MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 403

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Ariel Helwani speaks to Demetrious Johnson (00:08:10), Max Holloway (00:30:15), Ian McCall (00:50:37), Carlos Condit (01:14:22), Frankie Edgar (01:33:59), John Alessio (01:53:39), Everlast (02:18:53), Darrion Caldwell (02:39:54), Tony Ferguson (02:56:13), and NewYorkRic for Ric's Picks (03:29:16) and to answer your questions during The MMA [After] Hour (04:18:51). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-866-3-3-3-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's the mixed martial arts hour with The Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, October 9th, 2017. Hello, good everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. To all my Canadian friends out there, happy Thanksgiving to you.

Yes, in Canada, they celebrate. Thanksgiving month and a half before here in the United States. So hopefully you're enjoying some time off with your family and friends, having some turkey and watching us live, whether it's on YouTube, Facebook, mmafighting.com, or of course, on Twitter, mhmapfiting.com. Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians. If you're off here in the United States for Columbus Day, hope you're spending some time with us as well. If you're anywhere else in the world, I appreciate you stopping by. It's so great to have you here on this rainy Monday. afternoon in New York City and my friends. We have a lot to discuss. I'm very excited about today's show.

There's a lot going on in the world of MMA, of course. Just came back from Las Vegas. UFC 216 is in the books. And the big news by now you know, Demetrius Johnson is the winningest champion in UFC history. 11 straight title defenses. He defeats Ray Borg on Saturday night, fifth round submission, but that does not really tell the story. It was one of the most amazing submissions that I've ever seen in my life. It's without a doubt the sub of the year. And I know I said that recently about the Fugazi Boston Crabb, but this really is the sub of the year. If you missed it, what the hell are you waiting for? You must go find this video. If you did not watch the fights on Saturday night, I don't know if I've ever seen anything more impressive, athletically,

like that feat of strength that DJ exactly. exemplified on Saturday night. And he made it look oh so easy. It's so impressive that the music just died. That's how impressive it was. DJ was mid-souplex. He throws Ray Borg, catches him in the air, grabs him by the arm,

and eventually submits him via arm bar. Nothing I could say can truly paint that picture the right way. You have to watch it. You have to watch what he did. I was shocked. I was mesmerized. Still blown away by it. What a perfect way.

to break the record for Demetrius Johnson. And as I've said, often and again, he is slowly but surely getting his due. And I truly believe that once he retires, he will really get his due. But it's nice to see that people are starting to come around and respect the guy. And what a way to, as I said, break the record.

And it almost perfectly sums up his UFC run. You know, he's dominating for an entire fight and then he pulls off something like that, that very few people on earth. I don't care if you're one of the best fight. Like, I've never seen that before. and he apparently practices it. Unbelievable.

So DJ is in the history books. We're going to be talking to him in a matter of moment. Very excited about that. And what a mensch. The man has not changed once. Like from entering the UFC up until now, he's the exact same guy. There's no ups.

There's no downs. There's no slip-ups. Has always represented the sport with class and dignity and professionalism. Even when I asked him a question on Saturday night, first thing he says, yes, I'll come on your show Monday. He even knew that I wanted to ask him to come on the show. Who else does that?

Especially at the top of the game. It's unbelievable. So we'll talk about that, of course. All show long, there's a lot to discuss there. And in the main event Saturday night, you saw Tony Ferguson defeat Kevin Lee. He is now the interim lightweight champion. I don't recall ever doing a 180 on a person as quickly as I did on Tony Ferguson this past week. I mean, I'll admit, he was teetering on Xbox heat for me.

It was just all very cringeworthy. And then something happened, and I suspect I know what it was. but he was just a different guy last week in Las Vegas a lot more comfortable in his skin just I don't know there was just something so enjoyable and entertaining about him

and then he caps it off with that great victory on Saturday night so there's a lot to talk about Tony Ferguson and where he goes from here and does he get the Connor fight and is he the real champion all that and more and then of course as far as Kevin Lee is concerned there's a lot to talk about as far as weight cutting

and weight classes and things like that we'll weigh in on all of that part in the pun throughout the show as well. 216 was a very fun card. I'll admit last week, I even said it briefly. I was a little uneasy about going to Vegas after what happened just eight days ago. But in retrospect, I'm very happy that we were there. And I have some thoughts on the experience and the roller coaster of emotions. And I'll share those later on in the show as well.

Let me quickly run down the lineup. And then we'll get to our first guest of the day. At 405, it's MMA after hour time. So hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. MAPFinding.com is where you can watch that segment. We'll answer your questions. 345. Rixpix, 325, the new Belator Bantamway champion.

Darion Caldwell will stop by. 305, Everlast, who sang America the Beautiful. Mid-Octagon, Saturday night prior to the pay-per-view, we'll stop by. I'm very excited about that. 245. We'll have John Alessio, former UFC and Belator fighter,

who's now a Las Vegas cop, and he was a first responder. and he was in attendance on Saturday, among many first responders who were invited to UFC 216. So I'm really excited about that. 225, Frankie Edgar will stop by. Talk about his 218 featherweight title fight against Max Holloway. 205, we have finally found Carlos Condit.

Can't wait to speak to him. And he has a fight in December. Finally, you've been asking for him. We finally got the natural born killer. 145 Ian McCall will stop by with some news, and it's not what you think. We've got some news from Ian McCall, and 125 will talk to the reigning defending UFC featherway champion Max Hallway.

But there was only one way we could start today's show. And it's with the winningest champion in UFC history. He is now in the record books. But before we get into the interviews, it's New York, Rick, one more time to bring you a message from our friends at Tommy John. I've been telling you every week about Tommy John's brand new underwear fabric called Go Anywhere. This underwear is built to withstand the busiest of days. It's versatile, extremely comfortable, and fit for anything. So put a little innovation in your pants with Go Anywhere.

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and check out the complete line of Go Anywhere underwear, shirts, and socks. Plus, save 20% on your first order. That's Tommyjohn.com slash MMA for 20% off. Tommyjohn.com slash MMA. Now back to the interviews. He beat the record on Saturday that was once held. by Anderson Silva, and he did it in the most amazing way possible. I still can't quite wrap my head around what Demetrius Johnson did.

We need to talk to him about it, and he is kind enough to join us on the phone right now. Mr. Demetrius Johnson, how are you? I'm doing good, Eric. I hope they're good, Eric. I'm doing great. And first, I have to say, I mean, there's a lot that I have to say off the top. But for me to take the microphone on Saturday night and for you to say to the world, that was our version of I'm going to Disney World.

That to me was, here's a guy who broke the record, and the only thing he could think about is, will Ariel have him on his show on Monday? So for you to do that really meant the world to me. Thank you. You're very welcome, Mario. I appreciate you. And congratulations. I know it meant a lot to you. What a moment you pulled it off. How many times, how many times really have you watched that submission since you did it on Saturday? If it was me, I'd watch it, I mean, like every second just on loop on the. How many times have you honestly sat down and watched what you did Saturday night to beat, rape work? Probably four or five times, you know, I just get, you know, I chuckle of it because, you know, I've done that submission for like three or four years now, and everybody out there's like, oh, man, that's the mousetrap.

That's not the mousetrap. I have another submission series for the mousetrap. So that's the Mighty Whiz bar because Matt Hume showed me that arm bar. I mean, oh, God, I can't remember how long ago. But like I said, you know, I have such a big tool of Arsenal, work with the same coach for, you know, 12 or 13 years that you, over time, you just build this database. So for me, I just chuckled when I was needing him and he wasn't moving. And I was like, oh, here goes a ride.

I go, blah. And I slam himself. It was fun, man. How long ago did he show you that? A long time ago. Like pre-UFC career? You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if it was because I got a UFC in 2011 and I started

training when I got high school, so about 2006, 2007. So it's definitely possible. I mean, that spinning back out by hit Dodson with, I mean, he showed me that a long time ago. So when I'm in a fight, like I said, there's never a game plan. Like, we know what my opponent's going to do well. We know what their strategy is. And then I just go out there and let the fight unfold. And then if I get them in a position where I know I could take advantage of them, then I'll look at my toolbox and see what shiny tool I can use to get the job done. And obviously, you know, the Mighty Whiz bar was the perfect one to pull off. So that's the official name.

That's what we're going with. That's what we're going with. That's what we're going with. I mean, the first one ever suplexed arm bar. That's what we're going with. I mean, Maddhume had a little bit of a, I mean, Madhume taught me that move.

And obviously, I pulled it off in a high-level competition. I went in the fight, popping on all scorecards. And then, you know, I'm always looking for the finish. I'm never going to escape by on the judge's score cards. You know, the judges, they might as you go home when I'm fighting. And I pulled it off. Have you ever seen someone pull that off?

I know it's never happened in the UFC, but like any random MMA show, have you ever seen anyone try this and actually execute it? No. Wow. That is amazing. And why did you wait so long in your career? Were you saving this for the record breaker?

Was this in your back pocket the whole time? It's always in my back pocket in my toolbox, but I never tried to force the missions. Like, you know, when you start trying to force things, that's when, you know, you over-extinct. You make mistakes, and so for that, you know, it was just the perfect timing, man. You know, master working with you on shifting people's weights when they're trying to be heavy. And then once Rayb worked through that back elbow, he took his weight off.

He wasn't focused on planting. So I purposely, you know, started kneeing him in the legs, just get his mind on something else. Then once he goes, back elbow, thank you. You just moved your weight for me. Now you just became lighter than I threw him up. And that's why they would execute that. See, this speaks to what I was saying at the top of the show before you joined us. you have not changed one iota since i first met you the same guy and witnessed the fact that i believe

you're driving your kids to school right now i can hear them in the background like you just broke the record you could be out popping bottles you could be doing whatever you want but you're just back i mean you're probably going to power wash your fence this afternoon as well right ain't no thing i ain't no thing baby i woke up washed dishes cook myself breakfast three eight toast fed the kids got a diaper change and i'm headed to drop them off at school man so nothing changes man i mean I'm the same person and that's one thing Matt has always admired me. And when he picked me up in the octagon, he says, you know what? I'm so proud of you.

The first day you ever stepped in the AMC, you've always remained the same homo person. And I truly appreciate that. And I love you, not just for an athlete, but the person you have become, you've made thousands and millions of dollars and not one of those dollars has ever changed who you are. And it never will. So I'm going to see why I'm at the top of the pinnacle of a sport. I should be this totally different person to where if I were to lose last night or Saturday night, I would still be doing the exact same thing, going, drop my kids off of school and going home and

being the father role. Now, don't get me wrong, you know, I'm grateful and I'm ecstatic that I've submitted myself as a longest-training U.S. champion. But, you know, the people who change when they get money and they get, you know, on top of a sport, you know, those are the people who need to look in the mirror and ask them how they do it. But why are, why do you think you're the exception to the rule? Why do you think that more often than not people change? I mean, let's just look at your competition as far as the goat discussion is concerned.

The two other guys that most people bring up, even though I think GSP should be in that discussion more, but the two main other guys, Anderson Silva and John Jones, they have blemishes on their resume. You have not slipped up once. You have not changed. How is this possible? Why are you the exception in your opinion? Was this something that you are cognizant of? I don't want to change?

Or do you just think that that's the kind of person that you are? you're not going to change no matter what. I'm not going to change no matter what. You know, obviously I'm going to live a better life and provide something for my kids that I didn't grow up with. Other than that, you know, those guys, they got cut up with other stuff, you know, with the Ushada and all that. And the way to avoid that is don't take any supplements.

Like, you know, Matt told everybody on Saturday, like, VJ doesn't take any supplements because I can go to an academy. I can literally go to academy and be like, oh, Denise Johnson, we have the best state-of-the-art protein. We come for the best organic, cows and here's the weight protein. I'd be like, okay, you say there's this

great great protein in there, but there's something else in there. So I try to eat as much as I can. That's one of the beautiful things about I'm a small fly weight, you know. It was the easiest weight tied in my life. And, you know, when I came home after the fight in Edmonton, you know, having chicken and waffles, fried chicken sandwiches with a jalapeno kosla, I mean, I was enjoying life and I'll continue to enjoy life and just eating as much food as I can instead of taking

protein shakes. So you don't believe that if you were a little more closer to the middle of the octagon that you could have pulled that off right away? Like there was a moment there where it seemed like he was trying to get out and so it was delayed. I feel like the cage kind of, you know, delayed the inevitable. It gave him a couple extra beats to survive. You don't think that that was the case?

No, not the case. The rate board is tough. Very, very tough. Like I hit him with some good shots and good knees to the liver. A couple of liver kicks. And I felt that he was always going to be tough. And that was the thing when I fight, when I fight him, you know, when you look at his previous fights, the thing he's really good at that people don't appreciate, he's like, one, he's very tough.

Two, he's very good at the scrambles. So I almost kind of reminds of Tim Elliott, like, Tim Elliott will let you get his back. He'll let you have his back that way when you go down for the choke, he'll scramble and end up on top. And the next thing you know, you're on your back and you have to get off. So when I was going to Ray Borgar, I was like, dude, you're letting me have this. That's fine. I'm going to let you think. I'm going to go for it.

And then when you try to scramble, I want to be ahead of you in the scramble because you think you're a better scramble than I am. Because I remember you saying that, my scrambling ability is horrible. And so that's why, you know, it went that way. Did that piss you off that he said that? Because it seems like you continue to bring that up, that you're so proud of your scrambling. And the fact that he said that that was your weakness, it feels like it really bothered you. No, it didn't bother me. It's just that I just wanted to prove point.

It's almost like, hey, dude, you know, you see, everyone wanted you could beat me in basketball. Let me remind you. That's true. Genetic makeup makes me better at basketball, not really. But, I mean, the only way we can prove that I'm better than you at basketball is get a one-on-one game, and I'm down to do that. Wow. You took a question about Ray Borg and officially called me out. I've seen you dribble before.

It might be the least intimidating dribbling I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I have the utmost respect for you. You are the king, but let's not get crazy here, all right? Let's not get crazy. I don't want to embarrass you in front of your mighty squad, whatever you call them. We could stream that if you want. I mean, the possibilities are endless here. But we'll deal with that later.

We have to talk about you and appreciate you and bow down to you here. Did Matt say to you at any point in the fight going into the fifth, you know, going to the fourth, this is open, this move is open. Like, let's break the record this way. I feel like you guys had a conversation. Like, not only we're going to break the record, we're going to do it in the most amazing way possible. You seem to be that sort of, you know, self-aware fighter. Did you ever have that conversation with him that we're going to pull this off when we break the record during the fight before the fight, et cetera? No, not at all.

I mean, every single time it came back. to the octagon, I mean, to the corner, Matt says, okay, this is what he's doing. You're doing a good job. And I remember, he's going to try to explode. And then right after the first round, we knew exactly what his game plan was. It was to, you know, cross-distance, cornered me into, get my back at the cage, and then

tried to get me on my back. And then we knew that was his gameplay. So I was like, okay, use your footwork, and then just do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. And I was, all right, sounds good. Once you pulled it off, once you felt him tap, once you won, did it feel like, you know, you've been thinking about this. I think you legitimized this record,

more so than Anderson or the UFC. You're the one who's been talking about it for the last few fights. It wasn't really something we spoke about as often as we do now, and that's because of you. Did it feel the way you thought it did? Did this feel a little different, or thought it would, I should say, did this feel a little different than the other 10? Yeah, absolutely.

100%, man. I mean, to go through 11 training camps or 11 title training camps, it's harder in the body, man. I put way more miles on my body. than I do fighting. So this was a huge one for me, and I tell everybody like, dude,

I don't even want to think about fighting, you know, my next fight until the beginning of the year. So this one was the almighty. I mean, nobody in the history of mixed martial arts itself, dream, pride, one FC, LFA, Titan, Strike Force,

I can just go on, Risen. Nobody, not even one champion has to defend the title maybe eight times as a male or female, And I just did 11th, so this is a big fucking deal. And it means a lot to me. Was it so important for you because for the longest time, it seemed like you couldn't get the respect you deserve. So one way you can get that respect is if you become a record holder.

Did you feel like, you know, there's other, like, like if Connor only defends his title twice, he's still going to be remembered, you know, until the end of time. But did you feel like you had to almost prove a point to people break a record so that you can finally get that respect? I mean, Ariel, people are going to respect you or not. You know, people are going to be like, you know, I always respect your show. They may have their own, they may be, because you guys keep it honest. You guys bring out fresh new content. And people are always going to disrespect your show because people are just haters.

But for me, I just like to be able to have my name above all the other champions. I mean, we've had some great champions, Anderson, GSP, John Jones, Daniel Corme, Joanna Jek, Ronorazni, Connemar. And we offer some totally different to the table as the champion. but for me to bring, you know, consistency as a champion, pass on my drugs as a champion, probably one of the easiest champions to work with for the UFC. That goes a long way in my book, so I'm happy. What, if anything, did Dana White say to you afterwards? We didn't talk much, to me honest with you.

We didn't talk much. It's just congratulations and make sure this belt doesn't fall off and hit your big toe. And I was like, thanks, bro. Appreciate you. What? Why? Has that happened before? It almost did when I fought Tim Elliott.

Like the belt fell off and almost hit my big toe. then I gave it to my wife. So my, you know, my waist is 28 inches. So, you know, the belt's very hard to get around my weight

after the fight and, you know, you get to the interview and all that stuff. So, how many, how many belts do you have in your possession right now? I have three.

Three. Are we getting all of them eventually? We're getting up. Yes, we're getting all of them. I talked to the UFC that said we're going to make it happen.

I have the three main important ones. I have the very first one I won in 2012. I have the one I won in 2000 and, 17, April 15 when I fought Wilson Hays and Kansas City, that is

the tie breaker of Anasova. And then I have the inaugural, the uncharted territory, Star Trek shit. What? What? You know, Star Trek, you know, with Star Trek starts, you know, where men

have charted nowhere beyond. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, there's, no other man's been in this area mixed martial arts, so that's why I kind of related to Star Trek. You had some great finishes. The Benevita's out up until this past Saturday, I think was the most impressive one for me, but the

horaguchi finish, what you did to Sehuda, Wilson Hayes, et cetera, et cetera. Is this the best one, though? Can we say confidently that this one tops them all? Yes, 10010%. Nobody's ever done this in mixed martial arts. Nobody never goes for the finish after they're winning all five rounds. They usually

coast to the end and be like, ooh, I got it. No reason to explode and make mistakes or take chances, but I'm the athlete and the champion who does it. I'll I'll go and do it, and I just prove that I do it all the time. From a business standpoint now, what's the game plan? Clearly, you think you should be getting paid a little more.

Do we get that? Do we sit down now? What are we thinking now with the management team? Manage teams doing awesome. First round management. They call me this morning. They got a lot of stuff in the works for me. You know, first team is first.

You know, you're going to be very upset with me, but I'm going to have to walk away from you for two minutes, two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. Sit there. Talk to must have my Esk why you are part of the squad now. Right back.

You'll just jump right back. No. I mean, does this not perfectly sum up the greatness that is, Demetri Johnson? This is what I've been saying all week. Bye, guys. Have a great day at school. Love you. I feel like I'm getting a chance to take my kids to school.

Bye. Bye. I mean, this is amazing. What other champion, let alone one who just broke a record, pauses a live interview because he has to take his kids to school. And by the way, I fully respect that. I love him even more for this right here. It's a beautiful thing.

It really is. There are several fighters who fit under this category who I feel, and one of them is actually on the show today. Frankie Edgar is another one who I'll say time and again. First time I met him, champion, no champion, main events, all that stuff. The guy is always here. He has never changed. He has never ignored a text, an interview request. He has never big time his fans asking for autographs to

media and DJ, I mean, DJ is the king of all those people because he is the exact same guy that I met back in W.C. And now here he is pausing a live interview because he has to take his son to school. He has to drop him off. That's a very important thing. By the way, how lucky is his son that he starts school at 1021? Or I'm assuming 1030 or maybe they're a little late like we are usually. We're off in 15 to 20 minutes late as well. So it's possible that he started at 10 Pacific. But this is just amazing. So officially, you heard it here first. Demetrius Johnson wants that submission to be known as the Mighty Whizbar. The Mighty Whizbar.

I believe it was John Morgan of MMAJunkey.com who coined the Mousetraubramp. The Mighty Whizbar is what he wants and that's what we'll call it. DJ, you there? I'm here, brother. Okay, welcome back. By the way, what time does your son start school? 10.30? 1030. Wow.

Yeah, I get there. I get there early just so, you know, he's able to, you know, say hi to his friends before he has to sit down and get to work. I love it. I love it. So back to my question. From a business standpoint, are you going to sit down with the UFC now and try to really restructure that contract to get what you want? You know, that's, you know, first-round management's job. Malky and Abe, those guys are awesome.

You know, like I said, man, I'm just focused on relaxing, spending time with my kids and my wife, try to move into my new house. try to move into my new house and do different things, man. Is it safe to say, though, that you're sticking around on 125 because the idea has been break that record and then go for some super fights. You've also said in the past, look, I'm going to try to get to 20 title defenses. Now that it's done, what are you leaning towards? Same thing at 125. I mean, it was the easiest weight guy I ever had.

I mean, I woke up this morning, I weighed 138 pounds, and I had a delicious chocolate stout, had a bowl of cereal ass. I'm just a small guy. I mean, I saw my boy, funk master, Adjimer Sterling. He said, man, I just broke 160 pounds. To me, I'm like, Jesus, you are a big dude, my friend. So going up to that weight class, you know, obviously I want to be well compensated and make it worth my while, show me the money. I mean, these guys are taking concussions.

I'm not, like I said after the fight, I'm not in the business to take concussions. I do not like getting hit. I mean, I can take it hit, but I don't want to, you know, damage my brain if I don't have to. So obviously, there's fights in the 125 that seem appealing. You know, surgery of pedis is a hot prospect. him and see who to look good at his last fight I know just Brenna Vida is is getting healthy again

so I mean I don't see why I would leave when I just submitted this legacy why not say it's at 15 there's going to come another guy down the road who's going to be aiming to break my record so my job is to set the bar high

and you know Joanna J-check she's at 6 so you know what she might want to keep on going and try to break my record and I can't allow that so I got to hit the bar higher that way she's like fuck that I'm not going for 20 I'm done I did eight or nine, I'm done

I'm gonna go have children, goodbye What's been the best byproduct of this whole thing? I saw you You were tweeted by the rock Giving you props Calling himself the smaller DJ You the bigger D? But what's been the best thing to happen

Since you beat this record on Saturday night? You know honestly just all the love And respect from the fans That's always, you know The biggest thing I put the smile on my face You know everybody's like Holy shit dude I've been watching mixed martial arts

my whole entire life pride dream UFC 1 5820 I've never seen a submission like that before the way you move from aspect of mixed martial arts from stand-up to grappling to wrestling is absolutely amazing

and you know I don't know if anybody knows who post Malone is he came out white Iverson all on the song congratulations me and him we're going to put some PubG together we've changed in our members so we're going to do some you know some stream content building and yeah and the Mighty Squad

they were happy we partied at Chateau on Saturday so a lot of good things I come from this but I'm just happy I'm healthy that's all I care

about to being healthy What is it like DJ to be the best in the world at something what is it like to sit back

and say I am actually the best in the world you know there's very few people in athletics who could say that

you could say LeBron can say that Usain Bolt can say it for running maybe Sydney but like there's very few

people on earth that can say as far as athletics go I'm the absolute best in the world you can say that now What does that like?

That feels good. You know, it feels just like it did, you know, seven years ago. I mean, I'm still the same person. I still just a little on me. You know, don't get wrong. I think my skill set, you know, far surpassed pastes a lot of guys that I know and a lot of athletes. But there's still more work I have to do to prove it to everybody. That way when they wake, they're like, ooh, Timitius Johnson.

That's the mission he did, Terry. My God, that boy is on a different level. And this is what I love most about you. you're a critic of yourself as well. Like you just alluded to that. What were you unhappy with on Saturday? Is there anything that you really feel like you need to work on that you let yourself that I didn't see anything,

but I know you have a different eye when it comes to these things. Was there anything that you were unhappy with? You know, not unhappy with. I think I could have lit him up a little more on the feet. But like when I hit it with my cross and I saw him, he just smiled. I was, okay, you got a hard head. You got a granite chin. I was like, okay.

So my, I'm always calculated everything. So I was like, okay, if I stand and bang with him, there's a chance I get clipped. And then that clip, I can get a mouse in my eye, can get cut, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like, do I want to do this? No, let's just change the elevation and take him down and look for the big shot when I get the opportunity to do. So that's how I think about mixed martial arts. Now, if we're in a gym sparring, then I should have been able to light him up on the feet and, you know, and exchange more. But when you have those three-ounce gloves on, why take the risk?

I mean, I saw Bobby Green and Vianna Lando And everybody in the back was like, oh man, I have a sick fight I'm like, dude, look at his face That can not be good for his brain I'm just honest, like I mean, I would I think he's an amazing fighter He has a great game, he comes forward You know, does a good job mixing it up

The great power But for me, if I was his coach I'm like dude, you know You need to work on your wrestling We need to work on your clinch game We need to work on not taking so much damage Because I want you to have a long career I want you when you're done fighting

I don't want to look back in your fights like, oh, man, you were such a sick-ass fighter, you did this and this. I want to look fucking career like, man, you did such a good job of not taking any damage and look, you have something to show for it. You had a 15, 15-year career instead of a short three or four years

from all the concussion you've taken. So that's my own thing. But those two fighters, amazing. You know, I told Bobby Green, I was like, damn, dog, you go over that five-piece chicken me. I was worried about you. You got to move and do some wrestling, homie. Yeah, yeah.

Not that long ago, you were sitting back like a G in Hawaii with Max Holloway, just loving life. I think drinking some moonshine. He's standing by. Let's bring in Max Holloway here to congratulate the king. Maybe one day he'll threaten that record. He's just starting out his run as champion. Is he there? There he is.

Max is on the Skype machine. Max, you want to say anything to Mighty Mouse? Mighty. How the hell you're on this show, one of the best streamers in the world, and you're not on Skype. That's what I'm talking about. I'm kind of disappointed in you. and then two congrats on the fucking

amazing ninja shit you did I want to hear the name from you I was talking shit about you on the stream last night but I want to hear what you named that move we got we come up with the best name I think for a move what did you name your move that suplexed the arm bar

what did you name it the mighty whizbar that's what we did in the mighty whizbar well my stream came up with it's called the mouse trap I love that name That's fucking amazing

You gotta give my streamer some love They said the mousetrap I think so the mousetrap Is better than anything in the world I was calling it the Mighty Plex But everybody wants the mousetrap That mighty plex though That mighty plus that sounds damn good

I'm gonna go back to the higher up Yeah I don't see Mighty Plex I like that one That sounds good I like that Yeah Congrats champ man

You fucking you're a beast man I couldn't believe my eyes What the hell I was watching On Saturday I had to replayed a bunch of like a thousand times amazing bro you're man thanks man I appreciate we get a stream together man make sure I go give Max holler follow up bless m-m-may on Twitch that TV we need to get a PubG game together brother good luck stay helping in your

fight man yeah let's do it let's do let's do fortnight I got fortnight that's fucking play no no no no we're playing a damn for children okay playing some Pubgee. Okay, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. This is complete foreign language to me.

DJ, I'll let you go. Thank you again. You're the best. I mean, there's nothing more that we can say that hasn't been said. You're the king of kings, my man.

Enjoy it. I know how much this meant to and I really appreciate you coming on and giving us that plug on Saturday night. Enjoy the record. Enjoy your family. Enjoy the time off

and we'll talk to you very soon. Congratulations again. Awesome. Thank you, Ariel. Max, stay healthy, brother. Good luck, man. Thank you, brother. Congrats, Trump.

Max, we appreciate, thank you for stopping by as well. We appreciate it. I know it's early over there. By the way, just curious, as a guy who's starting his run as champion, do you think DJ is the greatest of all time? There's like a debate going on now.

Now that he broke the record, a lot of people think so, but others say, oh, he hasn't fought, you know, the best of the best, the flyweight division wasn't as good as other divisions. What do you think?

You know, it's not his fault. No. You know, it's, yeah, you know, I think he's the best. I think he's a goat. He's going out there and he's doing phenomenal things, you know. He's doing things that he's making everyone look like they're not even in a league of his own. You know, it kind of reminds you on that little Ronda Rousey era, you know.

Like, no one could, you know, everybody's before or what's going on, you know. And he's doing it against these other guys who's great. You know, the 125 is like, it's brand new, you know. There wasn't, you don't know who their ex-champs is. so you can't say, oh, he fought X-chance, blah, blah, blah. That's what everybody's arguing, but this guy is the best in the world, you know, to be in the UFC and doing what you're doing. And he's making these guys look like they're not supposed to be in there with him.

You know, that's what goats do. And I think he's the greatest of all time. And then, like you said, that Mighty Plex that he did, oh, my gosh. I was watching you guys talk about it the other day. And that was just amazing. I don't know what the hell. I was in disbelief. I was like, what is going on?

Like, what was going on? I was like, is this real life? You know, you see that freaking Boston crab thing, like you said on a regional show. You think, yeah, that's nothing will ever come close to that ever in the UFC. And in the UFC, you see this guy pick someone up in the air, grab his arms. I'll take this now and, you know, and did it. You know, Ray Barger was fighting it to do us to him. But he's the goat, man.

He's the goat for sure. I think he's the greatest of all time. And he said in his own words, he got, you know, he got a lot more to do. So I'm excited to see. I don't know if he got any more ninja tricks up his sleeve. It should be amazing. Is that the kind of thing? Like, you go to the gym today to train.

Are you going to try to do that as well? Like, I can't do that. But I mean, you have the ability to do that. Will you try to now see how difficult that is? Because I feel like he actually makes it look easy. Yeah, he makes it look easy. Yeah, I'll definitely try. Well, I don't know.

I don't want to hurt my partner. I must suck getting to like that. You know, I need my partners for his big fight coming up. So I would try it. I'm going to try for sure, but I'm sure it's hard as shit. You know, first you got to know how to suplex someone and lift him up. And you got to trust yourself and be like, I'm going to let him go in midair and grab his arm with one arm and put him down, step over it. Like there's a lot of steps to that thing.

It's just, it was mind-blowing. That guy is amazing. DJ has been talking about this record for a lot. As a champion now, as a new champion. Does this mean something to you? Like, now do you have that number in your mind? okay, I mean, he keeps fighting, that number will go up, but would you like to break that kind of record? Is that something you think about or not yet?

Yeah, you know, of course, you know, of course. Once you get it, once you end it, you know, you see what everybody does. You know, the records are meant to put there are meant to be broken, you know, and I want to break him, you know, and he keeps fighting, so keep leading the race, DJ, you know, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, so I'm going to slowly creep my way up there, you know, that's what I want to do. That's what I plan on doing. And, you know, it's champ life. You know, that's what you got to do.

You got to defend, defend, defend. And I think DJ is doing the greatest job right now at it. Okay, so it's finally set December 2nd, Detroit, Michigan, UFC 218. You're fighting Frankie Edgar. You're defending your title against him. And, you know, every so often, since you won the belt in June, I would check in what's going on. You know, you were open about wanting a new deal and you brought the head to Dana White, things like that. how was the process?

Was it up, down? Was it enjoyable? How would you describe the process? Because it sounds like you obviously got a new deal, right? Because this fight is happening. What was the process like? You know, it just took time, you know? UFC was busy with the whole corner thing, you know, that thing that was going on.

They had a lot of stuff on their plate going on at the time. You know, they sold the business too. So it took a while, but I knew he was going to go done. You know, we had good faith. And, you know, here we are. It would have been fun to have fought a little bit earlier, but we're here in December. They're shipping me off back to a cold-ass place again, and I can't wait to do it. I just can't wait to fight.

I'm glad I'm glad I got a fight. I'm glad there's a lot of questions. You know, when it comes to Frankie, a lot of people think I didn't answer in my career. And Frankie's that guy to answer all, you know, the answer being the answer. But we see December 2nd. You know, I'm excited. I'm ready. And I'm always ready for my fights.

