MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 386

Episode Date: June 12, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Ray Borg (00:27:43), Mike Winkeljohn (00:48:34), Joe Lauzon (01:07:40), Urijah Faber (01:35:22), Wanderlei Silva (01:57:47), Max Holloway (02:16:28), and NewYorkRic (02:58:24) for Ric's Picks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with our mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, June 12th, 2017. Hulgin, everyone. I'm Ariel Hulwani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a lovely weekend. It was a gorgeous one here in the tri-state area. Summer is here, my friends. I've told you this many times before, my favorite time of the year. June and July, the best months of the year in my opinion. and it was a squircher. Beautiful stuff outside. And so hope in your neck of the woods,

it was equally beautiful. It was also a very fun weekend in the world of mixed martial arts. Of course, the UFC was back in New Zealand. For the second time, this time, their native son, Mark Hunt, first time fighting in MMA action in his hometown of Auckland, New Zealand,

and what a performance it was. Now, I will admit, I was kind of thinking it was going to be shades of Mark Hunt versus Bigfoot Silva 1. I was kind of hoping for a slug fest. I don't want dead brain cells or anything, but given the fact that both Mark Hunt and Derek Lewis are heavy hitters, always very fun to watch, rarely involved in boring fights.

That's kind of what I was envisioning. And I will say I didn't even score the fight. I couldn't score the fight because I was wincing every time either man threw a punch. In the end, it was. The slugfest that I think most of us expected, but it was a very impressive win for Mark Hunt. I thought he fought a very smart fight. Calculated fight, took his time, didn't engage in a slug fest with Derek Lewis. And I thought he picked his shots very well. And in the end, he wins via fourth round TKO. And I think if I would have told you before the fight, look, there's a chance either Mark Hunt or Derek Lewis retires in his post.

fight interview, I'm pretty sure 99.9% of the audience would have predicted that Mark Hunt would be the one who would announce his retirement. Considering how the past year has gone for him, considering all the drama with the UFC and the lawsuit and all this stuff, I think a lot of people would have predicted Mark Hunt would be calling it quits. That did not happen. Mark Hunt won, had his kids, at least two of them in the cage. I thought that was a beautiful scene. alluded to the fact that it's coming to an end, but refer to himself as the old warhorse and was even talking afterwards

about fighting in September in Japan. It was Derek Lewis, who after the fight, in his post-fight interview, it was a brief one, said it's most likely his last fight. As you know, he said on this show, not that long ago, he's getting married this weekend, I believe, this upcoming weekend. And he's been very busy.

I mean, if you look at the last three years for Derek Lewis. No heavyweight has come close to the kind of activity that he has put on. And also, if you actually listen to some of the things that he has said after the last few fights, you know, that fight in Albany, he said he wanted to press the reset button. Then after the Travis Brown fight, he said he wanted to take some time off. And then he comes back rather quickly for this fight as well. I think he's been trying to get some time off. And because he's exciting, because there aren't a ton of great heavyweights right now, the UFC continued to give him opportunities.

He took them, no one forced him to take him. And I think it kind of caught up to him. I think that he's a little burnt out. I did talk to multiple members of Derek Lewis's team and all of them, to a man, told me, yeah, you know, we think that maybe he's banged up, maybe he's emotional, but they didn't think that the, I believe,

32-year-old Derek Lewis was really going to call it quits. And that would be a shame. He has looked so good as of late. He has been on this role. His personality is really coming out. They're pushing him. They're doing media days for him. I don't want to see Derek Lewis,

who is finally making some money. He claimed that he was one of the highest paid heavyweights in the UFC after signing this new contract, six-fight winning streak over some big names, Roy Nelson, Gabriel Gonzaga, Travis Brown as of late. But if you go back to, you know, when he first came into the UFC, he first came into the UFC in April of 2014. And since then, he's fought one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,

twelve times. Twelve times in what, a little over three years. That's insane for a big heavyweight like him. And so I feel like maybe Derek Lewis just needs to take the rest of the year off. It's just a little too much. Unfortunately that the winning street comes to an end now, but the heavyweight division, considering how shallow it is, considering how fun Derek Lewis, is, I feel like he gets one win.

He's back on track. He's back in that title picture. What more can you say, though, about Mark Hunt? The ageless wonder, the guy continues. Every time it seems like it's coming to an end for Mark Hunt, every time you're like, okay, you know, it was a nice story. What a comeback. He made us all into believers.

He wasn't supposed to be here. He's on borrowed time, forced the UFC to sign him. Every time it seems like the story is reaching its final point, he does something like this, right? Hasn't won since March of 2016, has the Brock Lesnar lost, no contest, whatever you want to call it, and then the knockout by one ouster overreem just in March. And then he comes back and fights like this against a guy who's on a six-fight winning streak. It's amazing. Mark Hunt does not go away. Appreciate Mark Hunt. He is a throwback. He reminds you of a simpler time in MMA. A time when guys came in, you know, from one discipline and just did their thing,

and they saw how far they can go. And of course, he reminds us. of pride and he reminds us of K1. There are very few fighters from that era who are doing as well as Mark Hunt is, who are main eventing shows, who are hanging with the young guys. I mean, Derek Lewis is 11 years younger than him.

That's a pretty big deal. And I know that heavy weights last a little longer, but appreciate Mark Hunt. There aren't that many left of his kind. And the fact that he continues to stick to his guns and he's involved in this lawsuit and he's kind of forcing the UFC to keep him around. Certainly they're not going to get rid of him now.

Maybe three in a row you have a reason. I still don't think they would have gotten rid of him, to be honest. He's too big of a name, too big of a draw, especially overseas, too exciting. You look at social media when Mark Hunt fights. You look at other fighters, how they respond. I saw Cody Garbrandt taking a video of himself watching the Hunt fight on his Instagram. He's like, I will never miss a Mark Hunt fight. He is a fighter's fighter.

Every fighter tunes in to watch Mark Hunt fight. Every fighter has a ton of respect for what he's done and how long he's been competing for and what he's overcome. I mean, we talked about this last year with him a little bit about his backstory and his upbringing. Mark Hunt is an amazing success story, not just the guy who was in pride, whose contract was brought over somewhat reluctantly

by the UFC brass and kind of forced his way into the UFC and then forced them to keep him around. I mean, just look at his childhood is just mind-blowing what he's, the abuse and what he had to deal with to become this successful. Very happy for Mark Hunt. There was a beautiful moment when he was walking into the cage. He saw his children there, a big smile on his face, kiss them. I always love talking to Mark. It's early where he is and that's why sometimes I almost feel bad. He says yes, every time I have him on the show, but I feel bad making him wake up so early. He says he doesn't have to wake up early. But we'll talk to him soon about the win and where he goes from here.

And hopefully we can talk to Derek Lewis as well. Give him some time. Let him get married. Do his thing. And see where he's at after maybe a couple weeks off. All right. So we have a lot to discuss as far as UFC Fight Night Auckland is concerned. I want to get New York Rick's thoughts on it as well. Of course, the big news last week, Demetrius Johnson, he was on this show, dropped the bomb on the MMA world, has not talked. since it took us five days to get a response from the UFC and what a response it was. It was shades of the cyborg response that I talked about last week on the show. Remember I said it's just a weird thing to hear Dana White say, how can cyborg be bullied? You know, the best

female fighter in the world? Throughout the same thing about DJ, how can the best pound for pound fighter in the world be bullied? I legitimately think that Dana White believes that bullying someone is is like knocking them over their head with a hammer or fist or punching them out, beating them up physical violence. I don't think he understands that you can actually bully someone

with verbal threats or your behavior towards them. The lack of respect shown towards them. Because it's the second time in a row, second week in a row, that he's talking about, you know, how can these fighters be bullied? We'll talk more about the response

and the aftermath and all that stuff for more. Let me run down this week's lineup. It's a very fun one. And then we'll talk a little more about this past weekend at 305. We're going to be joined by the new UFC featherway champion. Max Holloway. You wanted him on the show last week. As I told you, he was flying. What great scenes came out of Hawaii Monday evening when not only Max, but Yancey Mederos landed in Honolulu. and there was about a thousand people there at the airport to greet them. And then when he got to Wainai, which is where he lives, people all along the streets, showering him with praise, I mean, just really beautiful stuff.

And again, hammering home the point that the UFC, in my opinion, needs to figure out a way to go to Hawaii. I actually talked to a few people who live over there, who gave me some insight as to the kind of issues the UFC might have. but really I think at this juncture they are issues that the UFC can overcome. Anyway, we'll talk to him about the past week, the win, all that stuff and more. 245, we're going to be joined by Vandrelai Silva. We are less than two weeks away, my friends,

from the Bellator MSG show, Belator 180 slash Belator NYC. Van der Leysilva was supposed to take part in a press conference, a media day in Los Angeles last week, and we were told that he fell ill didn't get on the plane.

Let me fix out of the orange over there. And a lot of people started to worry. What does this mean for the main event? We're going to talk to Vanderlea at 245. Of course, he's fighting Chal Sunnan on June 24th, right here in New York City. 225, we're going to talk to Uriah Faber, and this is an interview that I think a lot of people

will be interested in. Uriah Faber is going to be breaking some news regarding the future of Team Alpha Mail. Very interesting stuff. You're going to want to hear from Uriah at 22. and it's very interesting in today's landscape

because we've been talking a lot about the business of MMA. I think a lot of people will be like I said, interested to hear what he has to say.

This is cool stuff. 205, we're going to be joined by Joe Lozahn, who recently went to the Reebok headquarters in Massachusetts where he lives

and has some interesting insight into the Reebok UFC relationship also was just in Iraq visiting the troops over there. So it's been a while since we had

Joe Lozan on the program. Longtime veteran in the UFC now for 10 years. Good to have him back. 145. We're going to be joined by Mike Winklejohn, who is the head coach for one, Holly Holm. And Holly Home, of course, is headlining the UFC's return to Singapore this Saturday, very early morning show

in Singapore Saturday. She's fighting Bechkoheya, looking to avoid going 0 and 4 since defeating Ronda Rousey. How crazy is that? She's lost three in a row since beating Ronda Rousey. She lost to Misha Tate. That's when she dropped the belt.

Valentina Shvchenko. Most recently, Jermaine Durandami. Now she fights Betchko-Hale. We'll talk to Mike Winklejohn. Coach Wink, as they call him. At 145, 125, we'll be joined by Ray Borg, who's the other part of that story with DJ. You heard DJ referred him many times last week.

we'll get his thoughts on the mess in the flyweight title picture. All right. New York, Rick, are you there? I'm here. What did you think about the Mark Hunt, Derek Lewis fight? Did you share my, I don't know, my high expectations about the fight going into it and were you left disappointed afterwards? I did share your high expectations, but I was not disappointed. Because of the fight that Mark Hunt fought?

the kind of fight game plan, the attack? I thought it was I was on the edge of my seat at every moment and I think I know I saw on Twitter I think you shared that opinion

and many others did it felt like that fight could be over at any minute and ultimately it was so yeah I thought it delivered I was not disappointed at all I'll make a revelation here I actually fell asleep

I was particularly tired on Saturday and I think it's because I stayed up so late watching that game on Friday day, which you attended. We'll talk about that later. No one wants to hear about your trip to Cleveland, of all places, the land.

But I was particularly tired, so I actually fell asleep right before the main card started. And then I woke up just as, I think, I think it was just as Derek Brunson knocked out Daniel Kelly. I think like the commotion or I don't know what it was. I happened to wake up. And so what I did was I actually went backwards. And did you realize this? I tweeted it as well.

Going into the main event, so there were six fights on the main card, going into the main event, the first five fights on the main card lasted a combined 25 plus minutes. And the first fight on the main card went the distance. So that was 15 minutes. The rest didn't. So the next four were combined 10 plus minutes. The fights were going super quick. I mean, you had the Iwan Kuchilaba.

fight, which was just seconds. The hooker knockout was, I think, in the second round, but still rather quick. Of course, the Derek Brunson knockout of Daniel Kelly. Anyway, it was a fun fight I was able to catch up. And I'm not here to say that I was disappointed by the Hunt-Lews fight, but I actually thought, okay, it wasn't the slugfest that I was expecting. I was just really impressed at his age, given how his last couple of fights have gone, that Mark Hunt fought that kind of fight.

I thought it was a really impressive fight on his part. Like, he didn't fight fire with fire. I mean, he took his time for the most part. and just fought a really smart fight. Yeah, he looked like a trained kickboxer versus an MMA fighter. That is true. Now, what do you think about Derek Lewis's

post-fight interview? Do you think, I mean, if you had to lay down, no chance? No chance. He tweeted something funny. Yeah, he did. He responded to both Travis Brown and Francis Inganu.

Travis Brown coming out strong, saying that he wanted to run it back and saying that he insulted his family and all this stuff. Yeah, he was waiting for the opportunity and took it. I don't think that's happening anytime soon, of course, Travis Brown is fighting Alexi Olinick in July, July 8th at UFC 213.

But where's this tweet from Derek Lewis? Because it was actually, I didn't, you know, Derek Lewis, if you look at his social media, he doesn't write a lot of tweets. It's usually like the funny memes or the videos. He wrote Travis Brown waking up from the dead saying he wants a rematch and Francis learning how to use Google translator talking shit with a couple of emojis and giving them the finger. So I kind of feel like Derek Lewis is back. We can't lose Derek Lewis just yet.

I don't think we will. That would really make me sad. No. Especially coming into his own, you know, with the interviews and just so entertaining. I was, look, do you agree? Like in hindsight, 12 fights in, what, 38 months or so, if my math is correct? 12 times three, 12, 24, 36. Yeah, something like that.

38 months. It's a lot for a guy like that. And if you go back and listen to his interviews, he keeps trying to tell us that he wants to take a break. I mean, even after the last fight, he was always. on the show. The first question I asked him when he was on the show just a couple of weeks ago was, why are you coming back so soon? Because he hurt his foot.

And he's like, oh, they gave me this opportunity. They're giving me more money, et cetera, et cetera. And now here he is, you know, saying I'm most likely retiring. It's most likely my last fight. I just don't see him retiring after getting that contract and after being this successful. It would be a shame for the heavyweight division.

Agreed. Thank you for that insight. No, I'm... Really. Brought a lot to the table here in this Discussion. You know how I feel about MMA retirements, especially ones that come on the heels of losing in the cage, you know,

immediately after. I would be absolutely shocked if this is the end of, we see of Derek Lewis. No chance. Take some time off and I'm sure I'm not. Yeah. I'd like to see him take the rest of the year off. Come back in 2017. Yeah.

That might be too long. I mean, it's only six months. Only six months. just recharge the batteries and be back. So Mark Hunt afterwards talked about getting a rematch against Overim. That's not going to happen. But he did talk about getting a rematch with Junior Dos Santos. And last I reported, there was some interest in doing JDS versus Francis Inganu.

That's not done yet. I prefer Mark Hunt over in Ganu for JDS next. I actually like that rematch more. I don't want to see JDS fighting Ganu right now. Agreed. I, you know, we talked about that. When it initially came out, I do not want to see that fight. Mark Hunt fought JDS at UFC 160.

I have a great story about how this fight was made, but I'm going to save that for Highway to Halwani when I read my book. For now, I'll just tell you that he, if you recall, took that fight on relatively short notice. And if you recall, JDS knocked him out in the third round with just seconds left with that spinning hook kick. Remember that? Yep.

It was insane. Fantastic knockout. Now, that was four plus years ago. I'd love to see that again. I think it makes sense. After JDS losing to Stipe, Hunt, you know, getting back on track, to me, that fight makes a hell of a lot more sense

than JDS versus Inganu. So we'll see. It was nice. It was a nice moment. I really, you know, after everything Mark Hunt has been through over the past year, it warmed my heart to see him

there with his kids and just happy. It was a nice moment. The old warhorse. Great stuff from Mark Hunt. Derek Brunson knocks out Daniel Kelly in a minute 16. Dan Hooker

knocks out Ross Pearson with that knee in the second round. That was tremendous. As I said, Ian Cuchilaba knocks out Enrique de Silva in just 22 seconds. Ben Wend defeating Tim Elliott. How about that? In just 49 seconds. Rear naked choke and then Alexander Volcanowski defeating Mazuta Harota. That was the decision victory.

That went the distance 30 to 27 on all the scorecards. Who really stood out to you? A couple other notable wins. Vince Pichel on the on the, undercard. He hasn't fought in like three years. John Maraga, I thought, looked pretty darn good as well. Got a 10, I think he got two 10-8s. He had one scorecard that was 30 to 25.

He was completely dominant. And I would have liked to see more than 1.30, 27 in that fight. I know I'm asking for a lot, but especially with the new rules for the MMA judges. I'm sorry, the new scoring for the MMA judges. I would have liked to see more than just 130, 27. You mean 3025? No, we saw... There were two 3027s, one 3025.

Yeah, I would have liked to... Sorry, that is what I meant. I would have liked to see more 30-25s than just the two 30-27s. One judge at least scored it properly there. Definitely, I mean, Dan Hooker, obviously, the knockout of Ross Pearson was picture-perfect. It seemed like he kind of pinpointed

that strategy on the fly, you know, felt him dipping low and landed that beautiful knee. Incredible. Derek Brunson, getting it done quick, and I think people forget, you know, it wasn't too long ago that Derek Brunson was pretty much a grinder using his wrestling to make his way through the division and has turned himself into one of the, you know, more reliable knockout artists in the division.

He continues to knock people out. And, you know, unfortunate that the run of Dan Kelly had to come to an end, but congrats to Derek Lewis on an incredible one. Oh, sorry, Derek Brunson. I think you're still on the high from Friday in Cleveland.

You can hear it in my voice, right? What happened to your voice? Listen, you scream enough for, was that the greatest sign of your life? Probably not. I mean, when I found out I was having a baby, that was pretty special. When I have the baby,

it'll be even more special. But it was up there. For those that don't know, because I don't know if you talked about it last week, You flew down to Cleveland Friday afternoon to go watch Game 4.

I wrapped up stuff at work on Friday, flew straight to Cleveland for the game, landed at 7, game at 9, and then flew back in the morning. I can't believe you cut it so close with the travel. What if there was a malfunction on the plane? Then I guess I'm going to have to...

You weren't nervous at all? I'll figure something out. I'll drive there if I got to help. What do you mean? What if you're sitting on the plane and they're like, oh, you know, the bathroom light is off? I figured two hours was enough

for anything like that. And didn't you want to take it all in? Like hang around. I feel like around the arena. There's a lot going on. There's, I don't know, parties. And isn't that what they do before a finals game? Yeah.

There was a atmosphere. There was a, you know, a Cleveland crowd that was participating. But after was more fun when the game was over. So it was worth it. It was definitely worth it. I will admit, I was happy for you because that would have been a really depressing trip to go there and see them get swept and see the warriors

celebrate on their home court and then on top of all of that you got to see a historic first half I mean the entire offensive performance was historic in many respects I can't I mean as far as sporting events go that has to be the greatest you've ever seen in person right?

It was, first finals game right? First finals game, met the commish met the commish. It was a whole big deal. I was jealous when you met the commish. You should be. What'd you say to him? Like how do you like?

Well first you know he said New York, Rick can you take a picture? And I was like, you're like one second. You know, hold. it would be my pleasure to take a picture with you, Mr. Silver. So we did. And then I said, you know. Did he tweet it? I don't think he has Twitter where he has a secret Twitter. He has an Instagram. He has an Instagram that he's very active on. But he's, you know, he was very nice about it. He didn't come off too aggressively. And I was happy to take the picture with him. and then

you know, he was like, hey, could I be on the show? And I said, yeah, we do an MMA show. Yeah, it's just not going to work. It's,

I'll talk to Ariel, but I don't think it's going to work out. He was heartbroken, but we'll figure something else out. We'll figure out another way to connect. Yeah, that was nice. That was a nice moment. How confident are you about tonight?

Cavs and 7. No, I'm going. Stop. Stop that, Cabson 7. But it was good to see friend of the show, Darren Williams, get on the board,

the scoring board. So yeah, that was nice. Happy for Mr. New York, Rick. He gets to go to Cleveland. Wonderful Cleveland and watch his Cavaliers win. They're now down 3-1, as you may know, and game five is tonight. All right. So, UFC Auckland in the book, as I said, in the books, as they say, why is it multiple books?

Because people have different record books or, I don't know. Why is it books? Anyhow, one of the big stories last week, as I said at the top, Demetrius Johnson, his relationship with the UFC. What is going to happen? Are they going to shut down the flyway? division. What is going on? Why did it take the UFC so long to respond? And why did they choose the response that they did? Talking to TMZ, Dana White saying essentially a lot of the things that DJ said were inaccurate, saying that DJ chose to not have paper viewpoints. So you can't

cry about it now. Not understanding how he could be quote unquote bullied. What else was that? That they've been talking about shutting down the flyweight division for the last three years. The flyweight division is only five years old. You're telling me two years into the thing. They were talking about shutting it down. We have the response up on our site. And we can dig deeper into it. But we know that the issue here is the UFC wants Demetries Johnson to fight T.J.

Dillishaw. On August 19, T.J. Dilshah has come out. And as I said on the M.A. Bid, and by the way, I'm very happy to be here in studio using our internet connection. Because I thought last week, a lot of you were very very. very nasty towards me, very rude. I mean, no appreciation whatsoever that I tried to do the beat from my home. I couldn't come in. We couldn't do the show via studio. A couple guys were not available. And then I get crapped on by everyone for my crappy internet connection. I think that Luke knew that I had a crappy internet connection, but didn't tell me so that he can look

and sound that much better than me. That's my conspiracy theory. And that's what I'm sticking to. But as I said last week, I was surprised that six months after doing that press conference for the m m aAA and talking about fighters rights and talking about getting skipped over for title shots that here's t j dill shaw resorting to name calling and and and calling dj like a scared b word and all this stuff um you know kind of doing a 180 and quite frankly coming across as a bit of a hypocrite uh accusing you know or or trying to do what he was complaining about six months ago to ray borg Ray Borg is the guy that Demetrius Johnson was offered. Ray Borg is the one who Demetrius Johnson accepted the fight against.

And then Cody Garbrang gets injured and T.J. offers up his services to fight Demetrius Johnson. The UFC likes this fight more for various reasons, as has been spelled out. And they try to switch it and DJ says, thanks but no thanks. And this has been essentially been the rift between both the UFC and Demetrius Johnson. So I wanted to talk to Ray Borg and get his story. side of things because he's kind of the, you know, the third man, maybe even the fourth, if you want to count the UFC as a man, you got DJ, you got the UFC, you've got TJ,

and then you've got Ray Borg and see what's on his mind as we all try to figure out what's going on here. We talk about T.J. cutting weight and being, you know, sort of in limbo here. Well, the same, the same is very true for Ray Borg. So let's find out. Let's go to the Skype Machine now and welcome in top flyway contender Ray Borg, who is joining us for the first time on the program. Ray, how are you? Oh, I don't hear Ray. I see his lips moving.

I only see his lips, actually, but I don't hear him. Oh, wait. Say hello, Ray. Hello. Hey, there you are. How are you? All right, cool. I'm doing good, man.

Just, you know, relaxing, hanging out before I got to go do some training later on this afternoon. Well, I appreciate you joining us. Could I have you just sort of tilt your camera up? Because there you, a little higher. Yep, yep, yep, yep. There we go. that's perfect. I asked New York Rick in the back to make sure that he told the guests to do this, but clearly he did not. So I just want to see your full face if possible. So this has been an

interesting experience for you, right? I mean, you're so close to getting your first title fight in the UFC and you're now, you know, kind of stuck in the middle of this, this massive, this, I was going to call it a shitstorm. That's really what it is. How are you dealing with it all? You know, it kind of has become, you know, a little bit of a shitstorm, you know, it, uh, It changed gears real quickly. It went from like everyone, you know, me and TJ and Demetrius all bickering back and forth over who's going to fight who to now. It completely switched gears to Dana and Demetrius beefing it out and kind of, it's kind of like,

okay, now I have to take a couple steps back and let them do their thing and sort out their issues before I, you know, can have any say-so on what goes on next. So let me get your timeline here because we talked to Demetrius last week on the show you may have heard it um were you actually you are your management formerly offered a title fight against demetrius johnson on august 19th um i don't know how formerly you can call it like it was never to the point where we were going to like be receiving a bout agreement within the next couple days i mean it was more of uh you know we're probably going to fight demetrius it's been talked about you know he's uh his name came up we want we want the title shot so let's you know we're

we're going to push for that. And it looked like it was going to happen. And then as soon as, you know, TJ and Cody fell apart, then all the plans fell apart. So, you know, it's more of just kind of been on a, been more on the end of the stick as far as communication. For me, at least, you know, I, you know,

I've just kind of been trying to get ready the best I can just in case it does happen because, you know, times ticking and, you know, times closing down on the August 19th date, which is when I assumed that it was going to happen. because that's when I had heard that they're going to Seattle. So it's been more of a verbal agreement on my end. One of the things, so I'm in the camp of you versus DJ makes more sense for the future of the division,

for the current health of the division. You know, if TJ wins, you might blow things up, et cetera, et cetera. And I've said that I don't believe that TJ versus DJ sells that much more pay-per-views than you versus DJ. Do you agree with me here? I know this is a tough one because you're involved, but do you think that if, you know, promoted correctly, you versus DJ can do just as well as Demetius Johnson

versus T.J. Dilleshaw? Yeah, you know, I think that could, I think we could sell just as, you know, just as well as T.J. The only reason why it's, it seems so interesting to the fans is, is because T.J. is a former champion. You know, he's got the beef going on with,

with Cody. That's kind of accelerated his name a little bit, but TJ was barely becoming a draw when until he fought Dominic. I mean, he was a draw. He wasn't much of a draw at all. No one even thought he deserved the title shot against Brawl the first time. He was coming off of a loss to a Sunsau and then one win. And some people didn't feel like he deserved a title shot.

