MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 381

Episode Date: May 8, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Luke Rockhold (00:08:09), Justin Gaethje (00:32:25), Anthony Pettis (00:50:10), Malki Kawa (01:04:30), Matt Hughes (01:30:59), Aspen Ladd (02:04:17), NewYorkRic (02:19:24) for Ric’s Picks, Kelvin Gastelum (03:11:02), and NewYorkRic (03:34:27) once again to recap the week in MMA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour with a mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, May 8th, 2017. Hello good, everyone. I'm Mario Hawani back inside our New York City studio. I feel like we've been talking a lot lately between the two shows last week, the MMA beat back this week. I feel like we've been talking a lot and what a week it was for us last week, the show on Monday with all that craziness, Anderson Silva, Y'all Romero, Megan Anderson, Chris Seiborg, on and on and went.

And then Wednesday we come back with the Nate Diaz special. Just want to thank everyone who tuned in last week to either show, both shows. Great feedback. I appreciate you listening, watching, tweeting about it, seen it all. I really appreciate it. So it was a good week for us. And this is how I typically think. Oh, it was a great week.

Had some good interviews now. How do I top this? don't really allow myself a minute to actually enjoy the work what was done. I just start sweating about how do I make the show better? How do I top this? What do I do? And so I'll attempt to do that this week on the program. I'm happy that we're doing a show on May 8th, by the way. This is one of my favorite days on the calendar because on May 8th, 1970, it was the greatest day in the history of my beloved New York Knicks. Will Sreed walked out game seven of the NBA finals.

As I noted on Twitter earlier this morning, if I could go in a time machine and relive one day the history of this world, I think it would actually be May 8, 1970. I really do. As sad as that may seem. First time the Knicks won the championship, the movie Crooklyn tells a nice story about this day.

And I just want to feel what it's like to celebrate a Knicks victory, a Knicks championship victory. victory. Lord knows I won't be feeling that anytime soon. So every time May 8 pops up, I'm a big Nick's historian, if you will, I at least I fancy myself one. Every time May 8 pops up, I'm like, oh yeah, it was on this day X amount of years ago that the famous walk out of the tunnel happened. Pretty cool. So I'm happy to be doing the show today. There's a lot to discuss. UFC 211 is a mere five days away. It is, without a doubt, the best card of the year, the most interesting card of the year. What I like about this card is it wasn't cobbled together.

The matchups make sense. Of course, there's two title fights, but the other match, I mean, Yayao Rodriguez versus Frankie Edgar, Eddie Alvarez versus Dustin Porier. These are big time fights. The fights make sense. There's a story there. It wasn't thrown together. The card has remained relatively intact.

I like it. This is a great card. It's in Dallas. It was a good market. Although I must say I was watching the countdown show this morning on my way to the studio and just seeing the scenes of Steppe Miochich in Cleveland and the way he is treated there and the way the fans react to him at the queue

where the Cavs play, it still boggles my mind that he's not fighting in Cleveland. He is such a big star there. He is a superstar in Cleveland. The reaction that he got when he beat Alistair O'Reem was like Connor in Dublin. I kid you not. It was deafening.

Why is he fighting in Dallas? But alas, it's happening. And ticket sales are going, well, that's fine. I just, you can't recreate that. pop. It's not the same. They don't have that emotional attachment to him. It's going to be a fun week I get there on Wednesday. So we have a lot to discuss as it pertains to 211. Once again, it was a quiet weekend in the world of MMA, but still no shortage of things to discuss. And once again, boxing took center stage. Now, unlike last weekend, the Canella Alvarez,

Julio Cesar, Chavez Jr. fight did not produce any kind of excitement whatsoever. I mean, it was a one-sided drubbing. It was a beatdown. It was all Canelo. Last week, we had Anthony Joshua versus Vladimir Klichko, a lot of smart boxing people consider that to be the fight of the year thus far. But what was interesting about Canello and Chavez was after the fight, as you may have heard, they announced that Canello will be fighting Triple G, Ganadi Golofkin, on September 16th. Now, if you've been listening to this show and just following my various commentaries on the proposed Floyd Mayweather versus Conne McGregor fight, you know that that was the date that they were

targeting Mexican Independence Day. But here's what's interesting about that fight. The Ganadi Golofkin versus Cannell-Avers fight, they did not announce a venue, a day, excuse me, they did not announce a venue or a city for the fight.

And then afterwards, you saw Dana White talk to the media and say that they just lost their date, confirming what I had said about September 16th, right? I have some thoughts, some further thoughts. Initially, I was like, you know what, maybe he's right. Maybe this now throws a wrench in those plans. Maybe now they can't go on September 16th. They're not going to go head to head. All right, maybe we're going to have to wait for this proposed fight, which by all accounts seems to be moving along. But now I have some further thoughts. So we'll be talking about those later on. I have a few things that I want to share regarding that whole losing the date, September 16 thing.

So stay tuned for that. For now, let me run down today's last. lineup. It's a great one. I'm excited to talk to these individuals. And then we'll get into our first guest of the day. At 410, we're going to be joined by Kelvin Gaslam. Kelvin Gaslam was in the news yesterday. He finally received his suspension for that failed drug test after his win over Vitor Belfort. So he's going to be out for three months. That actually expires, what, June 11th. So he misses out on 212 by just a few days. The Anderson-Silva situation is a mess. He's actually, by all accounts, the card. He said on his Instagram yesterday. He's going back home to L.A. No real update on the situation from last week. And according to people I've talked to within the UFC, they tell me,

as of this point, he's not on the 212 card. They even put out the poster today. And he's nowhere to be seen. So we're going to talk to Kelvin about what's next, the suspension, the failed drug test, and more. At 305, we'll recap the news of the week, do little Rick's picks, perhaps hear from all of you. There's a lot to discuss. Talk about 211. 211. 244.4.4. We're going to talk to Aspen Lad, who it was announced on Friday, we'll be making her UFC debut on July 7th against Jessica I. She is undefeated. She's a big time prospect.

Looking forward to that. 2.25. We're going to talk to Matt Hughes. I've been trying to talk to Matt Hughes for months now, ever since he left the UFC. And he has finally obliged. I've been hitting him up almost every second week. Hey, Matt, ready to talk, ready to talk. Usually he just ignored me.

This time, he actually responded. So I'm very excited to talk to Matt Hughes at 221. At 2 o'clock, we'll talk to Maliki Kawa. There's a lot to talk to him about. He's got a lot going on in and out of MMA. Obviously, some big-time clients, John Jones, Daniel Korme. I'm told, by the way, they are on the docket for that big press conference in Dallas on Friday, the summer kickoff, if you will. A lot to talk to Maliki about.

We'll do so at 2 o'clock. 145. We're going to talk to Anthony Pettis. It was announced last week he'll be fighting Jim Miller and his return to 155 at UFC 213 on July 8th. my birthday, 35 years young, so I'm looking forward to that. And 125, we're going to talk to the newest member of the UFC's lightweight division. Justin Gaichi, the former WSOF lightweight champion signed with the UFC last week. Looking forward to talking to Justin.

But first, let us go to the Skype machine. You know, a big story in MMA right now is the state of the middleweight division. It is somewhat of a mess. You heard from GSP. Last week, he sent out a tweet to Michael Bisping. He said, let's meet either in October or later. Well, that's in five months. What is going on?

A man who has some thoughts on the mess that is 185 is the former middleweight champion himself, Luke Rockhold. And he joins us via the magical Skype. Hey, Luke, how are you? Doing all right. As you can obviously tell, the middle of division is mess. Just trying to straighten the stuff. No pleasantries. We're getting right into it.

I like it. No fooling around here. Yeah. There's no point that these days. Let me ask you a question right off the bat, Luke. You're the former champion. You last fought in a title fight. You're the last guy, you know, to hold the belt, not named Michael Bisping.

When you look at the division, you're obviously healthy. I see you training. I know you're in Florida. You're with Henry Hoof. You look at the division. You're in the prime of your career. You're itching to get back in there. Is it hard to be motivated to fight, to climb the ladder when you know that the belt is kind of hanging there?

You don't know when it's going to be defended. and there's this long queue of guys who are upset, disgruntled, waiting for their shot. How do you react to the current state of the division? Yeah, it's lack of motivation. There's nothing I want more than to fight, but when you fight, there's got to be a goal. I fight to be the best. I fight to win titles and to get that championship dollar. So, I mean, that's what it's all about.

There's no path to that. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. So what's the fucking point? I mean, well, if they fight in October, then Bidzman won't. He wouldn't have fought a contender in a year and a half holding the belt, something like that. You know, potentially two years if he ever even does fight a contender. It's becoming pretty ridiculous. I don't know.

You know, I want, there's just no point, especially in this division. I'm open to moving divisions if I have to. Has the UFC talked to you recently about a fight? Have they offered you anything of note? Yeah. No, I've been offered a fight. So, I mean, I don't understand it exactly, really. They got, I mean, they offered me Musassi, and they haven't even signed Musassi yet.

So technically, you know, how do I sign a contract that one of the guys not even signed to the company? Huh. Yeah. So it's an interesting tag. I like the fight, but I'm not going to go fight the best guys in the world without getting a, you know, closer to a title. are getting a title shot. You know, I want my shot at the belt, and I want, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm not just going to keep fighting these guys for nothing.

So in other words, do you think that you're being kind of used in the Musassi negotiations? Like they're saying you have this fight against Luke Rockhold. And, you know, once Luke agrees to the fight, then you can, you know, you can resign with us. And this is the big fight that you've been waiting, et cetera, et cetera. Is that what you're thinking is going on? I think it's definitely a ploy to sign. him, I would say. Okay.

From what I can see. From the outside, maybe get them cheaper, do whatever they are trying to do. You know, I know how this business works. But we'll see. We'll see what happens, man. If they put a title on the line, they put an interim title, then make the champion actually fight a contender, then I'd be happy to sign a fight and to move forward and do something.

But until then, I mean, you got U.L. Romero waiting for a title shot. Now you got the Whitaker kid thinking he's in line for a title shot. Musassi's, you know, he was, he's the only one really talking about fighting right now. You know, I'm in the situation. I don't need to fight. I'm building the house. I got other things going on right now. I want to fight, but it's got to be right.

The time's got to be right. I mean, we all, we are the heart and the whole of the division. Every single guy in the division really is not fighting. so I don't know everyone else is waiting for a title shot muskossi's seemingly the only one pushing to to make a fight happen right now so I don't know which I don't get it I don't get which card would this be on I would some time in July I think what they're shooting for but we'll see if they get their shit together and they make something happen then they're not I'll be happy to sign a fight but they got to fucking straighten their shit out and make something happen so so if they just say, okay, let's just say July 29th, because it's a pay-per-view and July is rapidly approaching. If they say July 29th, we have a fight for you against Musassi,

co-main event, whatever it is, but it's just a regular fight. It's not a title fight. It's not a number one contender fight. It's just a fight. That doesn't interest you. I mean, what? I beat Musassi and then I'm third in line. Yeah. Second in line. I mean, like, you got George St. Pierre, supposedly, and then you got Yoel's supposedly in line. and then, you know, I'm not going to do it.

I mean, without a path, without a direction. You know, I was, I tried to get an Anderson fight. It would have been fun. I was up for that. I was open to move to heavyweight. Risha turned that option down. I even offered light heavyweight fights, you know. So nothing, nothing really is seemingly coming to fruition.

They don't want you to move up? I mean, I doubt it. Our division's hot right now, and we got a good match-ups, but I'm just not fucking putting the champion to work, which is pretty ridiculous. I mean, are they really going to wait until October to make this George St. Pierre fight? I don't even think anybody's really hyped on this fight anymore. Maybe even November, because that's when I hear they're going back to MSG. He just said from October on he would be willing to fight. So it could be November for all we know.

Yeah, it's a joke. The company's kind of losing it these days. I don't know. What happened? What happened to the old company where the best fought the best? What built this company? Now it's just a, you know, now they just, it's like a spectator sport. They're just putting freak shows together.

Who do you blame for the situation with GSP? Like, do you understand kind of where Bisping is coming from? He's been told he's going to fight a legend. he's been told that he's going to make a lot of money so now he's holding out for that fight. I don't think he knew it would be this long of a wait. And then you have the situation where the UFC books this fight when it was clear

to me that GSP told them I wouldn't be ready in July when they wanted to make the fight and now they're holding on to it. They're holding on to it. It's delaying. It's laying. How do you make sense of this when you have all these guys who are ready to go, ready to fight, and they're waiting for this one fight which doesn't have

an actual date attached to it? Yeah. I blame. for it? Yeah. You let on or, I mean, you know, it's hard.

I mean, it's everybody involved. I mean, I think Bisban could obviously step up and fight someone if you had the opportunity. I think George is, is obviously a big,

big problem in this situation. I think, you know, everyone's at fault. It's, uh, they just need to make something happen and realize that October,

November, I mean, it's, it's pretty ridiculous. Let's make a fight. At least put an interim title in the line. If the guy's not going to fight, put the real title on line. He's going to be inactive and not fight one contender in two years.

That's the point. What's the point in being the champion? Have you or your management talked to the UFC? Okay, like what's going on here? What is my path? How many fights do I need to get back in that title fight picture? I mean, what's going, like, have you had a sort of heart-to-heart with them? Heart-to-heart, what are you talking about?

I know it's business and get cut through at times and you know how it is you know I know I need to go win I go put on the performance I'm right there so but I go put on a performance and I beat one of the best guys in the world and there's just no there's no path to anything

so what's the fucking point I mean I'm there's no point staying in this division and fuck I mean in this company It's like if they want me to, if it's just money fights, I'll go, I'll do that somewhere else. Fuck. I mean, you can let me go from my contract and I'll go fight big money fights somewhere else. But I'm here in this company to fight the best guys in the world and to win title.

And so if there's no path to that, you know, I'm out, let me go. Would that be the ideal scenario for you? Are you at the point now that you're tired of it all and you'd like to move on? I want to fight the best guys in the world and I want to get the fucking title. That's what I want. But if they're not going to leave a clear path to that, then I'll just go fight fights and whatever and just do my thing on that on my own. I mean, there's money to be made outside this company, too. How close were you to getting the Anderson fight in your opinion?

Because I know that was discussed. Dana talked about it at 210. In your mind, did you think you had it? I know Anderson doesn't like to fight. I know he didn't want to fight me. So they made it seem like it was going to happen. in so many ways. And so I was ready.

I was kind of excited for it, but in the back of my head, I knew Anderson wasn't going to take the fight. How often... Unfortunately, I was right. Yep. How often do you think about last June and say to yourself, gosh,

you know, if I didn't lose to this guy, this wouldn't have happened? Do you sort of stew over that a lot, especially given your current feelings on the whole situation? No, I don't still want it too much. Definitely. Obviously, I'm not happy about how it went down, but, you know, we move. We move on, we live and we learn and move forward.

So what do you think happens here? This seems like a one big headache. And it feels almost like they're trying to fix the situation now, no more interim belt. We'll try to make amends for the allowances that we made over the past year, year and a half. But it does kind of feel like a growing trend that a lot of the fighters are frustrated with the current state of the promotion. What do you think happens with your situation? I don't know, man.

They can't predict anything these days anymore. So, I mean, they're just chasing to pay off a debt, really, I think is what they're doing, and putting these trying to put megafights together that don't make sense. I don't know You never know what they're going to do these days I don't know what they're I don't know what they're going to do So

Who knows Do you know what they're going to do No I don't I wish I did Yeah I don't know I would imagine Sensibly they'd have to put Like an interim title in line

Some in some way At some time How long are they really gonna They're gonna do this So I don't get it do you feel motivated to go train? Like is it hard given the current state of the division? You don't know, you know, where that title is, when it's going to be defended,

when that shot is coming for you. Do you find it tough to get out of bed and go work your hardest in the gym? I like fighting. I like getting in the gym. I like getting better. Okay. So that's not much of a problem. That's why I come out here to mix it up.

You know, I'm out here in Florida. I like training other areas. You know, you get different looks and different techniques. There's always more to learn. Things are a little slow back home, so it's kind of, it's inspiring to get away and try something new. So I always try to mix it up. I mix it up a little bit. I'm still okay, of course, but I like training out with hoof and the guys are solid.

So the weather's not too bad either. Yeah. How would you describe the current feelings that you have on your MMA career? Do you feel like you're starting to lose hope? Do you feel like you're getting annoyed? You are really longing to do something else. How would you describe it? No, I'm here to fight in one way or the other.

But it's just the division itself is annoying. I'm not holding to that either. I'm open to moving up division. I've voiced that. And so if this division is going to go the way it's going, I might as well move up into a different division. but is two of five problematic for you because your friend danio cormi and training partner is the champ there uh dc's not going to fight forever i don't know there's plenty other it's plenty other guys to dance around and fight

sure i wouldn't mind taking fights at heavyweight just for fun i mean if we're going to do fun you know yeah if it's just about having fun and getting paid i'd rather go fight somewhere else i'd rather fight a different division because i'm not going to fight the best guys at middle wait to get to nowhere. You know, I'd rather fight to fight for me. Get me excited. Well, one of my...

Take off people like... Oh. Like from Doom. Yes. That's one of my favorite feuds in MMA. It's somewhat nonsensical, but I just love that it continues, like six years later. Was that ever close?

This time around. When he brought it up on the show, I think I asked him about it, if I'm being fair. And then you responded on UFC tonight and it went on and on. Was that ever did? discussed? Like, did you ever make a serious pitch to fight him? I was serious. I came to the UFC.

I came to everybody and I talked about it and brought it up. I believe they brought it to him. And then he, I think he got cold feet, turned around and ran. He thinks he's close to a title shot. So I think he, which I think is a joke. Because the last thing they want is for doing the back in the title shot. But yeah, no, I think he, yeah. He got cold feet, got a little scared and ran the other way. Wow. I love the matchup.

I'd love to go fight that guy at heavyweight. How much do you weigh now? Maybe 208. 208, so you just wouldn't cut weight? I'd be right here, yeah. I'm not going to try to gain a bunch of feet. What do I need? What do I need?

I fight the best heavy weights all the time. I know what I'm capable of in that division. I got a lot of guys that come through. I train a lot of different areas. So I do really, I do quite well heavy weights. it. And by the way, for those that don't understand the beef between Verdum and Rockhold, just

YouTube their names together. We've asked them about it, both of them, countless times in the past, so we don't have to rehash all of that. So what's the game plan here? What are we going to do? Do you think, I mean, like, how do you, I mean, they're not going to do, Dana said on Friday, no interim fight. For anyone?

No interim fight. Yeah. For anyone or just Anderson? Oh, well, I kind of, I kind of viewed it as for anyone. but maybe it was just for Anderson. I mean, if they're not going to give an interim fight to Romero, then I kind of view them not giving it to anyone at this point. If they're not putting an interim title online,

or if they're not making Bisman fight a contender, I'm not fighting anybody. And so should the rest of the division too. I don't see what's the point? I mean, without me, Lusasi, Yowell, and Whitaker, I mean, I think everyone should stand their ground and say, fuck you. You know, put a title in line or else,

fuck, I don't. You don't even have a division. Sure, are you saying the middleweight should go on strike, essentially? I think everyone is already on strike, aren't they? Well, wait for a title. Yeah. Whitaker's down. I've voiced my opinion.

I think Musashi's stand as ground, too. I mean, without us, you have no fucking division. Wow. Did you ask for the... Make something happen. Yep. I asked for the Whitaker fight. You know, Whitaker fight is...

I did ask for it, of course. What they said? I think that's more of a clear cut, you know, straight path to the title. Musassi's coming off. You know, they look good against Whiteman, but it was, you know, some controversy at the end. And then, you know, Whitakeroy, knocked out Jacaray. This is pretty clear cut, you know, you go put that guy away, and then you're not, you know, you don't have to worry about anybody else trying to jump you.

So you'd rather, if you had to fight someone at 185 and it's not for the bell, you'd rather Whitaker over Musassi. I think it's a clear path. I mean, it's a pretty clear cut. You can knock that jacqueray and Musassi lost to Jokoree. So he's won a lot of fights since. So he looked good. Moussa's a talented guy.

What did they say to you when you ask for a lot? I'm not fighting anybody. I'm not fighting anybody until they do something, like I said. So I don't know. We'll see. Let's see what they do. I think Whitaker broke his hand though too, right? Well, I keep asking for an update, but there was some fear that he may have broken it again.

By the way, are you willing to sit out for the rest of the year? I mean, if this title fight doesn't come together until October, November, and you say that you don't want to do anything until they, you know, start clearing up the division, that might mean you're not fighting in 2017. How do you feel about that? I told you I'm open to moving up weight classes. Okay, okay. If that's the case and they don't make something happen,

I can signara to the middleweight division. What's the point right now? I can come back when I want. How's the modeling gigs? Yeah, we're making money. Anything big? You get to work with any big-time models as well? Giselle, I don't know any other ones, but some of them are recognized.

We're focusing on the fight game right now. Okay, all right. And building the house, doing some things. So we'll see if we've got some gigs. We're working on some things always. on the back end. So something could happen here. We'll see.

Would it be fair to say before I let you go that the ball is in their court that you're waiting for them to, A, figure out the division and B, come to you with an offer that makes sense? Yeah, the ball is definitely in their court. I think they know that. I think everyone's not very happy in the situation right now. I'm sure you will's payment isn't going to last them, hold them off too long.

Right. I like the way you just look there. Whatever. yeah is uh we'll see you know i mean i think everyone needs to step up and make something happen middleweights need to step up and haul the ground is it possible that the middle whites have like a WhatsApp group chat and you guys can all come together and get on the same page we should you should that would be something that'd be historic yeah well you're They're forcing us into a corner.

We got to stick up and fucking stay together and make something happen. I'm tired of this shit, man. All right. Well, I'm sorry to hear that you're in this position, and the situation is somewhat tricky. It is a bit of a mess. Hopefully they figure it out sooner rather than later. And I appreciate you coming on and updating us.

A lot of questions about your situation. What's that? we'll see hopefully they update us I can't believe it's been a year since you last fought well 11 months but you know it's going to be a year soon I mean it's just unbelievable yeah it's been a minute it's been a minute but

gotta get healthy finally got my leg back and I'm training hard so I'll be ready if when the time comes if something comes up so I'm ready to fight trust me nothing more I want to do right now than fight all right thanks Luke keep us posted if you can you'll see it

that happens All right, there he is. Luke Rockhold. A frustrated Luke Rockhold, a disgruntled Luke Rockhold, I think, voicing some of the concerns that others seem to have, especially in the middleweight division. There was a video tweeted last week by George St. Pierre telling Michael Bissping, pick any date from October on.

And I think that has upset some of the middleweights who were hoping that this fight would materialize sooner rather than later. Well, that's that situation. In a minute, we are going to be joined by Justin Gachie, the newest member of the WSOF lightweight roster. WSWF, UFC lightweight roster. He is the former WSOF lightweight champion. This is what happens when I try to tweet something

and text Mr. Newarkrick and DM and G-Chat. Say the wrong thing. Justin Gachi, it was announced late last week. He had signed with the UFC. If you recall, I had been reporting for quite some time that he was going to test the free agent market. And, well, he did after his last fight in World Series of Fighting. That was at the end of last year.

That was actually New Year's Eve at MSG at the theater. And while the World Series of Fighting executives were saying that he was not going to be a free agent, we have seen it all come to fruition and the UFC signed him and now we're wondering what is the UFC going to do with one of the most exciting fighters in the sport regardless of the vision if you are solely a UFC fan and you've never had the pleasure of watching Justin Gachie fight trust me you will enjoy watching him fight in the UFC the man is a killer be killed kind of fighter very exciting puts it all on the line I had reported

that there were some talks of him fighting Etzen Barbosa in July, but as of right now, unless he's going to tell me otherwise, I don't think that fight is 100% a done deal, signed, sealed, and delivered. But it was funny because when I tweeted that, I mean, the response to it was just amazing.

Everyone wanted to see it. And he has come out on Twitter saying he wants to fight top five guys, just top five. He doesn't want to fight anyone under the top five. He tweeted Habib, he tweeted Ferguson, he tweeted

Etzen Barbosa. So that is a very big addition to the UFC's 155 pound roster and I do believe that he is joining us via the magicist Skype and there he is. Justin Gaichi. How are you, sir? Yes, sir. I'm good, man. How are you?

Congratulations. Thank you. Yes, sir. I'm freaking high on life right now. I can tell. That's great. Let me ask you this before we get into the UFC stuff. Could you explain, as you may have seen, there was some confusion over your departure from World Series of Fighting? How were you able to leave? Why did you leave World Series of Fighting, considering you were their champion and arguably the face of their organization? Well, I mean, from the beginning, I, you know, I resigned with World Series. I think it was three different contracts,

three or four different contracts. And, you know, this was upon the one. that I was, you know, at the beginning of this one, I let them know, and I, you know, I was set on becoming a free agent at the end and seeing what my value was to, to the sport of mixed martial arts. So that was my intentions. And then, you know, they, at the end of the day, they worked, they worked well with me. I praise World Series of fighting. They gave me every opportunity. At the end, they were totally professional and, you know, you did everything they could to help me out. Okay, so your contract expired with them, and then you were a free agent, and then you signed the new deal with UFC.

