MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 391

Episode Date: July 18, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Tony McGregor (00:27:33), Demian Maia (00:50:09), Paulie Malignaggi (01:01:24), Yoel Romero (01:24:01), NewYorkRic for Ric's Picks (01:49:59), Chase Sherman in studio (02:16:21), Joseph Duffy (03:14:15), Demetrious Johnson (03:34:53), and then NewYorkRic once again for the MMA [After] Hour (03:59:59). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with... The Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, July 17, 2017. Hello, again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. It is so very great to be here with all of you. I am so happy to be back in New York. I am so happy to be back home, back in our studio.

Boy, oh, boy. Do we have a lot to talk about, my friends? But first, right off the top, I must say this. I must wish a happy 70th birthday to my old man. My dad turned 70 today. Pretty amazing. This is actually the first time I realized that he's exactly 35 years older than me, and he was my age when my mom gave birth to me.

I turned 35 last week. He's now 70. I never actually did the math. And so I'm sorry that I can't be there. but I am wishing him the best and sending him all the love in the world and want to congratulate him on this great milestone. And if you want to send him a happy birthday, please do so. His Twitter is C. Helwani.

My dad wasn't a big talker growing up, but he was a doer. He was the kind of guy who, he sort of taught me that actions speak louder than words. Hard work, determination, putting your head down, working your butt off. good things will happen. And those are some of the lessons that I learned from him. So without him, I would not be here. I wouldn't be doing this. He gave me the green light to follow my dreams.

I'm very thankful for him and wish I was, you know, in Montreal, able to celebrate with my mom and dad and the rest of my family. But nonetheless, I wanted to give him a shout out at the very top of the show and wish him the very best on his 70th birthday. How exciting is that? So, like I said, there's so much to discuss. We have a very fun show planned for all of you. I want to say hello to everyone who is watching us on Twitter,

theMMA hour.com. And you can send us questions all show long using the hashtag the MMA hour. And of course, we're doing the after hour again at the end of the show. We'll be answering your questions. So do hit us up on anything you want about the past week, whatever's on your mind.

And New York, Rick and I will answer those in our exclusive Twitter segment, the MMA After Hour, after the last interview. of the day. Let me run down today's lineup and then we'll talk a bit about the week that was, the world tour, everything that happened. I'm excited to give you my thoughts on everything that I experienced. So here's the lineup for today. 425 Eastern Time will be joined by Demetrius Johnson, the reigning defending UFC flyway champion. Mighty Mouse, who of course was on the show around

a month, month and a half ago, dropped an atomic bomb. Last week, he was, He was named the SB fighter of the year in somewhat of a surprise. So I'm excited to talk to him about that, get an update on his situation, just signed with the new management team. There's a lot going on, as always, in the life of the flyway champion of the UFC. Joe Duffy will stop by at 405. He recently resigned with the UFC. We broke the news on Thursday morning.

He was a free agent, rolled the dice, won his last fight, fought out his contract, got some offers from different promotions. He's back in the UFC. Joe Duffy. At 305, in studio, will be joined by the Vanilla Gorilla himself. Chase Sherman, the Giff King, the GIF King, whatever you want to call it. We've had a bit of a feud over the last few weeks, months, and he actually has a fantastic story. He's in New York. In fact, he came a day early so he can join us in studio. He's fighting on the UFC on Fox card this Saturday on Long Island against Damien Grabowski and I wanted to have him in studio. So our streak of in studio guests

continues. Chase Sherman and I will settle our beef and we'll talk about his gifts and if he really does them and just his story. I'm excited to talk to him. So that will be a lot of fun. I appreciate him making the trek from Long Island. It's not that close to here. So thank you very much to him for doing that. 235 will do Rick's picks. 215. We'll talk to you all Romero. You may have seen that video that he just posted. He was back home in Cuba after the loss to Robert Whitaker. His feud with Michael Bisping continues. I want to talk to him about the loss, where he goes from here, going back home. What, 11 or 12 years later, there's a lot to talk to the soldier of God about that will happen at 215.

155 will talk to Pauli Malinagi, is one of the best boxing analysts in the world. He worked for Showtime. He was on three legs of the world tour. I'm excited to talk to him about the fight. Is he going to spar Connor McGregor? There's a lot to talk to him about. Speaking of Connor at 125, we shall talk to his dad. Without him, none of this is possible.

Tony McGregor, the legend, tones. What a character. He was on the show after UFC 189 when Connor became the interim champion. And I just wanted to talk to him about the tour. The fight coming up, maybe Connor's feud with Floyd Sr. I thought this would be a fun time to talk to Tony McGregor. That will be at 125. So in around 20 minutes from now,

actually skipped one, 145 will be joined by Damien Maya, a brief appearance. He, of course, is fighting Tyron Woodley when in less than two weeks. UFC 214, July 29th, so in 12 days from now. And that will be after Tony before Pauli Maunaji, so stay tuned for that. Damian Maya, always great to talk to him, number one contender in the Walterweight Division. So let's go back to last week. And after I said goodbye to all of you, at the end of the show on Monday, I actually, the first time I've ever done this, I brought my luggage, all my stuff. I schlepped it all the way from my house to here and left the studio, went straight to the airport. Because I was going to Los Angeles for the Mayweather McGregor World Tour stop number one.

And as I told you at the very end of the show, on the after hour segment, I was very excited to go there because I wanted to take it all in, but also because I was going to work for showtime. This was a big deal for me. As I mentioned last week, it was a dream come true to not only work for a network like that, but also to be a part of the broadcast team as far as the World Tour is concerned. I'm not talking about the fight itself, but just the World Tour coverage and to just kind of be a part of it on the stage, all that stuff and more I told you about hosting in Toronto and New York, et cetera. So I was very excited. Went to the airport, got on the flight, landed at around like 2 a.m. Pacific Times.

which is 5 a.m. here. Didn't have much sleep, but I was pumped. I was excited. So I wake up Tuesday morning, and now I'm getting dressed, and I'm feeling it. I'm in Los Angeles. This is so cool. Beautiful hotel. We're very close to the Staples Center. The presser, I think, is starting. I keep calling it a presser. It's not really a presser, as I said last week. It's more of a performance theater, whatever you want to call it. Anyhow, it was starting in a couple of hours. And around an hour before I was going to leave, I was told, by the producer, before you go to the arena, can you stop by our hotel? We just need to talk about something. And all of a sudden, I was like, hmm, this could either be good, like, hey, we want to do more,

or this could be really bad. For some reason, as I told someone who I was talking to at the time, via text, I had a bad feeling about it all. But I was trying to think positive thoughts, and I was going to hope for the best. Get in a cab, go to the hotel, get there, And I see Stephen Espinoza, who is the head of Showtime Sports and Brian Daly, who was the producer of this coverage sitting in the lobby. And I could tell by the looks on their faces that they don't have good news to deliver to me. And this was kind of like something about Mary moment for me. But I was wearing my backpack, but I was also wearing my suit, not the jacket, but I had the vest on. and when I went to sit down next to them,

as I can see that they're kind of anxious to tell me some kind of news, my backpack is caught on the buckle of my vest, and I can't get it off. And this is very embarrassing. And everyone kind of wants to get on with this whole thing. So I actually sat there with the backpack on, and I looked like a five-year-old kid. I mean, it was not a good start.

Anyways, right off the bat, I can tell they want to tell me something, so we get right to it, and they tell me that Monday night, U.S. President Dana White got word. that I was going to be a part of the coverage and through a fit said, absolutely not. He cannot be a part of it. He's the only guy that I don't want to be a part of it.

No, no, no, no, no. And they told me that they fought for me Monday night. They fought for me Tuesday morning, and he just would not budge. Didn't want me to be a part of it at all. And they also said, look, you know, we're in a partnership here. Conner's a UFC fighter.

Things are going relatively well. We have to pick our battles. essentially and this is just one that we cannot win so we're very sorry you can't be a part of the coverage. Obviously this was gutting, this was very disappointing. I was totally bummed. I mean, I flew in, I came. I don't know if I was going to go to the LA stop.

In the end, obviously I was happy that I was there. I'm happy that I went to Toronto. But it was just, I mean, we're literally an hour away from this thing going down. And to get that news was just incredibly disappointing. And so I was just trying to digest it all and I said to Stephen Espinoza, who's known if you follow him on Twitter, I said to him, hey, you know, if you were me, what would you do in this situation? Of course, knowing what happened last year and, you know, the reaction and the bullying and, you know, not wanting to lay down, but also not wanting to rock the boat, I don't want to put him in a tough spot. This is his network and I have a lot of respect for Showtime. And I didn't want to, you know, get them involved in this ridiculous feud. And he said, I said, I said,

said, what would you do if you were me? And he said, I would put it out there. And that's all I needed. So I wanted to put it out there. Not because I wanted to make this about myself. I saw some people say that early on. Oh, you're making this about yourself. I mean, just go back and look at the coverage. After the initial couple of tweets, I pretty much let it die. A ton of people asked me to do interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday. I said no to all of them. I wasn't there to talk about that. I mean, again, it was disappointing. It was dumbfounding. It makes no sense. It was petty. But I'm still here to cover for MMA fighting. And I would argue that losing that opportunity as disappointing as it was led to us having better coverage on MMA fighting because I was able to devote all my time

to the website. And I'm very proud of the coverage that we did for those three days in L.A., Toronto and New York. But I did want to put it out there because I do believe that when you are dealing with someone like Dana White, you cannot let them walk all over you and bully you and intimidate you and you have to tell people what's going on especially because I had already told them that I was going to be a part of it so now of a sudden I'm just going to disappear and crawl into a hole that's not exactly what I believe in and so I just put it out there and it was very weird to then just like pick up my stuff and then go in and now I'm a regular media guy and everyone's hitting you up and asking you questions and I will you know I'll be honest I would be

lawing if I didn't say that I was, you know, kind of, I felt a little down throughout that entire day, but I was like, look, I'm just going to put this to the side. Here's Ardham. Here's Owen. Here's Connor. Here's Floyd. I mean, this is all very cool. I can't harp on this. I'm not going to lick my wounds. I'll deal with this later. And so I thought that we had a very fun, a fun day, great coverage. I appreciate Connor, who I was told, had heard about it and was upset. When he sat down on the stage, he saw me, he gave me a thumbs up when I saw him in the back. Clearly he gave me some time.

He didn't have to do that. And so, you know, that definitely meant a lot to me. And so I know a lot of people, look, I'm not going to come here. And I don't want to harp on all of this. And, you know, I saw some tweets where, you know, Dana's calling me some not so nice words. And I know that he wants me to go back and forth with him. I know he wants me to, you know, get into this war of words with him.

But I would be doing you, our viewers and the visitors of the website a disservice if I stoop to his level. I am reminded of something that Michelle Obama said, and I'm not getting political here, but it really resonated with me last year when she said it. When she was talking at the Democratic National Convention in July, she said, when they go low, we go high. And as he continues to go lower and lower, I mean, literally taking jobs away from me, taking money from my family, taking food from my kids.

he continues to go low, I'm going to keep going high because if I stoop to his level, then I'm no longer what I want to be, which is an unbiased and a fair and balanced journalist. If I show any kind of bias, then I'm no longer that. And so I will continue to cover the UFC and Dana, as I have always covered them, which is, in my opinion, fair and equal and balanced.

And when they do something great like the 214 promo, I will tell you, I'll be the first to tell you. that it's a fantastic promo and people will then say, oh, you know, why don't you go, you know, why don't you go make out with it? I don't care. I feel that way and I will say it. There's no bias.

And when they do something that I think is wrong, like the Amanda Nunes situation or the Demetius Johnson situation or any other situation, all happily talk about that as well. The good and the bad. I'm not going to stoop to his level. I'm not going to get into a name-calling thing.

He could say whatever he wants about me. That's fine. To me, he is just a subject. he is trying to make this personal. Again, he's the one who last year in the first interview after the banning talked about my children. You know, anytime Dana White does something, I never say, what would your kids think about that? That is crossing a line. I would never do that to anyone who I cover.

But again, he's not being held to the same standards as me. I'm not going to allow him to get the best of me. And so, yes, I thought it was petty. I thought it was ridiculous. I thought it was uncalled for. ask him, what is your beef with me? There is no real reason. There really isn't. The Brock Leicester situation, are you kidding me? There is no real reason. But if that's the way he wants to be, that's the way he's going to be. And I'll continue doing my job and I'll continue doing my thing. And I kind of

came to this revelation as I was flying home from Los Angeles to Toronto. I say home because it's my home country of Canada. And I said to myself, I'm not going to allow this guy to ruin this experience for me. I'm still there. I'm still covering it. I still have my press credential. I'm just not going to do it. I would be doing a disservice to myself now. I will regret this. I know I will. And so once I landed in Canada, it was such good timing because I felt like there was this weight lifted off my shoulders. I was, you know, in the Great White North, happy people, nice weather, Blue Jays country. I'm feeling good. I'm loving life. And perfect timing. we get to that, you know, we get to that open air stadium, the Budweiser stage, the Molson Amphitheater,

and it was, that was one of the most memorable days of my career. I will never forget that day. What an atmosphere. The Canadian fans, I mean, that was an afterthought on the tour, and they absolutely killed it. So on Monday, excuse me, on Tuesday, you know, the press conference, it was a tale of four cities, came out, you know, Connor wasn't totally prepared with the format, caught off guard, but I still thought for the most part

it was a rather entertaining show and they had some good, you know, jabs and it was just kind of surreal. Like that moment when they're standing next to each other face to face, like that was just surreal. That was worth the price of admission itself. And I know it was free, but you get my point.

Like that was the moment. Nothing else mattered. But then everyone wanted to know how Connor would respond. And boy, oh boy, did he respond. I mean, that was, I mean, look at this picture. This picture by Esther Lynn, this is iconic.

This photo, will be remembered and talked about. And it'll probably be up here one day. I mean, look at that. 16,000 people all the way to the back. It was unbelievable. And there was a sort of joie de vivre in the air and the beach balls.

Our buddy, MMA history today had one. He threw it. Connor nailed it with the left and the back and forth. It was, I can't even put it to words what the atmosphere was like that afternoon in Toronto. And it was raining. And Drake comes out. And they were just on point going back and forth.

Connor's response to Los Angeles and the stuff with Espinosa and the stuff with Lerby, it was a home, it was a grand slam. It was amazing. It was incredible. So I thought L.A. was great. And then we all want, and it was perfect because a lot of us, including me, thought, okay, if we're going to score this, Mayweather, got the better of Connor. And then we went to Toronto and you could say 10A, 10, 10, 9, whatever.

Connor wins that one. And now we're rolling. And I remember waking up super early to come home. here to New York to do the beat on Thursday and thinking what these guys are pulling off right now is nothing short of amazing and they're probably the only two people on the planet Earth who could pull this off. Here's a microphone. Here's a stage. Here's thousands of people in front of you. Here's millions of people at home. Do whatever you want. So L.A. nailed it, I thought, despite some of the glitches. Toronto Grand Slam, one of the greatest pieces of fight

promotion performance art I've ever seen. And then we get to Brooklyn. and now you're asking for a lot. Now you're asking for three days straight. These guys aren't actors. They're not comedians. This was treated like a comedy tour except everyone who was in Brooklyn saw Toronto, saw Los Angeles,

so you can't use the same stuff. And if you do use the same stuff, people are going to roll their eyes, they're going to groan. So they're asked to create more and more and more and more and go lower and lower and lower and there's more pressure put on them and then you saw Brooklyn.

Now Brooklyn was marred by the audio problems, but it was also marred by the fact that they had so much pressure on them to top Toronto that it was just a disaster from the get-go. And it was a disaster. It was the worst stop because they were late, because of the audio problems,

because of the content, because some, I mean, it was just, let's just forget about Brooklyn. The Dougie Fresh thing, I mean, they were just trying to kill time, but there was some, it did not feel happy and innocent and genuine like Toronto and Los Angeles did.

It was uncomfortable, it was mean-spirited. It just didn't feel good. It didn't. I said earlier, I like Connor when he shows up in the suit and he's kind of like the businessman, but then he has his mouth. Don't love with the, you know, like we saw with the Mincote in New York prior to 205. It's funny and all, but I don't know, it just kind of brings out a different side in him. And I preferred the side that we saw in, you know, the FU suit.

Brilliant. That was brilliant. In L.A., Toronto and then, of course, in London. So that was a bit of a bummer. I will say, though, the backstage stuff in Brooklyn was the best of the entire trip. at least for me I went to the first year. I didn't go to London. It was actually impossible logistically to make it to London unless we left Brooklyn early. But it was, I mean, the backstage stuff, you got to give them props each and every step of the way. They were so accessible, all the players, from Connor and Floyd to Dana and Lerby, to Espinosa, to everyone in between. So accessible as a media member, it was well worth the miles and the money and the effort and the time. Major props to the PR team, all the PR people involved. involved from the UFC ones to the Showtime ones to Mayweather's team, Swanson Communications, to all the, I mean, the third party ones that they hired, phenomenal access they gave. And these guys gave us so much time. It was incredible. It really was. That to me was the highlight.

And you speak about highlights, the big revelation, in my opinion, was Floyd Mayweather. Like we can, you know, we, we can argue about like who won what, which days. Floyd still got it. And I did not expect that. I think I said on this show that I thought that Connor would just smoke him in the trash talking department. Not the case. At 40 years young, Floyd Mayweather turned back the clock. He went back to 30. He went back to the early days of Money Mae when he went from Pretty Boy to Money Mae.

And he is unfazed. It's amazing. Connor will touch his head, will bump him, and the guy will not budge. The louder they boo, the happier he is. he was not phase one bit. He loved it. He is the perfect heel. I thought that the fight was going to start last week

in the sense that Connor would get under his skin and try to make him fight unlike himself. That was the beginning of him trying to crack the shield that is Floyd. Mayweather like we saw with Jose Aldo, that did not work. That did not happen. That did not happen. And Floyd knows, people were talking about Floyd, you know, apologizing to Dana White

and saying me and you are on the same page. That's all to screen. with Conner's head to say this is your boss, this is who you're working for. Without him, you cannot be here. He knows, and you can kind of see it, makes him a little uncomfortable when he talks about that. He knows how to push Connor's buttons. Now I'm not saying that Connor lost or is, you know, a little screwed up in the head right now after the tour or Floyd is under his skin, but I will say I thought that Connor would smoke him in the trash talk department and that did not happen. And that to me was the big story this past week. Now, I am not condo.

any of the insults, the homophobic, racial. I mean, all of that made me very uncomfortable, and it was all unnecessary. I do chalk it up to them trying too hard and trying to one up each other and more importantly, trying to one up themselves from city to city to city. I wish after Toronto they would have said, all right, first two days in the books, perfect. Now let's go to the other format. Let's take some questions. Let's let them play off each other. They kind of did that at the end of London, but by then it was too late. I wish that they would have recognized, again, that they're going to run out of material, that there's a lot of pressure on them. You know, it's just too much. It's too much. Look at Floyd's voice by the end. It's just a lot. You're asking

a guy to go up there with a mic front of thousands of people in attendance, millions at home, and just go off like it's a rap battle. Like it's a like it's, you know, like I said, performance, theater, comedy routine. It's not fighting. It was like the opening segment of Monday Night Raw without the rest. wrestling and no script. It was phenomenal. People keep asking me like, okay, is the hate real or not? No, there is animosity there, but there's also a lot of respect. They are about to make each other very rich. The insults were real. The feelings are real. They probably, you know, don't want to go for coffee, but I can guarantee you when this is all said and done, they will say, hey, much respect. We just

made each other richer. Let's call it what it is. Floyd is coming back because he's going to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Connor is going for this because he will make more in this fight than any other UFC fight. So let's call it what it is. But yes, the insults were real. They didn't sit in the back and say, okay, I'm going to say this, then you're going to say that,

I'm going to say this, and you're going to say that. No, that didn't happen. But we know what's going on here. This is a money fight. This is prize fighting. They're fighting for a large amount of cash. They kind of saved the day,

I thought, in London. They kind of got back on track. Unfortunately, you know, Floyd, the slur kind of ruined it. I thought, I mean, just like unnecessary to go there. He was doing fine. Until that, and I was like, oh, why? Why do you have to do that?

But overall, if anyone tells you that they're not going to buy the pay-per-view because of this tour, I think that they're lying. I don't think they lost any buys. In fact, I think it will do better because of what happened last week. It was perfect timing. It was a very quiet week in the world of sports. There was no baseball. They had the All-Star game. Obviously, you know, football's on break, basketball's on break, hockey's on break.

I mean, this is historically the quietest time in the world of sports. So to do the press tour on that week was brilliant. I mean, they were leading sports center. Every paper was talking about them. The New York Times in Canada, all over the place. It was brilliant. And I mean, come August 26th, no one's going to talk about Brooklyn or, you know, some of the cringe-worthy moments or Dougie Fresh. They'll be talking about these moments.

It will make for good fodder. It will make for good promotional videos, hype videos, things of that nature. So overall, it has to be deemed a success because they got people talking about. talking and they got people more excited about the fight. My brother and mother made a bet on a text message chain about the fight. That's what's happening all across the world in front of, you know, barbershops and bars in bars, family dinners. Everyone's talking about this. People are coming up to me who never talked to me about fighting, ever. So what's up with this fight? Who do you think is going to win? Honestly, does Connor have a chance? It's the talk of,

it's the talk of the sports world and then some. Everyone's talking about it. And this did its job. Going in, I wasn't sure it would break the $4 million pay-per-view mark that Pac-Yow and Mayweather broke. I think that this will now. And I actually think it will quite easily. And I think if there wasn't any piracy, I think it would completely crush it. I honestly do. They both were great. And they were at their best backstage. I mean, Floyd backstage was phenomenal. The way he talks to media, the way he actually looks you eye to eye and stays there. and I mean it's just it's amazing to watch him work and Connor was just as great. The time that he gave me, I'll forever be grateful.

The answers, the thoughtfulness, the candor, the humor. It really was an experience unlike anything I've personally ever experienced and it was unlike anything I've ever covered and it actually exceeded my expectations on many fronts. So yeah, we can nitpick certain things and they're all nitpick worthy. but if you are involved in the promotion and you are one of the promoters or TV executives involved or Leonard Ellaby who had a smile on his face the entire time, the entire week, you have to be happy. You have to be. Are there certain things that you would do differently?

Yeah, sure. Again, I think they should have altered the format as they went on. But to see these two face-to-face going back and forth, for the most part, was magic. Just go back to Toronto. Re-watch that. I mean, that was magic. that was unlike anything we've ever seen in fight promotion or not only two athletes in the world could do what they did in Toronto and you're looking at him Floyd and Connor

that's it it truly is amazing all right those are some of my thoughts on what happened last week we'll talk about it a little more with New York Rick but now let's get into the show as far as the interviews are concerned and I'm very excited to talk to our first guests of the day the last and only time we've had him on the show was right after UFC 189 and a And as I said at the top of the show, without him, none of this is possible. There is no Connor McGregor without our next guest. We're talking to Connor's father. Such an honor to welcome back to the program, the one and only Tony McGregor.

Tony, are you there? I'm here. Ariel, thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. Incidentally, it takes two. Margaret also had a hand in it. That is very true. That is very true. And you know what?

I've read a lot of your interviews. Now you're a cultural icon in Dublin and in Dublin. Ireland and worldwide. And I really respect the fact that you always take the time to give a shout out to your wife. Very well done. That's all class on your part. So I appreciate you doing that right off the top. Thank you for that.

So, Tony, I got to ask you, did you watch the tour last week? I did watch a tour like you. I watched it with bated breath. And I thought, you know, everything about it was superb to fighters, you know, the spectacle. It was everything that promoters and TV executives would love. And more importantly, it's what fans love as well. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it. It's been a wonderful journey for us all, from the very start.

Could you paint the picture for us? Like, you know, again, this is your son, so you obviously watch him with a different set of eyes and a different perspective. Do you all sit down with a cup of tea and say, okay, let's watch, you know, Toronto and see what Connor has in store for us? How do you consume this? well we do sit down as not so much as a one family unit anymore because we're marva and i are empty nesters now so they're all they're all adult children they have their own um their own apartments and homes where they look at themselves

but we're in constant communication with him did you see this did you see that did you see the way he walked out did you see the suit he walked i mean we're just fans at gog as well when when he walks on stage you know is it somewhat surreal i mean at this point so much has happened and I'm sure he ceases to amaze you, but to see him standing there next to the guy who many considered to be the greatest boxer of all time and this idea seemed like a pipe dream, not that long ago, when you actually saw him standing there for the first time

across Floyd Mayweather, what are you thinking? Well, you know, something, that really has me, had me in all because it was fabricated, the entire thing was fabricated by Connem of Greger. You know, he said he'd get this, fight and no one believed him but he got the fight and that's what really amazes me

really truly you know that's what amazed me how he how he commissioned all these things all the different tangents of all different sinews to drag in and tie up and it just all came together in the end it must be extremely difficult from a business point of view

never mind from from a fighting perspective just from the business side of things it must be very difficult to get all this to come together Did you think this would happen? Or were you like most of us who thought, okay, go ahead. Initially, no, I mean, he said he would do it. I knew this pre-Christmas.

I knew that it was going to happen. I had to keep mum on it. So, no, I knew it was going to happen. But the difficulty in getting it to happen, that's what amazes me. That really sort of amazes me. And to this moment, I still can't believe it, you know? And I think also, by the way, a lot of people are not going to believe what's going to happen on the 26th of August in the T-Mobile arena. Because the boxing fraternity, they wrote Conner off.

No one in the boxing world has given him a chance. I think what Conner is going to produce in the T-Mobile on the 26th is nothing short of a seismic shock. It's going to reverberate right through the whole unarmed combat world. and while Mayweather was the best fighter in the world and no one can take that away from him on the 26th of August he's going to be the second best fighter in the world will you be there

number one I'll be there our family are flying out on block on 23rd so we're there for a week that's all we need take in the atmosphere so good of the atmosphere and enjoy the spectacle I'll be there in amongst the fans cheering on our number

one zero. So Connor said last week under four. What is your prediction? Well, I always stick with Connor. Under four, that's what he said. That's what he's going to do. He's not called Mystic Mac for nothing. He predicts it and he produces it. And when he fights in MMA, I'm sure there's a level of confidence there

because he's been doing it for so long. Is there any part of you that's a little more anxious, or do you expect to be more anxious as the fight comes about? because this is really uncharted territory for him? It is uncharted. Well, not so much uncharted. Fight on this level, obviously, he's uncharted. But, no, he's prepared well.

He knows his opponents. He's forced boxing. Boxing, by the way, was his first discipline as a young boy. And that's how he has that stand-up power. I don't think Mayweather has much to produce to cause Conor any difficulty. I don't think he has the power. You know, he's a lot of defensive moves. Connor can pick them out.

He'll wear them down. And Connor has the precision. He has the power. You know, he has that kinetic energy. And I don't think he's, I don't think Mayweather has experienced that kinetic energy. And when Connor connects, I just think Mayweather's going to fold. So the prediction for Connor, he says under four, I'm going to stick. He says in four, I'm going to stick with Connor, four.

I don't bet, by the way. I'm not a betting man. I've never bet on Connor. Okay. And so I won't be placing any money on him, but I'll be with him all the way. He says four. I'm sticking with four also. What is life like for you and Margaret these days?

Is this unlike anything you've imagined? I'm assuming if people are coming up to me every second of the day asking about the fight, I'm assuming you can't walk a step without someone talking to you about it, right? Yeah, we get a lot of attention here in Ireland. I mean, we're like many special averages, I think. you could call us that, although we don't assume that we are, we're just normal people. But we do get a lot of attention. He has huge support here, so nearly every person in Ireland is a support of Conner McGrath.

So when they see us or when they know who we are, they'll always ask questions or, you know, send best wishes to Connor. You know, that's always happened. No matter we go to the supermarket down to the local pub. In fact, I was in the doctor's surgery this afternoon with just a minor stupid thing, I needed some medical attention. And in the waiting room, patients in the waiting room, are you, Connor McGrathster? Oh, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him.

We'd love to be there. So I get it everywhere, yeah. Does it ever get old? Does it ever get old? Does it ever get a little tire somehow? No, how could it ever get old? No, excitement never gets old, Ariel, never gets old. You know, again, when I do, like, my show, my mother will text me and say, I love this, I love this, I love that.

Do you text him after these, you know, performances and say, that was brilliant, you know, You talk to him or is it too crazy? You need to kind of give him his space a bit. No, no, I do talk, I do text him. I know, keep up to good work. Your mother loves the suit. You know, that was a new suit we saw. And, yeah, no, we text him all the time.

His mother and I have a great interest in him in his career. So, yeah, we text him all the time. And you're referring to the FU suit, right? FU. Yeah, it's a new one. I mean, he's even blazing trails in the fashion world, you know? Yes. What do you prefer when he wears the suit or the fur coat and the shirtless?

Which look do you prefer for your son? I think as a parent we'll always go for the suit. Yes. Suit wins with me, always. That's right. He can't beat bespoke tailoring. That's right. You were the one who introduced him to that, right?

Well, you know, I'd like to think he got something off me. I don't think he got his fighting prowess off me. Maybe he got his style off me and he's honed it to his standard. I've only ever got one one bespoke tailored suit. Just one? Mm-hmm. Just one. Well, funny, no, actually, I've had three, actually, but

funny enough, I just like off the peg suits they fit me, but if I need them to be, I'd possibly come under 26. Okay. He is coming out with his own line of suits, he told us. Oh, we may have lost you there. Tony, are you still there?

Yeah, still here, yeah. Okay, yeah, I was saying he's coming out with his own line, so I'm sure that he could hook you up. Is it not true that your father actually used to dabble in boxing? He was, he was an amateur boxer as well, yeah. Yeah, so maybe he got from him. He's not with an amateur level, yeah. Possibly, yeah, you know, it's obviously in the lineage somewhere along the line.

You know, obviously pick up from the lineage, you know. some people are born to be great writers or great poets, great artists. It's obviously taken somewhere along the lineage. So I'd like to think we have lineage, the McGregors have lineage that produced this wonderful world-class fighter. Recently, Connor, of course, became a father for the first time. And this is obviously a great joy for you. I know being a grandparent is an amazing thing, seeing your son now tends to a child. Have you noticed a difference in him as a person?

since he became a father? Of course, a new baby will always soften anybody. But it still doesn't mean to be softened in the ring. Soften as it brings out the emotions. Yeah, of course, a new baby, an infant will always soften people. But to soften when it's in the ring. And what is it like for you to see him with a child now, being a dad? What's that like for you?

It's such a pleasure. It's such a pleasure to see new life being introduced into a family. I call it now, it's like God's gratuitous into grandparents. That's what a grandchild is. Like, it really is. When you experience it, Ariel, you'll realize it's wonderful to see new life coming into a family. Yeah. That's more exciting than anything, honestly.

You and Margaret babysit when he's on these tours and stuff and going out and about? Yeah, we love it. Yeah, we love it. We attended a wedding there, a foreign wedding and a foreign wedding. And Dee was with young Connor Jr. So we were looking after our grandson then. Yeah, we really love it. That is amazing.

