MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 372

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Demetrious Johnson (00:24:21), Yoel Romero (00:48:22), Joanna Jędrzejczyk (01:11:29), Brad Pickett (01:35:22), Makwan Amirkhani (01:58:55), Tony Ferguson (02:21:15), Michael Chiesa (02:39:36), Misha Cirkunov (02:59:17), and Rashad Evans (03:22:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Great to be here with all of you on this frigid Monday afternoon in New York City. Everyone's going nuts because apparently there's another snowstorm coming tomorrow. Thankfully, the MMA. gods were looking out for us and they delayed it a day. So, you know, you can snow all over this city tomorrow. Just don't do it on a Monday. And they have obliged. So that's very good news. Not only for me, but for all of you as well. I hope you had a great weekend. A lot going on in the world of mixed martial arts. This past weekend, this past week, no shortage of topics to discuss

today. And there were a ton of events this past weekend. We had LFA Legacy Fighting Alliance. We had won. We had ACB doing great things. And then of course the UFC on Saturday night in Fortaleza. By now you probably know that Kelvin Gaslam defeated Vitor Belford in the first round. And Vitor essentially said this is his second to last fight. This was after the loss. Went on the mic and said, I have one fight left on my contract and I want to play it out come June 3rd in Rio de Janeiro. That's the UFC pay-per-view headline by Max Holloway and Josealdo. So is that a little too soon? Does that make sense?

He's also talking about a legends division, wanting to start that up with some crazy rules. So we'll talk about his loss, his future. But more importantly, Kelvin Gaslam, who I thought looked fantastic once again at 185. Now his second in a row at 185 looked great in his return just a few months ago in Toronto and looks quicker, is on point.

His striking is really coming along. massive props to Hafeel Cordero and he continues to talk about 170 I don't understand why he's eating he's healthy Kelvin Gaslam is the model citizen that they should push forth in terms of trying to

deter fighters from cutting drastic amounts of weight he is the perfect example as to why you should not kill your body on the way to the fight on the weight of the scale look at him he's comfortable he's happy he's healthy

and he's doing very well and he's beating pretty solid competition. Yes, these are older fighters, but he's outworking a game, Tim Kennedy. He's finishing Vitor Belford, totally out-classing Vitor Belford. Why do you want to go down to 170? I don't get it. At least for now, thankfully, his handlers are stopping him from doing so. So that was an impressive win. Shogun Huah defeated John Faluntei, and quietly Shogun Huah has his third win in a row. tied for the longest, what, in like a decade or something like that, best for him in the UFC.

Shogun Huah very, very slowly but surely, is now on a winning streak. Who would have thought after OSP knocked about in a matter of seconds? Remember that? The whole GIF with the skateboard. We thought he was done at that point. I thought he was done after the Dan Henderson fight, the rematch, and now all of a sudden he's won three in a row. It's nice to see, good for him, all that stuff, and more. But I don't want to see him fight the upper echelon of two of four.

five. Not at all. Keep them away from the upper echelon. And I know that that is a very, very exclusive club. There aren't that many upper tier light heavyweights right now. That being said, let's not book him against any of those. I saw some people calling for maybe winner of Glover versus Gustafson. I don't want anything to do with that. Give him fights like this. That was in the co-main event. We'll talk more about the car in a second. Let me run down today's line. lineup and then we'll have some thoughts on the weekend that was and then get into our first guest of the day. Okay, Stack Show as always, New York Rick is not here. This is amazing because

New York Rick is not here. So I said to myself, okay, I won't have someone, you know, ho-humming in the back, wanting more airtime, demanding more airtime in that sort of passive-aggressive way that he likes to, you know, like, he's like, oh, I'm all about the show, I'm all about the show, I don't want more time. But I know in his mind, the more guess I have, he recognizes, okay, there's going to be less air time for me. Well, this time around, he's on his honeymoon in England, and I don't know if any of you follow him on social media, but all he's tweeting about are the telephones over there. I mean, could you not be more of a tourist New York, Rick? It's all about telephones. Is there anything else that you're seeing of interest over there in England? Apparently not. It's just a

bunch of telephones. Can we get one more picture of a telephone, maybe, if we're lucky? So he's this week and we've got Adam in the back. And the great thing about New York Rick being gone this week is that he, you know, he goes on a honeymoon like once every eight months or so. And, you know, we miss him. I'm not going to lie, we miss him. But then when he's gone, we're reminded of the fact that he takes four hours to actually, you know, do his prep work when it takes Adam and I'm assuming any other, you know,

relatively smart individual, 30 minutes. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. maybe an hour tops. But wow, when he comes back, we got to kick it into gear, Mr. New York, Rick. I don't mean to pile it on. I definitely miss seeing him around. I miss his insight, but it is eye-opening, to say the least. I hope he's having fun.

Speaking of the UK, thank you very much to Robert Whiteford for this amazing stuff friend. My son Oliver likes to call these things stuffed friends, not stuffed animals like I used to. And I think that that's at proposed since they're not always animals. Robert Whiteford, who was victorious this past weekend at ACB, he submitted NamFan in a matter of seconds, and then afterwards Namfan went online and kind of retired, but not really, which was a theme this weekend, because Josh Berkman did the same.

Anyway, big win for Robert Whiteford, our friend from Scotland, who sent me a haggis-stuffed friend. You see it right there, wearing the traditional Scottish cap. How about that? That might be the greatest addition to this set. a stuff friend Haggis. Look at that.

How cute is that? I love it. If you're listening to this on iTunes, it's a haggis, it's wearing one of those Scottish caps, you know, the one with the plan and all that, the red and the black, eyes, smiley face.

It's just so darn cute. I want to take it home and give it to my kids, but I like it on the set. So thank you very much to Mr. Robert Whiteford. Like I said, we're stacked this week. No time to waste, because we've got a lot of guests to talk to. We got nine in total.

At 125, we're going to be joined by Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson. He is fighting Wilson Hayes, April 15th, UFC on Fox in Kansas City. He's looking to tie Anderson Silva's record, 10 in a row. As far as title defenses are concerned, for Demetrius Johnson. So he ties Anderson's record with a win on April 15th, live and free on Fox. That's the main event. As you may have heard last week, they also added Jacaree versus Robert Whitaker to that card, along with Michelle Waterson and Rosamma Eunice.

Very good card. Very solid Fox card. 145. We're going to be joined by Yuel Romero. I've been wanting to talk to Yuel Romero. Ever since the news came out around two weeks ago that GSP was going to cut the line and fight Michael Bisping, what does he think about it all?

What does it mean when the UFC says that they're going to, quote, unquote, take care of him? What's he planning on doing? Is he going to sit out? If GSP fights Bisping in September, as he told us he's planning on doing, doing on this show last week, what is Romero going to do? That means he might be out for, you know, well over a year, because remember he last fought in November at the MSG show. So what does YOL Romero think about all of this? And of course, we hope that he'll be joined by my favorite translator in the business, Ray, who, you know, those two guys, I mean, they're like

peanut butter and jelly at this point. You can't do a Yuel Romero interview without Ray. He's unbelievable. The facial expressions, the demeanor, the delivery, the accent, it all just works. It's perfect. The look. So that's at 145. At 205, we're going to talk to Yana Young Jacek, the UFC Straway champion. She returns to action on May 13th, UFC 211 against Jessica and Drudge. This is a fascinating fight on a fascinating card. Last week, UFC 211, just continued to get more and more

interesting. Yes, it lost the Ben Rothwell versus Fabrice over a doom fight. Ben Rothwell, provisionally suspended by Usada, says that it was for a medical reason, and we hope that everyone is not, you know, accusing him of being guilty before he is, you know, before he has his day in court, so to speak, before he actually goes out there and defends himself. And this, once again, brings up the issue of announcing these things before the fighters are able to actually provide the proper paperwork and defend themselves, et cetera, but that's a different

discussion for a different day. That fight is off. For Doom is off the card, but that card is just absolutely amazing. I don't know what the fans in Dallas did to deserve such a great card, but good for them. It's got two title fights. It's got the Steppe Miochich versus Junior Dos Santos rematch. It's got Yawanna-Jechek versus Jessica Andraj, which is just a great strawweight fight. Andrage, without a doubt, the number one contender at 115.

It's got Damien Maher versus Mazvedal. It's got Eddie Alvarez versus Dustin Porre. That was announced last week. It's got Henry Sehudo versus Sergio Pettis. It's got Frankie Edgar versus Jaeer Rodriguez also announced last week. James Vic versus Marco Polo Reyes. Vic wanted to fight on that card. He told us on this show.

Chas Skelly versus Jason Knight. I reported last week that David Branch will be returning to the UFC on that card against Christoph Jotko. I mean, that is a great card. That is a fantastic card. And the only kind of head-scratching thing about the whole card is

it makes it even more confusing as to why Maya and Mazvedal is even being booked. I can understand if you needed that fight for our main event. event. I can understand if you needed it, you know, for a prime spot, but this is like, this is going to be like the third or fourth fight on the card. I'm assuming it's going to be on the paper view, but why did you need it so badly? Why did you need to hold up the division

when you had a guy who won in August? It actually makes it more of a head scratcher to me. This card doesn't necessarily need. No one's going to buy this payper view because of my and Mazbado. It is a fantastic card. It is a fantastic fight. This is just making the rich richer. It's like a, you know, like a third cherry on top. You didn't really need it. I get it if you needed it for Nashville, which was the original report. You know, you can make the case that that needs a main event. This one doesn't need a fourth great fight. It's got a ton of fourth great fights. Anyway, so we'll talk to you on Ian Jacek as I go on that tangent at 205. At 225, we're going to talk to Brad Pickett. Brad Pickett is in action this weekend in London, and I know this is a much maligned card,

but I will say look at the actual card other than the main event it's actually really good I know fans were disappointed I know that they waited until you bought all the tickets and then announced a main event which was already on the card

they just bumped it up to the main event but this is a really really fun card I would say that top to bottom it's better than the Bissping Silva card top to bottom main event doesn't compare of course but top to bottom it's actually really good so Brad Pickett is fighting

in his retirement fight. It was supposed to be against Henry Bionis, Bure, nicknamed after the great Pavel Bure. But for the third time, that fight has been canceled. And now he's fighting Marlon Vera on a little over a week's notice. Brad Pitt, excuse me, Brad Pickett, excuse me, hanging up the gloves on Saturday. He was part of that retirement fight for your eye of favor this past December. Now he gets a chance to say goodbye on his own terms. in front of his hometown crowd. I love it.

So he'll be joining us at 225. Also on that card, Makwan Amir Khan is fighting Arnold Allen in a fantastic fight. We have not heard from Makwan in quite some time, hasn't fought in a little over a year. Where has he been?

I know he was at SBG for a little bit, but I always like talking to Mr. Finland, and he'll be joining us at 245. Of course, the other big fight on that card is Gunnar Nelson versus Alan Jo Band. The main event is Jimmy Manoa versus Corey Anderson. I also love the Joe Duff. Duffy fight against Reza Madati, this is the last fight on Joe Duffy's current UFC contract.

If he wins this fight, you'd think he's going to cash in. The Belt Organization is doing a lot of events these days in Ireland, Northern Ireland. You'd think they'd be interested in him as well if he finishes up the contract on a win. So that's an intriguing one. And it's happening on Fight Pass this Saturday, Mark Diakese. It's a really, really good card. I really like it a lot. I mean, of course it has that European slant, the English slant, but I like the matchups.

As I did this past Saturday, the fight night car was fun as well. So that's at 245. Macquaran, Amir County. Tony Ferguson will stop by at 305. Yes, we talked to him last week, but there's a little more to talk to him about. And so I wanted to talk to him about the week that was. He came out and said that he got less than half of his show money, which, by the way, go back to the press conference. When Dana White was asked if Tony Ferguson would get his show.

money. A lot of people listen to what he said and for some reason kind of just assumed that he said that he was going to get his show money, that Dana confirmed this. He didn't really confirm it. He kind of non-answered the question. Ferguson, very vocal about this. And yes, it does say, or I should say it doesn't say in the bout agreement or the contract that they are required to pay these show money if you weigh in and your opponent doesn't make it to the scale or make it to the scale. the fight. Nowhere does it say that. And that's, quite frankly, on the managers. I believe it was Jeff Wagenheim on the beat last week that said, the managers need to put that in the contract. You can't necessarily cry foul, even though there has been a precedent set when it doesn't say it in black and white. You got to get that in there. So we'll talk to Ferguson about that. We'll talk to him about where he goes from here. I was told that the UFC attempted to make Ferguson versus Habib, April 8th, and Buffalo, UFC 210. But too soon for Habib, and that's understandable.

I also was told that there was an attempt to see if it was possible to make Ferguson versus Eddie Alvarez before they locked in Alvarez versus Dustin Porre for UFC 21, but that's not happening as well. Short notice for Eddie Alvarez, I could certainly understand that. There's only two fights that I think makes sense for Ferguson at this time, Habib or Nate Diaz. And if Chabib is going to take

an extended period of time off, if he cannot fight before Ramadan, I kind of feel like they need to make that fight for the July 8th card in Las Vegas. Ferguson versus Nate Diaz, that is. 3.30 will be joined by Michael Keesa.

He was brought up last week, sort of by Eddie Alvarez, when Eddie Alvarez called him the tough guy. When I understand, it came down to Michael Keesa and Dustin Porier for Eddie. They went with

Eddie versus Dustin Porreier, want to talk to Michael Kesa, who we have not seen in action since April of last year in Tampa, was booked to fight Tony Ferguson. Remember, he got injured, hurt his back, and then Landovanata stepped in, and he's kind of become the forgotten man at 155. So we'll talk to him at 330. 350, we'll talk to Misha Serkinov. And Misha Serkinov is back in the UFC, has gone 4 and O. Remember, he had that contract issue, and it seemed like his days were numbered. as far as the UFC is concerned, and then all of a sudden he's back. And not only is he back, but he has his next fight yet.

He has his next fight. His next fight is going to take place May 28th in Stockholm, that fight night event headlined by Glovertecera versus Alexander Gussifsen. Volcan Ozedimir of Switzerland, who beat OSP back in early February in Houston. This was first reported by Aaron Bronstetter of TSN. so good timing we'll have misha circanov on the show at 350 410 we'll talk to rashad evans about his

debut at 185 and where he goes from here after losing to daniel kelly rashad's name kind of came up after the uh kelvin gaslam win over vitor belfort because vitor said he wants one last fight june 3rd in rio and some people said okay why not rashad he's coming off a loss you know kind of at the same stage, although Vitor's a little bit older. And then there's that whole Black Zillions angle. They sort of, you know, train with each other briefly when Vitor was in Florida. That's definitely a possibility. The possibility, and Anderson's name came up for Kelvin, although I don't know how much I love that fight for Kelvin.

Maybe, you know, it's a big fight for him in Rio. Vitor was asked about it. Vitor versus Anderson, too, which I think makes a hell of a lot of sense. that's a really big fight for Rio. That's the fight back at UFC 126, which propelled Anderson into the stratosphere that he's now in in at least Brazilian MMA circles

and Brazilian pop culture circles. But Vitor said he doesn't want to go out against a Brazilian. So do we go back to Rashad? And then what do you do with Gaslam? Gaslam brought up something very interesting in the Post-Fri Press conference about the rankings. I mean, it's become kind of commonplace

to crap all over the rankings. But it is a tough spot for the fighters who are in that division, 185, even 155. You hear a guy like Edson Barbosa. Edson Barbosa had a phenomenal finish against Benil Darius. Your heart goes out to Dariush.

He looked really good. He won the first round. He was arguably en route to winning the second round, and then he gets brutally knocked out via flying knee. And then afterwards, Barbosa says, I want a title shot. Well, the queue now is so long that, you know, what are these guys shooting for?

Are they just shooting, you know, for paychecks? That's not bad. You have to make a living. But Gaslam, Barbosa, are kind of in the same boat in that regard. So where does Gaslum go from here? I suggested the winner of Wydenman Musassi. Is that a little too soon? Perhaps.

But, you know, you could say, okay, let's give them a slow build. You go from Kennedy, you go to Belfort, maybe Wydenman Musassi is a bit of a jump. But when you consider the fact that Romero is only going to fight for the belt, You know, in, I don't know, 10 months, 11 months, you have to keep them active some way, somehow. So do you want to give him a lesser opponent to let him go on, you know, maybe get two, three fights in? Or do you want to really see where he's at against the winner of Wyman Musassi,

which is taking place, of course, in less than a month in Buffalo? I do not want to see him, though, go down to 170. One thing that came up, by the way, last, this past Saturday, last weekend, a lot of promos for UFC 210. I noted that I thought that they were very favorable towards Rumble Johnson.

Look at the promos. Look at every single one. Look at the talking points. It's all like UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is fighting the killer of all killers, the most feared man in the world, the scariest puncher,

the scariest knockout artist in the history. It's all building up Rumble Johnson. And I don't think for one second that the UFC doesn't like Daniel Cormier. I actually think that they like him a lot. They've given him a ton of TV time. He's now a color analyst. He's got the Fox gig.

This is not a slight on Cormier. I just think that they don't know how to build up these fights. They're using the same stock sound bites for every commercial. It's all the yelling and screaming and even, you know, they're using like Wonderboy's voice

in this promo. And you got Goldberg still in there. I mean, you parted ways with the guy. I don't think you should be using them anymore. We don't need the same formulation. like commercials. And this kind of, you know, was brought to light last week with the posters. Someone reached out to me. I'll leave their name out of it. I won't tell you what department, what their history is. Someone reached out to me who is very knowledgeable as far as the whole

marketing department is concerned at the UFC and kind of gave me the rundown about what's going on and it. And it's what we sort of figured. Just a lot of layoffs. They're working with a skeleton crew, 43 events. They don't have time to give each event T. T.S. And I get that. Your typical fight night doesn't need, you know, TLC, so to speak. But your 12 to 13 pay-per-views, I think, need a little boosting. They need a special poster. They don't need a poster that looks like it was cobbled together on, you know, 20 minutes notice.

They need a special promo with some originality, some imagination. These promos with the yelling and just building. How about building up the fact that Daniel Cormier is an All-American? How about building up the fact that he's, you know, an Olympian? And how about building up the fact that he is arguably the pound for pound king in the sport? I mean, this guy lost once in his career at light heavyweight to arguably the greatest fighter of all time. Let's not forget how good John Jones was before he hit this rough patch. And he was undefeated at heavyweight.

And the only reason why he really went down to 205 was because his friend, Kane Velasquez, was in the mix, in the title picture mix over there. And then he goes down to 205 and he loses once to the champ. and then he comes back after the champ is out and beats Rumble Johnson and beats Alexander Augustuson. It's not his fault that Jones backed out back in July. And I know people like to bring up the fact that he hasn't defended the title all that much. Yes, he's been injury hit.

There's no doubt about it. He has pulled out of some fights, especially as of late. No doubt about it. But that doesn't take away what he's done. And you can't build this guy up. You can't tell us about, you know, you're showing this Patrick Cummins highlights. Come on. He's done a lot more since then.

It's just frustrating. I'm not trying to be too negative. I love the sport so much. I love the UFC. I want the UFC to succeed. I want them to be as successful as possible. Trust me. It's good for me.

It's good for my living. I love big fights. I just want to see them get that sort of attention. I mentioned this on the beat. When I was an intern at HBO, they let me go into the kind of warehouse on my last day there. This is 2003.

And they had every single HBO poster of the last decade. They said, take as many as you want. I love fight posters. I love fighting. I love boxing. I love MMA. I love all that stuff.

So I got a Tito Trinidad one. I got a Shane Mosley one. I got a Lennox Lewis one. And then I went back to school. I went back to Syracuse my senior year and I put them all over my wall. Yes, this was somewhat of a deterrent as far as the ladies are concerned. But for me personally, waking up every day, looking at these great fight posters, I loved it. You want that 209 poster up in your room?

You want that 210 poster? Maybe ironically, you want to show your friends that great promo for the Buffalo card? Come on now. Just a little more TLC. That's all we ask. Anyway. So Gasselm with the big win this past weekend. Shogun with the win over Volante.

Barbosa with a win. Ray Borg with the win. Bechkoheya gets the draw, but still does the booty shake anyway. Got to respect that. Speaking of booty shakes, Alex Oliva, with one as well. And then, as I mentioned, Josh Berkman left the gloves in the cage after his loss, but then went to the back and said, I want to at least fight in front of my family in Utah,

so he kind of took that one back. No problems there. All right. Let's move along to our first guest of the day. As I mentioned, he is returning to action on April the 15th. He is trying to tie history. He's trying to secure his 10th straight title defense. He is fighting Wilson Hays in the UFC's debut in beautiful Kansas City.

It's live and free on Fox. We're talking to our good pal. Mighty Mouse, Demetrius Johnson. DJ, how are you? I'm good, Errol. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us. Are you happy? Oh, no, thank you.

Yeah, I'm happy. Yeah, I'm good. What's up, baby? Well, you got what you wanted. You wanted to fight in Kansas City. And the UFC listened to you. Yeah, absolutely, man. I'm very happy that I'm going to be able to headline to Foxcarat and Kansas City. And moving forward to it. I bother you all the time.

Like, I give you, like, a week, two weeks, maybe three weeks, and then I say, okay, what's next when you're returning, and then I consistently bother you. And then around UFC 209, I was like, yeah, you know, what's going on? I haven't heard much about you. And you said you really wanted to fight on that show. You wanted to tie history in front of, you know, I'm not going to say, you were, you know, Kansas City is not, you know, right next door to Seattle, but relatively close, I guess you could say Midwest, West, all that stuff. And it seemed like you were a little worried, like you weren't going to get what you wanted. How did you get it done?

Yeah, you know, obviously, you know, shout out. out there all wanted for posting, you know, that I wanted to, you know, fight on Kansas City, you know, MAAfighting.com. One of the best martial arts website I even go to. Wow. But with that being said, you know, obviously the U.S.C. they have their, what they would like to have done, and they gave me multiple dates to fight on, you know. First off I wanted to fight on May 13 in Dallas just because it was just, you know,

no big pay-view card. You know, you would have the baddest man on the planet fighting, also the heaviest man on the planet fighting. I figured I would try to go on that route. But, you know, we landed in Kansas City, which I'm very happy about. I love fighting on Fox. The time frame works perfect in my liking. You know, usually when you fight on a pay-per-view,

the main carters start to 7, but if you're on East Coast or Mid-Cose, that means you don't start fighting until 9 o'clock. I mean, you don't get done until weekend midnight or 1 a.m. in the morning, so it's not about that life. Yeah. And also, and I feel like I've talked to you about this before, I love when you fight on Fox,

especially Big Fox, because I feel like the whole narrative of, you know, selling pay-per-views and all that is just kind of thrown out the window. You don't have to answer those questions. There's not that kind of pressure on your shoulders. Do you feel the same way? Yeah, and even when I do have a pay-per-view, you know, I don't worry about the pay-per-view, all that stuff. You know, I just love how Foxx, I think they do a better, they do a good job in the production, and it's on Fox. It's true to our box. I mean, the fences are on that channel for a god's been on there for a long time, so there's a lot of time.

So there's always a special heart of my place with Fox. You know, growing up watching it, you know, Simps, you know, a family guy and all the other great shows on there. You said they do a better and then you corrected yourself. What did you want to say? A better job than who? You know, I don't want to do a better job. I feel like when I fight on Fox, I see the commercials a lot more.

And I don't have, you know, my father-in-law and everybody and their mom at the YMCA asked me, hey, when you fight again, usually when I fight on Fox, everybody in their mom, I know I'm playing on Fox. Fair enough. Fair enough. Were you at all surprised that they went with Wilson? No, not at all. I mean, like I said, me and him posted running back last July, you know, July 30th. Yeah.

But I got injured. You know, I had an LCL tear. So I wasn't surprised at all. That's what they offered me. And I said, yeah, sure, let's do it. You know, just like last time when they offered it to me. So, yeah, same result. Let's do it.

You mentioned in an interview, I saw it on an M.A. Junkie where you said that Dana White told you he doesn't want you to fight Joseph. Benavitas again. Is that true? So that was true, but let me give you guys a little more context. Please, please. Back in the day when they were trying to do the Ultimate Fighter show, when I first got, when I first found out about the Ultimate Fighter show, Ultimate Fighter, Tough 24, found it out by Twitch.

Oh, you can follow me on Twitch at My Name on YouTube at Twitch. But I found out there, and then I said, you know what? You know, why do you throw everybody in the house? You know, throw Joseph in house. everybody in the UCRoss in the house and then go find the rest of the guys run around all. Throw them all in the house

and the winner will be victorious. So then my pick was that if Joseph got in the house he'd beat every single one of those guys and he would earn his third shot. And then I was like, dude, I love how you stick up for all your colleagues and your buddies, but I don't want to see that again, okay?

