MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 340

Episode Date: July 25, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Julianna Peña (00:06:05), Mackenzie Dern (00:30:28), Khabib Nurmagomedov (00:51:15), Chael Sonnen (01:04:46), Daniel Leith (01:30:46), Michelle Waterson (01:50:53), NewYorkRic to take your questions (02:03:22), Michael Page (02:57:23), and Mark Hunt (03:18:42). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian 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?

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Hope you had a lovely weekend. It was a beautiful one here in the New York area. And wow, what an interesting one in the world of mixed martial arts. The best part about it all is right off the top. We don't have to talk about PD violations, drug tests, sales. unions, things of that nature. We need to talk about some actual fights, some athletic competitions, some surprising results,

some interesting fights, some big news. This was a fun weekend in MMA. I needed this weekend. Beginning Friday, Bellator had a topsy-turvy event. How about Darian Caldwell losing in what some odds makers are calling

one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport? How about that? How about McKenzie Dern? Looking pretty darn good in her MMA debut, though. I thought her opponent, Kenya Rosas, was equally impressive in the amount of heart that she showed. Of course, it was a very dominant victory for McKenzie Dern, but still, Rosas was just unbelievable to watch, fending off all those submission attempts. And then the big news, of course, Polly Home losing to Valentina Shevchenko, the pride of, of Kyrgyzstan. Valentina Bolichevchenko defeated Holly Home on Saturday night in Chicago,

Illinois, main event, the 20th UFC on Fox event. In a fight that I thought Holly won the first round, and then Valentina won the next four. Figured out Holly Home on the feet, was able to really dictate where the fight went. On the feet, on the ground, it was a masterful performance by by a fighter who should probably be fighting at 125 pounds, let's be honest. It was clear that there was a major size difference in favor of Holly Home, but that was not a factor. In fact, you can argue that Valentino was actually the stronger fighter physically. A couple times there, it was like, wow, Valentina Shvchenko is a beast and certainly a force to be reckoned with in that division. Now, on Saturday night in my wrap-up video with Luke Thomas, I called

the bantamweight division a mess, and I don't want that to be taken negatively. I actually feel like this is more fun than when there's a dominant champion. In the past, I've said that I like dominant champions, but sometimes it's fun when there's this unpredictability to a division. And let's be honest, this is not, this is not Ronda Rousey dominating the bantamate division circa 2013, 2012, 2014. I think the division has gotten a lot better. I think the top of the division is very dangerous, as seen by the last few months. I wonder how Rhonda does if and when she returns. This is a much, much improved UFC women's bantamweight division. Take nothing away from Holly Home. Take nothing away from Valentina Shevchenko. Shevchenko went the distance with Amanda Nunes, and Nunes now the champion.

So much to discuss as it pertains to that division. Also, Etzen Barbosa continues to look good since moving to New Jersey. Full-time, linking up with the great Mark Henry, he defeats Gilbert Melendez, Francis Engano. It's Engano, not that hard to pronounce, Francis Engano with a big win on Saturday. He continues to be a name to look out for in the heavyweight division. So there is some, there's some fun results to talk about, and of course the fun never stops this weekend. It's the return of Invicta. It's the return of World Series of Fighting. They've got that weird brother versus brother matchup, and it is the return of the UFC with UFC 201. Tyrone Woodley finally gets his crack at the UFC Walterway title against Robbie Lawler.

Of course, we'll talk about all of that and more stack show this week. I'm excited for this lineup. Let's get to it and kick off the show the right way. 415, we'll talk to Mark Hunt. He has been in the news. A very interesting interview Mark Hunt gave to his own website talking about the UFC, quote-unquote, lining their pockets with the fighter's blood calling for a fighters association. Mark Hunt is a fired up Aussie right now.

And he is pissed off. Now, will he be fired up when we call him at 6.15 a.m. his time later on in the show? Well, we'll find out. Usually he's pretty on point, regardless of the day, the time of day. So that's 4.15. 355. We'll talk to Michael Page about, of course, his win over Cyborg Santos. the injury, where he goes from here, the Pokemon stuff, all that.

Around 305, we'll take your questions and comments with New York Rick, who is back from Virginia. He attended the glory event, so perhaps we'll talk about that as well. Chai Louis Perry with a nice win over there. The karate-hadi, Michelle Waterson, will stop by at 245. She faces Ashling Daly in September that was announced last week. Daniel Leith, who is a nutritionist for the likes of Daniel Kormier, Kane Velasquez, Luke Rockhold, Habibnur Magamadav, and many others.

He is the partner of George Lockhart, who you've heard on this show. He is a great guy, very smart guy, a lot to talk to him about as it pertains to health-related issues in MMA. So I'm looking forward to that. Chale Sunning will stop by. Does he have some big news? Something big happened to Chil Sondon last week. We'll talk about that. The aforementioned, Habib Nirmagamatov, will stop by at 1.45.

Where does he fit in that lightweight title picture? And the aforementioned Mackenzie Dern, the BJJ star herself, multiple chime. I said that sort of like a Brazilian multiple time, Jiu-Jitsu winner. She's beat them all. She's won at all. She'll stop by after her successful MMA debut at around 125. But first, I wanted to start this week off with my good pal,

Giuliana Pena, because she is very much in the mix in the 135-pound division. And I noted on Saturday that I had a feeling she was watching that main event very closely. We'll find out if that was indeed true. So let us go to the phone lines and welcome in. the Venezuelan vixen herself, Juliana Pena. Juliana, are you there? Yes, I am. Good to hear from you.

How are you? I'm fantastic. How are you doing, Ariel? I'm doing great. It's great to have you on the show, as always. So was I right? Were you watching the main event on Saturday night? Oh, I sure was.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world. What did you think? Did you think that Valentina Shevchenko deserved to win that fight? Let's get that out of the way. Yeah, I think she deserved to win this fight. Were you surprised that she won? no I wasn't I've been saying for for a while now that a harmless Holly couldn't hurt a fly especially in a five-round fight

harmless Holly I have not heard that one before is that your own yeah it's a little nickname do you think Holly home was overrated a little bit you know I think that she kind of got thrown into the mix and got into the top 10 after you know beating up you know some people that have not you know been around as long So I think that she got really lucky with the choices of opponents that she's had. So given the fact that Holly is this big name because she beat Ronda Rousey, she loses, and Chavchenko has a loss recently to the new champion Amanda Nunes. Was that result great for Giuliana Pena? I think it was good. I mean, to me, it's just left me thinking, well, who else do they have?

You know what I mean? I'm the only one in the top five that's coming off of a win. Wow. I mean, the choice is very clear for me. What do you make of the division right now? All these champions losing, you mentioned only one in the top five coming off a win, of course, other than the champion herself. Some have theories as to why this is happening.

What's your take on why all these big names are losing in that particular division? I have no idea, you know. I just know that the division has been changing a lot more now that Ron does not the champion, and this is what I knew was going to happen after that. How did you know? Why did you know? Just because I feel like Ronda's kind of a one-trick pony who's kind of been, you know, just being able to rack up all these wins and being so dominant,

I knew the second that she would lose that it would be more of a more of an open division for the rest of us. And once she was exposed, you know, that it would be a lot harder for her to, to even first off get back in there, and then second off, you know, get back in there and win her belt back, no less. So I think it's good for the other girls to finally, you know, show the world that there's other 135-pound women out there other than Ronda Ossie. Do you agree with the statement I made earlier that it's unfair to compare the current women's bantamate division to the one of two years ago when Rhonda was winning in a matter of seconds that the division in the last couple of years has improved rapidly and, I mean, it has made major leaps and bounds. Would you agree with that? I agree that the division has completely changed more now than it was, you know,

two years ago. And I definitely think that that is important so that, like I said, everyone can see that there's a lot more different competition out there than one girl. So I saw that you were tweeting on Saturday, retweeting a lot of people saying that you deserve the title shot. Not just saying this because you're on the line. I agree. I think you deserve the title shot. And this is not my way of extending an olive branch to you as well.

I speak the truth. Have you been told by the UFC that because Holly Home lost, you will be getting the next shot at the title? No, I haven't. I haven't been told anything by the UFC. I'm just waiting over here and waiting to hear what they have to say. You told me before 200 that you were going to bench yourself if you don't get a title shot after beating Katzengano.

Do you still feel that way? I'm not going to stonewall anyone, you know what I mean, I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, I'm not fighting. So I'm just going to, you know, know that I have, you know, the facts are on the table, and I'm just going to hang out and wait for them to come at me with an offer, basically. Are you confident that you're going to get the shot next? No, you know, I don't have anything in paper. in writing. So the second I sign my name on the dotted line, then I'll know that it's a real thing. And then I'll get excited and be confident. It has been said many times by the UFC brass that whenever Rhonda decides to come back, if she comes back, she's getting an immediate

title shot. Do you think that makes sense? Do you think that is fair to the rest of you? No, I don't think it's fair. Absolutely not. But I know that Rhonda is a big part of the reason as to why we have a division in the first place. So, you know, you got to pay respect where respect is due, and I definitely respect her for the fact that she was blazing trails in order to get us into the UFC in the first place. So she's a big name. She sells a lot.

That's the money fight, and they definitely want to see her with her belt back. So if she decides to come back, I'm sure that they're going to give it to her. If you can play Rhonda for a second, you see what's happening here to Misha and Holly. does this, in your opinion, make her want to come back sooner, or does this make her rethink even coming back?

Like, wow, as you said, the division is a lot tougher than when I was the queen. I think that she's going to definitely rethink things, you know. It's not the same, and especially when you are gone so long and not competing, you know, there are so many things that play into your head, and especially if you're not injured, you know, then you're just kind of sitting there every day. Like, do I go back? Do I get myself back in camp?

You know, do I hang out and keep making? in movies, you know, what do I do? And so I think that she's got a lot of decisions that she needs to make. And I think she kind of enjoys the fact that the rest of us are waiting on her figuring out, hopefully is she coming back today or what about next week or is she been training this week, you know? And so everyone's just kind of sitting here waiting on what she wants to do. And it's kind of annoying, but I don't know what am I going to do, you know? Right, right, right. I mean, you know her sort of well because you were on the show with her and, you know, you've been around this game a long time.

Do you think that she comes back ever? No, I don't know her well enough at all, but I definitely think that she's coming back eventually, yeah. Did you notice on Twitter after the fight, Amanda Nunes said that she thought you and Chifchenko should fight it out for the number one contender spot? Yeah, I thought that was really funny. Can you expand on that?

Yeah, what was her the tweet exactly again, that she thought that the exact wording that I haven't that I that I haven't proved myself enough yes I haven't proved myself I don't know how many more times I can prove myself

you know when I was on the ultimate fighter it was just Ronda and Nisha you know in the division winning back then while I was winning on the ultimate fighter you know when when Rhonda got out or when the ultimate fighter got out Rhonda was still winning and then I got injured and then when I came back I was still winning you know so I've been winning this whole entire

time I've been winning since stepping foot in the USC octagon I've been consistently winning since stepping on that show you know so I don't know how much more I can prove myself I think that that's pretty funny it just sounds like you know she's she's ducking you know the both of us because she she just had gotten in a fight with Valentino she knows what she's working with and she knows that you know I'm just getting warmed up in the third so a five round fight with me is going to be atrocious. And she knows that I'm going to stand right there in the pocket with her and throw blows, you know. So I definitely don't think that she welcomes that.

And she's kind of biding her time as much as she can. So I'm looking. That's all it sounds like to me. I'm looking at her Twitter now. She says, I won the first fight with Valentina Shepchenko by unanimous decision. If I fight her again, I'll beat her again, this time very clean. Then in her next tweet, she says, I feel she needs to prove herself a little more. I think you versus Valentina, a winner comes to me.

so perhaps she was actually saying that Valentina needs to prove herself a little more. Upon further reflection. I don't know what the heck she's saying. She needs to prove herself a little more. You're the champion. You should be expecting any and all oncomers at any given point in time, you know. I will agree that I don't like when a new champion starts playing matchmaker and saying these two people should fight, you know, and the winner fights me, I always find that that's a weird look. She was on this show last week, and I did specifically ask her about your win over.

Katzengano. Of course, she fought Katzenegano not that long ago, and she specifically said that she was not impressed with your performance. Do you have a reaction to that? I don't know if you heard that and have thought about it. Yeah, yeah. I'm not impressed by her performance when she fought Kazanagano either. Why is that? I mean, because she got beat. She got stopped. She got knocked out, you know, So, like, Kat is a world-class athlete, and I was able to do what she was not able to do against Kaz Ingano. So what does that say? Are you surprised that it's taking you this line?

I know you had the injury, but I feel like coming off the ultimate fighter, given your fan base, it really feels like you have now been one of those fighters that really has to, like, work to get that title shot. For some fighters, it comes easier for whatever reason. But to me, this almost feels like a no-brainer. And again, I'm not saying I would have said this if you were not on the show, especially after what happened on Saturday, this is the no-brainer of all no-brainers, and yet I feel like you do have to go out there and campaign a little bit. Do you feel the same way, and is that annoying as well?

It is annoying. It's annoying and it's embarrassing. I feel like I shouldn't have to do this song and dance and shout off onto the rooftops, like a wild screaming banshee being like, give me my tight shot. You know, it was like Holly beat the oldest lady in the division, Mary and Renew. She beat like two old ladies, and then she went to a draw, which was like a coin flip on who won the fight, Pennington or Holly, and she gets a title shot, you know what I mean,

coming out of thin air, you know? Like, Betch Kohaya beats Shana Bazler, who didn't get past me on the ultimate fighter, and she gets a title shot just by, you know, waving her hand, you know? Like, these girls are, you know, Misha got her second title shot after being one to know against Ronda. After she beat Jessica I, she got another title shot to campaign against Holly. It's like, I beat Jessica I, nothing happened.

You know, I beat Shana Baylor, nothing happens. happens. Shana Beezer was in the top 10 back then. You know, I keep beating these people that other people would beat and they get title shots and I don't get title shots. So it is annoying, you know, but I know that in anything in life, you got to work hard and you've got to work for stuff. And if I want this, then I just have to keep working, you know, and that's what I plan on doing. And I think that that's the main focus is, you know, you want something bad enough and you're not going to stop and you're going to do anything in your power, whatever it takes to make that happen. and I'm going to do that. We had a chance to catch up after 200, and I appreciate that,

but I forgot to ask you about your walkout song, which I thought was maybe the best of the entire night. It was crazy on you. And dare I say, really represents your personality very well, and I thought that was brilliant. Where did that come from? It actually came from my favorite person, Dana White. Oh.

Yeah, he picks my, I walk out songs because I'm pretty, I'm a little superstitious sometimes when it comes to some fighting, fighting things, you know, fight weak, stuff like that. And I always have to walk out to a random song. So I leave it up to Dana and then he chooses the song that he wants me to walk out to. But the last like three songs have always had like the word crazy in it because he calls me his little crazy train because he thinks of them nuts. So he, he, put like crazy train by Ozzy. I was born last time and then this one crazy

on you by heart. So I think he just tries to find as many songs as he can that has the word crazy in it and then I'll just walk out to that. So I never know what I'm walking out to to the second I'm walking out to the kids. You're kidding. You don't want to know? No, I swear. Wow.

No, I don't want to know. I don't want to know. It's too much. It gives me anxiety just having to like think of my favorite song that represents me the best, you know. It's like the song doesn't matter. Just play the song and let's go. There's not something motivational about the song that you've used in training, that you want to get pumped up. Like, what if this song is completely off and just throws you off seconds before you're about to walk in the cage? You don't worry about that?

No, because that's why I leave it up to random, so I don't have to worry about what it's going to play. What motivates me is knowing that I haven't heard this song, I have absolutely no idea what's going to play. And then they just start playing my song, and I'm like, all right, this is my song, you know. So I'm pretty familiar with a lot of music, too, so it's not like I have been unfamiliar with, you know, the sound of the music the second I start walking. The second I start walking, I'm like, okay, this song's badass. Let's do this. Oh, that's amazing. So how do you feel about him choosing songs that have the word crazy in it? Are you okay with that?

Well, I'm the one that called myself crazy to him in the first place. When I first met him, you know, I was like, hello, I'm Juliana, you know, and then, after a while on the Ultimate Fighter, when I started to, you know, start having panic attacks because you're locked in there like a caged animal. I'm like, I'm going crazy. Like I'm freaking,

I'm a crazy train right now, Dana. Like, you gotta get me out of here. Like, I'm going nuts. You know, and he's like, calm down. There's nothing more important right now. Back in Spokane, don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. Like, let everybody do their thing.

You just focus on the fight. And I was like, okay. So he's called me his crazy train ever since. And so that's just kind of. of my nickname from him, I guess. So are we keeping this going? Like even if you fight for the belt become champion, you're going to keep changing your song every time?

Well, I don't know because, like, so I let him pick all my songs, right? And then this last time he replayed a song that he already played for me. But I think it's because he really thinks that it, like, fits me well. So I don't know if he's going to keep it like that. I hope he changes it because I'm kind of superstitious like that, but I got to let go of these superstitions. You know what I mean? It absolutely matters zero if I pick a song or if I don't pick the song.

You know, I just think it's something fun to give him something to do, you know, and give him some control over the show. So if he likes to do it, then I'll let him keep doing it. And if not, then maybe I'll just start picking my own thoughts. Did you enjoy that experience being a part of that big weekend? It was an insane one with all the news and drama and stuff. But for you personally, looking back at 200, being a part of that, the last fight before the pay-per-view over a million and changed.

watched. Did you enjoy the experience? Yeah, I did. You know, I know that people like to see me fight, and it's really exciting to know that I broke the numbers on Fox Sports 1, and over 2 million people were watching that, you know, and to be fighting on free TV where most people could watch me as opposed to paying, you know, the pay-per-view money is exciting. I don't think that a fighter gets as good of an opportunity like that, you know, especially on the biggest card.

And so for me, it was a dream come true. And I just really enjoyed the role that I played, which was very nice and easy and not, you know, some crazy, you know, hit mitts and show everybody what you're working with for a half hour, you know, where they could take pictures and stuff. Like, I didn't have to do any of that. So I was like this is awesome. It was a nice, smooth, smooth week for me. And do you feel like that win over such a big name sort of signifies that, all right, Julianne Payne is officially back, the injuries over, you're fighting? you know, at 100% full strength, you are, like, I kind of felt like that was symbolic in a way that you needed that big win to really tell the world that you are back, the injury's over,

it's now in the rearview mirror. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, you know, everyone always got me pinpointed as some underdog the whole time. You know, I've been an underdog for every single fight that I've had. And, you know, they underestimated me on the show. They underestimate me in my career. They underestimate me, you know, know, even being a champion in fighting for the belt. But, you know, if that's what makes them happy, that's fine more power to them. But I'm going to do what I know that I can do and what I'm capable of. And that is, you know, I want to be recognized as one of the best female fighters in the world.

And I want that to go down in history. You know, I want to be recognized as one of the best. And the only way that you're going to be the best is to get that belt and to be the champion. And I've just been so ready to show people for many years, even when I got on the ultimate fighter, that I am the force to be reckoned with that I've been saying all along. And, you know, I'm going to kick, scream punch, you know. Shout off onto the rooftops, if that's what I have to do. But I need people to understand that, you know, I'm very serious when it comes to mixed martial arts.

I'm very serious about being the champion. And I'm very serious about my career and the fights that I take and just fighting in general. This is my passion. This is what I love to do. And I just want that to be, you know, displayed for everybody, you know. I want them to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed, and I want them to, you know, give me the respect that I deserve, you know, the amount of respect that I would give to anybody else

who has put in as much work as I have at this point. Are you wearing sunglasses right now? I'm about to. All right, because that last answer was very sunglass, Juliana, like, I'm not taking no crap from nobody. All y'all are pissing me off. Enough of this crap, I'm going to get my butt. Like, it was very business-like.

No, it's very annoying. and I have to be like, listen to me, give me a title shot, I swear. You know, it's like, no, this should have been done a long time ago. What did I need to do? Did I need to, like, come off of three losses and then you guys give me the title shot? Like, what's the one on here? Like my grandfather says, what's the big idea? True or false?

Juliana's next fight will be for the UFC title. What do you believe? True. True. Will it be in 2016? I don't know. I don't know. I guess we got to figure out what

that's not true or false. She wants to do in her whole, you know, not being impressed and stuff like that. And I haven't proven myself. So maybe she'll want me to prove myself in 2016 or maybe she wants to, you know, keep her belt warm for a little bit longer for 2015. I have no idea, but whatever she wants to do, I guess.

I'm ready. I'm ready. Whatever they want to do, let's go. You know what I mean? Let's do this. Yes, I love it. But if they say, like, yeah, we want you to fight this person before the belt, you're saying no. I don't know what I'm going to say.

I don't imagine hearing anything other than you're going to be fighting for the title. Are you preparing yourself for Ronda's return and potentially being disappointed? Yeah, I mean, I was already disappointed before because they just didn't say it right away that I was getting the title. So I've already cried over this a couple times. Legit. And I've dealt with some other bigger issues in not getting what I want. You know, so it'll just be like, oh, of course, of course you don't get the title shot. But that's negative.

And I don't want to think negatively. I want to think positively. And so if they don't give it to me, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But in the meantime, I'm just staying hopeful that, you know, this is the clear-cut choice. This is the clear-cut answer. And it's the fight that makes sense. and it's a fight that people want to see. What did you cry about in the past recently?

Oh, you know, there's just been other things, just dealing with daily life, you know, problems that people have to deal with that, you know, people get told no and on certain things all the time. So it's just one of those, it's just another one of those things, and you're either going to let it stop you and your life is over, or you're going to keep pushing through and keep working through it.

And so, like I said, I'm staying positive in the fact that I think that they know that I want a title shot and they know that that's the choice that makes sense. If I don't get what I want, then like I said, I'm just going to have to keep moving forward. But I'm just going to stay positive and believe that, you know, my company wants to see me fight for the belt and they want to see me beat the champion. Two last quick things. Is everything good back at the gym in Spokane? You're feeling good there? You feel like you're firing on all cylinders, all that stuff?

Yeah, yeah, it's good to be back home in the 509, and it's awesome being here. I love my community. I love my gym. And, you know, I've been traveling back and forth between L.A. and Chicago and Spokane for these last camps. And so I'll probably, you know, still do that since I'm going to be in L.A. a lot and going to be over in Chicago. So, you know, I think it's important to switch it up sometimes and to just, you know, do some things that are out of the norm. and I'm going to continue to do that. Are we cool again?

Yeah, I think so. You said that you were extending the olive branch, but I thought I already gave you this olive branch after the press conference at 200. Well, that was off camera, so publicly I just wanted to assure everyone that we were cool. We're totally cool. We're cool like the other side of the pillow.

Oh, yes. Rest in peace, Stuart Scott. He's the one who came up with that line on Sports Center. I thought on a cartoon a long time ago. I was a kid that's been... You know what? He may have stolen it from the cartoon,

but I think he popularized it. I'm happy to hear that it really shook up my world when I thought that we were in a TIF, but now I think everything's back to normal, so that makes me feel a lot better. No, like I said, you were talking about like the week of 200.

