MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 373

Episode Date: March 20, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to NewYorkRic (00:11:32:18) to recap the weekend in MMA, then Joe Duffy (00:28:00), Lorenz Larkin (00:53:40), Arnold Allen (01:15:13), Jimi Manuwa (01:36:10), Edge and Christian (01:57:43), Bas Rutten (02:28:09), Kelvin Gastelum (02:50:31), Ryan Bader (03:11:52), Fabricio Werdum (03:31:53), and NewYorkRic (03:55:40) one more time to wrap up the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with a mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, March 20th, 2017. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Happy day before spring. Very exciting. Remember last week I told you Snowmageddon was going to hit the Tri-State area while it happened. And now everything's kind of. melting away. And March 21st is the official first day of spring. So this is very exciting.

It's also exciting because it's my sister's birthday on March 21st. So a happy birthday to her. And that means that things are going to get a little warmer here on the East Coast. And it's all going to be a happy time. Everyone's in a better mood when it's warmer. So happy day before spring to you. Or if you're listening to this on a Tuesday, happy official launch of spring to you. Hope you had a great weekend. A lot going on. As always. busy time in the world of combat sports. And I stress combat sports because it was a busy weekend, not only for mixed martial arts, but also for boxing.

And the two worlds kind of collided on Friday, as I suspect they will continue to collide over the next few months. How did they collide on Friday? Well, Friday, MSG Theater, around 20 minutes from this downtown studio, young man by the name of Mick Conlon, Irish boxer, former Olympian, made his professional boxing debut at the MSG Theater.

This was a big deal in Europe. Big deal in the boxing world, especially the night before the Triple G Daniel Jacobs fight. It was a big deal for us in the MMA world because Conlin is friends with Connor McGregor. He asked Connor McGregor somewhat on the spot to walk him out to the ring in his debut. And Connor obliged.

And this was smart for two reasons, I thought, for Connor. A, you know, supporting one of your own, the next big thing as far as Irish boxing is concerned. That's great. You're very patriotic. Good to support your own. Also good. He's very much a part of the boxing news cycle these days because of the ongoing Floyd

Mayweather talk. So it's nice to sort of make an appearance in that world as well. And if you look back over the past few months, if you look at UFC 205 up until now, so when he won the lightweight title up until now, he's essentially only made three public appearances, maybe four if you want to count when he accepted that award for a sportsperson of the year in Ireland. The other time he did this sort of Q&A, I believe in Northern Ireland. He did that one hour interview with me. And then the fourth time was Friday night.

And I would argue that what he did on Friday was some of his finest work. And yes, I know it's somewhat hip. It's in vogue to roll your eyes at all this to say, oh, you know, like it's, it's, just a very MMA hipster thing to do these days, to put down what he's trying to do, to put down the idea of him fighting Mayweather. I get it. But you can't deny the brilliance of what he did on Friday night. Walks out with Conlon is essentially cornering him while wearing a mink suit, a purple mink suit, I believe it was, those old man glasses. But then the brilliance came after the win. Third round TKO. He walks up to Press Row, zeroes in on Dan Ray

feel of ESPN, one of the bigger names in boxing media, and goes on this 45-second rant saying, you're the boxing guy, I'm going to shock the world, all of you will be laughing, I'm going to kick Floyd's ass, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, people try to get some answers out of him. He's like, he'll find out soon, I'm out of here. Then my favorite part of the whole clip is the old man boxing guy saying, hey, Connor, you want to do a radio show tomorrow? That just cracked me up. I listened to that a thousand times. It was so perfect, because here you have, you know, the old guard boxing media. and I've said this on the beat before. One of my favorite components to the idea of Floyd fighting,

Connor, is the MMMA media and the boxing media who are very different, different age brackets, just different mentalities coming together in one press room. Anyhow, he goes up to these guys, and you could tell that they're loving it, they're eating out of the palm of his hand, and in a 45-second rant, he reinserts himself into that conversation.

It was perfectly timed, it was perfectly placed. they're all writing about it afterwards. And some people suggested that Conlin would be upset that he stole his thunder. I would argue that this was perfect for Conlin, that people like myself were paying attention to his debut. He got him, you know, Connor got Conlon into the conversation with him. Part of a news story, anyone who wrote about the Connor rant also at least mentioned Conlin in a line.

It was just brilliant. It really was. And he said afterwards that, you know, they're getting close, that they're talking about September. and if you go back to a couple weeks ago on Twitter, I threw out the idea of September 16th, Mexican Independence Day. Floyd typically fights May and September. I didn't throw that out, you know,

I didn't pull that one out of my butt. That's the date that I continue to hear being discussed. June was somewhat on the table. I think it was brooch, but it doesn't fall in line with Connor's timeline, his personal timeline with his girlfriend giving birth in May, September is the date, the month, the 16th of September, to be exact, is the month that I've heard is being discussed. Is it done? No. Connor said it's close. I'm hearing

that it's moving along. And of course, we heard Dana White on Conan saying he now all of a sudden can't see it not happening after a month ago saying there's a better chance of him being the backup quarterback for the New England Patriots than this fight happening. Now in a month, He's reversed course, too much money to be made, and it's too big of an opportunity for not just Floyd and Connor, but for WME as well. And you got to give Connor credit. You really do. A guy with zero professional boxing fights on his resume has been able to bait Floyd into taking this fight, has been able to convince the UFC, WME, his new bosses, so to speak, to get on board with this. How could we at this point not believe anything that he says?

As outlandish as it may be. Remember he was on this show, episode 300. Episode 300, he was on this show and said that he would make nine figures. He can make nine figures easily in this fight. When he said nine figures, I was like, wait a second, does this guy not know math? Maybe he means eight figures, seven figures, no nine figures he was talking about. Go back to episode 300, not that long ago. He said he'd be making nine figures very soon.

He said he'd bring them to Ireland, become a two-way world champion, beat Aldo. all this stuff. So who am I to say that he's out of his mind, that, you know, this is crazy. As far as happening, this is crazy to believe that he may win. I'm not doubting him anymore. I thought that that rant, the timing, the audience, the way he did it, going up to them on press row, it spread like wildfire. And once again, Friday night, here we go. Another update on this fight. Every Friday, it seems like something happens as far as this fight is concerned. So we'll continue to monitor it. We could talk about this later on in the program, but I thought that that was very notable. And then of course on Saturday, the UFC

was back in London. I said it was a fun fight on paper. I thought it delivered, in particular the last five fights. Joe Duffy winning at least as of right now, last fight on his current UFC deal, beating Resumadaddi, fine performance. You had Arnold

Allen defeating Makwan Amirhani and the main card opener. That was a fun fight as well. Makwan looked good in the first round. I thought he got tired as the fight went on. Then he had Brad Pickett with the the heart-wrenching loss, winning the first two rounds, and then losing via TKO and the third,

head kick is kind of the beginning of the end for one-punch, Brad Pickett, and it was just so hard to see. He was so close to winning in his last fight, and Marlon Vera, who's gone through his own personal struggles and is continuing to deal with his daughter and her medical condition.

Our own Danny Skour wrote a great story about him, winning, and he was very emotional afterwards, Pickett putting his hat in the middle of the cage. And kudos to the UFC for allowing him to come out with the braces, the newspaper. I was honored to be a part of that in that newspaper that he was holding. They had a bunch of people in the MMA community write him a message saying, you know, good luck, whatever you want. And I wrote him a little line or two.

They asked me to do that. And I was honored to be included in that. So it was tough to watch. But kudos to Marlon Vera, happy for him as well. hard not to feel for Brad Pickett as he transitions now to life after active MMA competition, but them's the brakes. He can't script these things. Gunner Nelson with a fantastic win over Alan Joban was like a superhero out there with that punch and the delayed reaction.

Just amazing to watch. And then, of course, Jimmy Manua would be left hook from hell, knocking out Corey Anderson, walkoff knockout, then calling out the winner of D.C. Rumble. And also, David Hay. So again, boxing and MMA coming together. It's a weird thing these days. And then one last thing this weekend, WSOF had an event, three titles on the line. Blagoi Ivanov defending his heavyweight title successfully against Sean Jordan, also Andre Harrison, their new featherweight champion defeating Lance Palmer.

They're starting to implement some new things, Ref Cam a la Pride. So I thought it was a pretty solid event for a World Series of Fighting as they transitioned to a new era after losing a couple champions as well. So that's this weekend. Stack Show today. A lot to discuss. And actually we have a last-minute guest to announce. So let's run down the lineup. And then we'll hear from the returning New York Rick, who's finally back gracing us with his presence. 415. We're going to be joined by Fabrice Radume. What's next for him? Ben Rothwell pulled out. As you know of 2-11, we'll find out what's next from Vaikavalo himself. 355. We're going to be joined by Ryan Bader. Ryan Bader has a few things to share with all of us. just confirm that. 355 Ryan Bader will stop by. 335 Kelvin Gasselm will stop by. He's fighting Vitor Belfort. Excuse me, Anderson Silva.

He beat Vitor Belfort a couple weeks ago. He got the fight he wanted. June 3rd. He's fighting Anderson Silva in Rio. We'll talk to Kelvin at 335. 315, the legend. The Hall of Famer, Boss Ruden will stop by. That's very exciting.

He's got some fun things to talk about. Been a while since we had him on the program. 245. Edge and Christian. Edge and Christian. of WWE fame. How cool is that? Together on the show.

I know how much you MMA purists love when we have WW stars on the show are superstars, as they like to be called. I'm very excited to talk to the Canadian duo, Edge and Christian. I love these guys. I was a big fan of them back in the day. Formerly of the brood, if you may recall.

225, we'll talk to Jimmy Manoa about his big win over Corey Anderson. 205. Arnold Allen will stop by. I excited to talk to him for the first time on the show. 145 Lorenz Larkin will be on. Lorenz Larkin signed with Bellator last week, so I'm excited to talk to him about this new chapter in his career. And 125, the aforementioned Joe Duffy will stop by to talk about free agency, what's next,

and the win over Madati. But let's bring in Mr. New York Rick here, talk about his trip to London because he was actually in attendance on Saturday at the 02 for UFC Fight Night London. Is that not true? It is true. Now let's clear up something right off the bat. This is my welcome back. I thought there would be like music.

I thought it would be more ceremonious. This is something that we need to clear up right off the bat. Talk to me. I may have offended you because when I came in today, the first thing you said to me was like, oh, you know, are you happy with me being back? You got a little emo on us. So are you offended?

Did I say anything that hurt your feelings last week? Why did you ask me that question? I believe now, my father reminded me of this. Okay. Did your father listen to the show even though you weren't on? Yeah, of course he did. Okay, did you listen to the show? Yeah.

Even though you weren't on. I doubt that you listened to the show. What makes you doubt it? I don't know. You're on vacation. You feel like, oh, I have nothing to do with this. You know, he may have taken a shot at me at the top. I don't want to partake in this.

I don't want to download it. Here's the question. If I didn't listen to the show, did you take a shot at me at the top? I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. Something about Adam getting set for the show. unanimous praise. People are like, holy crap, I didn't know that this could be done this quickly. Adam coming out with the assets, the rundown, the graphics, all the stuff that you do behind the scenes. Adam did it in like 20 minutes and people were saying, you know, that's the problem. That's the Wally Pip syndrome. Yeah. Day off, Lou Gehrick comes in and now we've got some issues. Well, we have Adam over here. We're going to. But he can't give us the MMA insight that you provide on a weekly basis. No, but seriously though.

Adam is great and really appreciate him filling in and help. I actually watched 60 minutes last night and they were talking about the H-1B visa. I don't know if you saw this about how there's this weird loophole where they're kicking out Americans and bringing in foreigners and they're making the Americans teach the foreigners about their job. So it kind of reminded me of you because you taught him about how to do job and now he's doing it better than you. Perfect. Weird. You're like the H-1B visa. Thank you.

It feels great to be back. Yes. So you were in London And by the way, let's clear up one other thing. Yeah. I mentioned the phone thing and then you turned it into a joke but let's be clear

before I mentioned it, you were still doing it. Oh, I was going to do it regardless of if you mentioned it. I think you upped it a little bit. Well, I upped the insistence upon it but that was going to be my theme

for sure. Now, why? What's the reason? They have them at the locations that I was already at. So I'm going to these places. Sure. And when I'm there, I started to notice that the phone boots were not really everywhere except

for these locations. Now, I found them. Like, for example, at the Natural History Museum, at the British Museum, at the London Eye, I was finding it at all the kind of landmarks that I was already going to. So I decided that I would make the phone booths, phone boxes. So every time you saw a phone box, that's what they call them there? I did not take a picture with every phone box. You said your lovely wife, oh, you got to take a picture.

I got it. No, because you can find a phone. There were some phone boxes that you could just find in the middle of the street somewhere, and that it doesn't really have any context. It doesn't really frame me and put me in any space that I kind of want. Oh, I see. You needed the backdrop. Yeah, the backdrop was what's important.

You got to pay attention. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And now, are these just relics or are they actually? Well, they work, but I don't see anybody using them. They're mostly just for homeless people to urinate in. And stupid tourists like you to take pictures of. Exactly right. While smelling the homeless person.

Do they smell bad? Hit or miss, but there were quite a few that did reek. So you were there for what? Like 10 days? You enjoyed it? You had fun? It was wonderful.

And then you decided on your last night to go to a UFC event. Yeah, I mean, I was, if I was in town, I was going to try and go early. And everybody was, you know, so down on this card, I wanted to show my support. You want to show you support. I like the card. I agree. I thought it was a good part. And I thought it delivered.

I agree with you on both counts. Was that your first time going to a UFC event in Europe? Yes. You've been to glory. Been to glory. Did anyone notice you or recognize you? There were a few fans that... Get out of here.

People came up to you and said, are you New York Rick of the MMA Hour of fame? Listen, the show, I mean... We're big in Europe. We're big. We're big in Europe. Arguably bigger than here. I'm big.

The show... Yeah, there were a lot of cool people. there. So biggest takeaway, because a lot of the local heroes, if you want to call them, Mark Diakasey, had a nice win. He continues to look very good in the UFC, as I mentioned, Arnold Allen, who was kind of pleading with the crowd to get

behind him, which I thought was very interesting. Jimmy Manoa. Who came across as the biggest star? We didn't have the Bispings of the world, so this was kind of the new generation of English fighter. Who came across live as the biggest star, in your opinion? I think

the most support I heard was for Probably Joe Duffy. It seemed like everybody was kind of behind Joe Duffy more than... Really? ...than everybody else, yeah. It's hard to walk away from it, thinking about anybody other than Manoa, just because he was the headline event and delivered so declaratively. Yeah. So it was such a stamp.

But as far as, you know, from walking out to during the fight showing support, I would say that most people were behind Joe Duffy. Wow. I wonder if this was a... smart crowd to steal a wrestling term and they knew about his contract situation. It's possible. And thus were you know, providing some. Now that's not to say there wasn't you know

when when Mark came out or Brad Pickett obviously or yeah or Arnold or any of the British fighters that the crowd wasn't allowed but I think the feature you know

slot that Joe Duffy's kind of been fit into in a lot of these cards has paid off. People know and care about Joe Duffy. How quiet was it when Pickett lost, like initially? So close, looked good in the first two rounds. I'm trying to recall. It did get a little quiet, but I think it was more just like, I think the boo started pretty quickly. People were mad about the stoppage?

I had no problem with the stoppage. No, I had no problem either. I mean, it's nice storybook ending, but you still got to call the fight. You still got to ref the fight. You can't look at storylines. And then, you know, he took a shot. He was unresponsive. I think he took two shots on the ground, got the head kick. And then the two punches on the ground, I thought it was the right call.

Yeah. And, I mean, if it happened in the first round, nobody would have had a problem with the stoppage. It's because he was on his way to a win. Okay. And then I think people are, you know, we were so close to getting that fairy tale ending where you go out on the W and we didn't get it. That was amazing. Pickett, getting all emotional, Vera, getting all emotional,

them coming together, then the crowd cheering for Vera. crowd turned, yeah. And then the hat in the middle of the cage. I wonder who takes the hat and what they do with it. Like, if there was an MMA Hall of Fame. I believe Sandu, Sandu MMA from MMA junkie, I believe he said that security took it. Or maybe it was John Morgan, somebody from Junkie.

But then what do they do with it? Said that security handled it. Who knows? Back to Brad, I imagine. No, that doesn't work. Again, if there was an MMA Hall of Fame, it would be great. But I talk about that. Ron's hat.

bronze of the hat. Yeah, maybe. Maybe put it in his gym. But I feel like you have to kind of donate it and walk away from it. Again, I love that they let him wear the braces, although it did look a little funky with the Reebok kit under it. Yeah. But a nice compromise. Okay, so starting with Manoa, he knocks out Anderson.

Vicious, exclamation point, great kind of performance. I needed some new blood. You know, he's climbing that ladder once again at a 205. calls out the winner of DC and Rumble, and some people suggested that he blew an opportunity to call out Jones. He addressed us afterwards saying, Jones is a steroid user, I want nothing to do with him. I think if he would have called out Jones,

he would have made more of an impact. Say, I want to be the guy to welcome him back to the UFC. Give me a shot at the cheater, if you want to call him that. Do you agree or did he have to shoot for the stars here? I think he's kind of gotten the best of both worlds at this point. he called for the title shot. If he gets it, he got what he wanted, great. And then when people pressed him on Jones,

he gave an answer that if they made that fight, there's no doubt about the fact that you could promote that. So I think he kind of ended up with the best of both. I think you could very easily pivot this to a Jones fight, or if he gets the title shot that he asked for, that works too. So I'd say he probably played it pretty well. Who would you give the title shot to?

Let's say DC wins, right? let's say DC wins on April 8th. And now Jones is back in play come the summertime. Do you do Jones, D.C. right off the bat, even though it seems like their feud has cooled off? Or do you put in some new blood, do you give, you know, D.C. Amanua and have Jones fight someone like, I don't know, Augustifson, a Glover if they win, you know, pick a 205,

right? Anything just to feature him, you know what I mean? If the past is any indicator, yeah. I would say you've got to just book Jones in the title fight right away. Why? Because you don't trust? Well, because last time we gave him the tune-up fight, everybody kind of had a chance to say,

oh, now I'm not impressed with this new John Jones. Again, I've said this before. I thought that fight was fine. He looked great, and OSP is not some Jomoke that you can just push over. But I think you just book Jones in the title fight right away. Don't give, you know, the opportunity for people to pick apart John Jones

and then go into the next fight going, oh, he's not the same, he's not back, whatever. Book him in the title fight. You can build the DC and Jones heat back up. You could start a good promotional campaign for Rumble and Jones as well. I think you just got to put Jones into the title shot. Do you like this idea of,

let's say we are going to get Connor versus Floyd doing an entire card of MMA versus... Oh, man. Because the problem is it's all boxing. So MMA is going to come out. probably, you know, if we're being conservative here, it's probably not going to be a great night for the MMA fighters on the whole.

I have no interest in that, in the entire... A mixed card would be fun though, right? Yeah, that's... Now we're getting into something much more interesting because it actually is kind of, you know, comparing sports, but a boxing card featuring MMA fighters is not really... Connor is a very isolated, specific example. this idea that now everybody's like,

I want to be on the undercard. It's silliness. And give him paper viewpoints too while we're at it. All right. So that's Manoa. Nice performance. Gunner Nelson. Great win.

Huge. Looks fantastic. And every time he looks good, it reminds me once again how good Damien Maia is. Yeah. Do you like the idea of Gunner Nelson versus Wonderboy Thompson as his coach, John Kavanaugh suggested yesterday?

Let's run that. I love that. Love that. Karate Kid versus Karate Kid. Yeah. What a great fight. Good picture. If you're Wonderboy, do you take that fight?

Yeah. Why wouldn't you? Because it's a risky fight to bounce back on? I don't know. I mean, you just fought for the ball twice. You can make the argument that you won. I think that that's exactly the fight you kind of need. Because Gunner Nelson has enough cachet

that if you beat them, you're kind of still around there in that title picture. Yeah. That's how you have to go. I wonder if he'll take it. I love that fight. Wow. It's a great fight. How much fun is it?

to watch Gunner Nelson fight. When he is on point... Yeah. He can fall into periods of kind of looking like inactivity. He can, you know, be a bit of a sleepy fighter at times. Literally. He always has bedhead. It's unbelievable.

But when he, you know, showcases his skills and turns it on, he's a finisher. Like, that guy is very, very good. Two last things about this card. How impressed are you with Mark D.K.C.? And a lot of people are upset that he's on the show, today. Can't get everyone on the damn show. We had them on just a couple months ago. I'm sorry. If we really like him that badly, then

we'll get him on a later date. I'm sorry. Already I put, you know, somebody guests on and I got all this grief from New York Rick about making the graphics, which I think take, what, six seconds to make per? I don't know. I'll ask Porter, he'll tell me. Well, it takes him three seconds. Yeah,

I'll see what I'm doing wrong, and Porter can tell me. But, uh, D. Casey was impressed before this fight, obviously impressed after it, We'll see what happens with a jump-up in competition level. He's asking for it. I mean, the toolbox, the skill set, he's got it, clearly. He's got all the tools that you need.

And then the post-fight celebration, the breakdancing? Everything was great. The back-and-forth with Dan Hardy about the Mohawk. Everything's on point. Joe Duffy, next fight. UFC or Bellator? Oh, boy. I'm going to say Bellator.

Wow. I could see him going to both. I mean, I could see him sticking. He's kind of in a spot where there's a very reasonable case you could make for going to both. Yeah, and Belator is hot on that market. They got James Galaher. They've done some shows. And they're snatching people up, yeah.

They're snatching people up. And he's somebody that, you know, falls in line with, you know, kind of where they've been targeting. You know, he's a UFC fighter who's not really on the end of his run. He's still quite in, you know, in the prime of his career. You're about that Conner connection always that... Yeah, there's aspects there that you can sell. But at the same time, he may, you know, be chasing the best organization in terms of talent and want the title in that organization.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're going to hear from him soon. Yeah, it's... I think the choice is firmly in his hands. Whereas in others, it's not always. I think he's got... I think he's got some options. See, the difference in this show and other shows, we can speculate.

all we want on this show, we like to talk to the people. Let's hear from him. So New Yorkerick is going to call Joe Duffy in a second here, and we're going to have him on the show. By the way, speaking of Dan Hardy, I thought he did a great job in particular in that Brad Pickett interview, post-fight interview. He was the right guy.

He is, you know, UK MMA legend. I just thought his demeanor, his tone, the way he kind of was friendly, but not too friendly towards Brad, gave him that shoulder to cry on, so to speak. I thought Dan was fantastic in that role. I love listening to Dan and John Gooden. John Gooden, by the way, is great at his job.

I mean, in terms of play by play and him actually calling the action, he does a great job there, in my opinion. So it's always a nice change of pace when they're calling the fights. And, you know, speaking, you know, like those post-fight interviews, there's a fine line between, you know, shooting for the moon in terms of your call-out. and it just sort of falling on deaf years and kind of picking the right person to call it. Like two weeks ago I thought Kevin Lee went too far.

Calling out Chabib, you're not going to get that fight. So it's almost a waste of a callout. But Leon Edwards, calling out Seroni coming off a loss, I don't think he's going to get it, but it's not that crazy. You know, Manoa, fine. Call it the champs. Put yourself in that discussion.

That's cool. Don't go too far. You can't be the 20th rank guy and call it the number one guy. It's not going to work and it's just going to be a waste of a call out. So I didn't mind Leon Edwards's callout of Donald Seroni in that regard because, yes, there's a big gap there, but sometimes they'll make a fight like that. Sometimes. There's a fine line when it comes to those callouts. You've got to be careful with them. Anyhow, let's move along to our next guest, our first guest of the day we were talking about him

just a couple of minutes ago. I said, let's call him up. Let's see what he has to say. Everyone wants to know what's next for Joe Duffy. And he is joining us right now via the magical Skype. There he is. Irish Joe himself. Joe, how are you? I'm good, thanks, Ariel. How are you? I'm doing great. Congratulations. First things first. Second of all, thank you so much for joining us. I know you're probably being pulled in many different directions on this Monday. So appreciate your time here today. No problem at all. Thank you. Okay, so let's actually start a couple months ago when this fight was announced. You were on the show end of the year last year and we're kind of in limbo, didn't like your deal. And you were kind of

of willing to, you know, stand your ground, go back to do some other non-MMA work. I mean, you were really sticking to your guns. And then they announced your fight. You did not sign a new deal. You were going to play out the contract. How did you get to the point where they said, okay, you know what, we're just going to let you fight it out and then we'll cross that bridge, you know, after this fight? Because it seemed like there was kind of a stalemate going on. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the cards were full or whatever. It's hard to know, to be I was aerial. But I know the opportunity

came up for a fight in London and obviously the opponent got offered and that's where we reached an agreement and I was glad to get a fight closer at home and to obviously get back in there. And so when you took this fight

and then you're preparing for the fight and then you're there in London and it's fight week and now it's fight night, does this fight feel a little different because there's a lot at stake here? You end the contract on a win now you've got some leverage. You ended on a loss, you lose some of that leverage.

