger version of Fador, you know, like when he gets that groundup town going, he, you know, he loves to just, he'll just be chub. And then the one thing, he's just, you know, it's calm, cool, collected, you know, when if you do take them down, you know, and then he just muscles back up and then he puts the, you know, the wrap on. The one thing I like is that he comes to fight and, you know, that's what makes him, you know, fan friendly.

Yeah, what do you make of those celebrations when he, like, bangs the, the mat with his body and all that stuff? It's pretty frightening. Um, if you're the math. Do you like being a part of this big weekend in Las Vegas? You're the first card, the fight pass card, but it's just a whole big celebration of MMA. Do you like that? Yeah, no, I was hoping that I was going to be the, um, the fight pass headliner.

That was about it. But then... Title fun. You get what you get when you ask for, um, to be on a fight pass. Did you ask to be on fight pass? did. Why? Because it was Thursday. You want the Thursday card? I'm a weekend myself. Right. And they're really pushing Fight Pass. You can make the case that they're pushing the Fight Pass cards more than the FS1

cards these days. That's because they're making more money that way. That's true. Smart. The FS1 cards are paid for already, right? Exactly. And every time that I get on a fight pass card, but subscription rates go up. Is this your first time on fight pass? No. Josh Barnett? No, first one was when I knocked out Big Nog. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Speaking of what, wow, that was in Abu Dhabi two years ago, more than two years ago. Yeah, two years ago, yeah. Years of April. Did you hear that Big Nog is going into the Hall of Fame? Good for him. Do you feel like it's warranted? Yeah, there's a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame that probably shouldn't be if Pete Rose is in the Hall of Fame.

Oh, no way. This is a different sport. That doesn't answer the question. Do you think... Sure does. What do you mean? Pete Rose. That's baseball.

Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I agree. You know, I'm just... And if there's things holding them back on that, then there's a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame in the UFC that probably shouldn't be if you're talking about, like, you know... Strange. You know, if you've got a higher, you know, morality, you know, I guess for the sport. Right. So you think it's well-deserved?

Yeah. What if Miochich fights over him next? Two wins? You know what? I think that's definitely a... It's an interesting fight because they both attack now. Who do you respect as far as, like, fighting, comes to fight, brings it, doesn't go backwards, in the heavyweight division?

He's not even about going backwards. I don't care if you go backwards as long as you're going backwards for a reason. Like, when I remember when I fought over him, there was actually, I actually timed it. It's like 3.6 seconds where he actually had his back running for me like a track star. Wow.

But is there anyone in that division right now that you're like, all right, I respect the way this guy fights? You know, there's definitely a few people. Like, Derek comes to fight. Okay. You got, you know, Mark Hunt comes to fight. General Los Santos is definitely going to try to box you. You know, he's going to come to fight.

Kane will come to fight. You know, there's definitely guys that will try to, you know, go forward and actually try to fight you and try to put on. That's why, you know, fans like those people. Yeah. And there's fans that don't like a lot of certain people just because of their stylistic of how they fight now. One fight that I've always wanted to see you versus Kane Velasquez. Maybe when he's champ. Yeah, well, you're fighting it at the same time, you know.

He's fighting a couple days after you. Yeah, yeah. They're going to make him, he'll beat Brown and then and then he'll probably fight for the belt. You think so? You don't think Overeem's going to get it? I think Overeign will probably get it.

I think they'll probably make that fight as happen as fast as possible. Okay. I don't think they're going to let the, you know how like most chance when they get the belt, they kind of go, ooh. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm going to enjoy this for like, I think they're going to do what they did. What's the 115 pounder?

Carla. Carla Sparza. When Carla got it, it was like literally, I think it was like two months later. Yeah. It was actually three months to be exactly. But yes, it was a very quick turnaround against Yawanna. Something like that. I think that will happen.

So whatever. So I think I also probably fight for the belt like in, we'll say like August or September. You get by Derek Lewis, as you're expecting to. What do you think makes sense after that? If Stebe has the belt, it's Stebe. Oh. I just like a whole, just because I think the UFC owes it to me to give me a full camp to beat them up.

They do. But I'm not worried about that right now, so how I care about it is Derek. You guys met, and when was it? When was it? You shook hands. It looked like the fight was happening, and then they gave him another fight against Gonzaga. Yeah, no. see, what happened was he

was talking a lot of crap and saying that he was going to beat me up, blah, blah, blah, and then I was like, oh, oh, I love guys that call me out. Right. And so, when he called me out, I had to make sure I saw Dana and said, Dana, that's the guy that wants to fight me, let's make this happen. And then you shook hands, right? It looked like everyone was in.

Yeah, I was just letting him know that like, hey, this is a deal, right? You want to fight me? I want to fight you. Let's go. Let's make this happen. And then they gave him another fight. Were you worried you're going to lose your fight? I was a little bit. I was just a little bit. Were you rooting for him against Gonzaga? No, I was actually because I thought Gonzaga was actually going to

take him down and beat him up. Didn't happen. Well, it did happen, and then the rep, whoever's the ref guys will make sure that the ref's not, you know, on Derek's side of like, let's stop this, let's stop this, like, this

MMA fight, let's do this boxing thing. Shades of you versus Arlofski. Yeah, no, that was actually way more worse. Yes, it was. One of the worst of all time. Okay, before I let you go, Roy, I want to ask you this very important question. Tell me about hog car tours. Hog car tours?

Oh, it's a new tour company here in Vegas that takes you to the beautiful Las Vegas sites and the best eateries in Las Vegas that I hand-picked out. Wow. So you are actually doing the tour? tours? I've been on a couple tours. Sometimes I'll jump in just for quality control. So this is a great thing that fans could do if they're coming to Las Vegas. They want something to do. They can be on a tour with the Great Big Country himself. Where can people find out more about this? Of course, you can always follow me on Twitter, when else in MMA and Facebook or another,

UFC. But it's really simple. It's hogcardtours.com. Okay. I recommend it. Or those Twitter handles or Instagram or Facebook. Okay, great. I want to do it when I go there. Hey, I got a spot for you. My man. Thank you, Roy. I appreciate it.

Always great to talk to you. Pleasure. Thank you. All right, there he is. Roy Nelson, one of the top contenders in the UFC's heavyweight division back in action on July 7th in Las Vegas, part of that big international fight week week. Okay, let's move along now. Very, very excited to have our next two guests on.

They are so kind to be squeezing us into their very busy schedule. They are killing it on the podcast scene, not just in the MMA world, but in the comedy world. They're going to sold out tours. They're coming to New York. I would have plugged that, but they already sold out the event. Selling T-shirts. They've got a new show. These guys are inspirations for little peons like me.

I'm talking about Brendan Shob and Brian Callan who are joining us right now via the magic Skype. There they are. Wow, look at those faces. Inspirations, baby. What's up, brother? That's a heck of an intro. Well, that's what I like to do. And guys, I said at the top of the show,

So, nice little plug there with the mug, Brendan. I got a bit of a bone to pick with you guys right off the bat. What's up, man? I mean, I'm asked if you can come on. I was pitched you guys. I was like, you know what? Brendan and Brian, I'm going to have them on. Yes, let's do it.

My old friends from Fox, let's do it. And then I find out you're doing the great Joe Rogan podcast at 12. So you're literally shoehorning me in here. You didn't tell me you had a heart out. I know. I know. I'm at the studio right now, and he's going to bust in any minute. I know.

So you literally. The busy schedule, my man. You know, I love you. It's just a busy schedule. It's our publicist, bro. I'm sorry. I got tennis. I got tennis.

I can squeeze in tennis, weightlifting. You talk about dropping the ball. I see a tweet from Rogan that you're going to be on at 12 p.m. So you have a heart out. What if I didn't see that tweet? No one told me I could have gone until 1210. And then Brogan would have been pissed. It might stretch for you.

You never know. For you will make it happen, my man. I appreciate it. We turned down Ellen for this. Yeah, I bet. You're killing you. Congratulations on all your success. I'm wondering, Brian, for you off the bat.

At what point. Did you realize that you had something with this guy? This look at this guy. This numskull right here. This, this behemoth. Yes. When did you know you had something with him? When I started hanging out with him and I realized he was a really funny guy and I, you know,

a lot of my friends are just stand-up comics and actors. And at one point we were at a bar and I looked up and he was telling a story and he had five or six actors slash comics laughing their ass off. And then Brennan and Joe. Rogan and myself are sitting at Meta Moris and Brennan's telling a very self-effacing story and Rogan's cackling. Wow. And Brennan gets up to go to the bathroom and Joe goes, that dude's really funny.

And I said, yeah, I don't hang out with him because I'm attracted to him, even though I probably am subconsciously. I hang out with him because we have a laugh. And I finally said, look, dude, let's do a podcast. Let's do an MMA podcast. And he said, I'm not doing an MMA podcast. I'd rather be at the dentist to talk about fighting for two hours. Let's talk about life

and let's just talk about the way we talk when we're having dinner or hanging out and so the rest is pretty much history. Boom. So, Brandon, in that studio when you were talking to Joe Rogan after the Travis Brown fight that's one of the great moments in podcast history when he was having that heart to heart with you and Brian

I mean it was tremendous and I always thought after that you turned into the biggest baby face in this sport. Everyone was behind you to prove these guys wrong that you still got it. But you never did it. You walked away after that point. Why is that? Well, first of all,

I just got to add a caveat. Let me add a caveat. Okay. That we didn't want to air it. I didn't want to air it. And Brendan said, let's let it just air it. I want it to be aired. I want the truth of who I am and what I'm going through there.

And that was to his credit that so many people said. Yeah, it's not even that, what were your words? I never did it. I think the passion just wasn't there. I think, you know, whether Rogan gave me that talk or not is kind of the perfect storm. And, you know, Rogan, I, he's a close. friend, so we've had many of talks. So that one just as brutal as they get, and millions of people saw it. So I think it was the perfect storm of everything. The Reebok deal, the way Dana handled

some stuff, where I was at in my career, and really this entertainment side of things that really started to take off. And financially, it would be silly for me to jump back into the octagon. So all that stuff is still going on. You don't think you're obviously more popular now than you ever were. I mean, you're one of the biggest stars in the sport. You don't think if you fight, like, you'd get a main event that they push you hard because of who you are in the podcast world as well? You, I mean, maybe. I don't know, I don't know if it's worth it for me. Still, I'm worth much more as entertainer than I am as a fighter. And there's, I just, you know, I was at Bellator, which I'm sure you saw I was at Bellator this past weekend. I was there on a business trip

and meeting with Scott Coker and those guys. And I was saying, you know, I was, sitting cage side and I thought, man, if anything's going to push me to fight, it's going to be being, because I haven't been out of fight since my fight with Travis Brown last December. Wow. So I've been away from the game a little bit. So I go into the arena, we're sitting cage side. They take me back. You know, I'm friends with Phil Davis and King Mo, very close friends.

So I go back there and I thought I'd get that urge and maybe just like, man, don't you miss this? And I sat down. I looked at my brother and I went, man, this is the nail in the coffin for me. Wow. It's just over for me, yeah. We're having too much fun being silly geese. Yeah, no, I mean, and you don't get punched in the face. So, I mean, it's a win-win.

What was the business trip about, by the way? A number of things, a number of things. What can you tell us? What can you tell us? Yeah, you know, it was really about, you know, some firing the kids stuff. Okay. I think there's a few people who like the way that I do business when it comes to MMA and marketing, stuff like that.

So we'll see, man. We'll see. I'm a busy guy, and I love what, you know, what Bellator represents and what they're doing. They have a ways to go before, you know, they catch the UFC, that's for sure. But, man, I'm just an MMA fan. Ariel, one thing you should know is that this business, called The Fighter and the Kid, which has become pretty lucrative, et cetera.

We're selling a T-shirts, everything. This business is run by one guy. That's Brendan Schaub. It's also strategized by one guy. That's Brendan Scha. and shop. I show up, and act like a stupid, but he basically handles the social media, and he's the

strategist, and, you know, I've been very, very impressed with what a good businessman he is, and a lot of other people are starting to see what he's been able to do. Not only are they copying what he's doing, but they're trying to sit down and kind of pick his brain and get an idea of how he's done this, and they want, because people want

sort of the same results. Brian, were you at this business meeting as well on Saturday? I sure. I wasn't. I had to play tennis and hang out. Okay. Now, go ahead. Go ahead, Brandon. There was some, because I honestly,

I wasn't quite sure what they were going to bring me in for. And, you know, Phil was the main event. They fought, and I'm talking to Coker, and the subject of me fighting and got brought up. Oh, wow. And my out was, I'm under this ZUFA contract. There's just nothing. And the amount of money I'd demand would be insane.