I hope he's getting ready and, you know, I know he's a fighter, he's a banger, and I can't wait to do the damn thing. And for the record, you're happy with the new deal? Oh, yeah, super happy. You know, I'm super happy with the deal. Like I said, I just wish, you know, there's a lot of things delaying because UFC had to do stuff. You know, they had things on their plate. They're super busy. You know, you know how company stuff go.

And, you know, we got our deal that we want it, and now is this time to fight. Now it's just time to show my worth. and December 2nd is where we start. Would you have preferred not to fight in Detroit? I mean, because you come from such a hot place, it may take your body longer to get acclimated to the cold weather, cut weight, things like that. Is it a bit of a nuisance to fight in such a cold place?

No, you know, it's... It is what it is. It is what it is. You know, that's what we fight. You know, the first one, I fought Peders in Canada, and then after that, I mean, when we went to Brazil, I didn't know it was like somewhat cold there.

You know, I thought it was like, I thought it was always like Hawaii. It's always hot, but it was kind of cold down there too. And then now we got Detroit. You know, I ain't picking and choosing. This is what it's what champs do. We go wherever we need to go. You know, I would like to fight closer to home. You know, a lot of people call Vegas the Ninth Island.

I didn't fight there for like two years. You know, hopefully they can put me back in Vegas after this one. But, you know, this is the next one up. This is the one we've got to do. And we're going to get it done. In the midst of the negotiations, the discussions with UFC, did Hawaii ever come up? Was that ever something that you guys seriously talked about? No, you know, I didn't seriously talk about.

I hear about UFC guys. You know, there's some higher ups down here that keep saying that maybe it might happen in next year, like summertime. You know, there's like three months. They said three different months that they said in the summer that would happen. But, you know, I won't believe it. I won't believe it until I see my name on a contract saying that they're coming down. You know, I didn't hear nothing from Dana. I didn't hear nothing from the higher ups in UFC.

Just a bunch of, you know, guys here in Hawaii, I hear them talking. But we see what happens, you know, we see what happens. Right now I got a date. I got an opponent. I'm focused on that. And we're going to get that done first, and then we can move on from there. Do you mind if ask, how many fights did you sign for? Fights.

I don't mind. I think so it's five, five fights. Something like that. I like that. It was whatever I had left for my deal and we just changed it, you know? So, U.S.C. is super easy going. They're super easy going with me.

You know, they, you know, like I said, man, Dana White is the man. You know what you mean, a promise? I know he, I know, Dana White, UFC, they always come through, you know. It was just, it was just timing. The timing was off, you know, it was busy with all this stuff. And I totally understand. This is business. You know, his business don't always go your way.

And, you know, they ended up, went out, figure it out. And I'm happy, you know. They figured out, like I said they would. How's the hand? Is it fully healed? Yeah, the hand is ready to go, man. I'm ready. All right.

These two hands, ready to bless them on December 2nd. Aldo is one of the greatest, but considering his skill set, Frankie Edgar, would you say this will be your toughest opponent? Do you think that he is the toughest matchup you face in this winning streak? You know, yeah, the next one is always the tougher one. You know, even though Aldo got a bunch of wins over him, you know, his skill sets is definitely a matchup. You know, it's no secret what I love doing, you know, I love striking. And there's no secret what he likes to do against strikers, you know. He likes to take him down, you know, he likes to mix it up, he likes to stand.

And I think he's a hard fight for sure, you know. I don't think so we can compare him in Aldo because they're two different fighters. But at the end of the day, he's a hard fight. You know, this is a fight that I wanted for last year. New York, you know, and, you know, now we're here. What a better time, you know. He got a couple wins over a legend of Hawaii, you know, and, you know, and now a Hawaiian got a belt, and now Hawaiian get to try and defend and get one back, you know, so I'm going

to get one back for Hawaii and I'm excited for it. It's interesting to hear you say that. I love that storyline, but I've never gotten the impression that you and BJ are, like, really close. Do you feel like you're fighting, you know, like you're trying to win one back for him? Yeah, you know, not only for him, you know, not only for that man, but also for, um, Hawaii period, you know. This guy's three, three, uh, what is it, three in all against Hawaii. Uh, it's time to get the score back, you know, let's get one back and, uh, that, that, that's the plan, you know, that's the plan against him, you know, it's, uh, it's Hawaii thing, you know,

us Hawaiian, we, uh, we take pride being from Hawaii, you know this, you know a lot of, you know a lot of fans and, Hawaiian is very prideful and, um, you know, I have a shot at, uh, uh, you know, I have a shot at, uh, at a legacy, at Destiny, and I have a shot to go out there and change it, you know. So I'm going to go out there. I'm going to fight him, and I can't wait. You know, we got things up my sleeve that we've been working, and I just can't wait to do it. You know, this is a guy I wanted to fight for a long time. Another former champion I'm facing, you know, this is my third champion or former champion I'm facing.

You know, he was a champion of higher weight class. And, you know, he got history on the line on his side. You know, I don't want to be written in his history book. I want him to be in minds. Recently, Connor gave you props. Did you hear this? What did you make of those comments?

He said you've looked very impressive as of late. Yeah, you know, you know, the props. I talked about Luke about it, you know, Thomas, and the props, he kind of like,

you kind of like, you know, like, you know how you tell someone something like, oh, good job. And then at the ending of the whole conversation, he ended up telling me,

he ended up saying that, I beat the kid, you know, I still beat the kid. You know, I was like, if you're going to give someone prouds giving props. Don't kind of, he kind of made it look in a way to

nor people. It's like, oh yeah, he, you know, he did compliment you Max. Why are you saying stuff about him? Like, no, he didn't. He freaking, he said facts. He said the facts. You know, after we fought, I'm on this wing. He was talking facts. And at the ending, he said he won. You know, it is what it is. You know, he was this little guy trying to just bring it up. And then he said, like, the fight is very, the fight between me and him is there, but it's very low on the totem pole. And he's over here talking about fighting Polly and in MMA, you know, it's like, like, you know, the guy should call up Sim Punk. At least Sim Punk got some, got some time in the UFC ring or whatever. So, you know, we, I don't know.

It makes no sense. It makes no sense to me, you know. This guy's over here, like I said, you know, I'm sure you saw it, you know. It's fine exhibition matches, you know. So if that's what you want to do, you know, and you don't want to be about that champ life, then so be it. So you feel like it was a backhanded compliment.

Like he really wasn't complimenting you. He was trying to almost like belittle you. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. He's trying to, you know, go read the comments again. You know, he said this, this and this, you know, that.

And at the end he's like, I said beat the kid and, and, you know, and he's at the low of the total pole to fight. I'm like, you know, dude, you don't need. Like everyone knows I'm on this wind streak, you know, you don't need to tell everybody about it. It's just facts. He said facts.

Yeah. And he went back on, you know, trying stuff, you know. And just like how I remember like how, I think so it was you that bring, a couple people bring up Joe Duffy to him, you know. And then now he's like, whenever he talks about it, Joe Duffy life, he's like, that's when we was kids and blah, blah, blah. I was so young. I didn't know what was going on, you know, it's like, when I fought, you know, I'm pretty sure

I was a kid, you know, I didn't know what was going on. I still growing, you know, and he stood growing. Everybody keeps saying, like, everybody keeps saying, hey, murder you now. Like, cool, that's your opinion. And then people keep saying, like, Max, you're not the money fight. And I'm like, perfect. You're proving me right. You know, this guy's fighting exhibition mats.

Of course, I'm not the money fight. You know, there's levels to being a champion or whatever. And, you know, I said before, this guy's just with DJ, you know, the casual fan, nobody really knows that if a guy just came in and they, started watching USC, they see Connor walking with his two belts, you know, and then they see DJ, you know, grace of all the time, does DJ walk around on 10 belts? No, he walks around one of his belts, you know, and that one belt, you know, and he don't walk around with 10 belts, so, you know, champ life is hard, you know, for some people, some people don't want

to take it on and, you know, why defend, defend, defend, defend, defend, when you can have this champ war of fighting exhibition matches and, you know, and getting money while doing it, you know, fair play to him, you know, fair play to Connor, he figured it out first, but, uh, that's doesn't work for everyone, you know, so respect to him. At this point, do you not even think about that possibility anymore? Like, are you not going to get hung up on the idea of fighting him, or is it still something that you think is attainable? You know, I think if it happens, it happens, you know, it's 50, if he said 55, you know,

I heard UFC, when we was actually talking about the contract, UFC came to me, they talked to me about 55. They also talked to me about Connor a little bit, but, you know, It is what it is. You know, I'm not going to get that. They was asking about it. They were saying they told me. They asked, they pretty much, that's the come about the Frankie fight.

It was weird. You know, we got the Frankie fight. Like I said, I wanted this a year ago. You know, now Frankie, now we got to fight. Frankie, he took the fight now, you know. And when we see now in my contract, we was talking about the contract, they asked me, oh, what would you think about 55 going up there? And then they asked about the Connor question.

What about Connor? I'm like, you know, of course. If you guys wanted me to go up there and fight him, I'll fight him any day. So they kept talking about it, but, you know, Frankie was at the end of the day. Frankie was the one and we're here in December 2nd. What kind of suit we have for Detroit? Do you have it planned out yet? You know, I'm going to choose some stuff with my man, Todd Goldsmith, check him out.

And I got a great suit. And the tide that's coming out with the suit, guys, I'm going to give you guys a hint. It's lava. We bring in the heat to Detroit, baby. Yeah, we're bringing the heat to Detroit, baby. So it's going to be, it's going to be cool. You guys are going to love this time, I promise. All right, I can't wait.

And by the way, what do you think of that, it is what it is video? Were you embarrassed by it? Do you think it was funny? That compilation video of you saying that term on this show, many other places. I love it. Okay. I love it. You know, I think so this show got the most, it is what it is.

I love it. Or even the interviews with you. I always say it is what it is. And I love it, man. I love it. Some guy, you guys, there's one. I need to post it up. I'll probably post it up later sometime this week.

week. But there's one that a guy actually made a beat to it, made a whole song. It was hilarious. Wow. It's so hilarious. I need to, I want to, I need to post that. I forgot to post it. Thanks for reminding me. No problem. That's like your catchphrase. And by the way, before I let you go, it seems like life is great. You're the champ, loving life over there in Hawaii. But I got to say, and I hope you don't think that I'm prying here. But, you know, I follow you on social media, Instagram, Twitter. It seems like Max Holloway is off the market, right? And you've done pretty well for yourself, my man. Unless I'm reading things the wrong way. But, uh, well done. all I could say. Well done.

Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. Like everybody has been saying in the comments, if you read it. The comments are hilarious. The comments are hilarious. People are like, Max, good job. Max, like everyone's so proud of you. It seems like you're dating a beautiful young woman. Is that accurate? Yeah, for sure. And she's some kind of supermodel, right? In Hawaii.

A little bit, kind of. Look at you. Look at you. What's her name? Thank you, boss. Moani. Moani's name, Mauna Haram. Life is good for Max Holloway. It is what it is, my man. Well done.

Proud of you. Congrats on getting the fight. Congrats on the new deal. Looking forward to Detroit. And thanks, as always. I know you're going to train now, so I appreciate you squeezing us in in the morning. Thank you, man.

Thank you for always having. And, you know, I'll talk to you on, what is that, December 4th. That's my birthday. That's two days after a fight. That's a Monday. And I'll make a time for you after. I defend.

You're the man. Love you, Max. Thank you so much. That's amazing. Appreciate your time very much. There he goes. The UFC featherweight champion, Max Holloway. How about that?

DJ at the press conference calling out the show. And then this man already knows what day it is on the Monday after his fight. Wow. Amazing. Life is good. All right. Thank you very much to Max Holloway. Later on in the program, we'll be talking to Frankie Edgar.

So stay tuned for that. For now, though, let's go back to the Skype machine and welcome in our next guest. His name is Ian McCall. You know him very well. One of the very best flyway. in the world, aka Uncle Creepy. He was on this show just a few weeks back and made a lot of news about the state of his career, what he wanted, what he wanted to see out of the future, some of his health issues and whatnot.

It was a brutally honest interview. It was a fascinating interview. Really appreciated his time. And now he's back for more. He is back for some other news, some really big news. And it's not what you think. So let's welcome in Mr. Ian McCall right now, via the magic of Skype. Ian, how are you?

Good. How are you? I'm doing great. Now, before we get to the news, let's just first put this out there. When we talked about you coming on the show a couple days ago, you didn't want to tell me what the news was because you said, and I sort of quote, you're a journalist, you can't keep a secret. Now in front of the world, have I kept my secret?

Have I kept my word? Am I a man of honor? You have your word. You have kept your word. You're still a journal. Why do you hate journal? Why don't you trust? We're not all the same, by the way.

Don't paint us all with the same brush. I'm a typical American I'm just going to paint everybody with the same brush Well I'm happy Thank you thank you Thank you for having me And let me turn the mic over to you here You have some news that you want to share with the world

And we want to talk about it So first, what's going on? Well first of I want to congratulate Demetrius Johnson Because he's incredible And if you didn't see that Holy shit I didn't even see

I didn't watch it live because it was my anniversary. Oh, wow. Happy anniversary. The UFC, thank you. They had interrupted my, for some reason, every time you Sada comes over, I'm in bed naked with my chick. Like, they're the biggest fuckbox ever.

It's every fucking time. It's a fucking. And I answered the door and I'm like, well, what, how am I help you? They're like, well, you have to test. And I said, no, I don't. I got my release. I asked for you see for my release. and they gave it to me.

I mean, it was all on good terms. I had text Dana and I text Jeff. I even text Jeff as they were there, and he's just like, he's like, where to tell him? I told him to beat it. I'm like, I'm literally busy trying to have an anniversary with my chick. And I'm not a UFC athlete anymore. So it was entertaining at least to kick them out.

Like it was just made, it was just kind of funny. But besides that, yeah, I'm a free agent now. I went out there looking for, if I want to fight, I want to fight for at least $100,000. You know, it could be 50 and 50. That's fine. But I was told a while back, which I later found out was a lie, or I'm not sure it was a lie. But this is another reason why I'm also free of management. Wow. You know, some things have transpired.

But, you know, one thing, don't ever lie to me. I'm a businessman. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself now. But, you know, you've seen me. The last two times I've tried to fight it, I ended up in the hospital. And most people don't know, I ended up in the hospital six times over the last year. Eight times I could have gone that I'd toughed it out at my house because I'm stupid. And I didn't want to go through paperwork probably that you saw it would make me do because I got an IV bag, you know, like all these other BS. but it's just it's it's it's just doesn't seem worth it to me UFC kind of like said no not kind of I mean and ESPN just put out an article that said

I demanded $100,000 or I'm leaving I didn't demand anything I asked very very politely and nicely and they just said no we're sorry you know we don't even know about your health you have to get an entire health workout and we got the health problem fixed last time you guys saw me I was doing this brain therapy yeah that's that sent me into this weird deeper depression. It was supposed to take me out of depression. And it sent me into this weird downward spiral. And I was like, this is horrible. I'm never doing that again. And it's the place they sent me to, UFC sent me to, they were collecting data. I get it. It just didn't work for me. But of course, no, you know, I've fixed everything. I'm back talking to my mind coach, Vinie Shorman, thanks to him because he slaps me around a lot.

a Skype and it gets me mentally strong again but physically I had H. Pylori What's that? Which is a it's brought on by stress. It's a bad bacteria in your in your gut that I could be bro-sciencing the fuck

out of this so pardon me but you have you have more than one sphincter on your body you don't know if you knew that but there's one here in your esophagus so the food goes down and then you have another one in your stomach where it's supposed to go into your intestinal track and the second one pushes back and this one doesn't stop it from going.

So it basically reversed the cycle on my stomach from what I understand. So I had to go on like a month's worth of antibiotics or almost a month. I just take another antibiotic. Like it just, it worked though. I haven't had any issues since. My diet's on point. I'm like, I work out like twice a week and I'm ripped. Like I'm 135 food without.

and I don't really do anything. It's kind of unmotivating. Like being really in shape-looking and not having to do anything. Like, I don't know, genetics are silly, and I've worked hard for this my whole life, but I'm like, I need some motivation. Someone to pay me to go out there.

I'd like to go to Risen. Is it Risen or Risen? Risen. I'd love to go to Risen. I never got to fight in Japan, and I'm a dinosaur, as you know. I started fighting in 2002. Yeah.

So I never got to Japan in the fight. I never got to live that, that part of my life. I missed out on it. I never got to fight Shudo. I mean, and for me to go fight and rise, I love to, what I'm trying to do is go make a bunch of money, make better money than the UFC will pay me. Because let's be honest, they're never going to make a star out of a 125er. They're never going to do it. They have the best dude on the planet who just pulled off, like insane shit like he just did. Yeah. He goes, he went half suplex to underhook to armbar like four.

What the fuck? That was insane. The dude needs to be paid millions of dollars. And Tony Ferguson made well more than he did. Like that's unfair. So I'm going to go take all this and go to a different market and see if it works. And you know what? If it doesn't, if everyone just says, fuck you, I don't care. We're not going to pay you that much.

Then I'll retire. People have never really got to see how good I really am besides that first flight with DJ. I mean, they've seen glimpses of brilliance. Yeah. But just like DJ, I've gotten better every single year. You know, I've been mentally fucked, you know, the rest of my UFC career or physically. It's been one thing, fighting with one hand, which I still have to do. But now I'm a Southlaw.

Oh, really? So, yeah, this thing just doesn't, you know, I can't, I switch a lot anyways, but my hand hurts, man. Every time I bang hard with it, so I'll keep it. for playing and touching and then when I really want to hit somebody hard, I'll hit them with it, but it'll most likely break. It's broken a bunch of times,

so the surgeries, all the infections, but I don't know, I'm just, I'm going to field some offers. Like I said, I'm agent-free, I'm UFC free,

all on good terms. You know, I text Dana after, and, you know, I've always been on good terms of UFC. UFC's taken care of me, and I understand why they, they can't pay me that much money.

I get it. And I get it. I also understand why they stopped retweeting me for the first time in my career. Which I want a bitch about because I'm not a UFC athlete anymore. I want to like, you know, pay. I want to call someone at UFC and be like, who the fuck is doing the social media? Slap that motherfucker. But then at the same time, like, it's business.

I get it. You know, they're, they're, it's, it's, it's, the UFC's never done me wrong. Okay, well, let me ask you this. What did you ask for the release? last week. And was it just a simple, hey guys, I know McManard is the new flyweight matchmaker? Was it just a simple like, can you release me? And then it's like, hey, yeah, sure.

Like, how long of a process was this? Well, I planned on having a real conversation. Another reason why I'm agent free, you know, I wanted to be part of the conversation. And I wasn't part of the conversation. Oh. And I'm a big, like I said, I'm a girl. I'm a big boy now. I wasn't even a part of the conversation.

I missed a call by less than three minutes, and the conversation was done. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just go fuck myself then. Like, I asked you specifically to put me a part of this conversation, and I wasn't. So your agent called the UFC, your agent was Jason House, correct? Yes, he was in contact with him. And then I called myself, and I just said, Mick, you know, I asked specifically to be a part of this conversation. Like, I want to know what the deal is. He just laid it in and just goes, you know, it's cool.

is like if you want your release, we'll give you that. That's fine. You know, I talk to Dana. Everything's good. Whatever you need. And I just said, cool. I mean, let me go out and have some fun, try and make some money. I heard other people are offering a lot of money and the UFC's not.

And for me, fighting for 20,000 and 20,000 just is not worth it to me. Were you surprised how easy it was? Yeah, not really, though. You've got to think I haven't done anything in almost three years. I haven't fought. I've almost tried a fight. You know, I saw they paid Ray Borg a $100,000. Realistically, I think we all know I would have gone out there

if I would have had those four fights and not contracted, whatever, this whole thing. I would be the one fighting D.J. A long time ago. We would have probably made some money doing it. I mean, I'm sure they would have pushed my start-um a little more than his because of whatever reason, a little more marketable. But I don't ever feel like UFC will ever really try and push it.

until someone, you know, maybe if I cause a little ruckus, I go out and they go to Risen and beat up a few people. I go somewhere else and I don't know. I just figure I go out and cause some trouble, travel the world, make some money, and see if I can create some want, some need from the fans. Like, no, you need to re-sign this guy. You need to pay him with the money that he wants. And then we'll go from there. And like I said, if nobody wants to pay me, then I'll go back to my job. do you still enjoy training

like does the thought of fighting going through the whole process cutting weight competing getting in there getting punched do you still feel like there's a fire in you that wants to do this

or is it just let me try to make some money before you know I can't physically do this anymore there's a fire but I have to be very smart about it and then I don't need to show all my card and get all excited

I get excited to me I've had so much smoking blow my ass over the years that I just I can't get I can't let myself get excited about anything when it comes to business

but I just kind of feel like you know why not why not try it no one else at my weight is going to give it a shot

you know like and I know one FC Citri Citri Citjitong is a smart guy yeah yeah a very very very smart man um

you know and and I respect what they're doing I don't the caliber of fighters I guess we'd have to test send me bring a guy like me over and we'll test out how good you guys are if they're really the UFC caliber like they say then then they'll at least give me a fight

or they'll beat me or who knows you know it's all it's all fun in games for me like at this point my career I'm old I'm a dinosaur I've been fighting for 15 years but I'm finally healthy. I finally feel good mentally. And getting the gym is easy.

That's fun. That's like I would be excited to have a chance to go back and have training camp. If the money was right and a signing bonus wouldn't help. I wouldn't hurt. A little signing bonus wouldn't hurt. Who's calling me? Shut up. My brother.

But, you know, it's a bit just a business move. I'm just trying to go out there and cause a little ruckus. I don't know. We'll see how it works. This could fail completely. I'm not stupid. I've been a part of a lot of business ventures that have failed. And, you know, life's worth risking, in my opinion.

Are you healthy, though? Like, if someone signs you, what kind of process will they have to go through in order to get you clear in order to get you fight? Do you feel like you're 100% healthy to go through with a fight camp and eventually a fight? Yeah. Yeah. With this H. Pylori, I mean, it ruined my life. And my life before that, you know, you got to think about from, I get it.

I get it how stress, I had so much stress in my life through, you know, losing the fight to Demetrius and after that and the rest of the fights and all the injuries and the divorce I had that was a fucking nightmare and child custody stuff. and like a lot of personal issues. And it just finally once I once my body had too much, you know, and I'm so healthy. Like I eat so healthy. It's ridiculous. Thanks you to keto meals. Keto meals sends me free food. And they really send my whole family free food.

Alicia, my soon-to-be wife, I guess. And my daughter, you know, both my daughter has R.A. and my my girlfriend has epilepsy. So we eat as close to keto as possible. What's R.A. Home is keto. What's R.A.? Rheumatoid arthritis.

Oh, wow. Rumatoid. And, you know, that's another big reason why I work for a cannabis brand, a CBD brand specifically have it, CBD, is because my whole family needs it. You know, it makes my, you know, the woman that's going to be my wife not have seizures, it makes my kid feel better.

and she doesn't have to take, you know, pharmaceutical drugs. It's better. It's amazing, though, looking at you and talking to you, you seem different. You seem much happier than the last time you were on the show. Like, just your whole demeanor, your fate. Like, everything just feels different,

at least from, you know, this vantage point through the screen here. Do you feel different as well? Like, is that accurate? Oh, you caught me at the worst time possible. Okay. Which I literally the worst time possible. I was probably, for the couple days before that, I wouldn't have been able to come on the show.

I was on the floor like in a ball kind. This machine made me have a nervous breakdown. I say that, but I found a new machine and new physics. You know, I, it's all, it's a machine based off physics. And Einstein's kind of, not a theory, but again, I'm not a physics genius. close to it. Just a fan. And there's a new machine that's, well, it's not a new machine, but three of the guys that were part of the, I guess, the technology, I'm going to fuck this, I can get yelled at. But it's called Therify. It's an amazing machine. It's, like I said,

it's not a medical machine, it's a physics machine. And you just have to look at it. But I got under that. My buddy came for a few days. It was a mixture of that. And sure, that could have been, you know, of just me, just want. wanting to feel better. The fact that I had Vinnie Shoreman face-signed me and literally just yell at me for an hour. He's helped me over the last five years and knows how to just snap me out of it. A lot of weird things have happened. I left my coach of over 12 years. I left my only agent I've ever had. Wow. It's been a lot of weird stuff. And I just, I try not to leave things on a bad note. You know, like I just take blame for everything.

I go, okay, it's my fault. I'm fucked up. I got to go by. Why did you leave your coach? Colin Oyama. I left Colin before the last fight. You know, I've been with Colin. He's like, if I didn't have such a good father figure in my life,

my dad wasn't such a awesome great person, Colin is that man. And we still talk, like, I talked to him this morning. I just woke up one day and of course that again him being like my dad I fought more with him

than I fight with my real dad about trivial kid and parenthship and it wasn't a fight or anything I just woke up one day and I was like you know what I want to go try something new

and it wasn't like oh I want to go to Jackson's or I want to go to a try star I want to go to somewhere like alpha male I don't like anyone. I don't have friends. I don't have that many friends.

I have a lot of associate acquaintances, I guess. But for me to go train with people and to trust someone with that, I've only had really one coach. I had Chris Bennett to begin with in Jeremy Williams and that kind of, that was before I was a real fighter. Colin turned me into a world champion. So that was my serious career right there, it was with Colin. So I just was like, well, you know, BJ's in town.

And I can go hang out at Ruka like I do anyway. ways. So I go over to Ruka and I started working with Perillo and Daryl Christians. Still working with 10th Planet in Jiu-Jitsu. But honestly, like I said, I've been working out twice a week, maybe. But it's just, I just need a little motivation. Someone light a fire in my ass. I'm still, I've gotten a lot better than I always have. But then sure, sign me as, you know, sign me as a Japanese freak show, side show, whatever, you know, like, I think it's funny. You versus Horaguchi and Risen is a great fight, I think. Yeah.

While he is fighting in that tournament, trying to get that belt, let me fight somebody. Let me go out there and whoever. Who do you want me to fight? Let's do it. A new up-and-coming kid, or I can fight some other old person like myself. I'll show you guys how good I am, and then I'll fight him for the title. I love it.

And then I'll then either, yeah, I, I'm, you know what me, I'm not afraid to fight anybody. And it's Japan. I'm covered in Japanese tattoos. I've only been in Japan once. I feel like a hypocrite. I need to get a lot of, maybe I'll get my neck down

when I got to Japan. Sure, sure. Piss my jam out even more. But I got to ask you, and the symbolism of you being on this show, the Monday after a DJ breaks the record, and the first thing that you say is, you know, congratulations and you're given props.

The relationship with him has been rocked, and, of course, the way you started in the UFC and the draw. I mean, in a way, I feel like you'll always be tied to him. I don't know if he'll always be tied to you, but I feel like you'll always be tied to him and they'll always be that what if. Are you past, like, it feels to me like you're kind of past it. It feels like you've made peace with it, just based off what you said at the time. Is that accurate or no?

Sure, I'll lie to you and say, sure. I mean, no, don't lie, don't lie. Maybe I'm wrong. Sounds like I'm wrong. You know what? that's my al-bundi movement it is and everybody wants to talk about it and everybody like I posted that picture

of the video of DJ pulling off on armbar on Instagram you know people like like John Wayne Parr for instance one of I think everyone's favorite people in the planet he's you know still like you know weaky face like still know you beat him in Sydney

you know like he was there like it's just I get the adoration but it's been long enough okay my career went to shit look what dj has done would i have been able to do that i like to think so but it's pretty incredible now let's say i was able to do it let's say i was able to keep my shit together and and you know run in some sort of connor mcgregor type of i'm my genius is making me crazy i get to get to get away with everything and do whatever i want and fucking just be insane to make a bunch of money.

And yeah, I'm sure it would be a much different story than we have today with the way, you know, fly weights are paid and looked at and everything. But it didn't happen. So it's time to grow up, Peter Pan, and look at my future. And really, if I'm going to destroy my body and my brain anymore, it's got to be for a lot of money. Because I really enjoy the time I have with my kids. I really do. Like, it's much more important than anything else.

me so pay me you know because i get what i'm doing i'm not stupid i know i'm destroying myself and and i'm doing it for your view and pleasure and i'm doing it for money you know that this whole like uh you know i ian demanded this money i didn't demand anything i i thought i was on that i was offered a a large sum of money to fight in in another organization and it wasn't apparently i'm not really sure where in the middle lies that truth but uh right doesn't matter you know it's it's just time for me to change things up and and see what i can see what i can do you know i'm i'm a pioneer in this fucking sport anyway so i might as well go have some fun i'm not having i'm not really not having fun you know ufc yeah um as good as part of me they they use me

rarely on their little uh their shows because they have to push other guys you know like look at chito vera uh look at guys like that you know who who are young up and coming sure he's on mostly on the Spanish-speaking part because English isn't so good. But still, they push their stars. I get it. I'm a dinosaur. I'm all. Let me just go, just go cause trouble somewhere else.

And then I'll, if, you know, if I can pull it off, which you sure can, I'll cause some hype and maybe they'll want me back, you know. Maybe my mistress will, I will come call him. Good luck to you, Ian. I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you breaking the news here. And I hope that you get what you're looking

I hope you get that big fight somewhere and you can show people that you still got it after all these years. Keep us posted. I will. And yeah, I'll be... And I'll keep that secret. Again. Good on secret. Oh, good on you. Thank you, man. Good talking to you. All right, there he is. Uncle creepy. Now a free agent. No longer in the UFC. He breaks the news here. He asked for his release. He is now a free man. Can fight wherever he wants. It's going to be interesting to see who picks him up. If anyone picks him up, what he gets. And if he has one more. run left in him. Very interesting stuff. We appreciate him coming on. Okay. Now, how about this? For the last few months, it seems like every week, at least one person, if not, sometimes it's been five or six,

depending on the news cycle. Where's Carlos Condit? Where's Carlos Condit? Can you find Carlos Condit? Can you have Carlos Condit on your show? Can you talk to Carlos Condit? Is he coming back? Is he not coming back? There's a hint on Twitter. There's a little nugget here, there. We have found him. He is coming back, and he is talking to us and I couldn't be more excited so let's not waste any more time let's go to line number one and welcome back to the program

it has been quite some time let us welcome back the natural born killer himself Carlos Kondek Carlos are you there? I am what's up man wow he is there wow so great to hear from you Carlos

it really is there's so much to discuss here first off welcome back so many people are excited to have you back let's start here you kind of walked away like you never officially said

you were done but you took that break after the Maya fight, not this past August, last August of 2016. When did you start to feel like, you know what, maybe I want to come back? Feeling never really left, honestly, man. And I'm a fighter. This is what I love to do.

There's obviously a lot of different factors that go into making decisions as important as what I'm doing with my life and career and all that stuff. but, you know, I think I wanted to fight, I probably want to fight until, you know, until the day I'm dead, man. Okay, so when you were sitting there in Vancouver,

and it sounded like, okay, because you sort of hinted at it after the Loller fight at 195 and then you fight Maya in Vancouver, what were the emotions that you were feeling? Did you just feel like, you know what, I just need to take a break here? I still want to fight, but for some reason. Like, how do you explain what you just said

and then juxtapose that with your body language and what you were saying in Vancouver after that Maya fight? Yeah, obviously deep disappointment. At the time, feeling very dejected. Disappointed, and I'm a competitive person. And I obviously fell short. I fell short in a really, you know, in my eyes, a really shitty way. Because even fights that I lost in the past in the UFC,

see, I've still gone out there and passed off and put on a hell of a show. And that fight, I wasn't able to do that. And I think that added to this thing. And, you know, there's a lot of different stuff, man. Ultimately, I'm a prize fighter, and this is what I do for a living. This is my trade. And, you know, I think it's time for me to get back and see what I still got. Did you always know that you would come back, even though we didn't know in the back of your mind,

did you always know at some point you'd be coming back? No. Honestly, no. I wasn't sure. I've been debating and getting back in the gym here and there and seeing where I'm mad against other competitive fighters. Yeah, I was not sure. I was on the fence for a long time. what kind of made you decide that you are going to come was like was there a training session a moment

a conversation that you had and then afterwards you're like all right i'm coming back no not really um you know there's like i said there's a lot a lot of different factors um i still still love to fight still love to train um love the process love the people that i that i surrounded myself with um on my team um and you know also honestly you know there's there's a financial piece to it too. You know, this is my trade. This is what I do. I didn't go to college. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't have, you know, a whole lot of options as far as as backup plans. You know, so I got mouths to feed and bills to pay. So, you know, strap up the glove and get to it. Did you do anything else during your time off? Like, did you go out and get a different kind of job?

