MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 371

Episode Date: March 6, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to NewYorkRic (00:13:52) to recap the week in MMA, Demian Maia (00:27:10), Jorge Masvidal (00:47:56), Eddie Alvarez (01:07:06), Tony Ferguson (01:27:56), Alistair Overeem (01:50:06), Georges St-Pierre (02:14:04), Ali Abdelaziz (02:40:38), Luke Barnatt (03:06:59), and Tyron Woodley (03:30:38). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with the Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, March 6, 2017. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a lovely week. What a week it was in mixed martial arts. Remember last week, around this time, I said that I believe the most anticipated fight of the upcoming UFC Poverview, UFC 209 was No Shocker.

Chabib Mugamagamato v. Tony Ferguson. And I also said that I hope with around five days to go before the fight that they wrap them up in bubble wrap. No one bother them. No one talked to them. No one cough near them. Let's just keep them in very, very safe quarters

so that nothing happens on our way to the fight. And by now you probably know the fight never happened. We found out Friday morning during the official Wands. And I maintain once again that the official Wands are without a doubt the most riveting part of Fight Week because you're seeing it all unfold in front of you. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

We started the Wands. There was a report out there from Russia that Habeeb went to the hospital early Friday morning. And then all throughout the show, I'm doing the broadcast of the shows, you know, in that sort of whispering golf voice. and I'm trying to text people surrounding him, involved with him, part of his team, who know him, who know his dad, anyone that I could think of to try to find out

if he's going to show up to the Wayans. And then one by one, they show up and there's no Habib. And then with like a couple minutes left, they tell us that he had to go to the hospital, that he has been medically, you know, disqualified, if you will, from competing, from weighing in, and that the fight was off. And then we had this whole situation

where the UFC was trying to get Michael Johnson and they offer Tony Ferguson less money. I mean, what a bizarre turn of events it was. So it was kind of a black cloud hanging over the event from Friday afternoon up until Saturday. And it was unfortunate because that was the fight everyone was looking forward to. And it was the third time they have been booked

and then eventually canceled. None this late in the process. Those other two times happened before. But it was just, it was right there. We had the face off. We were so close. Anyhow, it was a very eventful week. It started really, as far as news is concerned, I think, on Wednesday when the UFC officially announced that Michael Bisping would be fighting George St. Pierre, date, venue, TBD.

In my opinion, and anyone out there, correct me from wrong, I threw this out there on Twitter, I don't recall the UFC ever doing this, announcing a fight of this magnitude and not attaching a date to it. And I know they're talking about July, but I continue to be told that September-ish or fall is. is more realistic. And of course, now what do we do with Y'all Romero? Dana White's saying multiple times, they're going to quote unquote take care of him. He's going to take care of him. Saying it with a smile,

I asked him at the press conference what that meant. And of course, as you probably saw, he did not appreciate that question. Why? I don't know. I don't know why we can't just say what's happening. With Carlos Condit, we said that, you know, it wasn't us. It was them.

They said that they were going to take care of him financially. What's so bad about that? Of course, we know what's so bad about that. you don't want other fighters to then say, well, why aren't you taking care of me when this situation happens again? Because I can assure you it will happen again. And wow, what does Damien Maya think about all of this? Romero's being taken care of. Maya has to fight Masvedal.

That's how he's being taken care of. Their resume is very much similar. You can make a case that Maya's run, his six-fight winning streak, more impressive than Romero's recent winning streak. But them's the brakes. So we found out about that on Wednesday. We still don't know when they're fighting. Thursday we had the media day and those were eventful. Had the Francis and Ghanu open workout.

That was a lot of fun. Had the MMA Awards, which was a fun time. Thank you very much to everyone once again who voted for us, MMAFunding.com. Media source of the year for myself, journalist of the year. I really appreciate it. I wrote a long thing on my Instagram about it. And especially after the year we had last year, it really meant a lot and maybe even more so than in years past. So thank you very much for that.

I share it with my colleagues, of course, at N.m.A. Fighting because I think they all play a massive part in not just my success, but the success of the entire side. I do want to give a shout out to my man, Chuck Mindenhall, the man in the hat, who I forgot to mention in my acceptance speech. Next time I do this, if I do it, I'm going to write everyone's name down because it's just, it's too hard to remember all these names. Give a shout out to New York Rick as well.

A lot of people were mad about that. But I was trying to think of like the day-to-day MMA-finding people in New York, shows up for like two hours, you know, once a week. Still, I was going to mention him if the MAAR won, which leads me to our last award, we did not win, we were robbed by the Ultimate Fighter, who I do believe won for the first time, somewhat surprising because I would argue that the MAA, the, not MAR, the Ultimate Fighter, is less relevant now than it's ever been, but hey, they deserve to win. So congratulations to them.

A lot goes into that show, great production. So I can't really complain going two for three. meant a lot to us, so we appreciate it. Then of course, Friday was the Wayans. You know what happened there. Then we had the press conference, and it was a familiar site because once again, GSP is up there on the dais, and there's no opponent. They couldn't find Michael Bisping. He overslept, had a wild night at the awards, one comeback of the year, or excuse me, he won upset of the year, and he was actually offended by it. That was amazing. Classic Michael Bisping. He's like, what do you mean upset of the year? I was supposed to win. Everyone thought I was going to beat the

Luke Rockhold at 199. Anyhow, he eventually showed up. It was very entertaining. They had a nice little back and forth. And now I'm excited. There was also a great video of George St. Pierre walking into the cage for the first time in three and a half years, officially as a UFC fighter once again.

And that gave me goosebumps. Like a ray of sunshine, kind of breaking through the dark clouds of Habibir Maghameirov and Ferguson. Here comes GSP with that nice looking suit, walking to the cage, bowing before he enters. It was great to see.

back. It was genuinely very, very, very nice, heartwarming to see George St. Pierre back. And then, of course, Saturday we had UFC 209, which I think, as I noted on Twitter, was everything UFC 208 wasn't. I thought it was a very entertaining card top to bottom. Tyson Pedro, with a big win over Paul Craig slowing down that hype train. If you haven't seen the Tyson Pedro scrum afterwards, do check it out, walking out with this army hat that was worn by his cousin who died while serving in Afghanistan. He asked the UFC for permission to wear it. Thankfully, they said yes, classy move on their part. Of course, classy move on his part. What a great story there. The young Australian fighter, still undefeated.

Love that fight. Uri Al-Contra with the comeback win over Luke Sanders. Can make a case that it could have been stopped earlier. Luke Sanders getting the point deducted. I thought Mark Goddard was all over it. Tremendous refereeing. again by the Brit. What a comeback that was. I thought that was going to be the comeback of the night. And then we had, of course, Darren Elkins with that damaged tattoo rising from the ashes against Mearside Bechtick. I mean, what a performance. The greatest win of his career. Great victory shot afterwards. Darren Elkins was on the brink of defeat of extinction and came back somehow,

I don't know how he mustered up that Indiana strength and was able to defeat the previously undefeated Mirosad Becht. So that was very impressive. Alastair Overeem, defeating Mark Hunt. A lot of fun. Cynthia Calvillo, who got bumped from the curtain jerker, defeating Amanda Cooper. Dan Kelly, turning back the clock, or maybe even not. Maybe he just gets better as he gets older

against Rashad Evans, who looked good physically at 185, but of course did not perform like we're used to him performing. And it has been, you know, unfortunately, a slow decline for Rashad, and now we wonder what's next for him. And then how about David Tamer? defeating Landovanada. No controversies there.

All fun fights. A lot of underdogs winning. Tamor, Kelly, Elkins. I think Alcantra and Sanders were quite even. Pedro's somewhat of an underdog, I think. And then we get to the main event. Let's pause that thought.

I'll tell you who's on today's show. And then we'll talk about the main event, UFC 209. Today's show, super stacked. Incredibly stacked. Can't wait for it. here's the lineup and then let's talk Saturday night's main event. 410, we're going to be joined by Tyron Woodley. As you know by now, he is still the UFC welterweight champion.

Talk about him more in a second as well. 3.50, we'll talk to Luke Barnat. Luke Barnat, remember him, formerly of the UFC. He is now fighting for ACB. They have their 54th event this Saturday in Manchester. He's headlining it. He's fighting Mahmed Khalidov, one of the best middleweights who's not fought in the UFC. And slowly but surely, ACB has been signing some really impressive talents.

Zach Mikovsky, K. Muzugaki, Bubba Jenkins, Elvis Mutapchich. That's just in the last few days. Look out for them. Their tagline is, let's show more fighting. Russian-based organization. They're making some noise. I like it. The more options, the better.

So we'll talk to Luke at 350. 3.30. We'll talk to Ali Abdel-Z. manager for Habib Nirmagamadoff. Talk to him about what happened there. Also, we'll talk to him about Rashad Evans' loss, and he's got a busy month coming up.

He represents Kelvin Gasselim, B'Neal Daryush, Anthony Johnson, Corey Anderson. He's got like three straight main events, crazy. 305, we'll talk to GSP. George St. Pierre is back on this show. Can't wait to talk to him about the press conference, the return, all that stuff.

Alster Overeem at 245. We'll talk to him about the win over Mark Hunt. And, specifically, about his bout of food poisoning. He was in and out of the hospital, had to get an IV, was very close to not fighting, which made, in my opinion, his performance that much more impressive.

So great stuff there by Overeem, rebounding from the title loss to Sipe Amiochich. 225, we'll talk to Tony Ferguson about the fight that, for now, does not seem destined to happen and his crazy week. 205, we'll talk to Eddie Alvarez. Remember him?

Eddie Alvarez. We have not heard from Eddie in quite some time since essentially the Conner fight. What's up with him? 145, we'll talk to Jorge Masvedal about the UFC 211 fight against Damien Maya, and then 125 right before him. We'll talk to Maya himself.

So there's a lot going on, in particular, in the welterweight and lightweight divisions. There's a lot to discuss, but now let's talk about the main event for a bit. So it happened on Saturday, UFC 209. Everyone agrees it did not live up to our expectations. Let's not forget UFC 205's version of this fight was the fight of the night on maybe, you know,

one of the best cards of the last few months, the MSG card here in New York, that ended in a draw. And you can make a very strong case for this fight ending in a draw. It was super close. First and second rounds, essentially nothing happened.

I mean, I think the combined significant strikes was like eight apiece. It was wild. I don't quite agree with the idea that those two first rounds were, you know, rounds one and two were 10-10s.

I can't quite go that far. And so I'm leaning towards Wonderboy for those two, one and two. Round three was very easy to score with the takedown and the damage on the ground, Tyrone Woodley. Round four again was a tough one, but I leaned towards Wonderboy. And then round five was pretty even up until like the last 30 seconds or so. And then, of course, the most action of the night, the most damage of the night. Remember, there are essentially three Ds that you have to look at with the new scoring. Damage, dominance, and duration.

So it was clear that Woodley won the round, but did he do enough to get a 10-8? I didn't think that it was long enough, so duration and dominant enough, to give him the 10-8. But it's arguable. It's so close with this scoring. And a lot of people, including U.S. President Dana White, saying that, oh, this one judge gave it a 10-8, even Bob Bennett, credit to him for showing up to the press conference, said he was not in favor of that scorecard.

I thought he was a little aggressive in his description of it, but I appreciate him coming out. I'm not going to argue with him. I think you can make a case for it, but I don't at the end of the day think it was a 10-8. Let's not forget, though, only one judge scored it a 10-8, and it didn't really matter. If it was a 10-8 or a 10-9,

it didn't really matter because that judge had it 47-47 with the 10-8. Had it been 10-9, he would have given it to Stephen Thompson, but still the other two judges scored in favor of Woodley, 48-47, so even if he would have given it a 10-9, it didn't really affect the fight.

So I don't know why we were harping on it so much. That judge was Sal DiMato, other two who gave it to Woodley, Chris Lee, and Derek clearly. Let me bring in Mr. New York Rick here, because it's fascinating to debate this. So I'm assuming, unless he was busy doing something else, shopping, another birthday party, who knows what, he watched the card on Saturday. Am I right in assuming that? You were right.

I was watching it. I was in my room crying for a bit when you listed everybody at MMA fighting except for me. Well, people, people, I saw some people on the Instagram. I didn't expect that speech to go out publicly, but it did. Oh, that makes it better. But, I mean, I could, there's so many other people, you know, where do you draw the line? I draw the line at the people who actually work five days a week. Where do you draw the line?

And I forgot someone who worked five days a week, seven days a week. I mean, I forgot Chuck Minow. He should also. He should be pissed. He should be lobbying. For the record, I wrote him a message. Oh, great. But I did not write you one.

If it was going to be the MMA hour, of course I was going to mention you and Alex and Will and Nick and Rob and Miles and Paige and Joe. I would have mentioned all those people who work on the shows. This show. You know, you get the wrap-up sign. The second you walk up there, it's very tense. I'm staring at Tito Ortiz's big head. He sees me in the back.

He refuses to say hello to me. I don't know what kind of grudge he's holding on to, but I'm like looking. He's the only face that I see up there. I'm like, oh, God, Tito Ortiz. I love you so much. And I just, you know, I get a little nervous. I don't want to take up all the time. I don't be that guy thanking everyone, you know?

And plus, what about Sean and Luke in the back? They could have helped me out. They could have mentioned some names. Luke craps on everyone else. Sean doesn't want to say anything. I think that one was all. That had to be all on you. Fair enough.

No, but congratulations, obviously. The site, you. Well, the site, I mean, you're a part of the site. I just, you know. Evidently not. As I said, oh, come on. As I said to my wife, I don't need to tell the world how much I love you. I tell you I love you every day.

So the same goes to you. Oh, thank you. Okay. That fight, yes, I did watch. I watched the whole card. I scored the fight 49, 48? How does that work out? Just give me the rounds.

Round one? 10-10. 10-10? Nothing happened in that round where one guy won that round. Yeah. You're saying you're leaning toward it. I don't know what more convincing you would need. Why did Wonderboy win that round?

What is your argument for it? They say now that the three main things you have to look at, damage, dominance, and duration, right? Yep. You essentially, you don't need to have all three, two out of three. What dominance, what damage? Yeah, that's why it's 10-10. I'm fine with, let's just throw out the first two rounds and go three, four, and five.

Perfect. And by the way. Because I think the first two were 10-10. And by the way, let's just make it very clear. This was not a robbery. No. Again, this was not controversial. It was debatable. Again, it was one of those fights where it was close, but I don't think the wrong man won. I think you could sit down, as I like to say in a barbershop, a bar, whatever, and debate it. I also want to say, and this might piss people off, I didn't hate it as much as other people. I actually kind of enjoyed it. And I'll tell you why. The first fight was so much fun that I felt like I was on the edge of my seat the entire time thinking that something was going to happen. as it did in the last 30 seconds. Of course, never came to fruition.

I would never tell someone go back and watch this fight, knowing how it plays out. But while it was unfolding, I enjoyed it. And I must say, I have to give a lot of credit to Dominic Cruz because I think he made me enjoy it even more. I thought his commentary was phenomenal. There's a certain point where that dissipates, though.

You get to the middle of round two, and they've thrown 10 strikes each. And that coiled spring... The lack of activity was weirdly fascinating. Yeah, but that coiled spring, like, tension is gone. Now it's clear that they're just dancing around each other. Okay, so first and

second round? 10-10. 10-10. Third round is obvious. Woodley. Fourth round. Thompson. Fifth round. Woodley. How you score it? 10-9. No, that was not a 10-8. Let's pump the brakes here. But as you said, that doesn't really affect the scoring based

on how I had it. If the first two... It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, if the first two were 10-10, and Woodley won 1-1 and Wonderboy 1-1, if you won 10-8, 10-9, it doesn't really matter. It would have been a win for Woodley either way. Right.

But that's how I had it. Right. I had it scored for Woodley. I just think that there was nothing in round one or two that could distinguish one man from the other. Also, I should note the new scoring criteria is not in effect in Nevada. Correct. I don't even know.

I mean, the main thing is like the eye pokes and the kidney strikes and the clavicle stuff. I still kind of feel like it's relatively similar. But it's important to note that because we're sitting here talking about, I score it this way, I score it this way. Will you score it this way under what rules? Yeah, yeah. Whereas as far as the old rules are concerned. Yeah. Well, are the people who are weighing in on this necessarily doing that?

It creates a lot of confusion, this idea that the... rule sets. The hell's taking them so long. Judging are not implemented across, you know, every jurisdiction makes it makes it a big deal. I actually asked Bob Bennett about this. Why haven't they adopted the new rules and how long is it going to take? It sounds like we're still several months away. He was saying that, you know, they will, but it's kind of a bureaucratic thing, a lot of red tape that they have to, they can't just pass it like everyone else did, you know, come January 1st, which to me is crazy.

trying to unify the sport. But anyhow, with or without the new rules, I feel like you score it the same. I'm not familiar enough, but I think there's certain distinctions about 10-8, which would change it, no? Maybe the 10-8s are given... They're given more freely in my understanding of it. If we're going to go to old rules, then I kind of feel like, if I'm being honest, I kind of feel like it's easier to score it in favor of Wonderboy. first and second rounds 10-9 because of that dreaded octagon control. He was pressing.

Yeah, but he wasn't utilizing the range in any significant way. He was advancing. Woodley had his back against the cage, but I wouldn't necessarily say Woodley was retreating. He did control the center. I just didn't, in my opinion, there wasn't enough, you know, just to be friends. there wasn't enough, there weren't enough strikes thrown.

There wasn't enough attempts to damage. Let me ask you this. In your opinion, fight like this, does it take two to tango? Meaning, are they both at fault? One million percent. Okay, then let me ask you this. Then let me ask you this. Did it backfire in hindsight to do the immediate rematch?

Because now they both felt each other's power. They know what to expect, especially when you're dealing with someone like Wonderboy who's so tricky, someone like Woodley, who's so powerful. it was so fresh in their minds that they were both kind of hesitant to pull the trigger. Remember what both said, especially Wonderboy after the first fight,

he didn't let it go. He wasn't himself. He didn't let it all hang out. It felt like he was even more tentative this time, perhaps because he felt that power. Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, you've seen what they've got now, and now you should be able to let go

because you can anticipate what the other person has in their arsenal. It's just, yeah, both guys are to blame for, Now, I say this with, if they, look, Tyron Woodley is not walking around with his head down. He's the UFC Walterway champion. He successfully defended his title. And he shouldn't be.

He shouldn't be walking around with his head held down. But if their goal was to entertain the fans, I would say they fell short. And in that case, they're both to blame for that. It was not an entertaining fight. I don't think you'd find somebody who could argue that. everyone wants to win emphatically. Everyone wants to finish. Everyone wants an exclamation point.

But considering the road to this fight for Woodley, how polarizing he's been, is this one notch below an actual loss because now it kind of adds fuel to that fire? Oh, you know, you're not an exciting champion, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, let's just put it out there. I thought the UFC did a really poor job of building Woodley leading up to the fight. I mean, the only times we ever heard from Dana White last week

was him criticizing. Tyrone Woodley. You're a promoter. Your job is to actually promote. Your job is to get people excited to watch your champion fight. How about telling the world, this guy's got dynamite in his hands. This guy is the second coming of, I don't know, Matt Hughes, say whatever you want. But

to just go out there and be like, yeah, you fought to a draw. You know? Now prove me that you're better than that. That's not promoting. Yeah. You know what I mean? So anyway, does this hurt him? Yeah, it hurts his stock, for sure. Yeah.

If you're going to be, Tyrone was very vocal leading into this fight and talking about, you know, what he deserves to have and, you know, what the next steps are for him. Based on this performance, he definitely didn't put people in his corner. Again, I think there's nothing wrong with a performance like this. I thought Anderson Silver versus Damia Maya was an overly criticized fight. I've said this many, many times. That fight was different because he was playing games in that fight. At the same time, a champion, look, if you defend your belt, if you've done what you need to do to be successful and keep that belt another day, another month, another year, you've done your job. That's all you can say as a champion.

And I don't necessarily have a problem with how Tyrant fought. If Wonderboy wanted that belt, he should have come and taken it, and he did it. And so from that standpoint, I think Tyrant has nothing to be worried about, ashamed of whatever, but it did hurt his stock. people were are not going to be able to rally behind him after this one. If he had called his shot and made all this noise and then came out there and flattened Wonderboy in round one,

he would have had a damn good case in terms of being able to dictate what's next in terms of being able to be the one in the driver's seat. But now he's not. He's put himself in the backseat. Two quick questions before we get to Maya for you. If you're the UFC, who do you book Woodley up against next?

Do you wait to see what happens with Mazvedal and Maya? I guess, I mean, I guess. It has to be the winner of that. It has to be the winner. Problem is that fights in two months. Yeah, let them take some time off. Yeah. And if you're the UFC, do you go back to the well with Habib and Ferguson?

Do you try it one more time? Oh, boy. I tell you, UFC 210, look at that card, Buffalo. It is super thin. They are missing some stuff at the top. Maybe that's what you do. You put it on a card that kind of just, needs a boost and just, you know, knock on every piece of wood you have in your entire house and

pray. Maybe that's what AK needs. Two AKA guys at the top to combat this bad luck that they've had as of late. They've had some bad luck. Kormier, Kane, Rockold, Habib, their four biggest names, all pulling out of fights. Yep. For various different reasons, of course. And Kane was kind of bad luck as well.

This was bad luck. Just a strange stretch for them. They'll be back. but yeah, it is, I feel for Javier Mendez. I really do. Anyhow, let's grab Damien Maya, who's up next. Curious to hear what he thinks about this welterweight title picture, the welterweight title fight on Saturday.

It is important to note that, yes, once again, Nevada is using the old scoring criteria. I personally don't think that it changes either way in this fight because of the lack of activity. Really, it comes down to that fifth round with the 10-8. judges are encouraged given the new criteria in the states that have adopted the new rules to be more open when scoring rounds 10-8, but that one felt like it just wasn't long enough. Again, damage, dominance, and duration. So excluding that, putting that aside, going back to the old way,

which Nevada, as I said, still employs, I don't feel like it's very debatable because it wasn't long. enough. He was close though. I thought John McCarthy did a great job in that in that main event. He was all over it. He was right there on top of it. It was super close as far as Wonder Boy is concerned. So now we see what's next for Tyron Woodley. We thought this time, this time last week, maybe a few days before that because there had already been rumblings. We thought that the winner of this Walterweight title fight would be fighting gaming Maya. He's, He won six in a row. He's coming off a phenomenal win over Carl's Conded back in August.

He's been very patient. Thought he'd fight the winner after UFC 205. That didn't happen after the draw. And here we are getting very close to UFC 209. And all right, perfect. We've got a number one contender waiting in the wings. And then we find out that he's fighting Jorge Mazvedal, UFC 211, in two months. So, of course, had to talk to him. He joins us now on the phone once again. Very much appreciative. that he's back on the show. We're talking to Damien Mai right now. Damien, how are you? How are you doing, Ariel?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I have to admit, I did not expect to talk to you about this whole situation. I thought that it was pretty clear for you that you were going to get the winner. We'll get to that discussion in a second, but I'm just curious as we wrap up our talk on the main event.

Did you watch the main event on Saturday? And if so, who did you score it for? Yeah, I think, you know, Wonderboy was raining 3-1 and you know he was supposed to keep

going the last round and then he would go in the fight but you know the half is they gave they gave they gave

it was true and you know that last seconds of the fight you know made all different okay so you still

I mean if you had a 3-1 going into the 5th regardless of what happened in the 5th you would have scored it for Wonderboy, correct? Yes. Okay.

Was it, were you watching it live? Yeah, yeah, I did. Was it hard for you to watch this fight because of the fact that you thought you were going to fight the winner and now you have to go through someone else? Were you kind of, you know, was it, you know, while watching, was it a bit of a, I don't know, was there a sour taste in your mouth because of how close this whole situation is to you? Yeah, it is. But you know what? I just need to focus on my fight right now, you know, like always. Sometimes it's better, you know, to keep your mind healthy,

that you just don't focus too much on, you know, a title fight. You just focus on the next fight. And that's what I'm trying to do, because every time I was doing different before, you know, I was losing my ability. to fight well. I was not fighting so well when I was focused too much on the title.

And the last six fights, I was really focused on which fight and that was working for me. I would keep doing the same. Okay, so let's talk about how we get to the Mazvedal fight. When were you first approached about the idea of fighting him? It was,

I think, right after he won the fight against Cowboy, they asked me, And I said, you know, I would like to wait. But then 10 days before this style fight between Udlai and Wonderboy, they spoke to Eduardo again and they said, you know, in order to fight for the title one day, I need to keep active. And, you know, I need to take the fight.

And, you know, just so I took the fight. When they approached you after he won in January, you said, no, I'd like to wait. Were they okay with that back then? Yeah, they didn't answer back, you know, right away, and they were okay. And, you know, I thought, like, as time was passing, I said, okay, you know, I decided to waiting and that's okay. And the fight is less than two weeks ahead.