You have two grandsons and one granddors, so we really love it now. We're reveling in it. So I'm told... Everybody mature as well. Yeah, and I know one of your daughters recently got married at the end of the year, so congratulations. It seems like, I mean, I don't want to put you on sort of the evil eye,

but, man, the times are good for the McGregors these days, right? I mean, with all your children. Times are really good, you know, they really are, And we are grateful for every second of it. We realize how good life is for us. I mean, never take it for granted. We appreciate every second that God gives us. I am shocked that there isn't a Tony McGregor reality show.

I can't imagine that no one has reached out to you yet, right? I mean, someone has reached out to you. Yeah, well, I had good fun on the, when the RTE did the six-part documentary. I had good fun on that. I got great reviews from it. But, you know, I'm just a normal guy, dusting the bell as well, you know? But you would do it if offered, or if maybe the price is right? Maybe.

Yeah. No one has come to me yet with any figures. Really? I'm shocked. Maybe I have some business vacuum and I could knock up with some sort of an agreement with a reality TV yet. Yeah. I mean, you're just such an interesting man. You go to MMA events and I was told from my colleague Peter Carroll that everyone's coming up to you.

You can't even watch the fights for a minute by yourself because you're like a celebrity at these events. You like going to them? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I have good fun. That was a barman event recently. I met your colleague, nice guy. And after so many fans come up and I said, look, I do have a bladder as well.

And you're watching the fights with shades, right? It's good fun. Pardon? You're watching the fights with shades on indoors. Yeah, they're prescription glasses. Yeah, prescription shades. What about, what's... What's the best, you know,

the best celebrity meeting that you've had since Connor became? this international superstar. Was it Kanye West, that photo that you took with him, which I photo bombed in the back. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, you photo bombed that one. That was good. That was good. That was the best, yeah.

I got great reaction on that. Actually, the Irish media printed me to pick that up and they put the papers, yeah. That was a good one that, Mike. That was right after the second DS fight. You told me, you told me when you were on the show two years ago that you recently retired, right? Yeah, retired now. I'm on a marine here now in Dunlary, which is a coastal resort town in Dublin, just outside Dublin City. So I'm just about to get on board Conner's yacht on his famous 188 and just take it out for a spin around the harbor.

So, yeah, I'm just tired so I can do all these fun things now. Just you by yourself? I have Margaret on the yacht there now. And Aaron, Connor's sister and her boyfriend's partner, Terry. And we're going to take young Harry as well. That's their newborn. That's our own grand son. Yeah, so I'm going to take them out just for an hour, just to spin around the bay.

Take her out of the harbor and spin around the bay. It's a beautiful sunny evening here. The skies are absolutely azure blue. It's about 28 degrees centigrade. Wow. That is in your Fahrenheit, but it's really nice, nice balmy evening. So I'll get an hour and a half out in the bay. Yeah.

It's a beautiful thing. I don't want to keep you too long. I just want to ask you about this. I was told that not that long ago, Connor came to your house, and there was like five, I think, BMWs, and he's like, hey, let's go for a spin. You like this car? Yeah, sure. Here it is for you.

Is that what happened recently? Has he been very generous? That's what happened. He's been very generous. What happened? Tell us the story. Okay, he was off home on one of his tours. He had come back.

This was September two years ago. And he had come back from a long, a long fight tour. I forget what fight it was. And I was told to get home quick. It was about 10 o'clock. So I just saw this entourage of cars, black cars, big chauffeur type cars. You know, and I thought, what the hell is this? This must be his entourage, bring them home.

Black types do. The MDD people looked at the electric window went down. Carter was in the drive. He said, he said, do you like the car? I said, it's lovely. He said, sit in. I sat in to the BMD. He says, do you really like it?

He said, yeah. He threw me the keys, said it's yours. I've been driving ever since. I call it a Diablo. So he's been very generous with his wealth since becoming this superstar. He's been very generous. He's very generous. Absolutely.

Yeah. That's how well. Yeah. Last thing for you, Tony, if you can still hear me. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you perfect. You know, one of the stories that came out last week was, is Connor McGregor a racist? How do you feel when you see these reports? I see.

I view those things as race baters. Okay, Conor McGregor is not racist. His fight is not about race. It's about skill and technique. In fact, I don't think any fight is ever about race. The color of skin is immaterial. It's a victory that Connor is looking for. It's imperative.

That's the only thing I'd say. Conner has absolutely unequivocally no racist. It's not about skin. No two. combaters would ever get into a ring and the issue would be the color of their opposing skin. No, absolutely not. One of the fun storylines that came out last week was... It's not a race issue.

Right, right. No, and I agree wholeheartedly. Connor and Floyd Sr. Did you see that clip of Connor and Floyd's dad going back and forth? I didn't see that. I did see that. I had to laugh. I mean, Floyd Sr. is a wonderful man. I mean, if I ever met him up in the evening, I'd just, you know, I'd wheel him around his wheelchair for

half an hour. Give him half an hour. fun, you know. That's great. I think he's a lovely man. He's an old man. I give him respect. Maybe Tony and Floyd Sr. go toe to toe. There you go. I'll let... I never hit an old man. No, of course not. You're classier than that. But I did think it was very funny. The way, you could tell that Connor had a lot of respect for him, despite, you know, the back and forth and the jokes. You could tell that he didn't want to, you know, rattle him up too much. It has been fun to catch up with you, Tony. Really has. And I appreciate you taking out some time to talk to us. Enjoy the ride to August 26. And I look forward to seeing you out there at the T-Mobile arena when it all goes down. I can't wait, Ari. Say good evening to all your listeners on day in Dublin.

I appreciate it. Best to your family as well. Thank you so much. There he is. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. The one and only Tony McGregor, the father of one Connor McGregor, about to go on the yacht, take it for a spin.

How about that? I thought of Tony last week when Connor and Floyd Sr. That was a great moment. They were going back and forth at the Staples Center. our own Mark Romondi caught it on camera and you could tell despite the jokes Connor was having a blast with it all you could see that there was a respect there

you could see that he was sort of enjoying the back and forth with Floyd who you know from the looks of those jabs can still go and so that was a lot of fun and it was fun to catch up with Tony he's a very busy guy I appreciate him squeezing us in

as he's about to go on that little sejourn beautiful day I love the way he paints the picture the sky is blue, it's nice outside, azure, yes, it's all just, it's all just very classy. That's Hunter McGregor. If there are any producers out there in Dublin who are not knocking on this man's door to do a reality show, what have you been missing? Oh my gosh, that would be an instant hit. All right, let's move along now. We are 12 days away from UFC 214. It goes down, Anaheim, California, July 29th,

co-main event, Damian Maya versus Tyrone Woodley for the Welterweight title. But before we move along with this show, here's a little story for all of you.

So as you know, the UFC is back in New York State, the Empire State. As you know, it's their debut on Long Island. And one of the members

of our team, Stephanie, you know her as an avid jujitsu player, MMA fan, maybe one day she'll beat up New York Rick,

is going to the event. And she told me, me recently that the way in which she bought her tickets to the event on Saturday at the brand spanking new Nassau Coliseum is she used the Seek app. Very easy to use. You go on the app. It's able to sort of curate all the different ticket sellers. You see which is the, you know, the ticket that best fits your needs. There's a whole cool filter system. You're able to see, all right, this is where I'd sit if I'd want this, that. This is the sort of most desirable seed for this price.

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And they support many podcasts like our own. own and so we are big fans of their of theirs let me tell you more about seek it is designed to make your ticket buying experience easier than ever and our own new york rick has used it as well is that not true mr new york rick it is true in fact i'm looking at the tickets for that show that you mentioned and it looks like there's still some good deals available come out to the show in new york yes maybe you'll see me more importantly maybe you'll see stephanie new uh nassau coliseum like i said It's a beautiful venue. Chris Wyman versus Kelvin Gaslim.

Maybe we can even bother New York Creek to buy tickets. He doesn't like to mingle with the common folk. He doesn't like to mingle with the riffrath, if you will. But maybe, you know, now that Seeky is on board, he'll do it. If I was to buy, I'm still on the fence. It's going to, I'll buy it through Seeky. Well, thank you. Tell us more about Seekkeek.

Why don't you, Mr. New York Creek? Well, I can tell you that Seekek saves you time and money by searching multiple ticket sites to compare prices and find amazing deals. as I just said, I'm looking at Seekekek right now, in fact, and what they do is they score the tickets by how much value you're getting, where you're sitting, how your experience is going to be. So there's a system in place that if you're looking at Seekek, you'll know how good the tickets are,

and you really only need to buy the ones that are great value. Unless you're really, really dying, there's not a lot of tickets left. You'll be able to get an amazing deal through Seekek. So to get the most bang for your buck, As I said, they grade every ticket. It's a score of what seems to be zero to 100 to help you immediately find the best seats that fit your budget. Plus, this is important.

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Download the Ciki app right now. Now back to the show. We're being joined by Damien Mai right now on the phone. Damien, are you there? Yeah, I'm here at me here. I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us, and I know you're very busy, so we're going to keep it relatively short here. You know, when this fight was announced, it kind of came out of nowhere in the sense that there are already two titles on the card being defended. it didn't seem like they usually want to go for the third. I mean, historically they don't want to do that. Were you surprised when they came to you and said, we want you to fight on this card that already has two title fights on it already?

Yes, like you said, you know, there was already two title fights. And, you know, they asked before a ball end of August. So, you're not going to fight end up August. Then, you know, there was this fight with Kono and the weather. So they canceled this seven. and then they have to start to end up to life. And how did you feel about it? Did you feel like, okay, I'm happy that I'm getting the title fight,

but I mean, this is a month. I'm literally getting a month to prepare for it. Did you have, you know, some conflicted feelings? How did you feel when you were offered the fight? Okay, of course, yeah, there was a lot of conflict, you know, in my team, we talk and we are, you know, thinking about, you know, that, you know, it was the number one container. So, you know, I would like more time to prepare.

Of course, everybody knows that, you know, for a title fight, you don't have a big cat, which actually is four weeks because the last week is more like cutting weights and keep the body going. But, you know, after you accept the fight, we talk and we said, okay, now we forget about everything. The business is done. And now we're going to be ready. And we're going to do the best to be in my best, you know, shape. to be read for of course

July 29th. Did you have a feeling that they would come to you with July 29th? In other words, were you already sort of training for the fight when they called you? I don't know. It's hard to say that, but the thing is, you know, I'm lucky because I'm always training. I always skipping my diet and I always, you know, I like to train. So I never like to be able to.

Even I was teaching and, you know, give the seminars and, you know, but I was praying. And I love to know in my world So it's not perfect But you know It's not like I was taught a lot

Out of shape If you look at Tyrant's Social Media He's been preparing for a title fight Since before you fought Jorge Mazvedal Were you concerned that he would get Like essentially got a head start On this training camp

And would have more time to prepare Because it seems like he's been training since April Yeah Yeah he is you know, and I, he was since April, I know I met him at Las Vegas at the summit, the R system, and I know that, but

like I said, you know, from now on, the last weeks, you know, I've been in a very good camp, and Eduardo is doing a great job, you know, to figure out the ways to win against Taro, and I are not complaining anymore, you know.

We had our problems when we we receive, you know, the new that we are going to fight so soon in about the month. But now my mindset is all like, you know, I would be ready. I'm getting ready.

And, you know, I want to win this title. So you have been so dominant as of late. But there have been people, including Tyrant, who have said this is the perfect matchup for Tyron because you're so good at getting your opponents down and then submitting them also. There have been times where you have not even had to land a punch.

But he is such a good wrestler and has been thriving on the feed. Do you agree that this isn't the, like of all the opponents that you face as of like Condit, Masvedal, etc., he may be the toughest because of just, you know, the style that he has,

great wrestler who also can strike very well? You know, I'm biased to say that. I think Delphold is, I think he's a good matchap for me. And I think, yeah, he is a great wrestler, but I think his strongest point is, you know, his hand-y-hand. And lately, that's what he's been doing. So I think, you know, he's a great wrestler, but now he's more a striker than a wrestler. Ah.

So you think he's gone away from his wrestling a bit, and he's susceptible to the takedown? Yeah, of course, yeah, everybody goes. Like, you know, when I started to strike a lot back in the day, you know, I lost a little bit in my jurgits. It's normal. It's just normal. You know, you cannot do everything well. you lose a little bit, some sharpness. But, of course, you know, he's still very good.

He's still a very good foundation on his wrestling. But I think, you know, I would be able to impose my game. Was there a moment in your career where you thought yourself, I'm relying too much or I'm trying to be too much of a striker, and I have to go back to my bread and butter, which is the jiu-jitsu. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember where, you know, the point was when we dropped to us. that actually Eduardo brought the training back to more grappling, you know, stuff,

and we put a lot of wrestling also and much more jiu-jitsu. You know, you do during the fight where you're training. So the time there was training a lot of stand-up, you know, of course when you get there, you're going to do more stand-up. And the fight is so, when you go to fight, you know, you're in a mode that is so unconscious and is so automatic that, you know, not think too much, okay, I've been doing a lot of striking, but, you know, I'm going to take this guy down because it will be easier. It would just do what you did during the training camps.

The crucial thing for us is during the training camp, come back to my roots and come back to Jujits. Have you watched his fight against Jake Shields a lot? Do you feel like that's the kind of fight that you need to emulate? Jake seemed to frustrate him at times and, of course, beat him a few years back. And he has maybe improved since then, but since your style is much like, Jake, is that the kind of fight that you're going to try to emulate? No, it's not, you know, I know Jake. Yeah, I saw the fight, I watched the fight, and I saw how Jake did.

You know, I have a different style than Jake, but that's, of course, you know, I saw some things, you know, I got some things in that fight that I can use. But I think Jake and I, we have different styles. And plus, you know, Jake, it's a guy who always, you know, makes, he looks, he's not so tough, but, you know, everybody who goes to fight him, he's able to put in his style and master with the guys head and winning, a lot of fights.

So I think, you know, I can use some stuff from that fight, but it's not exactly the same style. So you're now 39, you're turning 40 in November. in your mind, do you kind of feel like Okay, you know, it was it was quite the journey to get back to the second title fight after UFC 112. This is my last shot.

I have to win this fight because there's a probable chance that I won't get another crack at the belt for the rest of my career. Is that what you're thinking going into this? No, actually, you know, I don't... The things that I learn with the time and my age now is to don't put this kind of pressure because this is really unreal pressure.

It's like it doesn't matter, you know, if it's the last chance or not. This doesn't mean nothing in my life. It's just, you know, it's just another fight. I could fight a couple years ago, and I'm fighting now for the title. So my mindset is just another fight. I just need to go there and win against a pretty tough opponent. If I put this mindset, like this is my last chance, you know, I got a win, will be, you know, a pressure that can put me off the track.

Okay, fair enough. I like that. Last thing for you, Damien, what's the biggest difference between this Damien Maya who's preparing for a title fight as opposed to the one who was preparing for Anderson Silva back in 2010? Other than the fact that you're older, more mature, you're evolved, do you sense a difference in the way you're preparing mentally for your title fight?

One thing is what I just said, you know, like, about the... the awareness and and be conscious that this is just another fight and and I cannot think this is the biggest fight of my life because that's just you know something that and I really need to believe that I believe in there when I fell honest I was like this the fight of my life if I win that this will happen this and that and you're dreaming too much with the the future you know the tomorrow and right now fighting I just know, you know, that it doesn't matter what happens. After it's just, you know, I'm living this fight, and this is just another fight,

and this is better. And I'm not just saying that, but I'm feeling that, and that's important. And, of course, you know, I'm a pretty different athlete technically. You know, I'm much better wrestler, I'm much better a striker. I'm much better in control my feelings, you know, I'm much better overall. Well, I can't wait for it. I've been wanting to see this fight since even before Tyron became champion, and I'm so happy that you finally got it. I know it wasn't under the most ideal circumstances, but you got the fight and have no doubt that you will perform at your best. We are less than 12 days away. I thank you once again, Damia, for squeezing us in because I know your training camp has been very hectic. So thank you again, and I'll see you in Anaheim. I hope to talk to you over there as well. Thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to be in your show, you know,

and I hope to be there many times more, you know, especially when I'm in New York. I hope to, after, you know, after this fight, come back to your show with the belt on my waist. Oh, wow. That would be something. I get goosebumps just listening to that. Thank you.

I appreciate that, Damien. Best of luck to you. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, there he is. Damien Maya, the number one contender in the UFC's Walter weight division. Great to hear from him. That card is phenomenal. That is the best the UFC has offered thus far this year, just praying to the MMA gods that everything, as far as the main card is concerned,

remains intact. All right, let's move along to our next guest. I'm very excited to talk to him. I've been watching this man compete for years and years and years, the pride of Brooklyn. And now he has turned in to, in my opinion, one of the very best boxing analysts in the world. He was front and center for the world tour in L.A., Toronto, New York. I was looking forward to working with him. Maybe that will happen someday down the line for now. Very excited to talk to the one and only Pauli Malinagi right now on the show. Polly, are you there?

I'm here, Ariel. Nice to be nice, good. Thanks for having me on the show, man. How's everything all? Everything's great. I appreciate the time as well. So, you know, I know this is sort of a big question, but in general, did you enjoy the tour?

Did you have fun covering it for those three stops? You know, people have a lot of mixed feelings about the way the tour went. I thought it was unbelievably entertaining. You know, I thought it was, I thought it was something else, really. I thought it was a lot of fun. I thought both guys were very witty, which I thought it promoted the fight, which is what it's supposed to do. I mean, people always are going to have opinion about, oh, maybe a guy out of hand,

or maybe a lot of it was staged. I don't think of any of the little stage. I thought they were both very witty in the fact that it kind of had to try to one-up each other with the trash-talking. And it's one thing in a written interview where you kind of think of what you're going to say. It's another thing to be able to trade-talk very good on the spot where they have been really witty, You have to be really witty because you don't know what the other guy's going to say, have an answer and a response or whatnot. And I thought both guys handled that very well. And I think it really helped in selling this fight.

Do you agree with what I said earlier, which was maybe they were asking a little too much of them to do this for four straight days? Here's an open microphone. Here's a crowd of a thousand, you know, 16,000 or so people in front of you. Here's a crowd of a million or so at home and just go for it. Like maybe after Toronto it should have adapted or evolved a little bit and change the format so that they, don't feel the pressure to go so low. Yeah, well, that's the thing, Ariel. You know, when you're, when you're sparring every single day,

when you're sparring every single day, I mean, not when you're in a press conference every single day, you know, you're going to run out of material eventually, you know? So you're going to have to get the pressures on you to entertain. You know, these press cameras, they're like events. They're like fun. It's not like a regular press conference. So you've got so many people.

People want to hear some good stuff. You want to see some good stuff. So you always have to prepare, like a stand-up comedian almost. where you have to have materials that you're going to come out and say, and all of a sudden, yesterday's material becomes irrelevant today

because people that weren't present, people that weren't present yesterday, still saw it on a live stream. But not you're going to have to end up to see this other new life crowd with some new material or whatnot. Maybe after four days, you know,

you're kind of ending, you're kind of reaching your widths and as far as your material since. I thought the biggest revelation of it all was that Mayweather still got it, that he was able to turn back the clock and be that brash Floyd Mayweather who fought Ricky Hennon. had in an Oscar Delahoya. I thought that Connor would annihilate him in the trash talk,

and that did not happen. He actually was completely unfazed. Were you surprised that he was that on point as he was? I wasn't surprised. You know, when it comes to trade-talking, a lot of times, you know, earlier in my career, I was a big trade-soker, but as my career was started, winding down, you kind of like, you're kind of over the trash-talking, you're kind of over all that other stuff. And it's not that you don't enjoy being there. It's just like, you know what, Just more about business. You're more about, hey, you know, I'm going to get myself paid and handle this fight. But, but, but when you get a young guy like this, a young phenom who steps into the forefront,

and he takes away all the attention that you're used to getting, and he's taking away all the attention because he said you're the trash talker. He may bring you back to your younger instinct. He makes you feel younger. That's the feeling I got out of Mayweather where he was almost like enjoying things again. He didn't go through his regular blah, blah, blah, blah. where it's like I've been a champion for a long time. I've worked hundreds of millions of dollars, yada, yada, yada. You know, because of Connor McGregor,

astuteness and wittiness and enthusiasm, you know, Mayweather was risking having a guy take all the attention away from him. And one thing Mayweather doesn't like is not having the intention. So he almost had to become the trash talker all over again, just so he could keep up with McGregor. I thought it made for some good exchanges. So it was fun to sort of score each tour stop

after, you know, the end of the performance. Do you think at the end of the whole thing, four stops, that one guy got the better of the other? Did it kind of end up in a wash? I think they alternated days. I think Mayweather got caught McGregor off guard in the first one. I think McGregor wasn't used to how boxy first conference in the world.

So in L.A., I thought Mayweiler had the advantage. Toronto was just, with McGregor at its finest. I mean, Toronto was, Toronto might be the best first conference I've ever seen in my life. I mean, that was something out of this world, extraordinary, you know, between the crowd and the atmosphere. here and both guys are just a tippy top of their best trash talking so Connor got that one. I thought in New York, Floyd Culls did a little stronger.

I thought to throw the money in the air on top of his whole entourage. I thought that was a funny touch. I thought I got it from. But then in London, I thought McGregor got him back again, you know. But there was some funny exchanges, some funny, not just talking, but also the way they were behaving, the way they were moving around, the way they were in each other's orbit and whatnot. And just everything about it, for me had to pay me. You know what I mean?

These are two characters. and they and you know they're uh they were at the center of the world detention and they kind of handled it well i thought they handled it in a funny way and in an entertaining way but also in a trash talking way which is you're supposed to do in uh promoting a big fight was there any point where you thought they're going too far um you know what it is when you're going to fight somebody you almost your your mindset is in a different place you know you're you're you're trying to get the edge any which where you can but you also starting to really very much

dislike the person. So any mental ed you can get, you will get. And it might look, sometimes it looks like going too far from the outside looking in for the layman because,

hey, the layman doesn't have his game based on. The layman does not understand what it's like the beat in the presence of a guy who, in a matter of a month and a half, you're going to be swapping blood with

and it's going to be trying to take your head off and you're going to try to take his head off. You know, there's a subtle tension underneath that you do not like this guy. Like, regardless of what people say, like, oh, you know, these guys, they set up that they want

to make a great, press conferences. They might have, behind the scenes, they're laughing. Maybe behind the scenes, they might shake any of the even touch, touch fist bump and say, okay, we're going to make funny. But let me tell you something. Underneath everything, these are still going to fight. So, so at days end, the tension is there. And the heat is there.

So, do they go a little too far? Maybe for the layman, sometimes they go a little too far, but there's nothing really you can do to go too far when you're trying to bust up your opponent's psyche for battle. Was there any point, I thought that Connor almost had to treat this from L.A. on as the beginning of the fight, try to crack his shield and get in his head so that, you know, even at 1% he's not the same Floyd, that's a victory.

Was there any point where you thought, all right, Conner's getting under his skin, he's getting in his head, he's cracking him a little bit? I thought they both got on each other's skin in certain moments. But one thing about me that I started to think, one thing in my mind that I started to think, Boy keeps harping on Conner's quitting in an ADS fight, the tapping out, sort of speak, whether it's quitting or not, you know. And Boy keeps harping on that thing. He would never quit. You never quit.

You're not a real fighter when you play. He keeps harping on it. He keeps harping on it. I think psychologically what Boy's trying to do is, in his mind, he sees himself punishing Connor McGregor in the ring. He sees himself punishing McGregor in the ring. Which means that by harping on the quitting constantly, you're going to eliminate the option for Connerner.

to be able to quit or sit on the stool between rounds and end the fight that way. Connor is going to have to take every second of physical beating that Floyd was intent to dish out. In my mind, that's how Floyd was playing. Now, whether that's going to happen or not, you know, that's up to their opinions. That's up to the way the fight plays out. That's up to the way, you know, the technicalities play out in themselves. But in my mind, the mind game, Floyd was playing and constantly berating Connor about what's tapping out, constantly berating Connor about the tapping out, constantly, constantly doing it.

You are now eliminating the option for Connor to be able to find a way. way out of that fight if he finds himself in trouble, you know, which in Floyd's mind, Connor will find himself in trouble. I'm speaking from the point of view of Floyd Mayweather, you're not from the point of view of myself or anybody else. So in my mind now, Floyd is putting Connor in a position where he's saying, I'm going to punish this guy so bad for all this straight shopping. And he's going to have to take every second of beating from me. Otherwise, he's going to be embarrassed by the entire crowd because they know I called him out I'm quitting. So I think there's getting on the other skin in a lot of ways. I think I think Floyd was

doing that because Connor was under his skin. I think Floyd was a little bit agitated because Connor was in his skin. But then in reverse, in retaliation, Floyd gets under Connor's skin by doing stuff like that. And now Connor feels like he's going to have something to prove on fight night. And that's what Floyd wants. Boy wants Connor. I think he has something to prove on fight night. So the mind games also play into put into play here. Everything these guys are doing, it may look extreme, may look all out of control or whatnot. But there's mind game, there's subtle mind games being played. So Connor gets in your head, like Jose Alto, Julialto rush it rushed out at Connor and got himself knocked out.

You know what I mean? Connor, maybe gets it, he's thinking maybe I'm going to get in this guy's head, berate his intelligence, berate his stupidity, berate anything I can, insult his family,

but anything I can do to where the bell rain, this guy might rush out of control, and I might be able to catch him with something like I did Jose Aldo. Now, can I picture it? No, I think maybe it was a bit more of a veteran. He's battle tested, mind and physical, but in Connor's mind,

this is why he's trying to get on the Floyd's kid. He's trying to make Floyd come out of character. and then do something that maybe normally wouldn't do and fall into a trap. So all of this stuff is the beginning of the fight, right? Yeah, it's a bit of theatrics. Yeah, it's a bit of people getting all crazy and thinking, oh, it's a bit extreme.

But trust me, this is all mindgave that you try to lead into the fight and both guys are trying to see how much of a bait starts the beginning of round one. You can get into the guy's mind so at the beginning of round one, you have the advantage going into a fight, going into the opening belt.

Did anything that happened last week change your opinion on the outcome of the fight? You know what I love about McGregor? He does, there's no doubt in his mind. You know, when I first saw the fight time, I told to myself, I kind of asked how he's going to lose. I mean, subtly, he's got to believe he's going to lose. I mean, we all have doubts in our mind when we have a tough fight.

And then we go to camp and we train every day, and we get more and more confident every day, we get more sharp. So nobody actually goes into a fight feeling they're going to lose, even if they're big on the dog. That's not the way he's supposed to do, especially at a championship level. all winners at a championship level.

I really thought he was doing it a lot of the money. I thought there's no way this guy can really believe he's going to win. But through the press conferences, day in, day out, day and day out that I was at, I really noticed something in Connor's character. This guy is a winner throwing through, which I always believe he was. The guy believes he's going to win this fight. Now, whether it sounds ridiculous to the boxing fans or ridiculous to anybody else, it may sound ridiculous even to me or somebody else,

he believes it wholeheartedly in his mind. There's nothing this guy hasn't been able to achieve in his life. when that was kept on him. So in his mind, he's just doing the same thing he's been doing his whole life, proving the doubters wrong, proving the odds wrong. And in his mind, he's going to do it again. And he wholeheartedly believed that. I could tell him it was emotion behind that threshold.

It was passion behind that threshold. It was passion behind what he was saying. You can only be that passion if you believe in what you're going, the way of what you're doing. Are you going to help him prepare for the fight? What's going on with that? Connor, that is. Yeah, we've talked.

I was starting to wonder myself because, you know, We went back on forth as far as we looked a little bit confused. I was a little bit confused as maybe they changed their mind or whatnot. But they've contacted me again. I'll be joining them slowly. Who contacted you? Jerry Burns. Jerry Byrne.

Jerry Byrne is one of the assistants on Conrad's team. And I have a connection with him because I'm a good friend of Dean Byrne's brother. Dean Byrne is an Irish professional fighter. He was training in Los Angeles for a few years when I was actually living there in training as well. And so we struggled with a friendship. And, you know, I've since gone back to the East Coast. Dean has since moved back to the UK, but we've been in touch all the time.

And just about a month ago, you know, Dean had me up and said, hey, you know what, my brother was in Connor McGregor, you want to know if I can pass your number thing. I wouldn't do it without your permission, but can I give my brother your number? And I was like, sure, no problem. I said, but I'm actually retired. I don't know if they're looking to work or anything, but I don't know what kind of shape I'm in right now.

But they called me, they talked to me. I've got myself in a little bit of shape since then, and I'll look to take it so we're going to make it happen a little bit. And so are you going there just to spar him, or will you actually help him train for the fight? I think Connor has a very capable training team. John Cavino has been a guy who's been around him for a while. And, you know, he's got a team that really understand him both inside the after the

oxygen and they know him as a fighter and as a person. So if you know the guy is a fighter as a person, I don't think you want to change that because, you know, the psychology of him as well as the technical analysis of him. So I wouldn't say I'm going there to train. If I'm going to give a couple of, you know, technical tidbits maybe, maybe not, you know, but I definitely wouldn't call myself a train. trainer. I think his team has that foundation down tight, and they're going to be doing the training,

and they're going to be in charge of all that. But, of course, I'll be going there as far, and, you know, if I see anything, you know, in one of the terms, of course, I'll share my, I'll share my views on some of the things. How long do you plan on going there for? I'm not sure. I guess it's down to how long they need to work. You know, we've discussed a couple of potential things, you know, but I don't know, you know, it'll depend on them, you know. I've always been in a camp I've been in my training camp

You know, I've never been in somebody else's training camp You've gone out of the prospect And I helped champions get ready for their fight It was mostly at home, you know, Where I came up in recent gym in New York Where there's so many champions training there A lot during their training camps in Greece But I was never a guy that was brought into camp

As a farm partner where I had to leave my house I had to leave home This is the first time that ever happened to me So in my professional experience When I used to run my own training camps You know, I make all the decisions You know, my team, I meet with my team, I make all the decisions as far as long as far as partners should stay,

what a spark partner should go, and all this other stuff. So that's going to be, if I'm going by the way I look at things, all that, all those decisions are going to be up to them. How long they want to keep me around for, how long they don't want to keep me around for, and then so on and so forth. I'm just there to, uh, but accommodate it best I can.

And when do you leave? Do you know that yet? When do I want? When do you go out there to, to sparham? When do I go out there? You want to know? I do want to know, yes. I fly out Wednesday to a little big

Wow So someone asked Connor about you During the press tour And he said this quote Polly talked a lot of shit He was talking Look he's been brought into Spar And then he'll answer to what he's been saying

And then we'll go from there After that But we're gonna have a knock in the gym We're gonna have a knock in the gym He's gonna have to answer for what he's been saying What have you been saying That's gone Connor It seemed like it was almost like

He was ready to fight you as opposed to like When Connor got his box and license You know all the boxers Look at it like, wow, this is a big paycheck here, you know? And if a guy was probably a little bit limited, that's the boxing and your, your basic world-life boxer, you know?

