MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 349

Episode Date: September 26, 2016

Ariel Helwani speaks to Marc Raimondi (00:05:39), George Lockhart (00:30:30), Will Brooks (00:53:34), Joseph Duffy (01:11:30), Tyron Woodley (01:38:24), Tim Kennedy (02:37:50), and Michael Bisping (03:07:07). 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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Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. It was a somewhat depressing, a very tragic one in the world of sports, in particular yesterday, with the horrible news that Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez passed away in a boating act. accident and then later on that evening, Arnold Palmer, the iconic golfer, also passing away. So somewhat of a depressing time, a very, very sad time in the world of sports. In the world of mixed martial arts, it is as hectic and confusing and somewhat controversial

and interesting as always. Another busy weekend in MMA. And I'm trying to be positive. I'm trying to be uplifting after those two pieces of news for various reasons, very, very very depressing and for different reasons as well. So let us celebrate MMA. Let us celebrate sports and why we love following and covering this stuff. In mixed martial arts on Friday,

and Victa had a very solid show. Always an entertaining product. Always a very solid product. Unfortunately, Roxanne Madaferi loses in her bid to become the flyway champion, Jennifer Maya, winning that fight, a fun fight. And Jun-U Frye also loses. via a somewhat controversial cut to Ayaka Hamasaki. So overall, though, an entertaining affair.

And also on Saturday, we had the UFC in Brasilia. The big news last week, of course, was Chris Cyborg and her somewhat controversial, I guess you could say, weight cut. She broke the news on this show that she had to cut around 25 pounds between Monday and Friday. She made it. And then there was some controversy about the scale. Oh, the whole thing just gave me. a big headache. In the end, she wins. She defeats Lena Landsberg via second round, TKO, and Lena Landsberg coming out like somewhat of a folk hero in the sense that she walks into the fight

with a big smile on her face. She leaves the fight with a big smile on her face. Lina Landsberg is a very admirable fighter. And I look forward to seeing how she does as a bantam weight, because clearly she should not be fighting at featherweight. And I also thought it was, um, It was, the whole thing was interesting. The way Cyborg got on the mic afterwards, we'll talk about all that, of course. Other notable things on Saturday night, Roy Nelson defeating Bigfoot Silva, a very bizarre ending. Talk about that as well between him and John McCarthy, Hennon Burrow, looking somewhat ordinary at featherweight, defeating Phil Nover, and other things as well. So that happened on Saturday.

Early Sunday morning, Risen had an event, which was very entertaining. and they've now booked Vandula Silva versus Miracle Crow Cop. So a ton going on, and on top of all of that, we have UFC 205. UFC now officially announcing 10 fights for that card. There's a press conference Tuesday afternoon at MSG, and we're expecting the main event to be done by then. Still a very fluid situation, and quite frankly, it's one that could change on a dime. We don't know what's going on.

We do know that there have been 10 fights officially announced. There are four on the main card per the broadcast on Saturday. No sign of Wyman and or Romero on that full-screen graphic on Saturday. No sign of Connor McGregor Eddie Alvarez and or Habib Nurmaghamedov. Hopefully around this time tomorrow we'll have a lot more insight into those two situations. And who knows, maybe one or two more fights. So as I said, a lot going on in MMA. We have a stack show and we are going to be joined by royalty on this show in studio.

How about that? Let me run down our lineup, and then we will get to our first guest of the day. At around 4 o'clock, we'll be joined by the UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping. He is less than two weeks away from defending his 185-pound title for the first time in Manchester at freaking 5 a.m. Local time, which is crazy, but interesting to talk about. He's still in California, so we'll talk to Michael Bisping about that at 4 p.m. his big rematch against Dan Henderson. for the middleweight title 330. We'll talk to Tim Kennedy. He's fighting at UFC 205 against Rashad Evans.

Talked him about why he's coming back, why this fight and more. At around 225, we're going to be joined by Tyron Woodley, the UFC Welterweight. Okay. The UFC Welterway champion is also on that UFC 205 card at Madison Square Garden. There's a lot going on if you don't, if you can't tell. There's a lot going on if you haven't noticed, but I'm focused. Tyrone Woodley is going to be in studio right here.

defending the title, 205, less than two months away against Wonderboy Thompson. I'm looking forward to that. Joseph Duffy at 205. He's got some interesting things to talk about, so I'm looking forward to talking to him. He's in Montreal, La Belle Provence, my hometown, 145. Will Brooks, who returns on Saturday. The UFC is back on Saturday with an event in Portland. UFC Fight Night Portland.

He's fighting Alex Olivares, his second UFC fight, the former Bellator lightweight champion, and Chris Cyborg's nutritionist, George Lockhart, will join us at 125. boy am I looking forward to talking to him. So that's coming up in around 20 or so minutes. But first, let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in my colleague over at MMAFighting.com. He just woke up. The guy is such a night owl that he just freaking woke up.

He is Mark Romundi, and he joins us right now via the Magic Skype. Mark, how are you? I am on the West Coast, you know. I'm not, I'm not... It's freaking 10 o'clock in the morning, my man. You are wearing a nice shirt. I appreciate that. I stayed up all night for Verizon.

My clock is all over. bit messed up, but I'm here now, and that's what's important. Yes, very important. I appreciate you jumping in. Okay, so as I mentioned, Invicta with the Solid Show, as always, UFC with an entertaining, albeit very long show on Saturday and Risen with the early morning show on Sunday. Three fun events from different promoters, different promotions. I'm putting you on the spot here. I didn't tell you this question beforehand. Of all the fights, maybe what, there was, I don't know, 40 or so in total, give or take a couple, which performance stood out the most?

Crazy horse, Carl, Bennett. Wow. Felony. I think I was loopy after seven hours of UFC and Risen was incredibly entertaining. And I was going to go to bed, but it was actually so fun that we just stayed up and we watched it. Esther, Casey, myself, my girlfriend, G, we all hung out and we watched it. It was a lot of fun.

Esther broke out her cup of noodles ramen outfit. It was really a good time. Yes. But, I mean, I think Cyborg, though, was the story of the weekend in many ways. And I know she wasn't pushed. It wasn't a competitive fight, obviously. But anytime we get to see Cyborg, I think, is a treat. I think that she's a special talent.

I think she's an elite fighter, obviously. She's probably the most dominant female fighter of all time. So I always enjoy watching her fight and seeing, you know, how she's evolved and what she looks like. And she looked very devastating, you know, as always on Saturday night. Okay. So you say that. Were you impressed? I mean, obviously she won.

to second round, but she has set the bar so high that we always kind of expect this tornado of action and then her opponent is, you know, dusted off in a minute or so. Given the fact that this went into the second round, what did you make of her performance? No, I think it was a great performance. I think it was a tempered performance. It was a patient performance. She didn't have that. She had a few flurries, but it wasn't, you know, her crazy finishing players that we've seen in the

pass from her. Hey, look, Lena Landsberg is very tough. Maybe she wasn't going to be able to finish her in those flores. Maybe she would have run out of gas if she had continued with them. That weight cut will mess up your cardio every single time. Even though she was running like 10 miles a day, I think, during this camp to get weight down, which is ridiculous. I thought that she was very

patient. I thought that she looked very skilled and technical, actually, which is, you know, she's come a long way from her early days, just being, like, Tasmanian devil, and just coming out there and throwing, you know, winging punches. I thought it was great. I thought she showed a lot of patience. And I think I think it was on purpose. I think that she wanted to try to extend the fight a little bit.

She hasn't had a lot of cage time. Let's be honest, over the last few years. I mean, how much time I should really spent in the cage? I think it was good for her. And I thought it was an excellent performance altogether. And how about Lena Landsberg, you know, the opponent throughout this entire process, these sort of nameless, faceless opponent, who I thought, you know, as good of a job that the UFC did in telling us about the opponent Mickey Gall and the CM Punk experiment, I thought they did an

equally bad job in telling us about Lena Landsberg. Like, you always have to prepare yourself for the unknown, for the, you know, the crazy upset. And I thought they didn't do a good job of then. Of course, there was a lot more at stake in the in the punk fight because that was a two-year process. That being said, she's a very lovable character. I mean, she walks in there with a smile on her face. She has got a smile on her face afterwards. She's thanking Chris. I really am curious to see, given how she implemented her game plan, which was obvious, keep her close, clinch, try to frustrate Cyborg. Of course, in the end, she, she, she, she, She did not fail, excuse me, she did not succeed in beating her.

I'm actually curious to see her as a 135, right? I'm intrigued by her. I'm with you. I'm with you. And I think, I mean, I think it's a fair criticism saying they didn't really tell her story well enough. But we're talking about a promotion that puts on 40 plus, 45 events per year. And it's just so hard to fit that in when it's not a pay-per-view, when it's just another Fox card, an FS1 card. It's just difficult to do.

So I can't blame them for not doing as good a job as they can. and we all know that Cyborg was the star. It really didn't matter. All due respect to Lena Landsberg, who was in front of her. It wasn't a big name person with something they just signed. It was really the Cyborg show. It was in Brazil. So I can understand why they didn't really feature her.

But yes, to your point, I'm very curious about Lena Landsberg, just to see how tough she was on Saturday. And I think that impressed a lot of people. I think that we didn't know who she was going into Fight Week. We got to know her a little bit last week. And now to see how tough she was and how long she hung around with the most devastating fighter in women's MMA. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see her against, you know, someone down in the rankings in the Bentimate Division to see how good she really is because she obviously is durable

and it's tough. First time in three plus years that Cyborg sees the second round, which is pretty remarkable. So I agree. Obviously impressed. It was a very one-sided affair, but I thought she kind of dropped the ball in the post-fight interview by just saying, I want superfights, like not getting on the mic and saying, look, I'm the 145-pound champ. I'm the best fighter in the world. I'm the pound for pound queen. I may be the best fighter, you know, male or female. You know what I mean? Like say something to get people all riled up. And it was just, she almost seems too nice. What bothers me is that then she'll go or someone will go on social media on her behalf. And I think we've talked about this in the past and throw out something completely

different. I felt like that was a misopportunity. Do you agree? I do. I do. But you have to realize that cyber is really not that person. And she's not the person sending out. those tweets in many cases. She does not like to trash talk to trash at all. It's just not in her nature. She's a very nice person, actually, which is, I mean, it's a dichotomy from who she is inside the octagon, inside the cage, to who she's outside of it. She's very sweet when she's not cutting weight. I'm sure she's pretty miserable when she's cutting weight. But yeah, I mean, I think that sweet or not, you do have that, you have that pulpit, you know, you have that opportunity after a fight to call someone out, call out Rondrazi to get fans interested in the next

fight and she wants super fights. She doesn't want to cut down to 140 for just any old person anymore, nor should she. So that was her chance to say, hey, I want this person at, you know, at this weight next, let's make it happen. She didn't do it. I get it. You know, she is a martial artist. She feels like she doesn't need to do that. She doesn't want to call people out. She'll do it on Twitter or someone else will do it for her on Twitter. I wish she had. But, I mean, more than anything, I just don't want to see your fight at 140 anymore, especially against someone they just signed. If it's going to be a super fight, it's going to be Holly Holm, fine. But if it's going to be, someone they take from a NASA organization, it just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, and you have to keep the message consistent. If you're going to be that nice person on the mic, you have to be that same kind of person on Twitter. I don't care if someone else is running your account. It's just very confusing. And say this about the Lena Landsbergs and the Leslie Smith of the world, you don't see anyone really going on social media or in interviews and saying, yeah, yeah, I'll take that cyborg fight. You don't see other females doing that. You don't see people saying, I'll move up to 140 from 135.

I mean, you see the Megan Anderson's doing it, but she's an Invicta trying to make her way over to the UFC, and she can't cut below 145. But it's interesting to note that not many people are clamoring for this fight. And then it goes back to their whole stance, the UFC stance of, you know, there's not enough fighters at 145 to start that weight class. I maintain that she's a big enough star, she's a big enough draw. There wasn't much of a weight class when they brought over Rhonda, and they've done this sort of thing in the past. They have a king or queen in a certain weight class. And then the weight class evolves.

Joe Silva and Sean Shelby have told me this time and again. Their job as matchmakers over the years has not been to create champions. It's to create contenders. So now you have your champion. Now get to work. What do you make of their insistence on not starting this weight class? You've got maybe the best fighter in the world there, waiting, willing to fight, and for some reason they're saying we don't want to create this new weight class but you are creating a new weight class it's 140 it's just a weight class that doesn't behoove her it's it's a detriment to her it makes i try to figure out what the game plan is here and i can't make sense of it can you

it makes sense if she was continuing to try to get to 135 let's test out 140 on the way to 135 now that we know that that's not a possibility physically there's just no reason for her to be fighting on 140 anymore again like it's a really big fight if it's a fight where she's going to make a lot of money, then that, yeah, okay, fine. If she wants to do that to her body and she makes a million dollars, God bless her. But if it's not one of those fights, if it's just another person out there, like Alina Landsberg, should not be at 140. I understand what the UFC is doing with the 145-pound division, because there really isn't a lot of talent there, and the talent is there for the most part, Cyberg has already beaten fairly easily. There's really not a lot of people who can challenge her in that weight class. Granted, women's band and weight wasn't a very deep division either when the UFC started it, but it was deeper than what 145.

is. Now, on the other hand, the thing about the UFC is that when they create weight classes, fighters will find those weight classes because that's where the money is, right? That's where the big leagues. If you want to get into the UFC, they don't have your weight class. All of a sudden, it opens up, and it changes a lot of things, and it makes people go to those weight classes. And I think there may even be some 135ers who cut a lot of weight now, who could possibly be 145ers. I don't think it's the worst idea. I understand why the UFC does it because they feel the matchmakers especially have a very good sporting sense of MMF. and they want to create full, robust, deep divisions.

They don't want to just have a thin division with one champion and a few other names on it. That's not what they've done in the past, but this might be a special circumstance. This might be the way and the reason to do it. And last thing, last thing, weight classes were not created out of promotion and marketing reasons. They were created out of health reasons. And there's really no reason that cyber should be fighting out of more natural weight class. From a health perspective, I mean, everything 40 is just too brutal for it. And also, this is in the past.

I mean, even if they created a 145-pound division, and they had her fighting three times a year, two times a year, against people who are making their debut, but who have climbed the ranks in St. Victor, Victa, how is it any different than what we're seeing now? I mean, who knew who Lena Landsberg was? You know what I'm saying? So at least have her defend the title,

and major props to John Anick for sort of editorializing a little bit and saying, I wish I had a belt to give you because she certainly deserves that. And if you're not going to do that, and I know the original plan was to get her down to 140 twice and then 135, but it's very clear. We'll talk to George Lockhart about this shortly. It's very clear she can't do that. You know, I actually think you're shooting yourself in the foot.

You can actually market her better as a champion as opposed to these strange catchweight fights. And the sport has evolved to where you can get away with doing these 145-pound title fights two, three times a year against these unknown fighters. because, look, non-title fights are all the rage these days. Now, let me ask you about this. Roy Nelson, he defeats Bigfoot Silva, and then he gives Big John McCarthy this sort of tap in the butt via his leg and then flips him off. This reminded us all of the Jason High situation a couple years ago

where he sort of shoved a referee after his loss to Hafeld dos Santos in Albuquerque. He was suspended a year by that commission and also cut from the UFC. is this the same situation, the Roy Nelson situation. I think most people would agree Jason Hyde didn't deserve to get cut, but given how they reacted to Jason, do you consider this the same? And if so, what do you think the UFC is going to do, if anything? I think it was a very similar circumstance.

I mean, nothing is ever the same. It wasn't completely equal, but you can't really physically put your hands or your feet in this case on an official, on a referee. In any other sport, there would be some kind of punitive action. taken against Roy Nelson, right? And any other sport, basketball, baseball. You know, you can't put your hand on an official.

I haven't seen anything from the UFC yet. Giovanni Decker, the head of UFC, Brazil, said that they would let the commission take care of it. And according to what the commission has told, our guy down in Brazil, Jeremy Cruz, they're not going to do anything unless Big John files a complaint. I had not heard from John at all since he got back from Brazil. So I don't know what the status is there. But I think that somebody needs to be done, right? I'm not saying, you know, you ban Roy Nelson for life, but obviously not.

You don't do that. But Jason High got a one-year suspension from the New Mexico Commission. As you said, he got cut and banned by the UFC. I don't know if, I highly doubt that a similar thing will happen to Roy Nelson, but there has to be some kind of action taken. If it's a three-month suspension, if it's a small fine or whatever. But you can't just let fighters touch officials like that in that manner, then flip them the bird and have them get off completely Scott-free.

You just can't do that. And let's be clear, Jason High did not deserve to get cut from the UFC, nor, in my opinion, did he deserve a one-year suspension? I thought that that was way too strict. He obviously, you know, you touch, look at the NBA, you look at MLB. I remember famously Magic Johnson when he was coaching the Lakers for a brief period, bumped referee, and he was kicked out of the game. You can't touch the official.

It's just a horrible precedent that you're setting if you're letting guys do that. And I like Roy Nelson a lot. I think he's a fantastic character and still a very, very, very good fighter. By us bringing this up, I see a lot of people say, like, you're snitching, you're stitching. No, they've done it once to Jason High. So we have to, we have to discuss it now. Jason High was unfairly punished, in my opinion, but he deserved some kind of punishment, a fine, a three, six months, whatever. And if I'm being honest, I do believe Roy Nelson deserves something here. You can't kick, nudge, tap the referee. You just can't,

not in this kind of sport. And then to double down on that and flipping the bird, I thought that was uncalled for. I did not think that that was a smart move by Roy Nelson. Can we stop with this snitching crowd? Yeah, oh, wow, I get it all the time. It happens on national television in front of millions of people. Who's snitching on who? Come on, give me a break. Yeah.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. The Jason High thing, I was actually on the MMA beat that week, and I actually said I did not mind that the UFC cut Jason High. You snitch. It was certainly, I am a bit of a snitch. Looking back now, it was not justified as I thought it was then. And this is something very similar. This is something that could have been taken care of with.

you know, a three-month suspension. More of a slap on the wrist rather than a complete banning. That's just kind of silly. I mean, we have PED users who don't get that kind of suspension one year. And I don't think Gordon doesn't should get that, but like you said, you can't do it. They got to give them something. And by the way, since when you have to file a complaint to get any kind of a computer, you know, punitive action taken? Everyone saw it.

It wasn't something that happened behind the scenes that someone has to complain about. It happened in the octagon after a fight for all to see. No snitching. So there should be something done regardless of whether or not Fidjan wants to file a complaint about it. I think Carmelo Anthony once starred in a film called Stop Snitching, which was highly publicized, which is interesting that we're talking about that since today's New York Knicks Media Day. Let's end with UFC 205. Six blocks away from here, Carmelo Anthony's home.

How about that segue? Madison Square Garden. In around 29 hours from right now, there's going to be a UFC 205 press conference. If they don't announce Connor McGregor versus a broomstick, is this? This event fail to live up to the hype that we have been expecting, which is back in the day, I was looking at the interview archives. I did an interview with Lorenza Fertita January of 2011 at MSG, and he's promising a UFC 100 type of card. You see the card now. There's 10 fights on it.

We hope that Chris Wyman will be number 11, and maybe there'll be one or two more. But if it does not involve Connor versus anyone else, with all due respect to everyone else, Does it feel like it did not live up to the hype in your opinion on paper? Look, this is a great card already. Any card that has at the top, Tyrant Woodley defending his title against Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, as well as Nguyenon J-Chagg against Karlinna Colvacavish for the strawweight title, is a fantastic card.

Plus, there's other great fights. Frankie Eggers fighting on the card. Tim Kennedy versus Rashad Evans is super fun. It's a very good card on paper for the hardcore fan. And I think it'll sell out pretty quickly just because it is. is the first show of Madison Square Garden, the first show in New York City. I don't think they have to worry about that. I think they're going to sell out very, very fast. People that I know in New York are already looking to get tickets. They don't even know who's on the car, but they want to get tickets

for the first UFC. That'll be fine. But if you want to draw a lot of pay-per-view buys, this card is probably not going to do it as is, unfortunately, because that's just how it goes. The big names, the big stars, the celebrities sell pay-per-views. And Conn McGregor is the biggest one of those in the UFC right now, maybe the biggest one ever. So in that regard, If you want to make the biggest splash possible, you need someone like a McGregor or a Rousey. Rousey's obviously not in the picture for this card, maybe in December. But yeah, if you want to make the biggest splash possible in New York City, Conn McGregor is the guy to do it.

He says he's available. I'm not sure what the story is behind the scenes, but if your biggest draw, your biggest star, your mainstream hit is right there for you, why not put him on the biggest possible card? I'm not sure. It is still a very fluid situation. All hope is not lost. I do suspect by the time the press conferences happens, we'll know a lot more about Connor's situation, Weidman's situation.

And, you know, travesty is a big word, but I think of anyone in the UFC, Wyman deserves to be on that card more so than anyone. And it's crazy to me, due to various circumstances, that as of right now, there is not a single long-go-sera fighter on the card. Let's even add to that. there's not a single, you know, I know the Lyman Goods are on the card, but there's no right now, Wydenman, Valante, Sterling, Iacquinta, which is also a very unfortunate situation. And Sterling's a little banged up, Valante's a little banged up. But it does, I was really looking forward to a New York versus the World Card, sort of like what we

saw in Dublin, you know, what we saw in Brazil at UFC 134, like this is a celebration where all the guys who couldn't fight in their home state are getting the chance to do so the biggest stage possible. And to me, I love the card. I actually really like it. It feels a little different, a little flat because we're not getting that storyline. Because I want to see if they could run the table, that sort of thing. You get what I'm saying? I don't disagree with you, but even forgetting all of that, Chris Wyven worked so hard

in the state legislator trying to get MMA legalized in the state. I mean, that guy was up in Albany multiple times a year. You know, you saw on social media him wearing the suit talking to all the politicians up there. No one works harder than him as far as fighters go to get the sport legalized in New York. He is one of the guys that needs to be on that first card, Madison Square Garden. He's wanted it. He's begged for it in certain cases. It would be very unfortunate if he's not there.

He worked so hard, man, and it would be a shame. So much drama going on. By the way, UFC back on Saturday. John Dodson versus John Lineker. Who's your pick? Taking John Lineker in that fight. Oh, good. Hands of stone.

Knockout? I think so. You put me on the spot, but I'm going to say, I haven't had a chance to think about it too much. I'm a little tired, but I'll say Leniger. That's right. You just woke up. Okay. Well, that's very interesting.

Good stuff, Mark. Anything else you want to share with us before we go? How about them Mets? They're okay. Don't know about the Giants. The Giants are a bit of a mess right now. I am very proud to say that I have not watched a single second of NFL action this season. And you know what?

I'm tired of it. It's just, I don't want anything to do with it. I really don't like it. I don't like what it represents. I don't like how people act all crazy. Yesterday I was walking around and people are in bars in the middle of a beautiful afternoon looking at their phone and my fantasy player did this and that. I mean, get a life.

I don't like how the media overcovers it. There's a lot more interesting and important things happening in sports, let alone the world to focus this much on a sport that, let's be honest, is too violent is it's barbaric. I mean, just let's not get started. Too violent and barbaric. What are we talking about? Yeah, but at least MMA is honest with what it is.

It tells us that the objective here is to finish your opponent, to knock him out, to submit him to either win via judge's decision. In football, we are disguising the fact that, oh, we're like, okay, yes, the point is to get this ball over this line, but let's just jam our heads together and injure each other and have concussions along the way. I mean, I don't want to take part in that. I don't want to teach my kids about that. I don't want to subject them to that.