Did you feel that pressure? Yeah, I think I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the pressure. You know, certainly through camp, you know, every session, it felt like it mattered a little bit more. You know, even Fight Week, it was slightly different. It was definitely a different feel to it. You know, the pressure was there in the backer. And, you know, I felt maybe maybe my...

mine would wander now and again. But I knew I had a very tough fight, and I think the fact I had someone like Reza helped because I had to really focus on the fight itself. When you say it definitely felt different, was that just, you know, in your mind, your estimation, or did you feel like people were treating you differently? No, I think in my mind maybe,

and even in my performance in the gym, I don't feel like, you know, this camp, don't feel like I got into it the same way I did in the last camp. I got ill before I started camp, so I definitely think that took the wind of the sales. You know, I was training over Christmas and everything else. And just before Christmas, I felt very good. You know, I was, the fight just got announced.

I was really excited. And, you know, the start, you know, as soon as soon as that, they give me a bit of a burst of energy in my training. then not long after Christmas I got ill and I felt like I kind of took the wind out of the sales I felt like my fitness never really go back up to where it normally is and obviously you know it broke my normal rhythm and I think just the pressure on top of it I think just made everything a little bit tougher in this camp what happened as far as the illness is concerned It was nothing major.

It just started out as a bit of a cold. You know, probably I'm always training, you know, twice a day and everything else. And, you know, I'm trying to improve. And I think maybe I pushed it a little bit too hard for too long. Okay. And, you know, that was it. The Montreal winter just got the better. Yes.

So it was a cold, you know, got into my chest a little bit, a little bit of a chest infection. But, you know, again, it was nothing major. I just felt like after I couldn't get back to, you know, you know, the fitness I normally feel, you know, back to that 100%. When the UFC offered you this fight, did you think, okay, this is perfect? Because here's a guy who's always game, he's very aggressive, usually likes to stay on his feet. This is a nice showcase.

I mean, I would argue you have fought some higher ranked opponents than Reza, but this felt like a very style-friendly matchup for you. Did you feel the same way? I felt similar to the Mitch Clark fight, it was, it was all. Almost like he, I knew he would test me in the areas that I got tested in the Parier fight. And obviously with the Mitch fight, the fight didn't go to that point where I got to showcase them skills and prove to myself that them areas have been worked on at rest and under pressure are, you know, are definitely, you know, at least a few levels forward than they were. So when this matchup came through, I thought it was a good opportunity to prove that to myself.

When they offered you this fight, did they make one last effort to try to get you to sign a new deal? No, no. I think it was already kind of set at that stage. It was my contract had been extended. There was no more talks. It was just a case of fighting out my contract. Okay.

When you're facing off with resume, daddy and he gives you that look. I like looking at your face as I usually like to do when someone fights him because you're just such a calm, cool and collected guy and you have the smiles you're you're smiling to us right now. It seemed like you were almost amused by it all. Like he's saying some stuff to you. He's giving you that big chin out, stare down. What are you thinking when you see this? I wouldn't say it's amusement. I think it's excitement. The smile is it's excitement. Like someone who's bringing that intensity and all that.

like a draw off that. I always feel like I've drawn off that since day one. You know, when he's staring at me, all I'm thinking about is how I vision the fight and how excited I am to be in there and get my, you know, get stuck into it.

So I suppose, you know, they're the thoughts that's going through my head and that's why I'm smiling because there's no place I'd rather be. What's he saying to you? I think what was he saying to you? You're saying like in the way and he was like a, you know, I never, never came across someone like him.

You know, someone who, you know, maybe he's as game as him or, you know, I'm not sure exactly what he meant. But, you know, in fairness, you know, he backed it up. He went in. He doesn't quit. That guy is, he's as tough as to come. It was a classic mad dog fight, if you will. I mean, he's all bloodied up.

It goes the distance. You didn't put him away, but it was, I thought, a very dominant and solid performance. Were you happy with the entire body of work? I definitely wouldn't say I was happy with the entire thing there's a lot of improvements to be made I'm glad I got the 15 minutes in there's plenty of photos I can look at and you know plenty of changes I can make

the first round I didn't feel great I didn't feel like I got my time and I didn't feel I was 100% there second round was much better on third round even like towards the end I felt it was a bit better like just in all areas you know close quarters and everything else

I felt like I was 100% comfortable in all them areas so there's lots of adjustments to be made but you know overall I was I was just relieved to get the result you know I knew that was the priority and you know I was glad to get the win on this one

what didn't you like about it I think the fact that I didn't I didn't get my starting position the way I would like like my range wasn't quite there

I felt like you know the first you know at the start I was trying to land the first job when necessarily

the first job wasn't there maybe I should have doubled it up troubled it up I would have liked I would have liked my fangs

to be a bit more varied you know a few more changes of angles before my attacks you know and maybe

varied up my attacks slightly also but you know it was still much better in some senses in my in the various of attacks you know between hands legs knees um but i feel like um you know

maybe i need to look at you know different ways of varying up them attacks you know even though i'm using different different skills different limbs you know different things i think you know changing angles coming in changing levels coming in um you know i would i like to would i like to shot more as well. Would I like to go for a takedown? Maybe a few more takedowns, maybe on the ground, I might have got the finish. Okay. So who knows?

Who knows? But there's definitely lots of room for improvement there. And so you mentioned that, you know, you got the result, you got the win. At the end of the day, that's what you needed. Would it be fair to say that you didn't go full force because you didn't want to take any extra risks to put yourself in a precarious position so that you would not get the win? Like, were you trying, like, you know, sometimes you take, you go out of your comfort zone a little bit, you go for the home run, whatever.

But in this case, you knew that you were ahead, two rounds to none, you know, probably in your mind, even though you don't know the scorecards. And you're like, okay, let me just try to finish this off because I need the victory. Were you thinking like that in there? No, no. No, like, I remember, I remember the third round. was just about to start and you know I knew

I had two rounds in the bag and like for a split second I thought you know you can coast in this round you know you can move around but and then I was like there's no way you know I had another word of myself

I was like there's no way you know you need to go out this guy don't give him an inch of confidence and keep pouring it on and look for the finish okay you know it might not always be the you know, the safest option, but sometimes, you know, offense is the best defense, you know. Was there any part of you after the fight as you walked out, did you think this might be my last time fighting in a UFC cage?

No, not on the way out there. Okay. I think, I think beforehand I thought it and obviously after, you know, I remember after the interview and everything, I thought it, but, you know, know, on the walkout, I think I was just solely focused on the job at hand. And just making sure that, you know, I was just talking to myself quite a lot, trying to get little bits and pieces right in my head and just making sure I was calm. I made sure I was, you know, making good decisions. I was talking about the walk back to the locker room after the win as the fans are kind of, are you thinking that? I thought about it after the fight was over, yeah, definitely.

You know, after I just finished the interview with Dan, I had a little look around and I seen all the crowd and it did it ended in my head. You know, but who knows. Who knows? We'll see how it all plays out. So what is your gut say now? What do you think happens? I suppose, well, I'll have to wait and see now.

I came this far. You know, I'm definitely going to test the free agency. I'm going to see you know see what offers comes in I believe it's something like maybe maybe 90 days before you know I can speak to other promotions or something obviously I know

the UFC has a window now where they can they can make some offers so who knows what offers they'll make so you know I suppose I'm just going to wait and see you know I'm going to look at my options you know the sport is

it's not a sport we're in you know the rest of our lives. So, you know, I definitely got to try and make the most of it in the short space of time we're in it. It's not like we've got a pension plan or anything else. So, you know, I've got to try and weigh up the options and go for the best option. Has this chapter of your career, because I remember when you were on you, you know, you were a little bothered by how everything was going and you were considering just kind of

doing something else. Has this soured you at all on the sport and or the UFC? No. No, that's it. You know, I've always kind of looked at it from, you know, their perspective and my perspective. You know, obviously for them as business, you know, and as a business, your job is to make money. You know, and for me as a business and also as an enjoyment, you know, I've got to make money, but I also got to be financially secured.

You know, it's a little bit annoying because the business sometimes take the joy. of it. Obviously I do this because I love it. You know, and just, you're being financially secure and not have no worry from fight to fight about a paycheck or, you know, the amount in your paycheck. You know, I think that's the only thing that makes us worry is, you know, a fight or two, you know, you run the risk of being cut or not having the finances to be able to just keep training and doing what I love. and that's why I'm fighting to make sure I can take care of that and this is no longer a worry and I can just focus solely on the fighting

and hopefully in turn it's going to rub off in my performances even more and I'm going to be able to go in there and put on even more of a showcase every time I fight. Safe to assume since you won on Saturday no new contract offers have been made? Not as far as I'm aware.

Okay. As far as away. My manager's away at the minute. I'm not sure if if you had any discussions with Sean Shelby or anything else. But as far as I know, I haven't heard of things so far. Will you consider, I've always thought the 90-day thing is a little funny because if they're going to say, we'll let you play out the contract,

why do they need 90 days to have you sit around when usually another offer isn't made? Usually what they've done in this case is they'll say, okay, go out and find something else and then we'll see, you know, what the market is for you and then we'll match it. would you consider asking them to waive the 90 days so that you can go and actually find out? Because you've been sitting on this idea for so long, go out, find out what's out there for you, and then go talk to them. I suppose it's not even something I thought about.

It's a good question. I'm not sure whether that's something the UFC are interested in, and that's something that might work in their favor as well. I'm not sure. Obviously, my manager takes care of. all this side of thing. So, you know, I suppose I'll leave it up to him. You know, he'll be, you know, he'll probably be watching. And I'm not sure if it suits the UFC and it suits them,

then, you know, maybe that's something, you know, we could work with or, you know, who knows. The very capable Graham Boyland, who has a great experience doing these things. So I'm not trying to offer any advice, but I was just curious if that was something that you guys had discussed. To be clear, you're not one of the. those guys, there are some fighters who could say, I want to be in the UFC and I'm willing to take a pay cut. You just want to get what you think you're owed. It doesn't matter where it is.

If you can stay in the UFC, I'm sure you'd be happy, but at the end of the day, you want to get what you think that you're owed. You're not willing to take a pay cut just to remain in the UFC. Is that accurate? Is that fair? Yeah, that's it. Like I said, you know, it's not like I've gone to university or anything else. You know, after this, I haven't got a job waiting for me. You know, this, since I've been five years old. This is what I've done. This is my college. This is my university. You know, and this is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get paid for

them years now. So, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to set myself up financially. And hopefully when I was taking care of, you know, I can relax a little bit more and just enjoy the fighting. But, you know, I would gladly sign with the UFC. You know, if we come to a good deal and everything. I've enjoyed every second of working with them so far.

I said it all week, you know, I got a great relationship with most of the staff with the UFC and, you know, I love the USADA program and this type of thing. So, you know, it's definitely you know, it's not like it's 100% done

or anything else. You know, I'm just open to all offers and, you know, I'm just, I'm interested to see, I'm see what offers are on the table. Is there any chance that this was your last fight period? No. No. No. I think even if I said to myself, you know, I would retire or something, I think there's no way that would last long. Right. I would definitely be back within within six months, guaranteed.

Okay. And in your mind, I mean, how quickly would you like to wrap this up? Are you willing to wait? You know, because we see a situation like Ryan Bader. It's taking a long time. Other fighters, Lorenz Larkin, it took him a very long time, just signed last week. he had his last fight in August. Are you prepared for another six months or so plus to be on the sidelines? Or are you hopeful that you can get something done relatively quickly? Yeah, hopefully it'll get done quickly. But whatever time it takes it takes.

This is the business side of things. And with business, you've got to be patient. You know, for every moment I'm waiting. I'm in the gym I'm improving things so it's not like that's ever time wasted I'd like to get back down to New York and work with John again if I could

and all of his guys I would love to spend a bit of time down there and there's a few other bits and pieces I want to work on you know I'd like to get some boxing spire back in and make a few changes obviously when I get back to Montreal I speak to Fraz and see what you changes he wants to make also.

So this time's never wasted, I feel. Would it be rude of me to ask you what number you're looking for? Yeah. No, see, with Ariel, it was a, no, I was the same as, like, Graham kind of asked me the other day, you know, just have to fight. And truth is, like, I haven't got a set figure. Like, it's not, especially with this fight. I felt like leading up to the fight, that was kind of lingering in the background.

And, you know, when that was lingering in the background, I would have to push it away. And I would have to concentrate on the fight. And because I was concentrating solely on the fight, I didn't talk about anything after it. You know, no aftermath. You know, as far as far as I was going to. concerned, you know, my life stopped at the fight. Okay. And then after, like Graham said, you know, what type of figures do you want to talk?

And truth is, I got no idea. I've got no idea. It's not like I got a set figure in my head. Obviously, you know, the price would be different now to what it was before. Sure. Because, you know, before I was 3 and 1, now I'm 4 in 1. Yeah. But it's not like I got a figure in my head.

I'm just, at the minute, I'm still trying to get my head around, you know, just, Being a free agent, obviously the whole weekend, you know, the whole experience. And, you know, it's only now I'm kind of settled. There's been a bit of a whirlwind of a weekend. And I'm down in Wales now. I've got to see my baby niece today for the first time. And, you know, other than that, I haven't really had an opportunity to let my mind wander too much to business. Fair enough.

And congratulations, by the way, on the new arrival to your family. Last question. And I apologize in advance for asking this. but I would kill myself if I didn't. There's probably no better person than you to ask. You know what the question is. Then, you know, your thoughts on Connor versus Floyd. Do you give Connor any chance?

You actually went out there and had multiple pro boxing matches. You know better than anyone what it's like, the transition against maybe the greatest defensive boxer of all time. And you know Connor very well. Do you give him any chance if this fight actually comes to fruition? Yes. I think in a combat sport, there's always a puncher's chance.

No matter what, you know, in MMA boxing, there's always that puncher's chance. I feel that Floyd is probably used to being in there with bigger hitters than Connor. You know, boxers, then boxers really do hit.

You know, but down to, you know, on the score cards, I really don't. I really feel it's a landslide towards Floyd. You know, he's one of the best of all time. You know, how he made, you know, Pacquiao look.

And Pacio is, you know, one of the best boxers we've seen in a long time. You know, I think that just proves the level he's at. You know, Canelo is probably a bigger hitter than Connor. And, you know, how he boxed him is different. It takes a while to, you know, to get into the sport and to get up to par. and I think if he pursued boxing for a long time, I think we could have done very well in it definitely. But, you know, Floyd, you know, Floyd's been doing this since he's a child,

and, you know, I really just can't see it going any other way. Wish you the best, Joe. Thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate some time here today, and good luck with this process. I hope that, you know, you truly get what you are looking for and what you deserve, because A, as New York Rick told us earlier, you got a great reaction. The fans clearly love you.

You put in the time. You certainly deserve more than what you're making now. So I hope that you're happy with the process, happy with what you get, and that we can see you fight wherever it may be sooner rather than later. Definitely, thanks, Ariel. Pleasure speak as always.

All right, there he is. The one and only Joe Duffy. Irish Joe Duffy embarking on Free Agency. You heard him just a couple months ago on the program saying that he was willing to sit out. They came to an agreement that they would allow him to fight out his contract, the UFC, that is, and now he has fulfilled that deal. And now he is going to, it appears, test the market. So we'll see what happens there.

It has been a busy stretch as far as Bellator is concerned when it comes to signing, quote-unquote, free agents. And they were very busy last week. On Monday night, you found out that they had signed Dylan Danis, training partner and friend of one Connor McGregor. more importantly, one of the best BJJ practitioners in the world. Had a tough evening last night at the Pan Ams in Jiu-Jitsu. But nevertheless, that got them some buzz, got them even more buzz on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that they had signed Lorenz Larkin.

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Lorenz Larkin teaming up with Scott Coker and company once again. You recall he was a part of Strikeforce now, a part of Bellator and he is joining us on the phone right now. Lorenz, are you there? Yeah, I was a one. It's going great. Congratulations on the new deal. Are you surprised that you ended up in Bellator? You know what? No, I'm not that surprised.

You know, it's been a long, it's been a long, long little journey, you know, just a whole free agency thing. And I think the more and more of the time went by, the more and more I kind of knew that, you know, that I was probably going to move on to another place. Were you disappointed that it took so long to just find a home that the process, Like when you were thinking about it in August, you know, the Magnify and thinking about what's to come, were you hopeful that it would get done in 2016, early 2017? This did seem to take a little longer.

Yeah, you know, I was hoping, you know, at the most, you know, two months. And then, you know, I would be able to, you know, figure out my future. Yeah. But I guess it all happens for a reason, you know, and I made the right decision. You know, I'm content with myself. And, you know, mentally about everything. And I feel good about it. I feel like, you know, I just did something because I had to.

You know, I felt like I had options and it went good. Why do you think it took so long? You know what? I'm not too sure, you know, because, you know, I know my team was on the phone with, you know, UFC. And I know they're, you know, we're trying to get something done. You know, we weren't just trying to sit around, you know, especially not after a fight, like, you know, last. So, you know, I'm not too sure. You know, I don't want to have speculations, but, you know, maybe it was because all the cards that were happening, you know, the time I thought there's a lot of big things going on. So I'm not too sure. Okay. Did they ever come back with a deal that you considered, the UFC? Yeah, I had a deal on the table. Okay. And, you know, just,

it just didn't feel right. You know what I mean? My whole reasoning for testing for the agency was to see what I was worth and to get somebody behind me. You know, I want to feel like an asset, you know, to promotion, you know, and I want to feel like the promotion wants, you know, to really drive me and really use me. You know, I've made this point, you know, a lot of times that, you know, like, I'm ready to work, you know. You know, anything he can use me for, let me know. Like, I'm here. You know, and it just wasn't happening for me.

So I don't know if it was just the timing or, you know, or just there's no interest in that. But, you know, that's a big thing that was focused on, you know. Did you talk, I know you were at ACB in Manchester a couple weeks ago. Did you get any offers from other promotions? Yeah, so, you know, during this whole time, you know, I know that my team talks with ACB, you know, we talk with Belator. We talk with Verizon.

And those were the promotions that, you know, that we've had conversations with. So those were the, at the end of the day, came down to those three, the UFC wasn't really even in the running. No, you know what? They weren't, they weren't even, I didn't even get an offer from them until maybe two and a half weeks ago, something like that. Maybe a little bit more, something like that. Okay. And how would you categorize that offer? I guess I would just kind of, it was just kind of like a, I felt like, personally,

it was just kind of like a ticket to leave it and that's it, you know. Okay. There is no, to me, there is no, like, how how would I say? There was no, like, welcoming, like, you know what I mean? Yeah. It was just like, you know, it is. what it is, not, then okay. And, you know, that's what I felt. And, you know, I'm not in this sport just to take whatever, you know what I mean? I feel like I fought my way to where I'm at now.

And, you know, it's just one of those things where it can't be like that, you know what I mean? It can't just, it can't just be one superpower and that's it, you know? And luckily, I'm in the sport at a time where it's not like it's starting to not be like that anymore. And is that when you went to Bellator and had a serious conversation and is that when things heated up with them? Yeah, you know, I was able, you know, I was just able to talk to Scott, you know, yeah, him on the phone and we worked out something within, I don't know, 40 minutes, man. Wow, that quickly?

yeah man the whole thing took 40 minutes the whole deal that you signed from start to finish took 40 minutes well my my um my team was talking with them

yeah back and forth you know but I've never stepped in and talked you know yeah it was just kind of like my team yeah

so they've been talking off and on and then finally you know I think I I think I text a Scott or something like that or or something like that or

something like that Yeah, yeah. And then he called me and I was getting, I was right before I was about to get on a plane to Manchester. Okay. And got on the phone with him and it probably took about 40 minutes, man. Wow. Just me and him talking on the phone and became a deal. Are you happy with the deal? I'm happy, man. You know, everything has just been woken me, you know.

it's, it's, with me, it's more about, it's more about the respect type thing, you know, just, just a big thing for me. It's not really a big deal, but it is for me, you know, for me and who I am, you know, when they released the story, you know, they wanted to make it a big deal that the Riverside Press released it for, but I released the first, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that just, that just says a lot, you know, and it shows that they're worried about, you know, what I care about, you know?

Yeah. And that was a big thing for me. You know, I really respected that and I really missed a lot, even though it's something small, but, you know, just for them to do that, just from the get-go, you know, it just says a lot to me. Is this new deal a raise over what you were making for your last fight in the UFC? Is this the kind of raise you were looking for,

or did you have to kind of meet in the middle? You know, at the end of the day, usually they say the best deals are where and both sides are a little bit unhappy. Is this that kind of deal, or are you over the moon? How would you categorize it? I'm happy. I'm just, the thing of it is, don't give me wrong, Ariel. Every fighter is going to, you know, every fighter should say, you know,

a big part of it is about the money, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's what we fight for. A lot of it, for me, is respect to, and it's the understanding that a promotion wants me there. You know what I mean? I don't want it to be among a bunch of people that, you know, they just, who cares about me? You know what I mean? I'd rather fight for somebody that really wants me there and really is excited to see, you know, what we can do together.

Have they talked to you about your debut yet? No, not yet. You know, so I'm supposed to be going to Chicago. Okay. And maybe, you know, get a little insight when I'm out there. I'm assuming you want to fight relatively soon. Your last fight was in August, right? You're probably itching to get back in there.

Yeah, you know, I'm anxious. I'm really anxious to get it back in there. I've been training, you know, so I'm anxious to see, you know, what they come up. By the way, are you on a speaker phone right now? No, I'm on an earpiece. There's a lot of, like, background noise, and it's hard to hear you at times. I don't know if the earpiece is one of those Apple ones. No, no, no, no, I'm an Android guy.

Oh, okay, my bad. Damn. No, no, no. It was this van right next to me. It's squeaky as shit. Oh, okay. I don't know. It's like a 60 fan or anything.

Their division at 170 is arguably their best and deepest. Do you agree that it's one of their more interesting divisions? And B, is their name? As far as that division is concerned, that interests you for your debut? Have you had a chance to look at it? Maybe we lost them. Oh, is he back? I think we lost them.

I think he took my criticism to heart about all the background noise. Maybe that was just me on the headset. But we'll get him back. That's Lorenz Larkin, by the way. Newst member of the Belator 170-pound division. It is a great 170-pound division. I mean, slowly, but surely they're starting to build something there. And that's what we have to do as far as Belator is concerned.

You have to kind of zero in on the division and just start building it up with names. Whether it's homegrown talent, a couple free agents here or there. You got Michael Page. you got Paul Daly of course the recently acquired Roy McDonald Diego Lima

Andre Koreshkov Lorenz Larkin imagine they still had Ben Ascran I always felt like that was a mistake dominant champions dominant fighters remember what he did to Koreshkov

I always felt like that was a mistake but yeah slowly but surely I wonder who they'll match him up against because Daly and Rory are fighting next in May, as is MVP and Derek Anderson. There's the Lime. I don't know if they'll give them an immediate title shot.

There are definitely some names, though. I like what they're doing at 170. And they're, you know, look, Duffy at 155. All of a sudden things are getting interesting as far as the free agent market is concerned. And I told you a while ago that this idea of playing out your contract, especially if you're a non-champion mid-tier fighter, is going to become the norm.

The UFC is just doing this with most of their fighters as of late. Some of the undercard guys, some of the prelim guys, they're all playing out their contracts. And that's sort of a mutually agreed upon thing. It's not the fighter specifically saying, I'm going to fight this thing out. And you hope that there's no bad blood. in that regard. I do believe we have Lorenz back. Lorenz, are you there?

Yeah, I'm here. Okay. The question that I asked you before we lost you was do you agree that 170 is one of their more interesting divisions and have you had a chance to look at the division and think about who might interest you for your debut?

You know, I don't know to be honest with you what, you know, who I was thinking about, you know, fighting for my debut. But I know that you know, the top guys, that are in the 170 that, you know, that, that are making some noise are, you know, I got, I mean, they have MVP, they have Daley, they got Rory, Lima is actually, you know, he's a champion, and Brandon Ward, I think. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, you know, I know there's, there's some tough guys in there, you know, but I'm not to tell you the truth, man, I really don't care. Who they put me against, you know, I just want to, I just want to fight, man, and just, get this whole journey started. Yeah.

And how much, I mean, you know, Koker, I'm assuming you know Rich Chow, right? Because he initially signed you. Are there a lot of the same people? Did you have a chance to go backstage and meet some of these people at some of the events? Or are you still unfamiliar with kind of who runs Bellator? No, you know, it's crazy, man. But, you know, I have teammates at fight in Bellator. Yeah.