So everybody was trying to get in there. For me, using my trash-talking ability that I have, and me knowing that I'm one of the better-known fighters in the business, I try to put myself in the forefront. You know, I tried to talk a little bit of trash and get on their skin and try to see if you would take the bait, you know? So the trash-tog was done about six months ago. I was looking to get the fight.

I've been, most of my life's fight and retired, and so, you know, that's actually out the window. But, you know, I think that's basically what they're looking at and what he's talking about is where I was fresh talking way back then, you know, and, yeah, we're going to have a knock on a gym, but listen, Ariel. I mean, you know, from a fighter's perspective, you have a knock on the gym anyway. Even if you're best friends with the guy you're sparring,

you're going to have a knock in there. That's just the way sparring goes, especially at a world-class championship level in the gym on sparring. I've never been a part of a training camp where sparring was like. I've never ever been at. You know, even when I was the young kid that was sparring the champions, you used to try to take each other's head off. And when I was the championship,

all fight of bringing in young sparring partners, you used to try to take each other's head off. Whether you're cool with them outside the ring or not, you're looking to rip each other apart, you know? That's just the way sparring is. You get to raise your intensity level to a very high level because on finite, you need to be able to reach down and get that intensity level when it's there,

and you need to be familiar with that intensity level. You can just show up on finite and reach your intensity level you're not used to get to, you know? So you get there and sparring a few times a week and you little by little your mind and your body acclimates that kind of intensity, that level of intensity, so you don't have to really dig deep to reach you. You're automatically on all pilots once you reach that attentionity level on fighting. So the having a knock on the gym part, it's good for the media to jump on.

It's good for fans to jump on to get them something to talk about. But in reality, Ariel, you can have a knock in a gym or cause. It's just the way it is. Right. Do you feel like you're going into hostile territory, though? They're actually going to come and it's going to be uncomfortable? ball? Well, you know, I'm not getting jumped in there. So, I never feel like, I never feel like I'm in hostile territory, you know, because I'm very confident.

I'm very confident in my ability inside the ring, you know. Okay. I never feel like, you know, I'm going in there and I have to, oh, my goodness, you know, I'm sparring so and so. I've sparked so many good fighters through so many years, you know. You know, it's almost like an agency, you know, especially sparring. I mean, fight night is one thing, especially sparring, you know. it's very intense, but at the same time, you know, there's nothing I haven't done before,

many, many, thousands and thousands of rounds of my life. I'm confident about what I can do in there, and I'm sure Connor's confident about what you can do in there, and yeah, we'll probably have a knock. We'll have a knock or even two or three, you know, but sure it'll be all good, and if I can help out and do my part in the camp, and then I'll be happy.

This may be a weird question before I let you go, considering that you're flying out on Wednesday, but do you have a prediction? How do you see this unfolding? I think you favor Mayweather and then you go from there seeing it Connor can have certain moments so what I've been saying for the start

you need to look if Connor can have certain moments in the fight I don't think you can just outright say Connor wins the fight okay you can't it's just outright too much of a jump but here's where you can start

to think Connor going to fight you look for Connor to have certain moments in the fight whether you can get exploit attention maybe land a particular punch a particular shot or particular combination figure out ways where it's falling for certain things

because of course someone doesn't fall from very many things We'll figure out ways we can put certain traps for Floyd and land a couple of shots here and there and here's what

happened. You have a moment here you have a moment there. Sometimes, especially when I get the punch as hard as kind of McGregor,

sometimes the moment becomes a bigger moment. Sometimes a bigger moment ends the fight. You know what I'm saying? So you look at it, look at it like this, can kind of have

a moment or two here and there. Because overall the control of a fight, I believe will be Floyd. Floyd's fight to control. And I believe Floyd will be in control. But if he can, if he can get, if he can get certain moments

in the fight, If he can reach his moment here, a moment there, around here and there. First of all, when the crowd goes crazy, there's a prize going to be supporting Connor, regardless, and get his confidence up, can that certain moment become a bigger moment? You know what I'm saying? If one may have to 40 years old, they have a phone in two years. You know what I mean?

That does count to a degree. You know what I mean? Tom McGrath has never fought a boxing match. Yes, that does count as well. So there's pros and cons of both guys. Obviously, Boy has no pros going into this fight because it is a boxing match. Having said that, though, when a guy hit started, Conmer Greeter, all he needs to do is look.

to have certain moments in the fight. A moment here, a moment here. Can he turn one of these moments into a bigger moment that can possibly turn into real danger of Floyd Mayweather? And that's kind of how you want to view the fight if you're looking at Connor McGregor's chances of winning the fight. Because if you just look at it and say, oh, Connor's going to fight, not that simple,

not that black and white. There's a lot of gray area in there. You'll probably say Roy of Mayweather in the fight. But there's your intangible that you spoke about that you think that maybe Connor has a chance. Would it be disastrous for boxing? If Connor wins, would this be just a complete nightmare? Or do you not subscribe to that?

I don't think so. I don't think so because I think then we get to keep Connor McGregor. We'll steal him from the USC. That is true. Because then he'll realize how much money he can make him boxing, especially with a winner with Floyd Mayweather. And he'll say, you know what? I kind of like this paycheck.

I might hang around for a little bit, you know? I love that. But first things first. Let's get the fight plays out. I think there's ways and possibilities where even if he loses the fight, if he performs in a decent manner, you know, he'll come out of optimal positive. of the two. People will come out of the fight

talking better about him than about Floyd. I think the only way Floyd comes out of this fight with positive press is if he absolutely annihilate Connor McGregor. He has to absolutely annihilate him, and he has to absolutely give him no shant of any achling of a moment in the fight. If Floyd absolutely annihilates McGregor, and he comes out with positive

press. If Connor even has certain moments in the fight and still loses, people will talk more about McGregor to Mayweather after this fight because this is Mayweather's domain. He's supposed to dominate. Connor is not supposed to do anything. So anything Connor achieved in this fight is positive. for him. What phenomenal insight.

Thank you so much. Real honor to have you on the show, Polly. I've been watching you for years and such an admirer of your work in the ring and now on the microphone. Thank you for the time and the insight. And good luck over there. They're good people. They won't jump you. I'm certain of that.

But good luck over there in Vegas with the McGregor team. I'm going to be leaving Wednesday. I'm going to be leaving Wednesday, but I have to return to New York City of five weeks for showtime. And then I will once again leave from Vegas after Borneo Garcia. I'll be Vegas, New York, and back to Vegas. Wow. Wow. That's a lot of fun.

over there. Thank you again and hope to talk to you maybe before or after the fight again. Yes, sir, Ariel. Always my pleasure. Take it easy. All right, there he is. Pauli Malanaji. What phenomenal insight. Wow, that was amazing. You see, if you're not a boxing fan, why this guy is so good. I mean, you could

just tell, respect for the game, respect for MMA, respect for Connor. He's not dismissing it. He's not, and yes, I know he works for Showtime and I know that he is part of the broadcast team, but you could tell there's genuine respect there, and yes, he's going out there, but what a phenomenal. I mean, just the analysis was tremendous. And now we've got the confirmation after a bit of a

back and forth that he will be going to Las Vegas. You heard it there to spar with Conn McGregor. Business is picking up over there. It was we prepare for August 26th. Very curious to see how that goes. We shall find out soon enough. All right. Let's move along. As you know, around nine days ago, who was UFC 213. Main event ended up being Robert Whitaker versus Yole Romero. Most people thought Yoel Romero won the first two rounds, and then some way somehow, with a bum leg, Robert Whitaker pulled away. But the story after that fight, at least as far as Yoel Romero is concerned, has been his simmering feud with Michael Bisping. Cage side, Michael Bisping got a hold of a Cuban flag and ripped it. Afterwards, Yoel Romero at the press conference told me just how he felt about that.

Since then, he's put out a couple of videos going back at Michael Bisping, and this is some of the finest promotional work that we have. have seen in quite some time. I mean, straight out of 1980s pro wrestling, and I say that as a compliment. He even went back to his home country of Cuba. Amazing stuff. So I wanted to check in with the Soldier of God and see how he's doing 90s after the fight, how the trip went, all that stuff and more. He joins us now via the Magical Skype. There he is. Yoel. How are you, my friend, Shalom? And I must say, it's always good to see you, but I am very disappointed in seeing the man next to you. Where is Ray? What is this? Ray, Ray couldn't make it, so I had to step in.

Oh, my God. I got some better things to do to be on your show. Yeah. But, you know, since you bother me a lot and have these guys on, I got no choice with the help out here, Mom. Oh, my God. What a disappointment. Abraham, who I always go through to book the guests on the show, did not tell me about this. This is what we call a curveball, if you will, but we shall make do.

Malki, how are you? It's good to have you on the program as well. So, Yuel, this is very exciting. Wow. Don't seem too excited there, guy. No, I know, I'm not. Raise the man. the greatest translator in the history of the game.

What? Ray is the man. No, Ray is the man. He's asking about Ray. What did I tell you? The first thing that was going to happen. As soon as we got on, he saw me and not Ray. Not there.

All right. Yuel, you were just in Cuba? Yes, I have a messy time. I see my son, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister. You know, it's a long time. not see my family for 11 years and I don't see my family you know wow I'm very exciting you know I have a fantastic time fantastic when did you go I go Cuba two two two days before the fight after the fight and and why did you stay after the fight yeah

why did you stay for so short why didn't you stay there for a couple of weeks a month or so you haven't been there in so long okay to know more time for a month or two a week or two a week or two a week or two a day. Oh,

yeah, because I want to return fast because I want to training. I want to, I want to know everything

what happened for the, for the, for the, for the, for my division, you know, because I hear,

I hear the, the, the Widdick is injury. I want to know what happened, you know,

because I want for business. I don't matter since, for the Bell or no bell? I want to fight with this guy, you know, because he, he knows respect my country, my flight, my flat, you know, and he, somebody needed a close the month for this man, you know,

because he took a lot and never, he paid back, you know. I want to he needed to pay, you know, because it's not good. You need, fight is fight, but, you know, nobody can touch a lot of, a lot of shit about the country or the family. That is a serious, serious problem, you know. That is not good. You know, it's not good. I want to know what happened with the Whittigel.

I know I lost with Wittigel. I said, you know, very good. He, if I fight good, I lose, you know. I know excuse him. When you lose it, you lose it. No excuse it. But she he, he no can fight. I want to fight with, be,

You know, I want to find Bispin, you know. And I'll ask you about Bispang in a second, but first, what was it like when you saw your son for the first time in 11 years, your family? What was that like after all this time, the emotion involved? Can you tell us? Oh, um, that's a, uh, I don't have a, how much is a word. I don't have words. I don't know, I can explain with what I feel it because, you know, is, is they really love. When I see my song, I cry with him, he cried. You know, that's just, when I see my mom, that's love, you know.

That's just, I know, I don't have a, I know can tell what I feel, you know, that's amazing. What kind of love did you get from the Cuban people? And now that you're so famous, you just fought for a UFC belt. Did you feel like a lot of people were coming up to you, recognizing you, noticing you, did you get a lot of compliments? What was that like as you were walking the streets? Yeah, the people love me, you know, like I am for, you know, I like an era, you know, like a superstar, you know. But that's an important, the most important when the people love you because you, you, you, you represent your country. When you represent the people, you know, that's what the people see when the people see me, you know.

That's what I want that people see when the people see me, you know. I fight for my, for my family, you know. I,

I do what I do for my country, you know, for my people, you know, for my gym, for my team, you know. And the people love with this,

you know, I can't, I can talk with, I can talk with everyone, you know. I can talk with the, with the, the people the poor people you know i can talk i can sit with the poor people i can eat with

together with the poor people you know because i think we may have lost them there that's that first round management internet connection as you can tell we lost you all for a quick second we will get them back in fact when i booked them on the show i just wanted to check in with them post 213. I had no idea because if you've been tuning in to his appearances last two or three times, I was asking him about bringing the belt back home. He said that that's what he wanted to do now that he could travel freely to Cuba. I had no idea that he actually went to Cuba after the fight. I didn't know that that actually happened. And so you can kind of see the emotion. I know he's wearing sunglasses, but you can see the emotion. If you have not seen that video that he tweeted out,

go to his Twitter, go to my Twitter during the show after the show. I mean, it's like a 60-second clip and he's on the streets of Havana and he's talking about Michael Bisping and at times he's holding the Union Jack flag other times he's doing other things with it. This is, I mean, this is no joke. I say it's like 1980s

pro wrestling because they used to tap into those emotions, those fused if you will, and bring in flags and patriotism and nationalism, all that stuff and more. But I mean, this is very real. You could tell this is very real, especially considering

his history with Cuba and if you know a bit about his history with him defecting and how proud Michael Bisping is and this is very real and I can help it feel as much as I would love to see Michael Bisping versus Robert Whitaker and much as I would love to see Michael Bisping fight. George St. Pierre, this is a money fight.

It is hard to get this kind of emotion. It is hard to get this kind of heat in this day and age. There is something very real there between Michael Bisping and YOL Romero. And credit to him for keeping this going. I mean, I know he wants to fight, but his team, him, they're putting on some great, some great videos for us.

This is high quality stuff. I think it might make some people a little bit uneasy when it kind of reaches that line of flags and disrespecting flags and burning things and ripping things up. Again, as we were talking with Paul and Malinaghi, sometimes in fight promotion, as I've said on this show, all's fair and love and fight promotion. But yeah, it is, it is definitely teetering on that edge. I mean, I can't recall this happening as far as a UFC feud is concerned. I mean, there have been times where, you know, people have made fun.

Matt Serra made fun of GSP and the accent and the Frenchy thing. Remember that? Prior to the rematch at UFC 83, but I don't recall flags, nationalism, pride, all that stuff coming into play. Could be wrong. Let me know if I'm wrong. This seems to be a first. He referenced the fact that Whitaker may be banged up. I was told that one of the options that was presented as far as the new Ultimate Fighter season is concerned, the 26th season, was Bisping and Whitaker.

But for whatever reason, Whitaker couldn't do it. No update yet on the severity of that leg injury. And then there was some talk of Justin Gaichi and Kevin Lee. And then it ended up being Justin Gauchy and Eddie Alvarez. In fact, they already started filming. It's going down right now in Las Vegas, and this is the season where they're introducing the flywights, and the winner becomes the first ever UFC women's flyweight champion. So it's Eddie Alvarez, Justin Gaci, and I heard that the current plan, at least as of right now,

is to have them fight on that December 2nd card in Detroit, which would have been a great platform for Kevin Lee, who's getting all kinds of push from the UFC. but I'm sure they have other plans for him. We do have Yowell on the phone, I do believe, right now. Yowell, are you there? Yeah, I see here. All right. So we'll make do with this.

And so, Yuel, you have put on these amazing videos, very entertaining, somewhat terrifying of you in Cuba with the flag, talking to Michael Bisping, the other video with the picture burning it. Why are you doing this? Why do you feel the need to do this in response to what Bissing did last? last Saturday. Yeah, man. Yeah, because he not respect my flyer. He not respect me.

You know, that is not good. He needed to pay me. He need a fight with me. Bell or no bell? But he needed to fight with me. I say, Donna, why I give me the guy? I wanted this guy.

I know I lose my chance for the bell. But see, we take it. You can fight for the injury? Okay. I say, Dana, give me the guy. I want to fight with him. Bell or not Bell, but I want to fight with him. Because he needs respect me.

You know, that's it. It is what it is. That's what I want, you know? And so what does Dana White say? Is there a chance that you get him? Depend. On? Maybe depend, because,

see, Wigge can fight? I fought with somebody for the, so somebody, you know? I can fight with another one. If Whitaker can fight, obviously, then Whitaker's going to fight Bisping next. But what he's saying basically is that if Whitaker has any type of injuries or is unable to fight, then he wants to step in and fight Bistpink no matter what. If not, then he'll fight going to whoever's next and continue on his trek to become a world champion.

And has the UFC said that yes, if he is unable to fight, which seems to be a possibility, that they are interested in doing this? I mean, we've seen plenty of times, right? Misha Tate lost to Katzengano. She ended up getting Ronda Rousey. Nick Diaz, you know, what was coming off a loss, and he ended up fighting George St. Pierre. Is this possible? No, no, no, no, no person

say nothing, you know? I want to fight. I want to fight with it. Yoel, what do you say to people who say, look, you were very upset when he ripped up your flag and now you're disrespecting his flag? Two wrongs don't make a right. What is your response to that? Oh, you know, fucking.

No, fucking. That's it. That's it. On the streets in Havana, were people talking about this to you? The flag, the ripping of the flag? Did you feel like a lot of people were bothered about this as well? Yes, man. The people say, what it is?

This guy, no respect my, the Cuba country. The people are in Cuba is so mad. You know? And you're doing this for them, right? I mean, you're still very bothered about this. Yep. Okay. Yuel, have you watched the fight against Robert?

Have you had a chance to watch it yet? Not yet, but tomorrow, tomorrow in this week I see. I want to see with my team, you know? Okay, so you actually haven't felt compelled to sit down and rewatch what happened. No, not yet, no yet. Has you, at the press conference in Vegas, you handled it so well. I mean, there was a smile on your face, you said all the right things. nine days later, how is it sitting with you now?

Because I thought you were up two rounds. You were so close. One more round, you'd be champion, or at least interim champion. How are you feeling about the fight as you kind of think about it now, nine days later? What I do, the way. I'm sorry, what you feel. I feel, not the word, I think. I think is, I am flying.

I, I'm, how do you, I? I slipped. sleep, that's what I think. I sleep, all the time I think about the sleep, you know? Uh-huh. When I sleep, that's the key.

And, and Widdike, um, uh, super European Shuchang's... He's not a ticket, in the control, you know, when I sleep, and that's the, the,

the, the last minute where the, the, the, the Jews, the judges, the judges, you know? The last minute with the JGC, and that's the what happened, you know. But

I don't I'm not feeling mad, you know, because I know I have the what I think I have a

big respect with Wittigoo, his good fight who fight it. But I think I am not sleep, no, no,

I know if I sleep it, sleep, sleep, I win it. I won the fight. That's what I think, you know. That's what I think.

And, and continuing, you know, when you lose it like a kick out and the people, and when the people kick it, destroy you, you say, I don't have a chance. They really, I don't have a chance for the barrel, you know. But it's true. I have a, I am a champion. I feel like a really chap. I don't have a the belt, but I continue, you know. It is true.

It's true that I can win the champion, you know. I can win the belt. I can take it the belt. Did you feel like you got tired? I mean, going into the fourth and fifth round, did you feel like you were getting a little more tired? And is that something that you're going to try to work on for the next time you fight for a belt.

Yes, I feel a little tired, a little tired, but Whitaker is tired too, you know? Those are the people that people not talking about it. Look at this. Whitaker has a 26 years old. I am 40.

And he's tired too. Why are the people talking about the iron tire? I am tired, but he's tired too. Look at the, the, the, the two and three minutes for the last round, I go forward. No, but I'm forward. No, I'm talking forward.

And he go back. He's back and back, you know, because I'm feeling good. I am recovering. I am little tired, but I am recovering my, my, my gas, you know? My second gas, second gas. but I sleep it that's it that's what I think

I think about sleeping not about the oh I am tired and and Wurike all the time push me down

oh I don't move no no no I don't think about like this in the fight I think about like a this is my opinion I say

that no one I am winning this fight because I slip, you know, like a kid. I want to do something. One technique, I can slip and go down in the last minute. And that's what the judge sees. That's what the judge is seen.

You stand down and he, the guy controller the last minute, the last round. And very close five. And you lose the last round, that's that. That's what I happened, you know. But now tomorrow, I want to sit with my coaches with my team. And we talk about the for the next camp, you know, for the next camp. And, how do you say, I'll say, I'm going to do you. I'll just, I'll just tell me.

I don't know. I don't know. Again, and I don't can say good adjustments. Adjustments. Adjustments. Adjustments for his camp. That's right.

And because, because no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

do certain things for this camp. That he didn't do. That he didn't do. And now he knows what to do for the next time. By the way, is that Ray? Is Ray back? No, no, this is beans.

Ah, beans, the guy who got the boot. Hey, it's better than Maliki. All of a sudden, I was like, wow, we're actually getting good translations here. In a perfect world, when do you want to return? How quickly do you want to fight again? Tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow.

No breaks. I am ready, no break. I'm going to keep. I'm ready when I eat under the motor. Are you going to keep coming out? with videos. Do you have more videos about Michael? You're going to keep at him? Everywhere. When he's saying, I go. He goes to the, for, for, for, for, for, uh, press comfort for the, I hear, I hear.

He's go with a, Johnny John, Johnny, John, Johnny, John and Danny come to fight. I, I, I go. Wow. Yeah, stay and USC Fox, I go to. Oh, my gosh. You're going to stalk him. I want to see the prey. I want to see the prey for this guy every time. Oh my. I'm going to be his nightmare. I want any sniper.

I'm going to be his nightmare. No, he wants to be his nightmare. Yes, I understand. Wow. So you're going to stalk him basically. Wherever he is, you're going to be there. Yeah. Have you ever felt this way about anyone before? See? No, never. Never in my life.

That's the first time in my life. I say God, I'm sorry. I say sorry, but I'm not going to say sorry to God, but he can't with this one. Wow. So are you afraid of what you would do to Michael Bisming if you see him face-to-face? You have to fear? No, no, no, no, no, I don't know what you would do to make him face-to-face. He's not scared.

He wants to. He feels it. He's going to feel good. Monk is scared for big. Wow. And it's because of the flag, right? You feel like he crossed the line when he did that to the flag. Yeah, for sure.

And the middle of his fight. In the middle of his fight. When I fight, he do it this, you know? When I fight with with me again, I go to the my corner. My corner, he stayed behind him in the corner with me. And when I was in the corner, I see this guy. He ripped my flight. Yeah, yeah.

And we were there for the cage, you know, for the Oterone. Was he talking to you during the fight as well? Was he saying anything to you when you were in the corner? All the time. Oh. He took a lot of shit when I stand the corner. Whoa. What was he saying?

saying? What's the way? Yeah, you know, and I'll see him and start trying him in the fight, trying to get his distraction. Wow, that is intense. By the way, Yuel, before I let you go,

do you think if you didn't... And now, yes, yes, yeah? Where everyone needs to stay, I go. Wow. So you're going to follow him. You're going at 2.14. All the time. All the time. All the time. When I say, I go to.

This is incredible. I've never seen anything like this. Do you think the judges got a wrong, though, Yoel? Like, if you think that you slip, you say that you slip, that's not a takedown. Do you feel like you should have won that fifth round? Do you think that they actually should have scored it in favor of you, regardless of what happened there at the end in the last minute? If they made it.

No, no, you know, if they did the error or not they did it, yeah, yeah, it passed. If they made a mistake or they didn't, it already passed. Okay. I think that they're doing a error. I think that just, you know, he's not, they're doing a error. Simply, it passed, what happened, and yeah,

so. But I'll tell you to go to that, I don't think the judge has made an error. He, he's slipped, he knows he slipped, and what happened happened, but he's not worried about that no more. and he's moving on. I'm feeling good. I feel great. I know like, oh, I lose the fire.

I lose the bed. No, no, man. I am here. Like what I said, Joe Robham. I am here. I'm still here. You know? And now more hungry.

You understand? Yes. Now I have more hungry. I stay with my family in Cuba. Tell me that I'm going to my family in Kuo. He's staying in Cuba. it gave him more strength, more power. Okay, I understand.

Last thing for you, do you want to say anything to Michael? He watches the show all the time. Is there any last message you want to give to him? Hey, Mike, you can see this, as you can see or you hear this interview. I want to say something. Fuck you. I see you son.

Boy. Thank you, Yowel. I appreciate it. Good luck to you. Thank you, my brother. Shalom. I'm sorry, man. Shalom. No problem. Thank you. Wow. Holy smokes. Yoel Romero, maybe the most terrifying human being in the history of mixed martial arts. Wow. That was something. That is real. Please believe. I know it's cool to be cynical, but that is real. He is not happy. Please, MMA gods.

Romero Bisping, that's the one. That is the one. That is the one we deserve. That is the one we need. Because Bispin thrives in these situations. He's perfect for this. He's the one guy that actually is able to come out on top in these situations.

He makes them. He makes that bed. He lies in it. He loves this. But this is intense. Holy smokes. You're all Romero. What amazing stuff.

I love talking to that guy. He's the Shannon Briggs of MMA. That was like Papa Shango. Remember Papa Shango? This is scary stuff. Man. Michael Bisping is going to Anaheim for UFC 214 and Romero's going to. He has no reason to be there.

He has absolutely no reason to be there. F you, see you soon, boy? Oh my gosh. All right. A little break in the action. In 20 minutes, we're going to be joined by the GIF King himself. Chase Sherman is here in studio. The Vanilla Gorilla.

This is going to be fun. The beef will finally be squash. We shall find out. He has 20 minutes. 20 minutes to figure out how to tweet gifts. I don't think he has any managers here with him. I don't think he has any handlers. He has 20 minutes to find out to figure out how to tweet gifts.

For now, though, let's go to Rick's Picks. And now it's time to open up your ears and your minds, MMA fans. It's time for Rick's Picks. Rick's picks Rick's picks are lots of fun And his hair is in a bun I'm a little shook right now I can't even

I can't even dance I'm still trying to get that out of my system It's hard It's the new craze Taking the world by storm Live from the Vox studios Yeah now I feel better New York City

It's time for Rex Picks There it is Boom Kaboom Did you Um God, Miles' headphones are so loud right now.

Yeah, I can actually hear it. I can actually hear it. Did you see the little animation that they created for me? Oh, no. You missed it? Rob, can we roll that back? It wasn't playing. Oh, wow.

Look at that. Who made that? The great Miles, of course. The other Miles. The other Miles. Video extraordinary Miles. You see that? Wait, where does that play?

The New York City, like... When does that play? At the beginning? Yeah. Wow. It's like a little transitional element. That was nice. Is this you flexioner?

your muscles on everyone back there and making them? No, they came to, they came to me and killed it. One more time. Miles killed it. Yeah, let's roll it out. Check out the New York City like vibe to it. Dang. The great, the skyline painted on.

That's nice. I like that. You see, we need more stuff like that. Yeah. That's good. I like that you're getting, you know, the intro music. Your intro music is now better than the actual intro music for the show. You're getting cooler graphics.

I mean, it's just kind of a joke. But, you know what? Look, you get your little 20 minutes, so we're happy to do that. What do you have on store for us? Or in store for us, I should say. You're all right. It's seem a little frazzell. Maybe Y'all got you after a game.

You hear that guy? I have a bone to pick with you, actually. The Giff King? Yeah. I don't think we can throw that title out so easily. There's already a Giff King. Who's that? Caposa.

Grabboka Hit Man. The Gif King. Is he really? Is that his name? If it's not, it is now. Are you kidding me? Chase Sherman, this guy, all he does is Post Gives. He didn't train for this fight.

you'll notice that the photo he tweeted when he arrived here not a GIF maybe somebody else is making those let's see we're gonna find out later though I feel I feel okay with calling him the GIF King I mean I don't know how much

you've been following this back and forth that we've been having but yeah that's all the guy does Is it him though Is it him? We're gonna find out like I said he's got now 18 minutes to figure out how to tweet a GIF I still don't believe that he knows how to do it He tweeted yesterday if he got over 500 retweets,

he would come on the show and now here he is. So 18 minutes away until the vanilla gorilla is sitting right over here. Of course, he's fighting this weekend, UFC Long Island. But now it's time for Rick's picks. What do you got? First. I don't want you to cry after that. You didn't get enough time.

I don't know if it'd be me crying. It'd be the fans crying. They look forward to this segment every week. So we're going to start. We're going to cover all things Mayweather, obviously. Mayweather McGregor Let's start with the Tour

You've got the background It's amazing I mean This is a high quality No rinky dink operation over here This is the real deal Yes As Pugmire

Of the LA Times Putting out that This was early I want to say It was like last week It was like right after Or right during our showtime But in case anybody missed it

Paperview Price confirmed 8995 $10 more for HD So 99.95 Essentially everybody's going to be Looking at 100 bucks To buy Who's buying fights in SD these days?

Very few people Yeah I don't know if they sell TVs That aren't HD anymore They don't But if you want to cheap out You get the SD quality on your HD TV Yeah

So we're looking at 100 bucks Fair, foul What do you think about that actually? I'm okay with it I don't think you could have charged less than the Pachyat Yacht fight, right? No. Because you're billing this as

the biggest spectacle in the world and you can't then turn around and say, ah, it's actually $20 less. I'll say this. I'll say this. A, I think it surpasses the Pachiaf fight regardless of the $100 price tag. Do you agree?

I do. And I actually don't think it will be close. I mean, I don't know if it's going to be like double, like $8 million or something like that, but I don't think it would be close. And B, there were people that threw this out there, and I actually feel like it's, you know,

it's somewhat applicable. The tour was free. It was highly entertaining at times. And so you're kind of paying for it in advance, if you get what I'm saying. Gotcha. That's, you know, because that's part of the show. Let's get into what you paid for it.

All right. How about that? First thing that you paid for, the suit. Yes, tremendous. And now, you know, it's on your screen and it may not be visible for those at home, but we'll blow it up here.

now. The pinstripes say fuck you. What a move by Connor McGregor. You know, so he said to me on Thursday, after Brooklyn, I said, what's the scorecard going into round four? And he said, look, everyone's saying that he beat me in round one because I was caught off guard, et cetera. But I had the viral suit. I had the viral moment with Floyd Sr. And I was like, you know what? He's kind of right. I mean, like, what was the big talking point after Los Angeles. It was the suit in Floyd Senior, right?

The incident with Floyd Senior, the altercation, if you will. So he does make a point, although I think it's only fair to judge on what actually happened on stage. So that's why I think people were siding with Floyd, as did I. But yeah, that suit is brilliant. I mean, the thing is with that suit, can you only wear it once?

I mean, it's hard to bust it out a second time, right? No, anytime you feel like telling somebody to fuck themselves. Did you see the guy who had the tattoo? Yeah. The hell. Apparently there was someone I don't know if that was real or not, but apparently... That might be when you regret a few years down the line. But I'll say this.

We don't review these, as we've told people. Yes. The two moments I've clipped were the suit, and then the next one, was Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Sr. That's right. So if I'm scoring it, I think it's got to be McGregor who had the moments. I was scoring it based on the actual stage stuff. But yes, the actual moments that were talked about afterwards.

There's Josh Gross. This was filmed by our own Mark Romandy, Mark needs to learn that you got to go. Yeah, put that thing landscape. Mark, I mean, what kind of amateur hour is this? Noob. Just unacceptable. Yes, I mean, this video doesn't do much for us because there's no audio, but it was a great

back and forth. If you have not seen it yet, there should be audio to it. It was incredibly entertaining. Yeah, it's okay. It was like a 15 minute clip. But by the way. Yeah, it was long. It was 20 minutes.