And, you know, I'm just going to wait and I'm going to fight with the champion because, you know, there is nobody ahead of me. that could fight for the bees. You know, there's the only guy, you know, ahead of me in the rankings where he's Robbie Loller, but he lost shoot around, you know, and he's being inactive for a long time. So, you know, I thought I was the clear contender.

Yeah. But then they approach us, you know, and we need to take the fight. Okay, so then when they come back to you around 10 days, out and they approach you with this idea did you guys tell them like look we're so close to the title fight

here I am number one contender this creates more confusion did you try to make the case to not have to do the fight because you've waited for so long and because of the fact that you are the clear number one contender yeah we did we did that many times we did you know before when they offer Lawler to me

early this year and then when they they offer masudal but this time days spoke to Eduardo and they said, you know, in order to get a title fight, we need to keep active. So, you know, there was no, no, I mean, there was, I need to fight. That's it. If I want to fight for the title, I need to fight. So, you know, I'm a fighter and I'm going to fight. Does a party wish you would have fought back in, you know, January or December so that you'd be in a position? If they're saying you have to fight, you've been waiting for so long,

for the title shot, you don't get the title shot, you could have fought earlier. Yeah, it's tough to, you know, to have any regrets or think about that. It's just life, you know, it's just every, it is what it is, and there is nothing we can do. I think it's a good timing, you know, to fighting in May. It's no problem. Of course, I wish I was fighting for the title. But if I have to fight this fight, maybe it's a good timing.

I cannot think about if I win, when are I going to fight for the fight. I just need to think about this wrong. Like I said, right now, you know, Georgia, Mancdhita fight is a pretty tough challenge, and I have one more challenge in front of me. Can you explain what happened with the Nashville card? Because originally there was some talk that you were going to main event that card. Now you're on UFC 211. Was the Nashville option offered first and then they changed it?

Yeah, yeah, that was the first, you know, date that they offer. But I don't know why they changed. And for us, it was okay because, you know, we have a little bit more time for a camp. I mean, I was trained, but it's different than a camp. And that's no problem. That's no problem that they changed the date. But I don't know. I don't know.

It's something to do with, you know, which card they need more names to feel. And I think the 211 was more important for them. Would you have preferred being main event or it doesn't really matter at this point? It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. The good thing about being main event is that it's, you know, I was talking to a lot about that. The good thing about being a main event is that you, you, you, you, you, you, you, for a title fight because you're playing for five rounds.

But at the same time, you know, if you go there and fight, and the fight is like, you know, my fight with called it, it doesn't matter because it's just one round five. I hope the fight doesn't go, you know, all the rounds, and I hope I win before. And I'm going to train for three rounds. And the most important is, like I said, It doesn't matter if I fight right now, if I stop and think about.

It doesn't matter it's five rounds or three rounds, because in order to fight for the title, I need to win this one. So I cannot think ahead. I just need to win this fight and not thinking of this fight like training for the title fight. Right. You know, I'm fighting a guy who just knocked it out. Cowboys have Ronnie, and he's really, really good and really tough opponent with a great boxing skills,

and it's not easy to fight a guy like that. So I have a challenge right now that I need to pass before. Did the UFC tell you or your team that if you win this fight, you will 100% get a title shot? It's not, they didn't say 100%. I think, you know, it's kind of clear. and I don't know who else they could, you know, put for that. I didn't ask for that, you know, I just, I think it's clear for everybody, but then, you know, if I win, I will be the challenge,

but I think they never going to come and say, okay, if you mean, is 100% you're going to fight for the title. and, you know, I don't care. I just care about this fight right now. Do you think the UFC doesn't want you to be champion or even to fight for a belt again? I don't know. I really don't know.

I think there's nothing to do with that, but at the same time, it's sometimes a little bit weird, you know, why they are holding me too much the last fights. Because I remember when I fight Gunaer and I was watching the fight between Lola and Condit, you know, I was there in the watching

inside and they are filming me and I think I was going to be next one. And everybody was talking about that and then they said no, they put me against Matt Brown and then after Matt Brown fight, okay, it will be next one and then no, no. And then

you know, corn it and I won in a very good way. and know again. So I don't know, I don't know. Sometimes it's, you know, all this is changing the company lately. It's hard to read. It's hard to understand. Has this situation kind of affected the way you view the sport and your career?

I mean, it's amazing just listening to you speak. I feel like I wouldn't be able to handle it with such class and professionalism, but you are able to put this positive spin on a very unfortunate situation. Everyone agrees that you should be fighting for the beltnecks And now not only do you have to fight again You have to fight someone who's very very talented And yet here you are You know with some kind of silver lining

When this all happened though You know were you down Did you need to motivate yourself again? How did you react? You know you remember what I said I said when I started to focus on the title Six fights ago I stopped to fight

Sorry I stopped to worry about just a title, title, title fight, you know, my performance got better. And after my fight with Yakov led, you know, I had that shoulder infection, the staff infection in my shoulder, all the else can they lead to stuff. And after that, I realized that my mission is much more

than be a champion, is, you know, to spread to Zeruizu and to teach and to do things that are much more important in my life than to win the title. And after that, you know, it's funny that I start to win and I never, you know, lost a fight anymore. And, you know, I was fighting with much more experience. I was fighting less anxious. So that's what makes me keep going because I know my mission is not just to be a champion.

And be a champion would be a champion would be great, you know, and I want to be like that. But it's not just in my control. I think I could be champion right now but it's not in my control because I need to be chosen to be there in a title fight and I need to win the title fight and that's in my control of course

but you know it's not in my control to have the opportunity to fight for the title so as I sport you know a guy, an athlete of course you get a little bit frustrated but you know I have things much bigger to accomplishing life

that I'm accomplishing and I'm happy for that and I keep going. Do you feel like you have to finish Masvedal in order to really force their hand and make them give you the title shot? Is it a decision not enough? No, I don't think so. I don't think.

I think, you know, it's just go there and win the fight. I think everybody says about the, oh, this guy sells fight, the other guy doesn't sell fight, but the reality is like in the water weight, nobody sells fights well. And sometimes, you know, people push on from my shoulder with things, but, you know, in my last fight, I submitted, you know, a lot of fights and I had great performance and people want to watch my fights.

And I'm not insane, you know, bad about the last fight, but everybody knew that didn't sell well, was not so exciting. and so it's not just my promise, you know, it's all together, you know, like USC needs to promote a little bit more, and Walter Wade is a way that is hard to sell nowadays, and that's it, you know, I think it's sometimes people believe in lies, and they repeat the lies so many times that the people, you know, start to believe, ah, Demi's not fighting for the title because he doesn't sell. And, you know, I think that's not true. You know, I don't think I wouldn't sell worse than, you know, Wonderboy and Thompson did. Yeah. And I think I would, I could sell better. And to that point, I feel like

there has to be a little creativity involved. I threw out this idea last week, and this was just off top my head. Here we have, you know, the second coming of Hoyce Gracie. You're going out there and choking the best fighters in the world and not getting any damage. No one is touching you. It's like not even a scratch. How do you not sell that? That to me is fascinating.

It's like, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, market, you know, is everything.

You know, that and I shouldn't say that, but when I watch last fight between you, I'm playing, Tomfair, and I want to make clear that I really like both guys,

you know, I really admire both. guys, but, you know, for me the fighting, besides the fourth round, the fight was really boring, you know, in actual 5, because it was like nobody pulls, you know,

the trigger. Nobody pulls the trigger all the first three rounds and then then the fourth round was this you know, scramble and was really exciting and then the 50 round was so so again. But in order to make the to make the

second fight, you know, you F.C. gave them fight of the night. Because, you know, after two weeks, three weeks, nobody remembers well. And then the people say, okay, you know, it was a nice fight, was fight of the night. But for me, that was far away from fight of the night. But, you know, people, everybody started to talk about that, and that makes a burst to the next fight. So it's not, you know, it's not so hard when you want to push somebody you can do.

I know you're saying that you're not going to focus on the belt now and that that helps you you and that's been what you've you've done leading up to this point as far as this winning streak is concerned but will you or your management try to get on the record in writing somehow that if you win this fight you're getting a title shot or are you not going to try to do that? Yeah of course Eduardo is talking about that and trying to you know make the guy is doing that He's the guy who's in charge of that and he's the guy who is trying you know like crazy

all my last fights to put me in a title fight but it's being hard. So I'm just curious, are you impressed with Mazvedal? Mazvedal kind of, you know, coming out of nowhere as a welterweight, he's won three in a row

and, you know, was struggling a little bit with his weight at 155 and now here he is, as you said, you know, knocking out Donald Seroni is no small feat. A, are you impressed in B, do you have a theory as to why he has looked so good at 170? No, I don't have. You know, actually, I'm going to start to watch his fights right now.

I didn't watch his fight yet. I know he's a very good boxer. You know, he's like a very good, like, Cuban-style boxing. And actually, you know, I know he's pretty dangerous with his hands. He has a good takedown. the fans, which is dangerous also for me. But I'm really going to start to analyze him right now. Okay.

What kind of support, by the way, have you gone from fans online after all this has happened? Have you read a lot from them? A lot, yeah, a lot. You know, I can read all the comments, you know. Like in my Twitter or Instagram, I can, but, you know, Twitter are too many people. and it's so nice to have all this support I really appreciate the fans even

I don't I don't respond because you know sometimes I respond one guy and the other ones will feel sad because I didn't respond so that's why sometimes I don't respond but you know I try to read everything 99% of

of what people talking it's very nice and people supporting me and asking me for the title fight and everything. So things can change, you know, fans make the things change. And that's very important. That is very true. I feel like I've asked you this before maybe a few years ago,

but just to double check now here we're talking as you're turning 40 later this year in November. Is there an age when you want to stop fighting or do you not think about that? I don't think about that Really like you know thinking a right day But I think you know I I have like About three more years

Okay Two three more years that I want to fight Okay For sure and then you know after let's see how my speed will be How my my power And if I keep going Then I you know I can keep fine If not then I stop

Always always appreciate talking you, Damien, you are unbelievably classy and you are able, you teach us all not with, not only in your, you know, your athletic endeavors, but just the way you handle yourself, how to put a positive spin on things and how to not harp on the negative. So I appreciate that, perhaps more so than what you do in the cage. Your opponent at UFC 211 is actually joining us next. And I believe he wants to say something to you. Are you okay with talking to Jorge Mazvedal? Yeah, yeah. I don't have much to talk to him, but, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, You know, I'm happy to take this fight.

You know, that's, of course, I would be much happier to fight for the title. But, you know, I respect him a lot. And let's go there and do a good show for the public. Jorge, you want to say something to Damien? Well, I want to say I respect him for taking the fight. Anybody that gets in there, I got to respect them. But you shouldn't have took this fight, man. I'll say it now because you signed, you shouldn't have took this fight, man.

But thank you, though. I appreciate it. Just like how I told him after, thank you for giving me the time. chance, you know, because I got the call from the UFC, and the UFC used to not like me, not too long ago. They didn't like me, but they figured out one thing. They could use me to take out all the guys that they don't like. So, you know what I'm saying? I'm here, baby. I'm going to just do what I do come May 13 and just keep it moving forward, you know? I ain't got much to say because I got three kids and I got to check out of here already, man. I've been here a little bit too long, you know?

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, thank you, Damien. We appreciate it. Thank you very much Okay, thank you Thank you George and You know Bye bye bye Thank you Damien We appreciate

Wait Jorge, you're leaving You're done with the interview Oh I thought he was gonna have me Keep listening to this dude I was like I can't do that

I'm sorry I thought he was gonna continue on And I'm like No you can't do that No no no I'm not gonna sit here And this and listen I'm

I was just I was just trying Okay I got I got the money Oh okay Fair enough Fair enough

Um What wait So you said For you Thank you Thank you By the way, you said a ton of interesting things in that one little answer. First off, why did you think that they didn't like you?

And why do you think that they like you now? Because it took in them a while to figure it out, you know? Bam, bum, bum. That they could use me to take out all the dudes that they don't like. Now they see the value in that, you know? Because all the dudes that they don't want them in certain places, look, the executioner's here, bro. Put those dudes way back in the line. You understand?

If you speak math, you understand that. You think that they don't want Damien to fight for the belt, so they called upon you to sort of get him out of the picture. Did they say... That's what they called upon. You're like the hired gun. You're like the corporate rock. There you go.

Now the fucking lights are going on. Did they outright say that to you? You know, behind the scenes take you in the back and say, you know, we need you to get this done. I'm going to plead the fifth because I do got a job, bro. I saw you in Vegas. You can put two together, man. I saw you there.

What a jacket you had on? What a jacket? What kind of jacket was that? Where did you get that? That, I got it at the spot. I'll tell you in person where I got it there. Because I can't let everybody know. Everybody's at my store, you feel me?

Fair enough. Is there a part of you that feels bad for Damien? Do you feel like he deserves the title shot? You sympathize him, you know, as a veteran who's been trying to get that UFC title shot as well? Yeah, he's on a, what? five street you know six seven or six fight one streak yeah six you know he's being some good guys so if they had told me damon was fighting for the title and i was fighting somebody else and then i would fight for the title you know as long as that somebody else was the next closest thing to the title i wouldn't

care as long as i had this fight then the fight for the title do it make sense yeah yeah yeah you know so i don't feel bad for me at the end of day he's going to get a paycheck you know have they told you that if you win this fight you're automatically getting a title shot They didn't tell me that, but, you know, that I saw my assumptions. You were there on Saturday. Who do you think won that main event? I'm going to say Woodley. Okay.

Why do you say that with a smile? It was a tough fight to call. There was a lot of rounds. They could go either way, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I thought Woodley, again, did more damage. He got a takedown. He did some writing time with that takedown, and he landed better shots.

So then when they got back up, Thompson was throwing more shots, but he wasn't really hurting. him, you know? Yeah. But we're talking about a fight. I just think Woodley did more damage. I can see why people were saying Thompson, because he was throwing more.

He was coming forward, and he was not dictating the pace because he wasn't throwing very much, but he was being the aggressor, I guess, in a weird coming forward way only. But he really wasn't doing a lot of it. So I could see with a controversy. That's why I threw up the smile there.

Okay, fair. Yeah, it's one of those. I usually... By the way, I know he doesn't train out of the Florida, Jim, but do you have any issues fighting Woodley because he's technically an ATT fighter? We just train a lot together

when we were both from Strike Force. Okay. Like a lot. So my buddies has always been cool since they want to... It's not the dude that I want to fight, you know what I'm saying? But when it comes to for the belt, it's different. I got kids to feed. I didn't get in this to high five people.

Sure. I got in this to feed my fucking kid, you know? So, like, if I'm playing basketball in Miami-D, and then fucking LeBron goes to, wherever he goes, but we're not going to play games now. We're not going to play the playoffs? Sure. You know?

I like that thinking. That's one of the last, that's one of the last dudes on the planet. Sincerely, I want to fight. I do not want to fight, would it, because we're cool. You know, we've worked out so much together, and he's looked out for me in the past, got him like certain hookups that he had at the time, you know, so I don't want to fight that, dude. But when it comes for the finals at the NBA, we've got to do what we got to do.

Fair enough. LeBron's not going to sit out of game. Yeah. It's going away, you know? It's amazing, though, your story, because, you know, you come over from Strike Force, and I feel like you're kind of just, like, moving along. They're putting you not in the best fights and not on the biggest cards, and you have that fight against Ally Quinta, and it was controversial.

And I remember that interview that you did before you were leaving the hotel, and you were like, man, I keep getting screwed by the judges. It just always felt like, well, we will never see you get to that next step. And then all of a sudden, you go to 170, and now you're just blowing through everyone. And most importantly, as you said, it feels like they're getting behind you. They're putting you on big cards. They're listening to you. They're really pushing you.

Do you feel like they just saw the light themselves? Like, why all of a sudden are they so behind you? Because they did the math. It's ancient secret math. But you've got a good story. I don't understand what I'm saying. I feel like you. If you don't, you're looking at me and you're going, man, this dude is complete, bro.

Yeah. This guy's like a problem in all fucking areas. We could use this guy to eliminate the guys that we don't like. So maybe he matched it off. whatever, he's kind of wild, he's a spake, we can't push him that much, but we could use him to eliminate the others because this guy, for real, is a bad guy,

and he's gonna... Did you get that part, by the way, in the movie, in the Scarface remake? Yeah, but they weren't paying enough, so I turned it down. Wow, really? I thought you would do that for free. You were the guy who was going to kill DiCaprio.

Yeah, but they got to pay for that, bro. Yeah, I agree. Are you happy with your pay from the UFC, not yet? I mean, I want the most money out there possible every time I fight because this is what I do for a living, you know? Sure. So I think I get treated well by the UFC. If you look at me compared to a lot of the dudes, I get paid well. But I'm not satisfied. I want millions. I want the biggest fights possible. That's why I do this. You know, I don't do this to take a backseat to anybody in this planet. Sure. Is this accurate? When you talked about moving to 170, you and your

manager, Abraham, Kawa, actually kind of like put out a game plan. Soroni, Maya, we're on that list. Like, this was part of the journey. You wanted this Maya fight. You felt like this was a fight that was very winnable, that was very favorable to you. Is that true A and B, why?

This is exactly why. Cowboy, I think, is one of the best strikers at the 170-pound division. You know, I think he would destroy a lot of the strikers at 170 pounds. So I think he's one of the best strikers. In Maya, we have... The best grappler at 170 pounds. By me beating those two guys, that shows the world how legitimate and how versatile I am. I can wrestle really good.

People were surprised in the cowboy fight that I did that. Like really surprised. Oh, man, I was going for cowboy out of the way. You really shocked me there. I'm like, where the fuck you've been living at? Have you seen the fights or do you just fucking turn on the TV once a month? And then you see him knock somebody out and you think that's everybody's going to get knocked out like that. I wonder if people even knew who I was, how could you be shocked?

If you've seen me fight, you know what I do. So I think the world is going to be more shocked than anything when they find out how good I can wrestle. Okay. I'm not going to put on a key to be competitive, no. But when people find out how good I can wrestle defensively, it's going to blow the fucking mind out. Would you say you've had something like 50 years or so fights? Would you say that was your best performance ever, the Soroni fight? No, I'd say it's one of my good performances, but not my best.

What's your best, in your opinion? Is there one that sticks out? Well, you know, it's early in my career, and I think I fought one of the best outpaws of ever, and especially at that time, he was a fucking phenom, you know? And that's Eve Edwards. Yeah. He had a highlight video of him, like, destroying people with knees.

And I grew up watching this dude, you know? I was like, bro, this guy is fucking dangerous. That's one of the first guys that I got a fight that I had, like, butterflies in my stomach, like, a little bit scared. You know, like, man, if I fuck up with this guy, my face is going to get rearranged. You know, it's not going to be that he's going to hold me down, and my face is going to be different.

Nobody's going to recognize me in my neighborhood. So I had to, I prepared myself real well for that fight, and that's one of the, that's one of my higher ranking performances of me. Okay. Because I know how good that dude was at the time. Yeah, yeah. So that's a real, how do you say, Barry, I mean, the badge? A real honorable badge from me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a badge of honor. Feather in your cap. Back to, there we go. Thank you, Harry. There we go. By the way, I wanted to ask you this after the Saroni fight. Unfortunately, I couldn't get you on the show because apparently you were skiing or tobogganing. I don't know.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised to hear of a... Skis, bro. I don't know what tobogging. Come on. A fellow from Westchester, Florida is skiing in Denver. I just don't buy it. Where's the footage? Do you have proof of this?

Flame, man. Oh, yeah. I got it on the GoPro, but I'm kind of dumb up here. I don't know how to translate it to, like, the real world. So my manager is going to get the golfo footage and, um, I want to see that. Because I heard you're actually really good. Yeah, yeah. You're really a good skier.

I'm really athletic for what skiing requires. A lot of core strength, a lot of crazy balance, a lot of leg power. I happen to have that off the charts compared to, like, regular civilian. So I've progressed really fast for the time I've been doing it. Okay. What I wanted to ask you was, what did you say to Donald right after the fight? Can I repeat it? Yes, please.

Repeat, repeat. Go ahead. Just the PG-13 version and then there's the rated R. Rated R. Go ahead. We're on the internet. I didn't see nothing crazy. I was just building it up.

I didn't see nothing crazy. I just said, you know me now, motherfucker? Oh, wow. That's all I said. Yeah, yeah, that's all I said. You know me now, motherfucker? Because he was saying he didn't know me. You know who I am.

You know, you knew exactly what, especially because we sparred together. Don't try that shit with me, you know? So whatever, man. Did he say anything back? I didn't like it. Did he say anything back to you? Oh, wow. The blue's so funny, though.

Yeah. That was great. I mean, the way you went to the body there was beautiful. Think of beauty. What's up? Say hi. Who's this? Say hi, bro.

Cameras down here. Who's that? She's my league. Oh, there he is. Wow, two weeks in a row. Look at this guy. Yeah, yeah. We're trying to talk to your client here.

We don't want you to hog his spotlight. We know you like to do that, Maliki. Hey, what's going to, by the way, look at this. Hey, hey, hey, let's... First round. Wait a second. Wait a second.

It just occurred to me. They represent Woodley, too. What's going to happen then? Hey, what, uh... What happens to what? Well, if... If Mazvedal wins and Woodley wins, what side are you going to choose?

This is going to be awkward, no? Or does your brother Abraham go with Mazvedal and you go with Woodley? I go with Woodley, he goes with Mazadol. Wow. What do you think of that? I go, what do you think of it? Yeah.

What do you think of that? No, because that's how he likes it. I don't mess up. That's my partner, bro. I don't mess with this guy. I don't mess with this guy. I don't mess with this guy.

See, this is the difference between Malki and Abraham. Abraham's in the back, chilling, not saying word. Malky just walks right into the shot. Classic. Yeah. Georgie told me to.

He told me to. That's basically it. You know I wouldn't tell him that. That's right. Okay, let me ask you this. there was originally there was originally talk of you main eventing in Nashville

and now you're on the pay-per-view in Dallas did you prefer the main event slot or do you prefer being on a pay-per-view? I prefer being on a pay-per-view. It's the biggest card I think would appear to that date, you know? Uh-huh.

So I much rather be in that car. Okay. I think that's one of the most stacked cards for a while. Yeah, no, it's fantastic. Two title fights, all that stuff. Maya has now gone on this amazing stretch. I could pull up the numbers, but you've seen it

where he finished his fights and literally his opponents are landing like one or two punches in the fight. Have you been impressed with his recent run? Once he's got the guys to a floor, to the floor on top of them, to a certain extent, yeah, I'm like, man, he has really good control and himself. And his gas tank is improved a lot too. But from a wrestling standpoint,

he hasn't fought somebody that can wrestle back into him. None of the guys that have seen to wrestle back in. So I'm just so eager to wrestle back in him and show him that next level of wrestling where he's got that next level of jizzu, but he's not going to get me there. When he does, I'll get right back up. And I'm willing to put money on it where my mouth is, you know?

So Dana takes me up on the bed. We got the 200K right there on there. It's just chilling, you know? For those that don't know, what's the bet? What's the bet? I bet it Dana White. You couldn't find me nobody that could beat me for 200K. I got a, you know, I got to stretch out this career as much as I can.

If I can't get the money fights, I got to supplement the income, boom, boom, boom, another way. Right. And has he accepted? So again, I'm a risk taker. I'm a risk taker. Has he accepted? No. No, not yet.

Because didn't you have this bet going? God, Damien Michael said that we're taking the bet, that the bet's going forward. But didn't you have this bet going into the Soroni fight too? No, I did it. Okay, this is after. No. So to be clear, if you beat Maya, you want 200K. If you lose to Maya, you're saying you'll pay him 200K.

Yes. Wow. Which I know it's not a lot of the day and it's just a weekend in Vegas or something. It's a night. But at least it entertains me. Sure. Yeah. Sure.

Okay. And I'm just curious, given how good you are of promoting yourself, do you feel that if Maya was a little more outspoken, a little more, I don't know, edgy that he'd already be fighting for the belt? Do you feel like it's kind of to his detriment that he's too nice? I think a lot of it is also the style. Because if he was knocking people out, sticks in a road like that.

When nobody's touching him, then people, it'd be different, you know? They would like that humbleness, that quietness, but he's knocking people out. It has a lot to do also with what's in style, you know? Sometimes people want to see more grappling than everything. Sometimes you want to see more knockouts than you. By the way, what happened to Robin Luller?

Why do he leave, ATT? I got to plead the fifth on that. Okay. Though I know the exact, you know, I can't. speak of such things. Okay, fair enough. Last thing, are you cool with the media?

Sometimes I feel like you don't like the media. I mean, you're on my show. You're always gracious, so I appreciate it. But overall, what's going on with you in the media? Never really happened. I don't like the media, man. I fucking, I don't like it. Look, I'd be the weird serial killer dude that wouldn't have Instagram or Snapchat

or none of the things. And all my friends would be like, he's so weird. He doesn't have social media because I just don't like it, period. You know? Okay. I'll do this because I got to generate the talking shit. But I don't really like to do it, you know? I don't really care for the social media.