I don't want to see it. And I was like, I'm just being honest, I mean, you want the best friend in the house, the best fighters on the U.C. roster. Throw them in the house and then have those guys fight, you know, the regional champions. So that's where the context came from.

You know, that's where I came out, said that word. You know, when I was like, yeah, if the next person who's going to get the next time of shot is going to be a top 24 winning, you know, throw Joseph in the house, throw Jackson in the house, and he's at 25, throw Dodson in the house again. So all those guys in the house. That way, you know, there's no, nobody, basically you're playing about who deserves the next shot at the 125.

And then it was like, no, I got different plans. I was like, whatever. It's just, you know, I try to be a very honest person and I try to, you know, blow smoke up anybody's ass. But when it comes down to it, you know, the U.S. He says, hey, this is you going to fight? I don't feel, but we'll fight. You know, I have nothing against Joseph Johnson, all the guys that fought in the past. You know, they're all great competitors, and I wish nothing but the best for their careers.

The theory that I threw out last week was, I wonder if they're saving Joseph for the record-breaking title defense. if you get 11, you break Anderson's record only because we can tie the whole circle together, you won the belt against them. If we're going to give them a third crack, maybe we do it with this storyline. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, that can definitely be a possibility, you know. Like I said, you know, UC has, you know, what they like to do, and then, you know, I have what I like

to do. But at the same time, if that's, you know, full circle, yeah, that sounds good to me. And like I said, you know, when people ask about that fight, you know, there's not everybody jumping out of their Cs. He's doing it. He's on one of the six-fight winchie. He's beat the best of the best division. The only people he's ever lost in his

career is me, Dominicruz. So, yeah, I mean, if he keeps going around and beat people up on stuff, it's good. You know, I just think, you know, they're probably looking at a way that like, okay, let's say if he, you know, if he beats Chief Johnson perfect, he's a new champion, we can throw some guys in that he hasn't already

beat. Okay, if he loses the game, okay, if he loses the game, and then he keeps beating it. top contenders, or do we say, hey, you know, we want you to go to 135. You know, they have to look at all their options. I might say that to the very last one, I was like, hey, hey, hey, maybe at the 11th pilot offense, you know, I beat him and then I love, hey, for New Jersey, we want you to go to 135, we're going to pay you X, Y, and Z.

You know, I'm not going to do a fake eight, what's what about pound championship, Joseph, you can fight, whoever they don't want to considerate at that time. I mean, they can do so many different options. Have they brought up the 135 thing recently? No, they have not. Okay. Okay, okay. Just checking, because I know that's been discussed a little bit in the past as far as people outside of your circle, but not, no, not necessarily with you.

Have you thought about, you know, the circumstances, the opponent, the date, the venue, if you get to number 11, like, I know you don't want to look past Wilson, but have you, I mean, that's a big deal. That's, that's a record, you know, that's one that we thought maybe would never get broken. Have you, have you started to think about that at all? You know, sometimes I do. everyone wants in a blue moon, but I try to stay focused on, you know, despite the biggest fan try to stay focused on is, uh, staying healthy in training.

Um, but yeah, you know, I have my eyes on and see what big, big, uh, big, uh, pivot view stars are coming back in the fall. So hope I can, uh, you know, help those guys have on a big, uh, paper view card. What, what's, what's the perfect scenario for you? Oh, come on. Uh, I would say, uh, Connor fighting, uh,

Floyd Mayweather. Uh, that'd be the boxing main event. and then you can have GSP fight and Michael Bisbing, and then I can be right behind them as the pre-comain event. That would be the perfect scenario, and in Las Vegas at the beautiful T-Mobile Arena. That's what I would love to have. Would you get paper viewpoints, though? I don't know.

I got to go to the contract, read all that fine print. I'm just, you know, I got to read all that good stuff. You know, hopefully we'll find out. What about opponent? I don't care. You don't care. You just want that record. Yeah, I just want the record in, you know, just a big spotlight to do it on. I mean, first, I mean, we're dropping ahead. We're dropping again.

Sure. First, I got to stay healthy and training camp. And then I got to take on a very tough wolf and Hayes. And then once you get that done, I'm going to let my body relax, enjoy, you know, the springtime in Washington State. Then, you know, I'll start getting myself in gear. Whether I lose or win, get ready to the next one. When did the records start to, A, become special? for you and more importantly be, in your mind at least attainable.

Like, when did you start to think, like, this is something that I want, and this is something that I actually think that I can get? I think after my pet of the fence, it was something that I was like, okay, we're at five now, and five feels like four and three, so I guess let's shoot for 10. You know, that's where Anderson has that now, and everybody keeps talking about my stuff that's the greatest middleweight of all time. you know, he's held adults the longest in UFC history. So I was like, hey, you know, I guess that's a goal to shoot for after the fifth title of

offense. I was like, let's try to shoot for it. And, you know, after the six and the seven and the eight and then the ninth, it was like, all right, we keep on tugging along. And, you know, now we're getting in 10. And it's just crazy that, you know, my career has come to this point because at one time I didn't even care about being champion. There was not even a chance for me to be a champion because this weight class never existed.

It's shit, not even 135. Right. Do you feel like a big enough deal has been made of the fact that you're this close? Or would you want to see more attention paid to it? I think it's a big enough deal. You know, everybody, you know, I think my boy T. Wood said it at the best. There's people out there who just want to see bar fights. There's people out there who want to see technical.

You know, I think Joe Rogan is a big fan of this because he came out of saying, you know, what's the point they have a championship belt when the champions are going to fight, you know, guys in that division. You know, a good example, Michael Vision taken. on GSP, you know, he should be fighting UO. Romero. Right. You all Romero is beating everybody.

He hasn't fought U.L. Romero. And that's the more container. So for me, I think there are big fans out there who believe that championship fight should be, you know, you want to win as many as you can consecutively. And then when you're at the tail end in your career and you're like, all right, I'm almost done or whatever. And I'm just looking for the big fight. Then, yeah, you can do that.

But for me, I'm still young in my career. I'm a young, 30-year-old man, and I'm still trying to tie the record. I'm not trying to tie the record and break it and set a new one. Do you worry that they're going in the direction of more entertainment over sport? I think they do a little bit of both. You know, I think there's a little bit of more, there's sport, there's a little entertainment. Obviously, as in a date, UFC, WME, and IMG, their business, and I've got to make sure they make back that $4.2 billion they sold.

they purchased the company for So I think here and there I don't have a problem in GSP fighting like a business I think if GSP came back and fought at you know top five middleweight and beat that person And they got a title shot Then I think people will be more accepting

But since he's just coming off You know three years or four years I don't know how long he's been away from the sport And getting an immediate title shot When there's guys who've been grinding You know this whole entire time to get to that point in their career Then it just be taken away from them You know, I think that's where a lot of the two hard fans like WTF, what the F.

Yeah. I do like, by the way, how you and Tyrant have this bond. You mentioned to me that you went to Vegas to support him, and he always supports you. You guys kind of have this like watch thing together and your kindred spirits in that regard. He is a much more, I think it's fair to say, a polarizing figure than you are, and he's not afraid to speak his mind. Do you guys speak about this sort of thing behind the scenes? Does he ask for your advice? So how do you kind of stay out of the headlines or, you know, do not talk to him at all?

I mean, because it has been kind of an interesting three, four months for him since he became champion. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, I would say, you know, the very first time I met Tyrone movie, I was a huge fan of him when he came out of that strike force back to me and my son after him. That name was very intriguing to me and how he carried himself as a champion strike force. And we talk all the time, you know, I bounce ideas off him. he bounced out of me and we give each other advice. He's a huge inspiration to me in my career, just the way he carries himself and how he just says whatever he wants.

And I respect that. And you have to respect his opinion and how he feels about things. So, yeah, man, huge fan of his. And I was asking you know, like, you sure you want to do that? He goes, yeah, I'm going to do it. This is how I feel. And, you know, that's what I'm going to say. And I'm like, all right.

And there's sometimes I ask him, like, how do you feel that way? And he goes, just because you have an experience, doesn't mean it's not. it's not, you know, happening or anything like that. And I, you know, me and my wife, destiny, we totally agree where he's coming from at some points. And, you know, you have to, the biggest one he said that resident with me was that, you know, he's doing this beautiful thing called the champ camp where he's going around talking to, you know, troubled children.

He's giving back to the community. And, you know, he told me that he asked the USC to push it one time. And the U.S. He goes, no, I'm not going to do that. But the Mac Live, shit, one eight, you know, Carmen a drop. that, you know, they, they push the hell out of that. And, you know, it's supposed to Connerberg going around buying Ferraris and driving and talking, you know, doing his thing, showing his watches, showing how many suits he's got.

So it's a little bit different parallel. Then you have to look at it. Like, okay, do we want to, you know, obviously when people look at this, you know, the trolls, the fat guys who can't get girls and all that stuff, can't buy Ferrari, they're like, I want to be like Conner. So it's kind of, it outweighs it. So as a athlete, you have to sit back as a. feet like, okay, why won't they push mine where, you know, like you said, I'm an analyst,

I'm a husband, I'm a father, you know, I don't do drugs, I, you know, never disrespecting anybody on a big level. So why won't they promote me and they were prone this guy? So you have to think about that. Do you think that it's because I'm black or is it because he's like, I mean, that's, that's where he's coming from. And I, I totally understand it because as an athlete, as African-American, you have to sit back and think about that. It was like, you know what? And I had people who work at Microsoft that are. You know, they're like, you have to think like that because why is that person going to push over you? And it's, you know, it's a sight of, you know, that we look in.

And as being African-American, you have to, if I would just say that's never came through our mind, then I would be lying to the world. So do you feel like racism is an issue in MMA? I don't want to say it to issue. I don't want to say it's issue because obviously I've been promoted very well as a flyweight champion, you know. But can I say that people might feel there is? Yeah, they're part of people who feel it, but I don't think they'll make them like, I'm not going to remote that man to be black. So get something else in front of me.

I don't think they like doing that. But I'm just saying that if people feel that way, then it's not, it's possible that some people feel that way. You know, that's just how it is. Do you ever feel that from the fans? No, no, no, no. I mean, don't even wrong. I've been in Uber, I've been in Uber, and I've been taxi driver. They're like, they look at him.

He goes, hey, you're that flyweight champion, right? I'm like, yeah, I am, but to me. And he goes, you know why you're not famous, right? And I was like, uh, no, he goes, because you're black. And I'm like, good for you. You got big balls, my friend. Really? I don't feel.

I mean, that's a crazy statement. No, that's a crazy statement. He said, like I said, this is, you know, something I experience in my life. Yeah. Like I said, you know, a lot of people don't talk about the things they have experience in their life. But, you know, that's just one thing that, you know, I've experienced, you know, as, you know, you try to get out of Tyron Ruby.

Tyron, last time you didn't ever do, you were like, can you elaborate more on, you know, the things that you said you've been, you've been around that makes you feel that way? He never, you know, explaining anything, but that's one thing that, you know, I sit in the bag of it, then as an app, but you get out of the car and you're like,

what the fuck's he talking about? Or you sit back and you're like, huh, do you think he's right? Do you think he's wrong? It's just, it's a mind thing, you know, your mind, your brain starts to think about stuff like that. So that's all it is, man. That's where I think, you know,

everybody just misunderstands, Tyron when he talks about that, but I understand what's coming from. Sometimes you wish that you had that gene in you where you were as outspoken as Tyron, like, man, I wish I had that. You know, do you envy that in a regard, or do you like staying out of the spotlight?

I like, I envy it sometimes, but I let myself go more on Twitch when I'm streaming because it's, you know, I'm talking to people. You know, last night somebody, some troll. You know, I try not to get the trolls a chance to, you know, give me wild up a seven once in a while.

How did we lose him? He goes, oh, you're not a draw. Ah. Are you still there? Yeah, yeah, we got you back. Okay. Yeah, so this guy, he goes, he goes, you're not a draw.

You're not a draw. Enjoy, enjoy a fuck. And I was like, well, my friend, guess what? You enjoy going your fucking job on Monday from 9 to 5 and enjoy punching that punch clock. And then I said, okay, all right, you say I'm not a draw.

Let's go back. time and look at all the UFC pay-per-view number draws, okay? And so I did all the research, and I pulled up all on my stream. I was, okay, let's take a look at, you know, John Jones versus Alex Buftham. And my argument was that draws are more about

drama. People want to see drama. Okay? So I went back to John Jones fighting Alice Bufthson. What UFC was that, Ariel? 165. 165. 165 did about 310,000 pay-per-view buy.

Okay. Now, that was back in 2014. I don't know. I can't remember. Then I fast forward to, you know, Josialdo and Hindenborough and Ricardo Lama's person, your right favor. And your right favor was a big pro-lizing figure in his sport of mixed martial arts. He's been a pioneer at his whole entire career for the, you know, the smaller weight division. And then I pulled up the numbers and it was like maybe 275. Okay, you had two champions there. No beats between those guys, just great and amazing athletes. but nobody really cared about that. You fast forward a little bit.

You go to John Jones fighting somebody else. It was like maybe 3.20, 35. Now you fast forward to, you know, at the time, pound brown best fighter in the world, me and then pound around best fighter in the world, two, John Jones, taking on gold medalist, Henry Sehudo, and you had OSP fighting 375 by rate. Then you jump to some drama to where there's bad blood.

No, they don't like each other. He was going to spin his face. He was going to go next door and kill him. $875,000 by from John Jones and Daniel Cormey. Now, this is all speculation. All of the numbers I found online are doing that stuff. And then I went to Connor and he had amazing numbers. And then you went to, you know, Ron and Ravi.

So then I even went to GSP. And then he was in the 400,000. Yeah. So I'm like, so who, so what is it, what is considered a draw? Is $310,000 considered a draw or was $875 or $1.5 million considered a draw? So I'm saying, I told this guy, I was like, so you're telling that there's only, he was, he was right, but I was talking about, like, dude, like, sometimes being an athlete, it's not about being the biggest straw.

It's about being the best fighter in the world and worrying about that. And so I told that guy, he was a dumbass, and just because of a person, you know, you can have a tile, a pay-review with eight champions on it, and eight people are fighting somebody that nobody cares about. People are either going to turn there or not, but you get somebody, you know, I guarantee you, if you have a girl, catch me outside, the girl in Dr. Phil, don't know if you know, she's very famous, four, four, four, and five, you million followers on Instagram.

I guarantee you, if you give her some gloves and put her in the Ombuds, she'd be the highest selling pay-per-view fighter in the world. She probably did way more numbers than Rhonda, just because she brings drama and negativity to wherever she goes. And that's why I was telling the guy that, I was like, you're dumb-ass near a troll. And then we roasted him, and we sent him on his way with the band. Oh, wow, wow. That is intense.

No, and I appreciate the insight, and I appreciate you doing that research. You're 100% right. Unfortunately, in combat sports, it's the one sport where, Being a draw is actually even brought up. You think about a guy like Tim Duncan. You know, very vanilla personality. Never did interviews. Never wanted to talk.

Never gone into any controversy. But one, I think it was like five championships. There's now a guy named Kauai Leonard on the Spurs. Same way. Doesn't say a word. Doesn't talk to anyone. But he's one of the best players in the world. Unfortunately, in combat sports, being a draw is really the only kind of sport where, you know, boxing

MMA, where this ever comes up. It doesn't, no other athlete has to talk about this sort of thing. and, you know, I feel for you, but you, I think you've come a long way in that regard. By the way, one last thing. Ray Borg wins on Saturday, and then he mentioned, you know, he mentioned you and Wilson saying him coming for the bell. Were you impressed? Is he on your radar at all?

I didn't watch the fight. I was not having a German chocolate cake for my father's birthday. My best friend's father's birthday. So I didn't watch the fight, but I heard he won. The fight back to him. And, no, man, you can't worry about what other guys are saying who's coming up. There's always going to be another guy coming up. up. I've been in this sport for way too long.

Been a champion. Fighting the best of the best of the division for so long, fighting the best of the division double back to back. And I don't worry about that. I just worry about myself, staying healthy and staying focused. I know these guys are gone up for me. It's like high school everybody's trying to kick my ass. And you just got to, you know, stay humble, keep on training. And before you try to give me off of Air, Erawani, you have that subscribed to the channel, which takes me so long. Gosh, I don't even know where to, how do I subscribe to Twitch?

And I hope they're paying you for all this love because this and nuts and more. You're all over those guys. And it looks great, by the way. The birthday cake one that you tweeted about last week looks phenomenal. But I don't know. Where do I go to Twitch? Do I need an Xbox?

Do I need a PlayStation? You can use your phone. Don't we're going to take care of you. I'm going to have one of my moderators write something up. I'm going to send it to you via DM on Twitter. And we're going to take care of you. We'll get you in there and get you a nice old white belt around your waist. All right.

We were supposed to do like a weigh-in show together, and then you left me hanging. You know, that thing was kind of, it was a great production, but at the same time, I don't really like to talk about fighting because you sit there and you argue with other people about their opinions. Like, I don't like to put a lot of energy in the things, you know, where people are like, oh, well, I thought he won. Well, I thought he won. Well, I thought he did this. Oh, well, I thought different. I thought I weighed this more than that. I was like, I'm not over.

And I thought it wasn't a good show. All right. Fair enough. But I'm happy to come on anytime you want me. And yes, if I can figure it out, I'd be happy to watch. watch you play video games. I can think of nothing more exciting. More than that. Way more than that. DJ, a pleasure as always. Looking forward to April 15th. Big time stuff. You're tying the record. You're looking to tie the record. I want to get ahead of

myself here. April 15th on Fox, Kansas City against Wilson Hase. It's great. I'm happy they listen to you. I'm happy you got it done. Happy you got what you wanted. Looking forward to a noise. Happy to have you on the show. Best of luck. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. All right. There he is. Mighty Mouse. Demetius Johnson stopping by great stuff from him. Okay, let's move along. As I mentioned, second I heard about the GSP Bisping news, I thought of one man, actually two men. I thought

of Yel Romero and his buddy slash translator Ray. Finally, two weeks later, we got him on the show. Joining us, via the magic Skype, there they are. I love these guys. I am so excited to talk to both of you. Ray, thank you very much. You're a star now, by the way. You know this, right? You're like

an MMA celebrity. Well, welcome the world of celebrity. And Yoel, thank you very much, as always, for joining us. Wow, we have a lot to discuss. When you found out, Yoel, that they were going to go with just the GSP versus Bisping, what was your reaction? What was your reaction?

You know, I think, this is the truth. I want to say honest, you know, I want to say honest, you know, I want to be very honest, how he feels. To be molest, you, he's bothered. He's bothered the decision that was made. But I still focused, I hope in that Dana will do the things

as well as you've done. But I keep on, I'm still focused, and I truly expect that Dana will do the right thing the way that he's always done in the past. You know, with me,

I don't have said, no, no, we haven't made any of course, but also, to me, has conversed, no one has reached an accord. No one has had a conversation with me

about the situation. I'm waiting So Daneu I'm waiting for the ULFC for them to speak with my managers So Dana has said That he's going to take care of you And by the way, there's a bit of a feedback

Maybe I think if you turn the volume down on your computer Is it possible to do that? Because we're hearing my voice And no one wants to hear me twice Okay, that's better Can you still hear me? Okay. So Dana has said that he's going to quote unquote take care of you.

Do you have any idea what he means by that? You have any idea that what Dana? He has to speak to what he's going to for that. No, he has not, you know, he doesn't know exactly what he means by that, but he's spoken to. He has to speak to the managers. He's spoken to the managers. They're reaching an agreement.

what would make you happy, if anything? What would say? For what I've worked for, which is shot of the title. For what I keep on working for. And for what I will always keep working for. What God has given me his legacy. God me gave me a job. God gave me a work.

And I'm doing that work. If you're doing that work. You work for one penny. That's what you deserve. I did my job in New York. Before New York, I always did my job. I said my job. I need to be paid for what I did in New York.

And what would that payment be? What would that payment be? My title. So you're not necessarily saying that you want to get paid for sitting out. Because this has happened before, as you know, with Carlos Condit. You don't necessarily are saying that you want to pay for being or be sent out. No, no, no, that's not talking about that.

We're not talking about that. Okay. We're talking about the pay for what you're working. To work for a, to play for a title, ganastic your battle for the title, that's what I need. I know that I need to be that they need to pay.

My, my, my, my, not that they're not that they're, uh, don't know, they're saying well,

the thing, if you say, no, he's, no, no, no, no, no. No,

not that you know, it's that you're, that I'm, it's, that I'm going, we're not trying to get anything other than what I,

uh, it's not even what I deserve. It's what I've worked for. It is what it is. I, I've worked, you know, New York, I'm back, you know, for that title.

That's how I want to get paid. Not for what I deserve, but for what I'm supposed to be paid with, a chance of getting that title. That's what I'm looking for. Yuel, who are you more frustrated with Bisping for, you know, not fighting you or GSP for kind of cutting the line in his return? With what I'm afootra. With him, Bipin, for no pehia with you, or for GSP,

for having cut down in front of the line. All right. Let me see. It's not frustrated. Maybe it's not frustration, per se. I think the word is more like bothered. That's no, man. That's just there.

It's not, man. I think the person that has to have assumed that responsibility is the title. I think the person that should assume the responsibility is whoever has the belt. San Pierre is not a fault here at all, here at all. So, if you say to you say, if you say to you say a dollar, if you're going to take a, you're going to take,

because you're not doing. Somebody offers you a hundred dollars, you know, chocolate bar, you're going to take it. They're offering it to you. You know? But now, if, for example, that's what was what happened with San Pierre. They did a chocolate and then he got him.

I still happen with St. Pierre. You know, they offered him a chocolate bar and he took it. Now, who had to respect and that he had to defend his, your, or what is in doubt, is Michael Bisbee. The person that needed to respect,

the person that needed to actually, you know, know, know what's doubted, because the people... Because the people doubt that he's a champion. He knows that he's the champion. He said that he gave him a chocolate and he got him, and he has him facilitated even more in that he's not the champion.

You know, he had an easy opportunity, and so the same thing, a chocolate bar was offered to him, and he took it, and he's running with it. So, to him, when you look at him, When he gave him the opportunity to play, he not necessarily was in the four

between the four, when you see how he got the opportunity to fight, if you look at it correctly, you'll see that he wasn't even in the top four. Of course, all the things passes for a reason. I'm in this, he does the palms there, because he, when they gave him, when he gave him,

I applaud him, because when they gave him, a chance, he took it. And Luke Rocko, he facilitated. And Luke Rock, you know, made his birthday gift real easy. You know? Now, the people not believe that he is a champion, because they gave an opportunity that not a merceder. Well, people have that doubt.

People don't think that his fans, the people, fans in general, don't think that he's a champion, He's a champion because they facilitated a chance at it. He didn't really earn him. Despure he did he with a man who also applauded, his attitude, the legend Hendo. After that, he asked to fight.

I also applaud him for his attitude against the legend, Hendo. But we all know that, like, Like all in the life, you know, the time is, you're about overing Impostos. But we all know,

just like everything in life, you know, time keeps taxing you. So, Jendon is the same guy anymore. He needs to defend his tuitals that he was he took and he supposed to obtain his title.

The title that was almost given to him that he took, you want to take it. With him? Who? With who? What's that?

It is what it is. Yes. Are you worried, Yoel, that you're going to be out for too long now? I mean, you know, as you mentioned, time, it catches up to all of us. GSP said he's only going to fight in the fall. That means by the time the winter is ready, you might be out for more than a year. Are you willing to wait that long to fight again? He said that GSP is

disposed to but in the autumn. That means that for much time, you're going to be out of

the play. You're going to think the time, that's the time. The time does the

money. Yes, but we're going to let's talk. The impact, how's

it's over to Hendo? Yian, I'm going to have a GENZ 406 years. I mean,

yeah, you're right, but let's speak frank. You know, those taxes, how they hit Hendo was Hendo being 46 years old. This year of Romero, still in the floor of his 15th, this old Romero is still in the flower of his 15th birthday.

I'm still going. But, but this is the time. I did my job in New York. But this is the time. I did my job in New York. The primavera is coming now. Spring is coming now. You don't have to say to the primavera that she has to wait to fall.

This is my time. So then what are you going to do? Because the fight is booked already. I don't know, because we're going to be talking, we're going to say, we're talking to and my manager, we're talking about what's going to do. You have to be doing with what, at least, the climate you offer. I'm not sure. My managers and I are discussing certain things.