My good friend Kyle Haas, you know Kyle Haas, right? Hollywood Haas has made some wonderful art pieces for the set and has been very kind to us. Actually sent me an office. the record conversation that he had with you in which you admitted to not watching a single second of the press tour. True or false? Such BS. True.

100% true. Have only been following on social media. The entire world, combat sports fan or not, was glued to this, popcorn and all, and you couldn't be bothered. I mean, let's forget the fact that you actually work on a show that will no doubt talk about this five days later. You cannot be bothered. No, couldn't.

That's actually reckless on your part. That's negligence. Nope. I got everything I needed from social media. You had no interest in sitting down and saying, all right, people are hailing, people whom I respect are hailing the Toronto part of the tour as one of the greatest pieces

of fight promotion ever, and you could not be bothered to watch this. Yeah, because they also gave me 7,000 different looks at what was happening during that Toronto fight promotion, so I didn't need to see it. No interest whatsoever. You couldn't be bothered.

Zero. I'm shocked. No interest. I already... If I hadn't been exposed to it, sure, there'd be interest. I'd be like, oh, I wonder what happened. I had it from 10,000 different angles.

Every single person was tweeting the same thing at the same time. You watch clips? Like when we put out the little clips on Twitter, you watch those? You just didn't sit down and watch it in its entirety. Not one... See, the right answer should have been, you were robbed, you were done dirty,

and so I'm not going to support that. That would have been the loyal answer. that would have been the smart answer. You could have turned this positive into the, excuse me, the negative into the positive, but of course, you know, loyalty isn't something that runs through the veins

on that side of the table, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I've, no, it had nothing to do with loyalty. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. Had everything to do with, everybody already showed me what I need to see. Unbelievable. Which leads to Connor and Floyd,

jawing at each other. Yes. But, we're going to see Connor here. This is LA, right? Which way you want to go? That's right. Sit quiet, you little bitch.

Watch closely? Oh, nothing. Mike. Now, what's your theory? What's your theory? My defense. Come on.

Oh, I got good defense. This was classic Floyd. Floyd's back. I did not expect this. You just show up. Although the hat's a misstep, I think. Yeah, that was a big mistake. What the heck?

Okay. So I asked him about the hat, by the way. You know that, right? I did. He said 48 was the Paci-F fight. that's the most money. But I'm like, come on, man, get a 50. Yeah, you got to get the 50.

I was like, what are you doing? We're wearing the hat from two fights ago. 48. That was the biggest step, yes, of that particular stop. This also ties to that. We see here from Showtime, a statement that they made saying that no microphones were intentionally cut. Oh, interesting.

During Tuesdays. Well, obviously, you can't say no microphones were cut because they were cut. But they're saying they didn't do it on purpose. Yes. Now, okay, so I know you're kind of a conspiracy. theorist. Do you really think am I okay? Do you think showtime? And by the way, shout out to the guy

who tweeted Dana White that I lied. Dana White did a scrum on Thursday and said, and I quote, he thinks Showtime cut the mic. And then I asked Stephen Espinoza about that because I think that that's a pretty serious claim. And someone cut out the part where he says, I think

Showtime cut the mic, and just put in the part of me asking the question and said that I lied about it. No, he actually did say that. Anyway, Connor thinks it. Dana thinks it. it's clear that there's a bit of a line being drawn in the sand here between team Mayweather, which includes Showtime and team UFC, which I think is fun and brilliant. And I actually think that this adds to the promotion. Do you think Showtime actually said, look, we're not going to have him speak.

We're going to cut the mic so that he doesn't interrupt our guy, Floyd Mayweather. Do you actually think that that is the case? I think the intention was that if the roles were reversed, the mic still would have been cut. If it was Mayweather trying to respond to McGregor, that the mic would have been cut. So I don't think it had anything to do with trying to get a guy over versus burying McGregor. I think it had to do with they didn't want them interrupting each other. So if it had been, the roles had been reversed, I don't think. But was that a Showtime idea or was that a Staples Center idea?

Maybe an overzealous audio guy who's like, okay, this guy's talking now. I don't want to have, you know, I don't want to have this other guy interrupting him. I think it had to be some version of that where it definitely wasn't the intention. but they learned very quickly that you can't do that. Everybody wants to see them go back and forth. What a mistake. I don't think showtime. I mean, that's all part of fun here.

No. I think it was probably a logistics thing. The person running the board shut it down. But let me tell you, it was a blessing in disguise, because Connor comes out, the big thing going into Toronto was, and it was later in the day, there was like this buzz building in the city,

and I got to do the Tim and Sid show on Roger Sportsnet, which was such an amazing thrill for me, and I got to sit down with Stephen Brunt. Stephen Brunt is like Canadian journalism royalty. Stephen Brunt, the closest person I could compare him to is someone like a Frank DeFord. If you know Frank DeFord is, I mean, he is royalty as far as Canadian journalism is concerned. Sports journalism, to be exact. And I got to sit down with him and Jeff Blair and Brendan Dunlop.

And it was just such an amazing thrill to be on that show. And there was this buzz. Like it was building like we were going to a fight. And it was raining and we're sitting there. and Drake comes out, again, I've never experienced any kind of anticipation for a press event, some kind of event related to a fight, which didn't include the actual fight itself, like I did in Toronto. And so that thing happening led to Connor coming out guns blazing saying, I'm not giving up the mic,

I'm standing here, the crowd goes well, weasel, this stuff. It was brilliant. The best part about the tour, by the way, in addition to, as I said, Floyd turning back the clock and showing that he still got it, to me, was that the subcharacter, became characters. Espinosa became a heel and played it beautifully in my opinion. Ellorby became a character. Dana and him, you know, standing there and doing the whole like schick, you know, yelling on the microphone. The goons. Roddy and Danis and Ardum Lobov. I mean, Floyd Sr. showing up, the greatest thing is that it became this traveling circus

where there were these bit players involved and you all kind of wanted to see how they would react in the next stop. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed that aspect of it the most, maybe. there were a lot of like you know moments here from the tour we'll go through some more of them this one received a lot of attention for uh the nature of it Connor McGregor saying that he's black from the belly button down there was some talk about you know race relations and how whether he said something that was racist calling me whether a boy um and then I think he is his most important time that he addressed it was backstage speaking to the press

but I thought this was in poor taste overall but fitting of the occasion I suppose this was a miss I mean this was a misfire Brooklyn was a miss and as I said earlier the audio sucked it was a complete train wreck

you couldn't hear anything they couldn't play off each other it actually reminded me of remember that press conference where DC and Jones met two times ago and they couldn't hear each other that was a big mistake because they couldn't play they couldn't hear each other and thus the whole thing is ruined.

That was the case here. That obviously doesn't, you know, condone or excuse any comments like this. But it's just a whole thing. I just want to like forget that whole thing. I just want that whole thing to go away. Let's just take Brooklyn out of the four city tour. This was a miss. I mean, it just, and by the way, we don't have to keep playing it over and over again.

I heard it. It just, it did not, it did not hit its mark. It was the wrong tone. It was the wrong message. it was the wrong response. And I think he acknowledged that afterwards. What I would have done if I were him, just ignore that talk. People were saying that he was racist because he used the word boy.

I think on Monday, excuse me, on Tuesday. He should have just moved, don't go there. Maybe address it backstage. But in front of that stage with the emotions high, the tensions high, you know, there's a lot of electricity in the air. I would have just ignored it, moved on and not try to adjust it. Or even try to make a joke out of it, which seemed like what he was trying to do. it just, it didn't work. Obviously, it didn't work.

There's no other way to say it. It did not work. And, you know, that was obviously a big miss on his part. Here, we're looking at a unique angle. Yes. From on the stage. So you know what the story is? Time lapse.

The thing ran so late in Brooklyn, this is Brooklyn, that Esther, Esther Lynn, are phenomenal photographer who works for Showtime as well. We got the best photos. because she was there on stage. Everyone was from the other perspective. We got that great photo of them squaring off because she's on stage because she's working for the broadcast.

And so the thing ran late. She had to make it to London. So she actually wasn't there for all of this. By the time they got on stage, Esther was gone. And so she actually left a camera on the stage and did a time lapse. And then Casey, our videographer,

compiled all the photos together to put it and make it into that. How incredible is that? that was the best thing to come out of the Brooklyn stop by the way get that camera bag out of there yeah well you know you know I'll I'll make a joke because I've been kidding with him about this but Dave Fogarty who's the ginger beard photographer for yeah uh the mac life and also severe m m-ma he's there with Connor and Esther wasn't there to kind of esther's kind of you know the queen be like no one gets in her way and and and once he left things got a little loosey-goosey

And so when they squared off, he actually went in front of them and everyone was all mad at him afterwards. He was crapping in his pants. And I genuinely felt bad for him. I mean, it wasn't his fault. Someone should have told him to get out of the way. But he actually went in front of them and blocked the camera angle when they were squaring off. Floyd even addressed him at one point of the whole thing. I mean, it was just crazy.

The whole thing. It was like watching the beginning of Monday Night Raw without the actual wrestling and it wasn't scripted. It was nuts. The whole thing was nuts. We'll never see anything like that. We're going to end on a light note with a few videos. First one here, Bad Lip Reading, a YouTube channel that does dubs over what people are saying. Let's bring the audio up on this.

I guess YouTube may not be able to play audio out of what we're running. That's unfortunate. This is not going to play well. But this is a great video, yes, I've seen it. Yeah, go find Bad Lip Reading's video on Mayweather and McGregor. next one one one brave

courageous silly young gentleman this is amazing snuck himself into the press conference Zach Alsop but it's not even doing it justice this way because the editing

and the narration is what makes this incredibly entertaining have you ever seen the movie or excuse me the show peep show I haven't no it's phenomenal it's a British TV show it's hilarious and it's all shot POV style like this, right?

Like him looking, you're looking through the character's eyes. And it makes for a very funny viewing. And this young, this young British kid, who, by the way, if you go on his YouTube page, does this all the time, convince people that he was an Olympian, was on like this parade, like this is what he does. And so here he is saying like, okay, I saw the credentials. And his goal was to crash the final leg of the press tour and walk out with Connor. and he sees Dana White backstage

and it's just the whole video is him you know making the credential getting there, the highs and lows, it's amazing. This is phenomenal viewing. This was maybe the best thing to come out of the whole thing and I thought our coverage was great

but this guy was just amazing. Now there is one negative to all of this. It is a little alarming how easy it was for him to just walk in there. Sure. I have a feeling credentials are going to be checked a little harder at any future. But gosh,

as far as entertainment value is concerned, this was, it was great. The ending, I won't spoil it for you, but the ending. Yeah, go find the video,

but he snuck into the press conference. Also, announced this week, the official story of Connor McGregor. You know, for someone who is uninterested in the world tour, you seem to be picking

all world tour related things. Yeah, that's what people want to talk about. Just because I didn't watch those hour-long circuses, doesn't mean that I wasn't tuned in to what was going on. Okay, settle down.

I mean, and more, furthermore, talking about loyalty, you and Kyle, snitch, as I'm now going to call him from now on. Well, that's, I mean, gave me. Trading little gossip behind the scenes. Listen, I didn't, I didn't seek it. He gave it to me. He was appalled at the lack of interest you showed

and thought that I would be interested in it. I also sent him multiple snoring, sleepy face emojis. Tell me that part. I'm going to change I'm going to change his name Are you going to block him now on to snitch? No, no, no, I won't block him.

I'll just be careful about what I tell Kyle these next few days. Connor McGregor movie coming soon. It's a real thing. It's like the sequel of that six-part series that Tony McGregor referenced. Also, the backpack was a character. You don't know about this because you didn't watch. But the backpack, like the fact that he kept bringing up

the same things over and over again actually ended up being funny by the end. And then the whole like hard work, dedication, point to the easy work. It was hilarious. I couldn't get enough. Yes. Here, some non-Megregor stuff. You saying that Gachy and Alvarez was targeted and serious talk to them coaching tough.

There it is. Our own Luke Thomas saying it's confirmed. Justin Gae and Eddie Alvarez is the tough 20s coaches. Yeah, wait to source me on that one, Luke. I mean, really. Thanks a lot. Earlier. Confirmed.

During the show. Where's the initial report? during this show, we got a press release from the UFC outlining the details there. Justin Gachi, Eddie Alvarez, Tough. Don't love it. You know what I like about it? I'll tell you what I like about it.

Justin Gachi gets hit a lot. And so the thinking from his team was, let's keep him in the public eye, but not have him come back too soon. And so with that in mind, I actually like it. Yes, we know. Yeah, that makes sense from that perspective. Tough is like, you know,

I mean, we've talked about this ad nauseum. It's been beaten to death. we all know how we feel about it. This is a unique season because the champion will be crowned, so maybe there'll be a little more interest in it. But I actually like the strategy of let's keep him in the public eye, but not have him fight. Let's have him fight in December.

And, you know, he doesn't lose that momentum. So this is actually one of the times where, because I know people are upset, oh, he's going to have to sit out for five months. This sucks. No, but they actually wanted this. So I kind of like it now that I got that perspective. Also, from Ariel Hawanis,

yes. we'll get to this a little later so let's just mention it and then we'll get to it later Joe Duffy New 7 fight contract with the USC I flew under the radar rightfully so I mean

there was a lot of Mayweather McGregor stuff to talk about and discuss but Duffy back with the UFC and we'll talk to him in just a little bit oh yeah now I typically don't go

with the video is not playing I typically don't go with things from Fight Night I typically don't like, you know, oh, look at this from the fights. Everybody saw the fights. But this was so outstanding that I wanted to feature it, but unfortunately the video is not rolling out. All the people, what happened?

Galore, buffondo. What a name. Incredible K.O. Where he threw him onto his head. And this is my favorite photo of it. Early work, this. Boom. I mean, that is one of the most.

By Casey. I know. Sorry. by Esther. One of the most unique knockouts ever. It was actually kind of scary if you were watching it live because he was like almost spiked.

He was thrown to the ground but his head hit the mat and then he was knocked out. Thankfully he seemed to be okay. If you can find video of it, there's a loud thud. It's quite incredible. You can even see the mat rinkling

a little bit under his arm. Just tremendous impact right there. We'll talk more about the card in Scotland later on in the show. This I wanted to feature Reddit. Good interview here from Bleacher Report talking to John Jones.

I think there were some interesting quotes from John in there. He hasn't done a ton of things leading into this fight night. So that was one of the few things he did do was talk to Bleacher Report. There's some interesting quotes in there I think about Daniel and where he is kind of in his life. So give that some eyes.

Is it near? Was the big message like that he's not as sober as we thought? I mean, he's talking about smoking weed and drinking. I don't know if it's that he's not as sober, but I think it's that he's at a healthier place with it. Because I don't think you need to necessarily be 100% clean or, you know, all in on the drugs. Like, I think John was at an unhealthy place. Now I think he seems to have a better relationship with kind of the substances and the things that he's doing.

It definitely wasn't the like all-out remorse that you might be looking for. if you are somebody who thinks that's what he needs to do. But I also think that it seemed like he was in a comfortable, kind of healthy place in his life and with his career. So we're hoping that he makes it to fight night and we get this one more time. And then last, this video that Yol referenced and you referenced, Yuel went to Cuba and had a few messages from Michael Bisping.

It's incredible. what he's wearing. Now, how do you defend his flag desecration in this video? I asked him. I asked him. Look, Two wrongs don't make right. You made all kinds of excuses about, oh, it had his face. It had his face, so he wasn't really... They're stepping all over the flag here. This is a big problem.

This is a big problem. You can't say, oh, you did this to my flag, so... I don't like that he went that route. That's what I asked him. I mean, look, it's personal. What can I say? Now, two wrongs make a right in his... Outside of that, actually, I don't... You know, it's not my flag, so I'm not that...

upset about it. But outside of that, this video is incredible. This is 1980s pro wrestling. High production values for YOLN team. You could feel the hatred. You could feel the intensity. Gosh. All right.

That's it. Okay. Great stuff. We'll talk to you on the back end. We'll talk to you about more Mayweather, McGregor stuff that you did not see. Also, Scotland, Long Island, all that stuff. And more. Speaking of Long Island, let us bring in our in studio guests at this time.

This is months in the making. How exciting is this? We are now going to be joined in a matter of seconds by the one and only. Chase Sherman, the Vanilla Gorilla, one of the rising stars in the UFC's heavyweight division. Please, come on in. I hope you figured out how to use your phone, Chase. This is exciting. There he is.

Wow. How are you, my friend? I'm good. Wow, this is amazing. Please have a seat. I appreciate you coming. All jokes aside. Yes.

Is his mic okay? It's kind of cutting in and out. Say something for me, Chase. something. Yes, there it is. You came in early. Just to do this? Yes.

I didn't want to pass it up, man. This is a great opportunity. Yes, of course. Do me a favor. Where's your mic pack thing? It's cutting. Just put it like on your lap or something, if you don't mind. Yeah.

Is that good? Are we good? Maybe not. But they are going to get you another one. There is a stick mic under the desk. See this operation we have here? You got it? This thing?

Yeah. Use that for a second. Okay. Yeah, there it is. And they're going to get you another love there for now. So you came in, when did you come in? Saturday. Yesterday. I got in yesterday. And they lost your baggage? Yeah, man. It's been hell trying to get here. What happened? Tell us what happened. Well, you know, so obviously I got the call to come here and I didn't have to kick your door in, so that's good. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I got the call, got the flight changed. That was $400. Get that flight changed.

which isn't a big deal. Wow, it's worth it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we got the flight changed. And then that day, I was eating a sandwich and chipped my teeth. Like, my front teeth came out. So I had to get like $200 to fix that.

And then coming in, I get my bags are delayed. Oh, no. And I'm running late. So it's just like been just hell just to try to get out here. But I'm here now. Thank God. Hopefully this is a bright spot. Now, did you get bags yet?

Yeah, we got the bags yet. bags. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were supposed to leave at 1230. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the bags got there at 1230. So I was rushing and get everything together. What relief when you get those bags, right after you... That's never happened to me before. Never. Never. In your life? No, that was the first time. But they take their precious time. It was supposed to come in last night. Yeah. And it didn't. But we got it figured out. So that's all that matters. And where are you flying out from? Mississippi or Albuquerque? I was flying out from Albuquerque. Yeah. Did you come alone? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, my coaches will be here on Wednesday.

Okay. So right now my jih Tzu coach is from Long Island. Okay. So he has a couple. With the mustache. Yeah. Mike Sanford, yeah. Incredible mustache.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's a nice one. So he's actual Long Island native but trains with you in Mississippi. That's correct. Yes, he lives down there now. So he has some connections. So I'm going to get up with a couple guys and do some work at their gyms and stuff until my coaches get here. Okay.

And who is cornering you? Will you have Winkle John? Yes. Coach Winkle will be there. Alan Belcher will be there. My normal coach, James Sharp, he has a wedding to attend to. He's the best man in a wedding. So I told him, you know, go to the wedding.

One of my good buddies from back home will be in my corner. Okay. Just like a friend? Yeah, he's a friend. But his dad was actually Allen's boxing coach. He grew up around the fighting. His uncles and his dad's all boxed. So he knows the game really well, you know what I mean?

And he keeps it lighthearted in the rock rooms for me. He's a pretty funny cat. So I love having him around. Okay, so we have a lot to talk about. Okay. So this is the thing. You fight Rashad Kulter. And by the way, if you guys want to come in and give him the love, I don't mind,

just so he doesn't have to hold the mic the entire time. Sorry about that. Oh, no, it's not a problem. Sometimes, you know, we get a little excited with our guests. But there is, my man Miles walking in here. This is our audio explosion air. I know he's very upset about all of this. This is his worst nightmare.

A, being on camera, B, having to change. Yeah, just take that off. It's okay. and we'll get him the new microphone. So last time I saw Chase was in Dallas. He fought Rashad Kulter. It was the fight of the night. It was one of the best fights of the year.

Back and forth they went with the light kicks. I mean, it was an amazing display of heart and determination. In the end, Chase got the win, and it was much needed because he had lost his first two fights in the UFC, and now he was on the winning track and everything was all good. You good?

We're good? No, we're not good. Miles? Miles. all right oh maybe he has to turn you on that's okay okay there we go I'm making him sweat you're good now you're good now yeah yeah so you win that fight and I'm like wow this is great uh chase great fight I saw you at the scrum great personality it was a lot of fun and then all of a sudden your Twitter just explodes because I remember the following week was the um the athlete summit yeah and I know what's going on people are giving me like little tidbits here and there and you're just responding to like every time there's a tweet something newsworthy there you are with

GIF. I'm like, how does this guy have so much time to tweet? And I've seen this before where, and kudos, you know, to the management team. Let's get our guy out there. Let's, you know, let's get him some pub. Let's be active on social media, all that stuff and more. And it continues. And it continues. And then I start calling you out. And it continues. And then it's the Photoshop stuff. And then it's like a tournament you're putting on, this vanilla grill. And like, there's no way that this guy is preparing for a fight and doing all this stuff on social media. And so, I ask, you, are you behind the Twitter? Of course, man, of course.

Of course I'm running the Twitter. Really? Yeah, it's over there. Yeah, of course. I asked you to show me a video. Send me a video of you sending a GIF. Yeah, you did. Yeah, and you didn't do it. I know, I kept procrastinating.

I was going to ask my roommate to do it for me. I'm the world's worst procrastinator, to be honest with you. It's just, it's just how I'm going to do it. Then the next thing you know, I'm flying out here. So it was just like, every day. That is, come on, all.

All right, come on. You don't think I run my Twitter at all. I mean, let's, I mean,

come on. You don't have a team of guys doing it for you? I wish that would be nice. So, I am always on my phone though.

I get shit for that all the time, yeah. Okay, so I can attest to that because when I've texted you, you've responded

within seconds. So that does sort of confirm that. Why the gifts? Why so many gifts? They're hilarious, I'm just enjoying them. I'm,

I'm texting gifts now and stuff. I know. Brad Pitt one. I don't even know how to do that. Man, it's easy. You just, you know, there's like a little button right there next to the left. It's like a maybe like an A. Yeah, you click on that

and there's your, well, you have to download the app. I think Giffy. Giffy is the app. I don't have that. I don't have that. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Well, someone sent me after the fight. Yeah. Some gifts of me, because they made us do gifts backstage. That's right. I guess I've seen that. And I was like, how did you do that? And they were like,

oh, it's this app called Giffy. And I was like, okay. So then I just started giffing the shit out of everything. And how many, like, prior to Dallas, how many followers did you have? Like only a thousand. Yeah. And now you have nine. Yeah.

So you've, I don't know how to say it. You've timesed it by eight. Yeah. So no, nine. You've times it by nine. Since, uh... In two months. Two months, yeah.

It's incredible. Yeah, hopefully maybe by the end of the year, what, 50? After this fight, I don't know, we'll see. I mean, you're prolific. So you're saying with a straight face, no one else does your tweeting? No. And what about the tournament? How do you have time to do that?

Oh, man, it's just... Come on. I can't be giving away all my secrets. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. All right. Have you noticed an uptake in your popularity?

Yeah. You know, social media is keen. And you've become like this cult following. You've had this cult following now since doing this. I feel like people bothering me to have you on the show. It's amazing. There's a thousand, like 1100 people that literally wanted me to kick that door in. Yeah.

I know. You kind of wish you did this earlier? You know, I didn't, we just went with the momentum of the fight, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and obviously a big thing about it is after the retreat, you know, Kobe came on and talked about marketing and things like that and building a brand. And with this Reebok deal, it's really hard for us to get sponsors. So the main way that we can market ourselves is through social media.

a lot of followers and you get this and after Instagram or Twitter or whatever the case may be and that's how you're going to make your money. So that was a big key you know, that's something that's important to me obviously is reaching out to potential sponsors and just having your name out there and building a brand and building a market

and having fans too is great, you know? It's a little soon, it's only two months ago but have you noticed more people being interested in you or wanting to do business with this? Yeah, yes, yes. Wow, this is amazing. A lot more people want me to do interviews and things like that as well too i don't i'll have all the time to do them all but um yeah it's been it's been going well um a couple more sponsors have gotten involved you know um so it's it's it's going good we're

just going to keep building off of that you know that's great we got this fight coming up so hopefully get another nice little finish and then uh and then we'll get more followers yes so it's interesting because i was reading a little bit about your story you went into that fight two-fight losing streak in the UFC you fully believed you lose that fight, you're out. Yeah. That's a lot of pressure for a young guy. I mean, you're just getting started.

You're just getting your feet wet. Yes. You had the decision loss, knockout loss. Were you feeling the pressure? Were you super nervous for the fight? Yeah, it definitely was, man. And it wasn't until right before the fight when we were warming up in the back,

then I was just like, you know, my teammate, Jason Knight was there. And, you know, I always kind of feed off of that. good to have your teammates there. You know, he's just bouncing around, and, you know, he's got a good energy about him. He's just like, fuck it. So I was just like, fuck it too. You know, I was like, you know what?

If I'm meant to be here, I'm meant to be here. Regardless, I'm about to go out there and put on a show. And so I was just a little bit more loose, you know. It wasn't as timid, and I was just, like, kind of going with the flow a little bit and letting my hands and my kicks go and things of that nature. And I'm glad I got out of the way because this fight, I don't feel really any nerves at all, you know? Really? I'm coming out here to collect a paycheck and get another W.

and that's it. You know, it's a business trip for me. So, you know, I'd like to get this win and then get on that Madison Square Garden card. That'd be great. Wow, you already have your site set on November 4th. Yeah. Well, I'm not overlooking to my opponent, obviously, you know.

But, you know, just thinking ahead. You mentioned in the Scrum afterwards that you have one fight left, so this is the last fight on your contract, unless you signed a new one. Yes, I did sign a new one. Uh-huh. Interesting. Why?

Yeah. Well, so they offered me a new contract. I was a four-fight deal, but they offered me a new one after the third fight. Yeah. They up the pay a little bit. I guess because, you know, if I go in there and I get, you know, I'm two-and-two on a contract, they have to give me more money after the, you know what I mean? It's easier to negotiate for more money than if I'm one and two. So, but at the same time, I wanted to take the money, there's for sure money, and the new contract for sure.

So you didn't want to write it out? Yeah, exactly, because if I go and lose the next fight for some reason, and then I'm one in three, then I'm probably not getting shit. I might not even get a new contract. Okay. So you felt that pressure to just take what they were giving you? Do you feel, I mean, are you happy with it? Yeah, I feel good. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I feel good. We got what we wanted out of there. You did, okay. Yeah, and the good thing about it is we got the new contract. So we go take this fight. We go take another fight before the end of the year, get a third fight on that contract at the beginning of the next year, and boom, looking at another contract.

We come out for four-fight, one streak, or three-fight, three wins on this contract, then I feel like we can negotiate for a lot more money in the beginning of the next year, you know, for a new contract. So the new one is four fights as well? Yes, that's correct. But if they offer me a new contract after three fights, then, you know. So I got this one, another one before the end of the year,

and then maybe one in like February, March, something like that. And you got the $50,000 bonus. What was your reaction when you found out that you were getting that? How big was that for you? It was great, man. I really needed it. I needed it more. Just the winning, the fight wasn't going to do enough for me.

What were you making? What was winning in show? 10 and 10. Okay, wow. Yeah, so I was just... You made 70. Yes. And why was it so important to win that bonus?

Well, I was getting hammered by my student loans. They kept calling me. Those were all past due. Delta State. Yes. I'm fighting Okra. What's up with that? They can't let you breathe for a second?

Man, it's ridiculous. You know what's the bad thing? thing is, is like, have you going to college and finished school? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, it's like, you finish and then you're paying off all these loans, $50,000 loans, and then they're calling you, you want to be part of the alumni club? Like, it's only $200 a month. I'm like, F you.

No, like, I'm broke. Right, right, right. Like, you've sold me the college dream, and I am not using my degree at all. You know what I mean? Like, it's like... How much debt are you in? It's like, due to the loan is like $48,000. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. For the entire time, you were there for what? Three years? I was in school for, well, I was in Delta State for four years. Okay. And then I... Weren't you somewhere else first? Yeah, I went to play Jucco ball. Right.

And then I went to Delta State, yep, to play football there. When I got down playing football there, I transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi. So I lost some credits and stuff like that. And I finished school in six years. So I got my bachelor's in six years. Okay. I accumulated that amount of loans, which isn't that much. much compared to most people, but, you know, a lot of it was just me taking out money for living,

you know what I mean, just for boarding and stuff, because my college was paid for when I was playing football. Right. But so then you get the $50,000 check, and you said the debt was $48, so did you just pay it off? No, I was talking to my coach about that. Alan, as I was thinking about doing, just putting a big chunk down, and he said, I wouldn't do that specifically. You need to try to take that money, you know, pay some of it off, but reinvested it in a different

that avenue to try and generate their source of income. And so we've been talking about a few things, so maybe getting a time share or a condo down there because I live on the coast. Okay. Coast of Mississippi?

Yes. But there's really nice condos. There's some in Mississippi that are really nice, and there's some that are really nice in Florida, Alabama, which are only hour or two away. So we were thinking about doing something like that. Or even get, like, invest in, like, a house like in Albuquerque, because all these

fighters are staying in these dorms. Do you stay there? I did this last time. I wasn't going to, but we had a mix up with the rental car place and all this shit. But I got hooked up with the nice dorm, dorms, like apartment south. I had my own kitchen, on bathroom, washing a guy, and all that. No roommate? Yeah, I had one roommate.

Who was it? His name's Dustin Clements. Okay. He's an up-and-comer fighter, fights for Titan. Was it a nightmare? No, not at all. No. He's actually from Pensacola, so I met him a couple times when I was coming up through that

circuit and he was coming in town and I told him I said man just come stay in my room you know I got plenty of space because a lot of these other fighters are staying in one single room with five or six people they all share a kitchen they all share a bathroom they all you know what I mean like in the common quarters and I was I kind of felt bad I was like you know I have all this to myself come and stay in here there's extra couch did you get such a sweet setup and the other I got I got lucky I was talking to Misha the guy that does all the stuff down there and I was like do you have any rooms left he was like no we don't have any rooms And he looked up on the board.

He said, yeah, there's actually one room left. And he said it's where the Russians stay, but they were out of town. Oh. And it was the apartment style one. There's only like two apartment styles out of that whole facility. And I was like, hell yeah, I'll take it. So it was nice, you know. How does that work?

You pay them rent? Yeah. Okay. Pay them rent. Then the coaches take, you know, 10% out of your purse, you know. Okay, but so going back to the bonus and it meaning so much, I had read, there was an article on you in a fighter's only magazine. on the website, and you alluded to the fact that you were having some tough times at home,

and that's why it really... Could you tell us more about that? What were you going through? You know, it's just some family things going on back home. Nothing I don't want to put out there right now. It's nothing, you know, it's just some things I had to take care of with dealing with my family, with my son and stuff like that. Okay.

You have what an eight-month-old? He is eight-month-old. He'll be nine months this week. Okay, wow. Happy birthday. He's a big boy, yeah. What's his name? Liam.