He went in there. You know, he performed, you know, excellent and won the belt. And then after that, people are like, okay, I like TJ. T's, you know, I'm going to start tuning in. but I don't feel it was really until the whole Cody thing that people were going to really start tuning in to watch TJ. So I feel, you know, if it's going to be a difference in numbers, it's not going to be that big of a difference between me and DJ. I mean, I feel like I can sell the fight just as well as TJ can. I mean, I'm not corny.

I'm not cheesy. I mean, if I'm going to talk some shit, I'm going to talk some shit. I mean, it's going to be real shit. Right. It's not going to be this, you know, this jabroney. I'm going to punch you in the face type stuff. You know, I'm going to call it how I see it. Do you have a newfound respect for Demetius Johnson?

I mean, I know it's not like a personal thing between you and him, but he is going to bat for you essentially. Like the issue is here. He thinks that you deserve it more because you're the top guy in the division. How do you feel about, you know, what he's saying towards you and about you? You know, I, I walk real lightly in this game. You know, even in life, you know, I, the way I grew up and the background I came from, trust is a big thing.

So I don't really trust anybody until I truly know them and I know who they are. I don't know who DJ is. So although DJ is giving me this respect and saying he wants to fight me because of the rankings and he feels like I deserve it, you know, that's great. But at the end of the day, I also have to switch gears and, you know, throw up my defensive mode and ask myself, is DJ really respecting me or is he trying to use me as a pawn and a negotiation tactic to get the type of money he wants for TJ? So that flows through my mind as well too.

So until I see something in paper that, you know, hey, DJ really does want to fight you because he feels like you've earned it and we're about to sign a fight between you two. Then until then I'm just kind of, you know, I separate my mind to really bank on things. You know, I'm not banking that he really wants to fight me because from what I heard, you know, he wanted to fight me. And then I heard another article where he asked to fight Sergio instead because Sergio has his brother's name behind him. so he's more marketable. So I don't know. It's kind of a weird situation. I will tell you I gained respect from DJ the way he talked about his legacy.

You know, what goes on outside the Octagon is what I'm more, I respect people more on how people present themselves outside the Octagon, how they are. And, you know, his respect towards his kids and his family and that being his legacy, you know, I gained a lot of respect for him because of that. What do you say to people who say you're only on a two-fight winning streak? You've won five of six, but you did lose three fights ago. and you've misweight a couple times during that stretch. So maybe you need to do more to get this title shot.

What do you say in return? I mean, the only thing I can say is that, you know, TJ's only on a two-fight winning streak, regardless if he was the champ. I mean, he arguably defended his belt once. I mean, it's really hard to call the Joe Soto fight, a true title defense when Joe Soto took the fight on 24 hours notice, and it was his debut.

So in my eyes, Barow was really the only clear title defense that he had. and he's only won two fights and sent. And as far as the weight issues, I actually don't mind when people, you know, bag on me and talk shit saying that I miss weight, only because if it was something that was like I was just being irresponsible and eating like shit all the time and not wanting to cut weight, then it would be different.

But really, my weight situations was just me being so young. I mean, how I'm only 23. And I just didn't have the knowledge to cut weight. I mean, I tried to cut weight the way I did when I was like, 18 years old and my body just doesn't cut weight that fast anymore. So I had to just learn how to properly do it. You know, I hired a nutritionist, perfecting athletes who work with some of the top athletes in the UFC like Awani and J-Chic. And I even believe they worked with Dillishol. And so, you know, it doesn't bother me because I'm fixing my mistakes. You know, as long as you know what your

mistakes are and you can fix them, then that's fine. How many fights have you been working with perfecting athletes for? Um, I would, uh, when I fought Formigo was actually my first one. And, You know, that was by far my easiest weight cut. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It was weird at first because I even called my wife until I was like, hey, I think I might miss weight again. And she's like, why? You were so low going into Brazil.

I was like, I know, but I'm eating French toast and all kinds of delicious food on five week. Five weeks supposed to be miserable. And then she's, and then I talk to my nutrition. She's like, don't worry, Ray. Everyone always freaks out. But it made for the easiest cut I've had, you know, since I've been in the UFC. Wow. I've actually gone to know Paulina, who's a part of perfecting.

athletes quite well and it seems like everyone glows about, you know, what they do and how easy the weight cuts are when working with them. So that's another, you know, nice compliment going their way. So, all right. So you have this situation where, you know, you're kind of in limbo as well because, you know, we keep, we keep being told that TJ's waking up at 143 and he's starting his cut. How much you weigh right now? And do you, like if you were fighting August 19th, would you start to eat differently, diet differently if you were fighting in, what, a little over two months? time. Yeah, you know, I mean, if T.J.'s waking up at 143 right now, then he is actually a smaller

band-in-weight than I thought. Because, I mean, I walk around, you know, when I'm in good shape walking around, like, and, you know, a good tone leaned out, I'm like 146. Oh, wow. So if he's waking up at, and 146 is easy for me. I've done, I've done a weight cut. When I fought Chris Calatus, I started my weight cut at 156. Wow. So, I mean, and I made weight for that fight. I mean, so, but I've learned to walk around lighter to make those weight cuts easy.

I've been going into Fight Week. I went into Fight Week against Formiga, five pounds lighter than I ever have before. So, you know, it's making an easy weight cut, but it is the same thing. And I actually feel for TJ because I'm used to coming down from this weight to 25. I'm used to it, and I have the room to do it. But the more time I have, the better it is. But I also feel for TJ in the sense that if he's going to get to, the title shot, you know, he should probably know sooner than I do just because this dude's

never been down in 25. So if he's going to make a crack at it, I imagine he's going to have to change his whole physique just to do it. And, you know, that's going to be painful in a time, you know, it's going to be painful to do in a short, timely matter. One thing that's come up is, you know, DJ saying that they threatened to shut down the division. Are you worried that this is going to happen? This would affect you and many others. Yeah, you know, if this is. is the case and they do want to shut the flyweight division down. What sucks is we're all being punished for DJ. I mean, yeah, DJ, I believe DJ is one of the best fighters in the world.

You know, I've been watching DJ since I was like 14 years old, but, you know, he's just not a draw. I don't know why. I mean, I can't tell you why. He's a great guy, but I can't tell you why he's a draw. And if the UFC is so stuck on the flyweight's never selling because of DJ, it just leaves us in a weird spot because I believe we can sell. I mean, I believe the flyweight division's more exciting now than it has been in years. I mean, the whole top 10 is switching up. Ben Wynn just got a huge win, you know, the other day. It's going to be all new faces.

You know, one of us can easily start to sell the division. And to be punished because DJ's been the face of it for so long and he doesn't want to, you know, do what Dana wants to do. It sucks, you know, I try not to think about it. I try to just stay positive and move forward and, you know, hope for the best. But, you know, in the end, it is something you kind of have to worry about because, I mean, There's so many people pretty much going to be unemployed. You know, we're getting pretty much laid off, you know? What would you, if you became champion, how would you sell the flyweight?

Like, why do you think that you could be a bigger draw than DJ? I mean, I'm exciting. You know, I, um, I've shown in fights before. Right. Yeah, yeah, I've shown in fights before that I'm not scared to go for it. But more than anything, I feel fans, fans need some real, some, they need to be real. Or a champion needs to be real. They can't be talking shit on, you know, on the mic and then go home and be a totally different person.

Like, once the fans find out that you're fake is when I feel like you lose. Like, so for example, John Jones, I feel lost a lot of fans because he presented himself as this great guy. And then he got in all the trouble and people like, well, he's supposed to be this Christian man. He's not quite the great guy. I don't know if I want to be fans of him because he's not even real. It might as well be WWE. And so I feel like if he would have approached it and embraced his inner. crazy to begin with, you know, who knows?

Maybe he would have liked it. People like Connor and he may not be doing now bad stuff in the, you know, in the media, but he's, you know, he says some mean and funny shit. But, I mean, I feel like I would just be real, you know, I would, I can talk some shit. I mean, but I'm only going to talk shit if it comes out of me, you know, I'm not going to go up and be like, hey, you suck, stupid. Yeah, like something stupid like that, I'm not going to cause the ruckus. But when it comes down to me being pushed up against a wall, someone's trying to bully me,

I don't get bullied. And, you know, that's when I come out of my shell. I think just being real would help sell the flyweight division. I think a lot of those guys need to just be real. Because a lot of these guys, they don't want to, they want to keep that persona of a respectful fighter, which is great. So sometimes when someone's talking shit to them, they kind of ease back because they just got to be respectful.

They're trying too hard to be respectful. But I know every fighter in this division, much less in the sport, has some ill feelings towards their opponent some way or another. Because on fight night, that person is trying to steal the other half of your check. You know, that's money for your family. So everyone feels some type of way towards their opponent.

They just don't ever show it. How have the fans been towards you? You somewhat famously called them turds in the early goings of this whole process. Has it been fun? Has it been annoying? How has it been on social media? Social media at first, it was annoying. I got really upset that people were trolling me.

And then I kind of just was sitting here like super bored, didn't have anything to do during training. So I was like, you know what? I know how to troll people. I'm going to start trolling these guys. So I started trolling so many Twitter fans. And a lot of the stuff was funny. I kind of got stumped a couple times, but it's all in good fun. I don't mind it.

I have thick skin. I mean, if someone's going to talk crap about me, like, for example, some guy made fun of me for having glasses, and then he'd end up wearing glasses. And I call them poor eyes. I mean, it's just all in good fun. You know, I don't mind if I don't mind people taking swings at me. I got thick skin. I mean, if you don't have thick skin in the sport, you might as well not be in it.

So it's just been back and forth. I kind of like playing with the fans and trolling them as well. So where to think Stan right now? I mean, as you sit here and talk to us, do you have any idea what's going to happen with this? You know what, man? I don't know. And to be truly honest, because I'm, I'm only 23, dude. And if I don't get a title shot now, I'm not going to bitch and cry about it.

I mean, hell, I got so much, I mean, I got so much more time in this game. If I was 30, I'd be like, Dana, give me my title shot now. I need my title shot now. But just being real, man, I mean, I would love the title shot with DJ. I feel like my skill set might match up better with DJs. But at the end of the day, a part of me wants to move on. I mean, if I don't want to stay in this limbo, I want to stay active is my biggest thing. I want to stay active to get better.

I want to continue to get better each time. Each time I step in is I get a little bit better. I get a little bit more comfortable in that octagon. So I just want to stay busy. And a part of me just kind of really wants to move on to the next thing. you know possibly figure out who's next but you know i'll still play this i'll see how this whole thing plays out you know i didn't expect that i did not expect to hear you say that is that why you tweeted when they announced the henry sehuto wilson hayes fight you were like damn it or something like

that because you were hoping if this fell through that you would fight one of those guys yeah that that was my only big concern with this whole dj tj fiasco is that if that fight didn't happen so what i'm not going to cry i'm young i'm going to get my title shot regardless this, I promise you, I'm going to get my title shot. But everyone started to get booked up. And I even pulled up the UFC page, looked at everybody at the flyweight division, and everyone was getting booked up. So it kind of had me concerned that, like, okay, if DJ fights TJ, where does that put me?

Because there wasn't much left. But, you know, Maraga won last week. Ben Win got a really good win. So, you know, who knows, man. I mean, but the further this thing drags out, the more I just want to get on with my life and, you know, continue to fight. Wow, that is fascinating stuff. I mentioned that I thought it was a little hypocritical on TJ's part. Six months ago he's talking about being a part of an association, not getting skipped over,

and then he's kind of doing the same to you. Did you feel that way? Did you make that connection or no? Yeah, and then I made the connection that, you know, like DJ, DJ's claiming, you know, he's putting all out this in the, he's putting, all this shit out there in the media so he can start a revolution or whatever he's doing so people can see the bullying tactics whatever he's doing whatever he may be doing the reasons he may be doing it if co if tj was so on board with his whole fighters association thing he would have backed dj up but now he's just kind of calling a mini mouse and you know tweeting out

tweets to get under his skin and plus you know he's talking about skipping in line he even talked about me not deserving a title shot saying that nobody I fought was in the top 10. I mean, I'm pretty sure Formigo was number three and Smoka was top 15. I mean, my last few fights have never been outside the top 15. At the time, Skaggins was in the rankings, but now he, well, he was at 35, so he dropped out of the rankings, but, you know, for him to say, I don't deserve it, I mean, why does he deserve it more than I do? What is he done in the flight with division?

I mean, and I don't know, he just kind of, his personality is a little bit, different from me. I feel like we're raised from different types of eras and different types of standards. And I feel a certain way about certain things. And he feels a certain way about certain things. Do you have a deadline in your mind? Like if you don't find out about this, you want to move on, you know, are you guys in communication with the UFC? Are they keeping you posted at some point some kind of decision has to be made here? Yeah, my manager, Ollie, has been keeping me posted on, you know, pretty much everything. But I mean, my, my deadline was like a week ago. But I'm just an impatient guy.

You know, I like to know when I'm fighting is the only thing. Even if it's not DJ, I just at least like to know when I'm fighting. So, I mean, I'm going to let it play out a little bit longer. And then I'll talk to my management team and we'll see where we need to go from there. I mean, but, you know, I'm whatever happens is going to happen. I really don't. I mean, I'm a small, I'm a small fish in a big, big pond. So, I mean, I can't text Dana and say, Dana, give me the title shot.

I can't take, you know, I'm not, I don't have that power. So, I mean, I can only sit back and wait for things to play out. Must be kind of surreal to be caught in the middle of all this, right? I mean, the biggest story in MMA and you're, you are a pawn in all of this in many respects. Yeah, you know, it is. I mean, my name got thrown into the mix because, you know, I was next in line for a title shot. I mean, it was talked about as far as my knowledge, Formigo was supposed to be the next guy in line because, you know, he beat a lot of the guys. in the division and then once i beat him then it was kind of switched to me and then it just time

the way time you know unfolded it when i was thrown in the mix it ended up having to be a whole damn freaking revolution or whatever dj wants to call it i don't know but i wish my name would have got thrown in the mix at a little bit different time when it wasn't possibly jeopardizing the whole division yeah i understand that well i appreciate your honesty in all this and and i hope it works out for you. And you know what? There is a silver lining. I think a lot more people know who you are now just because you are a part of this story. So I think there'll be a lot of interest in your next fight, regardless of who you're fighting. Thanks for coming on, Ray. Good luck with all this. And, you know, I hope that if it's the title shot, I hope you get it. If it's any fight, I just hope you get back

to action sooner rather than later. Appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate it. All right. There he is. Ray Borg stopping by. Great stuff from him. Really honest stuff. and to be honest, I didn't expect him to say you know that he kind of wants to move on at this point. I thought that that was really actually, you know, maybe that's a strike against Demetius Johnson. Really, really interesting stuff. And like I said, I appreciate his candor.

So let's stay in the Albuquerque region now. Let's go back to the 505. As I said at the top of the show, it's a very big weekend for Holly Home. She looks to snap her three-fight losing streak. She's fighting Betchko-Haan, the main event of the UFC Fight Night, Singapore card and her head coach

Mike Winkle John is on the phone right now. Mike, how are you? I'm good, Ariel. How are you today? I'm doing great. I really appreciate you coming on. When do you go out there? When are you in Singapore? I'm jumping on the plane in the morning, so I'll be there whatever. I'll be there

Thursday morning. Is Holly there already? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She's already there and settled in and doing things he needs to do. Do you guys talk, I mean, because I know there's a science when you go that far away with the time zones and all that? Do you guys talk, like, are you a believer that you have to go X amount of days, given how many time zones it's away? I know there's a whole kind of theory behind all that. Yeah, I'm not sure. If anybody has the right formula and stuff, but getting out there early does definitely help with, you know,

in your body. So she's out there and plenty of time. She was out there. I think she was there late on Saturday. So she'll be ready for fights. Okay. How do you feel? What's your level of confidence going into this one? I know a strange question for a coach. You're always confident, but this is a very important one for her. Have you ever had a coach tell you they feel like shit about it? And not get kicked out of the corner. I feel good about it. Absolutely feel good about it. I think Holly's got and beat to Betch everywhere. I think Betch is very, very strong. She's very good in the pocket. Put her with her boxing. you know, she's as tough as they come. She's very good with her double underhooks and pushing people to cage and slowing the fight down.

She's very strong in her hips and her core. But with that being said, Holly just kind of can expose many weaknesses that she has everywhere else. Perhaps this was the better question. How confident is Holly? I mean, anytime an athlete kind of suffers this sort of, you know, losing streak hits this kind of skid, you know, I'm sure confidence comes into,

question a little bit. Have you sensed a change in the way, you know, she's feeling, acting, holding herself before a fight as opposed to, you know, a year and a half or so ago? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know what? You know, she was on point with Misha, but just got caught off guard me. She did a great, great job, beat her. It was a game of answers there at the end of of the fight. The next fight was one of those fights. I never should let Holly take, and I've said that before, I won't say why, but it took a while to get her out of that, and a lot of it has a do with your mindset and the confidence. And she's back.

So I think people are going to see the old holiday home new improved version with even more tools in this fight. Why do you think she's back? Like what's changed to get her back on track? You know what? Just focus in on the fight instead of on other things at the moment. And that's it. Basically just focus on what she needs to do to win the fight.

And she's done before where she's, you know, how to pick herself back. up and that's what Holly does. She never turned down a fight. She always is willing to fight, but in this case, it's a great fight for Holly. It's, it gets you back where she wants to go and can't look back past that you're motivated for the fight. And just out of curiosity, and you said it on this show that you should have never let her take the Misha fight. How come you don't want to say why? Oh, no, that's not the Misha fight. No, we wanted to Misha fight. Oh, the Valentina fight. Yeah, no, I would never ever tell you why.

How come? It's personal. Okay. It's one of the things that coaches don't do. You know what? There's reasons behind it, and that was my fault. We shouldn't have taken it, and, you know, I'm not going to tell you if there's an injury or a personal lifetime issue. Okay.

But just one of those things that we shouldn't have taken it, and that one's on me. Germain, it took a while to wake up, maybe getting hit, woke her up. But I thought we won that fight. and we'd like to see that one again. Do you think that if she doesn't take the Valentina fight, everything changes afterwards, like that kind of set off this domino effect for her? If she didn't take it,

as you're saying, she didn't take it. Yeah, if we wouldn't have had that fight, but you can't go back. You know, she wouldn't be in the situation she's in. Hey, you know what, Holly's lost two, three fights in a row, but here's the deal, she lost to the world champion,

someone beat her for the world title. Yeah. She lost to Valentina, who's fighting for a world title, and she lost to Germain on a world title fight, So, you know, this, this, it sucks. But at that level, it's a, you know, it's 50-50 sometimes on some of these big fights. That's just where they're at.

How long did it take for you to get over the Jermaine fight? Because, I mean, that was, I thought she won the fight as well. And it was somewhat controversial with the blows after the bell. Was that one, like, did that sting a little more than the Valentina fight? Well, not as much, no, because it didn't stick. as much because I thought I won the fight

but it does suck not getting the decision and starting late the way she did a little bit it took a while to get going and go back

to things that we really wanted to do and we had she sometimes mid-fight and she didn't do some of it

some of it did do so no it took it took a while it sucks losing there's no doubt about it but I've never seen

the decision over turn it just that's just that's just way it is all we can do is just pull our pants up and keep going

Are you surprised to see what's happened afterwards with Germain? It looks like she won't be defending that title anymore and they're going to do a cyborg fight against possibly Megan Anderson. It just, it kind of turned into a big mess after that. Are you surprised? Not really. I mean, I think Jermaine have a good fight with Cyborg. I really do.

I think Cyborgs can kind of come hard for one round, but I think Germain can go. I think she could kind of beat Cyborg, especially after the first round. But I can't blame her. You know what? Cyborg, you know, it's cyborg, and it's obvious. There's reasons why she is who she is. She's a very talented, explosive fighter, but there's reasons for it.

And I said before on other shows is just one of the situations that, you know, we're not fighting her at the moment, but I like to see her stay clean. And even then, is that even fair because things have changed? But I'll just leave it with that. Is that a fight that you would like to see Holly in, or are you okay if she never fights Cyborg? I don't know. I think I'd like to see Holly fights Harburg, honestly.

I think it could be a gigantic payday down the road for full fighters. I know Holly actually likes Cyborg, but, and Hollywood never turned down the fight, so that would be under management. Okay. Were you ever worried after the Germain fight that Holly would not fight again? Nope.

Not in the slightest. I know Holly, she would never, ever stop on a loss. That's just Holly. It's amazing when we've, I mean, the two most famous female fighters in MMA history, Gina Carrano and Ronda Rousey, after suffering their first losses, I mean, changed. Gina never came back. Rhonda came back one more time and now it looks like she'll never come again. You can make a very strong case that number three in the history of the sport would be Holly home.

And it seems like every time she loses, she wants to come back quicker and try to erase that loss. I don't know if that's maybe from her boxing background or just she's cut from a different cloth, but it is, in my opinion, very commendable that she it's almost like the greater the adversity, the faster she wants to come back and make things right. Do you get what I'm saying?

Well, that's exactly it. That's Holly. That's why that's why she has gone so far as she has gone in the world of boxing and beaten on a Rousey. And we just had a bad, bad string here. some bad decisions, some, a little bit of bad luck,

I think a little bit of bad judging. And it's time to be going, Hollywood, but be back. She's a real deal. Not only she is, the person she is, it's so marketable, but she's a fighter at heart. From a coaching perspective, did you have to change drastically the plan of, I know every fight is different, but did you say, did you have to take a step back and say, okay, we're doing this wrong in training,

we have to do this to try to get back on track? Yes, I did. Are you able to elaborate more? I just change emphasis on different things. You know what? The sport is so big that what happens is people are trying to get spent so much time and effort on new things or developing new tools. And sometimes they forget about the tools they've had.

And there's different things that, you know, do you attack or do you counter? There's just so many different variables in the fight. So, you know, Betts has got her style, so there's a certain way to fight her, and we're going to make sure that we do that correctly in this fight. As her coach, do you prefer Holly at 145 or 135? You know what? I think whatever is the best fight for Holly at that point in time. I just wanted to get back to getting a world title.

So either one would be fine. I think Hollywood, after this fight, I get this fight first, because I'm going to talk about it. But after this fight, we saw a world title shot, I want either the winner at a 135 or a world title shot. I have no idea what's going on with the 145-town division, but that would be it. Do you have a preference?

Do you think that she has a better chance of becoming champion again if she's fighting a 145 as opposed to 135 or vice versa? No, not right now. Not where the skill sets of the ladies that are in those divisions have. How many more years do you think that she is going to fight for? I'm sure she's got a couple of years in her. It's all about, Holly has not taken that much damage in her career. She's taking more damage in her last few fights than she has in most of her career.

And with that being said, I think she could fight for a long time. She lives a real healthy lifestyle, and she's real smart about what she puts in her body, you know, how she trains and how she stays healthy. So it could be a couple years, and it's one of those things that one of these days, when she's my passion for it, she'll let us know. That'll be the day. This fight has kind of flown under the radar. because there's so much going on in the world of M.A.

and it's so far away from the United States. It's on Fight Pass. Do you view that potentially as a blessing in disguise? There's less attention, less media. It's just kind of going to happen, maybe a little less pressure. Have you thought about these things? And do you think that's a benefit in her favor going into it,

considering what's happened in the last few fights? I think they both will, I think in some way, they both get more to relax. There's no doubt all the press, all the media, all the bullshit. people have to go through before the fight. It is a distraction. Some too fine with it.

And I think it's just, it's easier on her, on her life. I don't think that stuff really changes the fight for her. When, when it's time to fight. If she performs, it's because she's done her hard work. If she doesn't perform, because some things have happened or we didn't do the right thing. Again, as her coach, what concerns you most about Betch? I mean, I feel like we kind of know what kind of fighter she is. Is there anything that really concerns you about her attack?

Keep coming. Just her terror, nasty and her strength is huge. I think people underestimate me how strong that young lady is. Historically, going back to her boxing career, was Holly always kind of a slow starter? You know, Holly was never really a knockout artist in a boxing career. So I would call her a slow starter, I think,

in Holly's boxing career, we always had the game of don't get hit, you know, hit and don't get hit, movement, movement. movement and don't get hit. And it played out. That's why she was able to have so many fights and really never really get hit punch. You know, people will get mad at Floyd Mayweather for being such a great defensive fighter.