What kind of a father am I? It would be more palatable to you if they were a little bit more open about what they actually were. It feels like I'm watching two Rams hitting each other over and over and I'm not talking about the L.A. Rams. It's not my cup. It's America's game, man. You have to watch some hockey. You're Canadian. That's right.

Canada and the finals of the World Cup of hockey this evening against Team Europe. So stay tuned for that. Alas, we have, are you watching? No, absolutely not. I can't believe that they're, I can't believe that they're counter-programming that with some debate going on. I mean, who's going to watch the debate when there's Canada versus Team Europe? No comments.

Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. There he is. Mark Romundi of MMAFighting.com. All right, let's move along. All last week, the topic of conversation was Chris Cyborg and her weight. How much does she weigh? Why is she fighting at 140? What is going on? Will she continue to fight at 140? Why can't she defend her 145 pound title? Why is you see the 145 pound champion? And on and on it went. The man who was front and center, the man who was asked to get cyborg down to 140 and possibly 135, the man who knows about this better than anyone, who is the most well-versed in this topic, you can brush aside all the, you know,

analysts, critics, fellow nutritionists. There's only one man who truly knows what's going on with Chris Seiborog, and it is George Lockhart, a fantastic nutritionist. He's been doing this for many, many years and works with some of the very best in this sport. He joins us right now on the phone to talk to us about the week that was for Chris Cyborg. But before we move along with the program, let me quickly tell you about my good friends over at Dollar Shave Club. Listen to me. You don't need to choose between price and quality to get an amazing and affordable shave. I've started to use Dollar Shave Club, and let me tell you something, they are the answer. They are the truth.

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Welcome back. I appreciate you squeezing us in after a long trip back home. So how long, George, have you been doing this? Working with athletes, helping them with their nutrition, with their weight. How long would you say you've been doing this? With the actual UFC fighters about seven years, you know, the Marine Corps, you're looking at like 12, 13 years. You know, that's what I did before I work with fighters. This was kind of like my gig.

We had to get people on weight. And just like the Marine Corps, you have performance standards. You have weight standards. So not only you have to make a weight, but you got to make sure that they can perform very well at that weight. Right, which is obviously very important. So I ask you that because I'm wondering if the past seven days or so were some of the most trying and just frustrating days in your career as a new job. nutritionist. Was this one on top of the mall? Was this more difficult than any other stretch of days you have ever experienced in this field? It was definitely tough, you know, but all weights

are tough. A lot of times we work with multiple fighters for an actual fight. We've done up to 13 fighters for an event. And that right there is crazy, like I said, crazy, crazy, stressful. This one's just like the rest of them. The only difference is this, I think it's the first time we had a lot of negative press. And I can't talk about a fighter during a camp. You know, it just, you just can't

do it, especially when they're going through the, you know, going through the cut, because fighters don't want other people to know their business and rightfully so. So, you know, I have to wait through their cuts over. And that's why I, you know, I hadn't said anything. Not because I didn't have an answer for anything. It's just, you know, I had a respect for the

fighters. And, you know, I know, I know the videos came out and the timing of those videos was, I guess you say, perfect for traumatic effect. But like I said, hopefully today I can answer all the questions and kind of tell you everything that went down and why things did look, I guess, the way they did. So Cyborg comes on this show last week and starts telling us that she's 25 pounds, you know, away from her target, that she's on birth control. questioning this, and then this video comes out the next day of you and her, among others, in a van, and she's sort of questioning you.

And I sort of started to feel like this was an indictment on you, and you have other people weighing in on it. And I'm wondering, with your resume, with your history, working with some of the best athletes in the world, and having them hit their weight and perform at their peak, did you start to feel like you were being attacked? Were you bothered by the things that she was saying that they were putting out? Did you feel like it was unfair towards you? Like I said, I did get a lot of negative backlash, but gone on his truth.

You know, I've always said this from day one. The health of the fighters is very important to me. I work with Jeff Nivinsky for a long time. You know, it's awesome because I know, you know, with work with him that the health of the fighters is his number one goal. And over these past couple years, he's trying to, to improve the whole process of weight cutting because it can be very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

And gone on its truth, it was really cool because, you know, you start saying that people are paying attention to the weight cuts. They are seeing how dangerous they can be. And when you have people being like, what the heck, you know, like this is dangerous for the girl,

but the fight that they're actually caring about the well-being or the fighter, you know, it tells us that he's doing his job, you know, and everybody's doing the job, and if people didn't care, I'd probably be more bothered. The fact that it comes down on me, that's, you know, that's part of my job. You know, that's why I get paid.

But I do want to shine, you know, shine some light, you know, with numbers. And, you know, like, okay, why was their weight so high, George? Yeah, go ahead. Explain to us. Why was it so high? So, you know, first off, one thing that I really, I taught to people about, you know, women and men are totally different. Men fluctuate a lot in weight in terms of water because men hold a lot more muscles than women.

So their weight overnight, we call it floating. When they go to sleep, a lot of guys, I've had guys on Fight Week float 10 pounds. Literally, they go to bed, they wake up the next morning, they're 10 pounds lighter. And that has to do with the amount of muscle that they're holding, the amount of water that they're drinking, the whole water load thing. A lot of people have heard about that. But a lot of people don't actually understand the purpose behind it. With a woman, on the other hand, it's totally different.

I basically have a scale, what I like to call it, true weight and then water weight. There's a lot of things that will make a woman hold water, and you look at this scale, and you basically add a subtract number to it, and this will kind of give you, like I always say, stick with the numbers, and this will give you a true indicator of where you're at. For instance, if a woman is a very difficult anaerobic workout, anerovic meaning without oxygen, let's say she has like a sparring session or if she's lifting weights or whatever, and it's very intense. She's going to hold a lot of water. So you got anaerobic workouts, you have spicy foods.

If they don't get a lot of sleep, they're going to hold water. If they're, let's say, have an excess amount of carbohydrate, an excess amount of dietary fiber, you get numbers for each one of these. A big one is if a woman during her cycle, right before she has her period during the fuel phase of her cycle, she's going to hold a lot of water. And if at this time you look at it, it's like, okay, she had an anaerobic workout.

She did not sleep. She had a bunch of dietary fiber because you want to feed these people a lot of this fiber. Why? Because it's not adding calories, but it's helping with the sanity. It's going to help them feel full water. You don't want them to feel.

like they're starving all the time. You look at these numbers, you say, okay, this is a plus one, this is a plus two, this is plus three. Oh, and then you hit your cycle, that's like a plus 10. And the amount of water that a woman will hold, you got women that will go, you know, they'll go up 12 pounds, 13 pounds, and that's not abnormal. You include the amount of stress during a fight week, again, they're going to hold water, and then the lack of sleep. During this time, Chris hit every one of them.

So the number that you saw, it was, there was date that she was a lot lighter, and then she goes up. If you have a woman that, let's say, she's eating the same amount of calories every single day, she's working out, and then her weight goes up. And you take a look at this, you're like, okay, okay, she's on her cycle. That makes sense. You got to stick with the numbers. You got to stick with the treats. You got to stick with, you know, it is a big faith thing. But once you know this and you've done this long enough, you know, okay, this is just water weight.

for somebody to gain a pound of actual weight did have to eat an excess amount of 3,500 calories. And trust me, Chris isn't doing that. Then she didn't do that. So her weight went up, and we had to look at all this. When you see the videos, Chris literally hit her period. Like, the next day she literally hit her period. So you're talking about stress. She had not slept.

She just flew in, which is also going to make you hold on to water. All these attributing factors, you get out the plane and boom you're like holy crap on 165 and this for the average person they're going to be like oh my god there's no way i'm going to make weight but with me i'm like stick with the numbers this is what we we have been weighing and shot up these are the reasons now on another note if i got somebody that they've been drinking maybe a half a gallon of water a day they've got great sleep they're not stressed out they haven't been eating a lot they haven't been intake in any sodium, and they're heavy.

You got something to worry about because those numbers don't add up. On that scale, you're looking like we're pretty close to your actual true weight, and now we're just going to start drawing water from muscles, organs, and, you know, negative parts of the body. That right there is something we want to do. And with Chris, unfortunately, it's just the timing. She hit it the week of her fight, and that's something I can't say because her opponent's like, oh, good to go. I know that the person that I'm fighting, she just hit her period, which can be a huge advantage of kind of a huge confidence booster. Okay, and explain, and thank you for that detailed explanation.

The idea to introduce the birth control pills was very much talked about people weighing in, including her. She seemed to be somewhat confused about the whole thing, which was strange to me. Why did you do that? And did it work the way you thought it would? Right. So at the end of day, like a lot of people think like I'm prescribing stuff and giving medication. Like I do not. I am not a doctor.

I can't prescribe anything. I can't write anything down and like, okay, take this. One thing that I did want to go over is like, okay, we have sporadic periods. And when this happens, we tend to go up a lot. You know, what I wanted is a lighter period, a little bit more frequency, a little bit more regularity. This is something that we want to address. The actual birth control that was prescribed to her is got a, it's a huge compound that actually helps out with aldosterone. Elastrone is an antedictorotic hormone.

Basically, when you start cutting weight, your blood volume decreases. When your blood volume decreases, the thickness of your blood increases. Now, what happens is your body's, it's an amazing survival mechanism, right? and it's always trying to try to keep a balance to a homeostasis is always trying to keep itself a check. So when it sees blood volume go down, it's going to raise that hormone

Eldastrol. When aldosterone is raised, what it's trying to do is draw water back into the body so you can increase the blood volume. We're drawing water back into the body. Obviously, weight's going to go up. Weight cutting is going to be very, very difficult. So the biggest thing is, you know,

we look at it like, we want to free of the periods to be, you know, be more regulated. They want to be lighter. And is this something that, you know, we talked about, like, hey, you know, last camp, this is something that we faced. And every single cut, we want to get easier and easier and easier. You know, I don't want to have the same cut every single time. Like, okay, well, we did this last time.

Let's just do the same thing next time. There's so many different variables that come into play when weight cuts. There's no weight cuts that's the same, even with the same fighter. Principles stay the same. There's a lot of things that we had to do differently. I usually give like dandelion root and things like that to a fighter to help them naturally release water. Dandelionine root is a potassium-saving diuretic. With the birth control that Chris was on, that's something that we couldn't do.

One of the things that we have to look out for is hypocholemia, which is it's an overdose of potassium. So we can't give her those diuretics, but the biggest thing like I was saying is aldosterone. Another one's vasopressin. Vasopressin is a hormone basically that we have. have to look at that is going to, again, hold water. We can affect that the temperature. But there's no other way that we can help out with the adoption. There's no other way we can have out with the periods.

So that's something that I brought to her attention. She spoke with the doctor. And at the end of the day, Chris is very disciplined. Chris is very regimented. And she's like just about every other fighters. So many fighters, when you go back to like the IV ban, they've done it time and time time and time again. When that with IV ban came, they're like, oh my God, what are we going to do? There's no way that I can fight at the level that I was fighting out without the IV.

You know, we introduced a science to them and told them, okay, this is why the oil rehydration is actually going to be better than the actual intervenious hydration. But the biggest thing is, you want to do the same thing. I always use the lucky socks and the lucky underwear analogy. And you got that guy that's like, I'm wearing the same socks with same underwear. I'm not taking the bath for three weeks. Why? Because my last three fights I won and I wore these underwear and I wore these socks and you know it's, you know, the

I guess the mentality is very vulnerable. You know, especially at the level of these guys are fighting at. So, you know, when you change this, and we've got a video camera right when this poor girl is cutting weight, she's hungry,

hits her period, you're darn right that, you know, she's going to be like, what the hell? You know, this is, oh, you know, like I said, the numbers were all there, and then what happens is it shoots up. Where's it there? And like, why did it shoot up? Oh, because, you know, all the variables that I told you about. Now, I don't want to go too in depth because, you know, obviously don't want to get into the, you know, like too much of a specific fighter.

You know, tell the business, you know, that's one thing that you know about me. I keep everything, you know, okay, this is just between us is how we do the cut. But, you know, she made the weight, and she felt, I mean, she felt great. We did the hydration, everything perfectly, you know, everything was, like I said, the numbers were right. And the thing is, she made weight on her period. You know, that's the biggest thing. Like, if any woman has, you know, and I know there's women fighters out there that have done this, it is so much more difficult for them to actually make weight on their period.

And she did that. So, you know, as for why we did that, if you look at the science behind that, the actual that specific type of birth control, that's a real helpful, I guess you say a real helpful aspect of it, something that, you know, she talked to a doctor about, he gave it a prescription. And honestly, I think the differences of camps, you know, it's like, why the hell my number's going up? Oh, what's different this camp? Oh, I'm on birth control this time. this is why this is happening this is what caused it you know and like I said my job is I tell you what I am uh during fight week I'm I'm probably the most hated person in the world but afterwards I might be one of the most loved people in the world you know that's why I do it

just make sure everything's safe and you know if at any time there's a lot of signs that that are there and I've always told us to you know to everyone that if any given time that I'm like, okay, this, this is, we're starting to draw, draw water from, from place of the body. We shouldn't. I'm going to cut it faster than anybody. And between me and you, this is probably going to make me sound bad, but I've done that for fighters before.

I've literally said, okay, this, this is taking too long. We have a system, basically, like, in the back, how long it takes somebody to crack, basically, how long it takes them to beat up. You know, you have five minutes, you have 12 minutes, 12 minutes is on the higher end. you get above that, you start saying, okay, this person is not sweating. Why are they not sweating? Their body's not releasing that water. So where is that water going to come from, you know, once it does happen?

Then it starts getting dangerous. And I've literally said this, and we're talking USC fighters, like, I'm like, dude, we need to call it. This is getting unsafe. And, you know, USC fighter being what they are, I can't make them do that. I can't call it, but I can't make them stop. And they still, they made the weight, you know. and that there it shows like hey man I'm not about like oh yeah none of my fighters have ever missed weight anytime I've ever went out

no fighter if I've ever went out for them to actually make a weight cut nobody's missed weight but you're damn right I don't care about that statistic if somebody's going to miss weight because of their safety and I'll call it in a heartbeat because you know morally is one thing business wise you're like okay you miss weight or oh they had to go to a freaking hospital, you know. They had renal failure, kidney failure, all these other things. Man, I mean, that's bad for, bad for me.

It's bad for the sport. It's bad for UFC. Okay, three more relatively quick questions, because we are running out of time. I want to get your take on it. Do you still support the idea of her fighting at 140 and even 135, or would you like her to stop doing that and fight at the more natural 145? Man, these questions, I'm arguing, you know, you know, you, you, you know, you, And you know, as well as I do, I got people on so many different ends of things.

Yeah. You know, in a perfect world, you got your perfect world where, like, nobody cuts weight, but everybody's always going to cut weight. And if you don't cut and somebody does, they're going to have a huge advantage. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. She made the 140. At the end of the day, it all comes down to her.

If she says, her camp says, oh, we want to do 140, I will, either one, I will get it at 140. You say, we'll go to 145. I honestly, I get that call, and that's it. And this is one thing. I always just stay in my lane, Ariel. I always stay in the lane because I have people be like, you know, there's guys that I work with, and I'm like, dude, you can go down a whole other weight class. And I won't tell them that, you know, because I want to stay in my lane.

You want to fight this way, good to go, I'm going to get you that weight. I want to make you feel great. And that's it. When I started getting out of that lane, that's when you start getting into trouble, you know? Fair enough. I respect that. a video surface prior to her fight of her weighing in, and the scales seemed to say 141.5. Are you aware of this?

And if so, why was she half a pound over the limit? So from my understanding with the commission, that was allowed. Okay. And God honest truth, man, I'm going to get you down like any fighter knows. You see fighters that work with, they're going to be 146 on the dot. they're going to be 156 on the dot. I'm not going to make you cut any more weight than is absolutely necessary. And then that's exactly what we needed, so that's exactly what we got her down to.

Okay, so, but you, because originally we thought she couldn't get, she couldn't be above 140. There was some discrepancy, and then we find out 141, and then we see 141 and a half. So do you know why she was allowed that extra half? That was, that was up to the commission, I believe. Okay. Yeah, so I think you get a variable in there. And I believe, like, a lot of people don't know this. Like, a lot of times with that, when you step on the scale, like a lot of the digital scales, especially in the U.S., it only goes by 0.5.

So if you're, let's say, 171.2, it rounds down to 171. If you're 171.3, then it rounds up. So a lot of people don't know that. But, like, again, I'm going to get you down to, like, the damn gram. So you don't have to sit in a bath longer than you need to. You don't have to work out any longer than you need to. Does George Lockhart want to continue working with Chris Seiborg? I'm going to see.

You know, like whatever she wants to do, I think we're going to have a huge shit down and talk. Like we, you know, big hug. And this happens every camp. You know what I mean? Like I said, all fighters, they go through different aspects. Some fighters have a little bit easier cuts than others. And, you know, emotions are extremely high. Yeah.

And I think that she needs to take a little bit of a break. I didn't even bring it up to her. And a lot of it is like, you know, do you want to work with me still? From my understanding, yes. But, you know, I think we'll see what the cards lie. You know, if she's like, you know what, I want to fight at 145, then, you know, I think that she can do the 145 on her own. you know, I'll always be there, though.

Two and a half years with somebody and literally, like, when I say two and a half years with them, I'm out there. You know, I literally, like, I see my son one time in the last two months because, you know, making sure that this, making sure that this cut went down, make sure that, you know, she had what she needed. You get very close with these fighters.

I'm very close to Chris. She's a really, really good friend of mine, the camp. I'm really good friends with everybody in the camp. And like I said, I just want what's best for them. So, like I said, you know, when she, I think she's taking a much-needed vacation, and then I wasn't even going to bring it up. You know, the last thing you want to do right after a fight is like, hey, so are we going to do a 140 thing again? You're like, hey, enjoy your victory.

You don't need to be thinking about this. But you asked me that in a couple months, and I'll give you a very solid answer. If I may, I just want to squeeze in one more since your insight is so invaluable. Is it smart? since you work with Connor McGregor for him to fight at 170, then maybe we're talking 155, 145. Does he need to pick a weight class? Is it not good for his body to keep jumping around?

You know, a gun on his truth, the way that Conner's built, working with a guy is so much freaking easier. And to tell you the truth, man, you saw what he weighed in at the fight. He weighed in, I believe this last fight was like 169, 168. most guys that I work with that go to 45 they walk around heavier than that so it's not going to be it won't be an issue

I don't want to speak out of line you know like I said get too much information but if he ever called me I'd say hey George I want to fight at 145 we get the job done 155 definitely get the job done you know whatever you know like I said I'm here for my clients and like I said

I stay in my lane oh yeah one last thing how much does she weigh on fight night Cyborg? That I can't tell you. No, come on. Yeah, I know, I can't. Like, the fighter can tell you. There's one thing I will never say is the weight.

Like, a lot of people would be like, well, how much do they weigh right now? And that's one thing, like, fighters don't want to, don't want to know. I've worked with some fighters, and they want people to think that they're heavier than they are. I've worked with other fighters. They want people to think they're lighter than they are. So when I spit that out, they're like, what the hell, man? Okay, sure enough. All right, all right.

I will leave it at that. No more extra questions, George. I appreciate it very much. I've gone way past the bell, as they say in fighting. Tremendous work. Thank you. For the record, I never doubted you. I knew she was in good hands.

And once again, you prove why you are one of the very best in the business. So kudos to you, my friend. Thank you for coming on and enjoy some time at home. Thanks so much, Eric. I appreciate you to have you on the show, brother. All right. Anytime. There is.

George Lockhart stopping by. Fascinating stuff. Okay, let's move along. Another big weekend for the UFC. They're in beautiful Portland, Oregon, home of the trailblazers. And Will Brooks is on that card. And there he is. He's fighting Cowboy Oliveira on Saturday.

Will, how are you? I'm sorry for the delay. I appreciate your patience. Oh, no worries, man. It's all good. No worries. You were asking good questions. He had good answers.

So, you know, it's always educational. I hear what a guy has to say when he's a nutrition. I could get some help from him, too, you know? Okay, cool. Well, thank you for that. after beating Ross Pearson and considering your place in Bellator coming into the UFC, what was your reaction when you were offered Cowboy Olivera for your second fight? I kind of didn't have a reaction, man.

I think I'm kind of going in that space where I'm recognizing the landscape of the lightweight division right now, and I'm seeing that there's no one that's like a path or way to the title. You know what I mean? like the rankings don't matter. Guys don't know exactly who's doing what. Guys are just kind of picking fights. So it's like, man, why would I go and chase all these guys if these guys don't know what they're doing?

Like, Seroni doesn't know if he's a waltweight or if he's a lightweight, you know? Ferguson, he doesn't know if he wants to fight for a title if he doesn't want to fight for a title. You know what I mean? All of them seem like they can't make up their minds. So I'm like, screw it, man. While they're trying to get all this figured out

who's the number one contender, I might as well just go ahead and make some money along the way and just, you know, stack my chips and, to lose my opportunity to fight for a title, you know? What about the quick turnaround? Were you in favor of that? Yeah, definitely, man.

Part of the reason why I wanted the quick turnaround is because, man, I went for almost a year, about a year, like half a year, almost a year without making a paycheck, you know. And I got way behind on some of my bills and some of my finances and things like that. And, you know, I need to make sure I'm able to, you know, have a cushion, you know, and bounce back from some of the problems.

some of a little bit of debt that I was in, you know. So, you know, I'm just trying to restack my chips, get back to a comfortable place. And, you know, I got the, I always go back to this. I got the baby. I got the new wife. I got the new house. So, you know, you got to have money to pay for all these things. So the more money you can bring in, the better opportunities you have to take care of your

financial responsibilities. Does this camp and in the buildup to this fight feel different than the one in July, other than, of course, the fact that that one came about very quickly. But now you're established in the UFC. you have a fight under your belt, a win under your belt. Like you're no longer the new kid on the block. You're just part of the whole machine. Does it feel different to you?

No, because I still feel like I haven't done enough. You know, it took a short-nourous fight, man, and it really didn't give me an opportunity to really prepare myself to go out there and put the best ill-will Brooks out there that I could possibly put out, you know. I went out there and I went out there as Will Brooks, the athlete. The guy that is just going to flip that switch and just go out there and know how to compete and win a fight, you know. And that kind of made me have to tone down a lot of things that I typically do my fight.

So being able to be, have a full training camp, I actually consider this to be my UFC debut more than I do with Ross Pearson. Oh, wow. And by the way, I noticed you refer to yourself as ill-will Brooks, but you recently changed your Twitter to Trill Will Brooks. What prompted the change? And what exactly does Trill mean, by the way? All right. So I'll start the first question. I changed it just because I was walking around a house and I was just remixing things,

you know, like different things that people use and like different fight names and different fighters. And then I said, I don't know why, but I hear everybody saying trill. And I'm assuming trill means like, like you're supposed to be real, like you always real with everybody, like you're real as dude. So I'm like, oh, whatever. So it was like, Trill Will Brooks. And I just started yelling at around the house.

And I was just in this weird mood. so I just changed my name. It was like, whatever, bro. But, yeah, no, I think I'm ill Will Brooks. But a lot of people seem like they like to true Will Brooks. But I don't know, man. I feel like you can't really change your name. You can't really change your nickname because it's given to you.

But I would just mess around. We'll see what happens. The saga that is Will Brooks and his Twitter account over the last few years. I mean, it's constantly evolving. It's up and down. I will say, though, it's a very, it's a much more consistent message now. And I do appreciate that. I think it's representative of where you are in your life.