Liam Cole. Yeah, he is wearing like 18-month-old clothes right now, man. He's a big boy, yeah. Maybe football is in his future? Hopefully, hopefully. So, okay, so you're, is that your first child? Yes. Your dad first time, so part of that means expenses and things like that.

Exactly, yeah. Okay. Yeah. This was big. Yeah, exactly. I mean, 70,000. Yes, yes. And, you know, too, I'm living in, like, an income-based apartment right now.

So obviously trying to get out of there and get my own house and just kind of, you know, do things like that. You know, just was nice to get that money. Oh, you did it? Oh, no, I haven't yet. But when I get back home, that's something I'm going to work on. You know, that's something I was going to try to work on this summer. Sure. But they called me for a fight.

You didn't really want a fight, right? No, not really. I was like, I'm going to take the summer off and enjoy the money and kind of get some things. taken care of that I need to get taken care of, and then they called me with the fight. I was like, well, I said, this is a good fight for me, so I said, might as well get paid. Yeah. Instead of spend all that money, you know, making it. When did you get to call it, like a month ago or so?

Yeah, about six weeks ago. Yeah, six weeks ago. And you were kind of on the fence? You looked up Grabowski and you were like, eh, I could take this guy. Yeah, pretty much. I was out at the island that day. We were all in the boat, and we were drinking some beer. And my coach was with me, and I was like, hey, my manager,

said he's got me another fight. And he was like, who is it? I told him it was Damien Grabowski. He was like, oh, he beat the shit of that guy. I was like, you don't even know who he is. My coach always says that. He's like, yeah, you can take him. I was like, okay, well, that's good.

So I watched some film on him later that night, and we decided to take the fight. All of a sudden, it works that way in the UFC sometimes. Like, they get excited about you, and then they'll have you come back really quickly, you know what I mean? As opposed to, like, you'll lose a fight or maybe not have the best performance,

and then they'll kind of keep you on the fence for, you know, on the sidelines, I should say, for quite some time. I've been pretty busy, though, man. I've had my first fight in August. It's my fourth fight since August. Yeah, that is pretty good. Yeah. I mean, four fights in, what, 10 months or 11 months?

Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. So you're not married? No. Okay. Are you going to get married? Maybe one day.

Maybe one day. But not to the mother of your child. No. Okay. So that is part of the problem. Yeah. They're picking around and get an answer question. It is, I mean, you dropped that in the article, and then I was like, well, why didn't they follow up?

You know what I mean? Like, you dropped this thing. And to me, like, that's when my radar goes off. I mean, I'm very inquisitive. Yeah, okay. Sometimes I pry. Yeah, it's okay. But I was just surprised that they wouldn't, you know, like, you can't just drop that vaguely and not have some sort of follow up.

Yeah, I feel you. All right. I understand. But you also mentioned that you only had 100. dollars in your bank account? Yeah. How recently was that? That was right before the fight.

That was the week before the fight. The Rashad Kulter fight? Mm-hmm. You had $100. Yeah. About $115. You're kidding. Well, until the UFC gave me my

stipend when I got here. But that was it. You mean in Dallas? Yeah, when I got to Dallas until they gave me the stipend. What's the stipend? They give you 600 bucks for the week. For the week. Do you whatever you want. Well, yeah, for food, Uber's and stuff like that.

So flying out from. From, where'd you go, Mississippi to Dallas? Albuquerque to Dallas. Albuquerque to Dallas. You had $115 to your name. Yeah. Wow. Were you sweating?

Man, I don't know, man. I felt good about that fight. I just, you know, I felt like I was. You needed that money to survive. Yeah. There was no. What were you doing? There's no other.

How were you paying for food and things like that? That's, I mean, that's the credit card. You know, my credit card bill racked up to a couple thousand dollars. I had some people back home. that were helping out with camp and stuff like that. They would send me a couple hundred bucks a week for camp and things of that nature. Wow. Has it ever gotten that low in your bank account before?

Oh, yeah. Before I even signed with the UFC, man, I was just, you know, I didn't have a real job. I was just training, you know. I was staying in like a little shed out behind somebody's, like, they had like a little, they turned their shed into like a little guest house. Okay, a shed. Yeah, it was a shed. It was a garage.

You got turned out into a guest house. Bathroom? Yeah, it had a bathroom. Okay. All right. I don't know. Yeah, we didn't have to dig a hole or anything like that. So it was good to admit.

Who's house? So this kid I was working with, like he trained at the gym, this younger guy. Okay. I was helping him doing a strength and conditioning and things like that. And his parents let me live there while I trained him. So, yeah, that's what I was doing. So he wasn't a fighter? Yes, he was.

He was. Yeah, he is. He's an amateur fighter. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. And so how long did you live there for? I lived there for several months, and then I had my little boy. Okay.

And then we moved into a house. Who's we? Me and his mom. Okay. And her mom bought the house, and we just paid rent on it and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah. And then I had to move out, and then I got my own, had to go to an apartment and stuff like that.

But, yeah, there's been times, man, where I've been struggling, especially when I was in school. You know, because it was hard, you know, to have a real job to go to school, 20 hours, 15 hours a semester. And train, too. Yeah. But I was all part of the process, you know. Sure. I was five years ago I first started, and then now we're here. So just trusting the process and kept working, you know.

What was your job in school? I had a couple different ones. Security at the casinos. You know, in the summertime, I did, like, there was, like, summer camps for kids and stuff like cuts, so I was, like, a counselor. Sure. My parents used to own a dog grooming shop,

boarding facility, so I would have to wake up and go clean up shit there. Oh, man. I'll do all this stuff that you don't want to do. But just, you know, making ends meet, you know. Yeah, man, I was driving my grandma's car. It was like a beat-up Oldsmobile, Cutlass. The windows didn't roll up. Oh, man.

Yeah. It was pretty rough for a while, but I just kept to it. And I was like, I don't want to work at it behind a desk, you know. But that's, you know, that's a lot of fighter stories, man. That's just how they come up. Sure. It's just. It's fascinating for me in this particular sense because, you know,

usually the people that we have on the show, especially in studio, are like champions and the cream of the crop. It's rare that we'll have, you know, just because there's only so many stories that we can tell on the weekly show. If we were daily, it would be much different. We're to have someone sort of on the ascent. who is, you know, fighting, you know, prelimbs, things like that in your story. So this is, I mean, it's almost, it's a revelation, really, because I think sometimes we forget as media, as fans,

what you guys go through to make ends mean and why you show the emotion that you do, while you fight with the kind of determination of art that you do. I mean, you were, in some respects, you lose that fight, you walk away with 10,000, that extra 60. Have you ever received, like, a check for that much money in one day? Oh, God, no. That's life-altering stuff.

Yeah, it is. And I'm blessed me. It was a great opportunity. I could have asked for more, you know. Now I want another one, you know what I mean? Sure. It's like a drug, right? Yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens.

But I'm not going to put the fight in jeopardy of, you know, so get the win first, and then it will go from there. So you play college football at Delta State, but you had no martial arts background. None. What position were you? I was offensive. And how good were you? I was all conference, man.

Okay, what conference? It was the GSC. It's pretty much like the SEC of Division 2. Two, yeah. Yeah. So we went to the national championship my junior year, and then my senior year went to some of my finals, won two conference championships.

Because they do playoffs there, right? Exactly. You never understood why they do playoffs. I know now they do playoffs in D1, but for the longest time, playoffs in D2 and D3, why do they figure it out and too much money involved? I don't know, man.

Yeah, I guess because you have all those people that are sponsoring, like the playoffs games and the bowl games and stuff like. that, it's a weird situation. But I enjoyed the playoffs. That's the best, yeah. When you come from a tough conference like that, you know, my junior year, we were like, we weren't even ranked in the nation at all.

Wow. To playoffs and went all the way to the national championship, and we lost to the number one team to the nation by three points. As time expired, they kept a field goal. But, yeah, playoffs is where it's at because, you know, you see a lot of these bigger schools and these tougher conferences like the SEC and things of that, like that. a lot of those guys, if there was a playoff system, a bigger playoff system, that would be in the championship.

Were you close to making into the NFL? No, man, you know what? I was like 6-4-290 when I was playing. And that's tiny compared to those NFL officers. And those guys are like 6-6, 320 can move. And, you know, I had some offers play arena ball and stuff like that. You know, it was still pro ball, but I wasn't going to go beat up my body for 500 bucks a week. That's what it is?

like 500 bucks a week. You have to have another job? Yeah. What about CFL? I got some looks at the CFL, but nothing ever came through. Those guys are still pretty good up there too. I mean, I was John's brother, Chandler, was at the gym this past week when I was there. And that dude is just, those are the type of people that would have had a block.

Yeah, yeah. That dude's like a frickin' animal. Yeah, he is a beast. Arizona Cardinals now, right? Yeah, he's an animal. Was he training with you guys? Yeah, he was hitting the bag. Man, he did a little sparring and stuff.

I didn't get to spar with them because I was trying to keep it light and technical. Like, you know, want some amateur there coming. Yeah, he's taking my head off. It's freaking. But yeah, he was hitting the bag and things like that. And I was like, dude, I would not want to be underneath that guy. I'm going to ask you about John in a second, but going back to the journey.

So you leave college, you graduate, football career is over. You have no martial arts background. How do you get introduced to M.A.? Man, so my friend, Tyler Hill and Jay, Meadors. This was up in Delta State. Tyler still fights to the state. He's a pro. I think he's like 8 and 1 or something. He's fought for Bellator.

But, yeah, five years ago, I got done playing football. And I always had a passion for it. I always wanted to do it. Do what? Martial arts? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I grew up fighting, man. We all, that's just how it was down there in the South. We fight on the streets. Yeah, or in a dark,

or the parking lot or down on the, you know what I mean? That's just how it was. I dropped my mic. No problem. How many fights you got? Yeah, Yeah, yeah. I don't know, man. I never was the type to ever start a fight, but if your friends were fighting, then you were all fighting. Okay. I was typically the guy that was just standing there and then normally got blindsided because they were always going to take out the biggest guy. Oh, really? The biggest guy. You ever get seriously hurt? No, I have got one time, though, I was trying to break up a fight. I got smacked inside the back of the head with this big old wooden post. Oh, my God. At the time, that was the closest I'd ever been being knocked out. I was like, whoa. but yeah so that's just how it was back then you know when we're high school and stuff you just

they grew up fighting you didn't know if you were fighting if someone were to fight you they'd be waiting out if you'd be in the parking lot or whatever and um i'm not gonna lie and we mom me and all my friends we enjoyed getting into it you did yeah it was just part of it's what you did on a Saturday night in iberville de iberville di iberville yeah it's like a french shirt name or something okay yeah i mean Yeah, that's a lot of it. A lot of times, yeah, that's how we grew up. But so back to it, finish playing football.

And I was like, you know, I don't want to get a normal desk job. I don't want to, you know, because I want to be significant. I want to do something with my life other than just being a coach because that's what I was going to school for was coaching. Sure. And it was me and those two other guys. And it was like this little shed out in the middle of North Mississippi. This guy let us use his shed to do.

train there. We had a couple of mats and a couple of bags and we would just go in there and get to work and, you know, I moved back home after I played football and started training with Alan. Started really training. And then like after two months, I had my first fight as an amateur. How'd that go? It went good. My coach actually told me I was going over there to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And he told me I was fighting. I got like two and three or something. He's like, oh, yeah, I set you up for fight. I was like, okay, cool. On the way over there, get a phone call from my buddy Rodney, the guy that's going to be cornering me. He's going to me for that fight too. And he's like, yeah, the guy you're fighting is, he, you know, he's like 6 and 0, and he's a light heavyweight

champ over there. And he trains out of Rich Clemeny's gym. I was like, oh, great. Oh, great. That's awesome. He's a South Paul. Yeah. I was like, okay, well, cool. I'm not prepared for this at all. I've been trained for two months, but I mean. But you took it? Yeah, I was already in Baton Rouge, I had to take it. It was this little high school gym, man. And the freaking, the cage was no bigger than this room, I swear to you. And it was me and that guy and the breath. And the bell ring, and the first time I got here was just a straight left,

right to the throat. And I was like, okay. Wow. This is the real deal. But so I was a little bit bigger than him. I had a couple pounds on him. And I just grabbed him, and the Clint just kept kneeing him and kneeing him. And he fell in the second round.

and I got the rear naked choke. Wow. Yeah, that was my first fight, and they gave me fighter of the night. Wow. Gave me a little $500 check. I took it back to my mom because my parents didn't know I was fighting.

I kept it hid from them, you know what I mean? They didn't know. I went over there, and I put the check on the table because they thought it was stupid that I was even training. Yeah, yeah. And they've been to every fight since soon.

Really? Yeah. Even Dallas? Yeah. Wow. So you went home, you showed them the check, and you said, look,

this is what I'm getting for this? Yeah, I was just like, you know, I said, is it stupid now? You know what I mean? Like, you know. But then they found out that you were fighting and you didn't tell them. Are they pissed? No, they weren't pissed.

They weren't? They weren't that pissed. Okay. But they thought it was stupid. Like, my dad was like, they're just stupid, you know. Yeah. And you get your ass in school and get your school. Get a real job.

Yeah, exactly. And was that amateur or pro? Amateur. Okay. How many amateur fights did you have? I had eight. I went seven and one. Why did you do so many amateur fights?

Well, I thought they told us in the state of Mississippi, I have like seven wins. Oh, for real? Yeah. Why? I didn't know that. I fought the toughest guys I could fight. You weren't getting paid for those? No.

Except for these like bonuses. How many times did you actually get a bonus like that? Just that once. Oh, really? Yeah, just that once. They don't have, I guess different promotions do different things. Yeah, yeah. You know, they don't pay their amateurs.

So eight fights, and then how long did that take? Well, let's see. I've been fighting for five years. So I think I've two years. Okay. Wow. So for two years, how are you making money? How are you living?

Just out in jobs and stuff and going to school. Okay. That was it. And then you must have been anxious to turn pro so that you can finally... Yeah, make it a little bit more money. First fight, how much do you get for that? I think I made 300 and 300. Yeah, that was in Memphis, Tennessee, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. And then, so would you have like nine or so fights before getting that call in the UFC? Mm-hmm. The last fight was with Titan, I think. I fought Jack May. He was a UFC vet. That's right.

That dude was freaking huge. Was he? Yeah. I was kind of nervous. I'm not going to lie because I went to California like two years before that. I was So could you. I had asked me to come out there to be a spa partner. We were at, whose gym was it?

That's in Orange County. He used to be a UFC. Babelow? No, no, no, no. I can't think of his name right now. Anyways, we're at his gym. Michael Bisming used to train there too. Munoz.

Oh, Mark Munoz. Yeah, that was a great gym for Al-Wam. Yeah. Yeah, two one was there. Yeah, so it was out there, and Jack was there. Man, and he just got done with his first UFC fight to Derek Lewis. Yes. I guess he was angry or whatever, but he beat the shit out of me.

Really? Yeah, like, Mark came in and told him to chill the fuck out. Really? Yeah, like he. Damn, like he crossed the line? Like, he teed me, and I fell down, and I was, like, catching my breath, like, about to puke. And I was like, all right, and I shook it off, and I got back up and touched gloves with him. Next thing you know, he teed me again right in the stomach.

It was like, damn, dude. I was like, you're a dickhead. Wow. But then I fought him in and he threw a cake and I checked it and he broke his leg, so whatever. So when you took that fight, you must have been super amped for that, right? Stick it to that guy? Yeah, man, I was. I was nervous too because I knew that.

That was my big break. That was the point that I needed. You know, my managers could tell me I needed to win that fight to get in the UFC. I just needed a name. Right. You know, build the record, get a name, get in. That's how it goes. And then how soon after the win over May did you get the call?

A couple months. Okay. What was that like? Man, it was awesome. I always loved telling the story. Please. I was in California with a... Every year I go to California to see my buddies that I play football with in college.

Okay. And it was actually his wedding. So all of us, all the guys from all over to the country that we played off and salon with, they were in town, you know what I mean? And we hadn't seen each other in a while, you know, all of us being together since football. I was sitting around playing video games and stuff like that. And then Abe calls me. Abe Cowa. Yeah.

Abe called me and I was like, damn, Abe never calls me. It's usually like Matt or somebody. Yeah. And I was like, okay, let's see what this is about. Abe called me. He was like, Chase. I was like, what's up, Abe? And he said, did not tell you that if you won that fight, you get in the UFC?

I was like, yes, you did. He was like, how do you feel about fighting Justin Liddette in August? I was like, fuck. So I got up. I threw the controller down. I was running around the room screaming. My friends were like, what the hell is wrong with you? And then I told him, man, that was awesome.

I would rather have been there than at home, you know what I mean? Because you were with your buddies. Yeah, exactly. And those guys haven't missed a fight either since, you know. Really? Yeah, this would be the first one they've missed. Why? Just because, you know, financially, just getting all the way out to New York and stuff.

Like a lot of the other ones were closer to California and suburb. All of them, they've all been there to every one of them. and man it was awesome being with your boys I mean how did you like you get that you get that call did you guys go crazy did you celebrate? Oh yeah yeah we celebrated we celebrated at the wedding

and then we celebrated the 4th of July that's right I probably celebrated too much knowing that I have a fight coming up and then you lose your debut yeah devastating man it was not devastating it was just more or less

a learning experience you know I didn't, I didn't, I stayed at home and trained. Okay. I was kind of ignorant. I was like, oh, well, watch this guy's film. He's a striker. I said, I'm a striker, you know, and be all right. Stayed at home and trained.

And I went out there and got my ass handed to me and I was just like, you know, this is a different level. I need something else, you know, and that's when I got to hook up to Jackson Weeks. Okay. So what do you do? You just call them up? Abe said it all up. He's, you know, they got a lot of fighters out there. That's right.

Yeah. And so did you feel comfortable right away? Man, I was nervous right away, you know. Why? I was getting my butt whipped out there. Sure. Every day in the elevation, dealing with all that. But now it's like I'm handing out a lot of ass-wifens at the gym now.

You are? So it's just progressively getting better, you know. You work with Brandon Gibson too? No, man. I keep asking to work with him. And, you know, he's like a famous pad holder. And it only works with, like, the big guy. Damn.

Brandon's like that? And he's always busy. Every time I go. No, he's awesome. I love Brandon. Every time I go there, I'm like, Brandon, you'll let me hit some patches. Like, man, I'm busy, you know. I got to take care of, like Cowboy and John and all these other cats. Wow.

I thought he was the man of the people, the man of the fighters. He is, man. He's just so busy. He's a great guy. Yeah, he is. He's awesome. I tell him, I said, man, one day you're going to be begging the whole pass for me. That's right.

That's right. But no, it's mostly coach Wink, and he's awesome. There's just two different styles. You know, Brandon's a little bit more flowy, so get your hands going. stuff like that and work your defense a little bit more. And Coach Wink works with the stuff that you're going to actually use in a fight. Okay. You know, like, because you're not throwing four or five punch combos in a fight.

Right. You're going to throw the ones and twos and kicks and, you know what I mean? That's how it's going to work. And Wink is just, he's good at that. He's good at wearing your ass out too. And you work with Greg as well, Greg Jackson. Coach Jackson is like the game planner, you know what I mean? Sit down, beginning camp.

We watch film together. He says, this is what you need to do, this is what you need to do. and then I work on that the whole camp. Okay, but not with him specifically. No, I want to. He's gone so much, man. I hardly see him working with any of the fighters right now because he's just gone all the time.

He does his jih Tzu class, his grappling class, like once a week. Okay. And how does it work as far as, like, your schedule? Do you just make the schedule or do you have someone who's kind of like acting as your head coach who's assigned to you? Like, do you say, okay, this is the schedule for the day, I'm going to go to this class, this class, this is. Or is there someone kind of holding your hand throughout the entire camp?

No, you do what you need to do. coaches aren't going to do that. I mean, they'll give you shit if you don't go to class. Okay. So basically what it's set up like is 930 is the 170 years and up, and that's Monday through Friday, and that's mostly live stuff. So Monday is like MMA sparring with small gloves, Tuesday's big gloves. Wednesday's back to, actually Wednesday's like a hard wrestling day, nothing but wrestling. Okay. Thursday's MMA sparring with little gloves again, and then Friday's MMA wrestling, drilling.

Okay. And so those are the main classes that you want to go to. and then night classes, they have like the, you know, striking class, the jiu-jitsu grappling class, which is one of the most ones I did was the grappling at night because it's more live training. And then Saturday would be, I would go run five miles and put the foothills.

Damn. So, yeah, that was tough, right? Elevation. It was just like, here, man, it's just like, I've never even ran five miles on flat ground at sea level. And Coach Bart was like, he's like, you're going to run these five miles, you know? And I was like, okay, he's like this little crazy,

Mexican guy. Ressler. And I was like, okay, coach. I'm sure I did it, though. It took me like an hour, but I did it. It didn't stop moving. Well done. But yeah, it was like 8,000 feet up, another 3,000

on top of the already $5,500 that we're at. It's brutal. Yeah, it was miserable. But that's what I did every Saturday. And in between those, like in between the morning and the night classes, I would do like Tuesday, Thursday, it would hit pads a week.

Okay. And Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I would do my strength and conditioning. So you're pretty much training three times a day. Wow. Yeah. I saw a picture of you and John Jones. You sparred him, right?

Me and John sparred majority. I was like his main sparring partner. Damn. What's that like? Great, man. John is, he's so good at like taking care of you. Okay. I mean, like we take care of each other, you know?

He's not trying to hurt you? No, not at all. Okay. You can break all your toys. You don't have nothing to play with. That's true. They told me, like, over him. They were telling me horror stories about that guy when he's up there.

They're like, yeah, he's just breaking people's noses. legs and stuff. I was like, well, don't expect me to spar them. Yeah, yeah. I've got to fight, you know. That's right. That's right. So, yeah, you know, if you beat up all your sparrow partners, like Mike Tyson, nobody wanted that job. That's right.

So, but me and John, we mesh well together, and we take care of each other. And it's built a lot of confidence for me, man. Yeah. Working with him. I can't imagine. Yeah. I mean, the greatest of all time in many people's eyes. Yeah.

And before when I first got there, he would just really get the better of me, obviously. But as time progressed, I started figuring out a little bit more, and it was pretty even on the feet, you know. So the big thing about John is we kind of just want to see who he is, right? When he fights, he's been gone for so long. He didn't look great when he fought Oven-Sain-Prue. He had the long layoff. What's it been like? He's preparing for the biggest fight of his life.

He's trying to become champion again. We saw that promo. He's like super fired up. I mean, it's amazing. You're there. You're there. So what's that like? It's great.

Man is in a positive place. He never, you know, he never is, you know, down and out or anything, even though, you know, everything that just happened with him with his mom and stuff in the middle of camp. And he just is a workhorse and he comes there to work and he's always got positive vibes. And his boxing, he's been working a lot more on his boxing. His boxing's gotten real good. His jab's gotten. really, really good.

And his jujitsu has gotten really good. Really? I don't like him and messing with him in jujitsu class. It's just ridiculous. Really? Yeah, man. He's, well, you know when he was on that layoff, all he was doing was jiu-suituit.

All he was doing was jiu-tzee and getting ready for that Dan Henderson grappling match, man. He got really good at it. Wow. Like, his wrestling was on point. Sure. Obviously, his striking has always been on point. But now he just added that to the game.

and, you know, Daniel better be careful if he does take, you get a takedown because John's jiu-jitsu is. So that's a whole new wrinkle to this fight that maybe he didn't have two years ago. I mean, he submitted the likes of Lita and Vitoa Buford, but this is, I mean, yeah, I actually didn't think of that. I mean, Cormean wants to take the fight at the ground, but now, as you say, he's improved so much as far as his grappling. That's interesting. Yeah, his jih Tijuana is really great. So when you spar, are there takedowns involved or is it just striking sparring? Well, John does what he wants.

A couple times he, you know, it's supposed to be only stand-up only. A couple times you decided to take me down. I wasn't prepared for it. But, yeah, so it's both, you know, with him, especially. He's going to work what he wants to work and do what he wants to do, you know, when that comes to that. But like I said, we always take care of each other. And the good thing when we get done is give good feedback and, you know, and that's what's important, you know what I mean. Wow.

So tell me, you know, well, this is what you're, you. you know, I saw when I was sparring you and I'll tell him all this is what I saw and, you know, and you tell me what's working good for me and same. How often do you spar him a week? Well, when he's there and, you know, probably two, three maybe. Wow. Yeah. What an experience for someone like you.

I mean, coming from Mississippi to spar with someone like John Jones, will you go to his fight? I want to, man, because Jason's fighting on that same part of Jason is. That's right. That's right. Big fight for him against Ricardo Lamas. Yeah, man. I want to, I want to, but I need to get back home and take care of those. things I was telling you about. You don't want to tell us about them though. Well, just trying to play it smart. Sure, I understand.

You're not in trouble, are you? No, no, no, no. Okay, just personal stuff. Yeah, you know, just dealing with my son and stuff. Yeah. Okay. So I got to do all that. And, you know, I've been gone already, so I'm going to go to the fight and, you know, then fly right back out immediately. I'm just ready to get home a little bit. Sure. Watch it with everybody from back home, you know. I wanted to go, but yeah. How long have you been away from your son for now since you were in Albuquerque? This is week four.

Damn. Is it hard? Yeah, it was hard. It's hard, man. You said goodbye on Father's Day or around that time. Yeah, I got to go see him on Father's Day and stuff. That's pretty your first. Yeah, it was my first one.

He was sick. Unfortunately, he had a little stuff he knows, but he's doing good, man. He's a big boy. He's a happy baby. Does it change the way you fight? Do you feel like you're a different person, different mindset? Yeah, for sure, man, because you got a little bit more pressure, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, take care of your kids.

You got to take care of your family. It's just a little bit more fire underneath your ass. Mostly when you get tired, though, that's only, you know, it doesn't. Motivation. Yeah. I still got to fight smooth and not fight angry and, you know what I mean? Be smart about what I do. You know, I can't just go out there and be like, I've got to beat this guy's ass for my son, you know what I mean?

But if your son's eight months old and you were preparing for the koulter fight and now you're praying for this, I mean, half his life probably you were away for this far because you were in training camp, right? Yeah, and when I was getting ready for, when I was getting ready for the Walt Harris fight in January, too. Oh, he had already been born. Yes, yeah, yeah. So that was in January, the Walt Harris fight, so I was gone for his first Thanksgiving. And I was gone for five weeks then, came home, we did Christmas together and stuff, and then I had the fight. and then I got the call for Rashad fight

and then I got the call for this fight so it's been tough man but you know it is what it is you gotta do what you gotta do you're racking in that that dough yeah exactly which is huge

yeah and so now so 10 and 10 for that one what are you getting for this one 16 and 16 all right new contract okay so instead of bumping it up only if I'd have been on the same contract

it'll have been 12 and 12 okay but now 16 and 16 have done 20 and 20 if I'm gonna talk to Abe about that. Yeah, we talked to Abe, but I've said that, but you know, I don't have much leverage. I just won one fight. Fight of the night. Yeah, that's true. On the best card of the year up until that point. Yeah,

there's a major feather in your cap. It was. Who's puffing your chest out? Do I need to do all the work for you? Come on. But hey, you know, like I said, we get these three more in a row. That'll be four in a row. Look at a new contract. Maybe we look at something like, you know, 80 at 80 or something like, you know, we're more than that, you know? Yeah. I joke about the tweets, obviously.

and if I'm being honest, I still don't believe that you're 100% behind it. But I will say this, there's clearly a method to the madness because let's be honest. No tweets, no back and forth, you're probably not sitting here on the show, right? People aren't emotionally invested.

Like I feel like now you have this legion of fans who are pulling for you. So whoever was behind it, if it was you, kudos, because people care about you now. You got to do, and I think you put it perfectly. In this day and age, with the Reebok deal, with everyone kind of looking the same, and there's so many events.

it's hard to break out and to promote, you know, the eighth fight on the card, right? That's where I think you are right now. You got to do it yourself. You can't wait for the UFC to do it for you, right? You got to do it yourself. And you've done a phenomenal job. Every time there's some kind of like newsworthy tweet, UFC, there you are right there with like the popcorn gift or something. I don't know how you do it, but you're like, boom.

I don't know if you get like notifications on your phone, but you are like, you are prolific. Omnipresent. You got to do what you got to do. It's amazing. Yeah, it's good, it's good, I enjoy it. You must be spending a lot of time on your phone. Dude, it's really hard for me not to be on it right now. Yeah.

I know. You know how. We can do a live tweet. What do you mean a live tweet? Well, you take a picture. Yes, let's do it. I want to see you do a gift right now. Do a gift right now?

Yeah, do something. Okay, let me see. All right, here we go. Here it is. This is what everyone was asking me. All right. Okay, so you tweet, your last tweet, I wanted to know if anyone was tweeting while you were on. Your last tweet was before.

251 Eastern. All right. So this is it. This is the moment of truth. Chase Sherman, the vanilla gorilla. You told me already, that was a friend of yours that just kind of came up with that name, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's a great nickname. It is, man. I miss a guy. I haven't seen him in a while. He's, like, moved off into the country. He's farming somewhere. I don't know what he's doing. You don't even have one of those batteries, like the extra battery pack on your phone? You tweet so much. Your phone must die. How do you get that? What do you get an? I thought I was fancy. Dude, I just got it. iPhone 7. Oh, wow.

I just got one. I was like, you know, because a lot of times it was just, my other phone was freezing up. And I said, I can't be tweet worthy without a phone. Well, you need to get one of those battery packs on your phone. My friend just texts me and said, you look fat. Oh, wow. What a nice friend. Is this a guy cornering it?

Yeah, it is. He's just a piece of shit. Yeah. Okay, so here we go. We're going to tweet something. What are we tweeting? I want to see the way the mind works. Okay, okay.

This is like watching Picasso in action. This is Beethoven in front of us, Mozart. The king of gifts, the gift king himself, tweeting. By the way, for the record, I've yet to see the actual Twitter on his phone. He's being a little... Okay. There it is. Oh, wow.

Okay, here we go. You said something. Can you say it out loud? What are you tweeting? What are you saying? I'm just saying here live tweeting at the MMA hour. Yeah, there we go. And can we get a gift there?

Yeah, man. Damn. Making me nervous. Nervous. Can you just give me a second? All right, all right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Jesus. It's a lot of pressure. You like my girl. You're just making just all of it. Oh. What are you doing over there? What are your phone? Which girl are we talking about here?

Oh, let's see. I'm sure you get a lot of phone calls these days, right? Everyone wants to be friends with you now that you want in the UFC, fight of the night. Oh, man. It's a little different, you know. Yeah. A lot of Johnny come lately's. Yeah, definitely.

What Jenny come lately's? Yeah. They all want a piece. Like me. Having you on the show. Can't wait to see the show. Can't wait to see this tweet. Am I going to see it in real time?

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Chase Sherman, UFC. He tweeted earlier, a new shirt, $85, new door to Stunia on 250. Having the vanilla gorilla on the MMA are priceless. You're so witty with the tweets. It's too bad that you're not fighting in that era a couple of years ago when the UFC was actually giving people bonuses for tweets.