You know, and I've been to, you know, I've been to their fights. and, you know, it's the same people, man. Rich Troy is the one who got me, or, you know, who I signed with, you know, who picked me up, you know, and had me fight in Strike Force and, uh, Kerry, Carrie, Sierra Anna, you know, she's still there and, and, and, and, you know, Scott, you know. It's just, it's just like, you know, I, I've got to see them and, and, and they were there since the beginning with me, you know, You know, so. It's like going back home. Welcome back Cotter. Welcome back Lorenz.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, in a sense, you know, it's just, I guess the whole, the only thing that I've kind of been disappointed was in, you know, this whole experience was kind of like, you know, the some, I'm not going to say all of them, because there's a lot of people who support my decision, you know, but I feel like a lot of the MMA fans, man, are like, really, disappointed me in this thing that, you know, they're just big UFC people, you know, and I always took pride in, you know, in saying that, you know, and M. A.M. A.M. fans really knowledgeable about this sport, you know, I mean,

and really knowledgeable about what's going on in the sport, you know, more than I feel like with boxing and things like that, you know, and I just get this whole, like, Bellator, you know, why are you, why did you go to Bellator? And, you know, You're over and it's a B league and all this other type shit, you know, and I'm just like, this is good for the sport, man. Yeah. Like, there can't be one, you know, I'm not saying it just because I left. You know, I've watched Bellator before, even when I was in the UFC, you know what I mean? I watched all these other leagues, you know, when I was in the UFC.

So it's not like a, like now I left them and now I'm just like, oh, you know, it's, I've, I've left them and now I'm just like, oh, you know, I felt like this the whole time. It can't be like that, you know, especially being a fighter. It can't have one superpower and no other organizations on the come-up. You know what I mean? It's good for the sport. You know, all these guys always talk about, you know, this fighter made five and five, you know, for a fight. You know, this is bullshit.

You know, well, the whole reason why that's bullshit is because that's one organization being the superpower. you know what I mean so it's like these guys complain about one thing you know and then they don't want another thing and they say

minor league and all this other shit they said the same thing about strike force you know and Luke Rockhole was a champion Tyrone Woodley's a champion uh Cormiye

well so Robbie Lawler Cormié Robbie Lawler Fabricio you know what I mean it's just all these I don't I don't like

Rhonda, but she came from strike for it. You know what I mean? So it was like they take one thing and then you know, it's like everybody has to be you know, not everybody has to be, but everybody has to know like this can't, this is a good change in the

sport. All this free agency stuff and all these things. This is like the evolution of MMA. You know what I mean? This is like a turning point that other organizations are starting to fight for fighters. You know what I mean? and then everybody else understand

that's a good thing for the sport in old. Are you getting more crap than like, I don't know, accolades or well wishes from the fans? No, no, no, I'm getting, don't get me wrong, I'm getting a lot of what was like, I'm getting a lot of people that are supported me.

A lot of people. It just, I see every so often, you know, because I'm like, I don't really reply but I am a lurker. I do just stroke a little post, you know, that I'll just read the comments. But it was just boggling my mind, man. I was just like, you know, for, I just feel like,

and, like, you know, all in the main fans should know that this is good for the sport, you know. It's just like, it's not a bad thing that people are starting to test for agency and things like that. Like, well, I mean, what do you think? Well, it's funny that you, so my thoughts on it are, I understand to degree where the fans are coming from. and I say this not to be condescending. Fans are somewhat spoiled and selfish in the sense that they want all the fighters

under one umbrella so that they can see the best fighters fight each other. And so I get it if you're just a pure fan who watches on TV. But if you're a fan of fighters as human beings, you want them to succeed, you want them to have a good life, you want them to be comfortable financially,

not just themselves and their family. You want them to have a life after fighting. You should be very happy about the current state of MMA and the way it's true. trending, you should be happy that there's more than one option. You should be happy that fighters have options, have leverage, have opportunities to go test the market and see how much they're truly worth. And I can only guess that it's going to get higher and higher. You should

be happy about this. So I get, there's some fans who just see black and white and like, I'm mad because now I can't see Lorenz fight X UFC Walterweight. But if they're truly a fan of yours in particular, Anna Joe Duffy, Anna Ryan Bader, and name any other free agent, they should be very happy about what's happening. You get my point? No, I get it. That's just the way it is. I just think that's the way fans of you think.

By the way, last thing, do you leave? I know you're happy about going to Belterre. You're comfortable there. You're happy with Scott, but do you leave with somewhat of a, I don't know, sour taste in your mouth? Like, did you, I'm assuming you wanted to be a UFC champion. You had aspirations. Are you bothered that you didn't get a chance to accomplish that in this first run? No, man.

Like I said, at the end of the day, I know what, I didn't know coming into this what was going to happen. You know, it could have been the total opposite. If Bellatory, maybe couldn't have been interested, you know, and no other promotions could have been interested. And this whole free agency could have just, you know, kick me an ass, you know. But it was just one of those things.

There's a lot of things I've done in my life that I said, F it and I'm going to do it. And if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. but at least I tried it, you know what I mean? And that's the same thing I did with my career in MMA. You know, that's how I really started. You know, I dedicated a year of my life just to see if it was something I even wanted to do, you know. So at the end of all this, if it would have ended bad or ended good, you know, in my head,

I would have been able to be like, I tried it and it just didn't work or I tried it and it went good. You know, so I was content with however it ended. You know, so I'm happy. I'm happy with how everything went. All right. Well, I'm happy. You're happy. Congratulations on the New Deal.

And welcome back to, you know, Scott Coker's family. And I'm looking forward to your debut. Like I said, I think 170 is very interesting for them. You've got to start somewhere. And again, slowly but surely they are building something that is interesting, at least to me, at 170 pounds. And you're a big part of that. So congrats on the new deal. Good luck in your debut.

I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon. All right, thank you, man. All right, there he is. Lorenz Larkin, the newest member of the Bell Tour 170-pound division. All right, let's go back to UFC Fight Night London. One of the big stories on Saturday night was England's own Arnold Allen winning against Makwan Amir Hani, one of the, in my opinion, best fights on the card, very entertaining from start to finish.

One of the most interesting fights on paper, and a lot of people gave me crap last week saying that I picked the wrong guy to be on the show, that I picked Makwan, that I really should have, you know, attached my wagon to the horse that is Arnold Allen. I'm here to rectify the situation. He's joining us right now. The Almighty One is joining us, making his MMA hour debut. Arnold Allen, how are you, my friend?

Congratulations. Thanks, Matt. I'm doing great yourself. I'm doing great. It's great to have you on the show. I thought you were going to hold it against me because when I reached out to your friend, Luke Barnat, you gave me the one finger salute when I asked you to be on the show,

but I'm happy that you're not the grudge holding type. No, I know, it's all good. It's all good. I understand. Okay, so there's a lot to talk to you about here. I really enjoyed the fight. I thought it was a really fun back and forth matchup between, you know, two young up-and-comers.

Let me start with what he said about you last week on the show. He was very dismissive of you, thought that he would finish you in 60 seconds. Did you hear any of that? And did you chalk it up to him just being, you know, overconfident pre-fight hype, or did you take this as a personal offense? Yeah, I took no personal offense at all. He's always saying stuff like that,

so I expected him to say it, you know. And no person, I didn't take anything personally. I expected it to be pre-fight hype, but that's how he fights. He comes out. He comes out fast, you know, jumping knees, shoots to takedowns. Right.

Yeah, I knew he wouldn't get it. Which he ended up doing in the fight. I mean, you saw that coming on my, you were ready for it. right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. We've been planning that the whole camp. And so what was interesting was he said, you know, to me,

I'm going to finish him in 60 seconds, was very somewhat dismissive. And then, you know, when you guys squared off, you seemed like you were buds. You know, you had the little prank on Sean Shelby. Did you talk about that beforehand? Yeah, it was actually his idea to do that. Okay.

I was a little surprised that he was so cool. You know, I asked him to sign a hat. I was going to give a hat away to a little kid. I gave a hat to a kid. Signed by like half the card. Okay. Yeah, it was really cool. I kind of thought he was trying to out nice me.

You know, I'm always nice. And I thought instead of being mean, he was trying to be nicer than me. I'm like, I'm the nice guy. Right. I'm the nice guy. This is a girl. But yeah, it was cool. You both look very nice in those suits.

I'd say this is one of the better dressed matchups in UFC history. I like yours was nice. The three piece. I think you went no tie. He had a tie. But together, you guys were just, you brought the fire on the media day. Yeah, exactly right. When you're, when you're fine a hunk, you have to try your best to become a hunk.

Okay. So you tried to outhunk him. Exactly, exactly. What's this thing that you do with the signatures? Go ahead, sorry? What is that? Oh, you know, that was the main department. I thought he had me in the hunk department.

I was sort of a little concerned in that department. Did you feel like you beat him afterwards after seeing what he wore? Yeah, I think I won. I felt, you know, I look more relaxed. The no tie, the top button I'm done. Sure. I felt chill, you know. And you were drinking tea as well. Yeah, always, always the green tea on the media day.

Is that your thing? It's becoming a thing. It's just the weight cut. I just drink green tea and, yeah, I always happen to have a tea. Speaking of the wake cut, I saw that you were talking a few times on social media about George Lockhart. Was this your first time working with him? Yeah, that's right. It was amazing. He's such a professional. I've been telling everyone I was eating twice as much as I usually eat and I cut half as much as I usually cut. So it was, it was an amazing feeling. But eating so much, losing all that weight. Yeah. What a life. Why did you hire him? Was it getting tougher as you got older to cut the weight?

Yeah, I've been, I've come in, the heaviest I've come in and, yeah, Joe Duffy was usually. using him and he asked me so I was more than more than happy to hear that he was coming over. Why were you heavier this time than usual? I got a little bit depressed after I had to pull out of my last fight. I was supposed to fight with Bechtick back in October. I was forced off the card and I kind of got a little bit depressed and I just sat on my ass for it until I could train again, eating cake, eating pie, eating pizzas and, you know, watching fights, watching cards go by and sort of sitting on the sidelines.

Have you ever experienced something like that before? That kind of depression? No, not really. No, I haven't. Really? So that was a big card. That was UFC 204, the Manchester card with Bispying and Hendo at the top. What happened when you were forced to pull out?

What was the injury? I wasn't injured. I was sick. Oh, that's right. Yes, you were sick. Yeah. What happened? I had a, I was quite,

I had like a normal, a normal flu like the beginning of the camp. I thought, okay, no problem. I'll take a week off. I took the week off and I didn't feel any better. I kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I think I saw, I went to the doctors, my local doctor here and he sort of diagnosed me with like a mild form of pneumonia. Oh. And I was on every drug going, like they'll give me all sorts.

So yeah, that sucked. I really sucked. Did you watch the fight, the card? Yeah. Oh, well, on the card, no, I didn't. I actually went away to Budapest because I was, I couldn't be around. I didn't want to be around, so I was just like, getting out and going to, you know, yeah. And when did you snap out of it?

It was about five weeks after the fight I could train again. I got back into training. I was, you know, it was a little heavy. Yeah. I was a little heavy. I was a bit scared away myself, so, yeah, but it was a little bit. good. What's your kind of

comfort food of choice? Pizza. I'm a pizza man. Yeah. Peace all day. Anything in particular on the pizza? I just have everything like meat. I just love the meat. Or any meat, throw meat at it.

Is this pizza in Montreal or pizza in England? England. Where's the best pizza place? Domino's pizza. Domino's pizza? That's the one? Yeah, I always go for Domino's. It's a bit expensive here, to be fair. Compare the Montrose. It's a lot more expensive, yeah. Oh, wow.

It's like 20 pounds for a pizza, huh? Is that because you're going to like an American brand and not a local brand? Yeah, probably. The local ones aren't that good to be fair. Oh, okay. Wow, look at that guy in back of you. He's just showing us his kibbles and bits right there, huh? He's got a big pair.

Just chilling. Yeah, they're dangling low. They're getting old. They're getting low to the ground. That's your guy. He gets the lower they get. Wow. You were very excited to see him.

I saw that, what's his name? Trafford, you know, like Old Trafford, the football stadium. Right, of course. Manu, right? Yeah, that's right. We didn't name him, to be honest. We rescued him. Oh, it was already named.

Okay, so this is your own dog, right? Yeah, that's right. And then you miss him terribly when you're away in Montreal. Yeah, exactly. He comes first, and then it's my girlfriend. Damn. And then everything else. I hope your girlfriend's not listening.

watch this show. Yeah, that's right. No. Why don't you bring them over with you to Montreal? You can't do that, right? No, well, she comes over to visit sometimes, but he's, uh, he's, between me and you, he's old, you know, he's on his death, he's on death's door, you know? Oh, I'm sorry.

I don't tell him that, but. Okay. Yeah, he's good. He's all good. Um, all right, so then you get to, let's go, get back to the fight. Uh, it felt to me like Makwan started off pretty strong, obviously, but then got really tired. I mean, it was very clear. End of the first round, he looked like he was gassed,

and it seemed to be a problem for him as the fight went on. Did you notice that as well? Could you feel that? Yeah, I felt that, for sure. And I expected that as well. I've watched, you know how you do? I study people's fights, but he's kind of like a, how do you expect,

he fights like he's in a panic, you know? I mean, he wants to come out fast, he wants to get it done, he wants to go home. Yeah. I kind of come out and I enjoy it. Okay. He doesn't seem, he wants to get out. He wants to go home. So did you try to capitalize on that?

Like, you try to make him feel uncomfortable because there is a part of him as you believe that wants to get out. So the longer you keep him in, the more uncomfortable he gets. Yeah, for sure. I thought I thought I was going to finish it in the second and third,

but a couple of silly mistakes I did, you know, going for that guillotine, going for the Camorra and sort of giving up stupid positions. But, yeah, I think without those mistakes, there would have been a lot more decisive win. Did you think that you had done enough to win the fight before they announced the scorecards? Yeah, I thought I won every round. Okay, even the first.

Yeah, yeah. That was the closest one, I think, but yeah, I felt like I did enough. So, you know, for someone who was bombed to not fight at 204, you had the extended time off, get back in there in front of your home country, were you happy with your performance? I mean, sometimes it's hard to read you because you're kind of, you're a stoic individual at times. Hmm It was Yeah I'm always happy to win

And I'm happy I'm happy I'm annoyed at Is it was the Complete opposite of the game plan It was supposed to there I think the Limps of it in the third round

Where I was striking Sprawling moving But instead I engaged in In his game plan And I had a wrestling match Okay And yeah But yeah

I'm happy that I could I've proved that I can beat him You know Where he wants to fight You know on the ground He wants to take it down And then In my opinion

I want it in his game plan, you know. One of my favorite parts of the entire experience was your post-fight interview with Dan Hardy. It was very endearing, at least to me, when you were telling the crowd, come on, you know, fans, stop going on my Twitter and Facebook and tell me that I'm going to lose. When are you guys going to actually support me? Are you not feeling the love from the English fans? What's going on here? Are they doubting you?

What's happening? Yeah, well, you know how it is. It probably happens in a lot of places, but they announce the card. And they're like, I see people saying there's nobody's on this card. There's, you know, it's a crap card. Like, why do they put this card? Why do we always get shit cards? You know, you've got the future of the British MMA there.

You've got legends. You've got Brad Pickett, obviously, having his retirement fire. A guy who sort of paved the way for the British fighters. Yeah. Yeah, maybe they don't appreciate our homegrown guys. Maybe they want people from the States flying on our cards. I don't understand. But I thought it was a good.

card. Are they coming to you specifically in saying that we think you're going to lose this fight? No, I've just, to be honest, I don't look at these sort of things, but I've been told by friends, they've seen on, like, on posts on the UFC's page when they post

and there's English people sort of vote, like going for Macoine, you know, wanting him to be me in England. I'm like, yeah, yeah. It's wrong with these people. I think I've got more support now. I've had a lot of people who send me messages and telling me I've gained their support, you know, love their support, which is great.

Do you feel like by speaking up, it kind of worked down your favor? Because it didn't seem like something that you would do, but it felt, at least to me, like you were frustrated. You were tired of all the negativity. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think in this point you have to speak up to get anything done, don't you? But unfortunately, that's not my, it's not my nature. It's not my style to swear.

But, yeah, you don't speak, you don't get anything to happen, I guess. That's right. You also said, you know, you feel like you're too nice to talk smack and, you know, to build up some buzz for your fights. Do you feel like this is holding you back? Like you're in, you know, that Damien Maya category where you're just too nice of a guy to be an MMA fighter. And are you worry that you won't advance because you are too nice? No, I'm not worried. I've always sort of thought I will, you know, I'm going to push when there's reason to.

But right now I'm 23 years old. I'm 3 in the UFC. if I start talking smack and I'll probably advance too good, too fast for myself. Right, right, right. I end up fighting top 10 before I'm ready to fight top 10 guys. I'm happy the way I'm escalating along the division. I'm happy with it. You're content.

Yeah. One thing I love about your story is your family background. Your dad was a power lifter and then transitioned to MMA. Your brother is currently a strong man, right? That's right. You never considered doing this, though, right? This wasn't cool in your opinion, so you wanted to do something different? We traveled up and down the country watching my dad compete,

and as much as I love supporting my dad, it kind of got boring. It kind of died to me, you know? Like, it was every weekend, it was like, oh, we're going to watch and lift some weights. We're going to watch my dad lift some weights. I'll watch my dad pull a truck. It kind of got old, you know. But now it's amazing. It's like I tell everyone the stories.

It's amazing. Now you have an appreciation for it. Exactly, exactly, yeah. And the same thing when I was watching him fight MMA when I was growing up, I thought, ah, MMA sucks. My dad does MMA. I'm not going into MMA. That's not cool.

So I thought I'd do something completely different. And I started boxing, which is not that different, I guess. Right. And he... I got bored of boxing and there. Here we are. And his name is Pacer, by the way, which is one of the coolest names I've ever. heard. Pacer Allen?

He's pretty... That's it, yeah, yeah. How much does he weigh? I wish he was about. How much does he weigh? Yeah. Ooh, it took him in pounds. He's 100 kilos, so I don't know how much it.

He's 100 kilos, so I don't know how much it was like two. What do you say you wish what? I wish I knew what it was in pounds. Oh, okay, okay. He's about 50 kilos. Is it not true that he only would, like, truly respect you, until you could deadlift 200 kilogram

yeah that's right what was it last year I think it was last year he saw because my brother was just then he was just then sort of getting better at the strongman he was lifting 300 kilos

wow and he said he said I got to pick 200 off the floor he said if you want my respect you got I picked 200 off the floor and I got it eventually so you did get it I'll undo it now

yeah it was after a fight I put in a few months just sort of I was lifting lifting lifting He didn't lift in and I got it eventually. Did he go to your fight on Saturday? Yeah, he did. Is your mom involved in sports as well?

Ah, no, no. She's a street brawler. A street brawler? Yeah, my mom's insane, man. You don't want to get on the wrong side of my mom. My dad sounds like it, but he's not the one. It's her. Your mom has actually gone into street fights, legit.

She's probably had more fights than me. What? over what? Got missing teeth and everything. Get out of here. Yeah, for real. Are you crazy? Are you close with your mom?

Yeah. Was she at your fight as well? No, she's banned. She's banned from coming to the fights. Come on. Are you kidding with me right now? Yeah, she gets out of control, so, you know, I don't want to. She can't come.

Is that true? Yeah. What did she do at the fight? ban. Who banned her? You are the UFC? Me, me. She just, no, it's not like she gets crazy, but she gets crazy with some people. I remember an amateur

fight she'd come to. There was, she tried to, she sort of implied that she'd fight the guy's girlfriend or something. Oh my God. I beat this guy when I was like 15 and she came in the changing room, I was talking to him, she said something

like, uh, yeah, I'd beat you in a fight as like a joke. And my mom sort of step forward and it's like, yeah, and I'd be you. And I'll just say, oh. So she has to stay home. She has to stay home, exactly. Is she mad about this?

Someone's got to look after this. That's true. She is mad about it, yeah, she is mad about it. But I think she understands now. Would you consider lifting the ban or never? Yeah, I'd consider lifting the band. She just got, maybe if she doesn't drink. She doesn't come to the show and drink, we're cool.

But she has to drink to deal with the nerves. I understand. Man, it's a vicious cycle. Exactly, exactly. It's like that character, fat bastard in Austin Powers. He eats because he's unhappy and he's unhappy because he eats. Oh, man, I'm going to tell my mom you're comparing to the fat bastard. I was just talking.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Allen. I apologize. Do you have any other siblings or just you and your brother? I have a half brother, but we're kind of close to like when we're friendly. we get along, but we don't really see each other. Do you think you'll ever transition to the Strongman stuff to fall in your father and brother's footsteps? Yeah, not competing, but I always thought

once I retire, I'm just going to lift a load of weights and see how strong I can get just out of interest, you know? That is fascinating. Everyone likes having big guns. What's the highest your dad got as far as Strongman is concerned? I believe in 1999 he was, he was ranked, among the top 30 strongest men in the world. Wow.

It's kind of, I know records weren't kept very well back then, but yeah, that's something my brother dug out on paper a few weeks ago. Unbelievable. And then as far as your concern, how quickly do you want to return? I was saying I like to have like three fights this year, you know. Yeah. I'm not too bad. I'm not really injured that much.

I kind of injured my wrists on one of the left hands I threw, so that should be fine. But yeah, maybe like July. July would be nice. July, perhaps in Scotland. Oh, is that in July, is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that could work.

Yeah. Are you going to go back to Montreal? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to... I'm planning to go back and help a friend of mine, Louis Sanadaki, who was in my corner. He's fighting a Southport as well, so I'd like to go out and return the favor and help him. You enjoy it over there? That's my hometown, you know? Oh, for real.

Yeah. I've never seen you where you've been. Well, I don't know. don't live there, but I am from there, proudly from there. I got the Canadian flag rate over here, but yes, that is where I'm from. Do you like living there when you're there? I do in summer. I love it in summer.

And winter, oh man, it's crazy. It is. It's too cold for me. I know, I know. I just saw a lot myself in the dorms and look out of the window and wait for sun. It's not bad. It's nice city. I like it.

By the one thing I've always wanted to ask you, BFA in your social media, what is that? it's a baby face assassin it's kind of it's someone Ashley Grimshaw I don't know if you know Ashley Grimshaw but he he come up with this nickname

when I was fighting amateur I think I was 16 years years old and he came up with it and it never stuck but I put my name as it on Twitter and Instagram and I just never changed it

I never thought to change it all right but you're not that's not your nickname your nickname is Almighty which a sponsor gave you, right? Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Wow. Maybe we're going to lean towards a AAA way now, like, triple G. Triple A works. It looks good for triple G. Maybe I can see. I like AAA. Yeah, I feel like AAA. I want to go with it. Okay. All right. Well, I wish you the best. Congratulations. Great to have you on the show for the first time. Are we going to have some celebratory pizza now that you want? Or are we going to lay off?

Oh, man. I've had about three or four pizzas already. All right. Yeah, I ordered three days after. All right. Well, enjoy them. And again, congratulations and say hello to your guy over there. What was his name? I didn't catch his name. Trafford. Trafford. That's right, of course. We spoke about that. He's pissed. He's pissed off. I think he heard what you said about him. Hello, cutie. All right. Well, enjoy your time with him. And again, congratulations. A great performance. Enjoyed every minute of it, including the pre-fight suit and looking forward to your return. Thank you, Arnold. Thanks a lot, man. Thank you. Hopefully see you soon.

Yes, absolutely. There he is. The Almighty one. Arnold Allen, joining us. Big win over Makwan Amir Khani on Saturday in London. Okay, main event, of course, on Saturday. Jimmy Manoa defeating Corey Anderson, the left hook from hell. One punch out, walk off. Fantastic performance by Jimmy Manua, and he joins us right now on the phone. Jimmy, are you there? Hello, Ariel. Hey Jimmy, how are you? How you doing? Yeah, I'm good, thanks.

Congratulations on the win. Thanks very much, man. It is great to finish off the night with a knockout like that in front of my home crowd, and I'm just soaking it all up now. Would it be fair to say, Jimmy, that you had a chip on your shoulder going into this fight for multiple reasons? It felt like perhaps some of the criticism of the main event and also some fighters not wanting to fight you left you with a big chip on your shoulder

and something to prove going into this fight. That was my assessment. Is that accurate? Do you know what? It was a little bit, a little bit. It was more like the criticism of the card and you know we just went to prove that the Brits

can put on a hell of a scrap and I know the whole of the crowd loved the whole card so you know I really and the UFC knows that I put on a show anyway and try to go out and prove it to everyone. Did you feel like were you somewhat honored that they would give you this vote of confidence

and say, yeah, we feel like you can headline a show at the O2? Yeah, 100%. I know I can. It was just the fans who've always got something to say with the critics and everything, but I'm used to where it goes with the territory. So you read some of that stuff and it pissed you off?

Do you know what? It doesn't really piss me off. I just think people love to put downer on stuff all the time and everything, you know? And even after my win, there's a lot of people trying to put downers on it. And I just think these people are sad, you know, but like I said, it goes with the territory. And, you know, no matter what you do in life, people are always trying to put down on it. So, you know, but the card was great. all of the UK fighters

and all of the fires were on the card put on a hell of a show. Yep, I enjoyed it immensely. I thought on paper it was a very fun card and I thought it delivered and in particular the main card which I thought was the most interesting part, all those fights delivered

and the last two, you know, the gunner fight and your fight ending in spectacular finishes. I asked Arnold this question, I also asked Joe Duffy this question so I ask you, I'm assuming I know the answer but overall you have to be, I mean, was there anything that you weren't happy with as far as that performance is concerned?

