MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 392

Episode Date: July 25, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Chris Weidman (00:08:09), Sean O'Malley (00:33:25), Germaine de Randamie (00:51:05), Michael Chiesa (01:25:50), Dustin Poirier (01:44:53), Tyron Woodley (01:59:46), Pat Miletich (02:22:06), Jimmie Rivera (03:04:59), Chris Camozzi (03:44:08), NewYorkRic for Ric's Picks (03:55:41), and then closes out the show by dialing into the UFC 214 conference call (04:10:32) and taking your questions during the MMA [After] Hour (04:44:05). 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... A mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, July 24th, 2017. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a lovely weekend. I sure did. It was a local one for me.

Of course, you know, the UFC was on Long Island for the first time. And I always love when I can drive to an event and then come back home, sleep in my own bed, no planes, no hotels, things of that nature. And I must say, right off the top, you'll recall last week I was lamenting to New York, Rick, that this was a rather thin UFC on Fox card. And to be honest, the ratings would reflect that the lowest in the history of the UFC on Fox venture. However, I will say after the fact that I'm not sure.

if I have had more fun covering a card this year. I really enjoyed it. From the get-go, it felt like a local card, if you will. They did such a great job of filling up the event with Long Island fighters and then New York slash New Jersey fighters. Six Long Island fighters in total, 10 of the 13 fights featured either a New York fighter or a New Jersey fighter, and that really made it feel like a local card on the biggest stage possible.

before the event, people were tailgating in the parking lot. The new Nassau Coliseum is beautiful. It's kind of like a mini Barclays Center. And it was really cool to see all these people show up with t-shirts for Jimmy Rivera and Shane Burgos and Chris Wyden and Ryan LaFlair. The local New York fans, the local Long Island fans, really come out and support their own. And so it had that sort of feel to it. Here are the Long Island fighters coming out on the biggest stage, finally getting a chance to fight at home, I'm finally getting a chance to fight on Long Island.

I love that vibe. And then you had these great stories like Shane Burgos from the Bronx coming in. And what a pleasure it was meeting him. This guy is an encyclopedia of mixed martial arts. He even recognized our own Danny Segura from the MMA beat. He was telling me that he can go toe to toe with me as far as events and who fought on those cards. And so one of these days we have to have them in studio to have a little trivia session. That was great.

Junior Albini, I mean, what can we say about that story? If you hadn't heard or have not heard, the Brazilian fighter who made his debut on Saturday, he defeated Tim Johnson, tells us afterwards that he was not paid for his last nine professional fights in Brazil. When he came to Long Island and got a per diem from the UFC, usually around, I think, $600, that's the most amount of money he's ever had in his wallet. The most prior to that was $100 if you convert Brazilian dollars into American dollars or half. I believe they are called. And he said that he has a two-year-old daughter. He has been unable to buy her any kind of toy since she has been born. And so she plays with empty water bottles, excuse me, shampoo bottles, water bottles, all kinds of empty bottles.

And listening to this just absolutely broke my heart. I mean, after listening to Burgos talk about how he can't afford dental insurance and then the very next Friday that came back to talk to us was Junior Albini, I felt very depressed. But then there's part of you that's happy that these guys are making money. Albini made 10 and 10. Then he got the $50,000 bonus. Kudos to the UFC for giving him that. And hopefully now that he can buy his, I mean, the support that he received afterwards

and the reaction that his story got was very nice to see. Eric Anders with a great story. The Alabama football player turned mixed martial artist. He had the Jimmy Rivera story coming back 20 in a row. And then, of course, nothing bigger than Chris Wideman, snapping the three-fight losing streak, getting back on track. so much emotion involved submitting Kelvin Gasselm in the third round. The place goes insane for him. Went to school literally across the street from Nassau Coliseum at Hofstra University.

He said he went all around the world and brought it back to Long Island, shouted out Baldwin, which is where he's from on Long Island, a beautiful scene. And really, credit to Kelvin Gassum as well. He should be fighting at 170, almost finished Wydenne early, dropped him at the end of the first round, but Wyman was able to regroup and submit Gasselm in the third. I really had, I mean, Darren Elkins, you can go on and on with the stories. Our pal, the gift king, Chase Sherman, getting his second straight win. Really enjoyed it on Saturday. So I hope you enjoyed it as well.

We'll be talking about that card. There's a lot to talk about. Of course, we are now just five days away from UFC 214. The much anticipated fight between one John Jones and Daniel Cormier. Finally, John Jones is back. It's going down one of the best cards of the year on paper, three title fights. We'll talk about that. A whole lot more.

There's so much to get to. So let me run down the lineup today. And then we shall get to our first guest because really there was no other way to start this show than with our first guest. First, five o'clock, we're actually going to listen in

to the 214 conference call, which will be airing live at five. So Jones, Cormier, Woodley, Maya, Cyborg, Evanger will be on the call. That will be the first part of the MMA after hour exclusively on Twitter, the MMA hour. Twitter.com.

his questions all show long using the hashtag the m m m hour there it is on your screen and that will be exclusive on twitter we'll answer those back end of the five o'clock hour front end we'll listen to the two 14 conference call so i'm looking forward to that 430 excuse me 440 to be exact we'll do rick's picks 430 we're going to hear from a yet to be announced former ufc veteran who just left the company and is now transitioning over to a different combat space Sports. Sport. He's got some news for us. Who is it? You'll find out at around 4.30. He'll come on to break the news. I'm looking forward to that. 345. We're going to be joined in studio by Jimmy Rivera. How fun is that? 20 in a row defeats Thomas Almeida on Saturday. Jimmy Rivera stopping by.

Looking forward to having him in studio at 305. Another in studio guest. We're going to. The Street continues. Pat Militich, the living legend, the Croatian sensation. He'll be in studio. Lots to talk to Pat about. Looking forward to that at 305. 245, we'll talk to Tyron Woodley about the Damian Maya fight on Saturday. He defends his welterweight title. Almost exactly one year to the day that he won the belt last year. Remember, July 30th, he beat Robbie Lawler of last year in Atlanta. 225, we'll talk to Dustin Porre about not getting the Eddie Alvarez fight, all that and then some. At 205, we shall talk to Michael Keesa about his appeal.

in Oklahoma getting shut down, where he goes from here. 145 will talk to Jermaine Durand me in her first interview since getting stripped of the featherway title. I've been trying to get her on for months, it seems now. And finally, we have got her, I hope. 145. And 125 will talk to Sean O'Malley, who took the MMA World by Storm last week, winning that fight on the contender series on Tuesday, hanging out with Snoop, smoking weed, all kinds of crazy stuff.

But he's a good kid with a great story, and I think a very bright few. future, so I'm looking forward to talking to Sugar, Sean O'Malley. But as I said at the top, there's only one way we could have started this show. And it's with Chris Widman on Saturday at Nassau Coliseum. Again, literally across the street from where he went to school, minutes from where he grew up. Wyman went in there on a three-fight losing streak and submitted Kelvin Gaslam in the third round. Less we forget, he was the betting underdog going into this fight. Rarely have I seen a scene like that. that was the best that MMA had to offer in terms of the emotion, the crowd, the jubilation.

So honored to be there and witness it in person and now we are being joined by the victorious Chris Wydenman on the phone to kick things off. Chris, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Are you still, have you gone to bed yet? I don't have many hours in me right now. The first night was like at 7.30 in the morning.

I went to sleep and I had to be up at like 11th. Oh, my. So that's what I had for that day. And last night, it was another long night. So maybe tonight I want to get my sleep. 7.30 a.m. So you probably left the arena at around like 1231. What did you do between then and 7.30 on Long Island?

Man, I went to At the Authority. I probably went to Rock the Center. And we actually had two places. I thought that we had one place where I had like close friends and family. Friends, I said close friends of family. Yeah. So close friends and family and some fans, we had, we got to eat a bunch of food. And then right next door was, like, the craziness role, just showed up fans and people from that area.

And it was a crazy time. So we were there pretty much all night. And then we ended up going to a pizzeria that was closed. And they found out that I was there and they kept it open for me. Wow. We actually got to make our own pizzas. And I was like, just like, hang out in the kitchen. So it was pretty cool.

We hung out there for a good chunk of. the night. It's probably like five at the morning. Is it possible? And then I'm headed back. Is it possible, Chris, that you were happier on Saturday than you were when you beat Anderson Silva for the first time? Man, it's, uh, there are two different events, but it's very completely, two different

moments. But, um, man, I was pretty damn happy. I'm still happy. Um, just with everything I was going through and then, um, you know, I had to keep my mouth shut. I just, and, uh, here at all the dollars. and just have to go out there and prove everybody wrong with my actions. And to get it done and a place like NASA Coliseum with so much support. I wasn't sure how much support I was going to have there.

I figured I was going to be the fan favorite. But what ended up happening that night was like an unbelievable moment. Have you watched it again yet? Yeah, I've watched it a couple times now. What is it like watching it and then seeing the reaction afterwards? It was insane. It's insane. It felt weird. I watched it last night. And it's crazy. That just happened on Saturday.

And that was me doing it. And how it all worked out. It was crazy, man. Like, I grew up going to National College. I told all these stories. But it's just a very surreal situation. And there was so many familiar faces in the crowd afterwards. Like, just walking out, back out after the fight was over. It was another amazing time. Just seeing so many familiar faces. I had so much back there from people that haven't seen in years,

you know, so it was really cool. Yeah, they actually, I was watching it in the back, and they kept the camera on you after they switched to the post-fight show, so we got to watch you just go into the locker room. And the way you were greeting everyone and hugging and high-fiving everyone, and it did seem like you kind of knew some of these people. You mentioned in the Post-Five press conference that you saw a kid that used to fight in, like, the sixth grade.

Were there other kids as well that you were just like, oh my god I can't believe it and it just it felt like you were celebrating winning the Super Bowl yeah it was amazing to walk that was my favorite part these all these all these people I know like they have to show them up I can see them in person and to finally see them right there and part of that moment was like awesome for me to share with them so it was like it was uh I was amped I was am to have all those people there there there's a lot of people from my own town um that I was seeing on my way out and then people from just different watched the luck that I've met along the years.

I'm allowed to being out here. So it was really cool. I really admired how you dealt with the losing streak and how you remained confident and didn't allow any of the doubters to sort of get you off your game and start doubting yourself. But in hindsight, could you tell us, like Saturday,

did you wake up, did you have a moment you were like, man, I can't lose four in a row? Like, did you feel a little more nervous considering the setting and what was at stake? You said all the right things going in. but in hindsight, how were you really feeling? To be honest, I was pretty confident. I put it into God's hands,

and I just wanted to go out there and work hard, stay relaxed and make it like another sparring session. Every once in a while, those type of thoughts are popping in my head. Like, I'm freaking, like, it's crazy that I lose this fight that's four in a row. Like, it just boggles my mind because I'm not, in my mind I'm not that guy. I'm losing out of those fights. So every once in a while, I'll pop up in my head,

but that would pop right back out. Those were thoughts that maybe left for like a second to go back out and then I had confident thoughts. So it really wasn't like I had, I know everybody probably thought I had, you know, I was definitely have a lot of pressure on myself, but the losing streak was more motivating

than adding pressure. It was an opportunity to come back from adversity and, you know, and again, like, the proof people wrong. It was an exciting motivating thing. You said after the fight that that was the first time that you'd have ever been dropped. But, I mean, and people were like,

wait a second, what about the Romero fight? What did you mean when you said that? Did you mean, like, in the heat of a fight to not end a fight? Yeah, I guess so. Like, my legs went out on me for like a second. It was actually, I mean, the more I think about it, it was like, it'd get me really hard,

but I was, like, kind of sliding backwards and you caught me off balance. and bounced on my butt, but I was coherent the whole time. My legs went out for me for a second. The Romero fight, I mean, I guess I got dropped in that too, just like a...

I guess I mean, like, I mean, that was like an extreme move that I got hit with in that fight. This one was like just a, you know, it was a hard, hard punch. I never happened before, you know, but it was more of like a combination of his power and my movement

that like sent me backwards, but I felt fine in between rounds. I felt fine. As he was going down. I knew he obviously thought he was on his way to getting a finish, but I actually felt fine. My cardio felt great in between rounds.

My head, my leg, everything was completely fine coming back into the second. As you could tell, he wasn't able to do much more in the second round. So it wasn't like, I don't think he was, where he thought he was as far as, like, finishing me. We're actually showing this picture here, and I know you've seen it because you tweeted it

Esther Lynn took it when he punched you and your face looks like it's all like I don't even know what to call like Mangal you've seen this right unless that was someone else

tweeting on your behalf the one where your face looks like it was like smashed in Chris are you there we may have lost him maybe he doesn't want to Hello? Oh Chris you're there

Hello? Yes sorry I actually think my fast face hit the mute button my bed I said yeah that picture I put that up I saw that picture

I'm like wow my face got put into like seven different directions at one time It was like a rippling effect going on. And I'm the ugliest, you know, by being ever. I had a picture. So I was like, I got to, this is an interesting thing.

I got to put this up. And, you know, I got, I got no shame. You know, it's part of the game. You got to get punched sometimes. Did his power surprise you? No. I mean, I, listen, this kid, look what he's done to some really good fighters. You know, Tim Kennedy's freaking really good.

He stood up there and, uh, he killed these guys and knocked these guys out from his feet. He covers distance really well. He's quick. He's confident. He's not afraid to get hit. He stays in the pocket. So, no, I was prepared.

I was prepared for all that. Would you advise him to go down to 170 now again? Like, do you think that he's just too small for 185? You know, I think there's benefits for him to be at 185, and there's benefits for him to be at welterweight. It's really, it's going to be up to him. I'm not going to advise him to do anything. He's competitive at any way class he wants to go.

Okay. And so afterwards, you wasted no time in getting into it with Michael Bisping, and then it evolved into this whole, like, Twitter back and forth. Are you trying, like, what's the game plan here? Do you think you can actually get him? Are you trying to bait him into, like, because it's getting pretty personal at this point. He's talking about your dad. You're talking about his eyes.

It really turned into something greater than it was just by, you know, you called him out on TV. That's fine. but then it kept going all through Sunday. Yeah, I mean, whoever the people want to see fight for the title, I think should fight for the title. I think the best guys in the world should fight. He hasn't fought, a number one contended guy since he's been a champion.

You know, every single time I defend the belt, he's the best guy in the world. Somehow he got away from doing that. It's kind of messed up the division. Right now, the guy, Robert Whitaker, he won the interim title, but I think he's going to be out for a while. that being said, I'm the only guy coming off a W. So I think it would make sense.

No, I think you press mute again, your face. Your swollen face may have pressed mute, or maybe the call got dropped because we lost you, Chris. Christopher? It says you're there. Maybe we need to call him back. Just a couple more minutes left here with Chris. You could tell he's very tired,

but I appreciate him jumping on. Yeah, we'll call him back. if you follow him on Instagram, you know that he's been up many an hour over the last 48, less than 48 hours. He had some great root beer floats it seemed last night playing cards with Wonderboy Thompson. Wonderboy was in his corner. It was great to see his family was there and I know people like to rag on his dad and how vocal he is about his son. I don't mind that. I probably would be the same, to be honest.

If that was my son doing that, I'm a little insane when it comes to that stuff. Is he there? Chris, you're there? Yeah, yeah, what did you get? You said you're the only guy coming off a W. Yeah, I'm only guy coming off a W. I think in the out of the top of 10, right? I'm not sure.

Yeah. But whatever the people want to see. And I kept talking for a while, so I have no idea. I actually don't remember what the hell where we were. Okay. I was talking about basically, you know, this is what kind of like gloves off.

with him. I mean, he ripped up a Cuban flag right in Romano's face in between rounds during the guy's fight for a championship. So the guy doesn't care about anything. And then right away, I mean, I do the cross. I think he comes right at my father. I mean, he comes at my family. You know, I think he could say anything he wants about me. You know, he could talk about how ugly I am or anything about my face or my body or whatever. Or my career. Come at me all you want. But this guy's then he comes up to my father so yeah whatever

he's an idiot do you think you'll get it do you think you have a shot I don't know I'm not I'm not too worried about to be honest you if it makes sense

if Bizbing isn't too scared to actually play the guy like me and give up his belt then it'll happen but if not we'll fight other guys

we'll see Is there someone below him that you think, okay, I beat this guy and then I'll really get the title shot? Have you thought of that? I haven't really put too much to it. I was thinking of Kelvin Gas on forever, and obviously you always want to fight for the belt. That's what I want. I want to fight for the belt. I want to pick that money.

And the belt is where you get the money. I learned that. So I want to get back to the belt. You've been fairly active over the past year, but obviously MSG is coming up. Would you like to fight on that card on November 4th? again I haven't put too much story I guess it depends on but we get offered

I don't know if they even want me to fight on that I don't know but I'm ready to go so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the code of month okay and so now what do you do you're just going to take you're just taking on like a long break or something because this has been I mean from

Romero to April Musasi to this I mean that's a lot of fighting for you and you've held up I might go to Anaheim just to find Mr. Bisbing. I want to bring up my family. I'm going to slap up his mouth. But other than that, I got nothing going on.

How do you feel, like, honestly, when your dad gets in there, are you somewhat embarrassed? Do you love it? Because what is it like? No, he definitely embarrassed. He definitely embarrassed me. But I'll tell you can't, you can't change your family. You can't.

My dad's, I don't know how old. Yeah, he's over 60 now, you know. You know, you gotta love people for who they are. He's my dad, and obviously he loves me, he's supported me, he's happy for me, so it's hard to control his emotion while I'm in the middle of a lot of stuff going on. So it was, it is what it is. At the end of the day, it doesn't give Michael Bisping the right to open up his mouth. Sure.

He's literally like hanging on, like, by your neck. We were showing a photo of him now. It's amazing. It's a great scene. And I don't know if you heard him say this, but he said, he's your boy. He said this to Long Island. He said this time it was great. It was a nice little bow on the whole, the whole interaction.

Yeah. I asked you on Saturday night what it would be like when you told your kids. What was it like when you told them on Sunday morning? So actually about night I did. I went to where my kids were at. They were in the hotel. And I just tried, my daughter was up here. I sure I knew I won when I came back to the room.

And my little guy, Colton, was up. He has no idea what's going on. It was fun to be able to share that moment with them and let them know how I won. And my daughter was so exciting, gave me so much love and hugs and kisses and stuff. And then my son, CJ, obviously, he was really into this stuff.

He was passed out. And so I'm trying to wake him up. We don't let them watch the fight. So I'm trying to wake him up. I'm like, CJ, wake up. And he's like, you know, Did I lose you, Chris, again? Chris always rags on me for my poor cell reception,

but I think he finally got me back on this one. Damn it. I wanted to know what CJ did. CJ's like his biggest fan. Okay, let's call him back quick. I love when people get mad at me, like, you do a show and you can't get better cell receptions? Do you think I set up these cell receptions?

Do you think I established them with everyone who's going to be on the show? Things happen. It's actually a really crappy day outside. New York. It's pouring rain, so I'm going to blame it on that. But I just had like three more questions for Chris, and then I'm finally going to leave him alone for a very long time. Kind enough to be on. Is he back? Chris, are you there? I'm back. I'm back. Sorry about that. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, you always make fun of my cell reception. Who's laughing now?

This whole week, my cell phone reception sucks. I don't know what's going on. The hotel I was in was just terrible for cell phone reception. I'll drive it. I just keep dropping. But, you were saying, Oh, CJ, yeah. DJ ended up, where would I leave up with him? You said that he was sleeping, he was passed out, and then I lost you. Yeah, he couldn't, he wasn't waking up. So then the next morning, he comes running in the room,

and now he knows I won, and he added my American flag, and the gloves I actually fought with on. He's like, I'm Chris Wadden, man. And we just, like, we were hanging out, and he was happy. He was asking Washington to fight and stuff, and it was cool. Wow, that is great. Amazing. Hey, Chris, can I ask you this before I let you go?

You were probably, you know, with blinders on and were very focused on the task at hand, obviously. But a story came up in which you were kind of brought into, this story about Ramzan Kadyrov. Have you seen this? Have people asked you about this? No. At one point, a few years back, you did travel to Chechny on some sort of like promo tour, right? I did, yeah, I did like a seminar. That's right.

out there. And HBO did this story on the leader in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyerov, in which a lot has come out in terms of his ideologies and how despicable they are and just what kind of a person he is and how he's using MMA to further those ideologies, et cetera, et cetera. And you were kind of brought in as someone who has ties to him. From what I understand, based on my conversations with you, you kind of went out there, you were offered this opportunity, but you have no actual ties to him. So I was wondering if you happened to see this story or any of the story.

of the stories that came out of it. And if you wanted to, in any way, address being linked to him or people saying that you have ties to this individual. Yeah, I have no ties to him. I went out there with a one time experience. I knew nothing about. I just knew where I was going to Russia to do a seminar. Not my manager, but another manager had asked me if I wanted to do it. And obviously it was like a paid thing.

And I'm like, all right, sounds good. Let's do it. And then it was an interesting experience, a completely different type of culture than out here. It was, for me, it was a great experience going out there, just seeing a different way of living than what we're used to here. So, but yeah, no, I have no ties with them. I haven't spoke to them since, what, 2015 you said?

I think it was that. I mean, you would know better than me, but I think it was a couple years ago. Yeah, it was a while ago, but, yeah, no, I spoke to them more. I haven't been asked to go back out or like that. So no. I know, yeah, so I have nothing to do with him right now. And when you fight, you're not representing his team or he's not paying you. It was just kind of a one-off, right?

No. Yes. Yeah. And did you meet him when you were there? Yes, I did. And what was that like? I mean, he treated us like King. Uh-huh.

But, yeah, it was, uh, it was. It was definitely an interesting experience. I mean, they treated it was great. They were very respectful. Obviously, it was a completely different type of culture. So it was a cool experience to see a different way of living. Okay. All right.

I just wanted to try to clear that up because I remember when talking to you about it, that it was just kind of this one-off thing and you've had no connection to him since, but wanted to see if you had any thoughts. Of course, you were preparing for the fight, so I don't imagine you watch the HBO special. But if you do have some time, I would suggest checking it out just because you did travel over there. and it's, I think, become a lot more, it's become a lot more dangerous over there as well for all kinds of people.

Chris, I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. Hope you get some sleep and hope you're able to enjoy this. Enjoy victory. I know it's been a while, and you don't like when I bring that up, but it's great to see you back, and it was one of my favorite moments covering the sport,

just seeing the happiness on your face and your family and the people on Long Island. A really cool moment, and you certainly deserved it. That place got lit up fire that night, didn't it? Was that nuts? I don't like to compare it to other things But like the crowd going in When you walked out

There was kind of like a nervous energy in the crowd I don't know if you sensed that But then afterwards It was like the islanders had just won And they've done a great job with that arena by the way It looks beautiful They really renovated it well And I thought it was interesting that

As I noted afterwards In the renovated Nassau Calcium Used to go there as a kid You sort of resurrected your career as well You see that symbolism You see what goes on there You feel that? I see that.

I feel it. I feel it. It's crazy. Someone went out like during the after party thing. Oh, no, actually the next day I was out like Steve Miochich, Valante, and wonderful boy and a bunch of different other people. Other people. And some kid, like, happened to see me in one of these bars and he came, he jumped out of his Uber. Just to tell me that he's been going to NASA Calcium events his whole life.

He's like a, you know, a four-year-old guy. And he's like, you know, I've never heard that Calcium. Wow. I had all my years and all the huge events I've been to. It was like it was an amazing, amazing experience. What I love most about it was it was kind of like a local card on the biggest stage because everyone seemed to have a connection to one of you on the card. Like you saw a ton of people supporting LaFlair, Kelleher, Bermude.

You know what I mean? But you guys were fighting in the UFC. So it's rare that a card would feature so many local guys. And I thought they really got a right with this one featuring all of you and, of course, putting you in the main event. So it was great. I'll never forget it. I'm sure you won't as well.

Yeah, it was awesome. Well, thank you, Chris. Thank you. I appreciate it. Get some rest and we'll talk to you soon again. Congratulations. All right, thank you. All right, there he is.

Chris Wyman stopping by. What a great moment once again. By far, in my opinion, one of the best of the year, him winning the reaction, the explosion, the celebration, the happiness, something I have a feeling he won't soon forget and no one in that crowd will soon forget 11,000 plus fans in attendance on Saturday at the Coliseum.

Okay, it was a busy week, as always, in MMA on Tuesday of this past week. UFC ran its second Tuesday night contender series. Technically, it's not a UFC event. It's called Dana White's Tuesday Night Contender Series. It's on Fight Pass, and it's kind of the feeder promotion now into the UFC, if you will. It's running for several weeks. second one that they've done signed two contracts week one but this week everyone was talking about Sean O'Malley for several reasons a his finish his victory in the first round but B his personality

has come to light him hanging out with Snoop Dogg afterwards Snoop Dogg loving him the Instagram post the weed smoking all that and more the undefeated Sean O'Malley seems to be a real prospect and when you find these guys it validates these shows and and in my opinion makes them worthwhile. So I wanted to talk to Sean about the experience and where he goes from here. But before we move along with the show, Mr. New York, Rick, tell the people out there about this special package that you received a couple days ago. Yeah, I received my first package from NatureBox. Now, I'd known about Nature Box for a long time listening to podcasts. This is the first time we're able to say that I've experienced Nature Box and I was blown away. I had the cinnamon

toast kettle popcorn. What? Yeah. Salty and sweet. My two, when they mix together properly, that's how you do it right. I've got a few more items, but that was one of the ones that I tasted. And I also tasted the saracha cashews, which are absolutely delicious. Wow. Yeah, they make it super easy. They send you a box full of the snacks that you select. I was happy with my choices so far.

I'm going to dig into some of the other ones later. And then when NatureBox comes back, we'll talk about it again. That is great to hear. NatureBox has over 100 snacks that taste good. and are actually better for you. All snacks are made from high quality, simple ingredients, which means no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. So you can feel good about what you're eating.

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and they are offering our fans, fans of this program, three free snacks with your first order when you go again to naturebox.com slash MMA hour. naturebox.com slash mMA hour for three free snacks with your first order. Again, naturebox.com slash m m m hour. Your snack game is about to reach a whole other level. Get on it because they are second to none. Naturebox.com slash mMA hour. Now back to the show. He has now signed with the UFC. Dana White seems to be a very big fan of his. And I do believe he is joining us via the magic of Skype or is it

phone? It is phone. All right. Let's go to the phone lines. Sean, are you there? I'm here. I thought we were going to see you. What happened to the Skype? I'm down to Skype. What's going on? Are crew slipping back there or what? That's fine.

I wanted to... Hello? I can Skype or phone. It don't matter. It's all good. It's all good. Let's talk. Congratulations on the win last Tuesday.

What has life been like since, you know, the MMA world has gone to know a whole lot more about you, Snoop Dogs? Your biggest fan, all that and more. What's it been like? It's been awesome. I've gotten easily over a thousand messages from people all over the world. My Instagram went from 3,000 to 10.5,000. So it's been awesome. What's been the best part of it all?

After I had to say Snoop's bodyguard came up to me and he said Snoop wants to see you. So that right there was the best part of it all. I knew going into this point, obviously Snoop was commentating. I said on previous interviews I said I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna make Snoop want to meet me and that's exactly what happened on the Snoop Katu

you said I want to meet that kid and that was huge that was like my favorite part of all this how did you get this opportunity how did you get on the show or I don't know if you want to call it a show but this mini promotion if you will right um so my last LFA fight on May 5th

I got that a spinning heel kick knockout that went viral and I knew going into that if I could get a sweet finish I could probably get on this show and a couple days after my manager Danny Rubenstein called me and said you want to fight

Alfred July 18th I was like hell yeah so and that LFA fight knockout I remember I was on you guys I don't know someone else watched them the highlight of it I was pretty disappointed though because all they showed was the last like the last spin kick of the knockout.

They didn't show the setup, so you didn't get to see me. Because that was a, that was beautiful. I set him up for that. I kicked high with my right leg, and I spun around. I kicked him into my power. It was a beautiful setup, and you didn't get to watch it all, so I was a little disappointed when I watched that. Well, you could blame New York Rick for that.

He usually leaves you disappointed. He was supposed to show the whole thing. He only showed the finish, but it's okay. You have a knack for these sorts of things, and on Tuesday it was, equally as impressive. In fact, even Sports Center

showcased you, which I think is a huge deal for that show. Yeah, for that show. What was it like just because you're, you're kind of fighting

in front of like 100 people, right? And Dana White's sitting right there. Just the actual environment, did it feel a little off to you? Or were you not even paying attention to it? No, not at all. I don't,

no, I don't, anything, it wasn't, I didn't feel like it affected me at all. I love just fight. I knew Dana White was going to be there, obviously, Snoop Dog,

you got to go out there and perform. I just got to go out there and do what I do. and every fight I'm going to show up. If I lose a fight, it's not going to be because I didn't show up. You know what I mean? Because it doesn't matter where I'm fighting, what arena or none of that. I'm going to show up the fight and that's what I did. And so, like, as you said afterwards, the Snoop thing happened, you're on TMZ.

But just looking at your Instagram, you are an avid marijuana smoker, right? Yes. You've got this, you've got this robe with the... Oh, yeah, my robe. Where did you get this robe? With the marijuana leaves all over it? Where did you get this robe? I got it at Spencer's.

Wow. Yeah, I love that robe. I go home every night, shout it out, throw in a robe, get ripped, and just hang out. And why do you love smoking marijuana so much? It just, I mean, it helps a lot at night. I don't get anxiety, but I'm like, after a hard day of working out, it's like I just want to be able to relax.

Instead, if I don't smoke, just thinking about tomorrow, I'm thinking about what I should do, what my next workout is going to be, all this, and it's exhausting. It's all I just want to get home. I've already trained twice today. I want to go home and just relax and like enjoy, enjoy being home at night instead of thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow and all that stuff. And it really hopes me just be in the moment. So, so it's a big part of my life. Wow. How long have you been doing it for? I started spoken when I was, I think, about 19 years old. I grew up, and my dad was a detective, and I grew up, like, thinking marijuana was a drug that just made people, like, made you a bad person.

I didn't know any education about it. I just thought marijuana made you a bad person. So I grew up, like, with that, looking into it like that. And then once I did finally try it, it was, it was a night, and I just, I slept, you know, it just slept great. And I just changed my mind from the first time I tried it. So I think people just need to be more educated about it. do you have a license and you live in the state of Arizona right?

Yeah, I have a medical card. Okay. But now, I mean, now that you're fighting, you're going to fight for the UFC and there's all kinds of rules, are you aware of how long you have to stop smoking so that it's not on your system and so that you don't get in trouble with USADA

when it's in competition, you're testing for it, all that stuff? You're familiar with all that? I am. I'm familiar with all that. So my last test was just with the Nevada a state athletic commission. So I haven't heard anything back from now,

and I'm assuming that's a good thing. How many weeks or days before the fight do you have to stop? I wasn't exactly sure because I had known they changed their testing policy. They made it so you to test more. But I stopped about nine, ten days out. And how does that affect you? Because you seem to really enjoy it. And we're looking at a picture of you now holding,

Is that your dog? I don't know what kind of dog it is. The white one? Yeah, the white one. Cush. His name's Cush. Cush, yes. Is he wearing a gold chain necklace?

Yeah. Is that your dog? He's a pimp. Yeah, it's my dog. I got two little dogs. I got Cush and Pete. They're both little dogs. So do you,

the question I was going to ask was, okay, so you stop nine days out, but you obviously think it helps you. Does it mess you? Like, are those nine, ten days before the fight? Are they a nightmare because you can't use it? No, they're not. It's not, no, I just, you know, I drink my sleepy time tea and I'm all good, but I would rather, you know, but I know I can't.

So it's not a big deal. It's nothing to, I mean, I'm obviously, I'm not going to be able to. So I just get over it, you know what I mean? Did you smoke with Snoop? Oh, yeah. That was right when I walked into his trailer and handed me a joint, I was pumped. What was that like? I mean, is that a dream come true for a weed smoker?

Oh, God. That was, it was like, it felt like a movie because I walked into his trailer. You know, you got his bodyguard. You got a couple, there's a couple other people in there. And there was like three joints going around. So I was like pumping and passing. And another one's coming. I was trying to keep open.

Like, they had a TV in there. And it was a replay of my fight. Or might have just been like some highlights from my fight. So we were all watching that smoking. It was fun. It was fun. It was only like 25, 30 minutes. Obviously it could have been longer.

but it was a good time, memory forever. What happened? I mean, they just said, okay, you ain't got to go home, but you got to get the hell out of here? Like, why'd they kick you out so quickly? Oh, Snoop was leaving. He left. He said he was going to New York the next day or that night or something.