I think that seriously, it is so stressful, and there's so much anxiety building up for the week of the fight. that like the time that I get to have the most fun is messing with the reporters and, um, you know, given the interviews and yes,

you're great at them. First off, I'm not wearing sunglasses just to wear sunglasses on this last time. Um, I had like the worst black eye in my entire life that I've ever gotten in my entire career the week before the fight and my eye was just bloodshot right. And so, and not only that,

but the lights are so bright in there with all those, light, dude, it is super bright. And so all those cameras in your face is, like, I had to hide my black eye. It was sensitive to the light. Like, I'm not wearing the sunglasses to be Mr. Cool. I'm just trying to, you know, hide some black eyes and stuff. Well, I think your miss is cool, for the record, but it's good to know. I think you should just keep going with the sunglasses thing for, you know. I do too. I feel like it's our thing kind of a little bit. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Well, this has been fun. Thank you, Julian. I hope you get that title shot. Great job laying out all the facts. Good luck in getting it.

I hope they make the right call. And I appreciate you coming on and voicing your opinion after a big weekend in your division this Saturday. 7-0, Ariel, I'm 7-0. Preach, sister. Talk to you soon. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.

I'll talk to you later. Thank you so much. All right, there she is. Juliana Pena, making her case for the women's bantamway title shot in the UFC. Now, we continue this women's MMA theme. They are the talk of the town on Friday, Legacy, Lake Charles, Louisiana, BJJ star, arguably the greatest BJJ star living right now as far as women's BJJ is concerned is McKenzie Dern and she made her long-awaited, much-anticipated,

mixed martial arts debut on Friday and it was successful. Perhaps didn't go as she planned, but got a lot of cage time in there and looked very good, very dominant in doing so. This is big news in the world of MMA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. A lot of people have been waiting for this for a long time, and she's joining us, I believe, via the magic of Skype, phone. She's on the phone. Mackenzie Dern joining us right now.

Mackenzie, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. I understand that you are in Barcelona, as they say over there, right? Yes, Barcelona. It's actually Barcelona. You have to say Barcelona.

Oh, yeah, with like a list, right, Barcelona. Yes. I appreciate you coming on very much. Congratulations on the win, and I know this is somewhat of a vacation for you, so thank you for taking out some time for us. So now you finally got that MMA debut under your belt, so to speak, under your black belt.

Did it go as you thought it would? Did you think that you would need 15 minutes to defeat her? Yeah, I mean, like, I'm so happy to be able to finally do the fight. I know for sure it was something that everyone was waiting for. Like, everyone was asking me almost like three, years, hey, when are you going to do MMA, when are you going to do MMA? And then when I did decide to do MMA, it was, okay, when is your fight? When is your fight? And now it's like official, you know, I have an MMA fight underneath my belt, so my Jigtu belt. So I'm really excited about that. I definitely,

I mean, I'm always confident in my Jiu-Tzu and I, especially since like she was, was her pro debut, Kenya Rosa's pro debut and was my first fight. So like I was definitely confident in my jiu-tzu and my competition experience that hopefully I was going to be able to get a submission, you know, but, man, she was so flexible and very tough, you know. So, I mean, I wasn't upset about it. I felt like I felt really good in the whole fight. It was good to see the cardio difference between MMA, you know,

to be able to go to all three rounds and, like, being attacking all three rounds, and not feel tired and see that, you know, everything's going good, preparation is going good, it was just good. And also, too, you know, Jitia, too, we don't really hurt people, you know? Yeah. It's just a choke arm bar. So it was kind of good for me to be able to see, like, kind of get, okay, I can throw elbows. I can throw this, you know?

Like, you kind of have to have that, that side to you, you know? So it was good for me to be able to feel that and learn that. I liked it. So here's a big question. Did you enjoy the process? Do you want to keep doing this? Oh, yeah, for sure. I can't wait for the next one.

I'm already talking to my manager. Like, when are we going to get the next fight? I think that there's some things, like I can train, train, but just like my Jidji-Si, you know, like I have 20 years experience with J-Jitzi, you know, something that just time, you can build that, you know, so I'm really into, like, trying to get the experience as much as possible, so I'm already ready to, like, start the next, and I don't want to take too much time off. The weight cut was so hard for me, so I prefer to not give myself too much time to gain too much weight. You know, I prefer to stay lower our weight and not suffer so much.

What's going through your mind considering how good you are in Jiu-Jitsu when you're fighting someone who doesn't have the same kind of skill on the mat as you do and you're locking in these arm bars? Everything possible on the ground. It was a lot of fun to watch you work on the mat and yet she's not tapping and she's showing unbelievable flexibility. Is that messing with you? Like are you talking to yourself but what do I have to do to actually finish this girl? No, I mean, after the first arm bar, I pretty much figured that like she was.

flexible and I mean I don't know if she is like double joint and anything but I mean it's like common so we see like in DJit too sometimes like I've trained with girls who are like really flexible you know and then my mind was just kind of like okay what I need what do I need to do to not get tired if I don't finish her you know so I was just trying to control and I didn't want to spend too much energy like trying to submit something if you know like I think even if I had like a choke I honestly think that she wouldn't type you know I think she'd prefer to go to sleep you know she just had like a very um like i could feel like fighting her she had like really good spirit you know like like warrior spirit you know not give up so i was like man i think that with her

it's better i just gain some experience here you know i i some positions like i almost went to a knee bar and toe hold and i was like uh let me work a little bit you know like this is my first fight so let me work a little bit my punching and and try to get used to that you know so um i didn't get uh frustrated or anything like i totally i think would be maybe more frustrating if I felt her like defending a lot of the positions you know but a lot of times I could

like I could feel like I was getting in the positions of submissions but you know she was just tough and hanging on and stuff like that so I didn't get frustrated and I thought it was a good experience it was good for me to like be calm during the fight so I enjoyed it you mentioned that people have been asking you

for several years when are you going to transition to MMA or if you're going to transition to MMA do you recall the moment when you decided all right enough of this, I'm going to go for it, I'm not going to be afraid, I'm going to make this transition, put myself in uncomfortable territory. Do you recall when you made that decision and why? Yeah, I remember it was December. And like I had told myself, okay, I'm going to do it, but my first goal is to win the world championships as Blackfeld. And so I did that. And then I said,

like, okay, now I'm going to do it, but then I still wanted to win the world again. So then I won the world this year again, but December of 2015, so last December, was when, like, I told my coach, John Crouch, and said, like, hey, coach, you know, like, okay, I'm ready to do this. I won my world title that I want to win. Like, I kind of accomplished, I had a great year in Jiu-Zitza, you know, so I accomplished a lot of things that I want to accomplish, so I need, like, new challenges, you know, I'm ready to, like, do this.

So we decided to make my first fight after the World Championships, just because I felt like my jiu-jitsu would be the best technique. I have a huge jih Tzu-Camp for the world, so I figured my jih Tick-Ticcuitary technique would be at the best timing, the best, like very tight and sharp after my world championships. So we tried to look for a fight to be really close to then. So that's how I was lucky to get my fight now for July 22nd. And yeah, I remember that I made one post with Lauren.

Murphy and Jocelyn Jones who are both in the UFC and it just blew up you know I think we have like lots of famous girls in Jiu Jitza Kira Gracie, Michelle Nicolini, Gabby Garcia who like transitioned to me but you know no one really was sure if they will if they won't you know so I think it was really exciting people who enjoyed the fact that it's official now you know like I'm going to take this serious and and hopefully get a UFC title one day. Yeah you mentioned John Crouch, head coach at the lab in Arizona, one of the very best coaches in the world. You live in Arizona, so it makes a lot of sense to team up with that team. But your father, the great Megaton Diaz, has been your coach since, I mean, obviously since you

were just a little Nina, since you were like three years older. So is it true, though, that you said you didn't want him in your corner because he would get too nervous and maybe put that nervousness on you? Is that true? Yeah, I mean, I think even just for him. too. Of course one day, like I would love to have him there in my corner, but

to watch me fight and everything, but you know, you kind of, I feel like you kind of need in your corners almost like that people that love you, but don't love you so much that they get so nervous when you're fighting, you know, that they freeze or maybe you know what I mean, I don't want him to feel

like get emotional if I'm, if I'm losing you know, or getting, you know, I'm his little girl, you know, so I didn't know what to expect from the fight. I don't know if I was going to get knocked out or to get bloody and cut in my face. And I don't think it's too good for my dad to see that yet. So because the fight was like on Access TV, I thought it would be better for him to watch it from home. Him, my mom, my whole family, you know, maybe one day after he get used to it.

I even talked to him. I called him after the fight. Yeah. And we talked about it. He gave me like his opinions, what he thought. What did he say? He thought I did really good. You know, he loved like all my jihutsu.

He was so proud of me, but he said that I asked him like, so did you get nervous? Like you trust in my decision to be in MMA and everything. He said, yeah, you know, but he liked that he thought on TV, you know, he said he felt a little bit better, you know, watching me on TV and not live, getting me punched and stuff like that, seeing me punched. I don't know if calling it a rivalry is the right kind of word, but you've had this sort of history with Gabby Garcia. And I have to say watching you compete against her in.

Jiu-Jitsu is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, just given the size difference. And when you defeated her, I mean, it's just, it's really, it's an inspiring thing to watch. And I have no idea how you do it. Is it true that you asked your team afterwards if your debut was better than hers? Yeah, I mean, we do have like a big, a big rivalry, me and her. We don't get along definitely anymore. Why would happen? I don't know.

I mean, we used to be pretty, like, good. Of course, I mean, like, she's beating me tons of times, you know. Like, I was one who won the last fight between us, but in comparison, I mean, she's beating me. I didn't win, you know, just at the first time. This has been, like, a long time, like a year of her beating me and me learning from each experience and getting better and trying to learn from the mistakes. And I don't know, the last time that we fought, we just kind of had a, I think she didn't take it while, you know. And I understand, you know, like she was undefeated, you know, so sometimes it's hard from other people to putting, you know, like talking about it. It can be a lot, you know.

So we just kind of had a falling out, and we definitely didn't end on good terms with that, you know. But even for her, her MNA debut, you know, of course I was like chink for her because she is like a representation of jih Tijuana. You know, she represents jih Tijitsu, and I'm always chink for Jiu-Ti-Ti-T guy, of course. But, you know, I think just, yeah, that was one big thing, you know, between my team, you know, kind of like, oh, I hope, I mean, I wish I could have seen her do a little bit more Jiu-Jitsu on her first debut, you know? Yeah. But, you know, I mean, I wasn't able to submit my first fight, too, you know what I mean? So the first thing I asked my coaches was like, oh, you know, how was it compared to her, you know? So I was definitely one of the first things I asked.

Will you continue doing Jiu-Jitsu now that you've embarked on this MMA career? Yeah, for sure. I'll still do like some Jiu-Jitsu tournaments. Anytime that I don't have a fight and I have like the right conditions. I'm never stopping to train Jiu-Jitsu. I'll keep training Jiu-Jitsu forever to help my MNA. You know, I can't go 100% just doing boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai and everything and let my J-Jitsu get sloppy, you know.

So I'll always be training my J-Jitsu. And as long as I'm my... conditioning is there and I don't have a fight, you know, within the next three weeks, man, if I can, I'll compete Jiu-Zitsu for sure. Like, I'm so competitive, you know. Like, right now I'm number one in the world in Jiu-Jitsu, and I don't want to leave number one too soon, you know. Yeah.

Being number one is too soon. Let's try to do two, three years, four years. You know, you've been doing, you've been competing for around 20 years or so. You're 23 now. Would you say competing against Gabby Garcia is the toughest thing you've ever done athletically? Yeah, I mean, it's for sure the most challenging, you know, just because there's no one in the academy that's even close to her size.

Yeah. So there's no way to prepare yourself to fight her, you know, and the only way you prepare yourself to fight her, at least for me, is to fight the absolute division. And to fight the absolute division, I need to, like, fight a whole bunch of other girls, too, you know, who are also bigger than me, you know. So sometimes I didn't, like, I would lose before I made it. to the finals with her or maybe she'd be in the semifinals, but maybe, you know, I would lose before I get to her. So it was just so hard to be able to fight her, to reach her. And then when I did

fight her, like that was my only training was to see how I did in the fight, you know. So then I had to see, okay, what worked, what didn't work? It was so challenging for sure. But, I mean, I think the biggest thing is everyone always asked me like, oh, man, she has like guy strength, you know, but she's not crazy strong, you know. She's still like, she has woman strength. Nothing to like my dad holding my hand on. My dad is so much stronger than her. Like nothing that I go through in the training is, she's not worth than anything that I go through during the training, you know, but she's heavy for sure. She's so heavy and so big, so I feel like I'm doing leg press for like 20 minutes straight, man. You told my colleague Guillermo Cruz before this fight that 2017 you envision yourself

in the UFC making a run of the title. After your debut, do you still feel like that's attainable? Like that's the goal? Yeah, for sure. Wow. Yeah. We're halfway done 2016. Yeah, I mean, I'm a fast worker, and I learn fast. I think that as long as I keep evolving, you know, that I mean, that's the plan.

That's what I want to do. I'm not going to give up on what I have plans. So I think I'm doing good, you know, it's just to get used to it and to keep being confident and trust. there's so much stuff that my coaches and everything they teach me, they taught me, and in the training, I'm even doing that good. But I think from my first fight to be able to have that come out, it went like straight right away to Djitia, you know, like your instincts came out first, you know? So I'm excited to start testing more like my stand-up and stuff, but of course I'm never going to take away my J-Jitsu. I always go to J-J-J-J-Zu.

Sure. But, yeah, I'm still confident with that goal. I think that maybe by then of 2017, I can try for a title. We'll see. Who knows? I never know. But that's the goal. Are you comfortable with getting punched in the face?

Because that takes some time to get used to, right? Yeah, that takes time to get used to it, you know. It actually doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would hurt. You know, it's more like the anticipation, you know? You don't want to close your eyes when you see a punch coming and stuff. But, I mean, from this first fight, I mean, I even got, like, punched me. being mounted, like I was mounting Kenya, and she was kind of throwing punches at me from the mountain, you know, but there's just so much adrenaline that, man, I didn't feel anything. And I think after I felt like a little bit sore on my head and my jaws, things that I'm not used to with Jiu-Jitzi, you know, but it's okay. I'm getting used to it. Nothing compared to what Lauren Murphy does with me.

Sure. They punch so hard. You had the great privilege of having a former champion in Benson Henderson in your corner. Did he tell you anything before the fight about the nerves? you know, the debut, just what to expect, how to get comfortable in the cage, this was all very new to you. Did he share some wisdom with you? Yeah, I mean, I'm really good friends with Ben, and I'm so lucky because, you know, he's a black belt in Jiu-Tzu and, you know, he competes in Jiu-Too, too. So, you know, he can relate so much to me, and he just kept telling me, like, how it's so like J-J-Jitsu, you know, like how this is like my moment.

and that, you know, I'm born to do this, you know, that I'm used to doing this. Nothing is different than what I do in Jiu-Jitsu, you know. And it was crazy because it really is. I felt like I was walking out to a Jiu-Ti-T match. I didn't feel like anything different, you know. I didn't really hear any of the crowds, you know, I didn't hear anything. I felt like I was going to compete. I was so relaxed.

And I think that's why I liked it so much because it was like a very similar feeling to competing in J-J-J-Jitsu, but in J-Jitsu kind of, I was getting kind of like used to the feeling the adrenaline, you know, wasn't that much adrenaline rush, you know. So I still had adrenaline. It was still like a challenge to, like, have to think about kicks and punches, but it still gave me that happiness and joy to be that competition feeling that I like. So he helped me so much. And, you know, he always puts, like, motivation speeches on during training, you know.

So he put that on for me in the back before my fight. I asked him to, and he was putting it on for me and helping me get in the zone. So I'm so happy that he was there. I have to ask, there's been some talk about your accent, that it's changed. What is going on with the accent? Now it kind of sounds pretty standard to me, but it gets a little more Brazilian, I would say, than a little more American. What's happening?

Is it just based on who you're hanging out with? What's going on? You know, I think that it all depends. Like, for example, when I get really tired, like thinking, okay, so if I fight, I have one interview that I see a lot was right after. I fought Gabby Garcia, you know? And right after that fight, I just got off the mat. And literally, like, the person doing the interview was Brazilian.

I speak two languages, so I'm not 100% American. I was born in America, but my dad is Brazilian. My ex-fiance is Brazilian. You know, I dated him for five years. I lived in Brazil. So, I mean, I think people get confused, and they think I'm just like this American girl, like, born and raised, you know, just, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. He doesn't speak any other language, you know? And so then I got out of the fight, and my mind is thinking in Portuguese, and the guy's asking me the questions in Portuguese, and he asked me to respond in English, you know? So, honestly, I think just kind of depends how my mind is thinking. I don't even hear the accent, you know, especially when I see, like, interviews where my dad's talking, you know, my dad has such a strong accent, you know, so. I don't even hear it, but yeah, I mean, I think it's more how I'm thinking or how, who I'm talking to maybe if I'm speaking Portuguese and then someone just switches on me, you know, you're still thinking in Portuguese in English.

So I think that's what's going on, you know, but I don't know. I noticed that people have been talking about that lately. So I feel like kind of like honored that they notice so much about how I talk. Oh, yeah. They notice a lot about you. They are very perceptive when it comes to you. Final thing, when in a perfect world would you like to fight again? If you had your way, what month, you know, what time frame would you like to get your second MMA fight?

I already asked Danny if he could try to find a fight for me in October. So that's what I'm looking for. The great Danny Rubinstein, your manager. Yes, yes. October, so a little less than three months away. Yeah, yeah. I'm in Barcelona right now. Yeah.

And I come back home. on Sunday, I think. And then the plan is to go fight in Japan for a jih Tijuana, the beginning of September. Okay. And then I'll be back to fight hopefully the end of October. All right. And you're there for a seminar in Barcelona as well? No, no, no.

Right now it's just to take my mind off training a little bit. Okay. Well, enjoy that. Again, I appreciate you coming on and talking to us during your vacation, because I'm sure you're going to go out on Las Ramblas now. Yes. Right? I was there once in my younger days.

Playa Barceloneta. I mean, I know that whole scene. It's unbelievable. But enjoy McKenzie. And really, congratulations. It was a lot of fun to watch. I know it was a big deal. Getting your first UFC,

excuse me, MMA victory. Soon it will be UFC. I hope so. Yes. So congratulations on that. Thank you very much for the time. And I look forward to watching your MMA career from here on out. Thank you so much, Ray.

Nice talking to you. It is a pleasure. she is. Mackenzie Dern, the best female BJJ practitioner living on this earth right now. How about that? And some would argue maybe the best period, successfully making her MMA debut this Friday. Congratulations to her. Okay, let us move along. Now let's go from one of the very best at BGJ making the transition to arguably one of the very best in the world period when it comes to MMA. And some might say he is the king without a crown as far as the lightweight division is concerned. Still undefeated.

Looking for that title shot. We're talking to the Eagle, Habib, Nirmagamayev right now. Joining us from Russia, which is very exciting. Habib, are you there? Salam al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-brother. It is good to talk to you. Okay, so there's a lot of interesting things happening right now. There's a new champion, Eddie Alvarez.

No more Hafeldosos. What does that mean for you? Are you the guy that's getting the next title shot? Because there's a sweepstakes going on. People talking Tony, Edson, you are there, Nate Diaz. Are you the one getting the next title shot? For me, nothing changed because I always have only one goal. This is death.

Barbosa, Eddie, RDA, Tony, this is a thousand meters. For me, it's no problem. I have to take my belt. I want to fight for the title. Now Eddie's champion. For me, Eddie is no interesting. For me, interesting title fight. I have to take this belt.

That's why I want to fight now with Eddie. But to be honest with you, Eddie is not interesting for me. But now Eddie is champion. That's why I have to fight with him. Okay, so when you say he's not interesting, what do you mean by that? You know, before when he fought with Dosanis,

for me, not too much, but a little bit interesting. because people talk about he changed after my last fight with him and people talk about this but I beat Dosanus already that's why Dosan is no interesting for me too but now Eddie's champion but before before when he fight with Dosanil the 80 is not interesting for me too but now he has he has built that's why I want to fight with him and you know doesn't matter who have Who is champion?

I want to take this belt. Did you watch Eddie's win over RDA? And if so, were you impressed with what he did to RDA? You know, I watch this fight. I sit down very close cage. And to be honest with you, I'm a little bit surprised about this. But I think he's a little bit lucky in this fight because I think Doshana's better fighter than him.

Oh, wow. So you think Eddie got lucky in the fight? I think he's lucky. When he throw first punch right overhand, and after that, Dossanosan don't understand what happened in the fight, because after first punch, he troubled him, and after he finished him. But I think he's a little bit lucky about this fight.

Are you getting the feeling that Eddie is avoiding you? Because I've seen on your Twitter that you're sort of implying that, do you feel like he's trying not to fight you? You know, I think he won't make money, like, fight with McGregor or Nate Diaz. But I understand him, you know. He won't a little bit enjoy with belt, something like this. But USC give him a type of fight when he has two and one record in UFC. He was first fight, and after that he win, he has two wins streak, and USC gives him fight.

and because he is number one rank but now I am the number one ranked fighter in Lighthead Division and that's why you have to give me my title shot and he has to take this fight but I don't understand why he don't want to fight with me but I think because I can make him tired

I can make him take down and I can make him finish I think he understands this because I think he and his all coaches understand I'm on different level and he don't want to fight with me. This is 100%. Have you or your manager, Ali Abdel-Aziz, talked to the UFC about their plans for his first title defense?

Do you have any idea what they're going to do? I send a message for Dana. I say, I want to fight. I want to fight for the belt because I deserve this. I deserve this. All my career, I'm undefeited. All these guys, Barbosa, Tony, Doshanias, everybody lose. I never lose.

And I think USA has to give me title, chef. But fighters talk about, like Tony, other guys talk about I don't beat in last fight, top ten fighters, but this is not my problem. You see him fight with Tony, 16th April. And I fight with 16 in April, but Tony is don't coming. This is not my problem. Tony has a problem. Tony has injured.

Tony has pulled out. And when I am pull out, I'm all the time steady quiet and waiting when I'm comeback. But Tony is talked too much about this situation. And after that, Tony's opponent injured and he pulled out. and he should give him a new opponent and he takes this but before when I take fight with Beryl Hoccher he talked too much about the situation

and you know but I think I am number one ranked and I deserve this title shot yeah about Barbosa told me or other guys I don't know I don't know about these guys but I am the number one rank I am the

undefeated 23 and all and it's why 100% UFC have to give me title shot and you know did you watch Tony's fight against Lando Venada

and were you surprised that he was he was rocked so many times especially early on what did you think of that I don't think about this so much this is Tony's problem

this is not my problem because Tony's go down four times and he fight with opponent we have eight fight and his opponent

has dude and I finish my opponent with the dude I finish him you know like yeah I finish him second round like my opponent is don't have chance you know but his opponent can can finish in four times he go down four times he is not El Kuku he is a knockdowner you know and he has a lot of problems in his game and I think he have to work about this and he have to shut up because he talked too much He goes down four-time with him. We have debut in the UFC, and he goes down four times, and he talked about title fight.

I don't think about this. I think I am deserve this. Ramadan just wrapped up, and I know you wanted to take a break during Ramadan, understandably. So are you back to full-time training now? Yes, I come back. I'm training two-time the day. And I'm waiting for when you see call me and when you see me title shot. I think a very good date for me and for Eddie this October.

And I don't know about U.S. plans. I don't know about this, but I'm waiting for this. I'm waiting when Dana or somebody call me, when my manager call me and say, hey, U.S. title fight. I'm waiting for this. October sounds good. But what about New York in November? because there's a big Russian population here in New York.