You know, sometimes I have to play with whatever the climate gives me. It would be a bad idea and it would be a bad idea. It wouldn't be a bad idea, and it would be good in general for everyone. I'll fight with Anderson solo. No. Yeah. Well, you know, but a title interior, no? to get to all the,

all the, that's the that they're gonna be there, and to have a legado. You know, just to get rid

of any cop clubs, anything that's out there, you know, an interim title would be really nice and just to leave everything exactly how I need to be. Start that legacy.

So you're willing to get back? Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, that would be really good. So you are willing to take another fight while you wait for your title shot?

Always when it's Anderson. Yeah, I'm willing to take another fight Always and as long as it's in on Anderson. A good fight. If it's with Anderson, if it's with Anderson, it would be good. For the fanatica, it would be good for me.

And for a title interino with him, it would be good for him. A fight with Anderson will be great. It would be great for the fans. It will be great for me. And a fight for an interim title will be really good in general. So to be clear, just Anderson, though, interests you.

No one else. If they come to you with a different fighter, you're going to say thanks, but no thanks. But that's being clear, with Anderson, how would like that he would say, is that he won't everyone. The only when you look at the list of, the only who no one has played with me

of the great stars that are there still between options to you, but it's Anderson. I've already fought everybody else. You've already fought and beat everyone else. The only person that is amongst those great stars is Anderson. Because we also have to play with the same plans of St. Pierre. You know?

And there's a game of Javier. At this moment, this is almost like a chess match. You know? Are you worried that if St. Pierre wins the belt, that he won't fight you? he hasn't been very clear about what he wants to do after the Bisping fight. Are you worried about that? He's not worried about that. Yeah.

Because he's not going to far as with him. Because he said he's got plans. Maybe that's him. No? No. Michael Bisping. No, it's my wife. Oh, okay.

We'll tell her to say Shalom. My esposa. Chief. My wife. Yeah. The queen. Michael Bisping says, I promise you, after I fight GSP,

five, six weeks later, I'll fight Yuel. Do you believe him? Michael Bispin, I promise that he'll get fired, me fage with, GSP, that in five or six a week I would like to believe him.

I would like to believe him. The Word of God says, I'd like to believe him, but the Word of God says, damn the man that believes in the Word of Men. No, and you know, but I would like to believe him. Okay. Would it have meant a lot

to you if someone from the UFC called you before this news came out and said, okay, this is why we're doing this. This is what we're going to do. As opposed to two weeks later, you still don't know what the plans are, how they're going to take care of you. Would you have appreciated a phone call

before the news came out to the world? You would have appreciated a phone call to the U.S.C. To explain to all what's going to do this new with GSP, Bispin, and the telea. Before that they were. They did. They called the managers.

Okay. So you knew before all of us, would it be fair to say that you're less upset today, two weeks later, as you were when you first found out, or are you still very upset that you're not getting the next title shot? It's not being to say that's less molest two months after you, that they said, that they were going to get the title, chance at the title, or are you going to be like as two months? I live a life of conviction, not emotions. I live a life of conviction, not emotion.

I'm still saying. Okay. I'm still the same. The same day that's the news, to the three days that it passed on the news, still only me calmare when you're on, when you're in the octagon, when you're on, paying for the title.

I'm feeling exactly the same as I felt the day that the news broke three days later, a week later, now two weeks later. The only time that I will be satisfied is when I'm in the office, You told us last time that you were waiting to go back home to Cuba until you became champion. How does this affect those plans? Now you have to wait longer, right?

No, I don't know for that. Nothing has not affected me in anything. I'm still waiting. You're going to wait until you become champion to go back home. Okay. Who do you think is going to win the fight between GSP and Bispeng and who do you want to win the fight? do you want with them? Kintrault and I love a valiant at GSPV.

That's a problem of them. It's a problem of them. No, no, no, no, I'm going to think who I'm going to, and how to do the play, if it's 50, 50, if it's 40, 40, 40. That's their problem. I don't really think about who's going to win, who's not going to win, if the fight is 50-50,

40-60, that's their problem. I think of my own crew, my proper, my proper car, I'm going to put my car to get me the car to that rio. No. I already have my own cross, man, my own heavy. heavy burden. I'm not going to carry that one for him. Now,

in-quant-safe the battle, in-quant-a-the-pelead, and he levanted a one, that's my problem. It's my, my, my, my,

my, my fiat. The minute that they raised one of, doesn't matter who, one of their hands, that's when my party starts. Before that,

it's not my problem whatsoever. Okay, and as far as training is concern, do you have to take your foot off the gas? Because you were probably hoping to get that title shot soon now since you last on November. How do you kind of pass the time since we're still maybe around four or five months away from the fight actually happening? Dissue that we're talking about in training.

Now you have to go ahead a little bit of the velocity, to get a little of the gasoline, because now I'm preparing for a a lot of a while. What are you? What are you going to do? How are you doing now? It's a little bit of a jadeghism. It's a game of adage.

Depending on what is what can happen in four weeks, depending. Of course, we're taking a little the speed of an accelerator. Not all of all, we're not going to accelerate too much. We're not going to take it all completely.

We might lighten up, you know, the gas. But like I said before, this is a chess game, and it's, you know, back and forth, back and forth. We don't know what might happen in four weeks. Okay. All right.

Because as, as you look at the list of the and the people, like, the top five, of the six, first, now all the people are occupied, the only people who are living that are me and Anderson. And if you had that same possibility, if you look at the list of the top six,

you know, top six or five, six guys, a middleweight, you know, everybody's busy. Everybody has, you know, commitments already set forward. The only ones that are free of any commitment is Anderson and myself. Do me a favor, you all. Can you go over Tamalki and smack him in the head and tell him to be quiet during our interview?

I mean, what's wrong with this guy? Unbelievable. Last time he walks in the shot, what's going on? That's him, right? No, way strong. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay.

Last thing for you. I know. I know. I think he's busy. He pretends to be busy. Last thing for you, what's the message to Michael? He talks to you a lot through the press conferences and stuff. What do you want to say to Michael Bisping? What do you want to say to Michael Bisping?

He always is talking in all the conferences, always about menciades. He just said to, he's a nexus. To those nexus, no, say, not they pay such attention. It's that no, it's not to pay attention. People like him, I'm not saying that you don't pay attention.

to him, but you really don't pay that much attention to whatever people like him say. He prets the attention that's required, no more. You just pay him the minimal amount of attention. Any more, no, only the, the little bit of necessary attention that you would. And one of the things that I've seen, in that attention that I've prepped to Mr. Bispin, And one of those things that I've always noticed whenever I've paid any little bit of attention to Mr. Bisping, is that he talks a lot of... You know?

Yes, yes, yes. You know? So, I know that, I know that that's the way that he is. That's what he is. I know that I've and I'm thanks to I'm

for the opportunities that me gave for that had had to a rose with

diversity of people. One of the things that life has and I'm grateful for life

for teaching me this is that I've gotten to share these experiences

with a lot of different people and I've had to deal with many people like him.

And I've had to deal with a lot of people like him. So, that me is

So it's pretty easy to deal with a person the way that he is like you. All right. By the way, did you see on Saturday World Baseball Classic Israel beat Cuba? Did you see that in the baseball? It's set out in the classical World World of Pelota that Israel to Israel. No, let me tell you. First of all, I don't really follow that much baseball.

Let me tell you, first of all, I don't really follow that much baseball. What? But... What? Barcelona. No, but base... Israel, the Jews beat the Cubans. What are the Jews?

What are the blessed? What is it? Jews are the best people. There we go. That is it. That is it. Whoever God puts his hand at his eye, fruits come on. Amen. Amen to that. Yuel, a pleasure as always.

Thank you. You're handling this with great class. I appreciate it. Ray, thank you very much as well. All the best to you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Shalom. Thank you. All right. There they are. Yoel and Ray stopping by. Great stuff from them. Always love having them on. Always love having on the Strawway Champion of the World, Yawani, and Jacek. Also a member of ATT. She joins us on the phone right now.

Yohana, how are you? I'm very good. Hi guys. Good to talk to you. Good to talk to you as always. It's been a while. You've been all over the place. You were just back home in Poland. Now you're back in Florida, correct? Yeah, again, again. I was back to Poland for 10 days. I had so many obligations, but it was time for it, you know. Now it's time for a camp, just a camp, so it's good. Do you miss training at home? Do you miss, I know you have a fiancé, you have friends, family. Are you sad when you have to go back?

What's crazy about that when I'm home, I'm thinking of training and just getting better, you know. So it's crazy because, like I said so many times, like family is like, it's like, they're my life, you know. So, but the thing is like I feel so good here in Florida. I would like to bring them all here. And I could just train, be focused on my things, on getting better and stay with them. But I cannot do that. So I can help. can handle it.

What do you do about your fiatte, you're away from him for so many weeks? Yeah, he's good with that, you know. I'm good with that. We must handle that, you know. They will come for my fight. He and my sister, my brother-in-law, maybe we're going to see each other soon, but we don't know. He's super busy. I'm very busy, but we support supportive to each other.

So this is what we matter about. Are you planning on moving to the United States full-time? No, no, no, no. Okay. You're always going to live in Poland. I love United States, but it's just a business, you know. I love Poland. My parents are getting older. They're still young, but they're getting older. And I have some good ideas for business in Poland.

You know, I just released my book, very good opinions, my biography. And we're trying to release this book in English, but we need some time. We need, like, from two to six months to get this book. to the United States, but we work on that. So it's a good information for all of the fans from all of the world, you know. So right now it's only in Polish? Yeah, just in Polish. Is it about your life?

Is it about my life, my private life as a human being and about my fighting career? Wow. Like I said, before people see me as a child. champion, they can see just last two years of my fighting career, but the truth is that half of my life, I'm in

business for like 14 years already, so there's lots to tell. You talk about when you were almost going to retire before you went to the UFC, right? Yeah, like I got so, I was so mad at my management, at that

time I was in Victor fighters, so I didn't fight that much, didn't have that much money, but I survived, and now I can live as a champion, you know. Speaking of management, last time you were on the show, we talked about you looking for a new manager. Have you found one yet? Yes. Who is it? I cannot tell. Why? Yet. Yet. Yet. It's a secret?

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. But it's a done deal. We must sign the agreements. We have like shake-hand deal. Okay. But we must sign our agreement and then we will talk about. I got to tell you, though, the perfecting athletes team that you're working with, they're the best to deal with. I ask them for you to come on the show.

They respond, Paulina in a second. You're in good hands. You know, like, Paulina, she's my assistant. She's my gatekeeper here. Okay. You know, if you pass Paulina, then we can talk, you know. So someone has passed. It's an amazing person, you know.

Like, I live in the perfecting athlete's house and what's good. There is no more about business. We are more friends than we make business, you know. Of course, I still under them. Like, I saw that there is more and more fighters asking about perfecting athletes, more and more fighters coming to this company, and what they can see, that they treat people different, you know. And you can make weight and feel great and fight good. Yes, I have seen that.

He's healthy. So, Kabib, I love you, man. You are like my brother. Please join Perfecting Atis team for diet and for sure. sure you're going to be became a champion i'm not rude uh you know i see the things different i understand things different because i used to learn a lot about diet good training healthy lifestyle but uh perfectly at least michel paulina they they changed my point of view and i feel better i was talking about the 125 division now i can fight just in 115 and i feel good i can make

this weight i can cut this weight and and and and and and and fight, you know. So are you no longer interested in 125? I am. I am, but I feel great, you know. I used to break my hand two times, you know, fight after each other and I was like, hey, something is wrong with my body,

you know, and I didn't want to break my leg or something worse happen in the fight, but now I feel great, I feel healthy and I want to, if they're going to open 125 division, I believe they're going to do this this year, so I will jump between

115 and 125, I want to be the real champion of the strawaway division and the real champion of the flowery division. Have they actually told you when they plan on doing this? No, no, no, no. I asked, but they didn't tell me, but if I know, I could not tell you, you know, because I'm kind of like straight and honest. Sure. When we make business, when we talk about some, if you know, you want to talk me about

that, I will not tell anyone, you know. I know, I know. Sometimes I try to get the scoops out of you. I text you by your fights and you, you stole it. won while me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that UFC let me

announce my last fight on Fox Procast because it was great, it was great. Okay, now speaking... I'm happy to be back to Florida and prepare. Speaking of management, here's an interesting thing that people aren't talking about. Your fight against Jessica Andraj is interesting

because, for many reasons, but one of them is she's represented by your old management. Is this awkward for you at all? I know you were very close with Tiago. You had a long history together. Is this weird at all? Because you guys were part of the same team, so to speak?

No, it's normal for me, you know. I fought with Valerie Latourne, now I'm part of ATT, and what's good about that, we train together, you know. I appreciate that even last time Valerie was like, Joanna, any time you need me, I will be here for you, and I really love this, you know. We can, like, have, like, good stardowns, good, like, face-offs, good fight.

We can fight each other, but we still, like, we respect each other. We still ITT, you know, the best team in the world right now, you know. They got just a word a few weeks ago, yeah, so it's amazing. Okay, but fighting someone who was a part of that old team doesn't make you feel awkward. No, no, it's normal for me. Okay, it's business. Like people are the same before the fight with the Polish girl, you know.

People have been asking me, oh, how do you feel about that? You're going to face Polish girls. I don't care. I don't care who I'm going to fight. I just want to put on great camp, great performance. and put on great show, you know. I always want to take over. Have you been impressed with Jessica since she dropped down to 115?

Of course. I'm impressed of her, you know. She won like the three or four fights straight. So she's good. She's doing very well, you know. She's tough and it's going to be a good fight. Did you feel like she was the number one contender? Did this matchup make sense to you when they brought it to your attention? It's a question to Sean and the UFC. I think, you know, like, you can see, like, there is so many, like, good girls, you know, like, Rose, she got her chance to fight the Polish chick, but she lost to her.

And now she said, like, oh, I want to fight Joanna, I want to beat her. I know how to beat her. Come on, get your chance, beat the best, and become a challenger, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. It's so crazy. So, you know, some of the fighters, it doesn't matter what division it is, you know. Someone is on the good way to get the title shot. but they are losing the fights, you know, the most important fights.

So the things, the rankings are different every week. So it's different, you know. I like how you... But I think she's the right person, you know. She's the right person. She deserved to fight for this title. And I believe that it's going to be a good fight. So this card, like, blown my mind.

This part is getting just better and better. And I think it's going to be like the card of the year 2017. like I'm very excited for other fighters, other people from ATT because like half of the card is ATT people, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's amazing. It's the most crazy thing, but look at the card. The fights are just amazing. The matchups are so good, you know. By the way, I like how you call Carlina the Polish chick.

Because, like, hookers. You're not impressed. Hookers. She's fighting Claudia next. Do you think she beats her? I like, both of them are very good, but I know how strong is Claudia Gadda. so here we go. Why do you say who cares though?

Like, you don't have respect for her? I do. I do. I do. But you don't want to say her name. I don't know who you're talking about. Okay, fair enough. Going back to Jessica for a second, she said this to...

No, people cannot call my name or make a post, and there is nothing about me, and they cannot use my name, you know? I've been working so hard to get to this place where... I am right now, so people can use me to fucking promote themselves, you know? Did she do something or say something after the fight that bothered you? I don't know who you are talking about. What's the next question? Okay, fair enough.

Jessica mentioned to M.MA junkie, she said, quote, we know she has a weaker chin, speaking of you. Come on. Come on. And she said, if you land hard and keep going with the same volume, you may win. She also said, Yongechek was knocked down with a jab. Who gets knocked down with a jab against Kham? Carolina, what's your response to this?

Have you seen me responding on that? Like, people are fucking getting fights on Twitter. It's crazy, you know? I spoke to Sean about it, and he was like, I cannot help, you know? And the thing is like, I'm trying to be quiet. I let people talk, you know, but the thing is like, I'm just trying to, okay, the face-offs are pretty tough with me, the wanes, the fights. I let people talk.

I let talk my body in the octagon in the day of the fight. This is what I want to do. I don't want to talk to them that, you know, you're right or you don't. If you're going to knock me out, maybe you're right or not, you know, but I don't care, you know. I let people talk, but I prefer to train hard every day and just get there, you know. But the thing is like Karina didn't knock me out, like, and she didn't. me to the chin, it was like, it was punched to the nose. And that time I, I was doing some action, you know, it was some, I don't know, it was probably some boxing with the kick. So I was

like out of balance and she drops me. Okay, she drops me, but the thing is like, it was not my chin, you know. You feel like these people are trying to get under your skin by talking and you're just going to ignore them. Oh yeah, this is what I said before. Yeah. I was, like, I don't know what Jessica is talking about. Like, I don't know if Tiago is doing this because I, Tiago was like a brother to me, you know, and we're still in good relation. I believe that they're, that they can get more crazy because of the promotion and, you know, she has nothing to lose. Right. But the thing is, like, I'm still good with them.

So I don't know why they go crazy, you know. I can, like, I can do the print shots and show you all the messages. Of course, I'm not going to do this. But we are good. We have good relation. I know that Jessica's English is not so good. I know that there is someone behind her back helping her with us. So it might be Tiago.

So I feel sorry for that. Oh, okay. We are in good relations. So you're honest or you fake. So I still love this guy. The thing is like he has done so much for me. But, you know, I got bigger and bigger. So I needed to change some few things in my life, you know,

get the better promotion, get their management, just to get there, you know, to get all I can get from my life. from my champion life, you know. But the thing is like, what about Jessica? I was in good relation with her. People are like, oh, Joan, and I was so quiet. She doesn't respond. Because I don't want to talk.

Like I said, we had good relation. Every fight, any time we meet, it was like good. We had good training together, good meal, good talk. We could hang on together. This is what I said. Like, when the things get bigger, people get crazy. you know, so I thought that she's not going to act like this, but she will just get into more and more. But I feel sorry, I just want to be patient, be humble, keep on training, and let my feast talk to her on May 13th at the EFC 211 in Dallas.

That's all what I want to do. You know, you're on top of the world now. You're so popular in Poland, I see you're getting a lot more attention and more media and things like that. You're champion. You're the only strawweight champion in UFC history. did you learn any lessons from what happened to ronda rousey once she lost it seemed like she was never able to recover and now it looks like she's not coming back do you look at that and and try to learn anything from what happened to her yes and not like every fighting career is different

you know we all are different you know our lives are different but the thing is like of course i learned some but i'm like i'm trying to be smart for myself you know what i'm talking about like when there was a time that i could fly Poland for 10 days. Like seven days of media. I slept like six hours a day. But Catelle was with me. We had amazing time during the trainings

between the obligations. But the thing is, it was time for it. Now it's time to just get ready for the fight. Eight and a half weeks. I will like, roll my ass to get ready for UFC 311. And the thing is like, no one going to like get my attention.

Of course, there is a photo shoot coming with with Williams. sisters, but it's going to be on Saturday after the training. So I can do this because there is going to be time for it. But there is no option that you're going to put like million dollars in the front of me and I will go with you because of the money. No, I will choose to put on great workout and just get better till the fight, you know. What are you doing with the Williams sisters?

I'm focused on my camp. I focus on myself. selfish. Like I'm here in Florida by myself. I love my fiance and my family there, but they understand. They support me. And I'm calm because I know that they are waiting for me there, but I have good people here and I can be focused just on the camp. So people don't get crazy when people offer you money on sponsorship. First of all, we are the fighters and we must make sure that we're going to get ready

for the fights. What are you doing with the Williams sisters? I will have some photoshoot. There is a U.S. Open in my Miami and I'm happy to just go for the game and meet them, you know. They are amazing. They are still living legends. Wow. The last time you fought in Dallas was when you became champion when you beat Carlos Park. He's making history one more time, man.

Be there. Were you excited about that? Like, are you the kind of person like, oh, I'm going back to a place that was, you know, good luck for me. Do you think about that sort of thing? That's amazing. That's amazing. I'm very happy to fight in Dallas because, like,

I thought that I wanted to fight in April so Buffalo but I was like no I need more time I need to change three things just get better I spoke to my coaches

and we are getting better every day so I'm excited that Sean and Dana and the EFC they put me on on this card the UFC 311 in Dallas

because like you said two years ago I won my my strawway title there. So two years after, two years, two months, without one day, I will defend my title for the fifth time. I was talking to someone at ATT about your transition and stuff and they told me like you kind of keep yourself,

like you don't make a big fuss in the gym, you're kind of quiet, you're professional, you go in, you work super hard, like you outwork everyone, but you sort of keep yourself. Is there anyone at the gym that you've taken a liking to that you've become friendly with, whether it's another one of the women, fighters or the male fighter, anyone in particular that kind of, you know, you developed this

relationship with that you didn't have a relationship with in the past. You know what's good? I feel like home, you know? I feel like home and everyone is so, like, so good to me. Same, same as me, like I said. Like, people see me just during the sturdowns, face off, and the fight. It's a B-Modon. I'm already in Bismodon because I'm in the camp, but the thing is, like, I'm super

humble in the gym. And, like, every day, you know, even out. say the gym, but the thing is like everyone is super helpful, you know. Like the coaches, I have the best team ever, you know, like Mikey Brown, Katell and Kami, my three main coaches, then there is

feel, strength conditioning and dia from boxing, but everyone is super helpful, like Jeh, amazing Jiu-Jitsu, Tricia, and other girls are helping me, even Valerie. So, Nina is back to the gym and probably we're going to spark together before

my fight with Jessica. So everyone is super, super helpful, you know. I love Robbie, but he's not with us anymore, but I like this guy so much, and I'm looking up to him, you know. By the way, and not trying to start anything here, but when I hear Nina talk about wanting to be a champion like Amanda, her girlfriend, how do you react to that since your teammates now? I heard that after, like a few weeks after, you know, of course, she should dream big and

that's good for her, you know, but... Let's see, let's see. She didn't fight for a long time. She won her last fight. It was very good fight. So we will see, you know, every fighter, everyone wants to be a champion one day. So it's normal, you know. I feel like more should be made in the fact that at ATT, they have the...

We're so far away from this right now. So she probably she will fight soon. I must be focused on my next fight. So it's going to be like a year or two. We will see. I don't know. I wish that she's going to become a champion one day. Do you agree that more should be made of the fact that the American Top Team gym is home to the strawweight and Bantamweight champion?

The only two – well, actually, now there's a featherweight champion as well. But I feel like that that should be made a bigger deal that you're both training under the same roof. Yeah, that's good for all of us, you know. Like, it's good. It's good. I just want to work hard because of that, you know, because of those girls that Amanda is there, that the other good straw female fighters are there

is just good for all of us you know by the way they're really pushing Michelle Waterson these days are you impressed is she on your radar yes I'm impressed of her and let's see

she has a good fight coming up with Rose so we will see who do you think wins that one I think that she might be my next challenger after I beat Jessica you think that

that Rose will beat Michelle? Excuse me that Michelle will be Rose, excuse me? I think, I think so. Yeah.

I feel like you're not too high on Rose. You know, we met Rose? I have so much respect to this girl. I think she's like

one of the most talented straw weights in the EAC, you know, but she needs more experience. But I think there is something wrong with her head,

you know? Like Patrick Berry, he was part of Team Perfect in Holland of Ernesto Hoos Gym when I was training. But the thing is like,

I met her in Denver. We shake hands We spoke to each other And a few days after I heard that she was like Oh, I want to beat Joanna I was like Hey, shut up

You had your chance To beat Carolina And And Carlos Sparza Before and some other But you just lost Come on Work hard

Get your ass To the gym Put on better fights And you're gonna get This type of shot You know But that's weird Be honest

If you don't like me Don't shake my hand And don't talk to me You know Yeah I'm behind my back. I'm kind of straight person, and this is what makes me mad. But I'm good with that, you know.

But I think Michelle Watterson will win with Rose. Last question for you, Yohanna. And again, thank you so much for the time. Always love having you on the show. You want to stick around longer? No. I just got back from training. I need to reiterate it.

Okay. You love talking to us so much. You felt like the time went by so fast, right? Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, of course. Actually, we have a teammate of yours coming up next. Brad Pickett, he's retiring on Saturday. You know that.

Oh, yeah. I'm super, like, sad and happy for him, you know, because I love this guy so much. He's super, like, he's a good energy, you know? He's a great guy. Yeah, that's going to be a great fight. My last question for you was, if you win this fight on May 13th, that will be your fifth straight title defense. If, there is no if, I will. When you win this fight on May 13th, that'll be your fifth straight title defense.

We had Demetrius Johnson on earlier. He has nine. He's looking to tie the record set by Anderson Silva, of course. Is this something that you're thinking about? Is this something that you're striving for? You want that record as well? Yes, I want that record. You know, I want this female record, which is six title defenses straight.