Do you remember that? They were? About that? Yes. I actually made a joke about that. It was like three, four years ago. The UFC was actually every quarter. determining who had the most entertaining tweets.

The whole concept went off the rails when people were just trying to one up each other. But they were actually giving bonuses based on tweets. You'd be killing it. You'd be racking the dough. Did you tweet? Yeah. Well, let's send it, man. I got this little...

What do you got? What is an excuse with you? What's that? C-spire. Exactly. It's like a little regional cell phone. You're kidding me. Hey, man, it's like 85 bucks.

C-spire? It's like 70 bucks. Oh, here we go. $70 for $1.000 for everything. You screwed up the hashtag but we won't hold you to it.

Oh. There it is. It made me nervous, man. There it is. There's a V. MMA hour. I see you just went MMA hour. See you right there?

Look, look. See that? What do you think of my new studio, by the way? Dude, this is nice. This is really nice. I like it. This is kind of, I mean...

That's a very homey. I'm going to end up breaking this thing. It's a very homey feeling. Right. It's kind of like my basement slash the Tonight Show of MMA That's the kind of look I was going for it

I like it Maybe one day we'll have you up there Maybe You and Rashad Poor Rashad got fired from his job You know has two kids single father And you took You took that win bonus away from him

He's a nice guy But he is a really nice guy Better him than me I'm so you know He got the bonus too He did the win bonus I know but I said that In the interview

I said I hope he gets A bonus Because we was looking at Either finish of the night Or fight of the night You must have been sweating. You must have been sweating, right? Oh, do we have the tweet?

Where's the tweet? I think we will put it up there. There it is. For those who missed it. There it is. Live tweeting. Here live tweeting now. At Ari Halwani, M.M.A. Hour.

And you went with Prince Harry. You know that's Prince. Well, there's Rashad Colter knocked out. What did you type in to find that particular gif? How does the mind work? Did you just type in boom? Boom. Okay.

As in like, told you so. Yeah, of course. were you sweating that whole night UFC 211? What do you mean? Because your fight was like early and so you're like oh is someone going to top me?

Man, I knew I was up for two bonuses and possibly so I was like... You only got one, right? Yeah. Damn, that would have been nuts. I know, I know, that's what I said and then Stipe had to go finish his guy and like two seconds.

But you must have been watching like you were so close, right? I mean, okay, one fight goes on and there was pretty good fights. And I heard that the Porreier-Alvarez fight It was a banger, too, until that happens. You didn't watch it? Yeah, I was watching some.

Man, they had me in the back doing all these gifts and pictures and stuff. And, you know, I was eating in the green room and stuff, you know. Yeah, I was actually watching that fight, though. But then after a while, I was like, I'm done. And then you got it? Who told you that you got it? Jason, text me and told me. Yeah, Jason was the first one.

Well done. Yeah. You excited about that fight with him? I am, yeah. It's a huge fight. It's a great. Important fight for him. He's looked great as of late.

I like what he does on the mic. He's a lot of fun. Yeah. You should bring him in here. I will. Just make sure you get captions. Subtitles underneath it. So how's the Long Island Marriott?

Is it nice? It's not bad, man. It's right across the street from the arena. That's a classic arena, by the way. Is it? Yeah, that's the Nassau Coliseum where the New York Islanders won many a Stanley Cup. And they just renovated the whole thing. They gutted the inside.

First UFC event, of course, tons of Long Island fighters, as you know, going to be on the card. So I'm excited. Plus, I don't have to fly there. It's just an hour drive from here. So this is exciting. And is there. And is there anyone there yet? You're probably like the first one.

I was the first one. Dude, it was like, boring? Yeah, I was bored. Yeah. I asked my coach,

the one that's from here, I was like, where's some good places to eat? Yeah. I wanted to got some pizza last night. How was it? It was good. It was good?

Yeah. Do you have to cut weight? No. No, you're good. Yeah. I have about 15 pounds of spare, so.

Well done. Don't go too crazy. No, no, I still want to be the best looking heavy weight out there. Sure. Although your friend just said you're fat. Yeah.

Or at least you look fat. It's just the worst human being ever. And then so tomorrow that's when you check in and do it. And then it's like a normal fight week. That's when you were originally supposed to come. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you stopping by.

Hey, man. Thanks for having me, dude. Did you enjoy it? I loved it, dude. Did we settle the beef? Yeah. I think the beef is squash. Yeah.

Who makes those pictures like when you doing the rock thing on? Who does that? The what? When you did the rock, like the people's elbow, like you put my face on your face. Oh, it's an app called GIFJif. You're actually doing this. Yeah. Download it on your phone, man.

GIF, GIF. GIF. All right. Like GIF as in peanut butter, GIF. Yeah, yeah, J-I-F. Yeah. By the way, is it GIF or is it G? Like the actual things that you're doing, not the app.

Yeah, I think it's G. People say G, but now some people are saying it's called G. Yeah, they said that, but then I've seen a thing where they corrected it because the acronym for it, the first word starts with a G. G, yeah, you would think. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

People are just trying to outsmart other people. They are. It's a little too much. Yeah. But you're doing it. You're killing it. You're very active. And I support it. I appreciate it. Just for the record. Now, we're going to go get this win Saturday. Let's do it. Damian Grabowski this Saturday.

It's on Fox, by the way. It's pre-lums, but it's on Big Fox. That's right. That's big for you. That's huge for me. Let's do it. And then I'll see you in the back, the scrum. Uh-huh. They haven't kicked me out of there yet.

So I'm still good to talk to you. We're all good. I appreciate it. Chase. Thank you so much. All the best to you. Good luck and I'll see you on Saturday. Actually, I'll see you on Friday at the Wayans. Give me a wink when you weigh in, all right? All right, I will. Thank you very much. There he goes. The Vanilla Gorilla himself. Chase Sherman, great stuff from him. And there you have it. We have confirmed that he knows how to tweet Gifts. That's the big story here. That's the very big story. Chase Sherman, who is fighting this weekend, one of the up-and-coming... one of the Brandon Gibson I missed it

Brandon Gibson actually replied to us he said I have a very busy day I don't have time to get into a gift war with Chase so there you have it

and then he actually tweeted out a gif that was a lot of fun you know it's fun talking to a guy in his position because as I said we often talk to you know

older fighters who are fighting for belts hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars but it's rare we get the opportunity to talk to someone on his way up, $150 in his bank account as he was preparing to fight Rashad Kolter. How about that? That is amazing. Really amazing stuff. Want to thank him. Wish him the best of luck. We appreciate him coming in. It was a bit of a trick, but that was really cool of him to do. And thanks to his team for setting it up and changing his travel,

all that stuff and more. We'll see him on Friday for the wayans. All right, let's move along. Big story last week amidst the madness that was Mayweather and McGregor was that, Joe Duffy has re-signed with the UFC. We broke the news on Thursday morning. New 7-fight contract. Remember, he was on our show around a year ago and said, look, if they're not going to pay me, if they're not going to give me a good deal, I'm out. I'll go do something else.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. He returned in March, won against Resumadati, and now he has resigned with the company. We want to talk to him about that. And what's next, he joins us via the magic of Skype. There he is, Irish Joe himself. Joe, how are you? I'm good, thanks, Ariel. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you for coming on. More importantly, congratulations on the new deal. Are you happy with it? Yeah, yeah, 100%. You know, it's a great deal. You know, I'm very happy with the deal. It's around about what I was looking for,

and, you know, I'm happy that we got a deal done. So, as I mentioned in March, you fought Resimadadaddi. That was the last fight on your contract. You were sort of betting on yourself, rolling the dice. In hindsight, did you feel, feel the pressure of that situation?

I mean, there was a lot at stake there. You lose, you lose a lot of leverage. How are you approaching the fight mentally? Yeah, definitely. I would say that a different feel to the fight. Without a doubt, there was added pressure. Pressure wouldn't normally put on myself. You know, I kind of, I was trying my best to push it out,

but, you know, 100% there was something, it was there, it was there fight week. I felt it more in camp and I felt in Fight Week. But, you know, it was a good experience and I'm glad I've done it. And I was glad after the fight. It was a different feeling of relief I felt after this fight, you know, when it was done and I knew the fight was successful. It definitely was an experience that was difficult, but I'm glad I went through.

Because when you fight, I'm assuming there's always relief, but this is just an added element of relief, right? Because not only did you get the win, now you have the last. leverage, you bet on yourself successfully, correct? Exactly that. Exactly that. That's it. You always get that feeling of relief after the fights, but this time it was to a different

level, I would say. What was it like with the UFC brass? Did you feel like you weren't feeling the love like you did when you first came into the company? Was it a little strange considering the sort of public nature of your, you know, your, you know, your disappointment in the contract offer and fighting out the contract, all that stuff and more, like, how were you received? It was no different, no different than ever, really, I felt.

You know, I seen Sean Fidewick. I've seen it backstage before the farts and everything was as normal. I got a great relationship with all the staff, you know, especially the staff over in the UK as well. So, you know, things were great with them, you know, it was as normal. So I felt like there wasn't much different. I know a lot of people made a bit of a thing about me not being interviewed after the fight. But that was just a case of, you know, I needed, I think I hurt my foot doing the fight and I needed to go get it checked.

Otherwise, you know, it would have been like six months suspension until it was checked. Wow. I was going down to Wales to see my family. So I just thought, I'll get it done. And there'd be no messing about the next day, you know. Yeah, and from what I understand, they were sort of up against the clock because you were the last fight on the prelims, and sometimes they have to cut the interviews short or cut them, you know, in total because they just don't have enough time. So, yeah, I didn't think that that was a personal thing against you.

Once the fight was over and now you're going about and you're kind of moving on with your life, how soon after the fight do talks start? Did they come to you with an offer right away, or did it take some time to reignite the talks? I can't forget now, tell you truth. That's it. It's been a while. It's been a while. I don't think it was too long after, I think, Ariel. I think Graham had an offer of Sean, and it was a very good offer. You know, it was the offer I got now.

If anything, it was me that delayed the rest of the process because I had to move twice. The condo I was staying in here in Montreal was being sold. So I had to move out of there. And then I was moving again. So I was in with my girlfriend. And then we're moving into a new apartment in Laval. So, you know, that kind of slowed up a lot of stuff. I wanted to make sure that once I signed whatever deal,

that I could get my head down and really focus and get into camp without any distractions. Okay. So you're in Montreal full time now? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. You know, I'm here training all the time. It's only like if there's any events or anything going on back home that I'll come back or for fights or whatever. So I would say I would spend 90% my time here training.

And are we dating a Montreal girl? Is that what we're doing? Yeah. Well done. Prangophone too. Whoa. I'm getting my lingo up. That's amazing.

I love this. Much all girls are the best. I'm married to one as well. So I support this decision on your part. Well done. No disrespect to the Donegal women, but I think Montreal women are the creme de la creme as far as the entire world is concerned, if you ask me. I think a lot of people agree with you. I know for a fact that other promotions, including Bell Tour, were interested in you. Did you ever consider any of those offers? Yeah. I spoke to Belvoir. to myself actually

and you know they made a good offer and it was it was a different kind of offer to the UFC

it wasn't it wasn't it was more of a flat rate offer you know but I felt I just felt

that the UFC offer there wasn't there wasn't much difference between them but I feel I feel the UFC's

the place for me right now obviously with the USADA had a program too as well is something I'm

I'm, you know, I'm really, really far, you know. So all these factors came into play. But I feel the offer I got from UFC was very good. And that was it, you know, I'm not a greedy man. Once I got a good offer, I'm just looking forward to getting busy now. That's something I've been, that's something I feel like the last while I've been honing my skills and took a bit of time to make sure I've been getting up the speech. But now I spend time doing that, now it's time to get to work.

And it was one of the reasons why I signed the seven-fight deal. I felt that if I signed seven-fights, I can get out a bit more active, try and get at least three fights a year and just blast into it. Yeah, because I was surprised in this day and age that you signed such a long contract. Was there any thought to signing a shorter one so that you're not tied to them for that long? I mean, seven fights could last. I often feel that the seven-fight deal or the eight-fight deal favors the promoter more than the fighter

because it's not tied to a term. So that could last 10 years, as opposed to a three-four-fight deal that you can go through quicker. Yeah, that's it. Again, there was another decision I had to make. I had to sit down. I got offered two different deals of four-fight

and the seven-fight. And it was something I really had to sit down and think about. And, you know, the position I'm in now, like I said, I want to get active. And that's one of the reasons I felt the seven-fight deal was more to my liking. You know, I want to get out there. I want to get up. And, you know, I'm up there now. I'm 29.

And I'm at the age I need to start making a mark, you know. Yeah. Was the Bellator offer more lucrative than the UFC offer, but you just wanted to stay with the UFC? it was obviously from a flat rate point of view it was better you know because you're guaranteed more money yeah

but with the UFC they're different obviously you got your win bonus so if you include the win bonus no it wasn't okay but if you don't but it's more guaranteed money you know

okay how was was it down to the UFC and Bellator or was there another player involved? I know Graham contacted one FC also. I know there was talks with

ACB also. I spoke to the matchmaker ACB. My management advised me that between UFC and

Bellator, that was the players that were looking at you know, right now. and that was it. I made the decision I spoke to Graham and I wanted to push forward with the UFC deal. How close were you to leaving?

I was obviously I was willing to leave. But I suppose I just had to sit down and take my time over and make sure with all the moving and everything going on it wasn't a decision I wanted to make and it's probably one of them decisions you might only be in once in your career, you know, if you fight out your contract. So I was willing to leave, but I'm glad I'm signed and I'm excited now to get back to work.

Did you enjoy the process, the uncertainty of being a free agent, or was it a little too anxious for you? I enjoyed a bit of the process. I actually took the time because I knew it was going to be a while. I took one of the months I went and I'd done a French course. Oh. I'd done. So I was just like a level one, you know, a French or whatever. Just obviously, like I said, my girlfriend's Francophone. So, you know, when I go up to her family, they're all French speakers.

So, you know, obviously it'd be nice to have a conversation with her mother at some point. Yes. And it's something I really enjoyed, you know, taking the time out to, you know, to do something different. When I'm here, my life revolves on training. Every day it revolves on training. So having a different goal was, you know, that was quite nice. You know, I suppose it broke it up for me. It was something different being here in Montreal. It gave me something different and something other than training to look forward to. Yeah. So your girlfriend's mother doesn't speak any English at all. You can't communicate with her right now? No, no. She doesn't speak any.

She's been learning actually She's been learning to talk to me as well That's amazing She's on duolingo every night And at some point We'll have a conversation no doubt I'd love to hear something in French With your accent

Can you tell us anything? I don't know It probably sounds more like her accent I don't know Can you say like Oh my God This is great This is wonderful

Can you say like hello my name is Joe Duffy? Yeah, hello, Jim Pell, Joe Duffy. Like, the course was, it was three hours every morning, so I get up at like 8.30 to 11.30 and it would be three hours and it was all taught in French. Wow.

I was surprised, to be honest, I was surprised, I've been doing Duolingo for a while, but I was surprised the level we got to by the end of the course. I felt like, Other people was doing longer. They were doing, in the afternoon, they were doing the oral work then. But obviously with training, there was only so much I could do.

I wasn't going to miss a full days training just to learn French. So I was doing the mornings, and then I come in and I would do my training as well. But at some point, I'll, you know, whenever I get a bit of free time again, I'll do the level two or whatever and just chip away. like that. I love it. I love it. And by the way, hello in French is bonjour. Can you not use salute twice? No, because you said hello. You said hello. You said hello. You said hello, Joe Duffy. You used an English word there. It doesn't count. Oh, okay. Oh, they use alo too. Oh, you said alo. Oh, I thought you said hello. Okay, fair enough. You could say that. Fine, fine, fine. I'll give you that one. And just out of curiosity, Joe, how much better was this deal that you signed than the initial one?

You know, you're a very even-keel guy. When you came on my show around a year ago, you could tell as even-kill as you were, you were pissed off, you seemed disappointed in the offer and you were ready to walk away from the sport. How much better is it, the new one? Yeah, it's much better to me, on Sierra, I'm. Like I said, I just wanted, I wanted to be a bit more secure.

You know, every time I fight, I want to be at the point where you want to go in, I can take chances, I can fight higher-level guys, and not be worrying, oh, when am I going to fight next, you know? And then, you know, being stuck. And obviously, I'm away. I'm trying, so I got a place rented here. I got a mortgage to pay back home.

So I just want to be in a position where I can fight. I can take risks. I can, you know, I can just go out and give it my all without, you know, worrying every fight. Oh, you know, should I take this fight? Should I do that? Should I do that? Sure. So it's much better.

I feel like it's exactly where I wanted to be. Were you really willing to walk away, or was that part of the negotiation? Well, to walk away from the sport? Yeah. You said that. Don't get me wrong. I don't think I'll ever walk away from the sport. I'm always going to be training.

This is all I've ever known, really, since I was five years old. I've been training martial arts. and this is all I've ever done. So, you know, I'm never going to walk away from the sport. I don't even know, you know, once I finish fighting, I'm going to have to compete in jiu-jitsu or something. There's no way I'm going to be able to just stop fighting this or stop training, that's for sure.

But obviously, I'm thinking towards the future. And like I said, I had things in mind, you know, I set up a construction company and different things. and, you know, if I felt like, if I felt like my future wasn't going to be secured, then, of course, you know, I would have walked away. But I'm always, I'm one of them people. I like to see things through and I want to give my all.

You know, I want to make sure I've achieved everything I can achieve in the sport. And I'm glad I send a deal now and I can push towards that. Do you have your next fight yet? No. No. When would you like the fight? fight. I've been keeping my weight down. Well, before I went away, I went away for a week last week. So I've been keeping my wait down already, just getting ready to get back in there. So ideally

end August, September. Okay. It would be nice. I feel like I know the answers to this question, but any opponent in mind for this new era, this new chapter? I'm not sure the position I'm in I'm not sure whether they would give me like top 10 guys or rank guys there's lots of fights I just I want to challenge myself now um obviously the guys at the top that I would love to fight you know I'd love to test myself against alexic kabb and and Tony Ferguson and all them guys um there's guys I don't maybe a bit further down the rankings like Michael Johnson. He's always in exciting fights. I like Quinta. You know, James Vicks doing well as well. He's up there.

Oh, yeah. There's lots of fights. Lots of fights. Always exciting fights I'd like to be involved in, you know? Yeah, no shortage of good matchups for you at 155. By the way, how much did you enjoy the Mayweather-McGregor World Tour? I'm sure you watched every minute of it. Tell you the truth, and a single bit.

little clips on social media. Like I said, it was away on holiday. I was in Dominican. So that's why I haven't even had a chance to look on my Twitter yet. And thank everyone for all the messages of support, because I'm only just back. I just go back the weekend.

So I haven't seen a bit, tell you truth. I was kidding. Last thing for you, did you have a chance? I know your friends with your teammate over there, Joanne Calderwood, who fought yesterday afternoon. and did you have a chance to talk to her? I was very close fight. I thought it was a phenomenal fight.

She came out on the losing end. And if so, how is she doing? I haven't spoke to Jojo. I sent her a message on Facebook. But, you know, Jojo's going to be in and dated with messages. Can you imagine how many messages she got? So I'm sure she's doing good. You know, she's positive.

I know there's a 125 division they're looking at as well, which I think it'll be definitely be great for Jojo she's I don't know I think she's been dieting for maybe about three months like it feels like she's constantly on a diet

yeah so you know from a fighter's perspective that's quite draining you know I think I think the 125 division is definitely going to be something that's going to suit her more

but you know Jojo is a tough cookie she'll bounce back as she always does Yeah, I'm very excited to see her fight at 125. She looks so good last summer against Latourneau. So thankfully they finally opened that up and we can see her at a more natural weight. Joe, congratulations. Very happy for you.

I'm happy it all turned out well for you. You got the contract you wanted, the money you wanted. And now we can finally see you back in there sooner rather than later. I appreciate you coming on after the vacation as well to talk about it. So thank you very much. Again, congrats and hope to see you in action very soon, my friend. Merci. Thanks, Aaron.

All the best. All right, salue, there he is. Irish Joe Duffy, now soon to be French Joe Duffy, who is learning how to speak French, living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Great stuff. You see, it's not always guys defecting UFC picking up a big name and re-signing Joe Duffy. And I think that's a good signing for them in the 155 division considering his popularity in Europe. He'll always have that connection to Connor. You never know what happens there. But this was a guy that I think that was worth keeping.

And kudos to them for keeping him on the roster. All right, one more interview to go. Very excited to talk to our next guest. Amidst the madness once again of Mayweather McGregor, some very exciting news for him on Wednesday evening. They held the S.B. Awards in Los Angeles. And wouldn't you know it, Demetrius Johnson won the Fighter of the Year award? How amazing is this?

Not just winning it, but the timing. Wow, you couldn't script this. Amazing stuff. So we wanted to talk to Mighty Mouse about winning that award and what's up with him, of course, last time we talked to him, sort of dropped an atomic bomb on all of us, so I thought this would be a good time to catch up with the flyway champion of the UFC. Demetrius, how are you?

I'm doing good, Arrow. How are you doing, mother? I'm doing great. Congratulations. Wow, that's amazing. Damn, that feels good, man. It got way more love from, you than a different enemy. Shame on them. Okay, so what happens? You never actually got to go up and get the award? No, man. Never got a chance to go up there, give a, you know, a fucking presidential speech

or, you know, people wanted me to run for president as I gave him a speech, you know, take all the fans and my trainers and everyone who voted. So, you know, it's a little, you know,

unsettling. I think a lot of guys who, you know, win the SBs and all that shit, don't even get a chance to go up there and speak, you know, like Michael Phelps,

he swims, once every four fucking years. I fight every, you know, three times a year. So I was a little upset about that. But, you know, home he,

on the left of me, had an SB. I didn't know what he was and I was like well I'm glad I got to hear your speech but uh it is what it is wow wait were you in L.A.? You flew out there and they didn't let you get the award in L.A., you know obviously I just signed with Malkicawa and you're going to go to the Spes.

You know, you got to walk the red carpet and you know get your face out there and I was all right I go you know we're out there bought a nice little outfit and went out there and got a chance to talk and so did they give you a reason? No, no reason. got my asset yet. So I'm just, uh, I'm just waiting for the asset and I'll do, you know, proper, you know, speech on my Twitch channel. I get a green screen. I'll do something about it.

So maybe they ran out of time or something. Okay, here's the other side of the coin. Do you think of Connor or Triple G-1, they would have put them up there? Like, do you feel like they kind of gave it you reluctantly? I don't know. Regardless of a deal. Uh, I would hope not. You know, maybe, maybe they would have, but I think they shouldn't, it shouldn't, regardless of really, is, you know, who said both won a, he won SB, he wasn't even there. There was a lot of athletes there who won ESPs and they didn't get a chance to go up there. Like I said, the guy, the athlete next to me, he had his SB by his leg and he'd get a chance to go out there and take his fans, if they care, everybody else.

So they all of a sudden, change the shit up, SB. Yeah, what the heck? Did you actually get the hold of the award, take a picture with it, something like that? Nothing. Nata. You know, the sad thing about the sad thing about it is that I would never win. you know, me, Destiny win, and we signed our seats,

great seats, by the way, and Peyton Manor was pretty dope to watch when he did the ESP. He was a good host. But sitting there, and Destiny, which is on her Instagram, she's pretty active on there.

And they're all saying, you know, they go to a commercial break. And they're like, best fighter, you need your shots. And I'm like, what the fuck?

And then, Defica goes, babe, you won. I was like, I won. I was, I was like,

I'm the guy who said, I was like, no actually right now I'm fucking pissed. And she goes, why? You're always so negative I was like I want to go on stage

Michael first time to get a damn speech Why can't I get a speech I have to You know I have to You know Tom Ford's on my head And I was ready to go But you know

It's often to win it But I just really want to be on stage You get you know But every time like every All the after you did What kind of Like if you drop That kind of atomic bomb on us

A couple of months ago What would you have said If they gave you the mic At the SPs? Oh man I don't know. I mean, obviously, the emotions when they've gone through me, I would have like, you know what? There every fucking sent him after he's fancy and everybody spits from you and throws you to trash me in the high school. Fuck him. And you know what?

At the party at the strip club, let's go. Woo! Yes. I love this new DJ. This is the best DJ yet. This is incredible. Wow. I can't believe that they would rob you of that moment. That's a real bummer. So when I texted you Wednesday night, you probably weren't even that happy. You were probably really annoyed, right? I was, I mean, I was happy, but at the same time, I was a little frustrated because I think every athlete out there, there's just a go out there, especially when ESP. You know, SB is not going to take lightly. You know, I'm very honored. I was, you know, in the best fighter of the year against, you know, Triple G, Andre Ward, Connor McGregor, me.

And I think they should have done more. I think the SB doesn't really cater to fighting in general, like in mixed martial arts or boxing, all the reels they had of the ESP's. you know, football, soccer, baseball, all these other sports. I'm like, dude, this is the fastest-grown sport in the world. We wanted, I mean, mixed martial arts has only been mainstream to 5-93, not even mainstream, but it's been around. That's how long U.S. he's been around. But, you know, back in Panker's days in Japan,

I just think they need to get more love on mixed martial arts. That's my personal opinion. Sure. And that's what I think. I think, you know, me sitting in the stands, seeing the B-roll of all the great athletes from, you know, Kevin Durant to Method, to Joseon Bolt.

You know, I don't think I ever saw any boxer, you know, Sugar Ray Leonard or Mike Tyson, you know, fighting is a huge part of, you know, our culture, our, are athletic. You know what I mean? So I think they need, you know, shooting their shit up in there, get some fighting bureau on that bad boy.

Yes. Did a lot of the athletes, because I know there were tons there, did a lot of them recognize you? Did you get a lot of love from them? Oh, yeah, yeah. The other champ was I mean, when I was going out there and hanging out, a lot of them said what's up, and, you know, all athletes, respect athletes.

Which was the best one? Like, which interaction, which props really stood out? Like, interaction with me, honestly, I would say probably the fans, you know, because all these other, you have Russell Wolf in there, you have Richard Sherman, you have Kevin Garead, I mean, the names just go on and on and on. But all the fans, you know, with children,

and the fans are supposed to, scared to approach those sets because these guys are making, you know, $60 million contract and all that stuff. So the fans will come up to me just like any other person and they're like, can you time to hop, please, can do this, this, and I was like, yeah, of course I'll do that. And, you know, that means a lot to me that.

They feel comfortable coming up to an athlete like me. That's great, but as far as you, were you like a fan towards anyone, like KD or Steph Curry, did you go up to anyone? Did you care to go up to anyone? No, you know, I always used to say my wife, just chilling and just taking on that. I'm, I'm a certain.

You know, those guys, they have their ego, and I just don't, you don't know what their ego is like, so I don't want to, you know, I walk up in there,

like, who the fuck are you? And I'm like, oh, Mr. Johnson, being that's funny with you, asshole, that's where I am.

Yeah, and I'll kick your ass. Pretty much. Um, so you're robbed of the belts. You don't get the belts unless you speak up. Do you think you'll even get the trophy?

Do you think they'll even send that to you? Oh, I'm getting that fucking trophy. I put that, that's, That's Dave Locker's job. I told Dave Lockett, he was, and I said, Dave, I want my, when I say, Natchez said, I want my trophy.

And he goes, I'll get on it. And I'll go, I'll get it. All right, Dave, all right. So I better get it. And by the way, like, let's be honest, were you kind of shocked that you won? Like, did you think it was going to go to Connor? I mean, like, you just look at the, is Connor. He's World Tour and all, like, what do you think?

Of all the years, I mean, you've had some good, you've had better years than this past year. Like, you can make a case that you deserved it last year, the year before that. Were you kind of surprised that you won it this year? Yeah, I'm not going to I'm not going to laugh A little surprise shit I should have won it back in 2013

Defending the ball three times Against John Dodson John Marag and Yeah Outstanding performances Two finishes Two finishes As a champion in a year

I mean So I've been grinding away Keep my head up Training hard And I think the fans You know Recognize the great And they put the votes in

And it happened Now could we also be honest About this The timing I mean You're in the midst of this little thing For them to come out ESPN of all people

to say you're the fighter of the year. I mean, this is the greatest chip in your favor, right? I mean, deep down, you must have said, yeah, yeah, MFERS. Look at me, look at me now, right? I mean, I'm the fighter of the year. Pay me. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it could have gotten any better.

You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't going to go to the SBs. You know, I went down there for the game of throwing some air to hang out with those guys. And, you know, like I said, knock you was like, dude, go to the ex-bees. You know, what's the worst going to happen? You know, what's the worst going to happen? I said, yeah. So here I'm sitting there and Destiny, you know, he's doing a theme reporter and that's like, boom, best fight of the year.

And I was like, that's what I'm talking about? Yes. Where's what's my champagne at? What's my champagne shot? What are you at? But it was good, it was a good experience, man. I love every bit of it. Did you hear from anyone at the UFC?

Any of the brass types? Did they congratulate you? Did they send you a text? Yeah, absolutely. You know, make Sammy Texas, they're taking congratulations. It's a big deal. S.B. And I told him straight about it.

you know, it's nice to get a text message from you. And I've always, I've always loved represent the sport. I've always loved representing the UFC. I've never like, oh, fuck, here we go again. I love representing my company. So Hunter text me. A lot of guys, a lot of the fighters text me, you know, D.C. and Cowboy, all those guys text me.

So it feels good to be recognized from the company and amongst other champions and fighters. And so where do we stand now? Because you just said it, you've said it a couple times. You signed with Malki, first round management, Malki, and if I'm being honest, the real coup here is to sign with Abraham, who I think is the brains behind the operation. Why did you, I mean, the timing is also interesting, of course, because of what happened recently. Why did you decide to now get representation as opposed to just be represented by your coach, Matt Hume? Yeah, you know, honestly, the whole logistics of things that went down, I felt that, me and Matt both felt that, you know, I think it was time to be managed by getting manager. You know, I'm in this point of my career to bring on somebody who's going to focus on that part of the business to where me and Matt can focus on what we do best, which is get ready for the fight.

Matt's always been a great manager and helped me get rid of my fights and one of my main training partners. Now it's time to put that basically that responsibility on somebody else. Me and Malk could go way back to 2012 when I won the championship belt. Let me repeat that again. When I won the championship belt back in 2012 in Toronto, the U.S.C. 1-8-2. He came up to me and said, hey, you know, Maktawa, big fan of yours. We'd love to manage you. And I wasn't in a place in my career where I felt like I needed management.

But now I feel that I am. And so, you know, me and Malki sat down. Malki and Matt have a great relationship. They always talk to each other. Make sure we're all three of us on the same page. And, you know, why Malky and it makes the team stronger. And so you feel good about this. You feel like the dynamic works.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. you know, me and Matt have always had a great dynamic. And it's not like Mackey just showed up out of nowhere. I mean, he's been, like I said, he was there when I won the bell in 2012. He wasn't part of the team, but, you know, that's a thing that kind of resonated with me when I decided to go with Naki. I remember him coming up to me as I won the belt, talking to me.