Like the posting of the pictures constantly. My management team is on me to do that. I dislike it. And the media, imagine that. I dislike that shit even ten times more. But I got to do it because of paychecks. To get the big fights, I got to do it. Do you feel like there's been a correlation between you putting yourself out there more

and your recent popularity surge? I don't know, bro. That's like, I don't know. That's next level. I think that far. Okay. All right, fair enough. We're two months out.

Do we have a prediction on the fight? Will you stop Damien Maya? Before it hits the third round, the game is over. Wow. Damn. And then you get a title shot. It won't go to the third round. You heard it here first.

Okay. Appreciate the time, Horry. Thank you so much. Good luck to you. We appreciate you talking to Damien earlier as well. You continue to impress. What a streak at 170. And I want to see that footage of you.

on the ski hill because to be honest at the utmost respect for your mma skill i'm not quite sure if i'm buying into the fact that you're ripping it up on the slopes i'm just saying i just putting it out there i want to see it i want to see it myself okay but i want to do that's racist area you think this spake can't i can't ski either i can't ski either i just want to see the footage i want to see the footage i want to see the footage i want to see the footage i want to see the footage i I can do, on this last trip, I was at Kirkwood. I killed about, they have, I think they got 10 double blacks, and I did five of them. Wow.

I don't do them at a blazing speed. I can do them, you know? Wow. I got to work on my technique, though. My technique is not the best. My athletic ability off the charge for what that requires, so I'm able to get away with that. Continued success. Good luck in the fight.

We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for doing this. God bless you, man. Thank you. There he is. Jorge Mazvedal. Great stuff there. Looking forward to that fight.

Put aside the Paul. takes, put aside the fact that, you know, Maya was right there, thought that he was going to get it, all that stuff and more. Put all that aside, stylistically, it's a fun fight. And at this point, they've accepted it. We need to accept it. Let's move on. All right. I said at the top of the show, I have been wanting to speak to Eddie Alvarez for quite some time. I have been trying to get him back on the show, essentially since November. Wanted to talk to him about what's next, where he's been. So much to discuss with Eddie Alvarez. And now here he is. And I think he's, and I think he's this is great timing, considering the fact that the lightweight title picture is very much in focus.

He joins us now on the phone. Eddie Alvarez. Eddie, are you there? I'm here. What's up, Ariel? Where have you been, Eddie? We've been looking for you. Not new man training. I moved recently. I moved a different house right before the a Conn McGregor fight. But just kind of dealing with that, moving, things of that sort. And then just recently, maybe like a month ago, back in training with my coaches and get my eye back on the prize. So you kind of went off the grid as far as media and spotlight, limelight and all that stuff is concerned post-MSG. I think you did one interview with Shell Sunnan, but otherwise I haven't seen anything from you.

Did you just need a break after all that? I had a busy year I fall like three times and I'm not like a lot of these other fighters I have four children at home so when I do get in a training camp I miss a lot so it's important for me to fight but it's also

important for me to take a step back and enjoy my family enjoy my kids and not just be there but really kind of be there if you're a dad or anything I got you know what I'm talking about sure considering how big that night was for you

do you still think about it a lot? I mean, it wasn't that long ago, and I know it didn't go your way and you weren't happy with your performance. Have you been able to come to terms with it, or do you feel like you'll only really be able to come to terms with it and move on, more importantly, once you fight again? No, I lost before.

It definitely was a more bitter pill to swallow than other fights. Just because the magnet through the event, I truly believe in my heart that it's a win. It's a winnable fight, and I just didn't, I didn't do well. I didn't do well at all. That never really happened to me. I never really kind of showed up in that sort of way. So it was disheartening, definitely.

But like I said, I never defined myself. I've won world titles. I lost world titles. That's just how this game goes, you know. You win some, you lose some. So I'm more than anything, I'm more excited to move forward, get an opponent in the future and move forward. and, you know, get back in the cage.

You handled it with such class. I mean, it was just amazing to see, and you said the same thing about, you know, not letting a loss define you. I'm just curious if you have more respect now for Connor as a fighter than you did going into the fight after competing against him. I respect everyone I fight.

I'll say what I have to say, and I won't take anything back. I say things because I believe them. I'm not making things up, and I still stand by whatever I said. Um, it's just, uh, yeah, for sure. The guy, look, Connor McGregor's talented and their team, they're doing some amazing things. And, um, he definitely has some slick things, some good things that he does.

And, uh, my hat's awesome. He won. Moving, moving forward. Okay. Um, now, I'm curious as to what they're going to do with you next. I've heard some things here there. Thought maybe there'd be a little more clarity after Saturday, as you know, the Habib Ferguson fight did not come to fruition.

but as we sit here as we talk on this Monday morning, March 6th, do you know what's next for you yet? No, we're not 100%. They've kind of hinted at opponents, but nothing I really liked or got me excited. So I really want to see this fight happen and see what happened with this fight. You know, I don't know.

So what's going on with Khab and Tony and things of that sort? You know, I like, if none of them guys aren't going to fight, I like to fight one of them guys. We, I believe we asked Nate Diaz the fight. We got a, we got a no on that fight. So I'm trying to find fights that I can get excited about, you know? Uh-huh. And thus far, they haven't presented you with anything that really excites you?

No, no, not really. Nothing that I'm going to gain from, you know, just from what other guys will gain. Nothing that I'm really going to gain from other than just getting out there in a cage and fighting. And so maybe I do take a fight if worse comes to worse, I can't find anything. You don't want to be a stepping stone. Well, I'll never consider myself that if I's a fight, and everybody's good. But when I step inside the cage, I want there to be some sort of value, something that I can get excited about.

Right. You know, I fight with a guy like Nate Diaz or a fight. Like someone who's done what I've done who've been in the game long enough, you know. So trying to sort of set us that now. We should have an opponent in a day or I don't think there's too much longer. I think if no one pops up, we're just going to end up taking a fight. Could you tell us who they've offered you? there was a guy from Ultimate Fighter

and then recently Dustin Porier was another name which actually a little bit I could see myself getting excited for this fight but I really thought that Nate Diaz would have fought me he said a lot of stuff

in Mexico you know he looks at me funny in lobbies and shit like that. So I'm like, you know what, where's comes the worst, Nate will definitely fight me. So I was actually shocked when they gave him a bad agreement

and he said no to that. I thought he'd fight me for sure. So I don't know what's up with him. So we're just trying to get somebody that I can get excited about. So we should know in a couple days or so. Wait, so to be clear, they gave you... Go ahead.

Is it bebeeb fighting Tony? Because if not, I'd like to fight Tony. that's still that's honestly we don't know the answer to that question later on this show his manager ali abdel ziz is going to be on hopefully to clarify it but they on saturday would not commit to you know now booking it for a fourth time you you know it's been uh you know three times that it got canceled also we're talking to tony in around 10 minutes from now so hopefully we'll get some clarification but i can't give you the answer to that question because i don't know it yeah um but i just want to be clear about something They gave you a battle agreement with Nate Diaz's name on it? No, no, no. We, from what I hear, we called in. We said we wanted Nate. And they told us, they told us, we offered Nate,

we offered Nate the fight with you, and we got a rejection. So we didn't really pursue it any further. He said, Nate, I guess Nate is waiting for Connor or whatever he's doing. So I just don't, when I look down the roster, I don't, we really need it to be even Tony to shake out and a couple things to shake out in order to find somebody who'd be fun, you know? So we should know in a couple days or so what's going down because I want to fight in May. I want to fight on May 11th on that Dallas card. So it ought to be somebody who's willing to fight sometime in May within the next couple months.

Is there specifically, and by the way, it's May 13th just for the record. UFC 211. Is there a specific reason why you like that card? I just like the timing. Okay. May I want to be able to enjoy a little bit of the summer. So I usually fight around that time. That's just my schedule. Okay.

I fight around that time. I'll fight a little bit again toward the end of summer. And I usually fight before the holidays. So it just works out good for the family. You mentioned they talked about someone from the Ultimate Fighter. Michael Kiesa has been calling you out a lot. He's been active on social media. His manager has been active on social media.

He's done interviews saying he wants to fight you. Is that the guy you're referring to? Yeah, yeah. And you're not too impressed. You're not too interested in fighting him? No, I don't want to. There's nothing zero for me to gain in this fight. I lost. No doubt I lost, but I can't, I don't want to go that far back. I'd rather, you know, I'd rather fight a big name, like a Nate Diaz or somebody who's done what I've done who put the work in that I put in and fought the guys that I fought, not a guy who hasn't fought anyone yet, you know, so. And if it's not that, at least someone exciting that the fans are excited about.

Sure. You know? Do you feel like they'd be more excited If it comes out to Porier and him Do you feel like they'd be more excited about Porier? I feel like on a In social network So far

The most buzz That I've seen is a fight between me and Tony And then a fight between Porier I don't think no one even blinked At the other guy So Just something that their fans are excited about I should do like a poll

Yeah You can do that. If we do a poll with the fans and then whoever they pick, I'll fight. Because at this point, we're not really giving any direction or a set opponent. You know that, just for the record, Kisa is higher ranked than Porier. Does that mean anything to you at this point? No, not at all. It's more about the name and what they bring to the table.

Yeah, the name, the excitement of the fight. And, yeah, people know them. I mean, when I entered the UFC, I just try to fight the most popular guys that the UFC had. You know, like just one by one, it was the only way that people would know who I was because although I fought all over, I was virtually unknown. So I needed to be able to fight the bigger names in the UFC in order for people to know who I am. Are you frustrated, Eddie, that, you know, now Connor is taking this break and he's trying to get this Mayweather fight. there's no return in sight. Do you feel like, oh my gosh, it's going to be a while since I, you know, even if I went two in a row,

he's taking a break and there's this queue of guys. It's going to be a while before I get into that situation in that title picture, or do you feel like it will be quicker than we think? No, I don't care what he's doing. He's doing whatever he's doing. The UFC made an intern belt pretty quick, you know. He got four three months ago they made an intern belt right away. away. So the UFC's moving on. They're not, they're not waiting for anyone. And I could, I don't really, I'm not concerned with what he's doing. I just need to get a good solid opponent in front of me and put

them away and then put me right back on the map again. I'm excited about doing that, you know what I mean? Are you surprised that they put in an interim title just three months after your fight? I was. I was. I was really surprised. I thought, is there just three months. you know yeah guy take three months off i remember when i got when i got the title i got a call like like three days later saying hey do you want to fight in five weeks and i'm like wow this is that's a little fast i didn't even i didn't even get i don't even think i was home yet they're asking me to fight in five weeks i'm like now i i'm not fighting in five weeks that's for sure yeah so um they they definitely move quickly yeah uh by the way you mentioned

Ferguson and Diaz and Porre, but you didn't mention Habib, who you have a bit of a history with, and I think that was the guy that they tried to book you against five weeks later. Are you not interested in fighting him if that's presented to you? I think now, yeah,

because he's in front of me now. Okay. So anybody, the problem with the Khabib fight is the problem that happened this weekend. Like, you almost have to book. You almost have to book. You got to make sure

the UFC has someone double booked because this is the problem with with kibb you don't know and i'm a guy i take two and a half months out of my life i just want to fight a guy that you know shows up most of the time um so you don't want you don't want to cut out two and a half months out of your life and then sign down the dot line with an opponent who mostly drops out so that that was my biggest concern with Kibibb. And it just kind of happened, you know. I remember when we visited you in Kensington and had that nice chat, you mentioned that the thing that, you know, you've been dreaming about the most is the million-dollar fight.

And I'm wondering if you got that fight as a result of Connor. Did you check that one off your bucket list? Yeah. Yeah, that's checked off. It's not, I'm not any happier of a man because of the way the fight went. But yeah, that's a bucket list check. But I think what happened more than anything was I needed to set more goals. So I needed to take this time to sit back, reflect, and spend some time with my family,

and then sit down and set new goals, set some new goals that I can reach for and get excited about. I think I told you, I was setting goals and I was checking them off one by one and looked down one day and I have everything that I ask for, everything that I want it. So it's time to ask for more things. Do you have those goals now, or are you done writing them down? I've, I've have them in vision. Nothing written down yet, but I have an idea of what I want now. Could you share any of those with us?

I'm going to keep in my pocket. I'll share them very soon. Okay, fair enough. And just curious, because again, haven't talked to you in a while, when this association came out and Bjorn Rebney was involved, everyone thought of you and your issues with him. What was your reaction when you saw that he was going to be trying to fight for the fighters' benefits, considering your history with him? How did you react to that, to his presence with these great fighters like George St. Pierre and Kane, etc.? I mean, initially, I thought this is a terrible idea putting him in the forefront of it.

but having him on the team they couldn't have they couldn't have found a better guy on the team to fight for the fighters because you know how like when a hacker gets caught they flip them

because he because he knows like the hacker knows how to get in the system so the FBI teaches they tell the hacker like if you don't tell us everything you know then we're going to lock you up I looked at it like that same way

like here's a guy who knows every which way, every angle of how to really damage a fighter or their career. Now, if you flip him on the fighter side, he can do the complete opposite. So I thought it was genius to find the guy who knows all the ins and outs. So it's good to have him on your side, for sure. But I don't think it was good putting him at the forefront. His face should have been more like a silent part. partner. But do you trust them? I mean, there's still that trust issue, right?

I don't know if I trust anyone in the world of MMA, Ariel. Okay. I trust my family. Everyone has an interest, so everyone has an interest. Yeah, there was a time when you didn't trust me, and then I showed up to your hometown. How about that? So maybe I fall under that category. And so, yeah, you showed up, man, that's the thing. You showed up. You gained my trust. Thank you. Thank you.

By the way, did they reach out to you about joining? I mean, did Bjorn try to reconnect with you to join that group? No, no, we're not. We're cordial. I'll be cordial with Bjorn and off. I'm not joining any group. Do you feel like there is a, you know, there is a chance that a group like that can succeed? Are you interested in looking into it?

I don't know because I don't know enough about it I'd be ignorance to form an opinion I just from what I know from what I hear anyway it just seems like a lot of attorneys with their own interest in mind and not the fighters you know so um the the best way for this to happen for anybody to stand up the top three guys from each weight class would have to step up and say, I'm not fighting. And I think something would change. But something serious and drastic would have to happen. Like every champion would have to say, we're not fighting.

And then that really puts a stick in some things. That's not going to happen. So nothing's going to change. Such a fascinating story. Okay, so before we say goodbye, just to recap, in case someone's joining us late, You want to fight May 13th in Dallas. They've talked about Porre. They've talked about Keisa.

Your ideal fight would be Nate Diaz, but right now there's no real interest. You're interested in Tony Ferguson, and you're waiting to see what happens. Is that fair? That all sounds very fair. Perfect world, though. Number one would be Nate.

Yeah, yeah, man. And I'm shocked, man. I'm really, I'm actually shocked. I don't know why. I think he did that amazing interview You in Mexico. It was the funniest interview I ever seen was when, after I beat his friend, he said, well, fuck you, Eddie. Yeah.

It was great. I thought for sure this guy would fight me. He was trying to actually fight you before the whole Connor thing happened, if you recall. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He got a taste of money. He got to taste that money, and now he's, he changed. Wow.

All right. Do you think he'll ever fight again? maybe Connor just Connor maybe I'll fight Connor I think that's it Is that weird to you? Um

Is it weird What weird? Did I wait for Connor? Just him like just what I mean you know Fight so much Get a big payday And now just only

Really be interested in fighting one person Yeah it's I have conflict and feelings About it But um I understand I understand His thought process

I mean, you wouldn't, I have an idea of what he's getting paid. So it wouldn't make sense for him to take a normal paycheck. Okay. To fight me. It would make sense for him to wait 10 years and possibly get the Connor fight. Yeah. Rather than fight me and be impatient. It would make more sense for him to be patient.

But so I understand the business aspect of it, which it's intelligent of him to do. you know, eventually you got to get back in the cage. Times are ticking, you know. Right. We'll see. All right. Well, great to hear from you again, Eddie. Thank you very much for the time.

And keep us posted on this fight offer that you're expecting. Would love to hear what it is. For sure, man. Okay. Thank you. All the best. Looking forward to return. There he is, Eddie Alvarez,

the former Belator champion, the former UFC champion looking to return. May 13th has a lot of options. Let's see what happens next for him. Okay. Can't wait for this interview. I've been dying to talk to this man. What a week it was for him.

This time last week, we thought he was going to fight Habibn Mugamatov at UFC 209. Of course, you know by now it did not happen. Handled it with unbelievable class. I don't know if I could have handled it that well. It was pretty amazing to watch. We're talking, of course, about Tony Ferguson, who is kind enough to join us on the phone right now.

Tony, are you there? Yeah, buddy. I'm doing here. How are you doing it? I'm doing great. Really, really appreciate you joining us, Tony. Okay, let's start. When did you start to feel like this was in jeopardy?

When did you first catch wind that the fight was kind of maybe not going to happen? I didn't, it never crossed my mind that one time. Out of all this stuff that Kavid was saying, I gave respect to him. I still wish you doing great. But I just think it was very disrespectful and very unprofessional or what this came did, especially after all the sacrifice that I came to this fight. I woke up from the sleep. I didn't feel it.

I felt like shit. My right side of my body was hurt. the back of my back was hurting but you guys never know me to say anything or bitch about it so I had two more pounds to lose in the morning I went I lost my weight very slowly

it sucked we went to the way ins and I did my part I weighed in didn't show up with jeans on the scale and I went back to the hotel and I was like you know I need to lay down and I don't feel too good and I don't know from just eating or rehydrating too fast or what it was

but I laid down and as soon as I woke up from a nap literally, literally woke up from a nap and I'm looking at my wife and I'm looking at one of my managers and they're telling me that they sat me down and like oh shit

somebody from my family dad or something like crazy and they said they could be I went to the hospital so I'm like all right you know like he went to the hospital but like you know I'm still thinking in my head I'm like okay you still have a fight

just relax and then I just get when that he not sure what happened nobody hurt from him and he just went to the hospital and that the fight was going to be canceled so

I mean you tell me how you feel I was in shock I was just I don't do this fucking sucks personally how did your boss like Dana White said that he's never seen a fighter react and understandably so to

you know we've seen this with Cormier and Jones but he said that you were in in pretty bad shape is that accurate like how are you reacting to this news so close to the fight i was frustrated i was pissed he uh i you know i fight for my company i always do it which is great you know but i was pissed at the situation that you know so as they let me cool down as soon as i went to uc hq and i walked in there i was very professional um you know and i just i was just like what the hell you know like what am i going to do i'm sitting here out family support you know i've been

it's been a really crappy process dude it's just been really a crappy process because I wanted to give the fans exactly what they wanted which is an amazing fight well we were the people's main event and that was like something

I just kept hearing about over and over and over so that's exactly what I wanted to do and they offered me they said something about Michael Johnson and I was for a second it took me to process because now we're not going backwards this is the UFC we aim to keep climbing

these ranks I broke my arm and I went back And I was like, all right, this is cool I did my work I had every single step of the way This title shot, this interim title shot Was not given to me ever This was earned

It's like literally their blood sweat tears man It was crazy So they went off to me The Michael Johnson fight And it wasn't at the weight that I was at And just a lot of frustrations It's going on and you know It's kind of a crappy situation

Ariel and I hate it It's a really shitty situation and I would love to fight the beat, but there's no guarantee that he's going to show up and make weight. He's eating, he's eating. I found out, too, that he was eating Tiramisu a couple weeks ago, like, on Embedded.

I'm like, what does this guy do it? Like, really? It's plain disrespectful. It's very unprofessional. And my next fight needs to be a title fight. I've earned every single ride of the way. I mean, there's somebody that's just guaranteed to show up. I've done all my homework.

I've done all my, making my ends meet for this fight. But, you know, if we're talking Kabib, there's got to be some sort of guarantee your insurance for this, man. You know, but I just,

it's a crazy bug that I can't squash and it's a tough pill to swallow there. And my family and I were going through like just some kind of crazy emotions right now because now it's starting to sit in. Yeah. Like we're at the fight, and I'm still staying professional,

dude. I still wish him good luck. I hope, you know, he really needed to go. I really hope that he needed to go and not watch my open workouts or did anything else and got scared because I wasn't running away. I'm not that kind of guy that's going to run away.

And for a tough opponent like him, you know, I was just, I was hoping to give the fans exactly what they won. It was a bloody-ass fight because the main event sucked. I mean, I told everybody by it. I thought it was going to be a great fight because these guys are fans of these dudes.

I was sitting here pissed off, you know, and myself. in the stands watching this fight in front of me. And I can't shake it because these fans are booing. You know, but I love my fans, and I think they shouldn't have booed. I mean, it was a great, it was a great fight, dude. These guys are champions. You know, you hit the chess match.

It's not checkers. So it's different. I don't know. It's kind of frustrated. Would you say that, like, it's almost like a grieving scale where initially, like, you came out and you're on the mic at the wands and you're like, you know, buy the fight, all this stuff. I see you at the fight and you're kind of pumped up doing the belt thing.

But now you're back home and you didn't get that release and you didn't go out and do what you left your home to do. And now on this Monday it kind of hits you like this whole thing really, really sucks. And you didn't have finality to it. Is that a fair way to describe how you're feeling now? I mean, I just don't get it. I mean, how can you miss weight at this level? I mean, everybody wants to blame the weight cutting. But it's not what a high level champ does.

You know, it's like, I heard you with 30 pounds over, and it was crazy. It's about being disciplined and doing it the right way. It really is. I busted my ass and spend a lot of money to go into this entire can't. You know, to go out on the night before the fight when it can't happen, it's going to hurt me and my family financially, man. It came in off from me, Johnson, which I understand, you know, but I wanted to whip Michael Johnson's ass and avenge my loss.

But I can't take a pay cut for it, no title. It made absolutely zero cents on this one, I know. I begged them to pay me. fairly so I can whip his ass, but they refused. Why? Why did they refuse? They were already allocating that money. They were ready to pay you that money. Why did they? They sold tickets for you to fight. They sold tickets to people who wanted to see you fight.

What was their reasoning behind not wanting to pay you the same amount? I'm not sure, but you know, Dana said that he paid me at the post-fight presser. Yeah. And reports are saying that it was my show money. Yeah. But I don't know what he actually paid me. I haven't even received it yet. You know, so am I thankful that Dana wants to do the right Yeah.

I appreciate him for it. I tip my hat. But I would need more insurances next time when this happens again for Khabibh. I'm not losing money off of his fault,

even if it is a replacement. I'll fight anybody, you know, as long as it's not, I'm not punished for something, you know, that somebody else is not showing up to do.

I mean, I did everything on my part, media obligations, signed up, I even waited on both scales. I did everything and just, I was ready,

dude. Like all fighters, I budgeted my attention. entire camp off of my show money. My wife works, so she and I save enough money to buy a home, and I'm remodeling it, which is for my absolute purpose for this game, my career.

Yeah. You know, this fight was going to have enough to afford this house with my payments for the year, you know, covering remodeling costs for my home gym and place so I can raise my son and put food on table. And yet, here I am, looking at my empty space wall with no belt, and I'm still trying to stay as humble as possible

and professional. It's hard. The Nevada Athletic Commission released the payments for the card, and it said that you were going to make $2.50 and $250, are you able to say if that's accurate? And if so, are you able to say what they were asking or saying that they wanted to pay you to fight Johnson if it wasn't your $250 show?

You know, it wasn't what I wanted. Okay. They wanted to give me something, but I just wanted my show money. I felt like at least I deserved that. in the day before, man, and I'm going to take a huge pay cut more than probably half. And, you know,

just, it was frustrating, dude. I want to keep saying, you know, it's frustrating, but here I am starting from the mailroom spot from the ultimate fighter,

with ultimate highs and lows. And there's no sad me story here. I'm going to be, I'm going to be Tony and Gregory Ferguson, no matter what. I'm coming after that belt. This is, This is my time.

I mean, who else is next? I'm not going to fight anybody else next. You got to give me Connor. He needs to defend his title or he needs to vacate it. This is a game that I play. But, you know, I did everything up for Fight Week. I really did. As much as I could, as much as my body freaking hurt and sucked.

And dealing with these guys circle my family, and it was crazy, man. A lot of BS, this fight. But yet, you know, I'm glad I gained a lot of followers. And I'm glad the UFC was able to have a show. and it sucks, but I'm not taking a pay cut. That blows, that blows big time. So is it fair to say, because you said you'll only fight for a belt next, you mentioned Connor, unless it's the real belt against Habib,

you're not interested anymore, you want to fight for, you know, you don't want any interim title fights anymore, you want to fight for a real belt? Well, I want a belt that I can hold. Yeah. Yeah. If it's interim or not, like I said, if it's real enough, if I can touch it, I can see it and I can look at it and I can hold it and my son can look at it and enjoy it.

Yeah. That's real enough for me. Okay. It really is. So I can't figure out if who wants to fight or sign a god line. There's nobody. I'm ready to go. I'm absolutely ready to go.