Is that the... Well, I had one fight left, but it was... I wasn't going to get the fight in before. So they allowed me to start the negotiation process, you know, to go out and to see what to get different offers. And then they had matching rights in. So, you know, it all came down to numbers. And, you know, the market, you know,

the market for people like me, for people that put max effort on the line is that it's pretty good right now. So I was happy. You know, I was a little nervous right at the day. beginning but boom you know a couple days in um you know i was very well i was it was known to me that i that i was going to get some offers some different companies and um my skills were going to be appreciated throughout the whole the whole community did your team talk to anyone not named the ufc did you consider or did you really want to go to the ufc um i mean i'm you know sole contractor

i mean i want i want the best money and uh obviously the highest steel if you could be the best as in the UFC. But yeah, of course you win. I mean, I praise Bellatory. They gave me a great offer, you know. I had some conversations with them, and they treated me with nothing but respect. And, you know, like I said, right away,

I was under the impression that I was, that this was going to be a smooth process and that it wasn't going to be as nerve-wracking as I thought it was going to be. And like I said, if you fight like me and you put the, you know, I'm undefeated right now, but, you know, I go out there

and I fight my ass off max effort, humans-mechanized effort, and that's what I do. I give max effort. I'm skilled, and I'm ready, and I've been preparing

for this for a very long time. Yeah, a lot of people are very excited about you coming to the UFC. By the way, can I ask you a favor? Could you tilt your camera up just a little bit

because we're only seeing like, there we go, just a little more? Boom, that's perfect. Thank you. But the wine bottles, huh? I like the wine bottles. That is a good look.

Is that your house? Thank you. Yeah, this is my. apartment. Okay. Nice. So, okay, so then you get to the UFC, you sign with UFC, was it a pretty easy process? Was there a lot of negotiations? I mean, it seemed to have happened relatively quickly, but from your perspective, how easy was it? Oh, you know, everything right now is the first time for me. So I was on, you know, on my

manager's butt every day, all day long. You know, he probably, he's done it a thousand times. So for him, it was just a process, you know, but it was a waiting game for me. You know, even one or two weeks is a long time for me, especially right now with with how excited I am to get things, you know, get the ball rolling. So all that, it was smooth. It was as smooth as it probably can be. You know, some negotiating process, some negotiating. And then, yeah, I mean, like I said, I got different offers.

You know, when there's different offers on the table, then, you know, other offers have to be negotiated. So that's what it comes to. If World Series didn't change its entire company and turn into the Pro Fight League and this whole season, thing, would you have considered resigning with them? It still came down the numbers. Would they have been able to match the overall contract that I got from Belator and UFC, then they probably, they might have been able to, so I'm not sure. Okay.

I couldn't, I didn't, I didn't, I took it in one day at a time, just like I do one five at a time, one day at a time in my life, you know, everything's, I try to keep it as basic and as simple as possible. And the more I thought about it, you know, the more nerve-wracking ain't gone. and the more I went to practice and worked out, the faster the process became. So that was all it was for me. Okay.

So here's the million dollar question. Do you have a fight book yet for your UFC debut? I don't have a fight booked officially, but... Oh. Or unofficially. Okay. But you know who I want? I mean, I've made it every bit clear with my...

You know, I haven't done a lot of interviews or a lot of, but right away. And I said I want the scariest story possible when you... when you say that and, you know, I don't have to, I don't even have to, you know, you can tell me who that is, you know, when you think scariest, the heaviest kicks, knees, elbows, punches, scariest knockouts. I mean, I hope, who comes to your mind? Wait, so you don't want to ease your way into this, right?

I mean, you want, you want to go for the top guy right off the... I'm 17-014 knockouts. I've been saying I was the best in the world for a long time. I'm, I'm up here standing on a pedestal in front of the world and I'm ready to fall flat on my face. I want the scariest dude. The one who can embarrass me the most. That's what I'm looking for. So, you know, it's simple.

When I think about this, it's a matter of inches and less than inches and milliseconds. I mean, it's little luck, little skill, a lot of perseverance, and that's what I have been training my whole life for. So I said earlier that I had heard that there was some talk of you fighting Barbosa. A, what do you think of that fight? B. Is that true? That's what I want.

I mean, that's the scariest dude on the planet right now, 155 pounds. I mean, kick your head off, knee your head off, I mean, elbows, wheel kicks. I mean, what other lightweight is going to bring that? I mean, Khabib is scary. He's going to moll you and, you know, and make you fight for your life. You know, McGregor's going to knock you out with the left hand, but he's not going to kick your head off. Right. That is the scariest.

That's what I want. That's, you know, like I, you know, when I thought of it's when I thought, When I sat down and knew I was going to go to the UFC, I thought of it to my bozah, and I almost had a panic attack, and then right away I was like, I called my manager, Ali, Abdel Adelaide. I said, Ali, that's, this is the fight I want. You know, I think it's the worst fight in the lightweight division for me, the scariest.

Great matchup. He doesn't fight going good going backwards, so clearly it's a great matchup for me. Stylistically, but like I said, most dangerous guy in the lightweight division. So I called him, I said, that's who I want. So I'm sure he called the UFC. I'm sure if Edson Barbosa wants his fight, that's the thing he could have it. But, you know, it's a lose, lose for him. To the best of your knowledge, is it close?

Has it been offered to him? Don't know. Okay. Don't know, don't care. You know, I can't see the most dangerous baddest man on the planet at 155 pounds. In my mind, not wanting to fight someone that gets hit way too much and is willing to get knocked out. So I don't know why he wouldn't take a fight. Why do you get hit way too?

much and are willing to get knocked out. I don't get hit weight. I mean, I read, I love this comments online. I mean, you know, with 14 knockouts that O says something, I mean, I haven't been hit hard enough. Yeah. So, you know, this is, I mean, you've seen, you've seen Michael Bisping get freaking flying H-bomb from Dan Hando and he comes back, you know, the human body, it's very fragile, but,

I mean, we could take some damage. I mean, I'm not here to take damage. I don't want to be, you know, not be able to talk. But every single time I fight, I know that a fighter has to know that you, this could be the last time that you're able to do this. Last time you're able to talk, you never know what's going to happen. And I think about that every single time I'm in the cage and I wrap my whole life around that one one fight that I have coming up. Right now, there's nothing that matters. How exciting is this for you to finally be, you know, playing with the big boys and stuff?

you know, you, you, you were the king of World Series of fighting, but you're not fighting UFC level competition for the most part. Now, here's a chance to finally introduce yourself to so many people to finally get the UFC belt, to really get that respect. I mean, this has to be something that you had been dreaming about for quite some time, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, the belt, none of that, I mean, I want to go to Brazil. I want to fight, you know, top Brazil and in Brazil. I want to go to Russia, fight Kabib and Russia.

I mean, they're going to be screaming. They're going to die the whole time. You know, that's the shit that I freaking love. You know, it's the shit that breaks. It separates one from the other if you're able to, I don't know if I'm able to handle it. We'll see, you know. I've been in some huge wrestling matches.

I wrestled at the NCAA Division I one tournament three times. I've wrestled in huge matches that I should never won, and I won, and I wrestled some turds that I should never lost to, and I lost to those guys. So my whole life I've been preparing for these moments right here. You know, so I've learned a lot of lessons in wrestling. It's helped me to get to this point, but right now I try.

Whitman and my striking and, you know, I'm an entertainer and I'm a violent motherfucker. So you guys, the violence and that's what you're going to get. Wow, this is incredible. This is very exciting. When do you expect to make your UFC debut? I'm ready. I have not taken my foot off the pedal since December 31st, my last fight. I don't know, man.

I didn't know it was coming for sure, but, you know, you can always sense things. And I know, I knew this was coming. This is the path. I mean, this is the road that I led, you know, when you tell me that I'm going to not be able to talk or stuff, you know, I know I pick the road to follow. And at the beginning, you see all the risks involved. And I took that road. And right now I'm committed and it's too far to turn back.

So that's what I'm going to do. And at the end of this, before this, I wanted to be, you know, I have a human services degree, bachelor's degree. And I want to work, you know, social work. I want to work with at risk. So hopefully I'm still able to be cognizant enough to do that. I'm done and inspired kids. I'm inspiring so much kids back home where I'm from. I'm from a small town.

So that alone right now is pushing me in. And every day I wake up so hungry and so happy to be fulfilling this dream for me. And all the people that believe, you know, when I am successful or if I am successful, you know, proving that the doubters and the haters is one thing. But proving the people that have been supporting you the whole time, that is what is really makes it all worth it. So I'm just going to keep chucking along. fight at a time, man, and, you know, I'm giving it everything.

I would imagine putting your signature on that UFC contract finally is a dream in its own right. Did you get emotional over it? How did you, you know, how did you kind of celebrate that moment? Because that's validation to a certain degree of what you've done thus far. You know, it is for some, I believe, but I mean, I'm 17 and 0, 14 knockouts. You can say the competition is, but go go look at the combined record of my opponents. I mean, it's somewhere like 180 and probably like 50 so i mean i fight people that can't fight i fought warriors um i thought people that should have went down when i hit them and they didn't um but you know i'm from a small town copper mining family we work hard um you know i got nothing to lose here so what's the dream scenario

for you the dream path is it etsen and then who would be after that and then do you have this sort of mapped out in your mind no no no i didn't i didn't i can't you can't you can't do that here. I have to take you one at a time. Okay. Next five. I don't know who it is right now. If I, you know, I know that it's, it's someone, someone big. It's going to be Barboso or who knows. I want someone big. I want the top. I mean, I doubt they'll give me Ferguson.

I mean, Michael, Michael Johnson beat Tony Ferguson and Edson Barbosa. Yeah. So, I mean, right there, that will tick on my fancy right there. So he interests you as well? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. I mean, why not? He just lost the Khaba, you know, is a tough stylist. matchup rock he you know he he put his hands on kabeeb and you know almost had him in trouble so

why not i mean any of those fights right there are you know just what exactly what i want but i do want to go fight in brazil i want them to scream i'm going to die the whole time i'm that's shit right there i love those guys i mean the Brazilian fans i mean it really does i really um i love it i mean i'm going to go i'm actually going at the end of this month i'm going to be in uh june third i'll be there at the card and i'm going to be cornering um Matthew Lopez, he's fighting Johnny Eduardo. Yeah, yeah. And I might be in a former at St. Markor, too.

He's fighting, he got put on that car with Vitor Belper, so I'll be down there too. But, man, I just, I love that shit. For the record, the people who say you're too wild, you get hit too much, you know, you're a little, you know, you're a little sloppy, things like it. What is the response to them? I mean, there's two guys locked in the cage trying to punch each other in the face. Of course I get hit. It's a fight.

I am a Division 1 All-American wrestler But you know I wrestle a college wrestling match seven minutes long If I was to go in there and wrestle The first seven minutes of a fight A 25 minute fight You're not getting nothing out of me for the rest of the time So I'm in there

I'm in there to stay in a good position I believe That in physics When two objects have the same mass It comes down to force And whichever object has the most force Then that's the object that's going to win the car crash And I go into fights and I create car crashes and I plan on being the object with the most force.

My timing and my attitude is what this sport is. And that's why I have been successful so far. I'm not going to change. I put people in the deep waters. First round, they're talking shit. Second round, they're talking shit to themselves. Third round, they can't say shit. So, you know, it's over.

Last quick thing. When do you expect to find out when your first fight will be in the opponent? I think we're going to know in the next three or four days there, Ariel. Okay. Are you going to that press conference in Dallas, too? I might. I don't know yet. Oh, that is exciting.

No, I'm not, if I'm going, I'm not going for the press conference. I know that. All right. I might go out and do some pictures because they... Just go crash it. Oh, I'm definitely crashing. I'm definitely crashing. I'm sure they need me in some Reebok stuff so I can get me out some posters.

Are you going to the card? I am. I don't go watch. Okay. Wow, this is exciting. What an intro this is. As you know, there are some people who just watch the UFC, so they may not know a lot about you, but holy smokes,

if this interview is any indication, of course, I know a hell of a lot about you, but you have promised a lot, and I have no doubt that you are going to live up to all those promises. I can't wait for the debut. I hope it's Barbosa, by the way. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. I'm not promising any, I'm not promising success. I'm not promised.

I'll promise you that I will get knocked out here next like 10-5. because it's a game of freaking centimeters and fractions of seconds, Ariel. I mean, come on. You watch every fight. I watch every single one of my fights in Cowsion, and I win. I beat you to the time. I beat you to the punch. I'm in your face, and you can't breathe.

Not for a second we'd be able to breathe. Well, I hope that doesn't happen. I hope that prediction doesn't come true. Go ahead. Well, yeah, I mean, just like, you know, Sean Shelby or Dana White doesn't want people to get injured, but they promote fighting for a living. That's what we do. People, we injure each other.

We get in there with the intention of injuring each other. I mean, through sport, I love it. And it's kind of my girlfriend said I'm completely contradictory when I say I want to be a soul worker. But my job is violence. But, you know, it's not one and the same for me. For me, it's sport. And for one, you know, like I said, proving everybody that has believed in me from this point, proving them right will be, you know, it will inspire me to do anything.

So great stuff Justin Congratulations on the deal Can't wait for the debut Really excited for you and very happy That this all came about and that you'll finally get a chance To prove how great you are in the UFC This is great Yes sir

I'm not going to be talking a lot of shit But you will love my fights I can guarantee you that I already love your fights I've seen many of them and I love them already So this is great thank you so much I'm talking about you ever Oh okay

That's true the haters I know you love them I do. I do. You love it. I don't love it. Well, I mean, I like athletic achievements. I like, you know, sports.

Not so much the... I'll break it down like that, too. All right. Talk to you soon, Justin. Thank you. All right. All the best. There he is.

Justin Gachey. See what I'm talking about? This guy is very exciting. In and out of the cage. Great addition to the 155-pound division. Now, speaking of that division, former champions coming back. Anthony Pettis is back at 155.

He'll be fighting July 8th at UFC 213. He'll be fighting Jim Miller, and he joins us right now on the phone. Anthony, are you there? I'm good, man. How are you doing there? I'm doing great. Great to talk to you again. In Toronto, that night, UFC 206, did you know that you were done at 145 and that your next fight would be at 155?

Yeah, a million percent, man. You know, I tried the hardest to make the weight. I came in, like, the lightest I've ever came in before for a way. I was like six pounds, six point eight pounds over coming into the week of, and I just couldn't get the weight off. I just, it was just one of them things. My body shut down, and, you know, I've never felt that way before, so I just knew that was it for me at 45. Do you regret going down to 145 to begin with? You know what?

I was chasing gold, man. You can't blame a guy for trying to get two belts in two different divisions. You know, I probably wasn't the best timing for me, but, you know, I was chasing gold. You know, I fought one time at 1,45, and then I fought for pretty much a title shot. Yeah. So, you know, I had a change the mindset a little bit. I took six months off before this fight, and we just, I just had fun again training and just got back to just martial arts, not chasing belts and chasing wins and sharing about, you know, what social media says and what the fans say. I just got back to, you know, getting my little brother ready.

You know, we're waiting for his fight. He's looking phenomenal, and then, you know, I start right back into my training camp. how much damage do you think you did to your body by trying to go down to 145? Because I remember seeing you on that scale in Toronto, and you obviously didn't seem to be in the best health possible. I mean, it just seemed like you were very gaunt and tired and dehydrated. Do you think you did damage to your body? Yeah, most definitely.

You know, you really don't know. When I said, I was going to make 45, like, it can't be that hard, 10 more pounds. I shouldn't be able to make any problem. First time I did it, you know, we made it pretty simple, honestly. And then the second time, I got extra ready and it just didn't come off. I mean, my body just wasn't agreeing with it. So I think, yeah, the weight cuts are brutal. And then trying to cut the extra 10 pounds wasn't the best idea.

But, you know, when you learn and you got to grow from that. I know this is kind of a crazy question, but I'm just curious. Have you ever thought like a 155 version of Anthony Pettis that night in Toronto? Do you think that you don't get finished? Like, do you think that the weight cut put you at a disadvantage just walking into the cage? million percent yeah i mean you know i i couldn't even walk down to the scale i had to drink water and put some electrical into my body to walk down way in from the way into the fight you know it was uh most guys probably wanted to fight and i'm not i'm not made an excuse but most guys

wouldn't have fought you know the way i was the way i was telling the u t doc was up there watching me and you know i couldn't even walk downstairs to get on the scale how how close were you to not fighting to pulling out of the fight that wasn't an option you know i i would have made us the main event you know i would have out of room that car so that was wasn't an option. You know, it was just like how, I told the doc, I'm like, you want me to cut this extra pound? I got all the head of a pound point for over. I'm like, either I cut this extra pound and probably not fight or I just go on a scale

and miss weight. And he's like, well, what's your call? And as a team, we just said, you know what, let's just get down there, make it, get on the scale and erase that thing, fight the next fight. Yeah. Considering all the stuff you've been through in your career, would you say that that, that whole experience of trying to make it and the title fight and all that and missing the weight, was that the most difficult experience of your career?

Oh, most definitely, man. Missing weights is one of the things that no one wants to happen. And, you know, I thought we were prepared. You know, I had my nutritionist out with me for almost two months. And, yeah, it's just one of them things. Your body just, if it doesn't want to let the weight go, it won't let it go. Was Max better than you thought he would be? You know, Max is durable.

I hit him with the first check hook and I broke my knuckle, my right knuckle. First punch, like the first check hook I went from Southlaw fans. and, you know, immediately I just, I just wasn't in my head. You know, I missed the weight. I broke my hand. I just felt like, you know, all the odds were against me. You know, I still kept going. I started playing the team and started playing, you know,

these other games where I wasn't having to hit them with the big punches. But, yeah, the dude got the chin. Okay, so what happened with the hand? Because at first I heard that you broke it, then you may not have broken and you may have broken. Yeah, no, it was broken. It was broken. Yeah, I broke first punch.

My right knuckle, the big, big, a pointer finger knuckle. I broke. It pushed back in. If I didn't need surgery, I think that's what the confusion came in. Okay. It broke, it broke, so it was still in line, eyebrow. It broke, so it was still in line with my, I guess, the knuckle underneath it broke, push down, but they didn't need to do the surgery to make it fixed.

So I just had to sit out, I had to wear a cast for a couple weeks, and that was it. And how's the hand now? Like, are you able to use it fully? 100%. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, the hands always take a beating, but, you know, I just got to take care of them a little better. Okay. Pape them up more and make sure I'm ready.

And so you mentioned the break. I mean, obviously a lot has happened to you since becoming the champion. Are you going to completely reinvent yourself? Are you changing things drastically in training? Like, what is this new, you know, this new Anthony Pettus going down to back up to 155 the break?

Like, what does this really all mean? Man, that's where I belong. What's my home? 155 was my home. I had a bad little tear with the, you know, the RDA, obviously, lose that fight. And then I go into training camps,

to fight Miles Jury and I traction my elbow. There's surgery in a mile out three months and then I go right into Eddie Elr and fight for the number one contender fight and then fight to Barbosa, you know. So I put myself in a bad position, 55 because of the rush trying to get back to a title shot. And this time I'm coming back and I'm just taking one fight at the time. You know, that's a solid guy in front of me. I ask for Jim Miller. I think he's, you know, one of the guys that always comes and brings it.

And, you know, the fight's on. I think some people would be surprised to hear you say that you asked for Jim Miller. Why did you want that fight? Just given the fact that he's a wrestler and, you know, the knock has always been, you know, your takedown defense. Why did you want that fight? Just for that reason, you know, I think he's one of the guys that does the wrestling, does the grinding, he's nonstop in your face. And he comes to fight too. So, I mean, I've never backed away from a fight. I never back to away from the opponent. I never said, never the opponent. So, no, everybody else at the 155 division is kind of taken or had something

set up already. And Jim Miller made sense. Wow. Okay. And so that was the number. one choice right off the bad no one else you wanted him number one choice jim miller wow one choice that's funny he rufus actually took that really i asked dune for my who do you think uh who's next and first guy he said was jim miller we asked for jim miller and he definitely no chin doesn't say you know to anybody either so he agreed to the fight and now i think i think it's a good fight for the fans as well yeah um a lot of people are excited to see you back at 155 i always love when a former wc lightweight fights jim miller because he was the guy who said that all of you were overrated when you were

coming over to the UFC. So no one really remembers this except for me. But do you remember that comment? Yeah, I remember that. You do? Yeah, I do. Before he fell up in Henderson, yeah, I remember. Yeah.

And so, and does this, I mean, is that part of your thinking as well or not really? No, not really, man. I mean, I think we are, I came in and proved myself immediately. You know, I had a rough spot against Clay Gwita, and I went off and just had a run. So it's only a matter of time, man. I've been fighting for a long time. It's only a matter of time before I figured all out again and get it. back to where I was at.

Do you think it is inevitable that you will get that belt again? You know what? There's so many good guys in the UFC, but that's my only goal is to become a champion. But this time around, I'm not going to rush to it. Like last time, like I said, I gave you the list of guys that I fought in less than a year. Then I went down to 45 and fought the number one contenders right away too.

So I'm going to take my time and do it right, you know, build my, I guess just my energy backup and my vibe and my whole just persona. I've got to get that back to where I was that. before I felt invincible and you know I can take it one fight at a time to do it when you look back at your your run as champion do you feel like you took it for granted at all um not not at all I feel like uh I I took it for uh what it was and I had a year off against uh Melendez the do allison fighter show came right back and I fought RDA and you know everybody knows that story you know so it was just um one of the things I guess as an athlete

you've got to figure out yeah how how long after I think after the title shot is what I take for granted. I was a champ, and all I kept thinking was like, I'm getting that belt back, so I was lining them up, and just didn't work that way. So you thought it would just be very easy to get right back in that picture?

I still do, but, I mean, now we're taking it one-thousand- And how long did you spend away from the gym after the fight in December? Did you take a big break? Well, Sergio, no, Sergio's getting ready right away. So, I mean, I just stayed away from my career. You know, I stopped thinking about who'll fight next,

low-weight class, where do I go from here? you know, all the critics, Jeddits need to retire and all this stuff. I just, I took a break from that. You know, I think I was believing in that too much and I just focused on getting surgery ready. Other guys on my team,

you know, we got some new faces in the UFC, Gerald, Burchard, on the same card as me this time. So, you know, we just, I went back to having fun at the gym. Did people actually call for you to retire? You read that? Well, I mean, oh, yeah, a lot of times, you know,

a lot of people, a lot of opinions online. And, you know, if you, if you listen to that, and, you know, you can actually, made yourself go crazy to listen to that stuff. So I just backed away from all that. You know, I hung out with my daughter and took the time off.

And, you know, focus on search. Search wins this fight. He's, I think he's one step away from a title shot. Yeah. And, of course, he's fighting this weekend. Very big card for, excuse me, very big card for the UFC,

but a big fight for him against Henry Sehudo could very well be a number one contender fight. Do you like this matchup for him? I think it's necessary. You know, a guy like Sehudo is always going to be, you know, top, top three guys. Benavillas, Sehudo, Demetio, Sean.

And, you know, So I think it's necessary for where he's had in his career. And will you be there with him? Will you be cornering him? Yeah, we actually, we just left the hot tub right now. We're going to go ahead of his last practice, and then we leave out tomorrow morning. I kind of like the, it's somewhat poetic of you guys going back to Dallas

because the last time you were there wasn't a very good night for you guys. This is my first time going back to Dallas. Oh, how do you feel about that? I mean, I like the city, but it was just one of the nights that you wanted to erase that memory. And even if I had layovers in Dallas, I would just switch him around and go somewhere else. Wow. But I think, you know,

me and search talked about it. It's time to get his time to redeem us. I'm like, that was a crappy night for the pet his team. And, you know, it's his turn to go out there and make it, make it go right.

Was he hesitant about fighting on that card as well? Not at all. Really? Nope, not at all. No, he was immediately like, yeah, let's, let's cut it up.

Let's do it. By the way, any update on that situation with, with your cars being set on fire? Yeah, I was actually, man, it was some little kids that are part of a,

a gang here in Milwaukee. I'm not sure what their objective was or what the breathing was, but they caught the kids, they have to write me. They're like 13 years old. I know what's sad that he's here. Like these kids are in like eighth grade doing stuff like that. But they all had to write me, you know,

apologizing letters and saying they're sorry and how they changed. And I don't know, I didn't get their names, obviously, but I'll get letters from the correctional facilities for these little kids that just decided to go do some dumb stuff in Milwaukee, I guess. Wow. Why you? Like, were they just being punks or was there a real thing? reason why they were going after your cars?

Well, I heard they saw, you know, some rangers and some Porsches and a driveway. One of the kids had to, like, prove itself to the gang, and that was his way of proving it. Damn. Did you get new cars? Of course, yeah, I had insurance. Oh, okay. Did you move? No way I'm moving, man.

The house that I live in, I bought that house because my father's buried behind it. There's a cemetery behind my house, and that's where my father's at. So there's no way I'm moving up from that house. Oh, wow. So you can see it from your house? You can see the cemetery? Well, I mean, you have to look through the woods.

There's like some wood separating the house in the sanitary, but, you know, that's part of my jogging route. I jog to my pops and back home, and, you know, that's something I wouldn't, I'm not going to change that because of somebody else's decision to do something stupid in life. Do you jog there every day? I mean, I take different routes all the time, but he's so close. It's less than a mile from my house, so, you know, I take different routes, and I get to drive fast and see him all the time.

Wow, that is amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah, so when I was a kid, man, like that, That neighborhood that I live in was like one of the nicer neighborhoods in Milwaukee. And I always said, I'm going to have a house where my dad was buried. And I got to do that. So I wouldn't change that. Wow.