And even throughout the whole, you know, five years in my, you know, championship lane, he's always been in time. He's always been, you know, Shane what's up and see how things are going and giving me some advice. So that's that's with me and Mackey. That's why I won't have been, you know. And so the big question is, where do things stand right now between you and the UFC? Everything stands good, man. You know, I've already met with the UFC one.

That was Nick, you know, it was just a big misunderstanding. And, you know, we're going to meet with Dana White. You know, Dana White's a grown-ass man. I am too. You got kids. I got kids. We're going to sit down and get on the same level and go from there and see what officers we have. And when is that?

Probably in two weeks in Anaheim and UFC 214. Okay. I'll be after doing some stuff for Metro PCS, and I think Dan is making me right in his new jet. Maybe, we'll see. Are you confident that things will get worked out there, or do you think that that's just going to be, you know, one step in the process?

I'm sure. I'm sure everything is fine, like I said. I mean, it's a working process, you know. Things don't, you know, change overnight. And, like I said, it's just a big misunderstanding, you know, now we're going to sit down. I'm going to talk about it. And is it, you,

have done that one interview here on this show. Again, we appreciate that very much. And Dana has sort of responded a couple times, but you, for the most part, other than on Twitch, maybe once or twice, but that's not available to the world, you have kind of kept quiet. Has that been difficult? Has that been something that you consciously did? You don't care to respond, go back and forth.

Why have you remained relatively quiet since, you know, that lengthy interview on the show? Well, well, one thing you get in a wrong here, I don't want it, Twitch is available to the whole fucking world. They've got to go to My Name Myracee. com. That's how they got to do to the Twitch channel.

You know what? I just, I just didn't feel, you know, I don't think it's good when you have two grown men bigger on the fucking internet.

You know what I mean? Yes. Like, we'll end up like fucking black China and Rob Kardashian. You know, that's,

you know, girl man, they sit down, they talk about it, and that's what we're going to do in two weeks. And what are the chances that you fight,

like, like, is there an offer on the table? Soon? Like, what are you thinking? When do you come back? I'm not sure.

You know, I just got stem cells on my hand about 10 days ago. That takes about, you know, Matt, which we give it, like, 14 days that you heal. And you talk into it. You know, this is the first time of my career to where Matt and Malky, you know, we have a manager now, to where they're working together and they're working with me. And they're like, you're always such an arrest of fight. You're always fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting. You fought, you know, three times in terms of 13.

You fought three times in 2014. Relax, you just fought on 5 in April. So relax, let your hand heel. That way you can get the best performance. You know, you're going to break into a record. This record probably would never be broken ever again. So let's relax. Let's get through this.

With your body heal. Let's your hand heal. And then we'll go from there. So that's what's my mind is healing, relaxing, spending time my family in the summer. And still training. Still working and stuff. You've got that playing soccer.

Working on my speed agility. Quick corner petting. So everything is good, my friend. And do you think you'll fight again this year? I mean, is that safe to say? Yeah, I'm fighting this year. Oh, yeah, I'm fighting this year. I got, there's money to be made, and I need, I want money.

And what about, what about Ray Borg? Is it safe to say that he will be next at the end of the day? I believe so. I think at the end of the day, he will be next. And then also, you know, you got Brenda Moreno taking on Sergio Pettis, a lot of great guys in the private division, and all these guys are future champions. I mean, you think about it. They're 22, 23 years old, still young.

But, you know, as long as I'm here, I don't think anybody are going to be taken out by. So what's what happened? So you feel like you're in a good place now. I feel like you're a lot more maybe hopeful that things will turn out and work out in your favor and get cleared up with the UFC. Then last time we spoke. Yeah, absolutely.

I think so. Like I said, it was a big misunderstanding. And typically when you have two parties, not on the same level or on the same page, you know, temper starts to flare and emotions get in the way. So now, like I said, me and Dan, we're going to meet, man, and man, face-to-face. and, you know, he's got done, planning, you know, caught in air, and we'll sit down and talk.

Can I come to that meeting? Fuck, no, you can't come to that meeting. Why? I mean, maybe I'll... No, probably not for the best, right? Yeah, I agree. By the way, what was it like hanging out with Max Holloway and Yancey Medeiros in Hawaii?

That video of you drinking the moonshine like two days later was incredible. I loved it. Not a care in the world. Oh, man, it was a great time. You know, Max, me and Max go way back. Really? I didn't know that. Oh, man.

Me and Mac have hung out multiple times in different occasions. I'm always been a big fan of his, and he always been a big fan of mine. And so it was only, you know, fitting perfect. You know, we had no idea that he was going to be home and we're going to be on to vacation over there. And it just worked out. You know, he invited him to McCauha Beach, went out there, and I hate sharks. That's one of my biggest fears, sharks, alligators. you don't fuck with those creatures.

I mean, you get into water, and it's basically you done. So, you know, I had a couple beers out there, and, you know, Nancy bought that sweet ass, Moonshine, had a couple of that.

And I said, you want to go out there looking at turtles? And I was like, that's a shark's favorite, you know, meal. I ain't going to fucking about turtles. I think it's,

I thought, you were the best, brad. He was the best, man. So I went out there, swim, you know,

try look for some turtles, and it was a good time, man. It was good. Yeah. Much needed, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's always good to get away and not worry about, you know, the sport of mixed martial arts. He's coming off winning his belt. It was good. We had the whole beach to ourselves. It was making back Holloway day on that beach. Wow. It was a good time. By the way, did you get the 10 belts yet?

They're in process. They're in process. I ain't got them all yet, but I'm going to tell you guys. I'm getting them fucking belts. What game are we playing tonight on Twitch? What can you tell us? You know what? Right now, it might be a little.

I'll be going to office right now. This is the midday stream. It's probably going to be a little Final Fantasy Fortune, Ryan and Born on a possible with Tech and 7. I got work last one. I got to fix that problem. And then tonight we're going to go back to the bottom ground. I know it depends what the mighty sub one.

We'll see. Wow. I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds like a good time. And I urge everyone to sign up because... No, no, no, no, no. We need you to sign up. You know the channel. We're going to be to subscribe to the camera around.

warning. I'll ask them and tell you, if you don't, you don't sky with the channel, I know, did your wife have Amazon Prime? Does she have Amazon Prime?

Yeah, I have it. I have it too. Okay, this you do. Link your Amazon Prime account with your Twitch account. Okay. You get one free subscription

to any coming you want. Oh. Get that linked up. Then you come to my channel, subscribe to channel, support the channel, my friend. You didn't tell me about this. I didn't know I could link it

with the Amazon Prime. You got to make it worth my while. You're always talking about me. You always cutting me off, so I have been in the place. Wow. Have you seen my, where you're immortalized on the set right over here?

Have you seen this, that your picture is on the set? Right there. It's a beautiful set. I wish I could be there as you come and sign it, and we'll take a picture with you. It's a beautiful set. Yeah, one day I'd like to have you in here. Now you're doing commercials for T-Mobile.

You've got Malky representing you, you've fight of the year. I'm afraid that we may, you know, we may not get you as much. We may not have access to you as much, so I want to keep you kind of as close to me as possible. Well, if you subscribe by the channel, you'd be real close to me, not, will you?

And you'll follow by never, so you'd be good. All right, all right. Okay, so this is good. Congratulations on the award. Congratulations on signing with the management. I think it was a really good move on your part, very smart. And good luck with that meeting. When is it?

Can you tell us the day, the time, the place? What can you tell us? I have no idea. I know it's going to be in two weeks, hopefully. And, you know, things happen, things come up, you know? So hopefully the meeting goes through. That's a nephew of the next to knocky's job. You know, this is my whole type of career.

I've always left things up to me, you know. I've always made things my priority to get them done. But now I'm at this point in my career where I'm not going to do that anymore. The only thing that's a priority to me is me training, to get my family, the kids, and also my Twitch. But like for me getting my S.B. work, that's not my priority. That's Dave Locker's priority. Yes.

That's the U.S. CPR guy. That's his job. If you meet him with Dana White, that's Malky's job. When I had the meeting with Hunter and Nick wasn't my priority. That was Nocky's job. So now to get my meeting with Daniel White, that's Malky's job. A lot of jobs for Malkie. All of a sudden, he's got his work cut out.

He got, he don't make this money, damn it, so he's get him. Listen, it's the right move. You shouldn't be worrying about this stuff. I mean, it's too much for you. I mean, you're trying to break records here. You're trying to win fights. You can't be worrying about this stuff. So it's the right move, 100%.

And I hope that didn't create like a riff between you and Matt. I think he probably would agree that it's the right move as well. It's one less thing for him to worry about. No, I totally agree. Matt was all for it. And like I said, Malky and Matt are in the same page your talk. often, which is rare. And, you know, like I said,

and Matt was there in 2012, we won the belt, and he met Maki too, and we see Malki do his thing. And so everything's good. Malky, Matt, me, we're on the same page. Everything's good. But what about T.J.'s feelings. I mean, he was already cutting weight. This is what he wanted.

Anybody know more about motherfucking T.J. Doha. He had a choice. He tried to keep out of doing this thing, but he made a decision, so we didn't worry about him. All right. Fair enough. Demetrius, thank you very much. Congratulations on

the award and good luck with the meeting and maybe when it's over you can come back on and tell us some good news when you're going to come back and fight and rolling in that dough with your new contracts and your new bling bling and all that stuff well maybe if he's described it a channel it'll be later all right tonight i promise you tonight tonight okay all right we'll be waiting for you okay all right thank you demetrius there he is demetrius johnson how about that some exciting news for him that was great when i got that notification demetrius johnson Fighter of the Year? This is amazing in the midst of this,

but you could tell just from his tone, much different than the last time he was on. Very important move on his part to essentially say, look, and it's funny, after he beat Wilson Hayes, I tweeted that, look, this is a guy who's about to break the record, who's in the discussion for greatest of all time,

and still has the same coach, still has the same manager who was his coach, Matt Hume, same entourage. It's only cornered by two people usually. He has not changed one iota. I know this. I could tell from my interactions with him. And now, of course, the crap hit the fan and needs a manager, but you reach a status in your career where you need a manager to do these things,

to be that buffer, to be that negotiator, to be that liaison. And Matt Hume is one of the very best coaches in the world in the history of the sport. But he's not a manager. And so it's important, I think, to get management, whoever that may be, to now open that lines of communication and do things the right way and be that business confidon and liaison between DJ the fighter and the UFC. Every fighter should have a manager. Even if you're at the end of the totem pole, the bottom of the totem pole, I think it's just important to have that. Guidance, advice, negotiations. It's a very important development in his story.

and I applaud him for making that decision at this time. And I think it's awesome that he won the fighter of the year at this juncture because that's a nice little bargaining chip in his favor. All right, that does it for the interviews. And now we are going to switch up. So this is what we like to do in case you're joining us for the first time in several weeks. We are now on Twitter. We're live on Twitter.

You may have been watching us today on Twitter and we appreciate everyone who has been doing so. It's so cool for me to be on Twitter. I can't say it enough. I really love the fact that we're on Twitter and I hope that we get to work with them for many, many years. As you know, I'm an avid tweeter. I love all things Twitter.

So you can watch us on VMMHour.com, and I hope that all show long, you have been tweeting us some questions, comments, using the hashtag VMMA Hour. And so in a matter of moments, we shall be going over to vMMAHour.com, our exclusive home on Twitter, to answer your questions,

to respond to some of your comments. We call that segment, the MMA after hour. It's all fun. And on top of that, it looks like it's our new graphic from our friend Miles looks like it's a late night thing.

It's very cool. It's one of my favorite parts of the show. So I urge everyone if you're watching us on YouTube and Facebook, who we love as well. We don't want to, you know, disparage them or make them feel like they're less important.

But we do have this opportunity with Twitter as well, and I'd like to give you some exclusive content. If you're unable to watch on Twitter right now, we shall upload it in 24 hours. But we're moving over to vm.m.a hour.com. We'll answer some of your questions on the tour. This past week, we haven't talked much about Santiago Ponsanibio, defeating Gunner Nelson. What a shocker that was, Cynthia Calvio with the big win over Joanne Calderwood.

A lot of interesting things happened yesterday in Scotland. Great crowd once again, but unfortunately, some of their heroes. did not end up Victoria's Stevie Ray, Paul Craig, come to mind as well. Also, there was Invicton Saturday, New York, Rick was there. Glory was on Friday. There was also a fantastic Bell Tour main event on Friday night in Thackerville, Oklahoma. So we can talk about all that and more. And of course, Long Island, this Saturday, Kelvin Gaslam versus Chris Wybman.

So go to theMMA hour.com in a matter of seconds. It will be time for the MMA after hour. We're answering your questions. I'll see you there. Don't go anywhere. I love you. I'll talk to you in a matter of seconds. Boom. And we are back. Hello, everyone. This is when the freaks come out at night, late night, after hours. This is the MMA after hour and it is exclusive on Twitter.com. DmMA hour.com. Appreciate you sticking around. What a great day. It has been thus far. Very entertaining show from Tony McGregor, Conner's dad, to

Pauli Malinagi. What amazing insight that was. To Damien Maya, to Yo-O Romero, who I will have nightmares about. This new thing that we're doing, my wife and I, is when our kids start to act up a little bit, we have been, so she has been playing the Phantom of the Opera song, which I'm not trying to say that we're abusive or anything, but it does kind of get them a little scared. And it's amazing how quickly they run up the stairs to go to bed. The Phantom of the Opera song was working for a long time, but they started to realize that there was no Phantom of the Opera. So what I did was, I busted out The Undertaker and I showed them the Undertaker. And now they are very afraid of the Undertaker. And part of me feels a little bad. But we're kind of trying to tell them that

the Undertaker is a nice guy unless you upset him. And then he comes after. And so I don't even know why I began talking about this. But why did I mention the Undertaker and the Phantom of the Opera? Because the freaks come out at night. Yes, the freaks come out at night. That's right. Thank you very much, New York, Rick. So, this is parenting.

We're off to a roaring start on the M.M.A. After hour. When you become a dad? When? November, you said? October? November. Yeah, like, right after Thanksgiving, it's looking like. You will be surprised at some of the tricks that you pull out. Oh, forget the glare on my guess. Yes. And so here we are, MMA After. hour. It's great to be here. We have so much to discuss. Like I said, at the end of the show,

there's been so much talk about Maywe and McGregor. We didn't get to the Great Bell to our main event on Friday. We didn't get to the Scotland card in Victa. There's a lot to discuss. And I know people have been hitting us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. Do we have questions? Do we have insights. We do. Before we get to that, though, I have a question for this. From the show. Yes. Let's jump back to the show for just one second. Chatting with Joe Duffy. That's what to call him Paul Duffy. With Joe Duffy. he was the first person I remember who cited the UFC having their partnership with USADA as a reason to sign with that. I thought that was very interesting and probably something that I would have expected to hear more about, but the first one I can recall explicitly stating that.

Good on him. Obviously, that is a point that probably should be considered when you're making this decision. But I thought it was interesting and worth kind of pointing out. because it was the first time I heard that explicitly stated, which caught me off guard a little bit because I hadn't really thought about or anticipated him using that as one of the reasons. Look, it's a great call, and I know recently we have had a stretch of fighters come on and say, hello, everyone, I was a free agent, and now I've signed with Belltor.

So I thought it was important in the interest of being fair and balanced to celebrate someone to shine a spotlight on someone who decided to resign with UFC. the UFC is still number one. The UFC is still the NFL and there is a big gap in my opinion despite Gaggard leaving, despite Ryan Bader leaving and some others, a big gap between them and Beltor.

Beltor's ratings are creeping closer. Spike, I think, is a maybe more popular platform than FS1 right now. They, of course, have been around longer and they're going to be rebranded into the Paramount Network come the beginning of 2018. But I thought that this was important. I think that Joe Duffy was someone

that Belator really was interested in. I still think he has a lot of fight left in him despite being, I think, 29. And I thought that that was a very interesting point on his part. There are some things, look, some people may not want to go after sponsors. Some people may want to be in business with Reebok. Some people love the fact that USADA is all up in your grill 24-7, 365. That's good for the sport. That's good for the health of the sport, the fighter safety, etc. And yeah, it was cool that he mentioned that. When he said that as well, a little light went off in my head. Very good signing for the UFC. 155 continues to be one of their better divisions. I think it would

have been a phenomenal signing for Bellator because A, 155 is one of their weaker divisions and B, they do shows in England and Ireland. Of course, he is from Ireland. He has a connection to England as well. And so they could have used him at 155. But hey, he's happy. We're happy. Good for him. Agreed. Okay, let's jump into the question. Oh, wait, sorry, before we jump into the questions, happy birthday, Stephen Archer. Stephen Archer. Happy birthday. How about my dad? Happy birthday? Yes. Oh, it's 70. Important one. 70 years on.

How about that? It's amazing. Is he watching? Probably not. My mom is probably watching. Oh, your mom is, I mean, let's be real. We know your fur fact. Your mom is watching.

She will probably relay the message. My dad is not, I mean, he's a little busy. He still works. He's still going strong. My dad will always be one of those guys, I suspect, that will never retire. Yeah, I know the type. And I respect that very much. Yep.

So yeah, he's probably not watching, but I know he appreciates it. Happy birthday time anyway. Okay, our first question from our friend Ali, although... Del Aziz? I wish, but this guy just tweeted, why is New York Rick talking so much? So I regret picking this question instantly. Just now?

Yeah. God. Eliminated, never picking his questions again. Ariel, do you think there has been a shift in public perception regarding what Connor is capable of? I guess, let's pivot this a little bit. Let's reframe it. Did the tour impact, do you think, what the public thinks of Conner? Conor McGregor and his chances in this fight. Did the tour affect the fight in any way, especially as it relates to Connor McGregor?

Okay, you tell me what you think. I'll weigh in. Sure. I got the impression that there were a few more people who were like, see, this is the thing about Connor. And I said this after or before UFC 189. People ask me, okay, so what do you really think is going to happen? A, I don't like to make predictions because I don't feel like I'm in a position to make predictions. I mean, of course, like we'll do it for fun. We'll do our draft. but I'm not one, as you know, to really go out on the limb and say this without a doubt is going to happen. But there is something about Connor where he says things with such conviction, with such confidence that you feel like an idiot if you doubt him. Before the Jose Aldo fight at 194, a couple people, I did a couple of interviews, people said to me, do you think Connor is going to win this fight against Josealdo, undefeated 10 years, greatest feather of all time?

And I was like, I kind of feel like he will. Why? Tell me why. Give me a reason. I have absolutely no technical analysis to provide. He is just so damn confident that it's hard to pick against him at this point. And I know he's stumbled once since then. But when he says that he is going to win in less than four rounds, like, you're kind of like, is this possible? Is this going to happen again? I'll repeat what I said when this fight was first announced. Everything about this fight is absurd. Everything about this fight doesn't make sense. Everything about this fight defies logic. And so wouldn't it be the perfect cap for this entire experience that he, the guy who has no business being in there with the greatest of all time, arguably in boxing, 49 and no, greatest defensive boxer, all that stuff and more, wins the fight? Isn't that just the perfect ending to this bizarre story, this bizarre journey? I mean, we have, there's no business on Connor's part being in there with Floyd. And so the fact that we're here, the fact that he's so confident, I mean, look, again, I'll say what I said earlier.

I was shocked at how good Floyd was in the exchanges, the back and forth, the performances, the tour, all that stuff and more. But when Connor speaks that confidently, and let me be clear, I'm not picking Connor. I'm not picking Floyd. I don't really know what to think of the whole thing. It's all just, like just, I'm looking at a picture of them squaring off, and it just doesn't feel real. It still feels Photoshop to me.

It just defies logic that this is actually happening, that it was sanctioned, that it's going down. That being said, it's so crazy. that I'm willing to accept the craziest outcome. And so I feel that way after talking to him now because he had not talked really since it came out. And I'm getting the impression from other people as well that they feel the same way.

Again, not to say that they're going to go and bet the house on them, but they're not, like I don't feel, even talking to some boxing guys, like you could tell they're warming up to it. They're warming up to him, the experience, the story, the idea of covering it. I think that was one of the big, victories of the past week. It made it all feel a little more real and less of a dream.

I agree. I agree. I think this is all we're going to get up until the fight. There's going to be, you know, some sparring footage. There's going to be some things that leak out. But ultimately, what we're going to get is their mouths. We're going to get them selling. We're going to get them promoting. And Connor McGregor, outside of, you know, in addition to, being a fantastic fighter is a fantastic talker and a fantastic showman and a fantastic promoter. And guess what? Floyd Mayweather is also a fantastic talker, showman promoter. And not only that, Floyd is good at giving his opponent's credit, which is not something you see enough in the fight game. He's good at giving his opponent's credit and making it seem like there is a danger.

There is a danger that he could be in trouble versus just completely shutting it down. So I think ultimately, as this gets deeper into the promotional stages, this was just one of the very first moments we get from them. As we get closer to fight time, I think there will be a swell that believes that Connor McGregor is going to be able to get it done. They're going to continue to sell it. And I say something, though, about Floyd selling the opponent, putting him over all that stuff. There is something to be said for that. But I said a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was very disingenuous. like Leonard Ellarby is doing that

and he's really selling the fact that oh, Demetrius, Floyd is 40 years young and he's a little brittle or maybe I should say 40 years old and he's had the hand injuries and he's been gone for two years and the start of camp was a little rough. I see what he's doing. I mean, we all see what he's doing.

I thought that one of the cool things about the past week was Floyd dropped that stick and I thought it was important for him to drop that stick. He didn't try to be buddy, but like if you would have done the whole thing like, hey man, you know, I could get caught with the left hand like he was doing when the fight was first announced or in the works, to me, it would have been a total disaster. By the time

they got up there, toe to toe face to face, all kinds of insults, no respect, I'm going to smoke you, and I thought that was the way to go. So maybe a little bit, you'll see a little more respect and he's trying to like pour it on. But once we got up there, I mean, he was treating him like

he was inferior. He was treating him like he was on his level. I'm willing to bet. I definitely noticed that as well, but I'm willing to bet you as we get closer, that that is a lot more prominent. I'm willing to bet that comes back out. He will do the schick of, oh, I could

get caught when Connor's not there, but the competitive part of him will come out once they're face to face and, yes, of course. And how about the fact that, I mean, Connor was touching him, Connor was rubbing his head. Connor, like, bumped him, and the guy didn't flinch. Now, some of Connor's lines

are hilarious, like, why do you have a backpack and you can't even read? I mean, that place, that was like, Everyone like, oh, it's like one of those things. Or like, mate, you know, your 40 years, you're, there you go, there you see it, right there you see it, right there from our own Esther Lin. You're 40 years old, enough with the phone, but he would just have an amazing ability to block it all out, almost to the point that I think that Connor was getting a little frazzled that he couldn't get under his skin.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, it was just, the psychology involved was fascinating to watch. I mean, when do you ever see two fighters in a setting like that, just like walking around, like giving a little, you know, spiel? about what's to come. It was just so unique on so many levels in front of that many people live, that many people at home.

Something I'll never forget. I'm very grateful that I was able to go to at least the first three stops. And I really wanted to go to the last one. But again, as I said, logistically, it couldn't work out. By the way, my ranking, Toronto, L.A., London, Brooklyn,

and that's not the crowds. Don't get offended. Just what was said by the fighters. It seemed like the London crowd was phenomenal. I would still put it below Toronto But I wasn't there to truly experience it So I can't put it that high But I mean that picture

Is that one of the greatest photos you've ever seen pertaining to a fight? It's pretty great God, it's just amazing All the crowd shot ones Where you got the two of them In front of the massive crowds That turned out are just bonkers

From each torso And Esther, obviously the best Getting them all Okay I know there's other stuff to cover but we're going to go on this. Trust me. I could talk about this for hours.

It's the topic. Do you agree that the only thing more shocking than Connor knocking out Floyd would be Floyd knocking out Connor? No, stop that. I mean, Connor, excuse me,

Floyd has knockouts. I know he knocked out Victor Ortiz most recently and that was kind of controversial because Victor looked away. But no, because even a Connor decision would be somewhat shocking.

Well, no, a Connor decision would be the least likely outcome possible. Why is that? And so wouldn't that be more shocking than a Floyd K.L.? Yes. It would, but what do you mean? Why is that? That would mean that Connor McGregor outbox Floyd Mayweather for 12 rounds. So the question here is the only thing more shocking than a Connor K.O.

is a Floyd K.L. And I would argue that a Connor decision is more shocking than both. agree with you, but you asked why is that shocking? It's shocking because that would be the least likely outcome in my opinion. It was more of a rhetorical question. But yeah, I mean, that would be shocking. I think that's on the scale of possibilities. Connor, you know, technically outboxing Floyd for 12 rounds, that would do it.

Ultimately, I think Floyd's not going to get a knockout, and Connor knocking him out would be more likely than that. Is your interest in the fight greater or less than after what you saw last week? Didn't see as we- Yeah, but you said you saw on social media. Yeah, I saw the little clips. I'm trying to help you out here and forget what transpired around two hours ago. No, no, forget.

I'm going to, I'm fessing up to what it is. You were still aware that something was going on. Yeah, I was. It was impossible to ignore. It was impossible to ignore. Do I think, the question was, do I think Connor is more of a chance? No, are you more interested in the fight? Oh, am I more interested in it?

No, I'm not, because I don't think that was for me. I don't think that those set of press conferences were for somebody who's already kind of engaged and like on board. That was for everybody else to be like, pay attention to this. Yeah, but I mean, I'm in the same boat as you and I was eating it up. You're more interested now? Hell yeah. I mean, that was phenomenal viewing. It was phenomenal.

the same. I'm not less. I mean, it wasn't like, I can't believe this happened. It's a travesty. But I also, I'm no more interested at all. Just the same. Okay, so maybe the better question is did you lose interest in the fight? No, not at all. Not even a little bit.

I just think that that wasn't the thing that was going to get me. What's going to get me is when we get a really great, you know, 24-7 style thing. And all access on Showtime, yeah. 28th of July. When we get that's the stuff that's going to interest me.

Looking at that perspective, that deeper glance at it. This was not something that was going to get me one way or the other. I appreciated it from what it was intended to do and the sheer spectacle of it all, but it wasn't going to get me any more or less. But I do think there are fans out there that it did do that for and are more interested. it. Next question. If Connor gets the upset, does Mayweather use the excuse that it was his age?

Can you see that being a narrative? Floyd Mayweather passed his prime and discrediting Connor McGregor. I mean, yeah, sure. I think that would be unfortunate, and I do think it's a high possibility. And maybe it's not Mayweather that's necessarily putting that out there, but I do think there will be a ton that don't give Connor, proper credit if he gets this done. By the way, one of the most underrated or not talked about storylines heading into this,

at least as of right now, is Floyd's age. Floyd is 40 years old. He hasn't fought in two years. I mean, we're not talking, you know, Randy Couture here, but that is something. That is definitely something. That is definitely one thing that Connor can hang his hat on and say, look, 40 years, I'm 29, just turned 29 on Friday. That's something.

I mean, it's a big gap between them, 11 years. So it's definitely, if we're going to do the tail of the tape, that's one thing that he has in his favor. Absolutely. And age. And age at a certain point is undefeated. Is it now is one of the narratives I'm interested in? Father Time, as they say, is undefeated.

How likely do you think it is that Floyd fights Connor in the UFC? We saw this and heard this. Do you think there's any possibility of that actually happened? especially if he wins. Now... What if he loses? If he loses, I say there's a better chance. If he wins, I say there's absolutely zero chance.

Floyd said many times that he promised Al-Haman and Leonard Lerby. By the way, great moment. Leonard Lerby is such a fascinating guy. He walks around with this Louis Vuitton folder. And so I asked him on Thursday, I was like, what do you have in that folder that you keep walking around with? And he's like, a very important document for the smile. And then I said, where's Al-Haman?

Why doesn't he talk to us? He said, oh, Al doesn't like to talk. I said, he's even here? Is he on the tour? And he said, I can't answer that. It's all very secretive with Al Heyman. Al Heyman, if you don't know, is Floyd's business advisor. And really like kind of his manager who cuts all the deals and the brains behind the operation, from what I'm told, at least.

But Lerby was really cool. He was always available. One thing, just a quick aside, it was so cool how things were a little more relaxed in your typical UFC press event. You know, you're just kind of walking. And there's Stephen Espinoza and there's Ellarbee to talk. And there's Conner's Corner and there's, you know, some guys with Floyd. And it was just like, again, I can't say this enough. The access was just phenomenal.

It kind of reminded me of like the old Strike Force days where you could just talk to anyone whenever. And it was really cool to talk to them sometimes before the press conference, after the press conference. And to see the level of journalists. Like a lot of, Sal Palantonea was there from ESPN. A lot of big names were there. The biggest outlets. it was just very cool to be a part of all of that. Anyway, what was the question about the one that...

Floyd, fighting in the UFC ever. No chance if he wins, 5% chance if he loses. I think no chance either way. It was funny that he was like, yeah, you know, I'll fight you in the octagon. And then he's like, I would go to Dublin for this press tour. Like all the things that we heard that he didn't want to do. And that was kind of an interesting thing that came out right off the bat.

like Connor's saying that he had a problem with the gloves that he wanted he didn't want Mexican gloves and he didn't want gloves that had horse hair in them and all this stuff like Connor was airing everything right off the bat yeah I think

we'd see Mayweather campaign a lot harder for a rematch than hopping into the octagon Santiago Panza Nibio a huge K.O. Victory over Gunner Nelson yes

can I just say I love saying his name. Santiago Ponzanibio. I don't think this person spelled it correctly by the way. Maybe they did. Is that?

No, I don't think so. He just didn't put an apostrophe between the O and yes. What a win. But an incredible performance. Now, there were a lot of questions about eye pokes. Yes.

I didn't notice it initially, but if you look at the photos, clearly there was an eye poke. Yep. Kudos to Gunner for not, you know, making a big stink, he did bring it up, he did go to the press conference, he did talk about it,

and so, you know, you give him credit, he spoke his mind, essentially what he said in case you missed it, I regret not making a bigger deal about this in the fight and trying to fight through it that has happened before. Unfortunately, I mean, he didn't. And so, Ponziabio, he capitalized. I agree. And I think that's the time, right? It has to happen in the cage.

You can't go back and say. No, you can't, like, restart the fight. Maybe one day they'll rematch and that's a really great storyline going into a rematch and I could see that happening. But what a performance and what an opportunity and what a way to rise to the occasion. Absolutely. Because this is a guy, let's be honest. When this fight was announced, I was like, what? Santiago Ponziabio is going to headline a UFC event against Gunner Nelson.

I'll be the first to say it. I did not see this coming. Remember, we were talking about Gunner versus Wonderboy Thompson coming off that win over Alan Joband, who is way more known than Ponziabio. but Ponziinibio was 24 and 3 going into this fight. He had won four fights in a row. Hadn't defeated anyone of the stature of Gunner Nelson, but did have some nice wins, Nordian Teleb, Zach Cummings, Cort McGee.