I don't know. Snoop said, hey, what are he doing? Like, tomorrow? He's like, where are you going next? He said, New York. And he said, why are you going to New York? He's like, I don't know. He cracks me up.

He's just going with the flow and just, it seems like a cool dude. Have you talked to him since? I have not. I feel like this could be a real thing for you. Like I feel like now that he's shown some interest in you, I mean, maybe he walks you out or he's going to start promoting you on his social media.

Like, do you... Yeah, that's the goal. I'll be amazing. I still feel like I got to go out there and prove to everyone that I, like... That felt like a UFC fight. Like that kid I fought, I felt like was UFC caliber. He was eight and three with eight knockout.

I feel like that was a UFC fight, but it wasn't. So I still feel like I got to go out there and knock this next dude out in the UFC to say I got my first knockout in the UFC. So once I do that, you know, I feel like that I could have Snoop walk me out. Fair. What did Dana White say to you afterwards, off camera? I didn't talk to him too much off camera, but, you know, I see my interview where he said, I have that thing, you know, and I've always kind of felt like I've had that thing.

that thing is I felt like I've had it and I just had to go out there you know prude like I got that opportunity to go and fight in front of Dana he was supposed to be at that last LFA fight and he would have saw saw me do what I did and said the same things but you know I had to go out there and do it again which is fine because I feel like I have plenty of finishes and every fight I'm going to be in is going to be exciting and I feel like Dana's gonna you're gonna realize that thing is I do have it for sure so so now you're officially in the UFC you have signed a deal with them Um, yeah, it's actually my contract in my email. I'm going to go sign it today. When I go to the gym, I got to print off my stuff, read it, look it over and stuff. So, but the deal was, I just, it was just signing out or starting off 10 and 10, 10, just a normal contract, which I feel like I should, I should be getting paid a little more. I feel like Dana knows I have that thing. You know, I'm a four-fight chaos streak. Um, but you know what? Like I said, I got to go out there and knock this next dude out and then we'll renegotiate, talk about it.

Yes, that's what I'm talking. Because you have five and five. for the show, right? Yep, five and five for the show, so I'm feeling rich. I'm wearing my gold chain. I got it spent just for 20 bucks, so I'm feeling like a pimp. And what did you make for your last LFA fight? I think I made one in one. Okay, so this was a bump up even before getting the UFC deal, and now you're going to 10 and 10. See, my one little issue with the show is this.

Everyone who wins is like running over to Dana and saying, please, please sign me, and it kind of feels like this big ego trip. Like I get that he is the guy who's getting you in. But let's be honest, it's really Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard who are fighting, or excuse me, finding these fighters. And they're the ones who are ultimately going to book your career and start you off and get you on this path. It's a little unsettling every time someone wins. They're like, oh, please sign me, sign me. You get what I'm saying. Like, as a viewer. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's like he's sitting there. Yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I think, I didn't even think about, like going to a fight. I knew if I just went out there and performed,

I'd probably sign. But yeah, like you said, it's up to Sean. and Shelby for our weight, my weight class. Yeah. I don't think Sean was the biggest fan of me watching the preview. Why? Did you watch that? Because before the fight, no, during the fight, they have like a little video of him talking about the fighters.

And he was like, Sean thinks he's good. But I mean, he is good, but in the striking department, my wrestling and jihitsu needs work, which it does. Like everything needs work. My striking still needs work. Like, everything needs work. But I think people are going to be sleeping on my jihitsu. It's not like I don't.

what the fuck I'm doing. I mean, I can, I'm go out there and choke someone too. If I go out and win my first fight, the UFC fight, you know, I'd choke someone. I wouldn't be surprised. So, I don't know, Sean Shelby, maybe he just doesn't, he's got to see me enough or I don't know, but I'd like to stay on good side with him. Sure. That is a guy to be on his good side, no doubt. Do you have your first official UFC fight yet? I do not. I'm hoping, hoping sometime later this year. I'm going to go to Montana, where I'm from in August for a few weeks. go and celebrate up there with all my sponsors and like all everyone who's just been supporting me in Montana has been huge a huge help for me to get to where I'm at so I'm super pumped to go back there

and hang out with everyone. It's funny because O'Malley I would think that you're like from Boston or at least your family is from from that area but you're you're born in Montana? Yeah, born and raised in Montana. And why do they call you Sugar Sean? Um, my coach, my first coach, Johnny Ajo called me sugar because I was so sweet to watch and it just kind of stuck. Okay.

I like the hair, by the way. You're not Jewish, right? No, I'm not Jewish. But you have a Jewfro. It's a fantastic Jew fro that you've got. It's a, I'm sure. The ladies must love it. There you go.

The curls, the girls get the girls. Yeah, the women. That's the only reason I got my girlfriend just because of my hair. Wow. Are you going to keep letting it grow? Yeah, I think so, to a point. I think I want to keep letting it go. It's pretty long right now.

It's been a little bit longer. We're going to let it go. Yeah, a lot of people were loving. in the hair, so I got to let it get well. Um, see, the best thing about you, um, what I appreciate about you is that you understand that you have to sort of market yourself, be different, stand out, have a personality, you're not afraid to talk about what you like, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the smoking, wear the, the, the robe. There's too many guys who are just sort of cookie cutter and it's hard to get them. Now, I feel like, right, just looking at your social media, you have a ton of people who are following you because they get a kick out of you. They like you. They, they, they think you're funny. They think that you're different, right? Are you sensing that as well? No, yeah. I agree. I don't hold the phone at this point. I feel like people aren't themselves. It's hard when, you know, there's a camera in front of you

or are you doing an interview to kind of just say what you feel like you're supposed to say. But, yeah, when I started kind of posting about marijuana, I got a lot of people telling me like, hey, man, no one's going to want to promote you or sponsors you and all this stuff. And like, I didn't, if someone didn't want to sponsor me because I post that, it's like,

I'm not going to change who I am just for a couple extra bucks or something. So, yeah, I think people just aren't themselves as much. Are you a Diaz brother fan? Yeah, I love watching the Diaz brother's fight. I feel like you're the second coming of them, but just maybe a little more jovial. You don't seem like a very... Yeah.

You're not a mean mugging type of guy, right? Not at all. Every time I go out and fight, I'm just having it. Like, I'm smiling. Every time I walk through the doors to walk out, I'm smiling. I enjoy the whole part of it, the fight week, the way in, the walk out, the fight itself. I just enjoy all of it so much.

And you train at the lab, did someone like a Benson Henderson, I mean, you have a ton of great, you know, fighters there, coaches, John Crouch. Did anyone give you any tips before going out to Vegas about, you know, the experience and rising to the occasion? Anyone take you under their wing? No, not really. One of my buddies and coaches, Tim Welch, you know, he's been in a lot of big fights. He's found the ultimate fighter. Bellatories cornered a lot of dudes in the UFC. And he was with me all fight week.

And I don't really get too, I don't really get nervous at all. going out to the fights or anything. I felt like my head was in a good spot and everything. But, yeah, Tim Welch, you've seen a lot and been around a lot of big fights. It was good to have him there. I know you're new, but since you seem to have a good grasp on what the fight game is all about, is there someone in mind that you'd like to debut against? No, honestly, I haven't even thought about that.

Ever since my fight, I just wanted to, you know, I was pretty sore from my last fight. My hands hurt a little bit. All I've really think about is just getting back to the gym and getting, better where I can improve and what I need to improve on the most. So we haven't really thought about any opponents yet. I honestly don't even know too many guys in the 35-pound division. That's not in the top like seven. So we're going to check out the roster, see who we think,

and throw some names out there. And last... Hopefully later this year sometime. And last thing, do you think eventually you will have to move up to 145? I mean, you're a very tall and slim 135er, but you're only, what, 23 years old? You're born in 1994, which blows my mind. I'm 22.

22, okay. Do you think that you will eventually have to move up to 145? Yeah, there's dudes fighting there, you know, 38 years old. So I took a long, long, long career. I'm sure I'll probably end up bumping up to 145. But right now, I mean, I don't, I weigh up 145 right now. So I don't cut a lot of weight. I'm not super strong, but I'm accurate.

And I believe in my power. I believe I can knock out anybody in my weight class. and I truly, truly believe that going into every fight. So I feel like that's going to be enough for 135 until I can't make 135 anymore. Well, congratulations. I think your performance and story alone has validated that show, regardless of what happens for the remainder of it. So it's been great to get to know you,

great to see you in action there and rise to the occasion. The stuff with Snoop was a lot of fun, very entertaining as well. And we will never, we will never, rob you of your moment like we did with that LFA knockout. We won't leave you hanging there, okay? That is a- Thank you. That is a promise from here on out. Again, congrats, Sean. Enjoy it, and we'll talk to you soon. Appreciate the time. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next time we got to Skype. Yes, let's do that. 100%. There he is. Sugar, Sean O'Malley, who was ready for the record to Skype, but New York Rick didn't want to Skype him in. Unbelievable. We could have seen the curls. We could have seen the glasses. We could have seen the gold chain. Maybe even in his dog, the robe, who knows what we were robbed of.

We will save that for next time. For now, let us move along and welcome in our next guest, as I said at the top. I have been trying to get in touch with her, and she can attest to this for weeks and weeks and months. I've been wanting to talk to Jermaine Durand to me. She is kind enough to join us on the phone. She is joining us right now. Jermaine, are you there?

Yes, I'm there. I appreciate you joining us. How long have I been bothering you for? I feel like I've been a major pest. And so I promise you after this interview, I will leave you alone for a very long. time. It's been a very long time, I have to say. I admit it.

Yeah, you were precision, I have to say. Well, thank you. It's great to talk to you. It's great to have you on. There's so much to talk to you about. How, Jermaine, you haven't said much. You haven't done many interviews, if any, since, you know, all this has happened. How would you describe the last few months?

How has it been for you since becoming champion and then the aftermath and then getting stripped of the belt, moving on with your career? How has it been? Well, I think a lot of people know, you know, it's been a roller coaster of a lot of emotions and a lot of bad things happened. I'm a very positive person and a lot of negative things happened. And I hope that we, right now, myself, I'm at the point that I want to move on and I want to continue my journey and go wherever it takes me and leave all the negative things behind. and you know whatever happens happens and you know I'm just happy to be where I am right now mentally physically and I'm ready to go back and make my names count so so could you tell us what

happened I mean at some point they probably came to you and said would you like to fight Chris Cyborg would you like to defend your title against her and you ultimately I guess said no is that what happened and was there a negotiation involved could you tell us how this all came to be to the point where you're not defending your belt on Saturday? Yeah, of course, of course. How did it go? Well, yeah, well, first we had the whole roller coaster with the Holly Home thing with her appealing the decision.

Yeah. And then the U.C. contacted me to see if I was interested in fighting July 29th against Cyborg. But before, let me go back a little bit before. for that because before I signed about agreements with Holly, I discussed with the U.C. This was all before I signed about agreements for that fight. I told the U.C. I'm willing to take the fight, but just no, I want to drop back to 135 pounds.

I mean, the current champion, she's a great champion, Amanda Nunes. I have a loss against her, and I hope just one day to revenge my loss against her. And the U.S.C. was very willing, and they said they had absolutely no problem with me dropping back down after the fight with Holly. So I fought Holly, and then the U.C. contacted me and talked to me about fighting British Cyborg at 1.45 July 29th. And my team and I, we have discussed this, and there was a point that she got caught with the diuretic. Then she got permission for it. And, you know, we discussed this all together, and the plan was to go back to 135 all before everything happened ever.

And we discussed that she being caught with the diuretics, and diuretics are also being used sometimes as blockers for other stuff in your system. We decided not to take the fight, not only because of the steroid thing or me thinking that people, me being against people that abuse. Substances, it was also, I was not going to be able to be ready at July 29th. I have a full-time job. Fighting for me right now is hobby. You know, I don't live a fighter life. I work 50, sometimes 60 hours a week. And besides all that, I still have to train.

So my whole preparation for Holly was some days I was able to train and some days I wasn't even able to train. And I said to you see, my hand is still bothering me. I'm waiting for the results of the doctors and to see if we can push things back. But I also have no time for rest or take a vacation from my work. So it's not possible for me to be ready. And, you know, as every decision is a human being, if you're a human being and you make a decision, you know, a decision has consequences.

and the consequences for me were that the U.C. stripped me from the belt. And I found out just like everybody else. And so you mentioned that to me that you found out, you didn't know that they were ultimately going to do that or you did not know that they were going to do it on that day? I didn't know they were going to strip me of the belt that day. I didn't know what was going to happen at that point.

There was a point in my, there was a point that, I realized that things like that will be a possibility, you know, but like I said, I stand for my point. I stand for what I believe in and I stand for what I'm against. And, you know, I understand that people do not agree with my decision. I understand that people disagree with very big, you know, but besides people disagreeing, you know, I've been through a lot of shit, you know, people accuse me and said the most horrible things to me. So that's also the reason why I stayed out of the media. And, you know, I mean, talking to the media is cool and all stuff.

But sometimes it's like media fuels a lot of haters and people did very bad things, you know. So, you know, there comes a point, you know, you have to choose for yourself and take step back. And that's what I did. Reload and here I am. If the UFC... And we appreciate that. The UFC would have offered you someone not named Cyborg. I don't know, Megan Anderson or Tanya Evinger.

Do you think you would have taken that fight and remained champion? You know, it's hard for me to think about what if, because there is no what if. You know, I've said to the U.C. I want to drop back to 135. That's been my goal for a very long time. I believe the 135 division is the Queen's Division of Women's MMA. I mean, there's a lot of amazing fights for me left there. Like I said, at that time, when I was still the champion, there was no girl besides cyborg

signed at 145. So for me to think about the what is, I don't know. I haven't thought about the what is. Is it hard to, I mean, because when you're champion, you probably make more money, right? I mean, there's probably more a higher person. So now you're going back down to 135, you're fighting. you're fighting Marion Reno in Rotterdam in September. I'm assuming you're making less.

How do you react to that? How do you digest that? Yeah, to be honest, I have absolutely no problem with it. I mean, like I just said, fighting is a hobby to me. It's not my work. It's not the money I pay my bills with. I don't fight for money. I truly fight because I truly love fighting.

If I start fighting for money, I will set aside my principles, and I won't do that. And at the moment, I start fighting for money, you know, I start to have less fun in it because it's business. And fighting is not business for me. This is fun. And the moment I don't love it anymore is the moment I will hang up my gloves. Did you consider not coming back?

You said it got, you know, very unpleasant. Did you consider just saying, you know what, forget all this, I'm not coming back? no never okay i'm not a quitter no matter what people say i'm not a quitter i always come back you know i'm like i said i love fighting and yeah i'm i'm not gonna lie of course you know when people say those horrible things to you you know it hurts yeah it hurts and it doesn't only hurt for me but if i think about the fact that people write to me that i could better commit suicide and i'm not worth living if people have the guts and and think it's okay to write people stuff like that,

they can do it with anybody else. And maybe they write it to that one person that just doesn't feel right at that time. God may know what happens to that person or what that person might decide because they're not worth living. I mean, that goes deep. It's not only for me.

This involves many other people. So many kids have been bullied. Yeah. I've committed suicide. I mean, I think that's horrible. And I think, you know, I mean, I think, That's horrible because my only mission in life is to share what I love so much with other people that love the same thing as much as I do.

You have spectators and you have the people that do it. But eventually, we all love MMA. And that's the only thing I've ever wanted. All that has happened, that is nothing or something I've ever wanted. I'm a very positive person. I really enjoy life. I love helping people. I love, you know, I love being happy.

And, you know, that time, that was a dark time. But like I said, I'm no quitter. Nobody can stop me. I decide to stop whenever I want to stop. I will stop on my own terms. How bad did it get? Was that the rock bottom moment when people are telling you that you should kill yourself?

For what? Crazy. Yeah, well, people, even made gravestones with my name on it and with my day of death. So they send it to me. And I'm not talking about one picture. I'm talking about a lot of pictures. I'm talking about a lot of people that told me that I should commit suicide and that I'm worthless. So, no, it's not, it had, I've never been rock bottom, but it did hurt me. And just not only for me, like I just, not only for me, like I said it hurt me because people think that it's okay to write somebody something like that and i have a great i

have a great support people people around me that love me support me and i have a great team behind me i can say i'm blessed but what if i didn't have that what if i was thinking i'm worth worthless or what if some girl or boy somewhere in the world thinks they're worthless just because somebody thinks it's okay to write people, stuff like that. You can have an opinion. You don't have to like me. You can disagree with the decisions I've made. You can, but you don't have to hurt people with things.

That's my opinion. And so people were mad because you weren't fighting cyborg? Is that what you gathered? Yeah, they were pretty mad, yeah. And they were also pretty mad about the bell thing. Right, of course. Do you regret anything? If you could go back, would you change any decision or anything that you've said or anything you've done?

No. No, I don't regret anything. Like I said, I stand for my principles. And I believe that forbidden substances are not allowed in sport, and especially not fighting. I mean, this is a full contact sport. People, you know, have ended up in a wheelchair. I was just reading the other day, a story of a guy, a boxer, who did his first pro fight and now is drinking out a straw. I mean, we put our lives on the line.

You know, we're here to entertain people. I don't, I don't regret anything. There are things that I don't support, and that's my opinion. And, yeah, of course, I regret, you know, that that moment in the fight that had happened that I hit, that I was in the moment, and I threw the combination. Of course I regret it because I'm, I don't know even how to say it anymore. You know, I play fair. And it's my deepest apology if I hurt anybody with that, even Holly. I mean, if that's not me, I would never risk me not winning a world title fight

and being disqualified for something this stupid. That's not me. But I don't regret any decision I've ever made. How is your hand feeling? Right now I have no pain. I've talked to the doctors and they treat me right now and I have to have surgery. But I explained to the doctor we talked and they're managing me now with physical therapy against the pain. So right now I have no pain.

But I do have to have surgery. But I want to come back first. I want to make a statement for myself. I want to fight for my fans. for me and for my team and I want to do that first surgery can wait. As long as I can handle the pain,

it's okay. You're not going to have the surgery before the Marion Reno fight? No. What was it like that day that they took the belt away from you? I mean, you've been in this game a long time. You've competed in combat sports outside of MMA. What I recall

was when you were brought in, originally in Strike Force, people were thinking that you were going to be the one to beat Cyborg. and the day that they took it away from you, what was that like? It's funny because that day I was working and some friends of my, they texted me, are you okay? And I'm like, what the heck is going on? Why is everybody texting me?

Are you okay? So I asked one of my friends, I'm like, what's up? So they sent me the article. So I read it. And to be honest, it didn't hurt at all. I felt at a point I felt kind of relieved because of all the negative stuff that had. happened. You know, all the negative viral that was keep coming and coming and coming. It continued every day. So I don't care about the belt. What I do care about is saying me. And it's okay that

they took away the belt. But the only thing what I cared about was the things that people said. and I don't I don't care that people tell or tell me that I'm scared of cyborg. I thought a guy who was 40 pounds heavier. He's a boxing match. I'm not a boxer. I thought the best stand-up girls in the world,

the very, very best. I was the reigning world champion in three different weight division at the same time. I fought every girl. People can say I'm scared. I don't mind. As long as I can look myself in the mirror

and no, I'm not scared. People can say I'm a cheater. I know I'm not a cheater. Of course it hurts, but I can't change a person's mind. If they believe that, it's their opinion. But all the other stuff, yeah, it did hurt me.

That hurt me more than losing the belt. Because like I said, I just want to share my love. So, yeah, that was with hurting me. Is that why you made your Instagram private? Yeah. And there was a point that I had enough of all the negative stuff. And yeah, that's why I made it private.

And so I've actually mentioned this on the show, you fighting a man, you, you know, people saying that you're, you know, the female Anderson Silva, people saying that you're the one who's going to beat Cyborg. If you, like, you say this, you put your resume out there to people and they say, so what was the problem? Like, just go out and beat her. Just go, why did you, why didn't you, did you ever consider saying like, you know what, let me just go beer. Let me prove that you don't need PEDs. Let me prove that you can do this the right way. Did you ever, you never considered it? No, no.

How come? I want to have kids one day. And what's the message that I want to send out to kids? That's okay to use pets and sport? Is that the message? Is it, I don't want to send the message. You know, I fought somebody to prove everybody. I could beat a person, but I,

I'm against it. I'm a police officer. Here in Holland, pets are forbidden. No. I don't have to prove myself. People can doubt my resume. People can doubt my opinion.

It's okay. We all are entitled to have an opinion. But that's not a message I want to send. And I mean, pets do not belong in sports not in MMA not in boxing not in Sark not in American football not in baseball not in anything it just doesn't belong there

and that's the message I stand behind what do you think would have happened if they offered you the rematch against Holly home immediately after I've said it before you know if Holly wants to rematch I'll give her a rematch We can still rematch.

We can do it at 135. Okay, but what if they would have said for the belt we're going to do it? Do you think you would have remained champion? Yes, no doubt. Wow, so it really came down to not wanting to fight Cyborg because of her past. No, it's not, it didn't only came down to that. What it came down to was I wanted to drop back to 135, and yes, I'm also against the use of pets in them. M.A.

Every fighter would have still been suspended because they didn't ask permission for using a diuretic. Every fighter would still get punished. But then all of a sudden it was okay. Because that's what Usada claims, right? You need to ask permission if you use medication. Yep. Okay.

How did the UFC? I know you said you were kind of caught off guard, but in terms of like the process, leading up to it and giving you space. Were you happy with the way they treated you, handled you? Did you feel like they were receptive to what you were trying to say? Partially, yes, absolutely. Partially, yes, absolutely. But I understand that you see partially too.

You know, they're a company. They need to make money. And if they want to continue the journey, they have to continue. I mean, I understand that, you know, I understand certain things. I'm not a hateful person, Ariel. I don't, you know, I'm not a hateful person. I understand it's a business and I understand the U.C. and I hope the U.C. understands me. And I think they do because they asked me to fight and rather them and I'm here, am I?

Yeah. So we're going to do it. We're going to have a hell of a party. So are you going to watch the fight on Saturday, the cyborg fight with the belt you once held now it's vacant? Do you think you'll watch it? Why not? Why not? I want to see Daniel Comrieve versus John Jones. I mean, yeah, why would I? I don't hate Cyborg. Okay.

I have no ill will towards her. I have no ill will towards Tonya. Avenger, absolutely not. May the best woman win Saturday. And yes, why wouldn't I watch her? I don't know. I don't see her fight. I thought, I don't know if it was like too fresh.

You didn't want to think about it. I mean, it was your belt or something? No. The feelings were a little too much. I don't know. No, no, no. Like I said, right now, I'm in a great state of mind. You know, I feel.

I feel good. Like I said, I have a great team behind me. I'm truly in great spirits. I'm smiling every day. And I'm in great spirits. And the only thing I can say, I'm more motivated than ever. I will be stronger than ever. I will be more dangerous than ever.

And I will still enjoy every fight I fight. I will go in with a smile, no matter the outcome, and I will come out with a smile. No matter if I get knocked out or get submitted, or I get my hand raised. and because I still get to do what I love to do. And last thing, you mentioned that you are now a police officer in the Netherlands. When did you become one? A year ago, two weeks after the brother-dam fight. A little bit more over a year ago.

And are you like on the street? Are people coming up to you and saying, hey, are you Germain Durand and me, a UFC champion? Are you like you working in an office or are you on the streets? No, I'm working on the streets. Yeah, it happens sometimes. Wow. Yeah, we sometimes even make selfies, so that's cool. And why did you want to become a police officer?

I truly believe that I think everybody deserves to feel safe and free. And I want to give back to my people. I want to give back to my country. I want to give back to the people. I want people to feel safe. I want the streets to be safer. And if I can participate or give just a little bit, I'm a very blessed person. And I can say I'm very blessed.

And you're going now, right? I mean, you have a shift that's starting in a couple hours overnight shift. Yes. Yes. So what's like, like what's on tap for tonight? Like, what will you be doing? Do you know? Well, we will be driving around in a car.

And then when we get a call, we have to go to the call. So we'll be sitting and waiting. Are things relatively safe these days or is there a lot of crime? Are you in Amsterdam or another? Yeah. Okay. Well, how are things these days? Is there a lot of activity or are things pretty, pretty quiet? It's summer. It's summer vacation here, so everybody is happy. It's cute weather and, you know, if you look overall, Holland is very safe. I can say that. Holland is very safe. You know, I live in a very safe country and a lot of people, we respect each other here. And, well, I believe everybody in their country respects each other. But, I mean, yeah, yeah, we're safe here. And everybody's happy now.

The sun is out. It's not, well, it was raining a little bit today, but I mean, overall, it's good temperature. Yeah, people are happy. And as you prepare for your fight at some point, will you leave the police force and then take a break and then come back? How does that work? Well, I had a few vacation days left. So this time I was able to take them off. So I will, this will be my last week of work.

and then I'll be going back to work on September 4th, so I can prepare my whole camp and be free and just eat, sleep, and train. It's going to be the first time in a very, very long time, so we'll see how it goes. And very last thing, do you think that what happened over the last couple months will preclude the UFC? Like, if you go on a streak here and continue to win, beat Renault, someone else, do you think that they will be open to giving you a 135-pound title shot, or are you afraid that they won't because of what happened?

I truly have no idea. I have no idea. But, you know, the thing is, I don't care. Okay. You know, I don't care. I truly believe I do have to fight a couple. I do have to fight a couple times. But it's up to me.

It's the way I perform, you know. And yeah, you have to earn things. And I will earn my way back up. Okay. Well, Jermaine, again, I really appreciate you coming on. I promise now I will leave you alone for quite some time. It meant a lot that you would finally. do this and open up. We wanted to hear from you. I think a lot of people wanted to hear your story

and whether we agree or not, I just appreciate you coming on and answering the questions and now trying to move on. And I'm sorry to hear that it has been such a nightmare over the last few months. Thank you for handling it with class. And I hope that it quiets down now and that you can focus on your job and life and getting back on track at 135. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. And thank you for having me on your show. All right. There she is. Jermaine Durandumee, returning to action in early September, September 2nd, to be exact, in Rotterdam at 135 against Marion Reno, no longer the 145 pound champion. That belt will be on the line on Saturday at 214 as Chris Cyborg fights Tanya Evinger in Anaheim. Let us move along. Some news last week. A couple of weeks ago,

you will remember that Michael Kesa fought Kevin Lee in Oklahoma City. Controversial finish afterwards, Keesa appealed the loss because he never actually tapped out and he did not appear to be out. Mario Yarmusaki, the referee called a stop to the fight. I thought prematurely and so he appealed it. We found out last week that the Oklahoma Athletic Commission denied his appeal. So I wanted to talk to him about that and where he goes from here. He is joining us via the Magica Skype right now. So let us go to him.

There he is. Michael Kesa. Michael, how are you? Can you hear me, Mike? I can see you. Michael, can you hear me? Hello, hello? What is happening here?

Michael? Okay. Can you see me, maybe? I can't imagine that he can't see me. His beard looks fantastic. There he is. Well, that is bizarre. I think that's a first for us.

Or I could see him, hear him, but he can't hear me. We will get to him in a matter of seconds here. We'll figure out that out. Sorry about that. After Michael will be joined by Dustin Porrier, looking forward to talking to him. Tyrone Woodley is still to come. Jimmy Rivera, Pat Militch, both of those individuals will be in studio. We've got a recently departed UFC fighter who will come on to break some news about a new career move for him.

So stay tuned for that. That's at around 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time. And then we're going to listen to the UFC. 214 conference call for a few minutes, then answer some of your questions, continue to hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. And of course, you can still watch us on the MMA hour.com live on Twitter. You can, it was funny the way I said that, Twitter. And you can also watch the MMA after hour, which will be exclusive on Twitter later on in the 5 to 6 o'clock hour. So as I mentioned, the Michael Kesa, Kevin Lee Fight, if we can't do the Skype thing, let's just

get them on the phone because I don't want to back up everything too much today. That one was the day after the Bellator event. That was on June 25th in Oklahoma City. You'll recall we had Kevin Lee on the very next day. Kevin Lee officially beat Michael Kesa, got him in the rear naked choke, and had it sunken in. It appeared to be pretty darn tight, but Kea said never tap

it didn't appear as though his body went limp and I said to everyone on the show when that happened the day after that happened look you can say it looked like he was about to tap it appeared as though he was about to go out but that didn't happen so you can't assume that he was going to do it because we've seen crazier things happen in MMA

in fact that same card we saw Justine Kish appear to be submitted almost by Flee's Herrick and then get out of it. So you can't assume you have to kind of wait. Phil Barone texted me today and I thought his insight was very interesting. He said essentially Mario Yamasaki robbed Michael Kesa of his FU moment. And what he means by FU moment was there's something to not tapping. There is something to not giving in.

There is something to telling your opponent, I'm not going to give you that satisfaction. and Yamasaki robbed Kiyasa of that satisfaction. And it was a great performance by Kevin Lee, but the facts are Yamasaki pulled the trigger a little too soon. And this has been a constant issue with him. I think because, and this is just me sort of hypothesizing here, once you start to get criticized, once you start to make mistakes as a referee in the cage,

I think you start to overthink things. I think you start to doubt yourself. And we have seen this time and again where a referee continues to get criticized and tends to overthink things and then all of a sudden he starts to pull the trigger a little too soon. He starts to be unsure of himself.

I actually think that the state of MMA refereeing is better than ever at this point. I think that we have had some referees like Mark Goddard. Again, we've talked about him. I think it was last week. we're starting to see Mark get put into events here in the United States more, not just the European events. And he's doing a phenomenal job. He is so confident. He is so

assertive. I mean, it's a pleasure to watch him work. Keith Peterson, Jason Herzog, a couple other relatively new faces come to mind. Of course, we know about John McCarthy. We know about Herb Dean. But it's time to give these guys like, if you continue to mess up, you should not be put in main event slots. And we could blame the commission all. they want. The UFC tends to tell these people like, Mario Yamasaki, you know, he doesn't live in Oklahoma City. He doesn't live anywhere near Oklahoma City. The UFC tends to tell them who are the best referees. They can start telling them not to use Mr. X and Mr. Y. They can do that. There has to be some kind of repercussion for messing up continuously. You can't be put in those positions.

I mean, refereeing a main event of a UFC card is, you know, you. supposed to be a prestigious thing. That is the highest in this sport, right? That's the biggest platform possible. It doesn't get bigger than that in this sport. The UFC, these commissions have to do a better job of putting the right people in place. And it's no longer just two people who can do the job. There are a whole host of people who can do the job now. There's at least a solid seven or so. I mentioned some of them. Yamasaki just isn't that guy anymore. And so what I would like to see is, okay, you could still use him, but lower on the car where there's less pressure, have him go out, referee non-UFC events, get his confidence back up.

But when you think about the time that these men and women put into their training camp, the money that is invested, and also given the fact that the UFC's pay system is show when the guy's getting robbed of money. That's just too much. There's too much at stake here. I didn't think that they would hear his appeal. I didn't think that they would actually, you know, change things up. I mean, it's very, very rare.

We saw the situation with Tony Avenger and Invicta not too long ago. It's incredibly rare that these commissions will reverse their decision. I think part of it is ego, to be honest. I really do. I give a lot of credit to the Missouri Commission. who reversed the Avenger controversy, and then they ended up rebooking that fight against Yana Kunitskaya.

But I had a feeling. You'll probably see the same thing with the Gunnar Nelson situation and the eye pokes. I mean, there is a case we made that, you know, the fight was stopped prematurely, that the right man didn't win because it wasn't allowed to actually play itself out, all that stuff and more, but it's very rare.

You kind of have to do it just for the sake of doing it to sort of try to prove your point, but it's incredibly rare. What I want to see is a system in place where the very best are getting to referee main events. And if you have a checkered past, if you have a history of messing up, if you have a history of not making the right calls, then you just don't get those opportunities. I actually think that MMA refereeing has come further, has evolved better than MMA judging. I don't know where Michael case is. I don't know what's going on. so hard to get him on the phone here. He was just there. I just saw him. Hopefully we'll get him any second now. I don't know. Can I get an update or something? Where's the guy? Okay, we could do phone.

We could do phone. I don't care. I just want to, he has no phone. Michael Ksa does not have a phone. What is happening? We could do Skype audio. I just want to talk to him. That's all. There he is. Mike, where are you? What's happening? I'm right here. I can hear you finally. Yes. Where's your phone? Did you lose your phone? Oh, I was floating the river yesterday and actually I didn't lose it. My girlfriend did. What? I was like, I was going to jump off this log. It's like, hey, hold my phone for me. And I went and jumped off this log and then I was getting back in my raft. She came to jump back in and she just flung my phone in the air and hopefully I have a backup. Oh my lord. I texted you last night to remind you about the show and I didn't hear back and that was somewhat unlike you. And now I know why. Yeah, see, there's an excuse.