And then I will look up to other guys, you know. Demetrius Anderson. We'll see what happens. Yes. Yes. All right. Yuana, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to it.

Brad, all the best. All the best. I'm happy that they find the opponent for you. and all the best in London. And guys, it was nice to talk to you, Ariel, like always, but all the best and kisses for my friends from all of the world. Thank you so much, Joanna. All the best team, we'll see you in Dallas.

Khabib, come and join Perfecting Athletes. I love it. I love it. There you go. From the champion herself, Joani Yamjew and J-Cech. Appreciate her time very much. The reigning defending Strawe champion, Yuanian J-J-Cech, sending a message to Habib Rhabibbib Maghemov saying,

saying join perfecting athletes. They do a great job. They've got some of the best Wonderboy, Alastair Overeem. They've got a ton of guys. I believe, I think Tony Ferguson as well, a very impressive clientele. They've worked with Chris Wydenman in the past. So anyhow, they're working with Yohanna, and she returns to action on May 13th, UFC 211 in Dallas, Texas. I love, such a straight shooter that Yohani on J-check. It's always so fun to talk to her. So much intensity, but just very, just very, very. much, you know, what you see is what you get with her.

All right. So that was a lot of fun. Let's move along. We talked about Brad Pickett this Saturday. The UFC is back in London. It's a great card. I know a lot of you, again, we're upset with the main event, but if you look at it top to bottom, I would argue it's a better card than the last time they were there in February of

2016, and one of the featured fights is Brad Pickett not fighting Henry Bionis. That fight has been canceled. He's fighting Marlon Vera, and it will be his retirement fight. And he joins us right now, via the magic of Skype, I do believe, from London, his hometown. London, is that where you are right now, Brad?

London, yes. Okay, thank you for joining us. I don't know if you heard that message from Yowanna, but she says he loves you and she wishes you the best. Did you hear her talk about you? I didn't. I'm putting these headphones on, but somehow I'm putting his headphones and they're not working. So I've got my secretary here to give me some headphones.

Hello, sir. How are you? My striker coach, poor, girl. I was a stiff. All right, let's give Brad a second. Well, we're being a fighter. You always find it really hard to your head pose and your feet in your ears.

That's right, because of the cauliflower you're right? Yeah, exactly. But he didn't too bad. All right. Now we're set. Thank you, Brad. I appreciate it. By the way, Fight Week in London,

do you stay at the hotel or do you stay at home? A bit of both. I'll be staying at the hotel some days where I have to be at the hotel early. in the morning because there's no part of me being home. So tomorrow night I will be staying at the hotel. But then Wednesday night, I'll stay at my house. Friday night, obviously, sorry, Thursday night I'm cutting away.

So I'll stay at the hotel for the waitings on Friday morning. And then Friday night, before the fight, I definitely stay home. Wow. Wow. So you want to wake up Saturday morning with your family? You're going to wake up at home, just like a regular day. Yeah. You typically do that when you fight in London these days?

I have done, yeah. I've done that against Rivera. Yeah, so, yeah, I felt good, felt comfortable. It's nice. A day of a fire, I like to take myself away from the fire as long as possible until it's ready to fight. So I'd go for like a nice long walk in the park from a dog, my wife and my kid and stuff like that.

And then come back, I can relax. Because you're not actually fighting to, not fine until the evening. So sometimes it can be a really long day, especially if you're in the hotel, thinking of the fight, you're in your hotel room. It's like sometimes I feel like I get a bit of cabin fever,

so I like to get out anyway. So it's brilliant now around my house, so I just get out in my house and get my mind of the fight and then when I have to go to the venue, then my mind switches on to the fight, and then I haven't been thinking about it all day, basically. So this is your retirement fight.

here we are on the Monday before the fight on Saturday. Do you find, okay, we're embarking on this fight week. Your last one is a fighter. Do you find that you're smelling the roses? This is the last time I'll do this. This is the last time like you are you cognizant of what's going on? Are you trying to block that out? I was trying to block it out as well as I could, you know,

because at the end of the day, I just need to concentrate on my fight. But I did find it a little bit hard when I was over in America Top Team get ready for this fight. I came back last Saturday morning. And it was a strange one because, you know, Yeah, I was like, calm me the wrestling coach there and stopped the class before the start of the class and just got everyone together and say, hey, everyone, you know, this is Brad's last wrestling session. I was like, man, what you do this before the class?

It made me really emotional. And I'm just about to start training. So I was like, oh, no. And then after the class, he got everyone again. And then a guy filmed him a little bit of documentary about me. He started asking me, and I got really emotional. And I started, you know, found it hard to hold it in. I assume I'm going to be a wreck after my fight, you know.

Why are you retiring now? Why did you make this decision? For me, personally, I've always knew when I want to have my gloves. I want to do it in my hometown, 100%. A bit like you're right, I did. But even before I thought, Your Honor, I already had this in my head that I want to retire. This is where I started by and to want it. Reason I want to retire, I don't know, I love my father and I love my job.

right? It's really fun when you're winning. It's not as fun when you're losing. And I've been losing of late and I'm a very competitive person and it sucks. Really does suck. And for me, when I got into the sport, it was kind of like, how far can I go with this? Where can I get to? So obviously, I wanted to be the best in the UK. I've done that. They don't want to do the best in Europe. I've done that. Wanted to get over to a bigger organization. Back then, I wasn't my weight class in the UFC, so it was WBC, going into the WC, then

when, obviously, we merged with the UFC, wanted to get top 10, got top 10, wanted to be you know, then I'll end up getting to top 5 in the world. And then I kind of struggled a little bit with the last kind of hurdle of a grasp of it.

I've had a few, like, I'd say, at the time of a title, eliminate a fights, you know, me versus Henry Brunez, me versus Eddie Weiland, I've had quite a few of these where if I had won, I believe I was probably next in line. And I kept them falling over at that hurdle. Me versus Michael McDonald's another one. And so then I was like, kind of like, I won't be number one in that weight class.

So what I thought, okay, right, I got a win over number one pound-for-pound guy in the world, Demetius Johnson. I'll go down a weight class and try and be number one in the world there. And it wasn't easy for me to make that weight, but that was my drive. to be number one in the month. And then I went down to the weight class. People saw it and didn't really suit my style. I kind of just ran and trying to get me guys and I'll just get out of points.

So that door closed for me. So then I came back up to my weight class and it was then it was just a job. You know, it's just a normal job for me. So my desire competition kind of went away a little bit. And that's what I think maybe I've been struggling a little bit because it's like I just wanted to strive and be the best.

and I made it's my mindset that I'm like I know that Bisping and stuff I've done doing well later on in their in their career but for me it's like

I don't see the avenue for me you know I'll be honest with you I think me as Cody right now would match up pretty well I like it but I don't like my matchup

against TJ Dillishal I mean the other guys around that and then also I don't feel I have it in me and he is hard to be honest on my body at my age. And then also, like I say, I'm a very proud person.

And I've been losing more than win lately. So I'd rather leave on my terms, they get cut. Yeah. As well, I'm a bit of a proud person. It's like, you hear food grapevine, your girlfriend's going to dump here. So you've done them before they're done you. Right.

Okay, but if you would have defeated Faber in December, you still think you would be retiring? Probably not. No, I mean, like, I'm a very competitive person. If I've been winning all my fights, of course. No, I'll be like, I love what I do. But like I say, I'm a very competitive person.

I'm a very proud person. And there's a lot of new fans that are coming into sport right now. They've only seen me lose fights. They didn't see me my wins back in the day. And when I, you know, that my, what I say, my prime years, they didn't see any of that. So they just, oh, this pick your guy sucks. And I'm like, hey, so I'm a bit of a person.

hate that. I think I've talked to myself in that, you know, it's going to be a tough one, you know, because as I say, I love my job, but I love it. I love it that much where I want to respect what I've done with it while we're ruining it. How do you think you're going to feel on Saturday in the, in the locker room when they announce your name in the cage, all that stuff? It's a lot of pressure, you know, when a fighter has been fighting as long as you have and then you say, okay, I'm going to retire at home. This is my retirement fight. It's one thing to do it after the fact. You said this, you know, several months ago, and you want to go out with a win. Everyone wants. I mean, you were just there for favor, the exact same situation.

Do you think you will feel like this is a title fight? Like, this is, you know, maybe you're your, you feel like you'll be more nervous than usual, given the stakes, given the fact that you want to go out on top. Possibly. I've been thinking about it quite a bit because I put a lot of pressure on myself when I compete. And with the fighting, um, in the Uriah Faber fight, it was all about him. And I was part of his roller coaster, if that makes sense. But then for me, this one, I put a lot of pressure on myself to win fights.

If you win a fight, you go through one door. If you lose a fight, you go through a different door. Right. For me now, no matter win or lose, I go through the same door. So I have no pressure of the outcome of this fight means nothing. You know, win, lose, draw whatever. It is not going to mean anything. So I have no pressure on the outcome of the fight.

My pressure is to perform. Was that a weird situation for you in Sacramento because you're one of the nicest, classiest guys in the sport? I mean, no one says anything bad about you. And then here you are going into Sacramento for Faber's retirement fight. And it just felt like everyone wanted Faber to win. Not only in Sacramento, but everyone, like I think in your case, this Saturday, everyone wants to see the retiring fighter go out on top.

Was it weird for you to be, you know, in that situation? Did you not, I mean, you wanted to, when you wanted to spoil the party, you and your team, you felt confident, you had Mike Brown, who's done it to favor before. Was that uncomfortable for you? No, I didn't find it uncomfortable. I mean, me and your eye have been gone very well over the years. For me, it was an honor to fight your right before he retired. So it blew for me. What I think when we're in that fight is coming off the loss of you, we have to have.

And how that happened really affected me because I've never been involved in a fight where I've never thought to do anything. I've never done to be before. I've never lost fights. I've never lost. I've not doing anything. And it felt it just deflated me so much. So I wanted to just get back in there as soon as I can. But when I fought, Uriah, all I was thinking about is he ain't going to finish me.

I'm going to make sure that he doesn't finish me. So I've been so defensive the whole time. Like, I didn't get any offensive going. So I was just like stopping these, they're stopping that, stopping that. And we're doing that. I wasn't trying to win the fight. I was just trying not to get finished,

which eventually ends me making me lose a decision, you know. So I disappointed in that aspect. But I see that it was a mental side thing. That's what we say, that one, fighting is 90% physical, 90% mental or 10% physical. You know, mentally I wasn't there in the head of that fight. Okay. And your situation somewhat mirroring that of one, Neil Siri, because it seems like he keeps trying to retire and his fight falls through. And then you find out a couple days ago that Henry Briona is your original opponent for this fight with Drew, I believe, for the third time. You guys have been booked three times now. It's the third time he falls through. Were you worried? Like, once you're mentally set on retiring, your retirement fight in London, you can't script it better, you can't, I mean, it's going to take a long time to replicate that scenario where you were. worried that you weren't going to get this opportunity?

A little bit, but then, to be honest, I'll afford any weight class. So I think, so it wouldn't have been hard to... Okay. ...by, if I was somebody, you know, so... So it wouldn't have been at something about my end. You know, I would have fought some heavyweight. It wouldn't bother me. But, yes, I'm really, really, I mean, like, Marlon, Vera, I'm like, thank you so much

for you helping me just... close my book basically on my career. I mean, I'm forever grateful for that. How much do you know about Marlon and how do you feel about the change in opponent with, you know, such a short amount of notice? It's a complete different opponent in my eyes. He's more, he switches all the doctor's southpour. Striking wise, he's more counterish and he's better on the floor.

where browness, this is why I tried to match myself up with brunas so many times. He's just, I stand there and this bang. And that would have been, I'd love to be involved in those fights. Anyone knows me. That's why I keep trying to be kidnapped to this fight.

And I don't know how he just gets, I don't know, three times is pretty, insane. We're pretty special. Insane, you know, like, yeah. So, I'm just allowed to say, I'm really happy.

I'm looking forward to, it's a different challenge. He's obviously, he got younger, you know, So yeah, so yeah, it's different. Like, me, I could fight the postman. You know, he wouldn't bother me. I'm just like happy that I have somewhere there to fight.

I always say this throughout my training camps. Because it's such a crazy sport, everyone gets injured. I don't concentrate my opponent so much. I just always concentrate on myself every day to try and make myself even better. That's what I always do. Because the opponent changes this all the time, you know? And I watch tape on my guy. And then I get annoyed because the guy pulls out.

So it's like, why am I wasting my time watching tape? Yeah. So that's what happened. I was running on the treadmill, you know, for a week just watching bites of Henry and Bionnas. Now I'm just thinking, what you do and what waste of my time, you know? So it's quite annoying, yeah. Around a year or so ago, we had you on the program to talk about the new promotion that you were starting up. And I know it's still around thriving. Is that your post-retirement plan?

Is that what you're going to focus all your time on? Why not? I'm definitely going to stay within the sport. I'm definitely going to have maybe a teeny bit of time off, just to have a bit of family time, take my wife and kid out for a holiday somewhere. But I know myself and you know yourself. You have children.

You can't rest. I'm like, what we're going to do next? I need to provide for my family. It's just a natural thing. So definitely I like to think I'll take a little bit of time off, but I know that I'll get back in. and do something somewhere. Obviously, I maybe would like to see if I could work for the UFC in some way.

You know, if something happens, it happens if they don't, it don't. But, yeah, I have my own organization, rise of champions. It's done well. But what I kind of found out, I was trying to do too much sometimes towards the end of my career because I was sensible knowing that it's coming to the end, I need to plant seeds and do things. But sometimes it did take a bit of my time. Because when I fought Ui Alcatore, I was supposed to fight me in September,

then if I got pulled back to October and I had my fight and the next week, the week after I had my fight show. So when I was supposed to be fighting, I still match kicking, which was just made, it's like, yeah,

I hated the whole thing. So it's just too much going on. So this time now, I'll put the show on hold. You know, like, let me finish my career and I have a one time in the world to do anything I want to do,

something of that. But, yeah, so that's one of my projects. And the other one, I was Coastal Heart, which I love to do, he's open my own gym near where I live. I want to open a big British top team, you know, in England, near where I live. And then obviously coach a lot of the next generation of guys.

Oh, that would be great. I love that idea. What do you think you'll miss most about being an active fighter? Competing, you know. But I've been thinking about that a lot. I mean, I'm a very competitive person. But then all I just change my angle. I can compete through other people.

I can compete through my guys at the gym. They're competing for me. I'm a very proud person, so I'll do whatever I can to make sure my guys win because then it's a good reflection on me, so that I can compete for other people. And so I've always competed throughout my life. And even when I open my own gym, I'll be like, I want to just open a gym,

and then I want to be the best thing in the UK. Okay, I want to be best in Europe. And that's how it starts, because I'm a very competitive person. I know you wanted to fight for that. UFC title, would you say that's your biggest regret that you never got the belt? I have no regrets. That's the thing, because I tried everything I possibly could to do that. And yeah, I failed that goal, but I tried everything.

That's why I went down to fly away, because I didn't want to be that guy when you're in the bar and the chat. Oh, yeah, you used to fight the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you seen that Demetri's Johnson guy? Yeah, oh, yeah, I'll beat that guy, yeah. You know, if I went down in a weight class, I would have beat him and beat the goal champion. I really, no, because I didn't go down the way class, but I wanted to be the guy who tried to go down to that way class, which did, and compete and try everything I can to win the belt. And that didn't work. So I've got no regrets that I've tried anything I possibly do to be the number one in the world.

But unfortunately, I felt. Saturday might top them all, but up until this point, up until this Monday, what's the career highlight? Is there one moment that sticks out, the happiest you've been as far as, you know, MMA fighting is concerned? There's two ones in my Zipfah career where I'd say, as soon as I got to know, I was traveling to fight, you know, I got to travel. I remember fighting for Bodok in Costa Rica, K-1 in California. So I was like, yeah, I need to fight in Vegas, the fight capital of the world.

and I made my WC debut in Vegas, and I won by a really rare submission, a preeming necktie. So that was an main accomplishment for me, winning the submission and my first time I thought in my eyes was the biggest show at the time of that way class. That was that.

And then I say my UFC won't be knocking out Eve's Gibbon in my hometown, because with the nickname of one punch, you have to live up to it every once in a while. So I was happy to win by knockout in that boat. It was really beautiful Alpaca. I sincerely hope that they let you walk out. Could we talk to someone about you walking out with the hat and the suspenders, the outfit?

You know, like, that's you. Can we get that one more time? Yeah. Is there any talk of this? Who do we have to talk to? James Elliott over at the UFC, Dana White? Who do we have to campaign to make this happen? I think Reebok.

Right. I know James, I think James Elliott and all I'm going to pass that on to Reholt. bog, you know. Yeah. I'd definitely gonna wear my my, my, my Chuby hat.

And when I leave the Octon, I'd eat my Chuby hat in the Ongtoy. Wow. So I'm done. You know, so, so yeah,

so that's what I do. I'd love if I could come out of my braces and stuff, but I've got a feeling that they wouldn't let me. Oh, man. I wanted to plug, I wanted to plug my,

uh, because I also have the UFC, Snapchat, um, Twitter, no, so, the Snapchat,

uh, login. So I could do UFC, Europe Snapchat's I wanted to. So I asked them, being polite, do you mind if I could plug my,

my t-shirt, my last final t-shirt on there, and said, we would let you, but it's not Reebok. So I was like, oh, get the hell out.

I saw you, tell us the address. I saw you tweet about it earlier. Yeah, I was saying, if anyone wants to buy in my last t-shirt. There it is. My last dance,

one-punch t-shirt, that one punch up the book. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you go to one punch picket.com and you could order them on there, you know. I need to figure out how to get them to let you. I mean, it's just one fight. Let the guy do it.

It's retirement fight. It's so iconic. It's just you. It represents everything about your family history and who you are as a fighter, London. What a beautiful scene that would be. I'm holding out hope that they'll let you do it. I'm going to cross my fingers.

Maybe try to talk to a couple people. I'm not. I'm going to see also see if they let me come out with the newspaper. Yeah, that'd be great. That's one thing. I remember when you did that. That's how you'd do before. That would be great.

Well, I wish you the best. Thank you. What did you want to say? Sorry. I was going to say, yeah, a lot of people get the misconception when I come up reading in the newspaper that, why are you doing that? And I was, my thought process before I had the newspaper is because, I'm an ordinary guy, and I work, like in England, when you work at 9 to 5, you get on the

tube or you go to work and you read the paper on the way to work. So that was my reflection of, this is just a job to me, I'm on my way to work, and this is how I work. Yeah, that's why I was reading newspaper. A working class fighter, very much a working class man, bring your lunch pail, your hard hat. Always a pleasure to watch you fight, and I'm really happy that we were able to get you on the program before your last fight. So I wish you nothing but the best. for all the great fights and the great memories. And I hope for your sake, Saturday night is one that tops them all. And you get to go out on your own terms in front of your own people

and get that moment where you get to put your hat in the middle of the cage. Beautiful stuff. That gave me chills when you said that. That's just what a beautiful scene that will be. So I wish you nothing but the best to you and your family, Brad. Thank you for everything. And we'll talk to you very soon. Good luck on Saturday.

Good luck. Thank you for having me on. All right, there he is. One Punch Pickett. Brad Pickett. What a moment. That will be on. Saturday. Last fight in front of his hometown crowd, getting an opportunity to say goodbye. He just

fought your eye of favor, if you recall, in Sacramento in his retirement fight. And now he's getting a chance to have his own retirement fight. He was supposed to fight Henry Brioz. Brioz pulled out. Third time they've been booked. But luckily for him, they get Marlon Vera to step in on very short notice. and now he'll be fighting Marlon Vera on this card on Saturday night. All right. As I mentioned, I really like this card. I have no horse in this race. I really like it.

There's a lot of interesting fights. Joe Duffy, last fight on his current UFC contract. The Brad Pickett fight, excuse me, his retirement fight. The Gunner Nelson versus Alan Joban fight. I like that one a lot. and maybe the fight that I like most of all is Arnold Allen against Makwan Amir Kani.

I love this fight. I love everything about this fight. And I'm very happy that Makwan is back. We have not heard from him in a very long time. We have not seen him fight in over a year. He kind of just fell off the radar. But we have tracked him down and we've got him back on the show. Mr. Finland is here.

Makwan Amir Kani on the phone right now. When are you there? No, I'm here, bro. Wow, long time no speak. That's right, but I'm back. How have you been? Where have you been? Oh, everywhere.

I've done so much, you know, commercials and, you know, sponsored deals that, you know, that I had to take care of. And I wanted to spend time with my family and with my new puppy. so I'm back now I'm better than ever before and I'm so excited for this if I've been gone okay so I have a lot to talk to you about first off like I said you haven't fought since last February so over a year no injuries nothing you just take a break why has it been so long since you last fought I knew that I can get better if I just train and focus on training, don't, you know, rush.

And I wasn't in a hurry I had, you know. My life was good. And I just wanted to spend time more in the gym and be ready when I fight next time. I know there are, you know, areas in my fighting style where I need to get better. And so I wanted to focus on those things. So now I feel ready.

And then I noticed, like, when I was trying to track you down and get you on the show, all of a sudden I realized, like, oh, Macuan doesn't follow me anymore. Oh, I'm not going to take it personal. But then I noticed you only follow eight people. And it's kind of strategic, you know, your SBG coach, John Kavanaugh, Connor, UFC. It seemed like you just kind of sort of like started fresh on social media. Was there a reason why you did that where you kind of like cut everything out? Not really. I'm going to add you now.

No, I'm not trying to ask you to add, but I just noticed you unfollowed a lot of people, and sometimes people like to start fresh. I don't know. Well, of course I love you, Hustia, and I love to watch the fights. But I want to focus on my own life more than their people. Of course, you know, exciting fights. Then I will go and search how the fighters, that the upcoming fights, how the fighters they take this fight, what they think of it.

And in that moment, I'm going to, you know, go and follow the people. But otherwise, I'm not using Twitter that much. More on Instagram and more on Facebook, it's not like I don't want to follow anybody. I think that the only people that, you know, affect my life, I follow those people. You've been training at SBG, correct? You're still a part of that team. Yes. How's that going?

Are you happy there? I'm happy. There's a lot of guys, you know, fighting fair weight and lightweight. So it's a good place to train and don't need to worry about who is in the gym because there's a bunch of guys every time when you step into that gym.

And the coach is perfect. I love the way. that John teaches us is one of the best coaches that I've met in my life. Do you ever get to spar or train with Connor McGregor? Is he there? When he had a fight against Diaz, the second fight, in that moment I was there. Okay. I had pretty familiar style with Diaz, so that's why they asked me. to come and help and I was in for Connor.

You know, I must say, and correct me if I'm wrong here, just talking to you now and listening to your voice, I don't know if you remember, but I think the last time you were on, you seemed like you were kind of down on MMA. You wanted to take a bit of a break, as you just alluded to, but you were looking for the new gym and just kind of trying to get back. You know, I know you just linked up with SBG a few weeks before the Wilkinson fight, but it didn't seem like you were very happy with everything going on.

Is it fair to say that things have changed, that you're in a better place now? Yeah, I'm in a better place now. And, you know, since the first UFC fight, actually six months before the first fight that I've taken to the UFC, I was away from my family until I left from Sweden until this day. And still, I'm like, I don't have even my own house. And it feels bad when you work a lot,

that you never see the end. And, you know, I'm a family guy. I love my family. I love my mom, my sisters. And, you know, I want to spend time with them. But in the other hand, I want to offer them the things that I couldn't do. I want to, you know, create a future to my kids, to my own family. And then there's this other hand that I still want to work.

And I know that, you know, every day when I go to the gym, I can get better and I get better. and this fight in London, it will be a really short fight. A short fight? Yeah. How short are we talking about? If I could bet on my own fight, I would bet the first minute. First minute. Holy smokes.

That's pretty short. Are we talking submission or knockout TKO? I don't care. If I just see my open. and I know that this will be short, like, fight. And that's why I'm, you know, really excited because the way Mark won't was in UFC London last time, you know, I'm much, much better than fighter, but I'm now,

and that's why I'm so happy and excited to get back. And it doesn't matter that I was one year away because I have the experience from the, my earlier, you know, hobby from wrestling. So to me, that's a problem. I'm just, you know, more ready now than never. And that's why I want to get back there really fast. Is there something about Arnold Allen's game that makes you so confident?

They asked me the same question. Like, is there any, you know, specific game plan that you did for Arnold? And I said, I don't care who is fighting against me. Like John Kevin, I said, there can be a new opponent like two weeks before your fight. So it doesn't matter who you fight. And I said, that's right. And to me, it doesn't matter who is going to face me on London because I know that whoever it is, I feel bad for that guy.

