MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani - Episode 427

Episode Date: March 26, 2018

Ariel Helwani speaks to Frankie Edgar (00:08:15), Cub Swanson (00:27:33), Volkan Oezdemir (00:49:44), James Gallagher (01:08:23), Kamaru Usman (01:30:57), Brad Smuckler (01:57:08), Paul Craig (02:21:25), Benson Henderson (02:39:58), Michael Chandler (03:00:11), Patrício Freire (03:20:23), Tai Tuivasa (03:26:46), Nathaniel Wood (03:48:48), Scott Coker (04:16:17), and NewYorkRic for The MMA [After] Hour featuring Ric's Picks (04:24:57) and the answers to your questions (04:54:02). 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 18665-3-3-1-2-60 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, March 26, 2018. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back inside our New York City studio. Hope you had a great weekend.

It was an interesting one in the world of mixed martial arts because no UFC, no Bellator, however, since we last spoke seven days ago, there has been a plethora of news, an incredible amount of news, a lot of it centering on the welterweight division that up until mid-last week was kind of at a standstill. So that's very interesting.

But also, there were a lot of events this past weekend. And again, as I said, none involving the UFC and Beltor. And I like this very much for two reasons. A, it allows us to catch our breath, especially when it comes to the UFC. but B, it allows us to look at some of these other promotions. And in my opinion, some of the very best not named UFC and Bellator put on shows this past weekend that I thought were very good. You had one with a great show in Thailand, a headline by Bibiano Fernandez, who in my opinion is one of the best fighters not signed to UFC and Bellator.

He successfully defended his title. For me, most noteworthy that night was Gary Tonin's much anticipated long-awaited. MMA debut. He looked phenomenal and I got to be honest and say that I did not expect that kind of striking out of one of the great BGJ practitioners of our era in his debut. Switching stances, comfortable on his feet. In fact, it looked like he actually could have finished the fight earlier but wanted to show off his striking. He eventually won in the second round via TKO some ground and pound. But I was super impressed with Tonin. I think he is a name to watch. You also had Cage Warriors put on an event, LFA put on an event.

The Cage Warrior event, in my opinion, was very entertaining. It was their Super Saturday show. Headlined by Nathaniel Wood, once again with a great performance. This time, a knockout in a matter of seconds. Is he on the cusp of going to the UFC? We Shall Find Out. Also Invicta with a strong show in Utah. So, again, no UFC in Bellator, but if you were looking for some MMA action,

you got high-quality MMA from around the world. and the sport is very healthy. Unfortunately, because there are so many UFC and Belvoir events, sometimes you want to take a weekend off. You maybe don't want to watch MMA on a Saturday when there is no UFC and that allows you to sort of ignore those other promotions. But if you were paying attention, especially this weekend, there was definitely a lot to like.

So we have a lot to discuss as it pertains to those shows. But I just mentioned the welterweight division. How about Wonderboy, Thompson, and Darren Till being close to finalize It's not quite finalized, and we were hoping that it would be finalized by today so that we can talk to some of the competitors involved. Fortunately, it's not. However, it looks like it's on the verge of being finalized for the Liverpool show on May 27th. Colby Cunnington versus Hafeld dosangos, which was reported last week by BJPen.com for the interim Walterway title isn't finalized either. And I'm starting to hear maybe that it won't happen in Rio, that maybe there are some security concerns.

Will they get over that? We'll see, but there's a reason they haven't announced it, just. yet, especially those tickets being on sales. So keep an eye out on that one. As far as fights that were officially announced, well, you had Santiago Ponsonibio versus Kamar Uzman. That's going to be the main event for the show in Chile in May. I think that's a phenomenal main event for that market, considering the fact that Ponziabio is from Argentina. Cub Swanson versus Frankie Edgar too is taking place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That was officially announced last week. Also for the Chile show, Shogun Huah versus Volkan Ozdemir, which I think is a very interesting

fight in the light heavyweight division. And one of the biggest pieces of news happened late Friday in the classic Friday news dump where you want something to come out, but maybe you don't want a lot of people to pay attention to it. Josh Barnett fought Usada and Josh Barnett won. He is not suspended. He tested positive. He failed a drug test in December of 2016, so a year and a half ago, almost, and he's been out for, you know, what, 15 or so months, if not more, no fine, no suspension, just a public reprimand. They concluded that A, he is not a cheater, and B, that he took a tainted supplement. So here's a guy who went to arbitration, beat Usada, first time ever in the UFC Usada relationship, and won. Now we'll see what happens

in. Does he want to go back to the UFC? Does he want to fight under these conditions? And how do they speed up this process because to leave with just a slap on the wrist essentially a public reprimand and have to wait a year and a half for that, to me, seems a little unfair to the innocent party. So that was news as well. We'll get into that. There's so much to discuss. Let me run down today's lineup and then we'll get to our first guest of the day. I mentioned him briefly at the top of the show because he was in the news. So 445 MMA After Hour. You know where it is. Twitter, Rick's Picks. And your question. questions. By the way, how about my new Dan Henderson

Bobblehead right over here? Bad timing over there. But that's from our friends over at MMA Bobblehead. Here it is. Boom. Look at that. Our little family is growing. Now we're 60. Okay, 425. We'll talk to Nathaniel Wood, the prospect. And how long will he be called the prospect? I mean, at what point, like, once he makes it to the UFC,

see, the key with nicknames is you have to get a nickname that will stick with you for the rest of your career. You can't, it's like, it's like, well, Ardom Lobov was the prospect killer. even though he dropped that. That's okay, but I don't know if Nathaniel Wood

can still be the prospect if he's fighting for a UFC belt if that happens. Anyway, he is the reigning, defending Cage Warriors Bantamweight Champion. We'll talk to him about his win on Saturday, his future plans.

Tai Tui Vasa will join us for the first time at 405. Talk about his big win last month in Perth. Talk about fighting Andrea Olofsky in June. Talk about the Shui, all that stuff and more.

He's got a great backstory. Michael Chandler will stop by at 345 and he was in the news last week because he was supposed to fight for the lightweight title against Premis. Unfortunately, Primus injured. They tried to put in Pitbull, Junior, Patricia Pitbull,

and actually, well, he's not Junior. He's just a smaller one. He didn't take the fight. So now he's fighting Brandon Gertz in the main event of Beltor 197, which isn't the main event that they wanted, but that's what they ended up with. So we'll talk to Michael Chandler at 345.

Benson Henderson will stop by. He's main eventing Beltor 1097. in Hungary next weekend against Roger Huerta. Haven't talked to Bendo in a while, so I'm looking forward to that. Paul Craig will stop by, talk about his last second victory in London, also talk about his brand new UFC contract. Brad Smuggler is a name we don't talk about on this show very often, if ever. He is a certified public accountant.

He used to work for the UFC. He has now launched his own company, CPA for MMA. It is tax season, my friend. He is focusing on MMA fighters, trying to help them out, be more financially responsible. will do their taxes right. I thought this would be a very fun segment. So CPA for MMA, Brad Smuckler will stop by at 245. I know a lot of my

friends in Zufa are very excited about that. Kamar Ustman will stop by. Talk about his fight against Santiago Ponsanibu at 225. 205. We'll talk to James Galaher. Talk about the injury that forced him out of Hungary. His interest in fighting at Beltor 200 and more. Volkan Ozedimir will talk about the Shogun Huah

fight at 145 and at 125. We'll talk to the aforementioned Cub Swanson about resigning with the UFC and rematching Frankie Edgar on April 21st in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Speaking of Frankie Edgar, we've been bothering him a lot over the last

month and change. He is back. He has a lot to talk about. I'm very excited to talk to him. He's joining us right off the bat. He's standing by on the phone. Frankie, are you there? I'm here, Ariel. How you doing? I'm doing great. Three times in a little over a month, Frankie, I promise after this I'll leave you

alone for quite some time. But I do appreciate it as always. So, we have a lot to talk about, and I kind of want to start, you know, a couple of weeks ago before we get to the rematch in April. Of course, you know, we all know what happened at 222. It was, it was shocking to see because we've never seen you in that light. We've never seen you lose like that. Just how are you feeling a couple of weeks removed from that fight against Brian Ortega? You know, I'm good. I'm back in a gym. Obviously, getting ready for this fight here, you know,

April 21st. You know, I was said, I was bound for sure. you know, you don't want to go out like that, but, you know, you do the sport long enough. I mean, anything can happen, so I got that out of the way now. Any injuries coming off of that fight? No, man, you know, honestly, I probably left that fight better than I have in a while. You know, I felt really normal. I didn't have any tweaks, nothing, no sorters, really. Nobody in my shit was a little banged-down from a couple of eight-cakes, but that's about it.

I'm assuming you suffered a concussion in the fight, right? I mean, just from the knockout? No, I didn't. No. No, I didn't. You know, I was pretty with it. You know, I only called a knockout because I didn't get turned off or anything. You know, even when I was going down, I knew I knew I had short time in my head.

I was saying, all right, short time, short time. I'll try to get to this. But obviously, he was able to capitalize on it with that uppercut. And even when I fell, as soon as the rest came over me, I said I was good and, you know, maybe I wasn't. I don't really complain about a stoppage. I can see why I stopped it. But, you know, I was with it. I, the right as soon as you stopped it.

I said, I'm good, I'm good. I was trying to argue, obviously. Me, I couldn't stand on, but I wasn't all the way out. So, yeah, I did even have a headache afterwards that night in the hotel room or anything. Have you watched the fight in its entirety? Not its entirety. I watched the highlights of the finish. Do you have any interest in rewatching the whole thing?

I will. Eventually, you know. Do you think you'll watch it before this Swanson fight? Yeah, I probably will. And Mark's been showing me some clips of it already, you know, preparing for this next one. So, you know, I've been seeing a lot of it. I mean, it wasn't a really long one.

So I'm sure I'll see the entire of it soon. The reason I ask is I thought you looked really good. I thought you were winning the early portion of the fight, you know, up until like the last 30 seconds. I know you didn't watch the whole thing, but do you remember that as well? Like, did you feel like you were doing really well in that fight early on? Yeah, I did.

I definitely did. I felt, you know, everything was landing. I was being pretty aggressive. Maybe that was my mistake is a little overly aggressive. But, you know, when things are going that well, how do you put the brakes on? You know, I felt that was, you know, as the fight was, as that round was going on, I felt like I was even doing more, you know, landing even more. So, you know, that's just my style.

I'm going to come forward. Is it fair to say maybe that you underestimated? his power just because we've never really seen that out of him? Nah, not really. You know, I don't try to test anybody's power. I don't want to get hit by anybody, you know, but I just didn't see it coming.

I think that's what it is more than anything. And when, you know, it says, oh, it was the hardest try you got with this or that. It's not always about the hardest one. The one that you don't see common, I think that that caroxia, you know, expecting it, and I just didn't see that elbow when it kicked what it got through. You mentioned, okay, now you got your first stoppage loss

out of the way, so you can kind of just move on. From what I understand, that was something that you were very proud of. Does it feel weird now? Like, now it's a weight lifted off your shoulders, but does it feel weird that it actually happened? Like, is it something that you still can't quite come to terms with? You know what I mean? It happens, right?

It happens when you see it happened every fight night, you know, pretty often. So, I mean, you know, I know, I know what it is. It's definitely, it sucks, you know, it sucks going home to your kids, and they're asking you what happened, and you got to tell them what happened. and yeah, it's not someone proud of, but again, it happened. What was that like when you told your kids about that for you? I got a text for my son, my one son, who wrestles. He was a little upset with me, you know, so it was well.

What did he say? He didn't, you know, he said, only seven years old, so he's kind of come, it was tough for him to come to grips with, I think, you know. Did you not train hard enough, you know? He said me like that stuff He's like, I saw you So your own bottom of practice I probably didn't want practice

Wow stone cold Was he watching live? Yeah man No I didn't watch No he didn't watch live They kind of stay in up But they fall asleep usually Okay

What was striking to me And we've talked about this often Was just you know I was on the flight home Sitting right next to Mark Henry Your coach And I obviously spoke to Alid You know

The way they were handling it It's rare to see coaches and managers, they were devastated. From what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, you were the one who told them, like, stop moping around. Like, this is no big deal, I'm going to get back. Like, you were the one trying to pick everyone up. Is that what happened backstage?

Yeah, you know, when we got back to the hotel room, Mark was, you know, all emotional and, you know, did somber. And I should do it, you know, what are we doing here? You know, this is the, this is really cool, man. So it's not, you know, just move on. I don't like to kind of do all the things. It's tough to get all. I mean, listen, no one's more disappointed than me.

I'm maybe not sure as much of those guys, but believe it, I took it hard. You know, I still take it hard, but I'm not going to want to dwell on it either because you'll never get over. When you say take it hard, like, did you take a break from training? You went home and just needed a break from MMA. What does that exactly mean for you? I mean, yeah, it took a hard just because it's strong, you know? It sucks, and I don't want to go.

I don't want to go to my barbershop and get a haircut. I don't want to go out to the pizzeria and get a slice. You know, you've got to see people, and the people are going to want to know what happened, or they're going to want to tell you what happened, you know, stuff like that. But you've got to just face it, you know, I tell my kids that all the time,

they wrestle and they hate losing, and you got to face it, you know. You got to just get back on the horse and do it again. Does taking this fight help you move on? Because now you have something else maybe more positive to talk about? Yeah, I think so. I'm excited to get in there. I know I'm getting flack from people.

And, you know, you guys are having shows on whether I'm taking the fight too soon or not. And that's fine. And that's part of it. And I mean, I know what I'm put on the line here. And I feel comfortable doing it. So, you know, I'm ready to prove people wrong again. So you have seen that, right?

Because I think the general consensus was, wow, Frankie is incredible. He's coming back. But A, is this too soon? And B, what does he have to gain because you beat Cubs? So, you know, decisively the first time, what does you have to gain from all of this? What is your response to people who are throwing out that criticism? Yeah, you know, I'm the one in there. I'm the one putting her on the line,

and there's nothing like getting in there and getting a win to erase that last loss. And again, it'll never erase it, but at least it'll kind of help deal with that thing, you know. And like you said, give me something positive to kind of focus on instead of focus on a negative. Was this 100% your decision? or did you take the temperature of your coaching staff, your team, and did you guys make this decision collectively?

I always listen to what my coaches say, and, you know, Ali and my wife and my teammates, my friends, I kind of hear everybody out, but ultimately it's definitely my decision, as long as I have their support, you know, if they said, don't take this fight, you know, I still probably would have taken it, but, you know, it's good to have their support, you know, and I felt I had that.

Were they supportive of this idea? Yeah, they were. But March seeing me. You know, I felt like I got turned off in there. Like I said, I was pretty with it. Even afterwards, I kind of knew what put me down. Even in the hotel room, and I really didn't have a headache or nothing. I think I've left training with, you know, worse headaches than I have on March 3rd.

If this fight, like if the UFC wasn't going to Atlantic City, You haven't had an opportunity to fight close to home very often. Do you think you may have taken some more time? Was this more about trying to fight close to home and getting over this as opposed to, you know, an opportunity to fight Cubs once and again, et cetera? Yeah, I think it had to do more with AC and just the fact that I want to, you know, kind of erase that nasty feelings,

you know. I haven't fought in Jersey, I think, since 2008. So that's what, you know, a chance to fight home. Who knows? I guess every other foot, they pick a fight. you know, in Jersey and New York the month after I'm fighting. So I said, let's just take advantage of this, run it back, and then I left out of the sober and I'm doing it myself.

Were any other names not named Cubs Swanson thrown your way, or was that the only option? Yeah, that's all I heard pretty much. You know, there was, no, do you want to fight? You know, I'll be honest, when I first came home from the fight, I moved into it house. So that's what I pretty much did this whole past week after my fight. I was moving every day.

all day. And, uh, and I was like, I knew 21st could have been a possibility. And I'm like, I was kind of on the fence just because I was just so hectic with the movement. Then I got a call after I was in saying, hey, they, they lost a co-made event. I wanted to know if I called for a home for a comming event. Then I was like, done. Yeah, let's do it. You'd even like, you said yes on the spot. Yeah, yeah. I said, let's do it. And I said, uh, you know, I was moved in. All the stress was done. All they were still in boxing. but, you know, at least I'm in. Wow.

And was there any part of you who said, like, I already beat this guy? What, like, is there anything, you know, maybe new? No. No, I don't care. You know, I mean, comes game, on game, let's do it. You know, it doesn't matter at this point. It doesn't really matter who fights so much, you know. I think it's all timing.

You know, if you win fights the right time, it's good things happen. Are you going to do anything different in training for this fight? because it's essentially it's less than a month away at this point and you're coming off a fight so it's not like you probably have to cut a lot of weight

even though you never have to cut that much weight anyway but is this a different kind of training camp for you given the circumstances? Not really. You know, I kind of this week I kind of jump back into it I could give myself a bit two weeks

to kind of just, you know, let my body just rest a little bit and, you know, deal with that last fight and I jumped into this week just like I was training for any other fight. So, you know, I got three hard, three more hard weeks left and just kind of go about the way we do our things.

Will you spar less going into this fight? I mean, I spar three days this last week. You know, I put them off, whatever he feels. Okay, it's up to him. Did you see the reaction after your, I mean, I think your tweet on that Monday morning got something like 20,000 likes or something like that. It's amazing how these sort of, it's kind of like, I mean, this is on a much different level, but it's like when someone passes, you see an outpouring of love.

when someone suffers a loss, you see this outpouring of love and support. Even Cormier, you know, I think he experienced the same thing when he was knocked out by John Jones. Did that blow you away the reaction, you know, the response to your loss and the love that you were receiving afterwards? Yeah, you know, it was nice, you know, especially from your peers. I mean, those are people that kind of live in the same shoes as we do. And to get that respect from them, it definitely shows that, you know, I've got to carry myself the right way. If I was a jerk and didn't carry myself the right way and didn't fight with heart,

I don't think I would get that love. So it's nice to know I've been doing things the right way. What did you think of Max Holloway's tweet towards you? Did you happen to see it? Yeah, I saw it. Yeah, no, I mean, I appreciate it again. You know, real, recognized real, I guess. And I think, you know, he sees that I'm a fighter

and I'm willing to put in the line. And, you know, I appreciate that respect he has for me. I'm under the impression that if you win this fight against Cup Swanson, as crazy as this may sound on March 26, I feel like you're going to get the title shot still. I feel like they feel like they owe you one, and you just have to get a W under your belt. Do you subscribe to that notion as well?

I think I'm still close, you know? Maybe not just one, but two, I feel like I'm right there, you know? And I always say, if I always keep training hard and keep putting myself in the right position, I think I'll always be knocking on that door. So, you know, my mentality hasn't changed. I still want to be a champion. You know, I know the past might be a little different, but I'm still positive.

You know, I'm not beat up. I'm not, you know, I didn't get run through this last fight. You know, I got put down and I got locked. I got stopped. You know, I got to deal with it. Got to come to terms with it. But I'm ready to put that work in and, you know, achieve these goals again. Did you consider at all 135 after this?

No, definitely not. No. I'm not going to go to the 135 like that. You know, I'm going to get a couple more wins here at 45, try to get this belt at 45 still. And then don't worry about 35. I'm not saying I close the door on it, but, you know, Thursday night of Wayans,

when you're making 45, 35 is definitely not on my mind. Right. And, okay, so at this point, you know, you have this fight coming up, and I feel like the path is pretty clear, but there is the Max Hallway Ortega fight. Are you kind of hoping that, and maybe,

I know the answer to this question, but I'll ask anyway. Are you hoping that Max win so that you can get finally that fight with him? Or are you hoping that Ortega wins so you can get a rematch with them? Yeah, I don't care. I let those guys figure it out, you know? Okay. I'll fight the guy that wins. I want to fight the guy that wins, you know.

Of course, I would love a chance to Ortega. I was doing well on that fight, and I still feel like I match up well with him, you know? But, again, I think I match up well with Max too. So I'm interested in both those guys, you know? but I guess, like I said, those guys got to figure out what they're going to do, and, you know, best guy's going to win, and I got to make sure I take care of business here in Jersey on the 21st. I also feel compelled to have to ask,

what did you make of Connor McGregor's tweet about you after the fight? You know, I mean, it's definitely a Gregor fashion, a little off-hant compliment, you know what I mean? But, yeah, again, it's respect in a way, so I do appreciate that. Is there any part of you that regrets this decision to take that fight? No. No. Nope. You can't go back and change things. I'm not one to sit there and say, I wish I did something different, you know.

I mean, a fight you do it all the time when you lose. You wish you did this, wish you did that. But I'm not, I'm not, you know, I made that. I'm going to stand by my decision, you know, and I got to be a man about it. What do you remember most about the first fight against Cubs Swanson? Just, you know, it took a little bit to get where I wanted to go. Once I got where I wanted, I kind of was able to do what I want. wanted, you know.

Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does. I mean, because you did submit it with just a few seconds left, but I, I remember it being somewhat dominant as far as your performance was concerned, and it was like while you were, you know, really streaking, you know, to try to get back into that title picture. Do you feel like it's going to be hard to top that? Like, you could recreate it, but to do something even better than what you did in that fight a couple of years back?

Yeah, you know, I'm always that's trying outdo myself, you know, from my last performance or, you know, from my most previous performance, you know, I'm definitely going to try to outdo myself to the last time I've four come. I'm going to try to do better than I did this past weekend. So, yeah, I'm always trying to out do myself, you know, in any way I can. Does it kind of feel like your fight is the main event for Atlantic City? Are you getting that impression as well? I mean, I'm home, man.

This is my home, you know. My first couple fights were in Atlantic City. And, you know, I never got to compete. And, I fought in Bullwall Hall in the smaller arena. got to actually compete in the big stage of Borough Hall. And, you know, the New Jersey State tournament is always that Boardwalk Hall. And just so happened for two years, I wrestled in the state tournament in my junior year and senior year. They were renovating the Bullwark Hall.

So I had to go to the convention center, my junior year, and the Meadowlands, my senior year. So I never really got to compete at the big arena at Boardwalk Hall. So I finally get to knock that off the bucket list. And for those that don't know, how far do you live from Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City? Like 45 minutes down the parkway. Wow. So this, I mean, this is as close to home as you're going to get. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yep. Amazing. All right. Well, I'm happy. You're happy. A lot of people are concerned and maybe being critical, but I think you know that it's coming from a good place, right?

People are just, you know, we saw with Michael Bisping. This is a little longer. But I think people feel emotionally attached to their heroes sometimes. And, you know, they don't want to see them falter. You get that, right? You get where it's coming from, right? I totally get it, yeah. You know, you see it, you see it with other guys, but I just feel like I'm different.

It's a little different. And, again, you know, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to put myself in harm's way if I feel like it's not the best thing for me. But, you know, like I said, I wasn't turned off. I've definitely been, you know, I was rocked. I was rocked. I'll give them that. But I wasn't that.