Eddie is from Philadelphia. I feel like that makes a lot of sense as well. I can fight in New York, too, because a lot of Russian people living there. I think if you should put me and put Eddie fight in New York, I think this is a very good idea because a lot of people coming from watching this fight. But we'll see what happened. We'll see what happened. I'm waiting for this.

but November or October for me is no problem. I think, but New York, I like New York too. But if you have to say, hey, can you fight in December? I can wait. Why not? Because this is a tight of fight. That's why. And we'll see what happened.

We'll see. Okay, so right now in the lightweight division, it's pretty much you and Tony Ferguson. Are you worried that maybe McGregor or Diaz after their fight, is going to jump you and get a title shot before. Are you worried about that at all? I don't worry about this, because this is two guys fighting in Walter Red Division. Why this guy has to fight in a lighter title?

I don't think this is a good idea. But USC can make decisions, everything. You know, nobody knows what happened. And then number one rank, I'm defeated in Lighter Division. and you know I don't know what plans have you see but I'm waiting for my title shot

What's life like for you back home I've seen some videos of people going crazy When you show up to the Reebok store And fans, you know, coming after you Is it hard to have a private life back home now Because you're such a big star No not too much but a little bit This is about how couple are you see in Russia.

Yeah. This is not only about me, but I feel this after my last fight. My name is, you know, my name is go a different level. I feel this. A lot of people know me, you know, in Russia. But I don't think about this because I have only one goal. I have to take this. I have to take this book for my Russia.

I want Russian people. I think Russian people deserve this. and you know I want to become first year's Russian champion and I have a very big goal

and now I'm Ramba one rank and now I think I deserve this have they talked to you about any plans of coming to Russia for an event do you know anything about that? I don't know about this

I think maybe 2017 coming but I don't know no plans yet okay let me ask you this

to me before I let you go do you feel 100% healthy now do you feel like all the the injuries and stuff are behind you no I feel ready

I feel ready for everything I am healthy Ramadan is finished everything finished and I want to fight for that I want to fight for the

you know this area how I won't do. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, but we'll see what happened. For me, it's very interesting. Who fight for the title next? Who?

You know, but the UFC gave for Eddie when you have two winswicks, but I have seven winstakes, and I have 23 fight winstakes. And I don't know who deserves this. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Last question. If you fight Eddie, when you fight Eddie,

What's your prediction how you beat him? I think if I fight with Eddie, I can make him tired all the time resting with him, take down and finishing him on the underground, maybe second or third round. Okay, wow. Habib, thank you for the time. Good luck getting the fight. I think you make a very strong case, and I agree. I think you deserve it.

So good luck to you, my friend. And thank you for coming on the show again. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Al-Au al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-brother. There he is, Habib Nirmagamadov, 23-O, as he mentioned, undefeated in his MMA career, not just undefeated in the UFC.

He puts out the facts, and, you know, it's one of those things. He was ready to fight, and it's unfortunate that Tony couldn't make it. That was a fantastic main event. Tony wasn't healthy. Couldn't fight in April, and ironically enough, Tony has to fight a newcomer, just a couple of weeks ago, it's a tough spot for Tony because he's won so many in the row,

I believe it's eight now, and to not get a title shot, that is a huge letdown, but 23 and 0, 7 and O in the UFC, as he put it, it's hard to deny Chabibh Mugamagamatov and he is becoming a very, very, very big deal

over in Russia. So you've got to capitalize on that as well. We'll see what happens. All right, very excited about our next guest. Always a pleasure to talk to the one and only Chale P. Sunnan, he is joining us via the Magic of Skype, and he is a very happy man. Wow. Not from the usual office with the WEC poster. Where are we right now? I moved, buddy. I'm literally across the street, but I'm in a new house and I don't have it set up yet. Wow. This has thrown me for a loop. I'm

used to your usual perch. Look at you, living it up. Bigger house? What do we get? It's a little bit bigger, but it's a little bit newer too. It's a, it was, it's right across the street. My wife wanted a new house. I wanted to die in the one I was in, so I got to stay in the same neighborhood. She got a different house. The time was right. Is it weird seeing a new owner in what was the house that you thought you were going to die in? Yeah, I drove to it the other day. I drove to it and started to get out of my car and they were coming down the steps. I'm like, that's right. I don't live here anymore. Oh gosh. Back in my car and left. Felt like a fool. Well, life is good for Chale Sun, and not only do you

have a new house. Friday was a very big day for you, right? And I saw it. You did an emergency podcast. You're welcome. I saw it. It was a Saturday drop. It did not sneak by me. And you told the world that you are now a free man. Daddy is back, as you put it. You are no longer suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission. Your two-year suspension is up. You are free to resume your MMA career. So the floor is yours. Tell us when your MMA career will resume. Well, I don't have any plan to come back to MMA. Here's where I'm at here. here's where I can't come back to MMA if I wanted because I don't have a license. I have to get a license. So my suspension's up in theory I should be able to get a license,

but then you have the testing pool. And it's a matter of, am I even eligible for that? And I jumped into the pool, which is a four-month process, and I've done two tests, but I don't have the results back. And in full disclosure, arrow, I don't know what they're going to say. I had substances that break down one through your liver and one through your kidney. And if you take substances that break down through either of those organs, metabolites can last. And the only way you know if they're gone and you're eligible is to take the test. Okay. So I took the test, but I don't have the results back.

And I can tell you straight up, I do not sleep that easy at night. Now, I only have to pass one. If I can pass the first one, all the rest will be fine. But I have to know that it's out. That's just, that's the spot I'm in. Okay, so then let me ask you this. If you do indeed pass that first one, do you want to resume your MMA career? Is that the green light to keep going?

I sure like to have that option. Okay. I mean, that's the whole point is to have that option. I believe I'm done with MMA, and that's just candidly, but I don't have that option. I am done. I am done unless you can get a license, you know? It's like anything else. You've got to be approved to do it.

So I would like to have the ability to choose. Why do you say that you are not sure if you can get a license? Who's not licensing you? Well, thanks for saying that. I just meant, so I don't know a whole ton about this Usada pool. I kind of got a storm, and the way I ended up on it is a whole other story. It was kind of unintentional, but with this, I retired before Usada was around. So I've never experienced it.

In fact, when Usada came in before they were ever announced, I was the first one tested. The second was supposed to be Vandalay. It blew up in both of our faces. So this whole out of competition of what you can take, in-comp, out-of-com, there's just a lot of procedure, and I've never been through it. So as far as getting licensed for the UFC, you have to be in compliance with Usada. And I'm just in the middle of that process, man. I know that there's a four-month period in which you need to be tested before you can resume. Can you tell us when that first test was?

Because I'm wondering when that four-month period is up for you if indeed you want to return. Yeah, and I couldn't tell you, but not because it's a secret, but because I don't know. And I would miss the Portland card, though. If that's where you were going with that, I would miss the Portland card by like 15 days. Somebody did the math for me, but whatever the answer is, I missed that one by a matter of hours. Is that disappointing? Well, I've had a dream to fight at home. I mean, that's a little bit of a fantasy.

Now, that usually turns into more of a pain in the ass than anything else. You know, fighting at home is kind of a tough thing to do. The media, hey, can I get a tick? All that stuff that goes in with it. And it's not a pay-per-view. I mean, look, I'm not looking to come back. This isn't some, but I am, I'll be candid with you. I'm trying to test the waters and see that it is an option.

If I was to come back, Daddy only fights on paper. That's right. That's what I was thinking as well. Has anyone from the UFC reached out to you, you know, the brass? Have they said... No, nothing, really? I have not heard from anybody. And I don't know if that's because things were changing hands or how all that happened, man.

I ended up in the pool on accident. I made a phone call to see if I could take a test. and they said well you know without being in the pool and I said yeah I want to take a test to make sure I can pass the test and they go so so you're telling us that you took a bunch of band things and you want to make sure it's out of your system so you don't get caught and I go yeah that's exactly what happened I took a bunch of stuff that you can't take and I want to make sure it's like I thought that made sense like yeah you know I don't want to jump in this thing if it's just all going to blow up in my face and uh they laugh like that like that made no like what I was saying was crazy and I was crazy and but well no that's exactly what happened i don't know how this stuff gets out and breaks down and don't forget and they go well it's been two years there's nothing that sticks around for two years that we've heard of like saying well guys time out i'm not just worried about that but when i was no longer in the pool all the stuff i i could have taken while that's that all becomes relevant sure everything has to be out and this pool is a very unique thing as i read about it and watched it

i started to become a real believer era it's very organized i thought it was kind of disorganized maybe even underhanded in some spots, it's not. It's very professional the way that it's, there's videos, there's educational, you have to do a phone call and ask questions and get told. It's very organized, but the bottom line is I was saying, yeah, man, I want a dry run. Give me a dry run at this thing to make sure that I'm in compliance so it doesn't backfire. Somewhere in acquiring, that put me into the pool. The next thing I know, these guys are at my door.

And listen, man. that's not a great feeling when you know you've lived on the other side of the tracks. So again, I only have to pass the first one. If I pass the first one, it's smooth sailing, but I don't know. To the best of your knowledge, when... You know what is? You want to know something else there? I don't want to be tested like everybody else.

Like, I want it to be on a curve, you know? Like a curve system. Oh, you had seven things last time. This time you've only got three. That's pretty good. Like, that's the kind of test. looking forward. I'm not sure that's out there. I think that's a fair point. It's reasonable. Yeah. To the best you're good enough for the University of Oregon. It should be good

enough for Usada. The, oh, that is that is 100% true. To the best of your knowledge, when's the last time you took a banned substance? Okay. So that this is where it starts to get murky. Okay. What is a banned substance? See, that's the other thing. According to the Wata code. Yeah, right. And we're not talking about illegal substance. your viewers. We're not talking about illegal. We're talking about what is banned to be in this very unique pool. And the only way to really, because it requires further research error. When I got jammed up the first time, I had told you, I go, Ariel, it's, I don't know what's banned. I remember you said, we could just Google it. It's like, well, hold on. Let me explain. If you were to Google

something or you were to go to the water code and it's not on the banned list, then you were to assume that it's on the allowed list. Well, that's not true. For example, I tested positive for something called growth hormone. Well, I never took growth hormone. I took something called nortotropin flex pin. Nordotropic flex pin is not on the band list, but it contains an active ingredient that is somatropin. Somatropin is the active ingredient in human growth hormone. So it just requires further.

I just lost everybody right there by dropping those big syllables. But the relevance is it requires further research. It's not as simple as saying, I'm taking this. You then have to break down what's in that. Now, that's just the rules. And I'm not at all complaining. I'm just saying this is the spot I'm in where you have to be very cognizant. So when you asked me when the last time I took something that was banned, it's like, well, here's the deal, Ariel.

The Demetris Johnson rule is the only one that will keep you safe. Demetrius Johnson said, and I quote, I'm the UFC champion, and I don't know what's allowed. So I only put food and water into my body. Unless you follow that rule, you've got to be puckered up like I am. Can you resume your fighting career and have a successful, you know, second chapter, whatever you want to call it, by just consuming food and water? Or do you need other things because of, you know, the fact that you're older, you've done stuff in the past? You know what I mean? Yeah, see, that's where it gets tough.

Like in the, so in the testosterone days, when we're allowed to take testosterone, that made really good sense. Now, of course, that got murky and guys took advantage of it and completely backfired. But it made good sense because the world of sport right. now belongs to 18 to 25 year olds. Science has stepped in and goes, well, not so fast. We can actually continue to give you what your body gave you naturally at a later time. So you're seeing guys that are able to extend their careers. That's a pretty cool thing.

Guys started to manipulate that and the whole thing backfired so you had to do away with it. I was part of that testosterone era, but I was also one of the guys that's like, look, you got to get rid of it. If that costs us our career, we can't do it anymore, then we can't do it anymore because the way it's getting done is it's getting bumbled and it's it wasn't right so to your point it's really tough you have to find ways me I have to find ways to get my testosterone up there's something called an IGF1 which is the scientific term for growth hormone you those levels I believe in and I think that you need to find a way to get them up but you have to do it within the rules and there's also

a misconception arrow that the performance enhancers are illegal that isn't true there's a whole bunch of performance enhancers that you can take, but again, you've got to make sure they're on the approved list. I've been keeping an eye on you. I've been watching you, your various TV appearances. I see you at the events and whatnot. You tend to avoid me, but I continue to watch you from afar. You appear to be in tremendous shape. You're svelt. You're thinner than the last couple of years. To me, to the untrained eye, I would say this man is in shape and continues to be in shape and is working out for some reason other than just working out. You're not going to the hotel treadmill for 20 minutes. You're doing something. Something's up. That's my take. I think that's fair.

I've been in the gym. I'm at a gym now and we've got a lot of guys getting ready to fight. Ed Herman, my teammate is fighting on the Woodley card, Woodley Lawler card Saturday. I've got a new teammate, Ronnie Marks. You'll remember Ronnie fought Aaron Simpson-U-L-Ramara. he just signed with the World Series of fighting. He moved out here from Brazil. You know, so I've got these great guys that I need to do my part and be a good teammate. We've got another guy, Jason Novelli. He just signed with the UFC.

Ryan Walker's getting very close. So we've got the right atmosphere. And I go in there every day and insert myself and try to push hard. Athletes always talk about the itch when talking about returning, leaving. They lost the itch. They're getting the itch. They need to scratch the itch. Do you have the MMA itch?

the professional MMA UFC H. Is that somewhere on your body? Do you need to scratch it? I definitely have it, man. I think about it all the time. And it never goes away. I had a college wrestling match with this guy named Zach Thompson

out of Iowa State. I was 20 years old. It was half of my life ago. I think about it every day. Every day. And I've talked to guys that are retired and said, hey, does this ever go away? Do these things ever quit haunting you?

And like Randy Couture by example, he's like, no, man, you've got to just learn to deal with it. It's just the way it goes. So I definitely have that it. I fantasize about it. But it's one step at a time here. I'm not holding back from you. I'm not acting like my return is some kind of breaking news.

I tell it to you right now. But I have to pass this first test, quite frankly. It's still out there. I got to pass it. If I pass that, I'll pass all of them. But I have to know that everything's out. Boom, step one down. Step two, get in shape, get ready to go.

I'm there. I'm in shape. I'm ready to go. Step three be the baddest dude in the world. Oh, come on, Ariel. Come on, buddy. I dominated, this is just a fact. I dominated middle weight.

There has never been a middleweight like me. The next closest guy is Anderson's self. I get two 10, eight rounds against Anderson. So that's just the truth. I have no equal at middleweight. So it would be fair to say if you pass that test, Chal Sunnan is going to return to MMA. Is that not fair?

Chale Sonan is going to give it a good look. I mean, that's just the truth. I'm not committed to it. And there's some moving parts. And it does come down to weight class. I tried my hand at 205. I had a little success, but that was all. I had more struggles than I did success. So you got to get the weight classes right. I got to talk to Clayton hires. I got to see what he wants to do and how we're going to do it. There are some steps there, man. I'm not holding back. I'm telling you everything I can't. But that's it. That's all I can tell you. But I envision on, I think, June 4th of this past year date that I will never forget, Chil Sunnan is either in Oregon or Bristol, Connecticut, and he sees Michael Bisping become the champion. A part of you is, saying like, wait a second. I mean, I beat this guy. And I know it was a close one,

but this is a contemporary. If he could be championed in 2016, why can I? Yeah, you think like that for sure. Now, I was on the, I was pumped for Bisping and still am, and I don't understand. I mean, there was things said about Bisping that he shouldn't even have that shot. I was so confused going, look, he just, he just beat Anderson. Why shouldn't he have this shot? He goes out and he proves it. And there's some rough guys in that weight. You know, I think that Yowell would give him a problem style-wise, Jacques Ray. Nobody's, nobody's arguing to get Jacques Ray. He's got Dan Henderson in front

of it. There's a lot of guys. I want to just look at who the champion was, but you know, you look at that one through 10 and you know, I either beat them or in theory could do very well with him. So yeah, you know, you think about that all the time. I noticed on that 10 minute podcast you dropped this weekend that you said that you put out the blueprint

as to how to handle these positive tests and I agree with you 100%. In fact, I told you this the first time we spoke on your podcast. You come out, you're honest, you say, look, hands up, I fess up, I made a mistake, let's move on. People are very understandable. Are you surprised that so many of these fighters don't go that route and do the whole, oh, I don't know what this is, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I didn't even go as far as to say it was a mistake. Look, it was a premeditated decision

done by a consenting adult. I just got jammed up. And people ask me all the time, why did you take it? It's like, why did I take it? Because I didn't think I would get caught. What do you mean? Why would I take it? What are you stupid? I mean, come on. It was like the most ridiculous thing. And then Ariel, I watched guys come in the door behind me to the same commission. I watched them lie. They never fessed up.

Some of them pretended to not speak English to not answer the question. They all have these BS stories. While they're under oath, look, you want to come on Ariel's show and tell your story. Go ahead. You want to come on my show. Tell your story. You go get sworn in. The gig is up.

That's where you say what really happened. You walk out of that room, you go back to telling your story. Guys went in there lying under oath. One of them claimed he didn't understand them. Oh, I don't understand you. Goes back to speak in English. This is ridiculous. Those guys all slid.

Those guys are fighting. They were suspended after I was. They've already been in the octagon a couple times. I'm not faulting them. More power to them. But it is, sometimes I do get confused. You go, wait a minute. If you do everything right,

you come in, listen, here's what happened, you got me, and you're going to sit twice as long as a guy that comes in with steroids. I never had steroids. The headlines, I was never even accused of steroids. You're going to come in and that guy's going to go back at it because he's stuck to a story. I mean, there's something to just lie, lie, lie. I don't subscribe to it, but there is something to it and they keep getting off. Last time you're on this show, you used the term basically clean that has become this catchphrase. I mean, pretty much. much. Yeah. How would you describe yourself now? Basically. Yeah, basically. I think, again, I don't want to be tested like everybody else there.

I want it to be on a curve. I mean, a lot of things in life look like that. So I think that's a reasonable argument. I don't know if it'll hold up or not, but that's what I told him. You also expressed some interest in fighting GSP. He was on this show shortly thereafter and sort of shot down that idea. A, what did you think of that? if you get by and if all the ducks are in a row, blah, blah, blah, is there anyone else you have your eye on?

Well, yeah, I don't know that I want, you know, I'm looking to fight GSP or whatever, but if he came back and I can, if you're asking me what a big fight would be, GSP, if he comes back, and I happen to think that he will, he might go all the way down to 155. I don't think that makes sense or that he should, but he might go all the way to 155. I don't know. There's something about moving up and weight that George has just never really wanted to do. We even missed out on the George versus Anderson fight. Excuse me, it was a size issue.

George is there something about, you know, he gets his ideas in his head and he stays super focused and disciplined on him. So I had a phone call from GSP. Oh. And he calls me and he says, chill, I'm going to do my best GSP. Chale, are you out at the club? And I said, no, George, I'm in bed. And he says, why are you not at the club? And it's like, well, first off, in my town, we call them bars.

We don't, we don't call them club. But secondly, I'm just not. He says, you know, Chail, I really like you. And I said, well, I like you too, George. And he says, no, no, no, no. Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you, but I really like you. And I go, okay, well, I appreciate that.

Thank you, George. And he says, I think your commentary is very good. And I said, well, you know, I try to just call it straight. And he goes, no, no, no, no. You do nothing straight. You are very ethically challenged. Nothing is straight to, but I like you. He just kept insulting me while telling me he likes me.

And it was hilarious. And I'm like, okay, George never calls me. If I call him, he'll call me back. If I text him, he'll text me. He never reaches out to me, you know. And so it was just funny. Just the whole thing. I'm like, George, and the whole time I'm thinking is he's complimenting me and

insulting me. You know, George, I just try to call it straight. No, you don't do anything straight. You are very corrupt. Okay, George, do we need to fight? Is that what this is going? I'm a little, is that where this is going? Just a funny, George thought. He's great, though. George is great, and he works his ass off. He works so hard. You know, even when George travels and he travels a lot, he always lines up workouts. You see him with Freddie Roach. He doesn't live in California, but if he visits California, he visits the wildcard. He's focused, man. I don't know why he hasn't thrown his hat back in there.

I feel like it's still in play. I still feel like it's attainable for you. fight. It could. I mean, if I wanted to get it going, I'll get it going right now. But it's one of those things. You know, he's in a different way. I like, I mean, I don't have any, what am I trying to do there? So, um, and he's a buddy.

What I'm going to come out and double cross him and stab him. But I would let him know first. Hey, George, I'm about to stab you in the back. Yeah. Pull a little Ted Cruz on him. He, look, it's the scorpion and the frog. He knows what it's like to be buddies with a gangster. Your number could come up at any time.

Many of them have. You be Ted Cruz, he'll be Donald. What a suicide note, Ted Cruz, right? I know you have to go soon, so let me quickly ask you. You had your first submission underground event two weekends ago. How was it? Will there be a second one? It was awesome.

I mean, it was so much fun. You know, you get into those spaces. You want to have fun. You got to do things, right? You need some help with the card. You have some luck that comes together. But when it all did, man, it was a ton of work. but when it all did, it was so much fun.

And yes, we've already got a second date book, December 11th. It'll be back in Portland. It's going to be great. We've got some stuff in the works. In fact, I got a text message out to Bacchia right now. I'm waiting to hear back from him. True or false, you will be competing against Tim Kennedy on that card, December 11th. Supposedly true.

I can't confirm it yet. Tim has said yes. I have said yes. Now it's just a matter of can I do both? Can I promote and put a show on and then go out and compete it at the same time? I think that the answer is yes, but I need to talk to Tim. And that's it. You know, Tim's always been in the tough spot area.

Brian Stan had this same problem, right? You got these guys that are incredible fighters. They're good looking. They can talk. They can do everything. But they could never have an opponent. And this is one of the things that hurt Stan's career, and it's also hurting Tim's career. These guys are heroes.

So they're off limits in so many ways. And it's like, it's really hard to get an opponent that's going to come out and, you know, do what needs to be done to hype something, I don't, I'm not that happy with Tim Kennedy right now. But most of it I have to keep inside. And I think that that hurts the promotion. I think that it's hurt Tim's career. But I really don't know what to do with it. I can't say much about a guy that's out serving the country, you know?

I just can't. Fair point, though. Tim has been a little more polarizing than Brian. I always felt that the most awkward booking in UFC history was booking you versus Brian Stan upon your return from that break post-117 because you literally could not say anything about Brian Stan. and it made you into this, you know, choir boy. No one wanted to see that.

So I get what you're saying. Another true or false for you before I let you go, Ari Emanuel has called you up and said, forget fighting. We want you to be the face of the UFC. No, I have not heard. Here's my contact to Ari. I've met Ari and all that,

but I've never talked business with him. By the way, is he going to CEO the company? He's not. He's CEOing the company that's going to run the company. He's not stepping into Lorenzo's spot. Not that I understand, but it's very unknown. at this point. Not a lot of dancing. Yeah. I've never talked business with him. A former congressman

in Oregon, Derek Kitts, who's a friend of mine, went to work for Ariel. And, or I apologize, yeah, all right. So I talked to him through the congressman, but I've never talked business with him, and I'm very curious what he's going to do. And movie works sucks. Every actor wants to be an athlete. Every athlete wants to be an actor. You go out on those movie sets, man, it's hurry up and wait. Those jobs suck. Okay, so final thing to wrap this up for the fans who are praying and wishing and hoping and trying to push you to come back, you're free. You can do what you want. You're in the testing pool.