You're so happy with your new wife and baby and house, and that's great to see. You were fired up last weekend, though, when your friend, Dustin Porier, was knocked out by Michael Johnson. Is it fair to say that he's on your mind and you want that next? I mean, you were really coming at him. Yeah, no, I was definitely fired out of. And, you know, it's such to see a teammate lose in that fashion. You know, you never want to see a teammate lose. But overall, the reason why I was so fired up,

because, and look, you win a fight. This is a fight business. The fight game is unforgiving me at times, you know. Some guys are going to win. Some guys are going to lose. Michael Johnson won. He won and good for him. But the way he carried himself, like,

the way he carried himself after winning with the standing over Dustin and cussing him out the way he did and saying what he did, that right there, I feel like you never do that as a man. You always respect another man because that guy that you just beat went in a gym every single day.

made sacrifice, put in a time to deserve your respect. It showed up that day, stood across the cage from you, and battled with you, and for you to stand over him and talk like the way he was talking, that's disrespectful. And as a man, I can't respect that. So, yeah, he's on my radar, you know. And, you know, I've come across him on other occasions, and he seems just like a real arrogant person to me. And I just don't like his demeanor.

I don't like his attitude. And again, that example. what he did in the cage just kind of put me over the top. So, yeah, after this fight, I definitely will be looking for Michael Johnson, and I'll make that clear as day to everybody every chance I get. Good man, good man. Also of note, I mean, you know, I obviously don't have to go into this too much, but it has been, wow, what word can I use?

A very trying time for black people in America, right? And you have been vocal about this, and I respect you greatly for that. Was there something in particular that prompted you to go on, on social media and start talking about it and what has the reception been like from the people who follow you, from other people to you weighing in on these issues, which I think you have every right and I respect you and I actually admire you greatly for doing it. And it's, I echo everything you say and I think it's high time that more people in, you know, in high profile situations talk about this and we're starting to see that from a lot of athletes in different sports. But what

prompted this and what has the reception been like to your posts, your messages? Well, what prompted this is, one, just recognizing the scenery, just recognizing the environment that we're in in regards to the black community. And going back home, I actually got an opportunity to take the UFC insider crew back home to Chicago and just driving through some of the old neighborhoods that my family grew up in and just being able to look around and see that, man, how bad things have gotten. And you see it in the news now, you know, Chicago. In my opinion, Chicago is dying right now.

We're dying. We're not doing very well in Chicago. The black community is not doing well in Chicago. We're killing each other day in a day out, you know. The number of black-on-black crime, the number of shootings and killings that takes place in a Chicago community and a black community in Chicago has just been incredible, man. It's just embarrassing. a scary thing. And then on top

of that, you turn around and you see that the same people, some of the same people, and I mean law enforcement, some of these law enforcement officers who are supposed to protect us and give us the opportunity to help ourselves in our communities, they're over here

treating us unequally. We're not being treated like our counterpart, you know, and it's a very frustrating thing that when you watch the news and you, for example, one that just comes to mind is, and this one is that, you easy one. The young man that went to FSU who stabbed and killed two of these people in their garage

and the police show up and he's eating this man's face, right? He's eating this man's face. And this young, this white, the young white male ends up being taken into custody a lot. But when you see anything in the news, when it has to do with African American male dealing with the law enforcement, regardless of if he's cooperating, listening to the police, blah, blah, we're still being shot and killed in the street. It is by and it's, by and it's,

Bottom line it, we're being shot and killed, we're not getting the same treatment, we're not getting that equal justice, and it's unfortunate. Now, am I saying every single black man that is getting pulled over by the police is an innocent man that is not doing anything wrong? I'm not saying that, but at the same time, there are white men that are doing bad things that are still being taken into custody and a lot. When there is African-American men that are doing bad things and a heartbeat are being shot down and killed, or a black man that is raising his hands, that is clear. clear his day on video, raising his hands in the air, putting his hands on his car and being shot dead. After being tasered, one, he's being tasered, and then you pull out your weapon and you shoot him down in the middle of the street. It's just a, it's just a really upsetting and depressing thing to see what's happening in our society right now. And I'm just fired up,

and I feel like we need to start being honest about it. I said all policemen and police women are bad guys, you know, I'm not saying all cops are bad, but there are some cops that. There are some cops that are making good cops look bad. And until we can all just come together and say, listen, this cannot be a white and black thing. This cannot be a minority majority thing anymore. This has to be people just take

responsibility for each other's actions and holding each other accountable. And that means good cops coming out and saying that this cop was wrong. He was wrong for what he did. She was wrong for what he did. Or even black people, we have to start say that, look, that black

man may have something wrong. Does that justify him being shot? But we have to recognize when and when it's wrong to pull the race car, pull that, but right now it's just very difficult in the black community and it's how do you find answers? We're trying to find

answers. Nobody's giving answers. So then you have people who are upset, angry, getting aggressive, desperation turns into anger, anger turns into violence and then you have riots and Charlotte violence breaking out in riots and protests that turns

turns into violence and it's a very a very difficult time for everyone right now. I got out long-winning, man. I appreciate that. Do you feel like a target in your day-to-day life? Do you feel like you're in danger at times? Look, I'll be honest, and I'm not sure people are going to hear this and think, oh, he's been dramatic because I see the times it was, the thing that's going on. But look, man, I'm an African-American man.

There are times where I'm in my vehicle. If I drive by, I'm an African-American man. I have no record. I've never been arrested for anything serious. I have no police record, no nothing, right? But there are times where I do drive by police and I do get nervous, not because this police officer may have caught me speeding. You're going to pull me over and give me a speeding ticket or I have to go to court for some speeding violation.

But I am nervous because I don't know if I'm getting that one police officer that is properly. trained, that one police officer that is not going to be aggressive when he notices that I'm a bigger, I'm a bigger male you know, and it typically sounds like sometimes we get into the stereotyping of it's a bigger black

male, they're aggressive, you know, so it's one of those things where it's 50-50, it feels like, it feels like am I going to get that one cop that's just, he's just not so tolerant of people of my skin color, you know, or am I going to get that one cop there's understanding and it's going to write my ticket and we're going to be polite and cordial

and going about our business or like I said, am I going to, am I going to be that one guy that, you know, ends up being a victim of unjust and unlawful shooting and killed and not be able to make a home to my wife and make a home to my daughter? This is something I think of, man. This is a problem. And this is not something new. This is something I've dealt with throughout my life, you know, throughout my entire life or been stereotyped or put in a situation I've been pulled over multiple times for because

I look like I fit the description of someone else that they were looking for. You know what I'm saying? Like situations like that. Or I've been pulled over my fiance, my wife excuse me, I'm about to say fiance, my wife who is a white woman has been pulled over because she has me and my youngest brother

in her car. I'm not driving. My youngest brother is not driving. My white wife, now wife is driving his car, but he pulls us over. He does not ask my wife for her license or her ID. He asked me and my little brother for our information. You see what I'm saying? I've dealt with my entire life, you know, so this is something that I do think about. It is a nervous thing when, let's put it like this. The one time where I felt 100% comfortable is it when I have my wife in a car with me. Yeah, yeah. Let's leave like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is that I feel confident. Wow. I mean, what a situation. And again, I do commend you for speaking up and sort of not being afraid to do so. Quickly switching gears, why did so many of your colleagues in the UFC, if you want to call them that, fellow fighters, if you will, get it wrong as it pertains to CM Punk? Why were you one of the few who seemed to understand his worth and value while so many others didn't get it? I don't know if I got it as far as seeing his worth or value. I got it as a guy trying to do something that he wanted to do.

You know, I can't say, I can't poo-poo on that guy because he wanted to go out and take an opportunity and, you know, roll the dice in regards to something that he wanted, you know, he wants to try it. You know, and I see it like this. Okay, so if you want to be at the top of the whatever Philadelphia, work that you're in. If you want to be number one, you want to be the CEO of your company, do you really want to go through working your way up from the bottom, you know, if you switch careers, you know, do we really want to start out and be working at McDonald's and be the guy at the cashier? You want to end up trying to be the manager at some point. But now, if you don't

have to do all that extra work of going through fighting amateur fights, going through fighting pro fights outside of the UFC, if you could just have an opportunity to go right into the you have seen fight at the top level right away, then hell, everybody would do it. Everybody would do it. And he got the opportunity to do that. So why am I mad at him? Because he was able to skip past all the other stuff

and just jump right in there and do his thing, win or lose. You know, I just, I give credit to that guy. I respect him because it takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage to drop what you're doing in pro wrestling or anything else to turn over and want to come and do what we do in the cage. and risk really your life, your health, especially at his age. And, you know, it's, you have to respect him after that. That's where I was coming from.

I respect him for that. And the money that he made is the money that he made. I have no time to worry about the money he made. I've got to worry about the money that I can make to get to my money. Yeah. He made his lane. He did it on his own. He made his lane.

He got his money from what he's done to build himself up. Now is my turn to build myself up, create my own lane, Get my $500,000. Get my million dollars, you know what I'm saying? So I don't have time to worry about what everybody else is doing. Last quick thing. Any sign of the champ, Yawanna-Jech at ATTA? I hear she's the newest member of the team.

Yeah, she's been around, man. She's been around working hard, man. It's incredible having them. Jim, it's always good to have work courses like that, man, since she's only been here for maybe a week now. But, man, that chick works hard. All right. Like, she made me question him.

I'm working hard enough, you know. The chick, she's awesome. But, you know, it's always nice to have a really humble, respectful, hardworking individual in the gym like that. And it's really excited to have her around. Tremendous stuff as always. Well, you know, this is one of the best compliments I could give you. You remind me from what the things that you say.

You remind me of a young man named Tyron Woodley. Just the way you speak, the way you view your career. I don't know if anyone's told you that before, but that is one of the best compliments I could give another young fighter. You seem to get it, and I appreciate that so much from you, and today is no difference. So kudos to you, my man, and good luck on Saturday. We'll be watching.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Take care. All right, there he is. Will Brooks stopping by, big fight for him. On Saturday against Cowboy Oliveira, that is in Portland, Oregon. The Moda Center, I believe it is, right? That's what it's called, where the Trailblazers play. main event on Saturday on FS1 is John Lineker versus John Dodson,

an important fight, if you will, in the Bantamweight Division. Our own Guillermo Cruz reminding me now, after the interview that Alex Levera used to train at ATT. Thanks, Guillermo, thanks. A little late, buddy, a little late. Anyway, let's move along. Let's go to Montreal now and welcome in the always popular, always great guest, Joseph Duffy, who joins us right now, I believe, from the TriStar Gym. Is that correct, Joseph? That's right, Ariel. I'm sitting in the shop here. All right. How about that? Are there any Joseph Duffy kits behind you? There's not. What the heck? So we've got a good end in the silver, this way, one. They're not popular enough.

That is, that is insulting. To me, I don't know about to you, but come on. We've got to get the whole TriStar crew there. I want an Arnold Allen. kit. I want a Joanne Calderwood kit. GSP, maybe Roy McDonald is on sale, but you know, you get the point. Joseph, I appreciate you coming on. It was maybe two weeks ago that you spoke to, I believe, the 42.I.E and you told them that as of right now, you have been offered a fight on the Belfast card on November 19th, but with one fight left on your contract, the fight did not make sense to you, and you were sort of at a standstill with UFC. Is that an accurate characterization of your place at the time and where do you stand now?

Yeah, that's exactly right, Daryl. You know, we started off, we had an offer to drop the existing contract and to start a new contract. But, you know, we didn't feel that the contract valued me as a fighter, to be honest. You know, that's it, like, you know, I've had four fights in the UFC put on, you know, all exciting fights I feel so far. three first round finishes. And I just feel the offer they made, you know, didn't really,

didn't really suit what we're looking for or what we felt valued that. So when you said that to them, what was their reaction? It was pretty much, you know, well, they came back and they said, you know, we made a counter offer and, you know, they pretty much said, you know, take it or leave it. you know and they said you know we'll be given you a contract extension so you know that leaves me where I'm at now my contract's been extended another six months so did you want to fight on the Belfast card yeah of course you know Belfast is only three hours from from my home at Dundlegoal so you know fighting in Belfast would have made sense for me and after the whole Dublin fiasco as well it would have been nice to get that

the fight at home but You know, the opponent they offered, he's reasonably unknown. You know, a very, very good fighter, talented fighter. But I just thought that, you know, would they be in the last fight my contact? You know, it didn't really make sense. You know, and we offered, I said, you know, I'm more than willing to fight the top ten guys. You know, whoever I fight in Ireland, I feel, you know, they're going to get a lot of publicity. You know, as long as, you know, they accept our counteroffer.

But obviously, you know, we're left here. the contract extension. Do you mind sharing who this opponent was that was offered to you? I'd rather not get into that. Obviously, I don't know if it's going to get me in trouble or whatever. I'm still contracting the UFC or whatever, so I'd rather, you know, avoid it for now. Fair enough. Do you know why they extended your contract and not, you know, we've seen other fighters

fight their contract out, sort of roll the dice if you want to call it that. I mean, some big name fighters as well, Benson Henderson, Matt Matreone, Alastor Overeem, Roy McDonald, why don't you just fight the Belfast fight and then cross the bridge when you get to it? Why is that not on the table? Well, you know, it was on the table, but I felt that it wasn't really, you know, from a business point of view, it wasn't really a great move because, you know, it was a tough fight. If the fight went well, then obviously I wouldn't have really got no props for that fight. and my stock wouldn't arise risen too much

and if I lost that fight it would have been in a case of oh wow you know so really you know I was I was the one making all the risk and you know

at least with the with the Parier fight you know I had a lot to gain you know he was he was well ranked you know he's been in the UFC a long time you know I had something to gain from that fight but this fight I didn't really have nothing to gain and everything to lose but to be clear

this fight like the opportunity to fight out your contract is there but you'd rather figure something out before you get to the end of your contract is that fair yeah exactly you know i just i want to get paid what i'm worth yeah um or what i feel i'm worth um obviously you know with the with the whole dublin thing i've done a full 10-week camp um you know i got pulled from the card it wasn't it wasn't a decision i made um you know and you know it costs a lot of money these these camps you know your trainers your manager um nutrition is, you know, all this type of thing. And then obviously I left there, you know, empty-handed, you know, no payment or nothing. And then I had to get straight back into another camp. You know, so like I feel we need to get to a point where we're a little bit more secure.

Yeah. At the minute, it's just, you know, you just live in front front fight to fight. And, you know, I think people are under illusion. We're in the UFC and we're getting paid, you know, crazy money. But, you know, at the minute, it's not the case. It's somewhat symbolic that you are sitting in front of this Reebok sign because I feel like a few years back, if you had loyal sponsors, they could help you, you know, not feel like you're going fight to fight. They're putting you on a salary. They're paying you monthly.

Do you have any sponsors like that? Yeah, my manager's got a few sponsors that, you know, obviously, you know, I'm very grateful in the help. But, you know, I'm out here living in Montreal. So, you know, it's not as, it's not as cheap as it would be if I was back. If I was back home, you know, I'm living at home, sponsors, there's money in your pocket. It just, you know, it kind of keeps your bills down. Whereas, obviously, you know, I moved away from home. I got rent to pay, I got everything else to pay.

So it was, it's not the case. So as of right now, is Belfast off the table? Yeah, yeah, Belfast off the table. My contract being extended and, you know, I'm just in the gym, just working hard and, you know, trying to improve. The opponent that you were offered, has he been booked against someone else? No, as far as I'm aware. Okay.

I've only seen like a few fights announced. So I'm not sure. I tell you truth, I haven't really seen much. So, you know, I'm not a big guy for social media anyway. So if he's been booked, then I haven't seen it. We're still, you know, we're a little less than two months away. Are you holding out hope that they will revisit it and that you will end up on the card? Or at this point, do you believe that that won't happen?

I believe it won't happen that's kind of where we're at you know there's been plenty of opportunities to revisit and you know I'm not getting my hopes up with all that stuff all I'm doing now is just getting in the gym

and concentrate on working hard because all this stuff it drains you you don't need to be thinking too much about this I want to be concentrating on my side of things and leave that kind of stuff to my manager to do deal with. How long has all this been going on for? Like, when did it all start?

I would say, I would say it started maybe a month ago now. Okay. A month ago and obviously, you know, it's been going on a while. So I still go, it's still got one fight in my contract and, you know, I assume that fight will probably take place next year and then. And what is the game plan? Like, do you just wait back, you know, sit back and wait for them to approach you? Do you, like, How do you approach this now? Because it must feel weird. Like you're in the gym, you're ready to go, but there's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's no fight to prepare for.

So what's the game plan here? They just said to get in contact when I'm ready to fight. So all I'm going to do, I'm going to work hard in the gym, make some more improvements. I felt that six months I had off after the party of fight, done me the world are good. So I'm under no stress with this one either. you know, I feel I'll just do the same thing and I'll go back and, you know, I just feel each time I spend a bit of time on my game, I'm getting closer to, you know, I'm never far away from them top ten fights. So, you know, when they fight come, I want to be running through these

guys also. Excuse me for asking, but I feel compelled to, do you mind telling us what they offered you? Again, you know, when it comes to court, I'm not sure if we're allowed to disclose figures and so on, so, you know, I don't want to. I'm going to screw myself when I'm still caught back. But yeah, it wasn't a huge increase. You know, it wasn't a huge increase. And, you know, UFC are always pushing for exciting fights, people to finish.

You know, it's so difficult to get the big bonuses. You know, every time I go into fight, I'm always searching. I'm always chasing that 50G bonus. But, you know, out of four I've had one so far. And, you know, without them big bonuses, it's a big difference. Yeah. It's a big difference. and are you able to say if you were very are you far off in terms of numbers like what you

countered is there a massive gap there or do you feel like it's like okay we can sort of meet like how would you describe it yeah there's a big gap okay all right there's definitely a big god obviously you know i don't feel i'm a greedy person but you know we're you know we're at the premier division of fighting at the minute and um you know what people think we're getting more again is, you know, is so far up the mark. You know, we're one injury away from it all being over all the time. And, you know, at the minute, you know, I just don't feel like I'm moving forward, you know, in terms of financially, you know, I feel that, you know, at least, you know, what we're doing

here, I dedicate my whole life to this. And, you know, I feel if I don't make a stand now, then maybe I'm never going to get paid the money. I feel I'm deserved. And, you know, eventually I'm going to. coming to this game and have to get a job. Do you want to test the market? Do you want to be a free agent? I'm more than willing to. I wouldn't say I want to.

You know, I'm happy in the UFC. I feel, you know, I feel I've been treated fairly, you know, I've enjoyed working with them. So, but, you know, I feel that that's the position. I mean, you know, at the minute, yes, I do. You know, the offer that made me, there's no way I would accept that. you know, even if I lost my last fight, it wouldn't accept that. Wow. So, like, would you describe it as insulting? Like, were you shocked by this number? Yeah, it doesn't shock me.

Obviously, you know, it's a company. You know, this company wants to make as much money as it can. And you can't blame them, you know, that's the whole point. But, you know, I got a long time in the game yet, and I feel, I feel to get where I need to be. I need to be a bit more financially secure, and I need to be able to invest in my training a little bit more. And, you know, to keep bringing in the people I want to bring in and keep moving up levels,

you know, financially, you know, things need to change. It would be interesting if they said to you, okay, go out and see if you can get this. And if you can get this, if there's a market, then we'll talk, we'll match, etc. Has that been brought up? Like, if you feel like you're worth something, obviously that means that you think that you can get it. So why not see if it's out there? You sort of like let you go and then revisit it.

Is that not a possibility? No, no. When you're in contract, you're not meant to be talking to other promotions. So, you know, but I'm more than confident, you know, what I'm looking for I could get. The sale, the recent sale, did that change your stance on how much you're worth? No, really. I hear a lot of people saying, you know, it got sold for $4 billion and blah, blah, blah. But that's irrelevant.

I just feel, you know, all the fighters who's fighting at the minute, you know, it's nowhere near the money we need to be. Like, if you look at other sports, I know a lot of people compare the different sports. Yeah. You know, we're getting paid nowhere near them guys. But another thing to tell you the truth, I was, you know, I see some of the guys who's coming in, you know, who's relatively inexperienced, you know, fighting guys, you know, on their first contact who's not that experience also. So, you know, I'm getting paid far more. You know, in fact, I think Sage made 40 and 40. You know, and I'm sure T.J. only made 25 and 25 in this last fight.

And TJ is, you know, a former champion. So I think, you know, if you don't make a stand, you're never going to get paid with your worth. Yeah. Do you talk to the other fighters? Like, do you talk to the other guys at TriStar or other fighters you may know? Because there's so much secrecy involving the contracts. We don't know what, you know, in other sports, as you may know, the NBA NFL. We know what everyone makes.

Do you ever talk to guys? try to compare and see where you're at to see if you're asking for the right thing. It must be tough. Yeah, without a doubt, you've got to keep an eye on the market and see what everyone's getting into. But, you know, I think it's getting to the point that a lot of fighters are realizing, you know, that we should be getting paid more. You know, like I said, I don't feel I'm a greedy person, you know, but I know like the

secure my future and, you know, I'm putting my body on the. line of my health on the line, obviously, you know, Dublin, do with concussions and so on, you know, one shot and it could all be over. So, you know, I need to get to the point where, you know, I can start moving forward and, you know, my future isn't a worry. I know you said that you like having the extra time to prepare and it has treated you well, but how do you feel about the move to extend your contract so now you can't make money for the next, you know, six plus months? You know, are you surprised that that is what happened or are you? you expecting that when you got involved?

Like, were you prepared for that? Did this come as a shock to you? How would you describe your reaction to their move to extend the contract? Yeah, obviously, you know, before I ended negotiations, you know, I made sure I done my homework on how it all works. You know, I was a bit surprised it was so, you know, take it or leave this sort of thing. You know, obviously I thought there would have been a bit more of a negotiation, you know, a bit more, you know, somewhere we could have met in the middle, I feel. But, you know,

it is what it is. That, you know, that's the business we're in. And, you know, you just got to, you just got to play your hands to help. I respect the fact that you're talking about this, because I know a lot of people don't want to for various reasons. Was that a conscious decision on your part? Did you feel like you had to come out and explain your situation? I think it's happening more and more. Obviously, last week, Ally Quinto was on. And, you know, I feel, you know, in different ways where our situation is very similar. Yeah, very. You know, there's a lot of fighters talking about the financials because, like I said,

you know, they're putting their body on the line. You know, we could get to 50. We might not be able to walk. You know, what's the price on your health? And, you know, we do this because we love it. But at the same time, you know, if you can't make a living or, you know, or feel secure and you're living then, it gets to the part where we've got to start thinking about doing other things.

And it's something I've actually thought about as well. Ariel is going into other business ventures also. Oh, like what? My dad's involved in construction, you know, handling all that type of things. So it's something I actually thought about, you know, maybe getting sorted out here. So Al told me that he was prepared to walk away. Are you prepared to walk away as well if you can't get the number that you're looking for? I'm never going to walk away from training, that's for sure.

Okay, but fighting, prize fighting. Fighting? I don't know. That's a difficult decision. I wouldn't like to, you know, I'd have to have a sit down and a long thought about it. But I don't know. I feel like maybe if I got something set up and I was a bit more secure, maybe I wouldn't have to worry about the financials as much.

you know so then it wouldn't be such a stress on obviously the whole contract side of things you know i could just do it for the joy but um you know as it stands no way you know i i need to think about my future and obviously take care of that do you regret going back to m m ms do you feel like you would not have this problem in boxing if you stayed in boxing no no um no i came back to m m mhm because i missed it yeah you know um you know i've been doing m m m m m for for a long time you know i never boxing until I switched over. You know, I enjoyed my time at boxing. I learned a lot, but I definitely felt I made the right decision.