But in my mind, it's not about the fans. It's about the fighter's health. And so it had played out. MMA's kind of a different world and stuff. So there had to be some changes that had to be made to just the glove size through the options of different variables and stuff. But I would never call her a slow starter at all.

Okay. By the way, who do you think wins? Mayweather and McGregor? Well, I think if I was putting money on, I put Mayweather on it. I think Connor has a chance early on. I think that Connor can come in with some different things that Floyd hasn't seen off-angle things, that he can attack, so he can't hide behind his shoulder. As such, he can pull off a surprise. But that would play out real quickly if Connor's thinking those things. thoughts. Oh, okay.

So you're not completely writing him off, but he has to do certain right things in order to give himself a chance. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's got to come to the table with something that, um, that's what I haven't seen much up before, you know, and those are things that Connor can do. Connor's very athletic. Connor's got, uh, great understanding of angles and footwork.

Um, but, uh, to do those things that takes a lot of energy and in a world title fight, do you hold back because you're worried about running out of gas or do you just, you know, um, um, let it go. And that's tough. That's a hard, that's a hard call to mix from the outside, what's going on in the fighter's mind. Are you working with John yet? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

How's he looking? Any change in him? No, he's looking good. He looks. He's coming in with a smile on his face. And I'm going to tell you what, John's coming in. He's finding new ways to hit people with elbows. And he's just, he's bringing real close people's faces and just stopping a smile and continuing on the process. And so he's got some of the,

things that are even meaner for Daniel this fight. Were you in the camp of, you know, get a quote-to-quote tune-up fight before going back to the Kormier fight or do you not mind a year and a half later since his last fight, him fighting for the belt against Daniel? Oh, I love him to find for the belt. I don't think he had any need for a tuna fight to go fight Daniel Kormier. I think as much as I respect Daniel, I think this is a good fight for John because it would be in the first time.

I think Daniel couldn't take him down. John was able to take him down. John was able to, I think, beat him everywhere. And I think that plays in our favor of this fight, that we can expand on that and change some things, as Daniel will try, so that he fails once again. The way you said, I don't think he needs a tune-up fight to fight Daniel Kormier, makes me think that you don't think Daniel is much of a threat to John Jones.

No, that's not it. But I think everybody's a threat. But John is, he studies so much in the fact that we had a lot of things. He had a lot of things figured out. John had a lot of things figured out in the first fight because he studies fight tape. He watches fighters so much that I think that's one of those things that he's kind of got most of it figured out already. And it should play out the same way. So that's why I was okay with it.

As a team, did you guys have a sit down with him for this camp and say like this is it? this is do or die. We need to get back on the straight and arrow. We need to do this right. No, not as a team and stuff. I know I've had that talk with him. I know I'm sure all these coaches have had that talk with him. But I hope they would have.

But he's on a straight and arrow. And I always say John Jones, almost beats John Jones but himself. And he's been focused in training camp after last week, you know, on the right things. So with that being said, should be a great fight for John. Is this do or die for Holly home?

Yeah, it could be, yeah. If she was losing this fight, it could actually could be die. I never would see Holly retiring on a loss, and she's not going to lose. So it's not to or die. It's just a due situation, honestly. Okay, but that thought is there in the back of your mind if we're being honest. Yeah, but you know what? It would be there if we were doing a hypothetical thing on my actually

Potsuit could possibly lose, but I can't see Holly losing. I really don't. She's looking really good. Great game plan. I've got some good people helping her out. Joy Vio Siniore, you know, one of the old pride fighters that helps out of the gym, has really been in her head on a few things as far as what can help take her to new level, and we're real excited about it.

Are you also Corning Andreelowski in Singapore? No, I'm not. You know, Andre was really able to make it to camp, a lot of issues. that keep that from happening. But so as far as I know, we are not cornering Andre. He's been kind of off-communication from us. Oh, is he no longer a part of the team?

Andre is on the team forever. Andre can have whatever he wants. So that would definitely not be the case. Andre Arlowski is one of our main guys. We really like Andrea Oloskey just behind the scenes. There's reasons why he wasn't back in camp this time. Okay, so Holly's the only fighter you'll be cornering?

Correct. All right. Well, I wish you the best safe travels out there, coach. And good luck, of course, Saturday morning here in the United States. Holly Home versus Bechkoya. Always appreciate your candor and your insight. So thanks for jumping on with us today. All right.

Thanks for having. All right, there he is. Coach Mike Winklejohn, head coach for one, Holly Home, interesting nugget there about Andrea Oloski. I had heard that at the beginning of the camp he wasn't around, was curious if he ended up there. But it sounds like he did not. and very interesting insight on one John Jones

and the way he said Daniel Cormier's name just kind of made me think that they don't feel still regardless of everything that Cormier is much of a threat and also interesting to hear him say that this in many ways is do or die for one Holly home. Always a straight shooter that Mike Winklejohn, I appreciate his time very much and I'm looking forward to that fight.

I said last week on the program I think as a main card, not the entire card, but just as a fight pass main card, a fight pass only event. This is one of the very best, and they've been doing less. This is just the second one, I believe, of 2017. But when you consider the names, Holly Home, Hafeld dosangios, Tarrick Safedine, Andrei Alofsky, Donion, Kim, Colby Covington. This is a really good one. And I like the fact that it's happening so soon as far as Saturday morning is concerned.

You can watch your Saturday morning cartoons and some fights, and then you're done for the day. So that is, to me, a welcome change. Okay, let's move along. I've been wanting to talk to Joe Lozahn for quite some time, especially as it pertains to the recent fighter retreat, his trip to Reebok HQ and a couple other things. Let's welcome him in right now via the magical Skype. There he is, the one and only Joe Lozahn.

Joe, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? It's been a while since we had you on the show, so I appreciate you coming on. It's good to talk to you. Oh, good to talk to you too. I thought you were maybe a little mad at me.

Why? Should we clear this up? You texted me this. Why would you think I'm mad at you? I didn't even mad, but I feel like I'll never break something that I'm not supposed to break. And like the last couple text messages I had from you were like, hey, can you confirm this fight? And I just don't respond. That's the only time I don't get back to you.

Okay. So I don't know. Maybe a little. I'll reveal a secret here. My plan of attack is I'll text someone like, hey, are you there? And then usually, like someone like you, you're a very quick reply, which I appreciate greatly. you'll reply, you know, yeah, what's up? And then I'll ask the question.

I learned this because in the past, I would just ask the question, giving you the out not to respond. Exactly. So now I know you're there, and then you don't respond. So I'm like, all right, you know, Joe's the company guy, no hard feelings. But I have to at least ask, you know,

because that's part of doing my due diligence. Of course. But I don't hold it against you. I'm not mad at you. I don't hold a grudge. Just for the record. All right. But if you want to give me like a wink or a thumbs up,

I'll never tell. I'll go to jail before I out of a source. That's, that's, that's, that's journalism one of want. I mean, if I say no, then it's a no. And if I don't say anything, then you kind of got an idea. You could say no comments or I can't confirm that at this time, you know? Yeah.

Or if I just, if you get no response, it's probably a good chance. Okay. Oh, see, now we're on to something. See, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. You just got back from Iraq. I did.

What were you doing there? It was awesome. So basically, I went out with a company. I went out with them like back in 2008, I went out to Iraq. there's a company called a pro sports MVP. And it's basically like Goodwill trip. Go out and visit a whole bunch of, you know, arm forces and, you know, do meet and greets and do a little training with them

and let them show us all their cool stuff. And we show them some cool stuff. But I just spent, I was there. I was in Iraq for six days, but it was like an eight-day trip because of the travel and all that. A lot of travel. Any concerns when you're there? Like, do you feel uncomfortable at all? Any safety concerns?

I felt much safer when I got home. But I never felt unsafe. Okay. You know, we're always, you know, well protected. You know, and the last thing they want is for anything to happen with any of us. Sure. But definitely felt nice, you know, landing in D.C. and being back in the United States. That was a good feeling.

Where do you sleep? So we slept, this time we slept pretty much right at the airport. Not at the military airport, like where the airstrip is. Yeah. So, like, we slept in a tent. So it was me, Sam Alvey, Jake Ellenberger, Diego Sanchez. And then the girls that brought up with Emily, Miller. and Janie B, who are World Series of Fighting Ring Cut Girls.

Okay. So they were off in a national tent, but we were all together. Wow. Any scuffles between the fighters and the tent? Like, did it get a testy at times? No, no. We were all good. We're all good.

It was fun. We got to train a little bit with each other. The last night, I got to throw it with Ellenberger a good amount. But we just, you know, we grappled and rolled around guys at like three or four different bases. It was a really good time. We had a lot of fun. And are you flying commercial there? Yeah, so we flew, so I flew Boston to D.C.

We all met in D. So everyone else flew from like L.A. and all the place. We all met in D.C. And then we flew to Vienna, Austria, which was like, so it was two hours to D.C., 10 hours to Vienna, Austria, and then three hours to Erbil, which is in Iraq. And when you're going Austria to Iraq, is that a commercial flight or is that? So that was all commercial. Oh, wow. And then the military base is right next to the Erbil airport.

So that was like a two-minute drive. And just curious, like, do you go to, like, what is life like in Iraq these days? I mean, you don't hear about it as much in the news. So we're actually, we're in Kurdistan, which is like, it's in Iraq, but it's like a segment of, it's like a segment of Iraq that I think is breaking off in the next couple months. So, I mean, it was, it was good. I mean, everyone was like super positive about stuff. You know, it sounds like basically the military is doing like basically using all the tech in drones and air support and bombs and missiles and all that kind of stuff. And we're not really sending a lot of people, you know, boots on the ground in there.

You know, it's more so the Iraqi army that's doing that. So everyone was positive. I mean, it's just been really successful for them. Wow. All right. It's really, really good. Everyone was positive. Well, good for you.

Glad you came home safe. And glad that we can talk. It's interesting that you're wearing the Reebok sweatshirt because that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on. You were just, so after the fighter retreat, which had all kinds of stories coming out of it as it pertains to Reebok. You went to the Reebok HQ, right? Yes. So I've been there quite a few times. They're like maybe 15 minutes from my gym.

Oh, wow. So I've been over there. I've probably been there like half a dozen times now. Okay. You know, but I went over there and, you know, we talked about some stuff at the retreat and they kind of gave me some heads up on some stuff that was coming down the pipe and I went over there to actually see stuff. So what do you do?

Is this your idea to go there or do they call you and ask you to come visit? It's been both. You know, I've been there six times last year. You know, there's been a couple times we've requested to go over there and just kind of check things out. But they've asked me over there, you know, quite a few times. And so this particular trip, because I saw that you tweeted about it and you, and you, and you seem like you're, I guess, positive about the future and everything coming off of what

happened with Cajun Johnson and some of the concerns that were voiced and the drama, if you will, what was the vibe like? What was the meeting about when you met with them this most recent time? So, meeting was good. I mean, it's always good when I go over there because they understand that I understand what's going on. And I think I have a better picture of everything than most people. So basically, long story short, the Reebok came to times of the UFC about come up with this deal. It's like something like $70 million over 72 months, right? So five years, six years. So they basically come up with this deal where they're going to sponsor all these different fighters. And the UFC made the best deal that they thought was in the

fighter's best interests, right? So like they thought that they talked to some people about what they were making and sponsors. They thought they were going to have everyone was going to be happy with Reebok and not having to chase all these smaller sponsors. And they signed this deal. Right. So now everything is, like there's contracts everything's in paper everything's in writing like there's no going to change in this is no what do you think about doing this instead it's like it's an agreement it's a signed deal like there's there's there's no there's no wiggle room there and i think that all the fighters seem to think that like if they complain on twitter it's going to help and it's going to change things and like it's so the wrong way to go about it you know i talked about

it at the athlete retreat how about how you know basically rebox spent all this money so they spent $70 million to, you know, sponsor all these athletes, right? And they're not making a return on their investment. You know, they're spending $70 million, in hopes they're going to make, you know, $100 million or $200 million, or they're going to make more money back. But they're not, because all these fighters are being negative.

So my whole thing is that, you know, we've basically become toxic at this point. You know, all these different, you know, there's no way that Nike or Under Armour or some other sponsors is going to come in because the UFC took the best offer they got, right? So Reebok offered the most money. It's not like that Nike came in was going to do more money in the U.S.

said, like, oh, no, we're going to go with Reebok instead, right? They went with the best offer. So, Reebok was willing to spend the most and take a gamble on us, and it's backfired, it shot them in the face, right? It has not worked that well at all. So all these fighters complaining is not going to, it's not going to, you know,

look good for someone else coming in later down the line. When this deal is over, sponsors are going to be pretty much done as far as fighters go with apparel, right? And so they're just going to be like, oh, you guys ruined it, you guys screwed yourself. So my whole thing is, you know, If we're more positive about stuff and we're pro-rebok, Reebok will make some money. And then hopefully Reebok will either renew or someone else will see that Reebok made money and someone else will come in over the top and coming with more money.

But it's like it's so backwards of fighters thinking that like one, it's super unprofessional. You know, like I understand what Cajun Johnson was getting at. And in the end, it kind of worked out well that we actually had that second meeting when they talked to us about stuff. But that was like a really unprofessional bad way to go about things. I think it would have, you know, when we were all together, that was fine. but could have directed that towards someone at the UFC, not at Reebok. You know what I mean? Like it's, because it's really all, almost all the issues are not really Reebok issues.

You know, like the money was negotiated by the UFC, right? Reebok's not even, oh, you know what, we're going to give you triple what we talked about. It doesn't work like that. It's still a business. So, you know, I just think that things were directed the wrong way, you know. And I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to get everyone on board and kind of understand the situation a little bit better. And everyone I talk to, like, I think they understand it better after. I've asked a lot of people.

I've been straight up, like, you know, how are you doing in sponsors before and after? And I'd say, like, 90% of people are saying that they're doing either the same or better now than they were before. And these are guys that had a lot of fights. You know, and some of the newer guys, like a guy like Cajun Johnson, right? So he'll probably be fighting on Fight Pass if he comes in, right? Anytime I've ever fought on Fight Pass, I made, like, nothing in sponsors. Like, it's, no one's watching. So it's like, these guys that are just coming in that are complaining that I'm making money, like, well, they probably be on Fight Pass.

and they probably wouldn't be making any money anyways. So it's like, I think that everyone's hearing about the golden days or sponsors. Like, you know, guys are getting $150,000 to wear a walkout t-shirt. And if they're all, like, that would be me. And it's just not the case. You know, it's just not. I feel like as fighters, you know, as a group, I think we don't have the communication tools to talk to the right people. And instead we just take the Twitter and just start, you know, blasting people.

Do you wish that this deal was never made? Do you feel like you'd be better off? and the sport would be better off, or do you think that in the end, this is better? I think this is much better. You know, so I figured out my eight fights prior to the Reebok deal, I was averaging $24,000 a fight, right? So $24,000.

Now that I also have to pay an agent or someone to chase down sponsors for me. I have to pay. It's a great. Yes, Orrin, who's awesome. Orrin does great. And I think Orrin does better for me than most. Yeah. You know, a lot of guys I talk to,

we're making like $6, $8,000. and they've had a lot of fights in the UFC. So Oren is awesome. So I think I had better management than most. And I'm losing a tiny little bit because I'm in the 20 tier right now. For like one fight I think after Reebok I was in or one or two fights I was in the 15 tier. But I don't have to pay. I didn't have to pay, I didn't have to pay Oren Hodak a piece.

I didn't have to pay like all these sponsors deals. They always come together at last minute because if there were fights, if I'm fighting this coming weekend and there were fights this week, some people have deals where they get so much if they win, so much if they do this, like blah, blah, blah. And like companies don't want to commit to next weekend until this past weekend has happened. So the sponsor deals all get settled up this week, early this week, hopefully. And then banners have to be printed, shorts have to be printed, shirts have to be printed, all has to be overnighted. Like it ends up costing a good amount of money.

So for me, from my perspective, someone's been around for a long time, you know, $24,000, you know, the old way versus like $21,000, you know, after what I get. I would take the Reebok money all day. It's just less hassle, less aggravation. And I'm something that had a good manager and was doing a good job. Never mind all these other people that were not doing well at all. Is there also a case to be made though? Like when they say, oh, there was no market anymore.

The sponsorship game had dried up that the UFC kind of helped kill the sponsorship game by imposing this tax. And then all of a sudden these mom and pop sponsors couldn't pay this $100,000 tax. And thus just, you know what I mean? Like if you continue to do that, then the sponsorship, it's almost a self-fulfulfilling prophecy, right? Right? Yes. Absolutely. No, absolutely. But here's the thing is that like, so if it's so I think I'm an exciting fighter, right? I have good fights. I'm exciting fighter. I'm exciting fighter. I'm excited fighter. I'm excited fighter on a UFC broadcast. Yeah. It's not 100% on me. It doesn't matter. If I'm fighting on some big huge pay-per-view card and like, you know, a co-made event slot or something like that, well, there's a lot of people that are watching because it's me on this card. It's two-piece. that go together. It should never bend that, oh, I get 100% of that value in the UFC had nothing to do with it, right? It's obviously it's, it's Jolo's on fighting in the UFC.

Right. You know, if I went to another organization, it's not going to be the same viewership. In the end, it's really the number of eyeballs that are watching you, right? So if I'm fighting on another show that's not doing as well, well then, of course, the UFC is entitled to take a piece of that. So that's what they were doing. What about when this news first came out? Lorenzo Fetto was there, Dana White was there. They all said that all the money is going to the fighters. the 70 million a year, it's all going to the fighters. I mean, how is that possible?

So, so I think what they said in the beginning was that all the, all the, they were going to, they were going to use some of the money to run. Like they basically started almost like a whole new department. Yeah. That runs all that stuff, right? So that $70 million is covering a couple things.

One is covering all the product that they're giving us. Okay. Which is, it's expensive stuff. And that was one of my complaints against them. You know, I don't need to fight a $150. I don't need to walk out a $150 hoodie.

Yeah. I'm going to wear it for about $3 minutes, right? Give me a $30 hoodie. Right. You know what I mean? And I won't care. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, so same thing with the shorts. Shorts, I think are important. We should have good shorts. That's what that's what we're actually competing in. Like the walkout t-shirt, I don't need $100, I don't need $100 a t-shirt to walk out for two minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the same thing for all my corner men and everything else. You know what I mean?

Like so, but the $70 million covers paying the fighters. It covers all the product that we're given, you know, the fighters and the corners. Yeah. And then it covers paying all the staff, which it is a huge amount of work for them, like, tracking everyone down, making sure they have all their stuff. getting all the sizing right. I mean, I'm sure that that money's flying them out

and putting them up and all sorts of stuff. So it's like, there's salary for quite a few people that is all kind of built into it too. So I think that the promise was always that, oh, this money is all going to go to the fighters, but they said from the start

that that money was also going to cover that other stuff. It's not like, it's 100%. It's not like this 70 million dollars is going to fighters' pockets. So you don't, that was never the case. You don't believe that the UFC is profiting

from this particular deal? No, I mean, well, so they're absolutely profiting because the sport is getting better. You know, like you look at these other shows. You can't, you can't even argue that the UFC doesn't look 100 times better than all these other shows, all these sponsors all in the shorts.

Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, like, I disagree with you. Like, you think that the shorts are nice. Like, you actually think, like, from a design standpoint, one black with a white stripe and then one white with a black stripe and a couple of different colors. Like, you, you, you like that as a hardcore fan as opposed to a boxing fan who, like, every guy is wearing different shorts. And if you look at another organization, like, I think that being unique is part of combat sports, right? having your own style, like a Joanne Calderwood wearing the kilt, makes her different than her opponent as opposed to everyone looking the same. Isn't that a part of being a fight fan? Like you kind of gravitate to a different personality?

For me, I don't think so. Okay. See, I don't think so. I want to be defined on what I do. Not like the shorts that I'm wearing. You know what I don't want to be, you know, so, yeah, I don't think it's a big deal. You know, and I think it looks so much better, you know, without having all kinds of shorts. And then it just looks crap when you have, like, people that do sponsors.

They have freaking, like, logos falling off. Or, you know what I mean? Like they're just like, it just looks really trashy and crappy, you know, like NASCAR is like, you know, NASCAR looks like there's, the car's a billboard, right? But at least the letters and stuff aren't falling off. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, we just, I just, I didn't look trashy, you know, and I think that the UFC is making

money in the end because now we're getting more coverage. It's more coverage on ESPN, all these other things. And they also told us the athlete retreat that part of the reason why they like the uniforms, you know, and the more standard thing is because like ESPN didn't want to go and give all these other companies all this kind of exposure. Like ESPN doesn't want Microsoft. to be on Demetius Johnson and ESPN to be showing the clips

and Microsoft getting exposure but ESPN not getting money. Same thing like the UFC like while the UFC had the sponsor tax. Fair. It's not okay. It's 100% on me because I'm fighting. It's well,

it's me fighting on a UFC show the ESPN is going to run clips of. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of pieces to it. How do you feel about the tiered system as far as your tenure is concerned because you're in a good spot but like you think of a guy

like Alexander Gustafson, right? He just headlined a show in his hometown of Stockholm. He's at the 10,000, Mark. I have a hard time believing that Alex, as big of a star that he is in Sweden, couldn't get more money for sponsorship in a show that he was headlining. I mean, that shows, right? I'm sure he would.

I'm sure he would. You know, a guy like Dan Henderson. Dan Henderson has that whole lot of fights in your seat lately, you know. So he's obviously making a lot less money. But those guys are getting paid. Those guys that are really, really top of marquee guys, they're getting more on the front end. You know, like, to me, I figure out, like, when I think about my show and win money, right, Everything's coming from the UFC at this point, right?

Yeah. So I have like, so my contract, I'm at 62 and 62. Okay. Right. So, yeah, and I get 20 in sponsors. So I don't think, oh, my show money is 62. My show money is now 82. You know, so it doesn't, it doesn't matter what's coming from show and what's coming

from Reebok. It's whatever I'm depositing in my account. Okay. I'm sure that Gustafin, who's a huge name, he's getting a lot more money on the, on the, on the contract end, you know? And it sucked for a little bit. There was like a little time in the middle where guys had signed contracts. They had long contract.

that was before the Reebok deal was announced because it sucks for them a little bit, right? Because they're making a lot less money in the short term for that. But now we're two years later. I'm sure almost everyone has signed some kind of new contract or done something, you know,

that since the Reebok deal. You know, like most people have. I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there's a case is an exception, but for the most part, you know, negotiate a contract a little higher and, you know, it makes up for this fall. I think I equinta is one of those who doesn't fall

and maybe that's why he's upset. But let me ask you this. You know, go ahead. No. So like Al, you know, I think Al goes about things. I understand what he's saying it. I hear him on stuff, but like he goes about things all wrong and you don't make any friends, you know, saying, you know, F the UFC and all sorts of stuff is not going to help him. You know, he's on like a, it was like a three fight like he wasn't eligible for bonuses. You know, it's not going to help him to, you know, keep doing this because what's going to happen?

The U.C. goes and caves into him and gives him to his demands. You're going to have 450 guys saying F the UFC on Twitter nonstop. They think that this is a negotiating part. You know what I mean? Like it's just they're going to make an example of him. You know, like you can't, you can't, you know, what would happen if you got on this podcast and started reaming out all your bosses and everyone that you didn't like, you know, like that's not going to go off you. You're going to be fired. You know, when you talk about the wrong person. Like, um, and I think he's trying to get fired at this point. I think he's just, you know, he's chalking it up as a loss. He's just going to, you know, try to get out of his contract anyway he can. But he's, I don't know. I think he's going to bought it or wrong. Are Reebok, like, as a company, are they unhappy with the deal? Like if the deal was up this summer, do you think that they would say, you know, thanks, but no thanks and leave? well so a company that's as big as Reebok they have like a two-year uh production cycle right so the stuff that's gonna come out i don't know if it's for this summer or this coming fall uh is all the stuff that from when the deal was announced this is stuff that they were working on right before this basically had all this is all the crossfit left over stuff that's why the stuff hasn't been great you know like almost everything you see everything they're given us is like crossfit this crossfit that you know almost none of the fighters actually do crossfit yeah right yeah we all have crossfit people that don't have a sport right so or crossfit is their sport so So we had all like the leftover CrossFit stuff.

So now we're starting to get like the actual MMA design stuff. Better shorts, better shirts. I got a pair of shorts that is going to be. I think it's in the fall line that I got a prototype like two years ago. Wow. When they first announced everything, you know what I mean? Like this stuff is really, really good. And it's made for grappling.

It's made for this stuff like CrossFit. Like no other sport is the same as Jiu-Jitsu and grappling and fighting. Okay. It's so different. So now we're just starting to see stuff. So to answer your question about that, I don't think they would back. I don't think they would want to back out right now because they have like, you know, stuff that's planned, you know, we're 2017 right now.