Okay. All right, all right. Well, I'm happy to hear. I'm happy that you're here and I'm happy that we're able to talk to you. Thank you for the time. So I was just talking a bit about the appeal and not really being surprised that they didn't reverse the decision because they very, I mean, it's very unlikely and historically they don't do these sorts of things. Were you surprised that they didn't hear you out, that they didn't reverse it? No, you know, I wasn't surprised.

I want to thank the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission for taking time to look into it. I know it wasn't going to go through. It was a long shot. I would have liked to at least get a hearing so I could be in the same room as Mario Yamasaki and maybe plead my case a little bit more directly to him.

But like I was telling people, even if I won the appeal, it doesn't really do a whole lot for me. You know, it doesn't change my financial status of the fight. it doesn't get the wind back. You know, it's still, you know, it doesn't do a whole lot for me. It's more or less just I wanted to clean my case a little bit, but, you know, they took the time to look into it. So I'm thankful they did at least that.

And what, like, do you really think they looked into it? What makes you think that they actually, like, sat down and looked at everything? Well, I mean, usually you kind of hear back kind of fast on these things. You know, it took almost a month just for them to get it back. to us and let us know, you know, that they denied my appeal. But, you know, they sent back a formal letter and you could tell that they took the time to look into it. And, you know, like I said, I'm thankful they did that. I'm just a little disappointed with the result. Initially, if memory serves me correct, you were kind of leaning towards not appealing and then

eventually you did. Why did you ultimately appeal? It was just the right thing to do. Just to honest with you, Ariel, 100%. The second Mario Yamasaki came walking back into my locker room. Me, Sam, and my coach, Rick, we all looked at each other at the same time, like, oh, fuck. You know what I mean? Like, it's, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to sit here

and bash the guy, but, you know, he's got a track record for not the best officiating. I know he's a fifth degree black belt and that's all fine and dandy, but that doesn't mean you're a fifth degree black belt and officiating. I feel like he's falling behind a little bit, and I think that's pretty sad

that when, you know, a referee walks into your room, you're looking to, your teammates are looking at each other like, oh, shit, we have this guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. I really, I like the work of like Herb Dean, Big John, Dan Mergliata. I think the best referee in the business is Josh Rosenthal. Unfortunately, we can't have him, but it kind of sucks when, when an official walks into your locker room and you're like, crap, you know, it's kind of a crappy feeling. But, you know, it's the past. I'm moving forward. And, you know, on it's having a, an invitation on September 30th and you know this is my open challenge to Mr. Yamasaki to I would like to test his fifth degree black belt in a friendly grappling match you know and uh and let's see if he's

let's see if he's what he says he is you know what I mean and I'm not saying that in a hostile way I'm saying hey you know if you're fifth degree black belts your backup for for the decisions you made then uh you know as a martial artist myself you know that's my open challenge to you to to headline the on it invitation on September 30th September 30th September 30th on an invitational, you are challenging Mario Masaki to a grappling match? That's what just happened? Yes. Wow.

Just, yep, yeah. And is this the first he's heard of it? Or did you reach out to him privately? Yeah, I haven't... You're the first person. I haven't talked to... Hey, I don't talk to him. That would be a good thing. Not that I ever spoke to him on a personal level anyways, but this is the first time I've done any media or anything in regards to my fight.

You know, when we were going through the appeal, I didn't want to do interviews. I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to just stay in the dark until, you know, everything got done and the dust settled just to see where all the cards lied. And once they did, it worked out. You're the first person I spoke to. This is the first interview I've done. I haven't even said anything about the fight to anybody. I've just kind of just sat in the dark and just kind of waited, waited to see how things spanned out. Thank you. And I appreciate that wholeheartedly. Yeah. I'm assuming you've watched the fight, right? No. You have not. Wow.

Here's the thing with me I don't really watch Even the fights I win I don't go back and watch them I'm not a big I'm very You know I'm critical of myself And in my

You know When I win or I lose You know I've seen the highlight video You know what I mean I saw the bits You know like the Fox Sports bits Or whatever from you know Recap of the fight

And you know It's a heartbreaker man And nevertheless You know You know Kevin didn't anything wrong, first of all. You know what I mean? He didn't do anything wrong in the fight. You know, the 12 to 6 elbows, whatever, those are so sucked. But, you know, none of this is his

fault. He showed up and fought and competed. Got me into a bad position and capitalized. You know what I mean? Doesn't change the fact. I think he's a douchebag, but I mean, he didn't do anything wrong it through the fight, you know. But, you know, I'm trying to move forward, move on with my career. I can't let this thing hold me back. Nevertheless, I still want to rematch. I still want to beat that guy up and I don't believe that he would beat me on any given Sunday. I think that that was just a, just a crappy situation, you know? Why do you think Mario stopped it when he did? You know, for him, for him to say that he thinks I was losing consciousness, I watched him come in and was like, no, you know what I mean? Like, I saw everything happen as it did. You know,

for me, from what I saw, I was fighting the hands and I looked up at the Jumbotron. And I was, I saw the time, and at that point, Kevin had switched to palm the palm. Instead of reaching back to fight the hands, I just wanted to relax, you know, shrug my shoulders in, alleviate some pressure, you know, it was short time. And it's a, it's a bad habit I've had before when I fought James Vic on the ultimate fighter. He strapped me in a choke and I did the same thing. I quit fighting the hands. Now I put my hands up like this. Because that way, if I do end up going out, then my arms are going to fall. You know what I mean? It's not like, I was like, you know, the choke wasn't that tight.

It was tighter. The choke was the tightest when he had it locked it. I had peeled his hands back. Before he switched palm to palm, that was what it was tight. When he, the position that he ended it in wasn't that tight. You know, so it's, you know, I don't know why he did it. You know, I think that there should be, isn't there like a code of conduct? You know, from what I've seen, refs usually check your arm or like, you know, they look for something, you know.

They didn't do anything. He just like jumped in, you know, he didn't ask for a thumbs up. You didn't, you know, there should be, you know, you should be checking the fighter. You know, I was not out. You know, how would I, how does the guy go unconscious and regain consciousness that fast? That's impossible. You know what I mean? I don't know why he stopped it.

You know, I think that he just, I think he got a little jumpy. I honestly just don't think that he should be officiating at this high of a level and mixed martial arts. And I'm not saying that in a derogatory manner. I think that he should just move on to something else. The thing that I continue to be told is, well, you were about to go out, which I think is BS, because you could say that about so many fights and crazy things happen, people come back. You can't go off of you were about to, you know, like you have to actually be out, et cetera, or tap. Were you close to going out?

Did you feel like you were starting to lose consciousness or your breath, anything like that? to be look if i'm i'm man enough to accept the loss if if i've gotten beat like when i fought hori mazadol and i tapped with one second left i remember seeing everything zeroing in yeah yeah things started to kind of fade to black you know what i mean i never got that sensation like i said the choke was the tightest before i peeled the hands off the choke was the tightest before i looked up and decided to just shrug in and relax and just ride this thing out. You know what I mean? Like, if it was still a tight choke,

I would have never quit fighting the hands. I would have went to sleep with my hands behind my head. You know what I mean? Just like you said, you can't stop a fight because I was about to go out because if that's the case, then you should have stopped the Justine Kish fight a long time ago. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's very, what we need is consistency.

That's what we need in the sport. When it comes to officiating, when it comes to judging, we need consistency. And that was very inconsistent. That's why I don't, that's why I question if Mario is, you know, can you be consistent? Can you be a consistent official? Can you consistently officiate a main event properly? You know what I mean? Like there's just like a certain code of conduct that's not being followed, you know, and it's just, you know, and it's just, you know, maybe this, maybe, unfortunately, this, maybe this comes at

expense, but maybe this leads him, maybe this leads a movement, you know what I mean? Maybe this starts some type of, you know, maybe there needs to be better protocols for these types of situations, you know, I don't know. There's got, something's got to be done though. This thing just can't get, you know, just brushed under the rug, you know, something's got to be addressed. And I'm certain that if this happened in any other fight, you'd be equally pissed. But considering how, you know, the buildup and kind of how he did it got, how difficult was it for you to digest this.

How mad were you that Sunday night and then going back home? And how long, if at all, did it take for you to get over it? To be honest, I got back to the hotel, I immediately put my sweats on. I went for like a 15 mile run,

just took off out of the hotel. I was just like, I had so much, I was ready for a five-run fight. I had the, like you said, the build-up, my first main event, the whole thing.

And it just had, I feel like I said the rug gripped out from underneath me. So I literally just like took off. who was just running through Oklahoma City, like purging myself. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how else to explain it. It was just, you know, yeah, it sucks.

It had to be him. You know what I mean? But I just don't consider this a loss. I just feel like I got, you know, I just feel like I got robbed. You know what I mean? Like I said, if I was going to lose, you know, if I did legit, if he beat me fair and square, had I did go out and go unconscious, so I did tap, then you beat me, okay, fair and square. even though you're a douchebag, whatever, you beat me.

But it's like this time you didn't do the job. You didn't finish me. I mean, he didn't beat me. You know, you just, I'm having, I'm still having a tough time digesting this. But that's why I want to move on. I want the rematch more than anything. And I think that then to strike with the iron's hot with the landscape of the division, why not? You know what I mean?

Look at, you know, Kabe and Tony, you're going to fight. Yeah. Gatzi and Alvarez are off doing their thing. Like, who else is he going to fight? Is he going to fight Porrier? If he's not going to fight Porrii, you know, he's not going to fight Johnson. So why you should just fight me?

You know what I mean? I already said, I'll wait until December to fight this guy in Detroit. And if he beats me without the intervention of some stupid-ass official, pardon my French, then you beat me. You got me. You know what I mean? That's sports. But we got to run it back. Did you see any of his post-fight comments?

And if so, how do you feel about the way he handled the victory? Kevin, that is. I don't pay attention to any of that guy's media. stuff. It's so cringeworthy. It's not like even going, even leading up into the fight, everybody would be like, oh, did you see this entity that Kevin did? What he said about you? I'm like, dude, I do not pay attention to that guy. I have much better things going on in my life than to pay attention to what the

hell that guy has to say in general, especially when it comes to me, I could care less. You know, but, you know, I haven't seen. I haven't seen any of them. I haven't heard any of them. Okay. So I'm sure they're, I'm sure they're great. You know, I'm sure that's some quality material. Have you or your manager, Danny Rubenstein, talk to the UFC yet about this idea of rematching him, maybe even in Detroit? I mean, I'm assuming it would be a natural for him to fight in Detroit because he's from there.

And do you know if the UFC is into this idea? Well, you know, me and Danny, we just got through the appeal process. This all, you know, came to an end, you know, the end of last week. You know, we'll probably speak about it today tomorrow, probably start sorting things out. I did go get an MRI done on my shoulder. So I'm just kind of waiting to see back from that. I'm sure everything's fine. But we figured once we get the results from that,

then we'll move forward and talk to the UFC. But I mean, I know that they're not huge on rematches in a lot of instances. But I think that this one is like just, you know, let's run it back. I mean, why not? You guys are all about hyped fights. You're all about, you know, everything that happened leading up to mine and Kevin's fight is exactly what you've asked for from us athletes, It's not asked for, you know what I mean, but this is what they like.

They like fights for motor. They like build up. They like, they want attention. Well, like, dude, this is the fight to make right now, you know. And if it's not, I'm going to move on. And I don't care. I'll still, I'm going to go beat some guys up and I'll get ranked higher above him. And that's all she wrote, you know what I mean?

But if it was up to me, I'd get a rematch. How did you feel? I deserve it. Dude, I, go ahead, sorry? Oh, I deserve it, dude. I'm one of the longest, hardest season of the Ultimate Fighter. I've been in the company for five years. I don't ask for much, I mean, but it's like this is the one time where I like I deserve this rematch.

I feel like it's not owed to me, but I feel like it's just like the right thing to do. I know you said you haven't watched it yet, but how do you feel about your performance up until the choke? Were you happy with what you were doing, or are there things that you would like to do differently if you get the rematch? Yeah, everything was going good, man. It's just bad habits. For me, you know what I mean? Every fight I've ever been in, I always give up my back in the first round. It's stupid.

You know what I mean? If you, I did it against Benile, I did it against Lozon. I did it against Jim Miller. I do it to everybody, you know what I mean? It doesn't make it right. It's just a bad habit. Every athlete's got some sort of bad habit. That's mine.

You know what I mean? And the one thing I won't do, Ariel, is I'm not going to take what, happened to me on June 25th and let it hold me down. I'm not going to grow. You grow from your losses. And I have to at this point, I have to figure out how to accept it and just, you know, I'm going to get better by making sure I don't ever get in that position again to where that could happen. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to grow from a technical standpoint, but everything up until that was going great. I dropped him. You know, his kicks were slow. My footwork was better. You know, everything felt good. Just,

until that point, you know, just, you know, I need to work on making sure I don't ever get myself in that type of bad situation again, and I'll grow as a fighter. You know what I mean? And we won't see me giving up my back in the first round anymore for the rest of my career. Why do you think you do that in the first round all the time, or so many times? I don't know. I just think it's a, I don't know, sometimes I feel like I just get too comfortable, you know, back controls my game. You know, that's my game. So as, as good as I am offensively with it. I've always been like, I never feel threatened when someone takes my back.

I'm always like, oh, whatever, you know, they'll take my back. I'll just kind of like, you know, anytime I get in that situation and fight, I'm always like, oh, just relax, write it out, you'll get out. It's no big deal. You know, and then it does. It happens. I get out of the round ends and I move on and I win. Well, now it's like, that habit's got to go.

You know what I mean? I don't think if anybody ever gets close to take in my back, it's going to be like a hand on a hot stove. I'm going to bounce right back out to my feet, and it's just not going to happen. again, you know, just it's time to break old habits, you know, and, you know, I'm still growing as a fighter. I feel, I haven't watched my fight, but, you know, I put hands on him. I was doing good. My footwork was great. Just got to continue to evolve from there, you know? Well, Mike, I know it's very disappointing, but I really appreciate the way you've handled this.

I mean, you didn't make that big of a stigamy. You were disappointed in the cage, I could tell, but we've seen others handle it way worse and go online and make a whole big thing. You did not do that. So kudos to you on handling it with class, and I'm sorry it didn't work out, and I'm sorry the way it ended. And I agree with some of your comments regarding Mario Yamasaki. You continue to mess up like that, and he has. Maybe not get banished from the sport,

but maybe it's time that you go back down the card and work your way back up, so to speak. The main event should be a very prestigious gig to get as a referee as an official. and clearly there is a pattern here of bad judgment calls, and I think that they need to do something, and I have a feeling that they will be doing something about it. So kudos to you on how you handled it, and good luck trying to get that rematch, hopefully for your sake that you do get it,

and what a scene would be in Detroit, of all places. Yeah, I'm willing to go into his backyard to do it, you know what I mean? And on a side note, I really appreciate you reaching out after the fight. That meant a lot of. Sorry, I didn't get back to you. No problem. You know, I was running away from the world for a little bit. And I also want to say, I'm sorry about what happened with the money Mayweather.

Oh, it's all good. The whole media tour, I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. You're the best, you're the best journalist, best reporter, best man in the business. You know, I feel bad for you. I'm sorry. No problem. All good. Thank you, Michael.

We'll talk to you soon. Appreciate the time. And good luck getting your phone back as well. Yeah, right. Thank you. We'll talk to you soon. There he is. Michael Kiesa.

I appreciate his time. And it will be interesting. He lays out a good scenario there. Gachin Alvarez are booked. Of course, they're doing Chabeebib in Ferguson, maybe in November at MSG. Kevin Lee is still around, doesn't have a fight just yet. So we'll see what happens there. Man, who is a very interested observer in the whole lightweight picture.

Is our next guest, Dustin Porier. We all thought that he would be fighting Eddie Alvarez sometime soon. That is not happening, at least not now, because Eddie is off filming the Ultimate Fighter opposite Justin Gachie. So I wanted to talk to him about all that and where he goes from here. He joins us on the phone right now. Dustin, how are you? Good, man.

What's going on, Arrow? Not much. I appreciate the time. What was your reaction, Dustin, when you found out that Eddie would be coaching on the ultimate fighter opposite Justin Gaci, and it would appear, at least for now, that you were not getting that immediate rematch? I was kind of shocked, honestly, man, you know, because I found out like everyone else did. Social media and stuff.

Nobody had the, nobody can call me or let me know what's going on. I mean, with my talks with my management and, uh, and the UFC, it was, we were going to rematch. That's what the game plan was, you know?

So it's really a slap in the face. Yeah, I mean, and so you say you were shot? I mean, were you, were you pissed? Did you try to call up and figure out what was going on here?

Because it seemed, at least from what I was told, that the plan was to rematch, you guys. Well, yeah, well, from my side,

Eddie side and the UFC. We all said that was a plan And that's what was going to happen We're just trying to figure out the right date to do it And then this happened So really it's crazy, man I'm not trying to chase it down and connect the dots But why this happened or all that crap

But it's just like I said man It's a slap in the face, you know I just don't understand how I beat the former champ Number three rank guy in the division I beat him up for nine out of ten minutes And then we just move on and act like the fight never happened. Nobody talks

about it. I don't get paid. Come on win money. You know, all this shit happens and it's just like tuck it under the rug and keep it moving. Here's a TV show position for you, buddy. Dustin will just match you up with anybody else. I mean, where do I go from here, you know? He's number three. I was whipping his ass.

And number one and two are fighting. Number four is hurt. I heard Lee's not going to fight until December. Nate's not fighting nobody. You know, so it's just it's a shitty situation. for me to be in, but hey, like I said, man, it's a fair business, it's the fight business,

so keep my chin down and keep pushing on. Do you know if you were considered to coach opposite Eddie, considering the history there and the story, do you know if you were being considered at all? I have no clue, man. I have no clue. Like I said, I found out about this shit on social media. When people were saying, I hear Eddie's coaching tough, I'm like, no way. That ain't happening, man.

We're fighting. We're probably fighting. You know, I was thinking we're fighting in October. I was told I haven't heard anything Did you So do you know what kind of injury you suffered As a result of the

What appeared to be illegal knees I was told you suffered a concussion And needed some time off They were illegal They were okay The doctor Yeah for sure I mean come on let's not

Get around the push But No The doctor thought that I had some Slight concussion symptoms The next couple of days After the fight I felt a little nauseous

On the road When I was driving back home I took a six-hour road trip from Dallas back to Louisiana after the fight. And, you know, I don't get carsick or anything like that. So they just assumed that might be a little slight concussion and stuff. So, you know, obviously I haven't been sparring or getting slammed around on my head. But I'm clear now and good to go. I feel fine.

That lasted maybe two days, you know? Okay. And you officially appealed it, right, with the Texas Commission? Yeah, my management did. Yeah. And they turned it down, turned the appeal down. were you surprised that they did who else who wants to admit that they're wrong man

it's all it's fucking politics and a bunch of bullshit man yeah these guys were you know they don't get they don't get a fuck man I'm feeding my family with this I need this when I was fighting you know the last 10 weeks of my life out in South Florida

in training camp grinding my body down putting it all in the line in front of everybody to see these guys just make a decision like they don't even know what's going on they don't know realize how it affects somebody's life you know and now even if I would rematch yet. He wouldn't have the same power it did. He just lost his belt the fight before.

He was one-fired move for being the world champion. I'm in there finessing his ass. And now he's doing the TV show. So, man, they can all get it, Ariel. And so I'm wondering, because I was talking to someone at the UFC this past weekend on Long Island, and they were like, yeah, that should have been a DQ. Why do you think he did not call it a DQ, the referee, Herb Dean?

I have no clue. I have no clue. I found it funny that he was going all over social media and as many radio shows that he could after the fight to try to, like, safe face and stand his ground on why he did. I don't know. Ask him and X Mark Radner. They discussed it before the call

was official, you know? I don't know. Did you talk to him after the fight? Did you get a chance to talk to him backstage or something? He saw me in the hotel and was talking to me, but I wasn't really listening to him. Okay. Have you watched the fight again? He was trying to say. I didn't

I mean, why does a fish Ruff to come up to you and start explaining his call? I didn't ask him. He walked it to me and started explaining it. That's red flag there. I watched it the day after the fight when we drove back from Dallas to Louisiana. I went to my in-laws house and they had to record it. I watched it once since.

Really, if we're not going to act like it happened, there's no reason for me to watch it, you know? I know what I was doing in there. I know I was in control. I don't want to relive this if we're going to move on. It's not on my record. I'm still ranked the same. Nobody's giving me credit for beating Eddie. So, I'll just move on. Do you think Eddie tried to find a way not to fight you?

I, you know what, man, what's crazy to me is we can't, you know, have control of what happens to us, but we can't control how we react to what happens to us. And I thought I reacted like a champion in there. I gave a benefit of the doubt. I thought the knee was an accident. In the heat of the moment, I was still shook up. You know, I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I just assumed, you know, from watching Eddie in the past that it was an accidental knee.

but I've seen how he's acting now on social media talking to me like I won it out of the fight it's crazy to me that you know I've got 20 fights in UFC you can watch any of my fights I've been hurt I've been down and out my face has been broken and I've still won fight why would I want out of a fight that I won two rounds all I had to do you know I don't understand

I think he's just trying to stay face and but that all that being said I think he I don't know if it was illegal now you know in the heat of the moment I gave him the benefit of the doubt but now the way he's acting on Twitter and showing his true colors, and I don't know, maybe he was hurt and maybe he was looking for a break or something. But what a great message to young fighters.

You know, if you're hurt and fight and you're down to rounds, throw some illegal shit, and you'll get a no contest and the TV show. Yeah. And then after the fact, like, just based on your messages, I got the sense that you felt he didn't want to fight you again. Do you feel that? He doesn't.

I feel like, he knows it. Hey, whatever he says to people, interviews, whatever he sends out on Twitter, He knows the truth, and I know the truth. There's a moment in the fight where two fighters spill each other, and you feel the rhythm and you feel the pace, and you know you're in charge or you know, oh, shit, I'm fighting an uphill battle. And I felt that in the fight, and I know he felt it honestly, too.

He can say whatever he wants to say, but man to man, he knows. He knows I was a better fighter that night, and he knows he was going to lose that fight. And I don't think he's, he probably doesn't want this fight again. Obviously, if they offered him another and he'll jump to it, but it's a better business decision for him. You know, he's going to fight me again, get whipped in front of everybody. Or he can go on TV, do a TV show, make some money from the TV show gig, get another big main event with some hype, you know, make more money probably.

So it's better for him and his family. I understand the business decision. But let me tell you this, man. Growing up, I used to watch Eddie specials on HD Met. I used to watch his fights and dream. I was a big fan. I liked the guy. I like his fighting style.

And I still respect his skills, but as a person, you know, he's nothing to me anymore. And so now, like, what do you plan? Are you just sitting around? Are there other, I heard there was some talk of maybe you fighting Anthony Pettus. Is there anything? Have they given you something to sort of ease this frustration so that you can move on? No, nothing yet, man. But I'm hoping to find out this week.

I'm actually on a four-day vacation with my wife and daughter right now. Oh, okay. When I get back to Louisiana Thursday night, I'm going to finish out two hard weeks in Louisiana, and then I'm going to go to South Florida and start preparing. So I'm looking to fight October. On November, I'd like to be on the Madison Square Garden Carding card or the October 7th part in Vegas. Those are the dates that I'm looking at.

And we'll see what happens. I'll start preparing and hopefully something opens up. But like I told you, man, the whole division is at a standstill kind of with the fights and the injuries and stuff. We'll see what happens. Was Pettus brought your attention? Yes. Okay, do you like that? He was a name. It's fun. It sounds like a fun fight. I'm pretty sure the fans don't enjoy it.

Yeah. So we'll see what happened. Is he the frontrunner right now? Yeah, for sure. I haven't been given a direct, like, here's the guys you're going to fight or anything like that. It was just like talk, like maybe October 7th, maybe, you know, here's a couple names. So I don't know exactly what for sure yet, but I'm down with anything, man. I just want to scrap. By the way, is it super windy where you are right now? I'm on the beach, Ariel.

Oh, okay, okay. Well, I appreciate you doing this on vacation. Let me just take up a couple more minutes of your time, and then I'll let you go. Could I ask you how much money were you robbed of? Because you didn't make your win money, right? You didn't get your win money, right? Let me tell you another messed up part of this situation. I think Eddie is on a flat contract.

So I guess even before he was the champ, he might have got 150 or 200 flat, you know, win or lose. He's on a flat page. So he got all of his money. keep me in the back of the head was losing the fight the flight concussion a flight that I was winning I don't get to win

and I get half of my money you know that fight would have been fight of the night so that's you can mark 50K right there and then my win bonus would have been

5 so I lost six big you still there Dustin? Yeah you can hear me I kind of lost you at the end there it's because it's very noisy because of the wind

what did you hear I heard that you were you thought you were gonna make 50, for the win, right? Yeah, so I believe Eddie got his full purse. Yeah. And he committed the foul.

It's just, it's a shitty situation, man. I don't want to harp on it, but. Right. Yeah, so we would have got, I mean, that fight goes, that fight was a couple seconds, 40 seconds away from being over. I mean, that, that round. We'd have had another crazy round. We'd have got five of the night.

You and me both know it. That was fight tonight. Yeah, yeah. So that's 50K there, plus my win bonus would have been 65. Damn. And the number three ranking and potential, all the potential stuff that comes back. Maybe a TV spot a long time. It'll go a long way.

That's not what I'm in my life, man. I'm just training, getting better, moving on. It ain't the fair business, well. Right. Did you end up donating your fight gear to that food bank in Louisiana? Did that actually go through? Yeah, we got it done, man. We raised it ended up turning out to be 3,000 meals.

Wow. We raised. So I'm really excited about that. And the next fight, I'm going to do the same. I'm not sure what organization. I'm going to work with, but it's going to be a South Louisiana nonprofit, and we're going to do something similar. Wow. That's great.

Good for you. Because originally someone, like, put a bit on it, and then they didn't contact you or something, so you had to re-put it up? Is that what happened? You know how Internet used to look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a seven-day auction on eBay, so they would wait to the last hour. We had hired enough than a real bidder and then canceled the order. Okay.

I put it up twice, so it killed two weeks. And then somebody reached out to me and just bought it. Oh, wow. This next one I'm not going to auction it off. I'm just going to put a set right so I don't get, ran around like that. That's right. That's right.

Okay, and last thing for you, Dustin, and I'll let you go. I noticed after the Mayweather-McGregor fight was announced, you sent a really nice message to Connor, which I thought, you know, said a lot about your character and given the history between you two, and you kind of just sort of congratulated him on everything he's done and kind of like put the past, you know, in the past.

Why did you feel compelled to do that? And when did your feelings towards him change? I mean, I still want to beat him up, but just as a fighter, just as a fighter. I'm a father now, and I think a lot. I'm just in a different place that was when I was getting ready to fight him. And I just appreciate creative work. And it's amazing what he did, man. He brought two sports together.

one of the biggest fights in the history. It's impressive, man. I was in the UFC when this guy made his debut. I was already in a name. Yeah. And he's fighting Mayweather in a few weeks. I've got to respect that. Are you going to root for him?

Man, that's my question. At first I was, I was like, you know, I'm really pulling for Fokana. I'm really pulling for these guys, and we can scrap, we can box or fight, but I don't know, after seeing some of the highlights from the press tour and stuff, I'm kind of leaning towards Mayweather. Oh, what happened? I don't know that I don't know. Okay.

All right. Appreciate you coming on, Dustin. It's incredible feet to get matched up with a guy like that. Yeah. No, for sure. I had a feeling that the M.M.A. community would kind of rally around him when it's all said and done. But, you know, certainly respect your decision to back Mayweather if that's what you're feeling. We should have a few weeks.

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks for the time, especially on vacation. Enjoy your time off. and hope that you get booked relatively soon. You can move on with all of this. All right. Thank you, Dustin. All the best. All right, there he is. Dustin Porre.

Apologies for the wind. He was kind enough to join us on vacation. Very good interview and hope that that didn't ruin it for all of you. But yes, it was very windy where he's from. I didn't know he was on vacation or on the beach. So we'll see what happens with him. I had heard that Anthony Pettis was being discussed. We'll see if that comes to fruition. Let's talk about 2-14.

It's in five days. It's in Anaheim. It's at the Honda Center. It's Tyron Woodley versus Damian Mayan. The co-main event, of course, the main event is John Jones versus Daniel Cormier for the light heavyweight title. And it has been somewhat of a tradition now to check in with Mr. Woodley before his title fights. Let us do that now.

Let us go to the Magica Skype and welcome in. T. Wood. There he is. What's up? Can you guys hear me okay? I can hear you just fine. How are you, Mr. Woodley? I'm doing great.

How about yourself? I'm doing great. Where are you right now? I'm in St. Louis. You're in St. Louis. We have a lot to talk about. First things first. So many people coming up to me. Why is Tyrone Woodley on Long Island working on Fox? He's fighting in seven days. Is he too confident? Is he looking past Maya? Is he not taking this seriously? Can you address this? Why did you decide to do the Fox thing seven days before your title fight? Are you covering UFC 214?

I will be there, yes. Did you cover Long Island this past weekend? Well, I'm not the one fighting. It's a little different. It's a job, though. It is. It is. Sometimes people need a healthy distraction.

I don't think me going out there covering a sport, breaking it down, looking at it from a different lens, is going to hurt me. I saw a lot of techniques in this past week's car that can be something that might secure me to victory against Damien Maya. You know, I'm prepared, I'm trained, I'm ready, I'm sharp, my weight's great, a mindset. And I feel like me making money working on the Big Fox show isn't a bad thing. It could be, what else would I be doing? Yeah, maybe sitting at home. And this was a big opportunity, right? It was just you and Kurt Menafee on Big Fox.

This was your first time doing Big Fox, right? My first time doing Big Fox, and then it was just one host, one analyst. So a lot of weight on me. I really didn't know that that was abnormal. I thought it was always that way. But they expressed to me the Fox people how well I did, especially just being one analyst, really holding a lot of traffic, a lot of highlights,

and a lot of analyzing. So I felt like I did a good job. I did miss a beat. Dean Thomas came out with me. Ron Carros, Jakal, came out with me. Eric Brown from Wildc came out with me. So I had a full camp, and I was blessed to have a 24-hour UFC gym that was two miles from the hotel.

So I did miss a beat, brother. So is it safe to say, though, that if this was kind of like your regular FS1 card, maybe you don't do it, but because it was such a big opportunity, that's why you did it? Definitely, it's been a big opportunity as a part of the reason I did it. The second part is the fact that I was going to do a press day. Most likely it was going to be in New York just because all the roots and hip-hop

and my draws and connections there, I figured that my press day would be in New York. So if I was already going to go to New York, I didn't really feel the need to cancel my media day. Okay. And I didn't feel the need to cancel my Fox duties. What a difference a few months makes. I get the impression. I mean, it kind of started a little rocky, but in the last few months,

you're at the Super Bowl with Dana White, you're getting the Fox gigs, you're the only analyst on Fox this past Saturday, you're on FS1 all the time, they're bringing you out to New York and putting you in front of the right kind of media. You're at Dana White's son's birthday party, the only guy there, what has happened?

Now your best friends? How did this all change? How did we go from the drama queens to the best friends? You know, I think Dana, the reason why Dana respects me is also the reason why we bump heads sometimes. Sometimes I'm too smart for my own good, and, you know, I feel like I will fight the wars, I will fight the small battles, and I just want to be treated fairly, and I think at times, you know, those things can butt heads. And I made some very strong, very strong concerns that I brought up to the UFC and to Dana and to the PR and people about the way I was promoted, about the way I was represented, about some things that I did.

didn't feel like was fair that was taking place. And when I set those things out and strategically explained to them what was going wrong, why I felt the way I was, why did I go on ESPN and go him that time, they sat down and said, you know what, Tyrone, you're right. You know, we didn't see it that way.

You know, you're absolutely right. What can we do to change you? How can we fix this? How can we do a better job of, you know, helping push your brand? And those are the things that I feel the PR and the people of USCWME have tried to do with me. So therefore, you know, you haven't heard me barking a lot because I don't just, people think I'm a whiner, man.