You know, I followed my heart back, and I'm glad, and the experience I've had since, you know, I definitely wouldn't do it any other way. What's your prediction? How does this all end up, and when do we see you again? What do you think? What's your gut say right now? At the minute, you know, I think it's pretty much, you know, just waiting the contract extension and then you know i'm assuming we're going to go back to them you know when we're ready

to get things going again so uh i'm assuming it's going to be you know one more fight test a free agency and and go from there all right well fair play to you as they say back home right fair play to you my man i wish you the best and thank you for coming on and talking about this i know it's not easy and a very enjoyable topic but i do think it's very important and uh i give you a lot of credit for just explaining not not taking shots but just explaining, you know, where you stand and what you're going through, because I think a lot of fighters would relate and sympathize with you as well. All the best to my man. Good luck. Please keep us posted. I hope it turns out very well for you, and I hope you get what you deserve

and what you're looking for. Thanks very much, Ariel. All the best. Pleasure as always. There he is. Joe Duffy. How can you not love Joe Duffy? What a class act he is, and very much appreciate him coming on and talking about all of that. A topic that will obviously not go away and continue to get more and more prevalent in this sport and more interesting in this sport. And I do think that the more fighters talk about it, the more the situation will improve for them. And I think there's nothing wrong with trying to get what you think you deserve. And that's why there is a free agent market, right? That's why there is an open market, a free market. If someone's willing to pay you what you think you are deserving of, then more

power to you. That's the name of the game. That's how it works in other sports as well. Okay, let us take a quick break. Let us reconfigure the studio, because in a minute we're going to be joined in studio, live and in living color by the champion himself, the chosen one, the UFC Walterway champion Tyrone Woodley, who fights in less than two months at MSG, at the world's most famous arena, at the home of the 2017 NBA champion New York Knickabockers. Tyrone Woodley is here to talk about his fight against Wonder Boy Thompson. So let us take a quick break. As I said, we'll reconfigure the studio while we do that.

A little y'all must have forgot. Nate Marquhart is back this weekend. He is fighting on Fight Pass. You may have heard of this last week. He is fighting the Barncat, Tam Dan McCrory. It was around five years ago on this program. He was in studio to talk about his removal from a card in Pittsburgh, and he was also fired essentially on the spot.

one of the most memorable moments in the history of this show. It was Nate Marquhart and Lexman in studio, his manager, talking about this very bizarre situation. I thought it would be somewhat interesting to revisit that as we prepare for our Tyron Woodley interview. So here it is June of 2011, Nate Markhart in studio. And then we'll be back right here with the champion Tyron Woodley. What a weekend for Charlie Brennaman stepping in on 24 hours notice

to face Rick's story. And by now you obviously know why he stepped in on 24 hours notice. On Saturday, just an hour before the Wayans, Nate Marquart was not medically cleared by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and afterwards released by the UFC. He has not talked since then, except for a couple of Twitter messages, but we are honored to say that he is joining us live and in studio right now, along with his manager and the president of Alchemist Management, Mr. Lex McMahon.

Nate, I can't thank you enough. I know it's been a very tough few days for you, so thank you so much for stopping by. Has his mic? Good? Yeah. All right. Lex, I appreciate it as well. All right, cool.

Are there mics good there, Josh? Yeah, good? Give me a little test there, Nate. Test. All right, there we go. Lex? Test one, two. There we go.

There we go. For a second, I couldn't hear you guys. So, guys, again, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming to New York and for joining us. Obviously, like I said, it's been a very tough stretch for you. And I think, because we haven't heard from you, let's work backwards. And let's ask the question that everyone wants to know right off the top. Why weren't you medically cleared to fight?

I was not medically cleared to fight because of a situation that basically I've been dealing with since August of last year. Last year in August, I was feeling sluggish. I was feeling horrible. My memory had gone out the window. I was irritable. And I knew something was wrong. I felt like I was overtraining when that wasn't. the case. So I went to my doctor and he ran a bunch of tests and basically came back and said

that I had low testosterone. He, you know, he recommended for me to go on hormone replacement therapy. And so immediately I took that information and went to the UFC and basically talked with the the people there that know about that that handle that situation and figured out what what was the plan and and at that point I went on on treatment um I was on treatment uh all the way through uh to the end of the year to the first of this year um you know it was monitored and everything and And so I got the fight with Dan Miller in New Jersey. We applied for the therapeutic use exemption from New Jersey. They came back and said, we're going to grant you the, we're going to let you fight this fight.

But basically, we want to make sure that you need this treatment. your doctor submitted some paperwork that seemed incomplete. So we want you to do these tests after the fight. We want you to go off treatment for eight weeks. Then we want you to take three blood tests. Then we want an endocrinologist to review those blood tests and basically see if you need to be on treatment. So, you know, I followed all the guidelines that they told me.

I went off treatment for eight weeks. I took the three blood tests. I, you know, once the blood tests, once the results came back in, the endocrinologist reviewed and wrote out a letter that basically said that, you know, I had low testosterone and that I was a candidate for hormone replacement. therapy and and so he recommended me to go back on treatment at that point I went back to my doctor and and he decided that I should go back on treatment obviously and at this point I was three weeks out from my fight that I was supposed to have with Rick story three weeks out and

And so he basically said that I needed to go on a more aggressive treatment because of the proximity to the fight because it was so close. Who's he? My doctor. His primary care physician. He had two doctors that recommended that Nate resume or begin hormone replacement therapy. One was the endocrinologist, which he was required to go and see by the New Jersey Athletic Commission. The second doctor was his primary care physician who had been involved in the treatment process from the onset. He was the one initiated, and then once the endocrinologist had recommended,

he supported that recommendation and initiated treatment with Nate. Got it. Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, that's fine. So, again, three weeks out, I got the recommendation. My doctor decided to put me on a new treatment that was more aggressive because it was so close to my fight, he said that it wouldn't get basically it wouldn't help me it wouldn't it wouldn't make me feel better by the time of my fight unless he did a more aggressive treatment and so I was on the treatment for two weeks and I took a I took a blood test and which is is normal throughout treatment you have to take blood test to make sure you're you're within normal ranges

and that test came back high. And at that point, my doctor said, well, you need to go off treatment and, you know, let's hope you're down to normal levels by your fight. And, you know, obviously that was, you know, I was pretty much panicked at that point. But it's important to note, Nate, I apologize, it's important to note that as soon as Nate was recommended to come off treatment, he did come off treatment. and did not take any subsequent treatment even to this day. And that will be important as he kind of lays out the chronology of the levels, where they were at a high point as they've decreased up until our most recent announcement of, I believe we found out last night this morning.

Okay. Yeah. So. All right. Back on the MMA hour. So that was June of 2011. Look at us now. Joined in studio by the champ himself.

Tyron Woodley. Wow. What an honor this is. Long time coming. Long time coming. You know what's funny? The guy in the back, New York Rick, says, you are his favorite guest, and he's not here. This is like the third show that he's missed.

Where you at, brother? He's in Thailand. He's in Thailand. He's a slacker. But I thought it was fine. I texted him. I was like, your boy's coming in studio. You're not here. What an idiot.

Thank you for coming. I got some coffee, too, so my levels might jump up. Oh, I like that. I like that. Well, it was interesting that we were playing that Nate Markquard interview, but we'll get to that stuff in a second. So here you are in New York because you're fighting at 205. We're literally six blocks away from MSG. Has this sunk in?

Like, you're not just fighting on any car, Vegas, whatever. This is freaking MSG. This is a store. It's crazy because I just remember fighting in a bar where, like, cigarette smoke would be going to my nostril. The person on the side was drunk and they could have just grabbed my ankle if they wanted to. And it was like 30 people there. And, like, to be fighting at MSG, this is what the entertainers. If you, Jay Z or if you, you know, Muhammad, I.

This is what a top-top entertainers perform at, and I just can't wait to go out there and perform. Have you ever competed at MSG? I have not. They wrestled here. Yeah, yeah. But I've never completed. Never. Never.

Never been inside. Never been inside. Wow. When did you walk past it? Like on this trip? No, I walked past for the first time. We wrestled at New York Athletic Club when I was in college. That's a long ways from New York Athletic Club.

My goodness. They were literally on the edge of the mat, mat, drunk, going crazy, yelling, moves that didn't exist. but I walked past I randomly got out of the train I didn't know where I was at I was lost and I looked up I'm like this Madison Square Garden

so yeah it'll be dope you're here for a few days right yeah for a few days can you give us any kind of insight what like why are you here obviously there's the press conference but what kind of stuff are they having you do here I believe you're here until Thursday right

yeah what are you doing well we we got a press conference obviously that'd be tomorrow and then we have you know do the promo video for the actual for the actual 205 some media obligations, media tours, a couple days of that.

And I got her early because I wanted to come sit down in studio on the MMA hour. I couldn't be in New York City and not actually come in the place to be. So I wanted to get here a day early. And also, I'm in training camp. Like, this is, it's a great fight and you have to sell a fight.

And as you guys will see tomorrow, I would not hold punches back. Oh, yes. But I got a train. So I got an opportunity to go down to church tree, boxing gym today. Oh, wow. the spirit and all the pictures.

I love old school boxing gym. And I got a harder workout than I anticipated. Do you just walk in? No, I know I was training there. A guy named Hollywood. He knows he trains a lot of celebrities, Carmelo Anthony. Okay, okay.

And I've been following him. Liam McGeery, a lot of them. I've followed him on social media for a very long time. My wife followed him. And I say, I'm in New York. I got to come train. So I came there. Man, he said, warm up, three rounds of this.

Like, he was treated me like, And that's what I like. It was like, you ain't just coming in the head in the pads. So before I even did anything, I did like 30, 40 minutes of work. Oh, wow. So you'll be going back. Yeah, I'd be going back for sure. So I had to reschedule.

I was supposed to go and do jiu-jitsu and Marcelo Garcia afterwards. Oh, wow. But I was like, let me not crush these two workouts. I'm having the time of my life now. I'm boxing. I'm crushing stuff. I was training with him at 8 p.m. tonight.

That way I get proper rest in time. So there's so much to talk to you about. Let me ask you this. it has been almost exactly two months since you won the belt, right? July 30th. Yep. It's almost September 30th. How would you characterize your two months as champion?

Which camera is mine? You got that one, buddy. All right. Woo! You guys really want me to answer this question? I do. The honest answer is that when I was a young whippersnapper and I got it to mixed martial arts, I knew I would be championed at some point.

I know it sounds a little cocky, but I never got into the sport not to be the champion. This sport is too damn hard to put your body through this craziness. After I just finished a collision wrestling career, which is enough to make anybody not want to ever train again. So when I got into this, I had clear goals. To be the champ was my first destination, and after that, to reign as a champion to become a legend to leave my legacy in the sport. So those are my goals. So when I got the title, it didn't feel it, in quotation, it didn't feel like I thought it would feel. I thought I would be jumping, going crazy, screaming, hallelujah, shouting in the, I thought I would be crying.

But I think I have visualized that moment so many times in my head over and over again that when it happened, I expected it. So it didn't really feel like I thought it would feel. And then, you know, just the obligations and, you know, the fans and the media, I didn't really get a chance to enjoy it. Also, it was Robbie Lawler, a guy that was a friend and teammate of mine. So I wasn't just going to be, you know, dancing over him. as I knocked him out or taunting or doing anything like that. So I couldn't really celebrate the way I would want it to. I couldn't go down to ATT and have this big celebration dinner like Robbie Head or Amanda

Nunes had. So with that said, I knew in my mind after that fight that this fight would be the fight is almost like my first title. This would be the chance I get to celebrate and enjoy it. And, you know, the fans didn't quite let me enjoy that much as well, you know. They wanted to automatically give Steve Wonderboy my shine and he'll get his chance. and I don't think he'll be celebrating too much, though. So it's interesting because on this show and other shows,

we always talk about like fighters aren't capitalizing on the moment after a big win and calling out their next opponent saying what they want to do next. Like when Mickey Gall won, we all applauded him, including myself like, oh, that was good, you called out Sage. When Chris Cyborg won on Saturday and didn't talk about her next fight, I thought it was a misstep. You came out there and did exactly what we always ask you to do as media to fight. say what you want next.

Yeah. In hindsight, though, do you regret doing that because had you just won the belt and said, I'm so happy, I'm crying, this is the greatest day I'll worry about next week, you could have had an opportunity to just, you know, bask in the glory as opposed to saying what you wanted and then getting that heat for being too outspoken, I guess. Do you get what I'm saying? 100% don't regret anything. All right.

I'm going to tell you why I won. That's my moment. And so what I choose to do at that moment is up to me. Also, I don't feel like I'm obligated to share that moment with someone who hasn't earned that. You know, Wonder Boy is a phenomenal fighter. I respect him as a martial artist. He's not a world champion. I'm the world champion.

And that's what you have to understand, that I beat the fighter that's the fighter of the year. With fights of the year, him and Carlos Kahnett might still be the fighter of the year. And it was the first fight of the year. It is, in my opinion, as it right now. So what I'm saying is that I'm not obligated, especially when somebody, disregarded me and discredited me and didn't give me a fighting chance in a fight and out of his own mouth. And that's why I love the camp camp and that's why I love putting actual videos out and they're dated. So when you say you prefer to fight this person, that means given an opportunity

to pick, you choose to fight this person. And then after that, you go and say, you think this person is going to defeat me. That's why you choose. So I don't feel obligated to be like, you know what, you're the number one tender. You know, I'm ready to take you on. I didn't feel obligated. And I also went through before then. This is maybe six weeks before the fight. Okay. And I was like, I love when you guys count me out. I love when you guys start making future plans. They was talking about, hey, what

do you think about George St. Pierre against, George St. Pierre against Robbie. What do you think about Wonderboy against Robbie? What do you think about Nick Diaz? I said, I like that. But when I'm champion, don't let the conversation change. Let's continue those talks. Don't make the conversation when there's Robbie. And then now I'm in a champion,

you don't know what the hell will do. Let's continue those talks. And that's why I went right to the point. And I was like, hey, no, remember you want to fight Robbie, right? You wanted to fight Robbie, not me. So that's who you can go ahead and fight. It wasn't that I didn't want to fight him. It's not that I didn't think he was a number one contender.

But I fought that battle for so many years. I don't feel bad for you because I've had three number one contenders should fights. In each fight, Carlos Kahn, if he would beat me, an immediate title shot. Dana White said if Kelvin Gossamer would beat me, he was going to be a title shot. Roy McDonnell got a title shot. So with that said, what is the number one contingency of fight? What does that really mean? You know, we've seen, in actuality, it's just really about timing.

And I was fighting for the world time. I mean, world title with perfect timing. I seize the moment. So now what I do with my moment is up to me. I hypothesized that, and I had no problem with anything you said. And again, I think it's great when fighters do that. I hypothesized that Nick Diaz was the problem. And he was the problem because if you would have came out and said, this is great, but I'm not the champ unless I beat GSP, who never lost the belt, he's the man, I want that fight. That's the money fight. Give me GSP. Give me GSP. I wonder, I wonder if people would have been on board with that. But once Nick came into the discussion as well, and he hasn't won in almost five years or so, people were like, nah, man, no, no, no, now you're just like trying to pick the money. Do you get what I'm saying?

But think about this way. When Nick Diaz, I'm going to pay an easy question for you fans and everybody. when Nick Diaz come back and fight, then George St. Pierre comes back and fight. Are there going to be big fights? Massive. Massive fights, right? They're going to be big money involved. So why in our sport should the champion of that division not want to partake in a big money fight? Absolutely.

With two legendary top ten, Nick Diaz is forever a top ten world's away, no matter what you say. What he's done for the sport, the way he's carried himself, it's made people want to watch and enjoy him fight. George St. Pierre is the number one, in my opinion, overall wealth-to-weight in the world. So these are not only money fights. They're money fights because I'm going to make a lot of money, but they're legacy fights as well. Was he off of a lost when he fought Anderson Silva? Yeah. Was he off of a loss when he fought George St. Pierre for a world title?

Did he possibly jump over Johnny Hedress to get that title shot, who was a clear number one contender at that moment? He had to fight Carlos Condon on the same card after knocking out Camman. And after knocking out John Fitch, after beating Josh Koshak, this story replays itself. So with that said... This man knows his history. Yeah, I know about history. And it's funny because you're watching Michael Bisming fighting Dan Henderson pretty soon. You know, you're watching other guys who actually have declined fights.

I have not declined Wonderboy one time. The first time they offered me that fight, I accepted that fight. But it was not that Friday when I said it on UFC on Fox. So when the athlete knows that I'm fighting him And you seal shirreading around and saying, oh, he's scared to fight me That's why I made the statement Why I didn't respect him because you don't do that It's like a violation of the martial arts coach

So you're saying when you came on the air a little over a week ago Friday weigh in before that show in Hidalgo, right? That's when you announced it That fight had been signed sealed and delivered for quite some time But Wonderboy was coming out and saying Hey sign the contract, fight me, why you ducking me? That sort of thing Yeah, well, it wasn't signed sealed and delivered.

Agreed? It was agreed for sure. He agreed upon it. I agreed upon it. And that's really, all you're doing is waiting on the bottle agreement at that point. Obviously, it's a big fight. It's a world title fight. You want to look at all the firepower.

You want to make sure your contract is what it is. And when those things are done, the fight is signed and sealed and delivered. But the fight was going to happen, and you knew that fight was going to happen. That's where I got an issue at. Okay, okay. Like, you know what I mean? It's like... You think he was trying to play the victim?

or something? I think for the first time in his career, he's having a lot of fans on the side and he's enjoying it. Okay. You know, he's enjoying the fans. They love him. They hate me. And, you know, it is what it is.

You know, I've been on both sides. I've had, you know, when I fought Kochshack, people couldn't stand Kashak. I had no issue with him, but people wanted me to knock him out so bad. And it's just our sport. People love, I mean, I love Washington Robbie Lawley-Fie. My family does. But people, like, that went to, like, you know, the, who. or whatever to watch the fight.

If they rooted for me, they said people were looking at them crazy. And then when he lost, they said these places were silent because they didn't expect me to come out there and win. So the thing about me is that fighters that have to fight me, they got the oldest damn footage on earth. What do you have to break me down? Like, think about it. You got me fighting Kelvin Gasolm.

Yeah. And I basically chose, I chose to use speed times. I mean, and that's all I did that fight. I didn't try to knock him out. I didn't try to take his head out. And they hated when I said that. Like, oh, so, you know, what do you feel? I said, I feel like I can knock anybody out, but I'm not going to knock him out.

You guys think he's just cardio freak. I'm a gas him out. And he was huffing and puffing him in my ear when I was clenching him and punching him to that midsection. And no one wanted me to say that. They wanted me to change. Well, how about you say you say you can knock anybody out? I said, well, how much you just give me the answers? Yeah, yeah.

And I'll say whatever you want. Sure, sure. You know what I mean? So with that said, when was the last fight you can really break down, you know, from my opponent at that point? My fight with Johnny Hedrus didn't happen. My fight with freaking Robby Lala was too fast to get any new techniques that I've been working on. And I think... Condit?

Condit? Yeah, I mean... Roy? Conant was a long time ago. No, no. It was like two and a half years ago. But I've been training, you know, with Dean Thomas and Duke Roofs that worked so well together. They're beautiful minds when it comes to mixed minds.

martial arts. And it's just like this. It's like, how do these guys connect so well on fight philosophy and training? And they know me personally so well that they can just get the best out of me. What about a few weeks ago when Dana White says that that's the fight and then you're on social media and say, I don't have any, you know. Well, I just thought it was, I knew what was going on, but I just thought it was weird. It wasn't even towards Dana. It was to the fans, because I saw it from the fans first. Oh, really? I didn't see Dana's post because it didn't have my handle attached to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the fans are like, oh, my God, I'm so excited. It's official, finally, the number one contend to get in the fight. I'm like, hold on, I'm like, well, I haven't been off of the fight. I didn't agree up on the fight or the date. And I haven't gotten a bottle agreement, so it's kind of funny that this fight's official, and I haven't even heard of it, and I'm the champion. Yeah. So that was really towards that, and then some fans started, you know, doing the fan thing, and I know better.

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't feed the trolls. But sometimes they're right there, and you got the little, little, rat poisoning for him and you just got to give it to him. So I say, oh, so I'm scared of Wonderboy, right? I'm running and I'm choosing fights. And I have chose fights. Just so happened to be Johnny Hingrichis, Carlos Gondick, Robbie Lawler. How soon they forget. Yeah. They forget. And I said, well, maybe there is some merit to me fighting George. How about I let you see this conversation?

And then all of a sudden, like, oh my God, maybe it's not efficient. And I just did that mostly for the fans. It was taken out of context. It looked. It looked. as if I was doing something different, but that's all it was for. Did you get heat for that? I got heat for it. Yeah? I got heat for it. Yeah?

What kind of heat? I got heat to the fact that I'll be more mindful in the future on what I do on social media. So you've taken it to heart? I didn't take it to. I take nothing to heart. That's what makes me a great business, man, because I don't get emotional. I know at the end of the day, you know, when I fight, I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do.

I'm going to win. And the more I do that, the more you're going to not be able to deny me. Like I might be like a Muhammad Ali where he didn't get credit until after he, you know, retired. And I'm not, for you fans, they're going to say, oh, he's comparing himself to Muhammad Ali. I am not comparing myself to Muhammad Ali, people.

What I'm saying is that a lot of you guys love Muhammad Ali now, but during his era when he was fighting, no one like Muhammad Ali, a lot of people hated Muhammad Ali, and then after he finished, then people started giving him the credit that he deserves. If that's the case with me, fine, but the people that train me, my family, my kids, my wife, my legacy, everything that I'm doing now, those supporters are instantly being rewarded because they've seen me broke, beat down, no money, you know, getting cut short, and now I jump to the front of the line and nobody likes it. And guess what? I'm sorry. I don't feel bad about it. Would you say these last two months, while exciting and happy, have been some of the more, I don't know, frustrating two months?

It's extremely frustrating because, you know, I just feel like when you're the champion, it's a certain level of respect. You have to give that. I've never disrespected a fighter that's a champion. No matter what I think personally about them, their skill set, how I compare or fare against this guy, I'm giving that person respect because this is the ultimate goal. And we're really, as fans and as spectators and as fighters, we're diminishing what it means to be a UFC world champion.

You know, when you have the rankings that are a joke, and then you have, the fans that are using their pay-per-view purchases to push the fights that they want to have happen. Like, how do you have, imagine, now I'll say this example a lot. Imagine LeBron James. Brian James is the MVP of the NBA, NBA Finals, right? Yeah. They won the big trophy. Imagine if another basketball player, who didn't even make it to the freaking NBA fighters definitely was not the MVP,

is making more money to LeBron James. Yeah, yeah. No other sport, is that okay? You know what that said, when you fans don't know the number, you don't know the basic, man. Are you just trying to piggyback? George St. Pierre needed to beat Matt Hughes to submit his legacy. That was a big tier. Connor McGregor, he pursued Jose Adder because Jose Addo held the belt.

No matter how many people he brought in, that wasn't going to be complete until he walked over that block. So it's going to be those fights that break you through in your career. Now, if I look at my legacy and I say, okay, I beat Paul Daly, Koshchek, Kandet, Robbie Law, Stevie Wonderboy. What sounds weird in there? You know what I mean? It's like the classic elementary game. Take this one out that doesn't fit in.