I think I'd heard some things that you were doing, but what could you tell us? Yeah, man, I dabbled in a few different things. I was doing some medical sales stuff. Actually, I started a company as well. I'm a big-time coffee guy, and I started a coffee company with some guys that I met in the medical sales industry. And I'm still doing that. I'm really enjoying it. But building a new company, you know, requires a lot of people to work for free.

Yeah. So, you know, and it's going really well, but, you know, as of now, it's not a paying gig. What's the name of the company? 100 hands coffee. Why, why that name? Well, so we source our coffee from a local roaster who goes directly to Ethiopia and all over South America. get this stuff directly from farmers and the way that they produce it and process and everything. It's, you know, very artistically crafted and, you know, very hands-on and not, like, industrialized,

like a lot of coffee is these days. And so, yeah, it just kind of speaks to the hands-on, hand-crafted approach that we take. I like it. I had heard that you were in the medical sales business and that you would, would be, like you're in the operating room, you're there observing things like that. Is that accurate that you would be doing this? Yeah, that is accurate. Doing some stuff in orthopedics, which is, it was cool. It was interesting. You know, I dug it and obviously blood doesn't bother me too much. Yeah. I mean, the idea of you in an operating room, like, it just seems so perfect for some reason. Is this something that you're going to continue doing as you return to MMA or are you

going to take a break with these jobs? We'll see. The coffee gig will continue for sure. The medical stuff, we'll see. There's, I think I'll probably continue doing that in some capacity. I was working with this company called Game Ready, which is a, like an ice compression deal that I actually used when I had my ACL replaced. It's a really, really cool deal, especially for athletes,

and I've used it kind of just in my career, balsa bruises and really any number of things. And it's just a great product. I'll probably continue to work with them. As far as going in the operating room, but you literally can't touch anything. You're not scrubbed in. You're not, you don't have, you're not, you're not,

sterile or anything like that. So you got to sit there with your hands in your pocket and like, you know, do tallies on a piece of paper. And for somebody who's as, like, used to, who's used to being as physical as I am, it, like, literally made my brain go to sleep. I would get, I'd get a good nice rest. I'd get my coffee and have good breakfast and then just stand in there, like, not doing anything and just watching.

I would, I would, yeah, it was not, I don't think it's a, I think it's a right fit for me. And you weren't allowed to bring any junior mints into the operating room, right? No. You know, I don't know if you ever saw the Seinfeld episode where they have junior mints in the operating room, then it falls in the person. It's a great episode. That's what I always think of when I think of the operating room. But, of course, you can't touch anything, can't bring anything in.

Were you aware, Carlos, how much people missed you? Yeah, I mean, I know that I know that I have an awesome following people. enjoy watching me fight and yeah i figure i figure people people would be wanting to see me back and correct me if i'm wrong and and and the reason i know this by the way well there's there's two reasons why i know this i did used to follow you on instagram but also my mom is a very loyal follower of yours and she noted the fact that you deleted your instagram is that accurate uh it's disabled yeah why did you do that um it was just nice to get off social media for a while. Okay. There was no specific, you know, catalyst for you saying, because you kept

your Twitter, right? Yes, I did. So was there anything about Instagram that you felt it was like too personal, like it was getting to be too much to do the pictures and all that stuff? Yeah, and that was, I never really, I never really used my Twitter except for here and there, I've been, I post stuff for and to promote this or that. Instagram is something that I use. And obviously it took up a lot of my time. So, yeah, you know, I'm trying to focus more on being present and my family's lives and all that stuff.

I think social media for everybody can become a huge distraction, and it definitely was for me. Absolutely. So you decide to come back, you tell the UFC, does your contract just, like, continue? or did you sit down and get a new deal? How did that work? No, it just continued.

And are you, like you said, your financial reason is part of the reason. Are you happy with your deal? Yeah, I am. I mean, we negotiated it. I think that there's definitely a lot of room for improvement for fighter pay, and you and I have talked about that.

Beat somebody up. It's not bad money, I guess. Nothing's really changed as far as, you know, fighter pain, fighter rights. I mean, it's relatively the same. There have been some highs

and lows and lows, of course, Connor and some other fighters have gone up of it. But do you feel like things are moving a little slower than you would like? Are you surprised

that there's no association at this point that the fighters don't have a seat at the table? How do you feel about the current state of the relationship between the promoters and the fighters?

Yeah, things are, things are moving pretty slowly, but sometimes big change happens over time. and I know that the Fighters Association is still a work in progress and I look forward to being a part of that. Okay, that's still something that you're passionate about.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Okay, because they had that big announcement with Tim Kennedy, who's a teammate of yours, and it just seems like the thing kind of just went away. Perhaps he's talked to you about it a little more? We haven't talked about it in a while, but I know, I mean, before, Before too long, I think at some point, it's going to happen.

Okay. But I don't have to be specific to any details, and I'm not currently involved, no. Okay. How did you settle on Neil Magni as the return opponent? Well, Neil's been calling me out for a while, and a guy really good all around. I guess not spectacular anywhere, but I think a really tough test for me,

coming off such a long layoff. Yeah, I think I thought that that was probably a pretty good opponent. So you were happy. I saw some fans were hoping like a Mike Perry, maybe a rematch against Lawler. You know, they love those wars that you get in, and Magny wasn't at the top of everyone's list, but you're content with it?

You like that matchup? You know, at this point, unless it's a title shot, everybody pays the same. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, I'm good with it. And how far in your mind, because there's a lot of people like myself, I thought you beat Robbie Lawler at 195, how far away do you think you are from getting back into that title discussion?

Like, did you have that talk with UFC? If I come back, I win one fight, I'm right back in there. You have a history with Tyron Woodley. The fight ended, you know, on somewhat of a sour note, it was just a little bit inconclusive due to the entry. How far away do you think you are? You know, it all depends on my performances. The first time I got a title shot against

the GSP, which, you know, you remember that whole musical chairs title shot deal, ended up fighting Nick. But there was really no talk of a title fight. At that point, I was just putting on really good performances, had maybe three or four in a row that they impressed the UFC brass. And if I can put a run like that together again, I'm ranked number five. and I think that within a couple of fights, I could find myself fighting for the title again.

Throughout your time away. That's what I want. I'm not even sure. We'll see. I don't, you know, this, I kind of go fight by fight. I'm focusing on what I got right now and not even really considering any of that. Throughout your time away, did you stay in the U-Sauda testing pool even though you weren't fighting? I did, yeah.

Okay. were still bothering you, you know, 6 a.m., whatever the case. You don't, basically, you don't have to go back in, and that's why you can come back in two months. Yes. Did you watch the sport? Like, did you keep tabs? Are you familiar with what's going on,

or did you take a break from it mentally? Both. I definitely, I definitely have not stayed as up on the, up on everything going on and all the current events as I was previously. But, you know, I watch, I watch bites hearing that. How do you feel about Tyrone Woodley as champion? You know, people didn't like the last fight, and some blamed him, including Dana White, said it wasn't exciting enough you didn't get the Bisping fight as a result.

Have you been watching him as champion? And if so, what do you think of him? Yeah, I've watched his fight. Well, I think I missed his second fight with Stephen Thompson. But, you know, he's obviously, you know, super, super talented dude. in that I did watch the last fight against Maya I felt like he

at a time where he really could have turned it on and tried to finish he didn't yeah I mean I can I can definitely see where the critics are coming from you know you we're athletes

but we're also entertainers you know people people buy the paper views to to be entertained and that's part of this is show business. So, you know, I know that, you know, winning is super important and a game plan is super

important. But, you know, at some point you have to, you know, this is the hurt business and you've got to try to put your opponent out. Do you think about getting a rematch with him a lot? Is part of the motivation here, the fact that that guy is the champion, the guy that you fought at 171 and injured your knee? Honestly, I don't, man. I don't really think about it all that much.

Really? Mm-hmm. You're just happy to be back? Yeah. You know, I'm really looking at small incremental things right now. That's big picture, but for now, you know, just really just getting back in fight shape, getting firing on all cylinders, getting my weapon sharp again.

That's my thought process and my priority. Are you surprised to see GSP back and as a middleweight? A little bit. I mean, it's, you know, it's a crazy sport. Anything happens. Anything that happened, people

leave and come back and switch weight classes. Yeah, and he was always a big welterweight weight, so it doesn't surprise me all that much. Do you think he went to, a lot of people seem to think that he's in over his head? that's been, you know, a comment that's been made by several top fighters. Do you think he has a chance against Bisping?

Yeah, absolutely. George St. Pierre. GSP is, you know, he's one of the greatest fighters that's ever been in the Octagon. I think he will be, you know, more than prepared. And he's GSP men, come on. I think he would do fine. Are you going to be a part of Jackson Wing,

same coaches? nothing changing on the training camp front? I always tweak my coaches and my training camp a little bit for each fight. I think I'm working with some new guys, but overall, yeah, I'll be training at Jackson Week. Okay, so you're still a member of that team still training there. Returning December 30th against Neil Magni, let me ask you this before I let you go, what did you miss most? Is it as simple as just like getting punch in the face, which a lot of people don't enjoy,

but I feel like to a degree you seem to enjoy. Is there an aspect that you really missed about being a part of a training camp, a fight? What comes to mind when you're asked that question? Mostly, I miss getting in there and mixing it up. Not necessarily getting hit in the face, but hitting people in the face. And grappling and, you know, just the whole flow. And, you know, I love grappling. I love striking.

You know, I just like, I like training men. And I've definitely missed, you know, I've stayed in shape, and I've been in the fight gym, you know, sporadically. But, you know, the structure of a training camp is definitely a good thing for me. Are you worried about ringrest? But it could be a factor. So I don't know why this will just have to find out. Okay. Final, final thing. True or false? Demetrius Johnson is the greatest fighter of all time.

True. True. All right. I like that. Especially considering he beat a teammate of yours. I know you picked Ray Borg, by the way. I didn't miss that. I got to support the hometown guy. Of course. Of course. I respect that very much. So happy to see you back. So happy that you're back on December 30th. We've missed you. I know the fans have missed you. People have been asking for you. And I know I've been bothering you for the last couple of months to come on. So, thank you very much. I promise I won't bother you for at least a little bit now that you're back, you're on the show and everything like that. But overall, just happy that you've decided to come back and that you've got to fight and appreciate you coming on this afternoon to talk about it, Carlos.

Yeah, man, absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right, there he is. The natural born killer himself. Carlos Condit, yes, he is back, December 30th, Las Vegas, Nevada, UFC 219 against one, Neil Magny. I know a lot of fans are happy. We are happy. It's good to have him back in the mix.

Let's move along. Earlier in the show, we spoke to Max Holloway. He's defending his title at UFC 218, December 2nd, Detroit, Michigan, against our next guest. Frankie Edgar, he's back on the show. Frankie, are you there? I am here. What's up, Ariel? Frankie, I got to say, I wasn't sure if that was really you tweeting earlier today.

You said, how exciting. I'm on Ariel Hawani's show. Are you really that excited? Were you being facetious, sarcastic? I'm pretty close, man. I'm pretty pumped. Why are you so pumped? Hey, it's been a minute.

It's been a minute since we chatted, you know, so why not? Wow. I feel like Frankie's got something to say. You're bringing the heat here today. I mean, things are going well, right? No, no. I'm coming up to a big announcement. I got much to say, but it works out now.

All right. You always got something to say, at least in my book. I'm happy for you. Get the title shot. Were you worried there for a second? It seemed like it took a little longer than we expected. were you getting a little anxious, worried? How are you feeling during this process?

Yeah, I got to a little anxious. Definitely calling Ali saying, you know, what's up? What we got going on here? But I felt good about it, you know, but I also have been in a situation before where it was kind of yanked out from underneath me, so it was good to finally get in an hour up and make sure it's on.

Did you have a deadline in place? Were you only going to wait a certain time? I mean, I felt like it was going to come around. I didn't want to wait too long. I definitely wanted to fight 40 years out, so I'm glad it worked out that way. But, yeah, I mean, that's just something you wait for, I guess. And so we're in this position where Max, Max says he's been wanting this fight for quite some time. He said he wanted it last year at MSG.

You ended up fighting Jeremy Stevens. Has he been on your radar as well, or only once he became the champion? Did you seriously think about, oh, I may fight this guy as a potential opponent? I knew he was going to be, you know, down the line, we would have mixed it up. he's been on terror so long and he's a young kid, eventually we're going to fight. If I'm at the top, he's at the top,

eventually we're going to fight. How impressed have you been with what he's done, especially the win over Aldo back in June? Yeah, I think he's been looking great. Again, the fact that he's so young and he's approving so much, and he's a champion of young age. He's got a long ways to go,

so I'm impressed by him. What impresses you most, though, about his game? That he's growing. He's still growing. You know, he came in young and he came in doing well right away, but, you know, through this 11-fight, wind streak, he's still getting better, still improving. So that's probably impress me to most.

At this point, do you feel like this is the last shot to get a belt? Are you viewing it that way? This is my last chance to become a champion again? I mean, yeah, you know, I'm a realist, and it's not too many easier to come up. This may be the last one. You know, never know what happens, but I'm trying to make this one a little special, I guess.

So, yeah, I'm approaching it. I like that. A little special meaning you just want to win the belt, right? Like nothing different than just getting the belt, becoming the two-way world champion. You've been on the cusp of it before. I mean, guys like your eye favor have gone multiple, I mean, more than you, but there does seem to be a point where, okay, maybe they'll only go to you so many times.

So is it good to use that mindset? Do you feel like that's extra motivation? This is my last chance to become a champion and go and run as champion? Yeah, I mean, definitely. Anytime you get an extra motivation, you do it. And, I mean, what's more motivating that title? And I know the fact that this could be the last time I get a title shot. So the title itself is going to be more than enough motivation,

but the fact that, you know, this opportunity don't really rise too much. And I've had my share, you know, so I'm going to make this one count. After the Aldo fight at 200, was there any part of you that thought, I may never get a title shot again? No. No, I mean, I don't. I still felt like I was within the close. You know, I mean, you know, and it worked out that way.

And I knew max one, I definitely had a shot, too, against Aldo after Aldo. I mean, I was pretty depressed after that at the UFC 200, but I tried keeping positive and just did what I did and stayed in the gym and, you know, got two solid wins in front of me, and here we are. I don't think I've ever even heard you say that word depressed. Was it more than usual, and if so, why? I hate losing You know

To lose to a guy for the second time Yeah I wanted it so bad You know And yeah I was depressed for a little bit But not too long You know I can't be

Get held down that long But I definitely was like in my backyard Doing some drinking Shooting some arrows That last summer And I just let it out Shooting some arrows How big is your backyard

I got like an acre I guess So make sure No one over the fence I won't get the neighbor's dog or anything Oh my gosh Wait so you're drinking and shooting arrows At the same time That seems a little suspect

No I Yeah you know There was no kids involved We're right Wow Okay well that's interesting I'm always interested How people deal with

You know the lows And now we found out how Frankie Edgar Deals with it In a way Frankie is the best thing to happen to you as a featherweight, the fact that Connor has left the division? I felt like you were kind of getting blocked there.

The fact that he left and opened things up for Max to come in, was that almost a blessing to you? Even though it's not the money fight, so to speak, it does allow you to get back in there and fight for the belt. I guess you can look at it or you can say Alba losing was probably the best thing for me, the fact that he's not the champion right now and gives me a chance to fight someone different.

You know, I don't know if that would have mattered if Connor was there. He would have been someone different for me to too. Okay. Is that still something that you want, or are you over it at this point? Like, do you feel if you win the belt, you can bait him to come back? I don't think he'll ever come back to 45, but

I mean, you know, if it arises if I could push for it, yeah, but I'm not even thinking of that right now. Obviously, you know, the big one's max right now. Okay. And so you like the fact that, I mean, you wanted it to be in New York.

You know, that's kind of what we were initially hearing that you were pushing for. The fact that it's East Coast. He's the guy from Hawaii coming over to a cold, you know, a cold part. He's Detroit and December is miserable. Does that help you at all in your opinion or does that stuff not really matter? I don't think that matters. I mean, you know, it's been time for a long time to fight all over, all over the country and, you know, so I don't think it matters, no. But, you know, it's good to be on these close time. I mean, it's only been starting to fight a little late, but it's nice to have a long flight to get home and to get there. One thing that's come up this

week, or last week, I should say, and I feel like you're one of the best people to talk to about this is weight cutting and weight classes. And we saw with Kevin Lee how hard he had, you know, how much trouble he had with cutting to 155 and he's been trying to push for 165 and it's brought up weight cutting. And I feel, and correct me if you feel otherwise, and I know that it's not a thing that you really had to deal with as far as getting that to, of course, not to 155, maybe to a degree 145, but even your coaches have said you could fight at 135. I feel like we're on the verge of something really bad happening in the UFC and only until that happens will they change things?

Will they add more weight classes? Will they try to help the fighters do things the right way? How do you feel about it? After doing it for so long, after being around the sport for so long, do you feel like there's an epidemic here? Do you feel like we're on the cusp of something really bad happening? Yeah, I do. You know, wrestling's seen it happen.

I think back in two, geez, like what year was that, 97 or something like that, 96, 97 were, you know, three wrestlers died on the cause level and they off the weight classes. And if you add more weight classes, I mean, I guess it could encourage people to cut less weight, but also might encourage someone to cut more weight. You know, they'll say, oh, I could, that, I couldn't make, you know, I couldn't make 55, but I can make 65, you know, and they were going 70. So I don't know. I think people, they're going to always look for a way to get an advantage and cut weight can be tough to really, you know, try to, you know, try to, you know, get people to stop doing that.

Maybe hydration tests. You know, the only way in college, the best way we did, we did hour wayans. You're laying an hour before you compete. But that's just not feasible, I think, in M.A. Why not? What about same-day weigh-ins? Like Saturday morning weigh-ins? Yeah, I guess you could.

It's just, I mean, you see people miss weight now. It's a day before, you know, it's a bad scramble. Imagine day of how bad that scramble is, you know? So it's just tough. I don't think there's any easy answer. there, but, you know, some suggestions have to happen. Like you said, something probably will have been dead. I mean, you're seeing guys, you know, end up in hospital for weight cuts, you know, pretty frequently.

Luckily, they're getting help they need and nothing too serious happens. Do you feel like once they took away the IVs, it made it harder to cut weight? I mean, for me, no. You know, I don't, you know, I used IV just because everyone was using it. And then when they stop using it, I feel better without the IV. But, again, I don't cut much weight. So, yeah. So, yeah, I do.

I felt better with the IVs. I didn't kind of felt bloated. Without the IV, I feel so much better. So, like, what do you weigh right now, two months before the fight? I'm probably a little under 60 right now. So some have mentioned, like, okay, year-round weigh-ins, and if you're over, you know, 10% of what you're fighting at, you should move up to another weight class, things like that. I kind of feel like that's very intrusive for the fighters. I mean, to ask you to weigh in year-round when you're not fighting seems like a big ask.

How do you feel about that? Yeah, that's tough. You know, what would you say 10% of your weight? Yeah. Do you find that? Yeah, maybe it'll be a little more than that. 10%'s tough. 10% is 15 pounds, like for most for me at least, right?

Yeah. Or less. Yeah, I think that, yeah, I think 10% is a little too low, maybe a little bit more. It'd be tough for guys to, you know, hold their diet all the way around. Some guys do get fat. You know what I mean? And some guys need to diet to make weight. Some guys do belong in low.

lower weight classes, but there are some guys that cut way too much. You know, it's almost, to me, I don't know, I thought the tough guy mentality, cut a bunch of weight to beat a bigger guy. I'd rather be the little guy fighting a fight in a bigger guy. Why is that? That's just, you know, I did this sport to be the toughest,

not to be, not to have the most advantages and win. I did it to just prove that I'm the best at fighting itself, not at everything else. Did you watch 216 on Saturday? I did. I did a little live chat too with a fight TV app Oh okay

Got to watch some fights And fights interact with some of the fans I was just wondering Given your background in wrestling Did you see the staff infection On Kevin Lee's chest And if so, like how serious of a stat Like did you notice it right away as well

And are you surprised that they let him fight? Yeah, I was surprised That was a pretty norther one You know when I thought BJ The first time I had a staff infection But I was pretty beginning stages You know, it got really bad Once I got home from Mabod

Bobby, but I had it, but mine was, you know, on my leg, much smaller than that. That was very big, so I'm surprised. And hands off to Kevin for fighting through that. Staff infection hurts very bad. Yeah, I mean, but also for Ferguson, I mean, it's pretty contagious, right? Like, shouldn't he be worried? Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. You know, a lot of staff going around, and their name acts is Mercer, too, so that's even

even scarier. What does that feel? Like, if he's punched in the chest, what does that feel like? When I had stabs my leg It felt like I had a knife wound in my legs And it hurts to even walk So I mean Yeah he

He did that stuff It's tough that he was able to withstand that Have you ever had it on your chest No My chest My arm and my legs a couple times Okay wow Yeah I just can't believe that the doctors let

Like they completely miss it Like if everyone could see it on television It's kind of crazy that they let him fight And hopefully he's okay Hopefully Tony Ferguson's okay I wanted to ask you before I let you go, Frankie, I was at a birthday party last weekend with my kids and someone came up to me and said, oh, I hear you cover MMA. Do you know Frankie Edgar? And I said, of course I know Frankie Edgar. He's the man. They told me they live in Tom's River. And a couple

weeks ago, they said that they were at the beach and they saw you there. And unfortunately, there was an accident where a woman drowned and you jumped in and tried to save her. Is that a true story? And if so, what can you tell us about it? Yeah, this was, I believe, the weekend, like 23rd, 24th. It was a Sunday. It was beautiful out, probably 85, 90 degrees. And we took the family to the beach. I figured, you know, you don't usually get beach days like that in September.

So figure it would be the last day. You know, the hurricanes were kind of coming in, so the water was pretty rough. And, you know, we went out there, went to the beach. Again, the lifeguards aren't on duty because it's after Labor Day, so no lifeguards. So it's kind of swimming your own risk. You know, my kids were in the water, like up to the beach. ankles. I was like, all right, guys, that's it. You can't go out too far. I went for a little swim. I was out there for a little bit. I made sure I came in. Then later on, I'm about to leave. I see my

buddy playing bottle water. My kids go down, playing with his kids, and we're just sitting there kind of BSing. I see some guy, every kind of starting looking towards the water, take a look. I see some guy kind of with surfboard, struggling to get in. This guy runs out. I'm like, oh, it looks like they're helping the surfer. Maybe he's tired or hurt himself. Then I noticed there was someone on the board with the other guy. So then me and my buddy run out. This was some woman, she was unconscious. We brought her up to the beach. You know, she didn't out look good when I, when I grabbed her, got her on the beach.

And, you know, people started coming, surrounding her and, you know, someone happened to be a doctor there. They're giving her out there. It was a miserable scene, man. Doctor was there. Her boyfriend, I guess, was the guy that brought her up. He was miserable, like, slammed his head on the ground, crying. And she did not make it, unfortunately.

Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, it was pretty. pretty rough day man pretty uh pretty iwakening day you know uh did you know the woman you know uh through like i didn't know her personally um but you know i've known people that know her she she's from thomas ever she went to my high school she's a little bit older than myself but uh you know we know some mutual people yeah and and was it like did she just drown or did something else happen you know i you know i i really don't know the story because there's what's just saying

that she's surfing and then she fell hit her head but I didn't see them surfing, so I thought she was swimming and just, you know, got sucked out with the undertow, riptide, or whatever you call it. Wow. And how, I mean, did you know right away that she had passed her? Did you find out afterwards? Well, I found out after, but when I grabbed her, she did not look good. And then we put her, you know, on the sand and people were coming over. She's one of the very responsive.

You know, my kids were there, too. So I'm trying to make sure they were all right. So, you know, I didn't jump on doing any. CPR, I've never done that really before. So thankfully someone much more qualified to me was there, but still didn't do the trick. I know kids, you know, they're like sponges. How have they reacted to it? How are they doing? Luckily, like, you know, they did, they've been okay because luckily when we pulled up in the beach, everybody surrounded her, so they kind of didn't say anything. And, you know, once I brought her up, I made sure they were kind of away from everything. Because, yeah, they, you know, they asked about, they asked what happened. I, you know, I got to tell them the truth. You know, she drowned. She didn't make it. And I was like, that's why you got to listen to us when we're talking about. probably not to go on the water when it's rough.

You know, you try to teach them a lesson at least. Right, right, right. And how have you handled it just being that close to, you know, something like that happening at tragedy? Yeah, and, you know, it shook me up. It shook me up for a couple days. Yeah, I still think about it, you know, that's got that image in my head at times.

But makes you realize, you know, beautiful beach day, anything can go wrong, might as well. You know, I got to hug the ones that you love all the time. That's right. Well, obviously, when I heard that story, I was like, that sounds like something Frankie Edgar would do, but just wanted to see for sure. And I'm very sorry to hear that she didn't make it. But much respect to you for even trying and putting yourself out there to try to help out a stranger. Let's end on a positive note. The team has often talked to me about Zabit, who's looked so good in his in his MMA career. And then his UFC career, he pulls off a showtime kick in like the first 15 seconds. Is there a point where, like, do you have to get this bell? before he gets to you because it looks like

we truly have something special here was a B. Mark Henry just glows whenever he speaks about him. Yeah, man. He's a human highlight real and he's fun to watch. He's fun to train with.

Maybe not so fun to train with him. But yeah, he's a great addition to the team and we're happy to have him. He's unbelievable. Wow. Are you, like,

do you actively spar with him? Yeah, yes, I do. When he's here and he's going soon too, they believe he's fighting in charge. China. So the week before me, so we'll be in training camp together, so we can be perfect. Well, I wish you the best, Frankie. Always good to talk to you. And I was so happy to see how excited

you were to come on. It really warmed my heart. That tweet was great. Thank you very much for the time. Congrats on getting the fight. And of course, good luck December 2nd in Detroit. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing you out there as well. All right. I mean, I was a pleasure talking to you, brother. Thank you. Thanks, my man. There he is. The answer. Frankie Edgar. Looking forward to that fight. What an amazing fight that is on December 2nd in Detroit, Michigan. That card, in my opinion, and I know New York Rick feels very strongly about UFC 123, that card, in my opinion, already infinitely better than UFC 123. The title fight between Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway,

Francis Inganu against Alistair Overeem, Justin Gaichi against Eddie Alvarez, Sergio Pettis against Henry Sohudo. I mean, just those four fights alone are tremendous. More to come. But thus far, that main card really coming together very nicely. It's in the brand new Little Caesar's Arena. So I'm looking forward to checking that out in Detroit come December. All right, let's move along to our next guest. And I'm very excited to talk to this individual. He's been on the show before, but it has been quite some time. His name is John Alessio. If you're a long time fan of the sport, you know that name. You've seen him fight before. Bellator, UFC promotions all over the world. Of course, one of the pioneers of Canadian

MMA. And around two years ago, he walked away from the sport. Great career had been in it for well over a decade, walked away from the sport and began working towards becoming a Las Vegas police officer. Well, today he is a Las Vegas police officer. He works for the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. Once again, you see the badge on my computer, represent them very proudly. And he was also at UFC 216 this past weekend as a spectator. But he was there as one of many first responders. The UFC said they invited 1,500 or so first responders to the event on Saturday. They were honoring them after what happened in Las Vegas last Sunday, eight days ago.

John Alessio was a first responder, wanted to talk to him about that experience, how he's doing, and what life as a cop in Las Vegas is like, and he is kind enough to join us on the phone right now. John, are you there? I'm here. How are you? I'm doing great, John. Great to talk to you again and really appreciate the time on this Monday morning in Vegas. So let's kind of start at the beginning here. When you left the sport of MMA around two years ago, was the goal to become a Las Vegas police officer? Is that what you knew you wanted to do? Yeah, when I took my last fight in Bellator, I was already in what they call the testing process.

I was just basically waiting at that point to get my phone call for when my academy would start. I'd already made it through like the background investigations and all that stuff. So it was just kind of at that waiting moment of when will my academy start. And then I got that call December 2nd, 2015 to start the academy. So I was excited. Yeah, but it was something I was working on towards for the last. like before that I worked on it for like at least a year, year and a half.

I needed to be a citizen. I was a U.S. resident for many years, but actually you have to be a citizen. So I had to get that final step in order to get into the academy. And, you know, I worked towards that. And yeah, here I am. Why did you want to become a police officer?

You know, it's something I, I've always kind of wanted to do that or be a firefighter. Maybe I should chose firefighter, but I went the police officer route and just something I kind of wanted to do since I was a little kid. I've always thought it was just something really cool. I've always kind of been obsessed with all the police movies, TV shows, all that stuff. And I was like, this is probably the best time for me to do it. I've, just so you know, I fought professionally for 18 years.

So almost two decades. Wow. Part of me inside was like, just make it to that two decades. That's like a crazy mark, you know, if you can say you fought professionally for 20 years. But it was time, you know, I wasn't getting the same feeling that I once was, you know, walking out to the cage and stuff like that. So I kind of knew it was time to just either take a long break or. move forward and it was, you know, moving forward was probably the best bet at my age and everything.

I'm 38 now, so I know there is older guys out there competing, but for me, since I started 18, it was just kind of, I've had enough. The sport gave me so much and I got to travel and do so much. It was awesome, but, you know, every chapter has to end. So that was the end for me. where were you last Sunday night when you got the call that this was happening? Well, I was working in a different area. I was working on the east side. And, you know, just I was on a regular traffic stop at the time. You know, I got an individual at the front of my car or talking.

And, you know, we hear this call come out. and there's a little confusion at first because we're on a call and I hear one of our other units like they're going to respond to a possible gun call saying okay which is routine

when we get gun calls all day you know and next thing you know someone's on the radio in a panic just saying just go like all hell's breaking loose

and we're like what the heck you know so I'm like you guys at the front of my car get your car, have a good night, bye. We jump into our car. We're like, okay, what's going on? Where are we going?

And we realized at this point, the guys' radio had switched to our channel. So we're like, you know, because dispatch gets on. They're like, oh, it's, like, are you advised that you're not on the right channel. So we switch to their channel to find out what's going on because it sounded insane, you know, almost like, can't be true. is this a drill and switch over and yep it's just mayhem so right away we call our sergeant we're like what are we doing like let's rally and go so we all rallied together all the squad different squads they all we have rally points we get together and uh so um a couple of the squads took off right down there we went once my squad got together and got our mack tack equipment which is you know um

extra equipment that goes on, you know, helmets and all that stuff. We went straight to Sunrise Hospital and locked that scene down, which was something that's pretty hard to describe other than like watching a movie where, you know, you just see ambulances coming in.

It almost kind of remind me of like a war movie when you see like nurses and doctors trying to like triage people. not even getting them into the hospital yet, and they're working on them. And that's what was there. It was definitely very unforgettable chaos, the poor people's families that were there that, you know, didn't get injured, that were in a panic. Yeah, I'll never forget that night right there. Did you go to the lot where the festival was happening, or did you go straight to the hospital was happening?

or did you go straight to the hospital? We went straight to the hospital because they were getting, as we were heading down, they were getting overwhelmed there and they were getting very worried. At this point, we didn't know,

like what kind of attack we were dealing with yet because this was within minutes, you know. We didn't know if there's going to be multiple shooters, multiple locations, and we're like, okay,

if there's going to be a second shooter that's going to hit somewhere else and try to finish a job, it's going to be a hospital where they know, so many people are going to. So we basically got there. We tactically locked it all down, me and my whole squad.

So that way we could see what was coming and what was going to go. Locked all the doors to the hospital except for the main entrance. So that way we knew no, you know, rogue bad guys could get in any other way. They were going to have to come through us. And, you know, fortunately, you know, a second. shooter didn't happen, didn't come to the hospital. But we were trying to keep the people there safe and allow all these ambulances to come in. I mean, literally, we had citizens in trucks dropping people off, like people in the back

of the, in the bed of the truck. And so at this point, we're just helping get these people out of the truck and onto a gurney and get them into the hospital where it was just a chaotic, chaotic scene. inside do I wish I got to go right down to the scene I wish I could have gone onto the 32nd floor and took care of business but every officer every squad you know had a role to play whether it was

just stay in your area and do your regular calls for service or you know like for example as we had to go to the hospital and you know other responded to different hotels some just like went to like the win or all these other cascassia you know, it's just to make sure like, okay, if I'm out pops off, we're here, you know?