I wasn't that bad. All right. Frankie, I appreciate it. Welcome back. glad to hear that you're doing okay and good spirits and congrats on gaining this fight. I know it means a lot to you. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

Thanks for a couple weeks, buddy. Yep, looking forward to it. There he is. The one and only Frankie Edgar, the answer. He is back on April 21st. He's getting an opportunity to fight in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as you heard, just 45 minutes away from where he currently lives in Tom's River.

It has been a while since he fought in New Jersey. It has been what almost... It's been 11 years. Dang. Spencer Fisher, UFC 78, that was the last time. He fought in New Jersey, and that was in Newark, which is a couple hours away from Atlantic City. That was his ninth professional fight.

He improved to 9-0 and 0. That got him a fight against Gray-Maynard, the first one, and he lost that fight. So here's an opportunity for him to get back in there, write the wrong of earlier this month, and it's a rematch, as I said, it's a rematch of a fight that took place in November of 2014, a fight that took place in Austin, Texas

on that night in the main event, Frank Yeager won with just four seconds left in the fight. 4.56 he won via Nick Crank against Cups Swanson. And so they're running it back on April 21st. That's part of the news. The other part of news is Cups Swanson is back in the UFC. You'll recall his fight against Brian Ortega in December

was the last on his old UFC contract. Tested the Waters, he's back, and he is now joining us via the magic of Skype. Let's go to the Skype machine. Hello, there he is. Cub Swanson. How are you, Cub? I'm good.

How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for doing this from the gym. That's the new gym with you and Dillishaw, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going good. I'm just here by myself setting up. I got the camera crews coming to film today, so I can squeeze this in.

Okay, well, I appreciate it very much. Congrats on the fight. Congrats on the new deal. First, I want to talk about the new deal, if we can. what was free agency like for you? Oh, it was pretty, you know, crazy. Pretty much everybody, you know, got in touch with my manager, and then it was just, you know, seeing from there what I really felt I was worth.

And then from there, we had a bunch of, you know, really good offers. Then I was kind of forced to decide, like, okay, where's my passion at, you know? and when it came down to it, I felt like the UFC was just, you know, felt like home. So I was kind of just wanted to see if they would bump my, their offer a little bit. And literally the same day I had that discussion with my manager, they called and they said,

hey, we'd love to give you a little bit of a better offer, but we wanted to take this fight. and I was like, what's the fight? They told me this fight with Frankie, and I said, cool, let's do it. Wow. So they actually called you. You didn't really have to ask them to bump, but they called you with a bump, but you had to take the fight in order to get the bump.

Yeah, pretty much. Did it come down to the UFC and someone else? Did you whittle this down to two? There was a couple in play. But it was, you know, some of them were, you know, trying to make us jump through hoops and stuff, like, look, I'm not, I'm not here to play games. Okay.

That's not what I'm about. You know, you want me to fight, you know, pay me and let's do it. But ultimately, I felt like this was the best fit for me. When you say jump through hoops, what do you mean by that? I just felt like when you negotiate, you know, with a lot of people, they like to play games. And it bothers me. I thought it was, when it all came down to it, the UFC was actually being, you know, Dana was calling me, go, hadn't thought about, you know, what you want to do. We'd love to have you back.

They were being very cool about the whole situation. They were very upfront with what they wanted to offer in the beginning. And then they ended up giving me a little bit of a bump. And that's what got me to sign. But some of the other companies were just, you know, trying to play games. And I didn't appreciate that. could you tell us outside of the UFC who you were considering who came close? No, I'd rather. I'd rather not. Okay. Were you at any point close to leaving the UFC or did you always feel like they were number one in your heart?

I mean, I love fighting for the UFC. It's been awesome for me. But at the end of the day, I got to a point that I really thought that I wasn't going to resign. I thought that, okay, that my time is done. It is what it is. And, you know, for a few months, I thought I was done with the UFC. Wow. And just, you know, a quick second, I'm fighting Frankie Edgar.

So I was like, crazy. Were you at peace with that? Or, like, did that bum you out when you were starting to think that it was done in the UFC for you? Well, I mean, that is what kind of was a trip because, you know, I got a family now. Yeah. And that's been awesome. And it's been focused on that and thinking, okay, you know, I'm trying to. to build towards my retirement.

And not that I want to retire right now, but just that I see the future. I want to set myself up. I want to be taken care of. So I was really focused on that, making sure that I put myself in the best position. But then I was like, you know, you make, you know, this

amount of money and where's the passion at? Is it still going to be there? And I had to question that if I, you know, go fight somewhere else. And, you know, my passion is with you of there's a lot of fights that make me hungry to be in the big show, to be in the big fights

and so that was part of it that played a big role in it. Just curious, before the Ortega fight because sometimes UFC likes to offer someone a contract before the last fight on their deal plays out, were you offered something and if so, was it different than what you ultimately agree to? Yeah, yeah, they made me an offer

and I just knew that I was in a position to get more. I've been with the company so long, I've done so much, so I wanted to You know, I thought that I was worth more. Did you end up getting more than that initial offer before the Ortega fight? Yeah. Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah. How? Actually, they actually, more after the fight. And I still said, you know, still was not happy with it. And, you know, it's not, you know, it's not a whole lot more, you know, but I feel like I got, they took care of me. At any point in this process, and I don't know if you're this. kind of guy, but were you thinking like, man, this would be so much different if I won that last

fight? Like, did you regret, you know, not how it all played out because it all played out, you rolled the dice, but do you feel like you could have got a hell of a lot more if you were coming off a win? I think that it would have been a completely different position. I probably would be fighting for a title now. I mean, it was possible. Yeah. You know, a lot of things, you know, could be different if Frankie didn't pull out of the first fight with Max, then Aldo would have still fought, you know, Frank, or Ricardo Lamas, Lama, wouldn't have lost to Emmett.

You know, there's like this whole domino effect. Sure, sure. Just kind of change. So, you know, I, it is what it is. And obviously, if I would have fought for the, you know, if I would have won that fight, I would have been fought negotiating, you know, title money and not even be in this position. So it would have been completely different. In a way, do you feel like the.

way Brian Ortega looked in his fight against Frankie Edgar sort of soften the blow from the fight in December? You know, had he been starched by Edgar earlier this month? Maybe people, but now I feel like people don't view that loss in the same light. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. I mean,

I feel like it was weird. It kind of gave me more credibility because I felt like I was dominating him. He really, he honestly hit me one time in the whole fight and it was the first punch and he busted my nose pretty good. After that, I, I, I didn't realize how long his arms actually were.

After he caught me with that, I, I felt like, I felt extremely confident against them. I felt like levels ahead of them as far as the striking was concerned. And I felt very confident in the clinch, and that was my mistake. But yeah, after he beat Frankie like that, people were like, man, you were, you were beating them up. And then, you know, he pretty much dominated, frankly. So in people's size, it put me right back in the mix. How is your nose now? I hurt me for a while, but it's fine now.

Okay. But I was surprised it was for me for a good month or two. Did you have surgery on it? No. Okay. I saw this crazy story. You got sick before the fight because you held a baby. You were taking a picture with the baby and the baby was sick and then you got sick

and that kind of screwed you up on fight day. Is that true? Yeah, yeah. I mean, what happened is your immune system so low when you're cutting weight, right? And my manager is always telling me, don't go here, don't do this, don't go any big crowds of people. And I was in the hotel room about to go do some of my media stuff. And this guy walked up and he just shoved his daughter in my face, you know, like, and she was like crying. And she did not want to be in my arms. and she was I almost up her because she was like flailing around and I was like he was trying to get his phone and I was like hey man why don't you hold her and we'll all take a picture together and he's like thanks man and then right at the end he was like yeah I was going to come to your open workout but my daughter's sick so I didn't want you know I can't go and I was just thinking in my head like what you know what why would you do that and I didn't pay it any mind but then the next the next morning

I think that was that was way in day and then the next morning I woke up and I just didn't feel good and and I felt fine in the fight. I wasn't trying to you know use as an excuse. I just the whole day I was really questioning whether I was going to fight. Wow. I was just like is it even possible to pull out? Like the whole day I was just going like an emotional roller coaster and I was like in bed having like the chills and then I'd feel okay. and then I would feel just terrible. So the whole day I was just kind of going up and down

whether I wanted to fight or not. Wow. Have you ever felt like that on fight day? No, never, never. You ever hear from that guy again? Send you an email, tweets? No, nothing. All right.

No, no, yeah. I don't even know. I wouldn't even remember him. Right. Yeah, it just, it's tough because I was kind of, you know, all tore up in my throat. and then when he choked me, he cranked it so hard. And then I didn't have a voice for like maybe a month after the fight.

Wow. It's still bothering me. Wow. Was he tougher than you expected him to be, Ortega? I'd have to say maybe he's smarter than I gave him credit for it, just because he seems to, you know, kind of jump on those opportunities. And because he's been losing almost every fight he's been in the UFC. and he finds a way to win.

I have to say that he's kind of, as he's taking damage, he's gaining knowledge, and he was able to capitalize when he saw an opportunity. You know how tough Frankie is. You've been in there with him. Were you shocked to see him do that to Frankie earlier this month? 100%. I was just baffled.

I didn't think that, I thought Frankie would just take him down and beat him up on the ground. and do what he does. But I think he feared his grappling a little too much. I think Frankie has good grappling. So I was kind of surprised at that, and he made it into a striking match. So, you know, neither one of them was really fighting their game.

Are you surprised that Frankie's coming back so soon? Yeah, yeah, I am surprised. But, I mean, you know, a lot of times fighters feel like they don't have a good performance, and they just want to get right back in there and make it right. Right. So, I mean, it happens. But is this a mistake? Like, if you were on his team, would you tell him not to come back after getting knocked out this soon? You know, a lot of people would say it's a mistake.

I've heard people, you know, saying on social media that it is. But, I mean, they are only going to say that unless he comes out and looks great. So on the flip side, do you feel like this is the perfect time to fight Frankie Eager for you to get that rematch? I do think it's a perfect time for me to fight him, but I'm not putting anything on it that I think that, you know, he's lost his chin or it's too soon. I mean, Frankie's Frankie, you know, everybody gets got. So I'm not going to go in there thinking like that.

The reason I'm taking the fight is because I've been wrestling ever since I lost to him, you know, he gave me just a straight-ass kick, and I owe him one. And I've been working on my wrestling. in my ground game and everything because of the way he handled me the first time and I just know that I could be. So I'll ask you the same question that I asked him.

What do you remember most about that fight? You just said he gave me a straight-ass kick king. Maybe that's it. Maybe that like just, you know, that overall theme. But is there something in particular that when you think of that first fight against Frankie and Austin that really sticks out? I thought that he was, him and his corner,

worked together well. They were smart. I thought I won the first round and then they made some adjustments. He was able to start securing the takedowns after the first round. I stopped a few of them early on. And then after he made those adjustments, he stuck to it and I couldn't make any adjustments in the fight. And then he just dominated me the rest of the time. And I remember being extremely frustrated and just felt up like one step behind the rest of the fight. So, yeah, it's been something I've been working on ever since about being able to adjust in between rounds. And, you know, I took a lot from that fight. I really think he did great. So I learned a lot and I'm ready to even the score.

I haven't had the opportunity to look this up, but I feel like off the top of my head and correct me from wrong, you haven't had a lot of rematches in your career if any at least in the ufc right yeah i've never had any in the ufc tons of talk about it but i've only had one in my crew it was my very first fight i rematched a guy shannon gougarty and uh i beat him you know after i went on like a little bit of a win streak he ended up fighting ufc even fought clay yeah that was my very first fight and i'm my only rematch on my record so you must be i mean obviously you wanted to get a another crack at him, you probably want to get a crack once again at everyone who you've, you've suffered a loss against, but this has to be a very unique and exciting experience for you,

right, to prepare for a guy that you've actually been in there against. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's crazy because there's been talks about me rematching Aldo and Lomas. Mendez for a while. He's been gone for a little bit, and, you know, obviously you're going to want another crack at Ortega. So, I mean, all my losses in the UFC. they've been talked about a lot. It just never came to fruition.

Do you like the fact that it's three rounds as opposed to five? I do. I do. I felt like the first time I fought them in the five rounds kept me from trying to get up and get out from underneath them because I didn't want to use too much energy too early on. And then I ended up taking too many elbows because of it because I didn't have this sense of urgency.

and I think three rounds will be a little bit of a sprint and it should be fun. So I'm curious, before I let you go, Ortega Holloway, who do you think wins? You know both men? Who's your pick in that one? Well, I mean, I'm definitely going to give the edge to Ortega and the grappling, but, you know, Holloway is not easy to take down.

He's got the length. Yeah, it's funny because I, I just don't see Ortega having a chance, at my opinion. But I keep thinking that, and he keeps winning, so he keeps surprising me. But as far as striking levels, I'd say there's a huge gap. And so unless Ortega can get it to the ground somehow or get it into the clinch, at least, I don't think he does well on that fight. Last thing, you've been through this experience now, and you're a veteran. and I know a lot of fighters look up to you.

You've been through the free agent experience, right? Testing the waters and seeing how it all turns out. And the term free agent, it kind of bugs me because it's not like, as you know, NBA, NFL. Like you don't have 30 places to go look at. You know, it's very limited, right? And there's some serious concessions that you have to make. A, did you enjoy it? Like, looking back, I know it was stressful, but like, are you happy you went down that road?

And then I'll ask my follow up in a second. But overall, like, was this a positive? experience for you? Are you happy you did it this way? I'm happy I went to see what else was out there because I mean I you know sometimes I've been with the company 11 years as of two days ago. Wow. That was my 11 year anniversary. So, you know, just you complain about certain things over time and then once you see what else is out there and what other people are dealing with, you kind of just get a, you know, a refresher of how you got it. And so there are, you know, some things to complain about, but, you know, I do have a lot of things that, you know, that I'm grateful for.

And so that, all in all, I'm glad I went to go see what else is out there, but I'm happy with my choice. What kind of advice would you give to a fighter who's about to embark on this? One, you really got to do your homework and know your worth. And, you know, don't, You know, don't, you know, shoot yourself in the foot. Don't reach too far because that'll turn a lot of people off. But, you know, it's tough because people are going to, people are going to try to get you cheap. Yeah. And you definitely can't let emotions get into it.

Me and my manager would work as a team. So I was in a lot of the meetings and, you know, saw all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I would think that most fighters probably wouldn't want to be in those meetings because they're pretty, you know, harsh sometimes. Oh. And, like, if you could, what would you change about the free agent experience in MMA? I don't know. I haven't even thought about that.

The crazy thing is, is this so many companies are vastly different, you know, from, you know, Asia to Russia to, you know, all the ones here. It's such a big difference. So every company really got to. to understand like who they are, what they're about, you know, where their money comes from, and just kind of, you really got to look at it as a whole, you know, if they're going to write you a check, that is that, can you depend on that check? You know, if they're saying they're going to write you a check in three years from now, you know, is that check going to be there? So,

you really have to actually think about some of these things. You have one of the great logos in sports, period. I love that thing. And I've been on the opposite end of it. you've put it on my back several times without me knowing. Did that come into play? The fact that you could wear this logo when you fight. Like, did sponsorships come into play a lot? Yeah, we didn't really work with any sponsorships and things like that. But my manager always was trying to get it in there, you know,

that if I, you know, fought somewhere that I could sell my merchandise at the events and that, you know, we could plug it in certain shows and things like that. Yeah, we were trying to get it in there. But, you know, at the end of the day, we were just trying to do whatever we could. Well, congratulations on the new deal. Congratulations on being back. Congrats on this fight. A lot of congratulations.

It's good to see you back, and I know this is a big opportunity for you, a fight that you've wanted. So I'm looking forward to it April 21st in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Cub Swanson v. Frank Yeager, too. Thank you very much for doing this, Cub. I really appreciate it, and good luck in training. Good luck in the fight next month. I appreciate it. Hopefully you guys all watch, and it's going to be a hell of a fight. Yeah, now I could stop bothering you about updates on your contract.

So that's good news as well, right? I know, I know. Sorry, I didn't give you more info. It's all good. It's all good, man. Congratulations again. Thanks, Cubs. Appreciate it.

All right, see you. There he is, Cub Swanson, one of the great logos in MMA. There's a few times that I've seen him at event, and he's like, hey, Ariel, how are you? And he'd, you know, pat me on the back. And I was like, man, you know, that Cubs Swanson. He's so nice. He's so friendly. And then, of course, I'd see a picture on Twitter or Instagram of him, you know, laughing that he put his logo on my back. But it is a great logo. I mean, I'm usually proud to sport it. So that's going down April 21st, less than a month away. So many layers to that particular fight from the resigning, the rematch, Frankie coming back soon. It's a fun one. And of course, and it's not the main event. It feels like it's kind of the main event, but it's not the main event. The main event of course is Etzen Barbosa versus Kevin Lee, which is a phenomenal fight. So the fans in Atlantic City,

Boardwalk Hall are getting a good one on April 21st. Okay, so that was announced last week. Also announced last week, UFC debut in Chile. Someone corrected me online. I was saying Chile. Chile. Is that better for you, Chile? And that is May, I believe, 16th off top my head.

And the co-main event is Volkan Ozdemir versus Marcio Shogun, May 19th, that's right. Well, why am I screen? Of course, Danny would know that. May 19th, I was trying to go backtrack from the Liverpool event, which is 27. May 19th, that's eight days later because it's Sunday. Anyway, Shogunhuah versus Volkan O's Damir. Let's go to the Skype machine and say hello to no time. It has been a while since we talked to him.

Volkan is standing by, I believe, on Skype. Yes. Oh, there he is. Volkan, how are you? Good and you. Who has the best logo? Oh, that is a pretty damn good logo. That is a good logo. I have the best logo, right?

Okay, all right. When is that from? Is that from 220? Yeah, yeah. That's what we create for the UC Boston. So, yeah, now it's my t-shirt. I like it. If you want to get it, you got to pay for it.

Okay. Well done on that. Okay, so let's start there, Volkan, because we have not talked to you since Boston. What was it like? You know, your first loss in the UFC title fight, it obviously didn't go your way. How did you handle it afterwards? Really well, you know, I fought my first title fight against one of the most accomplished

two of five in the world. Corme is a great champion, definitely. And he was the only person capable to beat me at the time. And now I'm working on all my weaknesses. You know, I'm improving in my game. I'm changing and I'm going to be a different beast next time. I remember watching the fight early on. You were hitting him with some big shots.

At any point were you thinking, man, what do I have to do to this guy to put him down? Because it seemed like it was going pretty well for you early. I had a good feeling. I thought the fight was going in my favorite. I knew the moral I was about to connect and hits the more we'll be able to produce something.

but then I got caught once in my eyes, he broke my orbital, and then after I think the fight starts going in his favor, he started catching up his rhythm. And I definitely learned a lot. In this fight, I definitely learn a lot of stuff. I know there is stuff I need to improve. I need to work on my strategy a lot. That's something now that's going to be different.

So definitely it's a... this fight is something that's going to make me a different fighter. Wow, so you broke your orbital, which eye, left or right? The right one. Did you need surgery? No, actually, everything was in place, so I just had to wait until everything is, you know, strong again. Was that in the first round? Yes, yeah, I believe so, yeah.

Yes, it was. What was so interesting to me about that fight, you were putting out a video blog series leading up to it and you posted something afterwards and it was fascinating to watch because when you got back to the locker room, you were working with your coaches, Greg Jones, your wrestling coach right away about what you did wrong. You did not want to suck. You just wanted to learn right there on the mat as you returned to the locker room. Why did you feel the need to do that? Why did you not want to take a minute to just let this soak in? Why did you want to fix that right away? That's the mentality.

It's just the mentality. I'm going there for the win. And if something didn't happen, the way I wanted is not the end. It's just a learning experience. And then I have the tools around me. I have all the tools I want. I have all the tools I need. So it's up to me if I use them.

And right there in the locker room, I have all my coaches there, all my sparring partner, all my team, my family, So got to use that time, you know, I can, I can be mad, I can be sad, or I can just, you know, improve. And that's how I'm going to make a difference. So as far as the wrestling is concerned, what do you think you did wrong in that fight? Wrestling, you know, I cannot catch up to somebody like Cormey who's an Olympian wrestler. And that has so much experience in the wrestling compartment.

But I can, you know, definitely improve different aspects. of the game. And of course, I'm not going to catch up to him in this specific department, but it's all about how well I'm going to put my game together, and this is how I'm going to make the difference. Fighting in your first title fight on a big card like that, did that get you at all in hindsight? No, no, no. It's all the same. Each fight is different, but at the end of the day, it's a fight, and you got to go strong, you got to go strong-minded,

and that's it. So everything that is around that is just details, and you don't bother with details. So now that you've been in there with Korme, what do you think of him? Like, was he better than you expected him to be, just as good? How do you feel about him as an opponent as a fighter

now that you've actually experienced competing against them? I don't see it that way. I don't see him if he's better, if he was as expected. I just see what I did wrong at certain time and what I should have done at certain time. It's all like a chess match. You know, it's anybody stuff. Everybody in a top 10, top five division is like able to catch the belt.

Anything can happen. And you know, also with me, I just need one punch and all the fight can, you know, go to a different combination, configuration. So it's all about the. movement I choose to do what happened during the fight. But definitely is a really tough opponent. Definitely a tougher I ever fought. And I'm really, you know, humbled that I was able to fight him on such a short time since I joined the UFC. Yeah.

Did you take some time off after the fight or did you get right back to training? I had to take some time off because I caught a staff infection during the fight. So I had like two, three weeks rest. And then I had to go slowly step by step, you know, watching, you know, making sure everything is, you know, clean. And I don't do too much. So, yeah, so it was some forced time off. And I think it was for the best because otherwise I will never take any time off. So he helped me

Stay away from the mats And maybe You know Concentrate on something else Maybe the family And you know People around me So it was also something good

Wait so you got a staff infection from Cormier Not from Cormier That's not what I'm saying Yeah definitely I shave before the fight And I guess You know the mats are dirty You know everybody

You know You know bleed on there I don't know how many times They clean it So yeah I just got a staff infection from the fat in three different parts of my body. Oh. And that was double-love, yeah.

Which part? Two on my stomach and one on my arm. Oh, did you have to go to the hospital? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you sleep there? Oh, no, no, I just had to go there and to cut it because it was, you know, to infect it. So I just had to remove the infections. so now and now it's all good.

Orbital bone fracture and three staff infections? Jeez, Louise. Everything, you know, everything, yeah, right? Oh, gosh. Okay, but then you get this opportunity to fight a legend, another legend in Shogun in Chile, which is a big deal for the UFC. It's a card that they're very excited about.

When you got the call to fight Shogun of all people, what was your reaction? I was happy. I was happy. Since I signed with the UFC, my manager always asked me one thing. say, who do you want to fight? And the only guy I always said I want to fight was Shogun, because he's somebody, you know, I grew up watching him, you know.

I started watching Pride and he was the man at the time, and he was one of my favorite fighters. So definitely said that somebody I want to fight. I think it's just amazing to be able to fight somebody you've been, you know, looking up to. Yeah. And also he's like the guy who has the most winning streak in division. So actually is the real deal while right now.