How much do you know about Arnold Allen? Well, he's a young guy who lives in England, and his record is 11 and 2. I think it's 11 and 1, according to Sherdog, but 11 and 2, 11 and 1. Not after Saturday. You're right. I walked right into that one. I'm sorry. But as a young, what I like so much about this matchup is, you know, two young guys, you guys are doing well in the UFC this far, undefeated. Any part of him that impresses you or not really?

Well, he's, you know, what I like about him, he doesn't give up. He's coming forward all the time. And this can be the first time that I can, you know, really go there and give everything. Like, it feels like I'm going to war. Like, first time I feel like there's a, you know, a right opening that doesn't back up. He's coming always forward. And that's why I'm so happy because. You know, my earlier fights, when they have been, you know, short and people then talk about that, yeah, my opponents, they are, you know, shitty.

But I just make them look like that. It's not about that. But this time, they know that this opponent is like in Finland. A lot of people say that I would lose this fight. Wow. Yeah, but they don't know me. People in Finland are saying that you're going to lose this fight? Where's this support?

I don't know, but I don't really care. Because now when you have been, you know, famous in your own country, you start to realize that people, you know, they can be on your side, they can be your fans at one time. And as soon as you, you're away for a while, then they start to, you know, talk shit about it that you don't fight anymore. You're going to lose because you have been one year away and blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow. Stuff like that.

But, you know, I have my support, of course. There's a few people who think like that. But there's five millions behind me in Finland. Then I have this other country called Buristan. I have my own people behind me too. So there is a lot of support, and that's why I'm so happy to go there and, you know, show the people that even from this small country,

Finland, we have good fighters. Did you miss it? You've been gone for quite some time. Did you miss fighting? Yeah, a lot. The feeling when you win. Yeah. That's where I'm back.

By the way, I saw, once again on your Twitter, I saw you did this video where you were staring at people and they were laughing. It was like a staring contest outside on the street. What was that all about? There was, you know, just random people came there and sit and I was just watching them. In the eyes, we didn't say anything. Yeah. That was strange because there was somebody that you didn't know and you haven't seen him ever. And then he suddenly started to cry.

just from looking your eyes. And there was one guy I was staring at him, and he started to cry. And it made me cry. And I said, have you lost your father? And he said, yes. And I said, me too. Wow. I was like that.

Do you know what it was crazy? Last week, we were grilling, making some food with my family. And suddenly I got a call. Now, my brother's wife got a call, like when we were outside, and he said, run to our friend's house. They have a kid who is inside of that house, and there is two, you know, a grown-ass man robbing that house at that moment. And he was hiding in the closet, and he had a knife. and we were like, oh shit, the house was like one mile away.

And we said, if they will find this kid and he will see their faces, they will probably do something bad to him. So we went there and we went to the back door. It was, you know, another huge house, so we went to the back,

and they saw that we, are coming to that house, they run out from that house. They came from back door. And all I see, because my brother went from the other side. And all I see two guys from look like Russians, they were hitting on my brother. And I thought that the other guy had a knife, but it was, you know, it wasn't knife, but it really looked like a knife. And I thought that they are, stabbing my brother and I said fuck I don't care they can stab me too but I'm going to help my brother

so they hit me my neck and it wasn't a knife it was something to open a door a lock and then when I realized that this guy he didn't have a knife I was like he's gonna die now

and all I needed was one punch and this fucking guy was lying on a snow and then it was all over the news and I took one selfie and hit it on my face. What? This was last week?

Yeah. Yeah, my cousin, he ran. He had a fucking baseball. He ran there and he said, oh, it's over. Then he said, well, it's a good warm up for London. Holy smokes. Yeah. Didn't you stop a...

You stopped the robbery, right? Like a two years ago or something? Yeah, I did. That's true. You're like a superhero. You're like a Finnish superhero. Yeah, you know what was crazy? Then people were like, odds can be true. It must be fake. Picture must be fake. But then in Finland, it's really easy.

Even if somebody is coming, you know, wants to fight against you. And if you hit him, you can get sued too. because it's like the law in Finland is shit. So then all the people were thinking that I'm going to go to jail. But no, they were robbing another house just before this. Whoa. So when the police catch them, they went to jail. And then they sent them back to their own country.

They were from Bosnia. Wow. Yeah, I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the picture right now. You posted it on March 4th. There's a guy on the ground. He's holding, there's something. Wow, he's with black gloves. Who's the guy holding him down?

Is that your brother? Yeah, that's my brother. He should start M.MA because when I was looking at my brother fighting, I was like, fuck, he doesn't know how to fight. And did you get the kid? How was he when you got to him? Well, then my sister's husband, he was. husband, he went inside and he was yelling that now you can come outside.

But he still didn't come outside. He was so scared. But when he came outside, he had this knife on his hand, and his hand was shaking so much. But there was two of them. The other guy got away. And I don't know how the police catch the other person. But yeah, this was the nice weekend.

Wow. That is unbelievable. And this made the news. Yeah, I don't know. I think in USA people would understand that you protect your own house, you protect your family, your friends, the people that are close to you. But here, some people, you know, they think that it's a wrong move.

You should let them rob the house. No way. That the police handle this. And it's not, you know, your business. and why you hit the other person. When I say my brother wasn't there, I would kill that person. He was the one who said, calm down. Wow.

What a story. You have no fear. I would run away just out of fear. I mean, I'd want to help, but I don't have that in me, you know? Yeah, but when you see it's your own brother, of course. Yeah, of course. Another thing. But if you see two persons robbing a house, then you have insurance and stuff.

then you can just walk away and get the police handle. But when you see your brother and you think that they are stabbing him, no, I'd rather die than walk away. This is not normally in Finland. It's really safe here and unusual that shit like this happened. But I think that it was a bad day in the office for those two guys. How is your mom, by the way? How's she doing?

My mom. Oh, she's so happy. She said now the first time she said, I'm not even nervous. I was like, okay. Well, she said, you haven't been this, you know, already ever. You have done everything so right. It was in Dublin all alone. He was two months in a hotel.

Didn't spend time with nobody. He just did your training. You ate well and you were skipping. So he expects a lot, but he should. Is she going to the fight? Yeah, of course. You know, when I was fighting in my own hometown, it was like, I took like my first pro fights

and it was in my hometown and nobody came to watch, not even my own family. One of the mom was there. And now when it's in London, and everybody's playing over, it feels so good. Like, it affects a lot of people. It's not just about me. It's making my family proud. You know, of course, when you are a foreign and another country, you make, you know, the other foreigners looks good in Finland,

especially when there has been this, you know, what, they call it these refugees. Yeah. And they have a, you know, bad, of course, everybody's searching for a better life. I was a refugee myself. And I made it. So I understand that, you know,

you are looking for a better life as everybody. And some people, you know, they just want to protect their own land. And that's why most of the Finnish people, They are afraid of this because suddenly you have like 80,000 refugees in your country and then things start to happen and they blame everybody. It's nice to make them look good in everywhere, and it makes their life easier. So I have a lot of responsibilities now.

One of my favorite stories is you buying your mom that bed after your first bonus check. Is she still using the same bed or did she upgrade? No, she is using the same bed. But do you know what I did? I bought my own house. Oh, wow. My mom is moving there too. So there is, you know, an old house, but we are taking it away and we're going to build a new.

we've gone with all your and everything that is amazing congratulations yeah thank you so much well I gotta say macuan it was great to catch up again

it's great to hear your voice I'm sorry that we don't see you this time on Skype but I've missed you and I'm very happy to see you back I'm happy to see that and here of course that you're in a good place thank you for protecting the citizens of Finland

and I wish you nothing but the best on Saturday it's good to catch up again and we'll talk soon. I wish you the best in this fight. This is a great fight. Definitely. After London, call me again.

Okay. You're going to say you're right. I look forward to it. A first minute victory for Makwan. He predicts it. Thank you, Bakwan. All the best to you. There he is.

Makwan Amir Khani. Mr. Finland predicts a first minute victory over Arnold Allen this Saturday UFC Fight Night London. How about that? No shortage of confidence. and that man. Great story. Stopping a robbery? That's unbelievable. All right. Let us move along. Last week, we talked to him. Some stuff has happened since, and I thought it was very important to catch up with Tony Ferguson. He is kind enough to join us for the second straight week. He is joining us on the phone right now. Tony, how are you? Okay, we're about to get Tony. Sorry, I thought we had him, but then we lost him, but we'll get him back in a second.

So as I mentioned, it's been an interesting road for one Tony Ferguson. El Cuckooey was supposed to fight Habib Nirmagamatov at UFC 209. That fight didn't happen. You know the story by now. He joined us last Monday. And as I said, some stuff has happened. Wanted to catch up. Want to see where he's at now.

Everyone wondering what's next. How he's being treated? Everyone worried. So let's talk to him. He's on the phone, I do believe. Tony Ferguson, are you there? Yes, I am. How you don't know, buddy?

Hey, Tony, good to talk to you again. I appreciate you coming on for the second straight week now. How would you characterize the past week for you? Ever since, you know, you've been vocal, you've done some interviews, you've, you've kind of, you know, you put it all out there. You've worn your emotions on your sleeve. How has the past week been, you know, since coming back home from Vegas? I got fat. I put on a lot of weight. I put on a lot of weight. Straight up, I put probably like maybe like 25, 30 pounds. Easy. just relax a little bit, enjoying Papa life. It is where it is, man. I'm a professional, so I'm going to try to move on up with this.

You know, try to offer Khabibu chance to come back at it and see where his decision is, but I don't think he's doing too good right now. So I'm not sure who's next, man. We've been kind of throwing it around the bush, and I'm ready, bro. Like, my body doesn't know anything different but to fight right now. So that's what I want, that's what I would like to do.

I would like to fight, like, real soon, especially to unified a belt, especially for the belt. out. Like, you know, I'm just throwing a name out there, but I think, like, Nate Diaz and myself, could actually put on a good show. I think his ranking is kind of bullshit, too, but I don't really see anybody else. I mean, that's in Barbosa called me out, but it's, it is what it is. Everything's in the air right now. I want to fight for the title area. I want to, I want to, I want to fair fight. I want to go in there, and I want to kick this dude's ass, no matter who

who signs up on the dotted line, and fucking move on and kick Connor's ass if he's not here yet. I don't know what he's up to, but let's just go. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack there. First things first, as far as Habib is concerned, are you moving on? Are you done with him? Of course not. Okay.

Khabi 4 would be like absolutely crazy, but like I said, there would have to be some things pretty secure if he doesn't show up or he doesn't make way. I still would like to get my pay. That would be beautiful just to be able to get my pay and then his show money, which would be great,

because this would be the fourth time. And then, you know, he would have to take a loss this is a profession that we're in. I think that would not too much to ask. I think if you would agree on it. I think he would have a hard time cutting weight, so he needs to hire a dietitian or somebody to make his meals to do something. You can't blame it on the sweets or nothing.

I mean, whatever. But he should have made weight. He had plenty of time to do it. A little disappointed, but you kind of move on from it. It is what it is. Okay, so then you mentioned Nate Diaz, and you took the question out of my mouth, because on various shows that I do,

I've said that I think there's only two fights that make sense for you right now, Habib or Nate Diaz. And I would argue not taking anything away from Habib, just as far as Buzz is concerned, just considering who Nate is, I would argue the Nate Diaz fight is a bigger fight that would sell more pay-per-view

and things like that. And I said, you know, maybe for that July pay-per-view, they're looking for some big fights for that one. It sounds to me, just because you brought it up first, you're interested in this fight. just because he's a decent striker

I mean I've like to want I haven't had a knockout in a long time I'm not trying to call out the shot for a knockout but like I think my boxing is a little bit better than his it is what it is I think my stand-up is a lot better but it's not a boxing match this is MMA and I'm just starting to mix it up with some take down

some cool stuff that I think you saw like at the open workouts I call it the specialist like a cool little duck under a scissors take down dope move dude and I'm just starting to learn the ankle log game which is crazy you know props to templanor jitza Eddie Bobo for help me out for that dude doesn't get too much props but he's all about stretching stress stress stress stress stress stress stress and I'm like oh man okay but it's cool because I get to mix it

all in with my boxing I'm working in some new angles I'm working in some new stuff I'm moving my head all with my feet I get excited about it because I put a lot of work in there now with an opponent like all right so let's just say I want to fight at the barbos again let's just say something like that what would that do for me absolutely nothing. Michael Johnson, possibly. Possibly. But I'm not going that far down the rankings. Like the purposes, I work my ass off to get up to here.

I need to do something about that belt. Let's get that belt. Let's get that something. Let's keep moving up these ranks. What could be at number two or number one. I don't know. That needs to change. That has to change. Why do you think that Nate's ranking is bullshit, by the way?

I don't know. What's the rankings? Read them off. Read them off a look like. the rankings. Start from one. The official UFC rankings, they have Habib at 1, U at 2, Eddie Alvarez at 3, RDA at 4, Barbosa at 5, Johnson at 6, Kiesa at 7, and Diaz at 8.

Okay, what about Kiesa? Yeah. Like, he called me out too. Like, I can't. He backed out of that fight, too, and I took one in South Dakota. Yeah. I just don't see that fight, but I do anything for me. So, I mean, Nate's one of the dudes that I think, honestly could challenge my talents right now. I mean, he's a good fighter, man, but I mean,

black belt level jiu-jitsu, respect that. You know, I'm Bronbo as far as Eddie system goes, and then my own system, I'm a black belt, my own system. So this is something that I've been doing for a long time. So it's an octagon, dude. It's not a mat, and I've got to remember that. In the past week, did the UFC try to rebook you in any other fight? Well, just with Michael Johnson, that's about it.

I mean, I wasn't interested in it. I wanted the belt. I trained real hard for five-wronged fight. I didn't want to go back down to three. I felt like I was just cutting myself from dry, so it was like, come on. Which card would that have been on? That was immediate, but I haven't had anything after that, except for that Michael Johnson fight.

I was told that they were considering maybe Eddie Alvarez, maybe Habib, but it never got to you because Eddie wanted to stay on the Dallas card. This was for Buffalo, and Habiba was too soon. Did you hear any of that? Not really. I heard we offer Khabib to fight. Yeah. We offer the Kibibh, something like that.

And I just said, whatever, dude. I was like, I was like, I just really just approach you like, all right, cool. You know, like, whatever. I was like, if it's real, then it's real. But it's like, you got to take the fight, you know. I don't have a problem going up to 170. For myself, I mean, I've won an ultimate fighter at 170. And I got the frame for it.

I can build up on it. So I'm not paid for that, you know. So. But you're doing so well at 155. Why mix it up? I don't know. I'm running out of people to fight. Okay.

And then Michael Kiss has been very vocal about wanting to fight you, but you're not interested. No, man. Come on. Oh, wait, dude. I didn't know those smashing. So nothing against him, but like, my, it's, no. Can you clear up the... Did the people a favor by fighting Landon that one time?

Yeah. But, you know, it is what is. You got to stay sharp in this game. you can't let anybody catch you so I'm ready dude like but give me a top level quality fighter like Nate Nate says he doesn't I don't like have matches level I'm like bro come on man talk to me like that let's go skill for skill I'll go tall to tall I bet you I'll pick him apart ankle pick too do you do you feel like other than fighting Connor Nate is the biggest fight that you can get right now well I don't know I it's like what I don't want to be doing like

like an office space where it's like you only want to work as hard as the work that's given to. Like, I don't want a good quality fight. I want to train for somebody that's going to train for me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Can you clear up the pay situation? Did you actually get anything from the UFC? Did I what?

Did you get anything from the UFC for your 209 troubles? Well, I did get something, but it wasn't what I wanted. How about that? Okay. Are you, because there's been a lot of, you know, numbers thrown out. Are you able to say what you got or at least what, you know, percentage of what you were supposed to get? It wasn't my show money.

Put it that way. Okay. And it was less than half. It was less than half. I was pretty upset. But I just had to clear it because, you know, when I'm in my junkie, they said I showed up for, you know, $250K. I'm like, no way about it. I was like, no.

What do you mean? What do you mean by that? I just read the article that somebody said that I showed up for, like, my actual show money. Yeah. So, no, it wasn't that. Okay. It wasn't, it wasn't $250. were you told that you were going to get that?

I wasn't told anything, dude. I was told about $100,000, dude. And literally it was like, all right, cool, whatever. Or like, come on, give me something else. And since you've been vocal about it, has anything changed? Nope. Have you talked? I'm just sitting here working hard and look at, now I'm here working hard.

I'm sitting here trying to enjoy life. And the hardest thing is, is I don't have an opponent. Yeah. That's the hardest part. I have Kabib who might retire. I wish them the best luck, but if it really is that bad, then don't be a punk. Just go.

I accept your apology. Let's move on. But if you're playing the game, dude, let's go. Come on. Trying to save face and whatever. I respect it either way. And we just need a fight, dude. The fans want to see me fight.

I want to see me fight. I think the fans want to see it better. I mean, honestly, I bet you put me up on top. paper-view card right now, they're going to be like buying the fight like crazy. In a weird way, do you feel like all this has upped your profile, has made you more popular? Maybe. Yeah. I don't know.

I feel like it has. I think it's cool. I'm just going to keep working hard. Try to stay humble and just keep my chin down, dude, and just keep my hands up. Just start throwing them, bro. Really just start keep sharp and camp and just really try to up the game. Up the strength department. obviously, and try to pursue fitness anywhere I can go.

This whole situation, as far as, like, Habib pulling out and then the Michael Johnson offer and then what you got paid after the fact, has this changed your approach to your career? In other words, were you one of those guys who was like, you know, I'm a soldier, I'm a team guy, this and that, but now you realize that, you know, it's not quite like that. Are you going to be a little different as far as the way you handle business with the UFC?

No, I have great management. which I trust in. I have to trust the process. It's a marathon, not a sprint. It's a small process. And that's how I've been taking it the whole entire way. I don't see a problem in it by changing anything that's not broken. And the same thing I'm going to keep doing my game.

I'm going to keep opening it up. Maybe I'll throw in like a running hurrah Kharana in there somewhere. You know, maybe guys will see that. Since you've been, because, you know, something that happens often is that, you know, someone goes out, does an interview, talks about being unhappy about something, and then you'll get a call. from the UFC, they'll try to rectify it and, you know, kind of move backwards like that. Has anyone tried to reach out to you to try to at least, you know, getting your good graces,

talk to you about the situation, rectify the situation from your advanced point? Has there been any contact as far as you are concerned with the UFC since you spoke to Amma Junkie and other outlets last week about your pay and being unhappy with it? Right. See that again? I'm wondering if anyone has reached out to you to talk to you about why they're giving you, you know, less than half of your show, why they went that route, just to explain to make you happy as much as possible. Has there been any communication between you and the UFC

since you talked about it last week? No. No. Honestly, I haven't. Honestly, they moved forward with it. I believe the same way with myself. Okay. I mean, it's hard to go backwards.

It's really hard to go backwards. I honestly feel like I should be moving forward, just like the rankings. I should be moved up a little bit. Yeah. You know, I think I was ready for a round, fly-flight, but on Michael Johnson, I felt like I was going backwards. In this business, I'm here for my wins and my victories and to support my family,

and just to keep doing what I'm doing, dude. And now is the difference between myself and the rest of the athletes that are on the table. So here I am now waiting for somebody to step up to sign the outer line for the title belt, which would be beautiful on my wall, by the way. Is it fair to say that you're not out there? Is it fair to say that you're not going to fight a non-title fight next? It has to be either interim or the real belt. Well, why not?

Yeah. Literally, I was just fighting with it, though. I feel like I'm a legit contender. I got nine wins in a row. I got X-M-R performance victories. I mean, really, I've been putting in some work. I feel like I deserve it. Yeah.

What am I going to do? It's just, I'm going to keep trash and boom, boom, bang through these dudes, man, and just keep knocking them out and finish them. I've had it in my head that I need a knockout. So if you guys want to see somebody get a lot. knocked out, let's go. By the way, just out of curiosity, how much weight did you gain in the past week? I want to know, like, what a fighter can put on.

Literally, probably, like, I put on a hefty amount. I brought on some good food, like, wait, man. My wife's like, oh, I love you at this weight. Very cool. I'm happier, obviously. I'm not cutting weight. It's beautiful. Do you get to enjoy some cereal bowls again? You know, it's nice to be able to live a relaxed life

for a second. That's probably, like, maybe 25, 30 pounds. Wow. Yeah, probably like 30 pounds. Holy smokes. That's unbelievable. And you still probably look shredded. I feel amazing.

I feel amazing. I feel like doing back slips right now. Landing on my back. What's like the worst thing that you eat? Like what's your favorite worst thing? Favorite worst thing? Probably pizza. Pizza?

That's the worst one? Holy Sparta. I am screwed. Pizza is impostas. That's all your whole pizza is good. Boom. That's the worst thing? That's like my best thing.

Oh, good. I don't need too bad. I mean, I can go bad. but I usually eat pretty bad all the time. No, I'm just kidding. I eat really good when it comes to fight time. A lot of stakes. You know, my sponsors are, you know, garden of life.

They take real good care of me. They have a lot of plant-based stuff. So I get to mix it in, and it really helps with my diet. Like, if I eat, if I eat, like, all at once, I'm going to get full. So if I eat, like, sparingly throughout the day, like, I eat a couple small meals. It helps with my, like, metabolism. It just keeps it going. It keeps it hungry.

And I always leave the table hungry, which helps. Okay. You know, I've always learned out from wrestling. You know, just some advice up for, just leave the table hungry, man. Don't eat your dessert first. You know, don't eat dessert. It's, you know, just cut weight the right way.

So just to be clear, the fight that I think is the best. Like, one of the best fights UFC could put on, regardless of division, is you versus Habib. But just because we're up against the clock, as far as Ramadan is concerned and his health situation, I was trying to figure out what's next for you. So to be as blunt as possible, do you like this idea, this July idea of fighting Nate Diaz,

or do you feel like you want to fight earlier, you know, you don't want to wait that long, you don't care about the stage, you just want to be active. July's tight. I like July. That's where a belt does this. I mean, really, it is. If we can do this sooner, it'd be dope. But you name the place, name the time, and I'll be right there, and I'll mark the guy out, bro.

It's what I do, and I've been pursuing that perfection, literally, and I think whoever signs is going to have their hands full. It'll be cool. And the reason, by the way, I'm throwing out July is only because I'm looking at the, the, calendar, April is booked, May is booked, I don't think you're going to Rio, and then the next one is July, that's why. Bang, sounds good. Bang. Let's go. Let's do this.

What's the message to Nate? Let's go, man. I want to go toe to talk. You think you're good, think you're bad. You think, you know, you say, don't be scared on me. I'm standing right here. You know, look what you say. I kind of feel like this is the fight that gets you to Connor.

Well, I do ain't going to fight me directly. He needs somebody to be like, oh, no, I want to fucking do shit. Right, right. I'm not fucked in every time. Whatever. I can go on, but I don't, you know, it's not my bag in that one. Connor knows exactly what he's up against, and he knows I'm a force to be wrecking with,

and he can't talk his way through this one. And same thing with Nate. It's a different scale with me, so. By the way, do you think he has a chance against Floyd? Do you think Connor has a chance against Floyd? No, fuck, no. No way. Floyd's just a different animal.

Right. But do you blame him for trying to get it, given the payday? Do you begrudge him? I mean, if he's all about business and being a punk, you need to vacate that belt. But I don't know. You want to box you. Let's go. I'll box you.

That could be the tune-up fight, you know, like the fight that gets him, you know, the winner gets Floyd. What I do get eaten up on the seat? Even in boxing, straight-up boxing. Oh, yeah. And straight-up boxing. Well, this is great stuff. All right, I feel like we're getting somewhere here. I feel like we've got some options.

Let me see what I can do behind the scenes, all right? All right. Tony, I appreciate it. Great to catch up with you. Try not to eat too much. You know, that extra slice of pizza. Yeah, I have to go for a runner too. I got to do a couple of exercises or something.

Well, hang in there. And, you know, for whatever it's worth, I appreciate your honesty and coming out and just explaining the whole situation because I know a lot of people try to not do that for whatever reason, but we thank you for shedding some light on the situation. I hope it gets rectified very soon. Thank you very much, boy.