I'm just talking factual things. There's certain things that people would never know that's taking place with me. Things that you might know area that people would never know. And I don't feel as needed because the same place of things happen behind closed doors, I feel like those things are going to be solved there. And as long as I'm treated fairly and I'm treated like a champion, then, you know, I'm going to focus on fighting and kicking butt. So are you feeling the love now? I feel in the effort. All I ask for is the fact that you value my concern, you value my opinion, and if I come

to you as your champion of the best organization in the world, and I have a problem that you at least make my problem feel like it's important and try to take steps forward to making a solution for it. So I do feel the effort. I do feel like, you know, it's not going to happen overnight, but I do see good steps in the right direction. How was the birthday party? And why were you the only fighter there?

there probably was crazy. Crazy. How did you get the invite? I went there. I went there. You didn't get the invite? No, man, I did not. Maybe he got lost.

Well, I'm a huge, huge, huge, huge, Kendra Mara fan. So I flew myself to the party. Wow. I also flew my son from St. Louis. This is the first time flying alone because it was such a huge event. I wanted to meet Kendrick. Me and my son were bowling, right?

He wanted to bowl, because it was at. It was at the Brooklyn Ball in Vegas. So we were bowling, and I said, TJ, we probably should go back up there, man. He was like, oh, let's just bowl one more game. And as we were bowling one more game, that's when Dana and him, they went backstage and was meeting Kendrick and whatever. And then he had to leave. Oh, no. And when we got done, yeah, I never got to meet him.

But I'm assuming that that won't be the last chance. Oh, man. He was actually at the Barclays Center, and I had an opportunity to go then. and I reached out to his security guard to see if I can meet him then then I started realizing that you know what I needed to get some rest I got to train

as much as I love Kendrick Kumar I got to be a professional and get my work out of hand so I actually had to back out of the Kendra Kumar concert this time around all right well you will meet him I'm certain of that especially as you continue to compete and defend your title

and things of that nature now I have said a couple times and I think you may have heard these comments where I was like you know what this was the fight and I'm happy that Damien Maya is getting the fight, but I kind of feel like he got played a little bit. He was told that he's fighting for the belt at like 30 years. You already know I was waiting on it. Let's go. Let's go. Come on, man.

You've been looking at your Instagram, you've been preparing for this since April. He fought in May, and then they're like, yo, you got a fight on one man's notice. Now, I'm happy for you. You're getting those paper viewpoints. Much better to be on this card than 215 or 213, etc. But come on, 30.

I mean, the guy, he's gotten, he has to go through the gauntlet, And then they finally call him a month out, yeah, you got to prepare for Tyron Woodley, who's already been preparing clearly via Instagram. Smart, good on you. You don't feel bad for him at all? You done? He's had seven fights to get ready for me.

He knew where I was at. He knew I was at the top. I'm not coming by surprise. If we spur a fight, if we spare a fight card on you, guess what, Ariel? You're going to be prepared to cover a fight in two days. That's what you do, is your job. Sure. When you're a professional fighter and you want to say you're the best in the world, you don't want to say, oh, I want to take a vacation, oh, I want to go do a seminar, all I want to go to the International Fight Week.

No, you're a challenger. You get your ass in gear and you get ready to fight for a world title. When I was off for the fight Robbie Lago last year, April 23rd, when something happened with the John Jones DC2 fight the first time, with 10 days notice, I said yes. When Michael Bisman got an opportunity, he said yes. When Nate Diaz had an opportunity, he said yes. This is what we do. Granted, you're not going to be 100% fight shape every day or the week. It's stupid and it's not smart for your body.

But he has known about me. He has watched film on me. He has watched me compete. He has looked at me as a competitor the same way I've looked at him. So yes, four weeks is a very short time for a fighter, but sometimes it's a better. For me, it's been better because guess what? I'm in stupid shape. My condition is crazy.

My mindset. I'm excited about the fight. And guess what? I didn't have to get into my own head. I didn't have to overthink it. I didn't have to overanalyze it. I didn't over-trained. I didn't miscalculate when I was going to pee for the fight.

Four weeks, yeah. Sometimes I'm better when I cram. Sometimes when I know I get that date and it's coming up sooner, I can push myself a little bit more. And guess what? He's not going to die in there, so don't feel bad for him. No, I know. He beat up a little bit.

It's probably going to get finished. But at the end of the day, he's going to live the fight again. Okay, but can I tell you what your situation with the John Jones thing, what Bisping, what Nate Diaz all have in common? you guys were getting calls after injuries. So, of course, it's short notice. There was no injury here. This was the fight.

Yet they, for some reason, decided, oh, one month out, let's put a third title fight on this card. A little different, right? No different. Me and Damia, me and Damia Maya got the same notice. They called me on Wednesday. They called him on Wednesday. I dropped the news on UFC tonight the same day that I got the call. the next day I went to go do my medicals.

I had zero more days than he had to prepare. Granted, it's all smoking mirrors. Of course, I'm training for Nick Diaz. I'm training for Nick Diaz. I'm training for George. I'm training for Maya. I'm just training because that's my damn job. Yeah.

You know, so he, I don't feel bad for him. And if he comes out here and try to make an excuse, like he didn't get no notice, I'm going to spit all over that because I got the same exact notice. And guess what? I fought in March. So technically, condition was he should be better.

He just fought in May. All right, all right. So don't feel sorry for him, man. If I had not been on the other end of the six so many times, so many things that were not in my favor, then I would maybe feel bad for him. But no, I had to maneuver through those same rugged terrain, same bad situations. They were not the best situation for me, but I had to make best of it. and therefore I move forward. That's what he has to do.

This is his chance. I feel like this is a very bad matchup for him. He's done so well with fighters who he's been able to take down and eventually submit, I mean, often not even having to land a strike. But given your wrestling, if he has trouble taking you down, it's going to be hard for him to obviously stand and trade with you. He told me yesterday, excuse me, last week on the show, that he actually really likes this matchup because he thinks that you've fallen in love with your striking

and you've gone away from your wrestling. Do you agree with the people who say this is the perfect matchup? This is like the best matchup for you possible, or is there something to what he's been saying? I think this is a really good matchup for me. Any other matchup I wouldn't have taken in four weeks notice. One thing about him is I have to be in very, very good condition. I have to be prepared for him to be so resilient

and so persistent with the takedown. I have to be able to defend. I just defend the first shot the second shot. Sometimes it's not even a shot. It's just him reaching out and jumping to half guard, shooting a double leg, jump with a half guard. So I have to be one step ahead in the chess match. But for him to say he'd think I fall in love with the strike,

and I fell in love with winning. When it's time to wrestle, I would wrestle you. When it's time to strike you, I would strike you. And I've been blessed that the guy's giving me a mindset that I can strike with the best strikers, Rob B. Lawler, Carlos Kahn, and Teres Saffer Dean, Paul Daley. And I can wrestle with the best wrestlers. And I can grapple with the best grapplers.

So wherever the fight needs to be taken to secure the victory, even Stephen Thompson, who was a specialist, I outstruck him, and he was the most creative, craftiest on North that I strike in our division. And he didn't look like he did against Johnny, against Robert Whitaker, against Patrick Cote, and all these other guys that he went out there, you know, Jake Ellenberger. They got impatient. He just annihilated. So with that said, I fell in love with winning. I fell in love with studying my opponent to take away what they do best, put them in a position where they are having that mental anxiety and putting that mental pressure on them and then leaving them to deal with my power, my explosiveness, my conditioning,

everything that's going to go into this fight, I'm going to leave him to do with it. So he's fooling himself. He's trying to tell himself and fool you guys that this is a good matchup for him. This is not a good matchup for him. And guess what? Four weeks, four months, four years, he was going to come up sharp in a fight because I'm not a good matchup for him. Have you been impressed with his streak, what he's been doing?

I'm impressed with Damien Maia in general. You got to know me. I never take any guy for granted. I'm a huge fan of the sport. Today, Carlos Conner Price is my favorite fighter. So with that said, I have to get myself ready for these guys. I watch what he do. I can see the chess match that he's playing.

And he's only on the second and third move. It's more in his arsenal, but no one's forced him to go there. The same thing with Wonderboy. When I train with a lot of the sport karate guys, the things that he was doing to the MMA fighters was just to grasp roots it was the surface

he didn't he never had to dig down and go into a second and third attempts on the striking so I'm very impressed with what he's done not on his streak um the ability to constantly being doubted coming out on top fighting guys like Mazvedal who I really didn't give him a big chance

because I know Jorge I know how he um has super fast hands and good foot work he's just beating guys consistently and not maybe getting the title shot because he won't open up his mouth and tall crap and consistently fighting. Like, it's a huge risk when you fight the top guys over and over and over again. One night you might come up sharp. He was blessed to make it always to this point and had all those fights and those victories in a row. He hasn't lost in his way. Jake Shields or Roy in one of those

fights. He hasn't lost his end. So with that said, of course, I would be lying to you if I wouldn't say I was impressed with him. I still believe the UFC is going to try to do Bisping versus GSP, but publicly, they are saying that GSP is going to fight the winner of this fight, maybe even at MSG. Have you been told that that is the plan? I've been told me and Damon Meyer fighting this weekend, and I don't even want to talk about GSP because GSP is playing everybody. I don't know if he really want to fight. I don't know if he's going to fight me. I don't know if he's going to fight me. I don't know if he's going to fight BISB. And to be flat out honest, I don't think he wants to fight me. I think he wants to fight someone

like Stephen Thompson, which he feel like. like I've trained with. He's not going to hit me with a concussion. If you think about why he left the sport, he said he has some personal issues. He also talked about the rampant usage of PEDs in the sport and also concussions. What guy on that list is going to give him a concussion besides me?

Not Damien Maya. Most likely not Bisbing. Bisbing is no for, you know, enduring damage, being resilient and pushing forward. Most likely not, you know, Wonderboy, because George came from the sport karate background. He trained someone, Stephen Thompson. So I think had Wonderboy beat me, maybe he would have fought him.

If Damian Maya comes up on top this weekend, I think he'll fight him. I just don't think he wants to come in after three years and take on a guy like me that's just completely determined not to give up his belt. All right, fair enough. By the way, I was in Los Angeles for the first leg of the Mayweather-McGregor tour, and Mayweather was doing an interview, and someone asked him about MMA fighters that he respects and likes, and he mentioned you. You were the only one.

Where did this come from? I think you've met him before, right? But why of all people did he mention you in your opinion? And were you surprised by that? You know, I think I got this little piece of whatever on my head. My OCDness is kicking in, get off my hat, whatever that is. All right. Forget, I'm taking it out.

All right. So, you know what's funny is people going to be talking about that piece of the interview more than the actual stuff. So Floyd Mayweather, I didn't. a celebrity basketball with him a ways ago. And he watches a sport more than what you guys realized more than what he would share. His bodyguards and security guys are all trained in MMA. They all, you know, are versed in martial arts. And they was just talking to him about me.

And he told me, you know, man, I've been watching your highlights. You got hands, man. You're a killer. You go out to the fight. And I think he can understand the art of hitting without getting hit. I don't take a lot of punches and a lot of punishment in the fights. You know, the one fight that I took the punishment is one I got not. out. But outside of that, I just don't take a ton of damage. And it's from fighting, not a safe

fight, but fighting, fighting to my best abilities and not allow my opponent to showcase what they do best. And I think that's a skill in the self. And someone to recognize that was a huge pat on the bat for me. And I think that he just, he sees me. He sees me out here, self-promoting myself, doing most of the stuff by myself, and winning and coming out on top. And a lot of people don't want to see me as a champion. A lot of people don't want to see me on top. A lot of people want to see me fall on my face. And with that all weighing on my shoulders, man, I still find a way to go out there and do what I do best and show the gift. This guy gave me. But you are, you are picking McGregor to win the fight, right? Obviously, smart guy.

McGregor, to do what? No chance? I'm picking McGregor for, you did a boss move, brother. You got to be paid. And I ain't got no hate in my heart for you on that. you did your thing. This is what you want to do. This is what you set out to be the highest paid combat sport athlete of our generation. And you will do that. As far as the X's and O's, let's be realistic. You know, you got one of the best professional boxes of all time taking on a very good M&A fighter.

So I don't think that we have to dig too deep in that. All right. Last thing for you, and I look forward to seeing you out there in Anaheim, you have turned things around as far as your relationship with the UFC and things seem to be going well. What is your advice for your good friend, Demetrius Johnson, who out of the blue seemed to hit a rough patch? But now he's joined your team, right? Now he's managed by Malki and Abe, and I think that that was a very smart move on his part to get management. But how does he turn things around and kind of get back on track and start to feel the love as well?

You know, I think he's turning things around. I don't think his things were ever in the wrong direction, I think, would be the wrong direction, I think, Demetri Johnson did, he was always the company guy. He was always willing to just say, you know what, Demetri just keep winning, just keep winning. And I envy him for that because at times, you know, when I was fighting Roy McDonald's, I was worried too much on the next fight. I was worried too much on sponsorships and all those other things.

Though I completely killed it sponsorship-wise for that fight, I came up short and I lost. You know what I mean? So no matter what money I made in that, I had to take a backseat, had to rebuild before I get my shot at the title. And I was blessed to be able to work myself to the point where I got a shot at the title. So with that said, DJ never fought the small battles.

So he went from no battles to World War III. So I think that was something that caught the brass by surprise. I think some things that he had been bottling up for years and years that he had finally said something about, just bringing out some facts about, you know, fighter pay that's public. that if you're a pound for pound fighter, it doesn't matter what you talk, what you do,

what you wear, your suit, your car. You should be one of the highest paid athletes on a roster, and I think he was just asking to be treated fairly. And I think it took a while, and I mean, I think it was a back-and-forth war, and I don't think it's over, but I do think that those guys are coming to middle ground where they can do something that's fair for both parties.

Well, I'm going to give you all the credit. I think you helped all of a sudden, Tyron Woodley is the Peaceman. maker and I love it. What a difference a few months make. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, you know, it's not that you got to realize I haven't changed. I'm the same person. No, but there's, if something, if something goes wrong next week, I'm going to speak on it. I've always spoke on it. But when people, I don't speak on it to speak, that's what people give the, they give the fake, not the fake, they give the incorrect stigmatism that I'm a whiner.

No, I just want to allow things that are unjust to happen or, you know, things that are not right to take place. if something happens as I don't believe is correct, I'm going to say something about. Right now, if I see effort being put forward to try to market me in a different way, give me opportunities I believe I should have, you know, even contractual issues. If they're making those adjustments, should I keep going out there and saying, okay, I'm being mistreated and they don't mark me correctly? Should I continue to do that? Or should I say, okay, let me give them a chance to show me?

And I have to say along those lines, everyone out there needs to check out the On It commercial. It's a longer spot that you tweeted, I think, on Thursday or Friday. I retweeted it. Yeah, do it for the love. Oh, my gosh. That was phenomenal. That was one of the best MMA-related commercials that I've seen in quite some time. It was real.

It was honest. It was original. It came from the heart. It was genuine. It was authentic. I can't say enough good things about it. They really put together a great piece there. So kudos to you.

I'm happy you're getting the love. I'm happier on this card, getting those paper viewpoints. You're fighting right under Jones and DC. GDP, as they say. Get that paper. Jones, get to the octagon. Yeah, that's right. That's it.

That is it. And I'll see you out there in Anaheim. Thank you for doing this. I know you're very busy getting back from Long Island and heading out there tomorrow. So I really appreciate it, Tyron. Thank you. No worries. Thank you guys.

All right, there he is. The reigning, defending UFC Walterway champion. Tyron Woodley's stopping by. Great to hear from him. And of course, he will be on that card on Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim. All right. This is exciting. Let's bring in our in-studio guest now.

We've got two. We're starting with a legend right off the top of man who knows the thing or two about Walter Wade fights. Wow. How about this? We are looking at royalty here. Pat Militich in the house. Welcome, my friend.

This is exciting. I didn't notice the black belt before. Yeah. How about that? You have a black belt? In media. Okay. I was given it to me by Meta Morris.

I think they were trying to butter me up. Are you offended by it? No, you're a black belt and bullshito. Right off the bat. Has anybody ever said that? Hands up, no. I'm not going to mess with you, don't worry. You're on the team now, right?

What team is that? Well, the team that's had a little rough water with certain folks in the M&A world, right? It's okay, though. It's not a big deal. We don't even need to talk about that. You've turned it around. You can do it too. You're a whole of favor.

I've got faith in you. How are things these days between you and the UFC? We're fine. We're fine. Yeah. You feel the love? You know what? I just do my thing and I love the sport and they're doing their thing.

So, yeah. I feel like I said this when the Hall of Fame happened. One of the things the UFC has not done well over the years is honoring its past. I'm a big baseball fan, basketball fan. They always bring out the legends. And I thought this year, I don't know if you saw the ceremony. It was different than the one that you were a part of a couple of years ago. They made it a whole night. It felt like its own event. And I think they need to do more of that.

The sport is so young. But there is such a deep and rich history. There needs to be a physical Hall of Fame. There needs to be more attention to the past and honoring people like you, living legends who have helped build this sport. And I'm hopeful that in this new area they will do more of it. Are you confident that they will or do you think it will remain the same? I have no idea. And honestly, to be honest with the area, like, I'm not overly concerned with it. It would be cool for the fans, I think, you know, but as a guy who competed in the sport and coached and does commentary and stuff, I'm not all that, I'm really not, like, you don't care. No, it's not, it's not, it's not, you know, I got in, the Dan Gable National Wrestling Hall of Fame, wrestling and fighting

Hall of Fame, you know, they've got a lot of pro wrestling in there, collegiate wrestling, Olympic wrestlers, all that sort of stuff, M&A now. You know, getting into that, that Hall of Fame, to me, was really a big deal. you know, Dan Gable was my lifetime from the time I could, you know, realize who he was, that was my idol. You know what I mean? So that meant a lot to me to sit at a table and have dinner with Dan Gable and talk to him. And, you know, that was amazing.

That was really amazing to me. All right. Speaking of meaning a lot, you actually reached out to me when the whole thing happened a couple weeks ago and that meant a lot to me. So thank you very much for it. You know, it's unfortunate that it even happens, you know, to be honest with you. I just don't see a reason for it. You know, you're a professional.

You are. You're a professional at what you do. You're very good at what you do. So it's it. When I read that, I just went, you know, that's just not, that's not cool. It's not cool at all. So, yeah, I feel for you, man. I don't want to move forward without asking you. I have to ask you about Matt Hughes. Do you have an update on how he's doing? Well, you know, what I can say, you know, the family is pretty guarded in what's going on, obviously. But I can tell you that he's, he is surprising the doctors. Okay. You know, he's making great leaps, and he is no longer in a coma. And he's improving.

You know, it's going to be a long road. Okay. Any kind of head trauma at that level, there's going to be some rehab. Have you been able to visit him? Nobody's allowed to visit him that I know of besides, you know, family. That's it right now. They just don't want to overload him. Yeah.

You know, they want his energy to go to healing, you know, not to anything else. Do they think he might make a full recovery? I'm 100% sure he's going to make a full recovery to be honest with you. I mean, for the injuries that he sustained. You know, I just saw a documentary a few weeks back of people that worked with the people that, Matt sits on a board of directors for a charity for head trauma. Okay. And they had no idea that, and they were offering their services also.

And the head of that group said, you know, when we asked Matt to step on board and when he was donating money to us and everything, We had no idea five years ago that we'd end up potentially helping him and treating him. And, you know, so they did a video, though, an amazing documentary on a girl that was a barrel racer. And her vehicle got hit by a train. It's crazy, but I watched this little documentary. And she went from, you know, not being able to talk, not being able to walk, everything else to she's back to barrel racing and things like that. So it was pretty cool. And do you know what happened?

From reading about what the head of the locomotive, the engineer said is that Matt had stopped on the gravel road. It's a hill going up to the real quick hill that goes up to the railroad tracks. He had stopped and then tried to get a cross-in time, and the train was going almost 50 miles an hour, and you're out there in the middle of the country. There's no crossing guards. There's no lights. There's not that. But it was almost like he saw it and then tried to beat it.

And what I would say is that, you know, you're on a gravel, gravel road out in the country, on a hill, and you try and punch it and get over, you're going to spin your tires, things like that. And didn't get across in time and got clipped on the passenger side. But, you know, anybody that lives in the Midwest, you don't. I grew up in the Midwest. And you see, it was a coal train. And when you have to sit for a coal train, you're there for a long time. Oh, really? A cold train is, you know, five miles long.

Oh, wow. Wow. So they just go forever. And so he probably went, that's a cold train. I've got to get out of here. I get across. Well, we wish him the best, then we'll continue to pull for him 100%. What brings you to New York?

I'm here doing media events and interviews with different media folks for the Mayweather McGregor fight. For Showtime? Yes, yes. Are you going to be a part of that broadcast? I am. Access TV was kind enough to let me. They loaned me out for that show, which was really cool of them. Amazing.

The folks that Access are great. And, you know, obviously, I used to work for a showtime also, so I'm very familiar with my family over there. And so, yeah, it's going to be a great event. You know, everybody, I think it's tough to argue that it's certainly the biggest combat sporting event ever in the history of, I mean, this is, you think about Thrilla and Manila and Forman and guys and guys. I mean, this is going to rival, if not beat that. Yes. Huge. And what will you be doing on the broadcast?

You know, they haven't actually told me exactly. Okay. But most likely I'll be sitting at the desk off in the distance. Okay. You won't be in the booth, so to speak. I don't know. You and Morrow together again? That would be fun.

Yeah. I'd love to harass him. Yeah. I think it would be cool to have an M.M.A. guy, you know, like Pauly's there, and I think he's fantastic. Right. But, you know, you are presenting the MMA community and your background. You have a boxing background as well. So I think you have an appreciation for it.

I did a little boxing, did more exhibition fights with pro boxers. on anything, but I spent years and years sparring with really high-level boxers, and, you know, they were a big part of me being able to get into, you know, the MMA cage and not get beat up, you know? Are you surprised that the UFC let this happen? No, because, I mean, they're going to get their cut, right?

Yeah. And it certainly helps, I mean, you think they're rolling the dice, right? If McGregor pulls off that upset, you realize how big that is for MMA. That's a gigantic. It really is. But I try to tell people, you know,

I'm a combat sports fan. I love boxing. I love judo. I love wrestling. I love this. I love it all. All the different forms of combat sports. So it's not,

to me, it's not about being a boxing fan or an MMA fan or anything. I don't want to be a purist. You know, all these forms of combat have something to offer to me. And it's humans out there testing each other spiritually, physically, and mentally against each other. And it's very cool, you know. Do you think he has a chance? Well, I would say this.

You know, the typical talking points, you're going to hear from every Joe Schmo is he's bigger, he's younger, he's lefty, he's this, he's that. I think he's got a good chin. I think he's got a chance to survive against Mayweather. I think he can stick around. Mayweather hasn't knocked anybody out in 10 years legitimately, which says something. Mayweather, at the same time, though, is protecting himself, doesn't want to end up a punch drunk guy and wants to enjoy his money. I mean, that's his style of fighting. Great defense. And when you don't put yourself out on a limb, it's easy to have great defense.

It's like if I don't try to take you down and you're a good wrestler, it's going to be tough for you to take me down because I'm all about defense. So Mayweather's been great at scoring points, stand ahead on the cards, and just coasting the victories, and that's something that he's done.

Will McGregor pull him out of that and make him go out on a limb to try and knock him out, possibly? So that's the thing, but McGregor's got a good enough chin. I think he can hang around, and that means he's there for 12 rounds with that monstrous left hand.

And it doesn't matter who you, are if you're that weight and you get hit with that hand, it's going to hurt you. You know, it's definitely got the potential for him to pull off the biggest upset in combat sports history and certainly actually sports history. Yeah, absolutely. Although the odds wouldn't reflect that. Now he's a four to one underdog, which is so much shocking. A lot of people want to, want to throw money. That's right. Yeah. Do you enjoy watching Floyd box? I do. I love watching him box. Yeah. Why? I'm a fan of his boxing, not of his personal life. Obviously, nobody really is, probably. Look, he makes people miss.

It's beautiful to watch. I mean, he can see everything coming before it comes and can read the body. He can see what's coming. He can see him load. Even fighters that don't load that can throw with no negative movement at all, he's already gone most of the time.

Besides a Maidana type guy who's just a nut job throwing stuff from everywhere, it's going to be tough to see that coming. But, no, I love watching, I mean, I loved watching Roy Jones fight. Roy Jones was a scarier version. version of Mayweather in my mind because he had the power to put people away, right? Do you subscribe to the notion that even if Connor loses but it goes the distance, he kind of wins?

Absolutely. 100%. I mean, that's chalk one up for M.A. Yeah, because I kind of feel like all the pressures on Floyd here because every day people are coming up to him saying, you're going to smoke this guy. He doesn't deserve to be in there. So you actually have to validate that and do something spectacular. If it's your typical Floyd fight where he skunks you, but it goes to distance, then what are we really, right?

Not the same at all. It's one thing to do that against Canello. It's another to do that against a debutante. Oh, and O. Yeah. Oh, no, buddy. Yeah. So do you feel like that's going to make him fight outside of his comfort zone and try to do something spectacular when that's not his style?

That's what I'm betting on, to be honest with it. Interesting. I think he tries to drag him into deep water, get him tired, and then put him away. I feel like people have obviously not had success boxing him, clearly. I mean, 49 and no, greatest defensive boxer. If you, and I don't know if you saw Polly Malinaghi's comments, he sparred with him. I think it was on Thursday. With McGregor.

Yeah, with McGregor. I feel like if you attack Floyd as an MMA fighter and just completely redefine how you box this guy and you almost do it in the most unconventional way possible, maybe there's a chance there. The thing about Floyd, in my opinion, is he figures you out very quickly. So you really have to do your damage like in the first four rounds or so, right? But Connor's going to go out there so unconventional that it's going to sort of confuse him

and that's when he's going to be able to strike his best. You feel like you almost have to go, you have to almost redefine. If Connor tries to learn how to box Floyd in the next month, it's not going to happen. It's like you can't. So do something completely different. Yeah.

Would you advise him of that? Well, I mean, and the guys that I've sparred with who are world class boxers and world champion boxers, sparring them like an MMA guy doesn't work. Yeah. You get the hell beat out of you. Okay.

So you can't even do that. You can't even do that. Okay. I mean, for, for me and my mindset, if I'm going to, into a fight like this with a guy that's that good, I've got to take him into anaerobic territory because boxers are not anaerobic animals.

A boxer is an aerobic animal. It's like running, right? Wrestling is completely anaerobic. So the more he can put his hands on him, push down on his forearms, just off balance him, block a leg here, push with your head off balance and crack him, just turn it into a rough and tumble

anaerobic type existence, that's when Mayweather will get tired. That's when he'll get fatigued. So you can't go out and, box with a boxer, he's not going to do it. You just can't. So it's, I think, you know, and I tell people, and people look at me like, really, dude, but I'm training a fighter that's going into that fight to cheat within the rules the entire fight. Interesting. Literally. Push the limits. It's got to be literally that close to a street fight.

Okay. It has to be. And get two warnings for everything you could possibly do before a pint. And look, if you get a point taking, you get a point taken. It's not going to win on the cards anyway. That's true. Right? And I'm just being honest. So what are some things that he can do? Like, what are some tricks? Well, like I say, the constant pressure of, look, you know, the tap to the back of the head and the push on the hip at the same time to make the head pop back to throw stuff. You know, bringing the head through and throwing a lead hook, which would be opposite side for him.

Stuff like that, like I say, blocking a leg on when he gets him against the ropes because of their same stance, lead legs forward, clashing, block the outside of the leg, push with your head off balance, and, you know, take the leg out from under and make him stumble, make him lose his balance. and unload on him. A lot of different stuff like that to get people off balance, you know, and that's the thing. And he's got to go at the same time Mayweather goes. He cannot counter by getting out of the way and then throw him back. Why is that? Mayweather's gone. Too quick. You have to go at the exact same time he throws. So Connor is typically known as a counterpuncher. He has to change that attack, right? And truly to be a counterpuncher in my mind,

you have to be an aggressor somewhat. I've got to pull technique out of you. Yeah. So I've got to at least faint or crack you with something to get you to throw back and get out of the way and then come back and hit you, right? Uh-huh. So that's, he's going to have to be a lead off fighter to a certain extent to get that to happen. Both guys are going to have to have to do that. And he's got to, he's got to have convincing faints and fakes. The same mechanics has a real punch that aren't being thrown.

You know what I mean? That's where boxers are so much better than most MMA guys is the faints and the fakes of really, really tricking people into thinking something's coming and they're countering something that doesn't exist and then opening themselves up. So he's got to be able to, if I've got a guy who's good at faints and fakes and he's making me flinch, if I don't get him out of that rhythm and start doing the same thing to him and playing that mind game with him, I'm done. It doesn't matter who it is. I'm going to get myself in trouble. Do you think his team is making a mistake by not bringing in any straight up boxing coaches? It's the same team that he has around him, essentially. I mean, he's bringing in some boxers to spar with, obviously.

But as far as his corner and all that, it's the same group of guys. You know, look, there's a lot of guys out there in the boxing world with massive amount. of knowledge, obviously, that would help him. But I think his striking coach has done a good job with him, obviously. Yeah, Owen Roddy. Maybe not, gotten him, obviously, to, you know, world title, being able to go through and destroy, you know, Triple G and all these guys, Canello and everybody else on a consistent basis.

But he's done a great job with him. So I think he's fine there. It truly comes down to having great training partners, great swaring. That's what gets the reaction time. You know, that's when you pay a price for making a mistake. getting slapped on the side of the head with a mitt doesn't teach you a lesson. Getting cracked by a great boxer

makes you go, I can't do that again because that hurts, right? I still feel like people don't give Connor his due. There are still some people who say, oh, he never fought this guy, never fought that guy. He's getting more, but some are still reluctant to give him his props.

Where do you fall in the Connor debate? Are you a fan of his? Do you appreciate what he's done? Do you feel like the jury's still out on him? The UFC has put him in some, you know, good positions to make history and things like that. Look, no matter what anybody says,

the stars have aligned, right? Yeah. For him. And I think that anybody who's gone down the path of being a professional fighter and I'm including myself in it, you have to fool yourself that you can be great, right? To win a world title to begin with and to hold on to a title, you have to convince yourself that you can do it. You have to dream it, visualize it, nonstop, and see it happening before it can ever happen. So he's already convinced himself of that level. And he's also convinced himself that he can climb in a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather. A guy with that much mindpower, and I was just saying it earlier today, you know, to give you an example of a guy with great mind power,

my running coach, David Clark, who started out a 320-pound guy, who now runs ultramarathons like they're nothing. He ran the bad water in Death Valley, which 128 degrees, 135 miles, who hallucinated for eight hours of that race, arguing with the white line on the highway because it was telling him he wasn't a world-class runner and he couldn't finish. you know, it grew a mouth and was talking to him. Wow.

Had a name. And you have to run on the white line in Death Valley in that race so that your shoes don't delaminate and come apart. Wow. So for eight hours of that race, which I think it's a, I forget the cutoff on that race, but 135 miles through Death Valley and then 10,000 feet up into the mountains,

people don't even remotely understand how monumental it is to even get into that race, let alone to finish it. You know, that's mind power. And that's the kind of mind power. I see with a guy like Connor McGregor who's just 100% convinced himself that he belongs there and he can do it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have become a champ. He wouldn't.

And sure, maybe did he dodged some bullets? But hey, he had two wars with Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz is an incredible fighter, no matter what anybody thinks. So look, I think it's the fact he pulled it off is amazing. It's a victory in its own right. Because I was in negotiation, sat in a negotiation room in Hollywood, California with, Winky Wright in his camp, and we were trying to get a fight put together between he and I. It didn't work out.

This was after the UFC, right? And why didn't it work out? Somebody from his side of the camp that kind of brought everything together, decided that he deserved more of a cut of the whole thing, and negotiations fell apart. The breakdown? What was the breakdown? Well, the money part's not important. This guy suddenly decided to be greedy, and he said he was going to file lawsuits.

Really? How close were you? What's that? How close were you? Oh, we were going to do it. Really? They were going to turn it into a reality show. They were going to do it.

Wow. This is years ago, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Roy Jones and I had talked a little bit about doing the same thing, but it was going to be an MMA fight. And Roy said, as long as you agree to stand up with me for the first five minutes, then you can do anything you want after that. What? And he was, and Roy was obviously Roy. Yeah.

So he was gambling that he was going to knock me out in the first five minutes, which, dude, do I want to get hit by Roy Jones? No, I don't. But then he took the fight in Australia. He said, I've got to go do this fight in Australia first. Yeah. He got knocked out and get derailed all that. So the stars did not align. The stars did not align.

But these guys are much bigger names. I mean, not than Roy Jones or anything, but McGregor, obviously, a bigger name than I ever was. I was never close to that. So it's awesome. The fact, because I've been down that road, I know how massive of an undertaking it was to try and get it done, and he's done it.