And I think he's also close to a title shot. So he makes perfect sense for me. It's interesting when this fight was announced, I saw most people say, man, this is a bad idea for Shogun. He shouldn't be fighting someone who hits as hard as Volkan. Yes, he's on this long winning streak. But, you know, it's kind of happened over a very long period of time. and he's getting up there in age

and he's fought a certain kind of opponent. Do you feel like it's a mistake for him to be fighting you at this juncture? I think that's actually the first time I was favorites in my year's career and that's pretty big. Actually, it's really nice to see that way. You know, like fighting a legend like Shogun

and being called the favorites when all of my fight I was Erlono, you know, 5 to 1 and stuff like that. So it's pretty amazing and I think it just means also I cemented my place in the division. Now people take me serious and they know what I'm capable of. But Shogun is still Shogun, you know, he's a brother, has been into wars. He's not afraid of anything.

So he's a dangerous fighter, definitely. But style-wise, this is a perfect matchup for you, right? Because you know he's not going to take you down. This is going to be a fight that's going to stay on the feet. He's a Moutai guy. and definitely a lot of Jiu-sitsu, but, you know, he has the heart, he has the condition, and he goes for the fight, and that's the kind of fight I like, definitely.

Have you ever been to Chile? No, never. South America is a place. I want to definitely visit. I want to go, definitely visit Patagonia. You know, I want to visit Peru, Machu Picchu. I want to visit Argentina. So there is a lot of countries.

I want to visit. The only place I've been was Brazil three times and I really loved it. But I didn't do too much, you know, visit. I didn't go there as a tourist. I went there to fight twice. I went there to train once. But now, so if I'm able to finish that fight, then I want to take time also to travel a little bit. Are you doing anything in training?

Did you change anything after the Kormier experience or are you surrounding yourself with the same coaches, not doing much different leading up to this fight? I still have the same coaches, but I start also doing a lot of going a lot of to the jihitsu. I'm training with Cyborg a lot, Mario Sperry also. So definitely improving my game. Also, I cannot, you know, for a while I wasn't able to get punched in my face, and then I did a laser surgery. So right now I cannot get punched my face still. So I'm doing all of jih Tzu, and, you know, I compliment.

Now I put a lot of compliments in my game. so that's why now the next fighter you'll see in the ring will be a different guy when could you get punch in the face I think in like two three weeks something like this but it's not a problem for me my last my last camp I did pretty much all of my camp without being able to to punch with my right hand and now I'm going to do most of my fight can be without being able to spar so it doesn't really matter

it's all about what you give it during the fight what happened to your right hand before the last fight so I had a staff infection I had a staff in my knuckle but it was pretty bad wasn't able to close the defeat for a while and now you know I went through the

the therapy sessions and everything during my fight camp, but the opportunity to fight for a battle, you know, doesn't happen that often. And I know what I want. I know how I'm going to get it. And I know I have to put the work to get that. So I accept the fight. You know, I just kept it quiet. You know, you don't need to talk about it.

You don't need to complain about it. And, you know, just go there and fight. And that's what I did. And of course, it will have been better. if I was able to, you know, to punch a little bit with my right hand. But this is, you know, this is what happened during the fight, and I'm really happy about the fight anyway. It's a big learning experience and it's just going to make me a better fighter.

Man, that's four staff infections that you told me about in the span of a month. Are you more susceptible to staff infections? Like, is there just something about your skin? No, I think I just got that when I had the little issue back then. So my knuckle got infected, and I never had any staph infection before that. And just after the fight, I think it's just, you know, because I shave my skin. I shave my skin, so I think just got in growing air, got infected, and that's it. But it never happened to me before, and I don't know why it happened, actually.

Obviously, we haven't talked to you in a few months. Is it possible to provide an update on the legal situation that you, were dealing with? Is there anything to report? Thursday I'm going to have the probably final final court date and definitely after that everything's going to be smoother.

So of course we got to wait for the judgment but I know what I did, I know what happened so I'm really I'm really not scared or anxious about what's going to happen. So I'm really confident.

about that court date. And after that, it's all going to be over. So it's going to be good. That's this Thursday? Yes. And then if everything goes your way, it could be over, like you won't have to deal with this anymore? Yeah, definitely.

I think so. I'm not, you know, I'm not professional in this domain. But that's what my team and my lawyer say. Has it been, like, can you say that has this been like a burden on your life? Is this something that you just like you're, you're anxious to get over? Was it a distraction going into the Cormier fight? No. There was, there was so many stuff at the same time, you know, during the Cormier fight,

my hands, this, and the training itself, it was a big camp. But no, I mean, it's all about how you deal with it. And, you know, it's time planning. You need to plan. you need to plan your week in advance, you need to plan your months in advance, you need to know what you're doing, and then everything, you know, is going smoother.

So, you know, it's distraction, and distraction are also detailed that you have to get rid of your brain if you want to focus on all of stuff. And I think whenever I fight or whenever I'm concentrate on fighting somebody, my, I'm focused, it's like a laser beam, you know, it's like I'm focused on only one thing

and that's winning my fight. You've been very good at predictions. You make these outlandish predictions, one minute, two minutes. What do you got for Shogun? So this is where I'm going to be a new fighter right now. I'm still going to be in no time. You know, this is my knockout power.

It's going to come here. I'm going to knock him out, that's for sure. But now I'm going to improve my game. I want to try everything I'm learning right now. My ground game is evolving a lot. and I want to try some different stuff. So for once I'm going to keep it secrets, but definitely expect fire rock.

So maybe be a little more patient, not try to go for the home run right off the bat. I learned a lot during my last fight, so definitely you're going to see something else. But, you know, I'm going to still be in all time. I still get this knockout power, and Shogun is going to go down. Very interesting.

All right, I like that. Volkan, welcome back. It's great to see you back. It's a very fun fight on a great card. And this is a big opportunity for you as well. And a big opportunity for Shogun. I agree with you. He's very close to getting a title shot.

Who would have thought in 2018, Shogun is this close to getting a title shot? So all the best to you this week as well with the legal stuff. And thanks for doing the show, as always. It's great to talk to you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right.

We'll talk to you soon. There he is. No Time himself, Volkan, Ozdemier. And I think that that's a very interesting prediction. or lack thereof because as you may recall, he said about the Cormier fight that he was going to knock him out in a minute, two minutes, and that to me sounds like a fighter

who concedes that maybe he was rushing things a little bit too much, trying to make a splash, trying to score the knockout in the first minute or two, and maybe it's best to be a little more patient. Maybe it's best to take your time and not go in there and knock someone's head off in the first minute. So that right there is a maturation, an evolution of Volcanozumir as a fighter. And great to hear that his legal issues might be cleared in just a couple of days.

So that fight is taking place on May 19th in Chile. And the main event is Santiago Poncevio versus Kamar Ustman, who will be talking to in around 20 or so minutes. All right, let us move along now. Bellator is back on April. six. They're back in Hungary. The original main event for that card was supposed to be James Galaher

versus Adam Borix. Unfortunately, James Galaher got injured and that main event was scrapped. New main event is Benton Henderson versus Roger Huerta. Spoke to Huerta a couple weeks ago on this program. Also of note for that card, Sean Grandy is returning. I retweeted

his tweet earlier today. He is calling the action. First time he calls a Beltor event in around a year and he's doing it with a great cause. in mind. So check out that tweet from Sean Grandy that I tweeted before the show started. But let's talk to James Galaher, who I know was very disappointed

about having to pull out of that fight, who we haven't seen in action since June of last year at Madison Square Garden. He is joining us right now via the Magic of Skype. And he is new to Skype. He actually went out of his way to sign up for Skype. What was the experience like, James? Tell us about it.

That was a hassle. It took me by three hours. He signed up with the thing. He kept asking me for the number all the time. every time I typed it in it was like number won't work won't work it took me ours but it's it's good to have it on and it's good to be on the show proper for the first time because unless you're on Skype you know what I mean it's just not the same I agree I agree it's long overdue I appreciate you going the extra mile for us or kilometer as maybe you would say in in Ireland this is it's great to see you here and it's great to see you smiling James because I know you were upset about the injury tell us first what exactly happened that forced you out of that fight I was doing training. I was doing a positional sparring. So it wasn't even like a striking class. And I was like just training.

I was actually training with Brian Murr, who is fighting on the Budapest card as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing him on that card. And we were wrestling. And I literally mimicked a shot and like I hit him in the head with it. Like it was just a very light shot. And I just got like a big shooting pain, just going straight up my hand and into my wrist.

And I thought it was just. like an awkward way I hit him and I thought it was just no like a like just pain and I thought like it was just going to go away within a matter of seconds and then I like continued on and we went to like a roll or something on the floor and I based out with my hand and it just like got this like another pain only worse and then I obviously knew then that there was something like there was something up with with my hand and I like stopped training and I took off my gloves and I could see it could start to swell a little so then I was sitting there looking and I was like

well I'm so many a few weeks out for my fight so the only thing to do is to go and get an X-rayed so I went and got at X-ray and the doctor came out and said that I have an old fracture on my hand but I've also got a new one just slightly above the old fracture and I've now got a

this flipping thing here you can see I've had this on like for about I think I've had it on for about three or four weeks and I've got about another two or three left left in it. Wow. So I'm not actually like a lot of punch with it until then, but I'm looking forward to getting it off and getting back in there.

I've had a tough run of injuries and I felt the best I've ever felt coming back from a knee injury and then for that they happen. It's just unfortunate, but I'm staying fit, I'm staying positive and I'm going to be ready for as soon as this hand comes off. I'm going to be ready to jump straight back in there and take whatever other show they've got coming up and I know they've got the big one on in London and I'm itching at the bit back to where I made my debut that's where I want to find next okay we'll get to that in a second but just to be clear you don't need surgery on the hand correct

nah it's not it's just a it's just a clean fracture it's just going to take time and time in the splint and just let it let it set I don't need surgery nothing it's not like a serious do you know what I mean it's not like no career at an injury injury. Sure, sure. It's just a fracture. When you came to the realization that this was going to preclude you from fighting in Budapest, and I know you were supposed to fight late last year in Ireland, and these were two big spots for you. Like, how did you digest that? Were you depressed? I mean, this is the second time in a row, as you just mentioned some bad luck. How did you feel afterwards?

I said I'm still fighting. I had a big cast in my hand. I had a big cast in my hand. initially you can see my other hands just cleared up that it was just doing that much boxing with this hand yeah started to get little fucking blisters on it so it but everyone was saying you can't fight you've got a plaster parason and I was adamant that I was fighting it takes me coaches and stuff and they were like like well you can't fight and I was like I'm fighting I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't pull out of the fight for about two and a half weeks and I just kept in the gym doing my and I'm working around around kicking the bag.

It was the most frustrating two weeks in my life, but then after that, then I just had the bite the bullet and know that I wasn't going to be ready. Do you know what I mean? I'm not, like, I probably would have still, I probably still could have went and fought and I probably still would have won. But then it's like, all right, you go in and

you throw a right hand, and then you have to get surgery, you're out for another year, and do you know what I mean? That's the reason why I withdrew from the fight. It wasn't about the actual fight itself. It was about my future and my career, do I mean? Because I'm only 21. I've got a lot of a long, long career left. Do you know what I mean? I've got a lot of time ahead of me. I've got a lot of big things ahead of me. So I wasn't really about this fight that made me

pull out because I'm still confident I went in and beat this guy with one hand. So it would have no problem. I would have just took him down and would have submitted him. Like I do go all the rest of him. But it's just not worth that. That and going in here and knowing that you have to come out of this fight and then I have to go and go through surgery. I have to get the hand fixed again. And only back from the knee injuries, do you know what I mean? Where the smart thing to do was just waiting and be 100% and come back and make a statement in the comeback and not going half prepared.

Ultimately, who convinced you to pull out of this one? My coaches and my teammates, they were just, everyone was, no one didn't want to tell me just to pull out in case I just still went ahead and fought, you know what I mean, but they were saying it's not smart or, you're young, you have those a time ahead, and I've got a good circle of people, me, my family and my coach, John, and I've got a few close teammates there as well who also give me the right advice,

and I just, I listened to them every time, even though I didn't for about two weeks. I eventually, I always do listen to them, and then I came around to them, and then I was like, I was like, I was right, do you know what I mean? I'm just being stupid here, and I've fought so many times, you know what I mean?

So it's not about having the balls and stepping in and fighting, do I mean? I've got up instead. Oh Looks like we may have lost him I was actually just thinking in the back of my mind You know for someone doing Skype for the first time This is a pretty great Skype connection

Of course it all comes down to the Wi-Fi But I was just thinking that I believe in these jinxes These jinxes actually work Anyhow we'll reconnect with young James Gala As he just mentioned 21 years young We last saw him in New York Biltour

NYC June 24th of last year at Madison Square Garden and he really was one of the stars of that show. You remember his performance against Shenzhou Machita and that place erupted for him. I mean, the crowd wasn't as big as UFC at MSG the first two times or the only two times, but he came across as a legit star at Madison Square Garden. I made a point to go sit cage side on Press Row to watch that and he came across as a star. He was one of the, and especially considering the fact that he's young, he's somewhat home

grown for Bellator. He came across, in my opinion, just as much of a star, honestly, as anyone on the card. He wasn't even on the pay-per-view portion of the card. And then they followed that up with an opportunity to headline a show in Ireland. Same arena that Connor fought Diego Brando. Unfortunately, he had a knee entry that forced him out of that one, which was a big blow to the card. And then they followed that up with the opportunity to headline the show. next week on Friday, April 6th in Budapest, Hungary against Adam Borges. And unfortunately, now as you hear, the fight isn't happening. He is hoping, as he said at the beginning of the interview, to return Beltor 200 on May 25th. That's taking place in London. And again, what a great

weekend that is shaping up to be. If you're a fan of UK MMA or English MMA, if you live close to London or close to Liverpool, you have an opportunity to go to both of the United. You have an opportunity to go to both events. And I actually feel like the inclusion of the Liverpool card on the same weekend actually helps the Bellator event. If you're able to afford both,

I could see a lot of fans going to both. And I think it actually helps that one is on a Friday and one is on a Sunday. Friday's Bellator, Sunday is Liverpool. If they were back to back, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. Maybe it's a little tough to get to both. But now you've got a day in between

so I think that that would be a great weekend for fans so now we're going to go to the phones is this is what happening here with James Gallo we had them on Skype now we're going to the phones James what happened the fucking thing I spent all day fixing it up

and it just shut off your computer shut off no the Skype app it just I think gone and went away and it won't work I've been sitting here sweating trying to fucking get the thing on

but it obviously I don't know So what's what trouble with you? It's fine. It was great to see you for 12 minutes there, but we'll continue with the phone. It's all right. Don't be so hard on yourself.

So this being the second big fight that you've had to plot, I kind of view you as this caged animal now because as I said while we were trying to connect, you came across like one of the big stars on that MSG show. Like I remember sitting there thinking this guy is going to explode, the reaction to you, the finish, the way you handled Machita and you've been unable because of this bad luck

to advance after that. Do you feel like you've lost some momentum here a bit? No, not at all. Definitely not at all. I'm only 21. Do you know what I mean? I'm young. I've still got people don't get into this game

until they're my age. Do you know what I mean? I haven't lost. I haven't lost nothing, if anything. It's just built that fire up inside. out of me. Do you know what I mean? It's giving me that time the grow

with the person myself. Do you know what I mean? So then the next time that I walk out in these big shows in Madison Square Garden, the next time that I fight in Madison Square Garden, you're going to see an even mature better, James Galaher. It's going to improve that that thing that you say, you've seen,

that star factor, it's going to be even more the next time. I don't feel like that it's that I've lost anything. Maybe if I with a 35-year-old man or me, do you know what I mean, coming to the age of my career, or no coming to the end, that I've had loads of fights and have been on a run, but I'm just getting started, Sarah. I'm just getting going here, do you know what I mean?

I'm young, I've got that factor about me, I've got that energy about me, and I don't feel like that I've lost anything at all. Are you going to change anything that you do in training to avoid entries as a result of these experiences? Yeah, there has to be something, but the two injuries that I got were like freak accidents. It wasn't they say that I was like training with heavy people or I was like doing something different that I shouldn't have been doing. It was just something you do every day and it just give out. You know what I mean?

It was just, I don't know what it was. They were just freak accidents and unfortunately I got two in a row. You know what I mean? It wasn't to say that I was doing something that was stupid or I was doing anything that I shouldn't have been doing. This kind of thing. It was just a freak accident. And these things, do you know what I mean? I can't prevent.

I couldn't prevent them. I'm just never, I feel if I was to prevent them, I may as well just never train again. Right. You know what I mean? That's the only way that it would be to prevent the injuries that happened. When I hurt my knee, I was just wrestling. Do I mean? Just usual wrestling class, and my knee went.

And then with my hand, I literally threw the lightest shot ever. My training partner didn't even know that I had him. It was just that awkward way freak accident kind of, I probably couldn't have done it if I had tried to do. It was that freak of an accident. So I'm just going to regroup and get back to my own ways and get back training. and just get back in there and do me, just do what I've been always doing.

So you say you want to fight in May at Beltor 200. That card is taking place in London. It's a familiar city for you. What are the chances that you actually get put on that card? The chances that I should be already matched and put on it. That's the chances should be. So it is it. And a Beltor, great high work on a Beltor.

And when I made my debut, they took someone off the main car just so they could pit me on it you know what I mean they took that chance they put a 19 year old kid back then who was just 3 and O they took someone with a lot of experience

off the main car to put me on it back in I think it was two years ago July two years ago I think it was in now too in London back when I made my debut they took that chance with me back then do you know what I mean

that was a big risk for them to do that to take someone with a lot of experience off the main card to put a 19 year old kid with three fights on that card, do you know what I mean? They didn't know if I was just going to walk out there and crumble, do you know what I mean? Because we have seen that with up and coming stars

walking out and big shows in crumbling. But I did not have walked out there and I handed it like a champ, so I did out like I always do. And I'm just asking for them to do the same this time. Do you know what I mean? Just move some some other fill off the card and bang me on it.

You know what I mean? It's only over the water. I'd bring half the country over with me. So I will, but I'm a, I really hope they'd hit me on it. So I do, but whatever it is, whatever it is, I'll be ready. Are they receptive to this? Like, I know you want to be able, like, have you talked to them? Are they trying to make this happen? Is it actually possible?

Yeah, there's motions in the works. Okay. So it is, there are definitely motions in the works and there's definitely talks and so, but the car is pretty full of, and that's the problem. Do you know what I mean? So I'll just have to. the, I'll just be ready. That's the only thing I can do.

I'm just going to be training. I'm going to be ready for May, and if that doesn't happen, I'll just be ready for anything that comes up after that. Do you know what I mean? My job is to fight. So it is, and my job is to be just be ready to fight. So

I'm not going to sit here and complain and be like, I deserve this and I deserve that because the end of the day, you don't deserve jack shit. No one does. Do you know what I mean? You work for it and you get in there, and you take your chances where the opportunity arises. And if my opportunity doesn't arise, it doesn't arise. But I hope Belthor can pull a few strings,

and they can make my opportunity arise, and I'm going to take that opportunity with both hands, and I'll be ready to do it if it does. But if not, it is what it is, and I'll just keep continuing on, and doing me and doing the usual. But that would be nice, wouldn't it, to get on that card.

It's such a big historic card, a 200 one, and it would mean a lot to me to get on it. Anyone in particular that you think makes sense for that card for you? Anyone. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's a granny in the street. I don't care who it is.

I just want to get on there and I just want to fight. I don't care who it is, what it is. Just get me on it. That's all I want. I don't care who it is. It doesn't matter. Do you know what I mean? It's the Jimmy's show.

it doesn't matter who they fire in, but I would love defy Adam Barix on it. I think he deserves, he deserves the get me again. Do you know what I mean? He deserves it, and I'm willing to fight him again. So I think that they should have just moved that

because he took him off main event anyway. Once I came off, they took him off his home show. It's his home show over in Hungary. That's where he's from. And once I pulled out, he is now not the main event. so that's sad to see so they should just move him over to London

and get me against him in London. Yeah, and actually the guy who replaced you in what is now the co-main event for Hungary just pulled out of the fight so as of right the second, I haven't checked like in the last few hours, but he doesn't even have an opponent anymore.

Jay, that's a bad unfortunate of luck for him. Yeah. I don't give a fuck about him. I just care about me not fighting. I don't get a folk about him But Yeah, move him over to London

And get me against him It's perfect Makes perfect sense He's a young up-uncomer I'm a young up-uncomer as well And I'm ready for him I had his number I would have beat him no problem

I want to show people That I'll beat him no problem I feel like someone needs to ring up Scott Coker And I'm like, what are you thinking, Scott? You got to put the strutanimal on this card I mean it makes too much sense Of course They've got to bring the Jimmy show in London, but I'm sure Scott's watching, so...

Yeah, he loves this show. He better answer me call. Scott is avoiding your call? Is that actually happening? That can't be happening. Nah, nah, no, no, no, no. They're always in good contact, and they always work well with me, and anything else, they always, 90% of the time, they always do.

Do you know what I mean? No, to make that belt or great communication with me, And we always work great, and we have a great team, and everything, everything works well together. There's no... 90%. You can't fault that. For a blue chip prospect like you, it should be 100% of the time. Why just 90%?

Well, what's possible. Right, okay. What's possible can be different sometimes. That is true. And why are we wasting time with the AJ McKee thing? Why can we get this to happen in 2018? I feel like we're delaying this. Why not now?

Do we not want it? What's happening? I'm sitting here ready to fight anyone. Anyone. I always have been. I always said I will fight anyone. I don't care who it is. Send me over the contract and I'll sign them back within 10 minutes,

the same way I've done with every other fight. So I don't care who it is. Like, I'll fight anyone. So, well, you can ask Scott Croker that. You can ask the match. that I've signed every contract that they have fired to me. The ball is on their court.

So it is, it's not mine. The ball's on their court. I'm sitting here ready to fight London. Bells are 200. If he wants it, I'm here. All right. I think that's pretty clear. Let's go.

Someone's asking, someone asked me a question before you got on the show. Someone tweeted me, I can't believe you're not going to ask James Galaher about fighting Aaron Pico. You weren't even on the show. yet and this person is saying, I can't believe you didn't ask the question. How do they know I didn't ask the question? Anyway, do you get asked that question a lot? Is that something that a lot of

people ask you about? Yeah, him and AJ. So there are the two questions I get. And as I say, I will fight anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He only focuses on a world title. Right. That's my focus. So with Belder, say, you have to fight these two filthy, get a world title. we fight them do you know what I mean anyone they're putting in front of me I'm going to fight if it gets me my way to the world title

that's all I'm not focused on this an absolute cringe fucking thing that he's doing making all these stupid videos and making all these stupid slogans and t-shirts and shit about me they try and create a hype of a fight

do you know I'm focused on a world title I'm focused on me to be I'm too busy focusing on me and focusing on training, d. be doing all this cringy shit. Do you know what I mean? I'm just get to the gym, mate, and stop making T-shirts and stop making stupid

videos. Do you mean? Put down a bit of work. Get towards a world title. That's the kind of attitude that you need and that's the kind of attitude that will make fights happen. Everyone's sitting, going back, cringing and laughing at it and going to what the folks going on here. Do you know what I mean? Not saying this is

going to create a good fight. Do you know what I mean? Focus on this win fights and let's get after it. If that's what he wants, then it's easy. It's easy to bring Bellator. Do you know what I mean? Let's get it done. Great stuff, James. By the way, you're talking about A.J. McKee, right?