They've already got 2019. That's what they're working on right now. Okay. You know, I think that once we get the final two years, then they would start thinking, ah, you know, maybe do we want to keep, do we want to, you know, start pushing forward? But if things don't change, they're not going to start planning for, you know, when the deal's over. There's me like, all right, when this deal's done, we're done and we're walking the other way. I like the way you break things down. So let me ask you this.

As you know, because I know you keep up with things, the TV deal is up next year, right? the Fox TV deal is up next year. Currently, the fighters make zero percent of the revenue. So if they make $100 a year, $100 million a year, as they currently do, or $400 million as has been reported that they want to get, you guys make none of that. As you know, in other sports like the NBA, for example, the players make 50 percent. That's why the Warriors were able to sign Kevin Durant. Their salary cap went up. Do you think the fighters should make a cut of the TV deal? Because, yes, it is a UFC TV deal. But you can't deny that there are stars that draw more. there are people, like fans want to come watch you fight because you deliver Holly home,

etc, etc. Should you make a percentage? Maybe not 50%, but 5, 10%. You know, maybe, I don't really know. Like, I'm not, I'm not as involved in that kind of stuff. Like, I haven't really thought about it as much. I mean, of course, I always want, I want more money for the fighters all the time. So one half from you're like, yeah, we should be getting that, you know, but I really don't know.

You know, I think that the UFC is in a different place, too, than these other things. like you know that come football season you know there's going to be tons of football on sundays you know what I mean like you don't know what's going on with fights as much you know what I mean like they they I think the UFC spends a lot more money marketing and all that kind of stuff than I think these other leagues do too so I think that they make more the other these other leagues make more money to start with but they also have less cost for marketing and things like that and I think the USC just dumps a lot of that money back in it so I really do like I've never you'd be okay I've never thought that like the UFC is plotting all this money and just

putting in their pocket and I think that they're reinvesting it all the time so I think that they're reinvesting it all the time. Okay. So you know, you'd be okay if it's stated at zero percent? Um,

I guess. I mean, I don't know. I mean, of course I want, I want the fighters to make more money, but I don't know, you know,

um, I don't know. Of course I'd want the fighters to get a piece of that. But, you know, if it's going to happen around, I don't know. You've been in the UFC 10 years now.

How long do you want to do this for? Uh, I mean, I love training. I love being in the gym. I love getting better. You know, uh,

I feel like, you know, every once a while, four or five fights, I'll have, like, you know, kind of a bad fight, but then I'll have a couple good ones. And I don't know. I mean, I really enjoy training. I really enjoy, like, I love going to the gym all the time.

I love, you know, working on things. I love improving. I love fight night. Like, fight night, fight week. Everything is awesome. I don't know. You know, as long as I'm still physically able to train, I want to keep training. I want to keep fighting.

I don't feel like guys are, you know, passing me by. You know, I think it's a really, really tough sport. You know, I don't think it was ever, I don't know. We'll just keep going. We're going to keep going. We'll take it fight by fight. Like, I'm not stuck. I don't feel like I have to fight.

But I really enjoy it. Do you have your next fight yet? Nope, nothing yet. Probably like September. I talked to Sean Shelby last two weeks ago. And he asked when I wanted to fight. I told him August. And I said, well, we're going to Denver.

I'm going to Mexico City. I think we're the two places. And they're both at all. I'm like, oh, let's talk about September. Let's take those places. You know, so, you know, we'll see. I'm not sweating it. you know, I'll fight, you know, probably September, I would guess.

And so if a fighter is watching this, what is, what is the message? What, as someone who's been on, you know, the front lines, for lack of a better term, who's met with Reebok, who's just there, who I think has a very good handle on all this, what is the message as it pertains to the current relationship between Reebok and the fighters? I've been burned by a lot of sponsors in the past, you know, for a lot of money. I'm not worried about getting burned by Reebok. I'm not worried about getting burned by the UFC. You know, I think that, you know, everyone's kind of thinking that they're going to

make all this crazy money with external sponsors and it's just not the case. You know, there's some guys that are few and far between that. Like, they have like a friend or something like that. And yeah, they're going to get more money or they have like a unique relationship. But for the most part, that's not, that's not how it goes. You know, so I think, you know, being more pro-rebok, you know, we want Reebok to make money so that they're going to, the money's going to come directly to us. I think that complaining on Twitter and all the other stuff, you're shooting yourselves

in the foot. You know, it's not going to work out for us. It's just going to, you know, we're going to be fighting in UFC clothes and no sponsor money. entire piece is going away, you know, like, you know, and we're going to have no one to blame but ourselves, you know, it's going to be 100% our fault. So, smart enough. Do you think there'll be an association ever in the sport? I don't. I mean, I may be, but I think everyone's needs are just so different. You know, you got a guy like Connor, Connor's not looking out for everyone else. He's looking out for him, you know, like all these other guys that are top in the division, you know,

like they're all looking at it. I've worked really, really hard all this time. I'm going to get what Like, yeah, that's how I feel. You know, and I'm not making as much money as those guys, but I make, I made good money now for my show money away, but I've had 25 fights in the UFC. I've been here for 10 years. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to try to, you know, look it out, you know, I want, of course I want more money for all the fighters all the time, but at the same time, realistic, you know, I'm most concerned what's going on for me. You know, just like I'm sure everyone else, every other fighter in there. Anyone that says that they're not is lying.

They're straight up lying. You know, everyone's looking out for what's best for them. But, but what if there was like some sort of collective bargaining thing where it doesn't affect your. purse, but it affects like the TV deal. Like you all make a cut of that. And so that you all have a collective voice. Usada, right? You guys didn't have a say in the USADA deal.

There was no collective bargaining there. They just said sign this piece of paper and now you're going to be monitored 24-7, 365. I'm a fan of that. I think there should be testing. But it doesn't affect my life. It affects your life. I think I've seen you tweet that they, you know, knock on your door at like 10 p.m. or 6 a.m.

Yeah, they do. And I'm happy. And I'm happy. Every time they come, I'm happy. You know, the first time they show you. at my house was like 6.30 in the morning and I was like, who is this? Like, who's banging on my door at 6.30 in the morning? And then I'm like, you know, like, here we go. I'm happy about that. You know, get everyone. You know, like, I'm sure I fought guys that have tested positive or were on something.

I'm sure it's happened. Yeah. Catch them all. That's not like a, I don't look at that as a negative thing. I think that's a good thing. Get them all. Keep it going. Test me freaking twice a week, every week. But the lesson is you want to have a say in the matter. Yeah. I mean, I would like to have a say. But I just think that, you know, it's like if if someone tried to set up an organization with like bare minimum stuff, then maybe it would have a chance. But they're not. Everyone's trying to get in. Everyone's greedy too. There's like there's always three or four organizations.

People trying to sign up different things all at the same time. And everyone's getting ahead of themselves like, oh, we're going to do this organization. We're going to do this organization. And like all these different things is like, and you're just going to fragment everyone. You know, you need to like if you were trying to get everyone together, you need to go like bare minimum just to get the organization started and get all the fight. to sign on at that point. Yeah. And then over time, slowly expand out.

But it'll never happen. It'll never happen. Everyone's fighting for their peace and everyone's trying to make money and like, oh, I'm going to be the one to get the real, you know, union to start. It's just never going to. I think it's not going to happen. How's your son? He's doing good.

He's taking a nap right now. Oh, okay. He's doing good. Hopefully not next. But he's all good, right? Yeah, he's super happy, super healthy. He's super tiny. So he's on, we said he's on human growth hormone.

Okay. So, because he's like, bottom like 1%. Oh, wow. But, so he's super tiny, but he's doing great. We got him approved to go to, he's got a little bit of hearing loss from the chemo. So we got him approved to go to a school that's near us. It's like super expensive, but the town will pay for it. Wow.

But, you know, it's basically for kids with hearing loss. So, so, but he's going to start that in July. So, but everything's, everything's great with him. He's awesome. Awesome. Great to hear that. A lot of respect for you, Joe. Great stuff.

I appreciate the insight. Thank you very much for coming on, and I'm happy that we squashed our beef and that we're friends again. I am too. We'll be in PFF again. Awesome. We'll talk to you soon.

There he is. Joe Lozahn, great stuff from him. It's always great to hear that other perspective. Appreciate him coming on and dropping some knowledge. All right. Let us go to the phone lines. Let's stick with this business theme, if we can here, because our next guest, as I told you at the top,

Uriah Faber, has some very interesting news, some exciting news for his team, Team Alpha Mail. Let's get right to it. He was kind of MIA on us. We couldn't find him, but I believe we've tracked them down. Your eye, are you there? Yo, what's up, dude?

Are you so busy that you don't remember when your schedule to come on the show? On 7.Z.0.11.30. What time is it? Well, it's 1136. Oh, I've been sitting on hold for about seven minutes. Yeah, right. Anyhow. What's so, buddy? Now, today's the first day of our gym, like the full opening of our, of our new gym out here.

So it's pretty busy and I was in helping coach practice. We've got, you know, a bunch of young guys. I was working with Sage Northcutt actually. He's out here learning the good stuff. So he and I just got them doing a little private. Oh, wait, okay. Well, I was going to bring up Sage at the end, but since you brought him up first, I mean, I see on your Instagram and everything,

what is going on there? Has he joined the team? Well, right now he's coming out. He works out with one of my very good buddies at Paradigm in Texas, who I actually coached in calls. at UC Davis. And so this is a week out right now. He's got a full camp, so I'm not sure how much he's going to be out here for his camp. But I think it's probably going to be a more permanent thing for him moving forward. But as of right now, he's kind of splitting time. And man, what a

fast learner. What a positive guy. He's fun to be here. Wow. So you foresee him joining the team full time after this next fight? I believe so. You mean, you have to double check with him, but I think so. That is amazing. I want to see like a reality show you just showing him the ropes of life. You don't want to see that. He doesn't want to see that either. I'll stick to the MMA stuff. He seems to have life figured out pretty well.

And so who will be coaching him? I'll be coaching him. You know, Chris Holder, Danny Castillo, Justin Bucles, Fabio Brado, Joey, and so on and so forth. We've got a whole staff of guys here. Will you guys be cornering him for this fight? I don't believe so.

Okay, okay. So it's really going to kick in. I'm not sure. All right. All right. Wow. that's interesting. Because you don't have a lot of like, you know, 170, 155 guys, at least right now.

You're kind of known for 145, 135, 125, 125, 125, the 115 women. So I like this addition very much. I feel like you can get Sage back on the straight and narrow, you know, get his life in order. His life in order, man. That's about the most ordered life there is. It was a joke. Hey, guys, I mean, that guy, he's got it all figured out right now without even trying. So his parents did a great job.

and he's a fast learner, man. And we have a lot of guys at the heavier weights, too, not heavier heavier heavier weights. We've got, you know, 85, 70s, we've got a couple guys that are, you know, Josh Emmett's a 55-pounder. Damien Doris is a 55-pounder, so he'll have some good guys to go with out here.

Who has better abs? You or him? You're talking to the retired Uriah Fabor. Okay. He definitely has better abs. He got better everything at this point. I saw that you tweeted something like, oh, I look fat in the water or something, and I see at least like a four-pack, if not a six-pack.

I'm like, come on. I don't look fat. You said something. I'm like a barrel. I'm strong like America, but I'm just like a square bobbed square pants or whatever is a bunch of off a square pant. I'll take it. I'll take it any day.

All right. Okay. Let's not beat around the bush. You've got some very exciting news regarding the future of Team Alpha Mail. I said earlier that it's, you know, we've been talking a lot about the business of MMA, we just had Joe Loz on, talking about Reebok trying to give us a different side of things. Well, what you're doing right now has not been done, and I think it's fascinating. So the floor is yours.

Tell the world what's going on with Team Alpha Mail. Yeah, so, you know, we've been working on basically from a grass rent campaign, building up, you know, the best team in the world. And we've been awarded that a few times in the past. and I feel like it's kind of what we're staking our claim at this point. And to add to that, we've got an incredible backing now. So we've got a new sponsorship, a big corporate sponsorship with a great guy named Jim Wilkinson who actually brought his group down for a corporate retreat to our gym

to do a really cool mixture of watching practice and getting a workout and getting a motivational talk and doing some interviews with our up-and-combers and some more established guys. and we really hit it off. And I took a trip down to his headquarters out in Truckee, you know, about an hour and a half of the hill towards Tahoe and saw the operation he's running. And we have a lot of the same core values and ideology about business and things like that.

So he stepped up big time and done a substantial sponsorship for our team, including salaries for our coaches, which we've always been a self-funded team. the guys pitch in and pay cash to pay for the coaches. Now we'll be able to staff, put guys on, you know, make them more comfortable so they can be

hands on a lot more, spend more time with the fighters, be more involved and make this team even better. We have a scholarship program now, we've got a little bit of recruiting budget, and we have, you know, guys that we're trying to pull in and build the team throughout from, you know,

110-pound girls or 105-pound girls to, the heavyweight guys, and we're going to be looking to grow the team and make the best team in the world, uh, through and through. He's also incorporating a discretionary bonus system, which has kind of gone away with the new ownership with the UFC. You know, you may just end up with a check in your, in your, uh, mailbox. That's the way it used to be for the UFC that, you know, Dana White or Lorenzo,

for Tita felt like somebody did something inspiring or somebody did something deserving and they would, they would get a check that, that, uh, this, you know, out of the kindness of their heart. And we're incorporating something very similar here. And it's pretty cool. We already had our first round of our established guys getting awards, which is pretty cool for them and helped out a lot. And the last part of this thing, or two last parts, is first off getting a curriculum on kind of the business life,

coaching people through financial stuff with the real world, goal setting and things like that. We're creating a real curriculum to get these guys ready to go into the real world after the fight game because, you know, we have different roles and different, you know, different levels of fighting. And so kind of prepping these guys for the real world and having a real curriculum with Jim's help and with some other resources that we have to continue to make our fighters well-rounded. And the last part is we have our own aviation partnership now. So private flights for fight-related things for friends and family.

and, you know, teammates while we're going across the West Coast on the fight scene. So it's pretty cool. We had one guy in particular, Joseph Morales. He met Jim and the crew on the corporate retreat, and he had his wife that was pregnant with their first baby, and he's 22 years old,

and it ended up being a massive fight for him, and Jim was like, hey, man, let's get your girl out there and your mom out there. And then it ended up being a monumental fight for him. He won the fight. He had the baby two weeks later, and his whole family was their experience. So it's been pretty cool, man.

I mean, it's a cut-in-ups thing that we're working on here. And it's exciting on a bunch of different funds. Wow, that is amazing. And kudos to Jim and his company for doing that and investing in the sport. Is this like, do you have a contract where it's like a three-year deal, a four-year deal, or something like that, or is it just open-ended? So in open-ended, we definitely have a year deal right now

with intent to continue. beyond and we have a lot of big things in the making. So these things I'm talking about right now are just, are just kind of small potatoes compared to the things that we're working on. And so we'll have more announcements as those things unfold. But it's a perfect time. I mean, the new gym that we have, we work from an 8,500 square foot facility that's been kind of run down

over the last 12 years to a 21,000 square foot facility with all of the amenities and an octagon and so many cool things. So it's a bright, bright future for Team Alpha male. And we're excited about, you know, Jim and the team at Mountain Line Aviation believing in us and seeing that we're, you know, something to be held on a pedestal and something to get inspiration and learn lessons from. And it's going to be a reciprocal situation. So we'll learn from their group as well.

I've told you this before. You're the most entertaining Instagram follow and MMA. Your stories are top-notch. like you did a whole day on just a slug attached your car and I was riveted. I just couldn't wait to see the next slide. But I mentioned that because over the last few months, the progress that you've shown us as far as the gym is concerned and like you overseeing it all has been amazing.

And then I saw some videos of like I think Cody was there and Sage on Saturday and you guys were watching the fights while on the mat. Like you have these four screens up on the wall. I mean, the gym is just unbelievable. Was that all you? Like, I mean, I know you had a team of people. and I think your dad and brother worked on it. But was this all your vision that you put into play here?

Yeah, man. I've been inspired by a lot of people around me throughout the years and I see stuff that is just done top-notch and that's kind of how I like to do things. So, I mean, this gym is a piece of art. I've got wood finishes across the entire place from all the front desk. We have a front desk.

We have a cafe that has, you know, custom finish wood that is front. from here in Sacramento. We've got world class artists that are going to make murals on the outside of the place. And we've got some of the best food and supplements and everything that it's going to be, you know, ready for before and after. And if everyone wants to chill out and hang out, we've got, you know, food and drinks for them. We've got a locker room for the team, which kind of keeps the heathens away from the general folk. And then we've got, you know, the...

but it's all fine finishes and it's all beautiful and I feel like you know people will take great care of it because it is so unique and it is so special we got an indoor outdoor spot where we have training for that we've got an elevated cage that overlooks the whole gym and then we've got world-class fighters just fumbling throughout the day that are friendly and having a good time so it's a really really cool environment and I feel like definitely it's summer that I've been dreaming about and now it's here And so the other gym has closed down, right?

You're no longer there. Right. We have closed that gym. Okay. Was there for 11 years, which is pretty incredible. And, you know, I still have my UFC gym, Uriah Favor out in Rockland, California, which is about 35, 40 minutes away. Okay.

But this is your right of favorite result in fitness. And it's a gem, dude. We've got those, that big, that's 474-inch TVs that make one big strain. And we've got TVs throughout. so we can hold events here. And we've got six taps at the, you know, at the cafe. And the thing's going to keep getting better, especially with Mountline aviation behind us.

And the things that we're going to say in the future that are in store, this is the place to be. So if you're an up-and-fielder, you're somebody looking for that edge, and you're out there in the fight world, trust me, this is the place to do. Never say trust me before trying to convince someone because that's like the number one thing,

not, you know, that's the like... That was not convincing. that was an offer. Okay. But I really feel like people can't trust me. And I actually agree with that 100%. About the flights,

can you just clarify this? Like if I'm Cynthia Calvillo fighting in Scotland, do I now get like a private plane to take me there from Sacramento? How does this work? No.

So it'll be primarily on the west coast and, you know, the way Jim, you know, as I've got to know him and the things that we've talked about, the way he does things. He goes big. He starts, you know,

a little foot in the door and, you know, he's his accolades. I mean, you can look him up on his own and see kind of what accomplished guy he is, but he's the guy that's going to grow this thing fast. So I think he's got four or five planes on call now, and we just, you know, go through a, they call it the chief, uh, the chief, what is it called? The chief possibilities.

We have a chief possibilities, uh, manager who, who basically helps us, structure our fights when we need them and it'll be you know getting our fighters from the top guys the lower tier guys to their fights across the west coast primarily and probably beyond then in a pretty quick fashion was this something that you felt needed to be done for the team for the growth the health of the team um you know we just had joe loz on on talking about sponsorship and things like that and we all know the sport is cyclical and maybe it's going through a bit of a rough patch as far as you know sponsorship is concerned from the glory days and all that did you feel

like the fighters needed this in order to keep going and in order for you to recruit the best fighters to the team? Absolutely not. I mean, if you look at, you know, wild-car gym where Manny Pacquiao trained and Floyd Baila, whether there's gym and boxing where he trains, I mean, all you really need is a heart, you know, home is where the heart is, talent is where the heart is. You know, it's all about heart. But I feel like rewarding our guys and making it easier on them, getting more money in their

pocket. We've also got this crazy structure that's very unique that I came up with. It's going to put a ton of money back into the fighter's pockets from a standpoint of training. And it's a co-op situation. I can go more into depth on a different time on that. But we've got guys that are on scholarship that are required to do privates with our different guys. We can assign that to them. We have head coaches. We have assistant coaches. We have Mittman. We have a fighter buddy system where you take a fighter out with you and it becomes an experience for them. They get their pro diem

paid for but they're there to help you out you know manually docking your eight week camp so you have a tally at the end of the day and get a bill at the end of the day versus getting percentages to everyone there's a lot of things that I'm implementing

to help the fighters keep money in their pockets you know stop guys and having their hands out and tugging at heartstrings and and set a real system in place, which I think that is very important because in boxing, you have your trainer, and, you know, and that's it.

You know, this is one sport. Here we have wrestling, jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing. We have judo. We have guys that are mixing things together with restraint and conditioning. There's too many things to cover. At the end of the day, for a fighter that has a good heart and wants to help everyone else to help him out,

how does he know how to give the money and how does you know this? guys are ended up, you know, broke at the end of a camp. Pay taxes, pay your manager, pay this guy, pay that guy. So this is going to help the guys tremendously with peace of mind, with the fighter's spirit, the heart, the things that really matter are always internal. And we know that. Do you feel like this is a bit of a byproduct of you walking away?

Like now you have more time to look at the team and make business deals like this. And, you know, you have to be somewhat selfish when you're preparing for a fight several weeks out. do you feel somewhat free now that you can do this stuff and kind of move on with your life? Absolutely. I mean, that was part of the deal is I have so many things, because balls and I'm juggling. I mean, probably announced it soon,

but I was just in my first big movie, which was awesome. Oh. I've been working on some other entertainment projects. We've got our new gym and a new facility and new things happening with the team, some other business things that are, that would be really great going international with big, you know, big companies. I mean, we've got some massive things on the horizon

and being able to take a deep breath and instead of dodging punches on the daily, I'm making power those on the daily. So I enjoy it. Are they the exclusive sort of sponsor of the team now? Can no one else come in? Are you not looking for anyone else? So, no, we have Everlast, which has been a big sponsor of the team in the gym as of late. Pyrus Labs, which is providing sub-werect. the best supplements in the world for our team and actually built out the octagon here in our in our in our place we've got uh you know torque is my company we we get the guy's stuff as well but we're always looking for opportunity that's the cool thing about jim being a guy that understands about business and wanting to just do things that are great for the fighters is um you know that he wants to make sure that we're taking care of so if if anything else if nothing else aside from being

the main and title sponsor, you know, name on the mat, name on the shirts, and some of that we're associated with that, you know, there's a reciprocal situation. We have a, you know, a guy that's looking out for our best interest. We're looking to bring more opportunities to us and doing it for the right reasons, which is super important. That's one of the reasons why we agreed to do this, this whole partnership. Wow. Very cool.

I always said, you remind me, like not the pictures, the dressing up like a woman type of thing, but you reminded me of the Oscar Delahoya of MM. What? What's my boy? Why'd you have to go there? I just say, he's had some low moments, but as far as like your business acumen, maybe even better. Like I fully expect one day to see your eye of favorite promotions and what you're

doing with the gym, how nice the gym look. I mean, what you did to that gym is just unbelievable. It makes me want to train to be an MMA fighter. And that's a thing. And then this type of deal, if you're a fighter, why wouldn't you want to join the team and be a part of this and cash in like this and get these. perks. So I really give you a lot of credit for thinking big picture here. Absolutely. Yeah. I've always, you know, try to think outside the box.

And, you know, as you know, the mixed martial arts fighters, I've had a lot less to work on than some of these big guys. A lot of people were complaining because Kobe came to the fighter summit and was talking about investing. And I was watching some interviews or people like invest in what money, you know, that kind of thing. But that's why I think this is important thing. And talking about, you know, guys like Delaware. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars, right? Yeah. And, you know, I made some millions, not hundreds of millions or, you know, anywhere in the same

ballpark. But, you know, I've had to be creative. I've had to be resourceful and I had to lean on people that I really trust and that have been with me for a long time. And that's been a big key to my success is building a great team of folks that I trust and know and that are here for the right reasons. And, you know, I'm going to continue to build that, this place with a hard. heart and with, you know, a place that people want to stay, regardless of what the draws are

outside of the Octagon. By the way, I have to ask, if you're the UFC, do you book TJ versus DJ? Do you like this fight? How do you feel about everything that's been going on with your former teammate? I haven't really been watching, to be honest. I haven't a lot. I've been busy doing, I'm on the offense, man. I'm not watching the M.A. Hour?

I have not been watching the M.A. Hour? Your dad does. Your dad does. My dad is. Oh, absolutely. You have spies who are telling me that I'm, I'm turning against you. Come on. You know it.

Yeah. It's funny. I mean, here's what we have. Which, you know, I know, I know our friendship goes deeper than whether or not you want to turn against me for the day. I would never. I mean, it hurts a little bit, but, you know, it's funny. I mean, you know, there's, there's politics out there.

There's all these different things. there's plenty of the way stories get spun and everything else but I'm very happy with what we've got going right now and you know I don't have time to be watching watching the other things man I'm doing my stuff but I would love to see any fight against top fighters both those guys are tough fighters that'd be great

How's Cody's back? Is that happening? No it's not how I mean they wanted to happen but it's not happening yet No I will say it's uh so so TJ would go back down to 125, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's never been to 125 before. That's why it's a little bit tricky. What if he misses weight? It's not a total fight anymore. Well, he looks a lot small than he used to, so I don't know if he's missing any weight. What about Cody's back?

Cody was in practice today, man. It was great to have him here. And, you know, he got up early at 8 o'clock in the morning or 745 and went and did, you know, a bunch of pre-physical therapy stuff is before practice and he's on track to do battle whatever. Okay. Well, congratulations again to you and Mountain Line Aviation for this historic deal. This is great stuff. I'm sure the fighters, I know you told them a couple of days ago. I'm sure they're very excited about all this and I appreciate you coming on the show and announcing it to the world. And I think I'll be seeing you in a month in Las Vegas as you get inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, right? Absolutely, man. And I just want to Thanks again to Mountline Aviation for believing in us and being such a cool partner.