You hope to get a license if everything goes well. And you're leaning towards fighting again. We might even see you back in 2016. Fair? If I pass this first test, we can be having a totally different time. But I mean, I'm just being candidly. I really don't know what's going to happen or what's left. When's the results coming?

That's the thing. Okay, so see, that's the thing, is you only get called if you fail the test. Come on. If you call these guys up like I want to do and go, hey, those results back, then they start going, well, why? Why would you not know you're going to pass? And it's like, guys, because I took everything in the world that you can't take. I don't know how to be any. This is what happened.

Would you just tell me if I pass? or not. And every time I asked someone like that, they act like it's the most corrupt question in the world. It's like, God, I just need one test. If I pass one, I'm smooth sailing. But yes, this happened and I need to know. And it doesn't matter how many times I ask you. It's like they think I'm kidding or something. It's like, no, this is what, this is what truth is. You guys just have never heard it before. I look forward to your return, Shale. It's good to have. Thank you, buddy. Could you imagine, Could you imagine, I mean, could you imagine the excitement? Chao P. Sunnan, the one and only, often duplicated.

I think I've already screwed up that promo. I think I already screwed up the promo. Can you believe that? That might be a first time and it will still be gold because if the bad guy makes the walk, Ariel, oh my goodness, the excitement, the excitement that you would have. That would literally send chills up and down your scrawny little spine. Thank you, Chelle. Appreciate it.

What was the line I was looking for? Oh, often imitated. There you go. I was waiting for the, you know? Kaboom. Oh, God bless Chail Sunnan. Great stuff there. Often imitated, never duplicated.

But yeah, sounds to me like he is itching to come back. Welcome back, Chil Sunnan. Interesting stuff. All right. Let us move along. You know, it is a, it is a topic relevant to Chil Suna with everything going on behind the scenes, one man that is very much on top of all of those things and more.

He is a partner of one George Lockhart, as I said. You've heard from George on this show. He works with the likes of Daniel Cormier, Luke Rockhold, Kane Velazquez, Habib Naragamadav and many, many more. Cormier in particular swears by him, and they all do. He is Daniel Leith. He is a nutritionist coach. partners, as I said, with George Lockhart over at VT Nutrition, and he is joining us right now

via the phone. Daniel, are you there? I'm here, buddy. It is great to have you on the show, Daniel. Thank you very much. So, you know, it's interesting that we have you on right after Chale. You know, this is your line of work. You know about this stuff better than anyone. How would you describe the current state of MMA as it pertains to all the, the ugly stuff that goes on behind the scenes, the supplements and all this stuff? Do you feel like it's slowly but surely getting cleaner because of Usada or is there still a lot of work to do? Yeah, without a doubt, I think

with Ysada coming in, it's just kind of opening people's eyes to, you know, kind of a sad part of the sport. You know, guys are using things that they shouldn't be, and like Chale alluded to, guys are getting caught and lying as they're being caught,

you know? At least Chale's very candid and open about what he's done in the past. And I think with Yassada coming in, they do a great job of being very professional about it and not allowing any room for any kind of banned substances or anything. I think they do a great job. You know, I was talking to D.C. recently about the work that you do for him, and he said among the many things that you do for him is like you actually, you know, when Yusada knocks on the door,

and ask him, okay, what are you taking? What kind of stuff? You know by the gram, like you have to keep a journal of all this stuff. Is that exhausting to, and especially if you can't sleep with a fighter, you don't know what he's doing 24-7. You have to have that trust because if, for whatever reason, he may stray, that at the end of the day can reflect poorly on you as well, right? Absolutely.

You know, and that's, you know, part of the trust I have with my athletes. And, you know, that trust is a two-way street. You know, they trust that what I give them, is going to benefit them and in no way affect their career negatively. And I trust that my athletes are going to do exactly that, take exactly what I am providing them and nothing else, so that, again, it doesn't reflect poorly on me. But no, when you saw that comes and knocks at the door,

it's not a challenge for me at all. I keep a journal of everything that my fighters get. That's my responsibility to monitor to the gram every single nutrient that I provide my fighters so that I know, where I need to make adjustments during camp when I'm looking at how they're performing, how their weight is coming down through camp. But when I go to work with a fighter, I stay there. I live with the fighter.

So I might not be with them 24-7, but I'm about as close as I can be. Your career arc is a very interesting one because you're a former Marine, right? Yep. Prior to that, you were a wrestler, correct? Correct. And what's interesting about your history and wrestling is, you also suffered a pretty serious health scare as you were trying to cut weight, which connects you to Daniel even more so.

I believe you suffered from renal failure. You just had a horrible weight cut that did it almost kill you? It was very serious, though, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was a sophomore in high school. And, you know, at that point, I had absolutely no idea about proper weight cutting methods. I didn't really know much about nutrition. I just did what my coaches told me to do, you know, what had been handed down from wrestler

a wrestler and unfortunately is still the general rule with most wrestlers I talk to and so it ultimately led to me going into renal failure and you had to get rushed to the hospital almost died from severe dehydration and ultimately that led to me

through a lot of crazy steps and hard work and luck to get where I am now to end up working with a guy like Daniel Cormier who at the most elite level ran into the same problem you know and so that really opened my eyes even more to talk to a guy like Daniel Kormier to say, you know, this happened to me at a very low level in high school,

but it's happening all the way up at the elite level, at the Olympic level. And so it, you know, it doubled my resolve to help reach out to fighters and try to help them avoid the problems that Daniel and I have experienced. Are you surprised even at the highest level, the UFC level, how many weigh in, I don't want to call them disasters, but we've seen some people fail to make way. We've seen some pretty scary situations. Are you surprised that fighters can get to that point and still not truly understand how to properly cut weight? You know, I do.

You know, it's some of the things that I see guys do would absolutely blow your mind. And at that elite level, it's really, it's just, it's really, it saddens me. You know, George and I talk about it constantly that guys at that level, with unlimited resources with guys out there like george and i who are willing to do anything to help them uh they just simply don't reach out they stick to the same thing over and over if it's not broke don't fix it until ultimately you know they go through all this pain and hardship and you know we always say you don't know what you don't know the fighters don't know uh what a proper weight feels like they think if they make weight um even though it's terribly taxing they feel terrible

they made weight so they must be doing it right uh and then they come to work with with george and i and feel what a proper weight cut is like. And like the guys that we work with, they never work with anybody else. You know, they never turn back. So I was reading an interview with you on a website called Themanguide.com, and you were saying that it's almost ironic that as a nutritionist, you know, you're preaching, eating right and doing the right things. And then you have to help guys cut weight, which is a very unnatural thing to do and a very

unhealthy thing to do. Is that the part of your job that you dislike the most? And do you have any sort of idea how to fix it? how we can sort of, because I feel like we are working towards, sadly, some bad thing happening with Wake-Kinnock because there's a lot of guys coming into the UFC and on a very big stage, they just don't know what they're doing at times. Things can go horribly wrong as you live through. So I'm wondering if you are uncomfortable with that aspect of your job and have any idea how to fix it.

Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, it's a sad reality of the sport, you know, and that's why I like doing what I do, at least knowing that the athletes that I do work with are not going to have those problems and are going to be able to make the weight safely and effectively and fight to their potential. But there's absolutely a risk out there. There's so many young fighters coming in that think that there's benefit to fighting at a lighter weight class, cutting extremes amount of weight, and then doing it incorrectly, crash cutting at the last minute. And yeah, there's a huge risk.

And even the fighters I work with who don't cut significant amounts of weight last minute, I still don't like to deplete those athletes at all. You know, I would love to be able to provide them with exactly what they need to perform at their optimal level and to be as healthy as humanly possible throughout the entire camp. That's why I love working with heavy weights, you know, because I can give them exactly what they need the entire time. But, you know, to fix that problem, I, I really don't know.

I wish I had that answer. You know, I wish I would have athletes call me and say, hey, I want to fight up at a higher weight class. Can you help me gain weight? Can you help me fight at a higher weight class? But that's yet to happen. So I don't know. I think bringing Ysada on and bringing people like Jeff Snavinsky in

and these different athletic commissions, you know, now with the early weigh-ins, I think they're making steps in the right direction, but until they add more weight classes or come up with tighter restrictions on hydration measurement during camp and during the fights, I really just, I don't know how you, how you prevent guys from trying to get that advantage of being heavier on the day of weigh in. Are you, the day of the fight? Yeah, are you in favor of no IVs?

You know, I wouldn't say that I'm in favor of it. I don't know that there's a more efficient way to effectively rehydrate a person. but, you know, that's not the reality. You know, I know that there's been a lot of criticism because of the IV ban, but, you know, that's not up to me to criticize. You know, what's up to me is to look at what I have available. And so the only way to efficiently rehydrate my athletes now with the IV ban is oral rehydration.

So, you know, that's what George and I have focused the majority of our effort on as soon as that news came out. You know, we started working with, with Jeff Novitsky and Dr. Robert Kenefic now, who's the leading rehydration scientist in the world. He was out at USC 200. I don't know if you got a chance to speak with him, but he's a brilliant guy.

George and I are working with him and working on perfecting our oral rehydration strategy we use with our fighters. And the IV would be ideal, but I understand why you thought it doesn't allow it. So I think that oral rehydration is effective, but it has to be done. properly by a professional.

One thing that has been discussed as of late is adding more weight classes. Do you think that would be good? Absolutely. You know, I understand from a promoter's perspective why they maybe wouldn't want to do that because it starts to thin the depth of each weight class. But absolutely, you know, when you have more weight classes available, when you look at something like boxing, those fighters don't cut these extreme amounts and you look at the giant gaps that we have in the UFC and in MMA.

it just encourages the larger weight cuts. So I would love to see that just to encourage the fighters to cut less weight, to give them more options to fight at a more natural body weight. But we'll see. We'll see if that happens. Recently, the UFC has instituted this early way in. And I thought, you know, I try to talk to all the fighters about it who have experienced it thus far. And for the most part, it's been a unanimous, yes, we like it.

But interestingly enough, Scott Holtzman, who's a young UFC fighter who competed in Sioux Falls just a couple weeks ago, told me that he was talking to some people and he experienced this as well. He was having a very hard time sleeping the night before the way in because the wands were so early that they tried to get on weight the night before as opposed to the later wane on Friday. You have a little more time. And because you're that dehydrated and perhaps a little bit anxious about the wane in the morning, he had a really hard time sleeping the night before. have you experienced that so far? And B, are you in favor of the earlier way in? Yeah. Oh, I've absolutely experienced fighters dealing with issues sleeping all of Fight Week, you know? And, you know, there's different things that we provide our fighters to help them sleep. We give them melatonin. We give them food all the way up until they weigh in that helps them feel satiated and helps them reduce that anxiety. But again, it's all about having a proper strategy in place, understanding when the way in happens.

I mean, U.S.C. 199, when we did the first early way in in L.A., it was at 10, and then U.S.C. 200, it was, you know, 8 in the morning. So you have to adjust, look at where your fighter's at, and then, yeah, you know, you're going to deal with that. You've got to anticipate the fact that, you know, your fighter is going to be anxious. They're not going to be feeling that great at that, you know, when they get down to that lower weight. But, you know, I try to encourage my fighters to get rest.

we're not super depleted going into that Friday morning. We, you know, we wake up early. We get down to where we need to. But, you know, my fighters aren't cutting such an extreme amount of weight last minute that they deal with that issue. But the early weight, the second part of your question, the early way, and I think is fantastic, you know, in the past when fighters were cutting the last few pounds to get on weight,

and then we would have to sit at that weight at that level of dehydration and wait backstage, you know, go over two-way in, sit and wait until that was their time to go on stage, where now fighters wake up to the morning, they get down to where they need to get to, walk downstairs, way in, and they're only on wait for a very short amount of time. So that level of dehydration and the risk factors associated with it, that time is cut considerably, I mean, by hours and hours. So I'm hugely in favor of it, just in terms of the overall safety of the fighter, I think it's an excellent way to go about it. A lot of people, including myself, noted that it seemed like Cormier was having a tougher

weight cut this time. And I know getting out to 205 is somewhat of a challenge for him. And he agreed with that. And he said that the stress of, you know, the John Jones situation, new opponent, not knowing if he was going to fight, really messed up with his, you know, his ability to cut that weight. Is that a real thing? Can that actually stop you from losing weight? Absolutely. You know, when we start to get really stressed out, our body starts to produce a lot of stress hormones, cortisol, and vasopraceprase, and all these hormones that are defense mechanisms for our body and they they cause you to hold fluid. So, you know, when our body starts to hold fluid like that because of that response to stress, the weight cut becomes more challenging.

You know, I think there was a lot of things that went into this camp with D.C. that made the weight cut more challenging. I don't think it was just one thing. But, yeah, I absolutely think that that was a real thing. And we were right on track. I mean, Daniel came in at 217 on Tuesday. We were two pounds lighter than we were for the gust of some fight. everything was right on track and he was feeling great. He looked great, trained during Fight Week, and then when all of that news hit, everything stopped. You know, he really, he wasn't performing like he normally was. He was feeling terrible and, you know, that stress is, it hit him like, you know, he hit a wall. So we got through it, but it was definitely not as smooth as I would

have liked, but it's part of the, part of the business, you know, we have to adjust. I got into this space because I love covering mixed martial arts and everything goes into it. I've had to learn so much more about this stuff, which is an interesting byproduct. I'm not, I'm not complaining about it, but it's just dominated the news cycle, especially this year. And I'm wondering if you could tell me, like the world of supplements, how dirty is it? How dangerous is it? Would you prefer if your fighters never use supplements because we've learned from Y'all Romero and others that you could be taking something, you know, from G&T or whatever, and it could be tainted and you had no idea, but then you get popped and your reputation is ruined. Could you tell us, in your opinion,

like, does it completely scare you? Because again, that could fall on your reputation, or do you at this point know the right ones and are 100% certain always that those are clean? Yeah, you know, so it absolutely scares me. I think it's a very, very highly funded and under-regulated industry, you know? There's a ton of risk involved when fighters are given supplements from sponsors that are not reputable companies, you know? There are our companies. There are our companies, companies out there that I use, George uses that go out of their way, spend money out of their pocket to get vetted, get audited by an accredited third party like NSF or like the BAN Substances Control Group. And they put their labels, you know, they put that proudly right on their label. Anybody out there listening right now can go to any supplement store in the country and look at a supplement.

I have a big gold label on it that says, you know, BSC or NSF or GMP. and those are all there to show you, look, we purposely were vetted by an accredited third party to test all the substances we're putting in here so that you can read our label and know that what we say is on this label is what's actually in this. And the best laboratories in the country are testing our procedures, or excuse me, our ingredients to make sure that that doesn't happen. But then you have to go a step farther because just because it has that label doesn't necessarily mean it isn't on the water. your sought of banned substances list. It doesn't mean they're going to fail that test. So, you know, you have to, when you do provide a supplement to a fighter, know that it is tested by an accredited third party, and then look at those ingredients that you're providing

and ensure that they're not on that banned substances list or something in there can't be converted in your body to a substance that is on that band substance list. So there's a great deal that has to go into understanding exactly what's going into that fighter and how it's going to be converted in their body into what, you know, what chemical reactions are going to happen. And so all of that said, yeah, it's a very, very complicated thing to give a fighter a supplement. I do think that there are some supplements out there that do improve performance that are

beneficial to a fighter, but they're very limited. When you give a fighter proper nutrition, there's almost nothing that exists that you can provide them through supplementation that they can't get through food and get through food more efficiently, more by, food provides greater bioavailability of the, most of the supplements out there. So we, George and I generally just advocate proper nutrition over supplementation. And again, the company is FitnessVT. I may have said a different name at the top, and I apologize for that.

FitnessVT.com is where you can learn more about what Daniel and George do. I may be putting you on the spot here, but I think it's fair to say in the USADA era, if you're fighting in the UFC, you should have some kind of nutritionist coast with you. There's just too much at stake. And if I'm a fighter coming up and I want to hire Daniel Leith to work with me, could you tell me ballpark how much it will cost me? You know, it depends on the capacity that you want to hire us. I mean, you know, the vast majority of young fighters that George and I work with,

we don't work with in the capacity that I work with the Daniel Korme. Daniel Korme-Ax flies me out a month in advance. I live with him and his family. I provide every meal. I cook everything that he eats. I mean, I'll live and cook. You know, I even drive him to practice every day, you know. So to hire us in that capacity is cost prohibitive.

I think maybe to some fighters. But, I mean, George and I charged $1,500 for Fight Week to do their entire weight cut and all of their oral rehydration. And you're talking about an oral rehydration strategy that is vetted and, And designed by, again, guys like Dr. Robert Kenefic, the leading research scientists in the world, giving Georgia and I guidance on exactly every micronutrient, every drop of everything that will drive fluid and electrolytes back into the cell the most efficiently. And, again, $1,500 to the lowest level fighter, I think, is very reasonable.

Yeah, I would agree with that as well. So, again, the website, FitnessVT.com. His name is Daniel Leith, great guy, and a pretty good bodyguard to have in your corner as well. When you're walking next to those big guys, you play the... part as well. Like, I don't want to mess with you and the beard and the tattoos and the hair kind and all that. Like, you're, you're rather intimidating as well. So I think that you add much more than just a nutritionist to the team, if I'm being honest. Good part of the crew. Well, that's funny, Ariel. I appreciate it, buddy. But no, I have to do something to look

tough in front of all those guys. That's right. Keep up the great work, man. They swear by you and the results speak for themselves. Great to have you on the show for the first time and continued success to both you and George. Ariel, thank you so much, buddy. I appreciate it. pleasure. There he is. Daniel Leith stopping by. Like I said, work speaks for himself, Cormier, Cain, Habib, Rockhold, and many others swear by both him and George Lockhart. Okay, let's move along. Welcome in our next guest. She had a very busy weekend in Chicago. Not only was she all over the place, they also announced her next fight. Finally, over a year later, we're getting the return of the karate-hadi. Michelle Waterson is returning in September to fight Ash the Bash Daily.

looking forward to that, looking forward to talking to Michelle Watterson. Michelle, how are you? I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. Oh, it is a pleasure as always. Great to have you on the show. So, okay, let's talk about Chicago first. Seemed like a fun trip for you. You were doing a lot, but ended on somewhat of a sour note.

Was that hard for you to watch, be in attendance and watch Holly's fight? Oh, yeah, it's always hard, especially, you know, Holly, she's one of my closest friends. and I just know how hard she worked for this camp. And, you know, I see all the background that everybody else doesn't get to see. And so it is hard to watch that fight. But Holly is a one-of-a-kind person. And if there's anybody that will, you know, walk away from this learning thing, it'll be her.

And it'll just make her stronger, you know. Just one other thing on Holly, how is she handling things? You know, that's how she is. She dust herself off. gets back up and gets back on the horse. That's Holly in every way. That's just, that's how you handle life, and that's how she handles life when, you know, when you get knocked off, you just dust yourself off and get up. This felt like a big unveiling or re-unvailing of you. Like, they had you all over the place doing all kinds of things at the workouts, at the Cubs game,

and it coincided with your return fight being announced. Was that a coincidence or was that all plan. Like this is the big return of Michelle Waterson. We're just going to put her everywhere the week that we announce her fight again. I think it was just a coincidence because I was already scheduled to be out in Chicago before I even know that I was fighting. Because to be honest with you,

you know, usually I don't go anywhere once I know that I'm fighting, I'm just here at home training. And it was just a coincidence, but it was a good coincidence Hollywood's fighting. All the coaches were out there, so I was able to go out to Chicago, you know, do some

PR and get some good training in. So it was the win-win. What was it like being on the field at Wrigley Field? It seemed via social media that you were excited about the opportunity and the experience. What was it like for you? It was crazy. There's a lot of history there. And you don't realize how magnificent a place it is until you're on the field and you're looking up and the stands are crowded with people. And it's just enormous. And like I said, there's so much history there. So it was a good experience. really cool. I did notice that you were hanging out with the champion,

Yuan Yan, Jaycheck, you were chummy with her, taking pictures and stuff like that. Is that weird for you? Because you want to fight this woman. You want to beat her, I'm sure?

What was that experience like? It's not weird. You know, at the end of the day, we're all humans. We're all fighting for the same thing. And, you know, I think as a fighter,

you kind of gauge how the other person, you know, going to react towards you. Plus, you know, Yonah came down to the gym a couple months ago before the,

or right after the show, show was over and changed for a week. But, you know, like I said, you have to make sure respect for somebody that does the same, you know, thing that you do. And that's exactly what it is. She was respectful towards me. I respect towards her, and we had a good time. All right, fair enough.

So you get this daily fight. I remember talking to you not that long ago, and you said that you wanted someone in the top 10 in your return. Based on the UFC rankings, which are very flawed, she is not in the top 10. In fact, I don't believe she's in the top 15. So what did you think when they offered you that fight? You know, I just, I think that anybody in the division right now, since it's so new, is going to be a challenge for me.

The fact that I've been out for a year kind of has a role to play with that, I guess. I don't know. But to be honest with you, I think that she's a huge threat. If you look at her record, the people that she's lost to are, you know, know, top-level fighters, but Bart Hancock, she's, you know, she was Invicta champion, Claudia Godelia. She's fought a lot of, like, top-ranked fighters, and she likes to submit people, which is what I like to do. I think it's a great magic for my first fight back in all great year. How do you feel about fighting in Germany?

I think it'll be fun. It'll be my first time fighting overseas. But I look forward to going to Germany. My little sister was born there. Oh. We lived there when I was younger for about two years when my dad was still in the military. Oh. So I'm looking forward to going overseas.

So you're going to be the local favorite. You've got to play that up more. Yeah. Where in Germany were you born? No, not me, my little sister. Oh, your little sister. Okay, where was she born? I can't think of it off the top of my head.

It was so long ago. Okay. I just remember seeing pictures of me, you know, on October Fest was at two years old. with a beer in my hand. Wow. Your parents like to party. Yeah, a little bit. So it has been an interesting year for you due to the injuries.

First, I think there was the hand injury, right, after the debut, and then you suffered a knee injury. Did I miss anything in between there? And then I re-broke my hand after my knee got better. That's right. Jeez. How did you deal with all that? Mentally, the, you know, the stops and starts, the speed bumps and all that.

I mean, that's got to take a toll. It does, you know, especially, I wanted to be able to capitalize off the momentum of winning my first UFC debut. And, you know, stuff happens. I would say the other word because it's more fitting. Yes. That's just, you know, that's just life. And you have to be able to fight the things that life throws at you. Because if you can't handle, you know, the things that live throw at you, then you won't be able to handle the fight.

So I just take it out of some adversities that are going to make me stronger in the cage. That division is super interesting. Did you kind of like, did you feel at some point, you know, perhaps more recently, you know, as you were further and further removed for your debut that people were forgetting about you, that when talking about the top dogs in that division, that there was less talk about you just because you had been away and did that motivate you more? You know, I really don't care if my name's not in there. I think that when I am in the cage on the third, I'll be able to show, you know,

what I've been working on this year out. And I have a lot of teammates in the gym that, you know, kept me motivated, kept me in the gym and reminded me, you know, while all these girls are fighting each other, you know, I have an advantage, and I can sit back and watch them, fight each other and then come in and see what they've done, you know, fighting each other and capitalize on that. As far as the injuries are concerned, are you in the clear? Are you feeling at least close to 100% now?