No, I was pretty happy with the performance. Yeah. I didn't take any damage. I made a couple of mistakes, what me and my team, but we've always, we've always, no fight I think he's going to go perfect ever. Sure. I'm pretty happy with the performance and onto the next one. So I noticed on Twitter moments ago you said that you wanted to clear up some of this talk real quick. What talk are you referring to?

You know what talk I'm referring to. I'm sorry you had it on your agenda for this interview. The John Jones talk and all the steroid talk and everything from the post-fight press conference and that. Okay, so this is the interesting thing about that. After you did your post-fight interview and you mentioned Cormier Rumble, I mentioned, okay, that's cool, you know, put yourself in that category. You're right there, some fresh blood. It all made sense. And some people on Twitter actually noted to me, oh, he should have called out John Jones.

Jones. And I thought I was like, yeah, maybe that would have been a good idea as well because John is still the big fish in that pond. And then you mentioned at the post-fight press conference, you weren't really interested because of the stuff he's been accused of. Do you feel the same way? Do you want to clarify that? Or have you changed your stance? Do you now feel like John Jones does make the most sense for you? Not the most sense, because I'm more focused on the title. But the John Jones fight would be an amazing fight. He's probably the best fire who's ever stepped into the octagon. Yeah. And then why not? I've always said, why wouldn't I want to fight him?

But he's not on my agenda right now. My gender's the belt. That's what I want, is the belt, you know. Did you get grief for your comments about him, considering, you know, like he had the alibi of the tainted supplement. It wasn't, you know, a full-blown stare. if you will and his team still believes that it was a misunderstanding all that's a did you did you get you know some some heat for saying that about him yeah yeah yeah

some of his fans uh tweeted he'd crush me he'd cut me do this to me and everything and i'm scared to fight him and all this all this shit but like these are just these are just twitter maniacs you know yeah and um i know i'm not scared like come on I took a fight with Rumble Johnson with like four and a half weeks notice. Why would I be scared to fight fucking John Jones, you know? Right. I fear no man. And everyone bleeds the same.

Everyone feels pain and everything. And, you know, why would I be scared to fight John Jones? Would it be fair to say that for you, it's title shot John Jones or bust in the sense that, like, now that you put yourself in that conversation, this is what you want, this is where you consider yourself. to be, you're not willing to fight, you know, one of these other kind of top eight or top ten light heavyweights. You want to be in that title picture for your next fight? My next fight should be either Daniel Kulmere, Anthony Rumble Johnson, John Jones, or David Hay. That's it. Those are the four people on my list. Those are the four people on my list. And that's that, that, that, that, that, that, that, I don't

mind who I have a fight. Otherwise, you're not interested. I'm not really interesting in fighting anyone else After my last fight with OSP I think I wanted to fight a rank Someone ranked above me As in as in Tashira or Ryan Bader Or even maybe one person behind me

That was Shogun We were scheduled to fight a couple of years ago But I got injured That would have been a fun fight But now I've But then Tishira turned me down Bader turned me down Shogun said no

and that and you know these people these people seem like they're running or hiding or avoiding I don't know what they're doing I don't see why they wouldn't want to fight the best

you know and solidify their position and you know fight the best people to Shire ended up fighting Jared Conning I'm not taking nothing away from him

but he's not even ranked in the top 10 or top 15 you know and that fight made no sense to me beda fought i mean badeus gone to bellito now is he or whatever i don't know what he's doing yeah and uh shogun fight it fought um what's his name shogun just fought john valante jane valante and all that who's i don't know where he's ranked and that so these people are not trying to not trying to further their career or nothing they're not trying to get the belt and everything i'm trying to get the belt That's what's on my agenda.

So I'm looking to go forward. Now, where's this David Haye thing come from? Do you guys have an issue or something? No, there's no issue, but I think it'll be a great fight. Connor McGregor wants to fight Floyd Mayweather. Why not put me against David Hay? David Hay is a big name in boxing. He just lost to Tony Bellew.

He's on his, you know, he's just got injured. I think I think I think we'd make a great fight in boxing. come to his world, we'll do boxing. We're two big names in London as well and everything. And I think, I think why not? Why not try to get him into MMA? Why go on his turf? No, he won't last in MMA.

So I'm going to take him down and smash his head in. And I'll come to his world. I'll come to his world. We'll do a big money fight in London. We'll sell out the O2 and everything. And do you know, that'll make sense. Have you crossed him? to Vegas. We can go on, we can go on the

McGregor Mayweather on the card. I heard Roy Jones wants to fight Anton Silver as well. Yeah. This is picking up for momentum. Let's do it. I know. I mentioned the same thing, but my problem with it is, why do all the MMA fighters have to do the boxing? Why can we get a mix? Because we're warriors. We're warriors. The boxes are scared to come to them, we'll go to their turf. We're the hardest, toughest,

workers, working athletes in the world. We fear no one. We'll come to boxing and do their thing. You know, we do boxing. And they don't do MMA. They're scared to come to MMA. Have you ever crossed past with David? Have you ever trained with him, seen him around?

I mean, you're from sort of the same part of town? Yeah, yeah, I've seen him around. I've seen him around. What do you think of him? He's a funny guy. He's a funny guy. I don't really, I don't really, I don't really, not too fond of him

but I haven't got an issue with him but I just think as a bit of a weirdo what makes you think he's funny like why is he a weirdo I don't know his funny hair and his funny attitude towards life and other fighters

and I just thinks he's on this high pedal stool when I don't think he is and I want to test his metal he's sort of talked about in the past about you know consider flirting with the idea of MMA if my memory serves me correct. Many moons ago, do you remember this?

No, I don't remember this. I don't remember this. I remember me and him were going to do a training session for the media sort of thing. And I remember he's saying to me, oh, he's saying to the PR rep, oh, if he hits me hard, I'm going to knock him out or something. What? Then the training session didn't happen And I kind of got the needle with him

Because of that, you know Wow I haven't got no issue with him He is what he is And that's it He's in boxing on in the memory I think we should fight though I saw some other people say

Well why not go for Anthony Joshua Why not shoot for the moon here? You're trying to ease into it? I don't think I don't think I don't think that any Joshua would fight me Okay He's got Klitschko He's got Wildo and his agenda

He's got all these other world, world beaters. Yeah, fair enough. His agenda, you know, and I think, and David Hay just lost a big fight to Tony Bellew, and I think it will make a perfect match. We're around about the same age as well. Yep. He's had his career.

He's still a big team in boxing. He's had his career, and I think it makes sense for him as well. And, by the way, for the record, do you have any amateur professional boxing on your resume? No, nothing. I don't even have to MMA on my resume. But you're still confident. Yeah, my first fight was a pro.

I spot with boxers all the time in London. I spar with great boxes all the time, Dillion White, Isaac Chain, Berlin. I spot with all great boxes, and I do very well in it, you know. And especially with eight or ten-ounce gloves and don't think I can knock anyone out.

What happens if Alex Gustavson-Beats go over to share and the UFC says we want you guys to fight again. What do you say? No, we're doing no fight there. There's no fight there. Now you're friends. Your training partners, right?

We're training partners. We're brothers. We eat, train. Go out. Fucking. I know his family. It knows my family and everything. We help each other. He learns off me.

I learn off of him. There's no fight there. Okay. Who are you going to root for on April 8th? Johnson, who you have the law? Two or Cormey of the fresh matchup, who do you feel like you have a better chance of getting that fight, you know, with,

if they win on the 8th of April? I don't know. I really don't know, man. They're two great fighters. I lost to Anthony Johnson. Yeah. And he beat Anthony Johnson. Yeah. But I really don't know, man.

I think it's a 50-50 fight. I think it's who implement their game plan more and who gets their hand on on who first. You know, I think, I think if it goes the first, like the first time,

I think Rumble will take his time more and, and be more careful with the wrestling, because I know, because he probably knows if Cormier gets his hands on him and gets him down or getting tired against the fence,

call me as a fucking problem. You know, so, um, I don't know, I really don't know, man. I really don't, I can't call it. I wouldn't,

I won't bet on it. Do you, do you feel like you have a better chance of getting the title shot of Cormier wins because you haven't fought him yet? No, I think I've got a title shot regardless of who wins. Have they told you that? Regardless of who wins. No, they haven't told me that, but I think that's going to happen.

I think that's going to happen. Because the only file makes sense is other than that, to show, but we're already scheduled to fight. Yeah. And he bottled it. He bottled it. I signed the contract. I don't even know if he signed a contract, but the fight was on.

and somehow it didn't happen. Yeah, you have no idea why. I remember this. It was supposed to happen in Anaheim, right? Yes. And the, oh, then where's Anaheim? California, right? Yeah, yeah, and then the fight got cancelled,

and then it was going to happen in Brooklyn. The whole card. Yeah. No, no, no, no, it was going to happen in... What the fuck, that place? Denver. Denver, fuck, yeah. Is that the one with altitude?

Yep, yep, yep. Denver. Yeah, so it was many... happened there and then there was some issue with me going out there

I wanted to climatize so I wanted to go out there say a month before so I can climatize so I didn't have

no cardio issues and that and then that didn't happen I said alright I'll fight him in Brooklyn on I think it's

February the 11th and didn't hear anything then the next thing I heard he was fighting Conanier and I was like

what the fuck happened there and then that was that. So I think he bottled he didn't want none of me. I think he wants to hold on it to his number three spot in the rankings.

And, yeah, that was that. So that's the other option is to share up, but he's fighting Gustafin in May now. Yeah. You know, after April, the winner out of that it makes sense for me to fight them. How would you react if they give John Jones

a title shot after everything he's been through. Then I'll fight David Hay. I like how you're sticking to your guns on these two options here, nothing else. Are you worried that they're going to do that? Are you worried that they're going to do that? What? Give the fight to John Johns. Yeah, the title shot after his suspension.

It could happen. It could happen. It's M.A. It could happen. It's all about show business for them right now as well, you know? Yeah. about rankings and stuff like that. So, listen, to me, everything is going to play out how it's meant to be.

So I'm not really too stressed about what happens next. I'm going to enjoy my win. I'm going to go on holiday in the next couple of weeks and enjoy my rest because I'm going to have a little rest now because I went straight back into camp

straight after the OSP fight because I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight like in December or January. And that didn't happen. I had to wait to April. So I've had a long, long, hard camp, back-to-back camps. And, yeah, so I want to have a little break. But everything I believe is going to play out how it's going to be.

So I don't know. You know what I would do, just my two cents here. Go to Buffalo, do the old James Tony routine and just stalk, you know, everyone involved. Get a seat in the front row. I'm sure not that hard. I mean, you're a very famous guy. In Buffalo, I thought it was in Vegas. It's in Buffalo, right?

Yeah, it's in Buffalo. Yeah, I might get Dana to fly me over there. It's actually closer to you than Vegas, because it's all the way on the East Coast and just show up and, you know, being everyone's face, Cormier-Johnson winner, crash the press conference, I'm next,

you know, do that whole thing. I might jump the fence as well, won't we? People like that, people get behind that. The fence into the octagon, yeah. It's not really my style. I'm not really a loud, loud person. This is probably my first ever call out, like calling names and stuff.

But I believe now is the time. I'm like one fight away from the title, so I've got to speak up and, you know, I'm there. I'm there already now. Well, people are taking notice, that's for sure. You've got to, you know, like they say, close mouths, they don't get fed. You've got to speak up, especially in this sport, in this day and age, as you mentioned, it seems like the squeaky wheel is getting the grease. Of course.

That's one of my favorite signs of close mouth doesn't get fed. There you go. Lions eat first, right? Exactly. I was paying attention. I will be. Yeah, yeah. All right, Jimmy.

Well, I wish you the best. Congratulations on the win. It was, I mean, what a, you know, the power that you exuded from that punch, because initially I was like, okay, you know, just a left hook. But it was, whoo, one punch for a guy like Corey Anderson, I don't think we've ever seen him like that, walk off. You felt it right away. I know

Corianson is a great guy man we had a big talk after the fight in the fighter's hotel after and everything because it's such a great guy

man I've got nothing but respect for me he's another good fighter I like man because he he doesn't fear no one he took the fight

he said yeah whatever man let's do it let's do it when all these other fighters were trying to dark and hold on to their position so I expect him a lot

He's a great guy. And, you know, but I knew what, I knew I had too much for him in the fight. I just knew as soon as the fight started, even before the fight started, I knew I had too much. I had too much rage inside me. And I knew that my punches were going to be devastating. And I just knew that as soon as I connect with one. And that's what that, that goes for every fighter.

If I connect one clean one, it's lights out. It's light out. Me and Rumble Johnson are the hardest hitters in the division. and that and it's just one shot one kill for me you know so I just got to land one so everyone's got to take note and that and yeah I knew

well and when I walked off the minute the second I land the punch I knew he didn't he didn't need anymore and that that's why I walked off and it's kind of like a Mark Hunt for you but yeah I had my wits about me and everything I knew I knew

I knew it was done and that so yeah but respect a big respect to Cory Anderson now. Great job, Jimmy. Great stuff going into the fight, during the fight, after the fight. I really feel like your stock has gone to another level after all of this.

So congratulations on the big win in the main event, sort of exercising those demons of a couple of years ago at the O2 with Alexander Augustuson. This time you look fantastic and now you're in that conversation all of a sudden. So great work there and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next. Whether it's a title shot or David, hey, I'm all in

regardless. Thanks, Ariel. Thanks for having me, man. My pleasure. We'll talk to you soon. There he is. The poster boy, Jimmy Manuel, great stuff from him. Really taking his talking to a whole other level.

I like that a lot. Getting a little loud there, and we'll see what he gets as a result. Okay, let's move along. I'm very excited about our next segment. As you guys know, back on the day, there was no bigger wrestling fan than me. I was watching it all. Every WWE pay-per-view, Ross, MacDown, the Wednesday TNA pay-per-views. I mean, I was the biggest nerd out there, a mark of all marks.

And, you know, two of my favorites, no joke, not just saying it because they're coming on next, were two fellow Canadians, Edge and Christian. I love these guys from back in the day with the brood. Remember them? Drinking the blood, the blood, blood bass, all that stuff. It was a lot of fun to see two Canadians rise and become champions and things like that. And now they're actually joining us on the show because they're getting into the podcast world. And they're actually big MMA fans as well.

So let's welcome them on. We have Edge who is joining us from Ireland, I believe, and Christian who's in America, so two Canadians, not in Canada right now. Are you guys there? Edge, are you there? I am here. Oh, yeah. You sound great. And Christian, are you there?

Ariel, I am here and I am in America. You are in America. All over America. There we go. I didn't know exactly where I didn't want to give away your coordinate, so I just wanted to keep it very vague. I don't know. Let's keep it on the lowdown, huh? I don't want people know where I'm at.

And by the way, I hate this question, but I will break my rule and ask it. Do you prefer being known as Edge and Christian or Jay and Adam? It doesn't matter to me. I mean, answer to both. It's what put us on the map. So it's not like I get offended. Okay. All right.

Fair enough. I mean, I guess you put it this way. Like when we introduce ourselves, like if I introduce myself to somebody for the first time, no matter who they are, I introduce myself as Jay. Okay. But, you know, but either way, whatever you want, man. And by the way, Jay, do you remember way back when I was just kind of a pimple-faced loser? 10 years ago, I did some work for SpikeTV.com and TNA and you had just gone to TNA.

And you were very, very nice to me backstage. You, Kurt Angle in particular, do you have any recollection of this? I doubt that you do, but just wanted to throw it out there. I wish I could tell you that I should, but honestly, I don't. Sorry. All right. Well, my heart is broken. I'm a big fan of your work.

He was nice, because let's be honest. He's usually just a prick. No, he was super nice. to believe it. I mean, this was a guy. You remember, it was a big deal when he went over, Christian Cage, and everyone was so excited about this big name going over to TNA, kind of like what we're seeing now with UFC and Bellator. And I don't remember why we cross past, but I remember you being super nice and even giving me your cell number. Really? Yeah, you were that forthcoming. Huh. I don't know, I don't even remember that. It's probably, and you know what? It's probably the

same number. It is. You never even called me. You never even called me all these years. I didn't. I didn't. And by the way, Adam, why are you in Ireland right now? I'm filming Vikings. Oh, that show for History Channel, right? I have a massive, yeah, yeah. So I'm currently filming season five of that show. So I'm in Dublin. Wow.

I know Josh Donaldson of the Blue Jays was on an episode. Did you guys cross pass? No, actually. He filmed for season four. I guess a big fan of the show. So he got on for an episode. and but I came on for season five for the entirety of this season. Okay.

All right. Well, congratulations on that. Okay. So like I said at the top, you guys are getting into the podcast game now. Your new show debuts March 24th, which is this Friday, I believe. And is that this Friday? Yeah, that is this Friday. So, Jay, let me ask you, as you know, there is a plethora of wrestling podcasts out there.

Were you worried that you would be just another? I mean, I mean, every single. old time wrestling guy, current wrestling guy, they all have a podcast. Were you worried about being another fish in that big pond? Wait, hold on a second here. Yes. I thought we were like the only one.

You're telling me there's other wrestling podcast? I got bad news. We could rethink this. Oh my goodness. No, no, actually, yeah, we realized that it was, you know, there's a lot to choose from when it comes to the wrestling podcast. So, you know, something that we talked about, you know, honestly all the way back to about August that would think.

And, you know, we started kind of talking about and bantering back and forth. We realized that, you know, we did have a lot of stories and a lot of, you know, inside knowledge and things like that. And we were even kind of surprising each other with some of the things that we were talking to each other about that, you know, just assuming the other person knew, which is, hey, if we're surprising ourselves with this stuff, this might be, you know, interesting and stuff that that fans, you know, want to hear. So it was like, it just seemed like a, like a fun thing to do for us. It's not just, you know, obviously we realize that our audience will be wrestling based,

and that's our bread and butter. And but, you know, there's other things that interest as well. Like, you know, we're obviously, like you mentioned, we're big, M.A. fans, fans of other sports, hockey, football, music. We're both dads with young children. So we got that going on. So there's a lot of stuff for us to talk about a lot of topics to cover. And we'll have some pretty cool guests.

And I think that the dynamic that Adam and I have, you know, going back and being friends since basically the sixth grade. Yeah. You know, we just have this kind of natural banter between us that I think we'll make it entertaining and fun. By the way, I have to say I'm disappointed you didn't say grade six. It feels like you've truly become an American when you say sixth grade. Yeah. Well, I am in America to keep it American.

Yeah, fair enough. And so I heard a rumor, by the way, Adam, that you guys were in attendance at UFC 196. I never actually went out and tried to confirm this rumor. The McGregor Diaz one fight. Is that true? Were you guys there? we were yeah um we were uh we're in la at the time and um we we wanted to go check it out uh you know because mcgregor right now is just a beast on every front so really just wanted to to see what that

was all about and i was very intrigued by it too because i had a feeling diaz was going to do what he did um you know punching up two weight divisions like that it um i thought that would be a big challenge. So in seeing them, when they first got in the octagon, I was like, whoa, Diaz is a lot bigger. But then McGregor in that first round did his thing. And I was like, man, this this did's a pit bull. This might not go the way I was expecting. Sure enough, eventually that chin, you know, held and, you know, you saw what happened. But then you come to the second fight and it's an actual absolute war. Right. Good stuff. Yeah. Did you guys go to the rematch as well at him? No, no.

I think I was over here, actually, which I'm in the center of McGregor, like, this dude is an icon over here. And anybody that finds out, like, they're like, Edge, what's going on? Oh, what do you think of Connor? He's great. I don't know what it has to do with me, but he's great. Jay, was that your first UFC event? actually it was my second. The first one that I ever went to was the second Ortiz Shamrock fight in Hollywood, Florida, years ago.

Yeah, that was the first one that I ever went to live. This was actually the second one. So that was, so you're saying, was that the rematch or the third fight between Ortiz and Chamrock? That was the third fight, right? It must have been the third fight, yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of a smaller fight night. McGregor Diaz was obviously a pay-per-view, experiencing a pay-per-view live and comparing,

pairing it to the WWE production. I personally think, you know, of course, the WWU show is, you know, a little more glitz and glamour. It's kind of a story as opposed to just like random matches. But how would you compare? Which live event experience do you enjoy more? I think they're both have. Go ahead, Adam.

Well, it's interesting. It's kind of, they're different beasts, right? I mean, they're, I guess, on the same tree, but they're different branches. So with WWWWW you can guarantee that it will be entertaining because you can map out a 30-minute match. You can do all of those things. MMA, there's a chance that, you know, you get like you had the other night,

sneaky left hook, and the fight's over in one punch. So it's tougher to guarantee a solid night all the way through with MMA. but that's part of what because it's an athletic contest. So it always has the risk of that happening. So it's too hard to compare. It really is. But what I did notice some similar,

the similarities are the way that the fans, like Adam said, it's the same tree, different branches, almost, so to speak, whereas, you know,

the fans are invested in the performers or the fighters or or wrestlers or whatever, you know, who they're watching, they're investing in that. You'll see the T-shirts, you know, when people come up on the screen, like walking into the arena

or in wrestling terms or doing a backstage interview or something about effect, they react accordingly to, you know, who they like or who they don't like. They're invested, and that's kind of a cool thing to see, to see that that is kind of the same. I'll use myself as an example here. When I fully got invested in MMA as a job and it became a 24-7 thing for me,

I couldn't go back to wrestling anymore because I thought wrestling felt too predictable. And it just, it just felt, I always knew what it was. I always knew who was scripted and all that stuff. I just felt like I can see the outcomes a mile away. Do you feel, and I'll ask you this, Jay, do you feel like the rise of MMA has hurt the rise in popularity

or just the popularity in general of professional wrestling? I don't think so. I just think that with any, with wrestling, it seems to be very cyclical. Like it's in cycles, it's up. There's times where it's really at a high peak, and there's some times where it dips down a little bit. bit. But I don't think so. I think if anything, it's just given another option, but I don't think

necessarily that it's taken away from the popularity or heard it. I don't believe so. Okay. And for you, Adam, considering you had to retire and you had some health issues, do you still follow wrestling like you used to when you were an active guy, when you were championed all that stuff? Or have you tried to kind of move away from it as you transitioned to a new chapter? You know, it's, I have two daughters, right? Yeah. I have a three-year-old and a nine-month-old, as well as trying to juggle, you know, being on a TV show. So it doesn't leave a lot of extra time for stuff.

I have to basically catch stuff after it happens now. And that's with anything. That's with, that's with MMA, that's with WWE. It's with football. It's with hockey. I'm usually behind now. I haven't, I still watch everything. I'm still a fan of WWE.

I still, you know, there's a reason that I latched onto it as a kid because to me it was, it was superheroes, it was comic books come to life. And there was nothing else I saw that that did that for me. So, you know, I still love the spectacle of it. I still love the absurdity of it. I still love the theater of it and the fact that it's this melting pot of all different forms of things because it's like a rock show. It's like a TV show. It's like an athletic contest. It's all of these things thrown into one.

So I still dig that. But I can't say I watch it like I did when I was a fan of it coming into it. Regardless of how much you watch, Adam, WrestleMania, do you always make it a point to watch? Or does that just kind of fall under like a different, you know, it's just another show, different day, no big deal? You know, I'll try. Okay. But again, it's, it's all to depend, you know, on what that day is. You know, are the kids sick?

No, did they get to bed? Yeah. Then maybe there's a possibility I'll get to it. But, you know, being dad's job number one, priority number one. What about for you, Jay? From my understanding, your kind of department. from WWE, there wasn't a big hullabaloo about it. It just, you kind of went quietly into the night also due to some health issues, correct?

Yeah. So I think with my situation, you know, it was a little bit different that we didn't really know, you know, where it was at, you know, when it happened. So, you know, it's kind of one of those things where it was kind of an ongoing process. And then as we went along, realized it was probably something just, you know, better to shelve it. And same thing, you know, I'm a father to a young daughter. and, you know, you have to put your family first,

and I just didn't, you know, I didn't want to jeopardize anything in the future with how it was going to be able to relate and then be with my daughter and my family. So it was just, you know, you know, and like I said, for me, it was kind of an easier process because of the fact that I'd already felt like I'd accomplished so much in my career. It wasn't like, it got cut short at like 29 or 30 words, like, hey, I still have all this stuff to do. I'd already done a ton of stuff.

I've been a world champion twice been on every major pay-per-view numerous times so in that sense I can close the book and feel good about what I did in my career and not say man what if this would have happened because I probably did more than I ever thought that I would

Are you officially done? I'm officially done in the ring, yeah. Okay. Do you watch it like you used to or are you like Adam as well just very busy and you know if you have time, you'll watch it. No, I definitely try to watch it. And that's the good thing about the WW Network now, too,

is even if you don't watch it, it's on there. So if you're doing cardio at the gym or something that effect, you can always throw it on your phone or on an iPad or something like that and watch it. But yeah, I definitely try to keep up and watch it whenever I can. But same thing. If it happens that I miss it, I miss it. But I definitely always try to keep up and keep up the date on what's going on.