Yeah, I'm Peku. He has a little. Pigo hasn't opened his mouse, so he doesn't have his mic show. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. First things first, get well soon. I hope the hand heals up very quickly. And I hope you get that opportunity at Belator 200. It would make a lot of sense, I think. And obviously

would sell some tickets. So that's that's probably most important for Bellator. Thanks for doing this, James. And thanks for efforting to get the Skype to work. I appreciate. Even though we didn't get to the finish line, the effort is what counts. So an A-for-E-E-for-E-Ford. You're a legend, Daryl.

Thank you so much for having me on again. I really appreciate that. No problem. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much, R. All right. There he is. Bye.

Thank you. Bye. Take care. There he is. James Galaher, the Strabannimal, stopping by. Great to talk to him, as always. And we certainly wish him the best. Okay, let's move along.

some big news last week. There was a lot of big news surrounding the Walterweight division. Camaro Usman was in the midst of it all. His manager, Ali Abdel-Ziz, says that he is the most avoided, most ducked fighter in the UFC. He has, for a while, had to resort to just Twitter to try to get

something going, but in the end, late Friday, we found out that he will be fighting Santiago, Ponziabio on May 19th in Santiago Chile. And now he is joining us via the Magical Skype, the Nigerian nightmare, himself, himself, Kamar Usman is back, just his mouth this time.

Kamar, I want you scooch that thing up there so we can see your whole face. There you go. Maybe just like pan it up. Can you pan it up or no? No, other way. Other way. Boom. There you go.

That's perfect. No. How are you? Yeah, these Android folks are kind of, you know, kind of hit and miss. It's all good. You look great. You doing well? I'm doing better now.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a rough couple of days there. Yeah, that's where I want to start. What was last week like for you? Because it seemed like you had your hand in all kinds of different, you know, feuds with different guides. Just trying to get someone to take, you know, this fight against you. And then you finally got it. But, like, I mean, it was a whole weak process there.

And I know it's been months process to try to get someone to fight you. What was it like? It was, it was hectic because I'm a very soft-spoken guy. You know, I'm quiet for the most part. I don't like a lot of chaos and things like that. But it's just nowadays that seems to be what gets the job, is this chaos and all this talk and things like that. And so last week was kind of, I was just getting over the flu a week ago.

And so everyone who knows me knows that I'm always training. I'm always in the gym. So one thing that me and my manager want to do is stay active Because as a fighter The biggest thing that helps you get in that groove It helps you find yourself your style and the way you fight Is by staying active And so that's something that we wanted to do

After my fight in January I took a couple of weeks off to really Heel those injuries that that really bothered me during that fight And once I got those healed up Beama manager got on the phone we wanted to get a fight as soon as possible. And you can pretty much say we went down the roster of those top 10 guys. And this guy was trying to fight down.

That guy turned it down. That guy turned it down. It was just frustrating because at what point do you get the guys that say, hey, I'm in this sport to be the best and I'm in here to fight everybody. And not just whoever I feel will be a best style matchup, easier style matchup for me to try to get to the top as fast as possible. And so you have this situation where none of the top guys want to fight you. So, like, I mean, you're ready to go.

How did you ultimately get Santiago Pontinibio to fight you? It was pretty, like I said, pretty hectic because we went down the list. Obviously, we called for number one, Wonder Boy. But Wonder Boy, you know, he has a pass because he had a, good performances last fight. He's been fighting. And, you know, he's fought the champion twice, close decisions. And, you know, he could say no.

I understand why Wonderboy could say no. And so, okay, well, we'll get Wonderboy passed. Then we go down to number two, RDA. I've called RDA out before. And he said, no, we all remember that. Obviously, Kobe Coventon, a fight that really makes a lot of sense that a fight that I think a lot of people want to, see. We thought we would get that fight, but he was absolutely non-responsive. Every time we'd

ask the UFC's like, well, we can't get him to call us back. We can't get him to even mention you. As you can see, I would tweet at him. We can't even get him to respond. But I know he sees those tweets because he likes it. When a fan says, oh, Kobe would beat you or something like that, he'll like the tweet, but he would never respond. So I knew that one wasn't happening. We went down to number four. Obviously, Robbie Lawler, my teammate. So that one's out of the question.

We go to number five. We asked, but we just got no word back. Nothing. Who's number five? We go down to Damia. Damia Maya. Damia, right, right, right. Damia.

So that we just got nothing back. So at one point, I'm just like, yo, what is going on? here. And so the Massadol, we asked for Massadol, and the UFC calls back and said that no, they said no. And so this is a thing. And let me, let me clear that up really quick, because I know he tweeted something or something like that. First of all, my manager, what other manager do you know in the business right now that goes out for their guys as much as my manager does. My manager, you know, he gets a lot of criticism because he's willing to stand up and speak up for his guys, you know, no matter what. And a lot of guys, I see a lot of hate online,

a lot of people talking trash, trying to bring up this or bring up that. That's because he's an excellent manager. How many other managers you know that citing so many high profile guys constantly like he is? Because he goes to back for all his guys and he really puts it all out there. You know, when he put out that tweet, it was because all those guys were turning the fight down. Now, I didn't go out and say, oh, man, every one of these guys were scared of me. That's why they're turning the fight down. There's certain things that you could have going on. Like, some guys might be hurt, might be injured, and they're just not ready to take the fight. So they're saying, no, I can't take the fight. Or some guys might be doing movies, or some guys might be doing other

things that you know it's forcing them not to be able to take the fight as in Massvedal's case even Darren Till called him out to fight in Liverpool and Massvedong said no I see you in July so

you couldn't take the fight so y'all said no no one said that you were scared no one's saying this you know all these fighters are getting in their feelings because we're putting them on blast because they said no to the fight all I want to do is get a fight and stay active So, you know, guys can say whatever they want, but my manager does a damn good job.

That's why he continues to sign high profile guys and continue to be killing. He's killing the game. And he did everything in his power to help me get this fight because let's be honest. I asked for Darren 2. I've asked for Darren 2 before. And we were told no because let's be honest for a marketing standpoint for Dana White, he's trying to market this guy and get him to the top as fast as possible. Maybe not necessarily as fast as possible, but try to get him the favorable matchups to really help him showcase what he's good at.

And basically make him a star over there, essentially, like Connor McGregor. But I asked for that fight. I took a swig at it. You know, and Darren Till, he's a guy that's kind of a young, hot-headed guy, you would say. So I knew he would respond. And he did respond. He addressed it. But nothing happened with that one as well.

And so Santiago was kind of like the fallback plan. I was like, you know what? I'll settle for fighting number 10. Yes, I'm 7 or 8, whatever I'm ranked, but I'll settle for number 10 because he's a tough stand-up striker. I mean, he's good enough take down defense to keep the fight standing. So this could be a really good fight for the fans. I said, I'll take that fight. Then the UFC comes back and says, hey, he said no.

I'm like, what? I'm like, oh my God, what? That was the fallback plan. He's number 10. How would you say no? And basically they said, he said no. And that's when you started seeing all the reports of him potentially fighting Neil Magni. I'm pretty sure that was in the works.

And so my manager, you know, went to talk to the UFC again. Like, what's going on? Like, how is this happening? How can we, you know, into where eventually the next day, just like that, okay, you know what, that's the fight to make. And hats off to Santiago. He didn't have to take it. He could have took an easier way or not necessarily easier way,

but a more favorable matchup for his skill sets. But, you know, he chose to step up. and take the fight. So, you know, hats off to him. I think we're going to put on a hell of a show in Chile. And God willing, I'm going to be healthy in there and really get to display all my skills. Why do you think the UFC has had so much trouble

over the past couple of months getting these welter weights to fight? I mean, it's amazing. The top 10, no one has fought essentially for the entire year. And I know Woodley's, you know, nursing the injury, so, you know, it's obvious that he wasn't going to fight in the first half the year. But like all these guys, it just seemed like for a while, everyone was squatting.

No one wanted to take the risk. No one wanted to fight someone who's below them. Someone has to fight someone who's below them like you're doing here. Why do you think this particular division was giving the UFC so much trouble? This is the biggest reason why is the fight game has changed in a sense to where it's not what it used to be. And I don't know who you could kind of blame them along. Please, please. I want to hear this.

Tell us why. What happened? There's a few guesses of people. that you could kind of put that on, but the fight game has changed where it's no longer where the toughest is fighting the toughest to try to be the best on the planet. Now there's all these different components that go into it. Fighters no longer just managing themselves or they have a whole team behind them down. This fighter's got a manager, it's got an agent, it's got a Hollywood agent, or it's got this and that.

And not on top of that, they've got their whole team of coaches and people like that. And also the company that were under now, it's not just the old UFC as real as it gets, hardcore. It's an entertainment company now. So everybody's trying to find a favorable matchup for themselves. And, you know, I want that big name or I want this big fight or or I want this guy here. I want this stand-up guy. I don't want to deal with a hard-nose wrestler that I can't take down, I can't outstrike or I can't do this. And so all these guys are trying to pick favorable matchups.

Like Kobe Covington, he doesn't want to fight a guy like me. He doesn't want to fight a guy that he can't take down, a guy that can potentially take him down, a guy that he can't outstrike, a guy that can outstrike him, a guy that hits much harder than him, and a guy that never gets tired.

He's like, you know what, screw that. I'm going to wait for the title. If I'm going to get beat up by anybody, I'd rather get beat up by Woodley, and at least make much more money getting beat up for the title. And so he's squatting. And then you've got other, you know, you've got Wonderboys like, oh, my thumbs are hurt, my fingers are hurt.

So you know what? I'm going to wait for somebody to get up here and then I'll fight them because I'm sitting at number one. I understand that. Then you've got RDA who's got three fights in the division and feels like he deserves a title shot. I mean, all these guys are kind of trying to pick and choose the favorable fights to the favorable massups for themselves, and they're just sitting. And I'm sitting here like,

yo, I'll fight number one. Nope, number two, no, number three, nope, number four, nope, five, nope, six, nope, seven, nope, you know what, screw it. Give me number 10. Wow. You know, and so that's kind of what it's been like. It's been hectic.

I was just, for the moment that I was just like, you know what? Is it even worth to continue to do this because I got into this to fight and try to be the best at this craft, at this competition. But now it's entertainment. Everybody just wants to be in the entertainment business. Everybody just wants to be a stock without taking those tough at our fights.

You thought about walking away? It's crossed my mind. Wow. It just got so frustrating. Yeah, yeah, because like I said in a few interviews before, I didn't get into this sport because this is all I have. I can't do anything else. I can do other things.

I'm educated. I went to school. I went to college. I can go do something with that. I can go get a professional job. I want to do some stuff on TV. I can do that. I can host other events.

I can do things like that. I have other means of things that I can get done. The reason I do this is because I thoroughly love the competition. I thoroughly love the ability to be able to love. learn how to strike. I'm fighting a striker, so I'm going to learn as much as I can to where I can go out there, compete with them and beat them at their own game, and dominate an opponent from start to finish. That's what I'm in love for. That's what I'm addicted to right now. You know, the story might be different when I'm 40 or 45. I can be more mellowed out and just want to watch

my kids play or grandkids or whatnot. But right now, I have that burning desire to at the highest level, and I've been training to do that. So when these guys are not wanting to do that, they want to duck and dodge and just hide behind a favorable matchup for them, it kills that for me to where it kind of, it's a little depressing. So instead of continue to go through that, I'm like, well, why don't I just move on and do something else? Do you feel like in the UFC, it's almost a curse to be a dominant wrestler like you are?

Because if you're the great striker, like a Wonderboy or Till, they want to push you to the moon. But the wrestler is almost like packaged as the problem, the guy that we want to avoid. And we can't put this guy against the wrestler because he's going to, you know, derail him. So does that almost work against you because you're such a great wrestler? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been bred. I'm such a hard-nosed wrestler. And I continue to try to hold my skills and keep as much of those skills as possible. So these other guys that are primarily strikers, that's fun. That's great.

That looks cool. But if you can't stop a guy from physically grabbing you and dominating you from start to finish, you have no chance. It's the story of saying Mayweather comes in and fights McGregor. If you brought Mayweather into the Octagon today and said, you can't kick McGregor, all you can do is just. box Mayweather with or just stand up with Mayweather with these four ounce gloves you think Connor is still going to beat Mayweather that chances gets a lot they they get a lot closer don't

they just like that but with the components that for Connor can take him down beat on him kick him in the face things like that like it makes it not even fair and so you know yeah be being as hardcore of a wrestler as I am And that's never going to change. I'm a wrestler. Don't get it wrong. I can stand up and strike. You've seen it just because of my last fight,

because I had to do what I had to do to win because I was dealing with some pretty serious injuries. People are forgetting that the fight before, I let a jih Tzu expert up. I knocked him down and I let him get back up just so I could knock him out eventually. The fight before that, I fought Sean Strickland, a very, very tough, talented striker.

I think his record is like, or 20 and one or two, and I still kept him standing and beat him up, shut him down the whole time. The fight before that, I fought a very dangerous War-Lay Alvarez, kept the fight standing the whole time and beat him up. Just because of that one performance,

people are kind of trying to downplay everything that I've accomplished that I can't strike. I can strike with the best of them. So you find out this news that Colby Covington is going to get this interim title shot, and from what I understand right now, this isn't signed sealed and delivered, but I'm just wondering when you heard that news,

what was your reaction after all this that you've been through? You see me straight sipping some tea right now. That's exactly like, okay, first of all, why? Why is there an interim title when the champion is actively trying to return back to the OptiGa in a few months?

That doesn't make a lot of sense. that's kind of a slap in the face. But at the same time, I mean, let's be honest, this is just a glorified number one contender, really. That's all it is. And they get, I mean, it sucks the fact that they get a lot more money for the fight. Yeah. But it's just glorified number one contender.

Neither guy, to be honest with you, do I believe it is the number one contender? RD8 can make more of a case. because beating Robbie Lollah, that's no easy task. So I hats off to him. But obviously, it was a Robbie Lollah that tore his knee up the second round and still fought out five rounds. So, yeah, I would say he deserves it a lot more. But having Coventon fight him, it just, I just sit tea. When I heard, I was like, you know what, let me sit just tea and sit back in my business.

because this don't make no sense. When you agreed to this fight, when they got Santiago to agree to fight you, were you told, okay, beat Santiago, then we're giving you this. Because you're on the cusp of stardom, of contendorship, of title shots, of run as a chance,

you're on the cusp of all this. It feels like we could touch it. It's right there. Were you given a path, or you beat Santiago and you're going to have to go through this all over again? Listen, I'm the guy that I've never been given a path, none of that. Even when the UFC was under the old, right when I first got it was under your management,

I'm the guy that used to be told, hey, you're going to take this fight. That's how I was told you're going to take this fight. And I'm like, all right, screw. I'll beat them up. And I go in and take the fight and go out there and do what I do. I have never been given a path As you've seen And they tell you

You know When you're done with that fight You finish you've won the fight They put a mic in front of your face Call out who you want Because most of the time You're going to get that fight I haven't gotten one of those fights

I beat up Wali Alves In Brazil I call out Damien by and while he's literally 50 feet away from me Sitting in the crowd doesn't happen a year later they end up giving

that fight to Coventon. I called out Neo Magni doesn't happen they end up giving him to Carlos Conn. I called out RDA

doesn't happen they end up giving him to I think Neo Magni at the time or maybe yeah Neo or maybe Robbie

yeah and so yeah it just I called out Coventon and look what happened. and didn't even respond and now they give them to RDA.

I've never been given a path. I'm that guy who's just going to have to earn it the hard way. That's kind of being the story of my life. So I'm used to it. I'm just going to continue to plug away. Like I said, I got into this to be the best. I don't care who I have to fight. It doesn't matter.

I will beat them all and prove that I am the best. Last thing for you, Kamaro, and this is great stuff. I really appreciate the time. Every time I mention you tweet about you, I get the 30% thing on Twitter. Do you want to clear that up? And I got to be honest, when I heard you say that, I didn't take it the way the rest of the world seemed to take it. But I just wanted to know if A, you regret saying it and B, do you want to clear that up, what you meant to say? No, I don't regret saying it because I spoke from my heart.

I mean, when you get done with a fight, especially in that fight, because there was a lot, as you know, it was a lot frustrating things happening that led up to that fight. Yeah. A fight that, I mean, a guy comes to the UFC, he's riding on one and oh decision. And you're giving him to a top 15 guy like myself because nobody else above me wants to fight me. So that or itself already irked me, irritated me. And then I couldn't get anybody else. And then he had visa issues. The fight was off, canceled.

Then the fight was rescheduled. I got sick through the process. On top of it, I get these really serious injuries that hindered me from performing the way that I want to perform. So where everyone's thinking, oh, that guy's so tough. You couldn't stand with the guy. If you go back and watch the fight, just keeping the fight standing. I hit him whatever I wanted to hit him. you know, I just, I had some injuries that didn't allow me to feel comfortable in that position,

which is why the fight ended up going to the ground, and I had to, you know, resort to beating them up on the ground. But with that being said, after the fight, you get, you get, you know, you get really emotional. And that fight was really emotional for me after the fight because I kind of felt like I was being set up to fail in a sense. but I went through the fight anyways, which I could have pulled out because I was injured. I went through the fight anyways and still dominated a really tough guy. And I meant, I literally was,

I felt that I was maybe 30% of my abilities, which is what I stated. But of course, when you have a president that is so powerful, like Dana White, and he goes out in media and says what he says, everyone just jumps on it. I swear, Dana says that,

you know what, the earthquake is going to happen tomorrow. Everyone's going to jump on it. Oh, an earthquake's going to happen tomorrow. You know, that's just the way that these UFC fans are. So once Dana said that, it was just the backlash of it

and whatnot. But what I meant to say was I was at 30% health. And, you know, Dana took it the wrong way, so fans took it the wrong way. but I am what I am. I don't regret anything.

If it wasn't, there's a blessing in everything that happens to us. And, you know, yes, of course, it's getting kind of old. Yeah. Because every time you look at any one of my pictures, comments or anything like that, all fans seem to want to talk about it is 30%, 30%, 30%. So after that, Dana said, well, you go 60% next time. So, well, you can expect me to try to go way more than 30% this next fight. That's for sure.

Well, kudos on handling the aftermath well and all the frustration that you dealt with leading up to this. I'm happy you finally got a fight so we don't have to see you being frustrated out in the open. And I'm looking forward to it. It's a phenomenal fight at 170. It goes down May 19th in Santiago, Chile. It's Kamar Usman v. Santiago Ponziabio, a very important fight in the World War II Division. Thanks for doing this, my man. I am looking forward to it, and I'm so happy that you finally got a fight.

And I'm sure a lot of your fans are as well. So much appreciated it, and best of luck in training. Thank you. I appreciate that, Aero. All right, there he is. The boogeyman of the 170-pound division. No one wants to fight this man. Santiago Ponsinibio has said yes, he is going to fight him on May 19th. Okay, let us move along. I'm really looking forward to our next interview because this is a different kind of one for us. Usually we're talking to fighters who are angling for title shots about to fight for the belt, big fights coming up, etc. When I was working for Fox and I was stationed in the back, I was doing the backstage interview,

interviews, you'd often see the same people working for Zufa. One person who I would see all the time was a man named Brad Smuckler and his job essentially, and I'm boiling it down to, you know, the bare minimum here as far as the explanation is concerned, but I would see him walking around with a briefcase and a check in his hand and he would go to the fighters in the locker room and give them their check after the fight, whether it's the win bonus or the performance bonus, et cetera. He was a controller for the UFC and he was there for over a decade, One of the familiar faces, if you are in the back, backstage at an event that you would see each and every event. He no longer works for the UFC. He was part of the layoffs when Endeavor took over.

But he is still involved in the mixed martial arts world. He has launched a website, CPA4MMA.com. And since it is tax season, and since he is still helping out a lot of fighters, we heard from Matt Matrione, who talked about working with him, I thought it would be very interesting to hear what he's up to and how he's helping fighters and maybe learn a bit about his time with the UFC. So let us go to the Magic of Skype and say hello to Brad Smuckler, who's joining us right now. Brad, how are you? Hey, Ariel, I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me on.

I appreciate it. This is great. I never thought that you'd be on the program. And I must say I heard from a lot of your now former colleagues at Zufa when I said that you'd be on, who were very pleasantly surprised and happy to hear that you'd be on the program. program. So this is very cool. I really appreciate you doing this. First, let's start from the beginning. When did you start working for the UFC and exactly how long did you work for the UFC for? I started working for the UFC in August of 2006. Then I worked there until about the end of October of 16.

So a little over 10 years. And your title there was? I started as the controller because when I started, there's only I was employee number 35, so it was a pretty small company back then. And when I left, I was the events controller, and I really enjoyed doing that work and traveling around and helping the fighters, working with the fighters. And I don't know if you knew it, but I also handled all the collecting the money from the venue and did all the expenses and made sure the budgets were good. So in addition to handling all the fighter stuff and taxes, I did the venues as well. And it was a great job. I got to meet a lot of people like you.

A lot of great people, as you know, working behind the scenes in UFC and also the fighters. Why did you leave in October of 2016? I was part of the layoff, the first wave. As you mentioned, WME, IMG, they came in and they looked for the most expensive people. And I guess I was within that range, and they figured somebody would be paid less, could replace me. and they could. They could do a lot of what I did, but they didn't have the tax background.

They didn't help the fighters the way I did. And so I've, and the feedback I've had from a lot of clients, which are fighters, they've said, you know, the UFC really doesn't help us like they used to. You know, you've been there, as you said, for a decade.

What was your reaction? How did you feel when you were told that they were going to move on? I felt bad, but at the same time, I kind of knew that it was coming for a lot of people. I just didn't know if it was going to be me.

And when it happened, I figured, well, one door closed, another one opens. For about the last three years I was working there, I was thought to myself, you know, someday, maybe I'll be an accountant for all these fighters that I knew. And I definitely have a lot of contacts with the fighters. I kept a lot of phone numbers. And it's working out pretty good.

I have a lot of, gosh, heavyweights to lightweights to feather weights and women and guys that I'm now helping. There's probably in excess of 100 people that I'm helping that are either UFC or Bellator fighters. And the loss has gone through mostly referrals, which is great. Upon leaving the UFC, did you take a bit of a break just to kind of assess what you were going to do with your life? And how did you come to the conclusion that you wanted to still stay with, you know, with MMA? working with fighters helping them out, even though you're no longer employed by the UFC? Well, you know, that's a great one to think about. I spent a couple months just thinking about what I wanted to do. And if this is really something I can deal with, I've never been self-employed before.