Right. And they'd even blink. Like, oh, we. could figure it out. And then they kept talking. I'm like, dude, I'm telling you, you're wasting your time. It's just, I appreciate what you guys do, and I love the sport, but as far as me competing, it'd be tough. Now, the podcast, Brian, is hosted by Fox Sports. You're under that umbrella, right? Do you ever have, because what I appreciate from you guys, in all honesty, is that you are critical at times of the sport and the UFC in particular. Have you guys ever been

told by a higher up, hey, you went a little too far in that regard? You shouldn't say this or that? never a fox has been pretty amazing i have to say that i've been so impressed with you know we they gave us money to shoot 12 webisodes yeah they didn't interfere we did some pretty outlandish stuff they they didn't interfere even a little bit they've had so much respect for our expression and they just let us go and to their credit i think they realize that the audience likes two things one is transparency and humor and sometimes humor is going to be disturbing or push the envelope a little bit And I think that's the only way to do it. And especially if you want to do something original or stay surprising, that requires, you know,

that requires you to be a little risky sometimes and kind of dance on those edges. The other thing, Ariel, is, you know, Fox doesn't pay our bills. We don't get a check from Fox Sports or ZUFA when it comes to the podcast. So as far as being critical, it'd be tough for them to say, hey, you can't talk about this or, hey, we need you to do this. we give them distribution rights, but Brian and I run the ship and own the fire in the kid. So why even be under the Fox? Like, Rogan's podcast is Rogan's podcast. He's not with any other company in that regard.

Why not just do the whole thing on your own? We could. They made it very easy with a studio. They financed our web series. I mean, they've been really, really easy to work with. Yeah, they've been great. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah, we had no issues.

So I guess it's sort of like an ad type of thing, like you split the rest. Revenue, is that how it works? No, sir. So what do they get out of it? Notoriety and 85% of their digital content. You know, I think originally when we went to them, you know, we really didn't have a name. So having that Fox branding kind of made us a little more serious in a world full of podcasts where, you know, some guy can do it out of his garage and call himself a professional.

So I think by being with Fox, it was just a brand awareness thing and made us a little more legit than everyone else. You know, but now we're at a stage where I think we benefit. mutually from it and we'll see where it goes. So you did this 12 episode web a series, webisodes, if you want to call it that. It's called the Fighter and the Kid 3D. People can get it. The URL is what is it, T-F-A-T-K3D.com, right?

Yeah, TFATK. There you go. T-FAT-K. T-FAT-T-T-E dot com. And fans are loving it. You're selling the T-shirts. You're doing the live touring. You're going to be in New York on Thursday, though.

It's sold out. No more tickets for that, right? We'll be at the Wilburr, though, in Boston. Boston's the big one. The Wilbur and Boston. That's Friday. Truckadero and Philly is Saturday. So when we sold a lot of tickets already, so I think those tickets are going pretty fast.

Ariel, I heard you might be at the New York show. There's two tickets under my name. And they're literally just for you. If you don't come, we're going to have a problem. I appreciate that very much. But my question is, what's the next step in your opinion? Like, you guys, Brendan, you seem to be a guy thinking two, three steps in advance. Do you want a show on television?

Do you want, like, what is the next step here? Because you can't just stay where you're at, right? No, no. I think the digital space, you know, we're doing well then. We'll always, the podcast is the mothership and can never leave that. But, you know, literally after we get done with all this BR today, we have a meeting with a big executive. And we're taking a number of meetings, just the next step for the television would be the next step. And we've had offers, but for us, it's just landing on the right spot.

In a weird way, did Brian kind of save your life in the sense that if you didn't have this, and I'm being serious here, if you didn't have this, you'd be a, a fighter looking for the next step you know you're going to be a gym owner a coach like what would you do and like do you have any idea what you like does that scare you thinking what would i be doing if i was just brendon chob fighter and didn't meet this guy who gave me this opportunity and the confidence to do this yeah no no i i oh brian you know the world and i i tell them that on stage from time to time you know my life has never been better i've never been more happy and um you know you know how it goes errol the the movie for a lot of these fires this this movie doesn't end well man it's scary.

So I'm one of the guys who got out. You know, it's like Shawshank Redemption. I'm Andy DeFrain calling through all this shit. Joe Rogan's here. Wow. Uh-oh. That means our fun is done. Finish your thought if you don't mind.

Skyping. Yeah. Hello, Joe. What the fuck? What's up, my man. How are you? I'm doing great. Great to have you on the show, man.

Finish your thought if you don't mind. Yeah. So basically, you know, as a fight, I feel like Andy DeFrain and Shawshank Redemption. I crawled through all that shit. And this is my Morgan Freeman, man. And so now we're sitting pretty. And, you know, it's just, you just keep going. I'll forever be grateful to Brian and Joe Rogan.

Let's cut to the chase. Why did Fox cut you loose? What the fuck's going on? These are the hard question. They don't get any more. What kind of business are they running? That is a great question, Joe. You're an excellent reporter, and I'm a fan.

Two thumbs up. I was going to ask the same thing. So to echo Joe. Well, you guys are the Fox, you know, the Fox guys. What do you got there? Is that the Joe Rogan strain? It's the Joe Rogan strain. I saw that.

I saw that on your Instagram, Joe. That's a drug, sir. It's very rare. Joe, let me ask you, why are you ducking this show? You used to come on the show all the time. You don't want to ever come on anymore. Oh, I'm on ducking. You are.

I'm on it right now. You've had my uncle Gad's sat on your show multiple times and you can't even talk to Loli Ariel. Listen, you can come on my show. I'll come on your show. I don't give a fuck. We can do a simulcast. I appreciate that. No, I know.

I know you guys are going live now, so much. It's from Fox. It's bullshit. Well, I appreciate that as well. Where were you a month ago when this happened, Joe? I mean, a little late, my friend. I'm out on the streets. I got kids, bitch.

He just got me. I got fired, bitch. Thanks for sticking up for me. I appreciate it. Wow. How about this? Yeah, we love you, man. All of us have your back.

Everybody loves you. Yeah. Thank you, guys. Wow. This is. No, I think they were. The UFC doesn't, but you'll figure it. Well, that doesn't make me feel very good.

It didn't happen, Ariel. I'm curious. What's that? What did happen? Because everybody was pretty outraged. Well, I know. You're pretty innocent. You gave your...

No. You know what? Brendan, I saw your assessment of my thing, and I appreciated your words, but I felt like like you were a little bit off there. What vanilla, I said, what everyone reported was right. It was there. It was there. It was a little creepy where you're not looking at us.

Where are you looking? I'm looking at you right over here. Handsome devil? There you are on my screen, but there you go. We're looking at you. You're not looking at us. You got a shitty setup. Who set your thing up?

Wow. I remember the old days when... You can't me over there, straighten this out. Please, I would love it. I keep reading about your amazing millions of downloads, Joe. I need some of your rub. That's why I keep asking you to be on the show. I can't even get a text back, for God's sakes.

Did you change your number on me? Oh, okay, fair enough. He didn't change his number. No. I changed it every four months. Throw my phone on the ocean. Well, you have... To answer the question, because I don't show away,

they just got tired of me. They just got tired of me. They didn't want me on. I guess I was annoying some people with some of the questions being asked on this show, and they got tired of me. The big question was about free agency, right? That was the issue. You know, I will be 100% honest with you. God is my witness. I have not

been told by a single soul what went wrong. Honestly. Oh, we'll find out. But, but I will say people on the inside, such as you who know the important people, said that they were just getting a little annoyed of the free agency talk, the Bellator talk, but I will say this. And God is my witness as well. I hold no ill will towards the UFC. I get it from their perspective. They have a brand to protect. They're like, why are we going to let this guy come on this show and talk about this stuff? And then he's going to be on Fox. My issue was with Fox who didn't have my back. They could have been like, all right, let's figure this out.

He's never been wrong. He's never embarrassed us. He's never gotten to scoop wrong. Let's figure this out, guys. But from my perspective, what happened was the TV deal is up in a couple of years, and they're like, all right, this isn't a fight worth having. So let's get rid of them. And that was it. I got a two-minute phone call from them to say, thank you for your services. And that was it.

After four and a half years of working for them, can you believe that? Yeah, I can't believe it. You know what I love. You're still dropping that breaking news, son. Somehow. Well, you know, someone's got to do it, right? Yeah. Well, you really are an excellent reporter.

You're an excellent MMA analyst, and you're very smooth, and I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't want you working for them. I really always enjoy your interviews. I think you're fantastic. Thank you, Joe. That means a lot. From you, especially, that means a lot. Let me ask you, are you leaving in August? Who knows, bitch?

Come on. Tell me. You know. You know. I don't know. I honestly do not know. I have a contract up in August, and I have not made up my mind. I vacillic daily.

If the UFC sells, will you leave? 100% You're done. Yep. See ya. I might shave my head and put my resume. You want in? Okay, are they going to sell?

Do any of you know? Stick up his ass and work on like a puppet. Are they selling? Are they selling? What's the scoop? Are they selling? You don't know? I don't believe you.

There are rublets for sure. Yeah. But I'm getting very vague responses. I don't know. Wow. They're leaving you in the cold? They're leaving you in the dark? I don't ask a lot.

I'm going to be honest with you. I don't ask. When I call them, they want me to do shit, and I just don't. Why weren't you in Brazil, Joe? I had my daughter's birthday this week. I had my son's birthday. That's why we both weren't there. Hey.

Brendan, how's fatherhood? The best, man. Amazing. The kid's a giant. The kid's two months old, and the kid cries like this. Would you... Huge hands. World Series already is trying to sign them. They have a...

The answer is no. The kid's got a full beer. Do you want him to be a fighter? Would you want him? Would you advocate this? No, absolutely not. Never. What about football player?

Because I think that's more dangerous than fighting. It's not. But also, the juice is worth the squeeze in football. They should have, you know, benefits and the money's legit. Okay. All right. I'll leave you guys B because I know you're going live, right? You're five minutes late.

Listen, we don't give a fuck. Do this whenever we find. It's how we roll, man. All right. Freedom. Joe, give us the final word on these two. In a million years, did you think that. that these two guys would actually be this successful in podcasting.

You put out the blueprint how to do this. You're the one kicking ass. But did you ever think that they would be able to find this chemistry and get it done? 100%. Yeah, without a doubt. They're both hilarious, entertaining guys. Look, the world needs more actual, real people that are saying exactly what's on their mind. The world is filled with puppets and robots and people that are trying to follow a script.

It's already been done before. All right. Here we go. Top 40 music coming at you. Yeah. Everybody's doing the same shit. Nobody can be themselves. And if you could just be yourself and two hilarious, awesome dudes, of course it's going to work.

He was always telling me to do this. I mean, you know, Joe's husband, podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast. Stop acting. Podcast stand up. Podcast stand up. Stop being so scattered. The problem with acting is you would have a bunch of people who write things. Then Brian would give his take on it.

But who he is is always way better than whatever they wrote. Right. So my thoughts were always like, you're so much funnier off camera than you are on camera because unless you write your own shit they're never going to find you that way but I like to be dramatic I can cry right now I think about you being fired

I can just I can close cry it really get fired from my hands like a man I've seen better that is time yeah not bad not bad all right well it's more moving if I try to not cry

and I go hmm it looks like you're doing something else it looks like you're dropping a deuce I cry when I dropped down. I'm sorry, man. Can you guys delay the start of your podcast for another 90 minutes? Because you're sort of going head to head with mine, which is live as well, if you start yours now.

So can we just like do something else? Sorry. All right. All right. Fair enough. But you see it afterwards, right? Like, people get downloaded, just like you download there. Yep. That's the beautiful thing about the Internet. There's no real competition. It's all just, it's just open. You just have to have a good product. Yeah. People are going to find it. It's funny you say that. Sorry to interrupt. Someone. came up to me here today and said, why are you having Brendan and Brian on your show? Their competition. I said, hell no. I'm genuinely happy for you guys. I think the more people in the

MMA world that expand out, that's good for me. That's good for the next guy. I believe that. If you look, it's in the fucking eye. Sorry, sorry. I'm looking at you. Sorry, sorry. That's the way you know, Joe, you know why you're so smart. You're the first person in the history of the show to actually call us out on this setup. And I appreciate that. It is kind of clear. You've got to look at people. Yeah, this is weird. Plus, your eyes are incredibly expressive. I get lost. Yeah, you're one more handsome, straight on. I like you.

I like you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. I pre. Well, I like to show off my big nose. I'm sorry.

All right. Well, this is great. Dude, I mean you to cocaine party, my man. I'll tell you that. You know, it's not big your face. That's true. That's my mom always said.

Look up. Look it up. That's personality. But now I can't see you and it's all weird. Now I'm all self-conscious about this. This is great. I don't see you in New York. Me and you're going to have Brahms.

We are? That's it. Okay. I will admit, I was a little annoyed about how this whole thing went down. You're doing the show. I felt like I was being shoehorn. You didn't really want to do it. Even though I was pitched.

I know. And so now I feel like we're friends again. It's a great thing. Yeah, that's insecurity shit go, man. You and I don't even have a problem and you thought we had a problem. Well, I thought he's always like that. He's always like that. I'm very sensitive.