Not bad. Nice wins here and there, nothing that really blew your socks off. And then he comes in and he finishes him in a minute 22 in Scotland, where he was Gunner that is, without a doubt, the crowd favorite. I know this is, I say this somewhat tongue in cheek, but without a doubt the biggest moment in Argentinian MMA history.

And what a great moment for him. Now we have a player at 170. It says he's going to be a champion. Let's see. But yeah, I did not see that coming. And again, rise the occasion. Here's a guy who was kind of brought in as like the opponent. Showcase fight for Gunner.

Boom. Shocker. What a shocker. I did not see that coming. Did you see that coming? What were the odds on that one? Well, let me look into that. I'll say this.

I didn't see it coming, but I can't say it was an unlikely outcome because Gunner, as, you know, I don't know if you, did you happen to catch the post-fight show? On FS1? Yes. No, no. They talked about it a little bit.

He had his chin straight up in the air. And if you're backing up like that, it's not, you know, that outcome is almost a foregone conclusion. But he always fights like that. Yeah, that's his style, but it's cost him at various. points. He's been rocked before.

So I don't think it was an outcome that I go, oh wow, I can't believe he knocked him out. Ponsonabio is very good. But I wouldn't have expected, I'm not about to go out and say this was one that I was telling everybody to throw their money down on. I thought Gunner would have a little

more of a complete game, take him down and ultimately sub them. But if they were going to stand that long on the feet and his chin was going to be up in the air like that, it doesn't surprise me that he got knocked out. So the odds were relatively close. Gunner ended at minus 174

Ponziadinovio plus 164. So less than 2 to 1 that he was going to win. Huh. Wow. A lot closer than I thought. I think it's, it comes down to if Gunner was going to stand with him for that long, that was a distinct possibility. You can't, you can't give him those opportunities.

Interesting. Do you think that Gunner now needs to adapt his style? I do. I do think he has to be a little more aware of that. Look, that's for, you know, coaches and better MMA minds than me to diagnose, but I do think he's flirting with this every single

time. Yeah. But that's for his team. And look, that's his style, so he's made it work to this point. So you can't completely throw away his success. But I do think, as I said, you're flirting with that by implementing that style. But credit to him, it looked like he had

Ponzanibio on the ropes early. So it's not like it was, you know, he was getting completely dismantled. He rocks Ponziadibio, got a little too overzealous and got himself out of there. I'll just say this. I have a problem with someone saying like, oh, it's time to reinvent the wheel. I mean, he is pretty darn successful. He has gotten this far. He has been some really good fighters. Again, you know, you don't want to put too much stock into the eye poke, but if it did really screw him up, you know, who knows what happens if he doesn't get poked. But this is a guy who already had 16 wins in the UFC the highly regarded top 10 fighter, I think he was at the time. So, you know, I think you're right.

Leave it to the coaches and, you know, the people who know him best. You can't reinvent Gunnar Nelson. He is going to probably fight at least to a certain degree that same way for the rest of his career. And he's had success doing so, and he probably shouldn't change it. But yeah, I mean, people get caught. Everyone gets caught. He'll be back. How did you score the fight bits,

Cynthia Calvio and Joanne Calderwood. Man. I thought Calvio won the first round. I thought Jojo won the second round. I thought Calvio probably stole it very end of the third with the takedown. Super close. I thought Jojo was a lot more effective with her striking.

But once she got that takedown in the third, I had a feeling the judges would give it to her. So two to one, I didn't think it was the 30 to 27. What do you think? I had Calvio winning the fight. Could have been 30, 27, could have been 29, 28. It was a great fight. But I was not shocked by that decision.

No, no, no, not at all. I'm really looking forward to, as I said earlier, Calderwood going back to 125. Yeah. The mainstay there, she's clearly struggling a lot at 115. And Calvio, what can you say? I mean, this is someone who kind of came out of nowhere and is now 3 and O in the UFC and looking very good. She's seized every single opportunity she's been given and is pulling it off with flying colors.

Okay. Did UFC, let's address this real quick. We touched on it earlier. Did the UFC make the right call with this? Now, you've talked about Justin Gaci and his team, wanted an opportunity to stay in front of the media eye and in front of the public while giving an opportunity to rest. It makes perfect sense.

But from a promotional perspective, UFC booking this for fans to weigh in on, does it make sense for these two to be coaching stuff? Yes and no. Yes, Gae gets on, buys him time, remains someone in the limelight. No, the fight. Alvarez's next fight should have been Poirier. Coaches should have been Justin Gachi and Kevin Lee.

Kevin Lee, I think, deserves that platform. Fresh blood, new blood, does a great job. He was great in Scotland. That's the fight I would have gone with. And it was discussed. In the end, they went with Alvarez. no disrespect Alvarez. This is going to be a great fight,

but I wanted to see Alvarez and Porier settle their differences. Kevin Lee's there. Two up-and-comers, new faces, if you will. That's the fight I would have went as far as the one in December because it also culminates in the Detroit card

and that's a big fight now in Detroit Motown Phenom. It's a great way to build for that card and it also gives them the platform to build up those two guys. So that's what I would have gone with. Don't disagree with you. Really like that.

I think that all makes sense. But hard for me to get mad about getting to ultimately see Justin Gagian. Absolutely. I mean, it's a big opportunity. It's the former Bellator champ against the World Series of Fighting Champion. It kind of feels like, don't you want to see the end of the Porre fight? I do. We could have gotten this at a later point.

But it's the type of fight that it's hard. Like, there's fights that you go. I can't believe they made that. Probably not the right time. This one, it's hard to be too upset because this is going to be the payoff. but it also gives me no further interest in tough. It doesn't add anything. No, I mean, I'm always a little more interested

when they're crowning a champion. That was the case with tough 20. That was the case with, well, I was interested in tough four because of the comeback and also because they were fighting for the belt. I wasn't so interested in the flyweight one because it didn't feel like this was really, these were the best guys who weren't in the UFC,

but whatever the case. When the belt is involved, stakes are a little higher, and I'm assuming we will already know a lot of the fighters involved, you know, the Lauren Murphy's and Roxanne Madaferries of the world, I'm assuming that we'll be a little more emotionally invested.

It'll be kind of like Tough 20, where we knew a lot of those straw weights or the bantam weight division when they introduced the women's bantam weights. So, yeah, it'll probably be the same thing where I'll check out the first couple episodes and then they'll be way too much. It's like this contender series thing.

I mean, you know, it's like three events this past weekend. I really have the time and interest to watch another event on a Tuesday. What about when there's, you know, a lull in the action? Yeah, but what is there a lull? It's never a lull. Fair, fair, but there will be times.

When? And you'll be looking for... The lull is like the actual break in the... Like, there's 11 straight weeks and there's one off, and then there's another 11 straight weeks. Like, do I really need more in that one low? Fine, better or worse than tough? Which would... which one has to go?

Well, they could modify tough. They could probably... I think I'm infinitely more... interested by the thing I don't like about tough is that it's taped and so there's an element there that it already tried live I like the live season I remember watching most of that and I like the fact that like Anik was involved and stuff like that I just tender series like look it's the contender series feels like oh you know I won here's my $2,000 and please give me the opportunity thank you so much like it's like uncomfortable the whole thing

and let's not speak about the sponsor involved now and they're not getting any money for it and it's behind the rebug thing. Well, that's, okay, fair. That issue that gives me the hebie g-d-d-es. Extends way beyond just this contender series. But the contender series itself, I don't have an issue with it.

And what would they be getting paid on the regional scene? From the UFC's perspective, the contender series makes all the sense in the world. Here's an opportunity to get younger fighters on your radar. You get an opportunity. I talked about the snoop thing. I like that.

It's a nice little publicity stunt. I'm just saying it's hard for me to go out of my way on a Tuesday night when I'm already devoting. hours upon hours upon hours, three times a weekend, sometimes like this past weekend, to watching these fights,

mentally I need a little break. Now, if this was like, you know, a six-month season and it's the NFL and we've been jonesing forth since February, that's different. But it's not, as you know. It never ends. This past week, I would have watched it

because it was the first one. I just kind of want to see how it is, the format and all that stuff. Did you watch it? I did, yeah. What was it like? I couldn't see it because I was actually flying from,

from L.A. to Toronto. What was it like? I ultimately, like it. I'm willing to invest the minimal amount of time in that, in giving a fight card, and giving fights, then the tough house. That's my feeling.

I'm okay with more MMA content. I just think I'm not about tough. How was the commentating and things like that? Good. I think it's nice, for that reason right there, is we're getting looks at new teams on commentary, on backstage interviews,

on different parts of the production elements. I'm okay with somewhere to be kind of a testing ground, a proving ground, not only for the fighters but for the other elements, and I'm interested in watching it. Can I say I'll reliably tune in every single week? Can you tell me who's fighting tomorrow? No. So you just kind of sit down?

But it's also not the type of thing that I need to know who's fighting tomorrow. I can sit down and enjoy it on a Tuesday night without going, I know that these fighters are fighting. And I think that's kind of the point. I think it's okay for casual viewing. By the way, I am excited to hear Paul Feldor on the mic. What a story, Paul Felder. Yeah.

It was great stuff. I mean, it was told yesterday on the broadcast, but recently lost his father, was living in the gym, Rufus Sport, annihilate Stevie Ray. I mean, what a vicious ending. A thespian, right? He used to be an actor. Yep. And I didn't see this one coming.

Like, Eve Edwards was last week, right? Yeah. So I'm assuming he'll probably get the opportunity this week, Felder. and he's not one who has been a part of like the Fox machine and all that so I'm curious to see how he does. I think he'll do really well, but a great win for him yesterday. Our next question, John Jones,

is there anything left for him after Daniel Cormier? Let's assume he wins. Oh yeah, there is. Are you kidding me? What do we got? What about like your legacy, like reasserting yourself as the greatest of all time? Jimmy Manoa, he's there.

Okay, this question, literally actually proposes a move up to heavyweight. Yeah, well, that was my next thing. Jimmy Manoa, heavyweight's always been interesting. Him versus T-Payor. Does Jimmy Manoa do much for his resume? He needs to just fight again. He needs to like fight, you know,

two, three times a year and get back on track. He's still in his 20s. He still needs to like be active and fight and make money. I definitely think there's something to reestablishing yourself at light heavyweight. I'm just not interested in the contenders there. If he takes out Daniel Coramier, I'm not doing. I mean, let's say Volcano Osamir comes in and smokes Manoa.

I mean, how do you not get interested in that guy? To fight John Jones? Eh, it's a crazy story. Anyway, if it's heavyweight, great. I'm more interested there. But the other X factor is, I wouldn't be surprised if John Jones wins and Rumble Johnson comes back. Ooh. That I have no information whatsoever, no insight, but that's still the fight.

I wouldn't be surprised if they knock on his door one more time. You know what I mean? If Rumble wins, there's no reason to it. They were selling it backstage. one day down the line, they were talking about it. Yeah, so that fight, I would be interested.

If DC wins, there's no point in making that fight, he's 2 and 0, but if John Jones wins, I wouldn't be surprised. But I just want to see John Jones fight. Like, I just want to see if... For sure.

Himself, if he can get back to where he once was, be active, stay out of trouble. You know, look, we're talking about the greatest of all time here, right? So, why wouldn't... I just want to see him fight, period. At this point,

I don't care against who. I just want to see him stay on the straight and narrow and do his thing. Agreed. There was one time where he was the most active champion in the UFC.

He was like fighting, remember he fought Rampage 135? He then fought 140 against Machita. They fought 145 against Rashad. I mean, he was fighting a ton. And then what was it, 152 Vitor? Yeah, it was supposed to be 151.

So yeah, I mean, he was unbelievable. There was a time. I would be interested in seeing him test himself at heavyweight if he can get by Daniel Cormier again. Me too. Will you be at UFC 214? Hell yeah.

Fans want to know. Are you kidding me? Why wouldn't I be? The fans just want to know. Confirm it. Tell me. I will be at UFC 214. I think it's the best card of the year,

the best promo in UFC history. Chris Seaborg, finally fighting for a UFC title. Tyrone Woodley against Damia. John Jones, C. Come on, I wouldn't have missed that for the world. Endless drama on that card. Yeah, the Jason Knight fight is great. The Algeman-Stirling fight is great. on and on it goes.

That is a phenomenal card. Can I just say something about the Long Island card? Not as phenomenal. Have you looked at this lineup? It's not that great for Fox. How dare you? It's a little thin.

Is it wrong? This is our backyard. Is it wrong that my expectations are high for a Fox card? Come on. Have you looked at the lineup? I have, yeah. You won't admit that it's a little thin

for a Fox card? There's going to be a lot of New York grit and heart and determination displayed. It's almost like the MSG card that we should have won, right? I mean, like, Valante and LaFlair and Bermudez. Still no ally, Quinta, unfortunately. To me, like, just put him on the card against the broomstick and I'm in.

But that's unfortunate. Look, the main event is great. I'm all in on the main event. There is a fantastic. There's a fantastic story there. I want to see if Wyman can rebound. I want to see Gaslim continue to roll 185. There's definitely something there.

Elkins, Bermudez is good. You know, Alkins had that phenomenal fight. But I'm just saying it's an FS1 card. It's not a Fox. They told us originally that there's a tier system here. Like the paper views are you're going to get the best and then it's going to be Fox than FS1. But it's FS1 and Fox have kind of become the same. Am I wrong?

The fight nights? Like sometimes you'll get a fight night that is kind of more interesting than a Fox. They've definitely bled into each other where there's no tier. There's no tier structure. Jimmy Rivera versus Thomas Almeida is a great fight. Look, I don't think it's that bad. I'm into it. It's a little thin.

That's all. I'm not saying it's a bunch of bums. When you're sandwiched by 2.13, which was international fight week, we're expecting big things, and then you go to 214. It's tough. It's a tough position. Look, there are things there that I like. Chris Wade, Frankie Perez, great fight. Our man, Brian Kelleher against Marlon Vera. Great fight. Almeida Rivera, great fight. Main event, great fight. Okay, so there's things. I'm just saying it's a little fan, that's all. But there are things that I like, the flare. I like Chase Sherman, of course. Lime and Good. New York versus the world. And New York is going to show out. By the way, are you going? No.

Yeah, great. I'm going to watch it on TV. Yeah. All right. Oh, you know what? Somebody tweeted. Oh, by the way. Sorry.

The Rich Report. Yes. I blew that one. We're on the same page. Gustafson Jones. Of course, I want to see that. That's what I want to see. But then maybe after that.

My favorite fight of all time. Really? I think you've said that before. Interesting. Okay. That is my favorite UFC fight of all time. It is. There was a lot of story in that one.

Now, I'll say, like, emotionally my favorite UFC fight of all time has long. has long been UFC 65 GSP versus Matt Hughes because I was at a bar in Montreal and everyone exploded when he won but as far as like the actual fight I think that's the best UFC fight of all time Thank you Rich Report

for making sure we touched on that because yeah that was going to see that Romero versus Rockhold well what do you think because I do okay how about this do we think Romero and Bisping is even possible anything is possible when you believe in the soldier of God

no no no it is possible look like I said Diaz got a title shot off a loss Misha Tate got a title shot off a loss countless people have gotten title shots off the loss and by the way let me just say I still am not ready to put the final nail

in the GSP Bispin coffin let me just say that I think that that's probably more likely No no no you're right but you never know what happens GSP has a eye issue and things like that Robert Whitaker has a leg issue I'm not ready to

complete Bispin's got options the fight that has the most heat there's no doubt about it this is a maro fight this is phenomenal stuff I mean today was just amazing the video earlier today was just amazing so the interview was just amazing

everything he ended it with with some choice words incredible for one Michael Bismayne I think that's the fight I want to see the most but I don't think it's going to happen ultimately I think they have their their minds and hearts set elsewhere

for the moment but you never know what's going to happen maybe there will be i mean it's not been a situation where they you know kow to promotional heat and and the the fans clamoring for it so i don't know

how likely we are to get it but if we got bisming romero it would be a treat oh treat that's an understatement is diaz eligible to fight Silva even after failing to report i want to see this fight what is this no interest in that rematch huh yeah i don't have much interest

in it either we saw we saw we saw how that first one went. I don't want to see this at all. But I think the answer to this specific question is no, he wouldn't be eligible. He'd have to sort out his issue with Usada first. Colby Covington, making a lot of noise on Twitter, obviously. Something he's become good at. What was that?

What was that? Okay, well, then this question is perfect for you. Do you think he's getting Xbox Heat? First of all, can you explain what Xbox Heat is? You know what Xbox Heat is. I do, but one of us has to explain it. Oh, Xbox heat is like, there's different kinds of heat. Like, Floyd had the good kind of heat where people were booing him, but were eating up everything that he was saying, loved it, all that.

Xbox heat is... People want to boo him. Yes, they enjoy the process of booing him. Xbox heat is, Xbox gets on TV, you change the channel. Now, Xbox himself, Sean Waltman, is no fan of mine. Like, one time, I think after, like, 2007, he was just berating me on Twitter. It was all very bizarre. I'm not saying because I just, I mean, one, two, three kids, legend.

But I'm just saying that was a, I didn't coin the phrase. I'm not the one who made it up. But it's an actual thing. This long existed. Yeah, so I'm just trying to equate it to something. I'm not, I don't think that Colby has Xbox heat because I'm just, like, and I know this is going to be taken the wrong way. I don't think people care enough about Colby to have Xbox heat. Like, Xbox people really dislike.

Colby's still working his way up. And I think he has done a good job of breaking out. talking a little bit of smack. I'm not a huge fan of like, oh, you know, talking, like the stuff yesterday with SBG, is that what you're referring to? Yeah.

He's been getting into, and not only that, but he just, he has a very consistent Twitter presence. He's always angling for something. I don't like kicking a man when he's down or kicking a team when he's down. That's just not my style.

I mean, especially because like there's no feud there between him and Gunner Nelson or him and SBG. So, I think there was something. He initially tweeted something, about Britain and Ireland a while ago

and it got him some attention and then it can't keep up with these spawned to this but Chase Sherman is doing it the right way here's a guy who's like trying to put his personality in a sort of fun way I think this is

Colby's personality and I kind of I'm okay with it Oh I think did I say I was not okay with it No but you're saying I'm just not into it like right now it's not resonating with me but I'm not saying like he's offending me I'm not saying it's just I agree with you though I don't think it's Xbox keep

because I don't think enough people are paying attention to send it away to intense hatred. But maybe if he went to Ireland, he might have some Xbox heat. That's, uh, yeah. He's starting something up. On his part was he called out Hafelde de Sanchez,

and I thought he did a really good job of calling him out. Yeah. And then he fights right after RDA wins in Singapore and doesn't call him out. Like here you are on the same card in front of the same people using the same microphone and you call out the champion. You're not getting a title shot. Like that's the issue I had with Kevin Lee when he won in Brazil earlier this. He's calling on Chabib.

You're not getting Chabib. So I know we all clamor for you to call someone out, but you actually have to like, you have to have some sort of sense of where you are in the pecking order and not waste the call out. Was it not you moments ago? Saying that anything can happen,

shoot your shot. When did I say that? You were talking about Bisping and Romero. Oh, come on. These guys are in the conversation. Romero wins that fight. He's getting that. I'm all about shoot your shot.

Take it. Pull up from 40. I love Brian Keller. But if he gets on the mic and calls out Cody Garber, he ain't getting it and everyone's going to laugh at him. But remember that Bisping Romero started with a callout in the cage, had many iterations.

It started in the callout after he beat Chris Wyman at MSG and Bisping was saying, come on, come on. What I'm saying though is I'm not arguing that there isn't a better case to be made for that fight to be made. What I am saying is it started with something. It started with a callout and then it got that heat. The two of them, the two of them. The two of them were on the same page. The two of them were on the same page and they were able to generate interest in it.

If somebody else can do the heavy lifting with one of these callouts, if somebody's willing to be a good partner in making that happen, I don't think it's out of bounds. I don't think Kevin, I don't think if Habib played back with Kevin Lee, I don't think it's out of the question that that could have been something to get the fight if they are on the same page. Why is he playing back? He's about to play for the belt. Why would he play back? I'm just saying

I'm just saying Did he get the Kevin Did he get the Chabib fight? He did not No but you got to shoot your shot That's my point Got to shoot your shot There's a like James Vic

Calling out Donald Soroni That's cool That's shooting your shot That's a little You know Above your pay grade But it's possible Sometimes crazy fights happen

Remember when Woodley went out For What's the line What's the line? There is a line There is no like set line But there is a line You have to recognize the line

You just do Colby calling out Haafel in his welterweight debut that is shooting your shot. That is doing a good job. Colby winning against Dung Young Kim in a somewhat uneventful affair and then calling out the champion

is a ridiculous shot. Is like Lance Stevenson pulling up at 75 feet or whatever it was? No, you don't do it. New York's own, Lance, keep pulling. Okay, here's our weekly check-in. Carlos Condit. Do we know anything? No.

People ask this every single week. Maybe it's time to get them on the show. I think people need to hear. hear from Carlos. But every single week we get this. There's no update. I don't have an update, unfortunately. I thought this one was interesting.

Ariel, I'm a college student who's majoring in journalism. Tell Mark to give me a chance to write a couple of stories for the site. Wow. All of a sudden, Mark is the judge and jury here? Mark is the guy. He's the guy you got to get through. Okay. Listen, if everybody tweet at Mark from Monday because you want to write for the site,

I think, you know, send resumes, tweet at him. and let's see if we can get you ready for us. By the way, happy birthday to Pizzie Carroll, news member. How about this? Oh, it's his birthday too. Oh, wow. We've got so many birthdays. Look at this. Aaron Jackson, big fan of the show.

Get a birthday shout out. Now, I realized that we could start a slippery slope here if we open the door for everybody being like, it's my birthday, give me a shout out. Yeah, where's the proof? So Aaron is going to be one of very few that this ever happens for. But shout out to you, Aaron Jackson, happy birthday. And Pizzi, of course.

I mean, my dad. Archer. Yes, Stephen Archer, long-time fan. I mean, we've got a... Who's who? We've got a lot of birthdays coming up. That's it? No, there's more.

We're going to end with two other things. Oh, yes. First, I think we need to talk about this. The retiring Neil Siri. A genuine article, if there ever was one. One of a kind, and did it the right way, I think, is more important that we kind that we kind of touch on. That he's had this retirement fight that he's been trying to get. Man, it took a year to get here.

It took forever to get here. Got it and lost and handled it, you know, as best as you possibly could and now faces something else. But we want to wish him the best as he transitions out of the fight. Yeah, fifth kid on the way, kept his full-time job, an Irish MMA legend. Even Connor McGregor himself went on the UFC Europe Instagram page and gave him props. So, you know, there's a deep respect there, everyone involved, even members. of SPG who aren't, he's part of Team Rhino, who are giving him props, John Kavanaugh, everyone involved.

I mean, this is a guy who has been doing it since before it was cool to do it in Ireland. So yeah, massive props for him. Sort of a working class fighter, no frills, speaks up when he has to, that Reebok issue, but always came to fight, always was very entertaining. I very much enjoyed covering him,

and I'll never forget that that fight in Dublin in 2014 had just lost a young family member and had a heavy heart. remember he was on the show shortly thereafter and that was a very emotional moment um and amazing to think that connor is the only one left who fought on that card of all the irish fighters pretty incredible that whole sort of generation of irish fighters has now turned into a new generation but connor is the one mainstay um but there's no more cahal pindra there's no neil cyri there's no patty hulahan ashling daly who didn't fight on the card was on the tough house she's no longer around

we do have Ardom of course Charlie Ward remains to be seen what happens with him but yeah I thought that that was very interesting but yeah that was an amazing night when he fought Ian McCall I do believe was it Ian McCall yes it was Ian McCall I think it was Ian McCall or was it Brad Pickett

it may have been Brad Pickett I think you're right that it was McCall but let me double check two tap Neil Siri no no no no it was Ian McCall no Brad Pickett it was Brad Pickett was it Brad Pickett?

No, Phil Harris in Ireland. Yes, it was Phil Harris. Phil Harris. Pickett was in London before that, Phil Harris. I think there was talk of him fighting him in McCall. Anyway, my memory's a little shot. Yeah, yeah, Phil Harris. That was a great moment.

He was booked against McCall a bunch of times, so maybe that was one of them. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, congrats to him on a great career, and we wish on the best. Last thing I was there Invicta

Invicta FC24 happened on Saturday I was there Thoughts any big stars Break out You tell me There's one Okay

That I've been looking at Felicia Spencer Okay 145er Who has looked really really good What's her record I think she deserves some credit She should be 3 and O

But Wikipedia doesn't have it up So she's not She's not like cyber ready? Well, I mean, in that division, how do you become cyborg ready? I mean, there's only so many fights before you're ready for the cream of the crop, but she's really been impressing at 145. I think she's probably one

to watch. Suna, David's daughter, training out of Mjolnyer in Iceland. Look at she with the lingo. Yeah, she picked up another win. Miranda Maverick kept rolling. Karina Rodriguez,

who trains now at the Lobo Gym in Mexico previously fought Alexa Grasso now training with that team picked up a huge TKO Genu Frye in a number one

or what could be a number one fight with Ashley Cummins what could have been a number one conductor who's the champion of that division again or there isn't a champion right

well Hamasaki just vacated the belt for 105 so yeah it was ultimately it was a fun night fights. I think the one I'm throwing out there for you, Mark, is

Felicia Spencer. I think at 145 she could be one to watch. And a great card coming up. When is it? August August 31st, Tachi Palace. Yeah. Two title fights. By the way, you were probably working, but the main event over in Bellator, Belator 181, Derek Hampos against Brandon Gertz. I was working, yeah. Oh, incredible. Try to find it. Phenomenal. One of the best

fights of the year. Their third fight, those guys those guys are magic together. That was a really good fight. So shout out to them in the world famous Winstar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma. That was a great fight.

It was a good weekend of M.M.A. action. It was. Anything else? Musasi Shlameko was officially announced. Do you like that fight for Musassi? I kind of wanted to see him fight for the belt right off the bat. I know they have the fight booked already,

but why not? I mean, being completely honest, frank, blunt about it. I really don't care about any of the middleweights that Belator has to fight Gaygart. It's a really shallow division. There's not an interesting matchup that I care about unless, I mean, if we're blowing up some 170 guys, I could be convinced that it's interesting. Maybe if you get Lorenz up to 185 or even Rory or something, but it just doesn't really do it for me. So Schlomenko, I guess all that's to say Schlamenco is as good as any of them, but I'm not really that.

interested. I think Moussasi's kind of in a class alone in that division. By the way, the vanilla gorilla just tweeted us. Might as well mention it because we're on Twitter right now saying, hope you guys enjoyed the interview today. Thanks, Ariel Wani, for having me. Let's talk. Beef is squashed and then put up a gif of me and him, giving sort of like a high five, backwards high five. By the way, there's no chance. Let's wrap on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you ultimately feel about his, his proclivities for the gift and all that?

So I believe the gifts, but there is some help involved. Like that tournament that he's doing, I don't know if you've seen this, like the VG fantasy tournament. Like, I did see, yeah. When I asked him that, it was clear he had nothing to do with it. But I will say this, I do believe that he does at least some of the gifts.

I agree. It also sounds like he makes those little Photoshop's too, right? He names the program that he used. Is that a real thing? I don't know that program, and I'm not a gift maker myself. But I think, I think I believe that

chases the brains behind the operation and good for him. Awesome. I think we solved that one. We did. I'm happy we were able to bring him here and actually figure it out. It's a beautiful thing.

And I appreciate him coming by. He owes us a door though. MVP, was he like harassing you guys back there? Yeah, he was... Yeah, he doesn't seem like that type. He was relentless. He wouldn't let us sit for even just a minute. Scott Coker was on the show said MVP, my box.

It was announced he, has signed with... Right, he's signed with David Haney, right? Fabrice Radoom is appealing, has lost to Overeem.

That is going nowhere very fast, unfortunately for him. So Max Holloway, Frankie Edgar is not done just yet, but October, November is when they are

either that card in early October in Vegas or MSG and then Cody, T.J., same thing, and then Ferguson Habib, same thing.

Like, those three fights are kind of in the October, November range. Also, Combatte reported, I haven't been

able to really check in on it, but they reported that the Nunesh Chanko fight has been rebooked for September 9th in Edmonton. Frank Mirre released. I'm not sure if I mentioned that last week. Yeah, we featured that last week. All right, so maybe we shall talk to him. And I want to give a shout to everyone who is interested.

Tomorrow on HBO on Real Sports, there is a segment. If you've never seen Real Sports, kind of like a dateline, like a magazine show that feature sports. I mean, to me, it's the gold standard as far as sports journalism is concerned. They do

story on Ramzan Karirov, who is the head of Chechnya and a very controversial figure in the world. Some will call him a dictator who is a very avid MMA fan and has his own fight promotion and has sponsored fighters

and our own at SB Nation, Karim Zidan, has done some phenomenal reporting on him and some very interesting stuff that he has put out over the last year to two years, if not more. He's in the piece.

So they did a piece where they traveled to Chechnya and interviewed him and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, it's just a lot of of MMA. I do suggest checking it out. I've seen some of the clips. And it's just, it's kind of, it's mind-blowing stuff. And kudos to them for actually going out there twice. first time they didn't get the interview, the real sports team, and then the second time they did. Very hard interview to get.

Doesn't talk to Western media. So I definitely suggest checking that out. That's tomorrow on HBO. But then they repeat it like a thousand times. But that's when it premieres. Happy birthday to Ariel. Oh, thank you. All right.

Thank you very much. We are done. Appreciate it. Bye, Twitter people. Bye, bye. Rob, you can hear my music. You know, at the end of the show, after sitting for so long, my buttocks becomes very numb. but it is always fun, another fun show in the books.

And let me just say this one last thing at the risk of making it all about myself. I love when people are like, oh, you're making it all about yourself. And it's like my Twitter page, and I tweet out two things. And it's my show, and I hardly mention anything. But anyway, again, I know it's like, it's tiring at this point. And I know it's exhausting. And I know it's kind of annoying and mind-blowing that it keeps happening. But I would be remiss if I don't thank everyone once again for the support.

If these things that were happening between Dana White and myself, UFC and myself, just kept happening and I didn't get the support, it would be a lot harder to deal with. And so for everyone who texted me, tweeted me, called me, sent me a message, email, I sincerely thank you. And you have no idea how much it means to me to have you on my side and to get your words of support and advice, it really means a lot.

So thank you very much for that. It was an interesting week. Overall, it was a very good week for me, despite what happened. Still hopeful that good things will come and we'll continue to do the job, continue fighting, continue covering the sport for all of you. That's what I love to do.

I want to thank everyone who stopped by today. Thank you very much to Tony McGregor. Thank you very much. Tupal Mahanaji, Damian Maya, Chase Sherman, Yo-O Romero, Joe Duffy, Demetrius Johnson, and thank you very much to all of you. Back next week, stay time, please have peace. So many.