So every officer did an amazing job, whether they, you know, most officers that they had to do calls for service that night, they're considering like, oh, why didn't get to do anything? Well, they did. You know, they had to hold down the whole city because the city's like crime and other stuff didn't stop while this happened, you know? Right, right. Everybody played a really big part. And it was crazy to see the citizens come together that night.

All the heroes that were just there attending, helping other people out, bringing them to the hospital. I mean, you know, it was the country festival. So it's a weird scene. I'm seeing guys in jeans and cowboy boots and no shirts on, like just helping people. But it was awesome to see that people can come together in a moment. this, especially with like, you know, this country right now is the politics and everybody being so divided and all this stuff. And that one moment, it didn't matter. You know what I mean? Everybody

came together. And that was like pretty touching to see firsthand right there, you know, people that didn't know each other crying on each other's shoulders and stuff. And it was something special. Is there any way as a police officer, as a police force to even remotely come close to any sort of preparation for something like this? Like have you ever, I mean, there's different scales, of course, but in your time as a police officer, how close of a simulation can you get to an experience like this? We do a lot of training. We responded so fast. And it was, honestly, like when you we could hear you know once we got different commands and different people and and then you know our higher ops command staff we're getting on scene and stuff it was

about as good as you can get can you can you it's non-preventable this situation like if you want to go to a hotel room like anybody could do it anybody can do it which is the scary part so are we going to take even more measures absolutely Are we going to learn from this so that we can get better at it? For sure we are. But I think we responded with great quickness. Everybody was super responsible. Everybody did such a good job.

Short of preventing it, everybody did what they could, you know, because there's just nothing else that you can really change there. But we will learn little things to make it even better. Did you know or do you know any of the police officers who were physically affected, physically harmed? I do know one of them. Yeah. Casey Clarkson. I've met him just a short time ago. We weren't close or anything, but the time I spent with him was awesome. He's just an awesome stand-up guy. He's the one that he actually got into the octagon that night. He's the one that, which was. shot in the neck. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's a great, great person. He did an amazing job that night, too. I mean, shielding people to take one in the neck and to be lying on citizens, protecting

them while he's off duty, you know, was, it's just heroic. And my hat's off to him for being so brave with no weapon on them or anything, you know, just being able to do that. I, I unfortunately, have never got to meet Charleston Hatfield, Hartfield, which is the officer that we lost. From what I hear from everybody, he was just an amazing individual. I really wish that I had the opportunity to meet him and know him. But nonetheless, losing a fellow brother is not easy. Like, it really hits home. It really makes you, like, aware of what could happen.

you know, and he was off duty, you know, and he would put his life on the line out there, too, while off duty. So he's a true hero right there. And like I said, I wish I had the opportunity to meet him. How long were you up that night? You know, you went to the hospital, as you said, like, when did your quote unquote shift end after all that? That was a long day. Yeah, we started work at, uh,

I think four or five o'clock, just doing our regular shift. And we didn't get back to the station because we finally got some relief at, I think it was eight in the morning when we got back to the station. And everybody's still kind of in that what happened, mind frame. So by the time I got home and crawled into bed, I think I just lied there awake for hours and hours and hours. And then we had to be back at work by 5 p.m. because we were on long shifts.

I basically worked again from 5 p.m. until 7 or 8 the next morning. We did that for the next four days. So there was very little sleep. Even like when we got off shift to go home to go to bed, you know, your mind's just not like, oh, I'm just going to go to sleep and turn off what. just happened in the world, you know? It was tossing and turning and a lot of red bulls and

monster energy drinks and coffee just to like get through that week. And when Thursday finally hit, which was my first day off, I didn't do anything. You know, I literally just sat on the couch all day long and just mentally exhausted, you know, from everything that took place. and I was probably like a little distant from the wife and everything too. But she knew, you know, what happened was crazy and she was really supportive about it. And actually everybody in general, like the MMA community, like old friends, fans, people on social media from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, like the people that hit me up to like find out glad I was okay and to see if I needed anything was. So amazing. And if anybody's out there listening, that send me that, I appreciate it. That was like really uplifting moment for me and made me feel really good. So I appreciate that.

The MMA community is the best in that regard. A very tight-knit community. I don't have to tell you that. And so that's really nice to hear that they, you know, still reached out to even though you haven't fought in the last couple years and remembered that you were a Las Vegas police officer. What was it like going back? Like, does it, did it feel? like that feeling when you go back on Monday afternoon at 5 how do you like are you just going back to where how do you describe

that feeling what was that like well it's you get with your you know with our squad and you know just kind of let's take care of business I mean we were on we were gonna be down on the strip doing you know one is like okay possibility of a second attack you know

sure you know that's what we're there for but One is to just let all the people know that are still here on vacation and whatnot that we're here. We want you to try to enjoy the rest of your trip. We know something crazy happened, but we showed force down there to try to make everybody feel comfortable. So the outpour from the citizens that came up to us while we were all down on this trip, I'm sure every Metro Police officer can say this was just... crazy how many people just wanted to come and just give us a hug you know people from you

know who knows where they were from but they were just like wanted to come and give us hug and thank us and um which was pretty emotional you know a lot of these people were like hey we were there my friend got hit she's okay or he's okay but you know they're traumatized by it and they're somehow trying to enjoy the last couple days that they're there and like I I could feel what they're going through, like, how do you really enjoy your Vegas trip when this just took place, you know? And to think this was the, you know, the biggest active shooter in American history. We just went through this, like, two nights ago kind of thing, or the night before, and we're working at this.

It's just, again, it didn't really hit home, or it didn't really hit us as far as, like, the magnitude of it. We just knew we had a job to do, and we were going to do it, you know? at pretty much all costs. Your duty now, has it sort of gone back to normal, or are you still high alert? Have you had to change what your role is? How would you, like eight days later, what is life like as a Las Vegas police officer? Well, it's for my squad, for what I do, it's, I'd say it's business as usual.

Is there still a lot of police officers down in that area, extra patrol and things? taking place down on the strip. Absolutely. For me, I'm back to what I normally do. And so I'm back to my regular shifts and my regular job. Right now my whole squad is. But there's still plenty of extra watch going on down there, especially by the scene and just the strip in general.

But I'm thankful to finally be back to what I do and try to get a little bit of normalcy going again. How did you end up at UFC 216? Well, I know that the UFC had gave a bunch of tickets to the union and stuff for us, but, you know, maybe in the ex-UFC fighter that I am, I hit up my manager, Robert Rivetta, and Reed Harris, I'm sure most of you all know. ended up getting me some very nice seats

and I was sitting on the floor in like the third row he gave me four tickets so I brought three of my squad mates that were there with me the night it all took place and so yeah Reed showed us a really good time and we sat right down there on the floor

and I actually had three friends slash teammates fighting that night too so it was awesome Evan Dunham Brad Tavares and then Kevin Lee which is weird because it was a win, a loss, and a draw. It was across the board. But it was a good card.

It was fun to be there. It was great to see the UFC have the Vegas strong and the octagon. Everybody's lockout shirts had it. So I'm glad the UFC and Dana White and everybody really stepped up to support the city. And I mean, I kind of thought they would. This is their city. This is where they live. and, you know, UFC is kind of, this is where it's based out of, you know.

So, but, you know, I think all the officers that got tickets and everybody really appreciated what they did. I know I was thankful for the extra nice seats that I got and my squad mates were super excited. Most of them have never even been to a UFC. So for them to come and experience a, you know, a pay-per-view up close like that, they were pretty stoked. Yeah, and you got to see a little bit. little history as well. You got to see Demetrius Johnson break the record for most successful title defenses. So definitely a memorable night and a chance to maybe think about other things, at least for a few moments. Do you feel like a different person now, John? Do you feel like, has this

dramatically changed your leg? Like, do you feel like you're a little bit still on edge when you're out there, the way you approach the job of your life? How has this changed you? I don't know. It's kind of a hard question. I would say. that's probably something you'd have to ask like my wife or something to see if I'm different. I don't know. I definitely feel like some sadness inside, you know, being a part of what I saw, you know, the things I had to see that night. Yeah, I guess that would change me.

I've always been what you'd call like a vigilant on the job for what I do. I'm part of an enforcement squad. So, you know, we go after, I'm basically looking for gangsters. You know, that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm not on the gang squad, but I'm on the enforcement squad. So I'm always very vigilant of what could happen with the people that I'm, you know, looking to take off the streets. But, yeah, I mean, I'm never going to forget this.

There's moments that I'll never forget. I couldn't imagine what some of the other officers had to go through that night as well. I'm sure everybody is a little bit scarred from this, and especially if you lost somebody, I'm sure they're feeling so much more than what I am. I know that, you know, we're just going to move forward. And what the community did for us afterwards, the outcry, we walk into our stations and briefing room, and it's full of food and drinks. And I'm talking from the casinos to the citizens to just people dropping off stuff.

Like, what do you need? We're here for you guys. We love you. And then in such a time where for some reason, police are the bad guys and everything. You know, I mean, we all see it on the media. We all see it on the news. We all have our opinions on it. But leaving all that aside, that didn't matter.

None of that mattered this week. It was like they loved the police. off. We love police again. The outcry there of bringing stuff in for us, the outpour of it. It was just the cards that schools were bringing in and stuff was just awesome. Like that helped everybody get through such a crazy week. So that was something special as well. I'm sorry you had to come on under these circumstances, John, but I'm really appreciative

that you did and, of course, very appreciative what you did for the community as well. It was something I'll never forget being in, Las Vegas. And I certainly can sympathize with that feeling that you said that people were coming up to you and wanting to hug. Because I felt the same way. You know, there's a gentleman who's a fan of the show named Bill Steinmetz, who's a cop in Vegas. And I just wanted to go talk to him and hug him as well. And I was happy that I was able to do so while he was on duty, I believe it was Thursday night. And I wish I could have done the same to you and to every other cop there. Really appreciative what you guys did. You're unbelievably brave. And on behalf of the MMA community. And every everyone who goes to Vegas, thank you for what you did last week, and thank you to the rest of your team. And I was really happy that you guys got to go to UFC 216. And what the UFC did, I thought, hit the perfect note. It was just sincere and compassionate. And I expected nothing less from a Las Vegas team, so to speak. That's their hometown, as you said. Yeah. Again, and you're a great Canadian as well.

And I want to wish you to Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. I know you don't live there anymore. Neither do why, but it's okay to say that to a fellow Canadian. So, all the best to you John. Thanks for checking in. Thanks for coming on. Keep up the great work. And hopefully next time we're in Vegas, we can see you and hear that everything's going okay for you and your family. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. All right. All right. All the best of luck to you and the team over there in Vegas. We'll talk to you soon. There he is John Alessio, one of the great Canadian fighters of all time, now protecting the good citizens of Las Vegas and was really, happy to see that he was at UFC 216 as well. By the way, he's not the only former UFC fighter to work for the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. Josh Haynes, who was on Tough Season 3, who made it to the finals, also a proud member of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. So we talked about the scene on Saturday and how the UFC handled it. I thought they handled it perfectly.

Dana White's speech, having the first responders in attendance, having several people, several concert goers who were affected in attendance and then having Everlast come out and seeing America the Beautiful I thought was just phenomenal and I've watched it like 10 times. One of the finest moments for the UFC. Often they don't stray from the format, the script, so to speak, but I'm happy they did on Saturday and it is an honor to be joined by Everlast right now on the phone. Everlast, are you there? Yeah, I'm here, man. How are you doing? I really appreciate the time. For a second, I thought you were canceling on us. So I'm doubly happy that you're here. I was sad. I was excited, then sad, then happy again?

No, it was a crazy, like, four days, man. I understand. You know, I got a call from Dana, like, literally Thursday morning, just telling me he needed me, and he didn't even tell me why at first, and I was just like, what do you need? I'm there. And, you know, he explained to me, you know, they never do the national anthem or anything like that at the UFC,

and they wanted to do something. They've only done it once before. It was after 9-11, and they wanted to do something special. and they wanted to do something special. And, you know, he was like, we, I was like, I'm there. What do you want me? You know, how's you do it? You know, and then the whole weekend just unfolded so crazily.

And, you know, it wound up being America the Beautiful because I'm not a singer in the sense of like an R&B. You know, I couldn't do no long running Acapella, beautiful. Right. Bombastic version of the national anthem. So, I mean, but at first when he asked me to do it, I ran to. the back of the house in my big walking closet and just shut the door, slammed it, and started trying to sing the national anthem.

And so my original intention was to do it. But as I'm singing it, and I'm realizing like, yo man, this is kind of boring. First of all, my version, it'd be like your school version, like at the assembly. And I keep getting to Rockets, Red Glam, bombs bursting in air, and it's making me very emotional.

And because I'm fully starting to absorb like this moment he's asking me to step into. and I'm like sitting there and I had my phone up and literally saw Ray Charles and the song America the Beautiful and it's just everything snapped and I was like you know what that's I felt just like that's what we need right now some healing and something beautiful and there's just so much everything is so everything so everything so I didn't want to have anything to do with any of it and I just wanted to do something beautiful and and I felt like I was giving it. opportunity to maybe open a few hearts a tiny bit to start their healing. And I honestly told Dana, I said, not many artists get to do that. When I ran by the idea to him, he was so receptive to it. He almost was like, that's even better. And so, you know, I brought the guitar and it just out, and it just started coming together. And I just felt really strongly. And I felt like, everything was like, this was the right choice for the moment. And, you know, I just, you know,

I'm very honored. I got to be there and got to meet some of the people. And, you know, and just, I mean, the love that I was shown in that building that night, just I'm still, I'm still emotional. It was like emotionally exhausting. I was asleep this morning. That's why I did first. I was, my phone was blowing up and I just didn't realize it because I just had like a crash,

like last night once I, because I brought my children, my wife, everybody. And my children don't usually get to go anywhere because my oldest has cystic fibrosis, but I felt it was important to show up with the whole family kind of, you know. Yeah. And, you know, Dana was kind enough to send the private plane, so she didn't have to worry about any, like, you know, lung issues with other people on plane being sick or anything. So that was amazing. It was, I'm just honored, you know, I know I'm going to look back on this and be very proud and happy I was part of it.

And, you know, there's not much else to it. Initially, did you have, I mean, this is a very heavy thing, and it's in Vegas, and it's the first sporting event since the shooting. Did you have any reservations at all? Did you feel like it was too big for you? It was too emotional? Or were you saying yes right away? No, I was totally in.

Did I worry it was going to be too emotional? Yeah, because at first they also didn't tell me first responders and victims would be in the ring. So like, my biggest fear was like crying and messing up the song. I wasn't afraid of doing the song. I wasn't afraid of the crowd or the event, but the moment scared me. just like don't don't mess up the moment you know what I mean like don't you know you you don't you know you

don't want to mess up the moment that's all that's all you and but the odd thing was I swear to God all day I was a nervous wreck soon as they put the mics on me and it was 15 minutes before like this calm just kind of came over me and I guess that's when you realize you're a pro you know you know what you do like the calm just said all right it's time to be calm so it was over it came I was like it was just like this unbelievable rush of like relief and then like you know I almost teared up a little bit when the people started the USA Chan. It was like, you know, it was a little like overwhelming, you know. So, I mean, again, it was nothing but an honor for me to be there.

I've been to at least 50 UFCs. I mean, I consider the USC, or U.S. I'm sorry, UFC people, my people. And so when Dana and Dana's been my friend for working on what, I've met him in the early 2000s. So we're working on a couple decades of friendship here. and it was a no-brainer. There was never one question about whether I was going to come or not.

I mean, and I know I wasn't the first asked. So, and I know I wasn't the second asked. You know what I mean? So I'm just, you know, honored that, you know, Dana knew I was the guy and he counted on me to be the guy that would come through and do what he wanted to do. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you about that.

I know you're a huge UFC fan. To step in the octagon, to be there in the middle of a card and a car where history was made. this isn't like a baseball game or a football game. Did it mean even more for you considering how much you love the sport? And I know you think very highly of the fighters, you know, just looking at your social media. The only time you're really tweeting or posting things about sports is UFC.

I know you were at the Jones-Cormier fight. So did it mean even more the fact that you were there on that stage and that octagon? It meant a lot just because, yes. I mean, I am a huge. I've been going to the U.S. The reason I started coming to the UFC is because I met Chuck Ladell. Dana when nobody knew who they were, they were at a concert at Foxborough in Boston and Chuck Adele walked by and I like fan-boid out on him. I was like Chuck Ladell and he was like, you know who I am?

I was like, yeah, you're fucking Chuck Lidale. I was like, yeah. And then Dana was with him and was like you're a fan and he gave me his card. And then ever since, I've been tight with these dudes and, you know, I've traveled with them. I've ate dinners with them. I mean, these are like, I consider these people my friends and, you know, being there was like, you know, and again, there's nothing more I can say about it than like I felt like, you know, yeah, I did feel like they were my family and I was honored to be there and asked to do what I did. You know, that's, that's it. And the support they gained me for doing it and let me be not only there for them, but let me be an artist a little bit. You know what I mean? And kind of try and try to impact a moment in a way that I thought would be healing is really it. I'm getting a little emotional right now, but just healing. I mean, it's like, you know, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, the, you know, the, the was heavy, man. That was a heavy night. Yeah. And it just, I just felt like, you know, as the event progressed,

it just felt like, okay, it's the beginning of moving on a little bit. You know what I mean? Not forgetting, not dismissing. Just, okay, it's time to heal now. So let's start healing. And if I had any, any part in that, I'm more than honored and thrilled. Were you happy with your rendition of America the Beautiful? I know we are all kind of our harshest critics.

Looking back, are you happy with it? Yeah, I mean, the thing was Dana called me, and I didn't even know the song other than Miracly. I knew the first stanza, the most part, the one we used the most. There's like eight verses to that song, but the one we sing is the first. And so I knew that verse,

but I was like, all right, I got to figure out the music. So I just basically Googled the guitar chords and started playing with it. I played with a strum. I played with this. And I, but the picking, just the style, it seemed, again, I was, I was just trying to think of the moment and what it would be like and what would be fitting and tasteful, you know, and, you know, I, hopefully I pulled it off. It was a blur to me. Like, I didn't really even know what I did until I saw it later on, on video.

Wow. Like, I was just like, I didn't mess. I came off. Like, I didn't mess up, right? Everything. I was like, cool. I was so, I mean, it was literally like, very few things in my life have been, like, such a. blur where like you're done with it and you're like, whoa, is it over? And that was kind of, like I said,

this calm came over me. I think my brain just shut off certain parts that were, you know, like we're going to interfere with what I was doing and let me just do what I had to do. And, you know, and I was honored. I mean, it was, that was a really heavy night and I met a lot of beautiful people and it was really, you know, good to be there and share it with my family and have my daughters be there too. It was awesome. And, you know, I think Dana White and everybody involved. that made it happen and pulled it together so quick. And they know anytime they call me, no matter what, they sing a song,

or I'll come help them pass out waters. You know what I mean? That's all they got to do is call me. I know you shook some of their hands in the cage, but did you have a chance to talk to anyone backstage? Those who were affected, the cops, first responders. Did you have any moments with them? Nothing in depth other than, you know, how you're doing

and, you know, thanks to a few of the officers. and, you know, I mean, there was also, there were also lots of people trying to meet them, you know what I mean? So it was like, you don't want to ever, like, be, but, you know, I got to shake hands and greet and, you know, and, you know, just be like, hey, glad you're here. I mean, just glad you're here. I'd be remiss if I don't ask you what's happened since. You referenced the fact that you weren't the first or second ask. Dana has come out and had some sort of, you know, passionate comments about Jason Aldean. How do you feel about all of that, that he went to, I can't, I can't judge anybody for anything that they do.

You know what I mean? I didn't live through that circumstance. So I wouldn't dare to judge anybody's reaction to anything or anything. But the only thing I would say about this situation is, had that been me and dealing with Dana, and understand, I'm a way better, I'm a good friend with Dana. Sure. But if that came up, I just would have been honest and said, I have a stage that night that I can do something on let me go do that and I'll come and do the next 10 UFCs if you want me to.

Sure. There was a better way for that dude to handle that, I think. And, you know, that's really all I would say about that. You know, I mean, you know, it was, you know, the choice, you know, I don't know how, what choice I would have made. I mean, I'd like to think, again, UFC's my family. I really do consider them that way, so I probably would have made a different choice. But again, even if I didn't, I would have been a lot more up front and forthcoming about

the choice and not let Dana find out. out about it while he's doing the fight or right before the fights. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's all I would say about that. I don't judge anybody's, you know, I've never been fired at with automatic weapons. So I'm not going to judge anybody's mentality or how they deal with that afterwards. Did you see his won't back down performance on SNL?

Did you see the clip? I got, I saw like a brief piece of it online. You know, I mean, you know, um, uh, you know, uh, it just again, I don't, I didn't know, you know, I can't say anything good nor bad about it because I didn't see the performance. And I really, again, I'm at this point in my life, man, where it's like, you know, it's, you know, the corneous, whatever, whatever. But I'm kind of in this love phase where it's like, that's really all I'm interested in in kind of promoting and, and, and not just promoting, but living, you know, for myself.

You know, that kind of thing starts with you. And so I'm starting here. And that's where I'm at, you know, I'm loving my kids, my family. I love you. I love the USC. I love America. I love the world. You know what I mean? That's easy to say, but it's the truth. So that's where I'm at. I noticed on your Instagram just a couple of days ago, you had a message, a video message, and you essentially expressed the same sentiment saying that, you know, let's try to love each other more. If you have an issue with someone, let's, you know, try to try to figure that out, you know, and try to just all be better and happier. So let me,

who would you try to settle a difference with? Who do you want to settle? So you've had your public person? Well, actually, that's a very easy question to answer because right after making that video, a friend of mine and I, and I won't even tell his name, but he's a guy I'm working with right now in music. And we had kind of a tiff, and it almost seemed

like we were going to not get it together. We were kind of like, fuck you, fuck you. And after I made that video, and I just watched it afterwards just to make sure like it wasn't anything stupid, because sometimes an emotional, I don't really talk into the phone and do those kind of posts. So I was like, all right, how did that come off? And I watched and I heard myself say that and like it kind of sat with me and I actually called my friend right after that and I said listen man I love you dude.

I don't know what's going on and and honestly felt amazing after that. I felt really good. So, you know, again, you know, I'm all about I'm not going to I'm at this point in my life. I'm 48 years old. I got a beautiful family. I got no complaints, man. You know, I mean, we got my daughter has some health issues. That's definitely a complaint.

But other than that, we're doing real good. So I'm coming from this place of like, you. You know, I'm not going to offer any advice that didn't work for me, you know? You're a man of your word. I appreciate the fact that you're actually... I'm trying to be. That's really all I'm trying to be is like a man of his word, you know? Let me ask you this before I let you go.

I know you're an avid UFC fan. You were in attendance, and I'm getting the temperature of the people here. Is Demetrius Johnson the greatest fighter of all time? What do you think? Now that he broke the record, where do you weigh in on this? I mean, I've been thinking he's the greatest of all. all time, you know, if you're just going on the record and stats and all that, man, you know, I mean, I just wish the guy would like, you know, you know, put Mr. Nice guy to bed for a little

while and be a dick so he'd like become, you know. What about the love? What about spreading the love? Why does he have to be a dick? I understand what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? Yes, of course. It seems like in the fight game.

You got to be a little bit of a dick. Yes. The people worked up. And it's like he was, I've met him several times. He's the nicest guy I've ever met. I'm like, yo, you're so nice. You're a totally cool guy. And actually, it's better.

I think breaking the record. is going to help him a lot. I think, like Dana said after the show, I thought it was a very smart thing where he was like, I'd put a couple more type of defenses under my belt just to make sure.

And then you should start moving around and doing some of these super fights. Yeah, him, Dillishaw, him. You know what I mean? I think there's some real fights out there that could make people look at him and really understand how fucking good that guy is, you know?

Who's your favorite fighter? Of all time? Yeah, of all time. Easy, BJ Penn. B.J. Penn. Wow. Interesting what. Because he fought everybody that ever wanted to fight him no matter how big or small, when loser draw.

Like, he didn't care. He fought. I just think that he was the epitome. It didn't matter if he had ate cheeseburgers all week or if he, you know, trained his ass off. He came to fight. And if he lost, he lost, you know, tough. So I just think he's, you know, I have the most respect ever for that dude. You know, I mean, you know, I'm an Irish guy, so, you know, I just easily, you could have been like, hey, Connor.

And I'm a huge Connor McGregor fan. But, I mean, just if I'm talking about, if I look at a span of a career, I've seen a guy fight from 155 literally to 205 in his career in his career in his career in Hawaii, in his career, in his career, in Hawaii, a promoter kid out there who actually was kind of half a gangster. God bless him, he's not around anymore, a guy named Malou, used to throw these big, like, huge advance out on the big island, and, like, on that BJPath. I think he even says it. No, he talks about his first UFC. I met him there again.

So, I mean, it's just like, I just have been to a lot of that guy's fights, and again, I've followed his career for a long time, so he's my personal favorite fighter. Are you a little sad to see, you know, what's become of him now? Like, would you prefer that he walks away so that his legacy is in Tarnish? Yeah, I mean, there's, Again, you know, a man does what he wants to do.

But yeah, I mean, as a fan, yeah, I'd like him to see him just kind of embrace the fact that win-lose or draw, you know, nobody's done it like him. He went all the way up, all the way down, weight class, like, you know, Connor McGregor had one of his things. And I fight it all weight classes. No, no, no, no. B.J. Penn fought it all weight classes, except heavy weight piece, basically. You know, so it's like, that's the truth of B.J. Penn, you know. I don't want to see him get hurt or ruin his brain is the thing

you know what I mean? So, and it's not like the last few fights have turned out amazing for him. So yeah, I would like to see him be smart. He doesn't have to worry about money

from what I understand of him. I don't, you know, but, you know, I think, you know, he's got a nice family from what I know. Just enjoy that shit, man.

And, you know, find a way to be involved in the, in the peripheral fight game, not necessarily in the ring. You can be, you know, a great motivator and a great coach or a commentator.

I mean, he's got a great personality. So I think there's a lot of things he could do. But, you know, I know I play music. I love to play music. And if you told me I couldn't play music anymore, it would make me crazy and make me only want to play music even more. So I can't imagine what that physical addiction to fighting is for like a person who loves to fight. And that's what they do. You know, so, you know, it's probably tough to hang that up.

Plus, it also starts to, you have to start confronting the fact you're aging, which I deal with, my hair is, I'm 48, my hair's white. You know, a lot of that is because I have this crazy health stuff in my life, a lot of worry. I know that's advanced it, but it's like, I look at myself, I'm like, I don't feel that old, but this white hair isn't helping much. You got to confront that shit when you start to think about what's next in life. You look great. You really do.

And it was really cool to see you in person that you came and talked to the media about. backstage. For those that want to know, that want to keep up with you, that are sort of rediscovering you now that you did this, what are you up to these days? Where can people see you? I know, because I lay low, huh? Yeah, you do lay low. I was like, oh, Snap, Everlasts is back. You know, that's fantastic.

I tour constantly. I'm always, but I just, I'm just not that guy, you know, that's usually out there like that. But, yeah, I mean, OG Everlast is my, you know, across most platforms. I mostly personally deal with my Instagram. but, you know, it's all good. You know, I mean, I'm just, I didn't want anything out of this, but to, like I said, open a couple hearts up for some healing, a little release if somebody shed a tear and that opened,

started the flow or the floodgates. I'm honored, you know, and, you know, and that was what I, my highest goal was of the situation and my lowest goal of it was not to trip, vomit, or cry. So it was a good night. You did well. Really, though. It was so cool. And I know that you're a big MMA fan and a big UFC fan. So you of all people, I felt it was very deserving to get that honor. And I thought that you nailed it. It was just, it was your version. You didn't try to copy anyone else's version. And it was heartfelt. You could tell how much it meant to you. At times, I'm critical of the UFC. But I thought that they hit a grand slam on Saturday night. And you were a big part of that. Thank you very much for coming on. bummed. I was really bummed that you couldn't come, so I'm happy. It was kind of like a rollercoaster of emotions, and it made me even appreciate your appearance even more. So thanks for taking out

the time. I know you're very busy. No worries, man. All the best to you. And your family, of course. Thanks for having me, man. All right. God bless me. There he is. Everlasts joining us. Formerly of House of Pain. Remember House of Pain? Jump around. Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin. Right? Remember that? I used to rock out to that. I came to win. Battle me. That's a sin. I won't ever slack up, punk you better back up. If you're listening to this, you think that I know it off my heart, but I'm actually reading it. Try it.

Oh, yeah, everyone's rocking out to that. I mean, it's one of the great songs of all time. I came to get down. I came to get down. So get out your seat and jump around. Jump around. Jump around. Jump up and get down.

Everlast. How awesome was that? Very cool. We're going to talk more about that night a little later. are on in the show. But on Friday, Belator crowned a new Bantamway champion. His name is Darian Caldwell, and he joins us now via the magic of Skype.

He defeated Eduardo Dantas in a great performance. And there he is, Belt and all. How about that? Mr. Caldwell, how are you? And congratulations. Appreciate it, man. I'm good, Ariel. How about yourself? Wow. How about that audio? This is crisp audio. I like it very much. I appreciate you going the extra mile

for us. You already know Massive win for you You're now the champion in Beltor But I want to go back Three fights ago To the Joe Temanglo fight That was the biggest upset of last year

As far as odds go And just like everyone thought that you were just Well on your way to You know fighting for the belt And becoming champion You know the coronation that already happened Did you ever lose faith? Did you ever reconsider your path?

Did you ever reconsider your place in the sport In the division in the organization after that happened because it was such a shock? Not at all. I knew it was just a matter of time. Going back to the drawing board and making a few adjustments, honestly, to get that win back.

I never felt like I've been outmatched by anybody. I fought at 145 or 35s. So I just knew it was a matter of strategics and making the right plays in that fight to be able to win that fight there. And you switch things up, right? After that fight, that's when you went to Alliance to train with Eric Del Fierro and Dominic Cruz and the whole crew there. Yeah, that was huge for the, you know, the future of my career, making the jump over the Alliance, you know.

They've been really instrumental in me getting back on track, you know. it's always hard to come back from a loss, you know, but yeah, just having faith in the right people and just training diligently and making that fight happen a different way, you know. Why did you pick a Lions? Well, it's the best gym in the world. You know, we got the best coaches, we got the best training partners, you know, specifically around my weight class, you know, 35, 25s. 45-55s, you can't get any better, you know,

when you're talking gyms and bodies and, you know, execution. So Dominic Cruz really changed the whole dynamics of the sport. You know, if you talk to him, he's like a MMA encyclopedia. So it's really helped with my IQ being around guys like him and Jeremy Stevens and Phil Davis. Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine having someone like Dominic in your corner. He's just such a brilliant mind when it's. comes to MMA, so cerebral.

And not only do you have him in your corner as far as, like, training is concerned, he's literally in your cornering you. He's actually cornering you. Is it hard to get him to come and corner you? And, you know, no disrespect to Thackerville, but like, this is a busy man. You know, he's about to fight, a big fight. Is that a tough ask or does he do it right away? No problem.