I'm 100%. I am 100%. Definitely, 100%. Physically, mentally, everything, I feel great. Are you shocked to see how dominant Yuana has been as champion? I don't think a lot of people saw this coming when she came into the UFC, just because she had very little experience. No, I'm not shocked.

You're not. She has what it takes to be the champion. I know that I predicted against her because I, I thought that Claudia would change her game plan after fighting her the first time. But that didn't happen, and that proves why, you know, Johanna was able to continue to be the champion because, you know, she pushed past the theory that Claudia gave her those first two rounds and was able to, you know, capitalize after that and take over.

That's what it takes to be a champion, and nobody's been able to surpass that. In the top five, do you see anyone beating her before you get a crack at her? Do you see any threat right now in the top five or so of that division? I'm really excited to see how Rose does against the other Polish fighter. Carolina Kovalkievich. Yes, Carolina. She's, Carolina is really good. And between those two, I think that's going to be an awesome fight,

I guess, and my attention for the title. And, you know, if Rose, is in the mind state, I think, that should be able to give Yohana a give go, a good, a good little competition. Yeah. And that fight, of course, this weekend at UFC 201. If the UFC announced today that they were starting a 105 pound division, would you move down right away?

No, I feel good at 115. Okay. So you feel like that's the natural weight class for you now? You don't feel like they're bigger than you or anything like that. They are, but, you know, the bigger they are, they're harder they fall. That is true. Well said. What is the vibe like at the gym these days with, you know, some of the drama happening with some of the other fighters? Is the vibe okay? Do you feel like everyone needs

to pick me up? How would you describe it? The vibe at the gym is always, you know, the problems happening externally doesn't come in, doesn't penetrate the gym. I think that we have a real strong core family value in the gym. And we don't let that tough deep in because otherwise it would, it would poison everything. And, you know, when we come to the gym, that's everybody safe haven't. So we come to the gym and we know we can feel safe and comfortable there to trust our team to be there for us when we need them the most, you know? Now, this is the big question. When's that amazing documentary about you coming out?

I thought it was supposed to be out already. What's going on? I know. It's going to come out very soon before the end of the year is up. I'm very excited for it. I got to watch the final cut, and it's amazing. Sean did a great job of putting it together and, you know, brought some tears to my eyes. I got to see my little one.

Yeah. Grow up before my eyes. But right now, we're, like, in negotiations. So we got some good news coming up soon, hopefully. Oh, wow. The director is Sean Minard, as you said. The name of the documentary is Fight Mom. I've seen the trailer.

If that is an indication of how it looks, it looks fantastic. So you actually got to see the final cut. Is that somewhat surreal for you to see? Because they followed you for like two years, right? Yeah. And so what's it like to see yourself in that? I mean, very few people get to watch a documentary about their own life with your young daughter, a part of it and your family and everything.

What was that, like as an experience emotionally? What was that like? I think it's crazy. You know, you get so caught up in training and sometimes it becomes the routine, the things you do in and day in and day out, not just as a fighter, but all. as a mother and a wife. And when somebody's able to follow you for two years and kind of piece together, you know,

this story and make it something somewhat of an inspirational story, it's kind of cool because, you know, you don't realize the things that you do have an impact on people. And then when you see it from the outside looking in, it's just very inspiring. Is UFC getting behind this? Are they going to push this as well? I hope so.

All right. I hope so as well. So you don't know exactly when it's going to come out or how it's going to come out, how people can watch it. That is to be determined. I do not. But when I find that, I will let you know. All right. Fair enough. For now, we can look forward to your return. It is September 3rd in Hamburg, Germany, against Ashting Daily. The long-awaited return of Michelle Waterson. It has been a while, but a lot of people very excited. I put the news out last week. And, wow, the response, I'm sure you got it as well was a very positive one. People have missed you. So that is good. to know. Thank you for the time, Michelle, and best of luck in training as you prepare for the fight. Thank you so much. I miss being in the cage, so I'm going to give everyone a show.

All right. We look forward to that. There she is. Michelle Watterson stopping by. Great to hear from the karate-hadi herself. Certainly a player in that division currently ranked number 11 in the UFC's ranking system. Take that with a grain of salt. Let's see. Looking at the ranking system right now. of my favorite things to do is look at the ranking system and see how many people have A dropped off and how many people are a part of it and how many people I've never met and how many people I haven't seen in a long time and how many outlets, you know, the mainstream ones are represented. I mean, there's, what do we have? We have the Burbank Leader. the Cherokee Scout

AM New York K-I-O-Z San Diego Vladusport.com CFMU 93.3 FM Scripps Howard. MMA Brazil A lot of power.

A lot of fighters pay attention to that and they'll use it you know when necessary to their advantage fighters, managers, matchmakers, promoters. All right, so there you have it. A bit of a break now, as far as the interviews are concerned. Fun stuff so far.

In around 50 minutes, we're going to be joined by Michael Venham Page of Bellator fame. And in around an hour and 10 minutes, we are going to be joined by the one and only KFC King himself, Mark Hunt. So stay tuned for that. For now, let's take some questions and comments. welcome in Mr. New York, Rick, fresh off the plane, and where was he, Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia, Fairfax, Virginia. Nope, Norfolk. Had it right the first time.

Got a haircut over there. That was big news. That's the news of the day, the haircut. How can you trust some... Listen. Yeah. You can't just walk into some random place and say, okay, I am trusting you. I mean, you've been working on that thing for how long?

Well, they didn't touch the top. I know, but they could do something crazy. Who knows? I would never. Yeah. No, the sides are simple. You know, I mean, look, it wasn't the best. It wasn't, right?

He messed it up. He didn't mess it up, but he... It's easy to mess up hair. I tell that to people about my own hair. You can mess it up. It's easy. Yours seems very easy. No, trust me, I have had nightmarish trips to the barbershop.

It's also a comfort thing. It's like it's your guy or your girl. Like, whoever cuts your hair, like they're your, they're your, your person and then it's a comfort thing. Unsolicited plug by man Manny in Ridgewood, Queens, Bushwick. Crew Barber, check him out.

It's just an amazing place. He's the guy, Manny, big MMA fan, go check him out. How was Virginia? Great, great event. My man, Chopper Chai. So, I mean, let's grade that performance. There was a lot going on Friday night. There was Bell Tour and their whole thing, and we'll talk

about that in a second. There was Chopper Chai doing his thing for Glory, Fight Pass. There was a lot going on. And the McKenzie Dern debut. But it all timed well. I got to watch Choppers fight. Yep. Were we happy with it or should he finish that guy in the first round?

See, for people who don't watch glory, don't watch kickboxing, Maurice Green is super tough. He is. Anderson Silva, you know, Anderson Braddock Silva, the other Anderson Silva, as they sometimes call him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Recently fought Maurice Green. Beat him pillar at a post. Three rounds just couldn't take him out.

And he's, you know, he's fighting for. He's fighting Rico for the title next, Anderson Silva is. So he's very good. Rico who? Verhoven. I thought they just announced Rico's fight. They did. It's against Anderson?

So Rico's fighting Anderson for the title in September, in New Jersey. Oh, that's right. And they just announced Rico Verhoeven versus Bader Hari. Correct. Which is a huge fight. So he has two fights booked. He's got two fights booked. That's akin to the three title fight curse.

You can't book a fight. after another fight and the other fight didn't happen yet. That is just playing with fire. Yeah, certainly things can happen, but... That is crazy. I don't like that. Why not just book the Badahari fight?

Why do the other fight? Why are they going to Trent and New Jersey also? It's a good, you know, it's a good market. Jersey's a good market. You know that. Tri-state area. Lou Negli is involved. He's a good promoter.

Okay, but why book two... That's a huge fight, Badrari. It is a huge fight. So why book him in the other fight? fight first. Rico likes to stay active. He needs, he's defending his title for the fifth time. So did he resign with Glory?

Because wasn't there some talk that he was a free agent and he was thinking about going MMA and all that stuff? He has resigned for this, for this fight. Well, two fights. Well, see, this is a non-title fight. So this is a separate transaction. What is the non-title fight? With Bader.

Bader is not a title fight. Why? It's just not a title fight. Water is not fighting for the title. See, this is why I can't follow kickboxing. It's all too confusing. What do you mean? How is this confusing?

I just don't get it. It's a non-title fight. All right. Well, what if he loses the title to Anderson Silva? Yeah, I mean what? Like Anderson Silva versus Forrest Griffin. Were you confused when he didn't fight for a title? No, but they didn't book another fight after that.

They didn't book the title fight first and then the non-title fight afterwards. It's all very confusing. No, nothing confusing. All right. He's defending his title and then he's not. And then, well, let's get back to Chopper Chai. Rico versus Botter, huge. not until December. Chopper Chai.

Chopper Chai. Good performance. Maurice Green is very tough. He wants to fight in the M.A. Chopper was off for a year. That's true. And came back in. That is true. I was impressed. I think people came away pretty happy. How about from a promotional standpoint

the nightmare that Bellator experienced on Friday? I mean, holy moly. First, they're touting Darien Caldwell as the next big thing and all signs pointed to him being the next big thing. and then he loses in stunning fashion. Did you see that? Well, I did.

And what were the odds? It was something crazy, like 14 to 1 or something? Yeah, I think that's exactly as far as the underdog. I think he was 14 to 1. But this is the problem with not being prepared for the opponent to win. This is the problem with, you know, building up people by putting them in against people who, if they win, you have no promotional pull that you can put behind. Baby Joe Temanglo, this guy misses weight, the pride of Guam.

I know he was on a winning streak. I think he had won three in a row or so, but he misses weight before the fight. So now you can't really give him the title shot, or maybe you can because it's Belvoir and they play by their own rules. But Caldwell goes to his bread and butter, goes for the single leg, and then gets caught, guillotine, taps out, shocking stuff. They played with fire. He should have gotten the title shot after his last win. and the guy beats Joe Warren in March, give him the title fight. Signs a new deal, give him the title fight.

But look, you win one more, you're back on track. It's not the end of the world. Still stunning to see. And now they don't really have any contenders at 135 unless you give baby Joe the title fight. But the other thing was they were pushing these two Brazilian females, right? Bruna Vargas and Bruna Ellen, two Brunas, one first name, one last name. and they both lost, pushing them. I mean, it was kind of obvious

why they were pushing them, let's be real. Attractive females. Seemed to fight well. Very inexperienced. Emily Duccott rocks her with a bullet of a right hand and then rear naked choke. Ellen loses via United Recision.

I mean, this was, this was kind of nightmarish. Now, Melvin Galard also missed weight, but he won, and then called out Paul Daley, which I loved, by the way. That's a great call out. We'll touch on that. one. All right. The people were not silent on that call out from Paul. Oh, interesting. I mean,

I'm sorry for Melvin. Yeah, it was just, I was like, wow, everything that could go wrong went wrong on this show. It was entertaining, but from a promotional standpoint, I was like, ooh, what a headache. So yeah, interesting night for Bellator. Interesting night on Friday. There's a lot going on, non-UFC action, but it was very busy. So what do we got? What do we got? Anyone ask us any questions this week? What do we have? That was it. That's it. All right. I'm done. Ooh. Okay. By the way, can I just say one thing about horrible? You remember like around December we were talking about, you know, in around four or five months?

And I love the guys that Jackson wink. But wow. We were talking about it in around four or five months. They could have four champions. They had Carlos Condit fighting. They had John Jones about to fight. Who else did we have? I was just counting this.

Alistair over. No, no. They had Holly Holm, who was champion. And then there was one more. Arlowski. Because he was fighting Stebe Miotich, UFC 1095. Yeah, for the title shot, right? They were in, yeah, they were in position to potentially have four champions by like May or June, right?

None of those things happen. Condit lost. Well, no. Seroni is another one. What do you mean he did become champion? Interim champion? Yeah. Oh, come on.

What do you mean? Stop it with that. You think they wanted this situation? Don't play devil's advocate on me as I'm trying to hammer this point. Soroni loses, Arlofsky loses. Cond it loses, Jones, Holly now loses, geez, who saw this coming?

Shocking. Yeah, that's a rough stretch. And I'm trying to think of an equivalent. I mean, there was a time where Black Zillions were going through a stretch like this, and then they flipped it completely around. But nothing pisses me off more than Holly Holmes still having to answer to the fact that she, oh, you took a risk. You took a risk because you were doing your job?

you took a risk because you didn't want to sit on the sidelines indefinitely in the prime of your career as you're approaching your mid-30s and you've been fighting for like 15 years you took a risk why I don't like the first question that she had to answer after the fight is like oh you took a risk like what's the risk she was getting paid she didn't want to sit on the sidelines she didn't want to let someone else dictate the path of her career and yet like we're almost we're forcing this young woman to continuously defend doing her job. And yet we have all these other champions who win the belt and then go on these like 11-month breaks.

She was right back in there. Like the second she won the belt, she's right back in there fighting in March against anyone. She said, okay, give me Misha Tate, no problem. Then she fights Valentina Schochenko. I mean, we should be celebrating Holly Holie home. And you can make the case, you know, is she the Buster Douglas, which I think is ridiculous.

I had a friend of mine, a non-MMA fan friend of mine who's a boxing fan. is like is Holly Home the Buster Douglas of M. And I'm like, what, this is a ridiculous comment. She was way more talented, way more successful than Douglas leading up to that Ronda Rousey fight. She completely annihilated Ronda Rousey. And then she was, you know, two minutes away from beating Misha Tate. And she lost to a better fighter on Saturday.

But I don't think anything that happened in the last two fights should make us think differently of her win back in November. And I think she needs to stop having to answer this stupid question. If anyone asks her about the risk, quote-to-quote, risk of not waiting for Ronner. If Ronner-Rousey told her that she was coming back in November, then maybe we could talk about this supposed risk. But Ronner-Rousey's not coming back anytime soon. She has not told the UFC that she is ready to come back on X date. Why do we keep asking her this? Why do we keep making her rethink her decision to pursue a career as a prize fighter?

That's what she's done. That's what she's always done. It doesn't make sense. It pisses me off. It really does. First question she has to answer. Risk. What risk? What are you talking about? She's fighting. It's a pleasure. Stop making her feel like crap. Do you not agree? I do agree. She's not risking anything more than she would have previously. The Ronda fight is not a tangible thing. It doesn't exist. She's not sacrificing or compromising anything because it wasn't there to begin with. You're risking more by sitting on the sidelines and waiting. She's gone too.

pay days, one with pay-per-view points on the biggest pay-per-view of the year. Bigger than 200, probably. And where's the risk? Here's more importantly, I don't think this loss precludes her from a fight we were under Rousey anyway. Couldn't agree more. This does anything to hurt her stock in that specific fight. It really doesn't, I'm with you, it doesn't really make sense.

But I do think it's an indictment, not an indictment, but actually the opposite. People think highly of Holly Holme and think that she's worthy of, you know, that fight and want to see it. I think their concern is that she's potentially compromising it, but I don't think that's actually the case at all. So I'm with you. Stay active. Why sit on the sidelines and wait for something that may or may not ever come?

And who knows when, it is silly. Dennis Green, a coach in the NFL, the late Dennis Green, who suddenly passed away tragically last week, had a very famous line in a post-game press conference after the, he was coached for the Arizona Cardinals. and they were playing a team. Was it the Vikings? I want to say the Bears? Yeah, who was it?

Someone will tell me. He had this line where he said they are who we thought they were, right? And we let them off the hook. And we let them off the hook. Does that apply, in your opinion, to Holly Home? Because remember, when this fight with Ron Rousey was booked, everyone thought like, what?

They're putting her in there. She's an experience. She didn't look that great against Marion Reno and Raquel Pennington. She didn't have to kill her instinct. She was missing. And then, of course, afterwards, everyone was like, oh, I saw this coming.

But in hindsight, was she who we thought we were, who she, was she who we thought she was? Which was what? This person who can't, no one thought she was going to beat Ronda Rousey. But she did, I mean, no matter what we think of what happened previously or now, she, on that night, she got it done. You get my question. Was she not as good as we all thought she was? This is what people are claiming. That's the Buster Douglas question.

I know the answer to that question, my answer to that question. I think that's silly. I think, and if you remember, I don't remember when this was, but we've had a conversation about our pet peeves in MMA. My pet peeve in MMA is after somebody loses, they're the worst fighter on the planet. Bar none every time it happens. Holly Holme lost, she's exposed. She was never any good.

She's Buster Douglas, whatever, whatever it is. I'm sick of that to epic purpose. portions. It's the biggest trash thing that happens amongst MMA fans. Nobody in MMA is going to be unscathed. It just doesn't happen. It's not boxing. You can't pick and choose. You can't build yourself up to a contender and then take cupcake fights until you fight the champion. It just doesn't happen. Holly Holm took a difficult fight. She lost it. And there's nothing else that needs to be said about her. It's not an indictment on her entire career. She beat Ronda Rousey, which is an accomplishment. Nobody had done it

that point and if she fought her again um i have to imagine the odds would be relatively close people would be expecting her to be competitive again um so short answer silliness let's stop with the you know burying somebody after they lose um holly is a fantastic fighter and obviously the bigger name to me the big story was just how good valentina shavchenko look for sure that's and that's what we need to be focusing on for sure i mean this is a person who is eating steak the night before her fight the the night before the wayans. She should really be fighting a 125. She's unbelievably strong.

Her coach was shot like two months before the fight. She does not pull out. The coach makes it. She loses the first round, is able to figure her out and is just, you know, I mean, she beat Holly,

you know, at her own game, Valentina's game and Holly's game. It was a fantastic fight. Fantastic performance. This is a person won the third round against Amanda Nunes. I know that was brought up

throughout the broadcast. But to me, me, and last thing I'll ask you before we get to the questions, do you agree with me that, yes, it is a quote-unquote mess, but it's kind of a fun mess, right? I mean, this is what you've been asking for in that division. We want contenders. Nobody's head and shoulders above the rest. Everybody's a few fights away. It's exciting. The moment Holly Holiehom beat Rondorowski, that division became very exciting again, and even more so to this point. Now, it's completely wide open. Nobody's been dominant. Now, there's people,

who will say that, you know, the belt being passed around is not a good thing. I tend to lean toward the idea that dominant champions, especially when, you know, there's a lot of them can be kind of boring. I think this is more exciting. We've got a lot of exciting matchups. And then there's non-title matchups that are exciting as well. So I'm all for this division right now. I think it's exciting. True or false.

Holly Home will hold the UFC championship again. Let's think about who she would face. I'm going to go with true. True or false, Ronda Rousey will hold the UFC title again. I'm also going to go with true. Wow, that's a lot of trues, man. Can't have two champions come back and take their belts? I think both of those are true.

All right. And I could see it happening either way as well. I could see Rhonda winning and Home beating her, and I could see Home winning and Rhonda beating her to reclaim a belt. I think both will reclaim the championship at some point. This thing is going to keep changing hands. I think it will. Okay, let's talk about who's next for the title shot.

Yeah. Is it Valentina? Was that performance enough to get her the title shot? Is it Juliana? It's Juliana. Okay, whoa, wait. We know already that if Rhonda's coming back, it's her.

Yeah. Sure. But let's just say she's not coming back in the next six months, right? Let's just say she's not the answer, because that's the obvious answer, right? I go with Juliana. I think she's done enough. I think she's undefeated in the UFC.

She won the ultimate fighter. I want to see that fight. We just saw the Nunes Chfchenko fight. I don't think Nunes has gone a thousand times better since March. I do think a five-round fight could play out very differently. But we just saw it, and I think it hurts her a little bit in that regard. Under any other set of circumstances, you beat Holly Holme, you should get a title shot. But I think Juliana deserves it.

Does this help her? The fact that this card was billed as Holly Holie Holm and everybody else, um, defeating Holly Holie Holm in these circumstances, does that help her? Does that say? 1,000% it helps her. But I still kind of feel like, I don't know,

I, I just feel like you got a reward Juliana, winning the ultimate fighter, beating everyone they put in front of her, beating Katz and Gano. Um, I think she's done enough. And I want to see her get that title shot.

You know, she's entertaining. She's, she's selling, yeah. I just, look, It's not all about that, but unfortunately for Shevchenko, she just fought Nunes. And, you know, again, I don't think it's egregious if you make that fight, but I think it's weird to skip over Pena at this point. And so, yeah, I'd like to see that.

And I think that there are options for Shefchenko. You know, you can go the Misha Tate route. You can go maybe the Sarah McMahon route, who's been vocal. She has an interview up on the site with Mark Romandie. There are some options for her. I'd like to see her maybe get one more and I think for her own good getting a little maybe trying to go for a fight

where there's a finish and I mean it's not all about that but maybe one more win could help her cue rating so to speak so that's what I would do if Rhonda's not available I go with Juliana Pena next for what it's worth I am with you

I think Juliana's resume looks good she's talking to talk she's walking to walk I think it's Julianna and I think Julianna Pena versus Mendenina is a fun fight absolutely and we haven't seen it

let's do that one okay three of the last five cards have been headlined by women yeah are you surprised by how women have been accepted in mMA and the ufc specifically compared to other sports it's not often that that women would get top billing yeah this is a very uh interesting scenario that we're dealing with right now you know one of the interesting things to witness over the last couple years in in our sport is this this sport at times can be filled with a lot of bros and alpha males and people who aren't very culturally sensitive and things of that nature. But you can make a very strong case that as far as sports are concerned, this is one of the more progressive sports out there. In very few other sports, perhaps tennis and golf, and I don't even know if golf is

in that discussion right this moment because there's no real massive stars, tennis 100% is, that you can put a female fight or female competitor. female athletes on the same footing as their male counterparts and no one bats and I. Headlining a UFC pay-per-view with two females is not a big deal at all. No one feels like they're not getting their money's worth. No one complains. I mean, of course, there's going to be some vocal minority out there, but they are 100% as far as acceptance is concerned at the same level. And now they may not get the same kind of, I don't know, money, things of that nature.

That stuff is very hard to gauge because those numbers aren't official. but who would have ever thought that a sport like mixed martial arts would be like that. And also interesting that in boxing, it's the complete opposite. Could you imagine headlining an HBO show? I mean, the history of HBO boxing and Showtime boxing, I wonder what the answer to this question is. How many times have females headlined one of those telecasts in their history? I don't even know if it is three times. So we've just had three in the last five in the UFC.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. I can't even answer the question. I don't know why. Maybe it's the talent level. Maybe it's the way the sport is. All right, tell me. And I didn't think of it until just this moment.

In the UFC and in MMA, women fight by the same rules. They have the same rule set. They have the same regulations. In other sports, women's sports, the rules, the boundaries, everything is different. Not everything. That's a mischaracterization. But there are different rules in place. Smaller ball this, different pitching mound this.

less sets, whatever the case may be. In MMA, everything is equal. The females get into the same cage as the males, same size, have the same rules in place. And I think that actually goes a long way, and I didn't even think of that until now. But I think that's an important factor in this,

in that they're not treated as differently, so they aren't different. And it's kind of, I'm kind of proud of that. I think MMA is important in this regard. on the biggest weekend arguably in the history of this sport you had a Friday night show headlined by two women you had UFC 200 and I know there were circumstances that played into this headline by two women you had the prelims headline by two women that Wednesday you had the prelims headline by two women this past Saturday you had the prelums excuse me you had the main event headline by two women you also had the opener Phileas Harry Kylie and Curran headlined by two women women. This weekend, the co-main event is headlined by two women. It's unbelievable. And I never feel like I'm not getting my money's worth. In fact, you know, again, I feel like the fights are pound for pound just as, if not more entertaining at times. Now, there's less female fights,

so we're playing with a, you know, a shorter, more shallow pool. But they have, they have certainly earned their right at the table. And who would have thought Ronda Rousey not being a factor in 2016 and no one feels that she's missing? Of course, we'd love to have her back. She brings a lot of attention, but no one feels like anything is lacking. No one feels like we're missing out as far as competition is concerned. Stories are concerned. They are 100% for real. They are as equal as possible with their male counterparts.