So this is the first time. And, you know, I was really passionate about what I did is my work and working with UFC and MMA and I saw all the respect and so many good traits that these fighters have, these professional athletes have. And so I really wanted to stay with it. I know lots of the officials. In addition, you know, we'd hang out. And they said, oh, Brad, we miss you. You know, you're not there. We're not doing some of the same things. And I said, well, maybe someday I'll be back. And so now I enjoy what I'm doing. It's taken, as you know, you're self-employed. Being self-employed is a little different than having a regular job where you get a paycheck. So you have to hustle a different way. I really like what I'm doing, though. I'm working with all kinds of athletes and helping them out and

getting satisfaction from that. So are you working exclusively with MMA fighters right now? About 90% of what I do is MMA fighters. Because of what we do with the MMA fighters, because of what we do, what the MMA fighters are, they're independent contractors. They're not the same as, you know, people in baseball, football, basketball, or hockey. They're independent contractors. Those other people are employees. So it's kind of a niche that I have. And the UFC let go another person, Kemmali on my leaf.

She was working for the UFC as well in the tax department. And when I found out she wasn't there, I asked her if she wanted to come work with me. And so now she's working for me and with me as well. So now there's two of us. We're doing this full time. And, you know, we've got some fighters that have gems and other properties. So we're not just doing their taxes. And, you know, there's a lot to it.

I'm hoping that we can grow it. I think as people get paid more money working for the UFC, it gives me more opportunities to be a financial advisor, more of an accountant, and then just a tax person. and that's what we're trying to do. You mentioned something that, as you may know, is a hot topic in the sport these days because you called the fighters independent contractors

and right now they are classified as such. But given, you know, you know about, you know, the sort of financial arrangement and what they have to deal with and what's required of them better than anyone, do you think these are truly independent contractors or do you think it would behoove them to find out if they are, you know,

more appropriately classified as employees? I hate to go on the line with that one. You and I, we could talk one-on-one with that one, as you know. Okay. You've been kind of like a big supporter of the employee independent contractor transition for a long time, I believe. Yes. I think if they were employees, there's a lot of reasons they could be employees.

and for them to be independent contractors, ZUFA has really tried to keep that independent contractor versus an employee relationship separate. So I think they could kind of fall into both sides, but I have my own opinion. I'd rather not voice it over on your TV show here. Okay, fair enough. I had to ask, but I respect that. CPA for MMA.com is the website that,

that you run and it's your website and I think that it's a phenomenal website. I was actually really impressed with how thorough it is. I mean, you have the newsletter, you have a Q&A. Every month or so you're putting up, you know, actually things that I was learning about my own status, you know, being an independent contractor myself. When did you launch this? And what kind of like, how do you get the word out? I mean, this is a great way of getting the word out and I'm more than happy to get the word out here. But when did you decide to actually launch this thorough a website and have you received a good amount of feedback from fighters

after launching it? Well, I launched it about four weeks ago. Oh, wow. Okay. So it's pretty new. I tried to launch it last year, but I just got so tied in with helping other people. It was very busy. When you start from the ground and

develop a business, there's a lot more to it than I expected. You know, I can go on and say what all is involved with being a self-employed and creating everything, you know, software, and connectivity and internet sites and, you know, an accounting system and all of that. But really, the website, I tried to launch it last year. So I launched it about a month ago.

I've had some good feedback. And it does have a translation section on it so people can look at it in Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, you know, pretty much Russian, any language. And so I don't know if people are using that. it's been it's tax season right now yeah so it's a pretty busy time so I haven't really reached out to many people say hey what do you think but I have had some favorable

feedback on it I've had some good comments too could you tell us I don't know if you're at liberty but I'll ask anyway could you tell us who are some of the fighters that you're working with right now let's see gosh probably in the heavyweight um let's see

Francis, Alistair, Fabricio, Mark, Derek. Wow. Lexi, Marching. I'm just looking at heavyweights. So there's a good... That's like the whole top 10. Yeah. Yeah, it's a few of them.

Tim Johnson. Let's see. Yeah, that's a big part of it. the, you know, just of the top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I've got people all through it. So there's over 100 now. Wow.

And, you know, it's good. And, you know, one of the things that I've learned and I didn't realize how hard it would be. When I worked at the UFC, they would tell people, especially the international people that come to work in the U.S., they'd say, okay, you know, you're going to have 30% tax taken out when you're fighting here. But what happens is when you get that 30%, you can go get a refund. But they never tell them that, oh, hey, by the way, you need a Social Security number. We need an individual tax identification number and even guide them to that. You know, that's unfortunate. So now I've helped a lot of people.

When the UFC had that Fighter Summit last year, I helped about a dozen people go get Social Security numbers. and so once they get that, you know, this might sound a little convoluted, but what happens is every time somebody in foreign, somebody that's a non-resident, every time they want to go get a tax refund, IRS is looking, how do we know it's their name? How do we know it's proper?

You know, it's really interesting, but they have so much fraud going on all through America that on IRS they have a lot of fraud too, So they stop people from getting refunds. They make it very, very difficult. I had a gal from Russia just get her refund a week ago, and she applied February of last year. So you and I, when we have a tax refund coming,

we can usually get a refund in about three to four weeks. These international people, it takes a long time. You have to know what the steps are to help them get it. You need to be able to correspond with the IRS, talk to them, make it happen. And I've learned to do that pretty well in the past year. Because it takes a while, it's difficult. Because the fight, you know, as you said, independent contractors, they're getting, you know, their purse, but they also have sponsorships, Jim, things like that. Based on your wealth of experience, how difficult is the typical

MMA fighter tax return to file? You know, it's really similar to a lot of businesses, but then they have some things that other people don't know. I reviewed many tax returns, at least a dozen them that were from really good certified public accountants in different states. And they did a great job, but what they missed out on are some of the expenses that are unique to MMA people, like supplements, like medical, like driving their car. I got off the phone with somebody by the name of Teabot today. And I won't have to say the rest of his name, but he's in

Southern California. He drives his car to and from the gyms to Gardena. He was on his way to the Black House a little bit ago. Then he goes to Redondo Beach. And if he puts on 25,000, 30,000 miles, that's like $16,000 tax deduction that a lot of people aren't going to catch.

Wow. He has a home office. A lot of people don't realize there's some opportunities of deducting your home office. that are pretty generous. There are a lot of other things with food, special foods, you go to whole foods or sprouts or something like that. Some of that food is expensive nutrition that you can deduct, even though the IRS says you

can't, but it's the amount that's above what you and I use to eat. It's that extra expense they can deduct. So there's some deductions that a lot of people are not going to deduct. because they don't know they can't. Ah, that's fascinating. I have to say... Go ahead. Sorry, sorry for cutting you off.

I'm going to say, so now that I've got this expertise, and I've accumulated it from working for the UFC for so long and working with the fighters, but now I've looked at well over 100 fighters and their expenses and their history, and so, you know, I know what their lives are like, and so I know how to dig for expenses. I also know how to do forensic accounting.

So what I'll do with a lot of these people is they'll come back to me and say, gosh, Brad, can you help me? I haven't filed tax returns for three or four years. I don't have any receipts. So I'll say, oh, yeah, I can help you. So there are some deductions you can take for meals when you're traveling. No receipts needed, called Perdium. There's the mileage log we can help create for all their times. They go to and from the gyms, to and from the airport.

when they go jogging, running, wherever they drive to. I'll help them with that. But then the really special part is we'll do digging. We'll look at their credit cards. We'll look at their banks. We'll download information. I've gotten pretty good at it. And then we'll sort it and slice it and dice it into all their medical supplies,

massages, telephone, internet, rent, all these different expenses that are kind of unique to them. and we'll find legitimate expenses that they didn't know they had. What an amazing service you provide. If I'm a fighter and I'm listening to this, I mean, you could go to any accountant, but you know what these men and women go through. I mean, like you lived and breathed it for 10 years, and as you said, like just knowing what to look for,

knowing what their week is like and the types of things that they're, you know, spending their money on, what an amazing thing. Like you would think, you know, off the bat, oh, like a like a CP. who focuses strictly on MMA is such a niche thing. But I think this is brilliant.

I mean, I think you should have 500 clients at this point. I mean, if I'm a fighter, I'm calling you up. Who better? Because I'm a very nervous Jew. When it comes to taxes, oh, I get so nervous. I feel like my head is going to explode to go to someone like you. And you didn't tell me to say this, by the way. But I just kind of get excited knowing that there is someone.

I wish there was someone who worked in like, you know, internet broadcasting that I could go to, who knows exactly what I'm dealing with because you always have to kind of explain. I feel like the fighters don't have to explain their lives to you. So kudos to you for thinking about this. It's a great idea. Thanks, Ariel. Yeah, and shalom to you, by the way. Yes, well, thank you.

Thank you. Very nice. Thank you. And happy Passover, too. But before I let you go, I want to ask you because, you know, I used to be in the back all the time and I'm a very inquisitive guy and I'm looking around. I would always see you going. You're very business like you're kind of walking quickly with your briefcase.

You have a check in your hand. You go to the guy in the medical room. room, I'd always witness this. And I'm just wondering, in your 10 years, and maybe it's hard to just pick one, is there, because I'm sure there are times you went into that locker room and the guy was ecstatic and, you know, he probably wanted to hug you, and you just got this nice check from you, is there a moment or two, an experience or two that really sticks out about those, because, I mean, you're one of the first people to greet these men and women. Is there something that sticks out that you just think to yourself, wow, what a job that I get to actually be the one to deliver

this to these great athletes? You know, I'd say, thank you, Lorenza and, first. I'd say, thank you, Frank and Dana for allow me to have that kind of a job. It was pretty fun. And there are so many moments that are special. But I remember, I'm going to tell you about one. Okay. It was two guys that fought. And I don't remember where we're at.

And so I come in to pay the loser, the guy that lost, and he's crying. It's crying, crying, crying. And these are, you know, grown men that they don't cry very often. says, oh, you know, I'm so sad, I lost, and I trained so hard. I got submitted in the first round and kind of went on and on. And I get it. That wasn't the first time that somebody said that to me. And a lot of times in the back, I'm in that curtain room.

I played counselor. And I would have words of wisdom and tell them, you know, make them feel better and things like that. And so anyways, we're all done. I paid them, explained some things to them. So I go in the other curtain room because the dog, are done medical triage with the other person. I walk in there and the person's crying. Tears are just streaming.

I said, what's wrong? He says, oh, you don't understand. You just don't understand. This is the most money I've ever had in my life. And he won 10 in 10. Wow. He said, oh, can I hug you? I said, oh, yeah.

And he said, this is so good. can we take a picture? And we took a picture and he was holding the check and, you know, that's one of those moments that you go, this is amazing. Wow. And so, you know, it's kind of hard to top that one.

Yeah, that is unbelievable. I can't imagine the emotion, especially from those young fighters that you got to experience. By the way, did you have like a show check and a win check? And if the guy lost, you discarded the win check? Is that what you would have to do? always. We always had two checks. Some people, as you're probably aware, they don't have a show and win arrangement. Like some of the guys at the top, maybe they're making X dollars to show or win. And that's what they get.

They may get pay-per-view and other bonuses. But typically, probably 98% of the people have a show and a win. and the wind check, you'd see me ruffling or taking papers and maneuvering them around in my briefcase and I'd take that wind check and put it away so I couldn't give it to him by accident. You ever make a mistake and give someone a win check that he didn't deserve? He didn't actually win?

Yes, I did once. And it's because I didn't watch the fight. I wasn't able to always watch the fights and sometimes I'd have to go to one of the people, the commissioners, from the Athletic Commission and say, hey, so who won that fight? And they'd tell me, and I went and I'd check it off. And I knew that I would always draw a line on the check stub part of who lost.

That way, if by chance there was a mistake, I could always give the winner the one that I thought had lost their check, and it just had a line down the stub, and nobody ever questioned that because it wasn't on the check, it was just on the stub. So there's a couple times the athletic commission told me the wrong thing.

And you always have a backup team. So that was my backup plan. If something was wrong, I didn't void the check. I just put a line on the stub. End of the night, I'd void the checks. Wow.

So did you have to go back and apologize to the guy? How did that work? Yes, I did. Oh, my. Back to their locker room. I apologize and said, hey, I'm so sorry.

I made a mistake. And, I mean, I was wearing a student ties representing UFC and doing the very best I could and being very honest and candid. And, you know, I cared about all those people. Yeah. Well, I got to say, it's been really fun to catch up. And I'm really happy to hear that you're still involved in MMA and helping out these fighters.

And I hope you get, you know, 200 more clients because I think you offer a fantastic service. And, you know, what better time than now with, you know, tax day coming up on, I believe, April 17th, which I learned on your website, by the way, that it's two days later because it's a holiday on the 16th. I was looking at the website yesterday. This is great stuff. So I wish you nothing but the best, Brad. And thank you for reaching out. It's been a lot of fun.

Thank you. Hey, can I say a couple quick things? Please, go ahead. So realize that you've got two types of fighters fighting. There's the ones that are, they live in the U.S. And they're fighting abroad or in different states. And they've got taxes taken out from, whether it's California or, Massachusetts or from the UK or Sweden or Japan, what we do is we specialize in helping you

recover those taxes, unlike other CPAs and H&R Block and place like that. You know, they do a great job, but they miss that stuff. And I know how to get that foreign tax back and those state taxes better than anybody else. Then you got the other type of fighter. They're here in the U.S., they're having 30% of. tax taken out of their show, their win, their bonuses, their Reebok money. And we know how to recover that money. We can't always get it all back, but we get a big part of it back. And they had no idea. So anyways, we help those people get money back. We help the domestic people get money

back. And if you guys ever have questions, please go to my website. I can give you a phone number. Ariel has my number too. Yes. You know, happy to help. Thank you again, Ariel. Appreciate the time. Absolutely. CPA for MMA.com. If you are a pro fighter, a manager, please reach out to this man. Check out the website. I'm telling you,

you will not be disappointed. All the best to you, Brad. Thank you very much. Thank you again, Ariel. Take care. All right, there he is. Brad Smuckler stopping by. How great was that?

CPA for MMA.com. Like I said, not a topic that we usually discuss on this program, but I thought it was very important, especially with a tax day coming up, and obviously finances being a very important part

of being an MMA fighter. That man, 10 years with the UFC, why would you not want to work with him? That's great stuff. Okay, let us move along. One of the great stories, not this weekend, two weekends ago in London, was Paul Craig's victory with just a second left in his fight. Four minutes and 59 seconds, he defeated Magomed Ankalayev in the third round. By all indications, he was en route to losing that fight had he not submitted him with

just a second left in the fight. he won via triangle choke. He got a performance bonus and he also got a new contract. That was the last fight on his deal. He said afterwards, if he was not re-signed by the UFC, he would have been done fighting.

Unbelievable, what he was able to pull off with just a second left, and now he's still a member of the UFC. He has signed a four-fight deal, and he's probably a very happy man. So let us go to the Skype machine and talk to Bear Jew himself, Paul Craig, who's standing by.

There he is. It's been a while since we talked to him. Paul, how are you? Are you doing, my friend? I'm doing great. Congratulations not only on the victory, the last second victory, but also on the new contract. Is that in fact true

if you would have lost that fight and the UFC said, you know what, we're not going to give you a new contract? Were you going to retire from MMA? Yeah, unfortunately yes. When you set yourself goals, I don't want to anything less. I don't want to be taking the damage that I take especially in that fight

for anything less than the best. Now, it's not about financial gains to it for me. Like, I don't care about not making the most money because, you know, you can always make more money through other shows. But for me, it was just being the best that could be in fighting at the best level. So that was my whole reason for doing it.

I had never ever spoke to him to about this. Family, friends, my coach, I think that. My coach Brian says to me, says, was that true? And I says, hi, Brian. I had set myself to go with the UFC. seeing if it wasn't that, then it wasn't nothing. I'm a kind of all-or-nothing guy. Do you agree that if you did not finish that fight,

that you would have lost? Do you think that that would have been the case? 100%. You know, well, you never know. The opponents I have faced, my four opponents in the UFC have been absolute studs. You know, we had Enrique de Silva, who was an unbeaten opponent again.

I took Hizzo. I then hit Tyson Pedro, an unbeaten opponent again. unfortunately it wasn't my night and then I had Khalil Roundtree who was tough finale finalist or whatever he was and then next I had the Majimaegov Anka Lyev

same again they were touting him I'm standing at the back of the arena listening to them sing all his praises and he's firing against Paul Craig nothing special for me

they sung this guy up and it's a and you know that way I'm trying to stay in the zone and I look at my coach out and like what the fuck are you never mentioned any of this but it was so much nicer, you know, when you're up against these great opponents

and you're having to dig deep, so I'm over the moon for that and especially with the contract. So obviously when you're fighting, you're in the zone and you're not really thinking about other things, but do you recall going into that third round thinking if I don't finish this guy here,

this is it for me? These are my final moments as an MMA fighter. Were you thinking about that at all? Yeah, 100%. It's always in the back of your head. any fight, maybe your last fight in the UFC. I've said this openly, the UFC are brutal. Because they are so many fighters,

they treat you like, for me, they've treated me amazingly. You know, I've fought in UK and European shows, and the way the UFC have looked after me has been unbelievable. But there is so many guys willing to step in and take your place, you know, not only in the UK, but Europe, US, all over the world, and they are biting the hand off you to have a contract I've got. So going into any fight, being your first fight the UFC contract or the last fight in your UFC contract, it can be your last.

And that's always in the back of my head that I need to put on a performance rather than going there and get the win. And it's how I fight with regards to grappling, when I get you on the ground, if I get you on the ground, I'm always looking for that submission. And as you're aware that by the time when you're looking for stuff, and if you're trying to strike and finish the fight, then you leave spaces open and that's how Ankleev managed to get back up

and pick me to my bed like I was a wee boy just lay me on my back like I was nobody. It's amazing. I love how you say it just like a wee boy. I'm sure you've watched the finish like a million times, right? How many times do you watch that thing? It just keeps popping up in my social media stream

so I feel like I like to watch it. I can't get enough of it. I know it's just like when you hear that noise that chap, chap, chap. And then it's happened so, so quick. And even at that point, you know, I just weld everything in my body just to squeeze with everything I had. So when I stood up, I had absolutely no energy left.

So I didn't even know if I'd done enough when I was squeezing. Because in the back of my head, 10 seconds in the octagon isn't 10 seconds in real time. It's like this weird state of time. You could count 10 seconds and it could be like a second has passed because everything moves at a different time, especially when you've got an opponent on top, you're swine. punches and hear that chap in the first round, you hear the 10 second timer, that 10 second timer

at that point felt like ages. Wow. So could you tell us what, okay, what's going through your mind? How did you actually pull this off? What are you thinking at that point? You hear the chop, chop, and then what? I knew that if I could get him to overcommit with one of these shots and there was always an opportunity for a triangle.

And I had realized he was doing it like prior to being in that position, he was flinging these massive bombs, and they were quite a few of them landed. And then I was managed to control his hip, and I was controlling this wrist. And he just overcommitted, and as he was pulling back, it just opened up this split second. And it was a split second to just nail this triangle. If that had been, if he didn't fling that way in the same intensity, he flung it, I wouldn't be sent here talking to you. Wow. And did you think initially that the time had just run out?

or did you know, because he did tap it, but it's kind of hard to tell if he's doing it before the final horn. What did you think? Did you know that you got him? I knew I had gotten because for some reason Mark Goddard had slapped me in the forehead. If you watch it back, please tap him.

I just, like, I wasn't stopping. I wasn't stopping for anything. And Mark Godd be slap me in the chest and slap me in the forehead. Like just this, you've had enough, son. Slap me. So I knew at that point, and then when I stood up, and my teammate had get in the cage

and he was on my back, and I didn't know who was like, I thought I was getting attacked. If you look at the pitchers, I'm turning around because I have no idea what's happened. You know, I've just gave every ounce of energy I've got. I've had my adrenaline dunk and then somebody's on my back. And I had no idea who it was. It turned out. It was my teammate, Chris Bungard.

So is it even possible to put into words what that feeling is like to not just, you know, it's kind of like hitting a buzzer-beater in basketball, right? You know, the game that we play, I know it's not very popular there. in, you know, in Scotland. But, you know, you hit that shot. There's pandemonium. People are going ballistic for you. And, you know, to hit that, but not only, you know, to hit that, but to know that your

career was essentially on the line, can you even verbalize what that feeling was like in the cage right after? It's, you can. It's, it's unexplainable, like the feeling and the emotion, because even at that point, I still didn't know if I had that contract. I was going backstage, unaware of it. of anything going on with regards to contracts. In my heart, I thought 15 minutes,

we had an opponent like Madremao of Ankeleve, I thought I didn't do enough to secure that contract. And we didn't get the email on Monday morning saying, not to worry, then you were always going to get a contract after that performance. And that for me is worth, like, I don't want the money. The money means absolutely nothing to me. I would, if I had that much money,

I would give it all away and I would live in the jungle. That's like my dream. Just living the jungle, you know, doing yoga in the morning and eating some berries off the tree. That did me so much better than you giving me these endless supplies of money. And when we got the contract, it was this massive relief.

As I said, I was leaving the UFC and I was leaving MMA behind. And now I believe of something. still got some gas left in this time to get these four fights and start make my way back up that the rankings. You know, I'm sitting at 30, and there's so many people in front of me, and I believe in my head and my heart that I can beat them. And even going into my last two fights of 2017,

2017 was a horrible year for me, and it wasn't just the whole MMA side, you know, different stuff happening in your life, and it moulds you into the, the character you grow into be. And 2018, I knew, you know, we have this thing where we say new year, new me, but it really was, I came back to Vegas with this new Lisa life

speaking to the guys out there in the performance center. You know, I just had to deal with their losses and everyone else was growing my life at that point. And I have, and right, I maybe took 14 minutes of getting my ass handing to me, but that's the sport we're in. It's MMA and the drop of your hat, you can get that rocky moment,

you know, at the end of rocky tour. You beat me one second. One second. I love the films, man. I knew I'm getting to live that dream. It's incredible. You think if you lose that fight, you still think you get a contract

after what they told you? What do you think? I don't know. You know, this isn't just a... This sport isn't just about fighting. We know that now. All the fighters know that now. going back a few years ago,

then maybe it was about the thing, but now it's about the whole package. Can you entertain the crowd? Can you bring people in to love you? Because this is what this is. People only support the people they love. Look at Colin McGregor, man. He's got love all over the world.

Do I have enough love in the UK, in Scotland? Yes, I know I've got some fans over in the US who send me lovely messages all the time, but I really don't know. I'd love to have said that the UFC would have took that chance on me and kept me on. And, you know, they know the level of opponents I've fought. So I don't know.