It's the Jewish neuroses in me. You know what I'm saying, Joe? Makes sense. Your uncle doesn't have any of that. No, no, he doesn't. He is on the complete other spectrum in that. That is a different thing. topic for a different day.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Though I don't see him as much as I want to because he lives in Montreal and well, that's a different story for a different day as well. But thank you guys. I appreciate it. Congrats on all your success, Joe. Thank you for popping in. That's great of you to do.

Brian, you're the man. Very funny guy. Brendan, you're the man as well. You're doing great things. Continued success. T-fat K3.com. You can get the webisodes. You know the fighter and the kid.

You can get them on iTunes and all that stuff. And Joe Rogan, he's got three months left until he's done with the UFC. So get him while you can. Easy. We don't know. I'm kidding. No, but I will say, I will say, way back when, I think it was UFC 100, 106, like that, you did an interview with me, Joe, backstage. One of my favorite interviews of all time. We were backstage at one of your events.

It was in black and white. And you said to all the dumb executives out there, this is the guy and all that, and that meant the world to me back then. So it's something on there forget. Even though I felt until this moment that you hated me, that is something on there forget and feel like I still owe you for that. So thank you for doing that. My pleasure, brother. All right, guys. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Have a great day. Have a great show. Thanks, Ariel. See you in New York. See in Boston. All right, there he is. Brendan Schaub.

Brian Callen, Joe Rogan. How about that? Wow. So much fun. Great cameos. How about that? The two podcasts, the three podcasts coming together.

Now, don't go watch their show because we're still live, okay? All right, should we almost have forgot? We got around 40 minutes. Let's, yeah, we should. No. want to talk to my man New York Rick. New York Rick, how are you? Su.

That was fun, right? There's a big, there's a big echo. It should be gone now. Yeah, it's gone. What do you have to say? You're a loyal, loyal listener of the fighter and the kid and the Joe Rogan experience. Yeah, that was cool. Podcast world's coming together. Yeah, how about that? Beautiful thing. Now, as I said at the top of the... By the way, my Benson Henderson picture has just died.

You see that? Go to the Skype shot. Boom. Gone. It was there moments ago. So New York Rick pulled the ultimate, ultimate amateur move. Right? I mean, come on, let's be honest.

You go on a two-week vacation. You're feeling good. You're relaxed. You're rested. You're tan. You're tan like an M-Fer. Right? Sure.

The man bun is just glistening, right? Yep. And then you take a red eye, you get to Newark at 645 to come to work, completely negating your entire two-week vacation. How do you figure that? Because now you're tired. You're dragging ass, you're hauling ass, you're sick from the air, from the flight. Is that a direct flight from Hawaii?

Yeah, that one was. The Newark one was. You don't sound like yourself. Something else. else. Did you have a good trip? It was fun. Good honeymoon? It was good. The first, I'll have you know. Honestly, it's at least the third, right?

The first. No. After you got, so you got married and then you had a wedding a year later. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then I had a honeymoon after that. No, no, no. After the wedding, you had a honeymoon. This one. No. Yes, after the wedding, the actual wedding. This is the honeymoon. Yeah, this is the honeymoon. But after you got married, you also had a honeymoon. No, I didn't go anywhere. You did. Yes, you went to Hawaii the last time you missed this show. But this time, this time you were away for two weeks.

Last time you were away for one week, I believe. No, no, no, no. Did you notice, though, how the train just kept moving along seamlessly, no problems. In fact, uploads were up quicker. No tech issues. I mean, it was really 100% well done. I don't know. That's not what I heard.

What are you talking about? Did you watch the show at least? I did. You know what? I happened to tune in as soon as the, uh, the issue with who was it getting over him or somebody international some kind of international number popped up that didn't happen that didn't happen but uh did you miss us i missed you but more importantly did the people miss me that's what i want to know i think they did

did i got some tweets i mean you know okay not as many as i would have hoped let's be honest you were tweeting up a storm and you just kind of gave the old one finger discount to everyone and said i don't care about you uh there's so much going on in the world of m may i mean you should be doing MMA hours on fire. So much has happened in the last two weeks and you just leave us high and dry. Come on, what's really happened?

I mean, nothing really happened in the last two weeks. Okay, let's talk about what happened, all right? Hit me. Well, not in the last two weeks. Let's just talk about, okay, let's talk about the sale rumors. Yep. So on Tuesday, Darren Revell of ESPN, highly respected reporter, you know him.

Yep. Comes out with this news that the UFC is in advance talks to sell to one of four suitors. The next day he comes out and says there's the three left, right? And I was told a couple weeks ago that Wanda, this group, Dallian Wanda out of China, was the frontrunner. Now, what was interesting about all of this was on Tuesday of last week, when the news came out, Dana White went around to some media members and said that this was overblown. The story was overblown. That's all well and good.

You expect him to say that. He's not going to break the news right then and there. I heard that they were targeting July. But then the next day, he goes on. on this media tour, and he talks to Dan Patrick and he talks to Colin Coward and he talks to Kevin and Bean in L.A. And I felt like it was almost a confirmation of the non-confirmation. His non-confirmation was a confirmation that things are actually happening here, that he was telling the world, no, the UFC is not for sale. But oh, by the way, you know, if you give us

$4 billion, we're for sale. Well, to me, that means that you're for sale. And he's also saying that like if we were in talks with someone, if we were talking to someone about selling a percentage, the whole thing, I wouldn't tell you anyway. To me, it felt like he was telling everyone that we're at the goal line here. Yeah, he was supposed to be talking about 198, but let's be honest, no one was asking him about 198. We're at the goal line here.

You better step up or you're going to miss the boat. What do you make of that theory? Did you even know that this story came out? Oh, stop it. But yeah, I mean, I think that's, pretty sound. I don't think, do you feel like

there are people who don't think it's for sale? Well, he came out initially and said that the story was overblown and they're not for sale. Yeah, but he's, as he said himself,

he's not going to tell you if it was. The, the rumors that the UFC has been for sale have been, to me, it started in 2008. When I first started

in this sport, there was a rumor that the UFC was going to come out with a big announcement. Everyone thought that it was either going to be Fox before the Fox deal and,

or, the WWE people thought. WWE is going to be the one. And then the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the end result of that big announcement was that Lorenza Fertita was leaving station casinos and going to work for them full time. That was the end result. And so everyone has been, you know, thinking since there's rumors here, rumors there, but this one feels real. I mean, I mean, look what Joe just said, right? Yeah.

Joe Rogan and Dana White are best buds. Like, like, literal best buds. I felt like what he said or didn't say right. and there was telling as well, right? Yeah, I mean, the, the lack of being able to connect the dots between the evaluations and things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something's going on.

Something's going on and it's smart business to hide it. So, I mean, we're not going to know until we know. I feel like I have a PhD now and being able to read Dana White's answers. Couldn't see his body language in some of these interviews. But I feel like he was really telling us that, you know, Look, back in 2011, the Wall Street Journal came out with a story saying that, I remember this vividly, the Wall Street Journal came out with a story saying that the UFC was close to striking a deal with NBC Sports to be its new television partner. This is June of 2011.

It was UFC 131 fight week in Vancouver prior to the JDS Carwin fight. And I remember this is when Dana White was doing those scrums, you know, after the pre-fight press conferences. It's a Thursday outdoors in Vancouver. and we all started asking him about this. And oh, by the way, part of the story was that they were turning the G4 network into the UFC network. Later, G4 network became the Esquire network. And Dana was denying it. Two months later, they hold a press conference in L.A.

to announce that they've signed a deal with Fox. And what's interesting about that was, and why this whole situation reminds me of that, is that at this press conference, Dana White said, you know what got this deal done with Fox? the Wall Street Journal story came out about us in talks with NBC, close to a deal with NBC, and Fox heard about this, and they said, wait a minute, we want a part of this UFC thing as well. And that started the negotiations, expedited the negotiations, and made Fox want what they can't have. And that got the deal done with Fox. And this coming out with a reputable reporter and a reputable outlet like ESPN, and then Dana White doing all these interviews saying,

no, we're not for sale, but we owe it for sale for $4 billion and all this stuff. felt like the exact same thing all over again. No, yes. No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. Please, the world, let me tell you, we're close here. So if you want something, you better come. Do you get the connection?

It felt like carbon copy, the exact same thing. Well, the question now is when are we going to find out? Yeah, the question now. Well, initially, I was told, like right off the bat, when I was told about this a couple weeks ago, and I'm not the type, you know me, I'm not the type to be like, knew this first, I didn't want to report it, but that's what I was told that it was going to be in July.

Now, who knows if it's partial, if it's full, if that's even the case. This is a massive, massive, massive deal. And at the end of the day, I just don't have contacts in the Goldman Sachs financial world. That's just not my wheelhouse. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting, but I feel like all signs point to something going on. And what does this mean for Dana White? What does this mean for Lorenzo for Tito? What does this mean for the future of the sport? Do new people come in? Do they moved the sport, you know, the organization to China. I mean, I believe if you buy the UFC, you're not saying goodbye to those guys. Dana White and Lorenzo Fertita are part of the fabric of this sport. And certainly of that organization, you're not telling them, hey, Thursday's your last day.

If you're buying this thing, you want them around for at least a year. Let's not forget, when Strike Force was sold, they had Scott Coker stick around for three years. Now, most of the time he did nothing, but there are non-competes involved. You want the guys who are close to this thing that built it up to be around. So I don't foresee them leaving anytime soon. But, but, But, I mean, does the balance of power change? Who knows? I think it's fascinating. What a story.

Yeah. So many different. I mean, do you think this will be good for the sport? Can't know until you see, like, what the changes that are going to be implemented are. You really, like, you know, at this point, we don't really know what the plans are. Hmm. All right. Yeah, it's a strange, it's a strange thing that the UFC may not operate the same way moving forward.

Maybe it does, though. Maybe they don't want to make changes. Maybe they just want to own it. I feel like this is the perfect time to buy. There's so many things that could happen in the future. The sport is hotter than ever with Rhonda and Connor involved. This is a great time to buy, in my opinion. If I'm someone that wants to get in and if I'm someone who wants to get out,

I mean, they always say, right? They say, they say, excuse me, buy low, sell high. UFC bought this for $2 million. They could be selling this for a few billion. Well, so no, then they're not selling high. If you're saying it's a good time to buy, it can't also be a good time to sell. No, it's a weird thing, though. This almost makes sense for both.

Because if you have a group coming out of China who wants to get in, I mean, if it's Daly and Wanda, they are trying to buy up these American institutions, theaters, movies, studios, things like that. I mean, the UFC is a hot commodity. It's not a dead, you know, piece of crap. It's not what it was back in 2000. It wasn't just, it's not just three letters. Not only are you buying those three letters and getting those companies, contracts and all that stuff, you're also getting Connor McGregor and Ronda Rousey and all these people.

And if you're the UFC, you just made a tremendous return on your investment. You get what I mean? It's one of those weird times where I actually feel like it's a good deal for both. You can actually buy a sport in a weird way. You can't do that in any other sport. If you buy the clippers, you're buying the clippers, one of 30 teams. Here you're buying like 500 fighters and the best. 99.9% of the talent pool.

that's a good deal in my opinion especially if you're the richest man in China worth $35 billion. So a story to definitely keep your eye on but I got to say last week reminded me especially that Dan Patrick interview it really reminded me of that story back in 2011

the NBC story and the Wall Street Journal it reminded me of the exact same thing if someone went up to the Steinbrenners right now and asked them are you for sale they'll tell you no if someone up to James Dolan right now and said are the Knicks for sale he'll tell you no. He's not going to say, yeah, for a price. And I know the million-dollar man and Ted DiBiase once said, every man has his price, but there are certain things I think aren't

for sale. If someone asked me if my first-born son Oliver is for sale, he is not for sale. You get my point? But is he for sale? No, he's not for sale. Not for $4 billion. And that's where the difference is. Five? No, never. Six, we could talk. Just joking. Okay. Do we got some questions? Yeah, let's do some questions. All right. First question. Jockerade beats V-12. and then what? So who faces the winner of Rockhold versus Weidman? Is it Bisbing? Is it Jacaree? Where does Romero fit into the puzzle?

What's the most fair? Actually, I know how you feel about fair. Let's not talk about fair. But who's going to get the title shot? Bisping. If I'm in charge, a lot of people hated this when I said this on Saturday. Now, is Jacarie's case not the best?

I mean, he is, he, look. He beat Romero. Let's not confuse the situation here. I don't care what it says on the record. He beat Romero. We all know that. Okay. Body of work, look, if Anderson beat Bisping,

I can almost assure you he was getting the next title shot. So why doesn't Bispin get the same stipulation? And Bisping, in my opinion, sells more. He's been doing it longer. He's the greatest fighter not to get a title shot. He's done enough. Now, you want to keep Jacqueray on the sidelines? Cool.

Why not do Jacques-Romero, too? Why don't just do that fight again and prove once and for all that you can beat Romero. do Bisping versus the winner. The fight's coming up in two weeks. And now we're all squared away. It's perfect. That's what I'd like to see happen.