And I'm not saying that in the future, he won't be this legendary fighter, but he's in a similar position that I'm in. I'm trying to become a legendary fighter. So when you start saying, Koshek, Paul Daly, Kondit, Robbie Lala, George St. Pierre, Nick Diaz,

those all sound very similar, like they're in the same category. And that's really, it is what it is. I genuinely sympathize. with you when I see your Instagram post and I see the comments that you have to do with. Don't read them, man. I just want to see if it changes. I want to see and whatever.

You know, there's always going to be the trolls and all that stuff. But let me ask you this. And you're keeping it real. And that's why I love you so much because you're always keeping real. You're talking about the business and sometimes people have a problem with athletes who they perceive to be millionaires. Yeah. Even though that may not be the case. I'm not one of them yet.

But they always have a problem when athletes talk about. about money. They're like, oh, you play a sport for a living. I go to a job. People always have a problem with that. Do you think the average MMA fan, the ones that you're hearing from, have a problem with you keeping a reel and talking about business and talking about money fights and talking about legacy and all that stuff because you are a black man? You think you get more heat? If you're, Conor McGregor, does he get the same heat when he's talking about the same thing? That's why I like you. I'm just being honest because I've wondered this. I'm reading this book right now. I can't, I can't disclose a book and read.

But I was told by a person to read this book. And in the first two opening pages, it talks about Patrick Ewan. Patrick Ewan was at my favorite athlete of all time. Oh, wow. That's my guy. Well, hey. Patrick. I got a Larry Johnson here.

I don't have a Patrick. But Patrick Ewing, my favorite athlete of office. It is. You don't like the story. Okay, I can't wait. So Patrick Ewan was in a big negotiation for a big deal. And they were negotiating going back and forth. And he got to the point he felt he was valued at a different value.

and the person just blurted out. When's enough is enough? Like, when's enough money is enough money. But it wasn't like, hey, you don't deserve this amount. It was that it was in a tone that, well, you're an African-American athlete, you're playing professional basketball, you're making money. Like, hi, don't you have it now? So it's like he took it really personal and he should have.

When people bring up race, they automatically want to call it race baiting. Or like, like, what's that now? Overkill Hill, she posts something about the Great White, the Great White Hope. I said, you said it, not me. Then I, now I'm on the feeds getting hit up about it. But at the end of the day, you know, I don't know if we want to go in this direction. But the reason why race is an issue in our freaking society right now is because people want to sweep it underneath the rug. Yeah.

The shit happens. It's happening now. Yeah. Like, think about the person in Charlotte right now that was shot. and then all of a sudden these videos show a gun being dropped by the scene that wasn't there before. These things are happening. I'm not saying that it's 100%. Every African American is a bad person or every police officer is a bad person or every athlete that's an African American.

You know, just even when I was studying for some of the, you know, some of the Fox stuff, and then the way that some people address Derek Brunson, I had an issue with, you know, he's just super athlete. Well, how about his mindset? how about his skill set? How about his work ethic? Let's not get into the point where we're looking so hardly on how athletically superior he is. We forget about the time it took for him, the wrestling mindset, doing these practices in these workouts that really don't even make sense for you. Why do I have to run up this stadium with this 200-pound dude on my back? How the hell does it relate to a wrestling match? But it breaks you down mentally where you have a choice to quit every single day

and you choose not to. So it wires you different. That's why he says, see the wrestlers having so much success in MMA. MMA is easy to us because wrestling was freaking the hardest thing you can never expect. So when you look at that, the same thing that I might say has been done

many, many times by other non-African American athletes and it's been okay. Michael Bisby is fighting the number 12th to 13 guy. I love Dan Henderson. You know, he's done a craplow for my career. He was my first sponsor with clinch gear. Yeah, I love Dan Henderson. I've trained with him.

But if you look at the sport, what they call the pure sportist, he's not the person that probably should deserve a title shot, maybe a Jacaray Sousa, maybe a rematch with Luke Rocko, maybe Chris White, or whoever. But this fight makes sense why? Because Bisby wanted the fight, and because this fight could draw some money. But if I do that, now it's an issue. If Connor McGregor can fight Nadez two times,

the first time people forget the whole reason why they fought. He was supposed to go up and fight for that. belt and potentially come up and get whooped at 170 trying to fight for that belt but jr rda couldn't fight yeah Nate was the last minute replacement beat him when many people didn't think he was going to beat him on a 10-day notice then a trash talk built another fight why is this fight even happening at 170 you know I mean we forget the reason why but that fight's okay it's okay for those guys to go out there and combine make five million dollars for a non-title for probably more I mean just all record for purse yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

another three million in pay-per-view, but it's okay to talk about that money, but you're a champion. We should never want that kind of money. Yeah. That's kind of funny to me. No, I've wondered this, and, you know, Rampage used to talk about this. Like, it was interesting when Rampage fought Rashad, and historically, the UFC, for whatever reason, and I don't know if you agree with this, has had a tough time connecting with the black community. For some reason, it's unlike boxing. Do you agree with that? Do you feel like MMA and the UFC is?

as popular as it should be, given some of the athletes who have been the kings of their respective weight classes, John Jones, Demetrius Johnson, Rashad Evans back in the day, Rampage Jackson. I mean, there have been some great black champions, African American champions, right? American black champions. But yet for some reason, I feel like they haven't been as big as they should be. I feel like this is a whole show in itself. Do you feel like I'm off base?

No, you're not off base, and I'm not going to say it's the UFC. I'm just thinking it's an... Is it a sport thing? It's an untapped market and it's an unknown market. And people that go into unknown markets have to tread softly, they don't really know if the money invested to it would come back tenfold. If it would come back to, you know, more viewers. But what better athletes to utilize to go and grab that market?

Somebody who lived on the street that was rioted in Ferguson, that's my street. I didn't live around. I don't live near there. Like, I can walk to that crickshaw that was kicked in and ride it in a three-minute, four-minute walk from my home. So why not utilize a person who's been in films like a historic, you know, iconic films like straight out of Compton or stunts and acting, but still on the gym, still a father, still a husband, still a, you know, a Fox analyst. I can go and grab that market in a heartbeat. Like, I can still go back to the roughers and the ruffs and I got respect because I didn't go into drug dealing when I had the opportunity to or I tried to.

And the guy was like, no, you're not doing this. You know, you're going to college. You're going to be successful. They respect me for what I did, not do. and for the career that I pursued instead of. Now you can have one person from Ferguson that's successful in their eyes. You know, I don't think I'm successful yet

because I got so many, so much left in this sport and so much left I have to do. But boxing is primarily grabbed the urban market, you know. With Floyd Mayweather retiring, I thought it was a perfect opportunity for us to edge. You have to educate first, because I'm going to be honest. Most African American or most,

the urban market, quote-unquote, we can just call it the African American market. That's the sugarcoat of way of saying that. Most people that are in that market view mixed martial arts as a sport or a whole bunch of crazy white fighters are kicking the hell out of each other with a sprinkles of a few brothers in there. That's what they think of it as. So we have to educate them on this.

One, it's not called UFC fighting. One is not called boxing with wrestling or cage fighting. It's called mixed martial arts. That's the name of the sport. If you say boxing, kickboxing, taekwondo, jukewondo, judo, karate, jiu-jitsu wrestling, each sport divided by itself is respected. When you blend them together,

sometimes people start having issues with them. But when you separate them, oh, I'm a black belt and this. But when you put them together, now it looks like we bar-fighting. So you have to educate them on that first. And then the leagues, I'm fighting in the ultimate fighting championship,

or I'm fighting in Belvoir. I'm fighting in one-fc. Now you tell them this league. Now they can say, hey, this is like the NBA or this is like the NFL. It's some education that needs to take place first. And then once you get a fan in there, they're hooked. You don't have to hook people in MMA. They go to the fight, they enjoy it. And that's how you hook them in. That's pretty easy.

I can do that. Like right now, this is my, this is a part of my tour. This is part of my champ camp. This is not on my schedule. You know what I mean? Like when I go on me smack one of the top guys for battle rapping here in St. Louis, that's not on my schedule. I'm going to the hood to do that. They probably wouldn't even prefer me to go there. But it's important for me to be. bring the hood with me because it's inside of me already. I'm not going to be ashamed of it. I'm going to go and grab those people and those are going to be my new fans. See, I feel like, and I'm not just saying it because you're here because I've said it

before, you are one of the most marketable champions the UFC has had in recent memory because of all of this, because of where you're from, because of how you can get your message across, your story, what you've been through, what you continue to go through. And I hope that you will get that attention and the freaking card that you're fighting on. Which card is going to get more attention than MSG? New York. New York is a huge hip-hop community. Yeah.

It's a huge fashion community. Considering what you've been through the last two months, are you confident that you are going to be pushed the right way? You know, I don't know. I mean, the UFC is doing, we're doing a promo today. Like I said, we're doing media. They brought you to my show. You know, we're doing the media.

So with that said, you know, I can't just sit back and be the victim. Like, I do have an issue with individuals being a victim. Hell yeah. No, you're actually going out and doing it yourself. I'm doing it myself. A lot of people just complain. that they're not getting it, but that's why I give you so much props. You're saying, look, I'm not going to wait for anyone.

And I think there's a lot to be said for that. And it's on my own dime. Yeah. It's on my own dime because it's my career. I mean, I've invested time and endless amount of hours in other people's businesses and other people's, you know, wrestling teams or coach, whatever. Why not invest into my life and to my future, my kids' future, my financial stability and my legacy?

So I'm going to take the brush and I'm going to paint myself the way that I am. Yeah. I can't make a face. fan like me. I can't make a fan think I'm a role model. I can only be who I am. I'm true to my characteristics. I've been the same way since Strike Force, you know what I mean? Yep. I remember you showing up with the Nick at the Nick Diaz way and I got next. That was 2011, April of 2011. And I feel like I still got next. I'm here, you know. But that said, you know, I think it's important to paint your own picture. So these things might come out

in champ camps. They might come out. For you guys that don't know what we were talking about. We keep talking referring to the champ camp. It's something that I did last training camp that now you know, a staple is a part of my training camp. So you pay for that. I pay for that for sure. Yeah. My guy that's floating around. Hopefully getting some good for the studio.

You know, that's on my own down because I want you guys to really get the real inside of what's going on, what I'm thinking about, the days I don't feel like training. When it's hard, when I'm running, and this is a little 125 pound in front of me smoking me and I got to chase them down. Like, I want you guys to really feel like what it is for the sacrifice. And if you see that, then you can appreciate the sport more. You can appreciate me more what I have to go through to even be here right now. Like, I'm from nothing, you know what I mean? But I'm not a rags orisha story. I'm a rags, so I took a damn accountability for my own life, and I put myself in a position where I can be successful.

Anybody can do that. I don't care where are you from. You can put yourself in a position to be successful, and that's what I've done. And that's what people, maybe it's the Champ Camp, maybe it's my books that I'm going to write. Oh. Are you writing a book? Yeah, I got three books on writing. Yeah.

Three? Yeah, three. On what? I'm writing one book. I don't want to get a title as well. Okay. No, no. There's people out there with money that can put these dreams, put wheels on my dreams.

But I'm going to write one that's about fighting and the balance. Okay. Between, you know, fighting, your career, your home life, the money investment side. So it's a book on that. Also a book on just my journey as a person. Yep, yep. I've had some crazy favor on my life and I should not be here right now. All the stuff that I've been through, just dysfunction.

in a household, just being in gangs when I was younger. A lot of my friends are shot and killed, maybe eight to ten of them, you know, or in jail. Like, I was in that, like, just growing up in an environment that I found a way to be successful. And I always say this, I just remember one day I was walking up and down the street with no shoes on. And I was like, how do I, am I going to get out of here? No shoes. No shoes. How old are you?

I was walking. I was probably like eight or nine. Ferguson? Yeah. Why don't you have shoes? I couldn't afford them. But it was just like in the hood, it wasn't like crazy that was outside with no shoes. And as an eight-year-old, you're having this epiphany?

I'm having this. I'm like, I'm looking around. I'm like, how the hell am I going to get out of here? I started thinking like, and at that age, I was like, my mom can't afford to send me to college. Okay? I can't do that. I can control what I do in school. I'm a good athlete.

How about I work my ass off in school and I work my butt off in sports? and I try to use this to go to college. I thought about that when I was a kid. As an 8-year-old. There was an 8-year-old kid. I was playing football, and I told my mom, I said, hey, I'm going to make it to NFL, and I'm a buy you a house. I'm going to be a professional athlete.

And I made this promise from my mom at like 10 years old. Wow. And she had 13 kids, right? 13 kids, yeah. And where were you in that? I had two younger sisters. So you're towards the end. Yeah, I'm towards the end.

Was there ever a point where you were living in a house with 13 kids, 12 other kids? What was that like? See, the dynamic of our family is crazy. My mom physically gave birth to seven kids. Okay. Six girls and me. Oh, damn. So. You were the last?

No, I got two younger. Okay, okay. Then I got a couple stepbrothers. Okay. And my mom adopted. My sister's a friend, she came home one day, and her mother was gone. The whole apartment was empty. She was just, she left her.

Disappeared? Just disappeared. Where'd she go? We don't, no one. You still don't know? Still don't know. What? Yeah.

So. The girl has no idea what happened to her mom. No idea. She was a junior in high school, had a daughter at a very young age, teen, pregnant, young lady, and she, her mom left her. That's crazy. And my mom adopted her. And now she's a successful psychiatrist and, you know, you know, so there's just so many stories like that, you know. There was a point where you were living with 12 other kids. For 100% sure. Was your dad around? Not much. He was there until I was 10 and him and my mom separated

when I was 10. Wow. So he missed all my football career. And that's why I thought I was going to end up doing. He watched my last football game ever. My senior night in high school, he watched that game. He watched my last wrestling match ever. It was my NCAA match in St. Louis when I was All-American, my last match. So now the forgiveness is taking place. He's been in my fights. He's in Atlanta. Oh. So yeah. But it was important. How did you rekindle the relationship? When I graduated college, he wanted to meet my son. And my son at that point, I had a kid when I was a junior in college, so my son was one or two. Okay.

And I was like, no. I said, you're not meeting him. You don't deserve. That's a benefit. You haven't been in my life for, you know, 20 years, damn near. And I was like, not 20 years. It was 13 years at that point. And I'm like, you know, I'm not resentful towards you, but I just don't feel like

that's, you know, that's appropriate. And from that point, I just thought about it and I prayed about it. And God kind of led me to think that you got to release him. You can't be begging and praying for forgiveness. for things that you do or wanting me to drop these blessings down to you and you holding on to this resentment or you holding on to not allowing your dad to be in your kid's life and i just forgave him because emotionally when he left i just don't have that switch like i've always that switch has always been going i just see my dad at the grocery store my dad live a five-minute drive from my house

you just see him there hey what's up man he'll ride past me i say what's up it would be nothing and it didn't affect you after not at all you go into your car whatever you're not sad Not in a car. I was a kid. I walked to this grocery store. Wow. And then I was seeing him. I would say hi.

He tried to give me money. I'm like, no, I'm good. And that was it. I was just keep moving. Wow. How does a kid handle that? I don't know. But as a business man, in relationships it hasn't been so great because I just don't, I don't

have any emotional switch. It just don't make my heartbeat. So I guess that goes back to what you just went through. You didn't get too emotional over the last two months, everything going. I had plenty of opportunities to be and warranted opportunities to be. really emotional, really outraged. I could have, you know, spazza. I did have a few moments that are unlike me where, you know, I gave the trolls a little bit of snack here and there.

But in general, I'm here. I'm smiling, doing PR, and I'm a whop to mess out of Stevie Wonderboy in November 12. And what is life back home like in Ferguson? Man, life back home in Ferguson, it was the same for me, man. My barbershop has been there forever. I go there all the time. And they were outside doing those rides. I said, nope, not here.

not here and not here and not here because if you burn these two they might burn us and then people just respect them and they wouldn't they didn't touch them wow it's a big donut so when you see yeah yeah trip yeah you see Walgreens yeah my barbershop

is next door to the Walgreens so those the auto body shop barbershop in a restaurant those are excuse me those are only three so what the owner just stood outside and he's like nope and they listen to him yeah holy crap yeah nope not here bro and right

across the street, they burn like to the ground. Most of those places still burn down to the ground. They had the money to rebuild and insurance max out their insurance. So when you go to get your haircut, it still looks like kind of like a war zone? Yeah. Man. And what's the mood like?

Like, does it still feel tense? Do you feel like the flame hits? Not really because I think the business owners realized that it was not the Ferguson residence. It was a lot of people outside of Ferguson. They weren't just come and say, okay, let me go and take a crap on my own driveway. I think it was a lot of people that were opportunists

that took the opportunity to go out there and steal and beat these and just caused records. It wasn't really the residence of Ferguson. What kind of love did you get when you came home as champion? Did Ferguson embrace you? Did you feel the love? You think so, right?

You didn't get that love? No, I haven't gotten that love yet. I feel like, I mean, I can't speak. Who are other famous athletes from Ferguson? Are there? One of my buddies is a Grammy Award-winning composer played for Jay-Z, Kian Harrow,

the whole Harold family is famous in music. I got engineers. It's a lot of successful people. This isn't someone performing, you know, like that I would see walking down the street. So where's the love? And I feel like you talk about Ferguson every chance that you can get and put them in a positive light. Well, you know, it's funny is I'm actually, I had a celebration that I was setting up where, and me once again, I was bringing to Ben Ascran, I was bringing to Michael Chandler.

I was bringing in a Jaden Coxie. It just took bronze and Olympic gold because I just feel like, yeah, I am the champion of the USC, but these guys are champions. something to be said about the mentality that the Missouri wrestlers have. Oh, yeah. You got guys that are the World Champions. You got guys that are Olympic medalists or Olympic athletes. And we all share that same mindset.

So I wanted to not just have my own celebration, but I wanted to include them individuals. And now it's like, I'm like, I'm in camp now. So I don't even feel like I'm going to really be able to enjoy it. And I'm setting this up myself. This is not something that the city of St. Louis, want a ribbon cut and give me a key and name a straight after me. This is something that, once again, I'm doing myself because I feel like it's important. When I won that title, I felt like I kind of won it for St. Louis.

You know, it's a time where they needed to see somewhere from the area be successful, do something positive. You know, Donald Trump said, I mean, Ferguson is the most dangerous city in the country. I'm pissed. I'm still mad about that. You never been to Ferguson. So how are you going to say that? That is crazy. You know, I take offense to that.

Are you hopeful? Like, were you hopeful that did you think if you won that they would really, receive you that you would get or do you think it's because i always just always just keep it keep it is it because of the sport that you're in is it just a uh it's because of education yeah it's not it's not something that everyone knows about now like you got to realize if i go to san jose some people might think i'm michael jordan just because when i fought in strike force yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and the the sport when you start going to the west coast away to the north is just more sophisticated they know about more in midwestern cities they say oh you fight oh we saw the fight

there the other day I'm like that was a local show that wasn't a UFC they think it's all the same thing and they just haven't been you know given that opportunity to be educated when you say steepe in in Cleveland it was definitely get that kind of love you think do you think if they booked you you you beat wonder boy next fight regardless of opponent at where the the blues play forgot the name Scott trade yeah do you get that love it'll be sold out I try to advise them to maybe book me and Robbie there because Robbie had a huge following there I used to say, like, I got videos to meet training in Robbie's gym as an amateur fighter. He said, oh, I look up to Nate Mark Gordon, George St. Pierre, and these are the guys that are the most well-rounded.

I want to be like, you know, so it was like 2007 or eight. Wow. So I said, hey, man, he had a huge strong fight. It's probably his largest following right there in St. Louis. He's fought there before. He's fought there before. Strike Force, right? Jake Shields.

That was my first Strike Force fight out. So 200 tickets to be on undercard. I remember. Yeah, you told me that so. But he got submitted. in like, what was it, 40 seconds or something. But they said it just wasn't on the cards. No, no, I mean, I think Atlanta has just shown in the past that it was a strong market.

And I think once again, it was an opportunity to try to grasp some of the urban market. John Jones and Rashad did well there. I think Rampage and Rashad fought there as well. So I think just for the African-American or the urban market, it was a good opportunity to try to grab some of those fans. What about this fight past thing? Who? What is that all about? Hey, well, I'm going to say this.

Normally, it takes a lot to piss me off. Yeah, that pissed you off? It pissed me off. Not because I got knocked out. We all know I got knocked out. And actually, if you ask me, Tyon, what's your favorite fight? That's probably going to be in the top three. What?

In that fight, because if you remember, before then, I was known as a wrestler. Yeah, yeah. Or a submission artist. I wasn't known as this guy that can be in wars, that can take a punch. Like, it wasn't like I just got knocked out in the first minute. He was losing that fight until that point. I had just almost knocked him out. And then around it.

I'm like, damn, how does he just jump out the stool in the fourth round? Like, nothing ever happened. So what that said is it just showed me a lot about myself. Right after that fight, you know, I shook off my little depression about being mad. That was my first loss. My kids watched me get knocked out in vicious fashion. That was the first and only fight they've ever been to. No.

They've only been to one. They were in attendance? Yeah, my kids were there. And they haven't been to one since, and they never was at one before. So by me going and having losing my underfeity record, losing in the world, tired to fight, kids in it, knock the hell out, depressed. And it was like, what else can happen to me? That's the worst.

Nobody at that point was going to hit me harder in the moral court. I felt like I was getting hit with a castor on skillet. And I was like, boom, I was like, I don't care. I'm winning this fight. I'm like, he's going to have to kill me in her. And then when I got knocked out, they were touching my lip, I'm like, no, the fight still. I said, what you know? I said, ain't no timeouts in fights.

I said, I got to keep going. that the fight's over, and I was like, I was like, my heart just jumped out of my body. And that just made me. Like, what happened after that? Then, like, Jay Harron happened, and then all these other crazy fights happened. So it made me as a fighter. So I'm not

embarrassed about that. I'm not even ashamed. I watch it, and I'm like, damn, if I did that to something, I'd be on a highlight reel. So I watch it outside of my own body, outside of emotion. But I had a hard time with the copy or the caption to it. I just felt like, if you're not going to promote me as a champion,

after I won or promote me before my fight, don't let the first time a promotion of me comes on is me get knocked out and say, hey, remember when Neymarker did this to the champion, I just felt like it was disrespectful, and I wasn't alone on that, you know? Yeah, when I saw it, they even put your name in it. I was like, man, I think the kids called that throwing shade, right?

Yeah, they called it throwing shade, but I mean, I'm your champion. Did you say something to someone behind the scenes about it? I didn't have to. They messaged me. They message me and apologized. The message me and was like, you know, we didn't, we did not do this. It's not our social media side. We sent them some appropriate copies that they could use.

I understand this, fight past. You want to promote him. You know, you want to try to get them excited about this to do. And, hey, this guy's champion. He beat him. What? But did we see Lorenzo Larkin, too? Robbie Lala, did we see jockey.

We didn't see any of that when he fought, right? We didn't see any of those videos. Or we didn't see, you know, some of the other champions. they weren't just portrayed at their worst moments to promote somebody else, especially when you haven't really promoted me. So they take it down? They didn't. I mean, I told them not to.

Yeah. They had, why? Because it was already out there. It makes it into a bigger deal. It makes it into a bigger deal. I'm like, oh, why did they take it down? Okay, okay. And, you know, Dana reached out to my manager.

I was like, man, I did not, I did not, you know, say, do that. You know, it came off the wrong way. I understand what they were trying to do. The copy or the caption made it seem a little weird. I apologize, but that wasn't intent for us. So it meant a little bit to me. But at the end of the day, for a brief moment, I kind of got a couple fans back on the band.