All right, there he is. Tony Ferguson. Stopping by, good to talk to him. That is certainly an interesting idea. I mean, I honestly did not know that he was going to bring it up right off the bat like that, but maybe he watches the MMA beat, as I mentioned it last week on the program. Well, one name you heard of in that interview was Michael Keesa. You also heard us talk about him last week on the program when Eddie

Alvarez was on. So I thought, you know what, maybe I should get Michael KISS on the show. It's been a while since we talked to him. And he joins us now via the magical Skype from that familiar cabin of his. Michael, how are you? Doing well. How about you, Ariel? I'm doing great. Great to talk to you again. It has been a while. Well, let me just ask you. I mean, I don't know how much you heard of that, but Ferguson heard your request to fight him. And he said, essentially, thanks, but no thanks. You had an opportunity last July. You pulled out. He doesn't want to go backwards. What's your response to him? Well, I mean, it's kind of hypocritical you know what i mean like he's pulled out of a fight before and you know and what did he do

he you know he went back and tried to get three match with kabib i don't see why it would be out of the norm of a possibility for me to do the same thing i had a ruptured disc i wasn't sick in the hospital with the flu or whatever the hell he had i had a disc bulging out of my spine you know what i mean like there's a real big difference man and you know if he doesn't want them then whatever man like what's what these guys are ranked higher than me asking for fights with guys ranked lower than Like there's no, it doesn't make any sense. Like I understand like, look, Nate's a money fight at this point. Nate's a money fighter.

He's a, he's a pay-per-view draw. Like Tony, you're not a pay-per-view draw. You're not going to get a fight with Nate. Let's run it back. I'm not speaking logically. All these matchups I ask for, they make sense. I don't see why, you know, big deal. Dude, I ruptured a disc.

I rehab them back. Maybe it's because he ran into me at 209 and saw how much bigger I am and probably maybe feels like he dodged a bullet and he wants to move on. Who knows, man? So you actually spoke to each other at 209? I had to go up and shake his hand and size him up a little bit, but I felt bad for him, you know, so I went up and just said, you know, tough break. I'm sorry, you know, but, you know, I don't know what to do, man.

I can't force these guys to fight me, but if they're going to keep asking fights with guys ranked lower than me, what am I supposed to do? Start losing fights and looking like a chump, like, come on, man. You want to be the best in the world? You want to win a belt? Well, then go through me. I'm ranked higher than the guy you're asking for. It's just logical.

When you saw him, by the way, did you float the idea of you guys fighting? No, I just, you know what? That's not the time of the place, man. I agree. I'm not that guy. I agree. I mean, like, you know, as of late, I've been kind of coming off a little bit disrespectful, but there's just a lot of frustration with just how things are going, me trying to get the matchups that make sense for me in my career.

And these guys just finding excuses not to, like, I don't know. And by the way, for the record, how are you feeling now? Like, are you ready to return? Yeah, absolutely. If it were up to me, you know, I'd like to headline a card, headline a card in like May or June. You know, I'm headed out to Vegas right when I get off the Skype interview with you. And I'm going to head down there and get some training in.

And yeah, I mean, I'm, the wheels are in motion for me to come back. Okay. And, uh, there's no better time than now. It's just, it's gotten to the point where, you know, uh, you know, there's been some offers for guys that are ranked lower than me, and they're all, they're all really tough guys. I feel like they're all just as tough as the guys that I'm trying to fight. You know, the 155, it's pretty, you know, the playing field's somewhat even, you know what I mean,

in regardless of the ranks. But, you know, yeah, I'm ready to come back. I just want the fight that makes sense and I'm willing to wait for it. Where are you going to train in Vegas? I'll go back to syndicate. Okay. You know, that's my home gym down there. And, you know, I'll only be there for like four days, but, you know, just going down there,

I just want to see the guys and, you know, get some rounds in, get some work in, and, you know, I'll come back home. And I'm just going to start bouncing my time back and forth. And, you know, it's just kind of like the way of the warrior. You know what I mean? Just go where you got to get the work in. So last week, your name came up because I had Eddie Alvarez on the show. And he mentioned that you were on the table.

Dustin Porier was on the table for him at 2-11. Ultimately, the Porier fight was booked. But it was interesting because he wouldn't say you by name. He said that ultimate fighter guy. And so I asked him, you know, are you talking about Michael Kiesa? And it just seemed like he wasn't all that interested. Like he completely dismissed you. And then I saw your tweets to him afterwards.

I mean, why do you think he approached the topic of you like that? And did you feel at all disrespected by him? You know, at first I felt disrespected. And then I was like, I don't know why I might be in such a puss about it. You know what I mean? A former world champion is avoiding me. He's ducking me. You know what I mean?

And that's just the way it looked like to me. that's the way it sounded. I mean, you're like, oh, it's some ultimate fighter guy. And you're like, oh, Michael Kiesa. He's like, yeah, him. Okay, so you do know my name. Why are you acting like you don't know who I am? You know what I mean?

And then you're talking about how a fight with me is a step in the wrong direction. But you want to fight Porier. And Porre is tough. Don't get me wrong, but I'm ranked two spots higher than him. I'm ranked seven in the world right now, okay? Like, how am I a backward step? You know, what? Because Dustin's got a bigger Twitter following?

Like, what's that have to do with anything? You want to get the belt back. You got to go through me. And you know what sucks is even if he beats Porier, there's a chance he's still going to have to fight me. Because guess what? You're not going to go from 10 and just jump back into a title fight. Like, you chances are that little turd's going to have to fight me.

You know what I mean? Uh-huh. So, you know, best man win in Dallas. But, you know, I'm still here. I'm training. And, you know, the longer these guys wait, the better I'm getting. Every fight that I come out, I compete. I compete hard.

I'm improving. You know what I mean? Every fight, I look better and better. I'm not the same guy out there, you know, so it's like, you're only giving me more time to get better, which means you're only making the odds worse for yourself. I remember being in Tampa last April, a phenomenal win for you, especially considering the fact that you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the way. I still remember that vividly and sympathize with it greatly. And then you got, you know, I know it was a little sooner than you wanted, but you got the the fight that you were looking for against Tony main event fight on FS1

and then of course you had to pull out and now we are approaching almost a year since your last fight. Has it been I don't know I guess frustrating for you know that's the word that comes to mind just to see the division evolve and you kind of become out of sight out of mind. People don't talk about you as much, you know, they don't know about how you're

feeling things like that. Has it been tough as you were really I mean I felt like you were just like almost one or two away from really being in that conversation maybe even one and then you take this extended break due to a serious injury. How have you coped with it? You know, at first year it was pretty tough. You know, that would have been my third fight seven months. We're talking three, eight week camps in a seventh month period. You know, that's just part of the game. You know what I mean? You run your

body that hard and things like that are going to happen. And, you know, I was really down about it for a couple months. But, you know, once I started to get better, my back was better and I was able to start getting back to training. It's just, you know, you got to look at the grass. you know, the glasses half full. You know what I mean? Like, at least like the UFC was still promoting me. They're still sending me to events. Yeah.

You know what I mean? You know, they're still keeping me out there. So it's like, you know, it would have been more frustrating if I was just sitting around doing nothing. I'm still getting out in front of the fans, getting the opportunity to do things and travel and, you know, speak to people about how my recovery is going. But there is no more recovery.

I'm back. So it's time to start making some waves and get myself a fight. I got the itched to compete. It feels so good to just have that rush again. Like I just feel like I'm spring-loaded to just kick someone's butt. So I'm just eager to come back. And, you know, I'm just glad that the dark days are behind me for sure. Rupter disc.

I mean, obviously a very serious thing, especially for a fighter. What was the rehab process? You didn't have to have surgery, right? No, I mean, they wanted to do a surgery. I saw a couple, I saw two specialists, and they all kind of said the same thing. and I just I talked to a lot of people. They've had that had that same surgery. And they kind of just told me not.

They're like, don't do it. It didn't really help. You know what I mean? I still, they wish that they would have went, you know, with like alternative treatment, you know. So I did a lot of physical therapy, a lot of pool therapy. I did a lot of things involving aquatics to get my body moving and keep the weight off it.

So there's a lot of that and rest. And, you know, I was back to, I was back to like. training in eight weeks, you know, and now I'm starting to incorporate yoga into my regiment and stuff. So, you know, at some point I probably will have to have back surgery, but I'm just not going to do it while I'm in the prime of my career. One thing that I mentioned at the top of the show was I feel in particular for the middleweights and lightweights these days, because, you know, the situation at 155 with Connor going out and trying to get this Floyd fight, and then you have the situation at 185 where they make this GSP fight, and I get it. But if you're a guy who, you're a guy who

who's one or two wins away from, you know, really knocking on that title shot door as you are, I feel like it's kind of tough to, you know, not to stay motivated because you're making a living, you're fighting, you're being active, you're doing what you love. But like that direct path is not really quite clear these days, in particular in those two divisions. As someone who's in that situation, do you agree with that assessment? Like it's just a little weird before it was like, okay, I fight this guy, then I'll get to this guy, and then I'll fight for the belt. Now it's like, it's very confusing.

as you get unchanged. Yeah, you know, the problem is it can be very disheartening. You know what I mean? It's, it's, you know, the fans are starting to catch on. You know, when they announced the GSP Bisping fight, there was a lot of people that are like, what the heck is this? You know, not people are starting to catch on to, you know, the rankings really not meaning anything.

And kind of in the grand scheme of things, the way the landscape of the UFC is right now, that's kind of the situation. They need to make big money fights. and I understand why, but, you know, I'm not going to, that doesn't mean that just because I feel like the rankings don't matter, that means I'm, that doesn't mean I'm going to start fighting guys that aren't ranked and just like, screw it. Yeah, yeah.

I'm just, you know, disregard the idea of fighting the best guys in the world. You know, someday I will be a world champion and it will be in the UFC. I know it deep down in my guts 100%. So, you know, at the end of the day, I want to fight the best in the world. That's what I'm here to do. That's what I dream of doing is being the best in the world at something. So even though the way that these fights are panning out at 155 with, you know, Connor leaping around and doing his thing, I'm still going to strive to fight the best guys.

I'm still going to push to fight guys that are former world champions. I'm going to push for that Ferguson fight. I want a headline a card against him. I want it to be for the interim title. I'm on a three-fight win streak. Like, let's do this. Let's do this in June. Like, I want to fight the best guys.

But I'm not going to let these things I can't control get to me. I'm just going to keep doing what I do. to win fights, I'm to beat the best guys to where I have to force their hand. You know what I mean? That's really what you have to do. And, you know, that's your best shot at getting what you want at this point in time. So is it fair to say that that's, you know, the number one goal for you, that that Ferguson main event interim title fight, is that the one, like if you had your way, they say,

okay, what do you want, Mike? That's the one? That's the scenario you want? Yeah. Yeah, it is. To me, it makes sense. I don't see why it doesn't make sense. You know what I mean?

it's a, I'm on a wind streak. We were supposed to fight. There is some history. You know what I mean? Like, let's run it back. You can't sit there and say I pulled out of a fight. Like, I wasn't ducking you, bro. Like, I couldn't walk for almost two weeks.

Couldn't even get out of my couch. Like, you were laying in a hospital with the flu. Come on, man. Just shut up and fight. You know, you're not. Nate's not going to fight you. Nate's going to fight the trilogy fight with Connor, and he deserves that. He's not going to.

Nate's a money fight now. And Nate's a badass fighter. Like, I don't, but that's just never going to happen. But it's just kind of hypocritical for him to say those kinds of things. So we have a story, we have a storyline. Yeah. It's supposed to fight. It didn't happen.

It's supposed to be a main event. Well, guess what? Let's up the stakes. Let's put 12 pounds of gold on the line. You want to be a champion? Maybe it should go through me. This past weekend, Etzen Barbosa beat a guy that you know about Vanil Darius. Someone throughout to me, I believe it was Mike Rhodes, the former UFC fighter.

What about Michael Kesson X for Barbosa? I said, I love that idea. What do you think of it? If not Ferguson, of course. It's got to be a title eliminator. You know what I mean? Like, that's, that's, that, you know, he's ranked higher than me. He looked pretty good.

I felt like Benio looked great. You know what I mean? He just made a mistake and got caught. You know, Barbos is a badass fighter. And, yeah, I entertain the idea of a Barbosa fight as long as it's a title eliminator. You know what I mean? It has to be the winner.

is getting a title shot. Why wouldn't it be? You know what I mean? I mean, we're the only two guys outside. It could be even Tony that are in the top 10 that are on a win streak. You know what I mean? It's all about, you know, logistics and what makes sense. You know what I mean?

So that's the only way it would happen. And, you know, I welcome that idea. Absolutely. Okay. I just, my fight, my focus has been so set on Tony. Yeah. You know what I mean? Before the whole thing happened with him having to pull out of the fight,

you know, I was focused on Eddie, really thought that. really thought that fight was going to happen. And once that whole thing happened with him fighting in Dallas, it's like, well, I'm going to deviate my focus back to Ferguson. I'm going to try to continue where I left off. And if it doesn't happen and Barboses the fight, then yeah, let's do it. I'm down. I can beat any of these guys.

I know it, 100%. I feel like I'm the best lightweight in the world. I'm the biggest lightweight in the world. And I'm just ready to do it, man. I'm ready for greatness. And whoever I have to go through to get there, that's just what I'm going to do. How much you weigh right now, by the way? I'm just a probably like 192, 193

But I can move it Yeah Ferguson gets that big though too I've heard him saying interviews He gets to around 95 and stuff But I can move the weight You know what I mean I just gotta I gotta lay off the pasta noodles and meatballs

And get back to chicken and fish and vegetables And I'll be good Wow that is unbelievable 40 pounds Wow that is that it's just amazing And I would agree with you That you are biggest tallest one of them at least lightweights in the division.

By the way, your teammate, Julianna Pena, tough loss for her, not that long ago. How was she doing? And what did you see from that fight? What went wrong for her? You know, I haven't spoke to her in a while. You know, I know that she moved down to Chicago and it's, you know, my understanding,

you know, she's engaged and she's happy. And the thing is, is, you know, she's a great fighter, man. She's going to be a world champion. She's tough as nails. and, you know, when you fight at that level, the smallest mistake would get you caught. You know, I thought she looked good, and Julie's the type of fight, and the longer the fight goes on, the better she gets. I mean, you saw that with cat fight. We saw that with the Jessica eye fight.

So I feel like the longer that fight went on, the more it would have favored her. It's just unfortunate she got caught. I know she trains hard. She's in good hands, and, you know, I wish her the best. And, yeah, she's on to great things. She just needs to get this loss behind her, get a win under her belt, and just get back to. to what she does. That's kicking butt.

So is she not a part of the team anymore? No, she's still a part of the team. She is. It's just, you know, she works with Luis Claudio down there. And they had a,

you know, they really clicked in terms of training. I know that she's going to come back when she has to do a camp. She's going to come back here to Spokane and spend some time with us at Sig Jitsu and with, you know,

Coach Rick Lila and stuff. So, yeah. It's just, you know, she's still a part of the team. She always will be. She helped found this team.

Yeah. I mean, her and I, she started, She started training with us like a month or two after I did back in 2008. You know what I mean? She helped build this house. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, she's definitely still part of the team. Speaking of houses, how's the Dreamhouse doing? Is it treating you well? You happy with it? The Kiesa Dojo is doing great. Unfortunately, winter's leaving me. I love seeing snow on top of the roof of my house and it's beautiful out here. But, you know, I got a lot of – I got some new projects coming up.

And, you know, it's just a work in progress, but love it, man. it here. It's great to be out here in the woods and living in my little log cabin. We call it the kiesa dojo. So it's a DMF ranch. Now you got the key. How far away is your neighbor? Like your closest neighbor? How far away?

I got about five acres. Wow. On the north side of my house, probably like, probably about an acre away. And then I have one neighbor that's kind of close, probably like 150 feet, but we have like a huge patch of trees in between us. So

you know, they're kind of close, but, you know, we got a, we got a big, a big grow of pine trees that kind of block them out. So I don't have a curtain. The only curtains in my house are in my room. So it's just wide open. Wow. There's no, uh, no privacy here, just the way I like it. It's not lonely out there for you. Oh, it's not, you know, I mean, I'm not far from town.

I mean, it's a, I like, I like, I like being out here. You know what I mean? I got, I got some pet turkeys. I got some deer. I got, I got some, you know, I got some animals to kick it with. But, you know, I don't get lonely out here. I like being, but, you know, I like being by myself. It's nice.

If you think about this, you live with a roommate, there's those days, you're like, God, I just want this place to myself. Yeah. You can't really tell the person who's to live with and leave. You know, I mean, I need my house, but it's like, you know, I'm by myself. And if I want to kick it with one of my friends or somebody, you know, it's, I can just call them and bring them on over. And I'd rather have things to be that way than feel like confined to my own space. You know what I mean? All right.

I respect it. I respect it. I like to be alone as well. Just curious. Just looking out for you, Michael, that's all. Hey, if you ever want to come hang out, man, come keep me company, fly on out. Thank you. Get you out here.

I got some good stuff. Okay. I'll bring my three kids. We'll have a blast. Then you'll want us to leave in an hour. Well, I appreciate to come meet uncle. And you look so lovable and cuddly with that beard. You're like, I mean, I just want to squeeze that thing.

It's amazing. I wish you the best, Michael. I appreciate you coming on. and sharing your thoughts and speaking your mind. And I hope you get that the fight that you're looking for, I hope you get the opportunity that you're looking for. And above all, I'm happy to hear that you're healthy because I know how big that opportunity was for you last year.

And I know people have forgotten, but that went over Darius. That was, I mean, that was amazing stuff. That was truly, truly special stuff. And that got you to that big fight. So let's not forget about Mr. Michael Kesa. Great stuff, Mike. Safe travels over to Vegas, and we'll talk to you soon.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate having me on. I want to say, I love my mom. Thank you, Daniel Rubenstein, best manager in the business. Oh, come on. He has one, two, three, and five. Oh, come on.

Daniel, don't get me started on him, how he botched that McKenzie Derry. Maybe I'll tell that story later on in the day, but everything you said except for the Danny part, I agree wholeheartedly. Say hello to your mom for me. Thank you. All right, there he is.

Michael Kesa is stopping by Danny Rubenstein. This guy is something else. I mean, you talk about botching a story of epic proportions. I mean, unbelievable, the whole McKenzie Duren situation, which I tweeted about a little bit last week. Maybe I'll get into it at the end of the show, but we don't have time for that right now. Great stuff from Michael Kesa, an interesting scenario playing out in front of our eyes.

At 155, we'll see how it all plays out. All right, let us move along. Just a couple weeks ago, around the time that we found out actually about the GSP Bisping fight, We also found out that Misha Sarkinov was back in the UFC. And if you'll recall, had that massive win in Toronto, the crowd erupted for him. They went nuts for him. Of course, from Latvia now living in Toronto. It appeared as though he was that guy at 205 that we had been waiting for, future star, future contender, potential future champion, all very exciting stuff.

And then we heard that there were some failed contract negotiations and that the UFC was going to part ways with them. And it all didn't make any sense. For a while, I wanted to get him on the program, but I understand he had to figure out that situation. Happy to hear that he is back. And just this morning, TSN reported out in Toronto that he will be returning in Stockholm, May 28th, against Volkaner, Osdemir, of Switzerland, who had that win over OSP back in Houston last month, the Fight Night Show. So great time to talk to Misha Serkhanov himself. He joins us on the phone for the first time on this show.

Misha, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Thanks for having me. A pleasure. I've been wanting to have you on the show for a while now. As you know, happy that you're on now. So there's a lot to discuss with you. Let's actually move backwards. When you won against Nikita Krilov in Toronto, were you confident, okay, you win that fight, were you confident that everything was going to work out, or were you expecting, you know, some negotiations, it was going to be a roller coaster? What were you thinking was going to happen? You know, I kind of wasn't really sure what to expect. I just knew that my fight contract is up,

and I just have to get a new one, and just I knew I have to negotiate and all that. It's just thinking I also don't have a manager, so I was kind of trying to do everything myself. So that's why maybe it took a little bit time, but, you know, he only took us, like, three weeks, and we worked things out, and I got the contract that I wanted,

and just happy to be back in the mix now, you know. Why don't you have a manager? I don't know. I just didn't find the right person yet, you know. Like, I work hard, and every single time so far, people approaching me and have been asking me for certain things. We didn't really say how we're going to work, you know. I don't really see why I need to give certain potential solacea.

who's just willing to negotiate for me. You know, I can do myself as well. You know, I would love to have a manager or somebody, you know, who can bring something to a table. Have you ever had a manager in your career? I did have a manager at one time, and I just didn't really have that good of experience. I didn't even know why I'm having him.

I'm just, you know, just talking him on the phone until, like, 30 minutes. I'm not really getting anything out of it, if anything. and just kind of wasting the time or rather be napping or just training or, you know, just doing something more more valuable, I guess. Has this whole experience made you think, okay, you know, at some point I need to get a man, just so that there's a buffer, someone there to help you, guide you, negotiate, have you changed your stance, or has that not happened as a result of this experience? You know, I don't really see why I should change anything because, I mean, You know, people say, oh, you got to go with Cheney Can, you got to do this, you got to do that, you got to do this. And I'm like, man, don't even train with me. You don't even know anything about me.

Why are you telling me I need to do this? And so far, I mean, I take fights, and so far I win every fight. And so far, so good. And I'm just trying to get better. And I'm just trying to surround myself with, like, positive-minded people. Instead of people, oh, you should be doing this and that. In my opinion, it's not broken. Don't try to fix this kind of thing.

So I don't know. I just try to enjoy every day of my life and just try to get better and train and I try to stay positive. So Dana White did a few interviews about you and at first we found out that they took you off the website and that kind of raised a few red flags. And then he said that he met with you and your wife and he offered you a deal. And then as he put it, he said that you flaked on him and that you wanted a new deal. And that's when he said, you know what, great guy, but we're going to part ways. From your perspective, what happened? Yeah, well, I honestly, I don't really understand what, like, flake means, you know, because I never really flake in anything.

You know, if I say I'm going to show up, I always show up. If I say, I'm going to do something, I'm going to do something. It's just we're negotiating the contract, and I guess, you know, maybe I didn't get back as fast as I should have, or I don't know. I don't know exactly, you know, why I kind of pissed off Dana. But, you know, I obviously don't want to be on a bad side, you know, because as we all know, things can turn kind of south or north, however you want to look at it really quick.

So I'm just happy that there's, like, we had a really nice job with Mick Maynard, and we chat for like 15, 20 minutes, and then we came to agreement, and I'm just happy that, like, it was easy to talk to him. Because with Dana, he's a little bit kind of like, It's a little bit nerve-wracking talking with him because, you know, he doesn't be safe on these things I don't like and all of a sudden, you know, I thought we were buddies and next thing, maybe we were not buddies, and I don't know.

I'm just happy that there's matchmaker, Mick Manor, and I can just deal with him, and Dana I can just show him great plates. So Mick was the one that kind of came in and got the deal done and saved the situation? Yeah, I emailed Mick and then he called me and we had like a nice chat. Because I always wanted to fight UFC. I just asked maybe a little bit for a little bit more money, and I guess Deere got pissed off on that.

And, you know, it's not a big deal. I'm just happy that everything kind of got smoothened out, and there's no kind of bad feeling. And, you know, I'm excited to feel a great fight, and I'm trained very hard. And I don't want to be really fighting anywhere else, just like I said before. You saw the other aspect I really like,

how in USC all the guys are, you know, kind of doing all the drug tests and all that. So it was a little bit kind of nerve-wracking couple weeks because in terms of, you know, like when Dennis said, like I flake down and everything, because I knew I didn't. And it was kind of for two weeks I didn't have a job. And everyone was like, oh, what are you going to do? And I just kind of wanted some time to myself and just kind of think to settle. and then just, you know, call Nick and shout with him, and, you know, I don't want to fight, and there's a lot of great up-and-comber, dual-five-ins in division now,

and I don't want to be wasting time. I just want to, you know, I don't want to be taking long, long breaks. I want to be always in action because I'm not fighting for a while. It can be a rusty, so I don't want to get a rusty, you know. I want to be in the mix. When you heard Dana, who's so powerful in the president of the organization, say that we're moving on, was that news to you? had you not been told that?

And if so, how did you react? Yeah, you know, I was a little bit like, oh, shit, you know. It's not a nice feeling. You know, I mean, I've been fired before. And the thing is, I've always been doing a good job, like, since even, like, you look at my history, I've been always kind of, like, most valuable employee of the company. Okay. whenever it worked, and the bass, the whole show of things, like, those kind of things.