I feel like Jacqueray's window is closing. He's not a young fighter. He is getting a little older, but I mean, he's not slipping. Certainly not in that performance. He looked great, but then again, Vitor Belfort's not a spring chicken himself. Sure. I think, you know, middleweight really needs some youth infusion. That's for damn sure.

Come on. It would be, it would literally be a, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, crying shame if Michael Bisping does not get a title shot in his career. He has to get one at some point, so I guess now is the time. If there was ever a time, it's now. But I feel like on paper, Jacqueray has the best case, for sure. I just, I'm down with that, especially if it's Rockhold. I mean, to be honest, if it's Widman as well, it's a great, too, but Rockhold versus Jacaray would be...

I felt like they kind of missed the boat on it. that one. They probably, I mean, look, he lost the Romero, and that's a crappy situation, and it would have been perfect if you beat Romero, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is, I mean, Bispin got the win he needed, he got over the hump, he beat the former champ. If Anderson would have won that fight, he would have gotten it. We're almost there. We're two weeks away from the fight happening. Give it to Bisping. Bring him in the cage on June 4th in Englewood in his adopted home state now. Give the guy the shot, in my opinion. And do Jacquet Romero, too, and that's it. winner gets a title shot?

Sure. That's what we were supposed to be last time. Yeah, no, but then Romero popped. Yeah. And he didn't... Frustrating. It's... To me, it's cut and dry.

And by the way, Jacques, Ray just looked fantastic, didn't he? He always does. He needs a damn title shot. He didn't look great against Romero. I thought he beat him pretty soundly. It was the... I thought he won, but it wasn't like... It was Corey Anderson's Shogun.

It's like, you could sort of kind of make... I don't think so. It was pretty... clear he won two rounds there. But it wasn't that performance. Like he didn't kick his ass. He kicked Vitor's... He left him in like a bloody pulp. I mean, have you ever seen Vitor like that?

Getting stopped like that? I think it was the first time. That's not a common stoppage from Jokere either. In Mount. When he gets to that position, he much prefers to kind of positionally grapple and get a submission. So that was nice to see. What else we got?

Speaking of title shots. Yeah. Damien Maya. Yeah. Should he get the next welterweight title shot? What a crazy thing this, this welterweight division is, right? Maya. There's... Woodley, Magny, Thompson, McDonald.

I mean, there's so many options out there. Thompson and McDonald are both contenders, but they're going to knock each other off. Yeah, I know, but you can make a very, very good case that the winner of that fight in a month. That's the most impressive win of all. Oh, I think no doubt whoever wins that should get a shot. Now, here's the one thing working against Maya. He doesn't have a win over a top five guy. Yeah, I don't know how much I care about that

But here's the crazy part Since Woodley's last fight Maya is 4-0 Against Ryan LaFlair Who was undefeated at the time Neil Magny Who he submitted Gunner Nelson

Who he thoroughly dominated And now Matt Brown who he submitted Two submissions Two other wins against guys who are on very impressive winning streaks That's since Woodley's last fight Now let's not forget Woodley got screwed with the Hendricks situation at 192 That's not his fault he showed up the fight

but man, that's a tough spot. I've always wanted to see that Woodley Maya fight. I just think they need to book Robbie Lawler in a fight. Woodley Maya? I've wanted to see that fight for a long time as well. Like make that the number one contender. I don't know. They just need...

Lawler needs to fight now. Like, these divisions are slowing down because guys just aren't fighting. And he deserved a break. There's no doubt about that. But think about like the log jam now. In a way, it's a good thing for the UFC. But on the other hand,

it's it's it's it's like you got this cue where you're going to disappoint someone i don't know they they said on uc tonight that it was going to be woodley and then they kind of took that away and and and and and and and and and and luller wasn't thrilled about it and who can blame him he was in the running for gsp he was in the running for connor he was in the running for Nate dyes and then he's left with the bridesmaid in 201 against woodley a teammate you know it's kind of a weird situation for him part of the same ATT family at least so i can understand where he's coming from but I just feel like they need to book him in a fight to keep this train moving along. I wouldn't be mad at any scenario, to be honest.

Including Maya getting the title shot. I wouldn't be mad at that. Would you? I mean, those four wins are super impressive. So you say that he deserves it? I'd say that the winner of Rory and Wonderboy is the... So you're going to save Lawler for that? Those guys could go five rounds.

That means Lawler's not going to fight until like November. Yeah. So when do you schedule it for and against who? I like Lawler versus Woodley at 201, because that's in a couple months. And that's sort of around the same time frame as Thompson and McDonald. And then you do the winner of that. Yeah, and now you're screwing Maya. Now, what happens to Maya?

Yeah, it sucks because he beat Magny. That would have been perfect if they didn't fight. Can't ask him to fight Magny again. It's a mess. Look, I really like Maya Woodley. I wish in a perfect world we can see that. But then I don't know what you do with Lawler. Do you then just wait?

Do you do Maya Woodley and then you wait for the winner of Wonderboy Thompson, have him fight, Wonder Boy McDonald, then you have him fight Loller? Maybe. They just need to do something. I mean, Woodley's sitting on the sidelines, you know, healthy and not doing anything. It's a mess. It's a good problem, but it's a mess. What do you do with Chris Cyborg?

She said in the post-fight interview, she wants the defender invicted title and fighting the UFC at the same time. Should the UFC let her just do her just do her? thing and not pressure her to make 135 with the occasional showcase fight in the USC from time to time. I will say that I really respected the way Cyborg handled the whole Invicta situation, showing up to the open workouts with the belt, giving them a shout out in the post-fight interview with Brian Stan. You know what I mean? I really felt like she handled it well. Like she was giving props to her organization and and as I said earlier, the titles are starting to mean less and less.

I feel like Cyborg, by doing that, said, look, this is my belt. This is the 145 pound title in women's MMA. If you want to be considered the best 145 pound women's fighter, this is the belt that you need. She's doing women's MMA a great service by propping up that organization and that title. That being said, there are no options, at least of interest for her in Invicta. That's just the bottom line. There's nothing of interest for her in Invicta. And so I really felt like she dropped the ball in the post-fight interview.

The fight was great. I thought it was stopped a little early. I would have liked it go a little longer. But I thought that she should have gone on the mic and said, Rhonda, I'm here. Where are you? Fight me at 140. Come on.

Enough of this. This is the fight everyone wants to see. Holly, I'm here. Where are you? She's got a lot of great options. I mean, the women's band and weight division has never been more interesting. And I include her in that. So you tell her, look, you can't fight at 135, you can't make that weight.

You can fight at 140. all day long. We'll pay you. She is a draw. She is a star. People are interested in her. They're attracted to her as a fighter. So you'll never get that 135 pound title. You'll just fight fun fights. You'll make money. You'll never fight for the belt. You can't. You've got to make the weight. But that's no reason not to do Rhonda, not to do Holly, not to do Misha Tate, not to do Amanda Nunes, which is a fight that we've been asking for since the elite XC days. So that's what I would do. I mean, I think you've got to keep her in the UFC. Chris Seaborg fought in front of more people on Saturday night, then all her five Invicta fights combined.

That's staggering. She's a big draw. She's a big deal. She didn't look great at the Wayans. Her face was really sucked in. But if she can make that weight at 140, then I say keep her around. The possibilities are endless. I just wish she would have gone on the mic and called out someone and then not gone and let some crony do it on Twitter.

What else? Short version of this one. How do you feel about the stoppage in the Leslie Smith Cyborg fight? just said. I thought it was too soon. And when compared to Francisco Trinaldo and Yancey Medeiros, did you think that one went too long and one went too short? And do you think that was a male versus female kind of thing? I don't know. I don't want to, uh, I don't want to sort of speculate. But, uh, even the little Nagpatrick Cummins fight, it looked like it went to be too long. I don't know. That's M.A.

It's inconsistent. You don't want them to go too long. You don't want them to go too short. Uh, you feel bad when they go too short because you've worked so long for all that stuff. But I feel the Trinaldo Madero's fight, I wasn't as bothered. The Smith fight, that's a big deal. And I just didn't think that she was 100% out. She took a big risk by taking that fight in Curitiba. I think she deserved a beat longer. And I don't know if it had anything to do with women's in there and all that. Here's the question, though. Yeah. What really was realistically going to happen there? What are we giving her that extra rope for? What's she going to do in that circumstance? Like,

Essentially, are we making a useless argument about giving her an extra few seconds to take more punishment? Is she really going to be able to escape that situation? Is there really going to be anything good that comes of that? We say that it was stopped early. Was it really stopped early? Yeah, I do think it was stopped early. So what would happen in that early? What would happen with those extra few seconds?

Look, you never know. Look at Pat Barry and Czech Congo. Crazy things happen in this sport. No, it's not the same. Are we delaying the inevitable by letting it go, yes. But Leslie Smith deserves that benefit. She deserves it. That was her moment.

She deserves it. I guess. Gun to my head, do I think the fight was going to be stopped a couple seconds later? Sure. And is he doing her favor by stopping it? You can make that case. But to me, the fight should be stopped when it's stopped. Not when you think it's going to be stopped in five seconds.

And you're like, all right, this thing is going to end soon. Like, they're not being paid to guess when it's going to end. It was stopped a little early, in my opinion. That's all. I guess. I get uncomfortable with this because... It wasn't egregious. It wasn't like the worst one ever.

I just thought it was a beat too early. We make the case about preserving fighters and then we're like, well, they deserve an extra few seconds of essentially beating. Chris Seaborg was just going to beat her up for another few seconds. It's not really anything that... It's not really anything that we should be advocating for. But I guess, you know, you can make the case that anything can happen, but I don't think that that's true. Right. will we ever see a women's 145 pound division in the UFC?

No, there's not enough. There's not enough fighters. There's not enough good fighters. Just ask Shannon Knapp. You know? There's just not enough fighters. I think the scenario that they have now with Cyborg is fine. She doesn't get to fight for Bellator.

She fights at 140 and she gets big fights there. She is a legit draw. People care about her. Just do that. Pat Cummins, what's in his future? This person is asking a matchmaking terms was Cummins expected to lose the little knock. No, I believe he was the favorite.

That was a bad loss. Is he looking at a potential cut from the USC? Bad loss. You know, I like Patrick Cummins, but I just don't think that the striking has evolved enough, and he's been knocked out a couple times here. I just don't know. I think it might be in his best interest. Like, I think he would thrive.

in a World Series of fighting light heavyweight division in a Bellator light heavyweight division I don't know

who wins between him and Phil Davis but the point is I just don't think that he's evolved enough so yeah I wouldn't be

surprised especially when you consider the fact that he kind of came in through the back door that wasn't a Joe Silva signing

that was sort of a last minute Dana White putting him on the card to save the Daniel Cormier fight in his

light heavyweight debut UFC 170 so I wouldn't be surprised if they ask him to go pick up a couple other wins. Light heavyweight is very, very shallow, but those are some tough losses.

I think they pushed him rather quickly. He fought Glover-Teshire in his last fight, you know? He's always fighting big names, and he's also fighting in Brazil all the time. Maybe he deserves one more in America against a newer name. The problem is that light heavyweight, there aren't a lot of names out there. Yeah. My bigger issue is cut or not, I'd like to see his striking evolve a little more and he keeps having trouble with that. If the wrestling isn't there, he's getting caught on the feet. Did Will Brooks hurt his value by agreeing to be released early or by actually asking to be released early? That is a great question. Yeah, I think he loses leverage by that happening, you know, and I think that's why they got rid of him. I think they got rid of him because he,

you know, he spoke up a little too much and he was a pain in their ass and they're just like, look, let's just do my, he's not a needle mover in their eyes. I think they're hurting themselves by doing this. I think you need to figure out how to keep your champions around, keep them happy, and make those belts important. Do you agree with me that in 2016 belts have never meant less? I do. And I think that's a problem.

Like, that's always been the cool thing about MMA. Like boxing, I love when there's a big boxing match, and they go, and new, and you still don't know what that means. You still don't know who they're talking about because no one even knows who the champion is. No one wanted to see Mayweather-Pakiaw fight to see Mayweather get another title. They just wanted to see them fight. And I feel like that's what's being done here in the UFC. Guys getting title shots off losses, interim titles, Belator releasing champions.

In the state of belts in MMA, regardless of division, has never been weaker. And I think that it's bad form to release your champion, to part ways with him, and then to strip your heavyweight champion who hasn't fought in two years. That's just not good. You got to figure it out. It's not about scrubbing it clean and just picking a guy that you want to be champion and doing everything that you can to get. him in that position to become champion. It's about at some, it has to be a little bit of sport involved, right? There has to be some sort of, you know, road to a title and then having a guy stick around. You know, if that was the case in, stupid comparison, but like the Miami He would be in the Eastern

Conference Final. You know, it's almost like you're trying to play pro wrestling here. Wait a minute. Speaking of the Eastern Conference Finals. Yes. Yes. Let's talk about this a little bit. This is when you perk up. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about my Cavaliers. Yeah, your Cavaliers. Your Toronto Raptors. Well, first of all, yes. You don't get to, don't question me

when you're bandwagoning the Raptors. Wait, wait, wait, first of all, first of all, I've never said that the Raptors were my team. I've just said that, look, for the state of Canadian basketball, it's important that they go far. Because there's no such thing as Tristan Thompson on your team. There's no such thing as Andrew Wiggins, who was supposed to be on your team until they meet that stupid trade.