Do you ever stop there and speak to him or are you not that kind of? All the time. Yeah, yeah. Before every fight, before certain fights, when I'm going through hard times, all the time. Wow. That is amazing. So how would you describe? Like right now everyone wants to know, like, where's Anthony Pettis at?

Mentally, where are you at going into this July fight, two months away? I'm just excited, man. I'm just excited. I took six months off. I haven't had a six months break in a long time since the Melendez fight. But I'm just excited to go back out there, you know, tough opponent and be in a weight class I'm comfortable. You know, that 145 cut, the whole camp was just me cutting weight.

It wasn't me getting better. It wasn't me, you know, trying to get new game plans. It was just really me cutting weight. I had to run double the amount. I had to do like less physical activity because I was in two weak. But, you know, it is what it is. If you said, you live and you learn, I've made some good money in the 145. found a vision, but now I'm going back to my home.

My 1-2-5 found division. Love it. Welcome back, Anthony. Great to hear that you're in good spirits, good mental state, and looking forward to this fight, and of course, good luck to your brother this Saturday. Thanks, bro. All right, there he is. Anthony Pettis. It's always like I'm running a marathon when I'm talking to him because he's almost

like so intense and his answers are coming at you so quick that you have to be like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like you're sparring with him. But that was a fascinating little anecdote there about his house and his father's grave. I never knew that. That's amazing. So he's back at 155. He's fighting Jim Miller and also interesting to note that he asked for the Jim Miller fight. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that considering, as I said, the knock on him has always been that wrestling is his kryptonite. I still feel, call me crazy, that the man who is on the cover of that Wheaties box right over there, I still feel like he has another run in him. I'm not ready

to throw in the towel on Anthony Pettus just yet. It's still a young guy. Yes, he has hit a rough patch, but I still feel like he's got another run in him, at least one. So let's see what happens on July 8th. A man who knows a lot about Anthony Pettis is his agent, and he's got a lot going on in the world of MMA and outside of the world of MMA, and he's joining us right now. His name is Malkyika and he's on via the Magikawa, and he's on via the Magical Skype. There he is, looking fresh, fresh to death with that hair. Look at that. Stupid. How are you, Malky?

I appreciate it. I wish I could rock a plaid shirt the way you can. always stuck in black, but otherwise, you know, you're the one with the plaids freshness. Yes. Very few people can rock a good plaid like me, just for the record. Very few. Okay, so before we get into the MMA stuff, I actually want to ask you about the football stuff because I see a picture of a football field right behind you over there. So what's going on here?

So NFL draft happened, what, less than two weeks ago? And you had some first round picks, second round, et cetera. I mean, you had some big names picked. How the hell did a, you know, a slubby M. MMA guy get all these big time NFL guys. Well, first of all I won't another Shlavy MMA. I was a really badass NFL agent that came to Shlubby

MMA and took MMA over and then decided to go back and now I'm going to take over football tone a bit, so that's really what it is. I mean, honestly Ariel is just a lot of hard work, man. It was just one of those things where, you know, when I came to MMA, I came to MMA really by mistake, I didn't really intend to be

here, you know what I mean? It wasn't like my plan. It wasn't this business plan of I'm going to go into the world of mixed martial arts. I really wasn't into it like that. And if it wasn't for Tiago Alves and the way we met and how we met, you know what I mean?

I never would have been in this business. You know what I mean? I would have still been in football trying to figure it out and come over here. So, you know what I'm

the crazy thing about it. You know what's funny is that people don't know this, but when we, when I started in football, started on my own and then I kind of went underneath another football agent.

Another guy in MMA that came from football that was actually there was Adi. That's hard from paradigm. So he was there. So we were both kind of under the same dude, at least kind of like just working off of him

because he had the most experience. What's the name? I came to MMA first. Peter Schaefer. Okay. And Lamont Smith back. They were one of the bigger ages back in the day. And then so from there,

you know what I mean? But I didn't really get much from him. I mean, I did take the same thing. We really didn't get much from him. It was just kind of more of a, you know, have him as backup just in case. You know, we signed somebody. We can, you know, kind of,

the whole setup there was kind of messed up. So I just left football because the opportunity in the MMA presented itself. I was homeless at the time. I signed. Pit bull. Homeless. It's a whole situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know if you guys don't really know the story when I got started and what happened why I came to MMA. Yeah, it was a bad I went through a really bad rough patch. Oh, 7,

I was really big in real estate before anything, made tons of money there. When 07 came, I went completely dead broke. I was still in the football game, which, you know, sucks the life out of you. You got to pay for training expenses

and this and that and the other. And I actually went to the gym to just release the stress. So I had, you know, at that time I was like 195 pounds. I hadn't been that since, since high school. You know what I mean?

I lost all this weight and I was kind of like the same size, right? So I lose all this weight. One of my buddies was like, man, you need to come to the gym. So I go to the gym. And it was funny because Conan Silvera

had an ATT gym down here in Miami. And he actually, I learned Jiu-Jitsu from him back in 1998 way back then before the ATT and all that. So I come in there, I see him and I'm like, oh, what's up? And we just reconnected and he's like,

man, I got this guy for you. I'm like, who's this guy? And he was like, this fighter, you need to meet him. And I'm like, for what? He was like, well, if you're an agent, you know, you can maybe get him some sponsorships and stuff. And I said, no, man, that's not what I do. And he was like, no, no, no, man, see this guy.

And I'm like, who is this guy? And he's like, well, you just come to Coconut Creek. But here was the problem. At the time, I was so broke that going to coconut creek meant I had to put a tank of gas in the truck, which was, by the way, getting repoed. Yeah. So the issue was that I had to put all this money into this truck to go up there to meet some guy I don't know about, to figure out what really at the end of the day in a sport that I don't really know about.

And I was like, I'm not doing it. But you know how it is with kids, man. Like my kids, same way. If I tell her to do something, she won't listen. But if her coach tells her to do this 100 times, she'll go and do it. So my coach kept on saying, come to Coconut Creek. So I figured, listen, I wanted my blue belt at some point. So I said, let me just go do this guy's favor.

So I drive up the Coconut Creek and meet Tiago Alves, and that's how it went down. I didn't want to. I didn't even, yeah. And so from Pitbull, it turned into a couple of guys at ATT, from a couple of guys at ATT turned into something different. And then, you know, here we are. And so now having these football guys and these number one picks,

Tell us the names and the teams. What spot in the draft, what teams, etc.? So David and Joku from the University of Miami went to the Cleveland Browns 29th in the first round. And then Ruben Foster from the University of Alabama went 31st in the first round to San Francisco. Then got picked Jalen Tabor from the University of Florida. He went to the Detroit Lions.

Then Joshua Jones University of North Carolina State University. He went to Green Bay Packers. Then we had Xavier Woods from Louisiana Tech. He went to the Dallas Cowboys, which is interesting because they've got mini camp this week and the fights are this week in Dallas. So I'll probably be up there. Is this your exit from M.M.A?

No, I'm not going anywhere. No way, bro. Okay. I don't know. You're just doing both. It was just one of those things. We're right. I mean, we're just building the company and we're expanding.

You know what I mean? So, you know, obviously we're going to do football for the next couple. I'm going to do football and immersing it for the next couple of years. Still doing MMA. I'm not going anywhere. And then from football, I'll get into basketball, baseball, and other sports that make themselves available. Whether I do it myself or acquire people to do it, that's kind of the goal.

I want to be, you know, I'm going to kind of get into all the sports and kind of, you know, diversifying. It's kind of build the business. That's all. How difficult is it to become an NFL agent? You know, it's obviously a lot different than being an MMA agent. You can wake up one day and say, hey, I'm an MMA agent. Right. Fed somebody.

Football, you got to pay money to get a license. You got to get license in that. the States that you're going to recruit, you got to register with the schools, and you got to get a license from the NFLPA. So, I mean, realistically, you got to do all of that. So here's how it would go. Let's just say that, you know, you want the Syracuse, right? Yeah. So if I wanted to recruit somebody at Syracuse, I would have to first go get licensed with the NFLP. I'd have to sit down and take a test. So I'd have to pay a lot of money for that license, sit down and take a test, pass a test. When I pass a test, I can start recruiting. Let's say I said Syracuse, I'd have

to pay the state of New York for a license in the state of New York on top of it. So you're already in the whole, probably five grand before you even get to recruit somebody. Wow. Then you got to register with the school, which that doesn't cost anything, but you got to register with them. Then you register with them, and then now you can go recruit that school. Wow. And what's the test?

Like, what are the questions? Oh, it's about the collective bargaining agreement. Oh, fascinating. You know, drug, drug, so it's everything. It's everything that's involved in the sport of football for, to as much as you can get out of a three-day seminar and a three-hour. test. It's not an easy test. Matter of fact, I think now they used to go from like an 80% pass rate to like 40%. And it's funny because you're in a room full of lawyers and all these really

educated guys that we don't want to do this. And every year, they come out of their heartbroken. They can't pass it. One guy said that it was harder than the bar. I can't imagine it is. But they, you know, he said that. So I was like, whatever. Do you have to have a law degree to take the test? Okay. And how many times did it take for you to pass it? The first time. I passed it in five and I passed it again. You know, I let the license go when I got to MMA. When I came back, I reapplied again and passed it again. Now, I mean, it's not hard.

It's got to understand the formulas of how to, you know, put the contracts together because it seems different. In MMA, there's no salary cap. There's no pool, rookie pools. There's no, you know, cap numbers. So in other words, when a guy gets a $20 million bonus, people don't know the way that affects the cap. It's not $20 million that year.

It's divided over a couple of years. Right. But then there's other numbers that will take into effect. So, therefore, you've got to know how to do all that. You obviously got some big names. some some prospects, if you will. Was it hard to get these guys to sign with you? Because for the longest time, you've just been an MMA guy now.

I mean, I know back in the day you said you tried to do this, but you're not, you know, some established guy with 100 football players. You have to start somewhere like you did with Tiago Alves. Was that a tough process? I mean, you know, listen, I've got a couple of guys over the years. You know what I mean? Some of like lower not as big names as I did this year, you know what I mean? But I also put the effort towards it the way I did this year.

You know what I mean? So for me, it's hard because it's football. It's very competitive. There's a lot of guys in it. And it's not easy. You know what I'm saying? It's really not. But I mean, listen, I just know, listen, if you guys haven't learned already,

when I want to get something done, I'm going to get it done. So it was just a matter of time before I got it. And, you know, listen, to be honest with you, if you looked at it, you know, the two guys that won the second round, went in the top, you know, top 60. Both of those guys could have easily gone in the first. I could have sat here right now, I told you had four in the first round, which would have matched anybody, you know, agent per agent, not agency, but as an agent, I think I'm up with all the rest of them.

So it makes it easier going forward now. What do you like better, being an NFL agent, a football agent or MMA agent? That's a good question. You know, people always ask me that. And the truth is, it's the same thing. It's just a different type of athlete. I will say that the MMA athletes of the fighter is a different person. And it's a different set of things that you deal with in the fight game.

Football is a completely set of things you deal with. A fighter, you know, you got to remember, these guys come out like the guys I signed their contracts will be 11 million and 10 million and 6 million and it'll go down as they get you know picked lower and lower and if they would have went in the top five it had been 28 million over four years and you're talking about an average of you know it's way more money than in mMA yeah um when he becomes a pro his first pro fight, maybe after five or ten amateur fights, it's for 500 bucks. Yeah. It's a thousand. It's another 1,000, then it's a thousand plus a thousand.

And so by the time they get to the UFC to make 10 and 10, you know what I mean? This guy's really, it's a humbling experience for a fighter. Football players a little bit more entitled, you know what I'm saying? That's just the way that the system is. But, I mean, it's just, they both, you know, present their own set of pluses and minuses. Okay. Okay. Now let me ask you about some of your MMA guys.

will we see John and Daniel on Friday in Dallas? Are they going to announce that fight? Man, I miss a lot of MMA area. I really can't tell you anything about it. Oh, stop that. What are you saying? Come on now. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be in Dallas actually on Thursday with John, and John is going to be there on Friday.

So July 29th, is it on? That's what it looks like. Okay. And will he be the main event? I don't even know yet. I have no idea. What do you think about all? It's the funniest thing. What do you think about it?

I mean, listen, dude, to be honest with you, you know it's funny. My personal opinion, I think, you know, I think it's ridiculous because at the end of the day, I mean, you know, yes,

he missed out on USC 200. I think that the, the whole situation behind it was stupid and ridiculous. And I don't think, you know, listen, I always look at everything

that people do with intent, right? So it's like somebody intends to do something to harm someone, then that makes that person, you know, messed up.

John didn't intend to cancel UFC 200. I mean, listen, dude, we're all sitting there training every day, cutting weight, getting there, we find out the Wednesday or Thursday before the fight. No one

wanted that to happen. Yeah. The fight before that, remember also Kormier got hurt one time. So John got hurt once, I think he had a situation with his knee, and he got postponed. Yeah. It happened. Then it happened at that point, and then he fought and he won't. And it was time for the rematch.

Cornier, what do you call it, got hurt, and it got postponed. And then after that, it was on with the whole UFC 200 thing. So at the end of the day, it's like, you know, when there's like, I can't trust him, I can't trust him. I'm like, bro, look, at the end of the day, I understand what you're saying from your end because you're upset and you're pissed off. And I get it.

I'm not, you know, it is what it is. But I think from our end, you know, if you think that you're going to sell better by saying John Jones is a co-meant event or it protects you better or whatever, then you got to do what you ought to do. But do you think at the end of the day that it doesn't affect us one way or another financially. Okay. He still gets pay-per-view, still gets his money.

None of that matters. So it doesn't. All right. So he'll fight then and you have a, okay, so that's that situation. It seems to be all clear. clear. Then you have this other situation with the O. Romero, that's a mess. We just had Luke Rock hold on saying that he wants all the middleweights to go on strike. And we have GSP saying he's ready to come back in October, November.

We saw Romero and Anderson on the show last week, but now we're being told Anderson's not on the card anymore. Who knows what's going on? What's happening with Romero? Can you tell us what is going on here? Listen, here's the thing. Y'O. Romero is a no more contender. You know what I mean? And for us, for our, let me say so I can make sure everybody understands. when we came on and said that we you know when you're all said i wanted i'll fight as long as for an interim belt the only reason why he's saying that it's not because he cares for an interim belt it's because in his mind that's what solidifies him for getting the next shot at the champion whoever that is you follow him coming yeah yeah this has nothing to do with i want to the interim

champ and then i'm i could retire saying i was the champion the ufc doesn't care about the interim belt but it's like in his mind it was like this is the only way to become the champion what i've gotten from the ufc and what i've learned to understand is that a lot of people understand they have an analytics department at the UFC. I don't know if people know that or not. You got about 10 Ivy League educated dudes that do nothing but

crunch numbers. And so my biggest scrape was, you know, I understand GSP's coming back. I think people got to realize that before all the trash thing that talked about him and all the, you know, their contract dispute, which was just a contract dispute, right? George was responsible for making Canada

a pay-per-per-view, you know, an MMMA country, you can say, I mean, George would basically help build the UFC. He did a lot over the last 10 years for the company while he was fighting. So I think him coming back, he earns the right to skip a line, let's say, right? But I thought it would be more on the welterweight side, not the middleweight side. You get what I'm saying? Yeah.

But I understand that he's a big fight. So, you know, when we sat down and we talked about it, I said, look, this is the reality of it. This is what George, I think, is earned. This is the way they feel. I think this is what's going to happen. Now, we thought the fight was going to happen in July. Yeah. I mean, and that's what we kind of was going to go down.

Now it looks like it's going to be to the end of October November. So it doesn't make any, it doesn't, you know, for us, it's just, it's a pain in the ass because it doesn't make any sense for us. Because now what we're basically saying is we got to sit till February before we can actually fight him. That's a long wait. That's a long time to sit for anybody. He just fought in November.

Yeah. We're like six months out for that. You're talking about another, you know, 10 months maybe before he fights. It's, it clogs up the thing. So I understand what Luke's coming from. I just think for us right now, we're going to go back to the drawing board. Hopefully, you know, we can get. the Sanderson fight to happen at another date.

I think, you know, part of our, uh, uh, our, uh, our, uh, problem is that we, I think part of the problem is is that with the, with the fight in Brazil, it was going to Brazil. Three weeks notice realistically, four weeks, notice realistically of actually getting this, this, this fight. And I think it without, you know, it was too rushed.

I think now if he's off the, he's off the card and we're not fighting him, uh, in June, I think you can probably make this fight happen sometime, you know, later on, if anything. And I'm gonna get with them later, on today to see if we can possibly make that fight happen. So you're one of the few people in the sport that had a relationship with Ari Emanuel before WME became UFC owners.

John was working with them and from what I understand, you've always had a good relationship with them. Considering that and considering how well you know him, what's your take on the current state of the UFC? Because you can't deny the fact that a lot of people are upset. A lot of people feel like there's no direction. There's no Lorenzo. He's not there to close up the deals.

he's not there to kind of be the good cop to Dana's bad cop that that role they always play there's no joe so maybe he doesn't work as you know the matchmakers aren't working as quickly i mean just just from your experience um you've been doing this for so long compare almost the last year since the new owners took over to all those years before do you feel like it is a different company it's run differently yeah i mean absolutely i think i think everybody's out spot on i think you got you know mick mick is different from joe i think there's there's you know situations there that it's been a difference is an adjustment and I think actually you know what I mean it's been

a great adjustment I think mixed doing a phenomenal job you know I think that fighters also have turned fights down a lot more than they have in the past you know what I'm saying there's a lot of fighters out there because I know it's been trouble getting my guys fights like trying to hey look you know this guy wants to fight that guy and then I'll get you know phone call he doesn't want to fight him and I know this guy doesn't want to fight him so I know that there's that aspect of it I think that

people have to understand that when they came in and they took over they also got rid of a lot of people did a lot of different jobs yeah yeah so this is not just one or two people running it. There's a hundred people helping out here. So I think when they came in a lot of different things, and so they're playing catch up. But I also think that people don't understand the strength and the power of R.M. and what he's been able to do. And I think that once they really, like, once he really gets in it and gets this thing going, you're going to see a lot of different things that are going to happen over the course of the next years, which means,

you know, maybe going to bigger markets, better markets, things of that nature. I mean, right now, you know, I think it's kind of a wait and see pattern for me, you know what I mean, just to try to see exactly, you know, where they're going to go. One thing I can tell you is I think they're going to go back to making the fights that fans want to see based on the analytics guys. It's what I'm saying. So depending on what, you know, the computer spits out, that's what we're going to end up seeing. I don't think you're going to see one versus two or one versus five the way, you know, we've wanted it to work. I think, you know, because it's weird. When we look at the last like three years before they came in, you know, this guy fought that guy and it was a boring fight and everybody's like, okay, cool, but that made sense. And then, you know, people didn't want to see that. I think we're going to go back to that. I think that's why you see a lot of the stuff that's going on.

people think they deserve certain fights and I think they're going back to the model of we're going to make the fights the fans want to see. So if that means Nick Diaz comes out of retirement and wants to fight, you know, X, Y, Z guy and doesn't make any sense, but it's going to sell 600, you know, paper because I don't think it's, people forget that that's what they did way back when and then they stopped when the ranking system came out. And I think that he looked at and they said, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. Let's go back to that, to that model of the way we did it before,

mixing in the ranking system. So it's just a matter of understanding how they're doing it. But I think that's what really is going on from what I'm, from what I'm I'm gathering. Okay, so you also rep Taran Woodley. Is there any chance that he doesn't fight the winner of Maya Mazvedal, Mazvidal also being another one of your clients? Right.

I don't know. Okay. I don't know. We're going to sit down. Look at that after this weekend. He doesn't have a fight, though, right? I know that. No.

Okay. Is Carlos Condon going to fight again? Maybe. I don't know yet. I mean, he's just like I said, he's right now he's just taking time off. He's just taking a lot of time off. He's getting, you know, a lot of things. done around

you know what I'm saying his personal life and his house and I mean his business ventures that he had you know before this last fight

and I think once he gets all that in the road everything is is common he gets that part over there taking care of I think then you know

Carlos can either look at coming back to fighting or maybe not fighting but as of right now he hasn't hasn't made a decision one way or another but I mean

you know probably will I like it um way back when you were you were talking about unions and associations in the sport

and then we got a little hot and heavy last year and now they've all disappeared. Do you now think that it will never happen? No, it'll happen. I think one day it will happen. I just think that what people don't understand is that just because you start screaming union, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right thing for the group. You know what I mean? I think that everybody has to understand.

A lot of people always ask me, hey man, I don't see you, you know, being supportive of a union. I never said I don't support a union. I mean, I'm in one with the football association, with the NFL players association. So, you know, I get what their benefits are. The issue is that you get these guys who jump up and say, hey, I'm going to fight for the fighters. And then it's like,

what exactly are you going to do? And then they don't have a plan. They don't have a plan. They're just, we're going to walk in and we're going to negotiate with them and we're going to demand this and demand that. And I go out of a lot. But how does that going to work?

Because this business is a paper view business. So it's based on the buys. So who's getting that? You want to, the last plan was we're going to give a quarter to everybody on the card and we're doing this for this guy at the top and this on the bottom. And it sounds great. But the truth is, in boxing and in wrestling and in this and all that. You don't pay for the guys that are on the dark side of the card.

You're not paying for the guy that's maybe even opening up the card. You're paying for the co-main and the main event. So there's a lot of things that go into. Plus, you know, you're talking about benefits. What type of benefits are you talking? What is the cost of that? How does that work? You get what I'm saying?

You know, and then the other thing is that, you know, right now they can't tell us when to fight or not to fight or who to fight. We have to agree on all that stuff. If you become a union, that means you're what you're looking for certain, you know, benefits as employees. And when you become an employee, they'll pick up the phone and say, hey, Ariel, you're fighting so-and-and-so. and it's going to happen on this date. Well, wait a minute, I need six weeks. Well, you didn't negotiate that for whatever reason.

You need a fight. You don't want to fight. We're going to find you. And so it just, there's a lot of things that go into it that people just don't understand. And I have yet to see somebody step up that said, I mean, that whole B-on-Remnity thing was such a, I mean, but what a debacle that was. You know what I mean? If you didn't read through B-O-N-C-A-A and we're going to go fight them and we'll do this for you guys, they sold for $4 billion. I mean, at the end of the day, who cares what they sold for?

Right. I mean, what I'm saying? like at the end of the day, who cares what they sold for? They sold for $4 billion. So Dana Lorenzo, they got everybody. Good for them. You know, God bless them. Now it's Ari Manuel's turn and step up and speed what he's going to do. And I think that with time, and this is all I'm saying. I'm not trying to tell you this is a great thing right now or a bad thing. All I'm saying is if they go hit this, if he goes and hits a home run with a TV deal, right, and gets into a couple of key markets and get some other things, I see the pay the pay for other things. I see the pay going up. I see it has to go up. If it doesn't, then you sit down and you start talking about stuff.

I think benefits, remember, they were the only ones to ever give insurance to pay for certain things. And I know a lot of fighters gripe about a lot of stuff. And a lot of it is really well deserved it. There's some things that they got issues with. But again, it's like if you do this over here, what does that hurt over there? We want more money, but then what does that do for this over here? So until I can get that, you know what I'm saying, solid of a plan to where I really get it. Like, all right, this makes sense.

I don't know how you can go in there and try to figure anything out. Because, I mean, everything I just bitch has been about, you know what I mean, money. Any other news about all your clients that you want to drop on us? Anything else you got in your back pocket? No, I just have my wallet in my back pocket and no cash in it. That's it. Damn, you're back to the homeless days? No, I'm not homeless for shit.

I want to go back to your Instagram videos where you're giving us these inspirational. You're like, yeah, I'm working out. You know, if you don't want it. I mean, that stuff was just great. Why did you stop doing that? I stopped working out. What happened? You got that NFL money now.

Listen, I started again. Here's what happened. I got real busy. and I was traveling left and right. And then, you know, I stopped. And then people started hitting me up like, bro, I lost 30 pounds, man. Where's the videos? Yeah.

Listen, hold on, no, hold on. My friends are like my friends. I don't even know. I'm getting in from people in Colorado, Canada, all over the place. And they're like, bro, you really inspired me to lose weight. And I'm literally looking at them and I'm like, they're sending me before and after pictures. So I'm hitting them with all this motivational stuff.

Keep it going, bro. This is going to be awesome. That-da-da-da-da. You know, now I'm really like sending them all this stuff. Mind you, I'm eating like a Swiss roll or a honey bun and some ice cream. I'm sitting here saying this shit and I'm like, wow, dude, this is crazy that I was able to do all this. But like, literally, I've got like almost 30-something people that have messaged me that I motivated them to lose the weight. And now what's crazy is that I've used all of them?

Because I did this, what, two months ago? Yeah, yeah. They've all lost 30 pounds, like between 20 and 50 pounds, right? So I'm going to tell this shit. And I'm like, oh, dude, this is enough. So now I went back. And I'm using them as the most. So, yeah, it's just, you know.

Circle of one. All right. Yeah, I'm going to bring it. I always enjoy it. Great stuff, Malky. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. and, you know, I look forward to maybe seeing you in Dallas this weekend.

Do you have anyone on the card? Sergio. I don't know if I have anybody on the card. I think my brother has everybody in the car. See, one day I'm waiting for the Abraham interview on the show because he's the real brains behind the MMA operations. But he's... And he actually listens to my show, unlike you.