And it is somewhat surprising when it comes to MMA because, you know, you could say that at times this isn't a very progressive sport or no one could have seen this coming given the trajectory of the sport. But wow, what a shocker. Yep. And Invicta this Friday. And Invicta this Friday. and they're doing their thing, yeah. And Belator had their, I mean, Belator goes a little bit. I'd like to see Belator take women's MMA a little more seriously.

I think at times it's a bit transparent what they're doing. And of course there's a market for that, but you got to check off both boxes. Sure. You can't just be about looks. You got to find those ones who are, you know, for your sake, if they're good looking, great, but they have to be great fighters as well. First and foremost, that needs to be the first box. The other stuff is gravy.

and that helps with male fighters as well. It's just not talked about as much and not done as egregiously. But you need to find great fighters and the rest will follow. And I think that they're a little too blatant with that. Would you agree? Yes.

You don't have to hesitate. There's nothing wrong about saying that. I get what they're doing. It's just a little too blatant. You've got to find the talented. And you got, like, I don't even know who's the champion on 125. Do they even have a champion at 145?

It's very strange. I need to know what's the point of these fights. Are they just fights? Is it window dressing? Well, they don't have a chance. They set up that title fight for 145 with Marluse and Alexis, but she missed Wade and therefore it wasn't a title fight and we know how that goes. But I'm with you on that for sure.

Okay. By the way, Bo Durr, or is it Dure, Bo Dure? Bo Dure, long-time journalist, very well-respected tells me on Twitter, I'm not sure I agree that most women's sports have different rules than men, not soccer, not track, not skiing, etc. You can make a case in this country that women's soccer is starting to become as popular as men's soccer, but what's your response to that? Certainly not all, but I mean, if we're thinking of the, you mentioned tennis.

Yeah. Tennis is completely different in this country. But tennis accepted just as much as men's tennis. Sure, but rule sets different. Sure, sure. I just think, at the end of the day, I just think of like the NBA on ABC and if they did a double header and the first game was Warriors Cavs and the second game was the Minnesota Lynx versus the New York Liberty, no one's sticking around for the second game.

And that's just the facts. You do a pay-per-view headline by the best men and then you, you know, or co-headlined and then you put the females in the headliner. No one's complain. No one's saying that this is ridiculous. No one's turning off the TV if they're, you know, of the same talent level. So I think that's very, that's very much worth noting. Okay.

Edson Barbosa, this person is suggesting that he didn't get a lot of love for his win this weekend. He's a contender in one of the most talent-rich divisions in the UFC. He's good looking, speaks English. His English has come a long way. Edson is incredible. Fan-friendly fighting style, can't argue with that. The guy delivers. Markitable, but not getting much love.

What do you think about his progress? What do you think about where he is now? Is he ready for a title shot? Give us your thoughts on Edson's package. Phrasing. Yes. Give us your thoughts on Edson's... What he's done as of late, his resume.

We can't forget that not that long ago, in fact, back in December, which was just seven and eight months ago, he did lose to Tony Ferguson. So talking about him getting a title shot before Ferguson, you know, ever sniffed that title shot, and he's still undefeated in this little run of his, I think eight in a row is a little crazy. But I think there's a clear correlation between his move to New Jersey full time

and being a part of that team led by Henry, with Eddie Alvarez there, with Frankie Edgar there, with Marlon Marais there. I mean, they really quietly have one of the best teams in the world. And the proof is in the pudding. He beats Anthony Pettis, perfect game plan back in April. And he beats Gilbert Melendez, perfect game plan this past Saturday.

He, in my opinion, is one fight away from being in that contender discussion. And I'd love to see him fight Hafeld Dosadro's next. I think that's the fight. I think it makes a ton of sense. I know RDA is coming off a loss, but that doesn't really matter these days. And it was a title loss. so it especially doesn't matter in this case. Barboza RDA is the fight to make.

Love that's of Barbosa. And I don't think he's not getting the love. I mean, to me, I felt like that was very much a two-fight card as far as like really serious, important fights. And everyone was talking about that fight. I mean, there was a big, I thought there was a big gap between the top two fights and the rest of the card as far as talent is concerned.

There were some up-and-comers, no doubt, but that was the elite of the elite in the co-main event and main event, in my opinion. and Barbosa put on a show. Now, it was 30 to 27. It was a little closer than that. But what he displayed was, I mean, Gilbert Melendez, yes, coming off a year layoff,

you know, that may have come into play. But he was super game, super tough. Barbosa was just better. Yeah. I'm not necessarily with you about him not getting a title shot before Ferguson. Nobody loves Tony Ferguson's style and game more than me.

But timing is everything with this. He may just, you know, all he has to do is put himself in position and the timing may work out that he gets it first. God. If you're Ferguson, your head will explode if that happened. It's just the way, I mean, that's the current state. It's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's how it rolls. Um, but I, I don't think anybody can argue that Tony Ferguson doesn't deserve a shot. That, that's, that's, okay. Do you agree that Habib should get it next?

I think so. I think he's been, you know, waiting, but you can't, you can't, you can't, you 23 and O. You can't. Oh, I see. What you mean? Is that, is that, is that, is that, no, you feel like that's trite? I don't, because I feel like it's legit. It sucks. but, you know, he, you know, he was healthy in his last fight. He went through a full camp. He says he's doing things smarter. I think at this point you're punishing him.

He went through one full fight camp. If it was, you know, the first fight upon returning, a bit of a different story, but I don't know. I've long said, I think he's the best lightweight in the world. I think he's the champion in waiting. I think he beats everybody else in that division. But it's not only about, you know, can you fight them when you're ready and healthy and all that? It's a two-way street. what's next for Gilbert Melendez

how did you think of his performance Aaron here is saying he looked a little bit slow what do you think about Gilbert I still think he has some fighting left in him you know a fight that could have been interesting at this juncture because they're both in a weird spa would be a rematch with him and Anthony Pettis

I think that would be interesting but Pettus going down to 145 he's fighting Charles Olavera it's Saroni is up at I don't know why they keep Sironi in that 150 rankings. It doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I was thinking about this. Perhaps the returning Michael Chiesa would be an interesting litmus test for Chiesa to see if he's really, because I still think that Melendez is one of the best, even though he's not currently ranked. I don't hate the

idea of Will Brooks versus Kesa. Some people were talking about Brooks versus Barbosa, and I know I know Brooks even called out Barbosa this morning. I mean, I wouldn't hate that if they booked it, but I think there's a bit of a gap there. I'd like to see Barbosa go up and fight an RDA. So, yeah, those two came to mind when thinking about Melendez. You know, him and Iaquinta have some unfinished business because they were booked to fight each other. But all signs point to Iaquinta fighting Tiago Alves in New York, at least as of right now. So those are the names that came to mind when I was thinking about what's next for Melendez.

I like all those. Did you just burp? What's wrong with you? Couldn't hit the cough box. I like those. I think not only is it is a litmus test for whoever he's facing, but I think it's a litmus test for Melendez as well. I mean, you know, he's been facing only top competition for a very long time, I think.

And, you know, I think he's still good. I just don't think he's at that championship level anymore. So I think it'll be interesting to see kind of where his career goes from here. And a step down from those guys might be what's needed to kind of see where he's at, to kind of gauge that. And while we're talking about Barbosa's win and Shevchenko's win and the rest of that card Saturday in Chicago, I do think it's important to note, and I actually heard from a judge privately thanking me for this, which I didn't expect. We bitch and moan about the judging a lot in this sport.

I thought the judging was super on point Saturday. They got the Shevchenko one right. They got the Barbossa one right. I mean, by the round, I thought. And they were good all night. You disagree? I don't disagree, but I don't think we should have. people on the back for doing their job. Yeah, but we bitch when they, when they mess up. So it's a

thankless job. No, just say, yo, good job. I think there's nothing wrong with that. If you do a good job on this show, are you saying I shouldn't thank you? I say, you know, good work, thank you, peace out. I'm waiting for the day. Oh, that is bullshit. I'll welcome it gladly. You know what? You know, that hurts. Listen, I understand the sentiment. And by the way, the reason for that is it has yet to happen. There you go. There you go. I agree with the idea behind the sentiment. but I don't, I don't agree with it in execution. This is their job. This is literally what they are getting paid to do.

Yeah, but more often than not, they get it wrong. So when they get it right on the one rare night, I think it's, there's nothing wrong with just saying, hey, good job, guys. Let's see more of that. Good job, good effort. A little pat on the butt. What's wrong with that?

That never hurt anyone. So you don't believe in giving people compliments. Positive reinforcement is not my style. The hell. What's wrong with you? Why are you such an ass? Especially in the case, like, this is what they are sitting in that seat for. Yeah, guess what?

That is all they have to do. And literally getting paid like peanuts for it, nothing. I'm not getting paid peanuts? And yet, and yet they're subjected to this vitriol. And honestly, it's BS that they don't get paid because they're the ones deciding the fate of these six-figure, seven-figured fights. They should get paid more because they have a lot of power, right? And there's only three rounds, sometimes five rounds. That's it.

So they should get paid more. Yeah, you're a softie. So softy. I'm a nice guy. I don't want them to get anything for doing their job. So we shouldn't have acknowledged it. No. B.S.

Move on to something. Well, I could tell you one judge, he appreciated it. I'm sure he did. What is it going to do? He didn't go out and give a crap score in his next fight. No. How do you see the future of the heavyweight division? This person mentions his, what the hell did I just say?

Mensions two towns. Bad job there. There you go. Where's the comments for how eloquently I read all the rest of the comments. Okay. Francis Ingano and Derek Lewis. These are two up-and-coming heavyweights. What do you think of the state of division?

This one's often considered kind of old, kind of stale. Yeah, it's fun. Right now we've got some prospects. Are you excited about this division in the future? That felt like a bit of a mismatch. Bojan, right? I mean... I mean, it's hard.

You know, Francis We're trying to build people. He's a bit of an unknown quantity as well. Like, it's not like, you know, he was this established, you know, quantifiable, you know, item. I think this fight goes a long way toward establishing that. It's been a few in a row. I'm with you. Look, it wasn't, you know, competitive.

It wasn't the best fight. But I think that this is on the right track, that heavyweight is getting a bit of an infusion of characters and talents. I mean, you can even go with Ben Rothwell, who's been around a long time, but this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, version of him, this iteration is even new. I think there's a lot of like cool things kind of happening at heavyweight. You have to be very careful when you book the heavy weights because there's such a shortage of good ones that you know the wrong booking here or there and you're like, you know, we just invested in this guy two, three fights and now he loses. That's why I don't like the Derek Lewis fight. That's why I feel like you need to start, you need to build those guys up a little

little more. And I think Lewis has had a little more time in the cage, especially coming off a went over Roy Nelson. You're going from Roy Nelson to Francis and Ganu? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. No, I don't think this person was matching them up. No, but everyone on Saturday was saying that. Oh, I didn't. I definitely agree with you there. I slowly, slowly, slowly build up frenzies. Slowly, slowly. And Lewis is definitely in that discussion. I don't think he's in the title discussion, but you beat Roy Nelson, especially like that. I know he's disappointed that he didn't finish him, but that is very notable in my opinion. Let's look at these. He damn sure got close to finishing them.

You hit him with the kitchen sink. There are some big fights coming up in the heavyweight division, Josh Barnett, fighting against Rothwell, right? Yeah, but I mean, that's another case. We're looking at some of the same names. Like, you know, we're looking at the guys who have been at the top.

Barnett Arlofsky, sorry, Barnett Arloffsky and Rothwell against Redoom. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, what I'm saying is like those two matchups, for example, are just, you know, matchups that we've seen not, if it wasn't this exact fight,

you know, swap these. opponents in it and we've seen it. It's the same names kind of regurgitated over and over. And I feel like, you know, finally it looks like we may be getting some newer ones. Yeah, you know, Derek Lewis versus Stefan Struve, I think is fun. Awesome. I think that if Mark Hunt wasn't involved in this mess of a situation, that would have been a fun fight as well, Derek Lewis.

That's a banger. Yeah. So I think that there are options. I say slow our role. Francise, let him work his way up. Don't get too crazy. But yes, it's good to. have some names to get excited about in that division, a division where I think there's only

like one 30-year-old in the entire top 15. Okay, Melvin Geyard and Paul Daly. Yes. He returned Friday night, denounced lightweight, called out. Thank God. Paul Daly at Welterweight. What do you think of that matchup? Do you think they have to do Daly Kashiak? Do you think they have to hold out for that? Talk about, you know, booking something and it doesn't come to fruition because of injuries. How many times? Yes, I want to see that fight. That's the fight. I like when someone calls out. someone when he has a plan. I'm so happy that Gullard has said no more lightweight. Enough is enough. He's missed weight countless times at this point. His body just can't make it anymore. Just

forget about it. You're not in the title chase. Just stop doing it. Do you think he was planning this before? Or do you think after he missed weight? He was like, you know what? Let me game plan right here. I'm looking for a welterweight. This fight makes sense. Let me go after him. You know, it's hard to answer that question without speaking to him. I can see both answers happening, being true, being accurate. But whatever the case is, that's a brilliant idea. And Coker retweeted it and Daley wrote on his Facebook page that he likes it as well. Daly coming off that number one contender loss to Douglas Lima, that's a great fight.

And the shit-talking is going to be great, and it's going to be great. Has Paul Daly gotten on Twitter yet? No. I don't know what's wrong with it. He's great on the Facebook guy. I don't understand these Facebook guys. What do you mean? It just doesn't make sense to me, Facebook.

Maybe I've ruined my Facebook page because long ago I added too many people and now it's just it's not fun. I go on there and I'm like, I don't know who you are. I literally do not know who you are. And you just had a baby and I guess I'm happy for you, but I don't know who you are. So it's hard to really truly be happy for you. Speaking of which, I loved all the tweets that I got last week of people showing me where they were listening to the show. Did you get those as well? I got a few, yeah.

It was nice. Send them our way. We're always interested. expecting a bath time tweet from John Gooden. Yes. Get on that. I actually want to see a picture this time. What do you mean?

He sent it before, I think. I don't know if you've ever seen it. Running the bath, as they say. I've seen the emoji. I've seen the tweets. I've never actually seen the physical evidence. Anyway, oh, no, I thought that was a text from John Gooden telling me about it. What was I talking about?

I forgot. You were talking about Facebook and how... Oh, yeah. Why is he so... He's on the Facebook thing. It's just his medium. I get it. I don't, I'm not a Facebook person myself, but I get it.

Do it like Mark Hunt. Just link the two. No, that's fair. Mark Hunt is prolific on the social media. Who would have thought? Oh, he's great. Speaking of which, is Mark Hunt waking up? This next question, how about this?

We're on the topic. Perfect. Apropos. If Brock doesn't appeal his potential drug test failure and his hand to suspension, do you think it brings into question his career, his credibility affects future Hall of Fame things? How does this essentially, let's say Brock never competes again? in MMA or the UFC, how does this affect his legacy? How does this affect his credibility with the UFC, with the Hall of Fame, all of that?

By the way, worth noting that since we last spoke, Brock failed the second test. Correct. So since we last spoke, it came out, I believe, on Tuesday. Not a Friday. How about that? Although we did get a PED suspension on a Friday afternoon, and it was interesting. I was in the car listening to the radio, and the news came out that Arthur Jones, the brother of John Jones, suspended four games due to violating the NFL. NFL PD policy and the broadcaster on the radio mention is like, oh, Friday, great call, NFL.

You know, they were saying the same thing that I was talking about last week, the PR 101 savvy move. Anyhow, so yeah, he failed two tests. We've yet to hear from him. We don't really know what's going to happen. I heard that Randy Orden threw some shade his way on the WWE pay-per-view last night. Did you hear about that? I did not. Supposedly he said that I'm going to R-K-A-O-you and I don't need any supplements or substances

or something like that. Yeah, interesting. How about that? That's a shoot. That's a shoot, brother. Wait, have they? Have they? Has, W.W.E. has addressed it, right?

I forget. They sent out a non-statement after the first failed drug test. But the reason I bring that up is, the word on the street is that he is not subjected to very stringent drug testing in WW. I don't know what the level of it is, but it's certainly not USADA. I think that's very fair to say. And so, yeah, this, if he does not have a good reason for this, estrogen blockers, which any long-time steroid user or weightlifter,

any one of those people in that world will tell you is a very problematic thing to have in your system. If he doesn't address it in any kind of way and takes this one on the chin, I do think it affects him. Now, what does the UFC Hall of Fame really mean? I mean, it's not, whatever. But the real hallf-fell, I've said after his Overeign fight, I would put him on a Hall of Fame ballot. these type of things, they affect your legacy.

It has changed the way I view Anderson Silva. It has changed the way I view Brock, although I think we need to reserve judgment on him, has changed the way I viewed a lot of other people as well. So yeah, I think that is a real thing, and that's a fair question. I'm with you, and I mean... Down with the cheaters. Yeah.

You know, we have to hold out until we know the full, you know, story, the scope of what actually is happening. But clearly, if this comes to light that, he willingly cheated. I mean, there's nothing else to say, but it will affect his like... Does it hurt John Jones

that his brother tested positive? No. I mean, you know, people will try to make that connection, but no. All right. Brock, not being fined by the UFC, they said they weren't going to

institute any penalty there. It doesn't seem like Hunt's going to get his demands. No. Yawanna champion. Yeah. Openly supporting it. Respect. T.J. Dillishaw,

starting to speak out after the UFC. you sold is are we moving toward a fighter union is are the tides changing yes is this the beginnings 100% um now whether it takes 10 years 5 years 6 years 8 years who knows but this is this is the beginning of that chapter in my opinion and it's not just this it's the sale it's the tv deal coming up we were talking about this on the beat there's a great article in the uh sports business journal sorry I'm laughing. After you,

like, did you burp? No, you just burp like three times. Well, at least I was moving away and you didn't hear it. There's a sale in the sports business journal written by two amazing

sports TV business writers, John Orand and Michael Smith. And they wrote this very, very, very in-depth story on the UFC sale. The players involved, the offers, things of that nature.

And they said that one of the reasons why it was sold for $4 billion, is that they are banking on the next round of TV deals, the Fox deals up in two years, two plus years. They're banking on it going from around 110, 15 million to around 400 million a year. Think about that. That is a massive jump. Now, it's not quite NBA, NFL, but it's a big jump.

And as we've outlined on this show, the fighters currently make zero percentage of that money. So you're profiting all of that. And, of course, you're paying for production costs and UFC runs production. I mean, it's not just going straight in your pocket, but you get what I'm saying. None of that. No 50-50 split, none of that. So I think that the fighters are starting to smarten up and saying, wait a second, look at these NBA guys. What are we getting?

Oh, and the Reebok deal as well. MMA junkie noting that Holly made just $2,500 in sponsorships, main eventing on Fox, over 2.4 million people watching. Those were the preliminary ratings made $2,500 in sponsorships. I mean, it's almost like their hand is being forced. It's almost like they're, you know, they're fooling themselves if they don't do it. You know what I mean? Absolutely. You have to do it.

At this point, there needs to be collective bargaining. They're starting to recognize that, yeah, USADA's cool, but we should have had a say in this whole thing. Yeah, these rules about, you know, what weight you should be coming, checking in on Tuesday before a Saturday fight is cool and all, but we should have a say in this whole thing. Yeah, I guess being sponsored by a mainstream blue chip sponsor like Reebok is cool, but we should have a say in this whole thing. Yeah, it's cool to be on Fox, but we should have a say in this whole thing. I mean, you just have to have a say. You can't just sign away. And as T.J. Dilleshaw outlined very well, I thought, on my favorite show, Stad Show Radio,

they claim to be independent contractors, but they're not. They're treated as employees. The USADA thing, having to tell your quote-unquote employer where you are at all times, that's not an independent contractor. I think we all know what an independent contractor does for a living. He does not have to check in with someone 24-7-365. You get hired for a one-shot here or there, and then you go along your merry way. They are treated as employees.

And so, yeah, there's a lot going on. There's talks. There's this and that. I do think when we look back on history, and I always like to equate this to 1920s football, you've heard me say that a thousand times on this show, we will look at this. And yes, work has been done. We can't ignore the MMAFA and the anti-trust. trust and all that, that is significant to some degree.

But I do think that this year, last 12 months or so, really will signify the wins starting to turn in that direction. And I think the fighters are getting smarter, too, by the way. And they're being surrounded by smarter people as well, smarter managers, smarter agents, etc. UFC 201 coming off a stint of events where the most stacked cards have turned out to be lackbuster and the events that are a little lower profile. turned out to be incredibly exciting.

I don't know if that's even this stint. That seems to happen in general. But Sean, the person who asked this, is looking for a reason to be excited about UFC 201. Wow. Geez. Do you have anything for him? Are you looking at anything?

Ironic that you would ask the negative guy to try to sell you on a pay-per-view. That's a joke, by the way. I will be in Atlanta. I am looking forward to it. You know, our y'all must have forgot clip, which we sort of breeze by this week because there's just too much to talk about, too many guests, et cetera, was my very first interview with Tyron Woodley. You can look it up. It's May of 2010. And it's fascinating to look back on that interview because he was saying all the right things back then. And I know that his title shot

has been somewhat polarizing. And I know that a lot of people wanted to see others get that shot first. But I am genuinely happy for Tyron Woodley, who has done all the right things, who has not cut corners, and who was supposed to fight Johnny Hendricks back in October when fighting Johnny Hendricks was a bigger deal. It did not happen. He made weight. He went out there in front of the people, stepped on the scales, made it 170, I think, point four, and said, I'm going to get my title shot because that was at stake. And they sort of promised him that title shot, and he made them stick to their guns. And I like that. And I don't mind that. And I think that the promo is a little bit hokey. And I think that they actually missed the boat on the countdown show because they have a

history as he outlined on this show that they completely ignored. Robbie and Tyrantu. They just kind of went generic. But I think Robbie Lolle versus Tyrone Woodley is a very fun fight. If you forget about the other options, if you forget about his layoff, the fact that he hasn't fought in a year and a half, all that stuff, Robbie Lollah versus Tyron Woodley in 2016 is a fun fight. And then when you look at Rose Nama Yunus, who I think is one win away from fighting for the belt, as is Karina Kovacievich. You can go right in both ways there. Rose versus Yawanna is a great fight, and then you have, you know, Poland versus Poland. Civil War, so to speak. If Carolina wins, I think that's fun as well. I think seeing perhaps the most famous

fighter who currently lives with his parents, Ian McCall, returning to action against Justin Skagans is fun as well. Sort of Jake Ellenberger's last stand against Matt Brown. The always entertaining Nikita Crylove versus Ed Herman. Now I'm starting to stretch a little bit, but you get my point, No, I think you've summed it up and played it appropriately. There's something there. You know, I've never been to Atlanta. That's exciting. Well, now we're just getting into selfish Ariel Hualanyo.