I would love to say yes, but my heart says, nah, you lost, man, you were out. You were getting kicked out. Those guys been kicked out at UFC for less. What would you have done, gone back to teaching? Because you no longer teach, right? No, that's me. I'm finished teaching. I came to the end of my sabbatical, and I still believed that there was,

this dream was still worth living so I decided to keep going with that and I'll go through the process to get back to my teaching job that I've done at the start I can always go back and do that maybe I do something else maybe I just come away from teaching it

all together and maybe just working in an office you know sitting behind a computer just tighten and just conforming to society well you don't have to do that so that is very good news. You talked about last year being horrible for you.

How do you write this ship now? How do you go on the streak again? How do we get back to the Berju who was finishing guys early? What went wrong and how do you fix it in your opinion? The best way I explain this is chefs. There's loads of chefs out there and they all make the same soup, but definitely.

They all make tomato soup. If we use that as an example, some of them add too much tomatoes, some of them don't add enough. someone of them had too much salt, too much pepper, and it changes the style of the soup. I can't believe I'm talking about soup, but anyway, it's the same as the MMA.

I tried to change too much and took a step back to what got me to the UFC. What got me to the UFC was my ability to drag somebody to the man and choke the life out of them. That's what got me here. And I went into the two fights with an ability that believing that, oh, I'm going to, I'm an in there to beat. Tyson, Pedro in a stand-up fight,

and I went in the 80-beat, Khalil in a stand-up fight, and I was delusional. Not delusional, that sounds a bit mental. That wasn't what got me to the UFC. My ability to strike was not what got me to the UFC. My ability to take people into deep water and strangle them was what got me to the UFC.

So when back to that, we changed up her training, and it works. We've just went back to what made us. us. We didn't do the travelling. We didn't need to do the travelling previously, so we didn't do it this time. I mean, we did go down and train with Dalantel and Tom Aspinot and Mike

Grundy, who are all lovely guys and they helped massively. But what got us to the UFC was staying in Scotland and working hard, hard work. Speaking of those guys, Darren Till, Mike Grundy, do you want to fight on the Liverpool card?

Well, I got a medical suspension 30 days, so I think the way of that would work out, I wouldn't, but I'd love to, you know, the very first time it's in London, in Liverpool, to watch Dalantel is amazing, you know, he's one of the best fighters upcoming in the UFC,

he's exciting. Same again, people love him, and especially in Liverpool. With regards to Mike Grundy, man, I want to see that guy fighting in the UFC. He's an absolute savage. I'm a guy that weighs like a hundred and twenty kilograms and he picks me up like I'm nobody and moves me about, like I'm a child.

He's something special. And I'm under no illusion that it will get that call up to the UFC. But I just hope it's for Liverpool. And what about Leon Edwards, just a few fights later, tying your record? Like, for a minute, you were the record holder for the latest stoppage in a UFC fight. I guess now you can say latest submission in a three-round fight, of course. And then he does it at 459 in the third round, he gets the TKL. Were you annoyed by that?

I didn't even know. I didn't even know he'd done it until after it, and then people are talking about it. like Paul you were, you had the records for literally like 20 minutes. But you know what? You always remember, like for me, they'll always remember the first. You know, first guy to do the 900 NBA skateboard and everybody knows who that is. You know who's done it previously?

Nah. So you always remember the first guy. You don't remember the same guy, even though it was only a few moments later, but first guy always been remembered. Who's the first guy? Is it Tony Hawk? Tony Hawk guy?

Yeah. See, you know? Do you know who's done it recently? No, I have no idea. That exactly, man, nobody knows. Do you know the guy who's got the longest, the latest submission victory in the UFC? Paul Freaking Craig! There he is.

What a story, unbelievable. I keep watching it and you do it so fast. Like, even, you know, you hear the clang clank and you're like, all right, this fight is over. And then just like that, the guy subs. I mean, he taps. It's unbelievable watching it. How you were able to pull that off, be calm, lock it in, and I'm sure squeeze like you've never squeezed before, right?

Yeah, the power I was putting into your legs. See, after I stood up, my legs weren't working. They were like that sort of jelly way. Like I had a wee Elvis wiggle on. But amazing. Like, it's nothing's going to compare to that. I've said to you before about, like, it's about memories. For me, this whole thing's about memories,

or even some sort of legacy. For me, memories competing in London, for my first time in London, fighting in the arena packed out against a rising prospect in the MMA never mind UFC

and he beat him in the way I did just adds to everyone just memories I'll never forget and I've got a box in my cupboard and it's filled

with all this kind of stuff all these papers speaking about it you know clippings for internet and I just keep it all and maybe a hundred years down the line

something we went through that and be like working through my my legacy, which is kind of cool. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Congratulations, Paul. I'm very happy for you, obviously about the win, but also about the new contract.

It really is a beautiful story and couldn't happen to a better guy. So enjoy it, my friend, and I'm looking forward to seeing you back out there, and I'm happy that you're not leaving us, at least for now. Thank you very much, man. It's also a pleasure to come on here.

But my main man, Chris Bungar, told me to tell you that he loves you. Well, thank you. I love you too, Chris. He also said what? What do you say? I don't let you go out of the night. What do you say?

He's got a busy night, so I'll go. Wait, what did Chris say? What else did Chris say? Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I don't hear that. I'm not going to say that to him. I was like he says, so handsome.

I appreciate that. He's fine, boys. It's cool. So I just want to tell you that. This has just got awkward now. You think Chris Bungard fancies you. Chris, I love you too. Thank you very much.

All the best, Paul. we'll talk to you soon. All right, there he is. Berju himself. Paul Craig stopping by. Last second victory, three minutes and 59 seconds of his three-round fight

against Magomed Ankaliev in London, the latest submission in a three-round UFC fight ever. How about that? And then he gets a new contract. Amazing stuff. Okay.

Let us move along to our next guest. He is one half of the headlining act on April 6th in Budapest, Hungary. He is fighting. Roger Huerta, you heard from Hortez. a couple weeks ago on this program, who are to back in Bellator,

and what a fight this is. I told you, I love this fight. There's so many interesting layers to this fight, and one of which is Benson Henderson's return. We have not seen him since September of last year. We have not talked to him on this show in quite some time. I do believe he has been ducking us, but that ends right now.

Benson Henderson is on the phone. Benson, are you there? Maybe he's still ducking us. I'll try again. Benson, are you there? No, he's still ducking us. All right. we're going to get to Benton in a second.

April 6, like I said, Budapest Hungary, Belator 196, Benson, the former UFC lightweight champion. Just one and three in Belator right now. He's coming off that loss to Petriky Pitbull, the split decision loss. He has two split decision losses, one unanimous decision loss to Andre Korshcroft.

That was in his debut, but his one win was against Patricio Pitpole. That was via TKO in April of 2016. I just heard the clap clap. Okay, let's see if he's there. Benson, are you there? Hey, I'm here, man. Benson, long time, no speak.

How are you? I'm good, I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It has been a while, as I said, it's great to talk to you. So there's much to discuss, let's get right into it. What was your reaction when you found out that Roger Huerta would be your opponent in this sort of, you know, short notice like main event fight in Budapest.

Of all people, Roger Huerta, what was your reaction? I was just a guy to fight. I think this has been the longest break of my, you know, 10 years now, fighting career, minus my A cell surgery. So I was just wanted to fight. I don't care who it was. And they had, like, three, four different names first. They had Derek Anderson, Brandon Gertz, and this guy, and that guy,

and then ended up settling on Roger Horton. I was like, yeah, sure, no problem. I don't care who it is. Let me get in there. But why did it take so long for you to get back in there? I don't know. That's a question for Scott Coker, for Mike Cogan and the Bellsford guys. I'm ready to go

but it took a little while to see how cars played out and see all these guys fights went and that's or stuff so I don't know really though it's legit answer to that I hear a lot of different things from some of those guys considering how the last two fights went would it be fair to say that you were a little more anxious

to get back in there to try to write this ship yeah you can say that I think that's fair to me last two fights being losses by split decisions and stuff, man. You know, I've been trying to stay busy in the J-J-2 world and trying to work on going after finishes in the J-2 world.

I think I've geared, had, I don't know, two or three different J-SU competitions, and I've been gearing those towards just getting finishes, getting finishes, getting finishes, getting finish you. So that's what I've been to concentrate on my time off. In a word or two, how would you describe your run this far in Belator? Anticlantic, not as, not as advertised, you know. I know big game still for Bellator,

but I haven't brought the goods, so it's on me squarely on my shoulders to back it up to bring the goods. Why do you think it's gone down this way? Is it just bad luck, new environment? Do you have a theory or two? No, I mean, it is what it is. Like sometimes guys win close funds,

and then you go on a string of winning close funds, and you go on a string of losing close funds. You know, that being said, we all know in MMA judging how that MMA judging goes, you know. And sometimes on the good side of it, sometimes we're on the bad side of it.

I've been on the bad side of it. It's for everyone for the Belator so far. I've been on the losing side. The judges, it feels as if, you know, it's not just me and the other person in there, but it's me and then, you know, three other judges and the other person in there. So if that's the case, if that's what it is,

then I have to battle myself, if myself, I have to battle my opponent, and if they're the judges, I have to keep it out of their hands. If I have to have finishes inside the belt or cage, so be it. No problem. That's just another challenge I have to accept and beat and overcome. So does that mean you're going to fight in a different way that you're going to change your style? No, not changing my style, but just be aware of that, hey, if it becomes like you fight in your opponent's hometown, you know that you have, you have,

have to work your butt off to get a finish because you're not going to, you know, get the nod and any sort of decision. So I have to approach my fights, I think, in Beltaur like that. I have to know that if I get to any sort of decision in Belator, I'm not going to get the decision. It's not going to go my way. Fine and dandy, no problem. I'm not going to complain.

That's just fine. Let me know ahead of time, though, and then I will, you know, make sure it doesn't go that way. Because of the fact that you signed with Beltor, you know, as a free agent and you're one of their big free agent signings, you know, a couple of years ago before. this thing became somewhat of a movement. Do you feel more pressure when you fight because you want to feel like, okay, I want to

pay these guys back, I want to, you know, I want to reward them for their faith in me. Does that ever come into play? Do you feel like that's something that you shouldn't be thinking about when you fight and does that affect you at all? Oh, it doesn't affect me in my fights at all. I'm definitely aware of it, though.

You as an employee, you know, with your employers, placing faith in charge, if you like your employers, that is, you know? Not everybody. is in that boat. But, you know, I love my employers. Having worked for the, you know, UFC for a while,

I haven't worked for Belator for a while now. I do appreciate them. I do appreciate the checks they are writing me. So I do want to keep them happy. I do want to make them feel as if I am worth all their money, worth their time, worth their investment. It pays a lot of trust and faith in me, and I want to make sure that they, you know,

they're getting what they thought they were going to get. You've always sort of struck me as the kind of guy who, you know, when it's time to say goodbye, you're just kind of ride off into the sunset, not a lot of fanfare, you're just kind of sort of duck out and that'll be it. Like, you're not going to make a big hoopla about it. I'm wondering if this experience at all,

the frustrations, the anticlimactic, as you put it, you know, run in Beltor, did that, you know, maybe sour your feelings towards MMA? Did you lose your love? Did you need to regain it back? How has it been? Because this is sort of uncharted territory for you? No, I wouldn't say it may lose my love on MMA.

I definitely, I don't watch MMA now. It's been a long time to actually watch MMA as a fan. I still watch it every once in a while. There'll be a big card, big names, like, oh, I actually want to watch that. That sounds pretty interesting to me. But that's, you know, very, very few in the form

between ones in the Blue Moon. Why I'd be excited to watch a card. But, yeah, I would not disagree with that. What's what you're saying, you know? Whatever it is, I am down with this sport, wanting it to be, I guess, just more on your terms, on my terms, whatever that point is, making sure it's, you know, me on top, walking away, with my head held high, like, you know, all that sort of stuff.

I would have to agree with that. Why do you feel like not watching the sport? Like, why do you think that's happened to you? I, mostly, it's like the, like, now, once you get to know any sport, whether you're a football in the football world and you're watching the NFL and then you get to see the behind scenes. I'm talking to the NFL players, the buddies I know,

they don't really watch NFL anymore. Like they're in the NFL. They play football and they love the sport of football, but they don't watch NFL no more because of the policy there everything. Like you realize like, oh, well, this guy's getting the child shot because of this, and then they're doing this to this. They're pumping this guy behind this. And like there's rhyme and reason behind all of it.

It's not just the pure love of the sport. who is the best fighter. Let's find out. This guy fights this guy. You know, guys talking up a storm so they get a fight. You guys tap dancing and doing this and whatnot so they can get fights. And then, you know, Bellator or UFC, whoever puts money behind this guy and they promote this guy and they do this. Like just all the whole politics of everything. It just sours me on watching it.

I just want to watch two guys go out there and go do their best, you know, with the chips fall in May. but then when you see a guy, you know, lose once, lose twice, and he gets a towel shot because he can, you know, talk well and get people riled up. I'm not a big fan of that. Health-wise, how are you doing right now? Health-wise, I'm good to go. I'm good to go.

I'm a little bit chubby right now, to be honest, a little bit chubby. Sure, notice fight. There's no problem at $1.70, but sure it went to $1.55 is another story. So I got some work to do there still, but I got another week or so to get down, but it's going to be a rough week for me. And did you push for 170s since it is short notice? Actually, I push for 155 because I know that they offered a catchway at first, but I know that I didn't have the best showing at 135,

and I want to, you know, I want to fight for titles. I want to five for belts. That's why I do what I do as I do. And knowing that, I don't want people to say, oh, well, you know, Henderson's last fight, he looked good and he won. He got to stop. He got to finish. But it was at 165, was that 160?

he wasn't at 155, so is he really deserving of blah, blah, blah? I want to take away as many excuses as possible. I want to get another towel shot. I need to get impressive victories. I think out there, and I need to win, get my hand raised, and I need it to be at 155, not 160, not 16, not 16, not 175, not 170. If 170 is the route and, you know, start talking tile shots there, at 170, or not, sure no problem.

Let's do that also, but for right now we're thinking and concentrating on to get a talent shot, getting back on the run of it for 155 and I have to bet that weight class, right? Boy, it should be any weight. Right. You shouldn't be able to go from one-way class, go to another way class and get a towel shot right away, but that's not how it works all the time.

Oh, what are you referring to? No, the plethora of examples we have in the sport of MMA. Yes. You know, pick any example of, you know, guys going up in a way class, getting a talent, going down in a class, getting the towel shot. Like, I don't want to be one of those guys. I want to have my thing be at 155 so that when I win two in a row, three in a row, 155.

Okay, well, yeah, you should get a shot next at 155 because he made the weight class three times, and he won three times. You recently had an ACL injury, and that was something that you were battling through. How much do you feel like that, like just your overall health has affected your performance, the knees, everything that you've been dealing with? I definitely don't make excuses. My performance, me going out there to perform, I am at 100%. It's out of the back of my head. But, yeah, having a tourney ACL for three fights definitely didn't help me at all. I'm tough enough.

I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. I'm a veteran enough to, like, you have a true freshman in Yanni D. over at Cornell who won the NCAA, you know, what was it, 141 title, 133. Not 133, I think it was 149, actually, title with no ACL. but he was smart enough to wrestle that way to do it. So it can be done. So I have three fights with Belltor with on Torn ACL.

But I think I was smart enough to do it in a way that I was still performing 100%. I used to get the job done, not blaming the ACL. It is a breath of fresh air to be able to compete, fully compete and have two good needs to explode off of, mostly just the explosion. That explosion aspect when you don't have an ACR. That's hard to make up for you. So it's nice to have that to rely on again. Why in the world would you fight three fights with a torn ACL?

Why would you do that? Oh, I think the first time I didn't even know. The first time it happened training in New York, and then something was funky, didn't feel right, like, I'll wait after the fight to get it checked out. I was able to train still. I was able to do all the movements. I went to me all.

My physical therapist was the best in all of Arizona. did everything. I was like, no, it looks good to go. I must just tweak something. But yeah, you're okay. You're good to go. So I didn't realize.

And then after the first fight with the torn ACL, something fun to feel's a little funky. So then I had to actually go get it checked out and go get looked at. And that's when I got the news, torn ACL. Like, oh, that kind of sucks. And a torn ACL, torn MCL, and two torn munitions, something like that, whatever.

Wow. And then the next fight, again, I still felt good. I felt like I was still able to perform. I could still feel. stand up just as fast. The example I use that, I could still stand up just as fast without my ACL as they could with my ACL.

I'd send up differently, though. But we still just as fast. After the third fight, I asked what I felt like, okay, well, now I'm not standing up as fast. Now something is, now it's getting worse and worse and worse and worse. I'm not standing up as fast as I used to be. I'm standing up differently and it's not as fast. So that's what I felt to actually affect my performance. I knew I had to have the surgery.

I wanted to push off surgery until I was done fighting, retire, and then have surgery. but I was affected my performances, so you have to get to extend, you know. How much are you aware of what Roger Huerta's has been through over the past few fights, past few years? Not a whole lot, man. Not a whole lot. I heard rumors about Roger.

I'm moving over to Thailand, you know, going through some personal growth stuff. And I know he's, you know, been finding some smaller shows, some local shows. I think one of C also and stuff like that. and just training and live in life and, you know, following his path in this world.

To me, I love this fight because for you, it's an opportunity to get back on track. For him, it's an opportunity to fight a big name. He was Belator's first ever, like, big free agent signing in this new era. You were one of the first of the Coker era. Like, there's so much to it. I don't know if you actually sat back and thought about it.

I'm guessing no, but there's a great story going into this fight. You know this, right? Well, you know, I think hopefully, with the way your career goes, the way someone's career goes in a perfect world. There's always good storylines. There's always big this, big that.

I'm glad there are big storylines for you punnings to drop and to compare and to contrast and to write stories about. I do like that. I think it's awesome. But have I thought about much myself? No, not really. I've thought about finishing fights,

finishing fights, finishing frigging fights is what I need to do. Do you feel like in the past you have had opportunities, to finish fights and for whatever reason you didn't go for the finish? No, I watched my coach and I went back and watched all my fights and I don't feel like that there was ever a moment where a guy gave me his arm and I didn't go swing for the arm bar. I never felt like he had his hands down or did this to that.

He left his chin open and I was too tired to swing and go for it. I feel like every time there's opportunity I go for it and like you guys in fight are pretty good. I think I don't have a monster left hand, you know, like who Hendricks back in his title run, you know, he would touch someone with his left hand and they would fall down and go to sleep. For whatever reason, I don't have that, you know, I can touch people 10, 20, 30, 40 times and eventually wear them down, put them away, you know, but that means I'd have to work that much extra to touch them 10, 20, 30, 40 times first. But, you know, for a reason that I don't have that big left hand. I wish I did, but I don't. But I have to work around, you know, my strength and

weaknesses and just go back to finding ways to put guys away to finish fights. But I don't think we watched the fights all more than back to like the WC days. And I did not ever like really miss out on too many opportunities where I, oh, I couldn't hear if I didn't do it. I don't know why I didn't do it. You know, guys leave small holes. The guys who are the guys in the fighter the best in the world. They leave pretty small holes. Speaking of coaching, you know, you, John Crouch, you guys have turned into one of the great corners in M.M.A. Crouch, one of the best coaches in the sport. We often see you in McKenzie Dern's corner. She's obviously someone who's been talked about a lot. How would you assess

her career thus far, the arc, her progression as an MMA fighter? I think it's gone pretty well, you know. I think there's always room for growth. There's always room you get better, there's always room to improve. If you look back at your last fight and you won by TKO in the first round, you should still be able to find, you know, ways to get better. Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I should have done that. Oh, I should have done this. So I think looking back, hindsight is 2020 and you do clear vision.

Oh, we should have done this. We need to work on this. We need to work on this. But that's the good thing, you know, always working on getting better, trying to improve or whatnot. And, man, we got a room full of, you know, big, not big names yet, but soon-to-be big names. Yeah, can be Mara-Bartista. uh,

Tyler Phillips, like, uh, you know, you guys know, Sean O'Malley. He used to be one of our kids. I would always talk about,

but no one to know what I'm talking about. Now you guys know what I'm talking about. Now you guys know what I'm talking about Sean O'Malley. Uh, we had a ton of guys like that. We're telling a lot of people, name. When you have a room full of people like that who are all working to be the hardest

worker in the room, you have, you know, world champion, you two world champions, some of the best toughest fighters, you know, UFC veterans,

your car closed, David Mcjod, uh, Scott Holtsman, when you have a room full of those kind of hard workers, and then you have an amateur who's 4-0 or 3-0, and he's working to work harder than me. He's working to work harder than Scott Holstman.

He's working to work harder than Dave Mitchard. Those guys are, you know, it breeds success. It breeds Ws. It breeds wins. So we have a whole stable of youngsters coming up. And if you think Sugar O'Malley is impressive, wait until you see, you know, Kyle R. Phyllis, wait until you see Mario Batis.

So we call him, I call him version 2.0. I'm a super high in that kid. He's my number one traffic right there, Mario Batista. We have a whole room, whole gym full of the kids like that. We're just hungry getting after. And they work every single day to be the hardest worker in the room. It's amazing, really. I mean, you talk about 222.

You guys had two of the best prospects on that car, too, but the best prospects in the MMA, O'Malley, Dern. I was, you know, O'Malley just had successful foot surgery, so he's going to be out for a bit. I noted last week that I was a little bit worried about the quick turnaround for Dern. I know she wanted to fight in Rio. You have any problems with this? I think the coach staff and her management team got together and they discussed it

and ultimately it's up to the fighter. It's what she wants. You know, it's what the fighter wants. We can only advise and, you know, say, oh, we think you do this, we do that, blah, blah, but it's on the fighters. And me as a fighter still, I'm mostly on the fighter side. I know maybe two, three years, one more year when I retire. My brain, my mode will switch from, like, you know, fighter mode to coach mode or to manager mode or whatever.

And I'll think of like long-term fight here, fight now, do this, do that, blah, blah. But for right now, me as a fighter, like, hey, get out there and fight as much as you can as often as you can. You're going to fight in your home country. I know what that's like. I have, you know, that passion to fight in Korea, the first time we used to be in Korea, I would have done whatever it took to fight there. I was able to fight in Korea the first time ever you have seen in Korea. That's awesome.

It's amazing. I know it's like to, as a fighter, want to fight in your, you know, your parents' home country. Right. I think I understand and I accept that. Is it a little bit early? It might be a little bit early, but, you know, if that's what the fighter wants, and that's what the fighter wants. Welcome back, Ben.

It's great to talk to you again. Like I said, it has been a while. I'm looking forward to this fight. I love this fight. By the way, you mentioned Chubby. What are we looking at right now? I'm looking a little bit chubbed. I'm sitting at 6% body fat still with still about another

probably 17 pounds to go or so you can do some math off that one. I got to get that 2% down to like 2%, 3% or so, and then the rest will be all water weight. All right, well, good luck with that. Good luck in the fight. Looking forward to it. April 6th, it airs on the Paramount Network in Budapest, Hungary, it's Roger Huerta versus Benson Henderson.