Absolutely. Man, he's got so many hats. He does a lot of things. Yeah. But to get him in my corner, I had to persuade him a little bit, but he's like, you know, if, if, I, if I got a fight, if I happen to take a fight by the end of the year, I'll call off the rest of my shows and make sure I'm at your fight. So, he got the call, like, actually the week of and gave me the word that he's going to be

out there. So that was really big for me, you know, having my leader in the sport be at my fight and better off even in my corner. Did you not want to bring the Wolf Mask? Because I saw this clip where he's like, I told you you should. bring you. What was that all about afterwards? Yeah, because I had a little wolf mask I was going to walk out

too, you know? And then surprisingly, Dante's popped up with that wolf mask on the scale. It's kind of caught me off guard, you know? I wasn't expecting that, but so I kind of was like, fuck, I'm not even going to wear the wolf anymore. You know, but he's like,

nah, that's high. He might as well might as well wear that. We're going to take it. I'm like, now we're leaving it at the hotel. like bro we're taking this. All right. And you got a great shot with it afterwards. What did you think of the fight? I thought at least, I mean,

there were a bunch of warnings about the cage grabbing and things like that. I think that there shouldn't be a warning. I mean, that could change the whole dynamic of a fight. If you break the rules in a football game, if you do a face mask or your off sides, there's no warning. There's a penalty, and there should be a penalty. And in MMA, I feel like you're in.

encouraged to cheat because you're going to get a warning or two and then you'll deal with it afterwards. What were you thinking as he's grabbing onto the cage and not getting penalized? To be honest, I really didn't think about it much. I was more concerned about putting myself in better positions, you know. But honestly, I didn't really know he was grabbing the cage during the fight, you know. He felt a little slippery. That was the only thing out of ordinary, but that I've I noticed throughout the fight, like I couldn't really get my grip around him as well as I wanted to. But in terms of grabbing the cage, I really didn't notice that at all. So you think he was greasing? Did that cross your mind?

Shoot, I don't know, bro. He felt slippery, but it is what it is, you know? I'm sure the Brazilian's got a lot of tricks, you know. So was that like right off the bat you noticed it or you had to sweat a little bit and then you noticed it? Um, it was probably in between like two and three. Okay. Um, when I noticed like, uh, he's a little bit more slippery than when we first locked up. But then you got sweat, you know, I think I started bleeding during a third, third round, you know, so we both had a little blood on us. Um, but yeah, that about the cage, I don't, I don't really like focus on things like that. Even if I noticed it, it wouldn't be of concern.

I expect the rest to deal with it accordingly, like when it's happening. You know, if it's in the rules that you're not allowed to grab the cage and you as a ref, you see it, you know, if it happens once, okay, I understand you let it go. But if it happens two or three times, you know, you got to bring it to our attentions at the very least. And if nothing's still being done about it, then you got to take away a point or something. It is what it is, you know, keep fire. I don't know about the fight going.

The warnings, I feel like don't deter the fighters enough from stopping to grab onto the cage. So I feel like you have to penalize right away. What about grabbing your shorts? Did that happen as well or did you not notice? Yeah, no, I didn't notice, you know. And in course of a fight, you know, a lot of things happen, you know. You can't really focus on those type of things. You know, you just got to fight through it.

and just try to put yourself in a position to be dominant, so that's not a factor, you know? Overall, were you happy with your performance? Was this the kind of performance that you wanted to have in your first championship fight? Obviously, I'd like to have finished this guy. You know, it didn't happen, but I'm happy that I was able to get the belt and went in a dominant fashion.

I didn't think he can compete when it came to strength. When I got my hands on him, I felt like I was going to pretty much do what I did. But I feel good in the performance, you know. And I had a lot of time with Alliance, you know, and I could really hear the coaches on Friday. We were really in sync.

So good night for Alliance. I got the feeling, even though they won't admit it openly, that Bellator really wanted you to win. They have a lot invested in you. And you're someone that I think that they can promote a little easier because you speak English and because you're a fun fight. I just felt like they were happy about this result.

Did you get that impression as well? Well, yeah, I don't think there's anybody else in the division besides me to be the champion. I'm the best fighter. I got the best mouthpiece. So I don't think there's a better candidate for the 135 pound division. This is my division. It's going to be my division for a long time here at Bellator. So my goal is to get these fights and knock them down in devastating fashion.

Last weekend wasn't the way I would like to fight the end, but we got to win and got to be happy about that. And for a while, the Belator Bantamweight Division has kind of flown under the radar. But there is a guy who once fought for a UFC interim Bantamweight belt who's making his debut in December. His name is Michael Mayne McDonald. Do you think that he, if he looks good, is the next guy who, well, like, A, what do you think of him coming in and potentially being in that mix?

And if it's not Mayday, who's on your radar for the first title defense? Well, I think if he goes out and have a good performance in December, then with his ranking and where he's coming from and all he's done so far in the USC, he should be given a title shot after that. But there's obviously guys that haven't fought in the division, specifically Leandro Higo would just be someone I've lost to. He fought for the title earlier.

You know, he's throwing rocks at the throne already. So I'll be willing to give Leandro a L whenever Belator is ready for the fight. I like to get on the January car in LA. Hopefully we can make that happen. You know, get on some more tempo fights. But outside of that, it's just training, getting back healthy, get my body right, and then back to the drawing board, start training again, you know. What kind of rocks is Leandro throwing at the throne?

What's he saying? He just mentioning, you know, that he wants to fight me, you know? All right. And that there is a red flag for me, you know. that automatically raises my hair. Okay. But May Day... Is making the fact you want to fight.

But is May Day the one that excites you the most, considering his resume? Yeah, absolutely. He's a top 12, top 10 guy, whatever he was, you know. My job is to go out there and dispose of him. You know, hopefully he gets his fight in and out as soon as possible, and we can make that happen. This is this belt right here staying with me, baby.

Yes. How does it feel, by the way? Is it heavy? How would you describe it? Yeah, it's heavier than I expected, actually. I don't even really feel like picking it up, but it's definitely heavier. You're just a subdued, Darren Caldwell. You're just kind of, you're taking it all.

Yeah, no, I'm just chilling, man. You know, trying to, it's about body maintenance right now, you know. I need a rest, you know. It's been an extensive camp, so. That's right. Are you going to do anything to celebrate? Anything different? Take some time off.

somewhere vacation. What do we got planning? Yeah, I'll probably go out somewhere, go vacation somewhere, grab my mom and pops up and make something happen, you feel me? I like that. I feel you, yes, I feel you. I feel you very much. By the way, it's always fun when someone wins the belt or belts to compare them to the sister division in the UFC. So how about I compare you to Cody Garbrandt? What do you think? Like where do we stack up there? Is the gap closing a little bit?

What do we feel? The gap is already closed. Like, Cody don't want these problems. If we have an intertwined match where UFC fights Belator, I'm taking his head off. Either way, like, he's going to get the business. Like, he can't deal with my pressure, you know. I get on top of this guy.

He's going to sleep where he's tapping. So, however he wants it. One day that would be so much fun just to see the two organizations. I mean, at any point throughout the history of this sport, it's just always fun, you know, UFC Pride or whatever the top two organizations are at the time. So like you versus. Yeah, but we're both young fighters, you know. Yeah.

So it could very much happen one day, you know, in the future, near future, whatever, you know. Who do you like? Cody or TJ in that fight next month? Cody just rub me wrong, you know. I'll take TJ Why is he rub you wrong? I think TJ's got the Tuesdays to be him

I don't know he just He just rubbed me the wrong way man I just Don't really met him His vibes Yeah I've seen him before Backstage The rest is history

You know Was there like a run in At the fight Yeah it was a little running When he was his fight He's fighting Dominic Cruz You know

I guess When you're at You know when you in fight camp, you, you fight day or fight ways, you're really feeling, you're really feeling yourself. You feel me? You're feeling like, you know, you could beat anybody in. I think that day he was barking at the wrong tree.

What do you say? He was just, you know, I just had to calm him down because I think he was doing too much with my teammates. Okay. He was doing a little bit. He was just bickering at this one, then yelling at this one. I had to just let them know. Like, this is not the time. Look, you're going to fight down tomorrow.

If you want to fight down tomorrow, then stop the bullshit. Like, you feel me? You're not going to be fighting tomorrow. It's going to be a TKL right here. You feel me? Yeah. So, I don't know. EFC, people got into it.

I don't know. Have you seen him since? No, I haven't seen them since. All right. Wow. That's an interesting story. I didn't know that happened. Yeah, man.

Try to keep things under wraps, but sometimes I'm out, get me in trouble, breath. But in this instance, he don't want those problems. Yeah, I feel you. December 30th, are you going to help Don prepare for that return fight against Jimmy Rivera? Are you going to be a part of that camp? Absolutely. Don's been here throughout my whole camp, vocal. I wouldn't be the teammate that I am if I wasn't there, but I'll be there every day.

You feel me? Take probably a week off, maybe two weeks, and I'm back in the day. Jim. All right. We got more goals to win. We're going to run this division, 135ers. That would be back to 30th. You already know.

And then winner Cody and T.J. You're going to take it. We can just be the smash bros at 135. I love it. I love it. Daryana, I appreciate the time. Congratulations on the win. Well done.

Entertaining a fair. Looking forward to seeing your run now as as champion of the Beltaur, 135 pound division. And I know this was a long time coming for you. So enjoy the Belmont. enjoy your time off, and it was good to talk to you. Thanks for making some time here this afternoon. Thanks, Ariel.

Thanks for having me, buddy. All right, we'll talk to you soon. There he is. The brand-new Bellator 10035-pound champion, the wolf. Darren Caldwell is stopping by. Interesting stuff there between him and Cody Garbrand. I did not know that.

How about that? All right. How about this? How exciting is this? Late breaking news. Late edition. It wouldn't feel the same. It wouldn't feel to,

the same to do this show this afternoon, two days after UFC 216 without our next guest, and we're so very happy that he has agreed to come on. In fact, there was a time I didn't think he'd ever come back on this show. So this is very exciting. We're talking now to the brand new UFC interim lightweight champion, the man who defeated Kevin Lee on Saturday night at UFC 216. El Cuckooey is on the phone. Tony Ferguson. Tony, are you there? Yo, what's going on, buddy. How you doing? Wow, this is amazing. What a nice treat. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you. No worries, man. It was great, man. Thank you for having me.

So congratulations on the win. Are you back home yet? Yeah, absolutely, dude. I'm ready to go back in the gym, man. I got a couple more rounds. I'm all ready to put the clothes back on. What was it like finally coming back home as champ with the belt after all this time, the ups and downs, giving that belt to your son, just symbolically coming home as champion now with the gold? What was that like? Oh, great feeling. I actually threw it on the dashboard as I was driving, so I stared at that. I was driving the whole entire time, just reminiscing everything

that got me to this point, man, and the growth process. It's been beautiful, dude. I'm honored. What was it like when you showed the belt to your son? He was trying to pick it up at first. It was a little heavy for him, but he ended up picking it up. It was cool. It was dope, man. It was exactly what I wanted and how I pictured in my head. I was just going to ask you that. I'm sure you've had a moment to dream about this moment, about getting the belt put around your waist by Dana White. Did it feel like that? Was it better? How would you compare it? Oh shit, dude. The whole process

has just been like one crazy process. Obviously, the fight didn't happen with Khabib. I spent a lot of time inside the gym and man, just a lot of countless hours with my family just preparing for this fight and it didn't go down. So this camp was like a 10-month camp, it felt like. So just the fact, I mean, you could see it afterwards. I actually went back and I watched the fight a bunch of times. And just the relief

of just being able to finally go out there for my fans and my family and just everybody that just supports me to go out there and demonstrate what I do best man which is just fight and just let it all out and Kevin Lee was a perfect dance partner for this and I couldn't have asked for a better opponent man it was great I have to say and I expressed this to you at the post-fite press conference but I was just so impressed with your demeanor all week I mean you were the perfect guy to sort of lead the way here last week in Vegas after everything that happened and I just I just viewed you through a completely different lens like you you did a 180 at least in

eyes, you changed how confident and comfortable you were and how you embraced the situation and embraced your uniqueness was just an amazing thing to watch. Is it possible that if, and I don't want to say that that was a positive. That's not what I'm saying here, but just it affects us in different ways. If that doesn't happen, are we looking at a different Tony Ferguson? Are we talking to a different Tony Ferguson last week? Because I could just, I could just feel and see how much it changed you for the better. Like, you just felt like a different person to me. And I don't know if this sounds crazy to you at all, but I was just wondering if you feel like if that incident didn't happen Sunday that maybe we don't view you through that lens anymore.

No, absolutely. I hate to say that it wasn't that, though. I was in Big Bear, and I really brought peace with me up there, and I really tried to, just, how can I say it, just hone in something different. The theme for this camp was Smile, Tony, and I really wanted to be like just that guy that was always pushed into that next level and then being able to smile, joke around, be lighthearted, have fun with it, and, you know, bring some up-and-coming fighters that could, you know, possibly share the same kind of energy. I really surrounded myself around good people this camp. Not that I have never surrounded myself around good people, but just really great energy. I could feel it no matter where I was at. And the incidence that happened in Vegas, I mean,

it's, I mean, I mean, really touching base on it, I mean, as fortunate as it was, it was hard to focus. but I really used the training and the experience and the focus that I've had from the past, I mean, to really try to hone in everything and to result to being professional, being humble, which is what I've always done. I've always said, I'm not going to change, and really try to bring the fight to this kid because I knew that there was going to be a lot of distractions during fight week. You know, I think that happened on Sunday, you know, with that, and then with Kevin being on my face, it was just, it was to that point where I just channeled

all of that energy took positive to make sure that I came out with something different, you know, to paint something beautiful for everybody that says that, you know, mixed martial arts can be great. It doesn't have to always be like negative or bloody or anything. It can be awesome, man. And, you know, hopefully the fans that were there, they got their show. And I guarantee you, we both left it all out there, man. I guarantee you even the undercard and everybody else is the same as well. Yeah, it was really beautiful to watch. So it's interesting to hear you say like the theme was smile, Tony. Did you feel like for a moment you were, forgetting to smile that you were too, you know, mean and not, and not, like, like, why was that

the theme for this particular fight? Was it because something else was happening in your other fights that you didn't like? No, just my personal life, just me as far as being a father and just wanted to just demonstrate to my son, you know, I mean, he's not old enough yet to get it. When he goes back to, you know, watches the film and stuff, I want him to be able to be like, look, man, my pops is legit, you know, I didn't have to talk shit to get here. And I really want to try to, like, just kind of just do my own thing. I really never follow in anybody else's footsteps. I tried to create my own.

And I just knew that Kevin, he was going to have a lot of aggressiveness, a lot of gumption. And he was going to come at me with absolutely everything he had. So it was going to take all the energy I had to be able to train like I did in Big Bear, which was take the shots to the body, the kicks to the ribs, the kicks to the legs,

or climbing up the mountains, and doing all these random things, which might seem unordinary to the ordinary person. But to me, it's not extraordinary. It's just normal. Because I had to push myself to that limit. And it wasn't like I was learning new techniques. When I was honing in my jujitsu,

Coach Eddie Bravo went up there, and we really didn't stop from where I was training with RDA or Khabib. I mean, in the process of mixed martial arts, you never forget. You really try to, I guess you would say, stack the chips. You know what I mean? How proper is that we were in Vegas? I wanted to stack my chips and then put it all in when it really counted. So, I mean, with the fight, let me go back.

Let me go to the fight, actually. with Kevin Lee, when he was coming at me aggressive with absolutely anything from media to the physical aspect of the fight, I knew that I had to weather the storm. I'm tough as nails, man. I mean, that's the ultimate fighter. And I'm very proud to be a graduate from the ultimate fighter. And I really looked at this fight like he wanted my spot on the varsity team. Like he really wanted my spot.

And he was going to have to beat me, dude. He was going to have to kick my ass and beat me to the point where, like, it was undecisive. And in my head, I was never in danger, not one. time ever was I ever in danger. Even from Topnell, you can talk to Eddie and he'll tell you the same thing. How many times we ever worked escapes or how many times will we be prepared for this? I mean, even from the point when we were in the suite, I had one of my Jiu-Jitsu training bartons emulate, posturing up and trying to throw punches at me so I could see the punches, no one I needed to defend and then no one I needed to grandie out, no one I needed to overhook, try to sweep, and not panic.

And it was a perfect display of Jiu-Jitsu. I mean, honestly, I'm very, very, very, proud of how I handle the situation and the game plan that I had for myself worked out. I mean, it took a lot, man. It took a lot of note taking for myself to write. I don't have a mixed martial arts coach. I have, it's almost like Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12, 13. I have certain specialties that I have for every single person I bring into my camp. I don't have anybody to pull it together like a cook or an artist to put all those paints together

or put all the ingredients together. I have to be the man to do that. So I would write in my book like I always do. I have a book that I've been writing since I started my fight game, and I wrote down all my combos. I wrote down how much time I needed to invest into each part, especially for the warm-ups, all the way down to the fight. And I keep it really tedious.

And if I wasn't hip-escaping right, if my feet were slipping, I had to redo it again. If I wasn't hitting my Helmeries or my different types of things to get out of hip escapes or anything like that, I had to redo it again. I had to say, sorry, coach, I have to do this over. And they were able to adjust them to be able to be like, you know what Tony's right?

He needs to hit this stuff right. He needs to hit his mental flow. And that right there and the encouragement around my team, it was a beautiful victory, man. I couldn't have asked for anything better, man. He did exactly what I needed him to do, which is be overly aggressive, eat some elbows, and posture the way he did to set up my triangle.

I couldn't have asked for a better opponent. Will you continue to go to Big Bear for your training camps now? Maybe, you know, like I said, this camp was a little bit different. It was about mental prep. And it wasn't about really technique. It was about making sure that I'm very, very fundamentally sound. And I've allowed myself to be coached and allowed myself to have a great team, a bigger team. Because, I mean, seriously, I'm not a control freak completely, but I really like to control the variables.

And an equation, I'm the constant. And my team, they throw a lot of variables at me. And for the right equation, we came out with victory. and with Big Bear, it's always going to be near and dear to my heart, but I would really like to establish myself up there or wherever I'm at and really, really get my striking under par and just everything, honestly, and then it doesn't matter where I'm at where I'm training.

I'm going to always come out with my head of victory, but I love Big Bear. So you like being your own head coach. You're not looking for you. This works for you being, you know, you don't have to answer to anyone else. You are just the guy. Yeah, I'm the guy, but, The one part is I always had the coaches that could always get me to that next level. I have great coaches that are very specific in their art, but it's hard to put it together.

It's like a meat to man. It's like you have to put the right ingredients into it. You can't just have like all crust. You have to have the certain kind of ingredients that meet a certain way and you have to cook it the right way. My coaches were preparing me for this fight and they knew the right ingredients to give me. But it was up to me when they weren't there to make sure that I could hone it in, watch my film, put everything together, put in my numbers. Nobody was telling me to go to up the mountain with 50 pound packs, man.

I mean, nobody was telling me to lift the boulders when I was up there. And to other people, it might seem to kind of like a weird thing, but it was just a big mental toughness type of thing saying that I can do this shit. I can handle this stuff. I don't need anybody to hold my hand because I've had great coaches to get me to this spot. I had to rely on my training, rely on my coaching, and it's almost like Bruce Leroy and the glow, you know what I mean?

I found it like, who's the master? And he's like, I am. Straight up, dude, I felt like I had the glow when I was up on top of the mountain and I brought that shit down with me. And, you know, you are your own West End of me. So I knew that and I just took that part out of it, man. I just really have fun.

And that's the whole process, man. You can have a head coach and be able to do your thing, but the ultimate reality, you're going to be the one making the decision inside that Octagon because it's only you, the opponent and the referee

and all the training and all the technique and the cardio that you can possibly stuff in there in training camp but nobody else is allowed to be in there man straight up nobody's going to save you I've talked to a lot of fighters since Saturday and they were all very surprised some shocked that Kevin Lee was allowed to fight with that staff infection

ultimately I know you're happy you got the fight and you're the champion now and now you can move on with your life but any health concerns there because I know it's highly contagious as well No, dude. I mean, seriously, like, I took care of myself. I showered right afterwards. I enjoyed the process. It was unfortunate that he had that on his stomach on his chest. It gave me a good spot to aim my jab for. And every single time I am for it, it was hitting his chin. So, I mean, aim small and miss big. And elbows were landing, kicks were landing. But I wasn't going to let, and he wasn't going to let anything affect him. I knew already, people were coming up to me when he missed weight. And I was getting text like crazy earlier. It was funny. People were telling me they were like, man. Are you worried? Are you worried? Are you worried? You're going to do this? I said, absolutely fucking not.

We come from the same background. He's going to make weights. Don't trip. Because if he's anything like the opponent that I know he's going to be, one, we're going to have a fight. Even if we have broken arms or legs, we're going to make sure that we show up, man, straight up because that's Midwest tough, man, straight up.

But did you think, okay, let him struggle to the scale, make that weight by the skin of his teeth? I've already won part of the battle here because he's going to be, you know, dehydrated, tired. It took a lot for him. Afterwards, he's talking about 165. That had to have felt like, okay, this is another notch in my favor, right? It was all week.

I'll tell you straight up. All week it was about mental chess. It's chess, not checkers. It is. I'm very experienced fighter. And I already knew from the interviews all the way up from the first time I met him when we were going to fight, even from the T-Mobile when I confronted him. It was all about making sure that I beat him,

not trumping him, but just making sure that I stump them. I mean, seriously, and it's a big, it's a brain versus brawn type of thing. And he's going to know, he'll learn it. I mean, you guarantee you he learned it, but you lose a lot of energy when you're using a lot of negative energy and you just waste it. It's like, I was on stage and I told Dana, I was like, man, have fun with that adrenaline done, buddy. I said, you're not going to have shit for tomorrow.

And I called it out. And I called it out. I was like slapping the bull. If you, if it ever fucking seemed like when a Matador, you slap the bull on the ass and you throw that red flag out and you let them come. match you exactly what we did it wasn't wrestling this is mixed martial arts so i wasn't worried about the takedowns i wasn't worried about the shit that he was saying trying to get my attention he was that dude that was in line you know back in wrestling days that was either you had the guys

trying to be your best friend or the guys that were mean mugging you're trying to get your you know try to get you to like be all like oh man i don't want to wrestle this dude or the guys that are quiet now the ones that are quiet and the ones that are wearing not con or congress instead of wrestling shoes and baggy shorts and baggy shirts that look like they don't know what they're doing sometimes those are the ones that you got to watch out for you know what I mean instead of the ones that are like really loud and the ones that are wearing all the shiny shit you know sometimes it's like it's hard to get rid of your old stuff because it's all tradition you have so many matches and so much stuff underneath them and I brought that to this table man I'm straight up man I was a

mountain man up there and I brought it down with me and I brought peace and I was a hunter man and he was my prey and came out on victory in this one. Straight up, man. It was a great fight. I'm very excited how everything went out. My hands were down a lot of times because I wanted him to throw at me, waste a lot of energy. And when he got over-persistent, man, and I knew that I could start eating them up with some elbows.

I saw that face of diminish like I saw all of my other opponents when they shoot and get in the darts. But I wanted to demonstrate something different. I wanted to demonstrate that I knew what I was doing, that I could demonstrate all aspects of mixed martial arts from punches. kicks, knees, elbows, take down defense, and then submitting somebody from your back, not just with the darts. And you did it all, and you did it all as well as you could.

Anything about the fight that you didn't like, that you were unhappy with? I got pissed one time when he poked me in the eye. I mean, it was an action. It should happen during a fight, you know, but we're in the rules, we're in the back, and Irv Dean comes out to me, and he's like, hey, Tony, you have any questions? I straight up just said, please just read the rules to me. I just, you know, and he read the rules to me and the one thing he said was,

I want you to defend intelligently. He's like, if somebody's throwing bombs, I want you to just move, just make sure you move and just show me that you're defending intelligence. I was, like, all right, that's perfect. I was like, honestly, he's not going to hurt me. And the other part was don't grab the cage. He's like, if you grab the cage one time,

he's like, I'm going to take a point. Don't matter. So for myself, I had to know that during one time when he had me against the cage, I had to keep composure. And composure is great when you're up in Big Bear taking fucking ice bath at three something in the fucking morning when it's 32 degrees and you're like, oh shit, I got like almost 100 pounds of ice with some water. I'm about to sit in this bitch.

I got like 10 to 15 minutes. I got a hand to shit. You know, and that's the kind of stuff that you have to do to be able to be composed, to be able to be squished up on the cage and to result to your training be like, okay, you know what, I'm flexible enough. I can get my foot on his hip. If I got my foot on his hip this time, I know if I just can't open him a little bit, he's going to open. open up his wings. He's not going to be able to breathe. Why? Because I do this all the time to people standing up. But when you're on the ground, it's the same as standing up. I was like, I might just be back against something, but I have to keep myself composed. So I'm thinking in my head,

I'm like, just wait. He's not even throwing any hurting from bombs. He's not even hurting you. You've got to wait. And as soon as I kicked him off, I already knew. I was like, look, he's got like one more takedown in him. He's got like one more take down in him. Even if I defend it, I was like, look, to knock him out, it'd be easy. But I was like, I want to demonstrate something different. So I was waiting for the takedown. I set it up and I didn't get to roll out of my grandby. I pulled guard and immediately I put my foot on his hip like I did on the cage and I started throwing him, man. And I know he didn't like him for sure because those things were hitting. I guarantee he's got a headache afterwards, man, because that shit didn't feel got on my elbow, man, because I was

connecting, man. It felt great right afterwards, man, because I sunk that triangle in and it was textbook. Textbook Tony, man. And I was combing up on my triangle. It's funny. Somebody said to me on M. they were like, that wasn't textbook. I was like, that's bullshit. It's because it wasn't your textbook. I tried for the arm bar. I tried for the arm bar, and he slipped out. If I would have put his arm all the way across,

it would have limited myself. I would have just, look, I had armbar, I had a Camorra. I had a lot of different things from that, and I could even post it over, and then went for it. I could have swept them over and went top mount triangle as well.

So, I mean, there was a lot loaded inside that shell, and he got it, man, and he tapped on that first one, and I only had 70% squeeze straight up. afterwards you got on the mic and everyone was wondering if you would address Connor McGregor and you did in a very strong way were you happy with the call-out and what prompted you to go the direction which you did I mean it was it was aggressive and I thought that you handled it very well

we needed something like that I thought maybe you would take the high road and not do it but you nailed it I thought yeah man you know I don't like bullies I don't and I got a bone to pick with that dude and he just say fuck and I'm here to expose him and I try to keep it real man I try to really keep it 100 as far as a fight game and really try to stay humble but it's hard when you got a knucklehead like that I think he's grown a lot

I've grown a lot myself as a fighter end as a man the man made the money money never made the man and I'm here to fucking stand against that dude and prove that you can do this shit and point numbers with it and come out on victory man and make sure that you're doing the shit the right way and I'm not saying it is the wrong but I'm in the right

and that dude needs to defend a vacate So Dana White said afterwards, that's the fight. You versus Connor. I mean, we've heard this before. We heard that Michael Bisping wasn't going to fight GSP and now they're fighting. We've heard this a thousand times. Crazy things happen in this fight game.

Do you believe that you will fight Connor next? I believe so. I mean, if Dana said it, you know, then we're going to hold it to them. I mean, the UFC is pretty good with that, right? I mean, you don't want them call them liars. And I don't want to make them a liar. So, I mean, this shit needs to happen.

For myself, I'm going to take a couple days off of this. guarantee you. Look, Connor watches the fights. This dude didn't say shit. He didn't say shit on Twitter. He didn't even comment saying good fight. He said he was looking forward to watching this fight. He hasn't said nothing. The boy is scared. He's running.

I told him, just set the belt down and walk away. And nobody will get hurt. That's all you got to do. Just set it down. You won't get your ass kick. I swear. You know, by another Mexican. You know, this is a tough fight for him, man. And I don't think that he's got enough cornermen in the world to try to help him

on this one. He could have all the film in the world if he really wants to. But it's not going to help him one bit, man. I'm not scared of him. That's for damn shit. Why do you think he never says your name? You know what? I've given reasons before as far as management telling him not to, or he's just afraid or he's not afraid,

or if he's just trying to get under my skin, it doesn't matter. I don't care. I've wrested them all. I fought him all. And Conner's no different than any other man or human being in this world. You know, man wants to call himself a guy, but you know, he bleeds. So I can expose him as well.

And I guarantee you, you know, there's no big animosity there, but the callout was real and it was genuine. I really want to kick this dude's ass because I believe that my skills are better. I guarantee you that I'd be a better champion. I would defend the belt. He defended the belt zero times, Ariel. Zero times.

He won it. He talked his way into this shit. And my management knows exactly where I stand with it. And I don't stand for that kind of shit. It's like, I'm here right now, and I'm putting numbers behind it, the same way that I made them take me in the ultimate fighter. I tried out one time, didn't work. They told me you're too small. I went all the way to the finals.

I tried out for the second time. Actually, the first one was for 185 cons. The second one was for 155, and I wasn't here 55er. I had 10 fights, I won 70. They told me, no, come back. I wasn't good enough. I got tapped. Shit, well, I got to work on some stuff.

I went back to the drawing board. The next time I won, I came back with some hardware, some state, country, like some, some, some, some, some, some national hardware. I came back and I pointed to prove and I came after them with a resume with accolades to back it up. I mean, literally I went in there like I was going for a CEO position

like I was just barely getting in the mailroom. I saw them. You have to take me. Why? These are my numbers. I'm 10 and 2. I'm all state. I'm all America.

I'm national champ. I just beat this dude. This is the guy that you were supposed to have in here. I beat him by four rounds. I beat him by this. And I just kept putting numbers and I put stats in front of them. It's hard to argue against good stats, man.

and I keep adding them up. I keep chalking them up. And it's hard to, it's hard to negate somebody when you keep putting it like that. So if they do, then you know what, obviously we know where the company's at.

We know where management's at. And it's bullshit. But ultimate reality, I think a lot of people have a reality check. And I'm here to stay, man. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here for that Hall of Fame. But Tony,

you mentioned the management thing. No secret that you're both managed by the same company. How are you going to handle that? Do you feel like it's going to be smooth? Do you feel like that causes issues? How are you going to deal with that? Well, we're all professional here, Ariel, and that's how I'm going to take it.

I'm going to be professional with it. I think I've grown with my management. They've grown with me. I consider, you know, the first two. I signed with them before, you know, audience size. I signed with them before McGregor did. But it's not like I came here first. I came here second.

If they're favorites, you know, and then what it is, it's, you know, protect your pocket, I guess. But in the reality and everything, you know, you have a conscience. And it's going to be on theirs and it's going to be not on mine because I'm an earning this. the whole entire way. So it's going to have one on them. Like I said, I don't want to try to look for different management. I love my guys. And I actually like them now.

So in due time, we'll find out, man. Straight up, because Dana says it needs to happen. It needs to happen. Connor needs his ass kick, and we need to unify that belt. Otherwise, he needs to vacate, set it down, walk away, and never fucking come back. Because if you go to 170, you go to 185, or even if you drop to 145, I will fucking follow you, Connor, and I will haunt your fucking dreams, kid, and I will come

after you. And one day, no matter what, if we have the same management or not, you will fucking see me again. And I will, will put some pain on you, bro. Do you think he's going to try to get the Diaz fight first? You can try. I mean, straight up, I mean, really, why would you want to

fight somebody like that again? I mean, honestly, the dude doesn't want to fight me. He doesn't want to fight anybody. I get two people that don't want to fight and want to fight each other. Set the belt down. and fucking walk away. That's all you have to do, buddy. I mean, nobody gets hurt from that shit.

I don't see Nate calling me out. The only person I see was Justin Gage, being a little bitch and saying, oh, I got this now. Dude, I get you. You have to market yourself as well. It's saying the same shit that the last opponent said, but at least my opponent fucking signed on dotted line. I have to give, let me take a second to give Motown props straight up.

Kevin Lee brought the fight. He brought, I mean, he took me down straight up. I mean, it was great. was aiming to get taken down, but he took me down, and he came at me, man. He really thought that he was going to try to finish me. So, I mean, with that being said, I have to tip my hat off to him because we all from the same alma mater, and afterwards, you know, a professional. And I would hope that the rest of the division sees this and they can be a little bit more

professional with it. Are you bothered when people call you the interim champion? Do you consider yourself the real champion? No, I don't care. The long as champions in that bitch. That's what's tough. Straight up, you have two bucks. You can call me intern, you can call me whatever.

Just call me chant. Okay. Straight up, since I started going to Starbucks, every time they say, what's that what's your name? I said, chant. I started that in Big Bear, and I carried it with me. Wow. And you've got to believe in yourself, and you've got to visualize the victory, man. And I've been blessed to be able to have a great family that supports me no matter what I do.