And I don't know. Honestly, they didn't know what to think. I just wanted to give it some time, let it kind of everything settle down, and then just talk to them once they kind of, like, you know, off the fresh food kind of thing, like following the weeks. Since you've been back, since you agreed to the New Deal, have you talked to Dana? have you cleared the air with him about the whole flaking thing? No, no, I didn't talk to Dana, but I talked to Nick, and, you know, we had a really good conversation,

and it's nothing personal with Dana. I know he's a great businessman and all that. He's just, in my case, I think it's a little bit easier for me to deal with Mick Maynard, because, like, with Dana, he's a little bit, sometimes, you know, he's a little bit harsh in a way, you know, I don't want to be kind of burning bridges with him, especially because I'm negotiating for Misha Sarkin as a manager kind of thing. So it's kind of just a weird situation,

and I'm just happy all that has passed. And now it's going to have to concentrate on the fight itself. So that's kind of nice, you know. And here's the biggest question. Are you happy with the deal that you signed? Yeah, yeah. It's a nice deal. you know it's a it's a six-fight deal

there's a bunch of fights and yeah like I'm happy I'm happy to be part of the show I've been getting a couple other deals but I was not even looking to to join any other shows or anything I was just like I said I wanted some time to some air to

clear out and then just talk with UFC and because I think I already put in like four good performances and I just want to keep that going and just be part of the kind of like the most respected show. And just out of curiosity, is this the deal that you agreed to, was it the original deal that they offered or were you able to get what you wanted?

Yeah, I got a little bit more. Okay. Also to kind of what I wanted. So I think things worked out, you know, for me. there's always of course you can always get something better and better and better but given the position that I've been

and things would have done and I think it's a fair deal and I'm happy with it and yeah now I can leave all that behind and just kind of concentrate on just fights you know so this morning they announced

that you're fighting Volkan Osdemier in Stockholm 828th how do you feel about this matchup it's a tough fight you know Vulcan, he's a great fighter. He's a young guy.

You know, he's a good frame, good athlete. He hits hard. You know, he's a hard take-down. He's a good record. You know, he's a tough guy. He's a real real specimen. You know, I see how a bunch of kind of veterans that are sitting in the top bracket,

how they would try to avoid him and stuff like that. He's a tough fight, you know. It's one of those guys that, like, similar to Nikita Krillok, you can knock you out, and he's a top on the ground, and he's a scrappy guy, so tough fight. Were you surprised when they offered you him? Because he's not, you know, Kreloff is a bigger name.

It felt kind of like you were kind of moving up the ladder, and he's not the biggest name. Only has one fight in the UFC. Was this one that you kind of felt was on your radar, or was it a bit surprising when they brought him to your attention? I was a little bit surprised, considering, like, how all the rankings play at and all that. There's just like another criteria

of its own. I just obviously I see his great performance against OSP. OSB is super tough challenger. You know, he went to decision with John Joan. It just shows like the, you know, the level where Vulcan is at and he's definitely tough competitor.

So I kind of know he'll be in the mix. He'll be in there. And maybe, you know, I could say, oh, maybe he doesn't deserve I already have four fights in the UFC and so on and so on. But he had a great fight himself. He beat a rank guy, and he's in the mix,

and reality is, like, right now all the other guys are kind of booked. When I talked to Mick Maynard and he offered that fight, there was no kind of other guys. Everyone had something in the works, you know, Shogun didn't fight yet, etc. So I kind of,

He told me, like, you know, that's a fight. There is a fight now, you know. So I kind of didn't want to say, oh, no, there's kind of wait and wait and wait until something comes up, something that is, like, nice. I just, you know, he's a tough guy, and he's a tough fight, and let's just make it happen, you know, put up great fights to all the fans.

I think that's all about that, you know. I'm not just looking forward to, like, oh, give me this guy, give me that guy. He's a tough guy, and it makes sense. And, you know, the winner of that, I guarantee you he's a real deal. And my opinion, could be top five, no problem. So we'll see what happens. In Toronto, you said you wanted to fight Shogun, which seemed like an idea a lot of people

like, but obviously you didn't get that fight. He just fought this past weekend. Do you think if you would have gotten the deal done sooner, you would have gotten that fight? I don't know. I don't think so. Okay. Because when I asked them to fight, you know, we still had a bunch of time. I'm pretty sure he was asked if he wants to fight me,

and the other fight happened. So I don't know if you wanted to fight me. I'm sure in the future we can work something out, and I hope we'll work something on the future. Because for me personally, I would love to fight somebody like that, just to that I can kind of rob my name against, like, a legend. a true pioneer, a true Hall of Famer

Pride champion and UFC champion. I don't know. I just, I'd love to fight him because a lot of people know who he is and a lot of people would tune in to see him fight, so I would love to fight him so that all those people would get to know who are mission circle of as well. And, you know, I think I earned it

and I've been fighting for a long time, and we'll see, we'll see what happens. I have to be honest, I knew you were popular in Toronto, but I was blown away by the reaction to your victory over Khrlov in December. That place exploded. I mean, it was super loud in there, showing you so much love. Were you surprised by the reaction as well? Yeah, I know.

I've never experienced anything like that. I mean, the crowd, like, I fought before, I think the biggest crowd was like $6,000 or $8,000. I don't remember the exact number, but in Toronto we had like almost 20,000 people, and everyone after the win, everyone kind of, like, you know, we're so generally happy. The energy, electricity in the air was just, it was crazy.

I didn't even know how to react to you. I just like, I just got on top of the cage. I was like, I love this thing. I just yelled. It was really, really cool. You know, it was like it was priestly experience or something that I'll never forget to a die. Yeah, what a moment.

And what a performance for you. you. As far as Canadian MMA is concerned, it obviously just got a boost with the return of GSP. When you heard about that, are you the kind of guy who thinks, okay, this is great for me because now, you know, the market will get more attention. Maybe we can fight on the same card because,

you know, a lot of people, including myself, think that you're part of that new generation of Canadian MMA stars. You're that next step. Did you feel the same way? Did you think the same way when you found out that he was coming back? You know, for sure, because

I really like to begin with he's one of my serious and seeing him come back it shows a lot you know first of all he doesn't he doesn't need to be back

you know but it shows that he's always training I've seen him he's in a really really good shape and I'm really happy that he's back because again if we find the same card there's going to be

you know more people will tune in all the old school like previous fans They used to watch GSP, you know, they're going to watch and they'll see some new faces. So hopefully they can put them in the same car with GSP. It would be nice. Yeah. And just in general, it's good to see him back, you know. I do think that this day is a really tough fight from a long way up, like, you know, over three years.

Yeah. And we get him confused with such a long time. And the first slide back, you know, it's somebody like Michael Disting, and, like, Disting is a very, very tough individual, you know, so a very, very tough fight. I'm extremely excited to see it, and yeah, it's a very tough fight for just a couple months ago we had Rumble Johnson on the show, and he specifically mentioned you as one of the up-and-comers. He said he was impressed with you, and he thought that you were very close. We were talking to him about the lack of contenders at 205. Did you hear or read his comments, and if so, what did you think of him?

Yeah, no, of course, I've seen it, like a bunch of people tagged me, to it and I'm very, very thankful, you know, it's amazing to get a recognition from another, like he's like a really high level fighter, you know, he's one of the most feared guys in a division

in, all in the May kind of period, you know, he knocks people out and he's just, you know, like a really kind of very tough and scary fighter and to get recognition from from him is very, very, it means a lot to me. Like,

a lot, you know. Do you think he beats Cormier next month? You know, this fight, like first fight, I picked Daniel Cormier to win. But in a rematch, it's going to be very, very interesting because we all know that we all see what happened in the first fight. So I feel like there's a lot of blueprint for Anthony Johnson to get better. and if he gets better it's going to be a lot, a lot of

tougher for Daniel Kermay to win where I don't like Daniel Kermay is a beast himself but I think that we're not going to see like a way more improved

Daniel Korme just based on you know, he'd been injured and and he didn't like compete and stuff like that he's a champion. Anthony Johnson

would have to beat the champion, but I think if anything, this is the best chance for Anthony Johnson to become a, like a bell holder. I think, because he already seen

what he needs to do and he sees the game plan and hopefully if you can't stick to the game plan, I think it could be a good night for Anthony Johnson. But again, Daniel Kermere showed us

how it could be done, right? So, it's going to be very interesting. You got to pick a winner. Don't sit on the fence. Pick a winner. Who do you got? You know, if I had to pick a winner,

yeah. You know what? I'm going to go with probably still being a comedy jazz based on wrestling. Yeah. It's going to be close to fight this. Yeah, and how far away do you think you are from that conversation? Like, do you think you're one fight away?

Do you think you're two fights? What do you think in your mind? Um, I don't know. I don't know. I think that, well, right now I have one fight for sure. Sure. And then maybe get another fight after that with somebody like maybe Shogun, you know, if he wants to. And if it's not Shogun, then I don't know.

I don't know. Like, I'll be ready. And ideally, maybe won two more fights. And then somebody like that, I would give it a try myself. All right. By the way, how do we get you and Chris Staps Porzingis in the same room? I want that photo. I want the two Latvian superstars together.

How do we make that happen? Do you have similar friends? Do you run in the same circles? Not really, not really, but I don't know. I heard he's in the U.S. right now, right? Yeah, he plays for the New York Knicks. He's unbelievable. You've heard of him, right?

Yeah, of course, of course. So it's just a matter of time when, because he traveled a lot too, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would love to be in one room and one day, maybe three of us, take a picture. Oh, wow. I don't know about me, but I just want to see both of you, the two Latvian stars together. he's a big MMA fan. He's always tweeting about Connor

and watching UFC, so I'm sure he knows who you are. Yeah, well, it has to be three euros because you're the one that will kind of connect us together. He'll definitely hear you talk, so. That would be nice. All right, I'm going to work on it, all right?

I don't know him personally. I'd love to know him personally, but I don't know him personally too. He's a really big deal. He's a very big deal. How big of a deal? Are you getting more media attention over there? a little bit more yeah especially with like um kind of younger mama community with the kind of you know

the younger generation or everyone following uFC everybody kind of wants to know who is who and uh lately i've been getting a lot of um kind of guys adding me from latvia as well so my fan base is slowly slowly growing but again you know rubbing off shoulders you know somebody like one of the biggest kind of hockey guys and lots of it, I'll be great. Yeah, all right. And by the way, it's basketball. Chris Staps is basketball.

Yeah. Okay, okay, I thought you said hockey. Oh, no, sorry, I'm just like, right now I'm really, really sick, actually. I'm just like, I don't know if I have a few or not. Oh, no. I'm not thinking straight, yeah. Okay, okay.

Well, we'll let you go. Congratulations on the New Deal. Congratulations on being back in the UFC. Congrats on getting the fight. I'm looking forward to it. May 28, the return of won Misha Sarkhanov. And it's good to have you on the show for the first time. Misha, I wish you all the best.

We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Ariel. Thanks for having me, and sorry, you can get back to you earlier. No problem. No problem at all. There he is. Misha Serkinov stopping by the pride of Latvia. He's referring to the fact that when the whole thing happened with him

and trying to get into getting his deal with UFC, trying to get re-signed, all that stuff. I, of course, hit him up quite a bit. for a while I didn't hear back from him, but now we're all good. He has signed a deal with UFC. He is back, and he is fighting on May 28th. They just announced it this morning. Great timing there. All right. Let's move along. One last guest today. Very excited to talk to Rashad Evans. We saw him in action at UFC 209. His middleweight debut, wanted to talk to him about that, where he goes from here, what's next, all that good stuff and more. He joins us on the phone.

Rashad, are you there? Yeah, what's up, Barry? I'm doing great. Thank you for the time. I really appreciate you coming on. So here we are around nine days removed from the fight against Daniel Kelly. How are you digesting it all? What are your thoughts nine days removed?

You know, I'm still disappointed, but at the same time, you know, it is what it is. You know, you just have to just accept it. And, you know, I feel like there's a lot of things that could have done better in that fight, But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I choose to take the positive away from it and just, you know, work on some of the areas where I feel like I need to get better. How did you feel as a middleweight for the first time in there?

I mean, strength-wise, your body, quickness, all that stuff. How did you feel in there physically? I felt pretty good in there physically. It just took me, you know, a while to get warmed up, you know. I just, you know, I don't, you know, just not being in the cage enough, you know, not I've been in a out of enough, you know, it definitely, it definitely just has, it's told on you as a fighter just because you're not used to being active and don't have the, you know, like the timing down, the competitive timing for just getting in the rhythm to go out there and be, you know, close to catching your second win so that when you come out there and you fight, you're like, you're like, like, you know, super, super ready. You know, I didn't really get, like,

feel like I was really warmed up to probably about midway through the second round. Huh. Because of the weight cut or because of the time off or a mixture of both? No, I don't know. You know, I just kind of, it just took me a while to get, I wouldn't say it's because of the weight cut. You know, the weight cut, I felt pretty good. I feel like I felt like I had, you know, spring in my legs.

And I was worried about that more than anything. I was worried about, you know, cutting a lot of weight. And then my legs feeling heavy the next day. but I felt like my legs, you know, they felt pretty good. You know, it's just that I don't feel like I had my timing right, you know, so I went out there and didn't, you know, feel like I was catching my second win. And, you know, that's how I normally feel like. When I get ready to fight normally, when I'm in a good competitive rhythm,

I feel like I'm just about to catch my second win as I'm walking out to the fight. And then as a fight starts, then I'm, you know, already pretty warmed up. But that's like maybe in the mid-second round, I started to really, you know, feel like I was, you know, getting warmed up. Was Daniel Kelly tougher than you thought he would be? Yeah, he was tougher because he was difficult. You know, he's a difficult, not a typical softball.

You know, typically speaking with a softball, you would circle to their right, my left. But with Daniel, he was kind of tricky because if I just circled to the way he supposed to circle, he would, he had like this little tricky foot sweep that he had to do, you know. So I would have to back out and then circle where he couldn't trip my foot. But then he was putting so much pressure on at the same time, it would have seemed like I was running. So I was like, you know, I just got to move to the right when I can and then, you know, try to mix up the movement.

But I just felt like I could catch him up the metal. Okay. And then as far as like Thursday going into Friday, you know, that first time getting down to $1.85. And I know you told me that you didn't have a nutritionist. How difficult was it? it was a lot more difficult than I thought you know it was just uh it was just just a different feeling that I'm used to when I cut from 205 you know 205 I got a different kind of rhythm but at 205 at 185 it was just different altogether you know I felt like uh you know I felt the dips

in the energy and I was like wow this is you know the weight cut is definitely a lot more real than it is at 205 but I was surprised that I did feel uh as well as I did I thought that I'll be completely drained on Thursday, but I still had a bit of energy. And, you know, it had as a good moments and bad moments as that. Something about the hair. I think the hair was a little longer and your lean body. You looked a lot younger.

Yeah, I had the hair long. You know, this whole cat, man, I just, you know, just like, you know, when I ain't worried about, you know, my hair or nothing like that. So I was just letting it grow and just, you know, the more people told them I need to cut it, the more I was just like, you know what the hell, I'm going to keep it. And that's what happened.

So I just, yeah, you know, I went out there and I felt, I know that, you know, I was kind of disappointed in my performance just because I didn't perform the way that I feel like I really could have. And I feel like, you know, just getting in the good competitive rhythm, just being out there more than just one time a year. Yeah. My next performance would be 10 times better. You know, it's, it's really, really hard to compete with these guys who are competing every few months if you're not competing at all.

You know, no matter who you are, no matter who you are. It's just, it's just a competitive rhythm, being out with the eye guy, you know, the feel of it, feeling comfortable in a cage. And when you feel comfortable in a cage, it allows you to just fight and just really, you know, and not second guess or contemplate. your next move and you're in free mode and that's what I need to do. You know, I need to just go back out there and fight as soon as possible. Are you going to stick around at 185 for your next fight? Yeah, you know, honestly, I felt like when I was out there, I felt like this is where, is where I should have been for a long time, to be honest.

You know, I love 205 and, you know, have some great fight at 205, but I think that 185 is definitely where I need to be. You know, I feel like I can, you know, I feel like I can, you know, I feel like, you know, I feel like once I get into my rhythm, I can do some things here, you know. And it's really hard to say that after you coming off off a loss. And, you know, but at the end of the day, you got, you got to, I got to keep perspective on things, you know. You know, I haven't, I haven't been busy when it comes to competing and stuff like that. So that has a toll on the kind of, you know, the kind of results that I get.

and, you know, I'm going to definitely do my best, you know, and stay busy as I can. You know, because, I mean, at the end of the day, I do want to fight, and I do want to test myself and compete against the best. And the only way to really, you know, give myself what I feel is my best chance is to just stay busy, compete. Okay, so obviously you want to be busy. You've said that a few times. I know you talked to your manager, Leah DLZ, about getting right back in there. Um, as we sit here and talk today, do you have your next fight?

And if you don't have your next fight yet, you know, let's put it out there. What do you want? Um, I, I do not have my next fight yet. Okay. You know, there were, there were some talks before, uh, the, the Kelly fight about Anderson and that fight is still out there. It's a fight that I want. Oh, all right.

You know, yeah, there's a lot of people, I mean, uh, you know, honestly speaking to just be 100% honest I just want to compete man and it sounds just like a boring you know cliche statement

but I just really want to compete and and rather it's against you know I guess Elias Theodore was talking and he was talking a bit of trash like that

or he was saying he wanted a piece or whatever I honestly I don't care man I just want to fight and I want to go out Because the hardest thing in the world is to lose a fight and then have the world tell you how you need to fight. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

It's hard. It's hard to sit back because, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. And, you know, I don't always go out there and compete, you know, at my high, you know, the highlight moments, you know what I'm saying. And, but it's just what happens. It's just what it is. but when I do not fight the way that I could fight, then I got to have, then I got to hear everyone,

including my mom, but talking about how I need to compete. She called you after this one? Yeah, you know, well, you know my mom, man. What's she said? Rashad, you got to let it go, Bishad. You just, you, you just got to be, remember when you used to go out there?

And I'm just like, yeah. You know, people want to tell me about my own highlights and my own great fights, like I wasn't a part of it. You know what I'm saying? And I need to be reminded it. But I get it. I get it. I get it.

It's just, it just sucks being in the position that I am right now and then having, you know, to hear it. But I guess it's just the price of losing. So you're essentially open to anyone. I mean, I hear it. I hear it. I don't, I don't. put myself in the position where I'm, you know, deeply listening to everyone. And, you know, I take, you know, I know, I know who to listen to. You know what I'm saying? I'm not lost to the

point where I'm just listening to every single person who has something to say in time in. But at the same time, I do understand why they may want to say what they want to say. You know what I'm saying? Some people just want to say something just to talk trash. Some people may say something because they may generally be concerned, you know? But you know, you know, you know, it's the funniest part to me is this right here. So people think, like, if I lose a fight, then something must be terribly wrong in my life. You know what I'm saying? So then now it's not even just about fighting anymore.

Now it's about life advice. You know what I need to be doing in my life? And it's just like, it's crazy. It's crazy to me. I had so many people hitting me up. I thought of close to me and just like, you know, what's going on in your life? And I'm like, I don't know what happened. I'm like, well, you know, we lost.

And I'm just like, yeah, I know. You know, one of the judges didn't think I won. And that's just the bottom line, you know. One of them, you know, I just didn't get to nod from the judges. And, you know, not to make light of the loss and say it is less real, but at the end of the day, it doesn't mean my life is off track because I lost. You know what I'm saying? This is an interesting byproduct of a loss that we don't often think about.

You know, we watch a fight, someone loses. We talk about it for a couple days. We don't think about, like, the texts and the, obviously the tweets, but the personal ones, you know, from family members or friends who are now trying to fix your situation when all you, all you suffered was, you know, athletic loss, nothing more, nothing less. And that must drive you nuts. I mean, and I'm not trying to harp on it here, but the last time you won was three and a half years ago. Is that almost like a drug now that you, that feeling of getting your hand raised so that all that can. go away so that you can make all this, you know, this stuff, this talk around you just disappear because I would think 1W kind of erases it all, right?

No, you're absolutely right. And that does become, you know, the thing where you are looking to say, I got my life back on track. Look, see, I won. You know, I mean, because for the longest time, you know, I didn't lose. I didn't lose until I fought my cheetah. And I pretty much just spoiled my family and everybody who, you know, that supported me that I was a fan of me because I never lost.

So they never really had to deal with it, you know? And never having that, never having to deal with it, you know, it just becomes like, yeah, Rashad must be doing great in his life because, look, he's winning these fights. And then when I lose, it's like, well, he's doing terrible in his life. Something's going wrong. We need to help him out because he shouldn't lose, you know? And, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, you fight long enough. You will lose.

and you will have a setback. No matter what you do in life. No matter what you do in life, you do it long enough, you're going to have a setback. You're going to have a bad day. And it's just the taxation of the process of life or anything that you put your time into.

And I'm no exception to it. I would love to go out there and win the rest of my fight. But in reality, I don't know if that's even possible, but I would, you know, I'm going to give my awe to do so. But if I don't, that doesn't mean that, My life is over and I'm not, you know, who people think I am. How much do you think about that feeling that you get when you win? I think about it a lot.

I really do. I think about it a lot just because, you know, it's an amazing feeling. And it means for me, like everything has paid off. All the sacrifices paid off. And that's what it becomes about for me. just whenever I go into camp and when I'm really doing everything I can to make sure I'm complete when I step into the octagon, you know, I'm denying myself a lot of things. And then I say to myself to make it easier to be like, you know, when I win this fight,

then, you know, then I can enjoy myself, you know. And then when I don't win the fight, then it's like I can't forgive myself enough to enjoy myself. Then it's like I just wasted my time. And then I get, you know, a little bit of you know, a depression. And then you know, you got to pull yourself out of it. But it's hard, man.

It really is hard. You know, for now I've gotten better at losing because I haven't won in a while. But it's still it's still a process. It's still a process. I get myself a couple days to just kind of, you know,

to grieve over it. And then I just, you know, get back to work. Your name came up a lot this past weekend. And I know you said, you know, you're open to fights. The Anderson fight, I know is one that you wanted beforehand, and you're still open to it, obviously. Your name came up this weekend after Vitor Belfort said that he has one fight left. He wants to fight in Rio.

And people that, oh, you know, this is a great idea. Rashad, Vitor, kind of at the same spot, 185, a bit of history. Does that interest you at all? No, it doesn't. I'll never fight Vitor. You know, the tour is somebody I train with and a close personal friend, you know, I know his family. And it's really, it's really hard to do that because fighting is unlike any other sport in a sense where it's a fight. And at some point, I'm going to have to want to do harm to him, like serious harm in order to have my hand raised.

and I just find it really hard to do with somebody that I built a relationship or I have a relationship with on a personal level. So, you know, that's a fight that I wouldn't want to have. Okay. And by the way, I know Tyrone Spung is a friend still and was in your corner. He went with the Blacksillian still. You're not with them. How did that work out for the – is this just a matter of you have that relationship and he's going to corner you and no problems there? Or was that a tricky thing to navigate?

That's a good question, Ariel. it you know it wasn't a it was no it was no thing because you know Tyrone

you know me and Tyrone are close we're like we're like we're like brothers honestly speaking and it's not a term that I throw around really loosely

when I'm speaking about Tyrone but you know he made a choice to stick with the black grains in the team I feel it you know

it it's not a problem for me, but at the same time, you know, I don't, I can't, you know, say that by all parties is, you know, feel the same way, you know what I'm saying? I feel like maybe, you know, there's maybe some people that maybe feel like, uh, you know, he shouldn't, he shouldn't, he shouldn't be with, with the black zan and, um, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's for them to discussed, but, you know, for me, I don't, I don't have a problem with him being a part of Black Zalians. And no matter what team he's part of, you know, I hope to always have it in my

corner, you know, I don't want, see, that's the thing about, like, I don't want to get caught in this whole, like, this whole team. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, the reality of situation is this right here. This is the, this is the reality. Okay. I can't decide Florida to have training because I got tired of being around the team. And, In effort to do that, I joined up with some other people who just left the team. Collectively together with myself and them and other people who came down to train, we formed a team. We ended up making a team.

But now the team is more of a name and controlled by, you know, by, I guess, by people who, I don't want to, you know what I'm going to say. The team, the name is Glenn's name. It's Glenn's name is Glenn's team, but it's not about the team. It's not about what the team was about in the beginning. The team was not about, you know, going out there to make money to do this, to do that. It wasn't about that. It wasn't about none of that.

It was about just getting some good, hard work in the, hard training in. You know, it wasn't about, you know, uh, franchising it out and all this other stuff and, you know, making t-shirts and all that. It wasn't even about none of that. It was about just going out there and training. And I don't care to be a part of that. I don't care to be part of any team that that's about that. I just want to go in there, get some good, great training in, uh, you know, in my career on a great note. Everything else, they can have that. Does it still feel like a black cloud or do you feel like you've moved on officially or or, you know, with Tyrone and all, like, is it impossible?