I mean, there's a lot of sponsorships out there. But what's cooler than private aviation out of Truffey, California, which is one of the most chill places on the planet. I've never had the pleasure, but it sounds very cool. Well, hey, as part of this deal, I'm going to talk to Jim. We're going to get a flight. You and I are flying somewhere together. Wow. We're doing it.

Okay, I'm bringing my mom, too. She'd love it. Oh, I would love that. Just bring your mom. Do it. Thank you, Uri. I appreciate and congratulations. Okay, thank you.

All right, there he is. Uriah Faber, very cool stuff. I see some positive business news here. It's all positive today on the M.A. Our right, let's move along. Very excited to welcome in a man who doesn't do a lot of interviews, but he's on the program.

Everyone wants to hear from the Axe Murderer, Vandrlei Silva in less than two weeks. He headlines MSG against Chal Sondon, and there he is. Vanderlea Silva. Wow, this is amazing. Vanderlea, how are you? Hey, very good.

How are you guys? Very good. Welcome. Oh, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is a great honor for us. So Vandale, I have to ask you first. Last week, there was supposed to be a press conference in Los Angeles. You and Chiel Sunnan, but they said, Belator said that you were not feeling well and couldn't make the trip.

What happened? From your perspective, everyone wants to know what happened? It's not to be cold here in Brazil, and I'm not too so good in this time. And I try to be better. to be ready to fight. Okay, so how are you feeling now? Really good, really good. I'm ready, man, no.

For me, I don't like to talk so much. I'm ready to fight, no. In the next time when I watch our son, he's gonna feel what's gonna help for him. Yeah, I actually saw an interview with him and MMA junkie where he said, if you guys are in the same room, like at a press conference or something,

it could be trouble. Do you agree with that? Like, they should keep you guys very far apart? Yeah, man, because, you know, he talks so much he's doing a lot of bad things for me here in Brazil you know

and he's going to be in trouble you know he needs to be far from me because when I saw him man not

not going to be good for him have you ever felt this way about an opponent before like this deep hatred for your opponent

oh never never never never never no and for me and yeah

I fight to a lot of a lot of guys but this guy is different this is personal no I think this is the last real thing, you know, because I don't like him.

It's tough for me talking about this guy. Yeah. No? And when I saw him, man, make me feel sick. I don't like this guy. Is there any concern that you will fight too emotionally because it's so personal and you see him in the cage that you won't stick to the game plan and you'll just not, you'll fight with your emotion as opposed to your head?

man this fight this fights man gonna be totally different for me because this guy crossed all the lines

for me and now his time he had just two weeks to talk after just two weeks yeah

I'm gonna hear a good lesson for him do you want to retire him do you want to retire him do you want to retire him no because I want to

beat him there in his house in his guarding and I want to beat him here in my guiding I'll beat him there in America

in front of his guys and I want to beat him in the front of my guys Oh I give it an opportunity for him to fight in America I'm going to beat him for you guys but I want to beat him

here in Brazil too Okay Is that on the table Like have you told that to Belator And do they like that idea If the fight goes well Not yet No, I hope he came to fight with me here in Brazil

because I accept to fight in his country. He needs to fight in my country too. Yeah. Because beat him just one time, it's not going to be enough. I want to beat him two times. Okay. Did you see his last fight against Tito Ortiz? And if so, what did you think of his performance?

Man, he looked at kids. He looked at, man. This guy wants to fight against him? Man. He's the biggest joke in the anime world. In this time, I'm going to approve. But I'm not going to, I don't know, I'm not going to just want the fight. Yeah.

So it's just going to be totally different. I have a lot of surprise for you guys. Wow. You guys are you going to enjoy the fight? Were you surprised that he tapped out when he did against Tito? He's white. No, Chitu is good, but him, man, he's terrible. And so, like, are you expecting that same kind of change?

tail in this fight or do you think that he had the layoff that he will be better for your fight? I hope becoming a better guy because, man, I fight against the legends in the world. I give an opportunity for him to fight against Vandalis Silva.

But for me, that will migrate to fight the guy in that level. It's okay because I don't like him. I think this is going to be the most easy money I'm making all of my life. Really? The easiest fight of your life. I think he's going to be the easiest fights in my life

Wow I'm going to beat him first For you this training cap I mean you haven't fought in quite some time Several years How has it been How is your body holding up How are you feeling after this training camp

I feel really good Yeah really good Like I never I'm too before Because in that time When I stop it I clean my mind I clean my body I don't have any injuries

I'm feeling strong I'm so fast. I beat the guys in the training. And man, I know the real training, training fight is fight. But usually I'm better in the real fight. And this time, don't going to beat you friends. Who will corner you in this fight? I'm going to be with him, Andrea Jida and Rafael Cordero.

Okay. And you're in Kori Chiba right now, right? Yes, yes. I'm here in my hometown. So were they with you there when you, when you've been training? Did they come to Brazil? Yeah. No, Gordero going to be in the corner, but he knows me very well.

Yeah. And the Jida trained me full time, I train Jiu-Tzitsu with Sergio Morais and Rafael Lovato, the really, really, really, really, the world champion guys. And I really understand, in stand-up, I really, I know what he wants to do. I know. I have just one way. And that time, I will not catch him. Wow.

What do you think he's going to do? Have it just one take down, just that. Yeah. Everybody knows. Everybody knows what he'll do. Right. Man, we're going to beat him so bad. Do you want to go to the ground with him to beat him at his own game?

Or do you prefer to keep it? Of course. Of course. Of course. I'm black belt of shit. I'm going to the ground. I'm going to submit. I'm going to punish him first.

Wow. What do you predict? Like, how long do you think the fight actually lasts? I don't know. No. More longer, it's going to be more bad for him. So I want to beat him just, I want to do some laps in his face. Wow.

Wow. It's a good surprise for my fans. Because this guy, this guy, do a lot of bad things for me in Brazil with the program, you know? Really? And now is the time to pay. back. When did he cross the line? Like for you and your opinion, when did it become personal? Because he's talking things about, about my country. I know. I live in America. I love in America guys. But you guys can't talk about America. I can't talk about America because I'm

not American guy. Yeah. He can't talk about my country, you know. He in the program, no. No, just what the guys watch on TV. But behind the scenes, he look at me, he, he's, he He do some fun jokes with the guys. In the program, I can't give him back. No? But right now, a lot of things happen behind the scenes in the tough Brazil. A lot of things the guys don't know. But right now, I'm going to pay for him back.

Okay. You know, when you left the UFC, a lot happened between you and the UFC, and finally you got released and you moved on and everything. Was there a time where you thought you wouldn't. ever fight again? One time I think I don't go back because I'm not to feel

comfortable to fight. But you see, it's a great, it's the biggest events in the world. I'm so thankful for what these guys give to me. But in that moment, I and Dana, we are the same.

And when two lions be together, the fight happened, no? And just happened and I and him and that time I don't want to work for him anymore and I don't think

into fights in another event but Belator opened a great door for me put me in the great card put me in the great show rise and open the door for me too and at that moment I think hey I can't

I can't make the show I can't make a good fight because today we have a lot of fights but we don't have the big classics, the good classics, you know. And I know I have a lot of fights in my guys, my first want to watch. And this fight

is going to be one of the presents going to be to go into my fans. This is a pay-per-view in the most famous arena in America, Madison Square Garden. Do you feel pressure to put on a good show, to make the pay-per-views sell a lot, to sell a lot of pay-per-views? Because Scott Coker has never done this for Belator.

This is his first pay-per-view for Belator. So there's a lot riding on it, I think. I think I think this fight is the same for himself because this is the top 10 rival in the world and Van der Leis Silva always give a good show

all my three last fights I make the fight of the night and I know what I can do and against the guy this guy is going to be better I know everybody want to watch around the world and I know everybody

going to give support for us did you miss fighting? Like are you excited to feel what it feels like to be in the cage and to punch someone and all that? Yeah, man, it's a long time, like close to four years. I've been to fight. Imagine for me, I'm stopping to fight because the moment when I stop it, I don't want to stop, but the circumstances make me stop. Like one day I am the ex-murder, and the other day I wake up,

I'm like, what are they going to do? Yeah. I haven't. And this shaking my mind. No? But after Belator, I talk to Steve Coker. I talk with Sakakibara. And this guy's giving me a good,

give me the good energy to back to training. And this is the longest campus in my life. I suppose I'm going to fight in December. I'll not be ready for December, but right now I'm 100%. I feel really good. I'm strong. I'm feeling really, really, like I'll never be before.

Wow. Did you feel depressed? Like, were you missing it so much that you didn't know what to do with yourself every day? Because you didn't have a purpose. You didn't have anything to train for, to fight for? Yeah. Imagine you. Today, your boss, say, hey, stop to work.

Yeah. Stay in our house, you have money, you have house. You don't need to work for money, you know. I never fight for money. I fight for money. And when there is somebody take off this for me. Man, I pass to the dark side in the life, but right now I'm back, I feel good, and I'm ready to fight. Wow.

And so do you know, like, are you preparing, now that you experienced that, but you're back, you're fighting, are you, are you preparing for the next chapter? Like, what are you going to do? This is going to end at some point. What are you going to do after fighting? I don't know. Okay. The true, I have a lot of projects, Himbris. I have one of the projects to put the one one one coach inside each school here in Brazil to give a class free to the students.

Oh. Like after school. Yeah. Don't have the good after schools here in Brazil. With that, I'm going to give you a job to the fighters, to the new, the new fighters, the new coaches. And I'm going to give class to these poor guys who can't pay the gym. Oh. That's one of my goals over here.

Okay. How many more fights do you want to have? I don't know. No, not the true. Right now is the time in my life. We're going to enjoy it. Okay. I'm going to have, I love to do that, no.

And after this fight, after my performance, I'm going to tell, hey, I can be better, I can continue or this is the last. Because, you know, I don't going to be the guy can be there just to receive one, two punches. Yeah, yeah. For me, you know, happy that. I'm there to give my soul When I fight I give Everything this is a reason I have a lot of fun around the world And I stop my career with 49 fights

I need to have the 50 For sure I can't stop that I don't know this is going to be the last or not But my performance is going to talk for me Do you have to fight for Verizon as well Yeah yeah I have no talk with Verizon Okay

Okay Maybe I'm gonna back I'm fighting good, I feel good. I have a good performance. I want to back in October for fighting to rise. By the way, there's been some talk that Chuck Liddell is talking to Belator. Do you want Belator to sign Chuck so that you can fight him maybe afterwards? This is going to be great.

I think it's like some guys stopping too early. Like Chuck. Chuck is a really good guy and really good fighter, a really tough to tough guy. I will love to look at Chichuk fighting again And maybe I can have a lot of want to rematch Because we're making the best fight of the year Yes I remember I want to have my trust To give what he gives to me

I want to give for him too Right now is a different time Yes At the moment when I fight against him I don't have gone I just move into America I have a lot of things behind the scenes I fight in he fighting good

But that moment I think can be different Why, you didn't have a corner for that fight? Yeah, because I left from shoot box. Yeah. And I catch one guy from Jitsu, one guy for boxing, one guy for physical training. He puts these guys in my corner to teach me another fight like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the same corner all of my life.

In that moment, I changed. But right now I have my old guys again. I will love to have a real match against church. Two last things. Does it bother, like when you're doing the press conference and Chales taking his shoe and comparing his shoe, like, does this drive you nuts? How do you react to this? Yeah. The true.

The true. The true. I don't go into the press conference because I don't want to be like a crazy cyber. I can take off the teeth of the girl. Because, man, when I saw this guy, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know. And I don't want to make, I'm professional, but that moment is different. Yeah.

This guy, no, I don't want to do something I don't want to do before the fight, but when I saw him, I don't know what can happen. Wow. Everything can happen. I don't know. So you're legitimately afraid that if you see him face to face, you're going to do something that could jeopardize the fight.

Man, see, he's doing for me. What he's doing with me here in Brazil? Man, like what my daddy say, with a man, you can't play. And now it's two weeks, just two weeks. Two weeks till you're going to have what I have for you. Less, 12 days, less than two weeks. 12 days, 12 days, exactly, 12 days.

And I hope you'll be better because, man, against Tito, you are terrible. Feel come to fight for me. Because he's a good talk, you know? Commentary is good. but man, to fight, man, since you know, train, you have more 12 days.

12 days, go run, maybe to have a cardio because I'm going to be too so bad. When do you come here? When do you fly to New York? Sunday, Monday. Monday.

Sunday, Sunday. Okay, so anyone concerned that the fight was in jeopardy, that you were not feeling well? You're all good. You're fighting. It's going down June 24th. I'm great, man.

I'm great like never before. Wow. Well, that is great to hear. Thank you so much, Vandrelay. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you to your lovely wife as well for setting this up. I really appreciate it. And safe travels to New York.

And I'll see you over here as you prepare for June 24th. Thank you. See you guys inside the cage, guys. Hey, my name is still. He's back. Bye. 12 days away from Bellator's first pay-per-view at MSG and just their second in their history.

This is big-time stuff. Best card in their history, no doubt about it. And even Scott Coker himself said that he thinks it's the best card of the year as far as paperview is concerned. We could talk about that a little later on. Obviously, he's going to say that. He is the promoter. But there are certainly some interesting fights,

and it is headline by Chale-Sunnan versus Van der Leis Silva, the return to the Axeman. The last time Van Raleigh Silva fought was on Fuel TV. That's how long ago it was. Fuel TV against Brian Stan, who's now retired. That's how long ago it was. Crazy. All right, 12 days away.

Hopefully it remains intact. And it's going down just a few minutes from here at the Mecca, the world's most famous arena. Okay. A lot of you wanted to hear from him last week. That couldn't happen. He was flying home. He was in the air as we were on the air. and by now you've probably seen the amazing reception he received from the locals, the airport in Honolulu back home in Wainai.

We are now talking to the brand new undisputed UFC featherway champion, the one and only Max Holloway joins us. Via the magical Skype. There he is. Max, not from your usual location with the Paw Patrol. Where are you at? Yeah. I'm at a hotel. What?

My hotel. I was like, I got to bring my laptop. So, yeah, we're in a hotel right now. In Hawaii? In Hawaii, yeah, we had a, we had a little, I had to do all kind of stuff in town this weekend.

So I was like, I'm just going to bring my, I'm just going to bring my laptop with me, so I'm not rushing home and fighting traffic. I appreciate it very much. I know there's a ton going on in your life. And so it means a lot that you would come on. I know it's early over there.

How would you describe this past week? From landing in the airport and, and seeing those people there and just everything that's happened since the fight. I know you had some kind of like big party yesterday in honor of you. What has it been like? Has it been surreal?

Oh, man. It's been amazing, man. You guys saw the video, but what did you guys see was like right off the plane I had a homecoming and there was a lot of people there. I was tripping out there. And when we went to the baggage claim,

there was a lot of people there. I was like, holy shit. What is going on? You know, and then we went to wine and you guys saw the big video that's the one that the zoom out and stuff like and then man i love it man you know and we just yesterday me and my for me and my boy yancey madaris they made that um that wine night parade like i said i don't know if you saw that video but it used i said 60 days but the congress lady told me it actually usually takes 90 days to do a parade

and get all like the pass they get all the bills pass and whatever and all the safety stuff they got the parade done in two days for me and yeah so it's amazing man you know like you said we had a party a lot of people came out to the party too so man I'm just I'm just blessed man I'm excited to you know about the time to be alive you know it's welcome to the blessed era I guess

it was a big deal when you won the the interim belt and I know you treated that as winning the official title but is it safe to say that this is bigger oh oh man this is way huge you know you know the interim title, it meant a lot, you know. But at the end of the interim title was just my secured spot, you know, it was my, it was just no more, like, it was not no more someone telling me, hey, you got the next title

shot, and then you don't get it. You know, the intro was like, you know, that's what the interim, everybody's like, oh, Dana's giving out these belts, these titles and whatever. He's like, no, he's doing his job. And for us fighters, the interim is great. You know, the interim was great for me. Yeah, it was never against the belt, you know, I always want, you know, the undisputed belt is cool. And, uh, but at the end of the day, I want the undisputed career like I told you, you know, I want to be one of the best.

I want to be one of the goats. But, you know, things that came with the interim belt, you know, like the money wise, you know, the support. And then, and then, of course, the guaranteed title shot, you know, so the people of fans don't get. This is a guaranteed title shot you get to have after, you know, there's no more line jumping, no more skipping, no more being like, hey, you know what? We said you, but, you know, this fight, we're going to go at this fight. You know, the interim was great end, but the undisputed is something else, you know, man. it's something else. I tell you that much.

And being able to do what I did against Aldo was a fun time, man. How many times have you watched the fight? I watched it a couple times, a little bit times. I was trying to break the out. I wanted to see what people was going to try and do to me with the first two rounds. You know, that first two rounds was just planting seeds. A lot of people would be like, hey, it's not the same match we used to seeing, you know. But, you know, different fights.

You know, you got to approach in different ways. and Aldo is one of the greatest. And, you know, we had to approach him different. You know, I never really fought it. Just like everybody, everybody's from the outside end. You're like, oh, Max is looking different, this and that, blah, blah. It's, like I said before, I'm going to say it again, man. These guys playing checkers.

I'm out here playing chess, you know. When they figure it out, it's too late. So you laugh at all these people who say, oh, you were down 02 and you were starting slow, you were nervous. That was all part of the plan, what we saw. Yeah, you know, it would be, it would be. silly, you know, I kid. People tell me, oh, you get nervous. I get nervous. If I fire to tell you, you know, nervous, that's lies. But it's like that Mike Tyson thing, you know, every time you, I'm the most nervous in the back when they're telling you, oh, you know, five minutes, you know,

10, 10 minutes, five minutes, okay, it's time to make the walk. But once I'm making that walk, it's like Mike Tyson said, man, you know, you get your nervous, you nervous, you nervous, but you just keep your confidence keep going, confidence you keep going, just like Mike Tyson. I feel untouchable. I feel like a God in there, you know, and, and our game, and I really knew our game plan was going to work, you know, there's enough tape. And, you know, all those, all those, he's one of the greatest ever, you know, but it's just time for new era, you know, it's time for the new wave of guys, you know, us young guys is coming up and, and we're proving it. And we're showing to the world that we're here to stay, we're taking over, you know,

like I said, you know, MMA is a forever evolving, you know, you either evolve with the sport or you get left behind, you know, so I'm trying to lead the pack, I'm trying to sprint, and everybody telling me, like, oh, why is Max not doing this, that and that? Like, look, guys, it's not three-round fight. You know, it's not. a sprint, you know, I got five rounds now. And, uh, and, and the guy likes to fade later. So, you know, it's just, you know, drawn him slowly. I thought it was interesting in the post-fight press conference when you said that you knew you had him when you were kind of taunting him and he did nothing back. What prompted you to do that then? Like, well, why did you do it in that moment?

I, I was doing it in that moment because, uh, when I was, when I was putting my hand on it and stuff, every time I put it, he'd shut it down. He'd throw something. He'd do something reactive. and every time I, every time I, in the beginning rounds and I fainted at him, he was jumping back. I had this big motions from him and, and he was countering super fast on certain things I was doing. And then when I started doing the regular stuff and he wasn't countering as fast or he wasn't even countering at all, as I was just telling myself, I told myself, I told myself, I told myself in that two minutes, in the second round at the ending, I told myself, he's not, he's not firing. It's like, it's time to talk.

I was like, let's taunt, let's see if he cracks me. And I taunted him. And I hold my hands up for a couple seconds, and he didn't do nothing. I was like, okay, I'm going to do it again. And he did nothing. I was like, man, he just kind of won't want to fight, you know. Like I said before, I'm going to go out there until you want to give up. You know, he opened the door.

I just hold his hand. I walked him to him and said, you know, thank you for the fight, you know. But it's blessed every time. You actually, and this received a lot of praise, you felt compelled to go on Instagram and write something about him and give him respect. Why did you feel the need to do that? I felt the knee because people keep fucking trying to tarnish and take this guy away. You know, this guy, man, this guy, you guys got to understand, man.

What this guy did for all the little guys, you know, it's like, you know, there's a couple guys is a pioneer of these, of our small guys, you know, it's like, you when you think of like the 35, 45, 45 class, you know, who built it, you know, you think, you think, you know, Dominic, you think, and then you think Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo been the greatest, like I said, I've been watching this guy says I was 17. I think so he won the belt. I forget when he won the belt in WC, but he's at the top of this level.

I'm 25 now, you know, that's a long-ass time. And people keep talking about how, you know, 13 seconds this. I'm like, it happens. It's fighting. You know, you got caught. You know, it wasn't like, it just happens, you know. And then even with my fight and stuff, like, oh, you know, it's not the same. It's funny because everybody keeps, like, you know, the educated people,

to educated fans and you guys, you guys say, look, it was the great Jose Aldo. And then you guys figure it out, like, oh, Max is just, you know, playing a game. And then I got the fight. But people keep trying to kick a man when he's down, you know, and say, saying one fight, it's so hard, you know. Like, let's go to basketball, you know. Let's talk about LeBron them, you know. Like, look at LeBron them. They're down, you know, three to one right now.

And people's like, I don't see even people bashing them or anything or turning around. That's exactly what, like, MMA is the hardest sport with fans-wise, I think, you know. They just, man, they're so quick to jump on. jump on, you know, like it's, it's just, it's not even fans, it's us too, you know, is the way we push out certain things or whatever, out there in the media, even with fans or whatever, but I just think so the man deserves respect, you know, at the end of the day, he deserves a lot of respect because what he did, you know, it's just, this last two fights you cannot, all the grades got losses, everyone has losses,

you know, with the exceptions of only John Jones, you know, that's the only exception, I think, you know, that won losses or whatever, but at the end of the next martial arts, anything can happen. It's not just one aspect on sport. It's called mixed martial arts for a reason. There's a bunch of stuff. You got to respect a man to do what he did. And it was just probably me the wrong way.

I said a lot of stuff before the fight. I said a lot of stuff leading up to the fight. By the other day, it's his business. I'm here to promote. I'm here to get minds. But when we fight, it's all sitting done. I respect everybody. It takes a lot of balls to go step in there with someone to fight and get out there.

So even at the smallest stage, if you go step in there, I respect you, but at the end of the day, this is one of the goats of all times. He's the greatest of all times. And there's nothing to take away from the guy. And I felt like a lot of people was trying to take away from him. And that kind of was rubbing me in a wrong way. Respect you for that. After he didn't respond at the end of the second,

your taunts, did you know going into the third, this is my time to strike? I got him. Yeah, man. I wish, I don't know who would get it, but I know the camera audio. They have to have it. It has to be on. I thought they would have put it on the trail and agony, or they're going to put it on something.

But you're going to watch. Watch when the corner audio comes out. Like I had it on my coach Rylen, not Ivan, and Ivan was the one always in front of me, so he couldn't really hear me. But after the second round, I remember Big John coming over, and he was like telling me,

he's like, he told Rob our cut man, he's like, he got a cut in his eye, check that. And then I told him, I looked at him, I looked at him, don't worry. I looked at Rob, don't worry, and I looked at Big John. Don't worry, Big John. the fight starts now. The fight starts now.

I watched. And then I was like, I'm starting now. And then they left. And even at the ending, when my coach then was walking out for the second round to start the third round, my coach in the back of me, Ryan Lazarus is telling me something. And I told him, I looked at him and I said, no worries. It's starting now. I'm going now.

And then, you know, it was just, you know, I got going and everything worked. When they put the belt around you, how would you describe that? I mean, I'm sure you've dreamt of that moment before being crowned the champion. What did it feel like? Oh, man, I can't put into words, you know, I can't put it to words. I was tripping out. And I gave a bunch of people was giving Bruce shit and Bruce Buffer. And I kind of tripped that too because Bruce announced end now.

Yeah. I didn't get my end news. I told Bruce, I saw Bruce later on in the night. I told Bruce, Bruce, the next one, you need to say end new. and still, just so I can just hear you say I knew, you know? But it was fun, man. It was crazy. I came at the emotions was crazy.

You know, I knew how much it meant to my family and me and all of Hawaii or even the world. I knew how it meant to them to see me get the intro, you know. So when I got that one, it was this, when I got the undisputed, it was just amazing. You know, I was just imagining Hawaii going off with fireworks again. I was like, this is great, this is a cool thing. And I can't explain it, man. It's something that you got to experience yourself. And you also shortly thereafter, I mean, you were very vocal saying, you know, Dana, you said this was big game hunting.

Now I want mine. This is the biggest. And all that. Can you elaborate on that? Why did in that moment, and even as you were walking by Press Row, where you, I mean, you were very animated. You were very fired up. You're like, I want to get paid now. Why did you feel the need to do that then?

You know, that's when everyone's listening. Everybody's listening. Everybody's listening. Everybody wanted to see what stuff. But at the end of the day, you know, Dan White figures it out, you know. Dan White is the man. You know, he always, he always figures it out. You know, he, we give him situations and he goes and solve him. So, you know, I can't wait.