I know it's funny how that works, right? Okay, we have to wrap it up because I know you have to go. I can feel like I'd talk to you for another three hours and this is fast-sync stuff. But here's the big question, my man. Yeah. Are you the main event of UFC 205? That's a good question.

I don't know yet, yeah. You don't know yet? A lot of people... Are you being honest? I'm being honest. You don't know? I'm going to be honest with you. I'm hoping we put an ice back on McGregor foot.

Yeah. We gave anybody who won it. Trust me. Okay. He's ready to fight. All right. But he just wants one fight. How do you feel about that?

I don't care. You want him on that card. Hell yeah. I wouldn't I. You don't mind taking a back seat. Hey, it's not even the back seat. I mean, be honest. Like, this kid has really changed the way that our sport is being viewed.

He's brought in so many viewers. he's put in these crazy fights. He's booked all these seats. He sold all these pay-per-views. I'm not going to say he's been giving a green light to do whatever the hell he wants to, but he hasn't, you know, had the same set of rules. But he backs it up. Like the numbers speak for themselves.

And he hasn't had the same set of rules. Sure, fair enough. Why all of a sudden should we try to force you to, you know, I personally didn't have a problem with him. Maybe you're not going to one press conference. Or I'm not trying to say we should start giving different treatment because I know I'm going to get some crap on them. the internet after that. But what I'm saying is that

somebody, he's going to fight on the car, right? Are they going to do Connor McGregor versus say Nick or Nate or whoever? Are they going to do just one fight on a car? They're going to do 11 or 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why in the hell would I not want to be on that car? I don't blame it. Somebody will be on that car

and it can potentially be another champion that's going to score points. Like, it's not that I don't believe in myself. It's not that I don't think I'm just got a should deserve it of a main event, but somebody will fight on that. card. Somebody would fight on the juror St. Biela car. Somebody would fight on a car that Brock Leibor's on. You've been idiot. Especially if you know the math, you can calculate the

multiple seven-figure difference for the fans. Oh, you should show the piggyback. I'm like, if you knew what I knew, you should shut up right now. Sure. So is it down to like, if they put him on the card, he's made event, if not your main event? They haven't told me anything. I'm assuming if he's on the card, your main event, right? Unless they add like... I mean, who are you're going to add ronda no no no but it's not going to be the yoanna fight let's just say everything stays the same if everything stays the same i couldn't i couldn't see me and stevie not being in a main event sure i i agree with that historically the higher weight yeah is the main event but i think that's the case have they given you any like are you just sitting back and waiting to

see if there's news because there's a press conference tomorrow i'm assuming we'll know something by tomorrow i'm gonna just tell you this quite frankly yeah numbers of public people you can go look 1.6 million Yeah. 1.65, right? Yeah, yeah. Something in that vicinity. Connor Nade 2. Sure, sure.

Don't tease me that that can be a potential that I can be on a card like that as champion. So I have not, everybody's like, oh my God, did you see this countermand? I was like, nope, nope, until I see an official, which means something that's been signed, I don't want to get myself. So I haven't allowed myself to get pumped up. Okay. But I'm not going anywhere. You know, I'm going to be fighting for a while, so. What do you think it's going to be like tomorrow at the press conference?

You're going to see Wonderboy for the first time in a while, right? Yeah. He's going to be smiling and being all friendly. Yeah, what are you going to do? That's going to be a raucous crowd, man. Well, I'm going to tell you this. What I'm not going to, what, let me jump the subject. Okay.

Which one of you fighters decided after a fight you want to hug this person. You've been talking mad crap to. You're bleeding. You probably ain't put on the deodorant. You got cut on your eye and swell. Who decided that it was okay to hug? I know Joe Silva don't like it. I was watching after, you know, somebody's fighting.

He had blood all over him. Oh, yeah. He was trying to hug him. He was like, ah. So it is not going to be no hugs afterwards. It might be some jiu-jitsu oos, some knuckle pump, a handshake, respect. But I just don't feel like he's a guy I want to be hugging. For real, okay.

Yeah, so. You're just not a fan. I'm a fan of, like, I'm a fan of him as a fighter, and I've even given some inside tips to his dad and him for other fights. Interesting. So I'm just not a fan of fake humility. You feel like that's what he is? An entitlement and a nasty disposition without warrant.

I'm not a fan. of that. Will you say that? Like, when you guys face off, do you think there'll be words? He won't say nothing to me. Are you going to say anything to him? Do you feel like he has the kind of personality? I'm going to say a whole bunch with my leather gloves on November 12th.

Okay. All right. Wow. By the way, seeing him punk, do you want to see him fight again? For sure. He was in the gym the other day. He was? Yeah, yeah.

Were you there? I was there. I saw his cross. And I came in there. I was going to say, what's up to him. And then I guess he was in the shower when I was changing. So I missed him. But yeah, he back in the gym training.

Wow. I'm about to call. Hey, punk. You're going to kick my buff. It is. But it's an intervention time, brother. I've been on your social media, and you've been eating way too much food outside of camp. It's time to get back ready.

Damn, you think so. He's putting on those sympathy pounds. Not really. He's just having fun. He was on a crazy dive, man, like way more strict than I was. Like, every morning he was eating like egg whites, avocado. Like, he was so strict. He wouldn't bend on it.

Will I try to get him to go eat at some places? And he was like. Was that the game plan? Was that? To rush? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't know the mother.

suckers going to take him down. Yeah. Like, if you were fighting punk, you would assume that him just getting into a sport and striking, it would be the last thing they caught up. Yeah, yeah. So we expect the guy to try to outstrike him. So we're going to try to bum rush him. And I'm not going to tell the whole gameplay.

We might have to use it again. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But in general, to close the gap quickly and get hands on him. And the takedown just surprised me and everybody else. And we all knew that it was a chance he could potentially lose. But I would have liked to see him just show a little something because he had worked so damn hard. That's what I mean, I flew myself out there.

I'm a hotel room, my own car. I was walking up and down the street, and fans were like, you're here, you just walking around by yourself? I'm like, yeah, I'm here. My dude's fighting, so I'm here to support him. What a teammate. They actually showed you in the cage right before the fight, you were helping him out.

But you weren't in his corner. No, no, and I didn't train him. I just, he just, if I'm a fighter that if you ask me a question, I'm going to give you an answer, but I'm not going to force information. He has so many people that wanted to give him inside. He got his three coaches, then you got everybody that want to give him their,

you know, tidbits on what he should do. So what that said, I didn't want to do that. But he did come to me and say, hey, how should I be feeling out? What should I eat? That's when I gave him the information. Wow. Amazing. Good for you.

So you want to see him back in the UFC. For sure. I want to see him fight to do that. Bala Muhammad's just fought. The dude with the Red Mohawk. Oh. I think the dude from like a tough show. Yeah, yeah.

Like a tough show guy. Yeah. I think Mickey Gall was pretty skilled. He's good. He's very good. That was a big cup of coffee for us on. He's going to have a nice career. Yeah.

I think so. will you be in MSG at some point this week? Tomorrow, right? That's the theater. Are you going to be in the MSG arena? The theater is attached to it. I don't know the inside. If they allow me to, maybe I should say, hey, let me go in there.

Take a deep breath, breathing in. Do me a favor. Do me a favor. That roof, I'm the biggest Knicks fan in the world. To me, just talking about MSG gives me goosebumps. I adore the Knicks, and the Knicks play at MSG. And so this is a big deal for me as a fan. like I've always wanted to, as a journalist, work at MSG.

So I can't imagine what it would be like to perform there. Look at the roof. It's iconic. The roof is a circle. It's just iconic. And then look at those banners. And that's the arena where Muhammad Ali made that arena. And I know that he's one of your heroes because it says on all your bios.

Take that in, man, because this is something like people have dreamed. You know what I'm going to do that. I'm going to reach out. I'm going to use my championship pool. Yeah. I got a fingernail worth of it. I'm going to use that to go in there and do what you're saying. And I got a question for you.

Please, please. I'm switching to tape. What question is coming to you? Oh, my. So how do you feel about the first UFC fight ever, not being any, what is the six blocks from here? Yeah, yeah. And being at MSG.

How do I feel about it? So how do you feel as a fan, as a journalist, like? Telling you about the roof and the banners and what that arena means gives me goosebumps. Wow. As the biggest New York Nick fan in the world, I'll go toe to toe with Spike Lee any day. I've always wanted to just work there, like say, oh, I covered an event there. So to me, like, this is a dream come true. and I'm just going to be sitting there.

It's the most famous arena in the world. It's the best city in the world. The eyes of the universe are always on New York. It's the media capital of the world. It was embarrassing that it took this long to get it done. The honor of being the main event or co-main event, I mean, that will never be taken away from you. I'm going to try that octagon down.

I promise you. You don't know a New York crowd. The New York crowd is something else. And for that first show, my brother is nowhere near an MMA fan. He was like, oh, yeah, when's that show again? who's on that card. Like, everyone knows about this. And you're going to be on that marquee.

And so that's why I hope that they take advantage of this moment to have a champion like you, as marketable as you are, to let the world know. Because the eyes of the sports world are going to be on that show. Boom. It's a big deal, man. It is a huge, huge deal. Well, every time I've been on a big stage, 20th anniversary, when Johnny Hendricks Falls, GSP. That's right. Every big card I've been on, I've always put on a great show.

All right. So I don't plan on doing anything different. I look forward to it. I sincerely appreciate you coming in. I know it took a few things. You got it. And you came early on your own, you know, volition, but really it means a lot. It really does.

You are the man. I wish I can clone you. And I said that to Will Brooks. He reminds me of a younger you. He's a stud. You just get it. You just get it, man. You really do.

So all the best to you, I'm looking forward to the press conference tomorrow. Yeah. That's going to be fun. I don't think it's going to be that much, though, you know? Well, maybe a certain Irishman will be sitting right next to you. But hey, but if a few words pop off, if Ferguson might jump out of my mouth, I might not be able to help it.

Damn. I really do feel the young kids that I feel some type of way about the whole charades. Sure. One of these days, I'd love to go there, like what we did with Eddie Alvarez and see where you grew up. That would be amazing. That would be an honor. Let's schedule that. All right.

Deal. For now, we'll say goodbye. Thank you so much. Here he is. Tyron Woodley, he defends his title on November 12th, one of the most anticipated cards of the year. And don't get it twisted with or without Connor. This is a very, very, very good card. Connor makes it perhaps legendary.

but do not put these men and women down. This is a special deal, and it goes down in less than two months' time, and the press conference is in around 27 hours from now. I can't wait for that. Thank you very much, Tyron. We'll take a quick break. I referenced earlier in my interview in 2011 with Lorenzo Fertita at MSG, where we talked about bringing a legendary card to the world's most famous arena.

So while we say goodbye to Tyron and get ready for Tim Kennedy, who's also fighting on the card, by the way, let's take a look back at that interview with Lorenzo. Ariel Hawwani at Madison Square Garden in New York City alongside UFC CEO Lorenzo for Tita and first off Lorenzo, let me apologize for crashing your birthday party a couple weeks ago. That was all Dana White's fault, okay? It was no problem at all, man. No problem at all. We were just starting to have a good time, so it was all good.

All right, well, happy birthday to you. It was kind of quiet at that time, though. We hadn't really ramped it up yet. Okay, good. Happy birthday to you and a little late. You're here in New York City to announce that once again you guys want to hold an event, not only in New York City but in New York State. I'm curious about the timing of the time.

this press conference. Why now? Well, you know, we want to get out in front of the start of this new state legislature. It's going to start, I believe, right around February 1st, and basically let people know that this is something that we're very focused on and continue to try to educate, you know, business leaders, constituents, and obviously legislators that there's really no reason that the UFC or mixed martial arts shouldn't be regulated and allowed in the state of New York. A lot of us thought that in 2010 it was actually going to happen. sort of an 11th hour situation it was taken off the budget. How disappointing was that for you?

It was very disappointing. You know, as everybody knows, we've worked on this literally for the last four years, been on the ground in Albany, talking to state legislators, and really trying to make the case for the sport, not just for us, but for the entire sport. And when you look down the line at all the facts, you know, the fact of our history, okay, and the things that we've done, the history we've done nearly 2,000 fights really without any kind of a major incident. the fact that there's 44 out of 48 states that have athletic commissions that regulate the sport, the fact that just about every province in Canada now regulates the sport.

I mean, we literally have cities in the United States and cities around the world vying for us to bring the event to their city, literally bidding against each other so that we would come to their city and create this economic impact, yet we have the state of New York saying, you know, you guys stay away from us. You know, we don't want you here. So it's a question of what is the state, government protecting its residents from. They can certainly watch it on Spike TV or on Burses. They certainly can buy the pay-per-view and watch it on TV.

Why can't they buy a ticket and watch it live? The most vocal assemblyman against MMA is Bob Riley, and I'm wondering if we give him too much credit. Is it all him? Is he the only reason why this is not happening, or are there other factors that we're not looking at? I think he gets a lot of credit for it because he's obviously the most vocal. You know, he's out there, he's doing press,

he's pounding the table, making arguments that obviously in our opinion don't make a lot of sense, you know, don't really have a lot of substance behind him. But, you know, that's his opinion. He doesn't like the sport. That's fine. You know, the only thing is there's other legislators, let there be a vote, let it go to the floor, have a vote and see how it pans out. He says he's never been to an MMA event. Have you ever invited him to come see it in person? I've never personally invited him. I don't know if he's ever been invited by somebody else, but we would welcome him. We'd love to have him come to an event. We'd love to have him see how the athletes are tested, how the rate. regulation works. Yes, there are referees and judges and rules and rounds and time limits and weight classes. You know, part of the problem that we're facing is you've got to remember,

New York is one of those states that back in the 90s literally banned ultimate fighting. Okay, so there's a law on the books. That makes it a bit more difficult than just going to a state that doesn't have a law. So you're literally having to overturn a law. Now, they ban ultimate fighting. It's kind of strange because ultimate fighting is just a trademark that we own. That's not really the name of the sport. The sports mixed martial arts. And what they've been, banned in the early 90s is very different from what's happening today. There are a lot more rules, a lot more structure and health and safety issues that have been put in place. I'm sorry to address those issues now. So they have to kind of look at it almost in the sense that it's a completely

different decision from this standpoint. We're just trying to educate them to get them there. Can you do anything differently in 20? All right, back on the MMA hour, that was my interview with Lorenzo Fetta in January of 20th. 2011. Crazy to listen to those responses and just see where we were back then and now recognize that we are less than two months away. That was five years ago and five and a half years ago. And we were talking about fighting MSG. It is a reality. There is a press conference tomorrow. Tickets are on sale this week. It is happening. This is very exciting. Okay. One of the fights on the card features Tim Kennedy versus Rashad Evans. A couple of weeks ago we spoke to Rashad Evans.

and now we're talking to Tim Kennedy. Wow, how about this? This is exciting. Tim, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing? It is a pleasure, as always. Now, where are you, Tim Kennedy right now?

I'm in Austin, Texas for a couple more days than the Albuquerque and New Mexico I go. Okay, and so I'm assuming that's where you'll be doing your camp. It's where I'll finish my camp. I started, yeah, I knew about this fight about two months ago, so I started training. I was even telling you, man, as soon as I get a fight call, contract. I'll let you be the first to know as soon as I got that. And it finally came to fruition. But I've been preparing for this fight for about seven weeks already. So you say that you've known for around two months or so. Why did it take so long for the fight to be announced?

Was this maybe, and I'm wondering if you know, like Rashad moving down 25, he wasn't sure. Was there a chance that it wouldn't happen in your opinion? No, I think it's just a, The nature of the beast right now, there's a lot of changes going on within the UFC. You know, Joe Silva's leaving. You know, they have a new matchmaker coming in. They're now owned by a new corporation, IGN. And I think there's a lot of moving pieces. Obviously, Madison Square Gardens, this is a gigantic venue.

It's historic for MMA. And they maybe needed to ensure that all the T's were crossed and the eyes dotted type thing. Okay. And I don't know. It wasn't, I don't think on the athlete end, I think it was more on the operation. side. Okay. You know, not that long ago, you were on this show, we talked about your future in the

sport. And you've been on the show a couple times since the UL fight. You haven't fought since 178. So that was, what, two years ago, right? Two years. Almost exactly two years ago. Like, it might be any day now two years ago. Ultimately, why did you decide to come back?

Michael Bisbing won the title. I think that was a contributing factor. I've always missed. I love fighting. And even when I'm 65 and I'll have not, you know, been fighting for 25, 30 years at that point, I'll still miss it. You know, like, oh, man, look at that young buck. I kind of want to beat him up a little bit. You know, that's going to be in there forever.

Every time a plane flies over to Iraq or Afghanistan, my friends are on it, I'm sad that I'm not on it. You know, there's that aspect or that element or whatever that is in us that we want to be part of those things. that's never going to die in me. So, you know, seeing Michael Bisbing win the title as like, no way can I let that guy be the champion or remain the champion, which he wouldn't if I fought him. That's obvious. And then, you know, the will and the desire to get back in there and see how I am as an athlete. So Michael Bisping became champion on, I believe, June 4th of this past year, a 9th.

I will never forget a quick side note. So June 3rd and prior to that, like you were still on the fence? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy fighting. I like fighting.

I love training. So even when I'm not fighting, it's not like I'm not training. You know, I still train at least two times a day, six days a week. The one day I don't trade two times. I'm still going on a long run with my wife or taking this. the kid's hiking, you know, and I got a 50-pound fat toddler in the back. You know, my life revolves around this skill set. You know, if I'm not in the gym training, punching things, lifting things, that on the shooting range, you know, or on a sniper stock course, or jumping out of a helicopter or an airplane like this, this is my life.

So it's not really a step for me to go and step into the octagon. You know, that's not a leap. That's like a tiny little like deviation to the right from what I would normally be doing. I think the only difference is that I'm 30 pounds lighter and a little bit more cranky. When you're fighting. Yeah. Okay. Like right now.

Right. Like this is my pouty face. That's your pouty face. Wow. How much you weigh right now? Yeah. Two, I don't know, two, ten, two of five, but I've already lost 15 pounds. Okay.

So you, you know, you, you, you see. say that you want to break and and and and then you see you know you see what happens to michael someone who you fought and beat not that long ago the light goes off do you reach out to the UFC and say okay i'm ready what do you got for me or do they reach out to you how does that work uh i i wanted i wouldn't have come back for anything less than gigantic monument you know like historic and fighting rashad who is a former champion who's coming down to 185. That in itself is a huge deal.

You know, getting to fight Rashad at 185 for the first time in his career, that's huge. You know, that's almost a super fight. And then for it to be at Madison Square Gardens at the first event in New York, that's almost too good to pass up. Yeah.

And then you pile on top of that, you know, Michael Bisbing being the champion, you know, a new company owning the UFC. Rebock, no longer having the sponsor deal. Oh, wait, no, that's not happening. You know, some changes. Yeah, some changes. So was that your idea?

No changes on my end. Was that your idea? Yeah. Not my idea. You know, it's like, you know, I told you, I don't know when I'm going to come back. I don't know if I'm going to come back. This year has been crazy for me. I've been in the past.

four months in 15 countries. Wow. Some in a military capacity. Some as a celebrity. Some as a spy. Some as, you know, like some really cool stuff. And then to come back from all that and be like, oh, MMA's legal in New York.

And they're going to have a card at MSG. And Michael Bisbing's the champ. And Rashad needs a fight at 185. And cool. This looks like maybe a good time to come back. and get a big win and hopefully talk my way into a championship. Is it possible to say that fighting in a cage is the most mundane thing that you do? Oh, yeah.

And I'm not talking about being a dad and things like that, but like of your professional career. Yeah, for sure. Six weeks ago, I was at the base of the Andes Mountains in a colony under false pretenses. We lied to get in, and had they found out who we were, you know, probably end up in a ditch. Like, this is a place that over the course of 60 years has been torturing and murdering people, you know, making weapons of mass destruction. And I'm there with a group of six people pretending like we're tourists, you know. Why are you there? Right.

Why? You'll see. Oh. Yeah, we had cameras with us. Oh, man. So is this like a sequel to finding Hitler? It is, yeah. Was it hunting Hitler or finding Hitler?

Well, in the United States, it's hunting Hitler. In the rest of the Americas, it's finding Hitler. What? There's a different name. Spanish. You know, they just subtle differences. The words are almost the same. Okay, so all these missions, sometimes I see you on social media and you're all over the place.

Are these all for shows and things of that nature? are you still working for the military? No, I'm still in the military. Okay. Still very much working for them. And after this fight in November, I'm going to owe them a good chunk of time. And, you know, I think there's probably a combat deployment in my very near future that I'm not going to be able to say no to. It's going to, you know, they're going to, we call it voluntold.

You're volunteered to go do something. It's like you're volunteering to do something, but you don't really have a choice in it. Yeah. Like when I went to when I went to ranger school I did not want to go to ranger school I was a green beret you know I'm an SF guy and I'm like I don't need to go ranger school I'm I already have the longer tab you know that means I'm super

special and my team sergeant's like no you're going to go to ranger school and you're going to be honor grad and if you're not then you don't come back to this team so that's being volunteered okay so I think I will go overseas in a combat capacity next in the very

near future after this fight because the military has been very generous with my time of late and now it's time for me to maybe give back so do you have to ask for their permission to take time off and train for this fight and compete on November 12th is that how it works with you yes and yeah i might be able to have a case you know after after i finish rachad um to hopefully joe rogan gives me a few seconds to plead um and implore my case um to fight mcle bisbing and if that works out, I might get another fight out of the military, and they give me another fight camp and then get to the fight for the title. But in the very, very near future, my hand of cards is not going to be strong.

Okay. And they will get theirs. You mentioned the toddler. You became father to a boy not that long ago, right? Two years ago? How many kids do you have? How many kids do you have? I have three.

Three kids. You have two daughters and my son. Do you ever, and I hope this isn't, you know, a tough question to answer in the sense. I know that you would do anything for your country, but do you ever say like, man, I want to stay home with my kids? I don't want to go overseas for two months or something like that. Do you find that as your kids grow older, you're having that internal conflict? Absolutely. Okay.

And it's not as they grow older. You know, my girls are teenagers. You know, like, it is very important for the dad to be around during this time. Sure, sure. You know, be like, okay, you do not like that. You do not get a smartphone any longer. You're going to have a flip phone. Yeah.

One that you can't receive pictures with. Oh, how about that? Okay. You know, like that's the era of time that we're in. Wow. And then my son, like, when he wakes up in the morning, like the moment his eyeballs open, all he starts yelling is dad at, you know, and he runs across our entire house. to, you know, to the master bedroom.

He's like, da, da, da, da, dad, da, dad, da, dad, da, dad, da. Like, he's a good vocabulary, but that's the only word that he says for the first 10 minutes of the day. Yeah, I don't want to miss any of that stuff at all. You know, there's not a, there's not even a little bit in me that's like, oh, I'm not going to miss that. I'll have, I'll be with my guys. You know, I'm going to have my long gun again. I'm going to be, you know, like, I'm going to be back. I'm going to be back in the thick of it.

No. Like, it is agonizing torture to miss a moment, you know, with my family. So that's going to suck. So how do you, you know, how do you ultimately make the decision to say goodbye and do you look forward to the day where you can't? Or do you think your whole life is going to be this way? Like, until, you know, you just can't anymore? Did you first see a time where you don't get to say, all right, bye kids, I'm gone? You know, like, did you get that right at some point?