Wait a minute, stupid trade. Horrible trade. You're telling me that that's not one of the worst trades. of all time. It's looking good right now. Yeah, right now, what's going to mean in three years when Wiggins is killing it on the Western Conference Champions? If they win, Western Conference Champions, please. Minnesota Timberwolves

led by Tibbs, Zach Levine, Andrew Wiggins, rookie Rubio, the rookie of the year, Carl Anthony Towns. You call them Anthony Towns, like your boys? Yeah, the rookie of the year, by the way, who did not come from the Knicks. That's fine. We don't know that. Got enough accolades. So tell me. Tell me about the Toronto Raptors.

We don't have time for this. we got Darren Caldwell coming up in 11 minutes. Oh, all of a sudden. Well, things went a little long. We'll talk about this. You want to propose a bet? Is that what was what happening here? You're, you told me.

Yes. Excuse me. This is just too funny. You told me before the show that the Raptors were not only not going to get swept. They were going to beat the Cavaliers in six games. I think so. That's what you told me. That's six or seven.

Lowry's got his groove back. It's great. Yeah, I would bet anything. That does not happen. The guys in the NBA offices in Park Avenue are just livid at the thought of the Raptors being in the conference finals. And we're going to play spoiler. That's right. I said it.

We're going to play spoiler. We're going to go to the conference finals. See, no, before you say you're not on the bandwagon, they're not your team. Now all of a sudden it's me. It's my country. That's the difference. My country. Do you understand what this means?

This is nationalism. This is pride. This is patriotism. You understand what that means? You guys don't get that. that's what this is. This is a big deal. This is a disgrace.

Corey Joseph, Toronto's own. Tristan Thompson is Canada's own. That series was awful. The Raptors and the Heat. Awful. I disagree. Terrible basketball. Three, was it three overtime?

A half-quatch shot? And then it's overtime. It was terrible. Terrible basketball. You were on the beach. It was like three in the afternoon when those games were going on. Yeah, it was nice. It was actually really nice to be six hours behind.

Yeah, I bet. Because then everything happened. in the midday, the morning, you kind of have the rest of your evening to do stuff. Yeah, well, why don't you just move there, all right? Oh, my God. Don't give my wife any ideas. Okay, what else we got?

It's on a basketball podcast. Although I'd love to go, I'd love to go ham on that brawl between the Rangers and the Blue Jays. I mean, the idiots that were tweeting me yesterday, almost, almost, almost ruining my day. I mean, you dummies. I mean, who are these people tweeting about that this was this was called for?

This guy punched. he punches cold cocks Jose Batista in the face because he flipped his bat and don't give me this sliding nonsense they bean him in the last at-bat of the last series of the season they beat him like cowards gutless cowards and then they're going to get all upset because of a hard slide at the second base that has been legal for the last century in baseball give me a break what a joke

the guy tried to throw the ball at his head joke Anyway. Tell us how you really feel. I mean, these people were invading my Twitter space. I was just commenting on the gutless act that was that punch to the face, that right hand to the face. And then you have people being like, oh, yeah, that was warranted. What?

I mean, a hard slide is a hard slide. Close one-run game. In what rule book, baseball rule book, is it allowed to punch someone in the face? Ridiculous. Anyways, what else we got? 2016 Hall of Fame? Yes. We know Big Nogs going in.

He's the first one for 2016. Who else would you like to see this year? That's a great question. Kevin Randleman would be nice. Absolutely. I mean, that's a no-brainer, right? Well, you've got to think in terms of the wings. So Big Nog is Pioneer because he fought pre-2000s.

You could do, no, wait. Big Nog and Randleman, I think, are the same thing. Because you got Pioneer. But do we have, I don't know if they have to stick to that. Yeah, they do. They do. Trust me. I know the guy behind the whole thing.

He's very adamant about sticking to it. Okay. You need a contributor. Mark Ratner would be great, especially in New York. The year New York got done. Oh, yeah? I mean, that guy freaking got this whole thing legalized in every state. I have to think about it.

But I'll say this. I like the way that they did it. They had the package. It was very WW-esque. I really liked the way that they did it. Have you been following this Mayweather and McGregor nonsense? We happen to have a question about that. Well, what the hell is it?

the question because Mayweather goes on showtime and starts acting like oh I'm talking I'll read you the question it's just ridiculous uh the talk of a Mayweather McGregor fight seems to be gathering momentum rather than going away two questions is madewether serious about making a fight or just trying to keep himself in the spotlight so let's go with that first yes I think he is it's weird that he's really sticking to his guns on this one and I guess this I mean maybe he's trying to not be involved in the whole triple G talk or wants nothing to do with anyone else in boxing. But it's just strange to hear the boxing guy talk about. I mean, the whole thing is so bizarre.

And then you got someone pranking Freddie Roach and saying that McGregor called him out. I mean, McGregor is the guy who said he'd never leave his team. And now he's going to go leave his team. He talks about Owen Roddy as a striking coach all the time. He's going to go train with Freddie Roach. I mean, are you people dumb? What is going on here? And then the initial report says 100 million for 100 million euros for Mayweather.

And seven for Connor, do you really think? think in a million years that he would accept those terms? And then every time Mayweather says something, everyone's like, you see what he said? Did you see? Did you see? So annoying. Who was that an impression of? That was pretty good. It's just the voices in my mind every time this happens. Like I woke up Saturday morning, Mayweather shows up on showtime and he starts with that shirt. What was he wearing? It's wearing this yellow shirt, the Ralph Lauren, like the oversized horse, which I always thought. that was weird. It's like the horse is fine when it's small. Why do you have to make it so big?

Buttoned up all the way, yellow on TV. Like he just came out of, I don't know what he came out of. Talking about McGregor, it's bizarre. Okay, part two of that question. Yes. Is it in the UFC's interest to make that fight happen or to be promoters on that? Well, if they can do it in the UFC, 100%. It would be gigantic. But it seems like the talk is of it being a boxing fight, no? I mean, I think it's ridiculous altogether. Yes. But when they do talk about it, they seem to be talking about a boxing fight. Yeah, but here's the point. The point is he's a UFC fighter.

They're not going to go let him fight in boxing. No, of course not. That's why it'll never happen. And also his manager, his coaches, John Kavanaugh, very smart guy, Audi-Aart, very smart manager. Why would they let him fight in boxing? That's a horrible situation for him, you know? And so if they let him come to MMA, then yeah, the UFC is going to make money off of that. Then they're all in.

You really think that Mayweather is going to split the pie with them? Come on, it's not going to happen. I don't want to see it happen. To be honest, I really don't. I want to see McGregor fight in M.M.A. I want to see him fight the winner of, I guess, Edgar Aldo. What do you think of this whole BJ Penn situation putting him out on prelims? I wanted to ask Brendan about that because he was all up in arms about this last week.

He's like, oh, this is a disgrace to BJ. And I'm like, and we had a whole... Haven't we, you know, gone through this already? Like, haven't we already addressed this? being on the prelims though, because I said on the MMA beat last week that the three most desired spots right now, if you're a UFC fighter, since there are no sponsorships, are main event of the pay-per-view. Obviously, people missed that point last week. Obviously, you want to be the main event of the whole damn show. And then you want to be the FS1 prelim headliner, because if you watch

the MLB on Fox, if you watch Fox during the week, FS1, all this stuff, they're pushing that fight more than their main event. They're pushing that as the real main event of the card. They're like it's its own card. And then you want to be the headliner of the fight past prelims. Because they're pushing that more than anything the UFC is. It's crazy. People didn't get my point. So if I'm BJ Penn,

if you're not making more money being the first fight on pay-per-view than being the fight-pass prelim fighting on free television or at least cable television, just stay on the cable TV portion. The stigma of not being on pay-per-view is not the same as it was, you know, five years ago. And so I was surprised that a smart guy like Brendan would have that take. I get it.

I understand. There is prestige still to it. But yeah, I mean, the head, the quote unquote headline for all the different tiers gets a lot of promotion. So it makes perfect sense. And now you're not getting less. And also, I firmly believe that more people are watching the FS1 prelims than some of these pay-per-views. Yeah. I mean, the numbers are there.

And you can, you can hypothesize that 300K pay-per-views equals 600-K. or 700K viewers, but the numbers just aren't there. And yeah, the Nielsen ratings are, I think, very flawed, but we got to go with the numbers that we're given. And I think that a lot of these pay, like I'm curious to see what 198 does.

Tremendous card, but did it really, you know, quote unquote, move the needle in the United States? I'm not sure about that. How do you feel about Cole Miller over Dennis Seaver? I think it's a tougher fight for BJ. Do you?

I don't know. I really do. Longer guy, taller guy, better off his back better jiu-jitsu I don't know I don't think Cole Miller is done by any stretch I felt like Dennis was really on the way down

yeah I mean I think it really comes down to BJ more so than than anything else like that last performance was not good and not something you want to see again so I think I think it's more to see what he's got left than anything that Seaver or Miller has left

yeah but I would you agree that Seaver was the better option of the two for him? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not so sure. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I think that it's impossible to say because it's hard to gauge where BJ's really at.

That last performance, like, how can you even rank him or put him anywhere? It's very tough. Yeah. All right. Because Frankie Eggers is legit. Frankie Eggers's amazing and BJ Penn's not at that level anymore. So it's hard to, like, kind of say where he's at. I just think matchup-wise, one guy being a lot taller,

but, you know, all those things I mentioned. I felt better about the C.R. I'm not saying that I don't feel good, but I don't know. Cole Miller's younger. I don't know. This is a big opportunity. This is the Connor McGregor fight that he didn't get in a weird way. Remember, he's supposed to headline that show against Connor back in Dublin.

All right, you can go call Little DC, Darren Caldwell. Little D.C. Little no fact. Darren Caldwell has actually been on this show before. I don't know if you knew this. when Bobby Green made that appearance with his whole crew, his family, his familia. He was actually on the program. He was part of the crew.

Darren Caldwell, one of the very best bantam waits in the world, will be joining us in a matter of moments. He has some news to break of his own. So let's stay tuned for that. And then after that, we'll be joined by Brian Barbarina, the owner of said lunchbox right over there. Actually, he's not the owner, but he's the one who's being immortalized on said lunchbox over there. couple other notes from Dana White last week. He said that he'll be meeting with Connor McGregor this week. No one asked him where, how, under what circumstances, but he did say in multiple interviews last week that he'll be meeting with Connor McGregor this week to sort of get

over that speed bump and to, you know, patch things up. So that's promising news. Dan Patrick pressed him on whether or not he'll be fighting at UFC 202, Connor, against Nate Diaz. And Dana said that he liked the idea, and I believe that's August 20th, but he wasn't going to commit to anything at this time because he hadn't really talked to him about it. Also, when he was asked about Ronda Rousey's future and whether she'll be fighting this year, and if there's a chance she won't fight this year, I thought his response was really interesting. He kind of sighed and said, you know, she deserves a break, and it's up to her. Didn't come out and say, you know, she's locked in for November 12th.

It is a little early. Let's not forget. It is six month away. But, you know, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't fight. I don't think that's the craziest thing in the world. Speaking of that women's division, Katzangano, joining up with Alliance M. M.A. in Chula Vista, California. I think that's very interesting as well.

Considering that she had been with that elevation fight team out of Colorado and the whole muscle farm deal, she's teaming up at least for this one fight camp only. Remember, she's fighting Giuliana Pena. at UFC 200, a very important fight in that division. For this fight camp only, I was told that she's going to try it out. Alliance has had a lot of success with the women's fighters these days. Beck Rawlings was there, Jessica Penny was there. A bunch of them have been there.

I like that move. No knock on what's going on at Elevation Fight Team, but I have a lot of respect for Eric Del Fierro, and they've got a lot of things going on as well. Of course, Dominic Cruz, another DC will be defending his title June 4th. Okay, speaking of DC's in the Bantamweight Division, how about that transition? Let's go to the Skype Machine and welcome in Darren Caldwell. There he is.

Joining us. Yo, go. What's up, Darren? What's up, Ariel? Where are you right now? I'm in Phoenix right now. I'm in the office. office right now. I'm in Arizona.

Okay, so, you know, I was telling people that it's a little known fact. You've been on this show before. You kind of crashed our party one time with your boy Bobby Green, right? You know how I go, man. Are you still training with those guys? Not right now.