You know, that's what it is because, you know, we sat down and he told me, you know, this big game hunting kid. He was like, it's a big game hunting. You bring in big kills. You cash in the big paycheck. So he told me, so I was like, you know what? He's listening. He's probably watching the fight now, so I don't want to text him.

I would just go, you know, I'll have a bunch of 100 media outlets texting them and everybody tweeting them. So that's how it was. But, you know, Dana gets it done. He's the man. You know, he always figures out a way and we're going to figure out a way. Did you feel like you were underpaid for this fight? No, no, you know, it is what it is. We, we had a contract set.

We know what it did. I signed the dial line. I know what I was fighting. And it is what it is. You know, if I felt like I was underpaid, I would have been crying and fussing about it. But you know what I mean? I'm here and I want to work for everything I earn. I want to be like, damn, this guy earned it.

You know, this earned it. You know what? And so I said, that's why I didn't, that's why I didn't blink an eye, you know, or battery or whatever that's saying is, it's when I got the contract in Rio to fight this guy in his hometown. You know, I didn't care. You know, I knew I was the best. and my team knew I was the best. I had to go out there and show it why I was the best.

So we're out there. We got it done and it was just a good time. So nine days later, have you talked to Dana yet? Not yet. You know, we're trying to, my management, we didn't talk on anything. My management is sending something up. I'm sure we're going to have a sit down. I'm sure we're going to figure this out.

And I'm sure I'm going to get back in there. So I can't wait, you know. I just can't wait. You know, the division is under new management, you know. We're hoping 24-7, seven days a week, you know. It's the only place you can come, walk in, you can come, come see me. You're going to leave. You can leave with a smile.

You can take that L with you, you know. And look, if you want to come back again, that's going to be two else for you. So it's going to be a great time. I hope that you get that brunch because you've been pushing for brunch with Dana. So I want you to get that brunch. I don't want you to get like any other meeting. I want brunch. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I want brunch too. Yeah, the last time we had was brunch. The last meeting we had was during brunch, and that was a great meeting. I think so. That's the only way to keep it going. Let's have brunch again. Let's have another great one.

So who do you think, I mean, Frankie Edgar was on the show last week. He says he should be the guy, as you know, Cub Swanson has been pushing. It seems like it's down to those two. Who do you think it will be in? Do you have a preference? You know, at the end of the day, you know,

I fight anybody. You know, I don't care. I just, I really want to sit down with Dana on my management first, we'll go figure that out. But at the end of the day, like I said, man, you guys know I'm a fighter. You know I'm a fighter. You know, I'm fight anybody.

You know, I'm not over here racing to my division. I'm cleaning it out. And like I said before, I'm going to sit again. If I didn't fight you, get ready. Get ready. Get ready because I'm coming. And if I did fight you, get emotionally ready because you know what's going to happen again, you know?

So it is what it is. You know, storm's coming and I'm here. I'm not dodging anybody. You know, I wanted to, I fought one of them. them and I wanted to fight one of the other guy before so I just want to sit down with Dana first we sit down with Dana we'll figure out our situation and then we see what UFC want to do you know there's a bunch of things that adds up you know I want I want Hawaii so hopefully we can get that done too is it important for you to bring back some normalcy and some continuity to the division

you know we keep you know it's been a thing where guys win a belt and they want to move up or they take time off and you seem to say like I want to fight everyone come on I'm the king of 145. Is that important to you to kind of make the division go again? Yeah. Yeah, that is important to me. You know, that's what I want to do, you know? Yeah. Some people, they always trying to do other things, but not me. You know, everybody trying to, everybody trying to be copycats in this game and be like, oh, I got this belt. Let me go to this. Let me do that. It's like, it's like, why, you know? I'm a king, you know, I'm a king. And when a king leaves his village, he can get overthrown.

And when he comes back, then it's tucking. I'm not, I'm not that type of guy. I'm going to stay right here. I'm going to defend my throne. And if you want to fight the best, come fight blessed. It's as simple as that. If you want to fight the best, come fight bless. You know, I'm here for a reason. And I want to defend my throne.

I want to be the most defense. You know, I want a bunch of belts. I want to, I was telling Demetius is down here. I was talking, Demetri, you took the picture all wrong, bro, with your 10 belts. He's like, what? What do you mean? I was like, I would have laid my ass down and covered myself in him and be like, all gold, everything.

It's a golden shower, you know, a good one. Not one of those bad ones that you guys think about. But yeah, yeah, you know, that's what I want to do. I want pictures like that. You know, that's history. You know, I want to make history. And I want to do it that way. You know, I defend and prove to everybody, you know,

because there's a bunch of people that keep yapping. Like, oh, this guy, this, this like that. It's the same guys who keep saying that I couldn't hang with the top 10, who said I couldn't hang out top five. And when I got to all this said, I couldn't hang with him. So like I said before, I'm going to tell you guys again, You guys keep focusing on who's next. Because after I beat whoever you guys tell me I can't beat,

I want to hear more excuses so I can just keep showing and just be like, you know, whatever. But at the end of the wagon is here, you know, and we're here with open arms. I'll walk you guys through it. You can hold your hand. Hawaii is great. The weather is great. And hopefully you'll see why it can happen because we need one from here. Honestly, now you came in as a 19 year old.

You started your UFC career three and three. Now you have 11 wins in a row. You're 25. You're tied with Cody Garbrand, youngest champion in the UFC. Did you believe that this would all happen to you this soon? No, you know, I thought it was going to happen much sooner. Oh. But it happened.

That's just the confidence I had. You know, I wanted to beat, I wanted to beat John Jones record. Aldo O'Do Z, 23, right? I wanted to beat his record. But that's just the type of person I am. You know, I wanted to beat these guys. If you're in the UFC or whatever you do, you know, even yourself, Ariel, if you're doing this, you know, if you're not trying to be the best podcast person in the world, then why how are you doing it? You know, why are you doing it?

I'm trying to beat, I was trying to be the best guy from when I was 19, when I was 20, when I went against Dustin Poir. But everybody always forget, they take successes this nice level, you know, this nice level. It does. Success is up and down, go crazy. I had certain fights that and times that happened in my life for a reason. And that's what I believe, you know. Some people, they hit a wall and they fought on, they back down. I hit a wall.

I get back up, hit a wall again. I got back up. I climbed the wall. I tried to run through the wall, whatever, you know. I figured out a way. And it's just a self-confidence, like I said, I wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to just be in the crowd and be like, oh, cool, man. I'm a UFC fighter. No, no, I want to be the face of the UFC.

I want to be the one that 30 years from now. People was talking about me, talking about, damn, that was a great champion. That was a great fighter. and I just always want to stick out like a sore thumb, you know, and anything I ever did, you know. If it comes to, like, sometimes, like, you know, when we're walking, I always try walk in front of my friends. I always try to beat them to the door.

I'm just competitive. You know, they don't know it, but I keep that little wins in my mind. I'm like, I open the door first, bro. So what's up? Just a couple more things that I'll let you go. And again, thank you so much for the time. How close are we, in your opinion, to Hawaii? How do you, like, I just see this, the excitement.

They're really rallying behind you. why can this happen next for your next fight? Or could it happen? Ah, man, you know, we see, we see. That's why we got to talk to Dana. But we had a, we had page from PR down here. Yeah. And she told me when we did our homecoming,

she told me she never saw nothing like this. Nothing. She saw like, though, she went to a bunch of champions homecomings and it was never like what they saw in Hawaii. So I think so that's a big help. I think so that's helping a lot. I think it can happen. Yancey did his thing that night.

We got my boy, Russell Don, coming next week. We got a couple of Hawaiians that I just saw is going to be on the contender show in July, on July 11th.

And we got a bunch of Hawaiians. Shit, we can make on a Hawaiian card right now and how much Hawaiians we got in the UFC, you know? It's like, I don't know what it is.

I think so it comes down to the state purpose, the state-wise. We have a one-man commission here that's really not being cooperative at all. So we need, I think so. I think so they tried to change it before

but I think so it might have changed now but hopefully man Hawaii I deserve this you know Hawaii has been for it's been talking about when BJ was doing it and there's only BJ there's only one guy you know and and he had his belt

there's only one guy in his belt now we have now today we have one guy in his belt and like seven or eight other Hawaiians that's ready to go so and seven and eight other Hawaiians is doing the damn thing in UFC too so I can't wait man

The future is bright I think it's gonna happen And you know Just make sure you bring his sunscreen When you come down here I wouldn't want you be red like a lobster I know This big nose

It would be a problem Can you be more popular in Hawaii Than BJ Pen was Do you think that that's You're on track To be a bigger name In your home country Or in your home state than him

We see You know I don't know You know right now I'm getting I'm getting Do you feel like you are already I

I don't You know I feel that I think so, you know, at the end of the day, like I said before, you know, I'm not here to be BJ Penn. I'm not over here to compare our legacy or whatever. I'm here to be Max Holloway and I'm here to be me and myself and build my own legacy. You know, like I said, I always tell everybody, he set this bar. You know, and bars is always meant to be broken, you know, and I'm coming for it. And then the next guy, the next kid's out here that I'm telling them, I'm like, look, guys, I'm setting this bar.

I don't want you guys to be me. We don't need another me. We don't need another Yancey. We don't need another Russell, Kylie and Curran, Brad Tavares. We need another you. We're setting these bars so you can't. I dare you to beat it. Beat me.

And if you beat me, I applaud to you, you know? But keep trying. You know, don't cut yourself short, man. You got we or woman, whatever, boy or girl. If you want to do something, go be the greatest is that. You know, don't need to be copycats, you know. You can have idols and you can have people here and there that motivate you to be great. but you know don't be me I already got me you know I'm doing me just well nobody's

nobody can be better than better at you than you you know so so go do that you know I I don't know how it is I'm getting a crazy-ass reception here in Oahu and all of Hawaii it's it's crazy like a lot of people never watched the UFC fight in their life I guess here and I've been a bunch of fans here that told me oh I never I never watched the UFC ever until that's last fight because of all the all the all the promo and stuff there's doing out here in Hawaii. So it feels great. I think so it's growing and I think so we're getting closer to the USA Hawaii. So that's all that matters. What do people say to you in Wainai? Because it's been well documented that it's kind of

a tough part of Hawaii. Do you get a lot of people that come up to and say like you give me hope you're a role model for my son. He talks about you. Like did you get that kind of stuff? And if so, how do you how do you internalize that? How do you react to that? It feels great. You know, I got I got like grandmas and grandpas that cry to me. Wow. That's wild. They come to cry, they hug me and crying and telling me thank you for what you're doing. I got little kids that tell me, you know, like small kids like, yeah, you know, I want to be this. I want to be a fighter just like you or where I want to go play baseball.

And I tell them it's great, you know. And the thing is, I like talking to Wynet or whatever because I told them all the time whenever I go talk to the Wynet Kids or whatever. It's like, I remember when I was seven, eight grade and we had career day and people would come and they would tell us, oh, you can. do this, this and that. But they wouldn't get it. You know, they didn't know how they're, like, there wasn't from why. And I didn't, like, I didn't have my dad, you know, I, I'm sorry with the sad, it's not a really sad story.

I had my grandma and grandpa, they raised me well. You know, my mom was on drugs. She's clean and sober now, but they didn't know. So when people would come and talk to me and tell me I could do something, I was like, you have no idea. You don't know what we're doing here. And then when I go talk to the kids, I can tell them, look, look, you got to listen to me now because I know exactly what you're going to.

I did it. I sat in this damn classroom. One of my teachers, a couple of my teachers did work at the school. Wow. And I'm like, ask these guys. I was a hot-haired kid at 7-8 grade. I thought the world was against me or whatever. But it's like what I told all these kids.

It's not how you start the race. It's how you finish and finish strong and keep driving, you know. And I tell them all the time, if I listen to people who told me that I couldn't do, who I couldn't be here, then I would be just like them. You know, I'd be hating on another person's dream. You know, when somebody tell me I can't do stuff, I just tell them, watch me. Watch me and work hard, and you guys can do it. And when kids tell me like, oh, this and that, it gives you a warm feeling inside.

You know, even grandmas and grandpas, it gives you a warm feeling thinking like, man, you know, I'm doing something right. You know, at the end of the day, you know, I want this underspirred career and all this thing for UFC. But if I could change one person's life, that's what life is all about, changing, making it, making it better than when you left this world, you know? Do you still talk to your mom? Oh, yeah, I live on my mom. My mom is good. She was supposed to come to the last fight. Yeah, I live in my, yeah.

My mom been cleaning sober for maybe 10 years, maybe more. I have no idea. But, yeah, I think the story is when my mother, like, that's why I loved her. You know, my dad just went away and, like, he popped in on my life here and there, you know. But my mom, you know, she was like, even though when she was doing all that stuff, she had stood enough to know that, like, you know, my kids come first. And she made sure we was okay with my grandma and grandpa. And my biggest role models is my mom, my grandma and my grandpa, because they did a lot of stuff.

You know, I love my grandma, my grandpa, my grandpa always instilled hardworking to us. And my grandma and my grandpa always made sure, you know, we wasn't an extravagant life, but I wasn't a poor life either, you know. I had a roof over my head. I had three hot meals a day. They made sure they gave me clothes. I had all my stuff for school that I needed, or if we played a sport, I had all the things that I needed. They always gave me just enough and my grandpa always made sure that, like, you know, if you want stuff, just go work hard, you know, hard work, hard work and nobody's going to deny it.

What about your dad? Like, has he resurving? My dad. Now that you're a super guy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, he'd been here and there. Like, he'd been in him all my life, like, like, way before this. Like, he's been here and there, whatever.

I love the guy, but, you know, it is what it is. He had a time in my life and he stood there. He stood my father. You know, I'm always going to respect him. You know, you guys always respect the person that, you know, gave him in the world, that bring you into this world. But at the end of the day, you know, there's a lot that I owe to my mother, my grandma, and my grandpa, and I love them three dearly and a bunch of my aunties

and uncles, you know. Growing up in Hawaii, it's all about family and Ohana. And I got my aunties and uncles, my grandma's grandma's grandma's, my family had nothing but great for me. So it's awesome. When do you want to fight again? You know, you know me. I want to fight. I love fighting.

I love fighting. So I just want to, like I said, going back to talking with Dana, I know we're going to figure it out. I want to figure that stuff out first, you know. And then we can figure out after that, you know. Hopefully, hopefully the Hawaii card could happen. If it happens this year, that would be amazing. You know, it would be so amazing, I think. But if it doesn't, there's a couple, I don't know,

know when the cards is, but I want to figure out, see what happens. And we go from there, you know, maybe, maybe, uh, I just want to fight. Hopefully we can fight, um, before Thanksgiving. I hate giving up Thanksgiving, man. It's very tough for the last couple of it. And then your boy getting bigger. So it's getting a little bit more, more, more, more harder to start eating. So, uh, uh, we see what happens. I'll, I'll fight whatever, you know, we're going to talk, we shit, you know, And I know the ending of the year card is always huge too. So I don't know, man. To be honest, it's either I want to fight in Hawaii or Vegas.

All right. You know, the Knight Island. I want to fight in the Night Island. They got us Hawaiian's called Vegas the Night Island or I want to fight home, man. You know, it's like they've been sending me all over the damn place my last couple of fights. The last two fights was Canada. I love Canada. Don't get me wrong.

And it was Brazil. But it's time to just take one flight. I just want to take one flight and be happy. Do you think you will fight Connor again? at some point? Man, you know, we see what happened. I asked you this. I've been asking everybody who asks me this, you know, like, I don't, you know,

it's hard to, like, that guy gets to choose whoever he wants to fight, you know. So I don't want to even, this guy not even talking about MMA, so I don't feel like we should be even talking about him. All right. But at the end of the day, I'll ask you this. If you got paid 50 or 75 million, would you come back to mixed martial arts after that? It's tough. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. It's very tough. I have no idea why he would come back. But, you know, if he's up to his team, Dana, like I said, Dana get stuff done. You know, they know my number. They know Brian Butler's number, my sucker punch entertainment. And if they want to fight, they can fight. But, you know, at the end of the day, we got other guys that's in here, that's in MMA,

that's talking about MMA. They're talking about wanting to fight me. So we're going to figure stuff out And we take one step at a time And finally, how are you going to top these suits? Somehow you top Toronto How are you doing this? Where are you getting these?

We talked about it a little bit But these, like how do you top this now? Now that you're the champ, this is going to be expensive. You know, that's why you go get you You go get you a badass sponsor. Todd Goldsmith, Customs. Todd Goldsmith's customs.

He's on Instagram. I tag him all the time. If you guys want a badass suit, go to him he always been hooking me up man he's been hooked me he's been taking care of me since uh... ninety nine usually one ninety nine and uh... where's he from like i say he's been coming through where's he's from he's from virginia okay okay yeah virginia where'd you find him yeah he's from my management oh my management is from virginia all right yeah man a rich man they're from richmond so they're sick godsman he'll yeah he won't let you

down and then the ties is um it's hex ties and uh you know i i i got a couple ideas what the next So there's a couple more shiny ones that I want to use. So the ties is fun. You know, it's a new era. Blessera. Bring it in with the bless era. It would be fun. What's this Moscova on your shirt?

I know the alien wear over there, but what's Moscowva? Oh, Moscova is one of my sponsors. One of my main sponsors are now, clothing sponsors. Moscova.com, check them out. We just got a bunch of, we just got a bunch of, they made my shirt, the Lord to the Max shirts for the last fight. And then they just made, they were dropping a white. A white champion shirt.

So, yeah, hit me in my DM. I'll send you one. I'll send you a couple shirts over for you, you, I appreciate it. You need to get an assaye sponsor, too. I have an obsession with ASEO. Holy shit. Not Brazilian ASEI is the best.

I appreciate this American ASEA. I'm excited you just got. No. It's like a drug, right? Oh my gosh, bro. Bro. I'll tell you right now, bro. Yeah.

I was not joking. Bro. I, okay. Okay. This is the story. All right. So my fat ass doing Fight Week, I can't eat like how I used to eat before because your boy is growing up and becoming a man, I guess, you should say. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm with Yancey who stepped up a weight class so he can eat now. And these guys, they ate about 17 or 18 asciboes during the week, right? Yeah, yeah. I only could, I only had two days to eat asciboes after the weigh-ins. and I caught up with them That's just it's how good it was I ate 17 damn asai bowls at least And it was great

But but you gotta It's a couple of the side bowls in there Was like aside milkshakes If you didn't try that That is like I think God like God kind of like touched it Yeah I agree

It's amazing And then you add And then you add but what I've been eating Is you gotta add potter milk Okay And add cashews But do not have it on the side They give it to you on the side

No, I'm asking to blend that shit in for you. Because it on the side is like too much work. Yeah, yeah. I just want to just fucking dig in, you know? What about granola? That's what we did. I dig in and, uh, no, I, bro. No granola.

All right. It's powder milk and cashews for me, bro. But I just found out in Hawaii, there's a place that they bring it in from Brazil. Aside, so I just got a place on, like I said, man. I'm blessed, man. Does it taste the same, though? I'm blessed everywhere I go. Does it taste the same?

What is that? Does it taste the same? It tastes the same? It tastes the same? It tastes like it. It tastes like, this is like, this guy was like explaining me his life story and telling me how he has his farm in Brazil with his aside farm and he bring it down or whatever. And you can tell, bro, like, oh, my, bro, Brazil, Brazilian, you guys are lucky. Yeah.

I'm going to say something like one of my friends. Like, Yancey was one of the great places because Yancy up there is like, Yancey is crazy, man. Yancey is so funny. He'd be like, Brazil, I'm going to miss you. And he puts like aside. he's like you put the aside bowl and he puts a peach for booty that's all you see up there

is women and a side it's hilarious, it's a good time man I love you real love you Brazil it's been good real I'm happy that you share that because when I went there in 72 hours I had seven I can't beat what you did but it's just

it's amazing to me how different it tastes from the United States you have the ones here and it tastes completely it's like not even close it's not even on the same level it ruins it yeah it totally ruins it Hey very very quickly last thing Everyone talks about with other, you know, like with Holly Home, we know who her team is. John Jones, Connor, we know, but I feel like we don't give enough credit to your team as well.

Who are your coaches? Tell the world who's your corner, who coaches you? Because I feel like that doesn't get talked about enough. Yeah, yeah. I got the best coaches in the world. I know we can prove it. We've got a belt to prove it. So, you know, my, my head coaches is Ryan Lissori, Gracie Technics, Ivan Flores, Legacy

see Muay and Darren, yeah, over at tactical shooting and conditioning. He's the one

that's getting your boy big that guy always making me suffer and stuff. And then Michael Nakagawa he helps me

my wrestling but yeah, for those guys man, four of those guys beast man, Ritalin Luzard's them and

Ivan and, you know, there's always a saying that I always said, you know, it's always better to have a

four-headed dragon than one, right? So it's great to put their together and we get we get stuff done you know we get stuff done it has it been showing you know it's been showing you know people want to talk about game plans and training and getting preparing for a fight you know come watch me come watch me do it come watch our game plans you guys gonna see you know and

uh i know i know i know your buddy luke thomas i'm gonna be on a show a little bit later on but uh you know he had some of the best breakdowns of my fight like i like i like i kind of i'm going to tell him, stop watching my fights because he's giving away too much, too much information already. But, uh, but, uh, but for real, man, you know, this guys, uh, we take a lot of time. We take this serious. Like I said, I want to be one of the best fighters, uh, in the world. And, and those, and you only as good as, uh, as the people behind you, know, and I got, I got the best coaches. I got great teammates. And, uh, we're on the same mission. And we all know where we want to go, you know? I, I told him when I first got, got with

Ryland and then, Ryland is, Rilin lazare's is, is one of the main guys, man. He, uh, When I came over to him, he kind of like, I told him what I want to do. We had a talk. And then he kind of just, you know, it was me and Dustin Kimura at the time. And he built a team around me and Dustin. Wow. Like he would go out. He found Ivan.

He's the one sent me to Darren Yap. And yeah, and he would like, you know, we do research on whenever we did stuff, he would always reach out to other coaches, reach out to other people to try to get them in to come work with us. But if they didn't, the thing that I loved about our team is like, If I got to mimic someone, no matter if in the rounds, if I'm getting my ass whooped, I'm going to try to stick to mimicking that guy instead of trying to go back to my style. And but, you know, Rand Lazarus and Ivan and Darren is, I got to thank these guys a lot. You know, they come together.

They make a game plan and we go out there and I just got to do my job come fighting. The proof, as they say, is in the SAI. The success speaks for itself. I like that. I'm very happy for you. I've taken up way too much of your time, so I'll let you go. Max, thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations to you and the team and your family. It's an amazing thing to watch. 25 years young, 11 in a row. You are killing it, my man. And, you know, really, really impressed.

As I said, I'm still in awe of what you've done as of late, and especially against someone like Aldo. So enjoy it. Happy to see all the love that you are receiving over there, the aloha and the Oana and the Mahalo's and everything. It's a beautiful thing. And I hope that they do give you that event in Hawaii soon rather than later. Thank you, Max. Thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you, brother. Don't forget to DM me, bro.

And follow me on Twitch. Twitch.tv, Backslaps, bless M.A. I will play some games. And if you guys want to get whooped in Rainbow Six, come see me. All right. Later, guys. Take care, Max.

There he is. The reigning, defending UFC. Featherway champion, the one and only Max Holloway. That was incredible stuff. Just amazing. I am so impressed by that young man. He is 25 years young. And I could have asked him an hour

worth of questions still. And he's got a kid, he's got a wife. I mean, the guy is just, he's mature beyond, way beyond his age, and it's just amazing. It's amazing. Here's a comment from Jordan Hickling.

It's impossible not to love Max Holloway. Can you please change your occupation to podcast person? Love that comment. Great guy. Respect. He's awesome. Great stuff from Max Holloway.

Really appreciate his time. And I wish him the best. And that's going to be an interesting meeting. That's going to be an interesting meeting. I actually spoke to someone. I don't think he will mind. There's a man by the name of Rob DeMello. I believe I am pronouncing his name correctly.

He works for K-H-O-N in Hawaii, news guy over there. actually featured us on a broadcast last week. And he gave me some insight as to why they've had trouble in the past trying to book an event in Hawaii. He said that in the past, there was a crazy tax on MMA events, which actually precluded a lot of events from coming there and also hurt some existing organizations. But that's no longer an issue. Obviously, venue is an issue. We've heard that before.

Aloha Stadium is Hawaii's best venue. And with Hawaii fight fans being so close to Asia, he believes that they can draw a big number, but it's an outdoor stadium. And if you have a 10 p.m. main card, that would have to start at 4 p.m. The main card. Plus, with the weather a little bit unpredictable,

that could be an issue. And then there's an issue with Hawaii's state operated 10,000 plus seat arena. But this is the biggest issue of them all. There's an archaic right of first refusal to the city and county operated by the Blaisdale Center. That's where Pro Elite, Elite XC, some other events have held events, and that only holds 8,000. No frills, luxury boxes, things like that, built in 1969. and it's just not big enough for a big UFC event. So in short, there's a law that the Blaisdale Center gets the right of first refusal.