You know, I, this weekend was a shitty one. Yeah. I said, I'm still ready to go. My body doesn't know any difference. Like I have to go and go through practice or get beat up. or go through sparring or do something because my body still feels like it's fighting Kabib. I prepare for 10 rounds.

My camp was like nine or 10 week camp. That's how long my camp was. So right now, when you're kind of sitting here, you don't know what's next yet, right? And they haven't off because there's been some people trying to push for you to fight on the Buffalo card in a month. Have they talked to you? This is what we would like to see you do.

This is what we want to see you do. This is our plan for you. Do you have any idea? Well, right now I think they're letting me cool down. Okay. Let him get home to enjoy my family a little bit. Yeah. You know, I don't know about Kibu.

He says he might be ready in May before Ramadan. But, you know, this is my stage, dude. This is my time. I met. I was ready. Everybody saw the open workouts. I opened up a little bit. I want to show some cool different things.

And there's just no guarantee to fight that, dude. Right. You know, there's, he's got to be able to put my family through that again. It's got to be either guaranteed belt. I just don't want no BS in, man. I'm a fighter. I have management that does a lot of stuff, but I'm a fighter. And I fight really strong and I fight really hard for the fans and for my company.

And regardless of who it is, I just want to be able to be compensated for my time of my efforts, man. And as a fighter, especially when I'm spending it on camp. would you be interested in coming back and fighting on that April 8th card or do you need some time to cool off I told you I'm ready to go okay really I am like my body is ready I'm a champion dude champions are made in the dark I've said that before but I really believe it um I'm here really putting in my work and my effort and you know me I can shit talk if I really want to but uh it's uh it's uh it's not it's not something I want to do it's not in my bag right now like I really feel that my skill set is at that that certain level where I haven't peaked it

that it's elite like these guys don't have any idea what they're in for once they get into clinch with me I don't know if you saw that I'm doing open workouts I hit I call it the specialist it's almost like a scissors takedown from a duck under and it's a nasty cool take down I've been learning leg locks and I'm ready to go bro I mean I even thought about bumping up to 170 or down the 145 but those are I mean Tyler Woody's got 170 pounds but I knocked everybody on at 170 and 155 I've been finishing dude left and right.

And I have no problem getting bigger. As far as the future, as far as I'm going anywhere. I'm staying here. I'm strong. I'm active. And I still love my sport, dude. I'm just sad that they didn't get to go out to demonstrate the awesomeness and the leitness

that myself in my camp really prepared for. Literally it was awesome. You guys were such a great treat for it. What was it like, you know, knowing that I was not surprised that you were in attendance, but I couldn't help but think, like, man, I can't imagine what's going through his mind.

How difficult was it to sit in that arena, knowing that around, I don't know, 9 p.m. Pacific time, you should have been in the cage fighting in this fight that everyone was so excited, people's main and all that stuff. How are you processing that? You know, it was hard. It was really hard.

I think more than anything else, I was trying to just, I wanted to enjoy the fight. I wanted to make the best of it. And so that time being, just to enjoy it. Because it is about the life, the camera, the action. You've never been to a UFC event.

That's sad. You have to go, save it with your money, save what you got to do. You got to get to an event. You got to, just take it all in and soak it in. And it's not about, like, who you're sitting next to her, it's just the vibe and the aura. If you're there and you listen to the music,

you're getting pumped, you're sitting there, you're looking at the stage, and you're sitting there on the canvas, and you're like, yeah, I want to be, those guys, you got NFL guys coming up to you saying, I mean, these guys are big, and they're like, we're big fans of you. Oh, can we get a picture?

Like, dude, oh, yeah, dude. I'm like, look at the Super Bowl ring. I'm like, that thing's fucking crazy. That's awesome. That's eliteness. That's awesomeness. And they're looking for my autograph and for my picture, and I'm just kind of being chill, and I'm just, and it kind of, you know what, made the sting go away.

Oh, okay. It kind of made the sting away because, you know what, they were there for watching me. They were there, not just me, but Khabib, they were there to watch a, great, spectacular, epic battle between two of the world's best lightweights. He only had nine-fighted Winston Street. They had 24 at O. Winston.

He was going to have his first loss, and I shed it. And I called him out during Wayans. I called him out during everything, and he couldn't shake me, baby. He could not shake me one time. I went through there, and I looked at him, and he just couldn't figure me out. He just couldn't figure me out, dude. So is there a part of you that feels like he looked for a way out? Do you believe that?

I don't know. I mean, he has management. I mean, management does what? They take care of you. There's processes. When I heard that there was ways to save this fight, I was a little bit more frustrated because out of all the crap that his manager talks and says they were the best,

and they didn't know enough to go through the UFC. That's why I believe it's so unprofessional and just, just crappy, dude. I mean, regardless if he wanted to win or lose, he was going to lose, in my opinion, thus from all the numbers that I put in, from all the rest that I've actually took in, and just how mentally prepared for warfare I was.

This guy was going to try to advance, but just like the Spartans, dude, I was going to be right there waiting for him. I know you said that you want some sort of assurance, you know, if you get booked again, but mentally are you able to, you know, come to terms with the idea of going through this whole roller coaster with him again. Let's say they come to you and say,

we want you to fight him in April or May before Ramadan. Do you feel like you can get mentally set on this? Or three times the fight gets canceled for various reasons, is it going to be a little more difficult to get up for the fight? Because you don't know if it's actually going to come to fruition. I don't know, but a little joke, I might have to hire Mike Dolce for him. It's funny that if they wanted to book you,

I don't even think Jane would want to book it. Yeah. You don't know. I mean, did you ask him? I had no idea. Like, honestly, like I said,

I'm ready to fight the absolute next person. I said I was going to pick off everybody from the top ten all the way down. So far, so good. Yeah.

So far, so good. I want Connor. Connor needs to fucking either defender vacate. Yeah, he's next in line. Alvarez, is it? Nate Diaz, you want me to go backwards?

I'm not going backwards. Like, that's the defeat the whole. entire purpose of being a professional. I've done it so many times where I say face and I thought landed banana, which both of them, you know, they had a badass fight. Yeah. You know, that's exactly what I thought it was going to be. It was great. The other kids stepped up. But I'm not trying to fight freshmen, man. I'm not trying to fight incoming like sophomores. This is not how it goes. I'm a veteran in this sport now. I deserve my title shot. I deserve a top-notch opponent that's

going to sit there and make weight. And, you know, I'd give me some shit. I want that fight. I think the fans want that fight. My skills is far superior than anybody else is in this position. I believe that I'm becoming more professional, more mature. I believe that my skill sense are the same. I believe 150% I will be future chance regardless of when and where.

By the way, just to be clear with the timeline, when you stepped on that scale for the early wands, did you not know that he had been to the hospital? I had not known anything. Wow. What I had known was somebody telling me a text thing that Kibibu wasn't looking good, but I've never really paid attention to him. I never looked at his page.

I wasn't stalking him. I wasn't shaking one bit until I had to worry about him. I knew he was going to make the scale. I absolutely thought he was. I really did think that he was going to make the scale. But I just thought like shit that morning. Like I said, I had two pounds to lose it. My body's going through hell.

Yeah, people say that he walks around at 185, not 190. I walk around around like 200 pounds. I'm 511. Wow. It's not easy for me to lose the weight, but it's discipline. It's being a professional and not missing weight. And that's the thing I can't get. When you have that many people looking at you to lose the weight and to honor your contract and to be there,

it's a very hard, like I said, tough pill to swallow. And I don't know if I want to put my family through that. I really don't. But I'm always ready to fight anybody any kind. But the assurances and what I have to be able to show up for, we've got to put my family much more in a situation of doubt and what was I received. It's just crazy.

Last thing, Tony, what's the game plan now? What do you do? How do you, what's the next step? How are you going to see what's next for you? I stay sharp. I'm going to wild card boxing this week. My boy Rashad Holloway is going to take me in it. We're going to be spying some professionals.

I'm going to be upping my Moipai game at Black House As far as my jiu-jitza We'll keep choking necks and cashing checks My 10-planet of jitza And literally I'm not falling off of this I'm not falling off the rock This is where I'm at

I got the ball in hand And I'm going to keep moving forward, baby I'm going to hit him with the switch Like Alan Iverson I'm going to keep my right hand hard I was going to hit him in the stomach so hard So the next person I fight is going to get hit in the stomach so damn hard,

they're going to have to take a knee. Literally. The amount of bag work I put in as far as my boxing and my kicking and movement, oh, man, I can't rob you guys of that. You guys need to see me fight soon, like real soon. I'm ready to go, and I'm going to keep gearing towards you.

I'm going to do a hell of a lot more sparring this fight. I only sparred like maybe one time last fight. Wow, that's it. Damn. So much respect for you, Tony. Really, you handled this really in the most impressive way possible. I don't know if many could do the same.

I can't imagine how difficult it was. So kudos to you on that front. I speak for everyone. So disappointed. I met a guy, by the way, at the arena. I'm there getting something to eat. Main card. And he comes up to me and he goes,

Hey, Ariel, who do you think is going to win? Habib or Tony. And I said to him, you didn't hear the news? And this is now like 36 hours later. And he's like, no, I've been driving all night. I said the fights canceled. The look on his face was like I just told him his dog died. He was devastated.

I mean, he was not joking. He was devastated. And that kind of summed it up for everyone. And I can't imagine what it was like for you. So kudos to you. And I hope you get booked to and I hope you get what you want. Absolutely. And I ran into a whole bunch of people that same way inside and outside of that arena. Like I said, fans, stay true, stay loyal. I love you. And you guys will see me soon. Thank you, Eric, for the time. All right, there he is. Tony Ferguson. Great stuff from him. Appreciate his time. What a difficult situation. One fight that did happen on Saturday. What a phenomenal fight.

pay-per-view was Alastair Overn versus Mark Hunt, a rematch of a fight that happened back in 2008. Like in 2008, Overim won, different way this time, but equally impressive. We're talking to Alistair right now on the phone. Alistair, are you there? I know, I'm here. I just woke up. Oh. A little day. I'm still a little sick, not 100% yet. But I'm on the phone. You got me. Yes. My girlfriend just had me to have it been in front. Hey, you got an interview right now. I guess she's on orders from my management team. And here I am. Look at the day still, happy. We've got the victory. But days nonetheless. Well, I appreciate you joining us, especially mid-nap. Thank you, Alistair. That means a lot. It was quite the eventful week for you, but we didn't know.

In nap, I hadn't even woke up. So you're still sleeping? Yeah, well, this is not my afternoon nap. This is my... Oh, this is your real nap. This is like the sleep. This is the sleep. But aren't you in Miami right now? Yeah, I got in this morning, but I slept from a plane, too.

Okay. I'm a little bit of messed up, I guess. Okay. Well, again, even more so, now that I know that I actually woke you up from your night's sleep, I appreciate it. Could you tell us when you started to feel sick? Um, all right. First of the evening, we, um, we ate some sushi. Uh-oh. Where? By the way, it's a very bad idea. It was in, uh, Belasio. A good, good sushi place.

Okay. Because I really do my home on that. Where to eat good sushi, good quality. Because I'm, of course, sushi and not, right, 11 years, Japan. Yeah. Yeah. I know good sushi from bad sushi. So did research, found this place, Belajio, went there with team at first evening. We were done at like, I don't know, 11 p.m.

Yeah. And nothing going on there still went back to a hotel. And then fell asleep. And the next morning when I woke up, I was messed up. And it kind of got worse in the day. Okay. And then, yeah, I got like really bad. I was, I was, you know that when you get food poisoning,

you have like zero energy. Oh. And you're kind of like, I was just lying down all day, no energy to stand even up, get out of bed. And also, time went by fast. I didn't even know. If I look back, I don't even have clear memories of what I was doing that. It was actually, okay, so Thursday, we ate. Friday was the weighing in.

So Friday morning I woke up, I was all dizzy and this night, low energy. But we did have the weigh-ins. You were there? I was like, yeah, yeah, I was like, fuck, I'm willing to do this way-ins. a big motivator was Mark was saying a lot of nasty stuff about me. Yeah, did you expect that? It felt like it took you about it. Like you were kind of surprised.

I did not expect that at all. Okay. Personally, I liked Mark a lot. I mean, I known the guy forever. Okay, do I know him well? No, he's not a good friend. He's not a guy. We don't text.

I don't have his number. Okay. But it was always okay. And every time I saw him backstage, it was okay. And I respect the guy tremendous. I mean, he came from K-1. He's doing the MMA thing now. He falls through adversity at several losses.

He's coming back. He's a veteran. He's an icon of the sport. I love that guy. And I don't know. I was very surprised, but it pissed me off. And I really wanted to fight him. Training camp was awesome.

A really good during training camp. There was like nothing bad or negative or sick or whatever. Training camp was awesome. And I really felt like, I... fucker, I'm gonna get him. And the only challenge was I needed to get like a little bit more into fit shape because Friday

I was all there, I was like messed up and even on the way and so I was like oh shit, okay, let me just put on my angry face. Yeah, you did a good job. Yeah, we did a good job. And then Friday evening went to the hospital, I-V, they gave me some

stuff against nauseous. They gave me some stuff against diarrhea. Oh, my. They gave me some I think it gets kidney too. But we checked everything with Usada before. Listen, we don't want to get in any trouble. We had our troubles.

We learned from it. We're not going to go in that direction anytime, anytime again. Yes. So we really did our homework. We had Yisada set up, a U.C set up the IV. So UFC was in touch with Ysada and we had a TUE. So we went there and took a couple hours. We got the IV.

felt kind of a little bit. I was still very weak after the IV, but took some sleeping medication also, approved, you start approved, slept. And then when I woke up, I was kind of better, but not really,

still low energy. So again, hospital. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, that was a fight day. Wow, Saturday now. So this is your second trip to the hospital? Second trip to hospital. And hardly any food, too.

Wow. Because first at dinner, and I ate a lot. That was like the dinner. Yeah. But then Friday, I didn't eat. And then Saturday, I had maybe a couple bites, a couple bites and maybe two yogurt. Like really minimal. And then yesterday was some, I also hardly ate.

Yeah, yesterday had three slices of pizza. Wow. So still messed up. And but we did the fight, I felt kind of okay for the fight. And I really wanted to do it, especially, you know, Kabib dropped. And we had the way in, and then always after the way and we get this motivational speech by Dana. And then it was pissed because the Kabib fight was canceled. Right.

And if that happens, then there's not going to be another cancellation. That's just how simple it is. I kept the whole situation for myself. I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to make sure I'm in the best shape. I can be. And we're just going to go for it. I have a lot of confidence in the team and my training.

The work I put in is basically after steep a loss, you know, that was a big fight, big loss. But I didn't stop training. I just went back to the gym and improve on several different things. And I just knew that this is going to be enough. Even if I'm 70%, I can still be Mark Hunt. So that's what we did. I mean, after that second trip to the hospital,

I was like, okay, fuck, we're just going to go for it. And we did. Wow. Unbelievable. What a story. When I look at the pictures, though, you can see my belly. I look like a fat guy. Oh.

I actually had abs. My abs. My waist is actually small. But when I look at the picture, I look like a fat guy. That's fine. You won. It doesn't matter what you look like. As long as you get the W.

Nah, you gotta win, and you gotta win this, all right? Were you ever close in your mind to saying, I can't do this? Was there ever a time where you thought you wouldn't make it to Saturday night? Well,

I, I, um, if, I, okay, so my whole thing was, I need to peek at the right moment. And I know my body very well.

I know my stomach, my gut very well, because you've got to know yourself, right? You're going to know, okay, whatever if I do this, whatever that,

24 years of training and, competing experience. So I knew if I do this tomorrow, because Friday was my bad day and Saturday morning was my bad morning. But the fight was Saturday

evening. And another good thing was I had the first five of the card. Yeah. Right? But the first fight was seven or something. Yeah. So I had to go to the arena five. Okay. And I okay, if I, if I can get my body good at like four, three, four, five,

six, seven. and then Stephen Seventh-Virdy, and then afterwards, it doesn't matter. So, focus on that, and I got my body right good at those hours. But if my body was the same as Friday, then, yeah, then it would not have been good. Have you ever in your illustrious... Sorry, go ahead. Especially fighting Mark Hunt, because he wanted to not... And, yeah, we don't want that.

You don't want to fight him if you're, like, really... You know, I was busy in the head. I was nauseous, extremely low energy. I had a hard time coming off out of the bed. You didn't want to come out of the bed. Wow. You know, if you put on your socks, it's like procrastinating. You're going to put it in your socks, bro.

I wait a minute. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Have you ever in your career experienced something like this where you were battling? And are you sure it was food poisoning, not some kind of flu? No, it was food poisoning because, It was all in the gut. Okay. And of course,

it was a little headache. Yeah. I had it once before, actually. I had it before the Ben Ravel fight. Oh, really? That was, that was a little different because, okay,

so that was the day before I ate some salad something, but I kind of felt it. Okay, so I felt it could go back to the hotel after lunch. Yeah. And then. I was like, I don't feel too good. I'm going to sleep. But then, like, in an hour, hour half, I woke up,

and my stomach was really bad, and I threw up. So that means it's coming out. This food, however, I ate it at, like, what was it, 10, 9, 10, and it got done at 11. And I went to the hotel, I didn't feel anything. And then the next morning at 8 in the morning, I felt it. So it's already through the system. Okay.

You can't, you're going to throw up. You're not going to throw up the food. it's already in the system. So this was more severe. Definitely more severe. And I'm still knocked out about because I'm still, girlfriend just handing me the phone. I have no idea where I'm always.

I'm at home in Miami. Okay. Talking to the nose. I'm not helping. I'm sure there's nothing you'd rather do than sit here and then lie down in your bed and talk to me. This is the perfect cure to your stomach pains. Well, if you, if you,

If you don't set me up, we should be fine. Okay. I never set you up, Alster. I love you. And so in the actual fight, adrenaline, crowd, lights, camera action, all that. Do you forget about your troubles or are you still thinking, are you still not feeling like yourself in the actual fight? Well, I felt my stomach.

And again, you look at the pictures. You can see my stomach is swollen. It looks like I'm on the Mark Hunt diet, right? The belly. You look great. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, my belly was kind of hanging out. But, no, when I'm in there, I focus on what I need to do.

Focus was extremely high. Again, camp was great. Love my coaches, love my sparring partners, love Albuquerque. Focus was high. You know, I was ready for this fight, and we pulled through for adversity. And we saw the Uber knees. I mean, those knees were something else. That must have felt good.

When you finished him off, he falls down. down, you walk away, that must have felt so good that you weathered the storm, right? That, oh, man, you did it. Even while sick, even while battling, you must have felt great. Yeah, yeah, but that result comes later because I ate some elbows myself. Sure. I mean, I remember the beginning of the fight, but yeah, then I remember being in the locker room and feeling very good.

I was like, hey, I think I want to fight. I feel great. Where's your arena am I again? The T-Bah ball arena. So, yeah, it turned not good. It turned not good. But I would not recommend it. I would not hope it on anybody because it sucks.

Food portion sucks. It really takes away energy, focus. Again, we pulled through. I had great advice from my team, from my nutritionist teams, how to have the combat. it. And we did what we could. I know you said that you're not best friends with Mark, but you had a lot of respect for him. Now that it's over and he still said those things, do you feel differently about him?

Did he, in your opinion, crossed the line with his comments? Well, you know, I know that Mark Hunt is a devout Christian. It's not a real Christian thing of him to say those things. It really is not. And even though I understand his hurdles because, you know, his last three questions, you know, his last three fights were against guys who pissed hot and isn't that. But yeah, I don't know. You know, and what I think, too, is he should stop being negative.

He's being too negative. He should stop for himself. As if you're complaining and bitching all the time, it's not good. It's not good for himself. So that's all, like I said. I'm sure, you know, he congratulated me for social media. I read that because, of course, everybody's reading everything these days. and my guys are coming to me.

Hey, it's congratulating you for his Instagram. I appreciate that. I understand his hurdles. Again, I like to be positive, really positive lately, really positive. Yeah, I like it. So we're going to keep doing what we're doing, and I don't have anything negative against him. He's on his own battles.

Again, he's an icon of the sport. Love his fight style. He's been through wars throughout the years. Like me, he's a... He's a K1 champ like me. Yep. So I don't know. I still love the guy.

Okay. Wow. That's impressive. So after the fight, as you know, everyone's trying to book you in the next fight. There's Angano talk, Derek Lewis talk, all kinds of names. If you had it your way, your perfect scenario. What is it? Perfect scenario.

Okay. So you have the new guys coming up. And that's Francis. Who you took a picture with, right? Did you guys take a picture after the press conference? Yeah, I respect him. I read one of his interviews. He really literally came out of nowhere.

Immigrated to Paris and then, you know, start doing the MMA. Marks Marchard's thing and came from out of nowhere, from nowhere. Yeah. I can respect our story. His motivation is high. Very athletic guy, too.

And then there's Derek Lewis. He's doing his thing. Kind of funny, right? Humor. Ron the Roushier thing, Travis thing. So he's a guy who's coming up. I can share myself finding him. but of course

of course I do a scenario you're asking me JDS is fighting to Pipe yeah if the ADS wins the rematch is there and I think he wants that too because I am the last guy

who yeah I've finished it and then yeah I think that's possible do you think it's an actual impossibility that they would book you against them

you know since you just fought for the belt not that long ago yeah of course Of course. Okay. Did you talk to Dana about it? He seems like Dana. Dana's a big fan of yours.

I mean, I remember there was a time when you guys weren't on the best of terms, but he comes to the press conference, sits next to you. I mean, it was a nice thing to see, I have to admit. It was a very nice thing of him to come to the press conference. And again, I did not tell him about the food poisoning. Wow. No, I didn't tell anybody. It was only my assistant who needed to get the TUE for the...

for the IV. And then we kind of had to tell what was going on. But other than that, we were not saying anything. And I didn't even tell my coaches. Wow. Because, I don't know, it just never occurred to me, hey, we're going to cancer this fight. And then on top of that, the Khabib thing happened. And then that was impossible because then it would affect the card.

And we all know the show must go on, right? The Khabibh, the Tuning, the Ferguson fight, not happening is a big loss already. So we had to step it up and we had to do it. Wow, what a story. Unbelievable. So if Dana didn't come to the press conference, would you not have told the media about this? Would you have just pretended this didn't happen? Yeah, correct.

I would not have told you. I mean, it happened in the Menroffa fight too. I didn't tell anyone down. Amazing. but I have so much respect for that performance I mean it was a great I thought it was one of your best in the UFC would you agree

kind of weird yeah it was a good performance but to me personally it could have been a little bit better sooner or finish sure Mark Hunt is a very tough guy but I was

the flow was there techniques were there the power everyone was there so to me it could have been a little bit of faster finish but yeah all to the next one

and also you kind Sorry, go ahead. On to the next one. I'm performing even better than... You kind of exercised... I interrupted you again. My apologies. Yeah, on to the next one. Yeah.

We're going to do even better. And we're going to... No more sushi. No more sushi. And you exercised the demons in Las Vegas because the last time you fought there was against Bigfoot. Now you get to have positive memories.

I know you had the Brock Lesnar fight, but your last... It's been a while since you fought in Las Vegas. It's been a while I fought in Las Vegas. It was a little bit by chance, too. I found it a little bit of bad luck. But then visiting UFC 200, I was in the Timorab Arena as a fighter supporting the event, as a guest, special guest. And I just loved the arena.

I just had something special to me. I once had this before, and that was in a Svectama Super Arena. I don't know if you've been there. Yes. had that very special feeling. From the first time I was there, and the first time I was there, I think, was 2001 or 2002.

I just loved it over there. And, okay, what happened there, I had my great victories. I think I beat Eagle v. Chanchin there. I had huge losses, too. I got my ass kicked a couple of times in Pride. I think against Little Mohawk and Ricardo Rona,

kicked my butt. But I came back. I beat Badahari, K-1 rules. That was a huge fight. I mean, millions, if not billions over the world saw that. And then I finished my career there, my fighting. I might still even fight over for the UFC,

but I finished there winning the Dream Heavyweight Championship belt versus, God of his name, but it was nice... Todd Duffy. Yeah. And that was my last fight there. And the weird thing was,

when I walked in that arena, 2001, I always had a special feeling with that arena. I was like, hey, something is going to go down there. And it all did. I mean, up, downs, but we finished strong. We got the dream. I went to championship. And very, very proud, very happy that I fought there.

But the special feeling I had from that arena was always there. And I kind of have similar feeling about this T-Mobile arena thing. Wow. What a great story. this has been this been one of my favorite interviews with you alster so nice no accusations here so far what'd you say we're keeping up up yeah we're keeping up people thought that we had an issue last week i don't know what they're talking about always trying to create drama this has been

very pleasant i'm so happy um you know to hear that you were able to overcome all this and actually fight and then look great can't imagine how you would have looked if you didn't go through all of that 24 hours prior but it kind of adds to your aura and to your story so congratulations It's great to see the Ream is back, the documentary series. I saw the guy filming. We did a little quick interview as well. Always have time for the Ream. And the last two episodes have been great as well.