Adam, while we were doing the show today, they announced that the Rock and Roll Express was going to the Hall of Fame and I think Jim Cornett was going to induct them and that's a big deal because of his past with WWE and it sort of came to my mind that you're in the Hall of Fame and Jay

isn't? Isn't this a travesty? How is this possible? And you've been in there for several years, right? How is he not in the Hall of Fame? Yeah, they put me in like within a year, I don't know. I think they just wanted to trot me out there before I was on a walker, you know, and while I still looked somewhat like me.

So I would think it's going to happen at some point here now that everybody kind of knows that Jay's retired too. Because when there's any kind of question like, is he done? Isn't he done? As soon as you go in the Hall of Fame, it's pretty much established and set in stone that you're done. So it's going to happen. Are you bothered by this, Jay? Yeah, Travis. Not a bit.

It doesn't worry anything in the slightest. I mean, if it happens, it happens. you know, I feel good about the things that I've done, things that I've accomplished. So I'm not, I don't lose any sleep over it. All right, fair enough. I'm not trying to, you know, get you to talk smack about them, but it just seems weird.

You guys are so close and linked. No, I mean, well, listen, I think about how many, you know, big, you know, stars from the past that have left their mark, you know, in the industry that aren't even in there yet. So, I mean, I'm 43 years old. There's plenty of time. I'm not too worried about it. Fair enough.

Let me ask you about this, Jay. When Brock Lesnar came back in July and beat up Mark Hunt, I remember looking at him at the post-fight press conference and thinking, this is legitimately the baddest man in the world. He's able to come over from pro wrestling, one-month training camp, and completely annihilate Mark Hunt. And I was like, I was like, this guy is going to make a crap load of money. I mean, they are going to capitalize on this when he goes back to wrestling. It just couldn't have worked out better for him for WWE. And then all the post-fight drug stuff comes out. as part of that community,

did you feel like he embarrassed the wrestling community with the way he handled that? I don't know. It's not for me to say. I'm not even sure, to be honest with you, 100% what it was or anything that that. I'm not going to comment on something

that I don't really, I'm not really educated on. But I know that he went out there and he won impressively. So, you know, I mean, the guys, he's an amazing athlete. Were you rooting for him because he's, you know, one of the boys?

Of course, yeah, I was rooting for him. I know Brock. I like Brock. And of course, yeah, it was a room for him. I wanted him to do well. What about you, Adam? Did you feel, because I'm not part of the wrestling community, but I thought after the fact that it was a black guy on not only the UFC, but WWE as well,

for him getting caught twice, two separate drug tests. How did you feel about it? I wasn't embarrassed by it or anything like that. I mean, I think it's obviously pretty prevalent in that sport. Yeah. That doesn't excuse anything either. it's just, but I didn't put that much thought into it, to be honest. I think no matter what, the guy's a beast and, you know, has game, whether whatever he's on or whatever he isn't on.

That being said, you know, I'm a fan of Mark Hunt too, and I felt bad for him. So it's such a gray area, man. It's one of the, it's kind of like baseball. It was in the late 90s with McGuire and Sosa. And it seems like now baseball, I think, has more or less got it, more or less figured out. Yeah. And I think MMA is kind of in that phase right now where they have some stuff. They have to get together.

as you guys know one of the hot topics these days Mayweather McGregor and I'm sure you're hearing a lot about it over there in Ireland Adam and some fans kind of roll their eyes at it don't want to see it don't want to partake you guys I know you're somewhat you know wrestling historians you may recall Ali and Anoki or Chuck Wepner and Andre the Giant this sort of thing has been kind of dabbled with as far as promoters are concerned and maybe not quite like this

there was even a story about Lennox Lewis competing against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania over a decade ago. Adam, for you, how interested would you be in this? Is this something you find out that this is happening? You want to try to be there. If not, you're going to order it. You're all in. Or do you feel like it's kind of a silly endeavor? I'm going to watch for sure if it happens, just for the spectacle of it. I think, you know, with Ali Anoki, you watch that back, man. It was like watching paint dry. It was just, it was not good. Although Ali developed blood clots in his legs for the rest of his career from that too. So there's still a risk. I think with this, you know, I don't know how

entertaining it'll be, but I think the pre-fight antics will make it worthwhile. Yeah. Because McGregor has figured out what wrestling has been doing, you know, since Gorgeous George. And that is talk people into seats. And Mayweather does the same thing. So that, that, may far outshine the fight itself if it happens, but I'll still be watching. Do you feel, Jay, some people compare him to like early Rick Flair. He talks about his clothes and all that stuff and some of his rants. Do you feel a connection there? Do you feel like he's kind of, he's actually openly talked about watching the rock back in the day in Stone Cold.

Do you see a lot of pro wrestling in what he's doing? Yeah, for sure. I mean, a lot of it's pro wrestling 101, this stuff he has. But it works. but I don't think he does it or says it just to say it. I honestly believe with a guy like him, everything that comes out of his mouth, he believes it or he makes himself believe it.

And that goes right into the fight. Like when he says that he's going to walk down and knock on the first round, like he saw with the first Vez fight, like he said he was going to knock him on the first round. He threw everything he could in that first round to get him out of there in the first round. Didn't happen. Then we saw what happened after that.

He made the adjustments for the second fight and he won. But I think that on that level he truly believes everything he says, but I do think that, yeah, it stems from, I'm realizing that pulling from pro wrestling, from having a character behind the athlete puts asses in seats. Yeah, I feel like anyone who ignores the fact that, you know, MMA's roots are in pro wrestling. You're just kidding yourself. Some people just don't want to admit it.

But I feel like MMA has stolen a lot from pro wrestling, including, you know, Dana White and Vince McMahon and all that stuff. Allow me with just a few minutes left to be a total fan here. Can I ask you, Jay, who came? I've not heard you guys talk about this, and I'm sorry if you have adjusted, I'm sure you have a thousand times. Who came up with the five-second pose and when you guys transitioned into more comedy stuff? Whose idea? How did that actually come about? Well, we were trying to, we'd split away from the brute, and we were trying to have a little bit of a personality on our own and trying to figure out what that was.

And there was one writer at the time who was the same age as us. We got along really well with him. His name is Brian Gawork. and we were just kind of throwing around different ways that we can be presented when we went out there. And at the time we were coming through the crowd and we kind of wanted to get away from coming to the crowd and come down the ramp. So we kind of took it like we were becoming these two guys with a little bit of an edge, a little bit of a chip on their shoulders. So we would come out instead of coming to the crowd where people could pat us in the back and touch us, we would stop and pose for them. Still give them their time.

We'd post them. They weren't allowed to touch us, but they could look at us, take their pictures and we'd get them five seconds to do it for the benefit. those of flash photography. So I remember when we said we do the pose and then I think Brian said, you know, for the benefit of those of flash photography, we're like, what the hell is flash photography? He's like, you know, like I'm like, okay, cool, it's pretty ridiculous. Let's just use that. And like, it just kind of stuck. Oh, that stuff was great. You guys and Mick Foley and the kazoo's and all. Who brought in the kazoo's? Whose idea was that? I actually honestly don't remember. I happen to be, I think the kazoo happened to be sitting on

doing a backstage shoot, I think. They have all the equipment. They have a car. that roll around the equipment, you know, the cameras and things like that. And I think somehow there was a kazoo sitting on somebody's cart. And I think one of us has picked it and said, hey, we should play the kazoo on this. And I think it just kind of was that ridiculous. Like, yeah, let's do it. And it just kind of worked, you know? So I think that's how it happened.

There wasn't a lot of thought. Yeah. It's amazing how you just like step into these things and then they become, you know, every comment that I've gone since announcing that you guys were going to be on the show has been either about the five seconds or the kazooz. So are you okay, Adam, with that being part of your legacy? Are you fine with that? Oh, for sure.

I mean, it was, and it was what initially put me on the map, you know, our tag team. And what we did was kind of the first chapter of my career. And it's one of my favorites, possibly my favorite, you know. So the fact that people still talk about us having a kazoo 15, 16 years after the fact is absolutely ridiculous to me, but that means we did something that people enjoyed. And at the end of the day, that's all you can ask for in that industry. And Jay, to end on this, you guys were in attendance at the Montreal screw job, correct? We were.

Just as fans? No, we were there. Adam actually at the time had a what's called a developmental contract. So he was there, and he didn't have a car at the time, so I borrowed my mom's car to drive him to Montreal. else. So he was actually under a contract. I wasn't, but we were actually backstage. We actually watched it from down a side hallway. We were watched down the crowd, but we were kind of not sitting in a crowd. We were kind of sitting down this hallway that had a perfect shot of the ring. Wow. So did you see the backstage altercation with Brett? No, no. We just, I remember we walked back after and all these people were rushing around and somebody said, oh, you guys better leave. And we left. And we had no idea what had happened until later. We were oblivious to it. We knew that something was weird about the finish. But we didn't. We didn't understand what was going on until much later. Do you regret leaving early? No, I think we probably should have left.

Okay. Time to leave when we left. How, how, how, how, I just want to see this before we leave. I said a comment about for three Canadians to be on your podcast and MMA podcast, and we haven't even talked about GSP. Yeah, that is weird. That is weird. And I, and I, yeah.

Well, I mean, going back, you were talking about your, when you were all in on, on, on, on MMA, I think, like, you know, for us, you know, we got to, you know, bootleg tapes and and watch them in college, you know, the hoist Gracie, all that stuff. And then kind of with a Tito and Shamrock. And then, you know, but for me, when I really got attached to it was when George St. Pierre, a guy that we kind of call her own kind of hit the scene and became a huge superstar. Was there a specific George fight that drew you in? I remember watching the first time of some fight.

I didn't know who he was. I remember him being introduced from Montreal. And I remember he was wearing white tights and kind of had white knee sleeves on. I can't remember exactly who it was that he was fighting. But I was like, oh, it's a Canadian guy. I never heard of him. And he just destroyed the guy that he was fighting. I remember watching that.

And I remember him beating Frank. Frank Trigg. Pretty handily. And obviously, you know, going on from there. But, I mean, to talk about a guy, I think that he's just come back, which is huge, I think, for the sport and for the UFC. But, I mean, English isn't even his first language, and he kind of jumped that language barrier

and because of how elite he is and the things that he does, and he kind of went at a gentlemanly way about him, became a huge superstar. And kind of, I think that kind of like Pachiao-esque almost, where he was so good that the language barrier didn't even really matter. See, I had a lot of confidence in this show idea of you two doing your own show. I feel like my confidence has just gone up even more because you just took control of the whole interview. You wanted to get something in there.

I didn't ask you about GSP. You said, this guy's fucking it up. Let me get something in there about GSP. The Canadian guy, how is he screwing this up? And you just took control. And that's what a good, you just sort of took the bull by the horns. That was very impressive. For a guy that hasn't done a show yet, unless you've taped a few already, I was thoroughly impressed.

Well, this is kind of, we have no idea what we're going to talk about this Friday. So this is kind of our warm up. Oh, great. Do you have a guest yet for the debut episode? I saw that you guys were teasing it. Yeah, we do actually. We do. We do.

We do have the guest. I don't, have we announced it yet? Oh. No, not yet. I don't think we've announced it, although we could announce it. Can we get an exclusive here? Can we get an exclusive?

No. Why? Hey, you want to get kicked out of the Edging Christian show like you didn't, you know. I don't want to say it, but. Wow. But if you guys do it yourself, it's not on me. I'm not the one that out scooping. you. I can go try to dig and find out, and then I'll be the dick.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we had to wait. Wow. No selling me. That's what they call no selling, right? Yeah. Completely what he just said. And by the way, we didn't even get into Carlos Newton and Gary Goodridge. Yeah. God. I feel like you guys are really disappointed in this whole experience. You just wanted to talk Canadian M.A. You should have told me about that earlier. Well, I mean, I wanted to. I would try to. You just keep asking about wrestling. Also, I mean... It's an MMA show. Yeah. What's your... Okay, last thing.

Favorite MMA fight of all time. Jay, you go first. Favorite MMA fight of all time? Man. I think when St. Pierre won the... It was a first time against Matt Hughes. That's my favorite, too. No joke.

UFC 65 in Sacramento, California. Yeah. Head kick, chopped him. Wow. Through the mouth guards. Yes. Went to his knees. What a moment it was.

What about you, Adam? Yeah. Tough call. I don't know if I can narrow it down to just one. I'm a St. Pierre guy. I'm also a Couture guy. So anytime they had good nights, I enjoyed it. Pretty much I just, I like the guys.

I love McGregor and the fact that he basically, he manifests whatever he says. But I like the George St. Pierre's and the Randy Couture's who really just do their talking in the ring. So, you know, if those guys had a good night, I was into it. You're not going to pick one? one that comes to mind It's tough

I mean it's really tough to just maybe okay recently um Bigfoot and

Mark Hunt oh wow okay this is the first one I would say the one that I've seen most recently would probably be uh

Laller and McDonk that was fantastic yeah another great Canadian UFC 189 yeah So, but that's just because that's, that's off the top of my head of what's most recently I saw.

Okay, that was, that was ridiculous. Yes. And it ended in a draw. Many over the, yeah. Crazy. Well, this has been a lot of fun, guys. I could keep you on for an hour and ask you all kinds of questions about Gangrel and, and, uh, and, and, and all kinds of characters from back in the day. But, uh, we do have to move along.

I wish you the best. It's March 24th. Or, yes? Or Ariel, I could just, I could just kick you off and just continue to take over your show. That is true. And I'm sure a lot of people won't mind, to be honest with you. But, yeah, March 24th, the official launch of the Edge and Christian podcast. You can get it on iTunes, right?

Any other places? Everywhere. Spitzer. Google Play, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. All right. And we'll get E&C. Spot of Awesomeness. And we will find out the first guest.

Is it a big name? Are we coming out Guns Blazing here? Yeah. Yeah. All right. I like the delayed there. It better be Brett Hart, I'm just going to say. Well, good luck with it, guys. I appreciate it very much. Adam, I appreciate you coming on from all the way in Ireland. And Jay, thanks for stopping by from America. It means a lot to us. I've been a big fan for a very long time. So this was really cool. Thank you. And good luck with the podcast and everything else in this new chapter for both of you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.

All right, there they are. Adam and Jay, aka Edge and Christian. How fun is that? Sometimes tricky at times to do the two-man interview, especially when they can't see you. But that was a lot of fun and could have talked to them for hours about their careers. And as you can tell, big MMA fans as well. Great stuff there. Check out their podcast. I have a feeling it will be very entertaining. It launches, as I said, March 24th, this Friday. All right, let's move along. Talk about legends. We haven't had this legend on the show for quite some time. The one and only Boss Routon is joining us. right now and he joins us via the magical Skype. There he is. Boss, wow. What great Skype connection. Your internet is fantastic. It's unbelievable. I'm actually pretty close. I got it downstairs here at the box. Is that your house?

Yeah, the background. Yeah, that's actually the kitchen what you see in the background. I'm sitting outside always. I like to do these things outside in the backyard. Wow. Beautiful house you have. Thank you. Thank you. I like the backyard a lot. I do everything here. I got, you. You know, can watch TV outside, smoke cigars outside.

What a life. And with a little bit of Coke. Coca-Cola, actually I have to say, otherwise people are going to go start again. But, yeah, that's my thing here. Being outside, relaxing. I got a hammock. I got everything. Chill, TV, fireplace.

I can cook. And then I can watch my own stuff outside while the kids are watching inside. Wow. That's amazing. What a life for boss. All right. We have a lot to discuss, boss. First off, you just returned from New York.

You were there for a World Series of Fighting, correct? Yes, I was. It was an awesome show. Yeah. I don't know if you watched it because it was a lot going on this weekend. Yes, I was watching. Yeah, man. I mean, like, Goy, even off.

He just, he knocked out Sean Jordan. I did not expect that. I would know that it could be a knockout, of course, but from both these guys, but in the first round, right away in the first two minutes. Yeah. That was a nice little knockout there. And, you know, Palmer against Harrison. I mean, Harrison took that fight.

Didn't expect that. I thought that Lance Palmer. would win that fight and then Mago Madov Buck Bullad Magu Madov you know he did it too he beat Free Lowe

at all decisions it was kind of like the UFC there was a lot of decisions but it were very spectacular fights were a few knockouts and to wrap up with a knockout just like the main event

in England yeah that's always good I am very impressed with Andre Harrison I think he'll be a great champion and he's had a great career thus far I think he's 16 and O now he's fought in Titan

other organizations but I heard that Palmer broke his hand very early in the fight. Did you hear that as well? No, I didn't hear that. You know, I was doing the backstage stuff. I wasn't there at ringside. Randy was doing it together with Todd. But, man, that would be bad because that's the second time. I know that he broke his hand in the Almeida fight last time, which he still pulled off. But then, yeah, he's got a problem with his hand. He's got to do something about it. By the way, do you enjoy being in the back, or would you prefer, you know, being Caged side and being a color analyst as we usually see you?

You know, I really don't mind. For me, it's everything, you know, to be right back in the dressing room and to see these guys warm up, you know, and to see what they're going through and the differences. You know, I like to talk about that kind of stuff as well, you know, there's dressing rooms where you come in and just constantly these energizer bunnies are walking around. They need to be slapped in the face. And when you go to my dressing room, it's all joking and relaxing and nobody, you know, we need calmness. You know, and if you see those differences, it's weird how minds work.

I always think that a stress mind can never perform well, but apparently with some other fighters, it really works. But they have to smack the crap out of these guys, hit them in the face, they're constantly making sure that they're in the moment. You know, that's why they do it, I guess. Yeah. And then they fight great. So whatever worse, I guess. Your name was brought up recently on this show and in other places as well because when Germain Durandami became UFC champion, she was the first fighter from the Netherlands since you to hold UFC Gold. Are you surprised

that she became UFC champion? I'm sure you knew about her for many years. Did you see this in her? I saw this in her a long time ago. I mean, Fred Royers is her original coach, was her original coach, and he contacted me this six years ago, and he asked if she could come in training her a few sessions with me.

So she went over here, and we trained a little bit where she had to work on, you know, because she's a striker as well, a phenomenal striker. So, yeah, I worked with her, and then she went on. And I knew that in the striking department, you know, once you're 47 and O and you're in Holland and you do it in Europe, it's a different kind of level there, the striking than it is overseas. It simply is, you know, or, of course, you're going to have to import these guys.

But the striking is just at a real high level because everybody's doing it. It's almost like soccer. You know, you get gyms everywhere every week. There's fights everywhere in bars and little sport gyms. Whatever it is, there's a lot of tiebox. and because a lot of people do it, a lot of people are very good at it. So I knew that her striking was going to beat Holly Holm's striking, although I'm very impressed with Holly Holm as well.

Do you think she can hang with Chris Seibor? Do you give her much of a chance? You know, this is Bars, Urina Bars. Well, she's from Holland. She beat Cyborg in that line fight. So, yeah, I do think that she can hang with her, you know, but I think once Cyborg gets a whole of her like a hold, she can throw her down. we're going to have a big problem.

You know, she really wants to keep this fight standing against her and keep the distance in between there, you know, you want to stay outside the distance, just enough that you can counter, but do not go clinching with Cyborg. I think that's a bad thing. How do you feel, boss, about the current state of MMA and in particular the UFC? Some fans voicing some, I don't know, displeasure, for lack of a better word, that, you know, the meritocracy, the rankings, the number one guy not getting the title shot, they're kind of going for these sort of fun fights, entertaining fights, but it doesn't always make sense.

And now the interim titles and things like that. And yes, there's a new ownership group and yes, they have to make money relatively quickly. Do you like the direction that it's kind of going in a little more entertainment over sport? After all these years of establishing M.MA as a real sport with weight classes and belts and rules and things like that. You know, I think sometimes it's necessary. You know, with Biz Bing and Dan Henderson, people complain, I go, yeah, yeah, this is probably going to be Dan Anderson's last fight. him that fight. I can totally understand that. Now, Bisbing versus GSP.

I can totally understand that again. Everybody says, oh, he's docking, you old Romero? That's not. They offered him GSP. What are you going to do? You're going to make a lot of money. Of course you're trying to say, yes. It's like fighting McGregor. I mean, he's going to get really great ratings. You're going to get a cut on the pay-per-view, and that's why he wants that fight. So, those fights, I totally understand. But yeah,

you know, for your old Romero, it sucks because officially he was the guy in line. But, you know, I guess he's going to have to fight one more fight in between. Maybe not even. Just say, okay, I want to wait and go for the title, whoever is going to win that fight between Bisbing and GSP, that's going to be. So I'm okay with it as long as it doesn't happen all the time, nonstop, you know, because it will take away from the sport, of course.

Would you like, and back in your day, this wasn't really an issue, but would you like to see more weight classes in MMA with all these issues with, you know, cutting weight, people missing weight? There's a big gap, of course, between 170, 185, 185, 205. Do you think that more weight classes would help? A cruiser weight. I've been advocating for that. for a long time. I would like a 230,

235 weight class. That would be great. Guys like John Jones, you know, you're going to have a lot of guys who can jump, who can get two titles. And it's a good weight class to have, because some of these guys, you know, when you're a heavyweight and you're like 220 pounds, and you cannot go to 205. Yeah, well,

you're going to face animals who cut down to 285 or 265, but maybe on the day of the event, that's maybe 275 again, maybe even 280. So then size does make a difference. You know, in the beginning it didn't, because, you know, there was people who had a lot of and the other people didn't. But, you know, once everything comes together, size really matters.

So, yeah, I would love to see it, but not like in boxing. I think the weight classes we have now is enough. I would like to see a cruiser weight. And I just, for the guys, they've got to have to make sure that their own weight. Yeah. I mean, come on, it's your job to make sure that you make weight. I also thought of you last week as well because Matt Hughes announced that he was considering a comeback.

And you famously came back. I think it was, what, seven years in between fights for your retirement fight? at WFA. If Matt Hughes called you up and said, you know, should I do it? Would you advocate coming back at this point? It would be almost six years since the last spot.

Yeah. No, listen, if he feels like it, that he wants to do it, and I know why he probably wants to do it. He lost the GSP, right? Maybe he wants to fight George now. I don't know.

But yeah, if he feels healthy, you know, I felt great. You know, I felt the first six weeks were really good. I mean, I turned it on.

I started with the top guys that was training. Everybody goes like, dude, you have a new career. This is the wildest thing ever. And I say, yeah, this is crazy. But then three weeks before, every little injury that I had, which made me retire in the first place, they all started coming back. And then some. So if you have those injuries, no, don't do it. But if he feels good and if he's healthy, yeah, why wouldn't you do it?

Considering the fact that he was knocked out a couple of times in his last two fights, it's been such a long layoff for him, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, shy away from that, given the fact that he also hasn't fought in six years? No, you know, and it depends all on how are you training. You know, I always tell these people, they go into ring rust and cage rust, whatever, you know. It's not if you spar a lot. Now, I understand that they love that these fighters nowadays, they spar once or twice a week, which to me blows me away. I mean, I train two times a day we spar on the days that we train.

That's two days off. Wow. But the rest, I took 10 times a week, we spar. But you just need to make sure that you have great sparring partners. Because if you don't, yeah, then you might walk into some problems. Most of the time it happens with, you know, there's no professional left for you and you have a few guys coming in and these guys are not up to par. Maybe they're still amateur.

They want to show the world what they can do and then start overcommitting to their strikes. And that's when problems happen and that's where people get injured. But if you just pick your training partners really well, it shouldn't be a problem. So you used to spar 10 times a week? Ten times a week, it's what we're going to do. It's the most important thing. Lifting weights or all that stuff. I see guys bench, oh, I bench press, this, I bench press.

Dude, you're not going to bench press. You're going to hit people in the first, and you're going to try to submit them. So make sure you do that. You know, you can focus on power training. You don't do long repetitions. I do 25, 30 repetitions, and I do everything fast. These are like 50 seconds, 5-0 seconds. I do 12 exercises.

different. It's all a pushing exercise and then a pulling exercise. The pushing and the pulling accounts for everything. So you use different muscle groups. And then you add a stamina exercise to it as well. So you've got to have four stamina exercises. The rest is power. 50 seconds go full blast as hard as you can, 10 seconds to go to the next station. And you do that again. You do that three rounds, which would be a 36 minute round, very hard to do. But that will be it for me. That will be my conditioning and my strength. You know, yes, I would do some focus mitts and tie pads after sparring as well. And for the rest, yeah, we do a lot of sparring.

But also normal classes, escapes, all the stuff. Of course, we do everything. But every time, sparring is included because that's what you're going to do. Do you still train any fighters, any pros? No, I do have some fighters here, but, you know, like, I'm traveling so much. So if I have time, yes, I'll be here on Sunday morning with the fight team and help these guys out. They're also in my classes. And Tuesdays and Thursdays and Thursdays, I teach normal classes.