I mean, my family is not just my family, it's my team. And my team is growing, man. Like I said, I'm very selfish when it comes to my training and how I train. And I always like to have my two bits in it. But sometimes you have to allow yourself to be coached. I had to allow myself to have help with my weight cut. I was great with my weight cut. I mean, I got the 200-some-odd pounds twice, Ariel.

Wow. I wanted to make sure I could stuff that with Khabibib. I could put that mentally away saying, you know what? I wonder if it's really that hard or if it's too easy or if he didn't want to fight. It was something in my head that I had to get done. And I did it. I didn't like cutting all that fucking weight. I felt strong as hell, dude.

Straight up. I felt strong at 200 pounds. But it was a lot of weight, bearing down to the end. It wasn't hard at all. I trusted in perfecting athletes. My lady Michelle, she hooked it up. I mean, really making sure that I was on point with my water, my rehydration, my vitamins, all the way into the point where we had two pounds, the day of weighing in to lose.

I woke about 7.45. I took an Epsom salt bath and I shredded those two pounds like it was nothing. I went to the weigh-ins. You saw how relieved I was. It was just awesome to be able to finally weigh in and to know that my opponent was going to show up the same way. With everybody panicking with him not losing that weight, I already knew, man. I was like, this dude's going to make weight. Don't you.

He's going to do it because I already knew him. I knew him from the beginning. I knew what kind of an athlete he is because I'm a coach myself. I'm a trainer. I'm a master trainer, dude. I can look at somebody's gate to be able to tell whether they're weak and where they're strong. And this guy was strong everywhere except for the mental part. Dana told him already.

He's like, you had all the tools that you needed over at the Performance Institute. But he decided not to. I was young and dumb ones too, man, but I'm a veteran here, and I'm very experienced. And I have a lot of younger generation fires looking at me to pave the way. And send the elevator down. Why? Because I'm already up here. Before I let you go, Tony, just to confirm, because there's all kinds of reports out of Europe that the fight is done between you and Connor.

That's not true, right? No comment. I haven't seen anything. I heard anything. The only thing I've heard is just my interviews is, morning, man, because, I mean, literally, I just got back in town last night, and I don't know, I just kind of, just been kind of in my A right now, but if a fight... You haven't been formally offered the fight, right?

Like a contract. You haven't been actually told this fight is happening on this date next year, etc.? You know what I've been told? I haven't been told anything, but I can read people and I can tell them that they don't want this fight to happen. They don't. They want to protect the pocket. Just anybody. They just don't want it to happen. They don't want Conrad to lose. This guy's got a lot to lose, man. You got everything on the plate and all I have to. to do is everything to gain. And everybody's going to do what they have to do. But at the end,

everybody's going to have a great fight. What they're going to get is fireworks. What they're going to get is a lot of shit talk. I've been saving my shit talk, man. I've been saving all the A-plus material, man. I don't want to waste on Kevin Lee. I mean, shit, I was picking apart Khabib, like, no problem. I beat him with mental warfare. I mean, straight up, man. What do you think I'm going to do with Connor? So what's your prediction? When does it happen? When do you think? Well, I think Connors full of shit I don't think he's going to fight this year I think he was just saying that to keep people on their toes

But if he wants to go in 2017 I'm down I'm ready to start training next week We got a 12 week training camp We can get this shit rolling The doctors already know that I'm not injured My jab hand feels amazing I think it actually got twice as strong

From that many of hits that he took man I mean I took a couple shots You know but sometimes you got to get one To take one to give two and with Connor I don't want to get hit there'll be a completely different training camp and he's now ready man you can have as many trainers in the world

trying to help him with this one but I'm a Pandora box man and he don't know how to open this shit I love it well done Tony Ferguson really well done my man congratulations on the victory congratulations on becoming the interim champion and you're I know we don't like to break that wall

but you're playing this perfectly and it's just been a joy this last week covering you was so much fun, so entertaining. You brought it, you backed it up. Well done, well deserved. You finally got that belt. I'm happy to fight actually materialized. I was broken for you in the midst of all that. I'm glad to hear that you were confident that I was going to go down. But it just felt like deja vu all over again dating back to March. So I'm happy that you got the opportunity you got to represent. And now I hope for your sake that you get that fight against Connor, whether it's December 30th or early 2018. Again, congrats. Thanks for squeezing us in. I know you're probably very busy trying to get back to normal life.

I really appreciate it. And by the way, thanks for unblocking me and thanks for following me again on Twitter. That means a lot to me as well, Tony. I got a love for you guys, man. Hey, thank you guys very much. Hey, make sure you guys give aerial follow, man.

I appreciate you guys. Thank you. There he is. El Cuckooey, Tony Ferguson. How about that? Oh, my word. That is amazing. Wow.

I am on the bandwagon. I am on the Tony Ferguson, El Cuckooey, bandwagon. You can criticize me for showing up a little late and for taking a detour and for maybe being a Johnny come lately, but here I am saying it on October 9th,

2017. I am thoroughly entertained by Tony Ferguson. What he's saying, what he's doing. Remember when the Habib fight fell through? Remember him coming on the show and like kind of calling out Nate Diaz, but not, and it just felt forced? This feels

real. And again, embracing your uniqueness, embracing your originality, embracing your personality, not trying to be something else, not trying to cater to the fans, the general population, the mainstream, just being yourself. It's crazy what can happen if you just do that. And he has done that. Look at him on stage last week, at the Wayans, listening to the music, just being himself. And it's okay to be different. It's okay to be weird. And he fights different and he trains differently and his team is structured differently. It's all just different, but it's refreshing. It's fun. And everything that he is saying, it's hard to argue with. The belt should be defended sooner rather than later. So let's see what happens. That was fun. Appreciate Tony Ferguson stopping by.

Thank you to his team as well for helping us set that up. It wouldn't have been the same without him. All right, a little longer than I expect it to go, but we got to make room for the interim champ or the real champ. I'm sure there's some who consider him that as well, although I still stand by my one-year rule. My one-year rule is this. You must defend the title, you must be active, you must fight within a year, or have a title fight booked within a year. Connor won the belt on November 12th. He's still within that year. So to me, he's the real champ. Let's see what happens in the next month and change. That's my rule.

I wish that they would stick to that rule as far as champs and rankings go. If you don't fight within a year or have a belt, excuse me, or have a fight booked within a year, you're still in the rankings. If you don't fight within a year, if you don't defend your title within a year, or have a fight booked within a year, you're still the champ. Still got a bit over a month to go. November 12th was when he won the lightweight title against Eddie Alvarez. And you'll remember that when they strip,

him of the belt, the featherweight belt last year. I said I was okay with it because we had, you know, there was no fight and he was not booked in a fight within that year period. So I was okay with it. Anyway, time now for everyone's favorite segment. It is time for usually like we go at the same time. Like I say Rick's picks and then you hit the music and it's kind of like together. You know what I mean? And now it's time to open up your ears and your minds. MMA fans. Yes. It's time for Rick's Picks. Yes.

Rick's Picks. Yes. Yes. Yes. You already know what it is. Rick's Picks. We have a lot to talk about. Ladies and girls.

Greg said, I've got to get some drink here. It's the new craze taking the world by storm. Thanksgiving version of Bricks Picks. Here we go. Woo. It's time for Rick's Picks. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Yeah.

stepping all over it. Sean Alshaddy rang to me on G-Chat. Welcome to the bandwagon. We've been waiting for you. Sean has been on the bandwagon for quite some time, the Elkakuwee bandwagon. I'm kicking him out of the driver's seat. I'm running shotgun and driving that bad.

I have myself in the IFB. I'm trying to talk to, I'm trying to have a moment with you here. Listen, you step all over my intro and I'm not exactly. You're not wearing an IFB. You're wearing a headphone. A headset. No, I'm sorry. What? You heard that?

Yeah. Huh. Good start. I was talking to Shrinivass. Okay. Well, Mr. New York, Rick, we have much to discuss. It's good to see you again. How about DJ shouting us out at the press conference, but more importantly, shouting you out when you called him this morning? What do he say? Tell the world.

Wait, let me scroll back. Come on. I remember it. No, I don't, I want to get the exact verbiage right. He said. I said, you know, I did my usual intro. I said, hey, what's up, DJ? And he said, hey, I like your ponytail. And now what I think this stems from is Danny Seguro did the periscope like usual

and paid particular attention to the man bun today. Oh, you think he watched the periscope? That's what I'm guessing. I don't know. DJ references and shouts out the show every chance he can. This and the beat. He's an avid watcher. He's got to tune out by this.

time. You never know. Maybe he tunes in. Specifically for this. That'd be nice. Shout out to DJ. DJ's the man. Okay. For liking the man. Oh my gosh. We have so much to talk about as far as UFC 216, Vegas, Saturday night. Where we go from here. Tony Ferguson absolutely killing it, coming into his own, the interviews, the post-flight call-out, DJ the record, the arm bar, Derek Lewis, Fabrice O Verdeum, the draws. On and on we could go. But now it's your time. And I'm sure some of that's going to come up in the Rick's Pick segment, so have at it. Actually, none of that. Damn. Then it's been a really good week. Okay, we're going to start off with this tweet from the UFC store, letting people know where they can get the Vegas Strong T-shirts.

Because I feel like, you know, a lot of people saw them this week and are going to look for where to get them. You can get them at the UFC's shop, UFC store.com, and all the proceeds. are going to the, uh, the, those affected by the tragedy. So, um, get your shirt at UOC store.com. Then we're going quickly to, uh, this Instagram post from the Motown phenom, uh, Kevin Lee. The, the, the, the, the, the, him embracing Tony, uh, appreciate it. He says, let me read it. He says, I appreciate the support from everyone. I put my body on the line for those I love. And I tried my best to leave it all out there in the cage. I said it before the fight. Tony Ferguson was the toughest fight of this division.

I tried to step up and last night did not go my way, but I will be back more experiences stronger than ever. Hashtag 25 to life. Worth highlighting, I think, because there's two ways you can obviously go after a loss like this, and I think he's picked the correct route, not making excuses, and looking to get back in there soon. We've seen this be a successful route to take by champions. So kudos to Kevin for laying it all out there and accepting responsibility.

Speaking of Kevin This next Rick's pick is Kevin's outfit from The Media Day Now I'll ask you What is your Feeling on Kevin's Outfer I loved it

Loved it Kitting me It was the first question I asked them I feel You didn't like it? No I loved it But I feel like it's a bit like Try too hard

No escape from L.A. Like apocalypse What? Cool as heck Steampunk like I don't know I don't know I don't know how to describe it

But I did like it If you got abs like that Rock them A Sure never wear a shirt right Yeah never wear a shirt He's got the supreme Hanky around his neck

That says go F yourself He's got the leather hoodie jacket He's got overalls That aren't He's rocking the UFC 185 overalls Yoani on J-Chic version

Not doing it up You know like Marky Mark style Did she have it all the way down or did she have one strap? No, no, all the way down like that. It's tremendous. It is a great look. It was great. Listen, just briefly, and we'll talk about this in a second more, but Kevin Lee will be back.

The guy is super young. I was talking about it. It reminds me of, you know, George St. Pierre, DJ, you know, some of the greats, they lost their first title fight. It's okay to lose your first title fight. I have no doubt. I will put a lot of money on Kevin Lee. fighting for a UFC belt within the next couple years again. I agree.

And I also think... Hopefully in the 165 pound division. Oh, interesting. He's young enough that this was not necessarily somebody that was like, you know, oh, it's about time he got a title shot. He kind of forced his way in there. Totally forced his way. If he didn't have that exchange on Fox, I don't know if he gets this opportunity.

Also, if Habib is around... A lot. So, like, he took advantage. I'm sure he learned a lot. it was a great experience for him. It was a disheartening experience. He was devastated. You saw him at the press conference.

He was crying. Yep. He'll be back. A lot of times, those are the ones that you learn something from and then come back. Still can't believe they let him fight with that staff infection. Oh, we'll get to that later. Obviously, this one had to be featured.

As I said, though, you know, I don't like to feature the ones from the fights themselves, especially the ones that everybody's watching on the weekend. Who's talking? John Jones? Yeah, you know what? we got to figure this out. It's happening. The other videos bleed into this one.

But this is just a gift, actually, of Demetrius Johnson, Mighty Mouse in the co-main event, getting Ray Borg in the arm bar. Everybody's seen it already, but if you haven't, do yourself a favor and see it, it's masterful. He lifts them up. And I think this is the best angle that we get on it, where he's lifting him up, transitioning straight to it.

We'll talk about later in the question segment, you know, where this ranks all time, where this ranks this year, we'll get into that. But absolutely incredible by Demetrius. Now this one I was sent quite a bit. Second all time to the Boston Crab. The Boston Crabb was sent to me more.

Really? But this was sent to me the second most amount of times. Hussar. K Sao, I'm going to say, is his name. The best part of this segment is your butchering of these names, these intermen. I feel like I do okay. You do okay, you do okay.

At Wawan, MMA in Kuwait over the weekend. Yeah, it was nuts. Explain it for people who are just... Yeah, so the video here is Hussar is on his back, butt scooting, and he angles up and lands a kick from his back to the face of his

opponent and knocks him out in the co-main event. You have to see it. It won't be hard to find if you haven't seen it already. And here we have an alternate angle from Caposa, of course. This is nuts. Insane. Yeah.

Is it possible that we saw the sub and knockout of the year in the same weekend? I don't know if I give this one the knockout of the year. This is nuts. It's pretty great. You're a big strength of opponent guy, right? I like the stakes, but I also like the cleanness. of it. Now, the cleanness of this is pretty good.

Pretty good. Because he does, you know, it does fall over. He tumbles. How could you not? I don't know if it was as clean. What? As, um...

DJ, by the way, wasn't 100% clean because you didn't get the sub right away. This is like, boom. Who said I said it was the best sub? Oh my. Who said I said it was the best sub? We'll talk about it later. Okay. But, um, no, I mean,

this is in the running. If not the outright winner, it's in the running. Okay, what are the chances in the same weekend that we see a submission and a knockout that we've never seen before? Correct me if I'm wrong, unless I'm forgetting about something. I've never seen a knockout like this before. I haven't, yeah, I don't know if I've seen a knockout like this. But I've never seen anything like this. This one is definitely unique.

It's incredible. We're not doing it justice, so find it if you haven't seen it. But he's scooting back and then gets off his butt and lands up. kick. One of the best I've ever seen. I mean, when I say that, the, of all people,

the knockout that Aaron Pico had. Like, the, but how many times we've seen that? The cleanliness. No, you don't see

ones like that. Come on. Look, I'm not saying that this isn't it, but I'm saying it's not outright. It's not. I'm not saying it's outright.

What I said was, is it possible? And the answer is, yes, it is possible. It is very possible. And from pancrease, 290, also over the weekend.

Toru Ogawa. with a knee knockout on at sushi Yamamoto. Let me see it again? We're going to watch it. You know what? You say it. What? No, I said, let me see it again.

Damn. Geez, so sensitive. It's wrong with you. It's going to roll out again. These are sweet pants, by the way. He's a corner man wearing some sort of cow-like print. Cow camouflage-like print. Wow, this was a pretty brutal knockout.

Look at that. Bleeding. Is it coming back? Okay, that's Rio Chonan. It is going to roll back. That's the legend Rio Chonan. And then we, you know what? It's the longest clip ever.

It is a little extra long. All right, you know what? We'll watch it from the other angle instead. Oh, you had another angle. What are you waiting for? Oh, my. Wow. Watch the faint.

Oh, my Lord. You see the faint? Yes. Ah, it hurts too much. It hurts too much. Beautiful. week. Boom.

Oh, with the head falling. Ah. From pancreas. Okay. Here we're going to go into What did you make of this? Michael Bisbing and George St. Pierre squaring off.

Yes, UFC 217 press conference. At the UFC 217 press conference. Touches his lapel. What do you think? So that's the start of it. Bisbing touches his lapel. Oh, gets up in his grill. Now they're face-to-face.

George puts the tongue in the mouth. Oh, so Bisping grabs him by the arm. He squeezes the muscles. And then George pushes him a little bit in the stomach and Bisbing. Is George uncomfortable? Yes, clearly. Is it an act? By who?

What do you mean? Well, the smile, the push. Is he quietly angry, you mean? Of course he is. No, are we acting here or was that real? Oh, no, that's very real. I think George is upset. And I think he's trying to play along, but he's...

Did you watch the press conference? I did not. What the hell? I watched this, though. I was going to ask you about the press conference. I mean, it was a noteworthy press conference. Talk to me. Let's talk about it.

Well, I mean, I wanted to get your take on, did Bisping go too far? No. Did he elevate your interests? Yep. Okay. Well, you can't say yes or no. You didn't watch it. I saw it on Twitter.

No. I saw all the quotes on Twitter. You, as much as anyone would know that it's about the delivery when it comes to Michael Bisping. It's how he does it. The interruptions, the timing, the rants. the insults. You cannot weigh in on this.

George St. Pierre versus Michael Bisping in a war of words is not a fair fight. Yeah, but it's fun watching GSP's demeanor as he continues to accuse him as steroids and interrupt him. Sure. I enjoyed it. I mean...

Overall, I thought it was a great press conference. Bisping is the best at getting under people's skin. I think George is one of the ones he's not going to be able to. Now, George may be able to... He was getting fired up. There was one point where you could tell he was getting agitated. But agitated for George is not. No one's really come at him like this before.

Like Diaz, well, Diaz came at him in a different kind of way. There was sort of like an anger to Diaz. And I think GSP viewed Diaz as the guy who's like almost jealous of his success. In this case, GSP is trying to take something from Bispin. So the dynamic is a little different. People have come after George. People have tried to trash talk him, cues him of things, BJ Penn, of course. We remember at UFC 94.

Sure. But this one is a little different. Like the way, like this is as angry as we'll get him. Well, Bisping is trying to play the role of like, he is kind of playing the bully role here. Like he's trying to belittle him and embarrass him. When is Bisming not the bully? He is always the bully. Yeah.

And he's very good at it. It's, I mean, against Rockall the second time, he was playing, I think he was playing more of the baby face, to be honest. No way. Against Rocco the second time? Absolutely. Rocco was the cocky bully, I felt. Yeah, you know what? Bispig was the guy being like.

I'm thinking back on it. You might be right about that. This is, this is gravy for me. I found gold. Yeah. I was on a movie set. I went to run. I'm taking this fight.

Let's just see what happens. Like, he was very much the baby face. After the fight, he was back to normal. Going, those two weeks, I think this is,

this is as angry as we're going to get George. I'm not confident that we'll get him, uh, any angrier than this. I love that. It was a great press conference. Cody and T. Like,

I wanted more of Cody T. Like, I almost wish they did two. You know what I mean? I almost wish they did the, the GSP Bisping by themselves. And then, Cody T.J. Rose Yawanna.

Did you see the Rose Yanna stare down? I did. Is that one of yours? Your pick? No. That was incredible. What's wrong with you? It was a fine stare down. Come on. What are you talking about? There's no way you saw it if you were calling that a fine stare down. I saw it. It was a phenomenal stare down. Rose, not flinching, like almost in a trance, as Yowana sticks out her fist and puts it in her face. Are you kidding me? It was incredible. It was a fine stare down. It was one of the year. It was better than that one, by the way.

It was better than that one. Because there was physicality. Oh, they touched each other. It matters. George, came on. What? If we're comparing great stare downs, look, if we're comparing exchanges,

GSP Bispeng won the day. If we're comparing stare downs, Yawanna Rose won the day. Easy, 10-7. Easy. It was phenomenal. Cody and T.J. were great, too.

All in different ways. That's why it was like a press conference. Just give everybody the trophy. Do yourself a favor when you're done. You know, just forget the fact that you're, you're a part of a show that talks about MMA like Monday when it's not relevant anymore to the show because we're not going to talk

about it next week, just for your own sort of MMA fandom, do yourself a favor and watch it. I know you're very busy. I'll carve out some time. And I'm sure I'll be enthralled. Not enthralled. Highly entertained. I'll be riveted, I'm sure. We'll give everybody a trophy for Best Aeron.

Well, different criteria. Speaking of some heat, we had on Facebook Anthony Johnson responding to Daniel Cormier calling him soft. I'll read the full Facebook post by Anthony. Damn DC didn't know you were salty because I talked to the one guy that knocked you out. F& Soft is what you called me. Oh, well, that's your opinion saying I gave John advice, LOL, buddy. What advice is there to give him? I wasn't fighting either one of you.

So there's no point of giving advice. That's not my style. Can I say this is the dumbest feud right now? And I would say that to both. Like, what are we arguing about? Look, I mean, well, I think what's interesting about this is they seem to be in a good place. Now they're building the heat up a little bit.

Anthony's talking about returning, possibly returning. Yeah, as a heavyweight. Look, Daniel Cormier has fought at heavyweight. Listen, did you see my picture? Did you see that picture that I did, yeah. Okay, this guy, that picture doesn't do him any justice. Anthony Johnson, I saw him in the lobby of the Mirage in Vegas. his traps, you know like Bill Goldberg, like old school wrestlers,

they have traps like gigantic. Like it just like, it looks like it's like a different part of their body. That's what he has. He's not fat. He is gigantic. He said he was 250. I would guess he was more than 250. He said that he's, he's, he's open to coming back as a heavyweight.

He was in Vegas on vacation. He was in Vegas on vacation. He wasn't there to see the fights or to meet with UFC. But he did go and see the UFC. and if the price is right he'll come back but only as a heavyweight he has no interest in coming back as the light heavyweight

he removed himself from Usada so if he does come back it's going to be at least six months before he comes back again because he has to go through that whole testing pool process if you remove yourself you have to come back

that's why I asked Carlos Condit that question he might need six months to get down to the heavyweight limit oh man he's a big boy first of all rumble like big boy rumble at heavyweight

is just a new face in that division not a guy who's been hit a lot as far as like knockouts, concussion, you know, he's been in his fair share of fights, but like, I like Rumble Johnson and heavyweight, especially looking like that,

and it's been a minute, but he did compete there at WSOF. He beat Arlofsky in what was a very entertaining fight. So I'm all down, I'm down for heavyweight rumble. But what's interesting is he said, friends,

we were never friends. I thought, you know, him and D.C. were on good terms, but they were never friends. It seems like Rumble was friendly with everybody. You know, he's always, you know, giving John Dap and he's in Cormier Dap, but he's the peace speaker.

He talks some shit and that flips. Take your cry, baby, ass, and praise God that John screwed up and you got the belt back that way. That's he? D.C. is itching. He's just picking fights with everyone. D.C. wants it. He doesn't want it.

Oh. No, no, no, no. Don't misconstrued this. There's nothing for him to gain from fighting from fighting Rumble Johnson again. Nothing for him to gain. gain whatsoever. He doesn't want it. Stop it.

What a waste of this time. That's why it's a dumb feud. There's no point of having a feud if it's going to lead to nothing. Like there was a time I'm blanking on who it was when someone was feuding with someone who was like two-way classes lowered. Like what's the point of this? And also you obviously called him out on it, Mickey Gall versus Dan Hardy, that one. Oh, Mickey Gall, classic.

Did you see his Instagram? Did you get that one? Of course you didn't. Mickey Gall had a post on Instagram where he said, said he invented the callout that everyone's copied him since. I like delusional Mickey. Delusional Mickey is great.

This is what I'm supposed to get? He did. He's supposed to get Mickey Gaussing. It's a hilarious Instagram. He says that he's the one who invented the callout and he reinvented the game. He wasn't even the first one to call out Z.M. Punk. He was like the 58th.

It's true. Nobody did it with as much panache. No, he did it. He just happened to be in front of Dana. Oh, no. Yes. That's underselling what he did there. Listen, honestly, I think maybe even more than 58 people called out CM Punk by the time he did it.

On Twitter, though, on Facebook, all this stuff. Oh, I want to be his first opponent. He took the mic and took the opportunity. It was just hilarious. And he said, feed me, CM. I like delusional Mickey. I'm not, you know, I'm not here to like, you know, rain on his parade or hate on the guy. But I don't know why we mentioned.

Oh, the Dan Hardy thing. Although that one's different because he's in his way class. Yeah, but I mean, it was unrealistic. It was unrealistic. It was unrealistic because he's not fighting. Like, what's the point? Yeah. He only got one shot.

But, I mean, he explained. I thought he explained it pretty well when he came in here too. Okay. This article from our very own Gellermet Cruz was an interesting one. And I think the best way to, you know, obviously take this one in is go to MMAFighting.com and read Galerme's article. but a fighter named 22-year-old fighter named Luis Felipe Alvim or Alvim won the welterweight title at Juis de Fora fight 18 that's the name of the event as a fan he was in the crowd or actually more accurately he was he was a fan but he was

checking with some of his teammates and coach in the locker room at the event and the one of the fighters in the Walterweight title fight pulled out last minute he stepped in and won the freaking bell. Only in Brazil can this happen, right? And it's just an incredible story. And there's another part to this story that happens, but I don't want to ruin the whole thing.

So go read the article over at MMA fighting. Selling brownies? There's more. Yeah, his wife was selling brownies at the event. It's crazy. That's like straight out of a movie. Incredible story. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually were like filming a movie.

but didn't tell people and set that whole thing up because that's just weird. They do those sorts of things in Brazil. One of the women who won on Saturday, Poliana Botelio, was in a soap opera in Brazil. And they did a fake stare down at UFC 212 at the Wands. They do this sort of thing.

And now she's making it happen. Picked up a big win. Huge win. Impressive. Okay. Quick clip from the late late show. Oh, yes, I saw this. John Kavana. If you're looking at it right now, that picture is one, John Kavanaugh.

Which one's Kavanaugh? On the left or the right? On the left. The one standing up? Yeah. Why can't it be the right? Well, isn't that a... Wait, maybe I'm...

I think they're both dressed as girls, no? Isn't the one on the right actually a girl? Oh, I can't tell. My eyesight sucks. Either way. One of the people in the photo, now you've got me, now you've got me questioning. I'm pretty sure it was the one on the left. Why is he so embarrassed?

One of the people in the photo was John Kavanaugh in a dress. As a kid, though. As a child, and he was blushing and, you know, he handled it well. He took his medicine. Well, he's on the world famous late late show. He was on the late late show. On RTE, but you know who the guy is sitting next to him? Who is, no, who is this?

That's his brother. Really? I think what they're showing is a picture of them as kids. So maybe they were both in the, they were both in the dress. Yes. that's what i mean isn't it obvious no is it obvious his brother is a big social media influencer i didn't even know that of course you didn't james cavanaugh you don't know james cavanaugh no no idea let's see how many twitter followers he has tell me he's hilarious 17 000 wow yeah kudos to james

he's great so yeah maybe that's what we have going on but it'd be embarrassing if it wasn't what's so embarrassing about it well because you're saying that this is some person and maybe it's not that person. Wait, what? What are you talking about? You're saying, oh, that's, it's for sure those two. I don't know that for a fact.

Could not be. Hopefully it is. Well, that's a big deal of that show, you know? Yeah. That's like going on to tonight show. The clip was sent to me by a few Irish fans. Irish lads? John was a good sport about it.

Can I just say something about the Connor fans of today? As opposed to one. What are we comparing to? Okay. Let's just be very, very, very clear here. my comments aren't misconstrued. I love the Irish fans. I love Connors fans.

I love what they've done for the sport. Their infusion, their invasion, their presence, their joie de vivre. It's all very fun. But there's a small sector, yet a very loud one, a vocal minority, if you will, who have replaced the tough noob as the most insufferable fan base.

in MMA. I mean, it's just too much. Every time I post who's on the show, where's Connor McGregor? Anytime you post something about someone, who the fuck is that guy? I mean, it's just so... Is that even Connor fans, though? I feel like that's just, like, lame's on the internet.

They'll rip on Tony Ferguson. Oh, he's so lame. Kevin Lee. So, like, anyone who comes at Connor just in the slightest, oh, he's the lamest, ah, blah, blah, or whatever. It's like, there's just this group of fan base now. Like, the tough no more. Remember, like, five, six years ago? If you wanted to insult five, six years ago.

No? Like 10, 15 years ago. Tough's been around for like 10 years. It can't be 10 years ago. What was it? 2007? No, no, no, it was maybe 2006. Anyway, I feel like they've replaced them as...

And I'm not talking about all Connor and Irish fans. There's just this group of annoying, like, pro-Connor, anti-everything else fan. That just gets to be too much. Like, there's... Come on, guys. This is the secret to a success, though. Without those people, there is no Connor. McCrugher.

I guess. It's the gift and the curse. Without that level of dedication to their guy, we don't have Connor McGregor. Well, I think we still have him. Maybe he's not as popular as he is. He's not that guy. He's not that popular guy that changes the

entire game. We need those fans. I support those fans. Oh, stop it. Ariel is shunning you, but I love you. You have openly disparaged those fans to me in private. Now you're revealing private conversations? What is it?

this? No, I mean, yeah, the people with the And I'm not saying there's a left and all that. Like, come on, give it a rest. But by the way, I'm not saying those are the people who sent you that clip, but I've been, no, no, no. Say it for quite some time. Like, the people who every time are just always relating it back to him and unabashed,

like unabashed support. Like, just take it down a notch. Heard her here first. Take it down a notch. Who's getting a phone call? nobody that means it was you okay what else we got

we also have in some nice video footage here the hs hs st john's hospital in uh springfield Illinois is the clip of the week we have matt hughes

returning to the hospital and these two nurses pictured on the screen right at the moment are being honored being recognized for for their treatment when Matt, or for the treatment that they provided, rather, when Matt was in recovery in the hospital. Amazing to see Matt like this.

Look at him. This guy back in June was hit by a train. I'm so proud of Matt for his hard work and thankful I was able to meet the great people he calls friends and family. And I was honored that they trusted me to care for their loved one. I can remember telling Adra, as did Megan, that we believed wholeheartedly that Matt would wake up that he just needed time. Unbelievable.

Matt's story is the epitome of why I became a nurse. I just want him to know how incredibly proud I am of him. He beat the odds and won the biggest fight of his life. He will forever be an inspiration to the care I provide my patients. Really, really nice clip here. Amazing. From their Facebook page, you can watch it again there if you're interested, but incredible. And damn, yeah, Matt Hughes, up and about, just back at it.

in another act of good deed. Oh, yes. Esther Lynn, our very own. Giving a very large portion of her hair, 14 to 18 inches. I'll get the charity right here. Two children with hair loss, a nonprofit that provides human hair

to children with medically related hair loss. So shout out to Esther. Yes. That's a good thing for children with hair loss. I saw the finished product in person. You didn't see it. I haven't seen Esther.

since. Well, I think she posted a picture. No, in person. Yeah. She's rocking the Chelsea. I learned all about it. It's a famous punk rock haircut, if I got that correct. We spoke all about it on the Friday Way and show. I guess you missed it.

Esther with the Chelsea. Esther with the Chelsea. Okay. There he is. More good news. Cody Garbrandt and his wife welcoming a son into the world. They had

previously announced that they were pregnant, but now we find that they had the gender reveal. It's a son and the name is Kai Fisher Garber. They already have the name. Yeah, they've named the son. Damn. Cody Garbrand and his wife cannot be more different than my wife and I. I went as long as possible without telling people that we were pregnant.

We had a baby and my friends were like, what? You guys were pregnant? Everyone's different. Did you guys have a gender reveal? We didn't. Did you see that one where the guy threw up the alley, you and dunked it and the pink exploded out of the rim? I think it was blue.

Or, yeah, sorry, blue. I was thinking pink because I'm having it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My son's best friend, his name is Kai. It's a great name. Congratulations to those two. Congratulations, Mazel Tov. And we're going to end with...

I'd love to be invited to the brisk, by the way. I just want to throw that out there before everything gets crazy. There you go. Putting your name on the list. Oh, nothing like a good bris, you know? Not sure that quote will stay on the test of time. we're going to end with George Foreman

announcing that his fight with Sensei Steven Segal it's on Yeah I'm not sure about that one He's telling everyone that it's on I think that's not the real Sensei Yeah but it's the real George Foreman

It is the real George Foreman Why does he want this so badly And quite frankly So for the backstory He wrote on Twitter That he wants to fight Steven Skaul Sensei Steven Segal

A parody account responded and said, let's do it. George Foreman went back and forth, and now we have a fight. Wow. It's booked. Amazing.