So everything's good. You're back on track. You're in Miami. Enjoy the sun, the vitamin D. It's good to be you. And, of course, your birthday is coming up in just a couple of months. So life is good for the Ream. Birthday's coming up, May 17.

My little daughter, Jazz, just turned one. Wow. Happy birthday. Yeah, very happy. She's so funny. She's so energetic. She's so cute. But another big news, we got another one coming.

Oh. We're going to find out this. Wow. My girlfriend is halfway, and she's four and a half months in now. Wow. Mazel tov. Mazeltov. Mazeltov.

Thank you. Yes. That's great. That's great news. There's a lot of good developers, and that's what I mean. Keep things positive. I mean, and I understand the whole Mark Hunt thing, and sometimes you, you, you, you, you go over a negative stretch,

but you always got to keep it positive, man. About the Ream, started with the Ream, new crew. I'm very, very, very happy with the new team doing it. They're very motivated. The quality is up a couple of notches. We switched to color. So we did the two episodes now. You can check it out at alistowbram.com.

Yep. And they go to do Dr. I'm going to redo my website because the website is a little bit old now. But the doctor. The documentary is top-notch. It's great. It's cool. And it's a new fresh wind.

It's a new style. It's fresh. It's different. Yeah. And we're going to do a faster pace of episodes. Going to be a little shorter maybe. Okay. We're going to 20, 30 minutes, maybe 35 minutes.

But we're going to do many more. It's like every two or three weeks. We're going to come with either an item or an episode. Because it's exciting. I mean, listen, I'm not a big fan of myself. And especially I hate it when I hate it. hear myself talk. Oh my God. I'm like, please, down the volume.

But the story is, the story is cool. The story is taking you literally Holland, Amsterdam, Dubai, Thailand, Japan, the K-1, right, the K-1 days, pride of them. No, we don't have pride in the online series, but we have it in the first movie.

Yeah. I'm also going to do something with at some point. Of course, US, strike was in there and now UFC and it's been a tremendous attention and come check it out. Alcertainton.com, docu, watch one episode. You're going to watch them all and then you're a fan.

You have been watched. I agree. I've called it the best series in MMA. I love it. I'm happy it's back and I'm looking forward to the episode about this past crazy week in Las Vegas. Alster, appreciate the time. Enjoy your time off. Enjoy your rest.

Again, thank you so much for waking up for us. I can't thank you enough. And most importantly, again, congratulations to you and your wife on the upcoming baby. amazing. Yes, Ariel. Thanks for time. Much love. There he is.

Alastair over him joining us. Big win for him against Mark Hunt last week in Las Vegas this past Saturday night. Okay, the big news last week, of course, the return of GSP. It is official.

He's fighting Michael Bisping. They had the press conference. Bisping was late. What a scene it was. And he is so kind enough to join us. We've been through this journey with GSP. He came on this show back in June and said he's coming back.

Then in November, he told us that he was a free agent. And now he's back. What an amazing thrill. He's on the phone right now. George St. Pierre. George, are you there? Yes, I am. How are you? Are you? Good? Amazing. I am so happy to hear from you. I'm so happy that you're back.

I said at the top of our show, just seeing you there amidst all the craziness with Chabib and Tony, it was like a ray of sunshine, the return of George. And when I saw you walk into the cage, that video and you bowed and you ran around, that gave me goosebumps. What was it like for you? Now you're back. You signed the deal, everything. You've got your fight. When you walked back into the cage for the first time, what was going through your mind? It was amazing. I mean, it's glad to be back. It has ups and down. It's been a year now that I really wanted it. And I stopped. I lost hope after the Toronto show. I lost hope. But now we modify some stuff in our approach and negotiation. And it works well.

Unbelievable. So to me, it felt like, okay, I remember you were on this show and then you, you, you flew to Las Vegas, right? And you met with Dana and then you met with Ari Emanuel two days later. When you sat down for those two meetings and I know the first time Ali Abdel-Aziz was there and the second time as well when you went to New York, did you think you had it done for Toronto or was it still a long shot in your mind? No, no, after the two meetings, it was bad. No, it was not good. No. I mean, it was a good initiative to meet with Dana because we made peace. And the fact that I went to with Dana put our relation in a good way because we were only talking through social media and through interviews to each other in a way we're answering to each other so the fact

that we met face to face was a good thing uh was actually like pretty pretty cool and we we we we we we really uh told each other what was what was what and it was cool that that was cool that that And then after my agent was able to get in touch with Dana and Nick Cannes was able to do the job, you know? And then when you did the announcement for the association, a lot of people thought, okay, that's it. It's never going to happen. This is kind of, you know, our sign that George is not coming back. Did you think the same? Did you think that there was zero chance of you returning?

No, I always had, I didn't see the association as me not coming back. I see the association as something that could work with UFC for the benefits of the fighter. And I still believe it as it is today. I don't think it's a bad thing for UFC. I think in the long run it would be a good thing. I believe a fighter need to upgrade their status, you know. The thing, too, is USC is a business, you know. And of course, a lot of fighters sometimes they're not.

not very well represented and they, they sign bad deals. It's not also the UFC's fault if they find bad, bad deals sometimes it's because they do the wrong choice themselves, you know? It's like if you're in business and the guy is ready to sign for peanuts, that's not necessarily the UFC's fault sometimes. It's the fighter's fault. So I think it's up to the fighters to take the initiative for themselves as well, you know. It goes both ways.

I think the association can be positive for both sides. You're still committed to the association, even though you're back, correct? Well, a lot of guys are fighting and they're still part of the association, you know. One thing that I am not, I am not a coward. And it's not because I am back in the U.S. city and I'm going to throw all these guys that had the courage to step up with me. And I'm going to let them down. I'm not like that. You know, I said what I said was true, you know, what I believe.

I believe some of the fighter, they don't have their fair share of the pie, and I still do believe it. And it's up to them. I fought for it for myself, and I have it. But it's up to the fighter also to stand up and to do it for themselves, you know? Yeah, of course. So as the story goes, Freddie Roach and Nick Kahn of CAA sit down with Dana White once and then a second time. now that the deal is done is it the deal that you were looking for originally

do you have a better deal? Did you have to make concessions? How happy are you with the deal that you signed? Well, I'm going to tell you exactly. Please. To tell you the truth, how it is. It's not exactly what we want. It's a little bit below what we really wanted at the beginning.

But for the UFC, it's more than they were, that's what they said. It's more than what they were ready to give me. So we're both unhappy in a way, which is the middle ground line, and I guess it's a good thing. It's like a settlement in court, right? If both party are unhappy, I guess

it's a good thing. That's usually the best kind of deal as far as the outsiders are concerned. That's how it is. You know, it's like, that's how it is, you know. And also the love for the sport, and I'm very, I was excited, I wanted

to be back. The emotional side of it, make me go for, for, we accept the deal, you know, and I don't regret it and I'm happy. I'm happy with what I do, you know, if it's, if you ask me what, if it's what we want originally, no, it's not, it's a little bit below, but it's still very good money, it's still, it's still very close, and it's apparently higher than what they were ready to give me. So like I said, we both made concession on each part, not only on one side, on both side, and that's why the deal was made, you know. When you agree to the deal, did you say to them, I'm coming back because I want to fight Michael Bisping first, or did they come to you with the idea?

I know you've been interested in fighting him dating back to last year, but did you pitch them the idea of Bisping or did they come to you and say, okay, now is the right time for this fight? Well, it was only for a four-fight contract. And the idea of Bisping came before because first I was texting with Tyrone Woodley, if you remember, when it happened and Woodley made the text public, you know, that I text with him, you know, that he text me if I was interested to fight him and I said yes. And then he, then he said, let's do it. I say, yeah, let's do it. But I need to make sure my, you know, my contract is up because I don't have a contract right now. And then this fight did not happen. Wonderboy fought, was scheduled to fight. Woodley and Wonderboy, I'm a very good friend for Wonderboy, so I was very happy.

I have no desire at the point of my career that I am right now to fight a friend. And I don't, I'm not jealous for my friend. And as I said, I was very happy for him to have the opportunity to fight for the World Tauai title. And Bispang surprised everybody the way he won the title. He showed a lot of courage. He step up on a short notice fight, knock out Luke Rockall. And also, the way. way it was made, it was very inspirational for me. Michael B. Spring has been very outspoken for

performance and things like I am. Most of his loss come from guys that have been taking performance and enhancing drugs. And also, he's the kind of fighter. He's very inspiring because he's a very hard worker. He's not the kind of fighter that only rely on his natural gift, on his natural talent and his elegancy. Because those kind of fighters sometimes when they fight that way, when they crack and never come back the same. Michael have been brought down before in the past many times, and every time he stood up and came back stronger at every time.

So these kind of fighters are like the worst nightmare guys that you can fight, you know. As much as inspiring it is for me to fight him, and I'm glad because it's going to make good money, and I think Michael deserve it. and I deserve it I think it's a very very, it's the most dangerous fight that I've took

in my entire career. Yeah, because you haven't fought at 185 and I ask you about this, I asked you about this at the presser on Friday about in the past you've said if you go up to 185 you're going to stay there but is it fair to say that you're now changing your mind?

You may go back down to 170 maybe even 155 in the future you're not just because you're fighting at 185 doesn't mean you're going to finish your career at 185 or am I wrong? I am, I walk around 185, 190 pounds. Wow. I'm going to fight at 185 right now.

I know some, even some guys that fight at 155 walk around off-season at bigger weight than I am. I can possibly fight in those three divisions, but I'm back for one reason. I want to make history. I'm 30, I'm going to be 36 years old when I'm going to fight. and I don't it's all gonna depend of what's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen between us also I have no desire to fight until I'm 40 something years old so these are my last few fights that I'm gonna do and I want to pick them very carefully and when I say carefully I say that I want to make the biggest

biggest fight as possible the fight that's gonna cement my leg is as the best of all time, and that's what I want to do. I want to make history. And maybe I'm going to fail, but at least if I fail, I'm going to have no regret when I'm going to be 50 years old, because I know I'm in my prime right now, and I'm at my best. I want to prove it to the world, and I'm very confident I am going to be able to achieve it. So it all depends what's going to happen.

I don't know who's stuck going to be, whose fighters stuck going to be the highest. after that fight. And it's going to depend of what is going to happen like I said and how it's going to happen. Is there a part of you that feels bad for Uel Romero

who was supposed to get the title shot and now isn't? Yes, it's true. When something makes when an opportunity is create to make someone happy and make some time in our sport someone sad

and angry. But what I can say is this for YOL and it's the same thing happened to Damian Maya, Khabim Numagouinna, and it happened to me in the past, I know, because when I wanted to fight, Matt Hughes, the second time

have my rematch, I had to wait five fights. Dave Strasser, Jason Miller, Sean Sharp, Frank Triggs, BJ Penn, so I had to go through. So this is not a unique situation.

It happened many times in the past. And unfortunately, now Yuell is in the situation. And I, And I know it's bad, but what I can say is this. I'm a big pay-per-view. I draw a lot of paper-review, and I think the fact that I'm going on 185

is going to bring a lot of attention on the 185ers' weight class. And I think it could be a positive thing in the future. So you get to the press conference, and Michael is late. Did you feel like it was deja vu from the Nick Diaz press conference? Did you start to get worried about where he is? and then he shows up,

and he's a little bit, I guess, maybe intoxicated. And it seemed to me like you were a bit surprised by some of the things that he said. Were you, in hindsight, bothered? Do you feel like he crossed the line? Well, he cut me off guard a little bit. I didn't see him coming. I thought he would be absent of that press conference

when he first started and he wasn't there. And he started yelling at me. You know, there's a lot of guys that are, very good trash talker in this game. Connor McGregor is one. Charles Sonnen is one. He's an expert. And I always feel like I cannot get into a war

of word with these guys because first English is not my first language. And I'm just not good at trash talk. I do my talking in the fight. I'm not a good talker. I'm a good fighter. But what I can say is this. I do not believe

Michael Bisping is a good trash talker. I believe the best thing he did for me was to talk because he embarrassed himself every time he opened his mouth, you know? So he did the job for me. I didn't even have to say anything. Everything was saying he didn't make any sense of all the stuff that he was saying. Like, I'm only an athlete, I'm not a fighter and this. Like, all the stuff that he said, I didn't take it personally because I do not care about what he does. I care about what I'm going to do to him and I care about me and not about him. when you squared off with him what did he say to you and did he smell like alcohol he did smell

like alcohol i think i think they got the best of him did he say to you when you guys were squaring off well you some like stupid stuff like nonsense like you're like you're small i'm gonna beat you but and i said something like yeah you might be tall but you're gonna fall you're gonna fall from high like BS stuff. Okay. I'm just not good at talking, Ariel. I choose my fight.

I pick my fight carefully because it's not my thing. It's not my first language. And he's, you know, if I get into a war of word, it's not my thing. You know what I mean? And even though, but he's not a good trash talker, Ariel. He's terrible at it. The more he talks, the more he embarrass himself and the more he look bad. So the best thing he could do for me is keep trash talking.

He made me look good. Every time he's open his money, make me look better. Can you clear up the timeline for us? Because Dana White said that the perfect time frame would be around July for this fight, International Fight Week, July 8th. But I continue to be told September, October makes more sense and is what you're shooting for. Can you tell us when you think this fight will happen? Yeah, yes.

We'll be after the summer. We'll be after the summer at Rio. Okay. So is September October around? the time frame you're thinking? I know it will be after July. This is for sure. I can tell you exactly when.

Okay. Because a lot of things I need to do, and for the infrastructure and everything, it will be after the summer. That's for sure. And is it true that you, once you thought that you wouldn't get a deal done, you withdrew from Usada,

so now you have to do the whole four months all over again, right? Exactly. Because, you know, it didn't have any point for me to be in the USADA system if I'm not fighting so I got out of it and now I have to I have to be back in the USAder and do that the prior competition testing and it takes time yes okay and another thing that was a big topic of discussion at the press conference was your plan he tried to get you to tell us your plan you didn't want to say it and I respect that but I have to try here on your favorite show it's just us talking what is your plan

Can you tell us what your plan is? Yeah, yeah, I can tell you. Oh. But like I just, like I said, look, it depends of what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. Okay. And it also depends on the environment around me. What's going to happen in the environment around me? Who will be next?

Who will be the next big thing? Who will be the man that if I beat, it will cement my legacy to be the best of all time? Who would it be the man that will have the highest stock? Who will be the man? What would be my next move to do something that would not be seen before? That's going to depend. So we don't know. We can have an idea or speculate, but we don't know.

But in your mind, like if you're a guy who likes to plan things out, and I know we're March and you might fight September, But you say in your mind, okay, if everything goes to plan after Bisping, this guy's going to be next and this guy, have you thought of it like that? Yeah, I made a lot of scenario in my mind. But scenario, what I've learned in the past is I used to overthink stuff. That was one of my problems when I was fighting. Even I had problems to pull the trigger sometime because I was overthinking stuff. When you overthrink stuff, it never happened the same way you won't.

So it's It depends of what's going to happen What will be the next big thing for me Who will be the man to beat We'll see Okay by the way I think Michael Bisping is watching our interview right now Because he's tweeting to us

And you And he just tweeted this He said George said I made him look good By talking Dressed like a substitute teacher It's impossible to look good That's what he just tweeted Well he's

I don't understand How come he's such a very angry person, you know? For a man that had the opportunity and I have like everything he have in life, he should be happy and he should enjoy it the time that I will last

because when I'm going to step in the cage with him, he's going to lose everything, unfortunately for him. Wow, okay. And by the way, is it fair to say that you're only thinking about these four fights? Like you signed a four-fight contract? Is it possible that there will just be four more fights and that's it? Or would you be open

if everything goes well, of course, to signing another one. Of course, it's a possibility for me to sign another one. But I have no desire to stay in the sport too long, to become a punching bag for the younger open comer. Okay, okay, I understand. I'm in my prime right now. I'm in my prime. I will see how long it will last.

I ride the wave because I feel I'm on the top. But what I'm going to feel either in a fight or in training that I'm going down a little bit and I feel like my time is up, I'm going to get out. This is a game, this is a sport aerial, and this is I'm going to say that for all the fighters, the younger guy that are listening to me that are watching this. This is a sport that you get in, do you do everything, and you get out fast. I mean, when I say fast, you get out before you reach, before you reach the curve down. Because this is not a game. This is like a sport that you can hurt yourself. Every time you

step in the case, you can die. You can have very, very bad damage and unreparable sequel for cycles of the, of what can happen. Sure. Two last questions. I want to live old. I want to live healthy, wealthy, and it's the most important thing for me. And right now I'm in my prime. I got, I got maybe a few years ahead of me, I'm very happy, and I want to make the best out of it. Great to hear. I have two last questions for you. A lot of people are wondering about your sponsorships, and it was fascinating to see you in the Reebok outfit when they showed you on Embedded. How did you get around that, and will you be able to wear any of, you know, underarmor or whatever when you fight later on this year?

Well, what can happen is going to be a little bit. This is like stuff that. This is like stuff I don't want to say something wrong, but I believe it will be a little bit like Tom Brady, for example, in the NFL. When he's in the NFL, he's wearing Nike. But when he's outside, he's with Under Armour. Okay. It's going to be a little bit like the NFL deal, probably. Okay. I'm still a Underarmour guy, and I am for a very long time.

They support me for a very long time, and I'm proud to be with that brand, and I'm very happy to be with that brand. But when you fight, you will wear the typical Reebok outfit, correct? Yes. Okay. And last thing, can you compare this George St. Pierre, March 6, 2017, to the one right after UFC 167, when you said you needed a break? What's the biggest difference between this George and the one from three and a half years ago in terms of how you feel, you know, how your mental state is, your physical state? How can you compare the two? Physically, I'm in my prime.

emotionally and mentally, I'm glad. I'm happy. I love what I do. This break was rejuvenated. I'll be more opportunistic, ready to pull the trigger, more aggressive, and with a lot more tools and knowledge and wisdom in a fight. Okay. Wow. That is great. Sorry, George. One last question. Do you have any desire of being a welterweight champion again because that was your division for so long, or do you view that division as been there, done that? I need a new challenge. After the 185. title fight that is? Well, if everything goes well and the guy who will be the man to beat but there's a guy

in the Walter White Division that I see to me that if I have to make a prediction I believe it will be the champion. I don't like to see past thing but I think as he is right now Damien Meyer is like very, very skilled. I see him

as a very big threat right now for the title. I think he's going to win over Madjavoval and I think he's going to win over with Lee if he fights. I see, and he's older and he's in his prime right now. I think he reached the perfect timing in between physical and mental and in his game. You know, I think he's just so good at what he does. He's like a blade, you know, of a catana. You know, I think his blade that he's very sharp right now. It's perfectly polished, and he's going to be very hard to stop right now.

And if he becomes champion, you're interested in fighting him, that is? Well, it could be him, could be another guy. I'm just saying that as I see him right now, the way he fights, man, he finished Carlos Condit. Nobody has ever done that. Yeah. Like, the way he finished Carlos Condit,

I was shocked. I was like, oh, my God, what the hell is this? And he still doesn't have a title shot. Like, I was like, I was shocked. Like, he did something that never been done before. And I remember Carlos Condit when he fought Robbie Lawler. I gave the fight. I thought, I thought Condit was going to win the decision.

So for me, it was like, wow, I was shocked the way Damon Meyer been performing lately. It's just amazing. Woodley did a great job, too. I sought a fight this weekend, Wonder Boy and Woodley. Yeah. The way I score it, I thought Wonder Boy won three. three of the fifth of the five round.

Uh-huh. But the round that have been won with the most decisively is Tyrone Woodley. So the decision I could go maybe either way depending how you see the fight, you know? Right, yeah. Very close fight and maybe a 10-8 in the fifth. Very debatable, but I agree very, very close. George, I can't thank you enough. You have no idea how much it means to us that you come back on the show time and again.

And it is so great to see you back. It was such a, the timing was so perfect after the bad news that morning with Chabwe. Beeb and Ferguson to see you back. It was just, I mean, they couldn't have scripted it better. So on behalf of everyone, welcome back. Thank you for coming back. Thank you for being you. Looking forward to your return and looking forward to talking to you next.

But again, thank you so much for giving us some time. It really means a lot. Merci. Perfect. And I'm going to say, I know Bisping is texting right now, so it's perfect for me. I'm going to let him focus on the trash talk and all that BS stuff that he's trying to do. And me, I'm going to focus on beating him up. So it's perfect.

So as much as his mind is at the point, somewhere where he cannot focus on the right thing, it's perfect. Yeah, he's... I never interrupt my enemy when he's doing mistake. That's fantastic. He's texting me right now. He's texting me as we speak, some more stuff. You want to hear what he just said? Absolutely.

He said, so he wants easy fights. Me, because he thinks I'm easy and then Maya, not Woodley. Then let me guess, Connor at 170. No, no, easy. Anyway, whatever, he's got maybe the complex. I think he has a complex because people doubt him along for all his life. I think he has a mental complex. That's why he's thinking like that.

But anyway, it doesn't matter because when I'm going to fight him, he's going to see the difference. He's going to see the difference of levels between him and I. You're going to see the difference. Can't wait, George. Thank you so much. Good luck in training. We'll talk to you soon.

Thank you. Bye. All right. There he is, George St. Pierre. How are you not excited for this now? Come on. They're going to take care of you well. They said it.

Come on. This is fun. This is fun. I'm a sucker for this stuff. Bisping, tweeting, texting, fired up George St. Pierre. This is all very fun. But you heard it after July, like I've been telling you. All right.

We'll see what happens. Tremendous stuff there. Welcome back, George St. Pierre. Very excited to see him back. And I'm excited. Call me whatever you want. I'm excited. guy who I know is excited as well as our next guest, Ali Abdel-Aziz. He's been a part of the journey

with George St. Pierre since dating back to the Jackson Wink Days. He's been very, and like I said, he was at that initial meeting in Las Vegas with Dana White, Ari Emanuel, a real mover and shaker. He joins us right now, not to talk about George St. Pierre, but to talk about his guy, Habib Nur-Namaga-Madoff. It was a very interesting week for them. He joins us via the Magh of Skype. There he is right there. Ali Abdel-Ziz joining us from Las Vegas. Ali, how are you? I'm good. Ariya, what's going on? How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us. You've been around this fight game for a long time.

I know how much Habib means to you. How would you characterize last week in terms of how difficult it was to be that close to the big fight, the title fight, and then to see him get sick and not be able to fight? How did you handle it all? You know, I'm heartbroken. Habib's heartbroken. His father's heartbroken. We all are. But one thing we cannot control physical. you know or how your body feel you know and everything was on track Khabib for the first time ever was injury-free great training camp and normally Khabib had five pound or four and a half pound the day before he was good and just when when when Habeep tore his ECL he was in the hospital he was smiling when he tore his meniscus he was smiling When he broke his rib, was he smiling.

I was sleeping in the same room as hip, or right next to him. And they said, and I went in the room, and he was in so much pain, you know. And I never, you know, the guy, he doesn't even have face expression sometimes. You know, he's so tough. But when something like that happened, we can't control, you know. You know, it's just my heart I go out to the fan because, you know, Turn around Woodley and there was the main event, but the only main event, everybody was looking for Habib and Tony. This is what everybody was looking.

He checked the numbers. He chucked the countdown. Yeah. Everything. That child videos. And I was in shock when I see him in the, you know, because I never imagined Kabeeb to be in pain. I don't know why, but I finally realized he's a human, you know. I finally realize he's a human just like us because nothing affects his kid, you know.

When did he start to complain about pain? We did the last week cut. We were Surin Woodley in the gym. He always had a tough, tough night. The night before, he's always tough. You know, Tarum Woodard was kind of in wait. He was cutting in wait. Take a shower, went back to the hotel.

Normally, we were supposed to get back up at 6 o'clock in the morning and start cutting the weight. But at 3.45 in the morning, this is when I went to the room. I was right next to the room. My room is next to his room, and he was in so much pain. And after that, I panicked because he's not just somebody I managed. It's his middle brother, you know. And, you know, and I have a different relationship with all the guys I manage, because if I can be your friend or can be like brothers, we can work together, you know.

And he's very special with me. He lived in my home. He knows my kids. You know my wife. He's like Frankie Advert to me. You know, he's this close. And everybody know how me and Frankie are close. And I was just, I panicked.

And the first thing I wanted to do, I want to help him. I wanted to bring some care to him. I thought about calling the 911, but I thought, listen, we can pick him up. We really picked him up. We held him by his arms. He couldn't even walk. Put him in my car, drove straight to the hospital. You know, on the way to the hospital, I try to get a hold of the UFC.

It was 4 o'clock in the morning by the time we got to the car. You know, normally, for the last of 8, 9, 8 years, I work in the UFC. If any injury or anything happened, you call two people, the matchmaker and Dana White. And I did both. But, of course, I was 4 o'clock in the morning, you know, I don't know who to call, you know. And this is the protocol, you know. I know Dana come out and I said I should have called the UFC doctor or I called Brianna. but I never did this before.