How much, would you have made the most amount of money of your career if you got one of those two boxing matches? Yeah, by far. Yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't even make sense. Because you didn't have any promotional ties to anyone else or anything like that. Wow. Yeah. But it is what it is, right?

You think about it? You don't think about it? You don't think about it? You don't lament it? The only time I've thought about it is this trip when people are asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. That was probably like a decade ago now, right? When there were rumors of that. Why were you so interested in doing this? Why did you want to test yourself against two the best? I mean, look, no matter what, whether I were to win or to lose, okay, I fought rolling. I fought, Jones. Yeah. Like you're right.

That's an incredible experience in life, right? Right. I mean, it's, I look back and go, I totally forgot that I fought Dan Severn to a draw. And, you know, you'll think back and go, I fought Dan Severn. Like, that's, it's not easy. Yeah. I mean, it was a big dude. Sure, sure.

You know, when he was young. So, yeah, it was just, it's an accomplishment, right? It's just something, challenge yourself, do whatever you've got to do. And it's why I'm dumb enough to do a hundred mile race this August again. 100 miles. Yeah. Running? Yeah.

Damn. And it's a race? Called the Leadville 100, yeah. Where's that? Leadville, Colorado. Okay. Yeah, through the Colorado Rockies. Is it, in August?

August 19th. So a week before, and what kind of training is involved? A lot of running, obviously. A lot of run, yes. A lot of incline training because you're going over mountains and things like that. Why are you doing this? You know, some friends of mine from Iowa, John Byrne, who's a professor at a local college,

had trained with me in martial arts and decided one day he walked up to me and he goes man thanks for everything you've done for me I love it he goes but I'm going to try this thing called the Leadville 100 and I said what's that and he told me and I went holy cow all right go go for it and he had done it twice since then and he was doing it again last year and I said you know what I got to figure something out with my body because my body wasn't right

something was wrong and I figured if I set a goal like that something crazy I could pull my body out of the gutter and through that training and the torture I realized that I had something wrong with me, and I got blood tests, found out I was gluten intolerant. I had arthritis, breathing problems, digestive problems. I mean, it was bad. I mean, it was a lot heavier than I am now. And figured that out, stopped eating wheat and soy, and my body healed up, and I was able to start doing something.

I got to a, my longest run so far is 75 miles, so I did not finish it last year. I got hurt. Okay. What happened? I'm a clumsy son of a, you know. Yeah. I fell. And as I was following, I tripped and tried to catch myself and came down on uneven ground and

pop my calf and my knee. Oh, no. So I made it. That was literally eight miles into the thing. Oh. So I made it to the 24-mile cutoff where they kicked me out for being gimpy. That was last year? Yeah, last year.

And then you're doing it again. Yeah, I figured, you know what? I'll go back and try it again. There's people that have done it. You know, like David Clark, my running coach goes, dude, he goes, you realize there's a lot of people who have tried that who have never finished. It's like a 45% finishing rate. and everybody's way better runner than I am.

It's just my brother's doing it with me this year, and then my friend John Burns going back also and doing it. But I think it's the coolest sport I've ever seen in my life. Running. This is not running. This is an internal journey that people take that get over this 100-mile or greater runs. Even a 50-mile is tough.

Yeah. It can be brutal. Sure. But, you know, John Byrne last year, at the 50 mile mark after he'd gone over Hope Pass, which is almost 13,000 feet high, came down to the 50 mile mark and was hallucinating, had caloric deficit, dehydrated, altitude sickness, everything couldn't even form a sentence, had no clue, literally probably couldn't even tell you his name at the time.

We were dumping bullion in him, watermelon with salt, just anything we could get in him to rehydrate him and get him going, get his electrolytes back. And after he had to go back over that same mountain, which I'm telling you, when you look at that mountain, at the 50 mile mark, you realize, how massive of an undertaking it is. And I saw him at the 60 mile mark when he got back and he was brand new. He recovered while going over a mountain.

Wow. So you know that you're going to go through hell and you're doing this willingly? Like this might happen to you as well. You're okay with that? Well, I mean, during a 50-mile run last year in the heat in late June, I think it was, early July, I heat stroked for probably three, four hours.

Oh, my. It was pretty, and the rest of them were last. actually laughing at me. What? Your friends? They were laughing at me. Yeah. Some friends.

Well, that's what fighters do, right? That's true. The first time I got dropped with a liver shot by Jeremy Horny, ran around the room, high-fiving Hughes and Pulver. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all laughing at me, right? But that's the same mentality, right? How old are you now?

50. 50. Wow. That is amazing. And so what are you doing day to day? I mean, I know you still work for access, right? You're calling, I mean, you were just a couple days ago, right? weren't you?

I mean, LFA, the, I mean, it's a pretty rigorous schedule. I mean, 40, or, what, What do we at? 42 or 43 shows this year, yeah. Wow. A lot of flying. Yeah. But you enjoy it?

I do. I love it. Okay. I love working at Access. They're great people. You lost your partner. He moved back to Australia. Right.

That's off to him for making that move on his own, you know, on his own terms, went back, wanted to take his family back and raise the kids in Australia, which is, you know, awesome. He and I became very close over seven years of broadcast. Yeah, of course. And, you know, now Ron Kruk has replaced him. And I've worked with Ron before when Michael was taking vacation. Right.

So it's awesome. I love working with Ron and all the people from access, the people in the crew. They truly are. They're good people. We'll do workouts together. Okay. Thursday and Fridays, we're working out, doing a bunch of stuff.

We'll go do trail runs. We'll hike up a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado. Wow. Because they're from Denver. Yeah. So those guys are, they have that mindset. Yeah. You know, so it's a lot of fun working with those guys.

So other than the TV work, which obviously takes some time with the travel, what else are you doing day to day these days? Well, I still have a law enforcement military training company called Fire Horse Combatives, and then I do a podcast called The Conspiracy Farm. I have seen this. I was going to ask you about that. You know, there's a lot of people that are traumatized, but by some of the guests we have on and some of the things we talk about.

Traumatized. Oh, yeah. What do you mean? Well, there's a lot of stuff out there that people are never told by the mainstream media, and I'm just, you know, we just let it, we let it go. Are you a big conspiracy guy? Well, here's the thing. A conspiracy is when,

two or more people are conspiring to do something behind closed doors. Sure. Right? So the thought of conspiracy where people are wearing tinfoil hats and all this stuff, look, the stuff actually goes on. Okay. You know what I mean? So, you know, not to get off on a tangent, but people can just, we'll just say this one thing.

People can do a Google search on Silkway Airlines and 17,000 flight manifests of small arms all the way up to depleted uranium artillery rounds that are being shipped. into places like the stands in Chechnya and North Africa, into Syria and places like that. And why is that not talked about in our mainstream news, right? How are all these weapons, these very dangerous weapons, 17,000 cargo planes, flights, full of weapons into different parts of the world, wherever there's a conflict that needs to happen, these weapons seem to turn out. That's all I'm saying.

Why do you think? What's that? Why do you think? Why is it not being talked about? Well, you know, the media, you know, look, you work for, you work for a big, monstrous network here. I'm not part of it at all,

and they're not probably. But no, I'm just saying that people are given teleprompters to read off. Sure, sure. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just saying that there are things that are happening that shouldn't be happening. Okay. How do you feel?

And it's on both sides of the aisle politically. Right. Both sides of the aisle. I don't really know, I mean, I'm not a big political guy. I am Canadian, as you can see here, but I do live in the United States. How do you feel about the state of the country right now, just out of curiosity? I think the country's in a little bit of trouble, to be honest with you.

The fact that people are so polarized, it shouldn't be that way. Look, on our podcast, we're equal opportunity roasters. We go after Republicans and Democrats. If there's corruption, we go after them. And that's just the way it is. We're probably not well liked by some folks, but quite frankly, I'm not looking for people's approval. for people's approval. It's just not something I've sought in life.

So we just try to have guests on that are very informed, that are experts in what they're talking about. And they've got the documentation to prove it. And that's where we go. How did you get involved in this? It's like you and four, I think four or three other people. Myself and my co-host, Jeffrey Wilson. Yeah, okay.

We started it together. He hosts a podcast. He's down in St. Louis right now. He's from my area originally. Okay. He's going to be moving back. so that we can do an in-studio show. Okay.

Because it's growing quite a bit. It's getting a lot of attention. But when I was about six years old, I was standing in line in Albia, Iowa, with my grandmother and my mother. And I remember this perfectly. And it was when the farm collapse happened, and Nixon took us off the gold standard. Okay. Right? When we switched to the petro dollar, which nobody talks about either.

And all the bankers were in line down the street and around the block to all the farmers from the surrounding. were there to get their money out before the bank collapsed because of the rush. There was a rush on the banks. And we were in line early, but I remember asking my grandma and my mom why we were there. And they were trying to explain what was going on and that they had to get their money out and this and that. And I think from then on, I was just keen to things that were going on that one move by a group of bankers could destroy so many lives and make the farms implode and people have to auction

their farms off and things like that. And from then on, I've just been that way. I just don't, without verifying, I don't fully believe what I'm hearing. Okay. So that's just the way I've always been. Do you enjoy talking about this now at this point in your life and say combat sports? Is it a different kind of rep? I'm passionate about it.

Okay. I'll just say that. You know, for me, I can call a fight pretty easily. I think just from all the years of fighting and all the years of coaching, I had to spit information out to fighters fast during a fight. You know, that's got to be very fast when things are happening that quick. So I think that helps me in maybe informing people at home of what's going on and why things are happening, you know. And David Dinkins from Showtime was the one that said, you're the Y guy. You know, when I first started broadcasting for Showtime, he was very good about coaching me and said, you know, you're the Y guy.

Tell people why it's happening. Don't show a replay and go, oh, there's a big right hand by Jim Smith. How did he land it? Okay. Why did he land it? Would the other guy do wrong? Okay. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's pretty easy for me to call combat sports. The geopolitical and domestic stuff, I'm just, I'm keen to. And I like to peak other people's interest in it because obviously I have children and they're going to grow up in this country. I'd like for people to actually, you know, have a say. Have you tackled the JFK assassination yet? My partner, that's where he started his whole run down the rabbit hole when he was 17 years old. And he knows more about it than I literally know nothing.

Really? You're not interested in that? I am. I am interested in. I was just there. That's why there was a fight in Dallas. So I went to visit it. And I was just blown away. There's a guy standing there on a mic. Have you been? Yes. I've been to Dallas. And he's telling his whole story about the conspiracy and the multiple shooters. And literally right there. And then there's the museum. And the whole scene was just, it was kind of numbing. I mean, it was and you see the X on the.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Do you believe that there were multiple? I don't necessarily believe in terms of shooters, numbers of shooters. I believe that Kennedy, when you listen to his speeches, was against the machine. He was definitely against the globalists. And I think that there was a very good reason for taking him out. Let's put it that way. We had Lee Harvey Oswald's mistress from the CIA on, and she's got all this stuff documented.

Blow your mind. On your show? On our podcast. Yeah. That's crazy. So she, listen to that. Lee Harvey Oswald's mistress. It was a scientist for the CIA.

What? She got taken from high school. She went straight into the CIA. Okay. Because she figured out in high school how to pull magnesium out of seawater or something crazy, right? And she's got all this documented, all this stuff she's got, she kept all the documentation of her work in the CIA and the scientist she was working under. And she said that Lee Harvey Oswald and her were seeing each other. And Lee Harvey Oswald had been to Russia.

He had been sent to Russia to go to school. things like that and he didn't go over there just on his own whim yeah yeah yeah told to go there and go to college got back and he said I've been set up he goes I can't stop it I literally cannot and this is her saying this is his panicked conversation with her whatever it is they're doing now I know they've set me up I'm already I'm done I'm cooked I'm a communist they're already setting me up to be a communist I'm I'm done well it was it was like they framed him now I'm not saying that's true. Okay. And I'm saying that there's a lot of weird stuff with it. And,

but her, here's the crazy thing about her is they told her when she got hired, your job is to figure out how to give lab rats lung cancer in a week. You've got to be able, from the time you treat them, they need it. They actually have lung cancer in a week. She figured it out, right? How to do it? And then she found out why they were having to do that, because they were going to put that stuff, whatever she developed into Fidel Castro's cars so that he would get lung cancer. Oh my gosh. And she's, and I can't even remember her name offhand now, but she was one of our first guest, but amazing, amazing to listen to her.

Where can people see the show or listen to the podcast? They can listen to the show on iTunes. It's on YouTube too, right? Yes, it's on YouTube, yeah, called The Conspiracy Farm. All right, wow, that is, do you still watch MMA? I mean, are you a fan? I do, I watch it when it's a, you know, what I would deem, I guess, a big fight. How do you feel about the state of the sport right now? The state of the sport overall,

I think, could use some competition, frankly. Did you like what Belator is doing, signing free agents, getting a little more aggressive? I do. I would like to see Viacom, and it looks like they're giving Scott Coker a little more leeway and some of the stuff he's doing. Look, Coker's a dangerous guy. That guy can run a business. He's very good at what he does. And I'm hoping that, you know, at least there's two major organizations. If not, you know, with one over in Asia, if they can keep growing and start pulling guys away so that I want the athletes to be able to have people bid for them for their service.

There was a time like two years ago where Koko was saying that you were hitting him up to fight. Was that true? It was while I was training for the last Leadville. Okay. Are you still interested in fighting? Yeah, something like a Hoyst Gracie fight, something like that. Hansel Gracie, I think, just came out recently and said he's still interested.

Is he? Yeah. I wouldn't mind getting that one back. Yeah. I had a really bad neck in that one, and he's really good at choking people. Yes. So this is something you still kind of dabble with? I mean, look, the training

I'm doing now running long distances is far harder than training for a fight. It's just not, it's not even close. It's really not, Ariel. I'm sure you get bumps and bruises, training for fights and things like that, but you know, a 20 minute, 20 minute, 25 minute world title fight, the pain

that you go through or the fatigue you go through is nothing compared to running while the sun's up and then the sun goes down and you're still running, and then the sun comes up again, and you're still running. And that's a different level of pain. It's a totally different level of pain.

So I really don't have any problem. If it's the right person, absolutely. Wow. Does anyone still come up to you and say, hey, would you coach me? Would you corner me? Would you train me? I do get inquiries a lot.

I still get messages, people asking me to do that and stuff. And, you know, I don't know. It might have been, was it you? I talked to about my conversation with Brian Stan. No. In the back of a car, we were leaving ESPN. We had done the show together. It was the last show, you know, several years back.

MMA Live. Yeah. For three years, I had struggled that I wanted to get out of coaching. I just had too much going on. I had the gym. I was coaching. I had my law enforcement military training company. I was working for three TV networks, ESPN Showtime, and Access TV.

And my life was just, it was overwhelming. Feast or famine type thing. And it was a feast. And it was out of control for several years. years there and I just I was losing my mind I wasn't seeing my kids ever anything like that yeah and we got it was the last show before the Christmas break and I had two or three weeks off I think and I I was on the phone with my daughters and I hung up with them I said I love you I make you breakfast in the morning and hung up and he goes I've got two daughters too and he goes you know what and then he looked at me

and you got to remember this is a guy I'm looking at him with the mindset of I got to get out of coaching It's just there's too much going on. And he looks at me and he goes, you know Patty? He goes, I've killed a lot of people. And he goes, and after or during each firefight that I was in with explosions going off and bullets bouncing off huskew and rocks and stuff around me, I wondered what the meaning of life was every single time. And he goes, I finally came to the conclusion that the greatest thing a man could ever do

is raise his kids the right way and get them off on the right foot. And I just looked at him and went, I'm done. That's it. that moment, I quit. And when I got back to Iowa, I went on vacation to Florida with my family, I basically said, I'm done. After Christmas break and all that,

I'm not going to be here. Wow. I'm done. That's it. And that's when you... Find a different coach. Wow. And has anyone come to you and you were like,

ah, this is a project here? This is someone that I... No, Ted from Team Takedown years back. Yep, I remember. Offered me. Ted Earhart. I'm down there. Yep.

When I said, Ted, you don't have the money. Okay. You're a millionaire, but you don't have the money, trust me. Okay. To do it again. Wow. It would have to be a massive amount of money to get me to coach again. I'm assuming you still keep tabs on Robbie Lawler?

That is your guy? Absolutely. He's fighting this weekend. Did you know that? Yeah, absolutely. He's fighting Donald Serroney. You like this matchup? Look, Donald Serroney's a dangerous guy.

Yeah. He's proven to be dangerous over and over again. What does Rob gain by beating him? Ah. Right? Yeah. If I'm Rob's manager, I would have never let that fight happen. Interesting.

Not saying that Robbie's going to get beat by him, but it's just, look, Seroni's a dangerous, dangerous dude. Yeah. He hits hard, he kicks hard, he's versatile, he's great on the ground. The guy has no joke. He's world class, and he has been for years. So if they would have said, you know, these are your choices, take Soroni off that list right now. Huh. That's a no-win situation.

Why do you take it? Robbie will fight anyone. Yeah. It's up to the management to figure that part out, right? And say, no, we're not taking that fight. Not happening. Robbie went through, for how many years was it, a two-year run of fighting constantly and beating the baddest dudes on the planet in that weight division at a rate that was unbelievable.

Yeah, it was. He was fighting the baddest dudes and beating people and having absolute wars with guys, right? Yeah. You get done doing that, and then he finally gets to. to the Woodley fight and I said I said to Matt Hughes at the time I said Matt make sure he gets out of that first round with Woodley man

because Tyron is so explosive early on in a fight that he can put anybody away. That's a scary scary man when he hits you solid or starts hitting doubles on you and stuff and you know Rob didn't make it out of the first round he got clipped and got put away

so that was after that run that mental and physical role coaster that the guy goes through for each camp and each fight. It's very difficult on the mind and the body to do that. He's amazing that he pulled it off. Do you want to see him stop fighting? No. Okay. I wouldn't say that. I think that the time he's taken off was very good. Yeah. But he changed camp. I mean, he had so much success with ATT. And now it seems like he's with Henry Hooft a little bit kind of doing his own thing. Henry Hoof's an incredible trainer. Yes. I would say this, that Rob's success came from him maturing and realizing that he needed to go back down to 170. Okay. Could do

this at 170, you know, when he came back, when he, he was fighting, you know, I was calling his fights in Strike Force, and I went, Rob, just dropped to 170 and go win the damn world title and make millions of dollars and take care of your family. Yeah. And he goes, I just, I like the test of fighting these bigger guys, Pat, and I go, you're not going to be a world champ. Nobody's running you over like a truck, but you're not going to be a world champ. Right. You know, you're walking around at 192 pounds. You can't fight guys that walk around at 225. It's just doesn't work very well. You know what I mean. So he finally listened.

He matured and realized he could do it. And he asked, the first fight back in the UFC, I held pads for him in the gym back in Bettendorf. And he asked me to train him. And I said, I can't. I can't do it, dude. I just can't. I've got broadcasting. I've got this.

I've got that. And I'd be doing you a disservice to say that I'm going to train you. Go somewhere. Go to AT&T and get a bunch of good training partners and stuff like that. And go do it. And he did it. So, this has been a blast.

It really has. I feel like I could talk to you for another two hours, get your take on everything, but unfortunately we were at a time. This is on zero sleep too. Really? Yeah.

Why? Red Eye? I got into my hotel about three something in the morning. Gosh, where are you coming from? Iowa? Yeah, I delayed forever. Got to be imported.

Ligordia at two something. Hotel 340 something, and then fell asleep maybe for an hour. Gosh, and you've been going all around talking about this fight. Yeah, so I'm, I'm a lot of coffee area. Yes.

I'm so happy that you are a part of this. This is news. I didn't know that you were a part of it. I thought they were just having you kind of... I wasn't going to say anything until I got out here. That's great. Congratulations. Well deserved.

And I think it was so great. You know, again, the sport is still young to where we don't have a lot of retired fighters who don't have ties to the UFC. And that's the one thing. Like, I like when I hear from Stan or Kenny Floreen. You know, the retired guys because, okay, well, when it's on Fox, they're kind of working for the UFC. You get my point. But we need more guys like you and Randy Coutour, who's.

doing some stuff with PFL because there are no strings attached. And I think you call it like you see it. And you've always done a fantastic job. So I'm really happy that Showtime called your number and that you're going to be a part of it. So it's August 26. You'll be a part of the broadcast. Are you doing anything leading up to it as well? Well, we're going to film tomorrow. Pauli Malinagia and I are going to film tomorrow breaking down the fight. Great. Do some techniques, things like that, difference in stances, whatever. I love that. How to rebuild an M.MA fighter into a boxer, so to speak, and then breaking down those particulars of the fight. Tremendous. Well, I wish you the best. Thank you for stopping by.

They're going to escort you out here. The guys are going to come back in and good luck. Yeah, that's it. Appreciate it. There he is. The Croatian sensation himself, Pat Militch stopping by. How cool is that? And in a second, we're going to be joy.

This is like a hockey game. We say goodbye to one and we say hello to another. Let me just alert the masses here that Jimmy Rivera is in studio. I don't want to be rude. Wow, look at you. You look so different, Jimmy. Let me just tell everyone. Boom, boom, boom, Jimmy Rivera in studio.

This is a... You see that? Boom, there we go. Welcome. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Did you get a haircut? Yeah, I had to. I mean, I only look like a beast for the fight. And after the fight, I have to get professional again.

It's actually sometimes, you know, I get yelled out because my coach is Tiger Shoman. I own a Tiger Shoman school on the 23rd Street. So when I'm looking like an animal buffoon with the beard and my hair and all that, he's like, how do you sign people up? Like, you got to get rid of that. I tell people right away, I'm training for a fight. I have a fight coming up. Again, you're not going to be a fighter.

I'm going to get you in good shape. But I have to look the part, I tell them. to say something. I like this, Jimi Rivera. You look like a completely different person. If I walk by you on the street, I would not recognize you with that hair. I thought that you had like a receding hair line and you were covering it up with the long hair. Oh, no, no. I got some hair still, thank God. Beautiful hair. Thank you. So what do you do? Like when you prepare for a fight, you just let it go nuts? Yeah, kind of like, you know, Samson, near his Sam. Kind of same thing. I let my grow up my beard and I actually don't cut my hair until after the file, trimming a little bit on the sides because of work and

teaching and all that. But my students know, like, all right, he's training for a fight. You see the hair growing out and all this. I never keep it super long ever. Wintertime, I do. Because in the city, you know you're walking down the blocks. Wind tunnels. It's really windy. So it's like a scarf on your face. So it feels good. But in the summertime, man, it's rough. And mentally, you do this to get you ready? Yeah, it's like a superstitious thing. Mentally, I think of Samson and that whole theory. And I just kind of do it and it's been a part of me ever since I've been fight it and I'm staying to it. Wow. All right. Well, congratulations on the

win. Thank you for stopping by. Of course. You're a New Jersey guy, but you live in Brooklyn now. No, I'm actually, I still live in Jersey. Oh, you do? Somehow I got mixed up. What happened was a lot of fighters from Tiger Shomans, whatever school they work at, they'll plug in that name, so it plugs in the school.

One day, I finally kind of like I was like, and not that I got tired of it, I'm like, you know what? I'm from Ramsey, New Jersey. I'm born and raised there. Actually, I moved there I was like eight or nine, and I'd been there ever since until I moved out after college. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to put where I'm from. I'm a Jersey guy.

People think I'm from Brooklyn. And I'm like, I have nothing against Brooklyn. I love Brooklyn. I worked in Brooklyn for a couple years. Let me tell you, Brooklyn was unbelievable. But I'm like, I'm from Jersey, so let me fix it. So I live in Jersey, but Monday through Saturday, I'm in the city teaching at my school on East 23rd Street. And before I actually went to the city school and before I started teaching there and taken

And over there, I was working in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, on A6 and New York Trick. Okay. And I was there for almost about a year, a little over a year, helping, you know, I went to different schools that basically, when I was like 18, 19, to help schools, like, build up and be assistant there and help them build and basically make sure they have the coverage they need and that they had enough assistant on the mats and stuff like that. And so they helped the students get better. And then eventually I found my home in the city, surprisingly. And I've been doing ever since I've been at 23rd Street location for about three or four years as an owner now, five years working there. So you fully own the school? Yes, I do.

But it's a Tiger Shulman school. Yes, it is. Okay, so how does that work? You kind of like license the name? Yeah, basically in the way, it's a franchise. Okay. You buy in. The thing that's different, other franchises that you can't buy from the outside.

A lot of people that are in an organization that grew up buy into the school. Not anyone could buy into the school. They did it one time, and it doesn't work. as well. You know what I mean? A lot of times you'll see in every Tiger Sherman school, the instructor,

the head instructor is the owner. Okay. And that's what makes it so special. That's your canvas. That's what you're painted on. And you want the students to do really well. You want them to blossom. So the biggest thing is that it's hard not being there,

but my students understand when I have a fight coming up or right after a fight, I take a day or two off just to recover. And then I get back in teaching again because, you know, it's not the same when you're not there. Yeah. You know what I mean? It doesn't get ran the same way.

So a lot of the head instructors are the owners of the school and they run the school and it's honestly a great franchise i grew up in it i've been there since i was nine years old and from being in there and everything i've accomplished from it because it didn't just help me was m mb but it helped me with school other sports i played you know people wouldley thought i was a college restaurant i'm like no i just did i just did wrestling in high school because my my instructor at the time and my boss was like you need to do wrestling you need to do something yeah yeah and he made me do that actually i was so happy he did and our wrestling coach on the team, I worked with him constantly after high school because I wanted

to get better at it. I wasn't good at it. And I'm professionals at the end of the day. So I worked on it nonstop. And it led to being able to stop your right favor and not letting me take me down. You mentioned backstage when you were talking to some of the media after your win that you were bullied as a kid and that's part of the reason why you wanted to get into this and to try to now teach kids about self-defense and having confidence and things like that. How badly were you bullied? I was a new kid at school. So the way I dressed, because I was from like 20 minutes south, and the kind of way I acted was completely out of their realm.

How different was your tire? It wasn't different much at all. I just, you know, I guess I wasn't the cool kid, I guess, in a way. How old were you? Me, I'm 28 now. No, how old were you when this was? I was about eight years old when I moved. And then, so what happens a lot of times where parents don't realize is that kids start to act out.

So what happened was, in school I was getting picked on, and was getting bullied, and at home I was acting out. So my mom was like, I need you getting something. So she brought me in for discipline. Where I didn't tell her it was I was getting picked on at school. I didn't know what to do. And a lot of times parents tell kids, listen, I want you to defend yourself. You can't tell a kid.

You defend himself and don't teach them how to do it. So that's where I come in. And I get a lot of kids I tell you to come in that are getting picked on. You know what I mean? They're getting bullied, especially with social media now and how it's so easy. They're getting bullied. So I'm there to help them first defend themselves.

actually know what they're doing. And secondly, to build their confidence, because it doesn't matter what people say, look, a lot of people tweet it right now that I don't deserve the dominant cruise fight. And I get a whole bunch of people that are like, oh, you definitely deserve that fight. And I laugh at it because I don't really care what people think. I care what I think. My wife and my coach and my family, and that's it. No other friends, no one else doesn't bother me. You can say whatever you want, it doesn't bother me. I just laugh at it. It comes with the territory, and it's okay. So I teach kids this, and it's great because I could kind of, to relate them more because I'm in the spotlight, especially when a fight's coming on.

And I tell them, like, listen, I give them the experiences after every class, I sit down and I talk to them where it was about bullying, about something that I brought up when we were talking after the fight was not quitting spirit, where we teach kids not to give up, about discipline, self-discipline, you know, someone tells you do it like a teacher, you do it right away, but self-discipline, you know, where you don't have to be told to do it, you do it right away on your own. And we just build the kids. So this way, listen, the last kid I had who worked with me actually was this fight. and the favor fight is in Harvard right now

and got a ride to Harvard and his wrestling Harvard. He started at six years old. The kid was like yay high. And he was so scared with everything he tried and all these things. I worked with him nonstop. He went into a tournament. He came back a killer.

And then he was like, I had to rip him off with kids. I'm like, you can't do this. You got to help him. You're not trying to kill him. And the kid did unbelievable. He's a great kid. I actually talked to him recently and see how he was doing

because he helped me with a fight and hurt his knee a little bit. And I think of him all the time and where he started from and where he came. I work with so many kids and it's just unbelievable where they were. And now I'm 28 and I'm like, man, I feel like I'm old, but I'm not.

Because these kids are in college now. They're graduating. They're getting jobs. I'm like, this is crazy from doing this from when I was a little kid and now. I've read that you said that you only want to fight for like a couple more years and then really focus on the school.

Is that true? That's true. Yeah. What are we thinking here? Like really too? You're on a 25 winning streak. You're on the verge of fighting for a belt, winning a belt.

There's so much more to do. I feel like you're just getting started. I don't know. I mean, what's the cutoff? What do you think the cutoff of fighting is? You're 28. I know, but what do you think the cutoff is?

I don't know what the cutoff is. Randy Coutor did it into his late 40s. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's pretty good. I feel like, you know, he still responds really well. I just, I don't want to be punched out of the end of day. I want to be able to start a family. My friends have kids, like Shane Bergels was on a card.

He has a baby daughter. And it's crazy. There's a struggle when you have kids and you have to fight. I don't want to look like my kids. Once I have kids, that's it. It's all about them. It's not about me anymore. It's not about me at all.

It's about them and my wife. And I'm like, so there's a certain point that I do want to stop. And I want it just to focus on my starting a family and my school only. And that's it. I mean, it stinks in a way that I have to take away from my students because I have to get ready for a fight. Okay. You feel bad. I do.

I do. I love teaching them. I love working with them. It's just, you know, there's certain days. I have to take off or I got to come in late because I'm training was long on MMA, was Bermudas and them, or I got to take off that day because training's really hard. As you get older too, your body doesn't recover like it used to, so you feel it. So there's certain times like that where I'm like, you know, I feel bad and I'm being selfish,

but I have to be so I can get ready for the fight and win. So you think two years you're done? I don't think two years. Okay. I heard you said couple years. Yeah, a couple years. Yeah, I don't think two years. All right, all right.

Maybe like 35. Okay, okay. Well, now we're talking. All right. That makes a lot more sense. So you win on Saturday, great performance, 20 in a row. You beat Thomas Almeda. You kick off the main card on Fox.

Overall, were you happy with your performance? You know what? I'll be honest to you. I looked at it. I watched it. You watched it. I sat down, had dinner with my wife, my mom and family friends.

And I looked at it. I'm like, the fight was on. I'll put the fight on. Someone texted me. Put the fight on. I listened to commentate. And I was just like, there's always more I can do. and I think the layoff wasn't good for me

thinking about having that much time off but it is what it is and I always, I'm a perfectioner on the day I always want to be able to not just dominate your favorite fight I dominated I want to have it like that the whole fight where he's just not in control at all there was sometimes he gained control

there was sometimes I gave him some space so he could so it's all on me I've got to fix some things I saw I can use my jab a little more I watched the fight and I'm like all right I always like to get a finish Even when I do get a finish, like Marcus Brimms when I came and I finished him, there was things I sat down with my coach. He's like, next time you do it do it like this or this way they can't grab you.

Like I rocked, I'll made it twice. But it's my fault because I rocked him twice, but I was so close to him that he was able to grab on. Once someone grabs on, now how are you going to keep getting them? You have to get them off so you can keep rocking them and finish the fight. So, you know, I was a little bit upset about it, but that's me because I'm reflections out of the day. Everybody else tells me I did a great job. But I'm always hard to myself. I always want to keep getting better

so I could get that belt. And so I thought that, I mean, I thought it was a very clear-cut victory for you. There's no controversy whatsoever. You can make a case that you won all three rounds. At best, he won one. Maybe the second, right? Second round, yeah.

Do you think he won that officially? Watching the fight, it could have went either way. He had that one moment where he stunned me. Yeah, yeah. But that was the only moment. Then you see every exchange is like he throws, I throw, I finish their exchange. Or I throw the exchange and I finish the exchange.

So it's like, it could have went either way. way, but I let it be. I definitely agree it was the first round, 10-8, rocked him twice, you know, dropped him twice. And then the third round, you know, my coach came in, it was like, because we have, going in a fight, we have a couple game plans. And I could have grappled him and wrestled him and grinding it out,

but I was trying to knock him off. I was trying to make a statement. Yeah. I mean, I want that title shot or that number one contender shot. And I was trying to knock him out the whole fight, to be honest with you. And there was a point where my coach comes in, I want you to take him down. I'm like, all right, no problem. So I set up to take down. I saw that knee. It was perfect time. I shot in

my double, ripped him off the cage, took him down, ground and pound. I'm like, you know what? All right, get back up. Let's go. Let's go back up. I honestly let him back up so I could try to knock him out and try to finish the fight. But I could have kept it there if I wanted to. There was another time, actually, I hit a scramble.