Between George Foreman and Sensei Steven Segal. Why does he want the fight? I don't know. Yeah, that's... I think he wants to teach him a lesson, but... I think George should pick on someone his own size, meaning someone smaller.

No, Sensei towers over George. Are you kidding me? Powers. Big George? I don't know about that. Have you seen... First time I interviewed Sensei Segal with Casey, he demanded

that Casey hold the camera above his head and shoot down because he's that big of a figure. He's that imposing that he doesn't want to intimidate the viewer at home. So he wanted the camera to be at his eyesight as opposed to looking up at him or just not quite grasping the magnitude of the man. That's Sensei Segal. So George Foreman needs to slow his role, all right?

How dare he? How dare he say Sensei Segal's name in vain? how dare he what a time what a time to be alive all right thank you very much for that well done rick's picks do you have your outro song yet or not yet no we're delaying that

yeah we're gonna do the after hour music um you don't tell me when to do the music I have much more to say let's do it to the people tell them um

but yes we should remind the people that the after hour is coming up at a matter of moments mhmatfighting dot twitter.com hashtag the MMA hour. You've been sending us questions in a matter of moments. We are going to be going over to

Twitter exclusively on Twitter, mhmapfiting.com. That's where you can check out the last segment of the show. New York, Rick, and I answering your questions, whether it's about UFC 216, whether it's about the 217 presser,

the promo that they premiered last weekend. Rumble Johnson as a heavyweight, Darren Caldwell. What else you want? Carlos Condit. How about Go-Kondit? K'ansaki getting a fight against Khalil Roundtree.

That was announced. Do you see that? Kalil Roundtree against Go Kansaki at UFC 219. Carlos Kandit is back against Neil Magni. Also at 219. Zabit Magomed Sharipov against Shaman Marias. How about that in Shanghai? Do you like that one?

I like that one. That's a great fight. Some other news, Patty Pimblet is out of the Cage Warriors event this weekend. Suffered a concussion. Invicta announced that they're holding an event the night before the tough finale in December, and they're going to have their own women's flyway title fight in the main event. Is that not right, Mr. New York, Rick? That is correct.

I love that. What a great idea. At the park theater, right? The Park Place Theater, whatever it's called? Something like that. I love that idea. What's the fight again? It's Jennifer Maya against.

Do you recall off the top of your head? I don't. Okay. UFC 218, David Tameur against Strakker Close. Love that fight. What a great fight that is. I'm looking forward to seeing Tameur back,

especially after I saw Lando Vanada. As we said, Darren Caldwell won the Bellator Bantamweight title. Did you see the trailer for the Connor McGregor movie? That's coming out in a couple of months. And it's nationwide release, by the way. They're showing it everywhere. notorious. I heard it's really good. They might be doing a premiere in the coming weeks. Looking forward to that. That's going to be in theaters. We're not talking like Netflix.

We're talking in theaters. Conne McGregor in theaters. How about that? And before I go, just wanted to quickly talk about being in Las Vegas last week. So we got there on Wednesday. And as I mentioned a couple times, as I mentioned with Sean Altashti, as I mentioned on my social media, the move. was unlike anything that I've ever felt in Las Vegas. It was very, very somber. It was very quiet. It felt empty. Like when I got off the plane, Wednesday morning, part of it was mental, I'm sure of it. But just looking around at everyone, it just felt very uneasy. I mean, at this point, we were less than 72 hours removed from the shooting. And it just felt very quiet and uneasy. And everyone, at least in my mind, and again, maybe it was in my mind, but everyone felt like they were on edge. and at first it just it was you know you come to Vegas to forget your troubles to have fun

to let loose you know whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so I think it felt that much more magnified because it was the complete opposite of that people were still getting over it the shock these people who were at the airport were leaving were probably there just a couple of days ago the whole thing was shocking and to watch the local news not watch the national news, but to watch the local news and see how the local news was covering it and how personal it was, how it was affecting their community, just made it all that much more personal. And it felt to a degree personal. I mean, I wasn't personally affected, no one that I knew was personally affected, family members, et cetera. But this is a place, as I said, I've been to probably at this

time over 40 times in the last eight years or so. And I'll never forget the feeling of going to the open workout later on that day. That was the first official event of the week. And everyone was just kind of quiet and for the most part the MMA media I think gets along with each other very well. But this time it felt like everyone was just a little closer, hugging each other, asking how they were doing, especially with the local Vegas media. It was just really nice to see these people. And at that point, I was really happy to be there. And I think I would have been disappointed if I wasn't there. I wanted to be there. I wanted to feel what it was like. some members of the UFC staff were affected

and just as, you know, nothing we can really do, but just to say, how are you doing, how are you feeling was important, at least to me, and even to talk it out with the fighters on Wednesday and to see how they were handling it, whether it was Derek Lewis, whether it was Evan Dunham, who's a Vegas resident,

Benile Darius, who was on the strip at the time, Tony Ferguson talking about being at Walmart at the time, Kevin Lee, who's a Vegas resident, just talking it out with them for a minute, it didn't feel like we were a journalist fighter. We were just kind of human beings talking it out. And they were describing their emotions and how they were feeling about fighting on Saturday.

And so that was something that I would never forget. Going back to the room and just going out for dinner with the team and talking about it more and watching the news was just a different feeling. There's no other way to describe it. And going to the open workout on Wednesday, I mean, that was the smallest turnout for an open workout that I've ever seen in Las Vegas.

Vegas. There probably wasn't more than 30 or 40 people there. But those fans wanted to be there and they were excited to be there and it was important for them to be there. And I thought it was great that they were there and it was inside the T-Mobile. But everything just kind of felt smaller. It was a pay-per-view and it was a solid card and history was on the verge of being made, but everything felt a little smaller. Earlier in the day on Thursday, we had a chance to talk to Dr. Jeffrey Davidson, who's the chief medical physician for the UFC, but he also works as the head of ER at one of the hospitals in Vegas, the Valley Hospital. And I reached out to him and I knew that he had been working Sunday night and I really wanted to talk to him about that experience, especially because

he's such an important part of the UFC team. And he was kind enough to allow me to interview him on Thursday. And that's something on there, forget the conversations beforehand during the interview and afterwards as well. If you haven't seen it and you're interested in this story, I certainly suggest that you see it, especially because he's a very important part of the UFC. You have no doubt seen him at an event or at the very least seen him or heard of his name referenced by someone like Dana White or a UFC official. He is their head guy as far as, you know, medical issues are concerned. He's at almost every event and he was at UFC 216. So that was an honor to speak to him about working in the emergency room and to talk to him about almost, you know, this amazing rush of people.

You know, it's like usually you work, okay, you have something they have to deal with and then you kind of move on, but here it was just a flow of people who had to be treated with very serious injuries. And he told me that it was so packed inside the hospital that not only were all the rooms filled, but then they had to have people stay in the hallways. And then it became, you know, as opposed to, you know, room 1024, it became ABC, D, E, F, G all the way to Z. And then it became A. Point five, B.5, C.5. that's how many people were there. And that's just one hospital in Las Vegas. By Friday, it felt like things were starting to pick up a little bit,

starting to get back to normal. The turnout at the press conference and the ceremonial wands wasn't large. It was one of the smallest, but it was actually more than I thought it would be. And it just felt, even though everything was still subdued, I mean, up until there's a restaurant that I go to, that I love at the Aria, Mark and I,

love to go there. It's called egg slut. Fantastic. I don't love the name if I'm being honest, but I love their egg sandwiches. And usually when you go there, there's a line that wraps around. I mean, it's usually like 40 people deep, at least. I went there for lunch on Friday, in between the official way and ceremonial wanes, there wasn't a single person in line. I was shocked. I took a picture of it for Mark to show to him. I was absolutely shocked at how few people were there. A lot of people canceled their trips and things of that nature. And then of course by Saturday As I mentioned on Twitter

The top was tarped off It wasn't a big crowd One of their smallest at T-Mobile Second smallest ever The gate was small But I thought as I mentioned to Everlast I thought the UFC handled it very well

I must say Oh so Esther telling me Yeah I screwed that up XLED is at Cosmo not Aria I get all those Ariya, Vidara, Cosmo, I get those all confused. She's right, thank you for that. I must say this.

I was wondering if Dana White would address what happened, because I was reminded of 9-11 and WWE being the first major event. Remember, it was, I think, on a Tuesday, or, no, they delayed it. I think it was on a Thursday, and they were in Houston. And Vince McMahon opened the show with the roster on the state. and he talked about how America would go on and fight on, and they would get back on their feet and how they were proud to be the first major sporting event since 9-11. And it was just an iconic speech, one that still talked about.

You could find it on YouTube very easily. And I was wondering if at the media day on Wednesday, if Dana White would at least talk to the media about what's going on. There is no prouder resident of Las Vegas than Dana White, at least that I've come across. He is Las Vegas. He is Mr. Las Vegas, in my opinion. I mean, he is, I mean, I've heard him talk about just how proud he is to live in Las Vegas, to work in Las Vegas, to raise his children in Las Vegas. He is a very proud Las Vegas resident.

I thought maybe at the, he doesn't do scrums. He certainly doesn't talk to me anymore as far as interviews are concerned. But I thought maybe he would, you know, do a scrum, just talk to the people there, the media there, sent some kind of message. And he didn't. And, you know, I didn't criticize him for it. this is a very personal thing. This happened 10 minutes from where he lives. But I was just wondering, I think, is the better word. Would he say something? And he didn't.

He didn't say anything on Thursday. I was wondering if you would say something on Friday. He said something at the end, but it wasn't kind of like the rah-rah speech that I thought he was going to say, or like Vince McMahon did, post-9-11. On Saturday, we got what I was wondering he would do. He said what I think. He said what I think. thought he was going to say. It was the perfect tone for Dana White. It was a taped speech. If you didn't see it, it was right before the pay-per-view. He came on and talked about Las Vegas. And that's what I was looking for. And I was wondering if he would do it at some point. Wouldn't begrudge him if he didn't do it. As he mentioned, he lives very close to the Mandalay Bay. He has three children. Everyone handles these situations differently. Everyone deals with

this kind of trauma. I mean, I still feel like I'm not quite over it. I don't think. I think I'm over Sandy Hook. I talk about it all the time. I think I mentioned that on the show last week. And of course, I wasn't personally affected, but I think about these things all the time. Maybe I allow them to bother me more, to affect me more, to stay with me more. And that's why I was so happy to be in Vegas and why I wanted to see our friend who's a police officer there. I just wanted to talk to him and hug him and share some stories, our friend Bill Steinmetz. So everyone handles things differently. But I thought his speech was great. I thought it was so amazing that they invited the 1,500 or so first responders, some of the concert goers, some of the

cops who were affected. The UFC typically doesn't like to stray from their format, their script. I mean, it's formulaic at this point. Sometimes to a fault, I've criticized them for that. I mean, you go to Japan, it shouldn't look the same as every other city as Norfolk or MSG or Montreal or Toronto or Chicago or Detroit. Like, it's good to be different at times and to evolve and to, you know, honor where you are, change the script a little bit. But they don't do that. They like everything to remain uniform and stick to the script. They didn't do that on Saturday.

And I thought it was really nicely done with compassion, with grace, with class, having Everlast come out, I thought it was perfect that he came out just because he's been a long-time UFC fan. Would it have been cool if Jason Aldeen came out, who was the singer on stage at the concert last Sunday? absolutely. It would have made worldwide news. But it didn't take anything away the fact that he wasn't there and it didn't take anything away from Everlast Performance who I thought did a really nice job as well. I mean, just the whole tone, the shirts, the proceeds. It was one of their finest moments,

especially in a year that, you know, that has had some ups and downs like this, like they stepped up. And that was the response that I was wondering if we were going to get. And so I would be somewhat, I would be lying. if I didn't say I was disappointed in the reaction afterwards, but the articles coming out about what Dana White said about Jason Aldeen, not coming to Vegas and going to Saturday Night Live. I was a little disappointed because I thought he passed with flying colors. I mean, it was just a phenomenally well-produced moment. It was tastefully done.

It felt real. It felt authentic. It was heartfelt. And so I wish we didn't go down that path. I wish he didn't say, you know, stay out of Vegas and things like that, especially because he's in Las Vegas right now. Jason Aldeen. We don't know how this affected him. We don't know if you didn't feel comfortable being in a big crowd, things like that. It just didn't need to be said, I think. I mean,

can you imagine what this guy is going through? And so I was a little disappointed to hear that, but I don't think it takes anything away from what happened on Saturday and how they handled it, and how they honored everyone, and how they invited these first responders, gave them free tickets, treated them by all accounts very well. And actually, I think the choice of going with America the Beautiful was perfect as well. The lyrics were great. I really appreciated it. It made me feel really good.

It made me feel good to be a part of the sport. Didn't love the comments afterwards. But, you know, I guess that is Dana White. He's a passionate guy. I didn't like the fact that he was turned down, maybe lied to. I don't know. I don't know what happened there. I will say for the record, I love Jason Aldeen's performance on Saturday Night Live.

And the fact that they chose to play Tom Petty won't back down was perfect as well. And so it's okay for both of those moments to happen. And then he came to Vegas and he's meeting with people at the hospital. There's no need at this point with everyone dealing with it and, you know, affected by it and trying to heal. There's no point, I think, to get in to make this into a negative thing. So I thought that that was an unfortunate thing. but it doesn't take away from Saturday night and how they handled it.

They did it really well. And I expected nothing less considering the fact that it was Vegas. I was really happy to be there. I loved just the spirit in the arena. People were very happy. It seemed to be there, even though it was a smaller crowd.

And even when I left on Sunday morning, just quickly looked back and I saw the Mandalay Bay just standing there, shining bright. That made me feel good. And so again, I'll just say that, you know, we're not going to forget the people who are affected.

You don't want to move. move on and forget. You'll keep thinking about them and we'll keep thinking about them. And I know that Las Vegas is such a great fight community. Just want everyone to know there because that is a community that is still healing and still going through a lot mentally. And it will take quite some time for them to fully heal if they ever will heal. I mean, that's not something especially if you were involved that you can just forget about. But we are thinking about them and wishing them the best. And I also want to say before we get to the after hour, that we're still thinking about the people in Puerto Rico. There's so much going on in the

world. But there's a great community there as well that's going through a lot right now. So we don't want to forget about our friends in Puerto Rico and wishing them the best as well. All right. We're going to talk a little more about UFC 216 after the quick break here. Again, mhmapfighting.com. Hashtag the MMA hour. We're going exclusively on Twitter right now. So what you need to do, close YouTube, close Facebook, close MMA fighting. Go to mhmap fighting. Twitter.com right now. We're going to be answering your questions for the next few minutes over at mhmapfighting.com exclusively

over on Twitter. It's the MMA after hour and it starts right now. Yeah. Time now for the MMA after hour. So much to discuss. Got a couple polls out. So much going on in the world of MMA. So let's bring back Mr. New York, Rick.

Hello. There he is. Did we get good questions? I feel like this was a good week for questions because there's a lot of things that need to be debated. Did we get good questions? Yeah, we always get good questions. Well, the fans always...

Sometimes not great. Sometimes not great. We did have some good questions this week. But let's start with yours, as we want to do. Yes. Question of the day number one by Ariel Hawani. Is Demetrius Johnson the greatest fighter of all time? What's your response to that?

It's a complicated question. Oh, it's a complicated question. You're going to soft sell your own question. Listen, it's a complicated question. I wanted to see where the people lied on this one, because here's the thing. Numbers wise, facts-wise, yeah, you can strongly make that case. The numbers don't lie. He is the winningest champion in UFC history.

He's the most successful champion in UFC history. He's the most dominant champion in UFC history. No one has ever done what he has just done, right? That's a fact. Fact. But then you have the issue of strength. the schedule, then you have the issue of the new weight class, then you have the

issue of, oh, you know, no former champions blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is that his fault? No. But is he sometimes a victim of it? Yes. So I don't know. If you want to tell me right now, after what he did on Saturday, and how he did it, and the way in which he punctuated

his place among the greats, pulling off that submission, which once again, maybe the greatest I've ever seen in my life, suplex to Arm Bar. I was blown away by it. I loved it. I loved everything about it.

If you want to tell me after that, I have no problems with it. Because you know, I've been passionate about this. About D.C., John Jones. I have absolutely no problems with it. You want to weigh in? You want to weigh in on the PEDs thing? I think if you have a mark on your record,

you're excluded from that. If you have failed for PEDs in the past, you are excluded from that conversation. So as of right now, until we get some closure to the John Jones situation, These are my top three. You want to hear my top three? Let's hear it.

These are my top three as far as pound for pound all time. Right now, I'm talking about the greatest of all time. Demetrius Johnson, George St. Pierre,

Daniel Cormier. That's right now. And I know the last one will be somewhat debated, but that's right now. We'll see what happens with John Jones, but that's as of right now.

I'm putting them on the sidelines for now. But yeah, what did the people say? So the pull. results. You offer three options. Yes, no, and TBD explain below. Okay. Well, the TBD sort of refers to like, oh, does he have to go up and? Yeah, I got you. That he could be or he is on the caveat, whatever the case may be, you know, sitting on the fence like, like you are. So the results are in after 16,541 votes. Yes, 54%. No, 37% and 9% TBD explained below. I'm not about to hop in and read all those explanations.

But that was a low enough... I was expecting that number to be more, to be quite frankly. Really? I actually thought it would be less. I thought that number would be very high because I think there's a lot of people who were conflicted with Demetrius

where they want to say yes, but the quality of his competition has prevented them from saying yes. And I think longevity can solve that or a contender coming out of nowhere can solve that. But I think that I thought there would be more people who would say yes with a caveat and that would be the TBD. But outright, it seems to be people are saying yes.

Demetrius Johnson is the greatest fighter of all time at 54%. It's hard to argue against it. You could bring that up and that's what makes this debate fun. There's no right answer. I think that's a very valid concern. Sure. But here's the thing. Demetrius Johnson, Bantamweight, who was just kind of thrown in the tournament, the fact that five years later he is in this discussion, which there's no doubt about it. If you don't think he's the best of all time, he's certainly in the top three, right?

Bare minimum. Yep. I mean, that's a feed in its own right. And now he holds a record, and he has no blemishes, no PD failures, no arrests, no embarrassments. Come on. I mean, an arrest can't be held against a guy. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

It's like, I'm just going down the list. Like, the guy has not done anything. Yeah, squeaky clean. There's not one blemish. Like, you can't even say, oh, yeah, but you remember the time that, you know, he threw the bottle at a president? Like, there's nothing that you can say. literally nothing, unless I'm forgetting something. There is nothing that any

doubter can say about this man. You know, the dribbling in that basketball challenge that he had for you, it was pretty terrible. You're right. See, I take it back. I forgot. No, on a serious note, though, you're absolutely right. He's done everything the right way. Everything the right way.

But if you are to say the level of competition he faced is not that of the others, the peers in this conversation, you wouldn't be wrong. it's hard to argue against that as well but I think where that argument could be countered is that he's risen to that level

every time the competition he has faced he's completely outclassed the competition he has faced he's finished now you know there was a time where he was winning decisions at this point he's a finisher there's no argument about that maybe it's coming late it doesn't really matter Demetrius Johnson is going in there to finish fights and he's doing

it. He's also pulling off things we've never seen before. I mean, I can't say that enough. Think about the strength that is required to pull off what he did on Saturday. Absolutely. To actually suplex another human being and then catch them

transition to the arm bar before they hit the ground. It's just insane. And he didn't have a lot of room to work with, right? He was up against the cage. The surest sign of this is how impressed other fighters are. If you're not, if you're if you're somebody on the outside, it's one thing.

If you're the other fighters and you're, you know, willing to give praise for how hard that is. And the same goes for his career. The fighters are willing to say he is the greatest of all time. It's becoming less and less of a debate and more of, you know, a runaway for Demetrius being the greatest. But it's, you know, as a complete, it's where I think the, biggest, the best argument for him being the greatest of all time comes is, can you find a weakness in his game? And the answer is you can't. He's well-rounded everywhere. There's not a thing you can take away from him that will make you have a path to victory. I truly believe that unless,

you know, the quality of competition changes, unless a new contender rises or somebody drastically improves. And now I don't want to discount Henry Sohudo, who seems to always be making great advancements and changes to his game. So there could be a scenario where that happens. But at the moment, there's not somebody who can exploit any area of Demetrius Johnson's game. And if that doesn't make you one of the best fighters at the moment and continuously one of the best fighters ever, nothing does. He doesn't have at this point a weakness. And you could point to losses that he had at 135.

But let's be honest about that, he was small in that weight class. That was not where he belonged. this is his weight class and he's ruled it with an iron fist. And at this moment, it's hard to say that John Jones is still the best of all time. Although I was firmly in that camp for a very long time, I would have to, I'd be swayed at this point to say Demetrius Johnson. And I just don't get the resistance to him. Like, well, like some people say to me like, oh, he's too small.

What does that mean? What does that mean? No one, 205, 185, 170 has done what he just did on Saturday, that maneuver. Like just because he's small, that makes you think less of him. Like, how do you know? When DJ fights, it feels, to me it feels like a big deal. I feel like I'm witnessing greatness. How often could we say that?

Not a guy who's just like squeaking by. Not a guy who is just like winning wars. Like I am witnessing dominance and greatness. How does that not excite you? I think box office matters to some people. I think the idea that why should I care if everybody else doesn't care is a conversation to be had. That's stupid. Why should I care if everyone else doesn't care?

If nobody's tuning in, what makes it so great? Oh, come on. If nobody wants to see it. Because some fans just can't get over the size thing. I think it's strictly that, which is dumb. That's what it is. Which is dumb. The size thing matters.

The size thing matters. Now, does it matter to how good he is as a fighter? I would say no. In fact, it's completely irrelevant. I'd say it has zero percent to do with how great he is as a fighter. but does it affect some fans in terms of where they're going to rank people all time or where they're going to place their heroes? I think it does. And that's bearing, you know, if Demetrius Johnson was a heavyweight, if Demetrius Johnson was a light heavyweight, if Demetrius Johnson was anywhere above where he is, I don't think this would even be a conversation.

His numbers, his resume, it all speaks for itself. So there is part of that that impacts this conversation. Does it impact how good he is as a fighter? In my opinion, no. Obviously not. It doesn't matter if he's doing it in his backyard or if he's doing it here. He is the best fighter. I love the idea of fighters on this Monday going to the gym and trying that move.

Because I bet you're some who are going to be trying them. And that is, you know, that type of greatness is what inspires the other fighters. You know, the showtime kick. How many people did that inspire to jump off the cage? That was his showtime kick. That was his front kick, Anderson Silva front kick, right? Yeah. Like there are some iconic moments.

That was one of them. Now this could be a turning point. Maybe that moment was the one that he needed to define him. But if I'm filling out a ballot, is Demetrius Johnson the greatest fighter of all time? At this moment, I would say yes. Who has a better shot of beating him? Henry Sehudo or Sergio Pettus? Because it seems like the winner is next.

Oh, I would say Sehudo. Yeah. By a long shot. Oh, interesting. Who wins that fight? Sehudo or Pettis? I think Sehudo. I was impressed by Pettis in his life.

latest performance. I was more impressed by Sohudo. And I also just think Suhudo is operating with a toolbag that he is already vast. His, you know, wrestling experience is already something he can lean on and then continue to expand upon. And it looks like his hands are coming along very, very nicely. So I would say Sohudo is probably a bigger threat, but I'd still say Benavides is the biggest threat out of all the fly weights. So I'd be happy to see that. Again, I'd be happy to see Sehudo, Pettis, it doesn't really matter. It's more about Demetrius at this point. It's a pleasure.

I mean, look, I could be biased because of how good he is to the media, how good he is to this show, a good he is to me, but like after pulling that off, record breaker. What's also helping, and more than that is the other ones are falling.

The other ones are hurting their place in the conversation more so than anything he's doing. He's just chugging along and continuing to excel, but other people are taking, themselves out of the conversation, which is unfortunate, but that is helping him more than anything. It's just so rare in this sport to see greatness of this kind and then to not have a single other blemish. To think that this guy is at the top of his sport right now and is like just going back home, you know, driving his kids to school, doing the dishes, you know, cleaning his yard. He's just a

regular guy. That's just the most amazing part of it. And it shouldn't be that. That shouldn't feel amazing, but because we're so used to, you know, money and all, like, like, think about what the whole premise of the Connor Floyd feud was, which I enjoyed, don't get me wrong, but it was just all about money. It was just all about who's richer than who. None of that comes into play with DJ. He doesn't make people feel smaller than him. It's hard to, at some point, it's hard to relate to the other stuff. He's in every man. But yet, he's pulling off superhuman things. But we, we don't want to be Demetrius. We want to be Connor McGregor. That's the in why people are gravitating toward one versus the other. You don't want to be the guy who

is just going in and punching his ticket and getting it done. You want to be the guy who's living it up and lavish. If he was just winning boring decisions, you can call him that, but he's not doing that. He is literally doing superhero things. And the UFC needs to recognize that. They need to push them more. They need to figure out a way to package and market this guy in the right way because whatever they're doing isn't working. If you can't market this man, if you can't make him appeal to the mass audience, the mainstream, after doing things like that, there's nothing more that you can do. And I think, you just give up at this point. There's, there's a, there's a misconception that he's outside the cage, not an interesting character where I think, no, there's things you can capitalize

on that he is an interesting character, especially, obviously as video game, acumen and all he's doing with Twitch and all that stuff. I think there's ways that you can figure it out. Anyway, forget about all that. Bow down to the king. What he did is something that we've never seen before. Yeah. On 10-9-17, I think most of us,

and your poll says that Demetrius Johnson is the greatest. Amazing. Poll number two. Yes. Who do you want to see Connor McGregor fight next? Now, I mean, this says it all, right? Connor McGregor is in the conversation. didn't even fight,

but it's the Connor McGregor lottery ticket. Well, sure, but it was his division. That Tony Ferguson punched. Look, I'll say this about Tony Ferguson. He passed with flying colors. We were talking last week. It's not just good enough to win. You got to call him out.

You got to entice him. You got to pick a fight. And he did it. And I thought he wasn't going to. I thought he would play the ego card and say, eh, forget that guy. I'm the champ. No, he didn't do that.

He picked a fight. His comments today, he's picking a fight. He's enticing him. Now, I'm not sold. When I hear Dana White say, that's the next fight? I mean, have we not paid attention to history? That may be what he wants to do in the moment, but he also said the same thing about GSP and Bisping,

and that fight is happening in less than a month. How many times have we been told that a fight is not happening, that they're going in a different direction? And, oh, by the way, look what happens. A funny thing happened along the way. So let me go back to my comments on the M.A. I less than two weeks ago, when I talked about Nate Diaz.

I still maintain that the Nate Diaz fight makes more money because Joe's sports fan knows Nate Diaz, knows about the feuds, knows about the fights, the history is able to reference it. Throughout the Mayweather-Mogregor fight, every time I talk to, or the build-up to it, every time I talk to a mainstream,

a non-MMA sports fan, or a media outlet that doesn't usually cover the sport, they only reference the Diaz fights. It's like those were the only two fights that Connor had. For whatever reason, those broke through. So I still believe that that's the fight that makes more money, given that reason. And I don't put it past the new ownership team to want to go for the quick fix. You get what I'm saying?

They're going to try to go for the home run. They're going to try to go for the most amount of money. It's not been a good year for them. But the fight that should happen is Tony Ferguson. That's the fight that should happen. They have to unify the belts. And I think Connor is starting to recognize that. And I think Connor is starting to realize that for his legacy, at this point, you won the featherweight title almost two years ago.

It's going to be 22 months. You won the lightweight title almost 12 months ago. And you haven't defended it once. And it's not 100% fair to put that onus on him because he was ready to fight and things happened along the way. And then, you know, they allowed him. We've gone through the story a thousand times. the main weather thing is kind of an anomaly. But now the same way Aldo

defended it against you, you got to play like that is the way this sport works. If we break that system, the sport is broken. And so it's very important to keep that train moving along. And what's even better about it is

Tony Ferguson is freaking good. He's on an unbelievable winning streak. I think it's 11 now, right? Yep. He's the interim champion. He's earned it. He's beat a who's who at 155. His run.

Getting to the belt has been phenomenal. He's fought all the fighters in his way. I don't think he has to go through Habib. I think that ship has sailed, at least for now. At some point, I'd love to see it. I'd love to see them go back to it. But for now, it doesn't make sense. I don't think it makes sense to defend the interim title.

If Connor's ready to fight, it has to be him. And I think it will be a big fight. You know, does it get over a million? Yes. Connor against anyone gets over a million. but the feud there, the personalities, it will do very well. I don't think it does as well as Diaz just because of who Diaz is. So I wouldn't be surprised if they still go the Diaz round.

And this is just my opinion. This is not with any other information. But it's going to be very interesting. By the way, sorry to interrupt you. The same management team paradigm represents both guys. And I first learned it to you think this is a perfect scenario, right? When win. I don't get the feeling that they want it.

That's just my opinion. I get the feeling that they're going for the big, the big money fight is Nate. And it's going to be interesting to see how that all plays out. But the fight that needs to happen is Tony versus Connor. Because you know what? Sorry, one thing. I don't mean to interrupt.

Connor versus Nate can happen at any point. Like, Connor loses to Tony if it happens. He fights Nate. That fights just as big, in my opinion. And it sells just as much. That's why keep it on ice. Do your thing. Do Tony versus Connor now.

Unify those belts. And let's get back to normal. And by the way, if they do that fight, then I think it's totally okay. Connor wins to then go to Nate. But you got to defend it just once. And I think he recognized that. Look at those comments.

He looks for drives. He looks for motivation. He looks for like little things to attach to. So with RDA, of course, with Aldo is for the belt. Then with RDA was to become the two-eight world champion. And then the Diaz rematch was to get back at what happened. And then the Floyd thing was the Floyd thing. And of course, Eddie, like he needs a thing.

He needs to be motivated. I think his motivation now is to say, all right, you guys don't think I want to defend my title? Here you go. I'm going to defend it against the interim champion. I'm going to shut this guy up and then I'll go get Diaz. That to me is the way to play this. You're making the same money regardless.

You answered the question. I was going to say, is there an expiration date on the Diaz fight? That would be the only reason to do it beforehand. I don't think that's saying no. I mean, the second one just happened. It was just a year ago. You know, like the first two happened within the span of five months. I do feel like there's momentum loss, though, at this point.

This has been too long for me to get as excited about it as I could have. will I be excited about it when it inevitably happens? Yes. But there is some, I feel like there is some momentum loss at this point. I think it depends on Nate to a degree. Does he completely disappear? Does he pop up for another fight?

Is he a lot more active? Right now he's kind of, you know, taking a less say fair approach. I'm not convinced that that fight, the Ferguson fight is set in stone, but I think it's the fight that should happen. And Ferguson just has an unbelievable amount of momentum behind him. And I just want to see it.

Like, forget about everything else. Forget about like the trash talk, the backstory, the feud, the management stuff. I just love the matchup. And I feel like we saw the Nate fight twice. And so can we just wait a second on the third? Let that one age. Let's see these two trains collide. That's the matchup. It's nice to be Connor McGregor. Oh, man, he's got options galore. Options galore. I really want to see Connor fight max. I want to see Connor fight Max

I want to see Connor fight Kabib I want to Frankie Edgar I mean like there's there's a million fights for him but right now with what Tony did and said and how he's rolling it's hard to get more excited in my opinion than about that fight so with 18,224 votes

oh wow that's a lot of votes for 63% of the people agree with you Tony Ferguson has got to fight Connor McGregor next followed by Nate Diaz at 25%. Followed by Pauli Malinagi with 8%. And then other with 4%. I just did that for the people. 8%.

They're all trolls. You want to know how many people were trolls in that poll? 8%. I mean, let's be real. The other 4% are probably trolls too. Yeah. It's a two horse race. Oh, you know what?

Maybe Alvarez Gachi. It's a two horse race at this point. How are you going to give us to Al. Alvarez Gae if you got an interim champion. The only guy that will trump Tony at this point is Nate. It's a two-horse race. Yeah. And I think it has to be.