I'm out in Arizona. Bobby's out in California. I haven't been in California in like six months, but that's my squad. Those are my guys out there. When I get the opportunity, I'm going to have back out that way and get some training. it with Bobby and I know he's got a big fight coming up so I'll let him do his thing and I mean that what a scene that was you guys came in you rolled in like six seven deep you were

sitting there with the hair and all that and it would have been something else if if then you parted ways with them because you seem like a very tight-knit team over there and I hear you are in Phoenix where are you with where are you with where are you with where are you with well right now I'm I'm I'm over at power MMA um this is the team I initially started my my career with yeah um And then, you know, personally, I'm a firm believer, and you can't learn everything in one spot, you know. I would be lying if I said. I went through Roweigh grade school wrestling.

Then I went through Raleigh High School wrestling. Then I went to North Carolina State Wrestling. Then I went to Power in May, and that's how I'm the athlete I am today. That's definitely not the fact, you know. I've been through a lot of different coaches and styles and clubs throughout my lifetime, you know, in terms of competing. So I'm a firm believer, and I'm not going to learn everything in one spot. So it's up to me to be able to get out and learn from as many people as I can. How many fights have you had in Belvoir, like five or so?

Yeah, I'm 6 and O in Belvoir. Six and O. How many times do you think you've actually been punched in the face in your last couple of fights? Is it like seven a crazy number like that? I ain't to hit yet in a fight, so let's hope we keep it like that. Look at that face. I mean, there's not a single mark on it. It's unbelievable.

You know, man, I'm trying to keep the wolf pretty face up to the good. par, man. What's going on with the hair? Man, you know, I'm still figuring out what I'm doing with it, but best believe, something crazy, something cool, something something sweet about that happened with this bad boy. Okay. You know what I mean? What I mean? Okay, okay. So you, I'm told that you have some news to break. The floor is

yours. What do you got? What's the big news? Man, so since my last fight, it's been a lot going on. A few offers on the table, but Bellator has been nothing but good to me. They see my talent early on in my career, and they came after me. Right now I'm here. I got some papers in front of me.

Oh, yeah. Look at that. Check him out. This paper is one. This paper is the other. Oh. I'm here to let everyone know. I'm going to continue my talents at Bellatoria.

Oh, look at that. So you are, oh, you're signing it. Okay. And sign the way. Go ahead. You're actually signing it. Did you read that thing first? Yeah, I thoroughly, I read through this thing very thoroughly, you know.

Me and my manager, Dave Martin, he's done a great job for me. So after putting the pieces together, you know, Bellator jumping on board, you know, it's time to go ahead and get married, man. It is what it is. You feel me? I feel you. I'm in the long run. Okay, so were you a free agent?

Did your contract expire as you sign away? Look at this. This is a first on the M.A. I mean, we've had people come on and announce that they've signed new deals. No one's actually signed the deal in front of us. I appreciate that. There it is, baby. There's the John Hancock.

Okay. That's the John Hancock. Can you scroll up so we see the terms? Like, how much money are we talking here? That's not. You can't see. There's no, Bellator is taking good care of me, you know? They take great care of it.

athletes. I couldn't be any happier right now. You know, I don't walk around with a smile on my face, but I've been smiling hair-to-air all weekend. So Bellator has done a great job with me. And, you know, just believing in what they had in mind and their plan for me, that was the biggest thing, you know. You got, you got to, you got to, it's bigger than me. You know, I know, I know they have a vision, even though I have a vision as well, you know, my vision is to be the World Champion, they have a vision on how to put me in a position to make sure I maximize everything outside of the cage, you know? And so I feel like we touched on a lot of subjects there. And so I think we got a start in the making. I've always been a start, but it's

always just been about putting on that platform, you know, and Belator has given me that opportunity. Wait a second. I don't think any. Well, you don't think what? No, go ahead. No, go ahead. I interrupt you. I was just about to ramble with these things. I don't think any 35-pounder can see me. You feel me? Whether it's USC, Belator, anywhere in the world, there's not a 35-pounder that can beat me, Ariel. So for Belator to give me a chance to go ahead and do this thing long-term to be a world champ, it's just a blessing. So did your contract expire? Well, no, I still had one left, but, you know, I could have fought that out when I went up and went ahead and beat up on Gavowel, but, you know, I don't want to be anywhere else. I want to be here at Bellator, you know, under that banner.

I got it. It's always, since I stepped foot in that case, it's been my dream to get my, my picture hung up on that, those seven, those banners, you know, the seven guys, you know. until I'm up there, you know, my job is not done. And even when I'm there, you know, I got a lot of work to do, you know. So, and I appreciate that very much, and I think it's a great signing on their part. It makes all the sense in the world. You are truly one of their up-and-coming best stars. But are you still there?

You're still there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm here. But at some point, you weren't thinking like, man, I'd like to beat Dominic Cruz, I'd like to beat Yer Fabor, I'd like to beat Al Jermaine. You must have thought that at some point, right? Yeah, I'm here. I thought of, but I know I can beat those guys. And hopefully, you know, one day I'll get a chance to see it.

Maybe they'll come over to the Belator when they didn't realize the grass is green on the other side over here. But when we talk about those guys, they're not really a concern. I know if our past cross, they'll get dealt with accordingly. So it's my job to just go under the Belator banner and win for them. fights and build a devastating fashion. How many fights did you sign for? I'm signed for seven fights. Damn, seven fights, all right. They really like you.

Seven fights. They love me, and I love them back. There was no choice, there was no other choice but to go ahead and get married, you feel me? Yeah, well, once you put it in those terms, I mean, you've got to love each other if you get married. Now, you're 6-0 in Belator. You're virtually, you know, unhittable there. Are they giving you a title shot? Is your next fight going to be for the belt? that's something that's still in making we got to see obviously

the title fight's already been been announced and I don't want to stay I don't want to stay idle you know I'm young I'm in a prime I'm just barely hit my prime so if this one thing I want to do is get as many fights as I can you know and so if that means fighting this summer before a title fight

you know I'm all for it regardless of who I fight you know I'm going to get my hand raised and it's going to move me to the belt. I'll take it how I can get it, you know. I just want to fight. Who are some of the names that interest you if it's not for the belt right now in that division? Well, I know Joe Tramagli, he's got some good wins under his belt recently. We fall in the same cart.

I know Elsie Davis, he's good. He's coming off a loss, but it is, It sucks. Can't throw Mike Richmond. That would have been a cool fight. But it's some studs at 35 in Bellator. Whoever they, I feel like whoever they throw at me is going to be a challenge. But it's going to be another step in stone to get where I need to be.

Is it fair to say, though, that in 2016 you will fight for the belt? Very much, very, very, very, very, very possible. Okay. That's very, very, very possible. Any truth to the rumor that in this new contract of yours that you just signed live on the MMA hour in front of the world, that there is a clause in there which states that you cannot do any more backflips. Every time you backflip, something wrong happens, whether it's in wrestling, whether it's

in MMA, you're knocking over cameraman and stuff or camera woman. Yeah, man. What's going on with these backflips, man? You got a great career. I love when I'm coming backflips, man. I don't know. The backflip God don't like me. I don't know what it is, but I've been doing backflips since I was a kid, so I'm going to continue to do backflips.

That's something that's going to be seen around the world. Whether I knock out camera ladies doing it or whatever, it's going to continue to happen. Would that lady get hurt when you hit her? I think she might have banged the shoulder up a little bit. Oh, man. I ain't mean to do it all. Like, next time she's in a way, make sure that second eye can't be closed. If you're going to be like this running up on me, I mean, at least had that other eye open

so you can see a bigger picture like, oh, this guy's about a jump on my neck. Right. She did a good job, you know. I guess. Yeah. She's in her profession. I'm in my profession. Sometimes you've got to be a little bit more cautious of where you're going.

Now, you said you had two pieces of paper there. What was the other one? That's confidential. You can't do that. You can't bring out two pieces of paper and tell us the other one. What was that? Is that a blank piece of paper? Were you just doing that for your effect?

That's a blankie right there, man. I just shot a blank at you. those. Okay, I don't want to put you in a tough spot here, but honest question. I have said on this show that in the last two years, you can make the case that you, MVP, like, these are homegrown Bellator talents that they've sort of built up. They brought them in when no one was talking about them and, you know, giving you guys a chance to shine. You're both very close to title shots. But then you have this other Bellator that's putting on these crazy fights like Kimbo versus Dada 5,000 and Ken and Hoyce. How do you feel about this? Do you wish that they went all in, like

Phil versus King Moe and, you know, fights like you and an MVP and, you know, other fights like that, even, you know, like when Will Brooks was fighting, the Koreshkov, Benson, Henderson, things like that, or did you get why they have to do the other stuff as well? I like the direction that they've taken. Being able to put guys like Kimbo, Hoace Gracie, and then the following weekend put a guy like me who's a little under the radar, but has the potential, you know, it doesn't do anything but bring fans, you know. More fans we can bring to the organization

than better, you know. And if that's a way to go, then why not? I want to see those guys fight personally. I like to see Van der Leight jump back from the case. I like to see, shoot, I don't know. Me personally, I'd go watch the Kimbo versus Dad at 5,000 rematch if it was up to me. Oh, come on.

You know? But I'd watch it again. You would too. I don't know. Just to see if somebody get knocked down. Like, you know, what they do is they put their future stars in a position, you know, to expand. By putting those stars now in a spotlight and following it up right behind. You get what I'm saying?

We're falling right behind them, so it's not too much of a turnaround. You're going to watch Belvoir weekend. You're going to probably watch it the following weekend, you know. So I think they're doing a good job with putting guys like myself and Michael Page on platforms for the world to see that. We're the next thing in MMA. Did you hear this news that Brooks is no longer the champion? Minikov's no longer the champion. What do you make of this?

Yeah, I've seen the news, you know. It is what it is, you know. You got to, again, nobody's bigger than an organization, you know? And so it's when you start thinking that, you know, you deserve this and you deserve that, then things start to backfire, you know. The best thing, you know, to do, Well, at least this is what I've been programming doing. I've been very serious about just keep my head down and moving forward,

not complaining so much, you know, because nobody wants to see you complain. They want to see you fight. They want to see you knock fools out. They want to see you finish guys, you know. They want to see you do backflips off the cage. They don't want to hear you rant on Twitter, you know. Fair enough.

I see you rocking the bad boy hat over there. Bad Boy Rashgard, I think that is. Yes. Is that, obviously, you're sponsored by Bat Boy, I would imagine, right? Yeah, man. They just, they just locked your boy down, man. Wow, look at you. So we're working out here, Harry.

We work it, baby. Man, you're killing it over there. You're just rolling in the dough. I'm wondering if that's a big, you know, that was a big reason why you decided to sign with Bell Tour so you can keep sponsors like Bad Boy because, you know, you can be signed by Bad Boy if you're in the UFC, but you can't wear them in the cage. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that, again, Bellatory is an organization for the fighters.

Okay. And so anytime, you know, you're getting locked in to something, which the Reebok did, I feel like locks you in to a clause where if I was more marketable and I can go expand, why not? Why can I go expand my brand and make more money? I shouldn't be locked, boxed in to what it says here when I can go make money somewhere else, you know. And so I feel like Bellator is an organization for the fighters where they're letting guys, you know, be able to market themselves outside of the cage and pick up some extra cash outside of the cage.

In your opinion, right now, May of 2016, who's the best Bantamweight in the world? Darryon Caldwell. Yeah. You think so? Without a doubt. So you think that if you fight Domina Cruz tomorrow, June 4th,

easy money? Well, here's the thing. I like Dom, so I'm not going to go out there. But, again, I'm the best 135 pounder in the world, and I'm going to continue to prove it. Within next two years,

it's not going to be a debate, you know? Wow. I got to say, I like the confidence. When are you going to come back to New Jersey and work on your craft across the road? In Jersey?

No, we're in New York. We're in New York right now, but we're pretty damn close to New Jersey. Oh, man, I might have to come mess with y'all out there, Doug. Yeah, you were supposed to come in studio, I was told. What happened? I would love to have, this is my dream. You, Bobby Green, in studio, we just talk it out. That would be some crazy shit right there, man.

That'll be a good time, though. I'll tell you that. Are you going to help him prepare for Porre? Right now, he's doing his thing out there. I've been out here getting things again. you know. Okay. But I think Bobby's going to do really well.

He's training hard. He's really focused right now, you know. It's the side of Bobby that not a lot of people get to see. And when you see that side of Bobby, it's a scary thing. I like Bobby. He's a great character. I'm happy he's back. Everything's going well for him.

I look forward to that fight. Okay, so when do you think that you'll fight? When's your first fight on this contract? I want to fight this summer. Okay. Again, I don't want to say either. Hopefully I have to fight this summer and keep his ball rolling. like every two or three months if I had to say so.

But again, obviously, Belator's got his plans for me. I'll just play by word and mouth. And whenever the opportunity presents himself, I'll be ready. All right. There is The Wolf. Darian Caldwell. Gang, gang. Back with Bellator signing a new contract,

seven-fight deal right here on the M.A. Hour. I appreciate you doing this on the show, my man. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations on the new deal. and I look forward to your next fight with Belator, and then I hope that they give you the title shop

because I think that they're kind of, they're a little slow on this one. We've got to get things going here, all right? The wolf need that title shop, baby. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Yes, same to you. Congratulations.