Right, absolutely true. He's got Monson. He's got... What do you call it? Jessica Aguilar. Oh, that's right. And Chase Sherman. Okay.

Wow. Look at you guys. You even seem confused. Is that correct? Is that right? Okay. Okay. Okay.

That's right here. That is great. Of course. Here's the best thing about it. So when Masvidor, if he wins this weekend, will probably be next in line to fight, Tyerman. Okay. If that fight happens, that'll be Malkey versus Abraham, right?

Malky versus Abraham. 100%. basically was like, yeah, get your boy ready. Like, he's not my boy. So I'm like, yo, bro, what's up? Abraham's my manager. I go, okay, shoot, perfect. So I'm over there on my brother's going to this.

This is like pro wrestling. 1,000%. I love it. 1,000%. I love it. Yeah. A little sibling rivalry. So it's going to be my brother in them on one side and me and Tyre on the other side.

Don't talk to me. I'm not talking to you. I want nothing to do. I want nothing to do with us. It's great. But it was crazy that they're friends too. Tyrant and our teammates. So this is a real like house divided all the way across.

I will say, this. I will say this. There has been a shift in Mazvedal and his public persona and his interviews and things like that. And there's a direct correlation to when he's signed with your brother and, you know, his spike in popularity and the role that he's been on. So I don't like to give him props too much. And I hope he's not listening, but he deserves props on that one. Yeah, my brother's shaking his head. There it is. There it is. All right. Listen, he does, he does a phenomenal job, man. I got to tell you, when he came in, he didn't know what the hell was going on. He just know he wanted to do it. You know, okay, and little by little.

A lot of the bigger fights that you guys see and stuff like that, and the things you guys see in MMA is really my brother. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm involved in a lot of the tedious contract stuff and things, you know, when it comes to the guys in the corporate office. But my brother is really the one that's day-to-day handling all that stuff. So, yeah, I got to do major props because without him, I could have never gone to the football stuff.

And a lot of my fighters on this side, or our fighters, I should say, you know what I mean? Would have been like, you know, F this, man. This guy doesn't care about me. So, you know what I'm saying? My brother, he handles it all. But I mean, look at the work he's done. He's got Mazvidar all ready to fight for a belt.

You got Yoho Romero. That's another one of his guys. Really, it's his guy. You know what's getting ready to fight for a belt. He's got Sergio Pettis. I mean, really, one fight away from fighting, you know, getting for a belt. So I'm saying, but we're beast like that. I mean, listen, if you sign with six fights.

All right, all right. All right. You know what I mean? Thank you, Malki. All the best. See you in Dallas. I'll see you in Dallas. Thank you.

There is. Maki Kawa, a lot going on. also has Derek Lewis, Sal Jermaine Sterling. The list goes on and on and on. They're doing some great stuff. Okay, let's move along. Very excited to talk to our next guest. In fact, he would tell you that I had been bothering him for months to come on this show.

And finally, I think I broke him. I think he finally agreed because I'm being told he's waiting. So let's not waste any more time being joined right now on the phone by the Hall of Famer, former UFC Walterway champion, the one and only Matt Hughes. Matt, are you there? Yeah, you know what? You took the words out of my mouth because I was going to tell everybody that you've been beating me up for over a month to get on this show. So, well, actually, it was a Thanksgiving. Yeah, not over a month. You're being too kind. It's been like five months. I actually went back and looked at my text and there's like a string of seven unanswered texts. I'm like, hey, Matt, hey Matt, what's up, what's up? And you know what's funny about your situation? I can actually see when you read the text. Because it says, and you still didn't reply to me.

I was probably driving or something. We'll say that. Yeah, sure you were. Sure you were. So let me ask you this. Why were you so quietly? Like, why were you so reluctant to speak? Because I've just been enjoying everything I'm doing now.

And kind of got out of the MMA and it kind of felt refreshing and I didn't want to anything brought back up again. So I was just having. Happy to be an everyday guy. Fair enough. Fair enough. Why are you talking now? Because I like you.

All right. I'll take that. Thank you. I appreciate that. So let me ask you right off the top. Were you surprised when you parted ways with the UFC? Were you surprised when that came down? Yeah, yeah, I was.

I was totally understood it. But I was surprised. I don't think Dana is able to run the UFC like you used to. Yeah. He sold so much of it that he just doesn't have that control. So I was still a little surprised, but totally get what happened. And, you know, when you have a corporate buyout like that, that's what happens. They start figuring out how to save money.

Any, you know, any hard feelings on your side of things? I would, no, I wouldn't say that. I wish things were different. Right. You know, I'm human. Yeah. like everything else, but day and I still text a little bit. I'm going out there.

This weekend I'm going to Dallas for some stuff. Oh. And then the next weekend is the gym opening. They're flying me out there, I guess, one of the boardrooms. They've got like seven or eight boardrooms, and each boardroom has a certain fighter. I think there's a Mahometali boardroom, a Bruce Lee boardroom, and there happens to be a Matt Hughes boardroom. So I'll go out there for the opening of the big complex out there.

And so, yeah, we're, Dana and I've been around together a long time, and we're family, and we can disagree and still go to supper that night and get a long time. If you don't mind me asking, how did it go down? He called me. Okay. Called me up and said, this is what's going on. Okay. And I kind of knew ahead of time, see, Halloween, me and my family went out there,

and we stayed at Red Rock and spent most of the time at Dana's house. My kids love being around Dana's kids. So that's what we did. And I asked him, and go, hey, how's this looking? What's going on? He goes, well, they're beating down my door. I've still got some control to do this and do that. I've been trying to save as many people as I can.

So I knew about that Easter weekend, or I'm sorry, Halloween weekend. And then Thanksgiving, right around Thanksgiving, I got a call from Dana and saying, hey, this is what's going on. Okay. And obviously this, I mean, this was your job. This is how you made a living, you know, without getting too personal. I mean, were you okay? Did you have a fallback plan? Was it a complete shock to your family?

How was it received? It was all right. I mean, the good thing about the UFC is I wasn't spending any of my money. I was still spending their money. So now I'm just kind of spending my own money. Okay. And the UFC has been very, very, very good to me. I don't have to work unless I want to.

And, of course, I work every day because I would go crazy if I didn't. So everything's good on my end financially. We're fine, just like we were before. It was just nice spending somebody else's money. Right, of course. So you say that you are still working. What are you doing day to day these days? I love working with my hands.

When I wake up in the morning, the first, thing I want to do is get my hands dirty. And when I go to bed at night, what I think about is what I'm going to do the next day. So right now I'm helping a guy. He does several things, and I'm just working with my hands. I just pulled away from his place, and I put a new hub on a piece of machinery. So I changed some bearings, and I love it. I'm also got my hands. There's a company called Strike Tech. They put sensors. They got little, like, one-inch sensors that can go inside your wraps or your gloves, and they can monitor how fast you are and what power you hit something.

Wow. So I'm helping that company out as well. So that's kind of keep my foot in the door and also still helping the UFC doing gym openings for UFC gym and this and that. But so I'm still somewhat close to the game, but I enjoy my day-to-day hard work. Okay. Are you doing farming and things like that as well? Yep.

Yep. He's a farmer. So I help him with the farm. Okay. So obviously, I have to ask you about this. There was a clip that came out around, I'd say, maybe a month and a half, two months ago, a little less than two months ago. And you did an interview with Joe Buck. Now, that full interview hasn't come out yet, but they released a snippet of the interview in which it appeared as though you were expressing interest in fighting again.

And you hinted that you were interested in fighting someone who he had previously interviewed. And he's only interviewed two other MMA fighters, to the best of my knowledge, just doing a little investigation. in there, George St. Pierre, who of course you have a connection with, and Hoyst Gracie, who you have a connection with. Now, George is now contracted to the UFC. And so before getting into the opponent's stuff and all that, are you seriously considering

a comeback? I would love to come back. I didn't want to retire in the first place. Dana thought it was the best thing for me, and so did my stinking wife. So, Ariel, are you married? I am. Yes, I am.

I am. So when did you lose your your life. 2008. 2008, okay. So my wife said she didn't want me to fight anymore. It wasn't as fun when I was just out kicking ass. She didn't

like the worry, and Danick kind of said the same thing. So that's why I got retired. That's why I went retired. And I would love to go out and fight again. You know, my problem is I lost my last two fights, and that's the only thing I think about is those sneaking losses. Wow.

So since that clip came out. I mean, that was kind of a way to test the waters. Did you receive any offers? Oh, yeah. And you know this. I don't have to tell you. Everybody, everybody that has fought a fight in the UFC has challenged me and told me to fight them. So you know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Yes, I know David. You know more than I do. Why are you asking me questions? Well, because sometimes I like to hear, you know, from the horse's mouth. Now, now what about promotions? Promoters? Have they contacted you saying we'd love to have you fight for us? Not really. Okay. Not really.

Does that disappoint you? I'm not really shaking the tree real hard. I'm just kind of having fun with it right now. Okay. But if you got a good deal, you would come back. If I got a good deal, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would. And you know what?

What would be fun for me is fighting with one of my old buddies like Chuck Liddell. You know, if he came out of retirement. I think it would be a blast of him and I were on the same card. So, yeah. So there has also been some talk of Chuck. I mean, some photos have surfaced of him appearing to be in great shape. Have you guys, you know, have you gone on a call and talk to him about this plan? Is he on board as well?

Chuck and I talk a lot, always have. And we've not, we have chatted a little bit about it, but nothing real serious. So I know he's, I think about in the same boat I am, if I had to guess. Okay. Now, you've always been a very loyal UFC guy. Let's just say a Bellator comes calling. Would your loyalties to the UFC stop you from making a deal with them? Or, you know, are you just open to talking to anyone at this point?

It would have to be a pretty major organization. So I wouldn't say everyone. Okay. I would really hate to fight out of the UFC, but I would. You would, okay. I would. So yeah. Have you called up Dana White and said, I'm interested in coming back?

Are you interested in having me? Dana White knows about this. Yes, we have talked about it. Okay. Yeah. What do he say? You better ask Dana that. I don't want to speak for somebody else.

Okay. Was he receptive to it? You're asking me the same question again. Sometimes I try to, you know, you got to come around with the left, maybe with the right, you know, you never know when you can catch someone. But I mean, clearly you're still very sharp, Matt, so, you know, 43 years young. Okay. Is it only Hoyst that you're interested in or would you be interested in, you know? Hoyce?

Yeah. Who said hoist? You said hoist. I did say hoist. You're right. Okay, okay. Okay. I didn't know he said any names.

Okay, who are you interested? Do you have an ideal? I don't want to say that. Okay. I don't want to speak too much, you know. Did you see that hoist Gracie came out and said that he wants to fight you as well? Yes, I think I did. I did see that.

Along with 20 other people that said they want to fight me. That is true. But in your mind, you don't have to tell us, but in your mind, do you have an ideal scenario for this fight? Yeah, of course I would have like a list. Okay. This is who I'd want to fight first, and this is who I wouldn't want to fight. Yeah.

So, yeah, I would say there's a list. We hear in combat sports a lot, you know, how hard it is to say goodbye, you know, the roar of the crowd and the adrenaline and things like that. Is this something that you've wrestled with? I mean, when you would go to those UFC events, was it internally hard for you to watch it, to be a part of it and not be in the cage? Are you having a hard time walking away from all of this? You know, I don't think the events, the live events have a lot to do with it.

I think it's just the fact that I lost. I just like it. You know, cost check was my last loss, and BJ was my loss before that. And I fully believe that if those fights had went all 15 minutes, I would have got my hand raised. I really do, but I got hit in the wrong spot. and I didn't make it out of the first round both times. So I still think I'm very competitive. I think I could be.

I haven't trained real hard here in the last couple years. But that's the problem that keeps me thinking that I would have a chance of going back in there. Now, I have no interest in fighting somebody like, you know, Tyron Woodley or Mosvidal or somebody, Some of these young kids, I just don't. I don't. I would want to have somebody, you know, close to my age that would have the same speed, quickness. And I think I've got all kinds of power. I think I could recover really good.

But man, that speed and quickness is just tough, tough things to overcome. Do you watch MMA still? Are you still a fan? You know, I don't watch near as much as I used to. there are certain fights that they interest me, but as far as these young kids that have fought once or twice in the UFC, I wouldn't

know who they are. And it's getting tough for me to find guys that I really know and like, you know, everybody's kind of retiring. You know, your eye of favor. You know, he was another guy that I really got along with well, and now he's retired as well.

So I tend to watch less and less as time goes on. And so is this all about just getting that one win, you know, at the top of your record so that you can say, okay, my last fight was a win? Or in your mind, you think that you can fight for three, four, five more times? It's really just one win. It's really doesn't have anything to do with money. It's just get in there and competing again and seeing how I do.

Like I said, I would be very smart about my opponent. Okay. And so here's the biggest question. What does your wife think about this? My wife, well, she's lived with me since retirement. Sure. She knows that there's really nothing, nothing I want more, and she's kind of stayed out of it.

Okay. She has said, you know, I trust your opinion on who would be your opponent. So she's just been out of it. Okay. Do you think that she would stop you? If you got a deal, you got the opponent, do you think she would say, you know what? You can't do this?

No way? No. Okay. You know, I'm getting a bunch of tweets and people throwing out who they'd like to see you fight, and there's one name that keeps coming up. Do you have a guess as to who that is? GSP. No.

There's my guess. Go ahead. Matt Sarah. Oh, that'd be an interesting fight, yeah. You'd be interested in that. I would be interested in that fight. Would you do like a sort of fake training camp to see what kind of shape you're in, your speed, your response time, all that stuff? Like you want to kind of go through it as a real training camp for a fight before really determining if this is something that you can do?

I would start extremely early, I'm guessing, and just see where I'm at, see what the recovery's like. every day, you know, our theory up in Iowa was out-trained your opponent and just be in better shape. Yeah. So I would kind of come in with that theory and I'd see how my body last. But, you know, I have got a lot healthier since I retired. I wasn't beaten on my body every day. So I've got a pretty healthy body. I'm not as muscular as I used to be, but I'm still put together pretty good. So you know what the naysayers will say? Of course. Forrest, every fighter thinks he's still got it. You know, they're the last to know, and he's 43, and he hasn't want to fight in, you know, seven years, things like that.

Why should people believe that you could go in there? Because, you know, as fans, we want to remember our heroes and especially, you know, legends like you, when they were at the top, when they were kicking ass, when they were slamming Frank Trigg and things like that. Why should people believe that you can actually go in there and not sort of tarnish your legacy, if you will? Ariel, I'm going to ask a question, and I actually don't know the answer, unlike you. You usually ask questions, and you already know the answer. Not true. I'm asking a question, I don't know. When did Randy Couture win his last title?

Well, he was definitely... How old was it? I do believe he was in his early 40s. I'll confirm that, but I'm pretty sure he was in his early 40s, so I get what you're trying to say here. You know, that guy, he went out and he beat Tim Sylvia and won a world. title in his early to mid-40s. So, I mean, people can still do it. You just, you know, I always thought Randy was an extremely smart fighter and trainer.

And so you just got to be smart about things and you've got to know who you're up going up against. In fact, how about this? He was 43. Same age you are right now, right? Yes. Although he didn't take that long break beforehand. Correct.

Correct. Yeah. But he had some long breaks in his career. That's true. That is true. Have you talked to him about this? No, I haven't. Rainy and I say hi to each other when we see each other, and that's about it.

Okay, okay. What are the chances that you would, you know, rally up the old troops, the Pat Militich's of the world, the Robbie Lawlers of the world, to try to get you ready? Yes, that would, I'm sure I would rally as many of those guys I could. Pat is one of the best guys to train with, whether it be on the ground, motivational, stand-up, Cardio, he's great.

Have you talked to Pat about this? Yes, yes. And what do he say? He doesn't care. He's easy going like I am. Whatever Matt wants to do is what Matt ought to do. And that's the thing that you brought up these fans that don't want to see me go up there and compete again. That's their opinion.

If that's what they want, that's fine. And if they don't want to watch me, if I do, if I do compete again, again, then that's their prerogative. But let me be me. Sure. You know, I'm going to let them do whatever they want, but they've got to let me be me. Boyce your opinion, but you know, come fight night, do whatever

you want. I got to tell you, that's the best that's the best case and an older fighter has made to me about why we should not try to stop them from fighting. It's your life. You don't tell us what to do? Why should we tell you what to do? Well, thank you

for agreeing with me. You're a smart guy. I like when you agree with me. Any, but do you have any concerns about your health? No, about my health? No. None really whatsoever. I, I, um, I'd say I'm just like I used to be, you know, there, I don't have any punch drunk or anything like that. I, I'm pretty healthy, uh, physically and, and mentally. Okay.

Did you watch Hoist Gracie's last fight? Yeah, I was there. It was down in Houston, I believe. Yeah, I was there. You were there. What were you doing there? Yeah. Just watching. Wow. You were scouting, even back then?

No. No, there was no plans of me coming out. I was with the UFC. I had no plans of coming out of retirement. I know. So I just, I got friends down there and I like Texas, so I went down there and got some tickets and went to the fight. What did you think? What did you think of his performance?

Well, it was pretty quick, you know. I would have liked to see in a whole round or a whole fight, but we didn't. So, yeah. Could I ask you? Go ahead. It wasn't much to see is what I'm trying to say. If he is at the top of that list, why is he even there since you beat him, you know, rather convincingly? Well, I never said he was at the top of that list.

I said if he is. But if, if I remember what you said. You know, since that, I would be interested in fighting Hoyce, simply because the next day after I fought him at UFC 60, back in 06, he has said that he should have beat me that night, and he just had an off night, and I had an on night. So he has said that this whole time that he would love to fight me again. So if that's the case, I'd give the guy a chance.

Is he at the top of the list, number one? I thought I've already avoided this question. Vitor Belfort has said that he would like to see a legends division in the UFC. What do you think of this idea? I don't know about that. I just don't know. You know, the older guys would have fans out there, you know, that would tune in a little bit. So you would maybe bring some fans back.

You know, I do think, you know, with the Reebok deal, they have turned some people away from the UFC. And with some other things, you know, they've turned pretty corporate nowadays. So I think you would get some fans back, you know, if you had some older guys in there and, you know, two or three times a year, you have, you know, an older matchup or something. I just don't see how it could hurt. but I'm not running the UFC and surely the UFC has bean counters that figure stuff like that out and everything else

so that's obviously up to them do you long for the old days of the UFC like you missed the old UFC the way it was I am so glad that I competed when I did with the UFC because it's just not the same anymore it was all about a family back then

when I won the title in 01 of course the UFC just been bought early that year by the Fratitas and Dana. So they were just new to it. And it was just a great deal for me, and now it's just not that way. And I don't mean to talk bad about the fighters, and I'm not going to name anybody specifically. But it just seems like they're just in it for the money. And they're all kind of money hungry, it seems like.

And back then, with me and the rest of the guys, we were just in there to compete. We just loved it. And the money was second. And now it seems the money's first. do you kind of wish that the money was first? Like in other words... No, no, no. Now it seems like the money is first. Yeah.

Competition is second. And back when I was competing, it was a competition first and the money second. No, I understand. But, you know, once you hear what some of these fighters are making now, do you say like, oh, man, I wish I fought in this era because, you know, I'd be making millions and millions and millions. I'm happy with what I got paid. I've never...

I've never really went to the UFC and said, hey, I need paid more. I have went to the UFC and said, this is what somebody would give me, but I've never went to them and said, hey, I want more money. Right. Did you ever seriously consider leaving? Were you ever, you know, enticed by a really big offer by a competitor? No. No, I was not. And I've had big offers before, but I just never was. Yeah. You've always been good to me. They've always been home and family, and that's the way it was. One time, I was out of contract after a win, and if you go to the post-flight press conferences, you'll say,

that Dana White, before I fought Chris Lytle, Dana White came to my room that day and said, hey, we got a new deal for you. And we signed that, basically him and I hand shook before I fought Chris. So actually the deal got inked after I fought Chris. Wow. And the lawyers missed it on that, on resigning me before my last fight. So after it was a four,

fight deal. After the fourth fight, I said, hey, I'm a, I'm a free agent, but the UFC has got nothing to worry about. Wow. So Dana text me and said, hey, actually, you're wrong about that. You're not a free agent. And I text right back and said, Dana, if you go look at the dates, we talked about that before Chris Lytle, and it got signed after Chris Lytle, but the Chris Lytle fight was the first fight of that contract. And then he texts back and said, you're right. What do we need to do to get you under contract. And I just said, hey, give me the same deal I had the four fights before. What?

So why the same? Did you get a raise. Because I was happy. Wow. And that kind of explains why he was so loyal to you for so many years, right? Yep. Yep. Are you surprised to see GSP back?

I kind of am. You know, the guy, he went out with his hand up in the air, and a lot of us don't do that. He went out with the belt. And I just don't know why he wants to tarnish that record when he is going out with everything. And, you know, he's coming off a long layoff. And it just really strikes me as odd. The thing I would wish for every successful fighter is to go out with their hand in the air. He's doing that and still coming back.

So I just wish him the best. But things aren't going to be the same. The sports evolved. Do you think he has a chance against Bisping? Do you favor him in the fight? The George St. Pierre that beat me would win. The George St. Pierre that went against maybe Johnny Hendrix's last fight? I don't know.

Okay. So I just don't know. While we have you and just reminiscing before I let you go, I'll promise I'll let you go in two minutes. What was your favorite moment of your career? Is there a moment that sticks out when you were happiest? Yep. Yep, my win against BJ Penn. You know, I love roller coaster rides, and BJ at that end of that first round had me in a bad situation.

I actually prayed in the middle, that last of that round and said, hey, you get me in the next round, God, and I'll try and do my best. Wow. And got to the next round, and BJ was tuckered out the start of the second round, and I was on fire. Wow. That's amazing. And it's amazing. That was, what, 11 years ago, I think, right? 2006. Crazy. Yeah, I don't know. You're the one with the stats right in front. I'm just sitting in my truck.

Sure. How do you feel about BJ being back, considering how he looked in his last fight? I like BJ. We get along really well now. He's got a great personality. I wish he would just find the right opponent. You know, I've always told him, hey, BJ, you're so good on the ground. Find an older Brazilian that's not going to have, you know, Brazilians typically don't have the best. cardio. Find an old Brazilian. It's not going to be in the best of shape. It's going to be a want to be on the ground and kind of get your hand in the air and go out that way. But BJ is such a competitor that he wants to fight the best out there. That's just the way he's always been. And my hat goes off to him for being that way, but I just wish he would be kind of

a little smarter about it and really, really choose the right opponent. So he's fighting Dennis Siever, an older guy, not Brazilian, German. Do you like this matchup a little more? I do. I do. You know, BJ's not quite as quick as he used to be with his hands. You know, he used to counter so hard with that hook, and that, you know, that hook just doesn't seem to be there anymore. So I do like this matchup. It's an older guy, but, you know, it could be better, but definitely could be a lot

worse. Who's Matt Hughes' favorite fighter to watch these days? Robbie Lawler. Ah, yes. your old friend, and he's kind of reinventing himself as well. How do you feel about his decision to leave ATT? He was doing so well there. Yeah, you know what? Robbie does what Robbie wants as the way it should be,

and I've not really asked a whole lot of questions to Robbie. You know, he obviously had reasoning to do that, so it is what it is. I'm going to love the guy no matter where he trains at, and I'm going to help him no matter where he's at. Dan and I get along really well, Dan and Lambert, ATT owner, but we still get along real well.

Dan and I and I still get along well, so I just, I hope he's made the right move for himself. You know, whatever he does, wherever he's at, I'm always going to root for the guy. Is there a fighter, though, that you watch and you say, you know, this guy, he kind of reminds me of a young Matt Hughes, you know, the same build, same fighting style,

just something about him. Is there anyone that you see that kind of reminds you of yourself? Nobody comes to mind. Wow, okay. be real honest. But like I said before, I don't watch the guys I don't know very well. Sure, sure. Fair enough. Very much. So. Scale of 1 to 10, 10 being you're walking into a cage, how close are you to returning? Truth be known, I'm probably at a 2 or 3. Okay.

I wish I was telling you 8 or 9. You want 8 or 9, but right now, because there's no offer there, really, you're at a 2 or 3. But you want it? Yes, correct. And would this year be doable for you? It'd have to be extremely late for me. Like I said, when I find out, I'll be on a mission. And would you fight at 170 again?

Yeah, I could easily. And have you considered those grappling tournaments, you know, the Chale Sun and thing or another one, does that interest you just for the competitive juices, or is it all about that W at the top of the record? Probably more of the W at the top of the record. I am supposed to grapple Hino Gracie over in Finland, but I've not heard back from the guy, Abu Dhabi Combat Club, so I don't even know if that's still a go or not. Okay.

We'll have to see. Last question for you, man. That doesn't interest me near as much as a fight. Go ahead with your last question. Okay. Last question, and again, thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. It's always great to talk to you.

You know, I'm seeing it already. People say, oh, you know, he's no longer in their contract with the UFC. He needs the money. That's the only reason why he's doing it. your response to these people? They're wrong. They're wrong. All right.

Do I need to turn my read receipt off my phone so at least you don't see when I read your text? I love it because I'm a very sensitive person, Matt. So if someone's ignoring me, it bothers me, makes me feel very sad. So the fact that you were seeing it, I was thinking, okay, at least he's there, but I must have done something to bother him. I don't know. That's the way I think. I even texted you once.