And you know what? Dana's right. I wish I called Dr. Davidson because we went to the sunrise hospital and we was there for almost seven hours. Wow. And they treated us so poorly. And now, you know, I got a little offended.

It was then I was talking. He's right. You know, if we called the UFC doctor, but I never did before, I didn't know I was supposed to call him. We probably got treated like kings, you know, because, you know, he's the emergency doctor.

You know, he controlled a lot of the stuff at the other hospital. But, you know, listen, I don't know if this fight can be saved or maybe can be saved if we went to a different hospital. But the first thing they wanted to do was Kabib, like Dana said, they want to stick him with an IV. Yeah. Me and the doctor was fighting with Khabi to put an IV in him. He fought for almost an hour and a half. And finally, he just, the pain was so great. He just got an IV with some medication in it.

you know and uh and we all submitted now he waited probably back to 165 or so is you know he's no way this fight happened but maybe if i call dr davison maybe if i call beryana maybe if i you know maybe if they answer you know they didn't answer the phone but you know it's 4 o'clock in the morning you know he's he's he's not going to answer he's sleeping people are sleeping and i don't know if dr davison will answer probably he would have because he work at night shift in an emergency but, you know, listen, you know, it was really, really, one of the worst week of my career as a manager to see a friend going through this pain and suffering and, and listen,

did I feel sorry for the fan? Yes. Did I feel sorry for Tony? Yes, but not really after I heard his interview because, you know, he got sick before. The second fight they're supposed to fight the main event on Fox. Tony got sick. You know, we wish him the best.

and you know I thought Tony handled himself good you know but at the end of the day he wasn't going to miss weight because every fight he had five pound before six o'clock in the morning get up cut the weight

done you know but people doesn't understand too keep Kabib carried this whole car he did more interview than anybody he did more media than everybody we did everything and we did that for the reason to show the UFC look at the numbers.

Every video he did, hit over a million view. His countdowns triple Tarum Woodley's countdown. Shire video almost got two million viewers. Like, you know, he was the show. You understand? Tony was there too.

They both earned it. They two the best light weight in the world. And I think, you know, I feel that the fan and got robbed a little bit because they were looking forward to this fight. And listen, UFC spend millions

of dollars to promote Kabib. And I think they did an amazing job promoting Kabir. But when somebody's sick, and Dana, you know, I got to give it to him, he reached out to Kabib, and he told them the most important is your health, and this is all I care about, and Kabib told me, and I reach out to dinner, and I thank him for it. And, you know, and it wasn't really people can try to say, Dana's dissing Kavid, that's not true. Even Sean shall be called.

He made sure he was okay. doctor called, they was very caring about Kabib, and I appreciate it. You know, it wasn't really, you know, Dana said maybe, listen, maybe if we reach out to the UFC doctor, this fight could have been safe, you know, maybe not. Nobody knows, you understand, but at the end of the day, I think this is physics. We can't control our body sometimes because our body react the way they want to react. These certain things can be changed or change for the next fight, maybe. You know, maybe that, but, you know, it was everything was normal.

Everything was on track. We was ready to go and Kabib was going to be the, you know, undisputed, undefeated lightweight champion, you know, but at the end of the day, it didn't happen. I'm glad Tony, gosh, so many. He deserved it. You know, Kabib didn't, you know, but we're not going to complain because I think it wasn't the U.S.C.'s fault is our fault.

It wasn't, I'm going to say it was my fault, you know. But at the end of the day, this is a, it was a very sad thing because I see a lot of people say negative things. But can you imagine this is your father or your kid or your son or your brother? Are you going to talk shit about him? Are you going to be negative about him? Or are you going to give him support? You have to understand, Kabib, he speaks his mind.

He's a very good kid. But you got all those people, you know, try to dis him. That doesn't really, you know, if you disson him, we don't need to be as your fan. You can be fan of someone else. but, you know, I saw a lot of support and I appreciate a lot of support from the fan, but at the end of the day, like I said, like I'm being your brother, your father, your mother,

and the number one thing you have to be concerned is his health. And that was number one concern. It wasn't my number one concern in the fight. And the UFC wasn't number one concerned the fight. UFC was concerned his health because I think his health is worse so much more to me, to the UFC, to the people who loves him, more than a fight.

And that's it, you know. Where is he now? Where is Chabib? Habib, he's in Moscow. He flew back home yesterday. Okay. How is he feeling? You know, listen, he's going to need some time to recover.

You know, his body was, you know, his liver was infunctional, right? Put the camera, if you don't mind, put the camera up, but you can't see your eyes. There, there they go. There they are. Yeah, yeah. His liver was infunctioning, right? Uh-huh. And when you get this gun out,

illness, he needs some time for your body to recover. And he's going to recover. He's going to stay healthy. But I know him. He's probably going to start running probably this week. This is what kind of person I know. He's not going to sit in bad and relax. But he need to relax. Do you know what happened? Like what medically happened to him? Was it as a result of, you know, dehydration, cutting too much weight? Did he get a bug? There were people who were sick. We know Overeem got sick. our own Esther Lynn God said. Do you know what happened to him? Three days before the fight, he had a little flu,

but he took vitamin C, he was feeling all right. Okay. You know what I'm saying? But it was something very minor. It didn't even need to go to a doctor or anything like that. Like vitamin C, rest and sleeping. When you cut weight, your immune system go down, you know? Yeah.

But, you know, the weight cut, it was, I'm telling you. It was the same as every time. You know, and every time he made weight. Last time he fought Michael Johnson, he made weight. But I think it is time something different. His level. The pain was coming from his never, you know. But I think it was the hydration for sure.

And I think this is part of the process. But I think Dan Leith, his diet guy, did an amazing job. He's great. He was on track. He was feeding. He drank four and a half liter the day before on Thursday. I'm sorry, on Wednesday. It can be the hydration

just much, but when you go to a hospital, they don't understand weight cutting, UFC, they look at you, they're going to secure the hydrating, and they're going to stick you with the needles. And they're going to say in a report, use the hydrogen. But I think it's just some time

your body, going to tell you, no, when I'm not going to do this, and I'm sure we'll find a better way to start maybe the process earlier, maybe too much, months out, not six weeks out, you know, for cutting weight or just not be as heavy, but he always walk around a certain weight and always make weight. You know, I don't think it was the weight issue.

I think it was just his body didn't react right to the weight cut. So now here's the big question. Everyone wants to know, A, when he's going to return and B, will they try to rebook the Ferguson fight? Of course, the next big show is Buffalo. Daniel Cormier, your friend from A.K.A. saying he'd love to have him on the on the card in buffalo is this a possibility and if not what do you think happens next shit that then you want to make money you know he's he knows he doesn't sell much pay-per-view and he knows kabiv is a draw you know that's the truth you know he want to make money and listen but how he's his friend he you know he want him to recover he want him to feel better if he need to recover two weeks he only can get trained for two weeks the fight is almost four weeks right

You know, but at the end of the day, Buffalo is not realistic. Okay. You know, I haven't talked to Khabibya about any fighting. May might be an option, you know. But, you know, Khabib is not going to fight in Ramadan. Sure. Ramadan is going to start May 27. But maybe, maybe, but I can't, maybe.

But I don't know if Kabe will be ready because at end of the day, his health and well-being worth a lot to me, me making money or he's making money money money's coming last but his health and well-being and listen you know those you know Tony's you know he got paid and you know

but you know I'm not sure what happened with him but you know this is the fight everybody wants you know he can get out of it or he can wait it's up to him but whatever

is there a chance though that he doesn't whatever you want to do is there a chance though that we only see him after Ramadan, so basically like in the fall? I don't know. I don't know, but if he asked me, I think May 13, that'll be a perfect day. In Dallas? Me. Okay. This is not Kabir. Yeah, yeah.

In Dallas, yeah. I know there'll be an awesome show, but at the end of the day, this is not, this is me talking. I still have to talk with Kabeep, his father, Javier Manders. Me and Javier Manders on the same page. Yeah. We talked this morning, we both on the same page. But at the end of the day, too, I got to make sure my boy is healthy and ready to go and to go put a weapon on 20 forks and he has to be ready. But to be clear, the UFC hasn't offered you or talked to yet about what they want.

No, I think the UFC has been respectful to us and they're giving us some time. And I think when we're ready to talk, I'm sure we talked this week or next week. They, you know, they stay on top of the stuff. And now, listen, they understand, you know, CNN ask for interviews, child ask for interview. They understand now Kabib is a drop. You know, and they need guys like Kabib man.

And I think... No, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. And I think, listen, Tony's fight was a great fight. They both come on, you know,

eight win, five to any streak, nine and five winning streak. And Tony, well deserving. And I think this is the fight to make, but, you know,

I can, this is the UFC's decision. It's not my decision. Would you consider, would you feel more comfortable if he goes up to 170? No, absolutely not, man. Okay.

He makes $55 all the time. Why do you need to go to $170? I don't know. Maybe he's getting older. You know, we've seen this happen before. No, no. Khabib, trust me. Khabi is going to, you know,

if he win the belt at $155 and maybe do a superfile somebody like George St. Pierre at 70 in the future, maybe, but his way class, he's the best guy in the Slightweight division. Nobody's better than him. Why he has to go to the day? different way class.

You know, he got sick. Tony Ferguson got sick when they're supposed to fight in Florida. Yeah. We didn't say nothing, you know, but people get sick. Alastair over him almost didn't fight. Yeah. You know, but people, and he's a heavyweight, you know, but stuff happened. What about this report that his dad said he's going to retire next year?

Is there any truth to that? Listen to me. Russian media always saying these crazy things, and they got this one bullshit guy from I'm not even going to mention his name because he, he's just a fucking scum bag, scum as of the scum. You know, M1 used to pay him. They're not paying him anymore and he's mad at Kabib. He came up with this fucking translation. Kabib father, you know, listen, Kabib is just only 28 years old.

He's not even a champion yet. How are people going to say he's going to retire? This doesn't make sense. Well, maybe his father said, I don't know. I mean, I don't speak Russian. Listen to me. I talked to Kabib. I talked to his father.

Nobody said that. Because I was pissed too. Because why people were going to say that? Right. Because I was like, why are your father who said that? I talked to his father. He's like, I didn't say that. But I don't really care about it, man.

I just like to listen. Time to move on. I want to be positive, honest around myself, by positive people. Yeah. And people always, you know, want to say shit, you know, to just to be irrelevant. You know what I'm saying? If you're irrelevant, you want to say some shit to be, you know, you know, relevant about somebody and this is what people

does. They see when you fall and they start saying all the stuff about you to get little attention to them. But at the end of the day, I know who these people are. I know their histories and they'll be exposed. They'll be exposed soon.

But at the end of the day now, I'm sure I want to be to stay positive. Fair, fair, fair. Let me ask you about Rashad Evans. Another good friend of yours he fought this past weekend and didn't win against Judo Dan Kelly what's his future in your opinion? Do you want to see him keep fighting?

And if so, do you want to see him keep fighting at 185? I thought he looked great at 1-85. He was underway a week. He just, you know, he didn't look back at any means. He didn't get hurt at any time, you know. And this fight kind of went either way. I personally made, maybe I'm biased. I thought he won.

But at the end of the day, like, the first thing he told me 15 minutes after the fight, he said, I need you broke me a fight right away. You know, I think 185 is the right division for him. And I'm going to go back to the UFC. And he has a great relationship with Dana and the UFC. And which we're going to try to book him probably soon. At 185? Yes.

Okay. All right. And this kicks off a really busy week for you. As I mentioned at the top of the show, you have Kelvin Gaslam main eventing this weekend. You have Benile Daryush, also on the card against Etzen Barbosa. Then you have Corey Anderson against Jimmy Manning. headlining the London card. And then you have your new client,

Rumble Johnson, against D.C., and I feel like this is a personal one for you because you've submitted D.C. as we've established on this show. So this is your chance. And did you, I mean, he's not very, he kicked you out of the gym, that's true, right? He said you're not allowed back at the gym, correct?

DC is a full of shit. He never kicked me out. He doesn't have the authority to kick me out. He's the captain. Listen, I, listen. Doesn't mean, I like the feud I like the feud between you and D.C.

more than the feud between D.C. and Rumble at this point. Listen to me. DC, listen. D.C. want to still in this fucking fight. D.C. is actually, he's my friend. I like D.C. But he wants to start, he's kick me out of the gym. He cannot kick me at a gym physically or mentally

or anything. He doesn't have the power to do that. Let's keep this real. All right. All my fighters there, me on Havier, cool. And I know Javier is not going to kick me out. but me out of respect of D.C. I will not go there if he fight Anthony.

But listen, at the end of the day, listen, D. Fee is nervous. He's a little bit older. He has a desk job. And he knows, you know, he's fighting a guy. He's fighting a, you know, it's, Anthony Johnson is not human.

You understand? And he understands he has to promote this fight to sell paper view because this is going to be his last paper view to make money, you know? Whoa. It's not going to be a champion anymore.

I know. And that's the reality, man, Anthony Johnson is going to go there. and take care business. Rumble's birthday today, by the way. He wants me to help us to serve this fight. Rumble's birthday today. I know.

I know. Happy birthday, Tim. I heard that you said, did you not say this? When I asked you, I said, DC doesn't want you at his gym, and you said, well, AK is not his gym anymore. He only trains at hotel gyms because he doesn't go to the gym

because he's on the road so much doing stuff for Fox. Is that true? That's true, though. Every time he turned on Fox Sports 1, they fire the two guys. What's the name of the two guys? they now DC take their spot DC is

DC is like a gangster at Fox he's the main man he's the maid man he's the maidman he become a madman and now you see him and his boxing coach he's what's his name he training him all the time at hotel gym Rosendo

I go to a hotel yeah he's a good coach every time I go to a hotel room I see Rosando hold the man for him at least he's done something or he in a trip mail and you know DC is getting a little bit older he can't be sparring too much you know he have to save his body to the fight that's the truth okay this is he's my guy but now

you know i feel bad he's fighting anthony but this is this is the business a new guy always come a champion go away a new champion come and on april 8th it's gonna be no champion okay last quick thing for you uh can we get an update forget about what forget about world series of fighting i got three guys yes that's funny you said that i was just about to ask you about the three-headed monster from world series of fighting Tell us who David Branch is going to fight in his debut. When is Marlon Rice going to sign with UFC and when is Justin Gachie signing with UFC? Here we go. Let us know. Break some news.

First thing, the words says the fighting is going to be March 18. It's going to be headlined by LaGoy, John Jorren. Yes. Lance Palmer is going to fight the defense title. Okay. Marlin, we have no deal with nobody right now. David Branch I believe he's fighting in Dallas

I think there's been announced already No no no no Announce it for us I don't know It's gonna try to give me in trouble Come on He's fighting in Dallas That's all I'm gonna do

I'm not I'm not getting a call from Dana fucking cussing me out Okay I'm not but he's fight I'm gonna tell he's fighting in Dallas Okay Justin Gishi's a man

He's a world says of fighting Fighter man He's under contract with world service Come on I have no idea what you talk He is I'll tell you. His next fight.

His next fight will be for who? World Series or UFC? He's under contract. All right. How he's going to go fight in the UFC? Well, because we've already talked about this. There's a time limit. I have to understand, man.

Word says the fighting is my baby. There's your baby. We have the gloves right over there on the desk. You know, listen, at the end of the day, everybody's talking shit about where it says of fighting. But without words says of fighting, UFC got more power, Belator got more power.

It's 120, fighter on the contract and 120 family where it says a fighting support. I know sometimes they don't agree to things like there, but they give 120 family. I'm not I'm not I'm not rooting for their demise. I have their gloves on my desk right over here. I'm just, I'm going to these are the facts. I know you know, but a lot of people. No, there are more promotions, the better. As a manager. The more promotions, the better. Yes, of course. We want more options for the fighters so that when they become true free agents, they can see all their options. Is Marlin going to sign with UFC, though, is the question, because they let him go.

They said goodbye. No, they didn't let him go like that. I think Marlon stepped in, far and extra fight on the contract. I think, you know, listen, at the end of the day, you never know. We may see Marlon back over there's a fight him. Because Marlon right now, I'm in a process of negotiation.

Okay. It's a promotion. Okay. You know, if Marlon has to get paid, Marley is not going to fight for a chump change, you know? but you but you know i uh listen uh frank is fighting soon oh who's he fighting ricardo lamas did he get a new deal did frankie get a new deal i'm very close very close by this much is it going to be ricardo son shelby too more very close

ricardo i said at the end of the day one thing frankie adgard does yes you throw up you give him the right deal he would sign a dad at nine He doesn't ask who. He's one guy. He doesn't ask who he needs to fight. He will fight anybody. It doesn't matter. It can be Kong.

Sure. It can be Lama's. It can be whatever. But Frank, you fight whoever, because at the end of the day... But is it Lamas? Llamas win. This Lamas fight? Is this...

I don't know. Okay, okay. I know Lamas won it. I don't know if the U.S. It's going to be up to the UFC. Frankie. Frankie, if it's not for a title, Frankie doesn't care who will fight.

Okay. All right. We've run out of time, Ali. Thank you so much. This was great. I appreciate you clearing it up. Sorry about what happened last week with Habibah. We hope he's feeling better, and we hope we'll see him back soon enough.

Thank you. Salam al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-pment. Chabibbnehav-a-maid-a-haw-haw-haw-hans. And many, as you heard, he has a very busy week coming up. Excuse me, a very busy month. But a busy month. Impressive client roster, he has developed.

All right, let's move along. Speaking of options for fighters, speaking of signing free agents coming up, ACB is making a lot of noise and they have their 54th event this weekend in Manchester and it's headlined by

Mahmad Khalidov against our old-time friend. It's been a while since we talked to Big Slow, Luke Barnat. He's headlining the card and he's joining us now via the Magic of Skype.

There he is. Let's go, Big Slough. slow. How are you, Luke? Hey, I'm very well, Ariel. How are you, mate? Sorry for keeping you waiting. Ali likes to talk a lot. I'm sorry about that. I thought I liked to talk. We saw that as a manager. Jesus Christ. I couldn't stop, couldn't shut him up. I was like, come on. Well, look, you know, people get excited when they're on the program. They like to take advantage

at the time, and I appreciate that. So right now, you're actually joining us from Malaga, Spain, correct? Correct, yeah. And Lucia, yeah, in the southern part of Spain. Unbelievable. I moved here. A year and a half ago, so I've been out here a year and a half. I have a gym out here, enjoying the sunny weather, and I live on the beach, so I think it's good. Why did you move there, of all places? There's not exactly an MMA scene there. Well, there is now, now that I'm here, it's growing.

But for sure, it's a growing scene. I decided to move here because I was in San Diego. Yeah. Training with Phil Davis at Alliance for a couple of years. Then after I left the UFC and I came back to England, I got married to my wife, and we were like kind of missed the sun. The sunniest place we could find was Spain,

so we decided to move and two months later we moved to Spain and we've been here ever since. How is life outside of the UFC for you? I mean, you've been active, you fought for different promotions, not one singular promotion, but in terms of making a living,

getting interesting fights, progressing your career, of course I think everyone wants to be with the big show. Are you happy? Are you content with the way things have gone post-UFC thus far? undefeated as well, which is also notable.

Yeah, 100%. You were saying it then, the more promotions, the better. Now there is a lot more promotions, especially over here in Europe. Obviously, I won the title with Venator and did quite well there. I had a fight in England.

I also just recently fought in Romania. You know, I'm searching the globe to find fights. It can be difficult when you're not in the big show. There's not that, you know, it's quite hard to find fights that are that interesting if you want to put it that way. but there's definitely availability now where you can make a living.

I'm making a very comfortable living doing what I do. Now I'm actually probably more comfortable than I was when I was in the UFC because the expenses being in the UFC and living in California and training out there was so high and there was such a high expectation of you

when you take that off you and now I'm flying in Europe and I get to pick the promotions I'm fighting for the timescale. I don't have Joe, it was Joe, obviously isn't anymore but Joe calling you going Luke we want you to fight in two months

or we want you to do this. I'm in the boss. I get to pick. So it's almost like I'm shopping for fights now rather than waiting to get picked off the shelf. So I have a lot more control over my life. And I'm very content with that. And I think I'm a lot happier

and I'm a lot more centered than I've ever been previously right now with my fight career. That is great to hear. Does that mean, though, that you have no interest in going back? Do you like this lifestyle and just picking your fights, being your own boss?

And this will be the norm for your career at this point. It's one of those things where it's definitely still an option. You know, everyone keeps saying to me after I beat Mamet Khalidov, I'm going back to the UFC. And yeah, that will be an option. I'll definitely be ringing up Dana and saying, right, let's talk and see what they want to say. But it's not the only option anymore for me. You know, it's not like, right, okay, be Mamad Khaledov.

I'm ranked high enough. Let's go to the UFC. If it works and it suits my lifestyle and everything's great and they're interested and the rest of it, then yeah, I'll definitely be looking to do it. But there's always staying with ACB, there's KSW in Poland, there's a lot of other organizations that are really growing and coming up now. So, of course, you had that bizarre fight against Maham Miller that never came to fruition. It was somewhat of a bizarre booking because we didn't expect Mayhem to come back and then he

misses weight and doesn't end up fighting you. And, you know, it was just kind of a mess of a situation. I would still say maybe not name-wise, but skill-wise and the kind of test he's, presents, this is the biggest fight for you since you've left the UFC. Is that accurate? 100% accurate, yeah, for sure. Did you seek this fight or did they come to you with this fight? Because Mehmet is one of the best middle weights in the world, regardless of promotion. Yeah, for sure. I work with ACB as a commentator, so I've been out there all over Russia. I've been traveling across Russia, commenting for them. I think I've done nine shows now in total.

and there was whispers of Mamet Khalidov coming to ACB six months ago. And when those whispers were going around, ACB were also trying to get me to fight. Not Mamet, but they were trying to get me to fight. And I said, listen, I really like commentary. It's what I want to do. I want to build my career in this. I think I'm good at it. Blah, blah, blah.

But if you put Mammaid Khalid of on the table, I'll fight for ACB. It's the only fight I'll take. I don't want anyone else. I don't want to fight for the title. I don't want that. I'll fight that guy. and then a couple months later they were trying to make it happen at the end of the year in December and he had to put it back for some reason I can't remember what it was and now we've got it in March this

weekend and in Manchester of all places so I definitely sticked it out and I eventually got what I wanted so you know I'm looking forward to taking advantage of it but this is a one-fight deal with them yeah it's a one-fight deal it's a one-off same with Mamet they're both one-off fight deals they have the with my contract, they have the opportunity to counter whatever offer I get given so they can come back and match. So if they want to keep me, they can counter, and I have

to look at the take that into consideration. And so since you've worked for them as a commentator and you've been following them, like I remember, we've actually featured some of their shows. They do a great job of giving us, you know, the YouTube broadcast and all that stuff. Initially, it was a lot of fighters that aren't exactly

household names, a lot of, you know, Russian fighters, great fighters, but not people who the North American fans recognize. But as of late, they've done a very good job, I think. They've been very aggressive in signing fighters who are looking for a home, fighters from the UFC, Takeemizugaki, Baba Jenkins, as I mentioned, Zach Makovsky. I mean, there's just a, you, Kaladov, they've been very aggressive in terms of just not being a Russian promotion, you know, just featuring Russian-born fighters or European fighters. there, it feels to me like they're really trying to make an effort to become this, you know,

global dominant brand. When did you notice that shift? And is there more to it? Like, was there a point where they're like, okay, now's our time that we're going to try to go after these free agents? How can you explain this? Because it definitely feels like it's changed in the last few months. Well, there was definitely a shift.

I couldn't tell you the reason for that, but I can tell you my point of view. They're actually Chechenyan or Chechnya, however you want to say. It's a promotion from Chechnya and Grozny. So they were actually originally based out of Grozny, and they just did shows in Grozny. Okay. And then I believe Ahmed, MMA, they do a show there as well, and there was a lot of conflicts.

So they decided to go out into the whole of Russia. And now they've been, when I started working for them, the first show I did was in Moscow. But since then I've been to, I've been all over. I went to Sochi, which where they had the Olympics, I went to the coat. You know, I've been literally all over the country. Right.

They're doing a show in Tajikistan next. Wow. They're really branching out in Russia. But then after they got success moving out in Russia, they linked up and tried to do it in Europe and come over to the West, if you want to call it the West of Europe. And they did a show in Glasgow recently. They actually did a show in California where they came over and they did that show in three weeks. They put it together. They just, we're going to do a show in California and they just, boom, had a show.

And they now, I believe they can see the possibility of growth through growing in Russia. They're very, very big now in Russia. and now they're trying to, like you said, they're trying to dominate, they're trying to take over, they're coming over to Europe. And the smaller promotions, they're not small promotions, but the small competitor ACB like Bama and Cage Warriors, they can't keep up with the sort of names, like you said, ACB are bringing in, the money they have behind them,

and they're really going after all of the free agents they could possibly get because they're trying to build, and they're trying to become, I believe, trying to become a competitor at the highest level. They're not interested in just being one of the boys. They want to be up there. Who owns them? It's owned by a family.