Do you want that right? I don't think I'll have that right until I'm retired. Okay. And I'm probably never going to retire. You know, they're going to have to kick me out at, hey, Tim, both your knees are like chunks of concrete. You know, your shooting finger. It's like that right there. Can you see that?

Oh, wow. Wow. That's a callous from the inside of a trigger well. Wow. I'm shooting so much. I'm not flipping you off. off. That's flipping you off. That's, that's, that's, um, that's how much I shoot. That's three days a week. That's a few thousand rounds. So where your, where your finger hits, rests up against the trigger,

that's where it brushes. Wow. Wow. And, um, yeah, that's a stump of a bloody callous. Wow. That you can pick, like, you know, weightlifters, they can pick their little, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, calluses off. Yeah. Those weightlifters look at guys that don't have those calluses like, like little cissies. Yeah, yeah. Um, I look at guys that have those. Um, um, I look at guys that have those calluses on their hands like little cissies because my callus is here. That's right. Sort of like a cauliflower ear, right, in a weird way? Oh, man, you're selling it off?

Geez. I was chewing on it. Just don't be gross. Don't make it weird. In the last few months, all your travels, was there ever any super dicey situations where it got a little hurt? Yeah? Yeah.

Well, there was a couple, one. I wanted to see how quick I could swim from Argentina to Paraguay in a river called the Piranha River, which they pronounce the Parano River, but it's the Piranha River. And it's named that aptly. Yeah. You know, it's not like a misnomer. Did you swim in it? Yeah, I swam it.

Are you wearing any kind of protective gear? No, no. That was just straight up Tim's an idiot. Okay. Did you get, did anything bite you? I was swimming pretty vigorously. Okay. And I know I hit, I hit some fish.

I'm not sure what kind of fish they were. And I'm hoping that, you know, like when a dog looks at another dog and they're like, that dog's just not worth it. You know, like I want to fight, but that dog looks like he has mental problems and is on some form of stimulant. And he will tear my throat out for sure. I was hoping that I had at least on a, you know, cerebral level of connection to these man-eating fish. And they're like, if I'm going to bite this motherfucker, he's going to kill everything in this entire river.

So anyways, so that was stupid. I also climbed this tower that was like three or four hundred feet because I wanted to find out what was inside of it. And there, you know, no safety cables, no ropes, no anything. And it was electrically charged because they had solar panels on it and they had wires that were like, like zapping. So again, in my ultimate wisdom and element of self-preservation, I was like, oh, yeah. So if you fall like six stories, you're going to die. I was like 25.

And so when I was like about 18 stories, I'm like, man, this was a really stupid, bad idea. I shouldn't have done this. But then I went up to the top. And then we were at two places where people were trying to actively intimidate and hurt us. Once they found out who we were and what we were doing, that was no bueno. Who were these people? Bad people. Okay.

Bad. Like... Was this on camera? Some of it was. Damn. Now, why are you doing this on camera? I mean, I feel like that's a bullseye on you, right? Now, no, like, if you walk up, you're like, hey, welcome to the travel channel.

Here we are in beautiful country. Look at the Bavarian village. Like, the food is so fantastic. Follow us next time to see what the best treat in this. You know, like, you can lure people into a false sense of security and kind of break the third wall. And they don't understand or don't figure out who you are. And you kind of have a few days to work before you get busted. Wow.

And then it's car chases and running through the forest for your life, which was cool. There was a picture that you posted where you were wearing like this whole radioactive outfit. I don't know what to call it, right? Yeah. That's a, that is a suit that prevents, it's not for, well, it could, yeah, actually, could help you for radioactive stuff, but it doesn't have that layer. So that, that's an NBC suit. That is for chemical warfare.

And that is the highest level of protection. They have kind of A, B, and C. And that was A. That means you have a self-contained breathing apparatus, a CBA. And then the entire suit doesn't have a bit of skin exposed because what we're looking for, had it touched our skin, would... What are you looking for? Stuff that kills you. Okay.

Is there anything on this earth that frightens you? Um, failure is, is, is, is, is a big one. Um, so I had a team sergeant, John McPhee. Um, he's, his, his, his name is the sheriff of Baghdad. You should Google. He's a frightening person. He was my boss. And, um, and, uh, I was running my mouth when I first got to the team. And, um, you know, he's like, can, you know, you think you can shoot. You think you can fight. Uh, uh, and. and I was complaining that I didn't, to go on this helicopter assault force mission, which we call a half. And I was like, I don't want to go. And I was acting like a baby. So I came back that night. And he's like, hey, we're going to straighten things out in the team room. I was like, oh, yeah, that means we're going to fight.

And we're going to like, you know, and I was going to get to beat up my team sergeant. And I'm like, all right, now you understand that, you know, who's in charge. Well, the whole entire team was there, 12 guys. And I was like, oh, what? There's 12 people here. So I ended up fighting, you know, I beat up the first seven or eight guys handedly. And then the ninth guy, not so great. The 10th guy started beating me up.

And then I had three more guys to go. And they just beat the piss out of me. Whoa. And then I stood up and, you know, I spitting out blood. And my team started and just like, okay, now that's the end of a gunfight where we just got blown up. Can you carry me? You know, your boss, like the guy that, you know, ultimately is like the responsibility to change of command, our chain of command, can you pick me up and carry me out of this room

or a mile? And I was like, no, man. And I can't. And that moment was this realization that the self-aware human, what failure would feel like, you know, like that I can't even, I'm so broke that I can't even pick up. up my boss and carry him. So I fear that. That's what my nightmares are. My nightmares are. I get to my son's room and I'm trying to open the door and I can't open the door. Or, you know, I'm hearing screams of, you know, the kids and women that have been hurt around me and I can't get in there

to help them. And that failure. That's what I'm scared of. So that's maybe why I'm an idiot and why I train so hard and why I'm not scared of so many things is because I'm, I'm so scared, deathly is scared, afraid of that failure. What did he say to you, by the way, when you said that you couldn't pick him up for a mile? He said, well, I expect that that answer is going to change. Wow. And it better. Yeah.

Did he ever maybe do it again? Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Well, I- John McPhee, everybody. John McPhee.

The sheriff of Baghdad. Yeah. Did you train with Rashad when he was at Jackson's back in the day? I did, yeah, quite a bit. What was that like? I actually, when he was getting ready, I don't remember what fight it was. I flew to Albuquerque specifically to help him get ready for a fight. Oh, wow.

It wasn't for my fight camp. It was for him. You know, he's probably fighting some wrestler, grinding, blue-collar, hard-nosed idiot type dude. and so I came in to get him ready for that. Which was one of the reasons I surprised that he asked to fight me. He asked to fight you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it wasn't, Rashad's coming to 185 and, hey, can I have Rashad, you know, in the twilight years of his career at a new weight class?

That's not what happened. He said he was going to move to 185, and he asked Joe Silva if he could fight me. Wow. Why do you think he said that? I don't know. Are you surprised he said that? I am surprised. Are you bothered?

One. No, just surprised. Okay. And I'm surprised. You know, this is a lot of weird perceptions happen in a training room. Ah. And I think he perceived what I was there for when I was there as a training partner as the best version of me as a fighter. And I'm not being condescending.

I'm not calling him a selfish person. But I don't think he appreciated how much slight sacrifice and selflessness I was putting there for him. You know, like I was there to help him get ready. That is a different thing than me being an alpha dog trying to show him what I am as a fighter. And I don't know if he appreciated the difference between the two. Do you understand the difference? Oh, yeah. Especially when you're in there.

as his training partner. It's a lot different than you're there to beat the guy. I don't want to hurt him. He has the fight coming up. I don't want to cut him. I don't want to... I'm not going to throw knees.

I'm not going to go throw elbows. My overhand, I'm going to soften it up when it lands. When we're grappling, I'm going to make sure that if I hit a takedown, I'm not going to hurt his knee or his ankle or his shoulder or his wrist because ultimately I have to make sure

that he, as my training partner, is ready to go. So we even had like... I was like, hey, welcome to 185. and he's like, oh yeah, thanks for the welcome. Do you remember what it was like in the wrestling room or in the training room? And I was like, yeah, man, I remember I was there helping you get ready for a fight. And you obviously think that you were there beating me up.

So it's kind of a testament to our difference in maybe our personalities. And we just view things differently. So he's going to feel a different version of who I am as a fighter than when I was there helping him get ready for a fight. Considering what you've seen from him as of late, is he the same fighter as he was from back then? No, his chin has diminished. You know, he can't take the shots he used to. His wrestling, you know, Ryan Bader exposed that he hasn't been putting the work in.

He knows that I'm going to be moving forward as a wrestler. He knows that I'm going to come forward with big heavy hands. So if there's a moment, you know, he makes a mistake. I'm going to capitalize it and hurt him. And if I'm going to touch his chin or I'm going to put it on his back, he has a fight. And we're going to be in both of those positions. So he's not the same fighter that he was when he knocked out Chuck Liddell. But I am the same fighter, if not better, than I was five years ago.

So, yeah, November 12th is going to be a tough fight for him. Will you be training with John Jones for this fight, considering the success that he had against him? Yes, I will be training with John Jones because he's at Jackson's. Okay. And he's a great wrestling partner and he's a great striking partner. Because of the vast difference in his size and style, John compared to Rashad, I won't spend too much time with him.

Okay. There are other guys at Jackson's that are going to be way better suited as training partners that are much more similar to Rashad that are, I think, even better versions than what Rashad is right now. So I'll be trained a lot more with them. I think the fight that I'm going to have with Rashad is going to be way different

than the fight that John had with Rashad. Yep. I hear you. And lastly, there is a logjam, as you know, at the top of the middleweight division. I don't think it. It's just how confident are you that you are going to get this title shot? Look at his mouth.

I get, magic is going to come out of this mount if Joe Rogan gives me 30 seconds on that microphone. Okay. You know, it's not going to, it's not going to be, I'm not saying I'm, I'm Connor. But what I know is that when I fought Michael Bisving the first time, I could have knocked him out and I could have submitted him anytime. He had disrespected one of my friends. He spit on one of my friends. So I didn't want to submit him. I didn't want to knock him out.

I wanted demoralize him and I wanted to humiliate him. And I did that for 25 minutes. More takedowns than his entire career. More positional advantages. More shots landed than every fight that he'd ever had in the UFC. So Joe Rogan, you give me 30 seconds on that microphone. And let me talk to Michael Bisbing. Hopefully we'll be in attendance.

Yeah. And then we'll see if I have a fight. So fair to say that you are rooting for him to beat Dan Henderson on October 8th. I know it sucks. I'm not rooting against him. Dan Henderson. You know, if the Cinderella story of Dan Henderson winning that last title and the retiring and being done, please, please be done happens, you know, like there's nothing greater I'd like.

But on the flip side, on the selfish side is Michael Bisbing does what I think he's going to do and wins that fight and retains the belt. The last fight that he could try to seek revenge would be mine. And but he knows that there's not a chance that he could beat me in any way. so I don't know if that's even going to happen. He would even take the fight, you know, because he realized that he'd lose. Them's fighting words.

By the way, how often do you still think of the Romero fight? And just the circumstances, what happened, the wackiness? I was at DeloTor fights this last weekend. Okay. And I haven't talked to John McPhee, or John McPhee, John McCarthy, and since that fight. and he was officiating that night, and his seat was directly in front of mine.

And I'm sitting with my friend, and I'm like, man, we're going to have words. And he's like, well, what are you going to say? And I was like, I don't know, what should I say? He's like, I don't know, you're way better at this stuff than I am. Lo and behold, the first fight, he turns around. And he's like, hey, do you have a second? Like, of course.

And he's, and we, you know, he explains from his position what happened. and, you know, he's like, I made a mistake. The corner made a mistake. The UFC made a mistake. Obviously, the corner was cheating. You know, like, and you kind of go, you know, I was like, yeah, I'm aware of that. He's like, I mean, but you've kind of been rationalizing, explaining, you know, your position for the past since we've talked. And he's like, I'm like, but you've never had this conversation with me.

You know, that's what men do. You know, you, it's not like you don't have my phone number. I've been in the sport 15 years, you know. And he's like, I know. You know, I was like, so this should have happened two years ago. And I think you're wrong. I think you made a mistake. You should have stopped the fight when he didn't answer the bell.

That's how it works. You know, you think that you mostly did the right thing. Maybe, you know, something else could have changed. But first and foremost, if we have a disagreement, we figure it out and we think and we talk about it. You know, and, you know, he apologized. And, you know, more or less, we're good. Now, obviously, I think he made a mistake. But I, that was too.

two years ago. Yeah. Since then, I've jumped out of a helicopter 30-something times. I've jumped out of an airplane, 25-something times. I've been in 14 different countries, so that was two years ago. A lot has happened. Yeah. But it's good to see you back.

I'm looking forward to... Yeah. It'll be awesome. Thank you very much for the time, Tim. As always, it is a pleasure. I'm looking forward to this fight, and what a stage it is happening on November 12th, Madison Square Garden. Well done, my man.

again, thank you. Best of luck, tune. We'll see you in New York. Awesome. Thanks. What a pleasure. Tim Kennedy, there he is. Big fight for him against Rashad Evans. Now, I promise I didn't do this on purpose. It just sort of happened this way. But wouldn't you know it? We're now being joined by the reigning UFC middleweight champion. The man who will be defending his title for the first time, 10 years in the making. Here we go. Michael Bisping fights at UFC 204 against Dan Henderson. We're less than two weeks away. And the champ is joining us on the phone. Michael, how are you? And very good.

Of course, the interview was scheduled for 1 p.m. Yes. Not 1.6 p.m. But that's okay because I know Tim Kennedy has to yet clarify the excuses that he has to why he got knocked out against Yolo Romero two years ago and still hasn't fought. That takes time. I get it. Did you hear the stuff right before that answer about you? I heard some crap coming out of his mouth.

My God, listen, get over. You got knocked out, buddy. Yo-o Romero didn't get off the stool, but the fight continued, and you got knocked out. So just shut up, get on with it. Go jump out of airplanes. Jump out of helicopters. Go to 14 countries. Nobody cares.

Do the world of favor. Stay in one of those fucking countries. I saw you guys going back. I saw you guys going back. I saw you going back and forth on Twitter. I thought you were friends now. I thought you were mates. No, I'm only having a bit of fun with it, but Jesus Christ.

The guy wants to talk smack about me, so, you know, they're not... Listen, you're fair game. You're fair a game. He's come back. He's realized he's not going to be a movie star. He's not going to be the new star of the National Geographic Channel. And he's come back to get beat up some more. Do you think he said one last thing on him

He said that if when he wins on November 12th He's going to get on the mic He's going to make his case for a fight against you You know for the belt What are the chances you get by Dan Henderson Do you think that he is anywhere near The vicinity of the title picture In a word

No But to allow me to elaborate Mr. Alwani You know one word answers are not my speciality I mean come on There's a murderer's role. Of course, people are already suggesting that perhaps I am ducking the competition. If I were to take the short squad, fine guy, then these rumors would continue to circulate.

So it's up to me to take on the rifle number one contender after I dispatch of the old man. Okay. All right. So let's get back to the task at hand because, as you say, you know, Tim is not near that picture right now. You have been middleweight champion for, what, a little less than three months, right? Or has, no, a little more than three months, excuse me. And as I said, it's been 10 years in the making, and well before that you've dreamed of this. Has being championed for the last three and a half months turned out as you expected, as you dreamed, better, sort of less?

How would you describe your expectations as opposed to the reality of the situation? You know, to be honest, in my life, nothing has changed at all. I'm still the same person. You know, but it's just, it's great. Of course, you know what I mean. This is what, you know, all fighters aspire to achieve. But has it lived up to expectation? Yeah, I guess.

But, I mean, as I said, nothing has changed at all. Not one little thing about my life has changed. So, you know, yeah, I've achieved that goal. You know, I have a nice shiny belt in my house. I can look at it now and again. It brings a little smile to my face. Other than that, it's all the same as business as usual. I've got three kids.

I've got five to fight. I've got things to do. You know, nothing changes, Ariel. Do you see a difference in the way people view you, treat you when you're out and about businesses? I mean, do you feel that difference, the sort of championship aura that people talk about? Have you felt that?

Okay, yeah, I guess a little bit. You know, I guess people speak to you with a little bit more respect, I could say, you know what I mean? It's nice. I get referred to as champ. That's always nice. The fighter when you hear that, that always, you know, it feels good. Of course, people say that anyway when you're fighting,

but it's a little bit condescending when you're not actually the champion. So, yeah, that is nice. And, God forbid, when the day comes on no longer the champion, I will miss that. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, as I said, I don't let these things go to my head. I really don't, and I don't think about them, and all these people. You know what?

You'll never even hear me say, my fans. Anybody that goes out there and addressing their fans, they need to shut the fuck up, my fans. Fuck me, we're not rock stars. We step into a cage. We try and knock each other out. You know what I mean? Let's keep it in perspective. Yeah, it's good.

Lardi da, I'm the world champion. Who gives the fuck really? Nobody. Nobody cares. It's nice, but let's keep it in perspective. When you got the fight against Luke, and obviously you didn't have a lot of time in between accepting the fight and actually fighting the fight, and then shortly thereafter, did the idea of, okay, I'm going to win this title, and then I'm going to fight Dan Henderson in my home country. Was that part of the plan? Did you ever dream of that scenario?

No, I didn't actually. No, I mean, of course, now it seems by the most logical thing in the world. of course there's a lot of fan outcry for this fight. A lot of people want to see it. I know there's a lot of interest to do it in the UK. It seems perfect. You know, my biggest loss of my career to get redemption, to get revenge in my home country, in my home city.

That seems like, you know, you can't write it any better than that. You know, it just seems like a movie plot. It seems perfect. So I'm very, very excited. You know what I mean? The fight's happening at 5 in the morning, which is crazy. The ticket's sold out. in six minutes, which is even crazier.

It's a big fight. There's a stellar fire card. Top to bottom. There's great fights on. The co-main event is intriguing. Of course, me and Dan Henderson, that sells itself. So it's an intriguing fight.

It's an intriguing time. The fan demand has been incredible. I'm in the best shape of my life, and I can't wait to put a beach on Dan Henderson, that he will never forget and that the world will never forget. People will remember Dan Henderson, the legend, but they're always going to remember the shit kicking that he took in his last fight at UFC 204.

The story that I've heard is that you did not ask the UFC for this fight. They came to you with the idea, yet what has been put out there has been somewhat different. No one has come out and said, well, wait a second, from the UFC, we're the ones who came to Mike. Like, he did not ask for this. He didn't go down the line. And I'll be honest, at first, and I actually said this to you in person, I don't know if you remember after UFC 200.

I was like, this seems weird to go for the 13. ranked guy when all this, you know, activity is at the top. Are you disappointed that no one has come to your defense and cleared the air to not make you seem like you were picking and choosing in your title defense? Listen, my entire life, nobody has come to my defense regarding anything. I've always fought my own corner, and I'll do it one more time. Dana White called me on the Tuesday after I won the belt and said, but thinking of you versus Dan Henderson, how's that sound?

And I said, yeah, of course, I owe that guy one, you know? of course he had that big knock out against head to Lombard so the star is kind of a line you know they offered me the fight I gladly accepted as I say he proved you still got power he's proved he can still knock people out he's still got a fan base

he's going to retire soon so I wanted to get that one back so there's many reasons why the fight makes sense you know and I'm kind of sick of explaining that all these other guys that want to shot at the belt they're still going to be there they're not retiring Dan Hennington is retire it so if I'm ever going to get this one

back, it does need to be now. But for the record, yeah, the USC offered me the fight. I didn't ask for the fight. But I did accept, of course I did. Sure. I'm looking forward to it. Very much looking forward to it. As a guy who could have gotten a title shot, you know,

well earlier in his career, based off your popularity and the types of opponents that you competed against, was there ever a part of you who said, like, he doesn't necessarily deserve this? Like, he didn't do enough to warrant this title shot. Did that bother you at all, considering the long journey that you had to, you know, endure to get to this title fight against Luke on June 4th?

Not in the slightest. In fact, I was immediately excited. When Dana said that, I was like, yeah, of course, 100%. I believe match a word where, of course, I owe that old motherfucker an ass kick him. So it was something like that. So, of course, you know what I mean? I didn't hesitate. I see the line of thinking that you're using and I can understand it.

But for me, it wasn't about that. You know, he said Dan Henderson. I was like, yeah, of course, I've owed that guy one for a long time. Of course, I don't want to beat a dead drum, you know what I mean? We can talk about the TRC and all these things. I've said my piece on that and everybody knows my opinions on that. So for all these reasons, the fight makes sense. You know what I mean?

Dan Henderson has proven he's still effective. He's still that big right-hand. He can still knock people out. The last thing that goes is power. And on top of the power, he actually still has some good timing with that hand. It's incredibly fast as well. You see it in the Hexor-Lombard fight.

He drilled Hector with it several times prior to getting the knockout. So whilst I don't think this will be a walk in the park, of course I'm confident. You know, I'm the younger guy, the better guy, the bigger guy, the faster guy. But also on top of everything, I think I'm mentally strong, the better guy. You know, it's my mentality and my mental strength

that has got me this far, which got me to the world title in the first place, and I believe it's why I win this fight as well. I mean, you know, if you look at some of the fighters that I've beaten, you know, they're better physically, but mentally, they're not in my league. So it's the mentality that I bring to the table, which is what has brought me my success. You combine that with my more athletic and younger body,

I think it's hard to argue a case where I don't win this fight. I'm assuming you watch the card on Saturday, right? For the most part, yeah, I saw the last few fights, I recorded it, but I saw most of it. I was there. Where was that? I was out running a few air it. Okay. My question is, if you watch that card for an hour or two, the commercial for your

pay-per-view event was airing multiple times, I mean, over and over again. And a big part of that commercial is the knockout. What is it like for someone who's about to fight in less than two weeks against the guy who gave you that knockout to watch that over and over and over again? Do you have to, do you close your eyes? Do you ignore it? You get pissed off. What is that like? Well, unfortunately, the thing is that knockout happened seven years ago.

And if you think I've never seen it, you would be mistaken, Ariel. I mean, that knockout has been repeated and shown and shown to me by the UFC or on Fox Sports or on Twitter. The amount of people that tweet me that gift is unbelievable. So me seeing that is nothing new. I've seen it ad nauseam. Of course, you know, you don't want to see it. You don't want to see the guy knocking you out that you're about to step into the Oswald from with.

Of course, but listen, I felt it. I saw it. I've seen it. I've seen it a million times. And it's great. It's great. I see it, and that just fuels me. It fuels me to show the world, well, listen, that will not happen again.

Take it, take that one little moment. Take that one time Micropriskin got. knocked out and loop it played on loop because guess what the record will be getting set straight on october 8 make no mistake that will not be landing the H-bomb will not land lightning does not strike twice and dan henderson will lose the fight is it fair to say that you're somewhat numb to it now like it doesn't really exist like when you see it it's just something there it doesn't have an impact on you at all you know i mean yeah i i guess that would be a fair assumption to say, I think from a sport psychology aspect, you would say that

you don't want to see that, you know, because one thing, one thing that you don't want to see is your opponent that you're going to fight constantly knocking you out over and over again. As I said, I have seen that on a number of occasions, so it's not like it's anything new, but I know in our first fight with Dan Rinteson, you know, I stood in his tape very, very closely, and I've said this in multiple interviews over the years. You know, I coach the ultimate fighter with him. And prior to finding a guy that was doing that, and then the time that passed

to where I was fighting him, I think it was like an eight-month span. So for eight months, I watched this guy knock people out over and over again. And then when I got in there, I was a little bit gun-shy because subconsciously,

I just seen this guy knocked people out for the last eight months. Well, unfortunately, now, for the last seven years, all I've seen is it has knocked me out. But fortunately, I have rock for brains and an unshakable self-belief. I know I'm the better guy.