I look back. I said, was it something I said with a sad emotion? And that didn't go over well because you didn't respond to that either. But for some reason, and then you know what I said to myself, if you really want to know, I said, okay, this time I'm just not going to ask him anything. I'm just going to say, how are you, Matt? And then you finally respond. You finally responded to how are you? That is a question.

Sure, that is. But I wasn't asking you for anything like, you know, I wasn't trying to suck the blood out of you. But finally, and then I got that response. I was like, holy smack. And then I just said, wow, I can't believe you responded. and then we went from there. And what a moment it was. I was so happy on Friday when you finally said yes.

It was like when my wife said yes all over again. Well, yes. Yes, I'm glad you put her and eye in the same little sentence right there. Thank you. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate you finally responding to my text and finally coming back on the show.

It's been fun to reminisce. And good luck. Maybe something will happen. And if something does happen, you always have a home here. We'd love to talk about it. Okay, I tell you what, I'll even make a deal with you. Okay. If I can, I will break the news on your show.

That's the best deal. If I can control that. Those are the best words and the, I mean, there's separate words, but together, the best sentence I could possibly hear. Have a good day, buddy. All the listeners out there, I thank you for the support in the past. I always felt that I walked in the octagon with favor in the fans' eyes. I really love that. So thanks for the support I used to have.

Thank you, Matt. All the best, too. Talk to you soon. See, buddy. Bye. All right, there he is. Matt Hughes. Wow, that was a lot of fun.

I really have been hounding him for quite some time. I just wanted to know what was up. And you know, it's interesting. When you listen to him speak, you're kind of reminded of the old days. I'm not one to sort of think back and be like, oh, it was a better time. But it was a different time. It was more like a family. stuff has changed a little bit.

Some of it for the better. Fighters are getting paid more, things like that, but other things have changed. And I don't know if it's necessarily been for the better. Certainly, I mean, the uniform thing is a strange one to me in the fight game, but alas, we have banging that drum long enough. Okay, let's move along to our next guy. So we go from someone who, of course, is no longer in the UFC,

has been retired, thinking about a comeback to someone who is about to step foot inside the octagon, for the first time. Now, speaking of being hounded, the shoe has been on the other foot in this case because Aspen Ladd has been hounding me, if you will, to get on this program. She is someone who's very confident in her abilities. She's an undefeated bantamweight. She has been fighting in Invicta, and she is finally coming to the UFC on July 7th. She's fighting the veteran Jessica I. And, well, she thinks that she's going to do pretty damn good in that fight and in her UFC run. And she's joining us now for the very first time on this show. Aspen, are you there? I am and thank you for finally having me on.

Yes, it is great to talk to you. And I appreciate you waiting and being patient while we were talking to Matt Hughes. So how did this happen? Was your Invicta deal done and then you went to the UFC or did something else happen? And honestly, no, I had one fight left of my contract. But Shannon had verbally agreed, Shannon Knapp, the president, that she would release the if I had an offer from the UFC. And we got an offer. we got a date, we got an opponent, and she was kind enough to let me go.

Wow. And you have been trying to get into the UFC for quite some time, right? Yes, it's always been my goal. The four women were in the UFC, my goal was to get to Invicta. Then when I was in Invicta, okay, after that, it's time to go to the UFC or try to get there. And why do you think the offer came now? I think it's just because my record's getting up there. I got the call once before, but I was 2.10 at 125.

It was despite Lauren Murphy on short notice. and I took the fight, but they ended up going with, oh, geez, I'm not remembering her name right now. But I just think it was the right time in my career and the right record. And they need somebody for Jessica's fight. Wow. So you're 22 now. How old were you when you got that initial offer? 20, 21.

I honestly can't remember. Yeah. Well, you were 2 in 2015. So probably two years ago, you were 2021. Was that, you know, mentally? Was that a bummer for you to get an offer to accept it? and then not get the fight? It wasn't really a bummer.

It's just another step along the road, you know? Uh-huh. Like, it was kind of eye-opening, like, oh, wow, I'm here, and they're looking at me. They're watching. Sure, sure. You're on their radar. Yeah. And what did you think of the matchup when it was offered to you?

Jessica I. I was excited. From what I know, she's more of, like, a boxer, counterstriker type person. Uh-huh. Stand-up. Yeah. Stand-up, well. And that's a matchup that you like.

Very much so. I kind of joked on this, joked about this, I should say, um, the last time you fought. I feel like I always see you wearing a rash guard and I compared you to John Danaher who's always wearing a rash guard. Why do I always feel like I see you wearing a rash guard?

Do you, do you like wearing rash guards? Is it, is it comfortable? Well, why is that? Okay. It started out as kind of like a modesty thing. Because I'd seen, just on the local circuit, I've worn in my entire career, every amateur fight up until my last pro fight.

Because, you know, I see these women, they have their accents and something's popping out, and I never wanted to worry about that in a fight. Yeah. And then the further along I got is it became something that I'm very used to uncomfortable with. And then I got sponsored by Hayibusa, and they make absolutely epic rash guards. Huh. So it's just something I've stuck with. And do you wear rash guard?

Like when you go to the supermarket, if you go, you know, to a movie or something like that, are you wearing, do you feel that comfortable in them? Hey, if it's between training sessions, I will. Okay. So that is your go-to choice, the rash guard. Now, do you know about John Danahur and his, John Danherr went to a wedding? Someone told me, and he's probably gone to multiple wearing a rash guard, a tuxedo

rash guard. Do you know about this? I haven't heard that particular story. That's pretty awesome, I get to say. Are you familiar with John Danher? I became very familiar with them. Aske you compared us. Like, wait a second.

You didn't know about John Danher before that tweet? That was not that long. I only knew about him from one of my jihisi coaches has a man crush on him. Wow. So I knew about him vaguely, but I didn't know about the rash guard the anger in depth. Okay, fair enough. You are based in Sacramento, right? Yes.

Your team is MMA Gold. Yeah, MMA Gold out of El Dorado Hills, California. Is that essentially Sacramento? Pretty much is. We're like 20 minutes up the road from Sacramento. know. When I think of the Sacramento MMA scene, and I don't think I'm just speaking for myself, anyone, you think of Alpha Male, right? How does your team feel about that? Our team is very, very competitive with Alpha Mel. So that's pretty much like the enemy in the area.

Really? Yes. Now, what do you mean by competitive? Do you guys get matched up against each other a lot? and if so, how is the team doing against Alpha Male? Frequently on the local circuit. Okay. Our guys are doing fantastic. One of my teammates Sam Tumer recently just Catoed Anthony Veele, if you know who he is. Uh-huh. Yeah, so that was at GKO, but usually when our teams match up with them, it's a very competitive match,

and most of them, they come out winning. So is it hostile when you guys see each other at the local shows and things like that? it's not particularly friendly oh wow what what has happened anything big no just um mutual dislike just to say that and is it just like a turf war thing or did something actually happen to uh you know to create this tension pretty much i mean if you as you said when you think about Sacramento you think about alpha yeah so they are the team everybody goes to the premier team kind of thing yeah we've been coming up a few years and and we're doing extremely well.

So if you're in this area, there's two top-level teams and there's a bunch of other ones. So when you're thinking about a competitive fight, we're always matched up together, so that's kind of where it comes from. Do you feel like your team doesn't get the respect that it deserves in the MMA world,

especially in the California region? I think we're starting to. I don't think it's a respect thing. I think it's just we're so young. It's been, what, five years, been developing? Yeah. We went from just a handful of amateurs and now we've got people in the UFC.

So it's just progression. Speaking of young, you're pretty damn young yourself. You're just 22 years old or 22 years young, I should say. Why did you even get into this? And you've been doing it for almost five years now. Yeah. Well, I think I was about 15 and I was just a very, very shy kid that needs something to do. And I found an MMA gym.

I didn't even know what MMA was before that. But within the first week, I knew I wanted to fight. So I trained up. I just kept going until I was 18. and I started fighting and now we're here. So you were a shy kid? I mean, were you a fight fan? Did you like to watch fighting?

No, I honestly didn't. Wow. So what drew you to the MMA gym? I just knew some kind of martial art and that's what I wanted to get into. I had no idea what to expect. I think, okay, well, maybe it's like a karate or a boxing thing or something like that. But I was the typical uneducated person going in. And then I started to figure out what it was.

and then what people did, I was like, oh, this is, this is pretty amazing. I want to do this. What did your parents think about it? They were iffy right at first,

but since then, completely supportive. It's brought nothing but positivity from my life. Wow. And your friends at the time, I mean, considering you were shy, did they think you were crazy

when you told them you wanted to be an actual pro fighter? Oh, a little bit, but everybody got over it. Yeah. Who needs those friends? anyways, right? I mean, look at them, look at you now. You're about to find. You look at anybody

at 10 full time. Most of your friends are in the gym anywhere. That's true. And just looking at your Instagram, if you can clear up something for me, I see that you like to hike a lot, you like to go outside, you like to run and things like that. And you always have like four young kids with you. Are these your kids? What's going on here? Four young kids at 22. I'm busy. Yeah. Those are my siblings. I'm actually the oldest of six kids. And, They are all my little siblings.

Wow. So wait, so there's usually four. Where's the sixth? You know, if you're the fifth, where's the sixth? He is up in Portland, Oregon, making good of himself doing very, very well. That's my oldest little brother, Trevor. Wow. Okay, so in those pictures that I always see you, you Instagram, they don't seem very happy to be outside.

Like, they're usually like all together and kind of like making a face. And you're the one who's very happy. Do you have to wrangle them to come out? with you and, you know, are they, are they kind of doing it begrudgingly? No, they all love it, honestly. They love going out and checking out things. They just like to glare at me in the pictures because I think it's funny. Okay.

Are any of them hopeful fighters? All of them are very into karate right now, even a little six-year-old baby. Do you still live with your family? I do at the moment. Wow. I mean, why not? Why not? Supportive, rent, helped out.

Sure. You don't have to pay rent, right? So you live with your parents and your siblings. I do. That is amazing. I wonder how many UFC fighters currently live with their parents? And by the way, I'm all into living with my parents. I don't understand why kids want to leave, you know, when they're 17 years old, 18 years old. Stay there as long as possible, especially if you have a nice home and parents who support you, why would you want to go out on your own? Who needs that kind of stress? Maybe we think along the same lines. Yeah. Do you have to share, I mean, six kids, that's a lot. Do you have to share a room or you have your own room? I've got my own room. Okay. So what are the ages here? You got me at 22. You got my brother Trevor. He's almost 21. We're only 18 months apart.

Okay. And then you got 14, 12, 6. Oh, wait, no, seven. She's been seven and five. Wow, that is amazing. All from the same parents. Yep. well done well done to the lads I'll let them know you said that yeah um and will they all go to your fight um probably only my parents my dad's been at every single fight of mine

he goes and not your mom she does sometimes so she's kind of a basket case when she's there understandable i can totally understand that and what about your siblings have they ever gone um only Trevor my youngest or my oldest little brother okay um and so as far as your UFC run is concerned now. I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of open at 135. I mean, I feel like there's, there's an opportunity for some young blood to make some noise. What are you envisioning?

How far before you're in that, you know, that title talk, if you will, that contender talk? The talk that everybody wants to be in. Yeah. You know, I'm just, just coming in, five and a no, let's see, there's a whole, they brought in a lot of women recently. It's a lot of surprising ones. They brought in, I think her name is Mizani, Cindy Dandwa. Yeah. Oh, do we lose you? I think we lost her. We'll call right back. We're going to call right back. Of course, there was some news last week that I wanted to ask Aspen about before she says goodbye. The UFC announced via press release that they would be finally bringing in the women's flyweight division. They would be doing a season on the Ultimate Fighter.

and crown a new champion, tough 26. And then a couple hours later, they said that the report was a little premature. I have some thoughts on this as well in a minute. But Aspen has fought at 125. And so I was curious. And actually her opponent, Jessica I on Twitter, that evening, said that she was very excited about this. Now, she probably needs a win to stick around, I would say, at this point. But maybe an opportunity to fight at 125 would help her reinvent her.

her UFC career. That card is actually looking pretty good. I'm assuming by the July 7th Ultimate Fighter Finalee card, I'm assuming by this Friday we'll know a whole lot more about 213 and that card. So they're only doing two that weekend in July, July 7th and July 8th,

because that's when they're having the big press conference and all the fighters are going to be there and they're probably going to announce a lot of the fights on the card. But we do know Aspen and Jessica are going to fight on it. I do believe we have her back. Aspen, are you there? Yes, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened there.

Oh, no problem. I wanted to ask you about the 125 pound division. You fought a 125 in the past. Is that something that you're still interested in, or are you going to stick to 135? No, I can't physically make 25s anymore. You remember, I started fighting when I was a skinny little 18-year-old. And as I got old, I got with a great strength conditioning coach, I can't do it anymore. Okay.

Well, then that's not an issue for you. and if someone listening or watching the show has never seen you before, who would you compare yourself to in the Bantamweight Division? What kind of style? You know, there's not one particular person that comes to mind, but I'm just a very aggressive fighter. I'm always looking to finish. I'm not really one to dance around and kind of see,

okay, maybe I'll win, maybe I won't. I'm always trying to be the aggressor and trying to strive for the finish there. First four wins were finishes, but not your last one. You went to a decision. Did that piss you off? You know, a lot of people actually asked me that if I was disappointed or anything with that. Honestly, I wasn't. Yeah, at this point, I didn't get a finish.

At the same time, I enjoyed the fight, and it proves that I can go as many rounds I need to. All right. So here we are, 5 and 0, 22 years old, still living with her parents. I hope that Bruce Buffer says that when he announces you. Again, I'm all for it. In fact, someone has actually tweeted me saying that he's going to show his mother the clip of me being all for living with your parents to try to strengthen his case to stay at home and live with his parents. You're an inspiration to kids living at home with their parents. This needs to be celebrated.

If you're successful in doing well in life, why not? Yes. Well, I wish you the best. Congrats on getting to the UFC. Congrats on getting the fight. I know you've been wanting this for quite some time. And, of course, good luck on July 7th as you make your UFC debut. Thank you very much, and I appreciate being on your show.

All right, my pleasure. There she is. Aspen Lad. Great name, Aspen Lad. That is one to remember. And like I said, she is, of course, making her debut in less than two months in Las Vegas. Pretty cool. Team Mobile Arena.

All right. At 410, so in around 50 minutes, 5-0, we're going to be joined by Kelvin Gasland. Very excited to talk to him. Of course, he was officially suspended yesterday, or at least it was announced, and it will be up. in essentially a month. So it's almost done. June 11th.

That's when it will be up. I want to know what he thinks about it all. He had an interesting tweet yesterday about the suspension and where he goes from here, all that stuff and more. But now it is time for everyone's favorite segment. Yes, we've only done it once.

But let's see how week two goes. It's Rick's fix. In fact, people have been starting to send me pitches. And what I tell them is, I have nothing to do with Rick's picks. This is all from him. So if it sucks,

don't criticize it to me, criticize it to him. If it sucks, don't blame me, blame him. Now, if it's good, you can give me props for actually, you know, making this segment. But for now, we're going to put all the blame on him. So, Mr. New York, Rick, do you have any picks from the week that was in mixed martial arts? Funny you should ask that. I do have some of this. Oh, wow. And look at you now.

You're wearing... Actually, there's too much glare on them. You're wearing glasses. Are those the fake Connor McGregor glasses? No, my vision has gotten extremely bad. What happened? I don't know. But not good.

So you went to an eye doctor? So those are from a few years ago. Okay. I've always had a stigmatism. Now I've actually become near-sighted. My vision is getting progressively worse as I descend into old age. I need glasses. Wow.

Yeah. So what, you just took old glasses? Well, no, these were a prescription, but it was only for a stigmatism. Okay. What is the stigmatism again? You know, focus. But it wasn't necessarily that I had a problem seeing distance or close. I just had an issue with the focus.

So it cleared things up. Now I actually cannot see far away. A little fact toy that people may not know about me. My left eye can't see far at all. Like it's completely blurry. Mine too. but sees pretty clearly close. My right eye can't see close, but sees far.

There's a name for that. Don't wear glasses? But I do wear glasses. I've never seen you wear glasses. Well, you know, I like to, you know, I don't really need it for these purposes. But when I'm at home, working on the computer, you know, dropping bombs. What do they call those? The Wojbom is the NBA version of that.

Sure. No, they're just, you know. Is that what you have? well no my left eye is very weak compared to my right eye but I don't have the opposite I just can't see far this is really the way

this segment needed to start for sure yes this is what people want to know okay what do you got what do you got okay we're gonna start off with an incredible knockout coming to us from LFA they had an event in Phoenix

LFA 11 and the fighter's name is Sean O'Malley 6 and O when you hear LFA you always think of LMFAO I always think that. I don't because I don't, that wasn't really that connected to

MFAO. I know they had that one song but I don't know much outside of that. So this was last Friday. Yep. A fighter fighting out of the lab, the MMA lab in Arizona. Six and O Prospect, Sean O'Malley. And it's not a video. It's from a

GIF posted by Access TV. Okay, here we go. We'll watch it a few times. Yeah, let's see it. Bang, look at that. spinning wheel kick. Boom. Yeah. Really clean.

One hit or quitter. And the way the opponent falls down, it's like, boom. He goes up. He goes up and then down. It's not like the Terry Adam fall, right? No, that was timber. That was like, ooh, this is like, dang. Chopping down a tree.

This one was, he got a little elevation and then just dropped. Really nice one. He crats to Sean. Great knock out there. Next, we're going to the birth. Oh, yes. Connor McGregor Jr. The birth.

Some photos from Instagram. Heard around the world. Our first photo up here. What a cutie. And I'm talking about the baby, by the way. Just so, you know, this warms my heart. This is a beautiful thing. I love it.

Remember what I said back in November. It was such a nice moment when Connor came out and said that, you know, he was going to be a dad, that his girlfriend, D, who you see in the picture, was expecting because it was the first time that he showed some, you know, some, fear, some vulnerability. You know, this is a guy who always has to be on, right? He always has to be the best. He always has to, you know, talk smack. But here he was expressing the same

kind of feelings that many soon-to-be fathers feel like you're anxious, you're scared, you're freaking out, and I thought it humanized him. So this was really cute. Yeah, we've got one with Connor and Connor Jr. As well. So can I say something about this

pick? Obviously, incredibly cute. And again, it humanizes them. It's beautiful. It was funny to me, you know, being the veteran that I am with kids, you know, three of my own. When you have a youngster who's a day old, two days old, they're not actually strong enough to be held that way. Unless you're burping them, but you're typically holding them like this, you know, especially one or two days old, like you want them in your, you know, your elbow here. You're going to burp them, but they're, you know, like my daughter now who's six months, you can hold her, you can throw up or down, things like that. I mean, even now her neck isn't that

strong. When they're that age, really not that strong. So I was wondering under what circumstances was he doing this? Was he doing it because that's the way he's seen people hold kids and not really knowing that at that age, you know, they should be, I'm analyzing this way too much. But again, it made me relate to Connor. I can't really relate, you know, with him on many things. I don't have

hundreds of millions of dollars. I can't beat anyone in a fight. I don't have rock hard abs. I can't probably shoot a basketball better than him. I think I'm comfortable in saying that. I can verify this. Yeah. But it was nice. It was great. It was interesting because a lot of people posted this like TMZ and the Irish mirror and stuff. And my thoughts on it were, you know what, this is a very private thing, it's a very personal thing. Let him announce it when he's ready and then we can acknowledge it. But why jump

the gun here, you know? Well, the gun has already been jumped in a very significant way in our next photo. Okay, here we go. What a segue that was. We have. And by the way, muzzle top to them. I wish them more. I'm so happy. Congratulations. That, It seems like everyone is healthy and feeling good. Yes, yes. Can you see this? Yes, I can see that. Connor McGregor Jr.

Yes. Verified. Verified. I'm not even verified on Instagram. 54.1K followers. And that's as of this morning. 10 a.m.-ish East Coast time. So already on Instagram, already verified.

But no pictures yet. Connor McGregor Jr. Well, I think once his hands get a little bigger, maybe. Sure, sure. Yeah. And it says, Connor McGregor Jr., account run by my parents. So at least, I mean, he, he wrote that because he said my parents, Connor McGregor and D. Devlin. Now, it's interesting. Verified. How do you get, and by the way,

who are the two followers? Who are the two people that he's following? I'll look that right now, but I mean, it's probably Connor and D. Yeah. I don't know how to get verified on Instagram. Do you? Is it hard? I don't think it's that hard. I think it just has to be a business account. So my business? I'm not a business. verify or somebody notable but I don't think you qualify for that either so we'll move on. How do you feel about wow okay

how do you feel about the the Instagram account like should a baby have its own Instagram account? I'll say this if people have dogs with accounts I'm okay with a baby having an account at least it's a human right right and also I bet Connor McGregor Jr. is going to talk some good shit on that

account one day. How do you feel about the junior Was there any other way it could be Was there any other name for Connor McGregor's son than Connor McGregor Jr? You know in the Jewish religion Junior doesn't exist Well I don't think Connor McGregor is Jewish

So no no no But do you know any juniors Are there any juniors in your family? No, there's not Well my... No, there's not I was about to say my father But he's not

He's named after his grandfather So no I want to see some footage Of Connor changing diapers was spit up on his, you know, on his Gucci Mink. You know what I mean? I want to see that. Yeah, that's going to be the next evolution, for sure.

Yesterday we were at this art auction for my kid's school, and my wife was doing her thing. She had a booth there and all that stuff. And so I was manning the ship, so to speak, with the kids. And I was sitting with my daughter, Claire, and she was sitting on my lap. And it was all going well and good. And then all of a sudden I was like,

ooh, I feel a funny sensation on my lap. And sure, enough she peed and it went through her clothes all over my pants. Very convenient excuse. Well, luckily, I brought a change of clothes for her. I did not for myself and it was unusually cold in this room. And so like the cold urine on the pants, it just wasn't very comfortable. But I want to see that.

It's perfect. You can blame the baby for everything when you pee yourself. They're just so cute. They are just so cute. Congrats to Connor and Dee and the rest of the family as well. Yes. Okay, our next... And by the way, I'm going to talk about the whole September 16th thing after Rick's picks.

Okay. Our next pick, Rick's next pick. Yes. Is the poster that was just released for UFC. Oh, yes. We got the poster here. Yeah. Actually, before I say anything, I want to get your thoughts on it.

Okay, so I actually like the poster. I mean, look, rock bottom was UFC 209. There will never be a worse, UFC poster. And if there is, then we might have to just, you know, fold up the tent. It's never getting it worse than that. I mean, that is, do I have the thing here? I think I brought it. Did I bring it? I think I actually brought, maybe it's at home. I actually took home the program just because I wanted to remember how bad it was. So that was bad. 210 was bad, not as bad. 209 the worst. And ever since then, slowly but surely, I feel like they've actually listened to our

complaints. Like the Derek Lewis, Mark Hunt one, better. They're getting better. Now, they're not quite the same. They don't feel the same as the old boxing posters. There's something that is always just a little off, but I can appreciate the effort. It's clear that they're trying to make them a little more interesting. 2-11's not bad.

They're kind of cartoony. It looks like it's painted or something. You know what I'm talking about? The one with Stepe and JDS. This one's actually cool. I like this one a lot because it's Champion Aldo versus Champion. a hallway and based on, you know, your allegiance, you can actually, if you're a hallway guy, just flip that bad boy around and you've got hallway at the top. But, but, but, but, but, but,

but, but, but, but, but, but here's where they made the mistake. I mean, to do the thing where, like, you know, Carolina and Claudia are also upside down and then the logo thing, you know, with the 212 and all that, that to me feels a little funky. I would have done it, just put another fight there, right? Well, what you do is, or just don't do any fight. The physical poster. Yeah. This is it. The digital poster, you flip it up, you flip it around, and you just, you know, do it that way. What do you mean you flip it around? You flip Holloway and the other fight around, and you don't use that same aesthetic, but you do do this for the printed posters.

That said, I like it. I like, well, first of all, I like magic. I like playing cards. I think this alludes to that a little bit. It looks like, well, yeah, you know, if you look at a playing card, you have any, any, uh, royal card, you know, a jack through, king has that same design where the

king or jack or queen is like that and then flipped around and in the corner you have the number. So I like it. I think it's good. I saw a lot of criticism for it. I didn't quite get it. I thought it was pretty good. They're trying. And also, by the way, I love the X. That's a Brazilian thing, right? When they do like...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Brazilian thing. It's not really a Brazilian. No, but they do it for all. It's got to be. I mean, we can ask Guillermo. Maybe he's listening right now. But the X is the thing that all the Brazilian posters have here in America, they do verses. Or pretty much in the rest of the world that I've seen who speak English, I see, I always see versus.

But in Brazil, I think always go with the X. So I like the X. I like the concept. Maybe don't go. I don't know. Did you see today? Did you see today? I don't see this because I'm blocked, but Dana White tweeted thing.

Is that one of your picks? No. Well, I mean, that's a late entry. Okay, well, you know, I don't know how... No, I can't pull up the graphics like that. I'll let you can go. The cutoff. You tweeted a thing about the fight this weekend and it's Claudia and not just gone drudge.

Right. How does that happen? Yeah. Heads are going to roll. The person who gave him that drawing, because obviously he didn't do it himself, that picture. They should get blocked on Twitter. But yes, you know what? I like this one.