Thanks, Scott Coker. Rich child, we're in there, baby. Yes, much respect to those guys. Great signing by them. One of their up-and-coming stars, young, hungry, ready to rock and roll. Just 28 years old, from Rawaway, New Jersey. Great signing in their Bantamweight Division.

So congratulations to Bell Tour. Congratulations to Mr. Caldwell. Appreciate them coming on the program here to announce that news. I wonder, was it really a blank piece of paper there? I wonder. One of those things we'll just never know. Okay, right now, last guest of the day. And dare I say, we have saved the best for last, my friends.

What a moment it was. Saturday night, Curitiba, Brazil, 45,000 Brazilians. Everyone, everyone and their mama, including myself, thought, what is going on here? Beech Northcut on Fox, and they're giving you Worley Alves? In Brazil, no less? How can they do this to Bam Bam? What does he do?

Walks in there, in that soccer stadium, defends the guillotine like 30 seconds in, take some big shots, keeps on coming, picks up a big win. Forget about Bam Bam. This man is the prospect killer. Brian Barbarina is joining us on the phone right now. Brian, how are you? Thank you.

I'm going great, Ariel. Thanks for having me on. It is a pleasure, my friend, and I really appreciate it because I know that you just got back home. You made the long journey home. How long was that trip for you back home to the Phoenix area? Yeah, I think it was a total of like 21 and a half hours. Oh, my.

How many flights? Three. So would you do, Cori Chiba to Rio or Sao Paulo? South Paulo, yeah. And then from there to Dallas and then Dallas to Phoenix. Are you exhausted right now? Yeah, I'm pretty tired, but I'm trying to stay up and spend time with my family and my kids and definitely try to get back on the normal sleep schedule and everything.

What did you do on the plane to pass the time? Thank goodness they had some movies. I slept some and paid for some Wi-Fi so I could talk to my wife and stuff. So the family didn't make the trip with you? No, just my wife came out. She got there, way in, and stayed for the fight and left shortly after the whole car was finished. Oh, wow. So you stayed an extra day?

No, no. We left Sunday. And she left Sunday in the morning at like four, and we, we left Sunday in the morning at like four, and we left Sunday afternoon at like 6. Why not just fly with her? The UFC bought my tickets. I offered to get her as booked with mine too, and she's like,

oh, I can find some cheaper ones and get home to the kids faster because the USC wouldn't book mine early in the morning just in case of the show ran late or something. Yep, I understand. How many kids do you have? I have three.

You have three kids, and I like how on the broadcast they were talking to you, Brian Stan was talking about how you got the dad bawd. Like, you might not be the most, you know, right off the bat, like, wow, look at that physique like, say, Sage Northcut. But holy moly, do you have a chin on you, my man? I mean, it's unbelievable. That flight must be so much better, 21 hours when you're coming off a win like that, right?

I mean, it sucks. Absolutely. But it's still pretty sweet. I mean, you're on top of the world right now, right? Absolutely. You know, that flight is a hell of a lot better when you've got to win. Without that, you know, that would have been a sad, sad trip to home. But that's the reason I went out there, man.

I knew I was going to come back with that win, so I was going to make the trip. So let's start from the beginning here. You know, when this is announced after the Sage Northcutt fight, we were all thinking, like, man, this is a tough draw. You just beat Sage on Fox. You'd imagine the UFC's a little annoyed about this, and they give him Worley Alves. Were you thinking that way, too, or did you think, like, oh, man, I got this. Brazil, Alves, prospect again, undefeated. This is perfect for me.

What was your initial reaction when they offered it to you? you. All right, cool. Let's go. Success for the Denver because we have to fly out there, but you know what? I'm going to go out there

and we'll get this win. It doesn't matter who they put in front of me, everybody's going to be a tough test. You know, it's the UFC, the top, you know, the NFL fighting, so everybody's going to be tough. So why not fight them right now?

So you didn't think that they were putting you in a tough spot? You didn't think that they were sort of setting you up like the narrative was? No, no. I don't, you know, it didn't matter. Even if they were, it didn't matter. Yeah. I believe in myself, but I don't think they were setting me up or whatever.

Now, how much did you know about Alva's like, were you impressed with the guy? Oh, you know, I didn't know much about him at all, actually. When they gave me his name, I looked him up, saw an article that he had won the Ultimate Fighter. I watched the first round of his, Alan Dubon, as I said it, Jubon fire or something, the one we fought that guy. Just the first round. And that's all the film I watched, the whole camp. I'm not big on watching film. I like to worry and think about only what I'm going to do

and what I'm going to make him react to. So my team watched all the film on him. You know, let me know what things he likes to do and stuff like that. And then, you know, I kind of curve my style into things that I like to do to, you know, attack his strength. So you have this situation where you're going to Kiri Tiba, and everyone's obviously rooting for their home country guy, and it's a fantastic event for the UFC, the Wands.

They said there was 15,000 people like for you as the outsider coming in trying to derail another hype train. What was the week leading up to the fight like you did? Is it one of those weeks where everything was just going right? Was it tough to adapt to Brazil? What was it like? Yeah, you know, I felt good going into the week. Wait was right on track exactly how I've...

wanted it to be, and I got there with Ben, and we set up our training, what at times we were going to train and everything, and everything was going smooth. You know, I felt great. I had a great camp. There was no reason to go there and not feel good. So we just continued on what we were doing with the weight cut and getting a training test set up to adapt to the time so that I'd be fighting. And everything just kind of fell into place, and I just felt really great going into the fight,

going into the way and I felt great. I wasn't worried about the fans and everything. You know, I figured they'd probably be cheering against me, but that doesn't really get to me. When we're in there, it's just me and him, and that's all I'm focused on. No secret, though. The fight started out a little dicey for you. It looked like he may have caught you with a guillotine right off the bat.

How tight was that? Not close at all. At all. At all. No, you didn't even have it under the chin. You know, we've drilled them a lot in practice and stuff, so I was ready for any situation. But when he went for it, he wasn't even under my chin.

And I was just waiting there, and he yelled the ref. I think he yelled the ref. He's out or something. And that's when I gave the rest a thumbs up by the way. Because I was like, you know, there's no way in hell. I'm going to jump in and try to stop this early. And at that point, I was like, well, should I go for the escape and, you know, get out of this position?

And then he's squeezing pretty tight, even still. So I was like, I don't know, I'll wait, let him gas his arms out a little bit. and then get to work. So it wasn't tight choking me at all. So I just took my time, you know, let him blow his arms out a little bit, and then got back to work. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting

how he was trying to convince the referee that you were out, and then you were like, no, no, no, no, no. That's a tricky move, because sometimes referees fall for that, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I definitely didn't want that to happen, so I want to make sure I was, you know, showing the referee. I was okay every second.

You know, as soon as soon as he opened his mouth, I was ready, you know, get the thumbs up ready to go. You had one of the best corners. I mean, what a corner of you have? You have the likes of John Crouch and Benson Henderson in your corner. Who else was in that corner? It was just John Crouch, Vincent Henderson tonight. That's right.

Yeah, you had to have a Honchonico on there. Why wasn't he there? Flikes, everything were so expensive, man, with the passports and stuff. It was just kind of a mess. It's tough not having them there. But definitely he was texting me. I was talking a while in Brazil and reminding me of things that we've worked on

and things that I need to focus on in the fight. What is John Crouch and Benson-Henderson? What are they telling you in between the first and second? Because obviously you lost the first. What are they telling you to get back on track? Just, you know, getting in his face, first of the pace, that he's getting tired. You know, we have to pretty much impose our will on him

that he's getting tired. We need to make sure, you know, it's Brazil, that we win this fight. a hundred percent like we don't leave it you know ultimately we didn't want to leave it to the judges I didn't want to leave it to judge I always like the finish fights so you know that was what I was trying to do and keep the pressure going and just make sure I secure this win was part of the game plan to try to extend the fight because maybe the one knock could be like oh you know take him into deeper waters he'll gas out you

you know you can go you have a tremendous chin it's not like you know it's it's it's cake to knock you out. You seem to have a great gas tank. Like, did you want to try to test his cardio? And so, okay, it was almost like a moral victory. All right, I was stood the flurry in the first round, if you will. Now I'm going to get more comfortable in the second and third.

You know, I thought really like the game plan. That's just kind of the way it goes. I'm kind of a slow starter. So it takes a little bit to get me going, but the game plan is not to drag him into deep water. If I can finish them early, I'll finish them early. It's the opportunity to

rises. But, you know, it just happened to go that way where, you know, I got started a little slow again. You know, he went for that deep eating, took some time off the clock. I felt like I started getting going a little better towards the end of the first round. And going to the second and third, I knew I was going to be the fresher guy and ready to push the face. What about that chin, though? Have you always had a chin like that, like being able to take that kind of punishment? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've always had a good chin. always getting in the hard scraps in the gym you know just throwing

it used to be actually just how I fought you know back when I started it was just out of a garage with some local fighters we used to spar all the time that's all we did was just trade shots with each other I fought I have your big classes you know traded shots with bigger guys it was never you know never a problem ever issue for me my team's always held up and I'm always confident in it

definitely the goal is the not hit as much, there's more every time I go into the cage and imply more damage to them. So that's something I'm always working on. At any point, though, with those big punches, did he hurt you? Did he seriously hurt you? Did he seriously hurt you? Did he rock you on your feet? No, no, not at all. Not once.

You know, none of them shook me, never them did anything. He really with some stiff punching that, you know, just, you know, push me back a little bit, but none of them, you know, rocked me or faze me. I felt like I hurt him actually a couple times. definitely I saw him like wobble a little bit maybe I start to go back you know like he was in trouble so but he hung tough in there man

he was a tough guy he was really in taking some shots still threw back hard so it was hard to put him I couldn't put him away you know it sucked but I'm happy to still get the W did you know when you went the distance did you think man I don't know you know the home cooking

I don't know if I'm going to get it did you think you got him or were you kind of surprised that they gave you the nod? No, actually, I thought I had it all the way. You know, after the fight read some articles, talking to some people, they're like, man, I was a cold fight and blah, well, I was like, man, was it that close? Like, I thought for sure I had won. Like, I thought maybe the first round, you know, the first round was probably his, but, you know, I was coming back towards the end.

And the second and third, I thought I had for sure. And I was like, what, you know, wow, maybe it was close to than I thought. But when I was in there, it was definitely like, I got this. And then when they were about to announce them, they stay unanimous decision, then it kind of was like, we are in Brazil. I slightly start raising my hand, a little premature, uh, Ryan, ball. Okay, yeah, there we go. Yep, yep, that was right.

Wow. And what would you recall what the atmosphere was like in there? Was it silence? What did you feel? Yeah, you know, I felt there was a little silent, but then, you know, there was cheers. You know, I think people just really enjoyed the, The whole fight, you know, enjoyed watching it. I thought it was exciting, and I think the fans enjoyed it.

It showed me respect, you know, after the fight. We're nice, gave me some cheers, rooting for me, great fight, stuff like that. You know, of course, the occasional guy that was like, oh, see, you're going up, blah, blah. But for the most of the fight, it was pretty awesome, you know, 45,000 people in there, Pax Stadium. Man, it was awesome, especially after getting, you know, going into it. They weren't rooting for me, you know, and then on the way out to hear them rooting for me and giving me respect after the fight was really awesome.

Yeah, the Brazilian crowd has been, you know, known to be hostile, unless you're Matt Brown on Saturday, and thankfully you didn't get punched in the head. It seemed like it was a pretty respectful crowd. Like they were cheering even Miotich a little bit, at least from my perspective at home. And so after the Sage Northcutt fight, you signed a new deal with the UFC, right? Yeah, I signed a new four-fight deal. Do you kind of wish you waited for after this fight? You know, it is what it is.

I'm just excited to keep getting more fights. I just want to keep fighting. Keep getting better, fight better guys, and keep climbing the ladder. Hopefully next I get another tough guy and everything. I felt like I've had tough competition. This whole, my whole journey in the UFC so far, every guy I've had has been tough. And whatever, let's keep that going.

I'll fight more tough guys. Keep lining them up. I'll keep knocking them down. Your coach, John Crouch, who I have a ton of respect for, brought this to my attention after the fight. Joe Ellenberger was 15-1. Chad LaPreeze was 10-0. Sage Northcut was 6-0. Worley-Alves was 11-0 before you fought them.

That's a combined 42-1 record. You have been given no shortcuts in the UFC. It's pretty amazing. Did you know that? I'm sure they told you that, right? Yeah, my coach actually told me, brought it to my attention in this camp or whatever, which is, you know, it doesn't matter to me, you know, just keep putting them in front of me and I'll show you. It's, you know, it's nothing.

The record is something. There's someone's always going to lose. There's always going to be a guy to beat him. It's going to be me. Why not me? Who do you want next? Who's on your mind? I don't know any specific names, but give me a top guy.

Give me a top 10, top 15. Oh, yeah. I'll show you. you know, I'll keep showing you guys. And pretty soon you get, everybody's going to know about Bam Bam and about me winning fights and not putting me as the underdogs. Why is your nickname Bam Bam? I got it from my uncle when I was a young kid.