Because you were the guy, you were the captain of the team. You know, there's always going to be a piece of me that, you know, that, you know, that, that, that wishes things ended differently with that whole situation. But, you know, at the end of the day, I can't, you know, I can't allow myself to be emotionally tied to it like that. Because it is, it is, it is a drain. It is a drain. and, you know, I don't believe in, I don't share the same, I guess, belief in, and where the team is going. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, better the way it is right now, but I just can't

put no more emotional energy into it anymore. Do you ever dream about, you know, as you approach that sort of last chapter of your career, do you ever dream about going back to Albuquerque? one last time or is that not a possibility? You know, yeah, of course. I thought about that, you know, but I don't know if I would go to Jackson to be honest. You know, I love Greg and those guys and Mike Wingojana. I have some great fights and they've, you know, they've done amazing things for my career and stuff like that.

But if I always would go back to Albuquerque, I would go back and train with one of the coaches who I used to train with when I was there a lot. His name was Chris LaTrell. I would go and train at his gym. Chris LaTrell is probably, you know, one of the best inmate coaches I ever worked with. And he's kind of always been under radar. But, you know, he was a big backbone back in the early days of Jackson. I really helped evolve my game. And if I was to go back to Albuquerque, you'd be back to train with him.

Are you considering it at all? Yeah, I'm considering going back. You know, the thing is when I was at my ultimate best, I was traveling around a lot more. and but now it's like I've reached I don't know if I got kind of old or stubborn in my ways or whatnot I just don't I don't really like to travel too much anymore yeah and maybe I just need to kind of break out of that you know I would rather much be at home or be somewhere you know where it feels like home yeah and uh if I was to go somewhere you know I'm definitely thinking of uh you know going to go spend some time with Mark Henry Mark Henry in New Jersey you know

those guys over there. And, you know, also, you know, maybe go out to Albuquerque, even in Denver with Trevor with Trevor Whitman and those guys, you know, even at, I don't know, I'll see what, you know, what GSP's got going on and stuff like that. But, you know, I believe I need to just make myself, you know, it's kind of like that nomadic draining, fighting lifestyle for a little bit until I get a date. And then once I get a date, I don't know exactly. where I want to do my camp at.

So it's funny. Go ahead, sorry. No. It's funny you said, GSP, because I was just about to say, I was kind of setting it up for, you know, the idea. To me, one of the greatest scenes ever in primetime history was when you were walking down that street going into the TriStar Gym. You know that one? You were the champ with the sunglasses and everything with that music.

I forget what the song was, but that's just an amazing setup for your arrival. And I think it was GSP BJ Penn, I think. Yeah, it was. It was. Oh, it was just amazing. I mean, sometimes I go back and actually just watch it. I don't know about you, but I just, the music is just great. That was. So now he's fighting Bisping.

You fought Bisping, UFC 78. You're a weight class now, 185. Have you thought about this? Have you talked to him about going back to TriStar to help him out to work together? No, I haven't. I haven't done so. And, you know, I really haven't really thought about it. But, you know, it didn't kind of be.

I don't know, an awkward situation, to be honest, because, you know, I'm cool with Bisbing. Okay. You know, me and Bisbing cool, but we never, we never had that training relationship, but I don't, I don't want to, I guess, I don't want to, you know, could be, I honestly, I don't really have any other experience with training with Bisbing. We just besides, just, just when we fought. Right. But I wouldn't feel good inside if I was like, you know, I'm going to help you train to beat Michael Bisping. You know what I'm saying? Because you work together at Fox and things like that, right?

Yeah, we work together at Fox and, you know, and I feel like we have a pretty good relationship, but, you know, I don't want to, you know, I mean, I think honestly, you know, GSP is, you know, he's, he's, he's very capable, you know, without me. Okay. Fair enough. I mean, if he asks to get some work in, you know, I'll talk, I'll, maybe I'll talk the busy about or whatever if it's even a thing. Okay, all right, all right.

Are you going to help Rumble for the Kormier fight? Will you be cornering him? Will you be out there? That is your neck of the woods, right? That's your town. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll be out there. I'm going to definitely go out there and support Rumble, you know.

It's a big fight, you know, and not often in life do we get a second chance to do, you know, achieve a dream. So this is a big fight. And, you know, I hear he's looking amazing. he was looking amazing before I left and you know he lost he lost some of their weight he was huge in training camp when I was

finishing up he was massive absolutely massive I see him I see him he he lost at least you know 15 to 20 pounds so he slimed down pretty nice but uh... what's the prediction I'll be out there uh you know it's a hard one

it's a hard one because this this fight you know it just pretty much breaks down to um you know rumble just being patient enough to find a shot, you know, and by shot, I mean punch. Yeah. And just being able to, you know, sustain himself against, against D.C.'s ability to to go from punching to wrestling, you know, and I think that's one thing that D.C.

is actually perfected in his last few fights since the John Jones. It's just that punching takedown sequence that he does where he's able to just wear guys out. And I think, you know, for AJ, it just comes down to being able to sustain himself enough where he's not, you know, carrying a lot of and losing a lot of energy, defending himself or wrestling around with D.C. All right. But you are picking, I mean, you got to pick your boy, right? But, Corby is your boy, too, to a degree.

But you're – Yeah, but I got to go with AJ. You know, I mean, yeah, D.C. is my boy, but I'm sticking with the home team on this. All right. Fair enough. It would be weird if you did it in it. Um, you know, I'm terrible. If, I mean, could you imagine, holy smokes, the internet would love that.

Okay, so if they say to you, we want you to fight Anderson, June 3rd in Rio, would you do it? Would you go to Rio to fight him? Yeah, I'll go to Rio. All right. I'll go to Rio. Well, I'll definitely go to Rio. That's the perfect fight. That's the one you want, right?

Yeah, listen, I'm at a point in my life and just, you know, mindset where I'm, uh, I'm super, super, hungry and I don't know if you know I'm upset very upset that I lost but at the same time I'm thankful for it and in respects that I don't know if I would be as hungry as I am right now if I had it okay and and then for that reason you know I'm thankful for it just because you know this is this is something that I really want and now that I've you know had the set back and I put so much time and I put so much work and I still want it, that really means a lot to me. Is this the most, I mean, they're always the most important one, the next one, but is this must win?

No, it's definitely must win, you know, it's been must win for a while, but this is, this is really must win for me. You know, I really, I really need to go out there and win and just, you know, for myself more than anything. You know, it's one thing to want to go out there because you're afraid of what. people going to say, but I think I'm beyond that point. I mean, the fact that people, they say some crazy things to me, you know what I'm saying? You can look online, look at my Instagram or whatever, and you can just see some of the things that the people say. And it's okay.

It's okay. I don't, I don't, I don't get too mad or offended by it. It's just, it is what it is. Because I know at the end of the day, it's not real. It is not real. None of it is real. These people, you know, they're like the wind blowing. You know, I can't be mad if the wind blows left or right or whatever, which way it blows.

Whatever way it blows, it blows. And I just got to be ready to deal with it. And just to be crystal clear, I mean, when you're saying it is must win, if it doesn't go your way the next fight, are you going to consider retiring? No, no, I'm not going to consider retiring. I'm not going to consider retiring, but I just, I just need, I just need this win. I just really need this one. Consistently, one of the best interviews in the game. Always great to talk to you, Rashad.

And I appreciate your candor after I know a very disappointing night for you. But I look forward to seeing you back, and it's great to see that you want to get back soon rather than later and kind of erase this loss and the previous ones and kind of get that one to get you back on track. You look great. I really was blown away by how you looked. And I loved the hair, by the way. There was something about it. That hair, it was just, I was feeling it. I really was.

Thank you, man. I appreciate it. You know what? I grow back for you, man. I'll make it. And maybe you rock that mustache like you did. You know, I don't know where I saw you with a mustache one time. Didn't I see you with a mustache?

Yeah. Yeah, I did a movie. Yeah. I did a movie and I had a mustache like that. Yeah. Oh, that was good. That was good stuff. Rashad, always a pleasure.

Thank you for coming on. Thank you for talking about the fight. And we'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. There he is.

Rashad Evans. man, I feel like he gets better and better as far as his interviews are concerned. Like just some guys as they get older, GSP the same way, just more and more honest and just more willing to open up and just talk about things. That's why I always feel like, I mean, you saw even with Kobe Bryant, like when athletes get a little older and a little more reflective and self-aware, they become increasingly interesting as far as I'm concerned. All right, so that does it for our interviews. Just a couple of minutes left, and then we'll wrap up. Let me go over a few things. So we pretty much put Saturday night to bed.

That's the Fort Laezza card. One thing I didn't touch on was the Vitor Belfort Legends Division idea. I'm not in favor of it. I don't even, I think it makes no sense. I don't think that there are enough legends. I don't think there's a demand for this sort of thing. Quite frankly, I think it's unhealthy if you reach a certain point where you're old enough, you know, like where you're too old, I should say.

I don't think you should be fighting. And to be honest, I don't have any interest in seeing Vitor fight anymore. He's got that one fight. He wants to do it in Brazil. All power to him. Let him have his fight. Hopefully he's healthy enough to fight in three months. But if I'm being honest, like he's had such a great career.

It's legendary. I mean, that one run where he knocked out Bisping and Rockhold and Dan Henderson. I mean, you can argue that's one of the best runs, the best years in recent MMA history. but there is a black cloud hanging over his career. He is somewhat of a controversial figure. That incident with the UFC 152 fight against John Jones and the email, and did they know he was on TRT? I mean, there's a lot of baggage that comes along with his career.

And I feel like we've kind of reached the end after that performance. I mean, you see the pictures, the change of body. That stuff, you can't always go by it. You know, people get older, they change. but I just feel like his his performances have declined and I don't have much of an interest like ever since the Wydenman fight

I don't have much of an interest in seeing him fight anymore at this stage getting beat up like that but if he wants that last fight let's make it against someone who's at his level not a top contender and see if he can go out on top and then essentially call it a day but I do not want to see any kind of legends division

I just don't think that makes any sense and quite frankly I don't think that the U.S. C is interested in it. That's why we have Bellator. Let's be honest, right? And I know my friends at Bellator will love that comment. Angela Lee, how about that victory? Continues to get better. She won. She defended her Adamweight title. And by the way, in one, Adamweight, which here in the United States is 105, in one, it's essentially 115. It's like 114. 14 point something. So she's essentially a straw weight. And yes, she's young, but one has something. I mean, I would argue that that's their biggest chip right now. She remains undefeated, beat Jenny Huang, and looked very good.

I thought very aggressive and dominant and put together some really nice combinations on her feet. So that's a name to remember, and it's good to have her back. And by the way, people ask me, I've tried to get her on the show. For some reason, I don't feel the love from one. I try to reach out to their people. They don't really reciprocate. It's a very bizarre thing. Who I do feel the love from, by the way, is ACB.

They had another great card, and I really feel like they're making a lot of noise. And they're very smart. You look at their Twitter. They put out all the finishes on fight night. And there were some great ones. Like I mentioned, Robert Whiteford with his win over Namfhan. In the main event, we had Mamid Khalidov, who defeated Luke Barnard and just completely overwhelmed him. I mean, it was just, I think it was, what, a 21-second finish.

And I spoke a little bit to Luke Barnard after the fight. Obviously, he was devastated. That's not what he was preparing for. this was a very big opportunity for him. Kalidov is the real deal. I mean, he's just a great fighter. And it's unfortunate that we've never seen him fight in the UFC, but he's doing very well.

It's the same thing with Angela Lee. People say, like, oh, the UFC should sign her. Do you think one is just going to give her up like that? They're not going to just give her up. I mean, she's a very big part of their plans. Kalidov has made a living fighting for KSW, fighting in Europe. You know, if he can make more money, he's not just going to run to the UFC. 33 wins, just four losses.

that's a really impressive performance by Imam Khaledov. So we'll see what happens to Luke Barnat. Other notable victories, Bubba Jenkins lost to Ali Bagov, and that was a phenomenal finish. When you hear Frank Meir go, wow like that or whatever, oh my, he said something, but with genuine surprise and just fascination,

you know you did something special. He won via reverse triangle choke. I mean, one of the more unique submissions, that I've ever seen. Tough loss for Bubba Jenkins. And there was another performance on that card that I wanted to highlight. Yusuf with the win. He continues to do some nice things.

Maybe I spoke about them all. The Robert Whiteford win. Anyhow, ACB, 24 fights on their card in Manchester. They are, I think, doing some nice things. Also, on Friday, McKenzie Dern won. So she improves this time she wins via decision. It appears as though her striking. is getting better. And let me just clear up this thing because I was talking about it with Michael

Kiesa. So this fight was always being promoted as a 115 pound fight. And on Friday morning, she never weighed in. No, Thursday morning, excuse me, the fight was on Friday. She never weighed in, but her team did reach out to her opponent's team, Catherine Roy, to say, okay, we're not going to make 115. Let's do a 120-pound catchweight. Catherine agreed. And they also agreed that McKenzie Dern would give her 20% of her purse, McKenzie's purse. So then Roy weighs in, Dern weighs in, and weighs in above 120. Like, I think it was 121.8. Pete Sprad, her coach and manager of Catherine Roy mentioned this to me. I think it was 121.8. And then she needed an extra hour to weigh in. But the fight was

always at 115. Now, I reached out to her management team, Danny Rubinstein, and they were like, oh, no, she never missed weight. Okay, well, technically she didn't miss weight because she never stepped on the scale when it was just 115 missed that weight. But she was not going to make 115, which was the agreed upon weight up until Thursday morning. And so if you're going to change it and then go in and weigh in, yes, okay, you didn't actually go on the scale for a 115 pound fight and not make the weight. But as of Thursday morning, it was a 115 pound fight. That's what the contract says. I saw it. That's what the bad agreement says. I saw it. And then you changed it. Great. And you even needed that extra hour. Why is this such a big?

big deal? Well, it's a big deal for two reasons. Number one, she had trouble making weight the last time she fought. And number two, she's a very big prospect. She's a very big name. And she's someone who's dabbled in MMA, obviously, who's also a very big name in the jiu-jitsu world, who's someone that the UFC is very interested in. How interested? Well, if you know the deal that the UFC had with Chris Cyborg, where they, you know, compensate her while she's fighting for other organizations. And Victa, it's a similar deal, if you get what I'm saying. She's essentially in their farm system. And I think that this is a fascinating and very, very, very smart deal by the UFC. They should be doing this with more fighters, in my opinion.

They need to grab fighters who are early in their careers, not quite yet ready for the UFC, but get them under their umbrella. Because what Belator is doing is they're just signing the Aaron Picos of the world and, you know, the Ed Ruths of the world and the Tyrol fortunes of the world and the A.J. McKees of the world, those guys and just putting them because they can. They could put them on an undercard. Well, a Beltor undercard is different than a UFC undercard. What the UFC is doing is they'll have a few of these fighters and they'll let them fight for other organizations.

Part of that is getting ready, but part of that is also like making weight and telling the UFC that you're ready to fight. So if you're going to change things at the last minute and then be, let's be quite honest, a little disingenuous about it, that to me is a story. That's that's newsworthy. That's somewhat alarming. So she is someone on their radar. She's a prime, you know, a blue chip prospect. She's a big time name in the world of Jitsu. people are interested in her story.

You know, we report on her things like that. It's not because we're trying to expose her or make her look bad, but she's someone who is very close to moving on to the UFC, even though she's only fought three times now. So, you know, changing the weight, weighing in, needing some extra time to make that catch weight, it's all very notable, in my opinion. And I think based on conversations with other people,

she needs to focus on MMA full time in order to really get down. And maybe this is another example for one. And maybe she's the reason why they start the 125 division. Yanni and Jacek seems very convinced that they're going to start it sometime soon. But let's be very clear. It was a 115 pound fight. The call was made to avoid making it into a story. But it became a story anyway because Catherine's team spoke up.

And maybe they should have just let her way in at 115 and then try to come to a deal. Or maybe they should have just taken the deal and not said anything. And it would have probably flown under the radar. But that's not what happened. And it became somewhat of a thing. In the end, she wins. I don't think it's the end of her career. I don't think it's that big of a deal.

As I said to Danny, who I consider somewhat of a friend, I think he made it into a bigger deal than it really was. But, you know, them's the facts. It was a 115-pound fight that they changed to a 120-pound fight because they wanted to avoid the drama of her missing weight, but it ended up kind of biting them in the butt. Them's the facts. And then the other big story this past weekend was Floyd Mayweather on Friday

coming out and saying, I'm out of retirement for Connor McGregor only. I'm going to fight this guy, sign the contract, this and that. And he's on this tour. It feels like every Friday night, Floyd Mayweather just kind of appears and says something about Connor. He's on the offensive. He said, let's do it in June.

And that's an interesting time frame because historically, he fights in either May or September. May is obviously too soon. That's two months away. June doesn't really vibe with. Connor's timeline because his wife is going to give birth in May and he said he wanted a bit of time off. My pal front row Brian on Twitter said that T-Mobile is on hold for June 10th. I have not heard that.

I have not can't confirm that. I haven't confirmed it. But that's what he's reporting. And, you know, that's what flow, I think, is reporting as well. I feel like the September timeframe makes a lot more sense for Connor as well. And historically, Floyd likes to fight around Mexican independent. Independence Day, and that falls on a Saturday, September 16th. Could that be the day?

I don't know. But again, another example as to this thing, kind of moving along and this thing being a thing and them trying to figure it out. Now, will it happen? Who knows? There's still a lot of hurdles. There's still a lot of cooks in this kitchen. I know that every time any kind of piece of information comes out about this fight,

people like to go back to my old tweets about this fight and be like, oh, you're wrong. And I know that people love the idea of me being wrong, still batting 1,000, hope to bat 1,000 until I die. It could happen one day, but I'm not wrong about this one, because the tweets that you are bringing up back in May of 2016 are referring to the stories that came out after Connor McGregor was pulled from UFC 200 because he didn't show up to the press conference, and then he retired. And then people said, oh, he's going to go fight Floyd Mayweather. And I tweeted that there was no truth to those stories. And that was a fact back then. it has proven to be true because he did not fight Floyd Mayweather in 2016.

The only talks that were going on were for him to fight Nate Diaz again, and that's what happened. So you can keep bringing up these old tweets and saying that I got it wrong when A, the Floyd fight isn't even done yet, and B, those tweets were referring to a time frame in which Connor was only in discussions to fight Nate Diaz. There were reports going out there that he was going to go fight boxing and try to fight Floyd Mayweather. Well, that didn't come to fruition.

We know that by now. and that wasn't really a thing. It only really became a thing between him and Floyd after MSG. And then people want to talk about my tweets after UFC 205

and my interview on the Dan Patrick show. And again, I will go back to what I said if you listen to me carefully and if you go back to the tweets, I said people who are talking

about this fight on the Monday after 205 after history has been made, those are the... I said that that's the true crime here because can we not appreciate that history was made? Can we not appreciate

the performance against Alvin? that he's now a two weight world champion, that he's taking the sport by Storm, $17 million gate. Why do we have to move on to, at the time, what was a fictitious fight? And I do believe that some of the talk on these television shows, on these sports talk radio shows, whatever,

did fuel the fire for this fight. And that's when it got kicked into high gear. So at the time that I said that stuff, at the time that I wrote those tweets, there was nothing to it. There wasn't. Someone proved me otherwise. Now it's a thing,

and I've reported it a thousand times since. Now it is a thing. And I even said back then, there will come a time in a month or so where this will be discussed, where we can talk about this. And that's what happened around December when he got stripped of the Featherway title. Remember? So you can keep coming back to these old tweets. You can keep trying to get it.

You know, oh, gotcha. We got you wrong. Celebrate. Pat yourself on the back. Whatever you want to do. I know you're watching. I know you're following. I know you love me.

I know you want to see that day. And that day may come. But it's not now. It's not now, my friends. you're wrong on this one. In May, I was right. It didn't happen. There were no talks.

In November, what was it, November 14th? Because if I was 12th, November 14th, there wasn't anything going on. It may have been a pie in the sky idea, which is what I referred it to. But what I was saying, again, go back and listen to what I said. I can't make excuses for the headlines that come out of it. I can't make excuses for what they choose to put as their, you know, their title on the video. What I said was after the Golden State Warriors lost or beat the Cavaliers

or the Cavaliers beat the Warriors last year, they weren't talking about them playing the Broncos. You get what I'm saying? On the Monday after. And that's what this is. This is baseball versus softball. This is football versus basketball. Yes, there are elements of the two sports

and there's no real cut and dry apples to apples example. But it is, you know, this is, for all intents of purposes, a money grab. Make no mistake about it. it. The reason why this is happening is because everyone who is involved in it stands to make a lot of money. If they weren't making a lot of money, they wouldn't be exploring it. UFC is going to make a lot of money, WM.E is going to make a lot of money, Mayweather's going to make a lot of money, Conner's going to make a lot of money. It's a no-brainer. When there's a lot of money, people are going to try to make that money.

When there is a pot at the end of the rainbow, they're going to try to get it. And that's why it is being discussed. That's why they are exploring it. They can make more money on this pay-per-view, even as being a piece of the pie and not the whole owner of the pie, UFC that is, then they can on probably three, four pay-per-views, maybe even more this year. Who knows?

There's a lot of money to be made here. And I'm not convinced, by the way, that Connor's getting smoked. I don't know what's going to happen. I have to think about it more. I have to talk to more people. I don't think it's as... I think that Floyd is the best offensive boxer of all time

and arguably the best boxer of all time. There's no doubt about it. And on paper, you got to talk to... I want to talk to the Nevada Athletic Commission if this fight happens about why you are sanctioning it. It's 49 and 0 against O&O. Those are the numbers. Are there skills up to par? We'll find out if they fight.

But as far as boxing experience is concerned, there is no up to par because one has 49 professional fights and a boatload of amateur and Olympic and all that stuff. And one has zero professional boxing fights. That being said, I don't think Connor's getting smoked like everyone thinks he is. I really don't. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not the prediction guy. That's why we need New York, Rick. But we need to stop dismissing it as a thing.

It is a thing in the ether right now. We'll see if it gets done. And all of you, and I know it's going to keep happening until the fight happens and then some, you want to go back to the tweets, the interviews, things like that. Everything I said along the way about this fight has been accurate.

And I urge anyone involved to prove me otherwise. Prove me otherwise. That's all I'll say about that. And then last thing, the UFC is back in London this weekend. Like I said, great card. I think our own New York Rick is going to be there. So we'll get his take on it all. It's Corey Anderson against Jimmy Manoa.

And it's the Arnold Allen versus Makwanamir-Khani fight. And it's Brad Pickett against Marlon Vera, Alan Joban against Gunner Nelson, Joseph Duffy's last fight on his current UFC contract. How interesting is that against Reza Madati? Franty Mara Bajosso against Darren Stewart. Timothy Johnson versus Daniel O'Malley Ann Chuck

Mark Dea Casey's on the card Tom Breeze is on the card Brett Johns is on the card Lena Landsberg is on the card this is a fun card and it takes place at 5 p.m. Eastern Main Card on FightPass preliminary card 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time also

on Fight Pass. All right I am done. WSOF also back this week Turning Stone Casino close to Syracuse, New York. All right, you can hit my music. I have gone too long. Wow, that music came in quick. They are ready to go back there. Woo-wee!

I'm schvitzing here. It is hot in here, but I like it hot. Hot and heavy. So I hope if you live in the Northeast, you are not going to get hit by this storm. I think they're calling it Stella, right? Tomorrow, Tuesday. But maybe you're saving the podcast to listen to the whole thing

all four plus hours tomorrow. as you're hunkering down with a cup of cocoa, Joe, whatever you drink when it snows, and just enjoying, hopefully, the last snowfall of 2017, hopefully. This is all day long. I've been getting emails from different, my kids' school, basketball league. Everything's closed.

It's Armageddon here. Thankfully, it didn't affect the show this week. And what a show it was. So happy to be here. What a great show. What a great lineup. Such interesting guests. I want to thank Demetrius Johnson for stopping by. Great stuff from him.

Good luck on April 15th. Thank you very much to Yoel Romero. And Ray. I need to get Ray's last name. What a duo they are. Tell me, Yoel Romero's not marketable. That guy's great. Thank you very much to Yane on J-Chak.

Great stuff. I love the heat from her. Thank you very much to Brad Pickett. Good luck to him in his final fight. Thank you very much to Makwan, Amir Kani. Good luck to him against Arnold Allen. Love that fight. Great job stopping.

the robber. Thank you very much to Tony Ferguson, Michael Kiesa, Misha Sarkhanov, and the one and only Shuga Rashad Evans. Thank you to all of you as well. Back next week, same time and place. Until then, I say, peace. Samaria.