I like it as well. And by the way, in case you didn't hear, it doesn't appear as though Anderson Silva, according to sources within the UFC according to sources close to him it appears as though he will not be on that card so they're probably not going to come out and tell you that because they don't want to acknowledge that publicly unless they're asked

but that is that is unfortunate so it looks like Claudia versus Carolina is going to be the comane great fight but it would have been nice to have Anderson Kelvin on the card as well especially for those fans who bought tickets right I guess they called his bluff

I guess so Here we go. Next. Speaking of middleweight division and how things have played out, we have this video from George St. Pierre. Oh, yes, there it is. Twitter. Yes. Can we hear it? Here, let's roll it all the way back and then go with audio.

Here's the clip that GSP tweeted late last week. Mr. Bisping, I clear my entire schedule to get ready for training camp after the summer. so I can fight you any time after October you pick the date. Let's get it out. There it is. Short and sweet. There it is. We have a fight hopefully. What do you think? At some point?

I wish it was a little more aggressive. He called him Mr. Bissping. I was hoping. But, you know, GSP is not that guy. But that, I mean, we're kind of missing the point here. Earlier in the week, he tweeted something from MSG saying, oh, maybe my fight will be there. And from what I understand, the return to MSG will be in November. And now he says October on.

So it looks like October November. And this has made a lot of people upset, including one Luke Rockhold. Yeah, certainly. Because, again, this was the plan. This is my hypothesis on what happened. GSP wants to come back. Let's make a deal. We get him back.

All right, who's he going to fight? Michael Bisping. Bispin's down. GSP's down. Okay, we want to announce this. Well, we want to make the fight in July. I'm not ready to fight. fight in July. I don't want a fight in July. Reason's unknown to us. Okay, well, let's go out and

put it. People are going to be in Vegas. There's a welterweight title fight happening. You're connected to the Welterweight division. Friday before the official wanes, we're going to make a press conference. And we won't announce a date, even though that's typically what we do when we put on press conferences. Like, I can assure you the fights that will be in attendance, the fighters, this Friday. Dates will be attached to those fights. Well, we won't announce a date because we'll get people excited and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But there's clearly an opening on July 8th. It's a perfect fight for international fight week. Okay, wonderful.

Press conference, buzz, talk back and forth. All right, we're starting to get into it. Remember on this show? I'm all in. This is exciting. Well, again, as I told you, July, it's not happening. Go back to the day it was announced. Dana White on Sports Center.

I tweeted out, it's not happening in July. It's happening in the fall. That's when he wants to come back. So stop saying July. Bisphing was saying July. UFC was saying July. Not happening in July. Put on the press conference.

Still hoping for July, not happening in July. And essentially, I think what they tried to do was get people excited, get people on board with the fight, and then try to get him to fight in July. Well, clearly, this is a man who, you know, is sticking to his guns and he's not ready to fight in July. And thus, it has created this logjam and a lot of discontent, a lot of fighters who are upset, a lot of fighters who are frustrated. It's a problem. I don't, by the way, just for the record, I don't blame Michael Bisming for one second for saying, I'm taking this fight. guys, I'm in my late 30s, right? I'm in my late 30s. A press conference has been put on. I faced off against the guy. I've been told that I'm fighting him. July, October, it's all good

for me. What's this? Just music? You're getting played out. No, no, I'm not going on some rant here. What am I graduating here? But here's the thing. Oh, you're telling me to wrap it up, basically. Yeah, this is the Oscar music. Wait, I need to say something. So people who are criticizing Bisping, your criticism is misdirected. He was told that he's getting this fight. And remember when he said, oh, I'm going to move on to someone else if you don't fight me by July, now we kind of know what was going on there. He was kind of being told to say that to try to push GSP, but give GSP a lot of credit.

He doesn't want to fight in July for whatever reason. I'd love to hear why. I'd love to talk to him about it, but right now he's not talking. Fair enough. So Michael Bisping is being said, you know, people are saying to him, oh, you know, you're holding onto the belt, you're scared, you're picking your fights. No, the guy was told that he's fighting GSP and it was dangled in front of him and he's going to wait. What's the difference? Three months, you're going to make a hell of a lot more money if you take that fight. The issue is

why was the fight booked if you were told that the guy wasn't ready to come back? Why not have Michael Bissping fight you, O'O Romero, or someone else in July? And then after that, having fight GSP in November October. Remember, he fought in June, Michael Bisping did, and it came back in October to fight a mansion. So those dates will work out. So that's the real issue. The real issue here, you can't really blame Michael Bisping. You can't blame him for taking part in a press conference, for being offered a fight,

for having the biggest fight of his career dangled in front of his face, and then say, you know what, Michael, you should be the better man and you should fight someone else. No, the guy's being told that he's going to be ready three months later. Why should he fight someone else? Now, the other thing is that Bisping says, he says, well, why does Connor McGregor get to do whatever he wants, gets to hold up divisions, gets to, to go after a boxing fight when other people are waiting

and I get crapped on. Well, he has a point to a degree, but the difference is, Connor McGregor is the money fight. Bisping is being so honest with us, he's telling us, I'm waiting for the money fight, I'm chasing the money fight.

McGregor, wherever he goes, is the money fight. Do you get the difference? McGregor versus Ferguson is a money fight. McGregor versus Chabeeb is a money fight. McGregor versus Nate Diaz is the biggest money fight the UFC could put on.

McGregor versus Mayweather is the biggest money fight in the history of combat sports, maybe. But Bispin versus Romero isn't necessarily a money fight. Bispin versus Whitaker or Rockhold or Anderson aren't money fights. Bispin versus GSPP is a certain kind of money fight. So that's why he gets some of the hate because he's saying, I'm waiting for the money fight, I'm chasing the money fight,

as opposed to the guy who is the money fight and trying to control his own destiny. As it's been talked about recently in the framework of McGregor Mayweather, the A side and the B side. McGregor is always the A side. In this case, to GSP, Michael Bisping is the B side. Yeah. Yeah, you can't blame him at all. And you can't blame GSP.

You can't say he has to come back at a certain time. He's taking his time and doing it at his pace. Well, again, because from what I understand, they were actually very forthcoming with their plans. Yeah. So then the question becomes, why did you announce it when you did? Why were you rushing to do it?

And why were you willing to wait that long and hold up a division? You get what I'm saying? Of course. And this creates a situation. where you need to, or not need to, but could possibly institute an interim title. But, I mean, we've seen. And again, don't tell me that he's picking and choosing his opponents because the UFC came to him with the Dan Henderson fight.

That was their idea. It was not his idea. That was their idea. And they came to him with the, it just so happens. It looks weird, I know. But if you actually know what's going on, they came to him with Hendo, they came to him with GSP. And now he's waiting for his opportunity. But, you know, the thing is a mess.

The thing at 185 is a mess. The whole division is a mess. You've got the, this division right now, in my opinion, is the most top heavy. I mean, you have four to five guys who have legit arguments as to why they should be fighting for the belt next, right? You've got UL. You've got Luke Rockhold. You've got Robert Whitaker. You've got Anderson kind of flying there.

You've got Gaggar Musasi. You've got guys, another division. I mean, look, 125 doesn't have that problem. 170 has, you know, Mazvedal and Maya fighting. heavyweight is a little you know what I'm saying like these are guys who it wouldn't seem like a complete you know crazy situation if they get a title shot and yet we're holding up the whole thing everyone's upset it's a problem yeah I'd say 55 is is almost there um you could you can make a strong claim that Tony and Habib and Habib is out for a bit and yeah Tony is definitely there

I mean 100% But yes Not exactly But pretty similar You can make a case That it's getting there Okay We're talking about a huge fight

Last week you asked me What's the fight I'm looking forward to Most The rest of this year Oh yeah I have your answer Here we go Here we go

What is this? This is that stupid show that you watch There's my guy Oh Did you see that? Did you catch that? in the middle there. CM Punk on in the beef?

CM Punk versus Johnny Bananas. That's my fight that I'm looking forward to most this year. Wow. Wait, who's Johnny Bananas? Is that a cartoon character? No, that's the guy on the show, but I feel like that question

just kind of brought me back to the reality of how ridiculous it is that I love this show so much. Johnny Bananas is an MTV guy? Yeah, he's the guy on the the show who uh oh because i guess is going to get into athletes versus he's like a regular he's been on multiple seasons of this show in fact he's like one of the the more uh recognized names and uh faces that returns to this show what's on punk's face blood looks like no yeah it could be there's no way that's blood why not look at it it's like oh yeah yeah no that looks like paint that looks like paint of some

sort so there's a beef between them i haven't seen the show the show you the show show hasn't come out yet. Is Johnny Banana is known to be like a heel? A little bit. He likes to stir the pot. I'm excited. M.M.A fighter, CM Punk, versus Johnny Bananas. Stop it with that.

No, how dare. What's wrong with you? This is more exciting. This is a fight that's really going to come true. We know it's already happened. Coming to a bellator cage near you. No. It is VICOM.

You could set up an MMA fight after this, a real MMA fight after this. Is he an athlete, bananas? Is it, I mean, all that. is he from the real world? Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like that. I don't know. I don't remember what's his thing.

You're not a real world guy, right? I was at some point, but now it's just a challenge. I follow it because it's the best sport in America. What kind of ratings does the challenge do? No idea, but you can book one right here every week. Is it on right now? Yeah, the finale is coming this week for this season. Oh, not the punk season.

No, and then the punk season starts right after that. When's this? So I'm super excited by. This starts the 28th. Last time I said it, I thought it was mid-May. It's end of May. Okay. Wow.

Can't wait. Yeah. Don't say it sarcastically. It's an exciting time. All right. That's it for Rick's Picks. Okay. Great stuff.

A few things I want to say. Keep sending them to me. I see them. Even if I don't reply, I am seeing all the ones that you submit to me. And they're all great and they're all in consideration for every week. Also, let's get some theme music. Let's pump this thing up. Somebody get me some theme music.

music. Our sound engineer, Stephanie, suggested maybe do-op, something that might be appropriate for this segment. Why do-op? No, just, it sounded right. We could- I think she's trying to... Sabotage? Yes. There's a budding back there in the control room, my friends. There's a budding rivalry between Stephanie and New York Creek. Stephanie, by the way, can kick all our asses. She actually trains at the Hento Gracie Academy here in Midtown Manhattan, and she actually has insight into GSP. She told me, I hope I'm not putting her on the spot here, but she She told me that she saw GSP at the gym last week and actually tapped him.

Is that not true, Stephanie? I did not tap GSP. You did say that you saw him training. Did you not? I did. I see him training a lot. Yeah? He looks good.

Yeah? I think he looks great. You think he looks great. What would you say his weight is at right now? Oh, I don't want to give like a weight. I don't want to insult anyone. Okay. He's looking lean.

He's looking in shape. Okay. I don't understand the big shoulder claim. Or the belly claim. Right. No, he doesn't have a big. Valley. Okay. What belt are you in Jiu-Jitsu? I'm a blue belt. You're a blue belt. Wow. So you can tap us all out. I could tap Rick. Wow. See what I'm talking about? There's attention there. Why'd you dislike New York

Rick so much? I think we just agree on everything. You disagree? Disagree. Yes. You don't like his hipster views on M.M.A. Like the Musassi Widman situation, you are all up in arms about that. I mean, I don't even want to talk about it. I'm over it. I don't want to hear about it. Okay. I mean. But for the most part, when you hear him weigh in, you're like, this guy's an idiot. I don't agree with his views. He shouldn't even get the airtime.

You actually sound like most of the people I hear from on Twitter. Why does this guy get airtime? You don't, you actually believe that he doesn't watch the fights. No. Accurate. This is great. I love this. This should be the new Rick's Picks Challenge.

Just a two-hander? No, actually, now it's a three. Well, there was a time when you were supposed to be getting ready for a fight. Remember that? Yeah, well, that was a situation where you conflated and confused the idea of getting into really good shape

with fighting, that those are the same thing, not really the same thing. Wow. You should get ready for a fight. No, no. Here. In the control room.

In the control room. Wow, could you imagine, we could sell tickets. We could be like the fighter and the kid. We can actually get people to come watch us live. I would tap very, very quickly. You think so?

I agree. Wow. Look at the way she looks. looks at him. There's serious disdain there in her eyes. Well, I like it. Welcome. And you recently moved to Brooklyn, right? Yeah. That's great. Trying to be like Eric. Exactly. Almost a block away from where he used to live as well. This is all great. This is all exciting. Well, thank you very much, Stephanie. Great insight. And if you hear anything from Hensos, any other guys coming in and out of there? I know a lot of famous people come there. Yeah. What do you got?

Day Branch. Day Branch, right? Fighting this weekend? Fighting this weekend. We have Jar Gordon, good friend this weekend. Oh, you're a great addition. You're a much better edition than Eric's. I wanted to talk about Jared Gordon. Sean Al-Shadi of M.M.AFighting.com. Did you read this story that he posted yesterday? No, Saturday.

I read it. Good story. I mean, good story. Can we give him a little more credit? Fantastic story. I mean, just if you don't know about Jared Gordon and his story, Google his name, M.M.A. fighting. My guy, Sean Al-Shadi, wrote an amazing piece on him.

Just amazing. What a story. And he's fighting at UFC 211 this weekend. So you got Jared, you got David Branch. Who else we got? GSP? Who's in the gym these days? Jake Shields.

You ever see him? Jake Shields? Uh-huh. Tom de Blas. Wow. A lot of people are coming through. Who's who? And do you ever see John Dan and her wearing the rash guard?

I just took his class this morning. This morning? This morning. Oh, wow. John was born in a rash guard. Was he wearing a rash guard today? Every day. Always.

I love it. I love it. And was he wearing a fanny pack as well beforehand? man? He was. He usually wears the fanny. He does. He rocks that. Well, tell him I say hi. I will.

All right. Great stuff. Thank you. Thank you for your insight. If you have anything else to share with us, please do let me know. That's it. Okay. Now, are we done with Rick's Picks? That's it. By the way, Guillermo is telling me that in Brazil they use X instead of versus. But he doesn't explain why. Maybe that's a Portuguese. Right, but what I'm saying is it's not a specifically Brazilian thing.

You're saying it's a Brazilian thing. I'm telling you that's much, much wider than Brazil. They may use that exclusively in Brazil, but that is much, much bigger than just Brazil. By the way, Synchronic MMA says, why do we get in your curriculum when Stephanie is in there? Also, I want to see them roll next week. Oh, I sent something happening here. That could be tough. That could be tough.

I'm not ready for that. And one of my favorite Twitter users, Jedi Goodman. By the way, is that his real name Jed-I. Goodman? or is it a play on the word Jedi. Anyway, he tells me that episode 14 of the challenge averaged, whoa, 781 viewers, thousand viewers? Hell yeah. That kills the ultimate fighter.

Oh, come on. Come on. This is not even the same league. I didn't realize it was that popular. This is real. Do you think the punk episodes will do over a million? I hope so. Wow.

All right. Okay. Let us talk about this whole September 16th thing. So in case you missed it, again, Julio Cávez Jr. fights Canela Alvarez. It's a complete one-sided beatdown. Everyone's crapping all over boxing. Ah, we were robbed.

We were robbed. Canela wins. Unanimous decision. Skunks him. 12 to nothing. And then right after the fight, they do this kind of WWE thing. The lights go down.

And here comes Triple G. The fight that the world has been waiting for. That is the boxing match that everyone wants to see. Triple G versus Canelo. It's probably the number one, I mean, unless we're going to say, you know, Triple G versus Floyd, of the fights that were available to be made, realistic, that's the one everyone wanted to see. Triple G, Canelo, Triple G comes into the ring. They say it's on September.

They put on this big video package. It's all well and good. Everyone's super excited. I mean, they kind of saved the day as far as that match is concerned because afterwards, no one was talking about really how bad the fight was. It was all about the excitement that Triple G and Canello was a done deal. and they say that September 16th is the date. They also say that they don't have a venue just yet.

They also say that they don't have a city just yet. It's been some talk of Cowboy Stadium, of course, some talk of Las Vegas, but they didn't announce that, which was kind of interesting, but they got the date. Then right after Dana White does an interview, and I think our friends over at Fight Hub TV posted the clip where he said, they started asking about the fight, and he voluntarily shares the information that we just lost our date.

That's the first time that anyone has publicly, acknowledged that September 16th date. And why is that date so appealing to all involved? Well, as I said, it's Mexican Independence Day and it falls on a Saturday. And historically Cinco de Mayo weekend,

this year it was on a Friday. The 6th was a Saturday. Mexican Independence Day. Always big boxing pay-per-view weekends. Just go back in history over the last decade or so. There's been some big ones that have done very well. So he puts that out there. Unfortunately, no no no

asked him a follow-up question. No one said, okay, well, what are you going to do now? How locked in was that date? You know, did you have the venue booked? He put it out there, I think, almost wanting people to ask him about it. And then the other questions were just about, you know, the fight and his predictions and things like that. And so to me, I found that to be very interesting because initially I was like, okay, this is an actual public acknowledgement that September 16th was the date that they were targeting. Okay, great. And now he's saying, well, we just lost it. So in my mind, I'm like, okay, well, you know, maybe this is now a problem. I mean, there's a wrench in these plans now because there's no way that they're going to do two

boxing matches on, on the same night. And they're not going to do them together because they're not going to do, you know, Floyd and Connor on the same card as Canello versus Triple G because one is essentially a Showtime fight. The other is an HBO fight. And yes, I know they have done some fights together, but they're not going to match, you know, four fighters and put them. There's just too many cooks in that kitchen when it comes to Mayweather versus McGregor. So it's it's a pipe dream to think that this is going to happen on the same night if it happens at all. The Mayweather versus McGregor fight. But then when he put out, when he put out that information that the, you know, the date was lost, I was thinking, well, these guys

don't have, these guys don't have a venue book. Clearly, they don't have a, you know, a city booked. They didn't say they did. And it's happened in the past where fights have, been booked and then another fight comes along and then they move the day. That has happened. So why do he come out and say it, you know, voluntarily, A, and B, does the fact that, does the fact that there's no city or venue attached to it, does that make us say, like, wait a second, this thing isn't as 100% locked in as we all think it is? Because I think, and correct me if any of you disagree, Mayweather versus McGregor does better on pay-per-view than Canel versus Triple G. As great of a fight it is, I'm not comparing the merits of the two fights.

Canell versus Triple G is, like I said, the fight to make in boxing. But the spectacle of all spectacles, the fight that's going to draw hundreds of millions of dollars is Mayweather versus McGregor. If they come out and say, we've got T-Mobile Arena book for September 16th, Mayweather versus McGregor, what is going to happen to Canello and Triple G? who's going to say chicken first? So I actually am not willing to say that September 16th is dead. And like I said on the beat, everything I'm hearing is this is trending in the right direction.

I said they were on the 60 yard line. I should have said, of course, they were 60% done. I do hear that it is moving along, moving along, moving along. And if we know one thing about Connor, I know this sounds silly, when the guy wants something to happen, the guy gets it done. Now he's a father.

He always said he didn't want to fight before his girlfriend gave birth because he doesn't want to put stress on her. She gets very stressed, and that's completely understandable. Now the baby is here. Now he's a dad. That also means that now he can start focusing on really training. And we're still four months away. Now, I'm not here to say that it is a done deal.

But I'm also here to say that I don't think that September 16th is necessarily off the table. Now, if they come out and say, all right, Cowboy Stadium is booked. It's signed sealed and delivered. It's happening. Press conference, all that stuff. all right, maybe. But until that happens, I don't think that we should say that that September 16th date is off the table.

And I think that the UFC should be trying to get that fight to happen as soon as possible, A, to strike while the iron is hot, and B, so that they could get Connor back in the mix. Right? They need him. They can't let this thing drag on. They can't afford that. So I don't know. Maybe him saying that, you know, we lost their date was a way to tell the Mayweather people,

let's hurry this thing up. Maybe it was a way to tell the Connor people, let's hurry this thing. up, we're about to lose our date, but we haven't quite lost it. Do you get the difference? There's a big difference there. So I don't know. I'm not, I'm not really ready to say that this thing is dead in the water. And it could. I mean, it could, I know some people don't believe it. I know some people think that it's all, you know, one big, you know, publicity stunt and it's never going to happen. Something's got to give at some point. At some point, Conn McGregor is still in his 20s. You don't think this guy wants to be a billionaire. You don't think this guy wants to make the

most amount of money. You think he's really going to walk away? The guy likes to fight. When he fought Eddie Alvarez, that was his fourth fight in 12 months. He fought in 11 months. He fought Aldo in December. He fought Nate in March. He fought Nate in August. He fought Eddie in November. He's a very active fighter. The guy is incredibly possessed. He's determined. He's focused. He wants to fight. He wants to. to make money. He wants to be an icon. He wants to be a super-er- He wants to cash in. And he always says, getting quick, get out. Well, I don't think he's quite ready to get out and he wants to be active. So I feel like something's got to give here. And again, from just talking to people, they are

determined to make this happen. So let's see what happens. But after thinking about it a little, I was like, I don't know. It's interesting. If you look at the way boxing is done, it's different than the UFC. They sometimes will announce fights and then another fight will come and they'll move that date to not conflict and so maybe there's an HBO showtime thing going on.

I'm not ready to say that this fight is off just yet. So that's the update on that. What do you think? I guess a question would be why purposely go there though? Why that date?

For Connor and... Yeah. Because it's a big pay-per-view weekend. I think, yeah. I mean... By the way, another update for you. The argument you've laid out is sound for sure. Well, thank you.

Well, I mean, there's no doubt which is a bigger fight, right? So if they can stake the claim, then obviously And again, I'm not trying to compare the two fights in terms of like what's the better boxing guys. Right, of course. We're just talking about the money makers here. No, this is the bigger fight. No doubt about it. As Anderson Silva says, this is the fight.

Someone tweeted me this. His name is Nikolai R. Paff on Twitter. Anyhow, it's something from the Journal de Montreal in Montreal, of course, the Montreal newspaper there. One of the newspapers is also The Press. And it's basically, it's an article, an interview with Bermain Steverne, who is a boxer, who trains with Floyd Mayweather. And he says, this is what it says, it said, Steverna has confirmed that he never passed on camp of entremant at a gym of Floyd Mayweather. He confirmed that he will not be.

doing his upcoming camp at the gym of Floyd Mayweather like he has in the past few years. And it says, and he has a good reason for that. And the quote is, Floyd my confirmed to me, in the last year that he will be fighting Connor McGregor that he will be fighting Connor in September, in September, a recounted Steven, as Stiverin said. And Floyd said to him that there's going to be a lot of people at the gym So it's going to be too crowded

And it'd probably be better off for him to go train elsewhere And so this is coming from someone who spoke to Floyd May with it And of course I know these things are happening But this is another example from the paper today Where a fighter who trains at the gym is saying That Floyd told him the fight is happening in September So we'll see Poor Stavern getting pushed out

Yeah dang So yeah, it's interesting, seeing the two worlds collide and kind of comparing the way things are done in MMA and the way things are done in the world of boxing. Nate Diaz, what did you think? You weren't here. I was watching. Did you have FOMO?

A little bit. I mean, you know, I take pride in this. Was it weird to be watching on the other side of the fence? I've done it before, you know, when I've taken my 15th hundred, honeymoon. Sure. 16th honeymoon. See, you make the jokes and then you complain about the jokes.

You can't make the jokes and then complain about them. I have thick skin. I can lend to that. So what do you think? Really good, obviously. Kudos to you on that. Well, thank you. On that and Nate on that.

I thought it didn't seem like he's in any hurry to get anything done. That's for sure. He's kind of, you know, he wants people to come to him, which I think he's in a position to do at this point. He clearly knows his worth. It's more than, I'd say more than anything necessarily new in the way of his fighting future or anything like that. It's more interesting to think about how not that long ago, a year and a half, two years ago, that was definitely not the Nate Diaz that we would have gotten. Just how far he's come in his career, how far he's come as somebody who's a public figure, how far he's come as somebody who's a UFC. fighter, you know, how he, how his interactions are with you, how his interactions are with

the organization. It's, it was more interesting as an indicator of kind of how far he's come in that time, which is absolutely astounding. But yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like, doesn't seem like he's in any rush to jump into anything silly. He knows his worth. He knows, he knows how much he's worth and he's waiting for them to come kiss the rings. his take on the sport, on his career, on just everything is so fascinating to me the way he views things. I mean, even that analogy about being in the cafeteria.

Yeah, that was great. Oh, man. He's an interesting guy. He really is. He was in Las Vegas last week, and I have no update if they actually sat down, but it feels to me like there's a bit of an alpha-mail thing going, like he wants to fight. They want him to fight, but they're not sitting down and actually talking. Right? But he's also not going to fight anybody who doesn't make sense. Oh, I know, but let's figure it out. I mean, he said, okay, he was initially into the Ferguson fight.

I mean, and then not. But they need him. They need him. So you're saying make it worth his while, eh? Let's just figure it out. In my opinion, now we were talking about this. I think that he can get close to a million on his own as far as pay-per-view buys. You don't agree.

I didn't say I don't agree. I think that he is the second biggest star in the sport. Actually, I don't know if I agree. But I think he's unlike Connor McGregor, he's dependent a little bit on his dance partner, whereas I don't think Connor has any... Together their magic. No, that's no doubt.