I don't want to say the name's seen correctly, but I believe it's Mara Beck. I can't say a second name. Myrabeck and Zaira Beck is the son. They've got a huge love for Jitsu, like an absolute, they're in love with Jiu-Jitsu. They actually have a Jiu-Jitsu tournament as well, ACB, BJJ,

and they fly in the best Jiu-G compares in the world, into a stadium, they fight, and there's about 20 people there, and they just watch. You know, they love it. They're absolutely obsessed with him. That's amazing. And they're also now doing kickboxing as well, very similar to Bellator.

So you've got ACB Jiu-Jitsu, ACB kickboxing, and ACB MMA. And last year they had an event every two weeks in different places. This year so far, I think it's been every three weeks. They've had an event somewhere. So this family, Zirobeck and his son Zarebeck, they're full time. They love it. They're on it. And they just, you know, they're feeding families.

and they put this organization together and they're getting fighters, great fights and putting on great cards. If you don't mind me asking, do you know where their money comes from? How do they have this kind of means to put on all these promotions and fights? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't know.

I wouldn't know. That's the question. Well, I know, you know, the Fortitas Casino, you know, I'm always curious where it actually comes from. I couldn't sell you oil or something. I don't know, I don't know. Fair enough.

But they treat you well. I mean, as far as being, you never fought for them, but as far as being a commentator, I've never been to an event, but it seems like it's run quite nicely. The production is nice. You're happy with them. You feel like they have the potential to actually make noise.

Yeah, otherwise I wouldn't be fighting for them. Like I said, I've done nine shows. I've done nine shows all over the world. The setup has always been fantastic. They've always treated me very, very well. And the thing that you said it yourself, the level of talent they have in Russia and in Chechenya and their gym,

everything they have. The fights are actually incredible. They're incredible fights. One of the best fights I saw was back when it was in Moscow. The first event I ever did was a guy named Petty Jan versus Magman Magamadov where they're now having a rematch of that fight because it was so close to having a rematch in April 15th.

But the level of fights is amazing, but you just don't know the names. Now they're bringing in the names along with the level of fights that they have. I just think it's going to be a real good mixture for the fans. It's going to be a real going to really pump them up and people are going to love it.

And I commentate along an English guy called Brian Lacey and we've got a good relationship. So I always enjoy the trips. We always have fun and the commentary's good. And when I'm not commenting now, they have Frank Meir commentating as well. He's reporting Frank Meera as a commentator as well. He'll be doing the card on Saturday?

Yeah, he'll be doing the card in Manchester. So it'll be Frank Mir and Brian Lacey commenting for the event. And we kind of like shape around with a commentary together all three. So he did the one in California and we move back and forth. And how can fans watch it?

It's on you. They have a YouTube channel, ACB. You just put it on YouTube. It's Absolute Championship Burkut is the actual name of the organization. What does Burkut mean? What does Burkut mean? I think it means Eagle. But I don't know that.

They love Eagles in Russia. They love them. They're everywhere. Sabib, the Eagle. The logo, yeah, the logo of ACB is a big Eagle. So I'm guessing it's going to be an Eagle. But yeah, on the YouTube channel, it's freely streamed online. And I think a couple of the MMA websites are picking it up.

But they do have some TV deals in some countries. So if you're coming from, I believe, in Poland, it's on Pulseat or something like that. So you have to go to their Twitter and all the rest of it to find out. What's the biggest difference between the Luke Barnott that I'm talking to now and the one who fought Mark Munoz? I definitely say, like we said, is I'm centered. I don't like to use that word because it sound like a yoga guy. I like the word. But like I'm very happy.

I'm very, I'm in a very good place in my life. I'm, you know, I feel like I've trained harder than I've ever trained before for this fight, but it's been far easier,

far more relaxing. I've been, I have my environment, my gym, my guys, you know, I've stopped looking outwards for answers

to my problems in MMA and I'm starting looking inward and started developing me as a person and as a fighter. And I feel like that's done leaps and bounds for me. and I just feel in such a great place going into this fight. I feel like it's my time.

I feel like Mamma Khalidov is, like we said, he is the best fighter at middleweight, never to go to the UFC. He's the best middleweight in Europe, has been for a very, very long time. And I believe now I'm the second best unsigned middleweight in the world. I think Madh's number two. So I feel like it's the biggest fight outside the UFC

you can have at middleweight. Yeah. And I get to bring him out of Poland to Manchester, to my hometown, where I had a fight of the night performance against Andrew Craig last time I fought in that arena. You know, I just feel like it's built for me this event.

Everything's built for me. The timing's perfect. I feel fantastic. I've got no injuries. My weight is great. You know, I just feel centered. I feel like it's all coming together and it's going to be perfect on Saturday. That is great to hear.

By the way, what's the name of your team out there in Spain? It's the name of the team is Lilias Barnett. Because I, what's happened is we have a gym in Malaga, Spain. It's actually in Toraminos. us. And when I moved out here, I teamed up with a guy named Santero Lilius, who's a 25-year-old finished black belt under Hodger Gracie. He's the youngest ever black belt that Hodges ever given out. And we teamed up and he covers the Jiu-Jitsu and I cover the MMA. And we're kind of doing like a Winkle John kind of thing or whatever. You know, like, you know, so the name is both

of our last names together. And we're actually going to be starting doing like summer camps and all sorts of cool things so people would come out and do. I've managed to get three UFC vets to sign up to do a summer camp with me so that'll be flying out from England, having a couple of weeks out in the sun, training people,

and putting on like a big seminar thing in the south of Spain. So there's a lot to come from the gym as well in that aspect. Any appearances by our old friend Chale? Do you still speak to him? We do, and I speak to him quite a bit. And the only time we could have made it work is in September.

He's actually flying over to Finland. to do grappling tournament. I can remember exactly which one. I think it's the ADCCs. And I'm actually flying to Oregon for a wedding. Wow. So I'm going to his home. Wow.

And he's coming to Europe exactly the same way. Oh, my gosh. So we're going to miss each other. So, yeah, it would have been great, and he could have maybe come out to Spain. But maybe one day. I think the only person that might make it out there soon is Kelvin Gastelin because he hablers the Espaniel and he might come out.

and Enrique Wasabi from the Ultimate Fighter that fought Sage Northca he lives an hour and a half two hours from me and he comes down and trains every now and then and he's good friends with Kelvin too so we're all going to hook up and

have a beach pie not just a big weekend for you a big weekend for Kelvin as well as he meets Vitor Belford on Saturday so you both are in action it is a great card I have I have taken note ACB 54

Super Sonic Luke Barnard versus Maude Kallidov some other names that you may have heard of on this card. Vinnie Magalyesh is fighting, so I guess that whole retirement thing didn't stick with Vinny, but that's kind of typical. Saul Rogers versus Pat Healy, right? We know Saul, Mike Wilkinson, who you've seen on this show, David Mitchell, is also on the card. I'm looking for names. Any other names that fans, oh, Baba Jenkins is on the card. He's on this card, Bobba Jenkins. Robert Whiteford against... Bob Jenkins is coming one week, one week later. Last week, notice he's jumped on on the

card just as he's got signed. Robert Whiteford versus NAMFand. And you've got Brennan Lockhain is taken on Michael Wilkinson. They both were in the UFC and there's actually a rematch. They fought in the UFC before. They're both from Manchester. So that's like one of the big fights on the card as well.

Two UFC vets taken on a rematch. There's like 500 fights on this card. It's unbelievable. There's 22. 22. Unbelievable. And the one that I really like, Namfan against Robert Whiteford,

that's a lot of fun. Yeah, there's a crazy matchmaking. When these fights were announced, the one by one, I only knew of my fight. I didn't know any other fights on the card, and they were announced them one by one, and it was just getting ridiculous. It was getting stupid, you know.

So there is a lot of fun fights on the card. There's probably 10 really fun fights, and then there's all the local guys that no one knows yet, but the British guys coming up, and they've all been picked, and they're all good guys, and they wouldn't be on the card if they weren't talented. So I think from start to finish, it's going to be a hell of a card. Well, I wish you the best, Luke. Great to catch up. I'm happy to hear that everything's going

great. I've actually been to the south of Spain before and you picked a great part of the world to live. It's absolutely beautiful there and it's cool to see that you're building something from the ground up over there. Obviously, follow you on Instagram and all that stuff. So I've been checking it out. It's really cool. So nothing but the best for you and your wife. And I look forward to the fight on Saturday. I will be watching. Good luck in the fight. And then we'll talk about it afterwards and see what cards you have to play with after a big win over Mammaid Khaledov. Exactly. Once I beat the man, then I think it's East versus West. And once West conquers East, you know, then I've got all the cards are in my hand

and I can do what I want. And maybe you can tell Ali that the guy wouldn't keep quiet. What's his name? That manager. Ali Abdelaziz. After this weekend, Ali Abdulaziz, after I beat Ammit Khalid up this weekend, 185, Rashad Evans sounds good to me. That could get me back in the UFC. Wow. You know, that would be a fight that would definitely, I would gravitate. to, you know, so that would be, that'll be interesting for me. That's the thing I always appreciated about you, Luke.

You always had a plan, one step ahead, you're thinking, matchmaking. That sounds like a lot of fun. All right. We'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Luke, all the best. Nice one, Ariel. Take it easy. There he is.

Big Slow. Luke Barnett returns to action. This Saturday, March 11th, ACB-54, Supersonic against Mahmed Kali-Dov. Big fight for him, big fight for the promotion. They're doing some very interesting things. last but not least in a matter of seconds we're going to be joined by the reigning defending UFC welterweight champion his name is tyron woodley he was successful this past Saturday in defending his title against wonder boy thompson of course the first time they fought they fought to a draw that was

at ufc 205 this time he wins via majority decision and people wondering how he scored the fight i wonder if you've seen he actually just, he just landed. He flew out this morning from Las Vegas and just landed like an hour ago in St. Louis. So we appreciate it. Remember last week on the show, he said, after he wins, he's going to come back on the show on Monday, and then he's off the grid. Then he's going to film a movie.

So he is a man of his word. By the way, someone telling me that Burkut, this is the Miss, the Mrs. Gandhi on Twitter. Burkut means golden eagle. But it is also the name of a special police force responsible for, responsible for 100 Ukrainian civilian deaths. This is from the Mrs. Gandhi on Twitter.

So there you go. So anyhow, in a matter of seconds, we're going to be joined by Tyrone Woodley. Last but not least on this jam-packed episode of the MMA hour, busy weekend coming up. ACB, UFC, one, Angela Lee, who's always

very exciting. She's fighting this weekend. I think on Friday, just a learning the masses that the champ is soon going to be here. Not only did I see that one fan, by the way, who was completely devastated. I mean, this was like, it was like I told the guy that his dog just died. I couldn't believe just how shocked he was by the news.

And I was thinking, like, wow, you just came to this event. It's been around 36 hours since the news came out, and you don't know. You don't know about the fact that Habib is off the card. He was just devastated. I also met a group of things. three journalists from Russia who work for a very prominent media outlet there. The name was a very difficult one to not only pronounce, but remember.

They flew from Moscow to Las Vegas to cover Habib Nirmagamedov. That was the story. And the fight falls through. And to add to their misery, two weeks ago, they flew to San Jose. to cover one Fador Emilianenko. So in the past two weeks, they have flown from Moscow to the west coast of the United States

to cover big fights involving Russian-born fighters and neither fight came to fruition. Is that insane? I couldn't believe it. I just could not believe that. That is horrible luck. I hope the next time they fly over for an event

it's not only it not only happens it's one of the best fights in the history of fighting because those guys deserve it and I hope that their media outlet doesn't hold them to it

because that's a lot of wasted money of course you can't predict these things it's not their fault but that's a tough pill to swallow it was a bummer around 9 o'clock Pacific time when you had to come to terms with the fact that it's not next it's not after the David Tamor win and what a personality he is

singing at the press conference and all that stuff. He was a lot of fun. I did enjoy 209. I got to meet Josh Donaldson again. And this time I met Aaron Sanchez, also of the Toronto Blue Jays. Got to meet both of them. Donaldson flew that morning with his crew, including Sanchez, that morning from Dunedin, Florida,

spring training site of the Blue Jays to Las Vegas because he had this deal with Wonderboy Thompson that he would wrap the belt around his waist should he win. and if you saw in the background, Donaldson was in the cage. They brought him in, but he didn't get to do it. I thought that that was a sign that they were giving the nod to Wonderboy, but they didn't. They brought him there just in case, but in the end, Tyrone Woodley, he's still the champion.

He goes back to St. Louis with the belt, and he is a man of his word because he's joining us right now on the phone. Tyrone, are you there? I am here. How are you guys doing? Doing great. Thank you for being a man of your word. congratulations on the win welcome home by the way speaking of Josh Donaldson

did you notice him because I know you knew about that deal because you responded to it on Twitter when you saw him in the cage like me did you think that this was a bad sign or you were not paying attention to him

you know I saw him say that about the guy you're talking about the blue jay player giving him the belt yeah because they brought him in the cage no I didn't you know me man I'm looking for

I'm looking for the judges to say the right word. I wasn't really looking around. It was behind me. It was on the side. And then, you know, so they do. Yeah, so I wasn't really worried about that. Okay, fair enough.

In that case, yeah, I didn't see it, but man, you know, it was a crazy, crazy weekend, and yeah, it was a little bit more in that going on that. Sure, fair enough. Okay, so let me ask you this. Have you seen the fight since it happened? I have not seen

the entire fight since it happened. I would like to go back and watch it. I do kind of feel how I felt in the Oxygon. You know, I don't have to rewatch the fight to kind of know how I feel. Okay, and so how do you feel? You feel like you won three and five. There's no doubt about that, right? Yeah, I felt like I won three and five.

There's no doubt about that. It was a lot of rounds, it was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of just, you know, I want to come in. he don't want me to come in. I want him to come in. He don't want to come in. And, you know, what we saw was a martial artist that basically did their homework, studied

their other opponent, and then they were prepared for it. You know, the thing that I think is hilarious, how everybody expects the champion. I'm the champion. He wants my belt. He better get his butt under and try to take the fight to me and take something for me. So what that said,

he said in his post-fight interview that he knew the last time he engaged me he came in he basically he got hit with that right hand and he made him not want to come back in and then from that point and from that point he

actually was like um you know he didn't want to come in because he got here with the right hand which makes a lot of fans he said he wanted to stay on the outside pick his shots keep me away keep him take down and he really just said he wanted to stay on the outside of a point fight he said that himself

Those aren't words. I mean, I can pull up the post-fight press conference, and people can hear his own words. So when you are saying that, blatantly openly, how is the entire world all the tire was circling? Okay, well, maybe I don't want to go in there and just get countered when it's hard to get in on a long opponent who's just waiting on you to try to attack

because he doesn't want to come in and close the gap. So with that said, it was a frustrating fight. It was an awkward fight, We weren't just out there, you know, the opening that you guys, not per se you, but the fans or maybe Dana. Oh, excuse me. Sorry about that, guys. The opening that you think you see, oh, you could have did that, you could have did that, which you did in fifth round at any time. Maybe not.

Maybe he was prepared. Maybe he was ready for a takeout. He said the same thing about me. He said, man, I know you guys wanted to see me put on a, um, I know you guys wanted to see me do the freaking blitz and all the other stuff, but I looked at Tyrone Eyes and he was ready. And you're right, I was ready. So it is just an awkward fight.

You know, every fight can't be this, you know, freaking Gilbert Melendez versus Diego Sanchez fight, you know, or his freaking Du Ho Choi versus Cub Swanson. Every fight's not going to be that way. And then, you know, at the end of the day, the goal is to be the world champion, to keep the gun as long as you can to have this rainy career, styles make fights.

Guys they just went in there on Wonderboy like that are the guys that got knocked out. There's only one guy that really had a style that was perfectly matched him and that was Matt Brown.

Matt Brown is going to give a hell. He walked forward, eating punches, and he just kept walking forward. He didn't, he was getting kicked, getting hit,

and he didn't care. You know what I mean? Now, granted, that's not the greatest style to have for longevity, but for that particular one fight out of all the welterweights, that was his only victory

of a guy, You know what I mean? That ended up being a title challenger, you know, and that wasn't even in top ten at that time. So, you know, yeah, I just got to watch the fight, man. But, yeah, I kind of agree with Wonderboy with his assessment on how, you know, that gauge and that spacing battle on. As the fight is unfolding, first round, second round, are you cognizant of the fact that there's just not a lot of punches being landed? or are you so locked in that, I mean, it's something that you'll see after the fact like, oh, wow, you know, we landed, I think, six significant strikes.

Like, are you able to, obviously you're not getting punched? I know that, but is it something that we notice more because we're on the outside as opposed to those who are actually involved in the fight? You know, it was just one of those weird moments, you know. When I was in the fight, I was, I might have been too locked in. I'm going. I'm going, I go. I'm going to go.

I see the opening. Oh, shit, the opening ain't there. Oh, yes, it is. No, no, it ain't. So, no, it was a bit of hesitation. I'm not going to lie and act like, you know, okay, we sit there in game playing that. That was exactly the fight.

I guarantee that's not the fight that any him, his coaching, or my coaching that prepare for. I'll prefer for a fight completely different. But I also knew that he wasn't going to come and try to wrestle me. All this talk about, you know, he put no 15 pounds. I'm like, man, please, come on now. You know, they couldn't have expected me to buy that. I knew what he was going to do.

stay on the outside try to peek me from the outside stop me from taking them down stopping from me in their right hand and you know the fight was a bit different than the first time but if you think about it

it was still one takedown scored you know it was still freaking you know one round where you know I felt like you know I was doing some damage that I almost had a monitor going into the fifth round I remember hearing your corner saying

okay Tyron let's go let's go let's go did you think that you had to do something drastic did you feel like okay I really need to kind of swing for the fences here in order to keep my belt? Were you feeling that way? I knew I had to win that round. I knew it was close. I figured, it was so close and it was so much inactivity going on both our parts.

It was very difficult to know who was going to win those rounds. Yeah. And you know what? You know, they always say don't leave it in the judge's hand. And even if I felt as if I was strongly, you know, had 10-8 rounds and had won four-round straight, my coach, we always trained. You know, our last round in the gym is always let's go. last round push push push push and they really give me to that mental point to never coast

always try to put the nail in the coffin so whether i was winning or not you know i was going for the kill and i was going to try to push so there were moments in the fight where i could have created that atmosphere you create those scrambles by taking risk i could have took more risk level change like i was going to the leg i would have had his attention he would have had to respect my wrestling could have came up punch and went back down to the legs that way i get closer to him anytime you see me stalking him and get close to him, he don't like that at all. And I could have made him feel uncomfortable a bit more in the fight. And, you know, there's just something that, something that I would have done differently if I could do it again. How close do you think you were to finishing him?

Man, you know, I watched it. I watched it again, man. The second knockdown was pretty crazy. And it's funny because it's funny because the first time I knocked him down, I got on him, he got up, and then I knocked him down again. I'm like, God dang, this is a repeat of the last fight. And then Then I was out front. He was on his knees. I was punching him. And I'm like, well, I know one thing, I'm not going for this getting choke. Especially on the same side.

My left side is, you know, probably wouldn't be my go-to side. And that's the side. I grabbed it on the last time. So, you know, and then it was a third time I almost knocked him down. I just, he got some space and I did what they called a rooster punch. Like, Roy, Roy, what was to say? I was going to say, I was going to say, Roy Nelson. Roy Jones, Jr.

He leaps forward with that lead hook. And I caught him with that punch, and he was kind of woozy. And then he circled away for the last 8 to 10 seconds. So, you know, I was close a couple times in the round. I mean, the second time I knocked him, maybe I shouldn't hit him again because the way his legs went back was really similar to the first time. I might have woke him up. Do you think that was a 10-8?

Looking at it, yeah, I would say it was a 10-8. But, you know, what is it's funny? If you knock somebody ass down, three, two times in a fight, and it looked like the fight almost over with, and nothing else is really taking place in that round beyond that, I would maybe say that's a 10-8. I like how the commission, I like how Dana,

like how Wonderboy are so, they brought up the 10-8 round like it was even a factor. That was on a judge's score card. They caught it a draw. Yeah. Nobody made a fuss in New York City when the guy gave the first round of 10-8 and the fourth round of 10-9.

No commission came forth. And I talked to that judge and, you know, told him he should never, like, I've never heard of public scrutiny. So, you know, people always think that I'm always making these things up and there's always, I'm always, I'm tired of thinking of some huge conspiracy. I'm like, why did they feel to make such a big deal about the 10-8 round when it had no bearing in the fight? Right. Yeah, no, it's true. Either majority decision or a split decision. I'll still would have won. If you look at the actual scorecard, it was a moot point.

When fans are screaming, fight, fight, fight, fight, do you hear that? And does that make you anxious? I wanted to scream back. Watch, watch, watch, watch. Expectake, spectake. Promote, promote, promote. Analyze, analyze. Journalize, analyze.

Right, right, right, right. Honestly, do you hear that? Do you actually hear that? I did hear it, but also, I just see the emotion on fighters that fight Wonderboy, and they're like, you know what, forget this, I'm going in. And that's right when they get knocked out, man. I just remember it. I watched like five or six guys that got clipped by him.

It was just a sheer frustration on their face. And they'd say, you know what? It's so hard to get in on it. I don't want to wait no one. I'm just going to go in. And that's what he wants. You know what I mean? And, you know, I wasn't going to give him that moment.

You know, granted the fans would have loved it. If I would have gotten a pain, we would have been mixing it up and kicking the punch and dropping, him bleeding and fighting and finding a way to get up. And everybody yelling and screaming because he survived. And they do a whole new promo after that along. So fans would have loved that, but at the end of the day, it wasn't worth a reward. It wasn't a high enough reward for me to take those types of risk.

You know, I just needed to try to find a way getting close enough boxing range where I know it had advantage. Last thing on the scoring, a lot of people that I've talked to, including our own New York, Rick, said he thought first round, 10-10, second round, 10-10, and then you win the third and fifth, which would mean that you won the fight. Are you okay with the idea that those first two rounds were 10-10s, or do you think that that's not fair? Is that what the official score from us? No, no, no, just people saying like, oh, I don't think enough happened, 10-10. I would be okay with that. I would be okay with that. You think that's fair?

We both were waiting for a perfect moment that didn't arrive. Okay. And even in a fifth round, that moment didn't arrive. I forced that moment to happen. So, you know, I wouldn't be against that. Do you think that the immediate rematch kind of hurt the fight in the sense? that you both just fought each other, you know what you can do. He's felt your power.

You've been in there with a tricky guy. Again, hindsight 2020, had they gone a different route, and then you fought another guy here or there, and then you meet in a year or so, both of you wouldn't have been as, I don't know, for lack of a better word, tentative to pull the trigger. Yeah, you know, I never thought about that until you just said it now, but after hearing it, it makes a lot of sense.

You know, Danny joked me, you know, earlier talking about all the towers of doctor now, but if any person has not seen the meme of me knocking Wonder Boy down the first time, the way he looked. And, I mean, the only word, apologize to Warner Boy, the only word I can take him is goofy. He looked knocked silly in the first round. You cannot tell me he did not incur a concussion. So when I said that, hey, when you have a regular fight, it's okay, you go a seven-day suspension. Okay, you had a tough fight, 30-day suspension. If you have a cut or laceration, 60-day, which I believe he did have a cut.

but he did not get 60 days suspension, or if he had a concussion, sometimes they give you 90. He shouldn't have been allowed to even spar until February 12th. I think his dad wanted him to go in there more than he wanted to go in there. I think the promotion wanted him to go on the morning. He said it, but he didn't want to get hit like that again.

You can tell my boxing coach told me he's going forever remember what it felt like to get hit by you, and he's going to walk in the octagon. He's going to be thinking about that. No matter how hard he's trained, no matter what they tell him, what they lie to him, they can't fight. You know, like the way ends his dad was looking like trying to mean mug me or whatever.