I went from his back. And I'm like, wow, he hit a switch. I was impressed that he hit a switch and got back up. I'm like, I was nice. And I kept going after that. But it's funny. Like, my head's always in the game. I'm always thinking and like, oh, do this, do that.

and I think I definitely steal the first and third round for sure 100%. And then of course you know the game. You get on the mic afterwards and this is not maybe your style, but you went after it. You called out Dominic Cruz, T.J. Dillishaw, you said, you know, stop warming the bench, get up. And it's amazing that he's sitting right there. Now what did you say to him when you walked over to him?

I was like, that's basically no disrespect. We need a fight. Yeah. I mean, and then he's, you know, he responded to you on the broadcast. You heard this, right? I heard the broadcast saying that, I need a belt to hold my little boy pants up, which I was just like, all right, I mean, I don't know,

he's got his own corny little lines, but it's funny. He's a smart ass at the end of the day. I think it's funny. I laugh at his comments. They humor me, you know what I mean? So then he said something about, oh, he definitely should respect me or something like that. Because I'm a humble guy at that end of day.

I'm professional. I've grown in the martial arts, just like St. Pierre. Growing in the martial arts, and you never are cocky. You never are going to, you know, bad mouth or anything like that. You always stay humble. but in this game you have to speak your mind. So I'm never going to be a Connor McGregor, but I'll say in confidence that I could beat Dillashaw,

I could beat Cruz, I could be Cody, I just need the one opportunity to do it, and it'll happen. Do you think you'll get the Cruz fight? I hope so. I hope so. What do you think? I would love to see it

and I would love to see it maybe on the same card as Cody and Dillashah, right? Because I feel like now you have a little four men. I mean, it's very clear that you guys are at the top four Bantamwaits in the world. But he came on my show maybe an eight, April, and this was before the Cody Garbrand injury, and he said, all right, they're going to fight in July, and then I'll wait it out, and then I'll fight the winner in December.

And so I got the feeling that he's okay with waiting. He's doing TV and things like that. So I won, and based on his comments on Saturday, I wonder if he's really going to be, you know, willing to fight you to get to the title shot when he already thinks that he's going to get the title shot right away. You know what I'm saying? Because you're a dangerous opponent for him, younger, on this role, et cetera. Yeah, I feel like I'm really dangerous for him and a couple of people brought it out. I mean, listen, Dominic Cruz's game, what do you think of this game? He can mix it up really well

and hit takedowns. If you stop his takedowns, just like Cody did, what does he have? Not much. He swings for the fences. He's not a good box. You're not impressed with his striking. No, not at all. Not impressed at all. He's good with his striking. It's set up his takedowns, but as long as you can stop

his takedowns. The head movement, the unorthodox. He don't like the dance. It's just for, it does it so you can throw. You try to throw away your shot so he could counter and and hit his take down, it's not going to happen. I mean, I'm like, was all experience I have and watching him fight, I'm ready for him. I just need the opportunity.

You know what I mean? That's why I even said, you know, if Cody can't fight, you know, I still seeing Cody on on social media, he's still like recovering, recover and recover recovering. I mean, November's coming by quick. If he can't fight, I'll step in, I'll fight TJ and I'll fight Cody for the real bell and take it from him. You were calling out TJ a few months back. You really wanted to fight him.

Is there something there between you two? Listen, the guy, I trained with him a couple years, Oh yeah, where? Alpha male? No, it was actually in Milwaukee. At the time, I wasn't in the UFC yet. He just finished the ultimate fighter, I believe, or he was going to fight in the finale, one of the two. And I went out to Milwaukee, to Pettis's gym, to Rufus Sports.

Why are you there? My buddy, my Lewis Gallano, the guy was in the green here at 25, was fighting Tim Elliott. So me and my buddy, Nick, were out there, and we were training in Faber and Dillshaw. And they're walking in, I'm like, oh, this is cool. Am I really going to get to train with them? This is when I was like, you know, like a little kid. So I got to train with them like, wow, I'm like, I thought they were going to be, you know, a lot better. I put him on this pedestal.

I'm like, but they're not. I'm like, I'm at the same level as them. And then I got to spar T.J. And I was just like, wow, this guy is like one of the top up there at 1.35. And I'm sparring him and I'm piecing him up and having fun with him. Like, it was just fun. I wasn't even in shape. Wow.

I mean, I just went in there and had some fun. I didn't have a fight coming up at all. I was just actually there just for more support for my buddy Lewis. helping him cut the weight because, you know, the weight cuts are always the worst and get beat up in the back. You know what I mean? That's your job. When you're there for your buddy, you're there to help him cut weight. And then you get beat up in the back room.

So you go over there and beat the other guys' butt, you know? So I sparred with him. I had fun. I piece him up a little bit. I actually ended up getting a video of it because one of my coaches was videotaping it. I sent a couple friends somehow it leaked. Yes, I've seen this. One of my friends was really upset about the whole, you know, not being able to fight or something like that.

I don't even know. And I ended up leaking out. And I didn't really, I didn't really, you know, at first I'm like, oh, why did you do that? And the second, I'm like, you know, I don't even care. I'm like, it is what it is. I swore T.J. He's good, but I'm better.

So I just, I can beat him if you want. I mean, I think it'd be nice actually fight Cody. So I already beat Fabor. I beat up Thill Shaw and Sparring. Let me beat Cody. I finished the alpha male team up. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Or like, Cruz likes to say beta male team up and then, you know, go on to the next thing.

So. TJ has been accused of being a little too rough and sparring. you? I mean, I don't know how to be it would have been rough. I was piecing him up. I don't think he was, you know, like I don't let anybody disrespect me in Sporn. Even my teammates, we both go, like my teammates, we'll go hard at it, but afterwards we're friends. And then especially someone, it's like almost like I'm walking into someone else's gym. He's walking in someone else's gym. I pretend it's like my gym. You walk in there, that's fine. You're going to try to hurt me. I'm going to try to hurt you too. Because at the end of the day,

you're going to respect me. We go to boxing gyms in the hood, my team and I, and it's like, It's really ghetto, it's really hood, but you walk in there, and after a while I was being there, like, they start to respect us. These MMA guys can box, they're good, and it's funny. You see the difference everybody, and they're talking. The whole boxing world and that, I kind of had already a feeling of it, and I know McGregor was kind of new to it, but I already been in it, especially training the gyms, like Glenn Tapie, it was, Glenn Tapie's gym, Jersey Boy, and being around those guys and how they act.

It's funny. I laugh at it, and I just find it humorous, but it's awesome. It's cool to get a day. different look at it. Let's address what happened in January. You were supposed to fight Brian Carraway, right? Brian Carraway pulls out of the fight, and then you're offered a fight against Marlon Vera.

And initially, you said yes to it, but then after talking to your team, you said, thanks but no thanks. And it seems like he's still upset about this. And to be honest, I think the UFC was upset about it because you kind of gave them a verbal commitment and then said, on second thought, I don't want to do it. What happened? Tell us the story. I think really what happened, which was a miscommunication,

My manager at the time said yes, I believe. But we all- Carraway pulled, they offered and he said yes. I think said yes at the time. And what happened was my manager, my coach, and I didn't get to sit down and actually discuss about it. Okay. We just jumped a gun.

And then I literally sat down with UFC a couple weeks after that and just said, you know, I apologize for it. I manned up to it. It's my fault. And that was it. We squashed it. Okay. So you made a comment that like you don't want to,

beat him up, Marlon Vera, because his daughter. And he addressed this unsolicited on Saturday because he was on the card. And he was like, look, you should have beat me out because I would have gotten paid if you care so much about my daughter. I don't like these comments. And now he wants to fight you, of course, still. He's riding my coat tail. He's doing what I was doing to other people. I'm going to let him keep riding it.

And I'm just going to focus on what's best for me. Okay. At the time, you know, I'm a fighter at the end of the day. So you don't think about, you know, what's best for you. You just want to fight everybody. Yeah. But I didn't want a easy paycheck. What I want to do was I want the belt.

It's always been my goal. Why don't just get the money? UFC. Pat that account. That bank account. Pat that account. No? I have a school that does really well.

Fight-in is for fun. Okay. You don't really need to do this. I don't need to do this. I can survive as my school. Wow. And that's how I do survive. Okay.

You know what I mean? You see a lot of people, a lot of people, you know, I love the UFC and everything like that. I have nothing against them. But to live as a fighter salary is not enough for a person. Sure. It really isn't. Unless you're making like McGregor money, I guess I'll call it,

Mayweather money, but it's not going to live on it. That's why I have my first passion. That's why I'm always focused on my school and running my school. And that's really it. The fighting money is actually a little fun money. It's to spoil my family, it's to spoil my wife, to get whatever she wants, those observes. She wants a new fee and at St. Bernard.

All right, we're going to get the new fee now. Let's go get the newfis. And we did well this weekend. Let's go get the new fee. Newfee is what, a dog? Yeah, Newfoundland. It's a 160 pound dog. The head is like the size are our two heads put together.

Gosh. They're huge. Why do you want such a big dog or why does she want one? She loves them. She loves them. She loves them. You're getting that. Yes, we are actually getting that.

Thank you, Thomas Almeda. Thank you, Almeida. We are getting that. So it's really just for, I don't want an easy pay day. I always came into it when I got my chance back in the UFC. From Marcus Bermanichon, I want the belt. That is my goal. I have never looked at the money.

I let my management, my coaches deal with that. The only thing I do is when we sit down, us three, my new manager I have now, my coach and myself, they tell me who what their options are, we discuss it, and I basically say, okay, what do you guys think? They tell me, I'm like, all right, I guess that's what we're doing, because they know better than me. I'm 28, they're in the 40s, 50s, they lived it, they've been through it all, they know know better, and I let them choose it because they had the best interest for me, and that's

the way it has to be. Because, you know, a fighter at the day, you'll hear every person. I'll fight anybody. Yeah. Why are you going to fight someone and not be able to your success? Why am I going to fight someone that's a win and lose record, but it's not going to help me get closer to the belt? When I sat down with the UFC and they said, I'll made a fight,

and that was going to get me closer to the belt, I said, right, let's do it. And so I don't know if it has anything to do with what happened in January, but I still feel like they're not getting behind you. And I mentioned this to you on Saturday. You weren't a part of the open workouts, which blows my mind. You're in a 19-fight winning streak.

Why aren't you featured there? I mean, even the fact, that they brought you to the back, when there's like two media people there and not to the press conference afterwards, when everyone's there, it just kind of feels like you're on a 25 winning streak. That does not happen every day. Where is the love? Do you think it stems from what happened in January? Do you think there's something else there? Do you think they're going to get behind you now? Am I completely off here? Do you feel the love? How would you address this? And I'm not trying to be a troublemaker here, but this is just my opinion from afar. I think it could be from January. I think I'm back on the good good news. You are. Okay. And I'm I honestly, you know what? I don't really know until my manager Lloyd calls me up and says, I spoke to Sean and this is how I was going to go. And you know if it's good or bad. But obviously, you know, it's hard because you do want to please them. But at the end of the day, you have to look out for your best interests.

But I'll never, obviously, ever say anything bad. They're a great company. They've supported me. When I hurt my eye against favor, they took care of me. They took care of my family. They helped me buy the house I wanted. I can't say anything bad about them at all. hopefully now that

I take them off a little bit in January and it's my fall and we settle the score hopefully now after this win back under Graces and we... Because you don't seem like a troublemaker. I don't at all. But you seem like the kind of guy they should get behind and push more. Yeah, I hope so. I gotta see what happens and go from there.

Maybe it's the haircut. Maybe they haven't seen you like this. It's like this, the clean cut. The gentleman's haircut. I mean, actually, I'm very clean cut except for the two months going in. I know. I mean. And I, you know, there's no need to Like, you know, they always get the speech in the back, especially when you're off Fox. Don't curse or anything like that. I don't feel a need to curse.

I don't have to curse off the crowd or anything like that. They could cheer and boo. I just, I love the sport. It's fun. And, you know, one in your life, can you say I stepped in front thousands of people and got my hand raised against All-Made and I beat him? You know, I beat a legend like you're eye favorite. Now who's in the Hall of Fame of MMA? Like, how do you, when do you get that?

Like, you don't. What drug compares to it? Nothing. What drink? There's nothing to compare. That feeling when your arm is raised and they're saying your name and you win by knockout, you know what I'm going to, it just feels unbelievable. So I love it. You know what I mean? It's a little addicting. But at one time in my life, you know, years from now, you know what I'm saying? Not a couple

years from now. Sure, sure. Good, good. I'm going to have to look back and be like, man, I do miss him. But at least I did everything possible to get that belt. Okay. At least I leave it all out there, just like every fight. On Thursday, actually, it's good you weren't at the media workouts because you were doing something way better and way more interesting and way cooler. You met Al Pacino. Al Pacino was awesome. I'm glad you brought it up. Yes, it's incredible. I saw the photos. How did this happen? So I'm with Balagie Group Brown. Yeah. My great group, Lloyd. Lloyd, the man, Lloyd Pearson. Lord Pearson. And his marking head right there, David, his mother-in-law actually works with Al Pacino's and Scarface. So somehow, coincidence, they're filming right now.

Joe Paterno. Yeah. The head coach from Penn State. Yes. He's paying Joe Paterno. So he's like, hey, they're right around. They're like literally five minutes away. I'm like, I know you're trying to get your mind off the weight cut and all that.

I'm like, yeah, let's go. I'm down. Wow. We literally walked there. We waited like 15, 20 minutes. Actually, when I met him and we took the pictures, people were like, is that out? He doesn't look like him. He was still in makeup.

He was going to shoot and he had makeup of all the stuff. Didn't look like him initially, but then you could tell it to him. Yeah. He basically almost looks like him was the nose. And they obviously it did his nose within his ears. So we start talking, I swear I If he didn't have to go film more, we started talking about boxing, about everything.

It could have let on for like an hour or two conversation. He was cool. The fact that his age and he's still acting and he's in this hot weather, it was a bad, bad heat wave last week. It's just unbelievable. The guy is really, really talented, unbelievable guy, nicest guy. It was so funny.

I actually just got a text from Lloyd before I came on the show was like, yeah, alcohol. My mother-in-law asked me what channel was, watch the fight said unbelievable fight. Very smart fighter, definitely going to be a champion one year. And I was just like, if that doesn't get you, I don't know what, I was almost about to cry.

I was like, this is awesome. I mean, it's not every day you get to meet someone like that and be like, oh my God, like, you know, I watch your movies, you're talented, I'm a fan. Yeah. I mean, even when we go to fights, I see fighters, I'm like, hey, I'm a fan. Can I get a picture?

You're still a fan. You got to love. You can't be above it. And then, you know, people start looking at me. you're like, well, you're Jimmy Rivera, can I get pictures? I'm not something special. I'm just a guy that fights. I believe the same color as you. I'm an ordinary guy. He's like, no,

but this and that. And I try to tell I'm nothing special, man. I'm just a regular guy. I love what I do, teaching, I love what I do fighting, and I do it for, because I love it. Meeting a living legend like Pacino just two days before your fight. I tweeted the pictures you did as well, so people can see it. It's online, go on your Instagram.

I think you posted it as well. That must have been, I mean, that's kind of inspirational to meet a guy like that as you're preparing. And I know he's a big boxing fan, right? Huge. He knows his boxing. He does. We were talking. I was like, wow. I'm like... Does he know his M.MA? Not as much.

Not as much. We talked... He's an old school guy. Yeah, we talked about the McGregor-Mayweather. Yeah. But he wasn't at in tune as in like, you know, talking about Triple G and the Canella about the other, you know, the other boxing matches going on. But he knows his stuff. And when he, you know, when he met me and we started talking, we just hit it off like that. And I was, it was awesome.

That fact that he actually, you know, called David's Well, hey, when it was a fight and what time, where is it? And there's like five minutes before the fight. He's like, it's on, no, not Fox. Go ahead. tune in real quick. You watch it. And then what he said afterwards, I was just like, this is, this is, you know, when do you get this?

You never get this. Sure. I mean, once in a lifetime kind of thing. So it was awesome. You mentioned that you trained with Bermudas and some of the guys on Long Island. People may not remember this, but you fought Bermuda on tough and you lost. It's actually your only stoppage loss, right, in your career. Did you have any as an amateur?

No, no. How's it? I have, so that was exhibition. Yeah. So that was stopped. And, you know,

that fight, it's my fault. I didn't train right. And then my only one loss, so my two fights, so everybody, everybody always haggles me about it, be like,

oh, you're not undefeated. I'm like, I'm actually undefeated at 135. I'm Italian and Puerto Rican. So my biggest problem is I can't put down the fork. I love to eat. Okay. So my first two fights,

I figure, all right, I fight at 150. That's what I walk around at 150. I'll fight at 150, and I'll make successful a career at it. And I'm not, knowing the weight classes as well. I mean, going into my pro debut, because I fought at 147, so I didn't understand the weight classes that well. I did seven fights amateur at 147 as an amateur,

went 7 and 0, and then I was like, I look at my coach. I'm like, I had four fights kickboxing, won a belt, went four and oh. So I was 11 and 0 going into my pro debut, and I was, you know, going to my pro career, I'm like, look at my coach. I'm like, can I fight pro now? He's like, let's do it. So I fought my first fight at 150, won by unanimous decision. My second fight I lost by a split decision. I literally walked in the cage. I was like, that guy did not look like that yesterday. He was like 170 huge. I was like, what the heck. So my coach just thought I won the fight was to stand up, because he would just take me down, I would get back up, beat him up, take me down, get back up. And that's how the whole fight went. Afterwards, my coach was, you know, hit me back ahead like a kid.

I was like, you're going to start cutting a wait now. I'm like, who is she on? I'm going to start cutting of weight. So since that fight, I fought at 1.35 and had the most success. I won 35, and that's where I'm going to stay. I did the ultimate fight at 1.45 because Louis Gallano was doing at 35. Eventually he was going to get it and drop to 25 because that's what he is, the 25er. So I went in there. I didn't train right for that fight.

I thought, oh, okay, 45. I could get big now and not have to worry my cardio. I was dumb. But it was learning. Sometimes Rivera has to learn the hard way. I learned from it and just made me better. And we actually stayed really good friends, Bermudas and I, after Ultimate Fighter,

connected. We actually train. We go back and forth. I go to his gym. My gym, we train. And he's a really good guy. I was upset for that. He didn't get to win over there in Long Island, you know, this past weekend. But he's an awesome dude.

He's really nice and he's great work. And we just push each other, you know what I mean, and get better. What was that like to get a taste of the UFC? And then, so you fought on the fight to get into the house that didn't work out. So you have to go back to the drawing board, go back to the regional circuit. Mentally, how did you deal with that? It was rough. It was like four or five years of not getting back into UFC.

It was really rough. what kept me alive for sure was training in Milwaukee was Faber in Delosha and that kind of pushed me a little bit more but there was a permanent point I'm like I'm like and it's really bad to say it but there was a certain point I just wanted to stop fighting and just focus on school I'm like this is not working out I'm not getting a call back what the heck is going on

what else do I have to do? So we actually at the time my old management and Kurt Polly Griner were working together and spoke to Sean was like he gets to get some finishes so my last two fights I finished one with a body shot and then at Carson Beebe I finished him in like 13 seconds seconds of the first round was a knockout and that was enough to push me forward and get the fight was brimich i had a uh a two and a half week notice to go to scotland and glasgow the

first ever fight and uh in scotland and uh fight marcus brimmsch and then from there you know you get a second chance you don't let it you don't let it you know go at all you you know i put my head down just work hard and i'm going to take it all the way so is it cruise dillishah or bust are we not accepting anything else at this point um i thought about it and i'm like you know and i I got sat down by my coach and by my management. I was just like, listen, it's not that I asked for stuff. I never asked for anything. I really don't.

But you earned it. And they started telling me this. He's like, you earned a shot to fight Cruz or T.J. I'm like, you're 5 and 0 right now. When Dominic got the title shot, he was 4 and 0. When Cody guy, he was 5 and 0, you deserve the shot. Yeah. That's where you earn.

And I'm like, all right. So I feel like I've earned it. I've done the fights. Even the first four fights, listen, Marcus Burns was two week notice. they wanted me fight Pedro in Brazil I had no choice I said all right no problem I did it beat him there was three guys they gave me

they gave me two on ranked fighters and Yuri Alcantara and I'm like well I want to fight the best I'm like I want to fight Yuri I want to get in the rank it's I want to start fighting people that are ranked boom took that fight hardest fight he went in there went on a tear after me Pedro two went on a tear

is ranked in the top 15 now and then after that it was funny it was trying to get the Caraway fight again we tried to get the Carraway fight three times and Carraway pulled out all three times and I had talks of other people telling me his management didn't want to take it it was hard getting in this fight blah blah I'm like listen you guys want me to fight him I'll fight him

but the second time this is before we actually signed the deal with on that third time so the second time they gave me an option if carroll doesn't want to take the fight you got these three people in favor so it was like it was like Sterlin Johnny O'Wardo someone

else and you're in favor so right away you call me up yeah you know um Kerry doesn't want to fight. All right, I'll fight Faber. And you got to take him back a little bit? I'm like, you're sure? I'm like, yeah, of course.

I'm like, that's the biggest name. I want to fight the best around. The only way to be the best is fight the best. So it's either fighting T.J. For the interim bell, if Cody can't fight or fighting Dominicruz and take it his number one spot away. I think at the end of the day,

I think he's, like you said, and other people say, I think he's just a little scared. And he has to worry. Whoa, I never said scared. No, I don't think he's scared. I just think that he thinks that he is that close to getting a title shot so he doesn't have to fight someone

who is dangerous like you beforehand. What's the point? But I'm not an ad... I don't think fighters are... Who wins that fight? Fighters who go in a cage and fight for a living, I don't think any of them are scared. And I don't think it's like... Maybe worried. You want to say worried?

He might be worried to lose that. He's looking at it from a business standpoint. I think he probably thinks, what do I have to gain from this? You're trying to make a name off my name when I could probably just sit out and wait for the title shot. That's what I am suspecting he's thinking. But scared, no, I don't think he's actually scared. Like if they force him to go and,

into the cage against you. I don't think he's scared. Who do I think wins? I don't make predictions. You know that. Right? I don't make predictions. Oh, man. All right. Well, anyway, so hopefully we'll see what happens and then we'll go from there. But yeah, I don't, okay, you're right. Maybe not scared, but he's worried because I could definitely take that spot away. I know I can. I just need the opportunity to do it. Just like when Almeida, they're like, oh, there's no way he's going to lose. A lot of people tell me, Almeida, it's not going to lose. He's got 18 knockouts. Well, he's 21 and 2 now. He's not 22 and 1. What are we doing now? Are you going vacation? No, just taking a day or two off, running some errands, and then I'll be teaching on Wednesday.

Wow. Actually, I'll be back in my school teaching. Where's the address? It's 24 East 23rd Street, right here between Madison and Park Ave, right by the Fireiron Building. Okay. And actually, yeah, no vacation. Me and my wife got married in November. We knew about the Brian Carraway fight, and we didn't even get to go on a honeymoon.

I didn't get to enjoy Thanksgiving. I didn't enjoy Christmas. It was rough holidays, obviously, but, you know, this is part of the game. This is what you have to deal with. the honeymoon now. This is a good time. She deserves it. I looked at your wife's Twitter because I was doing some research. She is by your side. You have a very, very loyal wife. I mean, all wives are typically, but like all the tweets are about you.

She wanted to go to McDonald's after the fight and you wanted to go to Wendy's and she went to Wendy's. I saw that. I saw that. I haven't had fast food. She deserves McDonald's. Come on. It's so funny. We had a have fast food in forever and we were walking into the hotel. We see cruzied in McDonald's. and she's like, I want, see that, there is a McDonald's around here because there's no McDonald's. Like around the area we're at

for the after party. And I'm like, babe, we couldn't go there. Look, Cruz was there. How are we going to go there? Yeah, that's right. Couldn't go there. And then she tweeted out. When she tweeted out, you know, Dominic Cruz, I'm not scared.

I'll fight you for your fry. And it was funny. I laughed at it. Did you say something to Cruz? No, I didn't say anything. I know I think he, as he was walking in, my coach said something better, he'll hit that foot so we could fight or something like that.

But I had nothing more to say of Cruz. was, I mean, he's either going to fight or he's just going to sit on the sidelines and wait for that opportunity, maybe for the belt or something like that. He interviewed you on Thursday, right? He did. Was it professional or was it weird?

Actually, I went in there being professional. He went in there, and I think he thought it was going to be kind of cockish, dickish, and I wasn't at all. He sat down as like, I'm just trying to get to know you better how you are so I can bring up like that 10, whatever, that five-minute walk, whatever, so I could talk about you

So people could actually get it to know you better of what they know as you as a fighter, get to know your personality better. I'm like, all right, no problem at all. He was very professional at the end of the day. And that's why afterwards, when I walk in the cage, I'm like, you know, no disrespect. But we should fight.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but we should fight. I mean, I'll be respectful before the fight, and after the fight, but we're going to get knocked on. That's it. It's war. We're locked in the cage, and we're going to fight, and whoever wins wins, and that's it.

All right. Well, I appreciate you stopping by. This has been great. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of fun to talk to you, especially just two days removed. Do me a favor. After this, find the nearest McDonald's.

Get your wife some McDonald's for God's sakes. I guess some friends. She's by your side. She's sacrificing a lot. She deserves it. Congratulations again, and good luck in getting that fight. I would love to see it, especially on the same card if it's in October or maybe MSG a month later. Sounds good.

You versus Cruz would be a phenomenal fight. And congrats on all your success. Thank you so much. I've done it sort of under the radar a little bit, but I feel like now you're starting to get the attention and respect that you deserve. If I have to still be that Dark Horse Division, I will. But as long as they give me the time, date and place, I'll be ready for whoever. Awesome.

Thank you, Jimmy. Someone will walk you out here. We appreciate it. And if you're in the New York area, definitely I suggest to everyone to check you out. Maybe I'll stop by one of these days. Come on. Come on. It'd be great.

Take class, right? Yeah, that's right. I could use a little self-confidence. Here's our man, Joe, walking you out. Thank you so much. There he goes. Jimmy Rivera, one of the very best bantam weights in the world, won his 20th fight on Saturday. In a row, he defeated.

Feta Thomas Almeida and now he is oh so close to a contender fight, oh so close to a title shot, fight against one dominant Cruz would certainly make a lot of sense. Who knows what will happen in that division? It is kind of up in the air right now, but I do think that they are planning on doing the Cody Garbrand versus T.J. Dillishaw fight either in October or November. Last I heard was probably October,

and we'll see what happens with Cruz. I think that it should be Cruz versus Rivera's a number one contender fight, especially because it got delayed. If it didn't get delayed and they fought in July, then I can understand. But now that it got a little bit delayed, I kind of feel like that's the fight to make and make it like a little four-man tournament.

Okay, let us move along. We appreciate both Pat Militich and Jimmy Rivera stopping by. Let me alert the masses here because we have a bit of breaking news for all of you. So as I said at the top, as I said at the top, we are going to talk to a UFC veteran whose last fight was in the UFC

just a second, doing this all by myself. Okay. So, as I said, a UFC veteran was just in the UFC and is now leaving MMA and moving on to a different combat sport. So, let us welcome in longtime long-time vet of the Ultimate Fighting Championship,

longtime mixed martial arts veteran, Chris Komosey, who is joining us via the magic of Skype. Hey, Chris, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? I'm doing great. It's great to talk to you. So you have some news for all of us.

What's up? I can hear you just fine. All right, perfect. Yeah, so, you know, to correct you a little bit, I'm not leaving MMA, but I am going to make a little bit of a switch to Glory kickboxing. So I'm pretty excited about that. I've always been a huge fan of kickboxing. I've been a big fan of Glory. Anybody that follows me knows that I go to a ton of their show.

shows. And so we finally came to a deal and I'm excited to start my kickboxing career and put the MMA on the side a little bit. Why are you doing this? Why not? No, I mean, anybody that sees my style, you know, all of my losses in MMA have come from from getting wrestled and grappling. So, you know, I'm going to continue to be a martial artist. I'm going to continue to train those things. But I'm going to put a big focus on kickboxing. And, you know, I love it. I've been doing it. I've been doing it, God, I don't know, 13, 14 years now. So it's just time to try it out. And, you know, Glory wasn't around when I first started.

So there wasn't the option of kickboxing. In Colorado, it was all MMA. Are you no longer a part of the UFC? I'm not. So I fought out my contract. My last fight was the last one on my contract. And they kind of knew that we were going to explore some options. And so we parted ways, you know, they were always great to me.

You know, they wish me well and we're going to move on. Okay. And so did you reach out to Glory or did they reach out to you? Did you kind of look at the landscape in MMA and not like what you saw and then said, okay, maybe now is a good time to go over to kickboxing. How did it play out? There's a little bit of both. I'd say it's mutual.

You know, like I said, I've had a relationship with them for a while. The CEO, John Franklin, lives right here in Denver. So I've had the opportunity to meet him and hang out with him several times. And my teammate Dustin Jacoby also fights for Glory, so I've cornered him several times. And I've just gotten to know everybody there for the last couple years, and they're all good people. It's a great organization, and they have some killers in there. Yeah. So I was told that you were done with MMA.

That's not true. You're going to do both? Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm going to put the focus on glory right now. You know, I still have a deep love for MMA, and we'll see where I go from there. There's a bunch of organizations out there besides the UFC now. But for right here, right now, it's kickboxing. And so what is your bad?

I mean, obviously you've done kickboxing, you've trained in kickboxing. Have you ever had a pro kickboxing match? No, I haven't. Okay. Other than the UFC. Well, yes, of course. But strictly kickboxing. Yep, no, I haven't.

So it'll be fun. You're the Connor McGregor of kickboxing. There we go. I'll take that title. Yeah. I don't dress is nice, but, you know. When is your debut? You know, we got nothing to set yet, but there's talks about December.

So they're going to give me plenty of time to make the adjustment. And, you know, we'll put some videos out, train in, and you kind of see my progression go through it. And it should be a fun transition that people can follow along with. Yeah. Who would you like to sort of model this transition after? Is there someone who you think has done a good job from going, you know, MMA, kickboxing, and has had success in both sports that you feel like, okay, this is the path that I want to take.

This is the kind of stah that I want to emulate? I don't know. You know, there's a lot of guys. You know, what's cool to me about doing this is that I was always a big fan of pride and those back in the day. And I don't know if a lot of the fans realize now, but a lot of those guys in pride used to bounce between K-1 and pride. And I always thought that was awesome.

You'd see some of those guys in there with the big gloves. I think Dan Henderson even fought in K-1 at one point or another. You know, guys that you wouldn't expect. And it was always cool to see him bounce back and forth, the MMA and then in the ring. And I always thought that was cool. So it feels like we're kind of going full circle and bringing it back to like the old style. Yeah, that's right. Are you still going to be training with the same team or are you changing things because now you're focusing solely on kickboxing?

No, I'll be training at Factory X. So my head coach, Mark Montoya, his background was. boy tie like he competed professionally and that was kind of his background before starting the MMA team so you know he's got plenty of experience getting guys ready for kickboxing he's been training Dustin Jacoby for all his glory fights

it'll just be a little bit of a change from doing the days where the team's wrestling and stuff like that to you know days I'm going to be sparring hitting mitts hitting bags you know it's a little different a lot of road work I'm not excited about the running but And did you talk to other kickboxing organizations or was Glory the one that you wanted to be a part of? No, Glory is the only one as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think most people can even name other kickboxing organizations. I feel like Glory brings in the best fighters from around the world and they do it right. The shows are awesome to go to. You know, the production of everything's great. So it was just a good fit. Less we forget Bellator kickboxing, which would obviously be a nice. nice home for you as well because of the MMA component. Yeah, I mean, I can't say I've seen any of their kickboxing shows.

It's kind of hard to find when they're on and where they are. Damn, shade. That's what we call shade on the street. Now you're a glory guy. It's good to get that rivalry going with Bellator. And just curious, I mean, you said that now, okay, you've parted ways with the UFC. Obviously, you were on the losing streak, three fights in a row. Why do you think, you know, you were not able to get back?

in the wind column towards the end. What went wrong in those last three fights? What was going on? Man, I knew you were going to throw that out there. That guy. No, I mean, it's just a valid question, I think. Yeah. You know, like I said, if you look at most of my losses,

I think any of my losses in the UFC were all due to grappling, wrestling. You know, there's areas I need to get better at as far as for MMA, but there wasn't any guys that were out striking me in the UFC. I think you can go back and watch any of those. those. Maybe Lorenz Larkin. But other than that, you know, I didn't lose any matches due to striking. Okay, so this is the perfect avenue for you now. You just want to focus on that, striking.