So if the UFC says, I want to go there, they could say, oh, well, we want the event. But they don't want to go to that event. So that does feel very archaic and could be a major stumbling block. Hopefully they figure it out, 10,000-seat arena for a title fight, not the greatest, but maybe they can figure it out and bring a smaller fight night feature. I don't know. You just, there's so much enthusiasm. And I believe if he continues to do this,

that he could be bigger than BJ Penn. I really do believe that. I asked Luke Thomas about this on the beat last week, and very cool of Max as well to give Luke a shout out. And I agree the breakdowns are phenomenal. But, I mean, think about it. 25 years young, champion already, 11 in a row. Why not?

Let's bring New York rick in now. Before we get to Rick's picks, see there? Yes. that's typically my cue so then you threw a monkey wrench go ahead no because i i just want to ask you this i mean we could have played the intro but that's not a crazy thought right i i think that because he's had a little more and bj came in young i'd have to look it up when how old was bj when he won his first bell do you even remember this i don't know how old but he was young he was he was in his 20s for sure obviously not younger than 23 uh i don't think so well because john jones was the youngest

And I don't think he beat BJ Penn's record. Let's see. BJ won... He won the... He won the Welterlater, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. He won the welter belt in January 31st, 2004. And he is born in December of 1978. So he's 26.

He was 26? Yeah. Okay, so a year older. He fought, I mean, he fought for the belt much earlier than that, as we know. But he didn't win until... Do you think Max Hallway can be bigger? Because I was actually asking some people about this. they're different people.

BJ has a different kind of swagger, different kind of backstory. He's got the history, you know, the quickest to get a black belt as far as American Jiu Jets or two practitioners. I mean, different. But I feel like also where he's from,

Max, where he's from, and how he carries himself and how he's getting more comfortable. If he continues this, if he goes on a, you know, two, three, four, five year run, I think he can be because BJ never had that really long run as champion.

Yeah. I think there's something special about BJ Penn that is hard to, to kind of capture or replicate. But if Max ends up becoming, you know, one of, if he's not already, the best featherweights of all time, I think that conversation starts to open itself up. I don't think we're at that point yet. But I think, and a Hawaiian MMA event, you know, a Hawaiian UFC event, rather, would really kind of push that in that direction, especially if he can pull off the win and he's headlining it, it would really push that in that direction.

for now I think you know the conversation is still about BJ when it comes to that but I do think it's possible and that's not something we would have necessarily been able to say a year, two years ago it's amazing

it's incredible I still feel like you have to figure it out when you have a guy who is being showered with such passion and love from a city, from a state, from a country these are dreams you know like when someone is from for example

If you're from California, it's not the same. There's so many fighters from California. It's hard to make that connection with the people and be their guy. But because there's so few coming out of Ireland, Hawaii, Montreal, when GSP was doing his thing. BJ back in the day, you have to try to capitalize on these moments. Steepay in Cleveland. Yep. You know, it's very important.

All right, great stuff there for Max Holloway. Holy smokes. He is so entertaining. What a beautiful hotel room that was. It was nice, yeah. You had the little, I don't know what that was. was a banjo or something. Is that a banjo?

That little guitar? The buddy on the couch. The buddy just like scrolling through something. Yeah. Sock getting, what's it called? Like twiddling his feet, his little socks. Yeah, it was great. But it was all white.

I just, you can kind of hear, I think, the beach in the background. It just, it felt like paradise. It really did. All right. It's time for everyone's favorite segment. It's time for Rickspix. Yeah. Yeah.

Someone said today that he hates when I talk during the theme. And so I'm going to talk more. Step on it. Come on. And his hair isn't a bun because it's, you already know what it is. Rick's picks. Ladies and gentlemen. I actually have to go to the bathroom pretty bad so I can't move as much because I feel like how many urinate on myself. It's a new crazy taking the world by storm.

Whoa. Wow. Wow. It's in beautiful New York City. It's time for Rick's Picks. Wow. Wow. That was some high-level stuff.

I got to give it up for Nick. Whoa. I didn't know we had that kind of production budget. Now, obviously, that one doesn't really fit with anything but the retro Ricks picks, that kind of fade. But well done. Listen, I liked it. I thought it worked. Perfect.

No, yeah, for this. But we couldn't do, let's say we couldn't do that to fade between Skype and our one shot with, you know, when you're talking to Vanderlae Sova. That fade doesn't work quite as well. Yes, you know, but it works for this. It works perfectly for this. I'm glad we could break it out. one thing I was going to say was Mike Heck is getting requests on Twitter

to make the ringtone for this so keep an eye out. I believe there's a ringtone coming. How do people, like how do you do, like how do you have no idea? Okay. No idea. No, no, no.

Like if I want a ringtone, obviously I would not choose this, but you buy it. Oh, you buy it and then what? Set it as your ringtone. Oh, I didn't. I've never done that before. I've never had,

I've never been a big fan of the, like if I like a song so much do I want to hear it every time someone calls me? No. If I like a song so much, do I want to hear it every time I wake up? No. So I've never been the kind of guy

who likes a song so much or a jingle that wants to now make it a consistent part of my life and use it as a ringtone, an alarm. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying? And also who in this day and age puts their phone on not silent, whatever the opposite of not silent.

is loud, on. You know what I mean? People who are not looking at their phone at every moment of every day. Yeah. You kind of want to know. If you're a public person and you're in a supermarket

or a restaurant and someone's phone rings, you want to smack that person in the face, right? No. Really? It's the reality of... No, you got to put that on vibrate.

Put that sh on vibrate. Movie theater, event like that. That's a big deal. You don't want the phone going off at the funeral. Well, that's even worse. Yeah. That's the worst defense of the... Church.

You don't want the phone going off at church. Church, synagogue. Sorry. You know, for our Jewish friends as well. Temple. Temple. You know. But supermarket, nah, that's okay.

I'm good with it. It's like we're not in your living room here. You're a stickler. You're a stickler. I am a stickler. Okay, let's get into it. All right. Because it segues, but we've, we've,

We've gone a bit away. But we're going back. We're going back to Hawaii. Okay. For Rick's picks number one. We're going to... Oh, there it is. Instagram.com slash blessed MMA.

Yeah. Guests of the show, Max Holloway, here. We talked about it. Now we're showing it. Max arriving. It's amazing. I mean, this is stuff that, like, gives you chills. Can I tell you what is my favorite part?

Sure. Max's manager, Brian Butler, actually pointed this out. There's a point here. You'll see it where Max, where Max goes back and gets Yancey. And, you know, let's be honest, this is happening because of Max. See, right there, he goes back and gets Yancey. He wants him to be able, he mentioned him a hundred times in the interview.

Yancey won the first, see, right there. Yancey won the opening of the main card. He's not getting this type of reception for that. But because he's linked with Max and because they're both from Hawaiian and made a lot of sense to put them on the same card, he got to take part and it's well deserved. And Max, I think, was, this is a nice little compilation, by the way. Max, I think was cognizant of the fact that he wanted him to be a part of it on.

I thought that was really cool. It says a lot about Max Holloway. And it also, yeah, and it's also representative of kind of what Max Holloway is all about in terms of not forgetting where he's from and who got him there. He's very much kind of true to that. And Yancey is a brother, a teammate. So he represents that in what he does. And the celebration is for both of them.

As he said, the parade is for both of that. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's incredible. He had a really cool video also of him arriving home. I think this was when he got off the shuttle at the airport, I think. Or maybe this is, no, this is, this is why not? Yeah, yeah, this is amazing. There was also the airport video.

With his son, right? I chose this one because it was the latest one. They've kind of been coming out over the last couple of days last week. So I chose this one. but there's so much incredible stuff and Hawaii really showed out for Holloway and Yancey. It's amazing. I love it.

Okay, we're staying in Holloway. We're staying in Hawaii. Hawaii for our next clip. I'm right here in Hawaii with the king, Yanty and Max Holloway. Demetrius on the beach. Amazing. We got this thing called moonshine.

Moonshine. They're drinking moonshine on the beach. I mean, the man sets the world on fire and then goes to Hawaii to drink moonshap. He actually set it on fire from Hawaii, if you recall. Yeah, he called from Hawaii. But, I mean, he's just on the beach drinking his moonshine with the Hawaiian boys. Now, have you ever tried moonshine? I don't think there, I could be wrong.

I'm sure I'll get tweets on this. I don't think there's like a formula for moonshine. Like, I don't think there's a specific concoction of moonshine that it's like, oh, have you tried moonshine? The same way you'd say like. Really? Yeah. Like a drink? It is, but what I'm saying is like, if I say, have you tried whiskey?

Well, there's a thousand different whiskey. Sure. You know what I mean? I've tried one of them. I think I can confidently say I've never tried moonshine. I'm pretty sure I've tried moonshine. Really? I mean, look, you know.

He says it's sweet. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, this formulation might be something different. What is moonshap? And also, it's like, it's distilled in a certain way. Hold on. I'll find the exact terminology for you. I believe it became popularized during Prohibition.

Yeah, in the South, right? I think everywhere. Just bootleggers. High-proof distilled spirits that are usually produced illicitly without government authorization. Corn mash is the main ingredient. What? Yeah, like, you know, there's liquors that are derived from corn, corn, corn liquor. And there's a very specific way it's kind of distilled.

But it's very strong stuff. that's kind of the, you know, the net result of that. So Wikipedia says it's a slang term used to describe high proof distilled spirits that are usually produced illicitly without government authorization. Ah. No, I knew when it was introduced. I didn't know that it was just like a name. It is, but it was also an exact terminology.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of the thing that like- Corn mash. You know, it means a million different things. But yeah, from corn mash. Corn, what does that mean? Like mashed up corn? Well, essentially, yeah.

Like, you know hops and barley make beer and there's all kinds of ways to... Oh, here's some nicknames. White liquor, white lightning, Mountain Dew, Hooch, home brew, white whiskey or corn liquor. The word moonshine is believed to be derived from the term moonmakers

used for early English smugglers and the clandestine nature of the operations of the illegal appalachian distilled. who produced and distributed whiskey. This is fascinating. Is that a big thing in Hawaii? That, I don't know.

I mean, I'm not, I've been a few times. I've not seen this be a prevalent thing, but I can't say I was hanging out in the same circles. What about boss DJ on the beach? Shirtless. Incredible. Love and life. That's it.

I mean, you know. I wanted to ask, one of the things I wanted to ask Max, but there were a couple of questions that I just had to kind of skip over in my mind was I thought the symbolism of him winning the belt being the toast of the MMA world and then hanging out with the guy who's involved in his first big feud

with UFC management, almost like a right of passage as a UFC champion. At some point it seems like you're going to be at odds with UFC management. I mean who has been a champion for a long time and not been at odds with the UFC? For a long time, Anders and Silva until recently. Yeah, but I said,

at some point it happens right um no one like was a champion for many many years lost the belt and then just kind of was another person you know in the division or in the sport anyhow i thought it was somewhat symbolic to see a guy kind of starting and a guy not certainly ending but involved in his first big feud and i was wondering if he you know had any takeaways or if he noticed that symbolism or if there were any lessons learned etc but um i think they were just drinking moonshine yeah maybe they're just chilling They're just chilling. And that's cool.

Speaking of having a dispute, Michael Venom Page has a dispute with Paul Daly. How about this? And it looked like it was coming to a head. Yeah. But Michael Venom Page sent you an interesting message on Twitter. He sent me this promo that was like straight out of pro wrestling. I mean, just the way he was delivering it.

We're about to play it out now. All right, here it is. Let's roll it. So check this. Bellator. Contact me with some news. Amazing. We are going to main event.

you and Paul Daly back in London in September cheese that's just what I wanted to hear after Paul Daly loses horribly to Rory

McDonald he decides to call me out he gets outside of the cage and conducts himself unprofessionally running at me and causing a bit of a scuffle outside of the cage kerfuffle

no problem now it's going to happen main event in London September but check this Paul Daly for the third time

this year has said he's not going to fight me I know I know I know you're thinking the same thing that doesn't make sense he called me out but yes poor Daly

you're a disappointment to every UK fighter You're a disappointment to every fan in MMA that wanted to see this fight. There's a lot of people that wanted to see this fight. You're a straight disappointment. You are forever going to be known as Paula. Tam packs daily. That is your legacy.

Come on. And like I said, this is a third time now. So you're out. No, no. Don't ever ask me to fight again. Whoa. Whoa. That was good stuff.

I mean, the whole thing is just so interesting because you were the vessel for this as well. Listen, you want to get your message out? You come to me. You come to Ariel. All right? What do we make? I mean, they'll fight. Yeah, okay, that's the big takeaway.

Well, like, when I saw that, I was like, okay, this is fun, but you're not really walking away from this fight, are you? I actually reached out to Paul Daly. I reached out to him and I asked him about this and I asked him about not fighting in September and all this stuff. and he didn't divulge. I think it's going to happen. Maybe the time frame doesn't work for him. I mean, let's not forget, he did just lose, you know,

and not that long ago. What was that? Less than a month ago now? Three weeks ago? Four weeks ago? So maybe he needs some time off. Maybe he got hurt. This feud is one of my favorites in M.M.A.

If we find out at some point that these two guys are buddies and this is all just, you know, one big ruse, I'm going to be very upset. Like when I saw the James Gallagher, A.J. McKee thing, I was really bummed. Did you see that picture? Yep. That really.

bum me out. Like I had high hopes for that feud. And I'm sure at some point I'll get over it. But right now it's kind of, it's kind of bummed me out. I'm not going to lie. If we see these two guys hanging out at some point, it's going to be a problem. Yeah. Look, I mean... This is Beltor's best feud, right? Santa Claus has... Am I crazy?

I mean, Chale Vanderle? This is some freshness right here. Chale van der Leigh, they're just not doing enough together. You know what I mean? Like, these guys are really pushing to perpetuate it. Feels like it's a bit one-sided with Chale kind of doing the heavy lifting on that. Finally on the show today.

He brought it strong, I thought. Yes, but this was his first thing. Sure, sure. Well, he was waiting for me to have him on. Fair enough. The vessel. The vessel once again. Yes, yes.

But, yeah, this is big time, and they will definitely fight. Quick update before we move to the next one. By the way, here's Casey Leiden, our videographer, extraordinaire weighing in. MVP calling Dalia tampon is the worst shit talk ever. Can't agree with that. I don't think it's the best, but I cannot agree with the worst. I've heard some really bad stuff.

Minnie Mouse, come on. Yeah. I think what he's referring to is that it's somewhat offensive. Fair enough. Are you offended by this? No, but you're not a woman. Yeah. Okay, let's ask a woman.

Stephanie, are you offended by this trash talk? Paula Tampax? They're not calling me, Paula Tampax. So you're okay with it? Yeah. As a female MMA fan, do you feel like this type of talk should not be encouraged, should not be a part of trash talk?

Trash talk is trash talk Okay Once you take it there And you're like female male Then it becomes annoying Yeah Like when you say to your opponent Or someone you're trying to fight like

Oh you're a girl You're you're you know That's why you don't want to fight me You're scared You're the B word all that stuff I say that often While I'm rolling There you go

You say that to other people So you can't really be offended If I have trash talk a lot But is it like one of those things Where it's okay if you say Because you're a female And if a man says it to another man Then it's offensive

I think it's fine. I'm not a feminist. Right. Fair enough. Maybe Casey is a feminist. Possible? Let's have him call it. No, that's not.

He'll go on some crazy, some crazy tangents. He's kind of a conspiracy theorist. He likes to stir the pot, is what I'm trying to say. In this case, I think he has a point, though. Oh, you do? Look, it does offend me?

No, but I think... You could see why. I could see a case to be made, for sure. Although we have heard from one woman who is a part of the MMA community who was not a friend. All kinds of shapes and sizes. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Okay, yes. Number four, this has been seen everywhere. It's going to be seen here. Glory 42. Oh, you know what? I'm happy you brought this. I wanted to ask you. I had a feeling this would be a part of it,

but I'm happy you brought it up. But don't assume everyone knows because this is not a kickbox. Yeah, I'm going to set the scene. Don't worry. All right, right, right. Glory 42, Paris. Mertel Gruenhart

knocked out Herute Gregorian. Okay. Following that knockout, two rogue fans actually, jumped the security barriers, blitzed security, and got into the ring,

and this was what ensued. This footage comes from Todd Grisham, Glory Commentator, and UFC commentators. Wait, wait, can I just pause? Twitter. What about the, do you have the first clip, like the broadcast, or can we not show that? No, this is strictly the social media clip.

Because I feel like that kind of sets it up. This is, We only have this clip. From Tods. Okay, but... So this guy who's up here, before we play, let's just show the picture. This guy who's on the ropes,

he just won, right? He just won. What's his name again? Mertel Gronehart. Okay, so he's celebrating, but it was a bit of a controversy. That's part of the story. The controversy surrounding the finish.

Tell what happened. He need Hurt Ruggorian, the opponent. Yes. Herut turned his back. Yes. And the ref had not stepped in. Simply turned his back. And then Mertel knocked him out.

You know what it reminded me of? Victor Ortiz and Floyd Mayweather? 100%. And it's the same thing. And it's equally legal in both cases. It's 100% legal. Is it on sportsman? Like even the guy who got knocked out, tell me his name again?

Harout Gregorian. His coach said, was illegal? Yes. Did I think it was a BS move? Absolutely. And that's a fair take to happen. Absolutely. But he did nothing wrong.

Protect yourself at all times. Protect yourself at all times. found an opening, knocked him out, but the guy had, why did he turn his back, by the way? Unknown.

He hasn't, he hasn't commented on that yet. They didn't interview him after? Yeah, he wasn't in a stadium he hasn't commented on it yet. So the guy is walking away. This guy,

uh, grown up. Yeah. Yep. Boom, knocks him out, fights over. And that sets the scene

for what you're about to see here. So he's celebrating. Boom. I'm the man. What happens? Here we go. We're going to roll it. What?

Okay. Now, turn down the volume because it's a little crazy. Can we replay that? this guy is standing on the ropes king of the world just won and what happens rolling it back here

here it is we don't need to hear the the crowd sound it's just people cheering a fan is sprinting at him yep and then boom straight yep and you even see you can't really see it on the screen here yeah just keep playing it over and over

you see like sweat flying off yeah his face Oh my gosh Now what happens to him? The fighter At the time Unfortunately he was very You know he was feeling hurt

Because he got punched here and didn't expect it Did he get knocked out? No no no no no he did not get knocked out But there was a thought that he might have been injured That he broke his jaw right? Yeah At that time That was thought

Now he is absolutely fine In fact I've even spoken to Murtoe multiple times Since then absolutely fine On the phone Which is yeah I talked to him earlier this morning, absolutely fine, which is the great news about this, not harmed at all. Now, for the fans who came into the ring, the organization, Glory, is connecting with local

lawmakers and authorities to make sure that they're prosecuted because they can't have, you know, just rogue people flying around and trying to assault the athletes. Okay, so are they in custody or not? unsure. Okay. But there will be legal action taken against them.

So at some point there will have to be you know, either in custody or in court, they will have to pay the consequences. Wow.

That is nuts. Yeah. I mean, you know, we saw the corner man in boxing, the uncle of the fighter.

You just cannot touch the athletes. Well, obviously. This is just insane. It's insane. How did the guy jump in the fan,

jump in the ring. He cleared the barriers. And then just like a running, like jumps. Because he has to jump, right? The other guy is on the second rope. What's great about this, though, is that as you can see, everybody comes in, including actually the first one to enter the ring and try to stop him, was the corner of Harout, the one who was knocked out.

Wait, that guy in the white shirt? No, well, he isn't a white shirt, but he comes in separately. but Nikki Hemmer's one of the trainers and cornermen for Harout actually came in to stop it They need to up their security How could you let this happen? No, I mean security was pretty tight I've confirmed this

Security is pretty tight But the guy completely just broke through This is a victory for the cage by the way No, you can't have a cage in kickboxing No, I'm just saying tougher to trespass When you got a cage Yeah Well you could jump over if you have a lot of momentum

Yeah This is insane this is the craziest thing I've ever seen Todd Grisham gets the video and it was everywhere right I saw a sports center tweet about it ESPN Is this a good

I mean This is not a good thing Well no of course Anybody getting assaulted is not a good thing Oh my smokes But the good news is that Mertel is okay And that's obviously most important Yeah

And the fans will be prosecuted are moving to yeah hopefully they they uh i mean do they get banned oh of course of course these guys yeah course so so the fighter is okay everyone's okay everyone's okay all right well that's crazy and that was on ESPN2 right that was live on ESPN2 how did they cover it uh did they address it on the broadcast of course well it'd be impossible not to yeah it was it was addressed on the broadcast. Todd Grisham actually was the one who Yeah, yeah, I know, but like did they show, they didn't show

they didn't show like the actual footage of it, right? No, only what was happening live. But, yeah, can't promote that. No, no, we can't promote that. Okay, our next Rick's pick, just a picture here, not a video. Okay, but tribute. Yes, the legend.

The man, to the legend. The man. Kimbo Slice. Yeah. One year ago from last week, Kimbo passed away. So we pay our respects to Kimbo. Esther, actually, Esther Lynn from MMA fighting, actually put out a great focus piece. Yeah. Last year when it happened.

So go find that on MMA fighting. Yeah, we retweet it. But, you know, the MMA world, you know, obviously all, you know, had strong reactions to Kimbo. And so there was a lot of, you know, tribute to him. Let me tell you something about Kimbo. When I first met him, the first time that I interviewed Kimbo was prior to that James Thompson fight in Newark. Yeah, it was in Newark. And that was the CBS.

And I just couldn't believe how cool. I mean, he was at that point, he was a megastar. He was the, you know, he was the YouTube sensation. And that meant something. Like everyone's a YouTube sensation now. But he was the guy who made it from the streets, from the internet. onto CBS and I just couldn't believe how down to earth he was like yeah he was somewhat intimidating and he had the the crew with him and he had the gold teeth and the look and the beard and and and he was

just an imposing fellow but he was just he was really a teddy bear he really was he was so cool he was so inviting his team they were all cool I see Mike everyone um that that I mean yeah it was it was a it was a bummer when when I realized that it had been a year since his passing such a big part of the sport. One of the most recognizable faces names. One of the biggest stars, without a doubt, one of the biggest draws in the history of the sport. A devoted family man. I mean, some of the stories that Bellator did on him, the packages about him and his son who had a disability and the way he took care of him and brought him along. And, you know, we know about Kevin Ferguson Jr., baby slice. I always want to call him Kimbo Slice Jr., but it's Kevin Furguson.

Ferguson Jr. Of course, that's Kimbo's real name. Just amazing. An amazing guy. Soarly missed. And, you know, I'm happy that we got to see him, you know, towards the end of his career. The second act, if you will, with Bellator. Tragic, the way he passed away. And you hope that it had nothing to do with his fighting career and, you know, just horrible. I'll never forget that day. Of course, I would be your mis-vited. I mean, that happened when the whole band was unlifted and it was surreal because I was actually interviewed on SportsCenter on the Scott Van Pelt show about it as I was still banned and then it was going to air in two hours and then the band was unlifted but also during that time suddenly Kimbo passes away and all of a sudden any story

involving me feels incredibly unimportant and you're just so bummed and I remember texting with some people close to him and then I went back on the show and show and rightfully so this was the story this was the story to talk about so yeah i will never forget that day horrible day rest in peace kimbo yes and last one uh we're going to put up an image of somebody that everybody may not be familiar with but i want to send a special shout out to uh justin go lightly who is having a rough go over right now so i just want the m msum community to send them some love um I saw he just tweeted us.

Yeah, he's the guy who live tweets for Champions.coe, all the episodes of the MMA hour. Just sending him some love. And I think we should all send him some love. He didn't seem to want to get into it, so I'm not going to. Did he tweet about it? Yeah. Can you read this tweet?

Here, let's see. It's all very vague. Look, he's going through a rough patches. Isn't that enough? No, I mean, yes, I really appreciate his tweet. He's a loyal watcher of the show, and I've never met him before, but I certainly recognize that picture

when you put it up there, and I see that he's been tweeting a little bit about it, so I just wanted to know, that's all. Actually, the quote is, shit is still fucked up right now, but I'm a soldier on. So things are messed up for Justin. Okay.

Respect, Justin. Thank you for all the love. In fact, he even waited earlier regarding moonshine. Southern Moonshine is brewed with a corn-based mash A corn mash base, sorry, rather. Hawaiian varieties use cane sugar, making it sweeter. An expert in Moonshine,

maybe literally and figuratively fucked up right now, says similar to what we would call rum. So he has experience in Moonshine, and we're wishing him well. Whatever he's going through, we're with you. A valued member of the M.M.A. Hour family. Exactly. That's it. That's it for Rick's picks.

Okay. We don't have an outro song yet. No, I've been kind of dropping the ball on that one. All right. A couple other things that you need to know about. Jason Knight has replaced the Korean zombie against Ricardo Lama's at UFC 214. Henry Sohudo and Wilson Hase are going to be fighting at UFC 216. That's in Edmonton in September. I reported late last week that they are targeting Mike Parenthood. Harry versus Tiago Alva's at 2.15.