It's all basic, basic, basic, basic basics. constantly I go return to the basics, make those really good, make that base really good, and from there you can do whatever you want to do. So the pros most of the time in our gym, they also come to the Tuesday and Thursday classes. And during the week, most of the time,

I'm here in California. Okay, and you're a very busy guy. You've got a lot going on outside of the MMA world. I always see, you know, you pop up in movies, TV shows with Kevin James and Chris Wyman. Kevin can wait. And now you have a new project with champions, right? Yes, we have.

boss, we're an experiment. It's a funny, you know, I started writing blogs for champions. And out of the blue, Rick Lee and Dave was Polly, they called me and say, hey, we would like to meet up, we would like to talk about an idea that we have. And the idea was to let me, as boss, do as many crazy things as possible, make a comedy, six-minute pieces for YouTube. And if I was interested, I go, dude, that's exactly what I wanted, you know. it's what I used to do with the bar fighting.

Although that was very serious, they just picked the funny things out, but then the punk payback came. That was, of course, funny. This will happen as well in this show, but not as much. You know, you're going to see me trying to sell flowers or cars or knitting or, you know, taking knitting classes. All different kinds of things that come up with these crazy ideas that I think will be really good to sell for, in instance, boss diapers.

You know, that's an episode that you will see. You go like, whoa, what is that? But, you know, once I give you the reasons why you would wear a boss diaper, you go like, that's actually pretty good. So, you know, there's a lot of fun stuff. I think people are going to enjoy it, I hope, so that we can make more of those episodes. So it comes out, the first one comes out tomorrow, correct, Tuesday? Yes, tomorrow, I believe, at 10 o'clock or 10.30 on Facebook, no, YouTube.

Yeah. That's where we're going to be on. Actually, no, no, no, no. I think at 10 o'clock we have on Facebook Live. We're going to introduce it like that, and then it goes to the YouTube channel. And is this a weekly thing for now? Weekly thing for now, yeah, we're going to release three. We shot three of them.

Okay. And, you know, we'll find out the first episode. If people like it, enjoy it, and the second, then we can start working already on the next episodes. And if they don't, well, then it's going to stop. We'll see. Even as a kid, have you always had this sense of humor, this sort of fun-loving, kind of zany, personality or is this something that you developed later on in life? You know, I always had this.

It was my way of dealing with all the stress that I had. You know, the sick kid, the asthma, the bullying. You know, I was the class clown. I couldn't get attention in a normal way. So, you know, my poor mom, I visited a whole bunch of different schools because I got kicked off the school all the time because I was always interrupting people and running through the class and doing funny things to just make people laugh. And I think that that's where it comes from, you know, dealing.

with stress, with comedy, I think it's the best way to do. Yeah. And you have this sort of joie de vivre. You know that term? Joie de vivre. No, tell me. It's like this love of life. It's infectious.

It's a French term. Oh, that's... I love it. You know, it's... We're here on this planet for like 75, 80 years. You know, 100 if you're me, because I want to be 100 years old. And I think you should... make the most out of it. If this is it, it's not it. I refuse to believe that. I know that there's

something else there, but the physical life that we have here, that won't come back. And if you don't do something with it, well, you're wasting it. And 75, 80 years, it's not a long time if you think about it. 20 years ago, I moved to America. I mean, out of the blue, this May, upcoming May, it's 20 years ago that I moved to America, you know, it's a snap of the finger. And boom, you hear, my daughter wasn't even born, my youngest daughter, she's driving a country. She's driving a car now. She just turned 16 on St. Patrick's Day. I mean, time flies, man. I have a grandchild now, a one-year-old little boy stop. So, I mean, life is great. And I think that, you know, if you enjoy life, you'll be happier. There's less stress, less diseases. And you know, it's

infectious also for other people. You know, you pick your right. I have friends of mine, they have groups, friend groups, with like these downers in there. So when you go to a party with these guys, as always, this is always complaining. I go, man, Why would you hang out with people like that? I won't even invite them, you know, let these people go, constantly complaining about everything in life. Oh, he has cancer, he has cancer. Yeah, that's bad.

We have that we have that. But right now we're out, we're partying. Let's have some fun, you know. Let's not talk about that stuff. That's for later at serious moments. That's when you want to talk about that. The rest, it's just have fun. I feel so much better just talking to you about life.

I feel so much more hopeful for humanity. Is that an actual goal for you to reach 100? Is that something that you want to accomplish? Do you think about that? I always said that. Yeah. As long as I stay nice and healthy. But still, yeah, I want to be 100 years old.

I want to see what happens in this next 48 years now. I just turned 52. And, you know, maybe I can get a trip up into space. You know, a lot of these guys. The guy from Virgin is doing it right now. There's actually a guy beating him. There's already two people they're going to send up in space. I would love to go outside and look at the earth from above.

I think that's something amazing. I can see that on episode four of the Basraman experiment. You go into space. They got a budget over there. If this thing picks up? Yeah. And if we get that famous, thank you. We can actually get the money for it.

We do a go-fund me for us to go and skis. By the way, let me ask you this. Speaking of anniversaries, next month is the 10-year anniversary of the last Pride show. I don't know. I mean, that's crazy, right? Ten years it's been since the last Pride show. next month early April Favor pride memory

Oh Well favorite For pride fight I would say Fado versus Kroke up That that was a crazy fight You know when they showed all these Crazy clips that they never could show In America for some reason

They make these compilations Before the fight when they come up And it's a long walk I mean you're Saitama super arenas 48,000 people So they have some time while they walk up And I remember they were showing a video of

Crow Cope, you know, sitting at his father's grave and his mom and there was like snow and eyes and corpses were floating in the river and then you went from him training, you saw him train in this really just like almost like an Ivan Drago

like kind of training center, you know, high tech, everything perfectly and then you went to Fedor and he was training in the snow outside with some rusty kettle bells. He was swinging these things around and doing all these crazy exercises. back to him, back and forth, you know, and all the emotion. I mean, remember that when they zoomed in on Krokoop, he was crying.

He had it because he just saw that whole thing with his father. Yeah. He was crying before he walked to the fight. And that was a real special moment. And it was a great fight. Yeah. You know, and then another good moment, of course, is with Kevin Rendellman. He's the guy who came up with the name El Wapo.

You know, well, it was there all the time, but that was at breakfast. We were sitting with Tina Sheff. Ken Shamrock's ex-wife, we're having breakfast. We're all sitting together. And we're talking about the movie The Three Amigos, which is one of my favorite comedies. And so I asked her, I said, what does El Wapo mean? Because the bad guy, the really ugly guy in the Three Amigos, his name is El Wapo. She says, oh, that means they're handsome.

So since I always call myself the most handsome fighter in MMA, I think that Kevin, when he got up, he says, okay, Wapo, we'll see you later. And that was it. There was literally that moment. That was it. Everybody, Coleman, and once people start hearing it, everybody started calling me whoopo. So he planted that seat, and it's still him. That is great. One last, if I can for you, one of my favorite people in MMA was and will always be Kimbo Slice,

and you were linked to him early on. Favorite Kimbo Slice memory, the late Kimbo Slice. Oh, man. Just walk around with him. His group, his friends. You know, there's such a fun people to hang out with. It's constantly laughing. It's constantly partying.

You have to watch out before a fight because, of course, he has to fight, you know. And then, you know, go to Best Buy. For instance, when we go to a different state to fight, then they suddenly feel that they want to play a video game. Well, they go to Best Buy and they buy a few PlayStation. And then they go to the hotel. They put four or five TVs all in a circle. All people sit in front of it and everybody starts playing.

But just to get those games, I don't know if you ever walk with Kimball Sly's on the street. I guess it's like walking with McGregor on the street. Yeah, yeah. You know, because everybody knows this guy. This guy, he's also so big. Yeah. Right away people show. So as soon as we walk into Best Buy, you have 10 guys who want to help him.

You know, everybody's jumped on top. People start asking autographs. And just the way he always dealt with those people. What a good guy. What a nice guy. And then just with everybody else, we had an... we had a really good time. This is a funny story.

Oh man, I forgot his name. It was a big power lifter. That was the first time I met him. And he was in the group from Kimball and everybody was talking about how strong he was, how strong he was. And I think he tried a little bit to intimidate me, you know, but he didn't know how far he could go.

And he's constantly, oh, I could do this to you. And he was talking about bench pressing and ripping telephone books. And if I could rip a telephone book, he did 55 in one minute, something crazy. And I say, no, I can't do that. I said, but I can knock you out. And the whole table gets quiet. And boom, everybody started laughing.

How was it? And he became a good friend of mine. Wow. You know, moments like those are moments you can never get back. You see, there you go again. It's happy feelings. You know, the good moments, the good deeds that you do, you will always remember. Great stuff, boss.

Best of luck to you and the team over at Champions on the launch of your new show. The Boss Room Experiment. It comes out tomorrow. That is March 21st, first day of spring. great time to start something new on the first day of spring. Always great to catch up with you, and I wish you all the best with the new project and with all your other projects, Buzz.

I really appreciate that. Got speed and party on. There he is. The one and only, El Wapo, Bas Rune. Great to hear from him. Check out his new show, the Boss Rune Experiment, tomorrow on champions.co. All right, let's move along.

We have Kelvin Gaslim waiting. He has been patiently waiting. I apologize for keeping him waiting. I do believe he is on the phone right now. Kelvin, are you there? Yes, sir. Hey, Kelvin. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.

A lot of people on the show, and I go too long and I don't look at the clock, so my sincerest apologies, it's so great to have you on. I think this is your first time on the program, if I'm not mistaken. I think the first time since I won the ultimate fighter, I don't remember that, but yeah.

Yeah, oh, that's right. We had you on right after. That's right. Boy, it has been a long time since then. A lot has happened to you. It's been a while, yeah, for sure. And you are on a role, my friend. Congratulations on all your success.

Congratulations on the win over Vitor Belford. And then, you know, you beat Vitor and we'll get into everything. And then you ask for Anderson and then you get him two days later. Were you surprised that the whole thing happened so quickly? Man, I did not expect it. I did not expect it at all to go this quickly. But, you know, I respected these results. You know, I expected to win.

in the devastating fashion. And I expected a good opponent for my next fight. You know, I think it's time for me to really jump ship to the elite. You know, I'm ready. And I'm comfortable to be fighting there with the best guys. Are you surprised that he said yes to the fight? Yes. I thought that was going to be a problem.

I didn't think he was going to sign it. Next thing, I know he's posting this video of him signing it and waving his head. Like a weirdo, but all respects to him, man, you know. I didn't think he was actually going to go on and take the fight, and I'm just very thankful for the opportunity to be able to fight him. You know, I mean, he's the greatest of all time, and, you know, he deserves all the respect in the world, you know, and that's the best, but once that cage court closes, you know,

I expect the same results I had with Vitor as well. And so, you know, to fight him in Rio is something that a lot of people don't want to fight the Brazilians in Brazil. You've now had success doing so coming off the Vitor fight. Why does that interest you? Why do you like that scenario of fighting a Brazilian legend or idol, as they call them, in their backyard? Yeah, you know what? I'm an idiot. I don't know why.

I'm just a knucklehead. but, you know, I like the whole experience. Brazil was very good to me. The fans are amazing. And the whole Brazil experience was amazing. You know, I've been learning Portuguese and trying to, you know, I've been invited into their culture, you know, adopted kind of. So it's pretty cool.

I went to Rio de Janeiro. I went up to the favelas and kind of hung out with all of the crazy guys that hang out in the favelas. and they kind of just brought me in and introduced me to their side to the real real, you know, and it was crazy, man. The Brazilians had a crazy reception for me, and it was amazing. It was amazing, felt the love of the people, you know, they're very passionate people. It was cool.

Were you ever worried in the Fevilles? Oh, yeah, 100%. 100, man. You know, our eyes were like aware at all times. our back against the walls, checking out, left or right. For sure. It was sketchy. Anything happened? Anything Harry happened? No, man. That's what was crazy. Everything went well.

The people really, like I said, brought me in, and we celebrated, we had some drinks, and we kind of just hung out, and these guys were really cool, man. It was amazing. So after this fight was announced last week, the Anderson fight, you've kind of developed this Moniker as the legend killer. So you retire, Tim Kennedy. It sounds like Vitor's on his last fight and Anderson's getting up there in age as well. Are you comfortable with that idea? Do you like that gimmick? With the legend killer? Yeah. Hey man, I'm just, I guess I'm all right with it. You know, whatever gets people to talk. But, you know, these, these, these is just the guys that are ranked above me. So, you know, I'm, I'm, and it gets people talking, you know, I find a big name and people

are interested in this fight and see what happens and see if Anderson can, can take on a young up-and-coming guy like myself. We'll see. We'll see, you know, he's, I saw his last fight with Derek Brunson, he has very little holes, you know, this, usually I can spot holes in people's games, but Anderson was a different animal. So it's going to be a difficult task, for sure. So you were impressed with that performance against Brunson? I wasn't impressed. I mean, not a lot happened, but the stuff that did happen, he countered well, defended well, had good offense, had good defense, and displayed his game. You know, it was very nice to watch, but it can be a difficult task. You know, I saw very little holes in

this game. He's a very complete fighter more than any other fighter that I face, so it's going to be a difficult task. Did you think he did enough to win that fight? Yeah, I was in agreement with the fight. Okay. I actually... I think Derek Brunson showed him

a little bit too much respect inside the octagon. You know, absolutely he deserves all the respect. But once that case, it closes, man, it's got to be your world. Yeah. You won't be doing that. No. Absolutely not. Would you like to be the one who retires Anderson? I hope not.

You know, like I said, I expect the same results I did with Vitor, but if that happens, I may cry doing it. Is this a guy that you actually dreamed of fighting? I know you've always kind of fancied yourself a welterweight, but have you actually dreamed of fighting arguably one of the best ever? never never this is still something that I have to kind of let sink in and over the next few months I'm going to have to really try and convince myself

that this is really happening and yeah it's kind of a big deal you know I thought the Vitor Belfort fight was this is a whole other level yeah so it still kind of feels surreal to you a little bit man you know I'm fighting the greatest of all time it's like fighting Mike Tyson

yeah it's in say. Did what happened to him after the Nick Diaz fight? Did that change your opinion on him? No, not at all. You know, he's done a lot for the sport. He's done a lot in the sport and nothing, nothing's going to be able to take away from that, you know, and you still got to give his credit regardless of what happens now, I think, in my opinion. How much confidence does having Hafeel Cordero, who used to train him in your corner now give you? Oh, Cordero was the best. You know, once we knew, once we knew the fight was happening and we talked about it,

he felt, he made me feel so calm and comfortable about it, you know, because it's such a big flight. He's like, don't worry. You got, you got, you made me feel real, real comfortable about the fight. Did you talk to him before you, you, you called him out? you said you wanted to fight him in the cage? Did you get his thoughts on the idea beforehand? Yeah.

And he was on board. Yeah, I did. Yeah, he was. He has no problem. You know, we're all professionals, and, you know, this is a professional sport, and, you know, this is the other things that happened. Right. I thought that you, it seemed like you were giving a nod to your old friend,

Shail Sunnan, coach on the Ultimate Fighter, when you said, you know, a friend of yours was starting in, A legend ass whipping tour and you wanted to kind of finish it. Was that true? Were you talking about Chale? Yeah, yeah, for sure. 100%. You know,

this is a guy that whose career goes almost parallel with Chale Sunning, so I had a name drop a little bit. And so I floated the idea. I think it would be fantastic if Chale corners you in Rio just to kind of make the fight feel bigger considering the history with Anderson. Is that on the table at all here?

No. No. But it's not a bad idea. That would be a great storybook ending. Could you imagine him walking out with you? I mean, that place, I know you don't necessarily like to get booed. It would be incredible. Oh, man, they really cut our hands off.

So no chance. I don't think so, though. But I like the idea, but no chance. Okay, fair enough. So now that we're fully invested at 185, do you still think about 170 or are you content with the idea of staying at 185 for now? No, I'm thinking about getting the 170 belt.

You still are. You know, but... Go ahead. But, you know, I'm thinking about getting the 170 belt. But if I have to get the 185 belt before, it'll be it, you know? I still believe I can beat Woodley. I believe I can be Bisping. But if I have to win the 185 belt, get the 170 belt, and so be it.

which one do you think you get to quicker? 185 belt or 170 belt? I have no idea. We'll see after this fight. Okay. I would imagine probably 185, right? Yeah, I don't know. How much more do you...

I don't know, I don't know, because I want to see... I'll be, hopefully I'll be in a position when I win this fight, I'll be in a position where I can lay out a few options and see what they are and go from there. Have you already thought about what the perfect path would be for you? Yeah, the next step would be a title shot, 85. Right. But realistically, you know, that might not happen,

but I think at 170s it could happen. Are you worried about the logjam at 185 with Romero having to wait a little longer now because of the return of GSP? I just don't think it was fair. A lot of people said I ripped GSP apart. I didn't. You know, I love GSP.

man, this is the guy that inspired me at a fight. You know, this is my, you know, while I understood him was getting all the greatest of all time. I was saying GSP was the greatest of all time. Uh-huh. You know, and he's my favorite fighter, and he inspired me. So, with that being said, I don't agree with them skipping him ahead

in line of Romero when he clearly deserves it. Yeah. And then it creates this logjam, right? Because then Romero has to wait, and then you beat Anderson, you have to wait a little longer, et cetera, et cetera. Chacaree.

Right. There's a bunch of killers right now, and people are kind of complaining about why didn't call on anybody on the top five or any other contenders or anybody younger. Like, man, everybody in the division's older than me, except for Robert Wittaker,

and he's got a fight with Jokoree. Right. Everybody else has got to fight or injured, like Rolak cold, he's injured, and now it's not clear to fight. Wyman Musassi are fighting, Jokoree, or a fight.

So, you know, I don't know. I see a lot of people kind of mad about that. People are mad that you're... Old vets. They're mad that you're calling out Anderson Silva? I think so. A lot of people are... I got a lot of comments about them saying,

you're kind of calling out all these old vets. Why don't you just call somebody your own age, you know? And I was like, what? I'm calling all the greatest of all time. Who does that? Yeah. I don't know. Especially...

especially on their turf. Exactly. I think it's smart. Why would you want to fight someone who's, you know, 29 years old and doesn't have the name when you can fight, you know, former champion, grace of all time, blah, blah, blah, blah, in Brazil? I mean, this fight is going to get you way more attention. 100%.

100, you know, and it's a bigger name. I don't, you know, I want, like I said, it's time to turn it up a notch in my career. You know, now, now I know what, how things are done and things are done well, and hopefully from here on out, everything goes well. But, you know, I feel like now I really know what I'm doing. Before I used to go out and win, kind of hope things happen.

Now I feel like I know I'm preparing to make things happen. And, you know, I plan to make myself the world to eight or the middleweight champion. Can you compare your sort of mental state the week of a fight when you're fighting as a middleweight as opposed to welch weight? Are you exponentially happier when you're about to fight as a middleweight because you can more? Yeah, 100%. So why do you want to bring that grief? 100, man, because I was walking on weight the whole week and my coach was actually told me to eat more. Wow.

You know, so, yeah, yeah, I didn't cut any weight. And it was awesome. We had a great week. It was a tough week because we started training and a lot of media and a lot of these obligations to do. But other than that, we had a great week, man. It was a perfect week, almost too good to where I was scared, you know. And so, you know, we're, like I said, now it's time to turn up a notch because we actually know what we're doing. Nothing's coming now from the left, from the right.

Nothing surprising us. We know what's going to happen. and we expect things to happen. So we're at a whole different kind of, I think we're running at a whole different level now. So it's time to turn it up a notch in my career, I feel. And would you say that that was kind of your best fight week thus far in the UFC?

100%. 100%. Like I said before, all these experiences, the good ones, the bad ones. Yeah. We've put them all together. You know, that was my 11th fight in the UFC. We put all those experiences together

and I only created some sort of formula that works, you know, and you guys have seen it in my last few fights. You know, obviously I had that weight issue, but that's also part of the growing the growing system or whatever you want to call.

You know, it's just me growing and it makes me grow, it makes me learn, and it made me a better person, it made me a better fighter, and made me a better athlete. So, you know, whether I'm up or down, it doesn't matter, man. I'm coming for that belt, and I'm excited for the future. You know, I'm still growing.

I'm still learning every day. So I'm excited because I'm able to grow through these growing pains, even if everybody sees it. You know, it's more public than many other people, but I'm excited. I'm excited for the future because this is only the beginning. Do you feel like one of the reasons why you've had such success at 185 is because you are, it feels to me,

like you're a lot quicker than a lot of these middle weights, that your experience as a welterweight, and maybe because you're a little smaller than them, you're not cutting as much weight. You just feel a lot quicker when you're in there against them. Do you feel the same way? Yeah, I definitely feel like whether I'm at welterweight or middleweight. I feel like I have a pretty decent speed myself.

You know, a lot of these guys are very fast, but I like to think of myself as one of those guys that have speed. And so you're so happy, it seems like everything's clicking for you, and I apologize for harping on this. Why do you even want to go back to 170? Things are going great. Why do you even think about it? Do you feel like you have unfinished business there?

I just know that I could make it. I just have to figure out a healthy way to make it. Okay. You know, instead of cutting it all, I've had to figure out how my body works and how to properly do it. It's taking me a while.

For sure. Have you exceeded your own expectations as far as your UFC career is concerned? No. No. 100% are, you know, these are kind of the things that I've been dreaming of since I was 17, 18 years old, man.

So in my head, I expect these things to happen. There are a lot of work, You know, I have a lot of work that I do, but I like to rise up to the occasion and work. You know what I mean? Every time I fight, I grow as a person and as a fighter. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. It feels like, at least to me, like all the ups and downs, and in particular the downs, have actually, and this is the way you view them, made you into a better person, a better fighter.

you've now reached the point where you're able to draw positivity from these down moments. Are you able to have that perspective now? Yeah, 100%. You know what I mean? And, you know, like that saying goes, you know, when life brings you down,

you gotta get right back up, man. So that's what's happened. You know, I'm not on that a million people try and bring me down because that's what happens, you know. A lot when you're down, and people like to kick you and when you're down

and when you're up everybody likes to win with you so it's just about a balance and it's just about you know believing in yourself believing in I believe in a higher power and God and I believe in myself

just about that man and working towards your goals it's funny because I don't know if you know there's a movie called sliding doors where you know they they kind of look at the life of a person if they made the subway or if they missed it and how life can go in separate directions

just by a few things here or there. And it feels like that crossroad for you was MSG. You could have went one way and let that get you down and kind of take you down a different path. But you took that negative and turned it into this amazing run now where you're two and and completely dominating these guys. It really feels like that was the crossroads of your career. Do you agree with that? Yeah, 100%.

I agree with that, you know, and that's just the kind of person I am. I'm not going to let life defeat me or anything like that. You know, I believe I come from a strong family and strong family roots. And, you know, I try to keep my head on straight. So that's what's helped me out as well. Last thing for you, Kelvin, would it be a safe bet in your estimation to say that this time next year, Kelvin, Gasselm is a UFC champion? Do you think that happens?

By the end of this year, for sure. I'm going to see if we can make it happen. End of this year? Yeah, why not? Why not? Throw it out there. You know what I mean? I want to fight in June.

Hopefully fight for the title in December. Wow. We'll see. All right. I love it. Well, it's been inspiring to watch. It's really been amazing to see how you've turned it all around and how good you're doing at 185.

And I love the Silva fight. I love the call out. I loved how you got everyone to sing happy birthday for your mom. That was amazing. By the end, they were eating out of your palm. They wanted to boo you, but they couldn't. It was such a beautiful moment. Well done. Happy birthday to your mom, by the way.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. She appreciates it. Somebody sent me a video of her crying about it. Oh, man. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. You really nailed that post-fight interview. It was great to see. Great performance. Congratulations on the win. And, of course, good luck as you prepare for June 3rd.

What a scene? Consider the chale thing. I know you said no, but maybe just think about it. Sleep on it. I feel like that would be a nice little story. Just consider it. I like it. All right, Ariel.

Thanks for having me on this. Thank you, Kelvin. Thanks for everybody to live. Thank you. Appreciate it so much. There he is. Kelvin Gasolm stopping by. Great stuff for him.

And what an opportunity on June 3rd in Rio. He calls out Anderson Silva. He wins the sweepstakes. Rashad wanted him. Yuel wanted him. And in the end, Kelvin Gasselum, gets him. Great spot for Kelvin Gasselm. It's come a long way. All right, let's move along. Let's get to our surprise guests of the day. Now it's at the top of the show that we had a very,

very, very late addition. Everyone wondering what's up with Ryan Bader. Why is it taking him so long to find a new home? Is he going to Belator? Is he staying with the UFC? Let's hear it from the man himself. The one and only Ryan Bader is joining us on the phone right now. Ryan Ryan, are you there? Yes, sir, what's going on? There he is. Ryan Bader, everyone talking about you, everyone wondering what's going on with you.