I had blonde hair. My hair was blonde and you had kind of like the pole haircut like Bam Bam did. And I used to run around and was tough and rugged and always hitting stuff, throwing stuff, just being a rowdy little boy. and he's running around like Bam Bam Bam. He's calling that all the time. When I started changing for M.A. My brother's remembered and, you know, just throwing down

and hit the gym and stuff. You know, they started calling me Bam Bam again, and then it just kind of stuck with me. Which goes perfect, I think, with my style. And, you know, John Crouch actually agrees that the name Bam Bam goes exactly with how I fight. Yes. And he actually gave me the lunchbox.

Do your kids go to school with these lunchbox? lunchboxes? I hope they do. Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. Yeah, they carry around all over the place. There's snacks and everything. That's amazing. They must think they're the coolest. Did you make those, or did John make them for you? He made them for me. He actually surprised me.

You know, I didn't know for the longest time he kept telling me, I got to surprise you. You're going to love it. Well, what is it? Oh, no, no, you got to wait and see. You got waiting for you. I kind of forgot. I have a bad memory. You know, kind of forgot about it one day. They saw boxing outside the cage after practice one day. I was like, oh, what the heck's that?

It looks like some shirts or something. I don't know. And we all line up, you know, to respect out and everything and get some last word in from our coaches and everything. It surprised me with the box and with the lunch box and everything. So it was pretty awesome. It's great. I thought it was a great idea.

One of the best gifts I've ever gotten. Probably the best gift I've ever gotten. You know, it was really cool. Yeah, very thoughtful. and also it it sort of encompasses who you are as a fighter. You're sort of like that blue collar lunch pail type of fighter

and then to play off that with the lunchbox. It's one of my favorite pieces of memorabilia that we have in this little studio over here. I love it. You know who I think makes a lot of sense? This is maybe something that we can work on. Gunner Nelson, what do you think of that fight? Hey, I'm open for anything. Definitely talk with you.

I'm open for any. I'll fight whoever. If Gunner Nelson was a guy, and that's who I got next and I'm willing to take that challenge. I'm looking at your Wikipedia, by the way, and it says that your nickname is Bam Bam. This might be Wikipedia just messing around, but it also says that your other nicknames are

The Prospect Killer and DadBod. That's just someone messing, right? This is unofficial. Is that really on there? It's on your Wikipedia right now. It's got to be wrong. Okay. I mean, I'll own it, whatever.

No, it's on there. I swear, on Wikipedia, it's on there. Yes. I'll have to go check that out. Yes. Hey, I'll own a dad bot. I'm not really a big thing about my body. you know, it's fine.

I was growing up, I was a heavyset kid and everything, so it doesn't really matter me. I don't have this hicks-pack abs or whatever. I'll just stick with the power pack. We saw it the Dad Bod. I'll go with that. And I'll just keep winning five with that. I don't matter. Let me tell you, as a father myself, as a proud wear of the Dad Bod, you give me a lot of hope.

You're an inspiration to fathers, out-of-shaped fathers all over the world. So I appreciate that very much. Oh, well, thanks. What was it like? Do you get to see your kids this morning? Yes, yes. As soon as I got home, they were picking me up in the airport with my wife. And actually my dad was down here watching them while we were in Brazil, so they all came and picked me up at the airport. I'm super happy to see them.

Do they have any... How old are they? My oldest is seven boy, five-year-old boy, and then my little girl's two. So the seven- and five-year-old, do they understand what you accomplish? Do they understand what you do? Oh, yeah, absolutely, especially my seven-year-old. and he's all over me when I'm in camp about things I'm not allowed to eat and that I can't be having that

he always paddle telling on me to my wife if I smack a chip or something so yeah they definitely understand they watch all my fights you know they get it they go to the gym on me every single day so they're around it you know 24-7 they're in it with me and I take them with me everywhere so you know they understand and they get it

and they're involved in it. So I'm happy to do it and that they get to be a part of it with me. Final thing, I know after the Sage Northcut win, you sort of felt like all the talk was on Sage and Sage losing and you didn't get the respect to you deserved. I mean, heck, your manager, Abraham Cowah, who doesn't stop talking about you, certainly let his opinions be known on that front.

Do you feel like this one's different? Like now it's less about, all right, yeah, Worley was a big prospect, but it's like, man, this guy is good. I mean, this guy deserves it. This wasn't a fluke. You know, do you feel like it's a little different this time around than after the Sage fight?

Yeah, I think it's a lot different, you know. Why is the big prospect? You know, he doesn't have all the hype and everything that Sage did, at least in the States. I mean, he does have it, but it's not huge in the States in Brazil and stuff. You know, I talk into some of the Brazilian fighters there and stuff like that. You know, he does have that falling back again. But, yeah, I feel like. You know, I went out there, I put on a good show, I fought a tough, fought a tough, you know, got the win in exciting fashion and stuff with a war.

And I think, you know, I'm getting respect that I deserve. And people are starting to realize, like, you know, this guy is for real. So he deserves to be here and he deserves all the credit. So I definitely feel like this fight has kind of helped me with that. Yeah. What a great performance, man. Congratulations. enjoy it, enjoy your time at home, and you did it again. It's an amazing thing. You're one of the

great stories of 2016 thus far, where you did to Sage in New Jersey and now Worley in Brazil. I'm very much looking forward. I think they should keep this train moving along and have you keep knocking off these guys if you can. I think that's a pretty good sort of gimmick to have if you get what I'm saying. So keep up the great work, continued success to you. And again, congratulations on the win. And I really do appreciate you coming on the show after such a long trip home. It's, it's very much appreciated here. Yeah, well, thanks a lot, for having me on. You know, when there's opportunities knocking at the door, you've got to jump on and take advantage of them.

I was able to do that twice, and being on your show is definitely an opportunity, so I'm glad I got to take advantage of that. You know, everybody can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Brian underscore Barbarina. My Facebook fan page is Brian Barbarina. You know, I appreciate all the support. Thanks for having me on. and I look forward to put it on another great show for everybody in the UFC here. And by the way, keep up the great beard. Don't get rid of that thing, all right?

No, no. This thing is here to stay. You know, the kids love it, my wife loves it, I love it. It gets more recognition than I do. Yes. Walking around, people are like, hey, your beard is awesome. No, no, hey, you're Bam Bam. Oh, hey, man, your beard is awesome, dude.

nice beard. Oh, well, thanks, man. No, but the whole thing works with the fade and all that and the part. It's just, you're doing it right, my man. Keep up the great work and looking forward to your next fight. Thanks again. All right, thanks again, Aaron. I appreciate for having me on.

All right, there he is. Brian Barbarina joining us, great stuff from him. Huge win. One of the highlights of UFC 198. A great card that was great on paper that delivered. It was fun. Some people were asking me again, why were you? you not at that one, nothing to it, much like Joe Rogan. It was my son's birthday and I wanted to be

home, a long trip. And one of the things about going to Brazil is that if I do go to Brazil for an event, I can't do the Monday show. The worst part about going to Brazil is that there are no morning flights. Like, he was just talking about that. His wife had to take one, but it's very close to when the fight card ends. So you've got to wait until Sunday night, you fly overnight, and then you're playing with fire as far as coming in here and doing the show. So, going to Brazil and then missing the Monday show, it just kind of screws up everything. So I have done it and am willing to do it, happy to do it. But this time around with the birthday and then wanting to do the show and keep it on a Monday,

it just made more sense to be home. It was fun to sit home and watch the card. I did sort of miss not being there, especially after what happened with Stipe and his big win. But it was a little different being home for my first UFC pay-per-view since UFC 171. By the way, speaking of Stevie Miochich, great scenes on his Twitter page right now. He has landed home in Cleveland, people flocking to him at the airport. He's signing autographs, rocking the old school Cleveland Cavaliers Jersey. Or excuse me, sweatshirt.

I love the fact that he's so proud of where he's from. And what a crime it would be, what a misstep it would be if his first title defense is not at the queue. It's got to be in Cleveland. He's a huge star there. He's a big draw. He's a freaking firefighter in Cleveland. You got to play that up. Don't do it in Las Vegas.

Don't do it in Florida or some random place. This is one of those times. made 198 so special. That card was catered to Curitiba, catered to Brazil. I'm fortunate, and we do wish Anderson Silva the best after the gallbladder surgery. Kind of crazy that happened after what happened to our own Mark Romandie. But the magic of that card was that they had all these great Brazilian fighters and a lot of local fighters as well. Cyborg and Shogun successful, Anderson is also from Curry-Tiba. Unfortunately, he didn't compete, but you also had Alves and Little Nog and Verdum, of course. It just made a lot of

all the sense in the world. Here you have a guy who's so proud of where he's from, who's associated with that market, with that city. People think of Steve-Bay. They think of Cleveland. He's done a great job of intertwining the two. They got to figure out right now how to make his first title defense in Cleveland. That's the play. You see the Cavalier's Twitter account. You see the Brown's Twitter account. You see the Indians' Twitter account. Players on the Indians tweeting about him. They just love him there. So you got to figure that one out. But it was a great story. You know, I think still a little shocking to see Verdume fight that way. Of course, him being in Brazil and the pressure and doing all that, whatever it is. But Steve Miochich, I disagree with

Roy Nelson's take on the fight. He was backing up, but he landed a big punch while doing so. And he knocked out a guy who had looked fantastic in the UFC thus far. It's going to be interesting to see if he can defend the title more than two straight times. And I hope that he gets right back in there and fights over him. And then maybe fights, you know, Kane or Brown after they fight again. Of course, there's still Mark Hunt out there. The JDS rematch would be great as well. Could this be the beginning of a long run for a UFC heavyweight champion we'll see? Relatively young, as far as heavyweights are concerned, hasn't taken a ton of damage, has had some tough fights. Could Steepa be that guy? Twitter extraordinaire, tweeter extraordinaire.

Steppe Miochich, could he be that guy? We'll see. All right, I think we're done. You're correct, you got anything else? Or have you fallen asleep back there after your long trip home? I missed everybody. That's it. What a performance out of you.

I mean, you really nailed it today. Knocked it out of the park. How dare you? I did my best. You did your best. I hope you feel better, my man. And I do want to mention, final note, kudos to the good people at Beltor. they have started a

Jordan Parsons Memorial Scholarship Fund. They announced this on Saturday afternoon and they will annually send a young wrestler to the J. Robinson intensive wrestling camp which was a favorite of the late Jordan Parsons who passed away on May 4th, three days after being struck while crossing the street,

struck by a car while crossing the street in Delray Beach, Florida. So we posted something about this very nice Coker mentioned Scott Coker mentioned last week on the program that they were going to

help his family that they were going to honor him and you know I wanted to give them a shout out and a tip of the cap for starting that memorial scholarship fund I know his family

and Glenn Robinson really appreciate that as well all right we were out of time thank you very much you can hit my music another show in the books as I drink my water here's the thing

New York Rick wants to bet me on the Cavaliers Raptor series I'm down. I think that the Raptors are going to win in six, maybe seven. If you have an idea, he couldn't give me any good odds. I mean, come on, they're the underdog. You got to give me something.

What am I working with here? What kind of odds? What's at stake? If you have an idea, hit us up using Twitter. Write to us. By the way, let's keep the train moving along on iTunes as well. Let's pump up those subscriptions, the ratings, all that stuff. And we're also on Google Play now.

So that's very exciting as well Still iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, but also Google Play. So if you're using an Android, you can check us out on Google Play. Very exciting. Trying to get the M&B on there too.

So stay tuned for that. Speaking of the MMA beat, we are back on Thursday. Who knows what we'll be talking about on Thursday? Never a dull moment in MMA. For now, we have to say goodbye. Thank you very much to Guillermo Cruz for stopping by. Great stuff from him. in Brazil. Thank you very much to Demetrius Johnson.

Owner of a new contract from the UFC. That's very exciting. Thank you very much to Will Brooks. Good luck to him. Happy trails. Please show up with the belt wherever you go. Thank you very much to Junior Joe Santos. Great stuff from him. Thank you very much to Roy Nelson. Good luck to him. Feel better, JDS.

Thank you very much to Brendan Shaw, Brian Callan, and Joe Rogan. Wow. Finally gracing us with their presence. Beautiful stuff. Thank you very much to Darren Caldwell. Congrats on the New Deal. And of course, Brian Barbarina, congrats on the big win in Brazil. Back next week, same time and place until they say,

Hey, I'm out of here. Support for this show comes from Chase. If you're a fan of women's sports, you're always looking for ways to get closer to the action. And your Chase card can get you exactly that. With a Chase card, you can experience more. That means access to presales, preferred seating, and more savings.

For more information about how to step into a world of more with Chase experiences, visit chase.com slash experiences. Benefits available only to eligible Chase card holders. Deposit in credit card products provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations apply. Defenders in cybersecurity are always there when we need them.

They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor. But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more. DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond. Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information.