Yeah. All right. I think it would be fun. A good challenge, you know. I've always liked martial arts and stuff, so this is just another challenge for me. You know, I said it a long time ago that before I was ever retired, I always wanted to try kickboxing, maybe boxing, stuff like that. Just get a full circle of doing it. You know, I might be doing some professional.

jiu jihitsu competitions as well he's had some offers to do that you know for me I've never had a problem grappling and stuff but uh in the fights you know in the gym competitions I do good it is something in the middle so you know we'll always work on figuring that out but for the time being you know this is here

this is now and it's fun do you have a dream opponent in mind for your debut oh man see I'm not the Connor McGregor of kickbox because I don't have any I don't have anything loaded up okay no I mean I'll just like just like the UFC I'll take on outcomers. I never turned down fights from the UFC. Um, you know, Glory knows that about me. And,

uh, you know, I won't be in there if I'm not going to fight the best. So whoever they want to get me, I'm down. And it's not an exclusive deal. You can go out there and still fight for MMA promotions if you want. Yeah, if the right offer comes along and glory agrees to it. Um, yeah, we'll get it done. You know, that they know that, uh, I'm not completely done with MMA, but for right now, it's glory. All right. Congratulations, Chris. Appreciate you coming on and breaking this news and keep us posted on your debut in December if it goes down in December. Thank you. So it just took me leaving the UFC for you to bring me on.

I know you don't like those guys. Come on. That's not true. Don't be spreading that. You've been on the show before. I don't think I've ever been on your show. You've done interviews with me in the back, but never on your show. That is not true.

I remember when you fought Jacques'Re for the second time. I think we had you on right before. I'm going to put it in right here. I'm being... Well, you can't. call it my bullshit if I say it. Maybe, I don't know. Is it true? You would probably know. You've never been on the show.

Is that true? You're correct. I'm pretty sure I've never been on the show. Episode 179. Here it is. Chris Comozy. Boom. How do you like them apples? Oh, man. How do you like them apples? All right. I'm all in one now. I'm owning one. Before UFS, UFC on

FX8, the first Chakare fight that would be, right? When he took it on two weeks notice. Yeah, I think so. Can I get an apology? Can I get an apology, Mr. Camosie? Oh, God. You're going to make me do that on here? May of 2013.

I will accept your non-apology, and it's good to talk to you again. And I'm sorry that I didn't have you on since May of 2013. That's on me. But happy to have you on today. Congratulations on the deal, and good luck in the debut. Thank you. Are we going to see you at the glory events now? Geez, you're really turning the tables on me.

I can't be bothered. I'm going to interview you. I mean, kickboxing isn't real. I'm kidding. No, I have been to glory, and I've enjoyed it immensely. I'll tell you what, if it's in the New York area, I can't be bothered to get on a plane. Let's not get crazy. I will definitely be there.

How about that? I got to say, I can't be bothered. It's such a foreign comment. Americans don't say that. Come on. Wow. Holy smokes. What does that even mean?

I can't be bothered. Well, what else do you have on your mind? Do you want to get anything else off your chest, Chris? Have I offended you? Don't make me go mass error on you. Matt, Sarah, what's next? No, no, thank you. I appreciate you having me on here.

Are you going to do an interview with UFC filtered next? Is that what's going to happen? They probably don't want you on that show anymore, do they? Oh, man. Boom. You'll see filtered. Boom. You like that, huh?

Yeah. All right. All right. That's funny. Matt's a good guy. Well, I'm still holding out hope that you get a third crack of Jacaree. I'd like to see it. Me too.

Maybe he'll come over to Glory, too. I think it's only fair. You fought him twice, short notice. Let's do the third one in kickboxing. I think that's a brilliant idea. I wish the UFC would let guys cross over because it would be a fun promotion to see some of the guys from the UFC get in the ring. I'm going to push for that. I'll be first.

Yes. Yeah, we'll get some other UFC challengers, put on the gloves, no takedowns. Well, we have a great relationship, so I'm going to pitch that to them and hopefully they listen. Oh, I'm sure you're the right-hand man. I'm calling on his cell phone. Thank you, Chris. All the best to you. Good luck. All right. Thank you. All right. There he is. Chris Camosie, the newest member of the glory kickboxing roster.

Great stuff from him. Appreciate his time. Very cool story. And appreciate him coming on to break the news. Okay. So in a matter of moments, we are going to call into the UFC 214 conference call. But before we do that, we still have some time left. Let's go to Rick's picks. Boom. Hit my music. Bang. Yeah. Can we play this on double the speed to save some time? Because it's, you already know what it is. Rick's Picks.

Okay, we've heard it. No, I want my music. Are you kidding me? We got to get through this area. There it is. There it is. What happened? Oh, that's how it works.

I get it. I thought it came late, but it actually unveils you. Yeah, and also we had the Miles, our sound engineer. The Miles.

The best sound engineer that works on this show, by the way. Whoa. All kinds of shade. We had him implement some sound effects to the gate

opening and closing and all that, which I greatly appreciate. I didn't hear that, though. Look, we're rushing through this here. But it was, was there. What do you got? Okay, let's do this quickly. First, we've got Draymond Green. Oh, yes. Tweeting at Connor McGregor. I need three hours for this. Are you kidding me? We'll talk about it later

in the show. Okay. Were there any questions about this? Because I have a lot to say. We'll talk about it on the after hour. But we're going to go through these. All right, all right. I'm staying quiet. We've got Connor McGregor saying that he's supporting Floyd. He thought that Connor McGregor was wearing his jersey. Yeah. Can I just... Turns out, go ahead. He was wearing C.J. Watson's jersey, and we have Connor McGregor here, responding to Draymond Green saying that's C.J. Watson, mate. I don't know who the F. you are. No disrespect, though, kid. Keep hustling and stay in school. Now ask yourself why I'm rocking CJ

when I don't know or give a F about basketball. I dribble heads off the floor, not a ball. This is no game here, kid. So I think Connor McGregor is one and O against Dremont Green for sure and addressed everything that needed to be addressed about that jersey situation succinctly and took Dremont Green out of there. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. All I want to say is watch the after hour

exclusively on Twitter, the MMA hour.com, and I hope that we can talk about this a little more. But in the interest of time, let's keep going. Just one quick call back to Connor. Now you're just baiting me. Now you're just asking for you come off.

Talking about C.J. Watson. This was from, I believe, earlier this year. January. Yeah, earlier this year. So this is not the first time you had the C.J. Watson idea. Okay. Now we'll get into the headline of 214. There's a bit of a back and forth between Daniel Cormié and John Jones here.

You know, John was tweeting about D.C.'s shape and talking about, you know, how he has chicken legs. No, I'm sorry. Daniel was the one who said he had. chicken legs. But anyway, John Jones took it personally, went on a bit of a Twitter rant to which DC responded that John Jones is obsessed with him. And he says, P.S., you have a limp dick and horrible leg genetics, which is below the belt, quite literally. Now, John Jones took a shot back, talking about his discipline and hard work paying off and making an allusion to Daniel Cormiere's way in in New York with the towel.

and it culminates with this. Oh, yes. You guys end up earning each other's respect and the op-gon and can squash this between you. John, I asked you that first. D.C. You can D.C. laugh. Yeah, of course he laughed.

DC is going to revel in this because it just means more money in his pocket when it comes pay-per-view time. Stan asking, if they'll be friends after, John Jones saying FDC. And I think the final barb was, I think it was you were talking to Coach Wink

who had a smile on his face and Coriier said he's going to turn that smile upside down, walk into Anaheim smiling, and they're going to leave crime. Everyone keeps talking to me about his BJJ. Oh, wait, pause this? Can you pause this? We can't.

Okay. It's real. Tell us what it is. This video here is, is Albini finding out that he won the bonus. No, I'm not lying. I was told to come and take you when you get back to the message. Oh, that's unbelievable. Don't start crying.

No, no, I want. I want. I love this guy. I can't believe this is happening to me, you know. The best day in my life, I can't explain what I'm feeling right now. Stop studying. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, my God. Thank you. He's so happy. And I think everybody... $70,000 this guy made. He never had more than $100 in his wallet.

Yeah. His last nine fights, he hadn't made any money. His daughter's playing with empty shampoo bottles. Said that he would have fought for the free Reebok clothes. That's... I mean, this guy... What a story. It broke my heart and just made me so happy for him at the same time.

Yeah. You can see the genuine joy just getting that money. I wanted to hug him. This one, I'm not going to play this all the way. through, but off the ball had Neil Sirion and he had a very honest and kind of open conversation about

anxiety, about fear, and advice for future fighters, which I think is probably the most important takeaway here in terms of preserving yourself and your career. Find it, this is on Off the Ball's Facebook page and they also have the full

interview there. It was a really revealing look from Neil. No, it was a fantastic interview. Ah, you're going too fast. We've got to go fast, area. Well, these things don't start on time. They wait for us. Okay, I'm glad to hear that. Come on.

Yeah, say what you're going to say. Okay, just put this down for a second. That was a fantastic interview, and it was a very revealing interview. And, I mean, he talked about having panic attacks and anxiety, and I can't imagine because his retirement fight continued to be push back, push back, push back. What a stress on his life and his family, having his fifth kid. So yeah, the guys that off the ball do great do great stuff, great interviews all the time and that was a really good one.

And then, yes, you saw Sean O'Malley over there smoking with... I love how open he is about it all, right? A bit flagrant. You think so? Well, I mean... Too much? You're going into the UFC.

You know Yusada's going to be knocking on the door. You think that... Well, okay, but first of all, USADA can't... I mean, you don't get in trouble for weed out of competition. So it's only within that time frame way-ins post-flight.

that you can get pop for weed. Yeah, I don't know how strictly he's going to adhere to this based on that robe he's wearing and this clip right here. I love it, though. God. No, it's great. This day and age of everyone being so buttoned up in PC, this is great. And especially, this guy came on the show and said that he thinks he deserves more for his debut.

Yeah. Someone is soon going to have a talk to him and say, listen, kid, Snoop Dogg's well and good, but you need to know your role. No, I think this is incredible stuff. Did you watch? He's the talk of he's the talk of the

MMA world Did you watch? I saw it after No, I didn't watch it live Can I just tell you I don't know how much you heard about it and I asked him I just

There's There's something about the show I think the show is infinitely More interesting And more productive Than tough And then looking for a fight

Looking for a fight Is really just like A travel show right? Yeah I made this case Yes But the whole premise of here are a bunch of guys in their sort of quasi debut who need to impress to now get into the UFC. Look at what they do.

Every single guy wins the fight. What does he do? First thing, B-Ly-Ly-Ly-Ly, Dana, give me something. And there's just something a little unsettling. Give me a contract. Please, give me my shot. The begging is just, it's... It happens in the UFC.

It happens in the UFC. And I get that. But in this case, the whole thing... There's fighters on the roster begging for stuff. This particular show was designed for that. Dana White's Cheetah Series. Impress us so that you can, you know, be the apple of Dana's eye and that we could go to the back and take a shot of you guys sitting there,

all kind of praying to the MMA gods that you're going to get your number called. And then finally he's going to say, you know what, kid, you did it. And so the concept, I like it. It's a way... Now people know about Sean O'Malley. It's great. It makes sense. But the real stars, in my opinion,

of this show should be Sean Shelby and McMainer. Those are the guys who found the talent. Those are the guys who found Sean O'Malley. They will be booking Sean O'Malley's fights. In this case, it will be who's doing 135. I think it's still, I don't remember. It's Mick Maynard. You get my point.

It's the matchmakers. And so this whole thing like, please, Dana, please, Dana, give me some bread. I'm starving. It's unsettling. I wish that aspect wasn't a part and has nothing to do. If it was Scott Coker's Tuesday Night Contenders series,

I feel the same way. If it was John Franklin's Tuesday night contender series, I feel the same way. It shouldn't be about begging for a job. It should be about doing your thing, winning, and now you're into the UFC. That's what it should be about. It's positioning him as the star. It's positioning him as the judge and jury. And I just don't agree with that.

I just don't think that that's the way it should be. It's just a bad look. It's unbecoming. I get it. I get the discomfort with that. But it's Dana White's Tuesday Nighting Series. I don't want to see fighters beg. I don't want to see fighters beg.

Tender series. I don't want to see fighters bag. I just don't want to see it. I'm with you. There's something unsavory for sure. But please, before my comments are taken out of context, the concept is brilliant, and it's brilliant for Fight Pass,

and it's much, to me, more productive than tough, and it will produce better talent than tough, in my opinion, and it's a perfect way to get in guys into your system, it's your farm system, under your spotlight, before getting into the UFC, and they're getting paid more, and they're getting,

like, Sean made one in one for LFA, is making five and five. I'm all for all of this. It's just that component, the begging component, the, you know, the sitting there and, and please,

you know, save me, that is just like, ah, rubs me the wrong way. I get it. Okay. On to lighter news. Dwayne Johnson,

the rock, letting us all know that 10 years ago, he considered, so this isn't news, by the way. This is a news, because at U. C-119, I interviewed the Rock Caged side in Indianapolis, and I asked him, if MMA was as popular as it is today when you first got into WWE, would you have gone down the MMA road? And he said, absolutely.

That timeline doesn't match up with this one. He's saying even before. No, this is after, no. Yeah, yeah. But, okay, so maybe he didn't tell me about the after. But the news that he considered. I think the news here is that he considered going to Greg Jackson. This seems more planned out. taking two years out of your life to actually train, seems more planned out than saying like, yeah, if it started, I would have started it.

This seems like he actually considered it actually considered giving it a go, 10 years ago, which would have made it 20. What was he doing? 2007? That was way before his wrestling career started. So this is... What are we talking about way before his wrestling? The Rock?

The Rock came in in like 1997. Yeah, that's... What did I say? Way before? I met way after. Oh, okay. So like you're talking about if it was around, he would have had a pipe dream. Maybe he goes to MMA instead of fighting, instead of wrestling.

I'm saying here, while he's still a famous wrestler, he actually considered giving a go. Or he's saying here, he actually considered giving a go, linking up with them at Jackson's Winkel John in New Jersey and training for MMA, putting two full years aside. But I think he probably made the right move going to Hollywood for fame and fortune. Conference call is starting. Yep. So let's say goodbye as far as the actual show is going to. Goodbye. And then we will listen into the conference call.

Hit my music. Do we do the music thing now? I don't remember. We do. And then what I need you to do, he's only saying bye temporarily. Don't get sad. What I need you to do is get on Twitter. Go to the MMAN hour.com.

Excuse me. TheMMA hour. Twitter.com. And we'll listen into the conference call. Perhaps I'll even offer some thoughts on what is being said. Sort of like mystery science theater. You get what I'm saying? So we can all listen to it together.

It will be a lot of fun. It'll be a hoot-nanny. And then afterwards, we'll be answering your questions and comments, addressing them. If you've sent them already, thank you. The MMA Hour. Hashtag the MMA hour. That's where we'll be grabbing them.

And we'll be doing all of that again on the MMA hour. dot Twitter.com exclusively for all of you on Twitter. It's called the MMA After Hour. I want to thank everyone who stopped by. I want to thank everyone who tuned in via YouTube or Facebook. Thank you very much to Chris Wideman. Thank you very much to Sean O'Malley. Congrats to both of them as well for their big victories over the past week.

Thank you very much to Jermaine Durandimi. It was great to talk to her. And good luck to her on September 2nd. Thank you very much to Michael Kiesa. Good luck to him. Thank you very much to Dustin Porier. Appreciate you stopping by during your vacation. you very much to Tyrone Woodley.

Appreciate you stopping by as well and good luck this weekend. Thank you very much to Pat Militich. Appreciate him stopping by in studio as well as Jimmy Rivera. Congratulations on the big win on Saturday. And of course, congratulations to Chris Komosey on the glory deal as well. So the mMA hour. dot Twitter.com. We're listening into the UFC 214 conference call then answering your questions.

Don't go anywhere. I'll see you next week right here. Until then, I'll say peace. See you in a second. Boom. Hello, I am back. How are you? It's great to still be here. We're going to listen into the UFC 214 conference call, and then we're going to answer your questions.

This is what we like to call the MMA after hour. This is when the freaks come out. Speaking of freaks, do we have the conference call ready? And the MMA community, to start to move forward and heal from that, the way me and my friends and my family and my teammates have moved forward from it already. because you have cleaned things up so much, John, and I know you made so many changes in your life, you know, this is a big moment for you personally, but on the other side of the Octagon,

you got, you know, one of your biggest rivals, of course, Daniel Cormier, he's never lost in the sport outside of the one fight with you. So how much of this is about you, you know, getting back what you lost, getting back to title, and how much of it is about the rivalry about this dislike you have for Daniel Cormier. I mean, honestly, and I mean this with a flower of my heart, this fight to me has, nothing, it really has nothing to do with Daniel Cormier. It could be anybody. I mean, Anthony Johnson,

it could be Anthony, it could be Guserson that got the belt in my absence. This fight for me it's about legacy. It always has been. You know, I've had big fights with guys like Rampage Jackson, who hated me, who tried to make me look like a fool. Rashad Evans, you know,

we fought for the pride of Jackson's in the May and the pride for Albuquerque. Chelsan and, you know, the UFC 151 was a nightmare. And then he talks so much trash leading up the ultimate fighter. And then D.C., like, I've been in this position so many times having a kind of an antagonist. And for me, for me, it's always been about chasing greatness. And that's what I'm here for.

This D.C. chapter is going to be over on Saturday. And he's just going to be a part of my legacy. At the end of the day, he will be remembered as one of John Jones' great contender. And, you know, D.C. has been, you know, ruling the division. I mean, he has picked up some huge wins. Have you been impressed by D.C. in his last few fights since your fight with him? You know, his Alexander government fight was awesome. You know, he showed a lot of heart.

That was a really great fight. Johnson fights, I mean, I mean, I mean, there's a clear path to be Anthony Johnson. You take him down to the ground and you take him out. I mean, the guys lost many people by rear-necked chokes. I can't really say I'm that impressed with that, with those victories. I'm still here, by the way. I don't know, man. In my mind, I look at it one way.

You know, it's like in order to go to sleep, considering yourself the baddest motherfucker that has lived throughout this era, you've got to beat the baddest motherfucker. And, I mean, he says, you know, well, I didn't have to beat you. You beat yourself. And every time he say that, he validates what I'm saying. Yeah, he just haven't beat me. You know what I mean?

So am I impressed? I mean, you can beat as many people as you want, but until you beat the guy, then you're not the guy. And one question for Daniel Cormier. D.C., you know, here is a Damon-exclusive interview or what? At the end of the day, you know, he is, you know, arguably the greatest of all time. Do you feel like you're going to get that same John Jones

you fought before when you fought him in 2015, or do you feel like you're going to get the John Jones maybe you saw against open St. Peru or even maybe a different version than that? What do you expect out of John Jones in this fight? You know, I expect him to be as good as he's ever been. A lot of people talk about the Ovid St. Pruh fight as if it was some horrible fight. But as I've watched it in my preparation, it wasn't as bad a fight as people to make it out to be.

Famous shirt. He should be proud of the way he performed on that night because that was the best of his ability. You know, he fought as well as he possibly could against Ovent St. Proust. But it wasn't a bad fight. He did a good job. So I expect him to be as good as he was against Ovid's St. Peru because that's as good as he can be.

That's who he is. That's his best version of himself. Thanks, D.C. Appreciate it. Thank you again. Star 1 for questions. We'll take our next question. Do you see that Instagram picture of Wetzel? D.C. wearing that shirt there and then on Saturday,

New York, Rick? I wanted to ask each of you. And what's a legend? Daniel. I go to John. Yahoo Sports. My favorite writers. As you remember it now, of the night in Vegas when the test came back and the UFC 200 fight was off.

Both of you guys were very emotional that night. I just wonder, how did you recall that night, what you went through? And at that moment, did you ever think that we'd be back to this so quickly, basically just a year later? you know the the moment was was tough it was very difficult because I had worked hard to try and get the only loss back that I have in my career with that being said after the initial shock and sadness of the the fight getting canceled I kind of went back to just preparing myself you know as get back on the horse I was informed very quickly after he was out of the fight that they were going to try to put something together.

So I had to go back to trying to cut weight again with the idea that I may get a fight, and that's exactly what I did. I know you were very eager to get to this point. What was your thought to you were a year ago? You know it's a big fight when Wetzel's calling in. What hurts me the most about U.S.P. 200 was everything that people didn't see that I'd done to get back to that point.

I mean, things got really ugly for me. the lawsuits, the probation, the court stuff. It was so ugly. I mean, the hit that I took, my image, I mean, the situation that I put the grill in, and it took me a long time and it took me in a lot of effort to get back to UFC 200. I was so proud to show my fans that you can come back from anything. And then UFC 200 was going to be the way, look at that guys, I freaking did it. I didn't give up.

I'm freaking, I came back bigger and stronger. With Usada being a part of the program. But, you know, the UFC is, and I tainted my legacy because of an estrogen blocker. The beautiful thing about, you know, the beautiful thing about USADA is testing agency in the world. That's why you get it. And they have brilliant people that works for that company. And they were able to prove that I was guilty of being negligent. I took a supplement that was supposed to be a sexual enhancement pill, and it ultimately had seven ingredients in it when there was only advertised to have five ingredients in it.

And this is all, this is straight, this is all public documented. I had Usada themselves say that John Jones, in fact, is not a drug cheat, a steroid cheat, but he had an estrogen box. credit him. So, you know, to have the world try to delegitimize 10 years of being undefeated because of a sex feel, it really hurt. It really hurt. But you started still here. I'm excited to have this fight coming up on Saturday, and to give my opponent absolutely no way out of saying this is why I love. Best fight in UFC. Right now, the storyline is, well, John Jones beat me, Rampage Jackson, became the youngest

champion ever, became a guy who made it to the UFC after only training for, I think, seven months. To delegitimize all that by trying to accuse me being a stereo user, it's almost hysterical. But I'm so excited because of Saturday, Ysada is still fully intact. And I'm going to do exactly what I did last time, but I feel like it's going to be in a better fashion. and there will be no excuse, no excuse for me winning, but my hard work, my heart, my heart, my faith, and my belief. And so I'm just excited. I'm just excited to be in this position here.

I get to put a lot of the critics to rest. Oh, well, he did it again. Definitely wasn't staring this time, so I'm just interested to hear what people have to say after Saturday. Oh, I can't wait. I cannot wait. Best fight on paper in UFC history, number one versus number two. too. They need to start promoting it that way this week.

You want to get those million buys? A.J. Perez with the USA Day Sports. Oh, wow. All the big dogs are here. Yeah, this is, thanks for your time. This is for BC. And I'll often made of, you know, the first meeting with John Jones. It was during UFC 121, I think. They should do two press conferences on Wednesday, one just for D.C. and Jones,

and then one for the rest. No one's going to ask the other guys' questions. To you, D.C. Do you want to start a lot? You know, just even in the first interaction that I know on a number of occasions, he said that, you know, it was kind of a strike up a new friendship. But for me, it was mostly just at the very first instance. It was something that was, I'm better than you or it was competitive immediately.

And for me, that was the basis that was formed from the moment that we ever came into contact. And I'm okay with it. I'm actually okay with it being competition from the first start. Because if this would have started as something different and then turned into this, then, you know, maybe that could be like me having to, maybe I would have to look within myself. But the fact that from the moment, even if it was in jest, it was something competitive. And that was what formed the foundation for him and I's relationship. All right, thanks.

I appreciate it. New York, Greg. I'm thinking once again if you'd like to ask a question. I am here. Million buys? Easy. What's the line? Easy.

Let me set the line, you tell me over under. Okay. No, let me set the line. Fine, go. 700. What? Over. Easy.

That's what you give me to work with? I say even. This sells 700? Yeah. This is the best card of the evening. I'm trying to listen. Can you say? I mean, he, young, and just have just signed an $83 million contract and be single.

I think they got less than a $3.4.2 million house. He is like, he is the modern day Bruce Wayne, and I'm so proud of him. He's talking about his brother, Chandler. As far as the training, man, I was glad to have him down here. I mean, he only stayed for one week, but I feel like he changed a week. I mean, physically, there's not much you can do in one week. But the things that he got to see, I mean, to watch his older brother train four times a day and just lift the train between what I eat and just my recovery and just to get right back to the gym.

I think it inspired him and I think it's going to translate in the football school. I don't think there's anything the Cardinals could do to him on that field that would be tougher than what he witnessed me do here at high altitude in Albuquerque. So yeah, I had a great training camp, though, to answer your question. Right now I weigh about 2.17. I'm fully hydrated. I've been eating meals all day. And I just feel amazing, man. I feel like I'm at age 30, which should be my prime.

And no injuries. And super confident. I beat this guy before. We've made some major adjustments. And I'm excited to see what I'm capable of in my very, first rematch against a guy that I've already beat. You know, like the first time I fought Daniel was like, well, he's

undefeated, man. Maybe he has maybe he has it. Maybe he has that it factor. You know, some people have that it factor, like Boy Mayweather or Kail Sanderson or just people who can actually go undefeat it. And now that I found out that he doesn't have it,

I'm excited to freaking be the goal and freaking not only beat this guy, but to finish him that this time. And this is what my camp has expected out of me. It's finishing people. And to provide an output that I don't believe he can handle. So we're excited.

Thanks, John. By the way, in case you're wondering. John, you know you ain't finishing nobody. What's the last time you finished anybody? Now you're going to come back after all. You've lost your mind. You're not finishing anything. I think our next question.

No response. Come on. Morocco with mMA junkie.com. It was just getting good. Well, I just kind of wanted to follow up on that. Daniel, kind of wanted to just ask you how John is coming across to you in this call, talking about doing the right things, forgiving himself, saying it could be anybody in the cage. How's he coming off to you?

I don't know, because I don't really care. I don't care if he's made changes in his life. I can give two shit if he goes to church every day and he's reading his Bible and he's doing everything perfectly right. I don't care. I don't care if he's out every single night party. I can give two shits. All I care about is him getting to the Octagon on Saturday. He talks about confidence.

He talks about finishing. He talks about working hard and all these other things. These are things that champions just do. These are the attributes of a champion in general. It's not about what you do afterwards. These are things that you should always do. And these are the things that I have always done that I'm always going to continue to do. Confident.

But I'm over here confident, too. and I don't have to tell you. I'm just going to show you on Saturday night. The one thing that I do pick, Stephen, is that John hasn't done this for a while because he's a little bit long-winded. Okay. And John, what was going on with you during that Fox interview

this past Saturday when you tore off the headset and you walked out of the shot? Was that just the way it played out in the moment, or was it something else? You know, it was... Yeah. Okay, it seemed like you kind of stormed off. It didn't seem like a natural exit.

So I just wanted to clarify. I had a, I was like, I was late for that. And I felt like the interview was over and I just wanted to be on time and not miss that ceremony. I got you. You mentioned earlier that you've always had an intact. It made for a cool effect. Is Daniel Corphe? I don't love the new facial hair, just like the patch over here.

What's up with that? This is way better. I would say outside of the octagon, yes, because of all the back and forth and all the verbal. But inside of the act of God, it would have to be Alexander Gufferson. I mean, he came the closest to actually put me in a spot where I felt like, shit, I'm digging deep right now. Like, I am possibly, I could be losing this. You know, with Daniel Cormier, with Ashad Evans,

with anybody else that I beat by unanimous decision, I never felt like there was never a moment we're in danger, or I had to even dig deeper, like, pull out my reserves. I mean, at one point in the first fight, I smiled and looked up at the camera. I was like, I was like, this is great. It was fun. It was high-paced. He pushed forward and it moved forward, but I mean, at no point did I get robbed or

wobbled or hurt or he made me bleed or anything. I mean, I was, I'm aware about it at the end of the fight. I mean, I just caught my hands up and he thought the fight was over and he quit like he normally does. And then I slap me two more times and give him the DX suck it sign. It was like, it was a fun. This fight's going to be even more fun. He's two years older.

He acknowledges it. You think? The X second sign. At this point, I'm really, really not interested in arguing and fighting with this guy anymore. I'm not interested in the back and forth. I'm not interested in all that stuff anymore. My goal is to get into the oxygen on Saturday. If all the things that he is saying right now is true, then great.

If you feel as though he never had any danger in the first fight, If he feels that my age will be the determining factor in this fight, then great. These are all things that I can look forward to proving him wrong on Saturday. That has no idea

what he's in for. Let him talk, do his job of selling the fight, and I'll go collect my check and defend my belt on Saturday. I'm glad that he has no intention on arguing because I'm not arguing with him at all. I'm answering you guys' question.

I'm also glad that he's ended for his check. In a very long-winded fashion in trying to say stuff like that you just, he knows isn't true. I'm passionate, man. I'm so excited, man. I'm not a commentator. I don't talk for a living,

so I talk with my heart. I'm excited about this, man. You don't think I am? Do you actually think I'm not excited? I'm excited. I can do it too. How about we not address each other and answer you this question? Hey, I could do it too, John.

I'm excited about it. about this man. I can do the same shit. Cool. Well, how about you kind of address each other and just answer these people's questions? Can we do that? Can we be professional? Yes, we can be very professional. There's not the time for that. You're trying to sell paper views. If I could, one last question for John.

I just had to read a quote that I read in this great story in Bleacher Report, this profile that you did. Oh. I went back to the car to try and find my marijuana pipe. It was in the cup holder, but it flew out. Now I keep it in the middle console. Is that you trolling or is that real?

Ask me trolling. Next question. Okay, fair enough. Thanks, guys. Why did you give them the out there? Dave Deer with Post Media Network. Go ahead, please. Hi, guys, thanks for the time. Just a bit of a follow-up with the talk about rematches. How much time have

each of you, John Daniels, spent watching the tape from your first, from your first fight. Daniel? Maybe. But again, you know, I feel like, I feel like we're different fighters today than we were then. You know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to gauge my performance this 2015.

So I've watched the fight. Obviously, we've competed against each other before. But as a guy that lost to gauge what I'm going to do on Saturday night based on what happened two years ago, two and a half years ago. Okay. John? I watch the first fight a lot. I do.

And I mean, we, I mean, my team here at Jackson's M.A., we are notorious for studying film. And so the beautiful thing about this rematch is, you know, I've been able to somehow never lose because of what I find in footage. And now I have a blueprint of myself against someone that I beat before. And this blueprint is gigantic because, you know, it's, you know, it's. It's my first rematch. I'm super excited about my first rematch. I'm a huge fan of the sports.

The reason why I didn't fight Chelsea Tijuana at UFC 151, I don't like fighting without studying first. And to have a footprint of how to beat Daniel Cormier of myself beating him, it's gigantic. So we study that fight all the time. We know what he wants. We know, you know, we know a lot of things that he likes to do. And the thing that's most beautiful about being out of the equation,

for so long is, is that I've been able to watch him continue to fight over the last two years. And me and my team, we've seen very, very small changes, very small changes. I'm a safe to say no changes. And in my situation against OSP, because I was a little gunshot, I mean, I showed almost nothing. I literally did sidekicks to the legs the whole time. I threw maybe three punches the whole fight, took them down against the cage. Yeah, I've been doing that my whole career. I've something I'm really good at.

But I've showed Daniel nothing. He has no clue of the progression. He has no clue what I've changed in my boxing. He doesn't know what I've changed in my quenching. He doesn't know what I've changed in my jukits. He has nothing. I mean, I've watched him on the ground against Anderson Silver. We know what his top game looks like.

I watched him take Anthony Johnson's back. We know what his back control looks like. We know what he's capable of. We have a huge blueprint on him where he really has no clue what I've done differently over the last two years. All right. Thanks, you guys. All right, let's do one more. One, if you'd like to ask a question.

Let me go next to Mark Romandi with mcithridding.com. Perfect. Floor is yours, Mark. Hey, guys, thanks for taking the time today. You're welcome. The question is for cyborg. Cyborg.

You're going. What? Yeah, okay. Well, then I'll... Oh, she's there. Hey, Chris. I had a question about the week, about your weight cut.

Where are you right now? And I know that the Seasack has been monitoring you guys more than other commissions have leading up into this fight. Are you happy where you are now? Are things going okay with your weight cut? You know, I'm really happy.

I'm training. I still my last fight, and I keep training. I think my cut for more 40 hours to help me for getting low my weight. And I feel very great. You know, I'm feeling great and it'll be an amazing cut.

And I feel great Just today, we close to the way, and you have a two or five days? For this. Thanks, Chris. And just for John, I think you tweeted a few days ago, John, that you got a call from Anderson Silva. I'm curious, you know, what Anderson said and then what it meant to you. Me and Anderson, we talked on the phone for a while, and I really don't want to get too much into what we spoke about just out of my respect for him. But when it comes to the fight, basically he just told me just to know what I'm capable of.