That's the August 19th paper view that has yet to be officially announced and that they hope to have DJ fight on in Seattle. And I'm surprised you didn't actually include this one in Rick's picks. Brian Kelleher back against Marlon Vera. You know what? Fair. Fair play. That was an incredible tweet. Yeah, he tweeted at me that he's giving away some tickets to the fight

and if I wanted to go. well done, tushay, fair play. That was amazing. Grats to Brian. I mean, he called for a fight in New York and he got it. He didn't get Leniker, though. Hey, look. There's a bit of a moment.

I wanted to see them go as far as possible with him. Like, give him the moon. He asked for it. Give him the moon. Why not? Maybe that's the next one. But, yeah, looking forward to. Marlon Barras coming off a big win over Brandon, Brad Pickett in London.

Remember that retirement fight? I was there. You were there. That's right. Holy smokes. Are you going to go to the Long Island card? I'd like to. Maybe Brian will let me come.

Imagine. Imagine you're his plus one. Stephanie's going. I know that. Yep. She got tickets. Yep. You can be his plus one.

That was a great tweet. It was a great tweet. So a lot of people wondering about Chris Cyborg, what's going on? There's been some tweets. There's been some rumor and endoendo. She tweeted on Saturday that she's going to be defending her title. I reported it. Everyone's very confident.

It's close. Some way, somehow. I don't know how they went from Germain to maybe Megan to Zengano back to Megan Anderson but that is definitely the fight that is being targeted at this point why is it taking so long to announce I really don't understand

but this is fascinating how do you feel about this? I think it's... Do you remain unbiased in talking about this or no? No, probably not okay I appreciate, be honest because I do, as we've said on the show I work for Invicta and Megan has a fight

booked for July. It's a bit of a weird situation. It seems like once they announced that fight, the title fight, the one we talked about last week, and again, I maintain that this all worked out well for it, even if she didn't get Cyborg. You know what I mean? Like she was in the discussion. She showed a lot of courage. She stepped up. She called her out. Okay. Go back to Invicta, defend the title, you know, sharpen your skills, all that stuff. But, hey, now she's getting it. This seems kind of like a win-win for her. I mean, I saw her. I saw a, some people say that they don't think that she's ready for her? Do you think that she's ready for Cyborg?

I'll say that, yeah. I mean, yes. The answer is yes. She's been dominant at featherweight, and she is a legit 145 pounds. This is not a situation where abandthum weight is coming up to fight Cyborg. She is a featherweight 100%. There's no doubt that she's a featherweight,

which is not what we've kind of seen in this division to this point. She is absolutely a featherweight. Now what happens after that? after. Because remember, Cyborg deals up in October. What if she wins? What if she becomes the champion? And yes, it would be for the belt. Or, what if Megan wins? What happens then? Who would fight her? I guess the rematch would be gigantic. I'm just happy that in this particular case, like when I was talking about the flyweight division and why I thought the T.J. fight didn't make sense. Because what if he wins? You blow up the division. At this point, there is no division at 145. So I'm just

happy that they're putting on the best fight possible. And it's clearly, in my opinion, the fight that everyone wants to see at 145. And I like the fact that they're doing it. They're giving the fans the fight that they want to see. That's great. I feel for Invicta though, because they're seeing, I think, the face of Invicta go away. But hey, if she wins and comes back, crazier things have happened. So let's see. So that's the update on that. Hopefully we'll get some kind of resolution to it sooner rather than later or some kind of announcement. I don't know what's taking so long. That that fight card is a month and a half away and tickets just went on sale late last week. So you would think this would be a good time to get it out there and get

people excited. I alluded to Dana White's response to Demetius Johnson. Did you read this or hear it? I did. Yeah. My guy Mick, who is one of our guys who has been handling that, he said most of what Johnson said was not true, number one. Number two, this is Dana talking to TMZ. The bottom line is Demetrius Johnson is in line right now. First of all, when he did his deal, he didn't want pay-per-view points. He didn't want pay-per-view. He wanted upfront money, no pay-per-view. He wasn't very confident in his abilities to sell pay-per-views.

A little dig there. He has the lowest selling pay-per-views in the history of the UFC in the modern era. So number one, number two, I think that a fight between him and T. T.J. Dillishah would be something that people would actually be interested in and could sell pay-prews and could make some money. But he absolutely refuses to fight the guy. It's ridiculous. we're not marketing him right we built a TV show around him the ultimate fighter was about what

an incredible fighter he is i get what he's trying to say in that regard but like dj wasn't really featured on that show it's not like he was a part of every episode and let's not pretend that it's the ratings behemoth that it once was so i don't know if i 100% buy that they were building that the show was to find someone to fight him more so because they had no one else to fight him it was a good it was worth a shot, but to me, like, they weren't celebrating DJ every episode. It was about the 16 guys in the house at the time. Anyhow, the ultimate fighter was about what an incredible fighter he is. We put him on Fox many times true, tried to build him.

It is what it is. It's not me. I'm bullying you. How do you bully the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world? That, to me, just blows my mind. I think he legitimately thinks that bullying someone means punching them. Physical violence. Listen, the media claims he's the pound for pound best fighter in the world.

I think Connor McGregor is the best pound for pound fighter in the world. If you look at what that really means, what pound for pound means, Connor doesn't give a shit. He'll fight anybody, anywhere, anytime. And if Demetrius is the pound for pound best guy in the world, then fight T.J. Dilshod, fight somebody that people will actually care about, be interested in, and there you go. So we went for, so like in, in, where is it?

Kansas City, DJ was the best pound for pound fighter. When John Jones comes back, he'll probably be the best pound for pound fighter. now it's Connor, I guess. Where is the love for Daniel Kormier is what I want to know? Why doesn't he ever get talking? Anyhow, here's one more quote. That's not true. We've been talking about shutting down the flyweight division for about three years.

The division is just five years old. So two years in. I think that's what he was saying. This is when he was asked about the threat to shut it down because he knows that. He knows that we've talked about, you know, doing away with that division. It has nothing to do with Demetrius. And never once did I threaten him to shut down the division. Did he say that?

Yeah, that's not true. That's not what happened. I told him that we had been talking about shutting down the division for three years. He knows that. Okay. So do you think they're going to shut it down? If he refuses to take the TJ fight, do you think they shut it down? No.

So this is just a threat. Yes. Do you think they shut it down? I mean, I think it would be crazy to shut down the male flyway division as you're introducing the female flyway division. I think it's true. Because you're having a dispute? Like, I guess the UFC could claim that he doesn't,

want to fight the guy that they want him to fight and just strip them, right? But to shut down the whole division, to me, feels like you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Like, it doesn't cost the UFC more money to put on flyway fights. And Demetrius at this point may not be the biggest draw on the UFC, but he is an entity in his own right. He's on the cusp of breaking a record that a lot of people thought would never be broken, at least not just a few years. years later. And I think every casual fan of MMA at least has some knowledge of who Demetrius Johnson is. They may not know a lot about Ray Borg, but to just do away with him would seem counterproductive. And again, I'll repeat what I said last week. I really believe like this all comes down to respect.

He doesn't like the way that he has been treated. He doesn't like the way that he finds out about news pertaining to him. The ultimate fighter found out through the media. T.J. Dillshaw, found out through the media. And then he doesn't like the way it's being dealt with when he brings up his concerns. When he brought it up to Dana White at the retreat, Dana said, well, this is what T.J. wants. Well, what about what I want?

Like, we could talk about which is the bigger fight, Ray Borg, T.J. Dilsha, all we want. But I feel like we're kind of missing the point here. And then to just not call him the pound for pound best, fine, that's your opinion. But like to react this way, just sort of throwing this stuff out there, and not so much paying attention to what he's really saying,

and that's, I'm not really feeling the love here, I'm not feeling the respect, feels like the point was missed. What did you make of this response? Yeah, it doesn't address kind of the issues. I think it's more the same, and I think DJ is content to drink the moonshine

and chill out and wait for it to be resolved properly. I don't think he's in any rush to kind of put himself out there and kind of needs to feel that love before he's coming back. But I don't think they'll shut down the flight weight division. Can I just say that I really understand, I understand where the UFC is coming from here.

They're worried about August 19th. They want to put on the best fight possible. Yep. And I understand where DJ is coming from, the way he found out, the way he feels like he's being treated. I get it. I really, it's one of those cases

where I don't think anyone's like 100% right and 100% wrong. I understand. They just need to kind of figure it out. Yeah. They need to sit down and figure it out. They need to properly. Yeah.

But again, I will reiterate that the one thing that kind of jerks my chain a little bit is the T.J. Dilloshab part of it. Do you get what I'm saying? Six months ago, he was advocating for fighter rights. He was talking about getting passed over. I wish that he would eloquently explain why now he is trying to take some. If T.J. doesn't come out and say, I want this fight next. we're not in this mess, right? They're probably just going with the Ray Borg fight.

Yep. And so to me, it's like you didn't get the title fight at 135 and now this whole mess is being created because you want to fight for the belt at 125 and then go back up to 135. When you were just kind of complaining about this sort of thing, it once again reminds me of the mess that was the MM-Triplea

and how literally days later the whole thing just crumbled in front of our eyes. Yeah. I went back and looked at some of those quotes. And TJ was talking about how he was willing to leave his management team and do whatever the UFC wanted to get a title fight. Like he was that desperate. And now here's another guy who is being talked about to get a title fight

and, you know, he's willing to go down and stand in front of it. Now I will add this new wrinkle to the whole thing. And like the trash talk has just been kind of, you know, cringe-worthy. Like, you're scared. Like, I just wish guys would just stop going to that. but Ray Borg, I think, through a major wrench in DJ's plans right now, right? I feel like Borg essentially just said, like, I don't really care at this point. Like, can we just move on?

I feel like he actually gave the UFC, you know, another chip in their favor. Well, at a certain point, he has to continue his career, right? Like, he also can't sit on the side. Like, DJ's in a different spot than he is. Sure, sure. And even with T.J., they all have to look out for their own best interests at the end of the day. TJ has to do what's best for him and he saw an opportunity at flyweight

with Demetrius. He had to take it. It's not enough to just promote these fights. Like, again, you know, look at Ben Wynn on Saturday. That was a really fun fight. Yeah. That was a great performance. John Maraga.

Huge performance. Yeah, super entertaining. Borg has had some fun fights lately. But you have to understand. Someone wrote to me about this. Like, DJ should, and hear me out here, DJ should be marketed to kids. Almost like Ray Mysterio was to kids when he was the WWE champion.

He is like a cartoon character. He is Mighty Mouse. This is the guy that you should be bringing out to like local strip mall dojos and getting kids on board with. The kind of way that I was talking about Wonderboy Thompson, like he's like a Power Ranger. That's what he reminded me of. Like that's who DJ is. He's the family guy. He's not the fight game.

He's not fur coats. He's not trash talk. but there is something there honestly and just look at the react if no one cared about demetrius johnson why was this the biggest news story last year last week in m mma you know what i mean look at the reaction look at the views on last week's show look at the comments on the articles if people didn't care about the guy like like if i don't know fighter x that no one cares about got involved in this feud with ufc no one would care no one would click on it but clearly they him. So obviously there's something there, but you can't promote them the same way as everyone

else. You can't just expect to put on a fight between DJ and Mr. No Name Flyway and expect people to flock to it. He's not Connor. He's not Rhonda. He's a little different, but he's got something there. He's got a personality. He's got an edge. He's got his own edge. So I hope they figure it out. I understand where they're coming from. I understand where DJ is coming from. I understand where TJ is coming from. He wants the biggest fight. He wants to remain active. I get it. It's just a bit of a, the whole thing's, it's a mess. And you want to see them kind of work it out. And you want to see DJ get paid. You want to see him get what he thinks he's worth. You want to see him get the respect that he thinks he deserves. And you want to see the UFC figure out how to push this

guy. And again, I know, people will say to me like, you can't just wait for the, you can't, you can't wait for the UFC to market you. You have to do it yourself. There's no doubt about that. Rhonda, Connor were stars because they marketed themselves. The UFC then jumps on board, but the UFC puts on so many events in 2017 that you have to go out there and market yourself. You cannot look at Kevin Lee. He's doing it himself.

Look at Iaquinta. For better or worse, he's doing it himself. Look at Mike Perry. He's doing it himself. They're not doing anything extra for those fighters. They'll put on the odd media day for Michelle Waterson or Derek Lewis, but people are emotionally attached to Derek Lewis. because of his interviews, because of how he fights,

because of how funny he is, because of his social media. That's all him. You have to do it yourself. So anything that DJ has gone at this point, in my opinion, is because of himself. They've put him in spots. Some have done well, some haven't. But people are going to be drawn to because of yourself.

The UFC just puts on too many fights for them to go out of their way. There's obvious big fights that they're going to promote weeks in advance. but for the most part, you're a part of a machine at this point. You really are. So you kind of have to do it yourself. And that's tough. I wish that there were less events so that they can promote guys more, promote more events. We're going from Stockholm to Rio, to New Zealand, to Singapore in four weeks. We're just now getting excited about Hollyholm versus Betch Klan. Again, I think that this main card is one of the best fight past ones ever in their short history.

But you kind of have to do it yourself. So hopefully they can figure it out. And it's such a weird thing in MMA because you rarely see, unless you're trying to like split with your promoter in boxing, and there's been some famous cases like Bob Aram and Floyd Mayweather, the role of the promoter in boxing is to literally like kind of go hand in hand with your fighter and tell the world why you're the best. And this awkwardness of seeing the promoter essentially try to crap on the arguable pound-for-pound king-right.

now is just an awkward thing to have this play out in the media. Like if Canello was involved in some kind of, you know, issue, you wouldn't have Delahoya like try to sort of dress him down. Canelo and Delahoya kind of go hand in hand as far as carnival barkers are concerned and just like tell the world why they should watch these fights. But it's different with the UFC because Dana kind of plays this commissioner role overseeing these 500 fighters. so these these these feuds are going to play out and he can't be on everyone's team in boxing i think

it's a lot more of a natural relationship because like you're assigned to x promotion and they're just going to do whatever they can't to sell you here dana has to play this sort of neutral role and you can't go out and actually sell he can't play favorites and and i don't know i was i was that idea kind of hit me in the face when i was thinking about this feud like here's dj's promoter that's what dana is he's his promoter and yet his job is to go out there and tell the world why he's so great and he's telling the world why he's not as great as he may think he is. You know what I'm saying?

It's a very awkward thing. Yeah, the whole situation is not, it's not ideal, and I feel like it can be rectified so easily. That's what's so, you know, upsetting or kind of like... You wonder? I don't know. Maybe the... The bridges have been burned, you're saying? I don't know.

I mean, he is sticking to... guns. I know that. Yeah. I just think that there are certain times where it comes down to something other than respect. This is not really one of those times. I feel like it can be solved. I feel like it's solvable. That's basically what I'm saying. There are situations where it's no coming back. I don't think that we're in that situation. I think it can be solved. And it just hasn't been. There's always a lot of ego involved. I

ask Guy Quint all the time, why don't you just go and sit down with the UFC? Yeah. Like if I have an issue with my boss, I'm going to go sit down And it doesn't work that way in our sport for whatever reason. You know what I mean? So it gets to be these long, drawn out, you know, stories, drama, all this kind of stuff. And I feel like this is one of those stories where if they just sat down face to face, cleared the air, put all the cards on the table, DJ gets to explain why he's upset, why he doesn't want the fight, why he'd like to break the record and blah, blah, blah, and UFC.

And maybe they mean in the middle. I don't know. but I just kind of feel like this particular one considering the kind of model employee for lack of a better word that DJ has been and just kind of you know, the way he is, like the way he thinks,

he's not a very... He's not unreasonable, he's very like... The no frills kind of guy. Yeah, 100%. Of all, like, the fighter fuse out there, I feel like this is the one that could end with the least amount of damage as possible. That's exactly what I'm getting at.

Like, I feel like it can be... This can be solved. This can be solved. But you know, like when I see that five days later and this is the response, yeah, well, he's not really the pound for pound king. When a month and a half ago, you were just telling us he was the pound for pound king. He hasn't fought since then. Neither has Connor. What's changed?

And by the way, I believe DC is the pound for pound king because he's the only guy who's actually won above, undefeated, never lost, and was that close to winning the belt, and then went down and then went down. won the belt. And I don't care how he won the belt. He won the belt and defended it multiple times. DJ lost at 135 to Brad Pickett. DJ lost at 135 to Dominic Cruz. May have even lost to the great Miguel Torres.

Connor McGregor lost at 170. Not that long ago. Why isn't Daniel Corby talked about? Can I just say one more thing as we transition now? We've got just a couple minutes left. The UFC sent out a press release last week. And this goes back, like, you've got to be a little more imaginative. Daniel Cormier-John Jones is the most anticipated fight in UFC history.

That's what they called. The most anticipated rematch in UFC history. I think that's what they said, yeah, the most anticipated rematch in UFC history. And to me, it's like, okay, you can't really tell us what is anticipated. We determine what's anticipated. We, the fans, right? Like, I'll tell you how excited I am for a fight. You can't tell me how excited I am, right?

You may be anticipating it. but we, the fans, the paying customers are the ones who tell you how intense, buy how much we talk about it, how much we cover it, how many tickets we buy, how many pay reviews you buy. That's not the way to go with this fight.

That's not the proper label to put on this fight. The proper label to put on this fight is the best fight in UFC history is coming July 29th, UFC 214, Anaheim, California. Why is it the best fight? Because it's the first time in UFC history that you,

can actually say with a straight face that this is number one versus number two. Now there's no definitive pound for pound rankings, but I can sit here and debate anyone that John Jones is number one, Daniel Cormney is number two. That Daniel Cormney is number one, John Jones is number two, given their records, given their resumes. You can actually say that. That's not a crazy statement, right? That's not a crazy statement. I agree with it. That's the best fight in UFC history. That's the first time the number one and number two light heavy weights and pound for pound fighters, arguably. Yep. are fighting each other.

It's just as arguable that D.C. is number one pound for pound as it is that that's the most anticipated rematch in UFC history. That's what I was going to say. So it's even less arguable, in my opinion. I was going to say that's kind of subjective as well. The most anticipated is also arguable.

I would say that those are both a subjective thing and arguable, but yours is stronger. That would be the difference in my opinion. You just had Connor Diaz, too. You just had that. If I'm putting a poster up and I'm saying the most anticipated rematch in UFC history, all right. And then I start thinking, well, what? But if I come out and say, this is the best fight in UFC history, what sells more?

Yeah. And honestly, I think the latter is more truthful than the former. I think they're both true because I, for me, it's the most anticipated. The best fight in UFC history, number one versus number two. No doubt in my mind. How many times is that? using much stronger language and it is completely justifiable. How many times does that happen?

Can you think of another time? I really can't. Now, I mean, it's, I mean, it's hard. Yeah, I was about to say, BJGSP, maybe. BJGSP, but it's hard to like remember the time and place and remember the nature of the division. Pound for pound is much more of like a recent construct for MMA. So it's hard for me to kind of go back in history. but I don't think you're wrong about saying that.

I don't think you're wrong about saying that right now that those are the two best guys. And if not two, three, at very worst, we're looking at Jones, DJ and Cormier. Also unique. I mean, if you look at the Power Pounder Pound rankings right now, John Jones isn't there, right? He'll come back and he'll be one, two, whatever.

DJ, Connor, Cormier, Steepay, Holloway, Garbrandt, Yawanna, Dominic. So I guess Dominic and Garbrandt, 6 and 8. That's the first time you'll have two guys in the pound

for pound that could fight each other, right? Then Aldo is 10 and then you have Holloway. What I'm saying is it's very rare to have the top two guys in your division also be at the very top

of the pound for pound. That's what we should be pushing here. It's number one versus number two. It's the most bitter rival well, not the most anticipated because that's the one thing you can't really say.

We determine that. But the facts are number one versus number two. Anyhow, that just kind of struck me. A lot of people have been asking me about this Connor McGregor tweet saying big things, August 26. I will tell you this, the tweet about the big things, hashtag BP, that's not pertaining to Mayweather,

McGregor. So don't get cut up on that one. That's something else. he'll announce it, but it's not pertaining to that. Now there's reports coming out that they're going to do August 26. What I'm being told is that is being discussed as far as one of the options, but that's not done as well. The number one option was always September 16th.

Now that date is Cannell Triple G. I don't think that it's dead just yet, but August has been discussed. Early October has been discussed. but nothing is done. And by the way, it's going to be at T-Mobile. It's not going to be at the MGM.

It is close as it has been for the last couple of weeks but nothing's a done deal just yet and it wouldn't be at MGM it would be at T-Mobile

obviously at the bigger arena. And there is something to be said and I do know that there are some who are pushing for this. There is something to be said for going before Triple G Canello

because if everyone buys Triple G Canelo and then you come on two weeks later that might hit them, That might hit your wallet. But if you go before, everyone's going to be so excited. They'll be like, oh, I'll worry about Triple G Canello in two weeks. And then maybe, you know, they'll change their mind.

But if you go before, you beat them to the punch, basically. So I think there's something to be said for that. Now is two and a half months, you know, is that too soon? I don't think so. I really don't. You can build that quickly. Yeah. How long was the build for Pacchio Mayweather?

It was kind of, it was like, yeah, yeah. Do it. You would go before. Yeah. Get it over with. Yep. I think the UFC wants before, and I'll tell you why, because they want Connor to fight in December. They want him twice this year.

And so if you do it before, you ensure the fact that he'll be back. I don't think limited time is a roadblock here. I think they could build this properly. And remember, he fought August 19th or something, UFC 20th, I think it was, and then came back November 12th. Now, I know this could be different, but again, he's only going to be using his hands for this fight. So less likely to injure a knee or an ankle or something like that. I know that's what they want. Can it get done in time?

Will it get done in time? We don't know, but it's not a done deal. And again, that tweet is not referencing that fight. You feel me? I feel you. All right. What is it referencing? It's not for me to say.

Okay. I was told, you know, I had respect off the record. But, of course, anytime Connor farts at this point, I'm like, Is it happening? Is it happening? Can we just announce it so I can move on with my life? Like, I'm afraid to go to sleep at this point, you know? Eh, who needs sleep? No.

Well, listen, you're the vessel. I've dubbed you that. I think it'll stick. You're the vessel. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Sometimes it's a little stressful, but I do enjoy it.

I love it. And that's that. We're out of time. UFC is back on Saturday. Singapore, Bechkoheya, Holly Home It's happening very early in the morning So wake up early

Grab your Cheerios Your Raisin Brand Your Captain Crunch Stay up all night, why not? No, that's just stupid I'll do that. Why? That's how I roll.

That's just dumb. If you do that, 4.30 a.m., come on. It's light work. Come on. To see Carl's John De Thomas against Naoki Inouye. Actually, would it miss it?

Anyway, yeah. That was the wrong fight to pick. But main card starts at 8 a.m. Holly Holm. Betch Goha. Andre Alavski against Marshin Taibura. Kobe Covington against Dung Kim is a fascinating

fight. And then, of course, Hafeldos-Sangios against Tarek Safedin is amazing. That's this Saturday, Singapore indoor stadium. Fight Pass. Check it out.

We'll be back Monday to talk about all that and more. And Alex in the back, asked me if I could do the show in under four minutes. Guess what? It's 458.40. So now it's...

Me four hours. Yeah, what I say? Four minutes. Four minutes? That's impossible. That's absolutely impossible. I will not ever do the show in under four minutes. Four hours I could do.

I'll do it right now. You can hit my music. Thank you, New York, Rick. Appreciate it. Good Rick's picks this week. You did it. What are you? You're checking out early?

He's checking out because he's going to watch the Warriors get ready to become NBA champions once again. Right? Up 3-1. Can they do it? Part of me is kind of hoping that they lose tonight so that we could see seven games. A little intrigued these playoffs. But I don't know. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't know if the calves have that testicular fortitude. You know what I'm saying? Get it done on the road. Go back to Cleveland. I bet they wish it was 232 this time, right? They used to do 232 in the playoffs, but then they changed it to 2-2-1-1. Anyway, you don't care about all of that. Fun show. Appreciate everyone who stopped by. everyone who tuned in. Thank you very much to Ray Borg. Thank you very much to Mike Winklejohn. Best of luck this Saturday. In Singapore, a huge fight for Holly Home. He said do or die and then he kind of took it back, but he said it. And then he took it back. He still said it. Thank you very much to Joe Lozahn.

Appreciate his insight very much. Thank you very much to Uri Fabor. Congrats on that new deal. That's really exciting stuff. Very happy for the alpha male fighters. gaining those bonuses and all that investment. Thank you very much to Van der Lea Silva. Always great talking to him. Beltor NYC. I'm here 12 days away.

Thank you very much to Max Holloway as well. Congratulations on becoming the UFC featherweight champion. How great was Max? What a fun interview. Loved it. Really enjoyed today's show and all the guests. Back next week. Same time and place.

Until then, I say, pace. I'm out of here.