Connor did more with him than he did with Eddie Alvarez, then he did with Josaldo, and he did with Chad Mendez. Together their magic. But I think that Connor on his own is easily quantifiable. Nate, the dance partner will matter. Well, that's why I said he's number two. But I still think, given the fact that he just fought Connor,

him versus Ferguson, July 8th, would get close to a million, if not a million. I think he's that big of a draw. That's a big fight. He's a big deal. People really care about him. People really love him. He's a bigger deal than his brother at this point, and he's a bigger deal than anyone, and I would argue

he's a bigger deal than Rhonda Rousey right now. The problem is, what do you do after that fight? Don't worry about the fight. Just get him back. The UFC can't, like right now, okay, 2-11, even Dana acknowledges himself. 2-11 is the biggest fight card of the year. This is the beginning of their year.

They haven't had anything that would sniff 500,000 buys, let alone a million. I feel like you kind of almost have to bubble wrap him for Connor, though. But the Connor thing is, I mean... What happens if he goes out and gets smoked by somebody? Again, worry about that later. And by the way, he's gone smoke before. But that's the thing. Right now, the people who have been introduced to him don't know that.

You don't think him versus Tony Ferguson, given their personalities and, you know, kind of how proud they both are. That fight would do so well on pay-per-view in my opinion. opinions? The new fans would it do better than Connor and Nate 3? Hell no. Because the new fans that... That's on the table right now. But it could be. Well, not really because he clearly wants the Floyd fight. After that.

I think he got to bubble wrap him. Nah, I think you've got to strike with Iron's hot. If you put Nate in there with Tony Ferguson and he absolutely demolishes him, it's not a good look. It's not going to sell Connor versus Nate 3. So you're saying, don't have Nate

fight until he fights Connor again because if he lose. I say MMA fans, casual sports fans are so fickle that even if he loses to Ferguson, they won't even know, they won't care, it won't process. They'll still be excited to see the third fight, the trilogy, because they love the dynamic between the two.

I actually don't think it hurts him. I think you lose something. This is a guy who's lost before. We've seen him get knocked out by Josh Thompson. That's a different time. I know. Those casual fans weren't following the Nate Diaz who was a middling lightweight. Is Cody versus TJ and Nunes versus Schiff

Chanko big enough for the July 8th card for you? I think it kind of is. Cody T.J. is good. Is main event worthy? They're putting big promotion into this. That should be the main event? Like that's okay? I wouldn't have a problem with that as a main event.

No doubt about it. Like that's a good fight. And Cody Cody is on his way. So I think I think that one can hold a card for sure. Man, I want to see Tony versus Nate. I, listen, I'm thinking

much casual, larger picture. As a fight, Tony versus Nate gets me interested. I think it would sell well. But I think if it doesn't go well for Nate, that hurts your Connor McGregor fight.

I think it really does. It's hard to sell a pay-per-view saying, these guys have had an epic rivalry, and then in there is five seconds, and Connor will feed on this, five seconds later, you're showing Tony Ferguson potentially

but then you have a star in Tony Ferguson, Ferguson. I mean, that's just the fight game. You have to make risks. You have to make risks, but... You have to take risks and you have to make fights that will lead to potential, you know, issues that you're talking about. Because then you make other stars. But you can put Tony out there. You can do something else in the meantime. What else is there other than Habib? Tony and Habib. But, I mean, if Tony wants to fight in July, right? All of a sudden there's a young Justin Gaichi on the way to the UFC. Tony is not fighting Justin Gaichie. Yeah, one or two maybe.

I know, but again, the guy wants to fight. Which guy? Tony? Yeah. Yeah, I know Tony wants to fight. I mean, the poor guy is healthy. It doesn't seem like Nate is in any rush, though. That's my other thing. If Nate was going out there...

I think he wants to fight too. I mean, it seems like he wants to fight, but he's not going to fight for less than what he's worth. The fact that he initially agreed to it, I think what really bothered him was Audie saying on the show, you got to make Connor excited. I think his response to that is, nah, I don't have to make anyone excited.

You have to excite me. You guys fight each other and then get me on board. Oh, and he said as much explicitly. But the problem with that is, that's not going to happen. Yeah. That's not going to happen. Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz on his own.

This is what we were actually arguing about before the show. Nate Diaz is not Connor McGregor. No, he's number two. He's not on equal standing. He can't command the same thing. He doesn't get less than 800. Very well could be. But he's not.

Who does better on pay-per-view? Nate Diaz or John Jones? Oof. John was doing, I think, better than most people thought on pay-per-view before he went away. But now that he's been gone for so long, that's tough. The up and down, the start-stop with Daniel Cormier is going to hurt that. But I'd say Nate. I'd say Nate.

I think Nate doesn't do less than 800. And I think with the right opponent, and I think Tony could be that right opponent because of the friction there. and their personalities, and even if you cater it to the Latino market because they are both of Latino descent, I think that could do a million. And especially if you add Cody versus T.J. there

to that card, damn. I hope they figure it out. It's a great fight. It is a great fight. But if you spin from it, let's say Nate wins. Doesn't look impressive or, you know,

has an okay performance. You can't worry about that because I still feel like they have their own. own rivalry. That kind of doesn't make sense to begin with. Remember, Connor versus Nate 1 didn't really make a lot of sense. Conner versus Nate 2 didn't make a lot of sense. I mean, the whole thing doesn't make sense. But yet it

works for some reason. My thing is, it can play by its own rules. Now they are. If you put, your argument is people are going to pay attention to Nate Diaz. All these extra people, these, you know, 800,000 to a million people. If they're paying attention, then

the outcome's going to matter. First of all, Conner's not in play. But, even if Tony wins, you've got something there with Tony and Connor, obviously. And I mean, I can't imagine that being a boring fight. And then if Nate wins, you got something there, of course. And even if Nate loses, because I don't think he's going to get smoked if he loses, I still feel like you don't ruin that.

I mean, I think it's a win-win, and I feel like that's the fight that has. And forget about interim title, who cares? Yeah, I agree with that. You know what I mean? You don't have to do the interim title. But they use the title to get the people on board, to get them pay people. Just pay them what they're worth. Do you think that Tony will fight, if not for an interim title? If he gets paid, yeah.

If he gets paid. I could see that. If he gets paid. You've created this monster now where fighters are saying, oh, I'm only fighting for an interim title. Now it's becoming like an actual thing. Yeah. You know?

Not a good path to go now. We need to like roll back the clock 18 months. Stop creating. He changed the game. He did. He did. Because I think what happened was they gave him rope. They gave him rope.

They wanted to sell. They wanted to sell. And then the new people bought the company. And they wanted to capitalize. They wanted to capitalize. So everyone was giving. He was so. he was so on point with his timing

because he got them when they were trying to get out and sell and then he got the new guys when they were trying to make a splash at MSG. So he was able to pull at both ends and get exactly what he wants. And now he gets what he wants because he wants to fight Floyd. And they want him to fight Floyd because they stand to make a lot of money if he fights Floyd. Fascinating times. By the way, Chris Seiborg, I'm still, they still want to fight July 29th. I still feel like that's in play.

I still feel like that's possible. but right now not hearing a lot as far as Megan Anderson is concerned and I still feel like that's the fight to make. I feel like that's, that is the number one fight for Chris Seiberg right now only because Megan Anderson has come out and said, I want a fighter. And how rare is that? I mean, let's give me Megan Anderson a lot of props. She's putting out posters saying, give me Chris Seaborg.

This is a young fighter who doesn't necessarily have to fight Cyborg right now but recognizes that this could be her chance to get into the UFC. So let's do it. And I feel like that's the fight to make. She's got a great look. She's a great fighter. She's a fun fighter. She's a natural 145er. It's different when a 135er is calling out Chris. Much different. She is a 145er with a lot to lose. Let's make this fight happen. And in Orange County where Cyborg lives, I feel like that would be a really nice companion fight to the Jones DC fight. So we'll see what happens. I don't think it's dead, but not a ton to report since last week. For now, let us move along and welcome in our last. guest of the day. Very excited to talk to Kelvin Gasselm, a lot going on in his life. So let's not waste any time and welcome him in. Kelvin, how are you? Yes, sir. Ariel, thanks for having me on him.

A pleasure. It's good to talk to you again. Okay, so, first things first. Let's go back to Brazil. How did the cannabis get in your system? Oh, man. Well, you know, I always stop a few weeks, you know, I always stop consuming a few weeks before the flight. you know, as I always have in all my fights, I didn't do anything different. So, you know, I went on the fight thinking nothing was wrong, you know? And you've never had issues with... I stopped weeks before, you know?

Yeah. Do you remember the last time you smoked? Well, yeah, it was before the fight. Yeah, like it was three weeks a month, two months, et cetera. Yeah, well, I always stopped three weeks before. Okay. And is there a particular, I mean, do you just like doing it, or do you have a license, is it for medical reasons?

Yeah, well, I found it helps better for, it helps better with pain and, you know, all the, really with just pain and sleeping, because, you know, we train so much. I hurt myself pretty much every day, So, I'm in pain pretty much every day. So, you know, it's good to relax the muscles a little bit. Yeah.

And when did you find out that this had popped up in your post-fight drug test? Shoot. I don't know. I'd have to say it was probably like a month after the fight. I got a call from my manager Ali, and he told me that my levels were close. the allowed limit and I told them that's insane. I mean, how can that be possible? You know, but because I didn't do anything different than I have in all my fights and I've never had any issue with it. And this was after the UFC announced you versus Anderson Silva in Rio

and that was a massive fight for you, a big fight, you asked for the fight, all that stuff, and they were promoting it. Correct. Correct. How did you? react? I mean, what was it like when you heard the news that you were getting pulled from the fight? I was devastated. I was devastated. I still am devastated because it was a huge opportunity that I missed. And, you know, I was dumbfounded, I guess. You know, I was in shot. You know, I was so devastated. I don't know, it's the only word I can think of. But I still am thinking about it. and the crazy thing is is that you got a three-month suspension and that suspension expires on June 11th

right so you miss 212 by 8 days yeah yeah that's what sucks you know and um it's a shame you know and uh you know it's a shame it's a shame that I'm not in a lot of fight

but um you know I've already resolved the issue and hopefully this this is something we learn for and just something that we grow from. But, you know, I mean, I just don't know what they base off their, that THC threshold off of. But, you know, it's just a learning experience.

I'm going to move on. I don't know to learn from it. And I've already, I'm not going to say who, or when, but I've already got something lined up, and I'm just waiting to announce it. Oh, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, wait, hold that thought for a second because I still want to talk to you about this. You tweeted yesterday, suspension accepted, but I will never fight in Brazil again. All they want is money.

Sure. That was you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was me. Yeah, it was a big headache going back and forth with the Brazilian Commission. You know, on top of what was already taken for me, they want to find me 20% on top of that. And, you know, I just think it was really unfair, and I was just really angry. you know, and towards the commission, you know, I want to make that clear because I hope not a lot of my Brazilian fans don't get mad. You know, I was mad at the commission. It's been a headache dealing with the commission and trying to fight this battle.

And, you know, that's why I would never fight in Brazil is because of the commission. So you're done with Brazil. How much 20%? How much are they asking to take? well it was 20% of my entire purse okay it's a lot of money yeah and so are you are you are you are you gonna pay it yeah well I have to you're gonna oh man I have to I'm gonna have to I'm gonna get a 90-day suspension yep um but you know now that I'm broke I'm gonna have to I have to get another fight right and and that's exactly what's what's what's been

done. You know, I got a fight, lined up in July. Um, but I can't say against who I win in July. And what do you mean? You, you say that you're broke right now? I mean, not exactly broke, but I mean, after this, after this very happy fine, I mean, yeah, it was a hard punch in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, you know, economically it was a big punch. Okay. Do you mind telling us how much? I mean, that's something that I'd rather not say. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. It's going to get done. I mean, it's going to be a big blow, but at the end of the day, I'm going to be all right. You know, I'm going to be able to train. I'm going to be able to do this. And I'm ready, man. I'm ready.

I'm focused on my next opponent and focused on the task ahead of me. And I hope I can get just past all this, you know, and just learn from it. I'm not a type of guy Just sits back and just waits For things to happen You know, I fought this And I was fighting this This last few weeks

And it's been hard A hard few weeks You know Personally, I've had problems With my family I've had problems You know, with the commission With my employer

And I've been talking At Dana White You know, he's pissed As well, you know and so it's just caused me a lot of headache and I'm just ready to move past it. And I'm sure you would agree with this. It seemed like after the Belfort win,

it was all coming together. We even talked about this on your show, like the New York incident and all that, like it was all coming together for you, right? Leading to the Anderson fight, the biggest fight of your career, and then something like this happens and it's somewhat controversial

because a lot of people feel like marijuana shouldn't even be on the band list, right? Do you feel the same way? I agree. I agree. You know, there's so many other substances that people use that they still allow in the fight and people still take a lot of things that shouldn't be allowed and I mean I'm not going to get into it as to who's cheating and all what they're taking but I know there's a lot of people

cheating and and they still allow it you know what was if you don't mind me asking and feel free if you don't want to answer but what was going on with your family? Well, for one, my mother was just hugely devastated and disappointed in what had happened, you know, and that's one of the persons that I care about the most is my mother, and if she's not okay, then I'm not okay, you know, and, you know, it just is what it is. You know, it just caused me a lot of headache, a lot of heartache as well. Did she not know that you smoked weed?

No. She doesn't know that I consumed. Okay. Yeah. And so did they try to, like you got three months, which, you know, in the end, it costs you that fight. But the good news for you is the suspension is up essentially in a month, right? It's up, you know, a month and three days. Did they try to, initially, were they saying they're going to spend you for six months a year?

Like, what were the initial, you know, things that you were hearing as far? as your punishment. Yeah, it was going to be six months to a year for punishment. Jesus. Yeah. So right away, I wanted to fight this, you know. I hopefully get to get it down and get to find out and hopefully not have to go through this because they said that that my T.C. levels were high.

That I must have been consuming the day of the fire. I told them they were crazy, you know, and I was super pissed. Because that's insane. I would never do that. Wow. So they actually believe that you were doing it in Brazil? Yeah. Wow. And you don't appreciate that? Not at all. Not at all. You know, when people try to tell you you're this and you're that, and it's not appreciated when it's not true.

Yeah. And for the record, you did not smoke while you were in Brazil? No, not at all. Wow. And have you ever, like, I don't know, in the past, you know, the testing is different and whatnot? I mean, have you ever felt like stress or in pain before a fight? In the week of the fight, you've been forced to, you know, smoke marijuana so that you can relieve some of that stress or pain? Has it ever come to that for you? No, never, man.

I'm never forced to do anything, you know, first of all. But no, I've never, all my fight weeks, have. It's either been really good or really bad. And so where do we stand now? You say that you have a fight? Like it's booked, it's signed, it's done? It's agreed by both sides? Yeah, I believe so.

Yeah, it's signed by me at least. Wow. So you were saying not that long ago on Twitter, I saw you write on Twitter, hey Anderson, accept the fight in New York, July 22nd. Is that the fight? No. It's not the fight. No, I wish.

That's the one you want. That's what I want But it's not the fight I can't say who I win But I wish it was that fight And why isn't it the fight I mean if Anderson agreed to it You know he's upset

He's not fighting in Rio Well he got offered the fight But I think he turned it down For some reason Okay Hmm Yeah Is it a middleweight fight?

Yes sir Is it on that same card? That is it No Oh, it's not on that same. That's all you're getting. That's all you're getting from the area. I know, I know.

I'm sorry. I'm just so tempted because you put it out that you said you had it, so you can't expect me not to ask, right? Yeah, yeah, no. Do you like the fight? Do you like the fight? I'm not sure what it does for my career, but I'm ready. I'm ready for it. So you're not like over the moon here?

No. Okay. It's a good fight. I hope people like it. Okay. If I name names, would you tell me if I'm right or wrong or how? No, never. No, never.

You're going to Dallas, though. What's that? You're going to Dallas for the UFC 211, right? Yeah, I'm going to go check out the fight. I'm going to be there as a guest fighter, so hopefully people come check it out. Are you going to be a part of that big press conference on Friday? I'm not sure. I'm not really aware of a press conference.

You're so secretive, Kelvin. You're like a vault. Come on, man. Fair enough. I don't want to get you in trouble or anything. Come on, man. Do you think that a time will come where marijuana is removed from the banless? Do you think this is going to happen, or do you not foresee that?

Yeah, I think so. I think so, eventually, you know, and the time needs to be now. Yeah. So there's so many benefits for the plant, for the medicine, that a lot of fighters taking, a lot of fighters consuming and use it for medicinal purposes. Yeah.

You know, I think eventually, I think NFL has even been in talks with it about removing it from the bands of census list. And hopefully, every other sport follows the same. Do you have a medical marijuana license in the state of California? I know you can.

I mean, the Diaz brothers talk about it all the time. Do you have the same? Right, yeah, yeah, I do. See, this is always the tricky thing for me because, like, how do they know when, if it's legal where you are living, right, in the state that you're living, if you have the right to do it,

how do they know where it happened? That's the tricky thing. There's no real way, I mean, of course, the higher levels I know, the more recent it probably happened. But they don't know in which country you were standing in when you smoke the marijuana. That's the tricky thing about marijuana.

they don't know when they don't know they don't know much they just found the tablites of it and traces of it and decided that I had done it that same that same day as the fight and that's what gets me so mad is that they

they keep putting words in my mouth I guess in a way when they keep making things like it's sick it up and and this issue like the suspension of the three months the fine this was this was with the Brazilian commission do you also have to handle something with Usada as well?

Well, yeah, Usada is going to follow the same agreement as well. Okay, so the three months and then you're done. Correct. And you have to pay, you don't have to pay Usada though, right? I don't think so. I hope not. No, I don't. No, no.

Where does that money go? Do you know? Which money. The fine, the 20%. do I know where it goes? I don't know where it goes. I'm sure it goes to all the doctors that work so hard there. Are you being sarcastic?

I guess. It should go to charity, don't you think? That'd be nice. I mean, it should get some more useful. I mean, the economy right now in that country is not doing very well. Right. It's funny because not that. long ago, you were the one saying, like, I want to fight in Brazil. I love fighting in Brazil, right?

Like, you were like the lone Americans saying that you wanted to fight. Now you're saying I'm done with Brazil. I love Brazil. Are you kidding me? I'm going to go and visit there as many times as I can. But am I ever going to fight there? That's a whole different story. I'm never going to fight there. You were even going into the favelas and hanging out with the people. Yeah. I'm almost an adoptive citizen there of Brazil. Crazy. Do you think the Anderson fight is ever going to happen? happen? I'm not sure, man, but I was really hoping for that fight.

He got off for the fight, and it seemed he didn't take the fight. Somebody else did. So I was tired of disappointed. Does the person's name rhyme with Laubert Siddaker? I can't tell you nothing, man. All right. And, you know, I don't know if you saw this, but you got a lot of support from people online. I saw a lot of fighters, Dan Hardy,

a lot of fighters tweeting about a lot of, you know, fans, I'm sure. Have you seen this? Does it make you feel at all better? Not really. Okay. I mean, kind of. I mean, it'll be cool with everybody. I mean,

I mean, it's kind of cool that people support me, but I mean, things happen the way things happen. Sure. I got, I got pretty much the worst punishment than I can have. in terms of what because you lost out on the fight yeah lost out on a lot

and a lot of money it comes to me almost a hundred grand this mistake really it's it's it hurts a little bit and the other ironic thing is that the the Brazilian

commission is also losing out because not having Anderson on the card for 212 definitely hurts the card in terms of at sales and interest and all that stuff and uh and they're missing out by eight days they're almost shooting themselves on the foot here right right i mean i mean i don't know what what's going on over there you know they were they were a headache to deal with man i'm telling you there there some's some issues going on over there but it's a whole different story man but i did not like the way they they handle the situation and i'm never going to fight there again and and was there

any talk of trying to modify the suspension so that you could fight on that card? Like two and a half months, two months, I don't know. There was some talks, but no, it didn't come to petition. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, I was too. Well, I appreciate you coming on and talking about this.

I know it's not a very... Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, yeah, it's been a headache, man. It's been pretty hard. you know how are you feeling now like do you feel like now that the suspension is out that you can sort of see i mean you've agreed to another fight and all that as you said do you feel like you're starting to get back on track or are you still feeling a bit down about the whole situation like it's hard to get motivated no i'm back on track man i'm back in the game back in the game i was down on myself for the last

two weeks um but i'm back you know i'm not the type to just lay down and and let life stomp on you you know, I'm a fighter and that's what I do. And are you going to stop smoking marijuana now? Well, we're going to have to regulate it. Okay. Meaning you're going to have to be extra careful? Right. I mean, I can stop.

Absolutely. But there's just, you know, I like consuming it for the reasons that helps with the pain. And it helps relax the muscles, helps with the inflammation. Mm-hmm. And the muscles, for sure. Yeah, and that's why you have a license, right? Correct. Yeah.

Well, again, I'm very sorry, but I'm happy to hear that you got another fight. I'm sorry that it's not the Anderson fight, but good to see that they booked you rather quickly and that you'll be back on track, and hopefully we'll see you out there in Dallas. Again, thanks for coming on the show, Kelvin, and talking about this. And I know a lot of people are in support of you and would like to see these rules modified a little bit.

Yeah, I agree, man. Thank you for having me on, and thanks for hearing my side a little bit, and hopefully we'll talk to you soon. I'm on a better note. Yes, absolutely. And by the way, just to clear, do you want to say anything else about the situation, or do you feel like you got your story out as well as possible?

No, I mean, I just like to get past it, man. I appreciate all the support from everybody. Okay, cool. All right. Well, I appreciate it, Kelvin. Thanks for the time today and safe travels out to Dallas this week. Thank you very much, man. Take care. There he is. Kelvin Gaslam, stopping by a strange one, an unfortunate situation because they initially said that he had over the limit, which I believe is 180 nanograms per milliliter. I'm not the expert that I pretend to be on camera when it comes to these issues like cannabis metabolites and smoking. marijuana and whatnot. But

there are people who say that if you have more than that in your system, that means you smoke the marijuana close to the fight. I don't know. Crazy things happen. I know if a guy has a medical marijuana license in the state in which he lives, I feel like there should be some rules protecting that individual. Kind of like a therapeutic use exemption. You get what I'm saying? I mean, if they were handing out therapeutic use exemption, like they were, you know, crackers at my son's preschool. And let's, I mean, let's talk about the commission here that we're, like, we're speaking about the Brazilian commission.

I mean, the Brazilian commission turned a blind eye to a lot of stuff, not that long ago. And now we're going to haggle over some marijuana. And again, as I said, the irony here is that Anderson was going to fight on the card. And now he's not fighting on the card because of, of, the same. issue. Now, I'm not trying to be like, you know, Mr. Pirate here where I'm going against the establishment. I'm not trying to be anti-establishment. But we're talking about marijuana here, which I do not believe is a performance enhancer. In fact, I think you can make the case that it's a performance de-hancer. I haven't done much under the influence. But let's just say he smoked on

Friday. What's the big deal? Do you really think that's the reason why he beat Vitor Belfort? Come on. So I do feel for Kelvin. I'm happy he got his fight. I really wanted to see that fight against Anderson-Silva. Remember, we talked about it on this show. A very unfortunate situation, but it appears, at least for now, that the fight is not going to happen.

By the way, he did tweet that he was going to Dallas, and then his manager, Eli Abdel-Ziz, retweeted that and said, I can't wait, big news. So let's see. I have a feeling that a lot of fights are going to be announced in the next few days as they roll out the red carpet for the summer,

they're doing another one of those big, you know, hashtag something. Time is now, go big, et cetera, et cetera. Are you a big marijuana smoker, Mr. New York, Rick? I don't happen to be no, but I don't think it's a performance enhancer. Yeah, it's a crazy thing. I mean, especially in a commission

that was giving out TRT, not that long ago, we're going to start being sticklers over marijuana. And again, I'm not pro-marijuana, I don't smoke, but I don't think it's, some huge problem. And when you have a guy who has the medical marijuana license in the state in which he lives and trains, how can you

be so sure when he actually smoked it? Right? I think we have to, one thing we have to keep in mind, though, is that as a country, not just sports, but as a country, we're still not really that far ahead

in how marijuana is handled. Yeah. So we can't expect our sports regulating bodies to be, at the forefront of this. They're not going to be the trendsetters, the trailblazers for this. The country is still significantly behind where it needs to be on that front. So I think it's kind of par for the course and fighters just have to adhere to the rules until it's changed.

Yeah. Look, none of us, I think, you know, any reasonable person realizes that this is silly. But this is not something that was sprung on somebody. You have to, you have to regulate your consumption better. I know, but what if you're about to, what if you go, you know, it's Tuesday, you're about to fight on a Saturday, right? Yeah. And you're like, all right, here I am in my home state where I have a medical marijuana license. I'm going to smoke 85 dubies, right?

Before I get on this plane and go fight this fight. Shouldn't that be allowed? You're allowed to do it where you're doing it. I'm a police officer. Yeah. I have a drug test. coming up on Saturday. Yeah.

Getting nervous on Tuesday. I'm going to smoke all this weed and hope that I don't get caught. It's just a reality of the situation. I don't think we should agree with it or like it or whatever, but it's the rules of the job for now. And so I don't have much sympathy for that as the reasoning. I just think that if it's legal where you're doing it, like, you know, buying and selling steroids aren't legal, right? And it's not legal to have steroids in your system when you fight as well.