He just said basically in a roundabout way, he just said know what you're capable of. And he said it was almost surprising to fear, to feel the level of fear I felt from Daniel. He said to me, he said, I'm an old man now. And Daniel had to take me down round out of the realm because I felt fear coming off of him. this man has fear in his heart and he said know what you're capable of go out there and you take this from him in a roundabout way that's what he said

keep you going keep going I want to see if he responds and just getting a call from him did that mean a lot to you absolutely and this is my idol fear you know he's been the guy that I've respected the most since I was 19 years old and I got into this sport and to hear him

I had that level of faith in me and it's pretty much tell me that you know it's already done now I just got to go out there and do what I'm capable of. It felt great. It felt great coming from him. Thanks, John. I'll tell you what.

One thing about me and Anderson, man, is that my take down the fence is solid, dude. There's no taking me down if things don't go your way. Oh. And there's definitely no land on me and half control and half guard the whole time the way that happened. But anyways. Anderson said.

D.C., can you respond to, there you go, Mark. John is saying Anderson said in that phone call. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know, it's good that they're friends. I mean, it's good that their friends. It's good that Anderson called them with advice.

But, you know, that would almost be like me having Glover Tshara calling me to tell me how to beat John Jones. Oh. He lost. It's much easier to give advice to someone that you, about someone you lost to. You don't want to see me win. I beat him. He doesn't want to see me win. so go get John to do the job that he couldn't do.

So it doesn't bother me. I can really care less if everybody calls him and tells him how he should beat me or what they felt when they were in the octagon with me. If a guy's going to just fall down in the middle of the octagon and let me get on top of him, I will gladly take that. Fair enough. And just last thing for me, the promos for this fight have gotten a lot of critical acclaim. I was just curious about how you guys felt about him, you know, John John and D.C.

starting with you, John. Were you okay with how, you know, the promos came out and how they portrayed you and that whole thing? You know, the first time I watched it, I was uncomfortable with it because, I mean, it showed me talking in 2011 and saying how I would never want to do something that would harm the image of the sport. And that was genuine, man. I mean, I never intended on having an image of being the bad guy. I really did it. And somewhere along the way, I got lost.

man and I got caught up in my own shit and I started having fun and partying and still winning and I just took it all for granted I mean I mean genuinely I really wanted to be an inspiration to other people and to inspire people and just to be a role model I mean that was my original thought and somewhere along the line I just stopped caring and I and I started you know living for myself and and the and the promo the promo was honest. I mean, shit, the timeline is, the proof is in the timeline. It was all right there. And I curated that. And, um, but the beautiful thing about the promo I felt was,

was, was my life and my mistakes. I was just so out there. I don't need D.C. to try to convince everyone that I'm this terrible human being. People can judge me for how they want to see me. It's already out there. It's all out there in the public. And that's a

freeing feeling to, to, to be looked at as a piece of shit by so many people. And to be able to just be real with yourself and to take responsibility for the things you've done wrong and just I don't know, I feel so free, man. It's a great feeling to be who I am.

Even John Jones, the fuck up, John Jones is great, however you look at me, it's just great to be me alive, whether you like me or hate me. It's just a great feeling to be relevant. And excited, man, because at the end of the day, when you get to a certain low, the only place you can go is up. And I'm excited to be 30 years old and to have a good team of people around me right now and to go up.

I mean, I think my story is going to really inspire somebody else who has fucked up. It's going to really inspire somebody else to realize that it is not over. Man, if John Jones doesn't come back from the shit that he's been through and ultimately win and be the champion that he's always been capable of being, man, I think it's going to inspire other people. And I'm glad that I'm used. My life can be used as a laughing stock or whatever it may be to ultimately inspire if it's just one person

that continues to fight because of my life. I'm glad. I'm glad to be in this position. So, yeah, to answer your question, the promo was honest, you know. and I'm just excited to finish the story. The story's not over. We're not our past. We're not our mistakes.

We're what we do with it. And like I said, my head run was two years ago. And I've done a lot of right things since then. And I'm going to continue until people can start to see that I'm here to stay. And I'm here to win and be a dominant champion and try to do things better in the future. Thanks, John. And just for Daniel, kind of same question. What would you think of the promo?

I just want to hear this. You think it was too focused on John? How did you feel about it overall? That's a great question. That was the best answer of the whole call. No, I thought they did a fantastic job. You know, you watch some of these other fights, and they don't get that type of detail in the promotion.

I thought it was the story as it needed to be told. I think the greatest, I think the greatest hook for people is the story of redemption. And if we want people watching the story of redemption, then that was the story that needed to be told. The beauty in this situation is that I get to be the person that doesn't allow for the ultimate redemption. There is redemption in this story. You know, there are things that he has said that it's very true. When you have to scrape yourself off the ground and when you're at your lowest point, you look up to a future that can actually mean, something. But the redemption is the fact that he gets to go back and compete. The redemption isn't

a championship anymore. That's just a, that's just the reality. The reality that is that he gets another opportunity to be a good citizen to be a good competitor and just a good human being in general. You take from that, you learn from that, learn from all those mistakes, and do that. but the story of redemption is not getting his hand raised in the octagon this weekend maybe later which is not right now i mean listen to who that's coming from of course that wouldn't be the story of redemption in your mind you're you're and again can we please just answer these people's question i'm very quiet when he's talking but to answer his question now redemption is getting to do the things that he's getting to do this weekend everybody

doesn't need the ultimate redemption. But he will get redemption by getting to compete again. Oh, now it's the ultimate, and then there's regular redemption. Okay, I get it. I said the fact that you've actually picked yourself up, if it was that low and gotten yourself back to this point, great on you. But that's his redemption. Thanks so much, guys.

All right. Let's say goodbye to that. That was fun. Way to go, Mark. Ending on a strong note. That was the best exchange of the entire call. it was good what the appetite

for what's to come I'm going there Wednesday morning there's going to be a press conference Wednesday afternoon in L.A then it's media day

on Thursday and then it's the fight and it's finally here I'm so excited let's bring in New York where I can answer some questions hello

scale of 1 to 10 how excited are you for UFC 214 12 yeah but that nothing to do with that conference call nothing to do

at the prom It kind of makes it feel a little more real, you know. Personally, me, I was all in on this forever, and I've said that before. Like, any time they've announced it and it didn't happen, I was just like, okay, let's rebook it and I'm ready for more. Yeah, I just can't wait. I cannot lose excitement for the two best light heavyweights possibly ever fighting. Does it just, I don't lose the interest in that. And then you factor in that the rest of 214 is bonkers and excitement levels are very high.

So let's answer some questions. What do we got? First question. You wanted to dive into this a little bit. Thoughts on Conner's next level trolling of Floyd's domestic violence passed with the obscure CJ watch and Jersey reference. Before you go into that, let me ask this. Was he even trolling in terms of domestic violence or was it something else? Because I don't think the two are necessarily...

It's a very good question. Hand in hand. I think the domestic violence portion of this is separate from C.J. Watson and Floyd Mayweather. I don't think he was making light of domestic violence or making light of Floyd's relationship with a woman. I think he was shining a light on Floyd's past and trying to expose him. And most importantly, I think he was trying to get under his skin. skin. And what I thought, okay, so this is the story for those that missed it. Connor, when it comes to his career, when it comes to his opponents, when it comes to his

preparation, he is the ultimate student. And you could say that's me kissing his ass. It's not. It's true. You could talk to him about anyone in the lightweight division and the featherweight division. He will rifle off stats, factoid, nuggets, all kinds of things about his opponents. people who aren't even in his line of sight on his radar. He just consumes all things MMA. And in this case, of course, it involves boxing, but Floyd was on his radar for quite some time. And so I'm a huge NBA fan.

Huge, I've talked about this. Obviously, a huge combat sports fan. I knew that Floyd went to jail for domestic violence. I had no idea that C.J. Watson was even a part of this story. And I know who C.J. Watson is, Warriors, Magic, Chicago Bulls, all that stuff, backup point guard. I know who he is. I had no idea. This is a pretty obscure reference. Yet Connor has been talking about it since January. You showed the tweet earlier when you were doing Rick's picks. And so that shows how much time he has spent studying Floyd Mayweather.

And that shows the kind of mindset he has in terms of getting under his opponent skin. that shows the kind of psychology that he tries to bring into his fights, to try to get his opponent off his game, get him upset, get him annoyed, all those things. And so to me, what was so interesting about this was, you can't go to a store and buy a C.J. Watson jersey. You certainly can't buy one from the period in which this incident happened around six, seven years ago when he was playing for the Warriors, you can't go to the NBA store and buy a Warriors jersey and put Watson's name on the back, you know, the typical custom jersey thing

because that was the old Warriors jersey. They don't have those in stock. Trust me, I went on eBay, I went on Google. It's not that easy. From what I understand, it took them six months to get this done. And so the whole point of this is not that he is shining, he's trying to, you know, make light of domestic violence. He's trying to go to the greatest lengths possible to just piss off Floyd Mayweather. And what kind of confuses me is people are saying, oh, these guys only care about the money. There's no real beef here. This is a money grab. This is not a real fight. This is the lowest of the low. This is fake. In one breath. And then in the next breath, they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a line here. You can't get that. No, no, no, no, no. If you show any kind of emotion, if you

show any kind of friction. No, no, no, no, there's a line here. I cannot, I cannot be a part of this. If you are offended by the spectacle of combat sports, it's probably best to not watch. And yes, there is a line. There is always a line. As I said last week, there was always a line.

This was not the line. And I just couldn't believe that people were saying like, oh, you're better than this, Ariel. Better than what? Connor went to great lengths to have a CJ Watson jersey made from the 2010 era, just to piss off Floyd Mayweather. And guess what?

He didn't even post it himself. He didn't even make a big deal about it. I don't even know where that screen grab came from. Where did it come from? Did you see it anywhere? Like where did Draymond Green find this? That's a good question. I don't know where the original source was.

I looked at Al-Ale-Axas. I looked a bunch of places. I could not find it. And then Draymond Green thinks it's him, thinks it's a jersey of his. Because he's number 23 and is like, yo, we're not rolling with you, take that jersey off. And he's like, no, mate,

this is not you. This is C.J. Go look up why I'm wearing this jersey. He's shining a light on the affair. I don't, and I'm hearing, here I am talking for him. But to think that here's Connor making light of domestic violence, I just didn't take it that way. I really didn't.

But nowhere did you see me say, oh, this is hilarious, or this is brilliant, or this is a great thing. No, this is just what it is. This is Connor going to great lengths, unlike any other fighter that we've seen in our lifetime, to try to do whatever possible. to get under his opponent's skin. That is, if nothing else,

noteworthy, newsworthy. And then he's bringing in Dremont. I mean, like, he's responding to him. That to you is not interesting? Why are we so quick to draw these lines and like the social commentary? No, look, something happened. He did not comment on that,

not once in the whole tour. Why do you think now he's walking around with the jersey? Because he's trying to say, hey, man, your girl left you for another guy. That's the way I took it. Am I off here? Do you disagree? Do you think you crossed the line?

I don't. I was seeing these tweets. I think the reference was clearly to C.J. Watson and Mayweather. Nothing. In my opinion, there's a separation here between the woman involved and, you know. Well, the woman involved is a part of the story because she dated apparently or allegedly C.J. Watson. But I don't think Connor is. He's not referring to her.

He's not talking about her. He's not talking about a domestic incident. He's talking about C.J. Watson, who has a relationship with Floyd Mayweather, due to those circumstances, but it's a separate thing. Because this is about Floyd and Watson, not the female involved. This is a bro thing. Hey, hey, bro, your girl left you for another guy. That's the way I'm taking it. And he's showing that I know a lot about you and I'm going to go on or try to get under your skin.

Sure. I mean look, to me, if he was willing to go to the DV level, he probably would have said it on the tour. And I'm happy he did not do that. And that's my thought. Because she has nothing to do with this. She is the victim. She, I mean, she has suffered enough.

I am very happy to do that. But to walk around wearing the jersey of the guy, that to me is just him trying to get under his skin. And so I don't, like, people say, like, this is the lowest he's gone. Quite frankly, what does that say about the comments in Brooklyn? You think this is the lowest he's gone? There is a line that,

he could cross. Thus far, in my opinion, he hasn't yet, but there is a line. And going there would definitely cross the line. But at this point, I don't, I think we need to really evaluate what's happening here and wearing a CJ Watson jersey is not that moment. It's not, it's not somewhere where he's making light of anything that somebody should be completely outraged about. Now, look, people will find reasons to be outraged about almost anything.

In my opinion, this isn't one of them. I think he is trying to bait Floyd. I think he is trying to get him off his game. I think he is trying to bring up a very, I mean, what's the word that we can use? A disgusting part of his past, a repulsive part of his past, the darkest part of his past. I mean, actually, Floyd has... other incidents involving domestic violence, not including the particular one involving C.J. Watson that led to him going to jail. I think he is trying to say that, look, look at this guy.

And this jersey represents that past. I would be surprised if he starts talking about the victim. I would be surprised if he starts making light of domestic violence. But to me, what is all interesting, and again, I, I need to say like, I can't comment on what he said in Brooklyn because I am not black. Right. So I can't comment on like if it was offensive or not. That's not for me to say. I'm not a black person. You know what I mean?

If someone came out and started saying something about Jews and going into the gas chamber and things like that, yeah, I could talk about that because that's, that's me. I can't comment. It's not right. I don't like when that happens. And so I can't comment on how the victim feels or how victims of domestic violence may feel about this. What was interesting to me was

that he went to these lengths to try to get this jersey that he even knows about this story, that he knows about C.J. Watson's past. Is he walking up to the line? Absolutely. Did he cross the line? I don't think so. And I didn't, and I wasn't offering commentary, I was just saying, look at this guy.

This is a whole other level on Connor's part. Like he talks about things personal when it comes to his opponents. We've seen it with Aldo and Nate Diaz. the guy really does his homework. Just look at the lengths that he wanted to go out there and walk around with a C.J. Watson, Jersey. I mean, if nothing else, that just shows the amount of research he does in his opponents and the level that he will go to try to get under his skin.

But I do not feel as though he was trying to make light of a very, very unfortunate situation. Am I explaining this the right way? I think so, but I think it is a touchy. object, which reasons. He goes to the line, but I don't think he's crossing it here. And I felt like people were trying to bait me into saying something worse yesterday. And that was not something that I was interested in doing. This is not my domain. I just was saying, look, guys, this is why he's wearing this jersey. This is the story. And let's just like sit back and think about what he had. He couldn't just go to the NBA store and get this. He had to actually, and I saw some people being like,

yeah, he could just Google it. Show me. Go find this jersey for me. Go find it. Go find it. Go get it done. Show me the link of you making this jersey, this exact jersey. Not the current Warriors jersey, the 2010 Warriors jersey. Show me how easy it is. It's not that easy. You can have all the money in the world. You have to find the right person to make it. I just found that to be fascinating.

The mind games involved are fascinating to me. How low they will go, what depths they will try to go to try to win. And I said it last week, I don't think Connor won the tour. And I thought he was going to. I thought he was going to smoke him. I don't think he did. That was the big story. Mayweather turning back the clock and being completely unfazed by it all.

But if you're going to be outraged about something, let's be outrage about his past. Let's stop making excuses for Floyd. Floyd was the one that called him the F word last week. Floyd was the one that called him a hoe. Let's not pretend like he's some kind of, you know, angel in all this. I just thought that to me this was like bro stuff. Your woman left you for another man. I'm going to walk around with his jersey because he's an athlete and I can't.

that's the way I took it. Yeah. I think there's going to be sensitivities to this and there's going to be people with different differing opinions clearly. I just think we need to pump the brakes a little bit on condemning this as, you know... What do we want from these guys?

Do we want them to care or do we not want them to care? Do we want to think that there's friction or do we not? First we say it's a money grab and then we say, okay, they're getting too personal. Like these are two guys. They're not... I know we want our athletes to be role... models all the time. I know we want them to be, you know, Nobel Peace Prize winners and,

and act with the utmost class. But let's not forget what they do for a living. Connor ficts in a cage for a living and he punches people. And prior to that, he was a plumber. And Floyd Mayweather has been a prize fighter for his entire life. Like I, Charles Barclay said it best and I think that basketball players are held to an even higher standard and sometimes that's not fair. They are not our role models. And so, you know, to ask these prize fighters to, you know, play by the perfect roles that, you know, know, or rules, I should say, is sometimes asking a lot. They're not perfect individuals. They aren't. And here is Connor trying to shine a light on his not so perfect past. I just think that's

fascinating. I'm not saying it's a, you know, a nice thing, a funny thing. Oh, this is, you know, let's dab. Is it dab or dapp? Dap? Or dab? What is it? You're talking about giving them the pound. Yeah, that's, that's a dab, but that's something different. Yeah. I just think it's, I think it's fascinating. I think it was worth spotlighting. Sure. It's, it's completely relevant and, in my opinion, not crossing the line, but there is a line. There are 100% as a line. Are you kidding me? If he starts coming out and talking about the incident and the woman, there's 100% a line. You drag other people into this that are victims and it's a different story. No, this is between him and Floyd. I don't know. I was planning on addressing this in the,

at last, you know, five minutes of the show, but I hope I was able to, it's very hard on Twitter when you put something out there and you see all these people coming at you and they're like, you're better than this. I'm like, what? Better than what? I'm not the one who did it. I'm putting it out there and I wasn't, I didn't, I went back and read my tweets. I'm like, I'm not applauding him for it. I'm applauding for the lengths in which he went. Yes, that I will admit. I am applauding for the lengths in which he went, but the actual commentary is not what I was talking about. It's just a whole other level of, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, again, like I saw some people one more time

people saying like, oh, the fact that he's stooping to this level to sell tickets, do you really think an extra ticket was sold because of that? He didn't even go out of his way to promote it. Do you really think an extra pay-per-view was sold because of that? It's all mind games. It's all a part of it. And to me, this is just validation that he cares, that he is actually trying to win this fight.

Okay, I think I'm done. Fight of the night in Long Island. What was your choice for fight of the night? Can I just say one more thing? I'm sorry. If you are offended by it, that's great. Like, I'm not, I'm not begrudging you for that. People are allowed to be offended about whatever they want.

But I just wanted to make clear about how I felt about it, because I was seeing some tweets. I was like, what? Like, no, you can be offended. You feel free to be offended. But I just say, remind you, like, combat sports, the lines are something. Look at DC and Jones talking about things that they were talking about.

You know what I mean? This is two people who are going to get into the ring and hit each other. It's not other sports. It's not a competition of teams playing with, you know, equipment and achieving an objective, scoring goals, scoring touchdowns, hitting home runs. They're going to physically harm each other. And getting personal is part of that.

It's part of the buildup and the lead up to almost every single fight. This was a case of Connor McGregor getting deeply personal with Floyd Mayweather. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's more of this in the lead-up to the fight. But there's going to be levels of this that make people uncomfortable. Some people may be uncomfortable with much less of a threshold than even this. So I think, you know, we have to be accepting and value that and recognize that. But at the same time, I think that there is an objective line that can be crossed. And at this point, it hasn't.

I heard some people say that he should, you know, donate to a... charity. He should and we all should. Why not? Absolutely. But if he does that, isn't that now bringing this involved? Like by wearing this jersey, should he now have to do that? Should he be required?

No, of course not. Now, he could go out and say, look, I'm a better person than Floyd. I'm so much better that I am more against this. Yeah. And that will work. But doesn't that bring this into the conversation? Or has he already done that? I don't know.

You get what I'm saying? I do. I don't think he had any noble pursuits here. But I don't think that it could hurt. It could only do better. And I think we're going to get this. This is going to be the type of discourse that happens. You know, Kana McGregor did the whole thing in Brooklyn with, you know, black from the belly button down.

And then his, you know, when the media got to speak to him after, his thoughts on it seemed much more intelligent, much more enlightened, much more nuanced. And we're going to get times where it's going to be straight to the gut and it's going to be. a little bit below the belt in terms of how personal it gets and then there's going to be conversation based on that. I just think let's not make this unnecessarily

pointed when I think his intention was clear here. He didn't have malicious intent toward any victims or anything like that. Okay, let's go rapid fire. Which fight would be your choice for a fight of the night from Long Island? There were a lot of great fights on the card.

Honestly, what would have been yours? I would have picked the main of it. event. I thought the main event was one of the best fights of the year. Maybe the... I liked it. Maybe one of the best main events of the year. I mean, obviously, Gaichi versus Johnson is number one. But I really enjoyed it. I mean, I've been getting

dropped in the first, coming back, the finish, the moment afterwards. I thought the main event, I enjoyed the Shane Burgos fight against Godafredo Pepe. Full disclosure, I didn't see the entire fight that won the award, the Dos Santos

against Lyman Good Fight, but I was really surprised at the main event that he'd get it now. Those guys are probably making the most money on the card, but I thought that that was the best fight on the card. It was a great fight, but I think it's hard to go wrong. It was a good card, as I predicted, and you pooh-poot, but it was a fantastic card, and there were a lot of great choices for that. Feel Good Story, this is a different kind of category. Oh my God. Widman or Albini? Well, it's a different kind of feel-good story. I mean, And Widman's feel-good story is about, you know, his own career struggle and getting back on track and the success that he had early on and winning in his hometown. I mean, what just, I mean, you cannot have scripted that any better, putting him on the losing streak and then putting him on Long Island in front of his hometown fans and his family and friends and getting all emotional.

I mean, it was just fantastic. It really was. Those are moments that you dream about if you're a fighter, if you're a promoter. It was a grand slam. Albini is just, I mean, your heart goes out to the guy, especially as a father, talking about not being able to buy his daughter toys and getting the per diem and going to Walmart and buying her toys. Just, I mean, I wanted to cry. I don't know if I've ever felt that way. And I wanted to hug him.

And he just seems like such a nice guy in that video of him getting the bonus. So it's a different kind of feel good. I'd rather not pick one over the other. They're both great. And I hope that Shane Burgos is able to move out of his 700 screen. square foot. There was a point there early on where I was like, oh, this is so depressing. And that's the fight game for you. You know, there's different levels. But I was equally happy for both. And, you know, you don't want to root for anyone. That's not our job. But you are a human

being and you feel things. And I certainly felt good for both of them afterwards. And we saw that video, his reaction, absolutely incredible. Should the USC bypass Whitaker Bisping and monetize and capitalize on Bisping versus Romero? This is my theory as to what is going to happen or what could happen. Bisping, GSP, November. If Bisping loses, you have Robert Whitaker there as you're in Tim tramping. He just becomes the official champ, like what happened with Jose Aldo. So I don't think that Romero will get the next title shot.

Of course, we found out that David Branch is fighting Luke Rockhold next September 16th. I like that fight a lot. I know a lot of people were crapping on it, but it's a chance for Rockhold to get back on track, feet wet and Branch gets a big step up sink or swim now or never let's see if you could do it. Main event UFC. It's unfortunate it's the same night

as Triple G Canelo because I don't think a lot of people will be paying attention to it. I think they should have stayed away from that date but I like that fight. Romero is kind of in this weird no man's land. I know they were kind of going back and forth and that was discussed. Rockhold thinks that he didn't want to take a five round fight. Romero thinks that

he didn't want to fight him. Who knows what's to happen. I would love to see Romero versus Bisping. I'd love to see Widenen versus Bisping. They've been doing this back and forth thing for years, but I have a feeling given the way things are going and them needing to make some money in 2017 just wasn't a good year. Thus far, it hasn't been a good year. I have a feeling they're going to try to do the GSP Bisping fight. That's just my hunch. That's completely uneducated. I just feel like they're going to try to go for the biggest fight possible. And then if GSP wins, you already have a guy who's, you know, the interim champ. I think this was a bit of,

this next question was a bit of what you just addressed, how to solve that mess at middleweight. It's not much of a mess, to be honest. I mean, it really all depends on if they are going to book GSP. If they don't book GSP, now you have Whitaker Bisping and it starts to figure itself out.

But I still think that they're trying to book, you know, where does Romero go, then he's left out in the cold? They could find something for Romero. Nobody better than Bisping. That's true. Thoughts on Rockhold versus Branch. I just said I like it

I like it I like it for Rockhold he gets back on track and I like it for Branch because it's a big opportunity the biggest of his career again only thing I don't like

is the date People's main event for this upcoming card It's got to be Jones DC It's got to be The rare main event People's main event Yes it's got to be

Jones DC I mean this is again The best fight on paper In UFC history It doesn't happen often One versus two pound for pound And if you want to argue about Okay one guy is

great, that doesn't happen often either. One versus three, two versus three, three versus four, whatever you want to say, it doesn't happen. And the rivalry and how the first fight went and the story and the redemption, this is just phenomenal stuff. And so the next couple of days are going to be very interesting. What kind of buzz? How's the buildup? It's summertime, not a lot of competition. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

I still don't know if it will break one million. I still feel like pay-per-view is kind of down right now. You gave me 700. I said over. what do you think? I think it's going to do as of right now this is not talking about

if there's like a brawl on Wednesday or something as of right now I'm going for 700 did you see what Oh that's right you said even you push that's right

okay the first one did what did it do 800 something I think it may have done close to 900 yeah that make

I don't think you can go that low for this one with that that heat that rest of the card I can't it's just paper

Paperview is down as a whole. And Mayweather McGregor is coming up in a month. I said I agree as if it's a subjective thing. No, clearly pay-per-view is down. But I think if you're a fan, this was the one you were looking for. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, as I suspected, the strength of 214 would hurt 213. Because asking people to buy two paper views in one month is asking a lot.

And so a lot of people obviously skip 213. You saw those numbers last week. So, you know, maybe that means a good number for 214. 14. Okay. Cormier beats Jones, do they run it back? Do they do the trilogy fight? At some point. Immediately? Oh, I don't know about immediately, but at some point, yes. I mean, you have to remember next in line, and by the way, according to Dave Meltzer, the first fight did 800.

Yeah. So could it be possible that now with the true heat and the storyline that does less? I'm thinking not, but I mean, you're right. The paper views as a whole are down. I just think that this one's a bit of an outlier. If you were targeting one on the calendar, this was the one. What was the question that you just asked? Immediately. Do you do the rematch again? Well, because he has the history with Gustafson, though.

Manoa has been talking a lot and you got Ozdemi there, Ozdemier there. Yes, he has a fight to get through before he's in that conversation. If Cormier wins and it's impressive, then I think the biggest money fight, again, I still think we're in the mode of trying to make the biggest money fights. And I think the biggest money fight is the third fight. So yes, I do think they go. right back to that well. It's not like they've been fighting every couple months here.

Last fight was two years ago. Jones wins. I think we outlined last week that I'm interested in seeing Gustafsson again. Jones on the conference call said Gustafsson was his toughest test in the cage.

I think there were outside factors in that as well, but he cited that, said Cori wasn't the guy. Do you think he fights again at light heavyweight or does he go up to face a heavyweight? There's been talks

and whispers about, I don't think he does that based on my conversations just yet. Steepay has some contract issues I reported on this last week. He is not budging until those are addressed. But that has nothing to do with John Jones. I think John has some options now at 205. Let's just say he beats D.C. There's the Gustafin rematch.

There's a fight against Manoa or Ozedamir. And so those, I mean, that will take, you know, at least eight to ten months, right? those two guys. And I still am not ready to say goodbye to Rumble Johnson if Jones wins. Which is more likely to happen? Tanya Evinger beat Cyborg or all five fights on the main card

are intact for USC 214. I mean, what do I feel? I'll go with the latter. Tough spot for Evanger. debut. We know that class above. She will be game. She will be game, but man.

So anybody facing Cyborg is a tough task. And in your debut, under those lights, on this kind of stage with this many people watching, it's asking a lot. I'm knocking on the wood. I'm knocking on all the wood. I say we're getting to 214 intact and we're going to have a great fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel it. I feel it. Okay. Okay. We're going to end with two things. Two shoutouts. Oh. One, here. Devonsawa, friend of the show. Throwing a spinning elbow here. We've talked about this a little bit He was teasing a TV show that was coming out Guess what? That TV show Comes out today on ABC Somewhere between

Catch it, check your local listings Later today Later tonight There's going to be, yeah, later tonight There's going to be some somewhere between That's the name? Yeah Okay And there's going to be some

He told you know he gave me the heads up First episode's not going to have these You know little fight sequences if you recall, we also had a photo of him doing the twister. That stuff's coming in episode three when he gets his hands dirty. Love it. But check it out later tonight, somewhere between on ABC. And then a final shout out.

Good luck to him. Oh, yes. To our boy Lou, Lewis of Unbox Therapy. I love this guy. He is the man. I picked this clip in particular because it's about bone conduction headphones that are glasses. Basically how it works is it messes. with the bones in your ear and your ear canal

and allows you to hear audio without playing through a speaker. But point being, we get a shout out in this video and we've gotten multiple shoutouts from Lou and the team at Unbox Therapy over the years. He mentioned us on this one. Wow, what do you say?

He played a clip. I forget, I think it was me. And it was earlier this month. Giving you the love? I wish, you know, he, look, he has good taste. Man. as you know if you watch the channel interesting side note

our own Guillermo crews of MMA fighting has purchased many items just by watching Get out of here! That's hilarious. This guy's the man. I mean his views for his videos are off the charts. Holy smokes. And I've been holding on to this shout-out

reason being we got some swag from all this and it's about damn time. Did I get any? They're putting out some clothing. Oh no, you got some too. It was sitting on your desk when you came in. Now, you wouldn't have seen it because you came in late at a tardy hour. I want to talk about that. I screwed up.

If we cut to the camera back here, we've got... Oh, look at this. We've got some swag from... Oh, that's awesome. Wow, that's nice. The team at Unbox. Thank you very much. Always appreciate their support,

trying to show some love back to Lewis and the team at Unbox. A great Canadian. Killing it. Doing big fangs. One of the few great Canadians. That's true. That is true.

How dare you? How dare you? Thank you very much, Lewis. We love you and you're doing great. It's very inspiring to see what he's doing. Yeah, that channel is. His stuff is very well edited. It's crisp. It's nice. I love it.

That's it. Shoutouts. Done. Questions. Done. Conference call. Done. What else did we broke news on this show? We had two in-studio guests.

What didn't we do on this show? What didn't we do for God's sakes? Now all that is left. Go to Anaheim, cover 214. Come right back here in this chair. Who cares about that? In seven days and recap it all. Thank you very much to you, Mr. New York, Rick.

You can hit my music. I think we are out of time. Everyone back there is probably hating me for going a little long here. But I just love talking to all of you so much. I feel empty when I leave this place. The long commute home. A couple other things of note. UFC 215, two title fights, and I love it.

Demetrius Johnson, Ray Borg, Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko. I can't wait to see the promotion for this one. This is going to be great. It's rich. I mean, you can't script that. That's just brilliant. after what happened over the last couple months. So much fun.

That's in Edmonton, by the way, on September 9th. Shout out to Chris Wade. Great victory on Saturday over Frankie Perez. Biggest New York sports fan I know. The guy's just tweeting all day about New York sports, Nick stuff. Didn't even get a chance to talk to New York, Rick, about Kyrie Irving, eventually leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers. And I have reserved a spot on the Knicks bandwagon for me.

Mr. New York, Rick, when he wants to come over and join the team once New Jersey's own, Kyrie Irving comes home and joins the squad, how sweet it will be, lobbing Ali Ups to KP. Are you, you're totally me right now? Oh, it's going to be so great. It's going to be so great. When I saw that on, what was it, Friday afternoon, so great. Kyrie Irving coming home.

All right, I'm off to Anaheim for 214. I appreciate everyone stopping by. Appreciate everyone tuning in. All the guests, all the questions, all the viewers, all the love. Thanks to everyone in the back. Back next week, same time and place until the same pace. Samaria. Hi, I'm Deeter Bone from The Verge,

and I'm breaking into your podcast for just a minute to ask you a pretty simple question. Have you ever read or watched a tech review and thought, this is just not for me. It's way too nerdy, and it's made by some super fan who just wants to talk about how many pixels there are on the screen when really all you want to know is, is it any good and how do you actually use

the darn thing? Well, good news, we've just launched Verge Guidebook. It's the next generation of our tech reviews program. With Guidebook, we're going to tell you what to buy, what's not worth your money, and most importantly, how to actually use it. You can head it over to theverge.com slash reviews, and you're going to find our editors picks, the very best gadgets in every category, from smartphones to laptops to crazy stuff like smart light bulbs, and a top. of how-to guides are going to walk you through all of it. That's theverge.com slash reviews. We've got incredibly good videos, some really engaging writing, and of course those very useful guides.