Everyone wants to know where your new home will be, or if you're going back to your old home, break some news for us. What do you got? Well, the breaking news is, I'm a Belator fighter now, so we're, I'm excited. It's kind of refreshing.

I'm ready to step in there. You know, I want a title shot right away, and I think I deserve it. and I'm just super excited. So it has been completed. The deal is done. You have put pen to paper. I signed it this morning, yes, sir.

Wow. What did that feel like? It felt good. Like I said, it was almost, it was kind of refreshing. You know, I've been a EEOC fighter, you know, for so long now and, you know, a couple fights outside. You know, first couple, you know, local fights and get into the ultimate fighter, then, you know, I had 20 fights in the UFC there. So it's just, it's something new, exciting. I'm going to have great opportunities.

You know, and I feel like I'm the best I've ever been right now and moving forward. And so it's one of those things where, you know, I was pushing for a title shot in UFC. I wanted a paddle shot. I wanted to win that belt, you know, but we're, you know, we're a bell-tort now. So that mindset is still the same.

I'm looking to go in there. We're looking to, you know, fight for the title and win that title and keep it for as long as I can, you know, I'm still at the top physically, even better mentally than I was even last year. So I feel great. Have you been told by the Bellator Brass that you will get a title shot in your first fight? So that was part of it, part of the negotiations and whatnot. It's not 100% done deal, but we were talking about it and if they like it.

obviously we like it. It makes sense. You know, two top five guys in the world. Yeah. We fought. I beat him the last, you know, I'm his last loss. You know, he comes over. He's been looking great. He wins a belt for a belt. You know, so it makes sense for me to, you know,

go in there and fight for it. I don't think too many people can, you know, it's about me coming over and getting an immediate title shot. And would you be, like, if they came and said, you know what, Ryan, we've got another idea. We love this idea. You know, whatever. uh this is the name would you be disappointed is it is it really set in your mind that you want that title shot first right off the bat well you know i'm a competitor i want to compete i want to fight uh you know it's been uh you know last in november you know and i want to fight

here in june so okay um i i i i want the title shot obviously um but i don't hold the belt and i don't make the make the calls you know so yeah um you can't make somebody can't make somebody fight. Right. You know, so it's kind of in Philadelphia's court. So, you know, I love to fight fight him in June for sure. If something

happens, you know, we'll definitely go that route and you know, see what the opportunities are. You know, I'm open. That's just one thing that was intriguing about coming over the belt or, you know, we talked about different things that, you know, we talked about being able to

move up the heavyweight for, you know, here and there and, you know, a fade-over fight, you know, intrigues me, stuff like that. So we're definitely open, but we want the pilot shop first for sure. And by the way, are you implying that Phil is not so interested in this fight? Have you heard that? No, I think he wants it. I just don't, I haven't really heard too much.

Okay. They were just trying to get, you know, because that's one of my first questions. I signed the contract, what's next, you know? What's the date? who am I fighting? Am I fighting for the belt? And there was just kind of a little, yeah, we just have to make sure Bill's on board kind of deal.

And so, you know, I want to lock that down. I don't want that kind of running away from us. And then all of a sudden, we want to fight in June and we're fighting somebody else. And, you know, Bill wants an extra month or something like that. So if it's something like that, we'll wait for that title shot. If it's something else, you know, we'll go ahead and fight, but it's got to make sense.

Why did this take so long, Ryan? Because I remember around Super Bowl weekend, you were on the show end of January, and you said that you were about to get an offer, and it seemed like you were headed in this direction. And then Super Bowl weekend, I remember the day before the Super Bowl, excuse me, the Friday before the Super Bowl,

Dana White did an interview with USA Today and essentially said, like, we're not going to match the deal. He can go to fight in Bellator. And that was a month and a half ago. What took so long between, you know, he went out publicly and said, we're not going to mad. That, that to me felt like an admission that they are not going to match

and that you were free to go ahead and put pets paper. Yet you just said, you signed the contract this morning. Why did it take an extra month and a half? Yeah, I heard that too. I heard, you know, when Dana came out, and that was the first I was heard, or I heard that. But they were more interested in that comment, though, you know, and that we were working closely with Mick Maynard,

and he was constantly asking about the offers and, you know, talking to my manager, Dave Martin, you know, what we got to do to stay in UFC, this and that. So there's more interest in, you know, Dino-Wa-Wight-Latong. You know, but it just, my contract basically was the first, you know, with this class action lawsuit and whatnot, was a, I,

just happened to be caught in the middle of the two lawyers from Viacom and the UFC, basically. And so whatever they did with my contract, you know, going forward, that's what they would do for the rest of the contracts from the other guys. So they just had to make sure the Belvoir turning over contracts to the UFC, etc. So whatever I did there, that's how it was going to go, go ahead and be, you know, just standard for, you know, what went on. So I was just kind of caught in the middle. I had that deal.

You know, when we talked, I had a pretty much had an offer from Delatoro. So we knew we had that. We were just kind of sitting there, just waiting it out, really, knowing that was going to happen. But there was no super rush from us. We kind of had a time frame when we wanted to fight and whatnot. So finally got it done, sent a paper this morning. So it's a done deal. Just took longer than expected.

And did they ask you to see, you know, the full contract, was and was Belator hesitant to do that and that's what took so long? Exactly. Yeah. Usually, from what my understanding is of it, you know, in the past, guys have just shown them basically that the office, which could be, it could be in that email or text message or whatever. It's just a terms, you know?

Yeah. And much per fight, what's the fight? But you see wanted the full contract. And so that, that right there was a holdup from, you know, that took that month, month and half or whatnot. So they wanted to a full contract. Belator, you know, they didn't want to release a full contract to them. Yeah. It has happened before. And so then they had that little, not a fight or anything, but, you know, they had to go through that process because that's going to be a standard from now on how they did mine. Do you know if Belator ended up giving them

the contract? I do not know the particulars on that. Okay. The two lawyers, they worked out something where I guess they're both happy and I was able to, um, was able to go and USC gave me my release and they tried to make it as, uh, paying this on me as they could. Um, you know, I was still in contact with, uh, some of the UFC employees and stuff like that.

So they're, they're helping out. So, um, just took longer. So no hard feelings as you depart. No, no hard feelings at all. You know, I, uh,

there's some stuff, you know, with the UFC that, you know, I haven't, well, this about, you know, and the whole, the little title shot thing and when Justin got it off of knockout loss and the run around here here and there and I felt like

Quebec chair it was always dangling and they you know but on the other hand you know I spent majority or all my career in the UFC and in 20 fights there and had a blast travel in the world and having fun to find for them you know and

started to change a little bit you know with the the sponsorships getting taken away you know, and then he started to see all the new people and stuff like that these last couple, uh, year, year and a half. And so, you know, leaving, um, it's just, it's kind of bittersweet, you know, it's refreshing. It's something new heading over to Beltor, you know, but I spent my whole career in the UFC too. Yeah.

And in the world in front of a new crowds, you know, I was on the first Australia card. I find Japan, you know. Um, so looking back, you know, it's sad. Um, but at the same time, uh, it's really, um, it's really. refreshing. I'm excited for something new. The way it kind of came out publicly with Dana doing that interview and saying like, yeah, you know,

Bell Tor is a good place for him. Did that bother you at all? Just kind of, it sort of felt dismissive in a way. Yeah, you know, he comes out and said things like that, you know, about some other fighters and whatnot. He makes those comments, you know, so take it with a great assault. You know, I'm a top five guy in the world. You know,

my loss is to all the top guys, you know. and that beat a ton of a ton of good guys and right now 205 and U.S.C. is shallow and, you know, and so

there's a little weird how dismissive it was, but, you know, it is what it is. I'm a competitor. I'm going to go over there wherever I'm at and try to be the best.

So, you know, I didn't really take too much attention to that at all. Did you get any other serious offers from anyone outside of Belator? You know, we didn't even really,

really even tried. Okay. We talked to Bellator. I flew out there, met with Rich Chowell and Scott Coker. You know, I like what they had to say. I like their plan, you know, and they had a plan in place and what they wanted to do with me. And we probably took, you know, three weeks or so to, you know, negotiate an offer. Then we got the offer and it was an amazing, amazing contract.

and so we didn't feel the need to go get any other offers, really. Did the UFC ever offer you a deal? No, so, well, they offer you the deal before your last five. Yeah, yeah. We're going to go gay. But not after. No, we said no day. So basically once we get the, you know, once we got that offer, you know,

my manager was talking to the matchmaker and talking to UFC. And, you know, at that point, they have the right. right to match. And so they got to match that. And we kind of knew they weren't going to match it, you know, because it's just, it's a flat C. I mean, the UFC likes to do the show and win. So we all kind of knew that they weren't going to do match like that offer.

Is this contract better than any that you've ever had in your MMA career? 100%. Yeah, I think it's one of the better contracts out there outside of being a UFC champion. Okay. You know, paperbee points and stuff like that, you know, and so like I said, it's a flappy and, you know, six-fight deal. We have some stuff in there, you know, my agent did a great job negotiating, you know, that I have to have three fights a year. If I don't get those three fights in a year, you know, barring that I'm not injured or whatnot, you know, they have to pay me my purse. Wow.

But, yeah, if I'm not hitting those, inactivity calls. and stuff of that. So, you know, it's just, it's stuff like that. And then the sponsors, you know,

and the sponsors are huge. And, you know, back when I was in the UFC, you know, when we could have our own sponsors, you know, not to sit there

and talk numbers, but the lowest I've ever made, and this was on the pre-limbs, was 35 grand for a fight. You know, I've made upwards of 80 grand a fight. Wow. On sponsors,

you know, and we have, you hear, some of the fighters, they come out, out and say, you know, the sponsors have dried,

up and this and that. So the Reeboks knives, which, you know, just, for me, it's just their managers are lazy. You know, they're calling on people, you know, they see on other people's shorts. They used to be like a standard figure. You're on a prelunds or you on the main card? You're $25,000, whatever. You know, we have those relationships with big companies that's stuck with us, you know, through the whole thing. And so to have the sponsors, to be able to, you know, represental sponsors again is huge for me. That's a lot of income. too. So that was a big, big factor in moving over also.

And do you feel like you'll be able to get back into the sponsorship game that there's still a market out there now that you're fighting on spike? Yeah, you feel, have you already reached out? I mean, not you personally, maybe, I know you have a team there, but is there interest? Yes. Oh, yeah. Well, definitely. I think we're back to, you know, when the hey day of sponsors in the UFC, we're going to do the same deal. You know, we had a couple awesome sponsors to stick by me, you know, that the cytosports and the manzan ethanol, you know, they've stuck by us, you know, with the rebate deal.

And obviously, at a lower scale, you know, but we just kind of switched it up and on how we represent it and how they can use us. So they're stuck through, but they're going to wrap it up again now that I can represent them in the cage and whatnot. And so, you know, we already have those aren't made out and they're ready to go. And to be clear, you're not, like, your deal, you don't have a win bonus. You just get paid to show up and fight. To show up and fight, I get my purse, you know.

And so I do have a finished bonus, but that's just great. You know, it's just on top of everything, which is great, you know. I feel like the wind show, and we've talked about this before, You know, I get why they do it, obviously, you know, one, save some money and two, the thinking of having the fighters go out and try to secure half their pay. It's going to be exciting a price, but I feel like sometimes it's the exact opposite. I think if a guy knows you can win a certain way, he's going to take that route, you know, to get half its pay. you know, whether it's a wrestler or whether it's, you know, like a karate guy, like, matuda-ish, you know, staying away and kind of using jab

and they're keeping distance or whatnot. I feel like you fight a certain way to secure and have to pay. If you get a flat fee, go out there and fight however the hell you want, knowing you're going to get that pay, no matter what. Right. Yeah. No, I remember I was talking about this, you know, around six weeks ago, and I couldn't agree more.

By the way, we had Lorenz Larkin on earlier in the show, and he said he was a little disappointed. Some of the fans were writing to him saying, oh, you're going to the B leagues now. I can't believe you left the UFC. You know, this has kind of been rumored for quite some time. Have you received the same kind of feedback? You know, on social media here and there,

have people just kind of, you know, they'll say, oh, you know, don't go here, don't go here, or send USC or whatnot. But I think that's changed it pretty soon. They have some really excited stuff coming up and, you know, look at the talent they're getting right now. now, you know, and so, you know, I don't pay too much attention to that, but I've got a ton of support, actually, more soon than anything negative. Okay. So whether it's, uh, you know, people want to

see change too, and they get behind the fighters. Um, and so it's exciting for them, too. They're seeing the guys like me, Rand go over the Belator, you know, um, 205 right now is pretty good in Belator, you know, so there's exciting fights there. And, you know, like I was saying earlier, the opportunities, you know, Scott asked by the open to fight and rising in Japan and stuff like that, you know. So it's just, it's exciting. There's a lot of things we can put our heads together and get done in Bellator and have fun fights. And obviously, my mind right now is going there and win the title, though, become the champion, you know. But, yeah, I'm just excited about the opportunity.

And by the way, I got to ask, I mean, I feel like at some point Scott is going to ask you, this question. You versus Tito too. Would you pick I love it. Would you take it over the title shot? I want the title shot. Okay. All right. But yeah, I mean that's like

definitely, you know, I want to get all my losses back. You know what I mean? Switching organizations, you know, that's going to be a tough deal now. But, you know, Tito is one of those ones where, you know, it still gets me here and there. But yeah, I would love to.

You know, I know he's retired now, but I think that would be a huge fight, and I'd love to get some redemption for sure. Did Scott say that he's going to try to make the fight? No. No. I feel like he was. I never heard that yet, but it was a great idea. All right.

And as of right now, you don't know the exact date of when you'll debut for them? No, I want to fight with you. I think they have a card coming up in June, so I want to be on there. You know, so we'll see. You know, I want to fight Phil Davis. Okay. But like I said, I'm open, you know, and I'm open for those fun fights. So, you know, like I was saying, like a fate ordeal or something like that, you know,

and so if I don't get that title shot, then we'd have to, you know, I'd have to talk it out and figure it out, you know, if it's waiting another month and then we're guaranteed the shot, you know, I'm going to never be a champion. So I think I have the right to go and walk in and fight for the boat right away. So that's my strange thought right now. If something changes, then we'll have to switch it up a bit. Congratulations, Ryan. This is great stuff.

I'm happy to hear that you're really happy with the deal, that you got a great deal. And I'm curious to see what happens, as far as your debut is concerned, and where you go in Bellator, it seems like they're very excited. The Spike account tweeting about it, the Bellator account tweeting about it,

so everyone seems excited. You're going back to Spike, where you were first introduced to the MMA fan when you won the Ultimate Fighter's season. and eight. Appreciate you coming on and talking about it. Congratulations again to you and your team, and good luck as you prepare for your debut. Thanks, Harold. Appreciate it. All right, we'll talk to you soon. There he is. Ryan Bader, the newest member of the Bellator Light Heavyweight Division, also said that he would dabble in the heavyweight division, and now that's the third name

that Bellator signed in the last seven days as far as recognizable names are concerned. You see signing fighters all the time, but he got Dylan Danis last Monday. Thursday was Lorenz Larkin, And today it's Ryan Darth Bader. How about that? So another name to add to Bellator's growing roster of fighters. All right, let's move along. One last fighter to go and very excited, as always, to talk to Vaikavalo himself. Remember, a few months ago we were going to have him on, and he kind of mysteriously left us.

But now here he is, in the flesh, the former UFC heavyweight champion, joining us from his familiar car. Fabricio, how are you? everything is great man i'm just waiting for the interview i'm sorry about that the last time no no no i'm sorry for keeping you waiting so i appreciate you coming on uh there's there's a lot going on your life and a lot of people wondering what is going on with you because you were supposed to fight at ufc 211 ben rothwell gets pulled and now we don't really have much much word about you so tell us what is going to happen for you next yes man i'm very excited for the the next fight you know the uh the May 13, but it's happened, Ben Hotwood, the Usada got to him.

You know, I don't know what happened, but it's very bad because I'm waiting for this fight. He talked a lot, a lot of shit before, Ben Hotwer. I'm just waiting for the fight, but now, again, you know, I have a lot of fights canceled, you know, the last fight versus came Alaska, a lot of fights canceled. Now you're just waiting for the next one, you know. I think maybe the next one is an over in or King Velazquez, you know. This is the next one in July, you know.

Okay, so you're... I'm waiting for. You're not going to stay on the Dallas card anymore. You're off that card. Yes, but, but I started my camp for maybe, I don't know, man. You know, the last years, a couple years, I have a lot of injuries. Yeah. Maybe, I don't want to have an injury.

Steve Miltice or Cigano, I don't want this, for sure not. But it's happy, you know, a lot of training, hard training, maybe. Maybe, I'm waiting for the, you know, I mean, I'm waiting for the fight. Maybe it's happy. I mean, there for sure. I want to go there for to watch this fight. Yeah. Maybe the guys call me.

I'm waiting for this fight, you know. Is it fair to say you're done with Ben Rothwell? You don't want to fight him anymore? Who? Who? Ben Rothwell. No, I don't know. He have a... He has a... The Uzada catcher in, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how long he stay... How long he stay off? You know, one year or two years, I don't know. But if they come... They haven't come out and given him the suspension. So if they come out and say, oh, there was a mistake. He's, you know, he's good to fight.

Would you be interested in fighting him? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. No problem. Yes. You know, but for more...

For me, it's much better. The guys, I don't know, maybe the guys have an injury for the title shot is much better, you know? I want to fight for the title shot. Yeah. Stimiel, teach maybe I have an injury or Sigano. I'm going. I'm there. I'm there for a fight, you know.

I'm just waiting. But my next step is one more fight and the next time is the title shot again. You know, this is my plan. Yeah. Have they talked to you about Francis and Ghanu? There was a rumor that popped up yesterday that there was some talk about you versus is Nganu. Has that reached you? No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There was a rumor people were asking

me, oh, is Verdun going to fight Angano? Do you know this guy? Do you like him? Do you think he's a good fighter? Do you think he's at your level now? Enganoo, the French guy. African guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The French guy? Yeah. Hey, man, I know, I know more, I know more fights than the UFC network. I don't know I don't know this guy, man.

I don't know. It's a black guy? Yeah, he knocked out Arlowski. Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes. I know, yeah, for sure, man. I want to fight for sure, man. You know, all the time cancel, cancel, cancel, I want to fight, man.

I'm just starting to camp now, but May 30 p. I'm waiting for fight. It doesn't matter who, you know, but it's very important. The next fight, give me the, the opportunity for the next step.

I want to fight maybe the guys in the rank. The guys in the rank is not good for me. Sure. I want to fight for the next step, good one, you know. I know I fight versus Ska Velascus. Go over in. I know I'm the next one. I'm the next contender.

You know, this is very important. The good fight, good fighter and a good fight for the next step. This is my big, I, my opinion, maybe I fight versus Tadillo. The title shot again in December, November. Wow. You know, this is my idea, you know, my idea. Sure.

By the way, since you brought it up, what happened with the UFC Network? Why don't you work for them anymore? No, man, this is the past, you know? You know, me like eight years, maybe more. Yeah. I joke a lot. I do a lot, but I think the UFC don't understand my joking. Because I have a lot of fans, and the guy makes the thing,

You remember the thing that Reebok, the guy take off the rebock, he put Nike. Yeah. I just repost, you know, just repost, but the UFC, no instead. It's like a joking, you know, this is like a joke, but the guys don't understand. And I want to come back to my job, you know, my job, like UFC Network. I love this. Yeah. It's my passion, you know, I love this, man.

A lot of a guy asking me, ever do, when do you come back again, when you come back again? I say, man, I'm just waiting for the boss, you know, I say, you ever do, it's okay. Your timeout is okay. So they didn't like the post about the Nike and they just took you off the job? No, no, no. I think it's the different thing. I don't know.

I don't know. I think the same time maybe, but, you know, I just waiting for the comeback because they commentary for Latin America. Yeah. But this thing, I never have nothing about the Reebok in Oregon.

Rebok is very good, it's a sponsor, UFC, you know? I don't have another about it. about the Reebok. You know, I have a good relationship with C. Yeah. I mean, UFC 100%.

You know, I work a lot for UFC. I go to Latin America. I make a lot of good events in Mexico. You know, I'm just waiting for the, that I come back again, you know? This is my big go-to. Have you thought, you know, I remember when you were supposed to fight Cane Velasquez at UFC 207,

there seemed to be some, I don't know, some misunderstanding with you and Dana White about the offer for Jail. JDS, short notice fight and all that. Have you thought about maybe sitting down and clearing the air with him? No, no yet. No, yet. I want to go maybe next week I go to Las Vegas. Me, Ali, and I talk with him, you know.

I want to talk with him about everything, everything. Maybe I told you, I have a lot of jokes in my Instagram and social media. I joke a lot, but I don't understand me, maybe. Maybe it's different, joking from Brazil and a joke from America, you know. I want to go there and talk with him. I make a joke with him. Maybe I post too. You know, he's done it.

But you feel like that is something that you should do. Maybe sit down and talk face to face with him. Yes, yes. This is very important. I wanted this. You know, I want to go there and I talk with him. I want to, you know, how long I'm in the UFC, man, for a long time. Yeah.

I've worked for FC. I mean, I'm an ambassador for Latin America before. Yeah. I work a lot for the Latin America fans. You know, I told in Mexico, I did a lot of job, good job in Mexico. You know, the interviews for the UFC one I did a lot of times, you know. I want to just go there, sit down, just take a coffee, and then, you know, I mean, the 100% of the UFC, man. You know, this is very important.

Talk, you know, just sit and the talk is very important. And what's going on between you and Junior Dos Santos? A lot of talk back and forth, it seems like, what's happening here? I don't know, man. I don't know. This guy has something about him. I don't know why. Because I mean, I don't see nothing. I know, I learn a lot, you know.

I have a lot of experience. Before, when I'm very young, I see a lot of things, a lot of shit, but it's not good. It's not me, you know. I joke a lot, but he said a lot of things before, before my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, versus cave elast cancel he said a lot of things before i don't know i don't say i don't say i don't say i don't say i don't say like i don't say i say something i i respond for sure you know yeah that's it but i don't know i think he liked me you know i think he like me does it bother you i'm married man i'm married i'm married i'm married for long time you know i'm

you have beautiful children by the way your children are beautiful julia right yeah jula joanna um does it bother you that he's getting the next title shot? Yes, man, because I think I'm in the next line. Yeah. Why have a rank? The rank, I'm in the number one. You know, I think I'm in the next one.

Supposed, me versus Velasquez, the semifinal. You know, I like a semifinal. Me, Velasquez. Yeah. You know, fight is me. I mean, the next one. But it's okay, man. It's a UFC decision.

He says, junior Cialelago there. Okay, unfortunately, I'm sad. I want to fight for the title shot. This is a big goal. Not just me, everybody want to fight the title shot, the UFC's a shot. But now I'm just waiting. I know the June, May 13, you know, Cigano versus Timioliditch. I told you, I'm just waiting for them.

Maybe, I'm waiting. You know, I started my training. Every don't have an injury. Opa, I go in for short, you know, versus Cigano or Stimiotis. It doesn't matter for me. I don't want to prefer a Cigano or Stimotich. No, no, I wanted the title shot. I want my belt, you know.

I have a two, I'm in front of my home now. I have two belts in my home. One in the downstairs, upstairs, I have another one. I have two belts my home. I want more more. Sure. I don't blame you. Who do you think wins that fight?

If they do fight, who do you think wins? Because you know both men. Steepai and JDS, who do you think? Yes. The last fight, Steve Othich versus Sigano. The last round, Sigranos, win for sure. A lot of guys say Steve will win, but I think Sigano win this fight, the last round, you know?

Yeah. I think my opinion today, the Steve will teach is the champion. When you did champion, your mind is so different. Your mind, you know, when you did champion. I think same, like a very close fight the last one, but Stephen Teach won this time, like a point, four points. Same thing, but just Stephen Teach win, you know? Right, right. Yeah, this is my opinion. for decision, for decision. Okay.

I think so. How much do you miss being champion? Do you miss it? Like, you miss the fact that everyone's calling you champion, that everyone's looking at you, that they're all kind of trying to get you. Do you, does it feel different when your champion as opposed to not being champion? Yes, man.

I'm in the champion. I feel I'm in the champion. You know, in the life. You know, I'm in the champion, the life. You know, I just have a one. I don't like one that I say this, but it's, uh, just, I have only one guy in the world. I have the three title shot.

Jiu-jitsu, grappling, and the UFC. You know, I have it all three. Now, I have another fight in the world. I'm the champion in the life, in the fights. I'm just waiting for the next one, my next fight, giving the opportunity for the title shot again.

I told you, I think I fought, I fight versus the title shot again in November or December. Yeah. In my mind, I have a disease. Yep. And after then, maybe two or three more years, that's it. Because my body's okay now. I have a 30, nine years old.