No. But you're allowed to smoke marijuana so they can't tell you no. Who are they to tell you if you have a medical marijuana license, I feel like you should be allowed. And there's no proof whatsoever. I mean, when you're on steroids, you're getting bigger, you're stronger, you're faster, on and on it goes. And there's medical reasons behind all kinds of things

that people put in their system PDs. I mean, show me one piece of information, one piece of data that says that having marijuana in your system or having smoke marijuana would lead you to become a better athlete. None of the anti-marijuana stuff is based on science or fact or anything like that. And that applies to both in sports context and in just regular consumption context. It's not a logical appeal. Definitely not. Are you surprised, by the way, speaking of the middleweight division, are you surprised that Dana said no to Anderson's demands? No, I'm not.

You do that and then what's next after that? You can't give into that. Do you think we ever see Anderson fight again? I do. We just had Matt Hughes on our show talking about fighting again. Sure, that's true. I think Anderson Silva is safe to say that he will fight again. And by the way, if you follow the UFC's social media accounts,

the main one, the European one, the Canadian one, all kinds of stuff about Gagra Musassi in Singapore and in other parts of Asia doing media, wearing a UFC t-shirt seems to me like it's imminent that they announced that he has resigned or he announces that he has resigned, right?

I mean, what kind of free agent is doing that kind of PR stuff if you haven't resigned? Another one back in the mix at middleweight. But it's funny because, like, he said a lot, he fought out the contract,

did enough time go by, you know, a month? Like maybe they waived, I'd love to talk to him about it. Maybe they waived the, you know, the exclusive negotiation period, which is typically three months. and said, okay, go find offers from Belator or, you know, one, rise in, and then we'll, we'll see if we can match. Or maybe they just gave him a better deal after he beat Widman, but I'm surprised if, you know, if it's the latter.

Because if you're going to fight it out and you're going to win in your last fight, you might as well just wait and see what other offers you can get and truly test the market. Especially him who seemed somewhat disgruntled, right? He said he wanted to be paid. So I'm curious to hear what he got. Or at least, he's probably not going to tell me what he got. the process you know the process in which he resigned but it does seem like he resigned a couple of other things for you before we say goodbye

I want to quickly talk about this whole ultimate fighter flyweight situation sure do we agree that we like the idea of course everyone wants to see the flyweight division there are enough fighters at 135 and 115 who could fight at 125 there are enough fighters at 125 who could

use the opportunity who are ready to fight in the UFC and so they're going to use the ultimate fighter, which is somewhat a wounded animal right now to crown a new champion. And typically these have been fun seasons because we know some of the fighters. They're established names. It's the best of the best. It's not a division that has been, you know, tapped into by the UFC. And yes, there's some activity by, you know, Bellator as well. And of course, in Victor. But the UFC has a tendency to find some of the bigger names. And so I go home after the Nate Diaz interview. And I see this press release.

And I say, you know what? That's great PR by the UFC. And I don't know if it was coincidental. I don't know if it was, you know, just, it was just, you know, a plan thing on their part to try to counter the Nate Diaz. I don't know what it was. But, you know, Nate Diaz interview comes out. You know, it's somewhat, not confrontational towards the UFC, if you want to call it that,

somewhat negative at times. Just speaking his mind. But they come back with this news that is unanimously praised. There's very few things that the UFC can announce that will be unanimously praised. And something that, you know, leads to a new division, leads to a new champion being crowned, leads to healthier fighters is going to be unanimously praised. I thought this was great timing. Everyone's now talking about this. It kind of gets people's attention away from the DS thing.

This is PR 101. This is what publicists are paid to do. Great timing. And then I see Kevin Ioli. tweet out an article saying that the UFC is considering a flyweight division. I am like, well, considering, that's a weird word to use. I mean, they just announced it. There was an actual press release.

And then I read it and it says that Dana White told Kevin Ayoli that they jumped the gun, that it was sent out an error, that they are considering it, but it's not a done deal just yet. It's not finalized. And other UFC officials then said the same thing, confirmed it. So to me, I was thinking two things. Obviously, this press release wasn't, you know, wasn't something that a publicist just wrote on their own and sent off. Obviously, it didn't come out of thin air.

Obviously, it was discussed. It was written. It was put together. You know, press release just aren't sent out like that. You know, there's a whole kind of process behind it. And perhaps you can even speak on this since you work in that world as well. So obviously it got out before they wanted it to get out. Maybe they're going to announce it this week.

Maybe they're going to announce it at the press conference on Friday. But once it's out, once there's positive press surrounding it, once there's positive feedback, at that point, don't you kind of just have to own it and say internally, we messed up, it got out before we wanted it to, but you know what? It's out and let's just roll with it and make sure it doesn't happen again, as opposed to saying it's actually not true and it might not happen. And we're still kind of here considering it, but we're not quite done considering it and it's not quite a done deal just yet. Once the cat is out of the bag, don't you have to kind of own it at that point? Well, it depends. Especially if it actually comes to fruition. That's the thing. If it actually comes to fruition, it looks silly that there was something to counter it. But behind the scenes, if it's looking less likely than more likely, it's better to at least correct the record than come out and do it that way.

But if they were just waiting for some kind of an announcement next week. No, sure. If it's based specifically on timing, then. yeah, it seems very strange. But if behind the scenes there is something that may be potentially holding it up, you don't want to come out officially with that and then disappoint people if it does, you know, if it does for any chance not happen. And I don't know, you know, clearly I don't have enough info on that front.

But yeah, it seems like the, especially when the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. I think you can change the message to be, this may have gotten out a little bit early, but we're really, really hopeful about this or something positive and forward-looking. The story hasn't quite been told just yet. We can't give this incident, if you will, a final grade because we don't know what's going to happen, right? We don't know what the final say is going to be.

But I think that if they were waiting to announce this on a different kind of stage, then it was not handled correctly. And the best part about the whole thing, the part that I couldn't help but laugh about was that at UFC 210, on Friday in Buffalo, Dana White said,

you know, unless it comes from us, don't believe it. And now here we're saying it came from us, don't believe it, right? I mean, the irony there was just so rich. A month later, after putting out that tweet and Instagram,

don't believe the websites, don't believe whoever's reporting whatever about Pearl Gonzalez. Unless it came from us, you probably shouldn't believe it. And then it comes from them, and they're saying, wait a second,

which is to say, mistakes happen. I get it. But for this to happen a month after, and at that press conference, a post-fright press conference at 210, someone was asking about the 145-pound women's division, and someone asked about the 125-pound women's division, and he said it's not happening.

A month later, they're talking about it. That's not new, though. It's just so funny. Yeah, Rhonda, you know, the women's 135 wasn't happening either, and then all of a sudden happened. A month later. Yeah. It's just so funny.

But the answer is this really all depends on, you know, what the stuff behind the scenes that are going on because you have to produce the show. There's a lot of moving pieces here. I could conceivably see a situation where it got out early, mistakenly, and it may not be as close as it could be. Now, ultimately, it could still end up being something that happens, a great success. And this will all be an afterthought, hopefully, at some point. If it happens, if they announced it this week, then I think it was a little strange to come out and say it was premature. So we'll see what happens. If it doesn't happen, then how the hell did that press release?

That's the other question. Ever leak? Yeah. You know? Don't you have to put things in a queue if you're sending out a press release? Like, isn't there a thing? Like, you can't just press send if you're working in a big company like that? I don't know.

That's what I heard. You could just press send? I guess. But could you imagine? I actually got the press release twice. There's no way it was a mistake in terms of like, the actual thing. No one's sitting at their desk

go, I'm going to write this and make this up. Come on. I even had Lauren Murphy's manager. Danny Rubenstein tell me that she's going to try out. I mean, managers knew about this. It's a weird one.

Speaking of weird ones, did you read this article on M.A. Junkie about Ally Quinta? I did. So I have a problem with this article. Only because I was always told that, you know, and look,

I should preface this by saying, like, I have the utmost respect for junkie. I think that they're a phenomenal website, great people there. I like all the guys who work there. But to have that many anonymous quotes and opinionated quotes and controversial quotes and a he said, she said thing, like, ally Quinta, for better or worse, has put himself out

there, right? He has put himself out there. He has laid all his cards out on the table and to a degree, it might be sabotaging his own career, right? I mean, he could find himself in hot water. They might not give him big fights, pay him, et cetera, et cetera, right? For a quote unquote UFC official to come out and say he's lying about that. this is not what happened with this. And to not attach your name to that, come on. To me,

quite frankly, that's gutless. That is gutless. You're going to come out there and say that stuff. We know it's not Dana White because he'll attach his name to something. So who's the person within the UFC? And it's one thing for someone to be like, you know, a UFC official confirmed that, you know, I don't know, Anderson Silva was fighting Chris Wyman. That's different. But when it's opinionated stuff, I mean, that's kind of, that's like journalism one-on-one. That many anonymous quotes? Who's this person that is going to go after Iaquinta with those kind of details? Go back and read the article and refute what he's saying.

Anonymously? What are you hiding from? What's the reason for that? Did that not strike you as being somewhat odd? It did, but the whole situation is kind of odd? Well, of course, some arbitrary bonus system and then some arbitrary suspension. from the bonus system is bizarre in its own right. Yeah, and not wanting to publicly address the idea of him rallying against them

is also an odd, like, it's an odd wrinkle to it. Now, you know, that's not typically the way it would go. You know, it's not like every time Gagar Masasi says something, you know, somebody's over a shoulder kind of trying to weigh in on that. But historically when the UFC has weighed in on something, it has been through either Dana White or Lorenzo Furtig as something, times the matchmakers will speak up, but it's not anonymously like this. The stories he's telling are not true, according to a highly placed UFC official. The premise for his whole beef is not accurate,

and I think he's trying to justify the fact that he thinks he should still get bonuses. That's one quote. Here's another quote. His story about the summit, the part that he left out was that he never called us to tell us he didn't get on a plane. He never called us to tell us to send a car to the airport to pick him up. We had all these arrangements for the hotel. All these things were arranged, and he never bothered to call us to tell us he wasn't coming, which I think would make anyone mad. This doesn't really sound like a PR person either, right? No.

We sent a car to the airport to pick him up and he wasn't there. He never calls to say, I'm not coming. And then they started talking about the injury. And then there was a great line. Mr. Iaquinta never once called the medical team or Dana White to say thank you. Instead, he talks about how he had to beg for it, which is not true.

We agreed to it. We paid for it. The entire medical team assisted through his surgeon getting this done and getting it paid. And Al never once called anyone to thank them. Instead, he goes out on the internet and says he had to beg for it, which is absolutely 100% false. That's a lie.

What? You can't have quotes like that and not attribute a name to it. Iaquinta isn't hiding behind anything. For better or worse, he's saying what's on his mind. He's saying his side of the story. Right? And I guarantee you, junkie wanted to put,

a name attached to that story. I know that for a fact. They wanted to put a name attached to that story. Why did the person who's the highly placed UFC official not want to put their name attached to the story? I Quint actually tweeted about this. Yeah, he did.

I must have hit a nerve. A highly placed official from a $4 billion company speaking anonymously. Sad. Fake news. I mean, come on. What is that? Crazy.

That one was weird to me. All kinds of weird things going on. Other news before we go. Chris Wyman sticking up for page Vanzan with that video. I'm surprised that one didn't make your... I mean, you had the page video last week. At least get the Wyman sticking up for his friend video, no? Yeah.

You didn't like it? I liked it. Nah. Why? Just didn't do it. I thought it was nice. Zabit Magomed Sharipov. ACB, Featherweight.

champion. A lot of people very excited about him. You've heard Mark Henry talk about him on this show. You've heard Marlon Morais, Frankie Edgar. He has been signed by the UFC. So stay tuned for them. For that, him. Stevie Ray, Paul Felder. That has been booked for the card in Scotland. Also, Brett Johns has been added to that card. A lot of people excited about that. Francis Engano has moved to Las Vegas. That's really interesting. A lot of success, doing very well, and then boom. Switch things up. Go to Las Vegas. right?

Could be more success though. Could be the move that takes him to that next level. From what I understand he doesn't have a new team just yet. Did you see the video about the new UFC office? Very impressive.

I didn't watch it now. It's very impressive. It's a very nice office. I'd love to work in an office like that. Not to say this is a nice office, but it's a very nice office because of the weather. They're sitting outside.

There's these cabanas. All kinds of nice things. Nice backtracking. Yeah. Baby Slice. He's coming back. So we'll see how he responds. That's in what,

11 days or so in London, May 19th. And next week, they're going to have that big retreat at the new UFC office, by the way. All the fighters are coming. Advice. Yes. Take the taxi when it comes for you. What does that mean? For the retreat.

When the taxi comes, get in it, or call somebody and say that you're not getting in it. But do not just not get in. There you go. Good one. That's the tip of the day. Okay. And UFC 211, best fight on the card. What is it?

Boy. I mean, you asked me the fight I was looking forward to the most, and I said it, and it was from this card. So I,

I can't really backtrack from now. Frankie and Yai. Yeah, that's the one. That was my pick. It'd be hard for me to switch it up, but I mean, every time I look at it, I have a new favorite.

I've mixed emotions about this card because, like, the top half of it is just so damn amazing. I mean, it really is, right? Yeah. But it's also 14 fights

and eight hours long. Yeah. is very long. Second longest fight card in UFC history, the longest in the Zoufa error. But I mean, you don't start watching

until like halfway through the prelims anyway. I'm gonna freaking be there. Yeah, but you know, you'd be on your Twitter doing whatever else. Yeah, that's true.

Jessica Aguilar versus Courtney Casey, Marco Polo Reyes versus James Vic. That's a great fight. The return of won David Branch and a lot of people are very excited about Christoph Yotko.

Yeah. Jason Knight versus Chaskelly is a really fun fight too. Eddie Alvers versus Dustin Porre on the FX prelims, by the way. This is where it starts getting crazy. Sohudo versus Petis, Henry Sohudo, that is, Sergio Pedes, Frankie Edgar versus Jaira Rodriguez, Damien Maia versus Jorge Mazvedal. Are you kidding?

Joani on Jacek versus Jessica, Claudia Gedelia and Drudge. Steve Amiochich versus Junior Dos Santos. Amazing. And by the way, what a card this is for ATT. I think they have like something like nine fighters on the card. Yeah. This is insane for ATTT. They've got JDS, they've got Yohanna, they've got Mazvedal.

It's a huge card for ATTT. And what, yes, of course. And what I love about this card, once again, is that all the fights feel like they mean something, right? It doesn't feel like it's a, again, a cobbled together card. Like Brooklyn was cobbled together, right? I mean, the division, the featherweight's all. This card just has, I mean, it's almost like an old school card where like the five fights on pay-per-view are freaking awesome. And Eddie Alvarez versus Dustin Porier isn't on pay-per-view.

That's insane to me. Any lines out for it yet? I think every single fight has lines. The one that I'm really interested in is Yair versus Frankie. What's that? Yeah, every single fight has lines. Why don't you take a guess?

Honestly, I don't know. I'm going to guess who's the favorite? Yeah, guess the favorite. God. Okay, here's something I was thinking about. What's a bigger jump? What's a bigger jump?

Yep. going from BJ Penn, Circa 2017 to Frankie Edgar, right? Or... Are you doing this to hurt my feelings, but continue? Or going from Yaira Rodriguez to Dennis Siever. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, which is the steeper

decline or ascension? Yeah, yeah. Well, like, what's the more drastic move? Yair goes from BJ to Frankie or BJ goes from Yair to Dennis. I don't know. Just on the basis of it's a lot easier

to go from fifth gear to first gear versus ramping it up from first to fifth I think you have to go with its tougher sled and and more of a drastic change for Yair to ramp it up for Frankie that's a big task right there it's crazy

but point taken thank you thank you for doing that taking that time out to kill me I guess a lot of people are excited about what do you think who's the favorite Yeah, yeah. No, he is an underdog plus 120, Frankie, minus 140. So very tight line.

What about the rest? Interesting ones, I think, to call out. Dustin is minus 120, Eddie plus 100, which means it's essentially a pickum. Do you agree with that? Maya and Mazvedal, Maya plus 105, Mazvedal minus 125. Oh, so Mazvedal is the favorite? Yeah, Mazvidal is the favorite. And do you agree with Eddie being the, what is that, a slight favorite?

No, he's the underdog. Dustin is a slight favorite. Wow. Do you agree with that? I'll say this. Eddie's fights before the title shot were not walk away. He wasn't blowing people's doors off

on the way there. What do you mean? RDA. I said before the title shot. Oh, okay, okay, okay. And that's the only one you can point to. So outside of that, Eddie hasn't been absolutely annihilating people. Now, don't mistake that for me saying he wasn't oppressive. If you look at the level of opponent, if you look at in the, oh, fuck, Gilbert Melendez fight, where it damn near looked like his eye was coming out

and he came back and gritted out the win. Don't mistake, you know, don't mistake what I'm saying for saying that Eddie Alvarez doesn't have an impressive resume. But what I am saying is he wasn't going out there and annihilating guys. Whereas Dustin, I think he gets the benefit of he either takes you out or gets taken out. He goes out on his shield every time. People tend to value that. They think of them as finishers.

So I think what's happening is probably Eddie's being a little undervalued here. I would think Eddie should be the favorite, in my opinion. Just because of his style and the way I'm saying, you know, Dustin seems to be a winner or a loser and do it very definitively, that tends to be. that tends to play into the betting lines a little bit. Wow. Mazvedal, I'm not surprised by. He just looks incredible right now. Not that Maya doesn't,

but I think it's been a while since we saw Damien, and Mazvedal just keeps the train rolling. I'm not surprised there. I'm not surprised. What about in the main event? Want to guess? I mean, you can... I want to say steep is the...

There's very few lines here that are... Surprises? No, not surprises, but far apart. Can I just say something again that I feel like this is being overlooked? I feel like it's being overlooked that JDS hasn't fought in 13 months. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? He looks to be in tremendous shape.

He does, but his last fight was against Ben Rothwell in April of last year. Where he also looked good. I mean, I'm with you, but is that that long that I'd have worries? Not really. 13 months is. And guess what was his last win prior to that? win. Oh.

Prior to his April of 2016 win over Ben Rothwell, what was his last win? Was it Hunt? No, it was December of 2014 against Steepi Miochich. He only has one win between those fights. The one coming up this Saturday and the win

over Steppe, which is one of the best heavyweight fights I've ever seen in my life. Great fight. It was a fantastic five-round fight in Phoenix, December of 2014, so two and a half years ago. What's interesting about that fight is I feel like they've both gotten better since then and it's still impossible to figure out because their successes

and their improvements have been kind of trackable to the point where I still don't know. JDS only has two fights since then. Yeah. Lost to Overeem, win over Rathwell. But look, the improvements he made in the Rothwell fight I think were a sign of potential success in this fight. I wonder if JDS doesn't get this fight if he

didn't have a win or a stepey forget about a win or a loss had not fought him maybe not maybe not I mean because you look at like you look at the Damien Maya who's on what a seven fight winning streak still can get a title shot and if you heavy weight's too thin for that kind of comparison

though but if you look at if you look at that Rothwell fight I think junior is is in composition and I think stepe is also solid I don't know who to pick in that one heavy weights heavy weights always pretty tough just because both of these guys can clearly end it. The last one

was epic, and I don't think it's a stretch to use that word, so I'm hoping for another one like that. And so I'm assuming Yowana is a favorite? She is. Don't sleep on Jessica Andrudge. How much do you think? Minus 200.

Minus 170. Wow. Androge plus 150. Androge is a tank. I feel like this will be her toughest fight, Yohanna. And she's had some tough ones. The last one against, well, two fights ago against Clyde Goodelia, she was losing. For both of them, it will be their toughest fight.

No doubt about that. Definitely for And Drudge. Yeah, I mean. Drudge is a tank. Yeah. She is freaking good. She is very good. And they've trained together.

So she has intimate knowledge of who Yuanian J.C is. I feel like that part is overrated. Not really. I mean, the first time you see someone, you know, it's a time to shock. You know, it's hard to recreate these things. It's hard to recreate Yeo-Rodriguez. But if he fights, you know, another Walterweight who he's trained with, excuse me, a lightweight.

Like if he fights, I don't know, a Donald Taroney or a Cub Swanson or something like that. A featherweight. What am I saying? Yeah, but who does it give the advantage to exactly? If they've trained together, they've seen each other. Sure, they've seen.

Who exactly does that give the advantage to? I don't know. It's just something people say, okay? Maya Mazvedal, you already said. Mazvedal is a slight favorite. What a huge fight that is. Oh, no, there's two or three. big favorites on the card

Henry Suhudo, big favorite Wow, how big? Sorry, minus 410 Hedis plus 330 I don't think there's any reason to doubt that that's accurate James Vic minus 420

Whoa! Polareas He wanted to fight in Texas James Vic likes fighting in Texas He's fun I mean it's such a good card Yeah Only lost one fight

And that was the The Redoom-Rothwell fight Of course we'll see what happens between now Crazy things happen. Oh, my God. You just signed and sealed this thing. Every time I go to one of these pay-per-views, I feel like it's some kind of drama. Oh, my God.

Well, people, send your letters to Ariel. Yes. He just jinx this card. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be fun. This Saturday. Here we go. UFC 211, best card of the year.

Any final thoughts before you go? Anything else you want to say? I want to say that the fake Luke Thomas just followed me on today. I finally get followed by Luke Thomas and it's the fake Luke Thomas. It's, so Luke Thomas, our colleague, changed his Twitter account. I can't go into this now, but I was reading, he announced that he changed his name. And the replies to his name, change, tweet were just so funny that I was actually on the subway laughing and crying. People accusing him of, I don't know, fake news or being hacked.

and then the person The Russian hackers The person The person who assumed his account The former SBA and Luke Thomas tweeted Everyone knows you should wait 30 days Before you take a piss test Three weeks is pushing it

You need to shave by the way hippie It's great, it's great Thanks fake Luke Thomas By the way hacking has been very much Something on my mind This past weekend Because Chris Haspor Zing his claims that he was hacked

Oh yeah This is such a troubling situation, but I will say that it was interesting to see the kind of emojis that he uses. Yeah, he displayed his recent emojis. Yeah, but I don't buy it for a second. In fact, I believe what Frank Isola of the New York Daily News said that he was probably DMing someone and made a mistake. Who's hacking a basketball player and tweeting that and then deleting it?

Come on. Do you believe it? No, of course not. It's all very trouble. He's on his way out of town. And I will console you when that happens. Let me tell you, on the record right now, if they trade him, I'm done. That's it.

I'm never coming back. I'm already one foot out the door. But if they trade him, I'm officially done. You're going to demand a trade to the clippers. I think so. Why the clippers? The clippers have no assets.

I don't know why the clippers. Chris Paul. Maybe, yeah, Chris Paul sign and trade for Chris Taps. Get out of here. He's not going to New York after what they did to his friend. Oh, he's going to play with his friend. Who? Mello.

Well, they're going to trade Mello and Chris Staps to the Clippers? No. Chris Paul is friends with Mello. Banana Boat team. Yeah, I know, but Mello's not staying with the Knicks. Oh. Unless they get rid of I'll just say that My heart

Like it felt like someone just took one of those Like football cleats Right in my heart And then turned it It just all hurts me He's gone I'm sorry Why be a sports fan?

What's the point? There's no point in any of this That's a good question Stupid. It's a waste of time My baseball team Leaves me My basketball team is incompetent

My football team has the longest Playoff drought In North American Sports I am the worst luck sports fan in America. Baseball team left me. Basketball team is a laughing stock, to put it mildly. Football team hasn't made the playoffs in the 21st century. I was in high school the last time they made the playoffs.

You're welcome as a Cavs fan. And then my hockey team trades off. It's once in a lifetime player who's now in the conference finals. Okay, we're done on that note. By the way, MMA junkie reporting via an Instagram picture, I believe, tweeted by Alex Garcia's Garcia, that Vitor Belford is joining TriStar. Didn't see that one coming. Vitor Belford and TriStar? Training for Nate Marquart, who's a friend of one GSP. But it's also weird to change your camps for your final. Yeah.

Like, I don't know. Maybe he's got more in him. One last hurrah. Or maybe more. All right. We're done. Good stuff. Off to Dallas. You can hit my music. Off to the Big D. I've been thinking whether or not I should attend a Texas Rangers game. I believe they're in town, but I hate the Rangers.

I don't want to support a team like that. Rugnett Odour. Knocked out Jose Batista. I was reading a book. I was reading a Ninja Turtle's book for my kids a couple nights ago. And this is a sign that I think about MMA way too much. I was reading the names, the Ninja Turtles, and I actually referred to one of them as Hafeel instead of Raphael.

So that's a sign that I think about AMMA way too much. And you know what's interesting about the Ninja Turtles these days? They don't call them by their old names. They call them Leo and Mikey and Donnie. It's all very weird. Anyway, I want to thank everyone who tuned in this week. Fun show. Appreciate your time.

Appreciate your viewership. Thank you very much to Luke Rockhold. Hope his situation gets worked out sooner rather than later. Thank you very much to Justin Gaci. How interesting it was Justin Gaci this week? Holy smokes. Came out swinging. Now even more excited for his UFC debut.

Thank you very much to Anthony Pettis. Good luck to his brother Sergio this weekend in Dallas, hoping to exercise those demons. Thank you very much to Malki Kawa. Congrats to him on all the NFL signings and whatnot. Thank you very much to Matt Hughes. That was a lot of fun as well. Welcome back, maybe.

I don't know. Good luck to him. Thank you very much to Aspen Lad. Good luck to her on July 7th in her UFC debut. And thank you very much to Calvin Gaslam for stopping by. Appreciate his time as well. Back next week, same time and place. Until then, I say peace. Oh, my dear.