I know I can beat Dan Henderson. I'm looking forward to this challenge. I'm looking forward to getting revenge. I'm looking forward to defending the belt. I'm looking forward to representing Great Britain on the world stage and continuing to be the world champion. So, yes, you know, there is those little demons inside. I mean, all fighters can ooze bravado at a press conference,

but all fighters know, They have those little bits, those inner demons, you know, the doubt, the closer of five guests, the more the doubt creeps in, you know. I guarantee most fighters, and I do this myself, each and every time, you know, 30 minutes before you go out, you try to look at your coaches and you say, why do I do this again? Why the fuck do this? You know, but then you go out there, you get a great win, and then you're excited to do it again, you know what I mean? The closer the fire gets, the more doubt comes in, you know? but right now I'm feeling good.

I'm feeling very positive. All I've got to do is watch out for the right hand, and this fight is mine. It's in the back. Am I crazy or at the Media Day last week? Did he insinuate that you were on PEDs? I don't. Can you believe this? He certainly did.

I didn't see that Henderson, unfortunately, but can you believe the nerve of this guy, the godfather of PRT, the guy that made this the trend, has the audacity, the balls, the barefish, cheek to imply that the cleanest guy in the sport, the man that's been setting more times than anything, they're on steroids.

That's what he said. He said, my body type has changed over the years and it's a little suspicious. My God. Can you believe it? See, that's what I'm talking about. That's the doubt. That's the doubt that's creeping into Dan Henderson's mind.

Dan Henderson's looking at me and thinking, oh, he's looking big or whatever. Maybe he's on steroids. I want to know how many times has Dan Henderson been tested this training camp. I haven't tested a couple of times and I haven't heard anything

about Dan Henderson being tested. I would like to know that. I would like to know how many times he has been tested. Shame on you, Dan Henderson. Don't car everybody with the same brush as yourself. Just because you're willing to cheat,

don't hold everybody else to the same moral standards that you hold yourself to. Mentally, does it feel at all different? Like, you've been the favorite before you always have had a bullse eye on your back. Like, it's amazing.

You've been called out by more people in the last 10 years than anyone in the history of the sport. You're always that guy. But this is the first time in your career that you're going into the fight

as UFC champion. Does it feel at all different in that respect? Yeah, it brings a lot of pressure. You know? You feel that? Almost, oh, massively I feel that. You know, I mean,

I can stay here in the line and say that or don't, but what does that achieve? Nothing. The reality of the situation is that I'm under a lot of pressure. You know, I mean, I just won the belt.

I mean, going into the fight against Rockhouse. There was zero pressure. Everybody expected me to lose that fight and all I had to do really was give a good account for myself and I was a winner. You know, I'd do, I've done well and I came up two weeks. It was a free pay day and all these types of

things. I went out there and I just swung and I did my best and I knocked the bum out. Now, the table's a turn. Now the pressure's on me. Now I'm supposed to win. Now I'm the world champion. I'm the guy with the the bell that everybody wants. And also against Dan Henderson, who's all

not to me out. But now he's old, so everyone's staying on the favour. So it brings massive, immense pressure. You know, as I said, I have that little title belt in my house, and it brings a smile to my face. I still want that.

I don't want to be a guy that's won and done. I don't want to be a guy that, you know, is one of these, you know, overnight champions, you know, got a shot by default, won it, and then lost it again straight away. You know, that would be, that would be heartbreaking for me. It really would. And let's be honest,

Haddon has the tools and the style that knock anybody out with one punch, knocked me out, I'm not to Babbleau, out, I'm not to Fader or a million ankle out. The list goes on and on, and just knocked out at Hecht of Lombard who's never been knocked out. People can say what they want,

but I had the balls to go in there and fight a guy that can end it truly in one shot. Not a lot of people can do that. Dan Henderson can't. So, yeah, there's massive pressure on me in this fight.

Of course, there is a huge pressure because, again, this would just be the tale of my career, wouldn't it, because, you know, I know what people say. I know they still say they're not convinced on the champion. Fucking Chris Weinman still says, oh, it's embarrassing that Disney's the champion, you know? And if I was to go out there and lose to Henderson, can you imagine what my critics would say? So it brings massive, massive pressure, but don't worry about it. I got this. I got it in the back. And all those little fuckers that doubt me,

they'll all get it one by one. What was the best part about going back for the media tour, Old Trafford, you're in Manchester, what was that like? What stood out? The best thing for me was what the people of Manchester we did a signing at it. It's called the Trafford Center.

It's like a huge mall and we did a signing there and the crowd that the turnout was just unbelievable. It was insane. For me to be there signing autographs I was embarrassed if I'm honest because that's why I used to go

when I was younger, When my wife was my girlfriend, we'd go there and we'd go shopping and go buy a pair of new pair of shoes or jeans or whatever at the weekend and get lunch. You know, and then to be there, signing autographs was crazy. But it wasn't just like it was the things that people said to me, the words that they said, you just blew my mind. You know, the amount of people that came up and said, I cried when you won the belt. Wow. And for a little bit, I didn't believe them. I thought they're just saying that to be nice.

But time and time again, so many people said, I cried. when you won the belt and I was like, I don't understand why are you so emotionally involved and the people again kept saying there's only two times I've cried

when my son was born and when you won the belt and I was like, I still didn't understand it but it just blew my mind it was truly humbling and yeah, it was amazing and also to go back to my old house

where I used to live and my mom lives there now to go to the house with the bell and see my mom and then to go up to this castle there's a castle in the town where I fought Clivered Rock Castle

when I was a little house when I was a kid, when I used to do kid boxing and stuff, I'd run the steps, I'd run the castle steps. He's very rocky-esque, if you will. But I went up to the top of the castle with the belt. You know, because even when I was in the UFC, I used to run those steps prior to me moving out to America. I still run those steps, and I've run them since I was a kid.

So I went to the top of the castle and it looks out over the town. And for me, that was a personal moment. I took the belt there, which is a little bit cheesy, but I got a couple of pictures with my manager and quickly disappeared again before anybody saw, and I thought, what the fuck is he doing up the top of the carpet with his belt? But for me, it was a personal thing, so that was nice. Wow, wow, that is beautiful.

When do you go back? When do you head out to Manchester? I leave on Saturday evening, landing Manchester Sunday. And what are you going to do? This is such a unique situation. You're fighting at around 5 a.m. local time. And I would imagine, okay, you could just say, all right, I'm going to stick to, you know, the North American time zone because that's when you'll be fighting.

But I'm sure that you're going to have to do media. and sell this fight and go around. So how are you going to prepare your body to fight at 5 a.m.? Yeah, well, I'm assuming, I mean, I haven't spoken to the PR department yet, but I'm assuming it's going to be, all the obligations will be in the afternoon. Okay. And I think as long as my day doesn't really start before 1 p.m., I should be good.

I mean, from 1 p.m. to 5 a.m., what is that? I mean, it's 14 hours? Is it something like that 12? Yeah, 14, 15 hours. You know, I mean, if your day start at 7 p.m., that would be equivalent to 10 p.m. at night. So it's not that hard. It's not that much of a stretch. Bearing in mind, my body is going to be on California time. I'll, you know, I'll make sure there's no phone calls, no interruptions,

and I'll wake up in the afternoon, and I'll get out of bed. I'll have breakfast around one in the afternoon. I'll do some more media obligations. I'll train in the evening. And, you know, by the time the fight comes, it won't be an issue. I mean, let's be honest. with the adrenaline and things like that. That's not going to be an issue.

Nobody is going to be yawning when they're in the oxygen going, oh, you know what? I'm really tired. I just have a little nap. With the adrenaline and the situation, everybody's going to be highly tired on adrenaline. So, you know, yeah, it's a little unique.

But it's also kind of cool. I think it's amazing, you know what I mean? I never thought I'd get to do this. I remember Costa Zoo and Ricky Hatton fought at the same arena at the same time. It was absolutely packed out. And I thought that was really cool then. So to be doing this, yeah, yeah, it's very, very cool.

Yeah, it's challenging. I know it's a pain in the arts for a lot of people going to the arena. And I thank everybody that bought a ticket, everybody that showed support, because six-minute sell-out is just mind-blowing. It just blows my mind. Again, it really does. But these are the economics of the situation, and I'm just excited to be a part of it. Do you think it would have sold out Old Trafford?

To be honest, I think you would have sold that anywhere in the country. Dana actually gave me the choice of Manchester or the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. And I think it's like 60,000 CETA, and I said, no, it's got to be Manchester. Wow. But I think for my next fight, I would love to do the Millennium Stadium. Wow. Look at that. I mean, the MEN arena or the Manchester Arena, as it's now called, I believe it's the biggest

arena in Europe, and we sold it out in six minutes, and the demand for tickets is crazy. So I think we could do a bigger, you know, the Millennium Stadium next time. I really do. So I've seen to the UFC, fingers crossed, get the job done against Henderson, get a good win, and then hopefully, you know, we do a big stadium show because the demand is definitely there. I mean, six minutes, at 5 in the morning, come on. You are synonymous with that blur song, but could you imagine, I don't know if you've

thought of this, but could you imagine if just like a couple of, a couple of strands of Blue Moon play right before, and then it remixes into the Blur song as a nod to Manchester's Ricky Hat. I mean, what is, are you feeling me on this, or are we on the same page? Yeah, no, I am feeling. I'm feeling you, but there's something, there's a different avenue that I'm going down. Oh. You know, Oasis are a big part of Manchester culture.

Oh. And there's a particular song that they use that is synonymous with Manchester, Manchester City Football Club even though I'm a a Manchester United fan and you know

so hopefully I haven't I haven't finally made my mind to be it the only problem is I was going to do like a remix

and this and that but the problem is Oasis and blur because obviously blur is my walk out music Blur song too

but Oasis and Blur don't mix they hate each other with it did back in the day anyway so for anybody that knows

anything about Bricks pop that would just seem stupid to have an oasis song to blend into a blur song it seems so hypocritical. That's been my one reservation, but I'm in Manchester,

and, you know, world title five. I'm going to come up with something special, that's for sure. Wow, a little Wonderwall action, is that what we're hinting it? There you go. Today is going to be the day, and I've got to give it back to you, Dan Henderson. Oh, wow, that is brilliant. I didn't even think of that.

That is unbelievable. You've got to go with that. A little bit of that. Today is going to be the day that I'm going to give it back to you. Holy smokes, that is something else. That is a beautiful. Wow. There you go.

Well done. Did you think of that? Did you think of that on your own? Of course I did. I thought it was your son Callum. He's really the brains behind the brains. I'll be honest. Callum, things that with most of the good stuff.

Anything good that I say on FS1, that's down to Callum. But I came up with that one. Today is going to be the day that I'm going to give it back to you. Wow. Okay. Two more things. and I'm sorry for going a little longer. Unfortunately, I will not be good, Ariel.

Okay. It's just I won't be there, and I'm a little bummed out, but I will certainly be watching from stateside. I saw on your Instagram and your social media, you were traveling not that long ago with your wife. You seem to be having a great time. And I was thinking, is it possible that Michael Bisping is trying to recreate the circumstances surrounding his title fight against Luke Rockhold and is going to go out and

just enjoy life and then train for two weeks before this fight? Because that's what I was thinking for a second. Were you doing that? So if you didn't know much about the situation, you could be forgiven for thinking that. Now, of course, with a rock hole fight, I went in there on a short camp, and I did speak about the fact that I did a short camp, and I felt strong in all these things. So I wanted to make sure that I learned that lesson, and it wasn't just talk. So as it happens, I actually signed on to do a movie called My Name is Lenny.

And then after signing the contracts, shortly after that, this fight was signed. And I know that, you know, even still with all the talk and this and that, it's still a distraction. So I know my coach, Jason Briller, was massively concerned. But I went out to England. I filmed this movie. My tieboxing coach, Darren Morris, came down, lived with me in London. So my schedule, I was working in the day. I was filming the movie.

Then in the evening, I would train, you know, I trained for a few weeks before I went out of there. Then I did the movie, and then, you know, we had a little bit of downtime. and then I came back and I still had four weeks of intensive work and I've still got two weeks left Ariel there's still two weeks

until the fight I tell you I can fight right now I'm in shape and I've still got two more weeks you don't need eight weeks everybody in this world

massively overtrained when it comes to fighting apart from what I hear Dan Henderson because I hear as a lady fuck but other than that most people overtrained

and I'm trying to learn from my experiences I wish I knew what I knew now 10 years ago. I wish I knew what I know now 10 years ago. It's amazing that I won so many fights. I think it's my heart that would me those fights because I used to train so much.

I mean, I came back here after filming that movie and I trained hard for a week. And I was like, gee, Louise, I can't believe that I used to do eight weeks of this. Eight weeks. I mean, you're just driving yourself into the ground. You know, so yeah, I learned from the last fight, the last camp.

I went away. The movie was a distraction, but it was a welcome distraction. And as I said, I still got two weeks left to fine-tuned things, do some more sparring, lose a couple of pounds, and we're well on track for a great performance. The title picture is a very interesting one, and Rockholds fighting Jacques-Carray in, what, exactly two months from now. And we're hoping that Wyman will end up on the new. your card against YoL Romero. Who do you think will deserve the title shot out of those four,

if it is those four, after you successfully defend the title? Who do you think, in your opinion, should be the next guy? Well, I mean, I guess, you know, they are the top four guys, you know, make no mistake. And they're all matched up. So I guess it's whoever wins the most impressively. I'll tell you who I don't think deserves it, Yoel Romero. I don't think he deserves it. There's No smoke without fire. He got a reduced sentence, and the fact is he still got a sentence. And I've read some studies lately that even if you take performance and handsome drugs, the benefit of those stay in your system for a long, long time.

So I don't think YOL Romero deserves it. The other three, they're clearly, you know, they certainly appear to be clean from what I can gather. I mean, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, who do you think it's going to be? Who will emerge? Pardon me? Who will emerge?

That's a good question, my friend. That's a very, very good question. I mean, I would like Chris Wydenman. I would like Chris Wyman, simply because, listen, for all the back and forth and the shit talking and this and that, I respect Chris Wyman, and I like Chris Wyman. I like what he does. He's got a little catch of sour grapes at the minute and this and that,

and he's taking, you know, he's talking a lot of shit about me. But, you know, I respect that guy. I see the way he carries himself and this and that. You know, he's a likable guy, but he's talked from shit, so I'd like to fight him. I've beaten Luke Rockhold. I've knocked him out. Yo-a-Ramera, I have no interest.

Jack Array is another guy, you know, I mean, he's fantastic, to be honest as well. So they're all worthy. They're all very, very good, but unless you're coming off a band, performance-enhancing drugs, which YOL is. Other than that, whoever has the best performance, you know, If you want to know who I think wins, I think Wyman beats Romero, and I think Jackray beats Rockhold. Is the GSP stuff dead? Ask GSP.

If GSP wants to fight, I'm here. His coach reached out to me a man by the name of Jorge Blanco and, you know, try to stir the pot a little bit. And I'm happy to fight George K.P. I'm more than happy. That's something that interests me. you know, George, if you're listening, don't reach out and then do nothing with it.

I am willing to fight you. I'm willing to have a quick turnaround and fight you in Toronto at UFC 206. One million percent. I will do that. I will do that. So if you're listening

and you want to fight, okay, be a man, call the UFC and take the deal. Stop out pricing yourself. We all want more money. I want 10 times more. than what to get paid. I'm very happy with what I get paid. My point is we all want more money.

Stop out pricing yourself on the market, George. If you want to fight, if you want to do it, then here I am. I'll beat Dan Henderson. Let's go. I'll even do it in a catch weight of 180 pounds, even though that will kill me. Wow. Have you ever been lower than 185? Like in the last, when have you been lower than 185? Well, last time I thought, Dan Henderson, I walked into the scale at 185 pounds, and I didn't cut any weight.

That's why he's saying that I look bigger now because I am bigger. It's because I cut down from 200 pounds the day before the weight. I learned my lesson. You know, after that fight, I started cutting from 200. So the fact that I got down to 185, I mean, I can get down to, you know, yeah, I can do it. Nobody wants to do it, but if Cyborg can get to 140, I can get to 180. And it all depends. If you're going to dangle George Javier in Toronto, you know, then, yeah, I'll do it.

And even though me getting out to 1-80 is playing into the hands of George's APA because I would be weakening myself. And let's be honest, he's just going to try and wrestle me. And the more strength you have as a wrestler, the better for him and the lighter I am, the weaker I am. So I even be playing into George's hands. But if you want to talk about the weight and too much, I'll do it at 1-8. So it's up to you, George. Be a man. Here I am.

Let's go. Final thing, Michael. And this isn't some kind of. a revelation, but I'm wondering if you ever had this thought, you know, one night in the last few weeks as you're laying in bed thinking about your life, and in particular this year, I mean, you win this fight. There's a very good chance you're a fighter of the year. 2016, fighter of the year.

Who would have thunk it, Michael Bisp being middleweight champion? Have you thought about the fairy tale that is your year? When you think about what this loss represented back in 2009 on the stage, how it happened, the ridicule afterwards, and then going back home and as champion getting to end this man's career. I mean, you can't write a script like this, and it took a very long time to get there, but have you ever thought yourself like, wow, I can't believe the way things are turning out? Like, if this actually happens the way, I think it's going to happen on October 8th, and you wish you could have told yourself that, you know, probably when you were down about the loss after UFC 100,

it's just sort of mind-blowing when you think about the arc here. Have you ever truly thought of that? And how do you react when you do think about it? That's a good question, Ariel. I remember, you know, of course, after the loss to Henderson, I went to, you know, I don't want to say depression, because that's not an accurate word, but I certainly have my days where I felt sorry for myself.

Of course, you know, I remember one day in particular I was running in bed and I felt very, very sorry for myself, you know. You know, I got quite emotional in this and that. If you've got to turn around and said to me then, don't worry, Michael. Seven years from now, you're going to be champion in the world and you're going to rematch Dan Henderson in your hometown. I sold out crowd that's going to sell out in six minutes

where you just knocked out of the champion inside the first round. If you had told me that then, I'd have laughed and I said, thanks for trying to cheer me up, Michael's on the future, but you're full of shit. But here we are. You know, I never stop believing in myself. I don't want to get up my soul box and start lecturing people because I can't stand those preachy bastards on Facebook and Instagram.

But, you know, I mean, here we are. And that is the reality of the situation. I'm proud of myself. I've worked hard. I've never stopped believing in myself. My family, my wife, my children, and my management have been there and helped me out all the way through this. And really, at the end of the day, this is all I know how to do.

You know, I mean, I'm a fighter born and breath. You know, I'm right or wrong. He's got me in a lot of trouble. He's got me in a lot of good spots in life. as well. It's got me to where I am today and I never forget that. And fingers crossed. No one all that stuff will get me the win on October 8th.

I want to thank everybody that bought a ticket, everybody that's supporting me. Everyone that doubt in me as well, the doubts have really fueled me as well because I know I have so many of them. I know so many people think it's a joke that I'm champion. Just trust me, I can't wait a while there and prove you all wrong, all those other people

to prove Dan Henderson. All Dan Henderson's little fanboys, everybody that laughed at me along the way when I said I was going to be champions. You think I don't see the comment back in the day when I said, after every fight, I'm going nowhere. I will be champion one day, and people chuckled and they laugh. But they're not laughing now, you know, and then I will get my revenge. And, you know, it will be that fair retail ending for me, not for Dan Henderson.

Two days going to be the day that I'm going to give it back to you. I'm still blown away by that. What a, what a... That is... We need to do some T-shirts. If everybody's listening, I want to do a T-shirt, today is going to be the day that I'm going to give it back to you. reach out, let's do it, let's sell some T-shirts.

Unbelievable. And, man, how about a commercial? We still got two weeks. UFC PR department, marketing department. Let's get that on a commercial. I still think back to our little chat in Montreal after the Luke Rockhold fight, and you were still talking title shot.

And I'll be honest, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, I don't know if it's ever going to get to that point for this man. And now look at you. Look at you. It's unbelievable. No one believed you still. Listen, I'll be honest, I was times when I kind of, you know,

I'd resign myself to the first. fact that maybe it wasn't going to happen, you know, but screw it. I'm still in a fortunate position. I'm still getting paid to do what I love to do and still taking care of my family, which a lot of people aren't in that position. So, you know, sometimes you've got to look at the great to cut. I'm doing something I love, you know, will I be the champion? No, I won't, you know, but so what? Keep doing what I'm doing and you never know. And here we are. I'm the champion. I get to get revenge. I'm a happy man. Well done, Michael. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the time before things get hectic.

It wouldn't have been the same without you. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Best of luck to you. Can't wait for the fight and enjoy your time back home. Thanks, buddy. Anytime, Ariel. Take care. All right, there he is.

The UFC middleweight champion, Michael Bisping, defending his title, October 8th, back home, Manchester Arena against his longtime rival, Dan Henderson. It's hard to beat Michael Bisping when it comes to interviews. The honesty. I mean, how about this entire show? How about this entire show? about honesty from Lockhart talking about cyborg situation, Will Brooks

talking about his situation and what he deals with on a day-to-day basis. Joseph Duffy talking about his contract situation. Tyron Woodley talking about his situation, Tim Kennedy, talking about flying out of planes and dealing with all kinds of radioactive

craziness and then Michael Bisping. What a show. Wow. Just honesty. Up and down it. And that's why I love doing it. That's why I love covering the sport so much. You can hit my music. We are out of time. UFC 205 is less than two months away, and I know it is the topic of conversation. I suspect in the next 24 hours or so we're going to know a whole lot more about UFC 205. Still fluid. Don't give up hope. And if we're left with what we're left with, it ain't bad. Don't get it twisted. But I know we have been programmed to expect legendary epicness. That's what we were. told. What's going to happen in the next 24 hours? So it's going to be an interesting scene. It's at 6 p.m. at the MSG Theater in New York City. Amir six blocks from here. I will be

there. We will be there. It's going to be very interesting stuff. For now, we will say goodbye. I want to thank everyone who tuned in. I want to thank everyone who stopped by today. Thank you very much, Mark Romandie. Thank you very much, George Lockhart. Thank you very much, and best of luck to Will Brooks. Thank you very much, and best of luck to Joseph Duffy. Thank you very much to Tyrone Woodley for stopping by. You don't know what it took for him to get here. It took a lot, and I can't tell him how thankful I am that he came over here to visit us. Thank you very much for Tim Kennedy.

And of course, thank you very much to Michael Bisping. Congratulations to Chris Seiborg. Hopefully the UFC listens to its very own Joe Rogan and gives her that 145-pound weight class, gives her that UFC featherweight title, women's featherweight title, women's 145 pound title. She's one of the best fighters in the world, period, male or female.

She deserves it on Saturday night. She proved it once again. We're out. Back next week. Same time and place. Until then, I say pay. Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way. Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit.

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we keep hearing about over and over again, is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools. There are a lot of people out there, including many of the listeners of the show who email us, who are worried about the obvious problem, students using chat GPT to cheat on assignments. But when our team went and poked at the story, they found that the issues in education with AI go a lot deeper,

to the very philosophy of education itself. If this technology becomes more ubiquitous, we'll have courses created by AI, graded by AI, with submissions from students, absolutely generated by AI. So it begs the question, what are we even doing here in higher ed? This episode is presented by Salesforce.