And Tony has done everything in his power to not only get to this point, win the title. Chase Connor McGregor. He has done everything. He has earned this opportunity tenfold. Yeah. It's time for this fight. Man. What a great fight.

He said he'll chase him down to freaking featherweight. He had a great line. I think, yeah, Sean. Sean O'Shahti did tweet it. Connor needs his ass kicked and we need to unify that belt. Otherwise, he needs to vacate, set it down, walk away, and never effing come back. Because if you go to 170, if you go to 185, or even if you drop down to 145, I will effin follow you, Connor. And I will haunt your effin dreams, kid, and I will come after you.

And one day, no matter what, whether we have the same management or not, you will eff and see me. again and I will put some pain on you bro. That's great stuff. Sorry. He wants it. It's great. And he deserves it. Okay.

Will McGregor versus Ferguson get done in time for December 30th? Or are we looking at 2018? I like how, I like how Nile tagged McConlin too. Yeah. Well, the problem with St. Patrick's Day at MSG, as I said earlier, was the Knicks are playing that night. Who cares? They can move that. Well, the season hasn't even started

and they're already eliminated from the playoffs. Yeah, they can move that. Listen, I would mind. It's an abomination at this point. But I don't think that that will happen. Now, if it happens a week later, a week before, it doesn't really matter. Let's be honest.

Tony says he's ready by end of year. Is Connor ready? Dana said on Saturday that Connor said he's ready. I think they want that fight to happen then. I don't think time has expired. I think it all comes down to money at this point. I think Connor has four fights left on his deal. what is the UFC going to do?

How are they going to pay the Piper? How is he going to go from making $100 million to whatever they want to pay him? Because he's certainly not going to come back for the amount of money that they are contractually obligated to pay him based on that last deal that he signed prior to the Aldo fight, 194. What's going on back there? You made a funny face. Nope. Did I break the fourth wall? Oh, you're good.

So anyway, I think they wanted to happen. I think Tony would be down. I think Connor would be down. Could they get the deal done that remains to be seen? Speaking of Tony, our front runner at the moment, do you think Tony dropped the ball on his post-fight interview? This is from Cody Spade. What?

You liked it. I loved it. I graded it. It was perfect. A-plus. It was perfect. It was Tony Ferguson's A-plus. You get what I'm saying?

Like, everyone's kind of different. Like, don't copy Nate. Don't copy this guy. Like, I was just afraid. And maybe my expectations were low. I was afraid that he would just... Remember when he beat RDA? And we were like callouts Connor.

Remember? Yep. He walked away. He didn't say anything. The evolution of Tony's character over the last week, he talked about it starting in training camp. Compare the Tony Ferguson at the Verdume luncheon to the Tony Ferguson that we saw last week.

Completely different guy. I really think that the Vegas shooting affected him. And so I was wondering if he would just no-sell it. If his ego would get the better of him and he'd be like, nah, I'm not going to talk about that guy. He's a nobody.

He called him McNuggets, which is fine. But then he did the whole like, you know, blah, blah, drop it, this and that. It was,

it was perfect for Tony. And I think he backed it up very well at the press conference. I think he backed it up very well here and he's doing other media. He's playing it perfect. And by the way, it's important for him to continue

to be active and vocal. Don't play the cool card. This is not the time. Look at what happened when Nate. He took the bull by the horns. seize that moment. Don't play the cool card. I think what's helped him

is that previously attentions were diverted, right? Because he has an interim title shot. It doesn't seem like Connor McGregor is coming back. He has to keep his attention there. He has to keep his attention on McGregor. Now that he has this belt, he is the king

and he can singularly focus on Connor McGregor. I think he's freed up for that opportunity to be able to chase him, to be able to call him out, to be able to go after that. He doesn't have to think about Habib. He doesn't have to think about anything else. Connor McGregor can be his sole focus.

And if he has to, and if it doesn't happen next, maybe Nate gets to fight, he can defend his title. But he can now use this and focus on Connor McGregor and doesn't have to worry about anything else. Remember when he was on the show a couple of months back and he was talking about Nate? He just, it didn't click the same way, right?

It actually clicked more today about Nate, which was kind of like a side note then it did a few months ago. Sure. Or you said both those guys don't want to fight me. It's just great. When fighters like Tony...

And by the way, who thinks that he dropped the ball? I mean, come on. Yeah, I thought it was super solid. When fighters from Christopher Kit, when fighters like Tony Ferguson or Kamaru Usman complain about the media or lack of thereof, does that ever disappoint you? Essentially, lack of media attention is that,

is the onus on the media? Is the on the fighters? Where does that fall? And does it disappoint you? It's hard to paint everyone with the same brush. So I don't take it personally. I mean, at times, look, I address this. Like, Tony blocked me on Twitter. I was sort of confused by it.

I walked up to him at the Mayweather McGregor first press conference, and he blew me off. And I was disappointed. I want to have a good relationship with everyone. I want to cover everyone fairly. I want everyone to be happy with our coverage. It's hard to cover everyone. It's hard to give everyone that shine.

My show's only once a week. There's only so much real estate. There's only so much time that we can devote to everyone's story because there's so many darned events. I don't take it personally, though. That's why I love, I love, when there's a guy who has a conflict with me, I love having him on the show. Mickey Gall, Ben Ascran, Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson. I've asked Dana to come on the show. I've asked Dana to do interviews.

Like, I prefer this life is too short to hold on to these gratitude. So if you have a problem with me or my coverage, let's talk it out. Let's figure it out. Let's make it better. So it doesn't bother me. I am so happy. I was worried that Ferguson wouldn't talk to me. I'm so happy that we're buddies again.

Speaking of buddies, what's next for Kevin Lee? One of our new favorites. What's next for the Motown Phenom? This is from Bajou. Should he go up, maybe stay a lightweight and manage his weight differently. What's next for? By the way, how cool is Kevin Lee?

After I did that interview with him on Wednesday, backstage, we're walking off and he's like, Ariel, send me a spot on Monday after I win the belt. Now, unfortunately, didn't win the belt. He's not feeling well. But the fact that he even thought, like, I don't know, this is becoming a thing here. And I like it very much. Maybe I don't have to book the show anymore.

People will just book themselves onto the show. Anyway, as we said earlier, I have no doubt he'll be back. And I hope it's in the 165 pound division. So I've been talking about this. You know, there's a serious issue with weight cutting. And I believe that until someone gets seriously hurt or unfortunately dies, they're not going to change anything. And there's a lot that goes into it.

There's not a quick fix. I recognize that. People are always going to overcut, dehydrate themselves, not do it the right way. And I actually think that the UFC is doing

all that it can as far as the Performance Institute is concerned. But more needs to be done. More needs to be done. Because look what happened with Kevin Lee. There was another scary incident overseas.

And so I threw out the idea more weight classes. And when you think about it, like I got all these responses, oh, you're going to water down the sport boxing. We have enough weight classes. First of all, the UFC currently has two interim champions, 185 and 155. They recently had a 145 interim champion as well. Guess how many weight classes

I'm advocating to add? Two. Two more. 125, 135, 135, 135, 135, 135, 135, 175, 1055, 1095, 205, 205, 265. There's not enough talent between 205 and 265 to splinter that. So I'm only advocating to add two. How to? Well, give Tyron Woodley, if we're doing it today, the option. You're either going to 175 or going to 165. I suspect he goes to 175. So you're adding 165 and you're adding 195. That's it. But I think that the jump between 155 to 170, 170 to 185 and 185 to 205 is just too drastic. It's just too drastic in this day and age. It worked in 2005 and 6 when we had, you know, eight shows,

five champions. That was fine. The game has changed. And if you look, there's just so many fighters at 155 or 170, there's a glut of them. So people say to me, that's not the answer. Of course, that's not the sole answer. There is no sole answer.

But that is the cheapest and quickest thing that the UFC could do right now. If you want to institute weight cut reform, if you want to institute year-round, weigh-ins, that stuff, A, cost money. Takes a lot of time. I'm not sure if the fighters are going to be into that. That's treating someone as an employee. They already are skirting that line with USADA.

You want to be a fighter and get weighed in, 365. You want to be dieting all year when you're only fighting two to three times a year? Who wants to do that? Who's going to agree to do that? No one's going to agree to do that. You want someone to show up to your house and weigh you in? That stuff costs money.

Who's paying for that? Usada? No. Who's paying for that? The UFC? Who's paying for that? The commissions? No way.

Other than Nevada and California, maybe one or two more, none of them have money. Who's paying for that? If you have a fight coming up in Virginia, they're going to come weigh you a month out, two months out, the whole card? Even in California, they only weighed the title fights. prior to UFC 214. So the quickest thing that they could do right now, my opinion, and the cheapest thing,

open up the divisions. Just give the fighters more opportunities to make weight. Give them more options. Give them more weight classes so that if you're a guy like Kevin Lee who's teetering, hey, you've got an option at 165.

Now, do the fighters need to educate themselves? Yes. Is part of it on them and their team? Yes. Stop with the extreme weight cuts. Don't weigh 19 pounds, you know, 20 hours before the way ends. Some of them has to be on you. There is part of this. Like, you got to be a professional, right?

At some point, you got to take some of the blame. But I do believe that 165, 195, 175, part of the answer, not the sole answer, part of the answer. And I can't understand. I can't wrap my head around the people who are like, oh, no, no, no. I don't want that many champions.

I don't want to water down this board. First of all, are you that selfish as fans where you want everything to be nice and tidy for you. I'm talking about adding two-way classes when we already have two more interim champions. There's already the same number of champions. The UFC, why do they do the interim belts? Not because they have to.

Not because there's some rule that they need to uphold. It's because they need title fights to headline pay-per-views. That's their rule. Unless it's a counter-fight, they're not headlining a pay-per-view with a title fight. That's a hard rule. So that's why they're creating 125 for the females. That's why they did the interim lightweight title fight

before DJ and Borg got moved to that card. That's why they did the interim featherweight title fight at 206 and at 209 for 155. Just have real divisions with real champions. Do it, 165, 195, 195, move 170 to 175. It's clean. And then you got a 115, 125, 135, 135 with the women. Now you're in business. Educate the fighters.

So Kevin Lee, I want to see him back. I want to see him back at 165, among many others. I hope he's feeling better. I reached out to him, haven't heard back yet. Will this happen, is our next question from Andrew Coglin. Will there ever be men's categories from 1-2-50 to 205 in 10-pound increments? I believe there will be. I really do.

It seems like there's really not a reason not to. And it's a quick fix. Well, let's hesitate on calling it a fix, but I think it's... It's part of the fix. It's something to do. It's quick, it's easy. If they announced today 165, I bet you. go back at that tweet that I tweeted

on Friday afternoon about adding the weight classes and look how many fighters retweeted it and liked it. Active fighters. More than Mary. And by the way, it opens up the possibility

for super fights. Yep. Champion versus champion. Why are we sticking to this archaic model? 185, 175, 1505 to a word, like, what?

No. Just do it in 10 pound increments. And by the way, there's still more. boxing. They go seven pounds. Yeah, to me there's no downside to it. No downside. But I don't think it will do much good. I don't think it will have much of an impact.

I don't know. I think it's just because weight cutting isn't about these guys. These guys know what the number is. They can either do it or they can't and they're pushing their bodies too hard. It's not, if it's 165, they'll be five pounds, they'll be five pounds less heavy and still cut the same amount of weight. It's, it's a systematic thing that's, that's encouraged because you have to be bigger than your opponent. And if you're not, then in your head you're going to... Listen, there's a lot that could change, but look, we've seen in this sport,

they institute a new rules, and they're not even freaking unified. There's new unified rules that aren't even unified. All the commissions haven't adopted them. So you think that people are just going to pick up and change, weight cutting and all this stuff? No, until something horrific happens. Even then, I think there will still be. unfortunately. Oh, could you imagine if the PTIs and the sports centers and the Sports Illustrated start to really look into, you know, what's going on here?

It's not happened yet. And so they're dodging massive bullets. Add the weight class is first step. I'm not, again, I'm not saying it's a sole fix, but I think it goes a long way. I really do. Our next question, why would the UFC and Nevada Athletic Commission allow Kevin to fight with staff, is it contagious? Can Tony file some kind of

suit against the state? Should he be paid extra? Essentially, what happened with the staff situation? Tony's not suing because he got his fight. Could you imagine how pissed he would have been if that fight would have been pulled? You heard him. He is not concerned at all.

At least he's not saying he is, if he is. How did they let him fight? Sounds like they missed it. It honestly sounds like they missed it. Our own Mark Romandie spoke to Bennett. He said that he was checked out. I will admit, I was, I was standing next to Kevin where I was sitting in front of him, but I was on the opposite side. I was kind of off. So I was on the opposite side of his chest. But we had pictures. We, I mean, the video, we all missed it. He was right

in front of us on Friday. We all missed it. So I just think they missed it. Cudos to him for being honest. Cudos to Joe Rogan for bringing it up, like right away. He pointed it out right away. and I don't know how he saw it via monitor and no one else saw it backstage but man by all accounts it is a pain to fight with that

it is painful as heck it is draining to cut weight with that to fight with that I can't imagine so man Kevin Lee kudos to you although

if I like me being the germaphobe that I am I'd be freaking out yeah I don't know look he had to take his opportunity he got the opportunity that he's been asking for and took it, but this is life-changing stuff. I didn't expect him to pull out,

but it sort of sheds light on the issues with cutting weight, and who knows if his performance was... I have to imagine that it was impacted. By the way, while we're talking about the wayans very quickly here, you know those hoops that they have for the women? Why don't they just use those for the men? All these wayans now, Dana's not there. So him and Bert Watson used to do it

where they would wrap it around the guy at the ceremonial way in, like when they only had one way in. Well, now it's like a complete gong show. I wanted to say something else. But like I've seen, like 15 fighters, like completely naked at this point because they don't know how to rap.

Why don't they just do the hoop for the men and the women? Is it embarrassing for the men to have the hoop? It's clean, it's easy, it's effective. No, I don't see why it would be. Do you remember there was a time when they didn't use the hoop for the women? Like when Gina Carrano was on the skill, like they had to hold up two sets of towels. They were doing that for a long time.

I think it was Invicta that it's... Invicta, yeah. Just use it for everyone. Just plop it over them. No reason not to. It's such a mess sitting there at those open... The official ones in the morning. I mean, I've joked with Cormier about it.

I mean, it's just like... There's no coverage whatsoever. Like, for the guy's sake... The fighter is usually out of it when he stands there, needing the towel. Protect the guy. This is not intended to have been a broadcast product. you know, I

I find it hard to fault that like the time the If I'm a fighter cover me up it doesn't matter a broadcast or not just cover me up

maybe they don't care maybe they want to be seen I don't know Now you've got 15 We're on Long Island And the guy was just like To compare You know

Listen I'm happy they do it for the women They deserve that I think the men deserve it too I agree I mean unless there's something I'm not thinking of There's a

It seems like there's no reason not to... Maybe they don't think it's masculine. I don't know, but it's dumb. Well, it's not masculine. It's just dumb. The only reason I could think it would be not masculine is because it originated with Invicta, but other than, like, the hoop itself is not inherently masculine or feminine.

No. I don't see a reason not to use it, but I'm not, it's not really my area of expertise. So, please, you know, weigh in. Maybe there's a reason that they're not using it. Maybe there's a reason that the standard towel is used. Way in. Don't pardon the pun. Boom.

Okay. Stand by fighters. Should the UFC pay for fighters to be on standby to stop fights that get canceled because this is becoming so prevalent? It's a silly fix because or solution or suggestion because, you know, you're supposed to be a pro fighter. Will Brooks is preparing for Nick Lentz. You can't say, oh, by the way, here comes Justin Gachie, you know, or, you know, throw out any lightweight. So I just, we have to remember that these are professionals. These are, this is their job. And there's a lot of risk here. You can get cut, your pay goes down. So it's just be like, oh, let's plop in someone else. It doesn't work that way.

Mighty Mouse's Arm bar or the Boston crab that we saw in the local scene for submission of the year. What's your vote right now? No brainer. The arm bar. I love the Mousetrap name. Kind of bummed that he's not adopting it. The Mighty Whizbar. Maybe something better is coming.

The WISB. The Mighty Plex is cooler than the Whizbar. I think he's trying to move away from the mouse stuff. Which is unfortunate. That's right. He did. Yeah, he's trying to get rid of the mouse. He's trying to calm himself. I think he's trying to move away.

Maybe. Maybe the mouse thing was what was holding him back. Maybe. But, yeah, that's the submission of the year, for sure. It's not even close. It's not close. I mean, you talk about stakes, talk about everything. I'm excited to see what the mousetrap really is. He's got something better in the bag.

You think so? In the bag. That's what he said. He said this to you. We're not listening? He said there is a mouse trap. It hasn't been shown yet in competition, but it exists,

and he's ready to unveil it. Maybe we'll see the mousetrap soon. All right. Should Demetrius go up to 135? Should T.J. or Cody, the winner of that fight, go down to 125 to fight Demetrius? Is that the fight to make?

What's the fight for Demetrius? What's the fight for Cody and T. Cody, T.J. Winner fights the winner of Dominique. I want to get back to some kind of decorum here where these guys, I like that the fighters have something to push for, to build for, to work towards.

So I want the winner of Cody T.J. to fight the winner of Dom versus Jimmy. And then I want, especially if Sergio wins, that's a fresh matchup. And the new Henry Sohudo, the way he's striking, I always thought that Henry got that title shot too soon.

And so I want that fight to produce the winner. Excuse me, the top contender. so no keep it clean for now and by the way I have no problem with him going for 20 straight

let's see how far we can go with this 20 that's the number whatever it is something crazy why not make sure that that record is unattainable

Robbie Dixon says the weekend left me wondering what happens to the win bonus of a fight is deemed to draw oh for the fighters correct that is to the UFC's discretion

Yeah, discretion error. If it holds together as currently assembled, Patrick Leary asks, is UFC 217 the most stacked card in UFC history? I don't know about that. I don't know, it's a good card. It still doesn't even have its fifth pay-per-view fight. You know what I'm saying? It is pretty damn good, though.

It's good. It's a little top-heavy. I mean, I don't know, like if we're talking stack card, most stack card ever. Can I just say this? Love the card. Love the fight. I've been the one championing GSP Bisping. love everything about it.

Love Yohanna Rose. Love Cody T.J. Those three are phenomenal. Mazvedal against Wonder Boys, great. Thoroughly disappointed with the promo. The promo that they aired, first they had a very sort of like cobbled together, cheap one.

And then I tweeted that and I'm like, oh, they didn't even do anything special. Remember last year for MSG, they had the guys at MSG and them walking and things like that and it was really nicely produced. None of that this time. And then they had this promo that aired later at the end of the show

where there was this this voiceover guy did you see this promo? I did yeah what is that? It was like so over the top wasn't really written well they made it seem like he was like

a Cape Crusader he was done or maybe he wasn't it was like what is this come on guys this story is perfect oh my God close the lights

black just hear his voice I have to walk away from the sport. Give me the date on the bottom right. I have to walk away from the sport. Battered, bruised, walks away. People fighting in his place. The sport is moving on.

I might come back. A comment here when he talked in Montreal a couple years ago. Michael Bisping. George, you be ba-bba-ba-ba-ba-bo-b. It comes back. The greatest champion of all time. It's just like the thing writes itself. And then they were like

Meanwhile in Montreal George Javier Like oh god What was that? That was horrible So disappointing As good as the 214 promo was And you know what I said about

I said it was the greatest of all time This was equally bad Somebody please Are we are we trying to sabotage the GSP Like someone asked Dana White on Friday What was your reaction? Literally What was your reaction

When you found out that George St. Pierre was coming back. Do you know what his response was? He said something. He said, but nine. Awesome. Yeah.

And it was just like, awesome. That's it. Like that press, and that's why I was kind of, I didn't know what to make of like his demeanor and everything because, you know, a lot was going on in Vegas. We get to the press conference. And he says,

all right, let's go. You know who these guys are. You know, let's get this thing started. Like if I was, if I was the promoter of the UFC, UFC president, Ariel Hawani,

I would get on that stage and I would say, thank you everyone for coming. Our first show at MSG broke all kinds of records doing this off top of my head. $18 million gate, one of the greatest nights in the sports history. We crowned our first ever two-way world champion. We had one of the greatest women's fights of all time. It was phenomenal from top to bottom. People are still talking about it. People come up to me on the streets of New York every time I'm there and say I was at the first ever.

card at Madison Square Garden. I was there. And guess what? More than 20,000 people have told me that. But guess what? MSG only holds 20,000. That's how big this card was. I got news for you, my friends. Round two, even better. We have somehow figured out a way to top our maiden voyage to the world's most famous arena. We have somehow figured out a way to give you our fans a better card. Let's start with the women. Yoanna-Jech is en route to becoming the most dominant female in MMA history. Forget about females.

She's on route to becoming one of the most dominant champions in UFC history. She beats up everyone who comes in a way, including last year at MSG. She is unlike anyone we've seen in this sport, but she has never fought anyone like Rose Nama Yunus. Rose Nama Yunus came back in April and smoked the karate-hadi. She has been fighting for this moment her entire life. The mean streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rosnamayunis versus Ioannia and Jacek promises to be one of our greatest title fights of all time. Now, if that's not enough for you, for years we have talked about teammate versus teammate, friend versus friend.

Every single time they have said no. That changes on November 4th. Cody Garbrandt will be defending his title for the first time against his former friend and teammate at Team Alph. male T.J. Dillishaw. Dillishaw left the team. And now he's coming back to get the title he once wore. One of the greatest grudge matches in UFC history. One of the greatest grudge matches in the MMA history. Cody Garbrand is fighting T.J. Dillashaw. They did a whole season of the ultimate fighter. We've been waiting for this fight for a year now. And they're finally going to get it on. These guys could not hate each other more. They could not despise each other more.

They will settle their differences on November 4th. And if that is not enough for you, my friends. On November 4th, Saturday night, New York City, Broadway, Madison Square Garden, the greatest fighter of all time. The King of Kings, one of the most dominant champions in UFC history, the owner of nine straight title defenses. The man who never lost his Walterway title. The man who walked away on top of the sport, did it unlike any other. The face of Canadian MMA, a pioneer, a trailblazer, George Rush St. Pierre, after a four-year hiatus, is coming back to MMA. He is finally coming back. We all thought, including myself, that he would not come back, including myself, that he would not come back. And guess what, he's coming back? And guess what?

He's trying to become just the fourth man in UFC history to be a champion in two different weight classes. He was once to one 70 pound champion. He's now going to 185. He is going to take down Michael Bisping. Or at least he's going to try. And guess what? If Michael Bisping wins on November 4th, he will be the only man in UFC history to beat both Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre. He would cement his place among the gods of MMA. He will cement his place among the very best. He will cement his place as one of the greatest middleweight champions of all time. George St. Pierre is trying to make history off his back. George St. Pierre is trying to stop Michael Bisping from becoming the winningest fighter in UFC history.

George St. Pierre is coming back to regrain a new throne. Michael Bisbee's not going to let him. This is all going down and more. Wonder Boy Thompson, Jorge Mosvail. Could we get some of that? Can we get some excitement? Can we get some love? Can we get some excitement?

That was, that one, that one, that script wrote itself. That was the easiest one to pull off. Now I'm going to, I'm going to give them the benefit of dollars a crazy week in Las Vegas. I am hosting a UFC, give me the chance. If I am hosting a UFC 217 press conference, I am doing it like that. That card writes itself. That is one of the best cards.

Yes, stacked, I don't know, but it is juicy. It is chock full of storylines. Can we sell this, please? Can we get people excited, please? I feel like you were saying no to this question, and now you've kind of after that sell job, you've backed yourself into a corner. UFC 217 is the most stacked card in UFC history.

Did I sell you on the card? Have you sold yourself, is the question. I'm a lot more excited. I'm fired up. So the answer is that USC 217 is the most stacked card in UFC. The top three fights are great. They are. Is it the most stacked?

I don't know, because I think of the whole entire picture. Yeah. The top three fights are fantastic. I mean, you can't get better than that. They are great. By the way, top three fights like pound for pound

are better than last year's MSG card. I agree. Yoanna versus Rose feels bigger than Carolina because she just wasn't that big of a name. Cody versus TJ to me

is bigger than Tyron versus Wonderboy. Agreed. You got that story there. And then GSP coming back. Okay, now, okay, now we can debate about Conner.

That was big. To me, GSP coming back is the best sort of made in voice, sorry, a sophomore attempt at MSG that they could possibly like that is pretty

damn special. That feels big. The combined star power there is huge. Connor and Eddie is obviously big because Connor's going for two belts and Eddie looked dominant at that point, but

I think the combined star power of Bisping and GSP is huge and I'm with you on that. Every single person who tells me that they are not interested in that main event you're a liar. You say first of all, Whitaker is not available. You're telling me you're more interested in Whitaker Bisping right now than the return of GSP.

Are you really telling me that? One of the greatest fighters of all time coming back after a four-year hiatus. Are you truly going to tell me that you are not interested in that fight? Lyer. Jesse Levine says you need a Snickers. Liar! Not yourself. Grab a Snickers. Okay. I have a request for the fans. Okay. Two things. Yes. One. We need the promo that Ariel described. Make it. Yes. Make that promo. Just use my clip right there. I just did it for you. I just sold the damn card.

Tommy To Hold. Please watch that last five minutes and do something with it. I mean, I mean, I'm begging you. We have talented fans out there. Make the promo. Tommy, do something with Ariel's rant just now. Okay. Lioto Machita said that the Usada era hasn't been a net positive for the USC. What do you say?

I think it's been a mixed bag. I think for the most part, it's helped clean up the sport. But there are some issues there. Here's my problem when I think of Usada. It's not so much what's happening. It's how we got to this point. The fact that the fighters didn't have a seat at the table. The fact that they weren't able to sit down and negotiate.

negotiate a proper deal. So I always think of that whenever I think about the USada stuff and I try to think of what got us to this point. Ultimately, I like the fact that

fighters are, you know, that the sport is getting cleaned up and they're sort of being watched over, but I don't like the fact that they had no say in it. Yep. So that's a problem for me. Technical question,

would we ever consider live streaming the media day similar to how the way ends are live streamed? Is that even allowed? Is that even something that's possible? I'm doing all the interviews there. So it's kind of hard, you know?

Could you do the interviews live? Could you do it on the fly? Don't love doing that. Because there's like conversations that happen beforehand and you're waiting. And by the way, it's kind of boring at times. Like it's, you know, like you're waiting for 10 minutes to talk to someone. So I don't think you're missing much.

You're not getting the best product if we do that. No. Just rest assured that. Rest assured that. M.A fighting and Ariel are providing the best that can be done. Got your back. Take the way-ins and the, you know, low golf voice and then the videos that come out of media day.

Redefining the stuff. game. Question for me from Christopher Kit. Can you compare the differences between the two versions of Rick's picks? What do you prefer?

And which was more tough? Well, couldn't be more different. Yeah. MMA betting completely different from picking the best of the week.

Which was more tough? It's tougher to find fresh content every single week and easier to make fight picks. It's tougher to upkeep the

competition aspect of it and on that stuff week to week. but I like them both and I hope you guys enjoy Rick's picks. Last question. Level of interest in the new Star Wars trailer coming out today.

The franchise in general. Are you a Star Wars fan? I am not a Star Wars fan. I have not seen all the Star Wars. I don't think I've seen one from start to finish but I will tell you this. My second son, Walter, for some reason, I think I've mentioned this before,

is a big Star Wars fan. He actually just got a Stormtrooper outfit for Halloween and loves Darth Vader. But he likes the bad guys. It's very bizarre. Good. They're great. The bad guys are the best part. So, Boba Fett, Darth Vader. I will show him this. Is it for kids? Yeah, of course. Star Wars movies are never really that. Well, I showed him, I showed him when Darth Fader became Darth Vader, like when he was all like burnt up and it was very graphic, not for kids. I'd say that's probably the most graphic thing you're going to see. By the way, he loved it. He asked me to watch it a million times. So, go figure. I don't know what to say about that. When's it coming out? Later, early next year? November. Wow, really quick. Wait.

But the trailer's coming out. Oh, when is the trailer coming out? Yeah. The trailer's coming out today. And the movie's coming out already out? The movie's coming out in a month? According to Rob. Wow.

He's going to double check that. Damn. But, yeah, the trailer is supposed to come out today. Cool. Or if it's not already out. We've been doing this show for a few hours, and I haven't checked in on the Star Wars trailers. I dare you. December 18th, the movie.

That's fun. And it's a Disney. production, right? Disney. Who's the director? It's a Disney joint. Is it JJ Abrams? No, I don't think so. Who's the director, Rob?

While you find that out, let me tell you that this weekend is a very quiet weekend in the world of MMA. LFA. Ryan, who? No, UFC, Nobel. I love how...

Ryan Johnson, Director. I love how we've finally got some activity back there. Ryan Johnson Director. Just want to make sure everyone was awake. December 15th. All right. So no, I can't say I'm excited for it because I didn't know it was actually coming out.

This is a big deal, the release of the trailer. Are you excited for it? I'm excited about it. Yeah, I love Star Wars. Yeah, man. I watched the movies a ton. My dad would sit down with me. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Star Wars. Never got into Star Trek. Although those movies are also good. The new movies. Two big franchises that I never got into, Star Wars. And believe it or not, I know this is going to shock a lot of people. Rocky. What?

Yeah. I have not seen all the Rockies. What is wrong with you? Yeah, I'm not a big movie guy. I like to live in the now. But it's a movie about fighting. I know. I just like to watch real fights, not fake fights.

Like pro wrestling. You've never, wait, so let's let's let's see all the Rockies. Okay, but you've seen Rocky. I'll tell you, which, I'll tell you the only Rocky that I've seen from start to finish. I kid you not, Rocky Balboa. The worst one? The Mason, the Line Dixon one. Yeah.

I saw that in theater. Oh, I also saw the one... This is worse than last week. I also saw Apollo. That was really good. You mean Creed? Creed, sorry. Oh, my God, Ariel.

This is a disaster. Other ones, like, people are like, oh, thunderlips. Yeah, I've seen those, like, scenes with Hulk Hogan, but I've not seen the whole... Rob sent me a note that said, how many DeGrasi episodes have you seen?

I've seen a ton of those, especially the Drake years. The Drake years were phenomenal. Jimmy, right? Jimmy was his name? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. No, I don't know if that's actually

true. I think that wheelchair Jimmy, I think, was his name. I don't know. Okay. But, Ariel, disgraceful. We'll do a whole other show on this. For now, we have to say goodbye. Thank you for your time. Thank you to everyone in the back. As I was saying, no UFC, no Bellator this week. But we do have LFA, Cage Warriors,

Risen, and Glory, the debut of Bigfoot Silva. Woo! Against Rico Verhoeven. Eric was, New York, Rick was very upset about my comments on that fight last week, so I'm just going to say, I can't wait for that fight. And I think it's one of the finest pieces of matchmaking that we had ever seen.

I want to talk to Derek Lewis, by the way. No real update on his back. I can report that he is home and he is feeling a little bit better. He was able to fly home, but remains to be seen what happens. With that situation, if they rebook that fight, et cetera, et cetera, that was a bummer that we didn't get to see it. Congratulations to Verdoom on the win over Walt Harris. And also, by the way, congratulations to John Maraga on his great win as well.

All right, we have to say goodbye. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. Thank you to everyone who checked in. Thank you to all our guests this week. What a fun show it has been. Thank you very much to Demetius Johnson. Congratulations on the big win. Thank you very much to Max Holloway.

Thank you very much to Ian McCall. Good luck to him. Thank you very much to Carlos Condit. Welcome back. Thank you very much to Frankie Edgar. Good luck on December 2nd. Thank you very much to John Alessio for everything that he has done. Great to catch up with him.

Thank you very much to Everlast for stopping by. Thank you very much to Darion Caldwell. Congratulations. of becoming the brand new Bellator Bantamway champion. And of course, thank you very much to the UFC interim champion, Mr. Tony Ferguson, for stopping by on short notice as well. I'm back on Thursday for the MMA beat. Appreciate everyone for sticking with us on Twitter.

And once again, happy Thanksgiving to all my friends up north. Back next week, save time and place. Until then, I say peace.