Oh, I get to go to Atlanta. Yeah. Our good friend, Danny Segura's favorite fighter, Goyito Perez, returning. That's a good fight right there. Will he wear the mask against Francisco Rivera? How about our good friend, friend of the show? Mazvedal going up against Pearson, right? Horny on Masvedal going up against Ross Pearson.

So there are some names there. Wilson Hayes, you know, it's a bummer. He doesn't get that title shot. We have to remember that DJ was originally booked for this card. So that's a bummer, but he is remaining on the card. So there's something there. I like Michael Graves as well. He's fun.

So if you look, you'll find something there. I'm with you. You know, look, let's be frank. It's not the best card on paper. No. You can make a case that it's the weakest UFC pay-per-view since UFC 177. Now that one was hit by an entry or missed, you know, missed weight cut and all that stuff with Henna Burrell. But even the rest of the card, like the co-meant event at the time was

Tony Ferguson versus Danny Castillo on pay-per-view. And if you look at it, you can make that case in my opinion. Yeah. And, you know, it'd be hard to defend this card as, you know, amazing and whatever, you know, it's not the best card. We'll be frank. But I think there are good, close matchups and there's something that people can look for here. I have a feeling if you sit down and watch it, you'll be entertained on Saturday. I feel like something's about, I feel something big is going to happen. I feel like next week on the show we'll talk about something big. I mean, it seems to always happen that way, right? That's true. Okay, I'm leaving you with this and then I'm getting our next guest. Yes. What are your thoughts on the announced lineup for

24? Oh yes. All the champions. There's higher stakes. What do you think about that while I go get Michael Van of H? Yeah, and worth mentioning as well that there's also Invicta, the return of Alexa Grasso. They put out a great promo for Grasso. She has been hit by injury. She hasn't fought since the night before UFC 184. She's competing against Jody Escobel. Irene Aldana is also competing. Jessman Duke, Megan Anderson, Mizuki, Inouye.

There are some names, Aspen Lad. It's a pretty solid card from Invicta, and also World Series of Fighting has a card on Saturday as well. Their 32nd card. Marlon Marais returns his final fight under contract for WSOF, rematch against Josh Hill, and Lance Palmer against Alexander Almeda rematch as well for the featherweight title. Brother versus brother, Ben Fordor, aka Phoenix Jones versus Carlos Fordor, and Phil Haas,

returning against Louis Taylor. That's a fun card as well. It's a shame. It's the same night as UFC 201, but the main card starts at 1030. Anyhow, tough 24. I actually don't mind it. I mean, we've talked ad nauseum about that show, and, you know, It's troubles, but there were some interesting names.

Yoni Sherbetov, out of Quebec, Damacio Page returning, Tim Elliott, formerly of the UFC as well. So yeah, there were some interesting names on that cast. All former champions, or I should say current champions from other organizations outside of the UFC will be vying for a title shot, although I do believe that Louis Smolka

should probably get a title shot before any of those guys, now winning four in a row. there are some good names and I'm curious to see how it all plays out. I wish that they would give it a whole new look. I wish that they would allow these guys to live in separate houses with their coaches and teams. This is such a big deal. They're champions. They certainly deserve that. I wish they would really shake up this whole damn thing and make it look a lot different. Make it feel different. Get it out of that house. Get it out of that gym. You know what I mean? Really shake it up. But we'll see. All right. Let's move along to our next guest. He is joining us

from jolly old England. In fact, Mama knows, my parents are in England right now. Maybe he's seen them. Michael Page, Michael Venom Page, MVP, on the phone right now. Michael, are you there? Yes, how are you doing? Have you seen my parents? I don't believe I have just yet.

All right. It's a bit too cloudy to find them. Look for the people with the big noses. They'll be walking around. Good to have you on the show. Congratulations on your most recent win. Yeah, thank you very much. What a bizarre story this is because the fight happens midday here in the United States.

People are buzzing because of your knockout, because of your celebration. It was like top trending thing on Twitter. Over a million people are watching on YouTube. And so it's all feeling good. Everything's happy. And then we get the news that cyborgs suffered a fractured skull. And then we all start to feel uneasy about it. What about for you?

Was it hard to feel good about the win after you heard about that? Yeah, 100%. and it's even harder when the first you know the first news feed that I got of it my brother actually read out fatal injury to cyborg so I will excuse my friend shit at myself man

because you know see that's not something that's not something you want to be a part of you know what I mean that's not that's not why we do this yeah so obviously obviously yeah we heard you know I found out a bit more I was constantly trying to phone people and figure out

what was going on um I found out yeah you know, he was okay, but, you know, it's still a severe injury. But, yeah, it was just very hard to, it was a weird, weird moment because, you know, like you say, you're trying to enjoy what's going on.

And then, you know, you're just sitting there worried about, you know, your opponent. So, yeah, it was a weird feeling. How soon after the fight did you find out that he had suffered that kind of injury? It was the next day. Oh, wow. Weirdly enough, because obviously,

once I finished the fight, he turned face down. Yeah. I did my celebration. When I kind of finished kind of celebrating and doing what I was doing, he was already at the cage. I never actually saw him in any way. So the first time, I never saw him again, because he went to hospital.

So the first time I saw it was that newsfeed and the picture that came out with it. Wow. Sorry, when you landed the knee, could you feel is it possible to feel that something went wrong there no I heard a I heard a sound I in all honesty I thought it was his nose and again by the way he was he's still conscious you know he was still kicking his legs obviously in pain but you know I just thought you know I caught his nose or maybe even his jaw but just again

the way his hands were it more seemed to be nose than anything and um that again you know broken nose I've always seeing guys with that in the gym. It's not a hard fix. Again, it wasn't something I was worried about immediately. I was just kind of, again, just happy about the win, happy about landing the shot that, you know, I've been training for.

So, yeah, I didn't notice anything at all. I said afterwards on Monday that, you know, when you see something like that, you start to ask yourself, like, what are we doing? What's going on in this sport? I mean, you kind of have this sort of moment of self-reflection. You were in there. You're the one who

landed the knee, and I don't think you deserve one criticism and I'll get to that in a second. But do you have that moment as well? Like, is it hard to go right back in the gym when you see a picture like that, a fractured skull after you land the flying knee? It just makes you think, as you say, to think a bit more about the sport and not in a selfish way but kind of related to yourself like, man, because obviously we're both aiming to inflict that kind of damage, but obviously not.

But it can potentially happen to either or a fighter. So it does make you think about the sport and what you are doing. But at the same time, we kind of know what we're signing up for, and it is something that we enjoy as a sport, not to damage people or do anything bad for their careers or anything afterwards. It is the sporting side, the mental side, the physical side that we have to, we do, we really enjoy it.

So, yeah, it's just a shame that these things happen. And luckily, it doesn't happen very often. So, you know, it's a good thing. So I defended you very much last week. I said that you don't deserve any criticism, obviously because what you did wasn't illegal. But even anyone pointing out that you were celebrating, you had no idea what was going on. And you have been consistent throughout your entire career. You've always had these outlandish celebrations.

And you're a very entertaining guy. You like a little mustard on your hot dog. And we talked about that when you were in studio. And I thought that you were a gentleman and a class act on Twitter when talking about Cyborg. But shortly after the fight, he told our Guillermo Cruz, he said, quote unquote, he's a clown, speaking of you. The way he behaves is not how a champion should behave. He's talented, yes, he's skillful, and he fought a great fight.

But does it bother you to hear him say that after what you were saying about him after the fight? Yeah, it did a little bit, to be honest. I was kind of, I was a bit disappointed. As you say, it's not something that he wasn't unclear about coming into the fight. If you, you know, paid attention to me. And, you know, obviously, watch me before, you know the package deal that it comes, with this is what I do. You know what I mean?

I'm not saying he has to enjoy it, but I just think the statement didn't need to come out that way. I tried to support him as much as I could afterwards as well. By even, you know, posting out, I even made sure our company put in money, a load of money to help,

you know, to help raise the funds. And again, that's just, the celebration is completely separate to the injury, you know what I mean? And me caring about him as an individual, and for his career. So it was just more disappointing

when I first saw the statement, but I think maybe because of how big it got and maybe a little bit embarrassed about or with him being on the receiving end of it, it could have been the reason why he kind of came out of that statement,

but I have no real hard feelings towards him. I just a bit disappointed. And by the way, for the record, which company contributed money to his GoFundMe account? Oh, it's my company The Hands Down brand that Oh wow Well done

Yeah, so Yeah, thank you So the celebration Everyone was talking about afterwards I mean, boy, did you capitalize on something That was very much in the news The Pokemon celebration

Now I have to ask you We had a long discussion About this on the show last week Do you play this Pokemon game Are you a Pokemon fan? I'm gonna, listen I've been killing this Pokemon game Like

It's so bad I'm like, my girlfriend's just like, listen, you seriously need to stop this. Wow. What are you doing? Me and my friends, we're just like me up and going like, to be fair, it's a good time because the sun's out over here occasionally anyway. And we call it pokey walks and we just go around. We'll go to the park or something.

It's good because it keeps us like being social, but then again not because we're kind of stuck on our phone. Yeah. So Michael Page calls up his mates and says, hey, do you want to go outside on a polky walk? Okay, walk, let's just look at our phone and walk around like zombies. This actually happens? This actually happens. Now, whose idea was it to capitalize on it and throw the ball and put on the hat and all that?

Was that your idea? Yeah, you know, my brother actually came out of it first, but he never told me. He was just laughing and joking and said, wouldn't it be funny if, you know, you did this afterwards, but he was talking to my brother-in-law. and then because they were on their way over to from the States to come to put me over here so then when they got here we was all just talking about the new Pokemon game like literally every one of us had it

on their phone on our phones yeah so we were just laughing and joking about just having it full stop and um and then again he my brother-in-law mentioned what you know my brother said and I was like I actually loved the idea so we were laughing and joking about it you know my family you know full of full of laugh like full of jokers and then I was I was like, no, no, I'm actually going to go and look for it.

So we went down to a Forbidden Planet in an Oxus street. I found the hat, even though it wasn't the original. I was just looking for something because no shop had it. And then in Toys R Us online, I found a Pokemon board. So we were like, yeah, I was like, I'm going to make this happen. And I had it visualized in my head. I was like, if I do get the knockout, just make sure you give it to me. And I'll do the rest.

And it just literally the way I saw it in my head is the way it happened. Amazing. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the second you landed that and he was down, and kudos to you for not pouncing on him and throwing extra shots, I think that's worth noting as well. You ran straight for your corner to get the hat in the ball,

and you throw the hat towards him. What does that signify? What are you doing there with that ball? I was catching a cyborg. Oh, yeah, because there is a cyborg. You know, I never made that connection. I don't know anything. That is incredible.

So by throwing the ball, you're catching the cyborg? Yeah. Holy crap, you are a brilliant man. That is amazing. That is unbelievable. I am taking a stand. I don't want to play this game. Am I missing out?

No, yeah. I believe you're... Because I'm kind of into it at the moment, you're definitely missing out. I feel the more simple games are the best. You know, if we're going back, you know, Tetris, those very basic games are the most kind of addictive

because it's so easy to kind of do. And I think this game, obviously slightly more complex than what they have to do on it but the general format of how to play the game is very simple and it just makes it easy to play because I find nowadays

I've got a PlayStation and stuff but I don't have time to play it anymore you know I get back in from training and I'm just tired I can't bother to kind of pick up a pack so it's just sitting there but these kind of simple games are very just easy to do and I find them ones that the most enjoyable

were you surprised at how big of a deal I mean, this was a massive deal. Everyone was talking about it. Even non-MMA fans saw it. Were you surprised how big it got? It was weird because when we were talking about it, we were laughing like, oh, this could be big. This could be big.

If I managed to pull this off, this could be really big. I think that would go viral. So we were laughing and joking about it. But to be fair, when it actually happened and the response that I got from, you know, just absolutely enough every platform there is, like I was seeing it being reposted and talked about, yeah, I was 100%.

I didn't think it would be that big. nowhere there. And even just the feedback I've got from it, it's just, yeah, like you say, it's just blown up. I thought of all the fighters on the card you came across as the biggest star, you're from England, the fans really took to you. What was the experience like live for you to be there and hear them chanting your name? And, you know, you on the mic, it was sort of rock-esque, if I'm being honest, when you said you've returned. I mean, the whole experience of just getting to fight at home at the O2, this legendary arena,

What was that like for you? It was, you know, even the way I built, sometimes, you know, you can build things up in your head beforehand. And because I was so excited, I just couldn't help but imagine everything beforehand. And sometimes I can kind of ruin the experience. And it doesn't kind of, you know, come up to your expectation or what you've built it up to be. But this, it literally, it was even way better than I could have imagined.

And just like you say, just the response to the crowd, how excited everybody was as I came in during and afterwards, it was just unbelievable. And then what made it even better is to be able to just leave the cage. And literally, as I'm looking around, I'm seeing my kickboxing, you know, my old kickboxing, like training and friends. And from the kickboxing industry, you know, my mom was there. My brothers and sisters and everybody was there. I had cousins. I had friends. It was just to be able to look around and just see all these people around,

which I'd usually have to kind of wait until sometimes usually the heights already kind of died down. Obviously, people are still excited that I've won. But, you know, I usually spend a week out in the States afterwards. And by the time I get back, it's been a couple of weeks since the fight. And you obviously don't get to see everyone straight away. So it's kind of, it could be like three weeks before I actually see anybody. And, but just seeing everybody there was just, it was unbelievable.

Wow. And then you have the great Lennox Lewis, who I will note is a Canadian, and he turned his back on my country, but I still got love. I still got love for the man. He's acting like a fanboy around you, taking pictures of you and videotaping your scrum. What was that like for you? Man, it was unbelievable. The first time I was doing an interview, and the guys were like, oh, we actually

interviewed Lennox Lewis yesterday, but he was not. He just kept talking about you. And I was like, wow, this guy knows who I am. And then when I met him, he would, again, straight away, he was just like, man, I see, you know, you got this real quick right hand. And he was just going off on one. And I was like, what? How are you talking that way about me?

I'm like, you're a legend, you know what I mean? And, you know, he's a really chill guy. We were just catching out talking. And, yeah, it just, yeah, just through the night. And it was just amazing because, again, straight afterwards, he came, he actually jumped. my interview that I had after the fight and he would again just show

and there's nothing but love and it was to have those kind of people around acknowledging you for one but then acknowledging you and also as you say like in a massive positive way about how you're doing and and you know wanting you to keep it up and it just keeps you on a high

you know yes that's even better than winning the fight sometimes so you improved 21 and 0 I thought it was a nice step up in competition I love the matchup I liked it better than the original one. And I know it may have gone a little longer than you would have wanted. You finished him with around 29 seconds left in the second round. Overall, were you happy with the fight?

Were you happy with your performance? Yes and no. Obviously, the takedown I wasn't happy with. There's just a couple of things. You know, basic stuff. Even when I spoke to my coach after, he's like, you know, if you had your leg here and you did different, it's just basic stuff.

To be honest, Cyborg was... I was actually very, like, impressive how strong he was initially. When he actually first grabbed me, I was like, wow, this guy is, this guy is powerful. And I've had that. Most of the guys that I've fought, they're all strong, but something felt different with this guy. He felt really, really, really strong. So, but then obviously the take down, I would just say, just stay calm, stay relaxed.

I saw an opportunity to get a leg lock, but even then, I didn't want to blow up my arms because as I was going for it, he just, again, the muscles in his legs, it was just difficult to even put it. And I've caught that move before in sessions, you know. But just him, this is his strength in being able to, you know, defend that kind of stuff. He was, again, all very impressive.

But I felt him burning himself with trying to keep me down. And my coach, I could hear him. He just said, stay relaxed, you know, make sure he doesn't do it. It's just basic stuff to stay relaxed. He obviously telling him to get my guard back. He just felt ridiculously strong on top of me. But he wasn't doing anything.

So I was staying relaxed. I said, I'm going to ride the round out, and then I got 10 more minutes to do what I need to do. And, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Once I got up, I still felt fresh. I looked across the cage, and I saw how tired he looked, you know, just from holding me there. So I knew I could get him.

Okay, so what's next? Do you have any idea yet? No, not at all. but as everybody else, you know, screaming out. They want the titles, obviously, Douglas Lima. He's there. He's there. He's in the front of the line for that, so he's going to be there next. But I feel if I'm not there right afterwards, yeah, something, something's wrong.

So if I have one more fight and then the title, just wait for the opportunity to just get the title. Do you have any idea who would be your next opponent who's in that discussion as well? Because I think you laid out pretty well. have to be at least, if not one more, I mean, if not next, then one more and that's it, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm not sure. You know, I've had multiple names flying across, but it's weird how uninterested I am with

that. And I've said it from the beginning. I've never really cared that much about who it is. I'm kind of just on my own trip. I'm just more focusing on myself. I'm enjoying learning. I'm enjoying getting better. I'm enjoying putting on shows.

it's more about me. And regardless, whoever they want to throw, and I'm just like, I'm the same as everybody else. You know, they want big names and stuff, and that's what's going to be happening. So it doesn't matter, you know, whoever they want to have next, any of the top names are there,

they want to throw one of those in first. I feel confident in my progression and where I am at this particular stage, and I'm happy to fight anyone. Have you resigned with Beltor? Did you just recently sign a new deal with them? No, no, no. No, no. It's just part of the contract. You get there's like an extension.

Ah, so how many left now? That was from before. That was from the four. Okay. I was from the four. It's the same contract. I haven't actually re-sign anything. Ah, so you have four left or three left? I believe I have two left now. Two left now. Interesting. Okay. Are you going to go the way of, you know, the recent trend and test free agency? Do you want to do that?

At the moment At the moment, no, no I really enjoy being with Bellator and I enjoy their movement in the direction It just depends on what happens Moving on out Because I'm going to be pushing for more Obviously I feel like I'm doing a lot for the company

And hopefully they support me in that Ah, interesting Okay, have they offered you a new deal yet? Oh no, no, not as yet It's just something that I'm definitely going to when the time comes with obviously sitting down with the main team and discussing with them and obviously discussed with my coaches

and my team and this is a move forward from there but at the moment again even that that's not really a bother for me I think again I'm doing well enough to so that you know for that kind of stuff to come

to come to me so I just need to continue to continue you focusing on, you know, my, my performances. And when you say more, what do you mean by more in the company? I feel obviously, you know, fighters don't get paid that much in terms of what we have to do. And I feel having that, you know, extra financial stability. Yeah. It's going to allow me to get more for my training.

Okay. And I think I'll be more of a dangerous fighter if I can, you know, have the added bonuses of, you know, just the extra, extra things, being able to go to different places, being able to bring in different trainers or coaches for specific things. I think it's just going to make it make me a more dangerous fighter. Okay. So you're saying more money, right? Yeah.

Okay. And last thing, when do you want to return? Do you want to fight again this year? Oh, yeah, 100%. 100%. I feel fresh. I don't feel, you know, again, usually you want to come up. my fights. I'll never really have beaten up at all. So, yeah, I'm probably ready to come in.

It's just a case of I've actually, I'm actually going away next week. I've spent time with my family as I've been here. And next week, I'm going to have a relax in Spain. Just for about five days. And then when I get back, that's it, straight back to work. And just again, just looking for that, looking to hear where am I excited. Well, again, congratulations, my man. You are the new Mr. Mustie. TV. It is always an event when we watch you, when we know that you're on the telecast. It's really a pleasure to watch your fight.

And you never cease to amaze. It's amazing. And you did it again. You topped yourself again, this time against tougher competition. So hopefully you don't listen to that criticism. Keep doing your thing. And I hope you get paid. I hope you get paid a hell of a lot more. I hope you get a big fight next. We keep watching you do your thing. Always a pleasure. Thank you for stopping by, Michael. We'll talk to you soon.

Yeah, thank you for having me. As always, man. I wish I was out of 50 before, I wish I was able to be out there and come and see you. But I'm sure I'll come and see you again soon. Absolutely. You're always welcome here. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. There he is. MVP stopping by, great stuff from him. As always. Okay, let's go to our last guest of the day.

So kind as always, Mr. Mark Hunt for waking up early over in Australia around 6.20 a.m. Eastern time over there. The man is all class, and he is joining us right now on the phone. Mark, are you there? Hey, how you doing? I'm doing. What's going on? It's good to hear you laugh, Mark.

A pleasure, as always, to talk to you. Thank you. Okay, so there's a lot to discuss some not-so-fun things, but I appreciate you coming on to talk about them. How would you describe life right now for you? Is this a dark period? Are you stressed out? I mean, with so much going on, all this controversy, how would you describe life right now? Life is normal.

Life is good, you know. I'm just sitting here with my family. life couldn't be much better. I just, yeah, I'm not really stressed that about nothing. I mean, like I said, I mean, who knows what the future holds. I mean, can be dead tomorrow or even fucking in a minute, who knows. I'm not worried about shit. You told me late last week that you have yet to speak to anyone on the UFC about,

excuse me, from the UFC on the phone about Brock's two failed drug tests. Has that changed at all since we spoke? No, no one's bothered to call me about anything about those cheating motherfuckers. You know what's the worst thing about this whole scenario is that they use that too shit about it. They're not doing a damn thing about those whole freaking cheating monkeys. And the reason why I'm so upset is it's not because it's the first or second. This is a third time I've fought someone that's been cheating. And the thing is, there is no compensation.

There is nothing. There is, you get, you lose 20%. when you don't make weight, okay? You fall for 20% but when you get caught for doping, for sticking needles in your fucking ass, what do you get? Nothing. They don't give you nothing. They just

give you a, oh, here's a two-year band, see you later. There's no fines, no nothing. What is what is going to be changed about this whole thing? I mean, there's fighters that's a bust in their ass to make weight, but when they get caught, they don't get no compensation.

All these cheaters are just They're just cheating. They just keep cheating. You know what? I'll just take time off. If I get caught, I'll get bastard those two years. There's no conversation.

There's no incentive for them not to keep cheating. They don't lose no purse. They just get nothing. It's ridiculous. I don't know why things haven't changed. I think if you get caught for not, if you don't make weight, you lose 20%.

If you get caught, don't think. You should lose all incentive of money, everything, and you should be sued. You should be criminal in court for sticky news. needles in your bum hole and for cheating. So what are these people doing something about it? They're doing nothing about it.

People say to me, you know, Mark, it's being three weeks now the fight server, you're still complaining? Well, I'm not complaining. I just want something done about it. And all these freaking cheating monkeys that follow that piece of crap cheetah

and like the rest of these cheaters, they're still talking about it, but I'll go on as long as want. It's my damn page. Yeah. You know, and what upset me is they think, oh, it's okay, it's okay to cheat. So we're telling the whole world

that our sport are a pack of cheaters and freaking lies, because it's okay to cheat because you don't get no fines, you just get a time off. That's it. So all these young boys and girls that want to be top in prize fighters, this is what you get. You just need to stick a needle in your ass and you're in.

Mark, have you tried to reach out to the UFC yourself to get more clarity on this whole situation, how he failed a test before the fight and was still able to fight, all that stuff. Have you tried to talk to them? You know, I've reached out there and I've asked what's going on, and, you know, they're not doing a damn thing. And the sad thing about it, like I said, is, I'm upset because it's not just the first, this is the third time I've had. The next time I'll probably, you know,

I probably want, that's I won't be going to fight in the U.S. City. If I go, if I go do fight again and if I get put on a comb or die, what happens to me? Oh, well, he already He knew he's already fought three cheaters in a row. It was the fourth time he cheated. And before the fight, I said, you know, I said to the, you know, I was just assuming he was cheating. You know, look at him. There's no way that guy makes 265 pounds. The guy's a gimp.