Yeah. But my body's okay. I'm very young. My mind is very young, you know? So you don't think, when I get to 40, you don't have an end date. You say two or three years, but as long as you feel good, you're going to keep going. Yes, I keep going. It's so hard.

I don't like when the guys say, the guys, say stop the fight this is not good you know because you have a lot of jobs you know I'm not just fight I have appearances seminars when you say

I mean then you're you know it's different price yeah yeah it's so different yeah this is I love this

this my life I love a fight all the time I don't have a date I know I say three more years but maybe more I don't know you know I told you I'm 39 years old

but I'm feeling very very young. My mind is very young, you know, everything. And speaking of other things outside of fighting, you recently opened a comedy bar in Sao Paulo, right? The Beverly Hills Bar, correct? Yes, you're right. It's very important, man.

It's very important, not just fight, but, you know, investment in different things, you know? Yeah. I don't have a dream. I want to hold it a big gym. This is no my dream. I know a lot of fights have a dream. Like, I open a nice gym,

blah, blah, but I don't like this dream. I like different things, you know. I like a comedian. You know, I like this. I love this. I'm no comedian, but I love it. Yeah. I like, I love to watch this.

And I open in Sao Paulo, the big, nice place in San Paulo, you know, the Beverly Hills Comedy Club, this is very, I haven't before. I just by now, you know, me, one more guy, you know. Have you ever tried it? Have you ever tried stand-up comedy? I feel like you would be good at it. No, I think I just having fun just for my friends. My friend is so hard.

It's so hard. Hey, ask you about that. Say, if I teach for 200 people, so I teach, no problem. When I teach seminars, it's like a show. It's like a comedian show. Yeah. I joke a lot with the guys. I show the position, a lot of histories.

But when you go to this show, comedy show is so different. It's so hard this, man. We're sweating a lot, you know? It's so hard. I would love to see you try. I feel like you'd be really good on stage. You think so? I think so.

You're a comedian with the face and everything. Your sense of humor, I can tell. I don't speak Portuguese, but I feel like I get your sense of humor. I think I, you know, with some translation, my friend Guillermo, he tells me what you're saying. It's all very funny. Thank you very. I appreciate you. Who's your favorite Brazilian comedian of all time and favorite American comedian of all time?

Do you have a favorite? America, I know, it's a different comedian of all time. Okay. I just say it's different, you know, different jokies. You know, it's all different. But in Brazil, I have a very famous one that Don Carvocanchi. He's a very famous guy. Okay.

Tom Carvocanches. He's very good, man. For me, it's the best one. All right. I'll look into him. By the way, I saw a video on TMZ. You were shipping a TV to your comedy bar from L.A. But via American Airlines.

Right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Why? Yes, I bring, you know, it's so different. the price, man, the square. Hey, I pay here the big TV, 48, you know, 48, the big one. Yeah.

And for $300, $300, it's nothing. You know, it's 300. Wow. Brazil is a lot, it's very expensive, it's very expensive, Brazil, man. So you just put it on a plane? Yeah, they put it on a plane, for sure, yes. Because, you know, America lines, I have the, the Latino,

elite Latino, you know, and everything, you know. And you don't have to go on the flight too, you just send it? Yeah, no, no, I go to for sure. Oh, okay. Because I mean, I go to, I just come back to Brazil. I stay in Brazil 10 days. I did a commercial there, you know, the sport and bat. Sporting bat sponsored me.

Uh-huh. And I just go there, I film the commercial. Okay. Just three days. It's very good. Wow. And you're not worried that they're going to break the TV? No, no, no, it's okay.

Everything's okay. No, no, it's not great. No, no, it's good. Wow. I fix in the bar. I post my Instagram, when I fix it at the TV in the bar, it's good, man. It's good. It's not too big, but for the 170 people inside, the bar is good, the full house.

Wow. That is great. That is great. And are you going to open one in the U.S. as well or just in Brazil? No, just Brazil. I make more fights for that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's right. By the way, I want to see while you're taking it, because you know, you've been somewhat inactive with these fights falling through. What about finally seeing Verdume versus Rockhold grappling match? What do you think about that? Versus who? Luke Rockhold. Ah, man, I think this guy's a beach, you know. These guys are, hey, I think I'm a fight with him. I like, I just grappling, but I don't like this guy, I slap his face for sure, you know? I'm slapping his face because this guy's, hey man, this guy is,

I don't know, man, this is a bullshit guy, you know? He say a lot of things, bad things. I love one that it's a beast been knocked down. I love this, man. I love one of the, you know, beast been knocked down here.

I love this, man. You know, I open a champ in my home here. Oh, my God. But he's talked about grappling John Jones. Do you want to be active? Has anyone tried to make this happen?

considering you guys have this history together, you and Luke Rockhold, maybe a, you know, Eddie Bravo. Yeah, my next idea is maybe me, a person, John Jones, just grappling. I like John Jones. It's very nice guy, man. I have a, you know, I saw him in Russia, in different places. It's very nice guy, man, John Jones. But just a grappling. I think everybody wants to see me, John Jones, you know, good grappling in Chechnya, because, you know, I have a good relationship with Chechnya. Yeah. You know, with the president. I mean the ambassador there, the MMA ambassador for Chechnya. What does that mean, MMA ambassador? It's okay.

What does it mean to be an MMA ambassador of Chechnya? Yeah. You know, I mean, the ambassador, you know, my job is like promotion. The guys know in the USA in the world, have a good event there. I'm a promotion of this event. You know, hey, have a nice event there in Chechnya. president is different man one just i have one only one president in the world love uh m ua he have a his event you know ahmat uh thing you know yeah yeah yeah ahmat event is good fights you

don't know it's a show very well i think my idea just me versus john john is there in chichenda okay it's a good one so no luke ruckold yes no no because i slap for sure he is the You know, just the grappling, but for sure I slap him. I want to just like a beach, you know, just one. So if you had your way, as far as July, if you don't get the opportunity in May, who would you prefer? Kane, someone else, who's the best idea for you? Hey, man. I think both, after this victory, I go to the title shot.

I like it. Bose is the rematch, you know? I finished Overeign in Pride. In 2006, I finished him in the Kimura. You remember this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he beat me in strike force

when I have a... When I have a... Only one time, I have a... I'll say, the over-training. I have an overtain the second time because the fight canceled two times before, you know? It's funny.

It's funny thing in Dallas, this time. I'm just waiting. waiting for the toping test, you know, the doping test, you know, the toping. The test, you know, the test. Yeah, yeah. Topping test, yes. I'm just waiting for that. I'm just saying, man, I want the testing doping.

Just, I want to start the warm up. The guy said, no, no, no, here, no, have nothing. You okay, you okay. You're okay. You're okay. I have a test here. I said, what? And over in, like, too big, you know?

It's like, strike force. 20 kilos. Yeah. Yeah, he's right, of course. And now it's the 1-1. I think it's good rematch, you know, the number three. Yeah. You know, and Kvalasquez, I think Overeign, man, Overn is, I think, because I saw the other day,

Cape Alaskis say he needed more time, you know, for he go over again. I think Overeign is okay for me, you know. There's a good rematch. So you think Overeign was doping when you fought him in Strike Force in 2011? No, I know. I don't say that. I just said that he's a different breakfast. He's a different juice. I think it's an orange juice with orange juice pineapple. I don't know. Sure, sure. Who knows? By the way, one last thing for you. What do you think about Kelvin Gasselm, who's a teammate of yours, right? At King's M.A? Now he's fighting all the Brazilians. He's fighting Vitor then Anderson, who you know as well, fighting these guys. How do you know? you feel about that? Yes, man, I love this

guys. Kelvin Gastillon, he trained very well in the gym, he trained very well, but when he goes inside the octagon, he changed his mind, man. I love this. Sometimes, have a good guys in the gym. He's like everybody, somebody, but

when he fight, when the guy fight, it's not good fight. But Kelvin, he trained well, but when he go inside the gym, the cage, It's different. It's surprised everybody in the last fight. Yeah.

It's a beautiful for. I think it's good for him with an opportunity versus, you know, I respect that. For sure, my friend, he's a, you know, he's an agent. But it's good for a job in a certain opportunity. Fabricio, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much for the time. Thank you for coming on the show. I always like talking to you.

You always have a good vibe to you. You're always very happy despite all this craziness going on, no fight, Dallas, all this stuff. And congratulations on your new bar, and good luck with it. And good luck getting your next fight. We appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate for you, man. The opportunity again.

All the time you're a very nice guy. And I want a maybe, maybe a promotion, this might. Me versus Luke Loholho, you know, like grappling. Oh. I just slap his way, you know, just like a different rules. Sure, sure. slapping aloud. No, no question.

I don't want a question. I just slap me a speech. All right, let me see what he says, and I'll let you know. I appreciate it. Okay. All right, there he is. Oh, brigado. Vaikavalo.

Fabrice O'Ruio Vardoum, stopping by. Great stuff, as always, from him, and a fun way to end today's interviews. Always fun to talk to Fabrice Radoom. I wonder what is going to happen with him next. Okay, just a couple of minutes left. New York Rick, are you there? I think he went to sleep. Or maybe he went back on vacation. I am here.

Oh, there he is. What do you think for Verduim? Overham? Yep. Kane? Yep. Derek Lewis versus Mark Hunt was reported earlier. First by M.M.A. Junkie, and we confirmed it. That's happening in Auckland. So Kent talk about one of those. Or Frances Inganu?

I kind of like Overim More than Kane Yeah All right I want to see I want to see Redoum and Overim Third time

Yeah All right I think Yeah it's tough It's tough It's tough it's tough and it's easy At the same time It's tough because

A lot of these matchups are going to be rematches It's a lot of running back The same fights because heavy weight's still Relatively shallow and we've seen so many of them for so long. Also, heavyweights shelf lives are extended, so they've been around for a long time.

They faced each other a lot of times. At the same time, I don't really have a problem with any of the rematches. I don't really have a problem with many of the matchups at heavyweight. I think nearly any combination can kind of prove to be exciting and give us a good fight. So it's tough in the sense that you get the feeling that you've seen them before, but it's easy in the sense that I almost don't mind having seen them before,

whereas in other divisions there's only so many times you can see the same rematch and expect a different outcome. I think heavy weights a little bit different in that regard. It was funny. Last week I reached out to

Lewis's camp and I was like, hey, any news? And they're like, no, we're going to chill. You know, he said he wanted to break, broken foot, all that stuff. And then he gets another fight. The guy can't chill. Do you like this fight?

Him versus Mark Hunt in New Zealand? And again, they continue to send Derek Lewis to these far off places. Like the guy who never left the U.S., He's in Philippines, Nova Scotia, now in New Zealand, had him fighting. Where did he fight? Did he fighting Croatia?

I don't know. He's fighting all over the place. What do you think about this? He's on a role. Hunt is, you know, stuck on this, what is it, two-fight skid now? What do you think? You like it?

I like it. And I don't think it's any accident. I think the send Derek Lewis to somewhere foreign with a camera is tried and true and I think they're capitalizing on it well. Yeah, Zagreb in April of 2016. Then he had Vegas. Then he had the...

Well, actually, it was canceled. He had Manila, which he went to Manila for, and the fight got canceled, so he never got the fight, which was crazy. Then he went to the exotic locale known as Albany, New York. And then he went to Halifax, first time in Canada,

and now he's going to Auckland, New Zealand. There appears to be a... breaking news as far as the war machine case is concerned. Have you been following this? I have. I've seen What do you got? Can you tell us what the news is? Yeah, so he was on

it was charged with what I would believe was 34 different counts. Wow. And ended being guilty of 29 as per the jury. Three, not guilty and two, it was a hung jury.

So five charges, not guilty, 29 of the 34 guilty, and sentencing will be June 5th. June 5th. Yeah. So they don't know how long. Well, that's what the sentencing is for. Yeah. The individual counts are going to be discussed and then he'll be sentenced. This is completely out of my, out of my weight class, but why don't they just sentence?

sentence him now. I think that there's a reason for it to be delayed. I'm seeing Kevin Aoli tweeting, judge declared a mistrial in the case on the counts that were hung, and he could be retried on those charges. So I imagine there needs to be time for that. Wow. Crazy story. Yeah. It's so crazy that we had them both on at the same time. Remember that? Oh, yes. I remember it. Yeah. Weird. Well, just a horrible story and a horrible turn of events for everyone involved

okay before we go let me ask you about this which son do you like better Larkin, Danis or Bader for Bellator I think the one with the highest upside is Dylan Dennis really because he's still an unknown

he could potentially be huge for them he could potentially wash out he could potentially be somewhere in the middle there's a lot more unknown about Dylan at this point and I think that provides for the highest ceiling as well as the lowest floor

I think Bader is going to be a contender right away and could definitely win that belt so I think that's a great signing for them in that regard it will be competitive in that division right away against Phil Davis and Laurenz Larkin I think of the bunch will probably put on the most exciting fights maybe you know push to the title

contention. But I think, yeah, I think Dylan Dennis is probably the one with the most risk, but also the most possible. Wow. I was not expecting that. Yeah. Wow. And then you go Bader? And then probably Bader, yeah. Wow. Dylan Dennis. Okay. Now, he could completely, you know, bust and that's a possibility at this point, but the upside is, is there. I was talking about this line of thinking last week on the show while you were out touring double-decker buses and whatnot. Sure.

Bellator has done this very smart thing, I think, of signing guys before they're ready at Ruth, Tau Fortune, Aaron Pico, Dylan Dennis, guys who are very young in their careers like A.J. McKee, James Galaher. They have to get

them in the sort of farm system, if you will, right off the bat, and they can afford to put them on undercards they can afford to pay them as they progress. UFC doesn't necessarily have that luxury because there's just the UFC, but we're starting to see the UFC do this a little more. They're doing it with McKinsey Dern, and I'm told a couple others as well. So there's now kind of this arms race to get fighters before they're even ready for the big dance.

Belator has the luxury of putting them on their undercard because their undercards aren't as prestigious, if you will, not as, I don't know, talent filled as the UFC under cards so they can slide them in a little more seamlessly, but the UFC kind of has to get a jump on these guys as well. So it's kind of a fascinating thing happening behind the scenes. Yeah.

It's the ecosystem is completely different, and it's interesting to see how that will kind of play out. But yeah, it provides an opportunity at this moment for organizations, including Bellator, but others as well. Speaking of resignings, World Series Fighting, re-signed Blagoi and Lance Palmer.

This is before their title fights this weekend. And I think that's notable only because it seemed like all the champions were going away. So maybe with some new investors, they've had a chance to, I don't know, restock on some of their budgets and their salary cap, if you will, and try to secure these people,

although unfortunate that Palmer ended up losing the fight to Andre Harrison. Also, EFN is getting very active in the signing world, picking up Hussimar Paul Harris. Also, who else did they get that I reported? Ali Bagautinov, Josh Hill, and some other interesting names as well. So that I thought was notable. Michael McDonald, no longer with the UFC, getting his release. So do we have interest in Michael McDonald?

Do you think that there's still a ceiling there for him that's, you know, championship level? Or do you feel like he's kind of reaches potential? Yeah, I think due to the time off, it's kind of hard to gauge, but immensely talented. I think there's still a lot to get from him. And of course, let's not forget about the great Edith LaBelle, signing with Cage Warriors, the former UFC Octagon Girl. What weight class is that? I'm not sure. I think money weight, but I think that's a big signing for Cage Warriors.

She's debuting in April. What do you think of Matt Hughes? Are you interested in Matt Hughes versus Hoyst Gracie? I think Boss got it wrong as far as his hint was concerned. I think he thought that Hughes was talking about GSP. He was talking about Hoyst Gracie. Any interest? Did you hear my question?

Zero. Zero interest. Less than zero. Oh, wow. Any interest in Anderson versus Gaslam? A lot. A ton of interest. Some people didn't like it.

Some people were like, oh, why you do that? Yeah, but I think that's because. because they're, you know, considering all the alternatives, they have their favorites and, you know, whatever the case may be, but definitely a compelling fight. Whether you're, whether you think it was the right fight to make from a matchmaking perspective

and rankings perspective aside, clearly there's some intrigue there. Buy or sell CM Punk versus Vitor Belfort. Could not sell it. I think that he was joking. I think people took that comment a little too literally. Yeah. Sell. Buy or sell.

Franki Edgar versus Yeo Rodriguez. Mortgage of the house to buy it. Love that fight. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. It's going to give us a real answer to where both those guys are at. I think it's the perfect fight.

All right. Roy Nelson versus Alexander Volkov was announced. Is it Alexander Volkov? Why am I spacing on his first name? Nelson, you know, as we approach the four-hour market against you for this kind of help. as a crutch, if you will. But yes, that is happening April 15th in Kansas City.

There was also a fifth pay-per-view fight announced for UFC 210. Did you catch this announcement? I did not, or did I? Yes. Pearl Gonzalez versus Cynthia Calvillo. Does that wet the appetite? I'm into it, yeah, for sure. What do you know about Pearl Gonzalez?

I don't know anything about Pro-Gonzalez, but I know about Cynthia Calvarez. All of a sudden, you're on the bandwagon. If you watch the fight, you're in. That was good. Are you going to Invicta, speaking of Women's Entertainment? Wow. Back on the... Saturday. Wow. It's a Saturday card, right? Correct. Why not Friday? I like when they do Friday.

Yeah, Saturday is, I think, a better day. It's the Tony Avenger rematch. Friday will be back, yeah. You're going, not Glory. No, Glory in Brussels. Also, same day earlier in the day, but I will be in Kansas City. How do you decide where you go? Flip a coin. Flip a coin?

You and John split up. up. Exactly. The great John Beer. Yeah. Did you agree with what I said at the top of the show about Floyd and Connor and Connor just doing, I thought, a marvelous job of boosting the interest in this fight in a well-timed, well-placed, perfectly timed, I would add, or correct myself, rant, if you will. Yeah. And I think, but I think, having said that he can create these opportunities pretty much any time he wants.

So this was a perfect storm, but I feel like Connor can make perfect storms. He doesn't really need this opportunity. It worked out well, but whenever he decides to speak, people will listen and whatever he... It was just so perfect, the way the energy, what he was saying, who he directed it to.

Yeah, it could not have lined up better. But he's money. He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Two last quick things. After the show last week, I actually went on Twitch, signed up for it. And let me tell you,

I was actually weirdly fascinated by the whole thing. Have you ever been on Twitch? I have, yeah. It is so bizarre. DJ was doing a stream. I was walking home and I was just watching

and it was actually quite soothing and he's talking. And I gotta say, like the whole thing is just so weird to me and people, the reaction to it is just amazing when you talk about Twitch. I want to do a whole separate interview

with him just talking about the psychology behind wanting to watch someone play a video game. We got into this a little bit when we were talking about, I went to MSG to watch the championships of League of Legends, and they sold out MSG. There's a huge market for this, bigger than anything. Last time we talked about this, it went onto Reddit,

got a thread with tons and tons of replies. The video game and the e-sports world is big, big money. This was just so weird. He was sitting there and he was talking to some other kids, and then there's a chat room, and everyone's just kind of weighing in. They have all this weird lingo, and he is so into it.

Someone sent me a video. Joe from Houston sent me a video of him getting super pissed. I've never seen so much emotion out of Mighty Mouse in my life, a compilation video of him getting pissed while playing video games. It's amazing.

If you have not seen this, go out there and find it. You will laugh out loud, I guarantee it. And then I was invited to Chris Wydman's stream that night. And his whole thing is completely not buttoned up. His stream kept dying out. He couldn't figure out the music to play.

And then I started suggesting music. And then he made me the moderator of his chat room. And I started banning people. There was this one guy, Luke Rockhold, who kept talking smack. So I banned him. And then other people were telling me who else to ban. I spent like an hour on this thing. I was having a blast.

A whole hour. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot for me. It sounds like you're in. Maybe you start a Twitch. I don't know about that. I still don't understand the idea behind watching someone, you know, play a video. What's so foreign about it?

It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. I'd rather just play the game myself. It's not like an athletic endeavor. It is. It is sports. It is sports. No, no, no.

It's not like I can't play against the Lakers or the Knicks or the Clippers, whatever. I can't do that. But now, okay, we've got some breaking news. Before we go, we've got some breaking news here. This according to the Associated Press On June 24th, Bellator will be... Okay, let's just read it. Belator is stepping up to Madison Square Garden

and back onto pay-per-view. The mixed martial arts promotion will stage a stack card in New York City on June 24th. The Associated Press has learned. Beltor 180 will be headlined by Chale Sunnan's long-awaited Rivalry bout with Vandrelay Silva.

Additional fights will be announced soon for several of the promotions' top talents including a handful of its newly signed free agents. Bell Tour will broadcast on pay-per-view for only the second time in promotional history, signaling another step in its growth as a rival for the industry leading UFC. Bel-Tor stage, its only pay-per-view event made to 2014, shortly before Scott Coker took over the promotion. Whoa.

Big deal. To the backyard. Belter coming to MSG. Yeah. Coming right here. The big news is this might be my first. is Bellator event. Of course, I went to that media event in Brooklyn, and that sort of led to my demise as far as Fox is concerned, but an actual event. Huge. That's the real, I mean, I feel like they kind of

buried the lead here. That's the real story. It's a good, it's a good headliner to come with for sure. Do you not think that this is weird to go on pay-per-view? I mean, I feel like you got, why, your Vi-com, your spike. Why are you going in pay-per-view? Because the purses are so expensive. I don't know. Yeah. interesting. And they kind of hint at the free agent signings. Seems like a good place for Ryan Bader versus Phil Davis, too. Oh, yes. Wow. Yes. It's all coming together. It's all coming together here for Belator. June 24th. You heard it here first. Not really. First reported by Associated Press, but maybe verbally you heard it for the first time on this program. Belator 180, June 24th. My mother's birthday, by the way, St. Jean-Battice Day, which is sort of Quebec's Independence Day. So that's notable in its own right. Beltor coming to MSG and they're not pulling it appears a World Series of fighting on us

they're not going to the theater they're actually going to the real MSG which by June 24th the finals will be done so the next run will probably be over by then so no conflicting dates it all makes sense it's all coming together

wow any other names on this let me just quickly read no Belltor is acquired maybe Fador on that card wow could you imagine Fador at MSG with all the Russians coming to town.

Well, this is fun. All right. Well, there you have it. Some breaking news to end the show. Anything else before we go? Yeah, I want to give a shout out. Okay. David Lamb, number one.

Who's that? Offered to buy me a shot if Patrick Duffy. I'm Patrick Duffy. If Joe Duffy, no, if Patrick Duffy, that would be an incredible one. If Joe Duffy got a knockout, didn't quite get the knockout, didn't get me that shot, but appreciate the offer. And Daniel Marr, who I took a picture with and said, please, please, please, shout me on it on the show. So I'm doing that, Daniel. Good to see all the people in London.

So people actually did recognize you. Happy to be back, yeah. Wow. Listen, I'm worldwide, baby. Look, contrary to our jokes, and really it was everyone in the back who made these jokes. I was just sort of relaying them. We're happy to have you back. We missed you. and it most certainly wasn't the same without you. I appreciate that. All right.

On that note, how about that? Scooping up some big news as we say goodbye here. And my mom is still listening, by the way. Never doubt who is the number one fan of this program. June 24th, she'll be celebrating her 24th birthday. It's what is that called? The Silver birthday or something. And Bellator is honoring her with their second pay-per-view

at Madison Square Garden of all places. You couldn't script it better than this. On that note, you can hit my music. What a fun show it has been. In fact, our good friend, Aunt Evans, telling me that he thinks this was our best show of 2017. It's funny that I got that because at the same time I had someone else on Twitter telling me it was our worst show because we didn't get Mark Dio Casey on. Mark D. Casey went on Reddit, by the way, and said that our show will falter without his presence. Could you imagine that?

Who knew that so many people loved Mark Dio Casey? I love Mark Dio Casey. I was on the bandwagon before he even got to the UFC. Just wanted to shed some light to some of these other, you know, British fighters who we haven't had on recently. Jimmy Manoa, Arnold Allen. Of course, can't forget about Ireland's own Joe Duffy. I thought it was a fantastic show from top to bottom. And once again, ever so stacked.

Well, it was fun. I appreciate everyone tuning in. I appreciate everyone who stopped by today. Thank you very much to Joe Duffy. Best of luck to him as he embarks on free agency. Will he go the way? of Ryan Bader Lorenz Larkin as of late

we shall soon find out thank you very much to Lorenz Larkin and congratulations to him on his new UFC deal as well thank you very much to the somewhat soft-spoken Arnold Allen but I feel like we got him out of his shadow or I should say his comfort zone a little bit as we started talking about his family

and his dog and Domino's Pizza and I certainly respect his taste as well. Thank you very much to Jimmy Manoa. Congratulations to him. Thank you very much to Edging Christian. Check out their podcast March 24th. Thank you very much to Boss Rune.

Good luck with the new show coming out tomorrow. Thank you very much to Kevin Gaslam. Ryan Bader and Fabrice O'Roodoom as well. Back next week, same time, place till this is a piece. I'm out here.