So I walked up on him. I said, well, you're getting pumped up? He's like, no, we don't need to be pumped up. We're ready. And I looked at his dad and I pointed at him. I said, you're not going in there. You can't fight for him. You know, and I think his motives on being the champion,

yeah, it is great to be a champion. But I think he more so wanted to be the champion for the buzz and the attention and the membership of the guy to upstate. karate, less of a career goal for himself. And I think he had a little bit more pressure from his dad and from what everybody else wanted than him. If he really wanted it for himself, he would have said F it and winning try to take my belt. He was fighting like he was a champion trying to, you know, hold me off. That's how he was fighting. Do you think the UFC brass is happy, excuse me, unhappy that you won the fight? I'm not going to first say they were happy. They're unhappy that I

want to fight. But, you know, this week, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't terribly excited about the way that, you know, the organization, the organization that was there, I felt like things were a bit unorganized. It's just me being there at certain times where I need to go, where I need to be my corner guys or, you know, being heckled about not having their rebocks up home. Like, you guys never gave them a bag, nor did you give me a time to come and get their bag. And it was just felt really rushed. And I wasn't really extremely happy with the way that it is. embedded was cut it. I wasn't happy the way the fight was promoted. I wasn't happy the way that the underdog was promoted so heavily. Give me your best shot and all the promos. It almost seemed

as if, you know, the picture was painted for a different result. So I don't think, I'm not saying that they did that, but at the end of the day, I went out there and I made some strong statements and I believe those things and I did train for those things. And like I said before, I didn't have anything called me back this time. And, you know, I didn't give the fight that I thought I would give. So I think for them it's like, damn, you know, Tyrant's freaking going to be pissed at us. You're fighting on, you know what I mean? Be difficult. You know what I mean? So I don't know exactly what they're thinking. But at the end of the day, man, one thing you can always call me is professional. I'm maybe the most professional fighter in the entire UFC. Like, I can't see many more fighters

that take it in a business mindset the way that I do it. I'm always on time. I'm always professional. Always make my obligation. Always communicate. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with saying I'm wrong. It's been a couple times that I'm, you know, this week I was like, man, am I tripping? And my coach is to be like, you tripping. You think it's a big conspiracy. No, nobody's doing that. You need to chill out.

And I'm okay with that. So that's what a businessman, more importantly, just a man in general. That's what you do. When you're wrong, you're wrong, but don't be scared to set up for what's right. So after the fact, did you talk to any of them? Did you express, you know, any of these thoughts? or was it more just about like me? Yeah, I talked to, I don't know, I mean, sometimes you get the same PR person.

You know, I've had Dave Lockett, I've had, I haven't really had a nay. I have a nay for like, well, when she, her first couple days of work, we did something for Black History Month. Which you, she did not do this year, which is kind of a little bummed about. But I work with Paige Berger this time, and she's like, are you going to say something positive this week? I said, I'm waiting on you to give me some of the positives to say. I want you to guys to show me that you're a billion dollar operation because right now you're not operating that way, you know, and I was making a joke about it, but it was just like some minor things that was unorganized.

But I think we had a kind of a funny relationship where I say something, she says something, it's kind of joking. So I told her, you know, I thought I was going to reach out Thursday. I was going to FaceTime her, and we were going to talk on different ways of promote me on getting to know me. You got to know me to promote me. You can't just promote a fighter. You know, I believe the U.S.C. should promote stories.

They should promote lifestyle. They should promote, you know, what it took for that person to be in the octagon. Because it took something for all of us to be here. And that's how you get the fans behind you. That's how you get them to stay behind you. Not just a fight. You know, people can say, oh, he's a boring fighter. How many guys have I knocked out?

How many, like, think about the Carlos Kahn to fight, dude? Dung Young Kim fight, the Robbie Lawler fight, the Jay Haram fight, the Josh Kachek fight, you know what I mean? Even the last fight was Stephen Wonderbottach. Everything that people said about me, I've proven them wrong. But nobody has that long-term memory. Everybody's like Dory from Finding Nemo. So I'm going to talk to Paige, and we're going to try to tackle this.

You know, I have asked talks with Dave Lockett. We're going to sit down. And, you know, I feel like I'm the guy that's the guy that they can make a star that's already doing everything for them, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's not much more you need to do. I agree. I've been saying this for quite some time.

Let me ask you this, though, Tyron. Considering the interesting, and you can use many different words, road to this fight, I know you always want to finish dominant, blah, blah, blah. But is a part of you disappointed that it wasn't emphatic enough so that you can shut everyone up, best welterweight in the world? I just beat the guy, the golden boy, all this stuff. Is that kind of what, because it looked like you were a little disappointed afterwards. Of course, you want to have a decisive win.

Are you, are you bummed that you couldn't, like, kind of put that exclamation point, especially considering how this camp went with all the, you know, the headlines and the interviews and stuff? Yeah, you know, the look I had on my face after the fight wasn't because I thought I lost. No. It was because, you know, I expected myself to do better. It really wasn't a terrible fight. I wouldn't get myself a C. Definitely would get myself an A.

But the fight itself, I could have forced more flurries. I could have forced more interactions. What we had, he would have had this change. I would have had these chains. It's kind of off-rhythmic striking. I could have forced that. And I was a little bit frustrated with myself because I saw some opportunities,

and I didn't see the moment. And it would have been great to go out there and put on a great performance. but my goal is never really to hush the critics and shut them up. I haven't even read Twitter. I'm pretty sure I'm getting annihilated on Twitter. But I haven't even read it because at the end of the day, I just pulled up to my house, just got out of the flight. First person I get out of playing with my wife.

I pick my son up from school. I'm in my car right now. I'm about to pick my other two boys out from school. These are the people that matter. These are the ones that love me. These are the ones that, you know, they go to the next level. But to answer your question, yeah, it was frustrating that I did not get to do that. But it doesn't change my statement.

I do still feel like I'm the greatest wealth away. You know, George St. Pierre's fight against Jake Shields, you still can't take that he's the greatest wealth away. Every matchup, you know, does not allow you to have the crazy performance that you think you might have. You know, if you think about guys like Paul Daly. Paul Daly never looked the way he did in his last ball against me. Terek Taffini.

When I fought Tercke's happening, he never looked the same way he looked against Scott Smith. Stiles makes fights. you know, Robbie Lawler was a freaking Terminator unstoppable when people thought he could never get knocked out. And I sent him down in the record-breaking time. So, Stiles make fights, one performance. And it wasn't even a bad performance. It just wasn't what people wanted to see.

That's all it was. It wasn't, like, people that are true martial artists that saw the, you know, the chest match being played, you know, I won by a few moves. You know, I wasn't, I didn't smoke him in a chest match, but I won by a few moves. and if you watch Olympic gold medals wrestling match, it might be a pushout.

It might be criteria. It might be one take down. You don't see 15-point smokeouts in Olympic gold medal matches. So this is true guys that are true high-level guys at the top. Not I talk my way to this fight because I got a fly suit and I'm talking crap. He deserved to be there.

I deserve to be there. We're both in our prime. And sometimes that's where to cook you crumble. Just a couple more things. And then I'll let you go. And thank you so much again for the time. Are you now happy you can not. think about this guy anymore. You don't have to talk about Wonderboy. You can finally move on.

My goodness, man. I mean, no, number one, shout out to Wonder Boy, man, because he had such a crazy style that it made, like, the rematch, like, I didn't tell a lot of people this. It wasn't that I've never been scared of to fight anybody. I've been street fighting and fighting my whole damn life. Like, fighting doesn't scare me. But to prepare for him, man, oh my God, it's so annoying. so many different um striking um cadence

that you're not used to styles and how to close the gap and how to get the person to the ground I mean so it's so frustrated that to fight him feel as if you won I felt like the first fight was a clear cut

I felt like this fight was a little bit closer you know I mean so to have to do it the second time I'm like oh my God now I got to go back in camp with all these motherfuckies trying to kick me in the head I'm like if I see another come towards me. I'm a throw up.

So, yeah, it is good to see, you know, know that my next fight won't be against him or will be against somebody else, possibly somebody that's you know closer to just a basic freestyle fighter that can strike, can wrestle, can grapple, you know, maybe a little bit more evenly match where

it'll be a better fight to watch. But you know he's going to win two, three more fights. He just has that style. Like, it's not many more guys that are wrestlers that can punch hard in the division. You think about Johnny, you think about Jake Ellenberg, you think about guys like that. Those guys are not at the top of the pack anymore.

So who's going to take him out, really? I mean, who's going to fight next? Robbie Lala? Maybe I saw one name that was thrown out Donald Taroni. I don't know who he's going to fight next, but I feel like they're... Robbie Loll and Donald Soroni are going to have a hard time with him. Yeah, yeah. I know they train in a meathead way where they won't bring in the guys that specialize.

I did that, man. I spent a fortune on bringing in people. You know what I mean? The best of the best. his world. And I don't see Robbie doing that. I see Robb's saying, oh, I'm just walk him down and knock him out. I see him down the Soroni. Oh, I'm just going to go out there out of and do my thing. I'm going to do what Soroni does. If you don't specialize for him, you will lose to him. And, you know, he's only lost twice in his career. A lot of people forget about

that. And even Matt Brown, he was trying to stage a comeback. Yep. You're 100% right. I mean, I actually think that the best compliment I or anyone else can give you is how you've neutralized him. I said after his Rory fight, I predicted that around this time next year, so last June, I said, mark my words, Wonderboy will be champion very soon. And for you to neutralize him, maybe not the most exciting fights ever, but to do that to Wonderboy who was looking that good and that dynamic and that tricky, that's special, to do what you did to him in two fights is pretty damn remarkable. And sometimes it's just... I mean, if you think about all my fights area, you know, guys, I let people, I let people label me and title me as a please. There's an athletic, explosive wrestling with power hands. But I'm so much more of a cerebral fighter than people give me credit for.

I study so much. I'm a true student of the sport. And if you look at everybody I fought, I took away their tools. I never allowed Kashak to be himself. I never allow Carlos Konda. Think about Kuala's kind of fight against Tiago Alvarez, a top, you know, linear wealth away. Look how differently that fight won when he was fighting against me.

Look how differently, you know, Jay Harron had only got finished by George St. Pierre, had an arguably close match with Ben Ascran, had won every fighting strike force affliction in the NFL. You know what I mean? Those aren't easy fights. Even Kelvin Gassum, who was supposed to outgrind me and, you know what I mean, out-conditioned me, and he was the one that was huffing and puffing and pumping at the end of the fight. So I purposely take away everybody's gifts.

and I leave them naked. And I do that every single fight. And I came to believe that I would never get the credit and respect that I deserve until it was all said and done. And I write my books and I explain to people what I just did to you and what I did to the sport and how I was able to come in. In so few fights, leave this type of impact in the World's Way Division and why I'm the greatest of all time.

Two last things. Do you know what's next? I know you're going to film the movie this week. but with Maya now off the table, do you have any idea what's next? And if not, what's your plan? I know you say you don't like, but forget about those people.

Tell us what you want. Yeah, you know, nobody's off the table. You know, you know this sport. You know, guys train so hard because they think if I win this fight, I'm a champion or I'm going to fight for the title. Those guys may, you know, slip on a banana pool in a room. You never know.

George and Bisming, one of those guys can, you know, go out there and overdo it and not make it to the oxygen. So with that said, I'm just going to do some more movies, man. I'm going to focus on my entertainment. You know, I literally miss some opportunities, a lot of opportunities, trying to show my faithfulness to, you know, the organization, to Fox, to taking fights.

Not that those things aren't my priority. They are. But, you know, I want to try to go out there and try to make myself more valuable on the outside of the octagon so that I can be more valuable inside. And, you know, that's my goal. for the next few months. Hopefully I'm back in the fight during International Fight Week in July.

Okay. We'll see who it is. That's when... What's Connor at, though? Who are he fight? I don't know, mate. Floyd. Okay, well...

I hear the talks are going well. Another fight that we never... What if that fight doesn't happen? So I've got a lot of options, man. Okay, so you're not worried. Right now, obviously, to make the most money, Connor, Bisminger, or GSP, you know, we'll see what happens between Maya and Oswaldal,

and, you know, we'll see what. what happens after that. By the way, do you have a problem fighting, Mazvedel? He said he really doesn't want to fight you because he likes you, your friends, you've helped him out, ATT, all that stuff. How do you feel about it? Yeah, you know, this is the thing. You know, I've always

supported, like I supported Robbie until we walked into the cage of all the other. It's like the same thing all over again. Yeah, same thing all over again, but it's different now. I think, I think George is taking it in a different way. What I won't do, if I feel like he was in a position where, you know,

He's not young. He's been in a sport long than I have. I would never deny him the opportunity to try to see if he's the best in the world. I would never deny him the opportunity to try to put his family in a different position. Would it be my first fight? Probably not just because I do like him. I have helped him train for a lot of training camps. You know, like I was a trained. A lot of people don't realize I was a straight-up bag of bones for many years.

For George Mazadal, Tiago, Alvese, Dean, Thomas, Eve Edwards, George, Santiago, J.D. Cavalcante, anybody you can name any. weight class. I used to spar twice a day. And I should just take my lungs. That was my job. I wasn't a full-time fighter yet. And that's what I did. So he's experienced a lot of training sessions with me. Actually, I was trying a lot with you. I can not think about it. But I am, you know, proud to see that somebody that's been on the bad end of so many close split decisions has finally, you know, got a nice little streak to get some top guys. And, you know, once again, you know, it's a crazy sport and I'll just kind of watch that fight

and watch what goes on. But yeah, I talked to him this last weekend. He's a little different in Robbie, man. I thought Robbie was a pure fighter and Robbie was a bit more emotional than I would imagine. But George, man, I can see a shaking hands fighting and going into the club afterwards hanging out.

By the way, last quick thing, just from your perspective, Habib and Ferguson falling out, how does that affect you? You find out 24 hours. I know you're the main event, but people were noticeably bummed. Did you feel like, oh, man, you know, I need to get people excited? Do you even pay attention?

Do you not care? From your perspective, how did it affect you? I wanted to care. I wanted to care so bad. At the end of the day, when you had a guy talking about, oh, I don't know why Tyrant and Steven is the main event, we should be the main event. Like, sometimes we need to just sit back and have respect. Sit back and play your position.

You know what I mean? And I've always been that guy that's done it. I played my position when Robbie was a champ. I walked in, he's the champion in the world. Tiago Alves, even to this day, to me, is always the original ATT guy. Nobody at ATT at Walthily gets more respect than him, even for me. That's how it goes. That's the martial arts.

So you throw in your sunglasses and you start screaming hippie-I-yo coyote yells for no reason, and then your fight fought through, no, I don't feel bad for you. And I feel like the fight should have been. promoted more around. This is an intriguing matchup that we've seen before. This was an epic fight on the best fight quarter of the history of the sport. This was a fight of the night. These dudes are getting it on again.

Like, you should have sold the living daylights out of that. So now when the fight falls through, I don't feel like me, especially cutting weight, especially focusing on my opponent, that I should be on the hook to really go out there and, you know, freaking go give Stephen a waging and sidekick his dad in the back to get some more drama for me. I don't feel like I should be obligated to do that. But I did reach out to Dana and I told them I would do what I can do. You know, I got a pretty strong celebrity list right now with and networking people that I do collaborative things with that I was going to try to reach out to them and see if they can help, you know, pump it a little bit.

How about Dan Blaserian in the cage after you want in the picture? How did that happen? Yeah. What's the connection there? We did our first movie together, and I didn't know how Epic's beer was. We had to both shave our beard on the Olympics fall in our first movie. We've been friends ever since. He was going to walk me out.

He actually was flying in to walk me out when I thought it was going to fight Johnny. But unfortunately, you know, obviously Johnny had some complications. So this time he was able to make the fight. I had him sitting with my mom and my wife. And we were supposed to go hang out and stuff. yesterday, but I was just so pooped. But yeah, it was cool. And I'm always doing that type of stuff, man. I always doing it

with Khalifa, the Migos, freaking Dan Bill Zarian, Snoop Dog, anybody you can think of. I'm always showing these guys that I get it. I understand how to cross the world together and I just need that, I just need that piggyback. Come on, UFC

piggyback, the boy. I feel you. It's coming. It's coming. As long as you keep winning. Tyrone, I really appreciate it. Congratulations. I know it was, again, an interesting road to get to this point. I'm sure you're happy to put it past you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for being a man of your word.

Good luck with the movie. And we'll talk to you soon and hopefully we'll see you back in July. I think that's a great idea. Thanks so much, my man. I appreciate it. And congrats. All right, thank you. Appreciate it.

All right, there he is. Tyron Woodley stopping by. Big win for him. And I thought he broke it down rather fairly. Now, the people in the back are probably killing me because I've gone way too long. I don't think I've ever gone, at least in recent memory, up until the 5 o'clock hour with interviews. So in your correct,

do you have anything else to say before they kick us out of here? I mean, yes, you've talked a little less this week, but, well, quite frankly, the people ask for that. And, uh, well, then they're in for it. I have good news. I have good news. Because, because I have not featured you as much on this particular episode, I've decided, I decided this at around 4 o'clock.

I'm going no guests next week, and it's just going to be me and you. What do you think of that? Just to give people to sort of offset the lack of you on today's episode. What do you think? Next week, no guest, just me and you think. I love that. And I'm canceling my trip to make this happy just for you.

What do you mean? What trip? There is no trip. What trip is right? Perfect. I'm looking forward to it. Me and you next week. Oh, yes.

It's going to be great. I hope whoever you told this that's going to be on this week, that you can maybe send them flowers, an iPad. Will your wife come to? That's going to be dice. If you remember, she didn't want to get on camera when we were in Hawaii. She's a little shot. What do you have to say?

Tell the people what you wanted to say. Go ahead. That I will not be with you next week. Wow. See, here I am offering you guestless show, just you and me. Don't worry. We can still do that. You say thanks, but no thing.

You can still do that. It's no big deal. Skype me in. High and dry. You're going to be in London. I'm going to be in London. Only London. I'll probably take a day trip to France. Hopefully get over to Amsterdam as well.

Can you take day trips to France? I mean, I feel like... Two hours by train. That's it. That's it. Wow. It's like your commute from Jersey into here. Wait, by the way, when do you go to London?

I leave Thursday night. You could go see Luke Barnard at Manchester in Manchester at ACB-54. Interestingly enough, Brian... Lacer. No, no, no, no. He's fighting on that. He was the one who did, she sang and had the Eululele. Yes, yes, yes.

He's fighting on that. Are you going? No, we'll see if I can find a way to make it happen. I love the fact that you're going to London on vacation, and here I am trying to convince you to go to an ACB card, and then you're saying you're going to the UFC card. Is that still? That's the hope.

That's the goal. Wow. Look at you. You're the only one. MMA World Traveler. Yeah. Wait a minute. That card's good.

I'm kidding. That card is good. I know, I know. Julia Budd won the Bell Tour Women's Featherweight title. Congratulations to her. Congratulations. I was Coonan on a great career.

She retired. Legend, also legendary status. Cody Fister, retired. Stop. The Big Pygmy himself won. That was cool to see, right? Justin Renn. Demetreus Johnson versus Wilson Hays,

April 15th, Kansas City. A very fine Fox main event card. Excuse me. No, you don't like it? Whatever. You want a Benavita is, right? It's the only fight to make. It's the only one that's competitive. Here's the pitch. Here's the hook. Fight haste, beat Hayes, and then to break Anderson's record,

you do it against the guy that you won the belt against. Full circle. You feel me? Because if he beats Hayes, he ties the record. One more beats the record. Now you've got a hook. There's no hook. Jacques-Rae's fighting Whitaker, buying or selling. Sure, whatever. Wow. I mean, is there anything other than a title shot for either Yol Romero or Jokre Sousa seems... Listen, if yours not getting a title shot, he can't cry file. No, for sure. Yeah. The order is clearly Yol Romero is next in line.

Okay. But you could, I mean, you could make an argument that Jokkeray is after that. GSP is somewhere much further down that list. And it seems like we're never going to... The thing about it is, Jokuree has been in the UFC for quite a while. while now and has just been beating up mid-level guys, it's disappointing.

The guy's career is being wasted. I feel your pain. Yeah, look, Romero is clearly the number one contender. He deserves a title shot. Jokuree deserves a title shot. Luke Rockhold probably deserves a rematch. Yeah.

I thought they were going to go Rockhold Jokoree, but not ready. Yeah. That would have been fun for July. But the fight itself? Sure. Great. It's a good fight. I mean, at least it's not some random, you know, 20th rank guy. It serves the same purpose, though. Is he getting any closer to a title shot if he wins? It's a numbers game.

And for Whitaker, he has everything to gain. Sure. He has nothing to gain. Except for money. This is how he makes a living. New York State Athletic Commission denied Holly Holmes appeal. Megan Anderson was actually at 209. Great scrum.

I don't know if it's up yet, but she did a great job. Her first UFC event live in person. and Francis and Ganu did a little open workout called Derek Lewis Slow. That was fun. Unimpressive. It was all a lot of fun. That's it. I'm done.

You got anything else? Give me one card. Go. One off top of your head. Go for it. UFC 134. Oh, that's such an easy one. That one I could give you three.

Anderson Silva versus Yushin Okami. Forrest Griffin. versus Shogunhua Dose. I'm trying to pick one. Big Nog versus Brandon Chob. Yep. Palo Tiago, I think, against, was it Dan Miller?

No. Yes. Hussimar Pahas, Dan Miller? Yes, it was Hussimara. Against Dan Miller? Yeah. Who'd Palo Tiago fight? David Mitchell?

Correct. Wow. Look at me. Okay. You did well. I'll miss you. So we'll see you in two weeks. Or are you taking,

is this a longer vacu? I don't know. You'll see me in two weeks. And this is just a vacation. We're not celebrating anything. Why not? Let's just call it an anniversary. Make my wife out.

Is it? Is this the anniversary? No, of course not. It's unbelievable. But you've taken more vacations. You've established a certain. You've taken more vacations in the last year than I've taken in my entire life. Something like that.

Yeah. Something like that. Well, we'll miss you. Now your turn. Ready? What? Gastilum and Bellford. Oh.

Who's the favorite? This should be easy. We're doing this? There's only two fights. Oh, Gasselm. Yeah. Big, big favorite minus 425, Belfort plus 340. Daryush and Barbosa.

Those are the only fights that have odds at this moment. Really? Yeah. Dariusian Barbosa. That's a tough one. I'll go Barbosa. Yeah, he's a slight favorite, minus 170, Darioch. It's actually a pretty good card.

I think this card and I think the London card are both pretty solid. Well, the London card's just missing a main event. That's what it is. I think people are kind of caught up on the fact that they thought there was a main event coming. Yeah. The rest is fun. That was better than Anderson Manoa, and then they were disappointed ultimately. But the card itself from top to bottom.

As far as FS1 cards in Brazil, this is one of the better ones as of late. And maybe our expectations have gone down. But Oliver means to, remember the controversy at 207, Bechko Heiard Marion Renaud, Ray Borg against Formiga. That's a great fight. Barbosa, Darius, Shogun against Volante, which kind of flying. I'm surprised there's no odds for that. Yeah, it's not.

I mean, there will be. But it's not up yet. And then Belford Gaslam. Kevin Lee fighting Francisco Cristiano. Someone told me that Kevin Lee was on M.A. Junkie Radio saying that I don't like him or that I was rude to him. I don't know what he's talking about. Damn.

Damn, Daniel. What? What? I just found out about that. That reference is like ancient. My wife. Jerry Rice over here talking about you seen the cashman inside. I just found out.

And I just looked up that clip like two days ago because I saw Jerry Rice's tweet. Had no idea. So you are slower than the. the man who was criticized for being slow. Who? Jerry Rice. I didn't know. I didn't know what he was talking about.

Had no idea what he was talking about. Oof, rough. Yeah. I will send you a message from London, but let's hope I get to see in time. But if you want to talk about Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol, I'm all over that. You don't even know what Peppa Pig is.

I've heard it. I've heard you reference it, but I don't know what it is. It's the best. All right. Safe Travels. By the way, Peppa Pig lives in England. You'll see a bunch of her. I'll say what's up.

Yeah. All over the airport over there. All right. Safe travels. You can hit my music. We are out. We are done. Thank you so much for sticking with us all this time.

Still a whole bunch of people watching. They love them some MMA. And like I said, last week was a fun week, an eventful week. There was a lot going on in the sport. Never dull. And yes, we didn't get to see our Habib Nurma Gmaghamedo versus Tony Ferguson fight. but happy to hear that he's back home in Russia and we'll see how this whole thing shakes out.

It's an interesting time. Another interesting thing as we creep towards July is what are they going to do for that July 8th card, International Fight Week? Now we hear GSP, not a part of it. We know Cody and Dillishaw. That's going down. I just saw a Geico commercial for Cody Garbrand.

That's pretty cool. Do they get John Jones? Can they even start promoting John Jones while he's still suspended even though the suspension ends after or before, I should say. That card, I don't know. It's all very confusing. Anyway, not to open a whole other can of worms as we say goodbye here.

Let me thank everyone who tuned in. Thank you very much to Damien Maya for stopping by. Good luck to him. UFC 211. Thank you very much to Jorge Mazvedal. Thank you very much to Eddie Alvarez. Good luck in getting his next fight. Kudos to Tony Ferguson.

Great stuff from him. him. Thank you very much to Alastair Overe. Congratulations on the big win. How about George St. Pierre? What a performance. What a interview. What a great sight. Welcome back. So happy to have you. Welcome. GSP. Later on this year, thank you to him. Thank you to Ali Abdel-Aiz. Luke Barnat. And of course, Tyron Woodley. Congratulations on the big win. Back next week. Same time and place without New York, Rick. Until I say,

Pesh, Mario.