He's sticking needles in his ass like the rest of these cheaters. You know, and the thing about that is he's sitting here saying, oh, this is a fair place. What is not fair? These guys are cheating and they should be in court for it. lose all their money incentives for cheating because if I die in there who's going to look after my family

look after the guys that are clean in this board and say, well he's going to look out to the kids well here's your explanation he signed the waiver these guys are all clean

that's a crock of shit man these guy these motherfuckers should be penalized hard dirty scummy cheating scum that's how that monkey won his world title that's why he came and said I got an extra scratch

he didn't do it by doing it cleaning just like the Chris, you're cheated. You said after the news came out the first failed drug test that you wanted his entire purse or you want to be released from the UFC. It doesn't look like you're going to get that money now. So does that mean you're done with the UFC?

Do you not want to fight for them anymore? Well, I don't get what they said. I don't want to be a part of this company unless they do something about this shit. They've got to do something about this cheating. There's like the whole roster is cheating. You know, one person gives things. another person gets things and there's nothing

that they're not doing anything about it I mean you tell me what this time I go on if you were saying this is a purpose yeah I understand that but if you're gonna make it clear if you're gonna make it a cheating

then let's all fucking cheat let's all cheat let's all stick needles in our ass and take the rest of that shit and she's the first person to die I mean shocked this is ridiculous I mean

it took years and years for that for something to be done about that scummy cheat Armstrong how long is it going to take for something to happen to this sport. So if someone dies and then, oh, let's lay some charges against these cheaters.

When you've got these freaking... Anyway. Do you think that USADA and or the UFC knew about his failed drug test on June 28th before UFC 200? Before the fight, I have no idea, man. To be honest, I don't even know why they gave him

exemption. And if they did, wouldn't they be liable for being sued, I mean, you know, for negligence or some sort of shit like that, I mean, shucks. It's like if I just walked in the doctor going with a freaking gun or something, right? Because in the end, something bad could happen to someone. Then if someone could die, because someone's cheating, you know? It's kind of really, it's getting too far.

There's something needs to be done about this, you know. Trying to fall in a union and get things started, it's kind of hard. I don't give a rat to what anyone say. about what I'm doing. I think I'm not going to fight any more cheaters or people that assume to be cheating. I mean, they don't care. They just cheat because they can have no penalties. There is no penalties for it.

I mean, I think they should have a cheating, cheating MMA and a non-cheating MLA. Maybe that'll make it a bit fair. Yeah, I wonder how many people would be on the, the non-cheating side. But you'd hope that's... Me? Yeah. That's one. That's one.

and there's probably all of it you know to be honest I'm not saying but it's just it kind of stinks because the cheaters just walk away they just walk away

and there's no penalties I mean if they're cheating to make money or cheating for that they should just take all the incentives of the money away they should be in court for criminal acts because that's what it is

and then maybe it'll deter some deter the future of fighting to be doing this sort of rubbish It's not looking good at the moment for the sport It looks like there's a bunch of crooks and cheetahs in the sport That's all it is On your website you gave an interview last week

Markhunt.tv and you talked about Potentially forming this association And the comments were You know, they spoke for themselves And I'm wondering what kind of feedback you've received From your fellow fighters Have a lot of people reached out to you Have others expressed interest in teaming up with you?

Well, there's a few fighters You know, an inquiry, kind of league These are the few fighters Just trying to get the right guys on board I do you feel We need all the fighters to get together And behind us because it's not just, I'm not just talking about my future

I'm talking about the feature Of them stiles And the kids that will look up towards His fighters They're looking at the long term of it I mean these companies They don't give a rat's about fucking us They're just throwing you in like

They're going to throw you under the bus Like they've been doing me You know later I'm going to run into someone that's going to really put me in trouble, and then what's going to happen about it? Nothing. So I think all these fighters that are listening to this,

they should actually get behind this movement, get behind something because, you know, if it's not me, it's going to be one of you. It's time to stand up, stick together, and move forward. These companies that make nothing without us. They make nothing. The main reason why people watch Mix MySize and this is because of us fighters.

Not because of these people making fucking money, making tons of shitloads of money and not giving us nothing. So, I mean, trying to form the whole thing is a process, it's hard of a lot of people have reached out,

but it's got to be done. There's got to be, something's got to be done. Whether they change the law, the laws with the doping and he forfeits all his purse and he gets put in court or some shit like that,

I mean, something's going to be done about it. I mean, I'm not interested in working for a company just throws you under the bus all the time, you know? It's ridiculous. And just to be clear, has anyone from Usada reached out to you at all? No, they didn't give a rat. They ain't none of them give a rats about it. You know, that's because they're all, to me, they're all fucking cheaters.

The whole lot of them. Fuck them. Are you confident, Mark, that an association, you know, people have talked about this for a long time. Are you confident that it will happen, you know, in the next few years, in the next year or so? based on what you've learned over the last, you know, week or so, are you confident that this is a feasible thing? To be honest, I'm confident it'll work. I mean, something's going to change, man.

I mean, you just can't keep it. Somebody, if you know, a later, that's the father, is just going to die, and then if the other guy gets called doping, is easy, and they get just going to let their guy walk away? Yeah, something's got to be mad. Something's going to be held accountable for these things. Some things have got to change. Something's got to happen when they say, you know,

Union, I mean, it's only in the fighters best interest. I mean, I know I've heard a little story about unions, you know, turning and doing the bad thing about it. But, you know, if you've got fighters on the board, they'll understand how this whole thing works. I think this is only for the fighters to make it better. And, I mean, all these people that are trying to get into the UFC or come to those, what's the point? Why would you just want to, you know, I mean, get into the UFC when everyone's fucking cheating anyway? all these freaking guys getting busted for cheating

it's just why would you want to do you go hey man I've worked my ass so to get to the top and I'm the best in my sport oh

but you're your sports a bunch of cheaters oh okay shitna okay so yeah like all these guys

cheating like I see but all these guys freaking cheating I mean all their world tires there they mean nothing you've cheated to get it worthless scum

that's what they are their worthless come. And before I thought, yeah, I said, they should give half of this or they're prisoners. You know,

fuck their cheetahs should get nothing. They should get nothing. One thing that I've noticed people say to you over the last couple weeks is, hey, before the fight,

you said that you would knock him out whether or not he was on steroids. Why are you talking about this now? Why are you complaining now? Obviously a ridiculous statement, but what do you want to say to those people? Well, to those people,

you know, I mean, assuming someone's on the gear, and getting told that this is a clean sport is totally different from knowing. Okay, I'm always going to say I'm going to knock someone. I don't care if he's doing this and that.

I'll knock your face up. I'll say it all the time, I don't give a rest. But, you know, you have an assumption about someone cheating and, you know, there's no way that fucking white monkey is going to make fucking 265. There's no freaking way. It was far larger than I was,

and I had to struggle to make weight. And then, I mean, when they actually get called doping for it, oh, everyone throws me under the bus. Well, you know what motherfuckers? Fuck you. You can all kiss my eyes. This is fucking these fucking cheaters should fucking go and die. Dye and a fire.

The whole lot of them. Yeah. I know you've been around this fight game a long time. Could you tell that something was off with Brock? Like, when you were fighting him, did he seem stronger? Was he different than the kind of opponents that you fought in the past? I mean, the non-cheating ones, as you put it, I mean, did something just seem weird about the fight from your perspective? you know to be honest about the fight

I'm not even at all about the loss I mean every loss I take I accept it and I move on you know with that loss it was just one of those things I already gave credit to Brockville after the fight when I lost but you know when you fell and I found it she'd be it was nothing special about him I mean shucks I mean at the end I mean in the other day

he out wrestled me and put me down and and won the fight I have no problem with that but you know if you did it by cheating then you shouldn't get any phrases or anything I mean they even gave him my spot, my number A spot. I mean, shucks. He honestly got to give a cheater of a fucking spot.

It's ridiculous. What the hell? There's nothing special about him. I mean, for someone that's using so much gear, there's no way he could even finish me. I mean, if I was gearing like him, his head would have come off. I would have punched his head through the whole fucking hospital. I'm just ridiculous. Did you hear what he said about John Jones saying that it was unprofessional before the fight?

And then this comes out. Did you see the irony in those comments? I just makes me laugh because, I mean, you know, that's, you know, that makes me laugh because, I mean, that's how he won his world title.

He stuck a needle in his two shoot, and that's how he won his title. People say, oh, Mark, it doesn't help you. If it doesn't help you, why do it? You're that scared of losing. I mean, it's funny

that one sheet of course, another sheet and says, oh, man, that's really a professional. What the hell does it make you? He's a fucking hypocrite. And the sad thing about it, these companies aren't doing anything.

about it. You know, me saying these things, they're trying to form a union, all these things. At the end of the end of the end, and mine's coming up to the end soon. I don't give a rat about working in the U.S. anymore because they don't do anything about it. They don't do nothing about it. So all these kids listening to this, watching it, it waste of your chances are not trying to get into these companies because they don't give a rat about you. They're just straight you under the bus. what bothers you more mark the fact that he you know he fought after failing this drug test and all that or the fact that no one has actually called you on the phone from the company that you work

for to talk about this what upset me about that is i'm just thinking maybe they knew did they know about this is that why they not do anything about it did they gave him this fucking fool an exemption for four months because they knew about this so it means for surely that they knew about this they didn't give a rush about anybody here, man, we'll get this fucking juiced up freaking monkey going here and then go and fight with this guy.

I mean, sharks, and people say he should have a rematcher. I wouldn't want to waste my time with that. He's rubbish. And they say, he beat you. Well, if he didn't stick a needle in his ass, then maybe it would be different. I mean, Sharks, if you've got to

if you've got to stick needle in your ass to try and compete, you must be really scared of losing. I think it's a time that you needs to be forms. They're on all these finances to get together because, I mean,

we're sending the wrong missions. The mission we're sending out to all these people that watching the sporters. Oh, man, you can get away at freaking anything. You just, you know,

to make it in the U.C., you stick a needle in your ass and they'll give you millions of dollars if you make it to the trouble. That's as easy. They'll even give you an exemption for four months. And not only that,

they'll give you their own press conference. You know, the fool had his own press conference that made everyone wait for his own press conference. What a joke. Would you be comfortable, Mark, if this doesn't get resolved and you have to walk away, would you be comfortable leaving on that note?

Would that bother, I mean, would that sit with you the wrong way for the rest of your life, leaving like this? It doesn't sit wrong with me because, like I said, I mean, people are scared of four years because the company's going to get upset. My, fuck the company. He doesn't give a shit about you or anyone else. If I walk away now, like I walk away now, I don't care. I walk away, none that I haven't cheated to get in the spot,

having cheated to make my, I can hear my head held up. I say, you know, I might have to make a lot of different sacrifices change the way things are, but it's so weird. That's fine. At least I knew that I went to the top, and all you find out of the top is dirty fucking scummy cheaters. And a company that's going to help them do it. Yeah.

Here's some needles sticking in your ass. I'll be comfortable with that. There's no way I even worried about this. I mean, when you get told, it's a clean sport, and people are the testing are doing this and that. Yeah, that's fine. You're doing all the testing. for what penalties are these monkeys giving them?

They're not giving no penalties at all. We saw our fucking NASA, whatever the fuck they are? What penalties they're giving? Nothing. They're just saying, oh, hey, we caught this guy busted and cheating. Yeah, he has to give us all his money. Why the fuck did you get this? Why should they get that shit?

Yeah. I mean, there's not the ones that lost. They're not the ones that had their brand go down. I mean, I didn't say anything when I lost. When I beat the other two guys that I thought while they were cheating and probably the rest of the other cheaters that I fought. But at the end of the day, I mean, enough's enough. I mean, soon or later, something bad.

I mean, the first fight I had with Bigfoot, I broke my hand at two places. Yeah. You know, the fight against Frank Moore, I mean, I had a broken nose going into that. But, I mean, it was a quick fight. And I was like, you know what, it's over? I mean, he got busted.

Can't agree with, yeah, what's a fucking joke? It couldn't be, you know, it couldn't be like a pattern right here going here. First time, this other group ball comes in. And you know, I'm glad I lost the fight. I'm actually really glad because if I probably won the five, what is it? Yeah, he's cheating, all right, that's fine.

I go to the next guy. And then probably if I got hurt in that fight, I said, hey, man, what's going on? It's a fourth guy having a fight. That's on freaking war. Roy's. And then shoot all that, I'm thinking, maybe I should go and stick a needle in my ass

so I can compete with these motherfuckers. You know, that's how I feel and it's just annoying about the whole thing. You know, usually hasn't even reached out or did nothing to me. Wow. That is crazy. He was just waiting for something to say, you know, okay.

that's in his contract. You can't do that. Let's get, give him a, uh, a firing message. We'll fire his ass. Fuck,

you're firing. I don't give a shit. Just stick your cheaters up your ass. Is that... I just going to get a job like the rest of the people. You don't get a job and say, you know, fuck that company a shit. They're fucking worth of the scum.

Mark, if they say to you now, we're going to give you some money, you know, we're going to try to make this right. Is it too late, in your opinion, or would that make you happy?

What I would like to be done here is What are they going to do about it? Yeah Are they going to put in a place a law So everyone else that gets caught open It gets penalized They need to do something They have done nothing

They need to put a place All your money goes And you're going to go to court For cheating That's what they need to do That is what they need to do To change things away All these cheaters are getting well with it

You know the guy And they could seriously injured someone and some could die. Something could die and what will happen. Nothing will happen because that ain't happening now.

So if the mission they're sending to the whole world to the younger kids and the people that want to get into the sport at the top end, is their condoning cheating? Well then why don't

you make it a cheating competition? And they just make it legally they want to fucking stick needles in their ass. It's called it the sticking needle in your ass in the push you competition as they used to

the craziest motherfucker out there. Has this whole incident changed the way you feel about MMA in the sense that, like, do you feel like your love for the sport is going away that you don't even, you don't care for it like you used to?

It's not, I mean, I love fighting a little, but it's just not fair. You just, you can't compete when the guys are cheating. Yeah. It's like someone going with a gun. I mean, imagine if I started cheating is using gear. Yeah. You think, you don't think if I went and maim someone, do you think they'll

think it's fair? No, they'll say, well, he was fucking doping. Wow, okay,

I was dope and okay, give me two years off. Then what? That's it. Nothing happens. Are you?

His kids go without food. His kids go without a provider, then what? I mean, I understand the hurt business, like I said before, but on an even playing field.

I got on to this because there's an even playing for, like, and then we're doing the right thing on an even playing. We're not injecting ourselves and helping enhancing ourselves

to try and murder because in the end we're trying to kill each other but without without enhancing our shit I just think you know he needs to be made an example of all these cheetahs

need to be made an example of you know these people that they do it for profit money whatever they do it for they need to lose it all and the fact of the matter they said well what about us it was it well who told you to stick a needle in your fucking poo shoot your dirty-ass come who did

No one. Are you considering legal action, Mark? I will. I will consider it. You know, I mean, these guys got to do something about it. And I think they got enough money. They've made enough money off everyone's fucking blood to do something about this shit. And I'm sick of, and I don't want to be sitting here.

It will be a part of a company that does that, just let that happen. You know, fuck that. You do something about it. You've got enough financial gain from it. Do something about it. I mean, it's shocked. The worst thing about is I get, you know, flacks from all these these freaking not-hanging scumbags,

stearote using monkeys, and, ah, get over it. I don't want to get over it. Why don't want to get over it? So the next time I go in to fight, I get mandolinjured. Are you going to look after my family? No. But then you get over it. I mean, cunt.

In a perfect world, Mark, what would you like to see happen here? Like, what's the perfect scenario, the perfect outcome to this mess? The best outcome for this? as if the company that I work for says, you've been cheating, you lose all your financial incentive for cheating, and you get fined. You get sued and you get fined. You go

straight to court, criminal court. It's what you've done as an offense. That's what I want to do. So these guys that are cheating don't have more incentives to do it because they do it for financial gain, they do it to win, they do it to this, but if you take all their way, they get nothing.

You know, make them banned for five, 10 years. There goes your career. five, ten years, you have no career left and not only that, you lose all your money. You're done as a fighter. That'll stop you from doing it. That's what I want to be done. And just for the record... Go ahead, sorry.

I won't be part of any company that said that we don't mind you cheating or doing this or that. Otherwise, then every monkey will be at a... And if that doesn't happen, you're not fighting anymore for them, right? No, I go work somewhere else. I mean, like I said, I don't give a shut. If we got a suit their asses, well, fuck you, you're going to sue. You scotty cuss. I mean, the problem is anyone who thinks, hey, man, I want to get into the UFC.

Fuck the UFC. You're shit. You're motherfuckers don't look up to nobody. You just go here. Throw this motherfucker, this freaking stupid fucking saw him on under the bus, and they don't get the bastard in front of the whole world, and we'll let this fucking white piece of shit fucking sticking news. in his ass and say, oh, let him cheat all the way to the fucking bank.

This give him fucking millions of dollars. And now worry about this motherfucker. You don't fuck that and fuck your shit company. Take that to the fucking, look at that for a contract. You can see me on that. Motherfuckers. And Mark, physically after the fight, are you okay? Any serious injuries?

There's nothing wrong with you. But, you know, like I said, I just, like I said, I just like that they've done about it, well, fuck that. Okay. Is there anything else you feel like you want to say about this before we, I let you go back to your kids and start your day off, right? I think something needs to be done about this. You know, the bad example that they're sitting here for these, these, these, these, boys and girls that are watching this. And they're, you know, I'd probably be the one that's going to fall in the sword and not walk away. That's, I understand that I get there.

But for the rest of you, father, and all these kids that are looking to this, I mean, when it's all times to come and complain about, you've already said before you. There's already been somebody to say, there's already going to be done about it. And I think until someone probably dies, then what's going to have them in? Appreciate you coming on, Mark.

Really, really thank you. And I hope this works out for you. I hope everything works out. I'm sorry that this has happened to you and that you've been put in this position. I hope it starts with a phone call, at least, from either you said or the UFC. Thank you, Mark.

appreciate it. All right. Yeah. All right. We'll talk to you soon. There he is. Mark Hunt. Hate to hear him like that.

We've had him on this show numerous times and quite often a happy go lucky, somewhat jolly figure, and it's started that way, but you can certainly understand where he is coming from. You can understand his frustration. And I think it starts with a phone call, at least. Some open line of communication being established. I think that would go a long way and I hope that he is at least able to ask

some of those questions to the important people. And I know there is a process that needs to be played out and I know that Brock is owed a due process. He has not been officially suspended by USADA or the UFC for that matter. So that is important to note in this situation, but you can feel and hear the frustration oozing out of that telephone, right? Halfway across this world on a Tuesday morning in Sydney, Australia,

Mark Hunt appears to have had enough. And I have never heard him like that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone on this show like that. And you certainly sympathize with him. He was in there with someone that he believes was cheating. How do you deal with that? You got, this is an interesting sport. So I started off this week talking about that it was fun to talk about fights this weekend and results and interesting results and upsets, big wins, things of that nature, fun debuts.

Unfortunately, we end on that note, but that is the reality of mixed martial arts in 2016. It is an evolving sport. It is a somewhat dirty sport. It is a sport that is trying to be cleaned up. I do believe that, but we go back to that line uttered by the soon-to-be former CEO of the UFC Lorenzo Fertita at that press conference announcing the historic USADA deal. It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. He never obviously laid out just how bad it will get.

None of us know. Hopefully it doesn't get worse than this. Hopefully it doesn't get worse than arguably one of the. of the biggest names in the UFC speaking like that. Hopefully it doesn't get to the point that someone does get seriously injured. And it can happen. And we can talk all day about, you know, no data here and no scientific evidence there. You can't tell me that using PEDs, even though there is no history of a serious injury or death in the UFC, you can't tell me that using PEDs is not a bad thing, is not a thing to be worried about. You can't tell me that.

You just can't. And that's why we all applauded the UFC for linking up with Usada. And that's why we all welcome this new era. And there are some growing pains. This is a growing pain. For a guy to potentially test positive on June 28th and then fight on July 9th just doesn't pass the smell test. And people talk about the time difference, the delay in getting the results.

Well, do the math. June 28th, July 9th. That's 11 days. Right? Then we find out last Tuesday, which was July 19th that Brock tested positive or potentially failed, his second drug test on July 9th. That's 10 days. Oh, by the way, the result, I screwed up. June 28th was the first test that he potentially failed. Those results came back on July 14th, officially announced on July 15th. So let's say 14th. That's 16 days. Came back 16 days later. If you failed another one on July 9th and it gets announced on July 19th,

potentially results get back on July 18th, that's what? Nine or eight days. Had they gone the results back from the June 28th test, nine or eight days later, that would have coincided with before UFC 200. See what I'm saying? So anyone's saying that they can't get the test back in a timely manner before the fight, I'm just not buying it. There's too much money. There's too much at stake. There's lives at stake. There's health at stake.

There's reputations at stake. You got to figure out if you're going to go through the trouble of doing random out-of-competition drug testing, you have to make sure that the test come back beforehand, before the fight. You just have to make sure of it. There's got to be a way because it's a futile mission. Sure, you pop the guy afterwards, you find out there's something to that. I see the value in that. But if we're going to go through the trouble of,

locating these guys all around this great world, you got to get those results beforehand. There just has to be a way, in my opinion. Any final thoughts, New York, Rick? I am definitely not about to follow that one up. That's a walk-off. That is a walk-off from a man who knows a thing or two about walk-offs, right? I mean, there... Mark?

I put 100 flame emojis on Twitter, and that's what it was. I mean, he came out guns blazing. Yeah. perhaps yeah you can't be all that surprised alright well that does it for this show what a way to end

we made a habit out of some pretty memorable end of show interviews Mark Hunt's no different you can hit my music another big week of MMA is upon us as I mentioned Invicta returns

on Friday is it Friday in your rookie going there he's gone he went to bed i think it's friday you got me yeah i got you uh i will be in kansas city friday night event it's friday night event on fight pass uh world series fighting back on saturday on nbccsn but the big one of course is ufc 201 in atlanta georgia tyrant woodley finally gets that crack at the ufc welterway title you know the knock on woodley throughout his career has been that he can't win the big one right he's had some operas

opportunities, it felt like he exercised those demons against Carlos Condit, had to slip up against Roy McDonald. But is this his opportunity? It certainly looks like it is. Is this his opportunity to finally win the big one? Tairn Woodley versus Robby Loller. Does this Robby Loller story, this amazing story that no one saw coming, does it continue post-Saturday? We'll be talking about that next Monday on the show. For now, we say goodbye. Thank you very much to Julianna Pena. for stopping by, great stuff from her. Thank you very much to McKenzie Dern for stopping by. Congratulations on her successful MMA debut.

Thank you very much to Habib Nirmagamadov for stopping by. Great stuff from him, as always. Welcome back, Shail Sunnen. I maintain, if he passes that test, I will see him back. Thank you very much to Daniel Leith for stopping by. Welcome back to Michelle Waterson. And thank you very much to Michael Venom Page and, of course, Mark Hunt, for stopping by as well. Back next Monday, same time and place.

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