Thanks for doing this, Benson. Great to talk to you again. Yeah, good talking to you, buddy. All right, there he is. The one and only Benson Smooth Henderson. So that's Belator 196 on April 6th. On April 13th, it's Beltor 197. The original main event was supposed to be Michael Chandler

versus Brent Primus 2 for the Beltor lightweight title. And that card taking place, by the way, at the family arena in St. Charles, Missouri. Unfortunately, Primus injured. In comes Brandon Garmise. Gertz, but there was a bit of a detour to get to there. Let's say hello to Michael Chandler and talked to him about last week, because I think it was an interesting one for him. He joins us now

via the Magic of Skype. There he is, Michael Chandler. How are you, Michael? I'm great. I'm doing well. It's never a dull moment for you, especially the last few months. So you fought in January. It looked like everything was sort of lining up for that big rematch. We wanted to see a proper conclusion to this fight. You versus Primis developed into a, I don't know, a bit of a rivalry, if you will, in Bellator. The fight is booked in your home state, right? You know, St. Charles, not too far from where you grew up, family arena, Paramount Network, it's all great, but then Primus pulls out. So first let me ask you, what was your reaction when you found out that the fight wasn't happening? You know, I mean, honestly, this sport's just so crazy when it comes to,

you know, I mean, have no expectations of what I need, what I need to do and what I've been trying to do. I mean, this sport does with you what it wants to, you know, and these promoters are, they're trying to make the fights and they're trying to put guys and make a match up. I mean, obviously, you know, you've had numerous people on your show today. My boy, Kamaro Ustman, talking about trying to fight certain people and guys just don't take fights anymore. Also, guys can get injured. I mean, we are in a sport now where I've had probably eight different opponents pull out of the fight. And most of the time, I've had to get rescheduled months down the road, weeks down the road, change up my whole training camp. I'd be all the way away from my family.

Josh Thompson pulls out of the fight. I go back home for a week and then come back for another two-month training camp because they got pushed back. I'm just extremely happy. I was extremely happy that Bellator or that my manager called me and said, you want the good news or the bad news. And I said, okay, I'll take the bad news first. He said, okay, premise is out. but they found a replacement and you're still going to fight April 13.

That was the great news because you never want to spend all this time away from your family, all this money on training, all this money on travel. I'm sitting here at another place via Skype in a VRBO down in Florida at some other place,

some stranger's homes, sleeping in some stranger's bed all by myself, not exactly where I want to be, but where I need to be to get better and win this next fight. So long story short, like you were saying, There was a little, there was a couple little things that happened.

The good news was Patricio Pitbull said that he was going to step into the fight. And then less than, so the next morning I woke up, sparred like I was training for Patricio Pitbull, picked my partners like I was fighting for Patricio Pitbull, started game planning toward Patricio Pitbull. And then after that practice, got another phone call that said, never mind, he's not going to sign the bout agreement after I had already signed the bout agreement. and that was the bad news, but the good news is Brandon Gerts will step in.

All of this happened within about a 36-hour period, and here I am. When I first found out about the pit bull fight, I was like, oh, this is brilliant. You know, you guys have been going back and forth. There's a robbery there. You fought his brother, but you've always had this sort of thing with the other pit bull.

This is great. Like, what a rabbit that they pulled out of their hat here. And then just as soon as we find out about it, it doesn't actually happen. You actually signed a battle agreement for it? Yep, I signed a Biot Agreement, had his name in it. It said, you know, St. Louis had my pay. It said, you know, all the same stuff.

They basically sent me the same bout agreement. They wiped out, wiped out, Brent Premis's name, put in Patricio Pitbull. I signed it, sent it to my management so they could send it to Belator. Went to, you know, went back here, hung out between practices, worked out again. And then that night I got a phone call right before I was going to bed and saying, oh, wait, he's making a bunch of demands. He wants a five-round fight. He wants this. He wants that.

And Bellator just wasn't going to go into it. accommodate. Belator doesn't do five-round main event fights. That's not what they do. They're not the UFC. They have their business model. They have their things. And by no means, they're going to let Patricio Pitbull come in acting like he, you know, carries weight in this company and start making demands. And right, right on him. I mean, Scott Coker and Rich Chu and these guys have put together some phenomenal cards, some phenomenal fights. The organization is growing. They can't let these people start making demands. And I even said, when I talked to my manager, I said, okay, I'll fight him five rounds. I'll fight him 10 rounds.

I don't care, whatever it is. I still want to fight him because he's been talking all this trash for the last decade, basically, because I've publicly humiliated his brother twice. And he, you know, after the last time I knocked him out, he got in my face and said, I want to fight you, I want to kill you, all that kind of stuff. And he said publicly he wants to, you know, behead me and put my head on his mantle for everyone to see. I mean, he's all barking full bite. And he had the opportunity to fight me on four weeks notice.

You know, we're all pro fighters here. We all right. We all want to collect a paycheck. We all should be in shape and ready to step in the cage. He said he would. and then when it came down to it, the pen just couldn't quite touch the paper. So what do you make of him, you know, making these demands that, as you said, they're not options, viable options, they're not options that Beltaur plays with.

Did you feel like it was kind of his way of getting out of the fight? That's, I mean, that's what I think. I mean, you know, first of all, we go back to the, you know, the person we were talking about before. I've called him a part-time fighter. I've had this sneaky suspicion that I was probably never. ever going to fight him again. He's going to, he's going to continue to cry injury or continue to cry maternity leave, continue to, I mean, he literally, we had children just about the same time,

yet I was ready to fight, and then I stepped up to fight the hottest prospect and scariest guy in the lightweight division with 18 submission wins, most of them in the first round in Guayamauchi. I took that fight. It was a dangerous fight and fought while he sat and did whatever he's doing, teaching kids jiu-jitsu up in Oregon. So I don't want to get this misconstrued. I have a lot of respect for Patricio Pitbull. I think he's a fighter's fighter. I think he's a guy who usually steps up.

He usually steps up the plate. He usually fights. But when it comes to fighting me, he has shown nothing, no inclination besides just jibber jabber. Just a couple weeks ago, a guy who has this, who's in the same management as myself, Daryon Caldwell, went out there, finished one of his teammates in the first round.

He got in the cage, started flipping him off and running his mouth. That's just what they do. So I don't know what to make of it. But yeah, when you start making these demands, I'm sure, you know, he was asking for more money. He was asking for a five-round fight. He was asking for this, that, and the other thing. And Bellator just wasn't going to accommodate. And that's really code word for, okay, if I make enough demands, they're going to say no and we'll move on.

And then that way you can tell all your little friends and all your little buddies and the Pitbull clan back in Sao Paulo or wherever you're from that, you know, Belator is trash and they won't. they wouldn't let me fight Chandler when, you know, Patricio's gone on record and his talking about how Bellator should be making, they should have made the fight between me and him a long time ago, and they should be doing this and they should be doing that. It's like, stay in your lane, little guy, just fight your fights. You know, you've got your championship, do your thing, and just show up and fight. And when you win a big fight like this is presented to you, this is probably the biggest fight in Bellator to make, and you turn it down or you say you're going to, you say yes, but then you actually won't sign the bout agreement that speaks volumes about,

your intent on actually fighting me someday. So are you done just thinking, like, are you done with this pit bull fight? Or do you feel like at some point it's going to have to come back? You're going to have to reassess it. It's not up to me. I mean, as we have seen, none of this stuff is up to me. I mean, I have always stepped into the case. Let's be honest, always stepped in the cage.

I've stepped into the cage hurt. I've stepped into the cage when management, fiance, coaches, training partners, everybody was telling me to pull out of the fight before the Will Brooks fight, and I didn't. You can't keep me out of the cage. I have this sick, twisted thing going on where this is what I do. This is what I feel like God put me on this earth to do. So it's never up to me. It's always up to my opponent.

Eddie Alvarez injured numerous times. Josh Thompson injured, now Primus injured. I mean, I've had so many people pull out of fights, and that's the nature of the beast. This is a contact sport. I believe these guys train extremely hard and they hurt themselves, most of them. not the current champion. He doesn't, I don't think he's up in Oregon,

just, you know, slaving over at the gym and really putting in the blood, sweat and tears that actually makes him a world champion in this sport. I don't believe that, and I never will believe that.

One fight per year in the last 10 years is not a full-time fighter, and you'll never convince me otherwise. But most guys are training hard, injuries happen. You know, we all have three or four of them at all times,

and sometimes they're bad enough for us not to step at the gate. So it's never up to me, April 13th, I'm going to step into the cage and do what I always do against the top upon it. What are you going to do about premise now? You say that you don't really believe you're going to fight him. You say part-time, how do you get that belt back?

And I know that you've said that you're not interested in the belt and all that, but the belt does lead to a few things, right? It does lead to probably higher pay. It does lead to opportunities. I mean, I think you're still one of the faces right now. I would say you, Rory, like, you guys are the faces of the company, but still, it's nice to have the belt, right? So how do you get the opportunity to fight them?

I don't I mean and I've said this and I don't say that I don't really I don't care about the belt because it it means a lot it means a lot to me to be the champion in this organization that I've been with and I've helped build them they've helped build me and I will I will go down in Bellator history as being the most exciting Belator fighter of all time there never will be another guy who steps into the occasion has done what I've done in this short period of time over this career so it it's it's very it's a very it's a a badge of honor for me to have that belt, but it's not the end-all-be-all. No, for me, the belt doesn't add more money to my pocket. It doesn't add more food on the table for my family. For me, it's just another ornament. You know, it's another 14 or 15 pounds of leather and gold, and it's cool. They're great. And I can hang them up in my new gym and I can hang one in my office and I can hang one at home and I could, you know, maybe someday deliver one to the MMA hour stage or the set. You know, who knows. But eventually I'll have so, I'll have, you know, four, five of them, whatever, that to me, I just, I want the biggest fights I possibly can.

And that's why, you know, I, when I have these conversations with Scott and Rich and these kinds of things, we have these conversations and they understand that when I say the belt doesn't, isn't the end-all-be-all, they know that I love the organization that I fight for. And this is a very great symbiotic relationship. But having the belt is not the end-all be-all. I want the big fights. That's why I was calling out Rory and calling out Paul Daly and the Patricio fight, even though he's smaller, he's a 145 pounder.

There's a lot of intrigue in those fights. That's how you build, that's how you build hype. That's how you build storylines. That's how you build rivalries. That's how you build this platform that we're all trying to do as fighters. So to me, the belt is just an ornament. And like I said, I don't think Brent Premis versus Michael Chandler 2 will ever happen, and it will not be my fault.

Okay, so Patricia Pipple is apparently watching right now. We are live. And he just tweeted me this. So I want to read it and see what you have to say about it. And by the way, Petitio, I've told New York Rick to reach out to you. You think I'm not getting your side. I'd love to get your side. Hey, Ariel Hawani, how about not spreading lies on your show and getting the full story?

I agreed with Bell Tor on an interim title shot that had been offered to my injured brother. The contract came different from what we talked about, and they went in another direction. So was there an interim title shot that was offered to Patrici Pitbull? and then not offered to him? I can't confirm nor deny that. All I know is, like I said, my conversation was, my conversation was, hey, bad news is, Pramus is out. Good news is, good news is Patricio will step up and fight.

And I never even thought about Patrici. I don't, there should never be a trilogy fight where one fighter literally demolishes the other fighter two different times, and that warrants a trilogy. Michael Chandler versus Patricie Pitbull 3 should never happen and if Bellator did offer Patrici Pitbull a fight against me

I would have turned it down. It would have been in my first fight in my entire life I would have turned down and he does not deserve to step in it back into the cage with me. Look at what happened the previous two times that we fought and look at what it has turned into

with his rivalry with his little brother Patricio because it was such a devastating knockout highlight of the year knockout. So I can't tell you whether or not the title shot was offered to Patrici or Patrici or Patricio. Now, I am a normal, level-headed person. If I was in their shoes, I would be a little bit tick too. If it was offered, if an interim title, five-round interim title was offered to

my brother and then offered to me, and then the bout agreement came across the table or came across the email, and it was different, now we have a different story. But at the end of the day, what does it really matter? You're not going to win the fight anyway, so who cares if the interim belt is on the line? And we don't necessarily need an interim belt, even though. offered an interim belt? I was not offered an interim belt. And now I'm fighting, which it's kind of interesting because now I'm fighting one of the staples of the lightweight division, Brandon Gertz, who's been in the lightweight

division now for the last, what, six, seven years, who is a 155 pounder. So if they're going to offer an interim title to anybody, why wouldn't it be, if they were going to do it for Patrici, but not for Patricio, but why? So why wouldn't they do it for the other 155 or Brandon Gertz? So the stories don't exactly line up either because the, you know, the, interim title could just as easily be offered on the line, me versus Brandon Gertz, but it's not happening. I'm fighting once again a fight that I have everything to lose and nothing to gain, just like I do every single time to start in the cage most of the time.

Well, here's the weird thing. I mean, just this is the weirdest part of it all. You're saying you're not offered an interim title fight. He's saying he is, or his brother was, but he wasn't, why would they offer the brother and not you the interim title fight? And Belter doesn't have a history of offering interim title fights. And from what I understand from the conversation I had, there was no interim title fight. So where there's a disconnect here? Yeah, there's a disconnect area. People say whatever they want.

Have you not seen what we're doing here these days? I mean, this is all a big soap opera and this is all, all once again, an easy smoke and mirror screen to show everybody that I wanted to fight. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to behead him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they didn't come to terms. Okay, yes, no, Bellator never does interim title fights. When I do finally get the title when Brent Primus finally just goes out into the wilderness of Oregon up there and we never hear from him again. And that belt is stripped from him.

Then it will be an interim title. But it's probably going to be six, eight months from now. Who knows how long it's going to be? He's injured. And I don't think he's ever going to fight. But Bellator has not ever had, it's been less than a year. I lost the title to Brent Pramis in June, which was what, eight months ago, nine months ago. it hasn't even been a full year yet. They're not going to do an interim title. Belator doesn't do

interim titles that often unless it's a severe case. And they don't do five round main events because that's just what they do. That's not in their business model. That's not what they do. And they're not going to start now. So shame on you, Patricio for blaming it on Ariel for spreading lies. If anybody said anything here, it's me. You haven't done anything. It's me. I'm telling everybody with my side of the story. My side of the story is always the truth because I have nothing to hide by. So I don't want to spring this upon you, Michael, and you have every right to say thanks, but no thanks. But we did call Patricia right now, and he is on the line. Are you okay with me bringing him on right now? Sure, let's see what she has to say.

Okay. Patricio, are you there? Patricio, are you there? He's running. He's running again. He hung, hey, for the record, Michael. He's running. My guy in Yorker called him the first time. He picked up, and then he hung up, and he just told him. me he hung up again? I would too. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? If you're hiding behind all these

lies and the last thing you want to do in the entire world is fight Michael Chandler? What is going on? This is... I took exception to the fact that he said that I was spreading lies. I don't want to be a lie spreader. Never lied, ever.

Well, this is crazy. This is madness. Does Brandon Gertz while we try... All right, well, I don't think we're going to get him. A real fighter, Brandon Gertz. These other two schmucks we keep talking about will probably never fight me. It's not a big deal.

Whatever. They can choose to say no to these fights. Brandon Gertz stepped up on four weeks notice. He's a real fighter. He's a warrior and he's a dangerous guy. Once again, I'm stepping into the cage, short notice, change of opponent, trying to bring what I bring to the cage every single time,

step into the cage April 13th for the St. Louis crowd. Considering all this drama, does Brandon Gertz, I mean, you're a professional, so I feel like you walk into a cage. You're 100% focused. But does he get the blood flowing like the premise rematch or the Patriciao fight that you still feel motivate? You still feel good. Yeah, because the crazy thing is, and I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, I've been put in numerous situations where I have nothing to gain and everything to lose, right?

He's not ranked as high as me. He's got, doesn't have that great record. and he's a scary guy to fight, but not a lot of people know who he is, you know. But the real fighters know. The real people know. I've been around the guy. I've seen him train and watched his fights.

I'm a fan of his fighting style, which speaks volumes. The guy's a warrior. The guy's not afraid to step up. So it's once again a scary, another scary tied onto a tornado, crazy scenario where I have to step into the cage against another man who wants to take my head off

with not a lot to gain, with a very short notice, switching up from fourth, to South Paul, going from one guy who doesn't have any wrestling to another guy who has a lot of great wrestling in Brandon Gertz. And, you know, game plans change and everything changes. But at the end of the day, that's what me and Henry Hoof down here have been talking so much about. It doesn't matter who you're fighting and where you're fighting on whether they're orthodox or whether they're South Paul. I have to focus on myself.

I have to focus on my training. I have to focus on my game plan and what's going to get me the win, what's going to get me to put me in the best situation possible to succeed. and Brandon Gertz is a scary guy. He goes out there, he throws leather, he's got a great gas tank, he's strong, he's got great wrestling. It's a dangerous fight. So once again, it doesn't matter if I'm fighting Brandon Gertz, Prattrimus, Patricio Pitbull, Patrici Pitbull, Benson, every single one of those people have a chance to take my head off and knock me down another peg, and that messes with my wife, my family, my son, my ability to

create a legacy, my ability to create a platform and leave a legacy on this sport as well as provide for my two most prize possessions back home in Nashville, Tennessee. So I take every single, every single opportunity to fight no matter who it is, the same. I don't know what's going on over here, but he continues to tweet me, by the way. I'm sure you're enjoying this very much. He said, I have a screenshot of the conversation. Are you calling me a liar? Ariel Hawani, I can show to you, and is Chandler forgetting he fought Brooks for an interim title? Call again, Ariel Hawani. I'm picking up the phone. I'm not the one turning it down. I'm not hanging up. But my guy keeps calling him, and it's not going through.

So I don't know what to do here. Well, sometimes you just got to let bygone, be bygones. You can lead a hole in water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead a little chihuahua to water, but he's just going to keep chirping and keep biting, keep barking. You know, that's what happens. It's all bark.

It's no bite. I'm not going to hurt him by being on this call with him. There's no way I can actually physically get my hands on him and strangling him like I've done to his brother twice. And I get it. If I grew up with a brother that was, bigger than me and better looking than me and got the chicks and he was better at everything to me and that hero of mine got absolutely trashed on national television and literally got his Mario

his Mario and Luigi mustache knocked into the third road third row at the St. Louis Scott Trade Center I would never fight the man that he fought either. I would never in a million years do it so I don't fault him for not wanting to fight me it's not that big of a deal we're good okay let's try this I think he's here can we try this one more time Michael and I appreciate your patience here we go. Patricia, are you there? Okay. Can you speak his role, please? I'm going to learn English here. Okay. Is this Patricia Pipple? Right.

Is this Patricia Pipple? Yeah, it's me. Okay, this is Ariel Hawani. Michael Chandler is here. Could you tell us your side of the story? I don't know if you have a translator there. You know, I know this is last minute and I appreciate you doing it. I am alone right now, but I have what you to say. Michael Chandler, stop lying. You are a motherfucker.

Stop talk shit. I am here, man. Fight everyone. You are shit, you know? You're in Brazil. You're in Brazil. You're in a set to fight. You are lying.

I'm here. Patricia, were you offered a fight against Michael Chandler on April 13th? And if so, why is it not happening? They said, but the doctor told me you're going to fight for the E. title. But when the contract was in my hand, it was different.

It's for three rounds. And I said, no, I'm world champion. I need to fight for five rounds. And then it didn't happen. But Michael's saying he wasn't offered an interim title fight. They said it to my brother, and my body's earth.

And I said, you brought away, my brother's earth again. I'm satisfied. You know? and thought okay I offend you the contract

but when it comes to me it was different do you want to fight Michael Chandler yeah fuck yeah

so why not why not just fight him three rounds it was offer why not just do the fight oh I am the champion this is like five rounds

we need to get Scott Coker on the phone here and make this a title fight in the world makes you think that you would ever have a chance of beating me in the fourth and fifth round. You're going to fade after 11 minutes. You're going to lay on your back and get your face beat in after eight minutes.

So why would you ever worry about five round fights, seven round fights, two round fights, three rounds, fights. Who cares how many rounds it is? If you're a real fighter, you step up, you sign the bout agreement. That's it. That's it. That's all there is to it. Everybody can talk all they want until you sign the bout agreement.

Zip it. Anything you want to say to that, Patricio? He was talking. What's that? Who was talking? That's Michael. That's Michael. Yeah, that's Michael Chandler, not me. That's Michael Chandler talking.

Hey, man, I don't have people fight with you. I want a war I catch you, you know? Two, three rounds. There's no war past the third round. You're not going to make it past the third ground. Look what happened to your sister. Stop up shit, man. Stop back to you.

You're not, I have you to fight, man. It's not supposed to throw it. Like 15 minutes, it's nothing. You will be humiliated for me. You will see. By my world. You're such a joke. You're not going to do 15 in 15 minutes.

All right. Goodness. Stop right. That's good. Hang the phone up, you little dork. Patricio, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you for, for. clearing the air on your end. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Good job, buddy. Yeah, you're right. Good. Good luck. Pack of lunch. Michael, I appreciate you being a good sport about this and sticking around a little longer. I think we accomplished a lot here. That wasn't even him. Patricio Pippel would never talk to me like that. That wasn't even him. That was his translator. That was one of his training partners. He would never talk to me like that. You think he would talk worse or better? Oh, he would never say those things.

He had to find him. Well, actually, he's okay. It's all good. We're on the phone lines here. He's down in South Island, Brazil. I can't dismantle his face. And by the way, for the record, your manager, Dave Martin, the great Dave Martin, even texting me,

reaffirming your stance that you guys were never offered an interim title fight. So the saga continues here. Yeah. So we will see. We will see, and I appreciate Dave for obviously the crazy thing is shout out to all the good MMA managers out there who get phone calls at 10 p.m. 11 p.m. They got their families. They're trying to figure out their own life and all their all their different athletes. And we got, you got part-time fighters pulling out of fights and then people accepting fights and not taking

fights, not signing bout agreements. Dave has been nothing but amazing from sunup to sundown to 12 midnight taking care of his fighters, as you well know. So I mean, I think that's something that that is to be admired in this sport. And I thank God that I have an amazing manager who can navigate and negotiate through this crazy, crazy sport of mixed martial arts. Amen to that. Thank you for doing this, Mike. April 13th, it's not Brent Primus. It's not Patricia Pitbull. It's not Patricio Pitbull. It's not Patrici Pitbull. It's Brandon Gertz. He's a tough-ass opponent. You've got a tough fight on your hands. You're fighting in your home state. Why the heck not? Beltor 197 on Paramount Network. Thanks for being a good sport. And the saga continues. Let's see what

happens next. It continues. Mark my words, Brandon Gertz will show up because he's a real fighter, and I appreciate him stepping up and actually taking this fight. So I'll see you all April 13th.

Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it very much. There he is. Michael Chandler, that was fun. Wow. How about that? Back and forth, we went,

and I'm still, I'd love to, we'll check him with Beltor. How about that? We'll get to the bottom of this one. For now, though, let us move along because our next guest has been very patient today.

He is one of the rising stars in the UFC's heavyweight division. He is the pride of Australia. He is the man who will be fighting Andre Arlowski at UFC 225 on June 9th in Chicago, Illinois. He is the big man, Tai Tuyvasa, and he's joining us right now via the Magic of Skype.

There he is. Ty, how are you? I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting, but we had all kinds of drama here on the show. I know it's very early, so my sincerest apologies. All good, bye, all good. It's good to talk to you.

Wow, this is very exciting. So, you're not that deep into your career, but here you are just a few months away from fighting a legend, the former heavyweight champion, your first fighting in the United States, UFC 225. Is this happening a little sooner than you expected? Yes, no. I was expected of, I was expecting to fight in America.

I was just very fortunate that my first two fights were on home soil, so it's good for me. How do you feel about fighting in America? you know, the opportunity to get on a big stage, pay-per-view there, what's going to be a big card? Do you feel like it's time for you to move away from Australia? All your fights have taken place in Australia.

Do you feel like this is the right time? I'm sure I'll be fine fighting anywhere. That doesn't really bother me. Just it's good for me now. I think it's time for me to step up, and especially against a good opponent, that's for sure. When you got the call about Andrei Arlowski, what did you think?

I mean, this is a legend of the sport. What was your reaction? Yeah, that's pretty mad. I get to fight someone with a big name. Do you feel like he's on your level? Oh, he's awesome. You know, he's been around for a long time. He's an ex-champ.

But I think it's, yeah, I think it's my time now, and it's time for me to step up. Okay, so we have a lot to discuss about your last fight. First of all, everything from the fight itself, the performance, the post-fight celebration, in and out of the cage, it was all great stuff. But I've been dying to ask you about the shooey because the shooey is something that has been on my mind

ever since you pulled it off in Perth. You are literally drinking, what is that? What is that particular time? What was that? Was that beer? I think it was Jim Bean. Jim. In a shoe.

Whose shoe was that? I got no idea. I just likes to one of the, one of them. One of the people in the crowd for their shoe. And I took his drink too, so he probably, it's like, oh, shit, I come to the UFC to get robbed by one of the fathers. Oh, my God. So you didn't know this individual. You take their drink.

You take their shoe. You drink out of it. What does that taste like? I mean, it can't taste like you're drinking out of a cup, right? There's got to be some other factors involved that change the taste. It's better. It tastes better. It tastes better.

Why better? Yeah. You never done one? I never done one. No, I have not done one. I haven't had the pleasure. I'd love to do one one day. Perhaps with you,

maybe in Chicago we could do it, but no, I've never had the pleasure. Well, if you're in Chicago, I'm sure we can get down and get on a few shooys. How long have you been doing the shooey? It's pretty,

it's really normal over here in Australia. But, yeah, probably as long as I've been drinking. Wow. When you say it's normal, is it normal to do it with your own shoe or with a stranger's shoe? You usually use a stranger's shoe. Why? Why can't it be your own shoe at least?

If you're going to be like, you know, drinking out of a shoe, might as well be your own shoe. It's better out of someone else's. That was actually a real timid shoey. You would usually get everyone to spin in it and then you would... What? And then you would do it Stop it You're not being serious

Spitting it I'm being dead sick Yeah Why? That's the worst thing I've ever heard of my life Welcome to Australia Spitting it Jeez Louise

Think about the germs You've had You've consumed an alcoholic beverage Out of a shoe That people have spit in On a regular basis? When was the last time? Not sure.

My after party, after the fart, I think I did. Few, too many. How many people are usually spitting in it, typically? Well, it depends who's there. Sure. But, like, what's the most amount of people that you've had? Oh, my gosh. That is horrible.

Yeah, I've had it. Do you spit in it as well? or is that just crazy? Yeah. Okay, you do that. We'll do one. We'll do one when I... Yeah, there's no spit.

I draw the line at the spitting. I draw the line at the shoe, and the spitting is just... A lot of my American friends draw the line at the spitting. Yeah, the spitting is just... Have you ever done a shooey with Mark Hunt? Yeah, he did one after my father.

Oh, my Lord, that is something. I can't get over that. That is just unbelievable. You used to be a rugby league player, correct? Correct. And the story that I read was that one night you gambled away $20,000 and then you said that was it for me. I'm done with this. Yeah, that was probably just the tipping point.

You know, I was living away from home. I was away from my friends and family. And I think that was just the last point for me. then I had to be back home around my friends and family. How big of a problem was gambling for you? I suppose it was a problem, but it was more just a thing to do, you know, not being around any friends or family. It was just something for me to do.

So probably not the best thing to do, but, you know, we go to film stages. And what were you doing? What were you gambling on? everything there wasn't one particular wasn't one particular thing that you were focusing on mainly probably poker machines

okay okay and what does you know kicking the gambling habit have to do with walking away from rugby why did you have to do both I think it was just the I think it was just the point where I just had enough and I

decided from that down I was like I reckon I make it in fighting. So I gave it a crack. Did you have any experience in martial arts prior to that? Yeah, yeah. I was fighting and playing football at the same time. So I had my first fight at like 17, so I was still playing football and fighting.

Was that something that you always thought, okay, I'm going to do this after my career, it just happened sooner? I think football started. They're bringing a few rules where they just tried to like. if you fought you got in big trouble on the field and stuff so i was like uh it was just i think it was just good timing okay and i always like i always like punching people more than than uh running over um was mark hunt one of the guys that you grew up watching did you look up to him yeah yeah for sure um mark hunt and uh ray sepull was probably one of

as as a you know as an islander kid i think that's the first of fight we all get to see and I think I saw that fight when I was a bit younger I was like damn that's that's hard that's what I want to be remembered for something like that when did you first meet mark I was like I before he's a big foot kit they called me to um see if I wanted to um help him out and ever since then we just we've always stuck together wow um it was that surreal for you at first to be a part of the camp of a guy that you look up to? Oh, it was crazy. I was like, my trainer's like,

oh, you want to go to New Zealand and spy with Mark? And I was like, you're jean up. So, yeah, then it all happened. And then, yeah, it kind of just went from there. It's amazing. And what's it like being around him? Well, now it's pretty normal. Yeah.

Like, but yeah, we just keep back. It's nothing. you know. But yeah, it's been an awesome experience and probably, you know, boosted me up pretty quick. It feels like there's this influx of young Australian talent, of course. Robert Whitaker is the champion, but there's you, there's Tyson Pedro, there's Jake Matthews, a lot of them, a lot of the Australian talent

was on hand at the Perth event. Do you feel like Mark Hunt, like in Canada, where I'm from, there's a famous hockey goalie named Patrick Wah, who was great in the 90s, and then as a result, all these young goalies came up from Quebec, where I'm from. Do you feel like Mark Hunt,

like his presence almost like spawned this young generation that you guys watched him as a kid and said, I want to be like that guy, and as a result, there's all these great fighters now. Like, is he directly related to the influx of young Australian fighters now? I don't know.

That was pretty full on. You didn't think of it on that level? I think just because I think we're so far behind. I don't think the world really realizes that over this side of the world. We're pretty behind on the fighting kind of scene. So I think it's just, I think it's just up to ask the people who, you know, who got the foot in the door, I think we're all that are saying that, you know, we're changing it up.

You know, everyone's getting into MMA now over here. So it's been good. I think there's a long way for us. to go, but it's been good. How much do you, like, weight-wise, how much do you weigh when you walk around? Like right now, how much you weigh around? About 132. Kilograms, right?

Yeah. I have to translate that because I don't, okay, that's 291. Pounds. I've gotten a lot of idea about pounds, yeah. What's the biggest you've ever been? The biggest? Yeah. 158, I got two.

When you were, that's 348, by the way, for those in America. Was that when you were a rugby player? No, that was when I was chewing and doing nothing. How long ago was that? Probably over two years ago. Probably went for a bit of a patch where I went out of hand and got fat. Fatter.

That's not that long ago. Two years ago, that's not that long ago. That's in the midst of your MMA career. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been up and down on this journey. Why did you allow yourself to get so big? Like, were you down about something? Probably just, it was probably longer than two years ago, maybe.

But now I was just, I think I just had gay football out. I was fighting. I had a couple fights and then I had a rest and broke my hand. So that kind of put me out. All different, all different shit. Right, right, right. But then you got back on track? You are back now and you're killing it.

You've never gone past the first round in your seven pro fights. All the finishes, KOT, K.O. Does a part of you want to show people what you can do in the second and third? Or are you happy with letting this streak of first round finishes go as long as possible? Well, that's what I say to people. Everyone asks me, like, you're going to go out there to finish it first round. I don't go out there intending to finish it in the first round. It just seems to happen.

And if I see someone hurt or rock, I just jump on it and I capitalize on that's all. Yeah, like the flying knee. That was something else. For a guy your size to finish like that? Bad boys can fly too. Is that something that you actually work on or were you just sort of capitalizing in the moment? No, I've never really done a fly knee, but it looked good. Yeah, it did look good. It looked very good.

And the post-fight celebration, the way you get jiggy with it is great. Is that something you work on as well, or is just kind of how you're feeling in the moment? That's just when I'm moving, you know, when I'm moving, you know. And your, let me get this right, are you married to Tyson Pedro's sister or is he married to your sister? I'm with his sister. So I've got a kid to his sister, yeah. Oh, wow. And so you met Tyson through his sister?

No, no, no. We've known each other for a long time. Yeah, I ended up with his sister. Wow. And now you have a podcast together. You're both a podcast host, right? The Halfcast podcast. Yeah, we do.

The Halfcast podcast. Check it out. It's great. It's great. It's really. It's pretty funny. you know, I didn't... Yeah, yeah.

He's come on. We've had a few guests, so... It's actually going pretty good. I never thought people sat around it and actually watch that, but I'm learning a lot. Yes, I made a whole living. Scott for, too. Yeah, I've never used Skype before ever, but, you know, we learn it every day, Randy. Every day.

Now you could do interviews on your show via Skype, like this one. I don't know how to, but it sounds good. Whose idea was that? Was that yours or Tyson's idea to do that? That's Tice. Tyson is very smart. He's a smart guy. And he was just like,

because I was just saying, we always just sit around and talk shit all the time. And he was like, well, we should make a show. And it's like, you're kind of crazy. No one's going to sit there

and watch us talk shit. Yeah. And then now I'd just get messages nonstop saying that they love it. It's great. I suppose it's pretty good. I've watched it. And I got to say, the production value is very good.

I mean, you guys do a really nice job. Thanks. It's hard in there, but my back shit. No, no, no. By the way, happy birthday to you. I know you just celebrated your birthday, right? Thank you. How did we celebrate?

Were any shooies involved? I think I was with the fan. Oh, actually, I went to, what did I do? I don't remember now. It was good. I had a big weekend. I actually went to Ed Shearing concert in Bruno Mars. Wow.

That's fun. So I had a really good weekend. Yeah. I understand, you know, you see them all the time. Yeah, of course. Those are legends in the pop world. I call your friend Mark Hunt. For many years, I've been calling him the KFC King because he loves the double down.

He loves that sandwich. But I understand you're a big KFC fan as well. Yeah, we love KFC over here. That's... But I also love Popeyes. When I went to America, I tried that. Yeah, yeah. Which is better?

That was good, too. Just buy both. By both, yeah. Daniel Cormier is a big Popeye. Probably Popeye. I like Pop-I. Wow. Yeah, I like Pop-Ox.

You don't have Popeyes in Australia? No, we don't have none of that. What do you like to get a KFC? Like, what's your go-to? there? Bucket. Like the chicken. I like the chicken.

Yeah, well, of course. I would imagine you like the chicken. But is it a certain kind of like a bucket, like a sandwich, a bucket? What do you get? Yeah, probably a bucket. I like Wicked wings too. You know the wing? No, I've never had those.

Oh, well, they're good too. What's the most amount? You make you feel fat now. I'm sorry? No, no. I just, I like talking. I know it's early over there. You ever go for breakfast at KFC?

Do they have breakfast? I'm about to head there right now One last thing about the shooey What's the go-to drink Is there like a standard drink Or you could put anything in there Yeah you would It would mainly be alcohol

But yeah of course But like is there a certain kind of alcohol I like my whiskey Okay It can be It can be whatever Whoever is doing it You know what I mean

I would love in Chicago If they have you Tyson And Mark on that card You know I like you guys as a threesome fighting on the same card. Any talks of that? It would be a good

freesome. Yeah. I think I'm the only one confirmed at the moment. Oh, all right. Hopefully, hopefully they get on it as well because it'd be really good. Yeah.

Well, this has been a lot of fun, Ty. I've really enjoyed talking to you for the first time, and I appreciate you waking up early to do this. All good, brother. Thanks for having me. Yes, and enjoy that KFC later on today, and I'm sorry for, you know, tempting you to have it. But it's just, it's fun to talk about. I enjoy talking to large men about their love of KFC.

And my cholesterol level. We won't worry about that for now. And the shooey, please. If you're going to do it, I can live with the idea of you drinking out of someone's shoe. But please stop with the spitting. I mean, the spitting is just a little too much. You'll spit or swallow. There we go.

Some of us do both. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Thank you, Ty. I appreciate it. Have a great day. All the best. There he is.

One and only, Tai Tuivasa. Wow, unbelievable. He likes to spit in shoes and swallow the contents of said shoes. Just, I mean, what a life over there in Australia that they're living.

Okay, that was interesting. KFC talk, a little shooy talk. Never. I mean, there is not enough money on this planet that you can give me to not only drink out of someone else's shoe, alcohol, which I don't like drinking, but, well, also drinking alcohol out to someone else's shoe that multiple people have spit in. I mean, that to me sounds like the worst form of torture known to man. What's worse than that? Nothing. Anyway, let's move along.

Great stuff from Ty, and he returns action on June 9th in Chicago. against Andre Arloffsky, big fight for him. Okay. Let's move along to our next guest now. What a performance out of him on Saturday, as they said. At the very top of the show, it was a very busy weekend in the world of mixed martial arts, and there was no Beltor, there was no UFC. However, organizations like LFA and Victa and one championship all had events. Cage Warriors had their Super Saturday show, and the man who was headlining it all

was named Nathaniel Wood, aka the Prospect. now 13 and 3. He won on Saturday in just 50 seconds. He won via knockout in one of the best knockouts of the year. He defeated Luca Eovine. And what was interesting about this was he was coming off, in my opinion, maybe the best first round of a title fight that we have seen since Paul Daly fought Nick Diaz many moons ago in San Diego, California. If you have not seen the first round, and it wasn't very long, it was just two minutes and 19 seconds. And maybe that's what we why it doesn't top the Nick Diaz fight because that one went almost the distance. But this fight against Josh Reed back in September of 2017, one of the best first rounds

in a title or non-title fight that I've ever seen. Back and forth, it went. It looked like Nathaniel Wood was on the verge of losing and then he was able to turn things around and win via TKO. He is the reigning defending Cage Warriors, Bantamway champion. There is a big push right now to get him into the UFC. In fact, Graham Boyle, Boylan, who's the promoter for Cage Warriors, even himself said afterwards that he'd like to see him in the UFC, which is not something that we often hear. A lot of you were asking to hear from him on the programming,

including his own coach, Brad Pickett. So let's make that happen. Let's go to the Magical Skype right now and say hello to the one and only Nathaniel Wood. There he is. Nathaniel, how are you? I'm very good, everyone. How are you? I'm doing great. You're right now in Brad Pickett's house, correct? Yes, I'm in Brad Pickett's man cave now. And I don't actually really know how to use Skype.

So he set it up for me. It's amazing. We're teaching everyone how to use Skype today. And I recognize those toys back there because Brad has joined us from that very room. By the way, I have to ask, have you ever had a shooey before? I have no idea what a shoe he is. Well, our previous guest, Tai Tui Vasa, says that he likes to drink out of another person's shoe, put alcohol in it, and have people spit in the shoe and then drink the whole thing. Can you believe this, that people actually do this?

Yeah, we don't do that over here, that's for sure. It sounds like the worst thing I've ever heard in my life, and I'm happy to hear in England they don't do that sort of thing. So you're back in London on Saturday. You're clearly the hometown guy. The whole place is packed. It's an amazing scene. It's at that venue where it's kind of raised up,

so it's like you guys are on the stage. It's just a great atmosphere. and it goes down like that. 52nd K.O. And what was so great about this KO, you knew it was over before Luca even fell to the mad. I know we're pretty much 48 hours removed.

But was that the greatest night of your career thus far, how it all came together? And there was no controversy or dramatic. It was just you going in there, doing your job, finishing your opponent in less than a minute. Yeah, it was an amazing feeling. You know, I was 100% confident that that's how it was going to go. I've said in a lot of interviews that how the last fight went, you know, it was very

back and forth. You know, the only intentions I had on Saturday was going in there and putting him out in dominant fashion and, you know, to get a knockout like that and for it to already go viral, you know, it's just, you know, it's another dream country. The experience against Josh Reed and we're taking a look at the finish right now. I love the way you react even before Luca falls to the mat. But the experience back in September, how it seemed like you were on the verge of losing the belt on the verge of getting finished and then coming back, of course. How has that changed you as a fighter, if at all?

I think after the Josh re-fight, you know, going into that fight, I was slightly over-trained, you know, and I had a very busy year. So, you know, since that fight, I've got to, you know, take a little step back and regain myself. And, you know, it was a little bit of a slight wake-up call,

you know, that, you know, these four-ounce gloves, you can't fall to get caught. And, you know, so my training, I've made sure that, you know, in the training that I'm doing now, I'm definitely not getting caught, you know. And, you know, Saturday that showed that, you know, the game plan went perfectly, exactly how we run it. And, you know, I wasn't in there to mess about this time.

You know, I was going in there to get the job done. And as they say, we don't get paid for overtime. So that's what I'm doing from now on. How often do people talk to you about that first round? Oh, you wouldn't believe it. So many people. I think I've repeated the amount of times I spoke about that fight. and, you know, it's deja vu every time someone speaks about it.

Are you sick of talking about it? I am to the average random person. You know, a lot of people just to say to me, oh, you're the guy in the yellow shorts, right? So, you know, talking to the random person, yeah, I'm sick and tired of it. But for you, Ariel, I can talk about it. It's not a problem for sure. Well, I'm just wondering if you're especially happy about Saturday because now there's a new thing to talk about, right? and it's just as viral, it's just as spectacular to watch.

Is that a nice byproduct of the way things went down for you on Saturday? Yeah, you know, as my coach Brad Pickett said, you know, he said that a win for me on Saturday was so important. So to turn around and get another viral knockout in such a dominant way, you know, is amazing. And, you know, it's a great feeling. And this time, you know, I'm not hearing anyone critique it and say, you know, the ref should have stopped it or this should have happened. You know, I've got a dominant win and without a doubt, you know, that it couldn't have gone better.

When did you first meet Brad? I first met Brad when he didn't even know who I was and I knew who he was about six years ago. I'd just give him a little, well, hey, Brad, and he just smiled and looked at me like a crazy fan. But it was actually about four years ago when I met him, we was doing some sparring and a teammate of mine invited Brad down, you know, and I got to know him. and fortunate enough for me, he moved five minutes around the house from mine. And he just said to me, you know, do you want to come and train with me at Team Titan? You know, get in the car and I'll drive you down there. So about four years ago, that was then.

And the rest is history, you know, and I honestly feel like I've known Brad all my life. Is like initially for someone who's, you know, talking to, Brad Pickett is a legend of UKMMA. Initially, you just reach out to him, but now he becomes a mentor and a coach and a friend. How long does it take to sort of get over the fact that, wow, this is Brad Pickett, and then he just becomes like a guy in your life now. But, you know, initially I would imagine it was somewhat surreal that you're being, you know, groomed by him, right? It was crazy, you know.

Where we travel to the gym, it's about an hour and a half. So, you know, I'm... Oh, there he's there trying to make me jump up. Oh, there he is. He's trying to steal the line, isn't it? Yes, that's right. You know, it's crazy. It was crazy. I see him on TV, and now I'm sitting in the car with him.

After listening to music and just talking a load of crap, you know, it was quite a surreal experience. But now, you know, it feels weird thinking who Brad actually is, and I always forget how big he actually is, you know, because to me, you know, he's family. I noticed at the beginning of the fight, and I believe we have the clip, right before you walk into the cage, he likes to slap you. And I've seen this. Yeah. Most notably in Japan, I know Antonio Inoki does this sort of thing. When did that start between you two? Well, it's actually something I've always done for my semi-pro days with my dad.

You know, I always like to get a good slap before I go in to wake me up and, you know, any nerves and jitters that you've got, you know, slap it out of you. And it was actually three fights ago. My dad turned around and said, look, I don't want to be in your corner anymore. He said, I want your other coaches to do that because he feels they offer more. and, you know, someone had to take the role, so I asked Brad. Wow. Yeah, I think he enjoys it. What was it like for you when your dad told you that,

when he said that he wanted you to go off on your own and not be in your corner anymore? It was slightly upsetting for me, you know, because he's been there the whole time, and he's still my coach now, you know, he still does pads and striking with me. And I would say that it's my dad who I've learned most of my stuff from. but I could see where he was coming from he doesn't do as much as we used to with me now so a lot of the time I'm spending time with other guys and I could only have free cornermen

so for him he said look I want to take a step back and let your jiu-jitsu coach your other head coach etc take over so for me it was slightly upsetting but he was adamant that that's what was best for me so for my dad to do that you know I I respected his decision and you know he happily took a step back and let the other guys take over.

And it just meant that someone had to take over the slap. And as I say, I think Brad really enjoys that at the moment. And, you know, any times I annoy him, I think he just thinks when it comes fire day, I'm giving you an extra slap for that. Was your father in attendance on Saturday? Was he there watching? Yes, he was there. And he actually cornered me for this one.

Oh. Unfortunately, one of my other women couldn't make it. So, you know, it was nice to have him in the corner and celebrate the victory. But, you know, regardless, I've always made sure that since he's taken that step back, he always walks out with us, you know, so he is still technically there and he still gets to celebrate with me in the cage. He just unfortunately can't sit in the actual cornerman section where the other three corner mill would be sitting.

What is it like for a Londoner to go out there in front of his own people and hear them chant for you like that and have that reaction for you? and then, you know, to walk out with the flag and then deliver for them and then the reaction afterwards and the UFC chants. I mean, very few people on this planet get to experience something like that. What does that like for you? It's amazing, you know, it's a lot of them, a lot of them support I have in there. They're close friends and family, you know, we're a very tight community and, you know,

they've got my back and I've got theirs and the support that I've received from them is amazing. You know, I honestly couldn't. I have to pinch myself when I look back and see the UFC chance at the end of that fight. That was probably the best experience in my career so far to date with these. So what was interesting about it was right after the fight, you went to sort of the side setup. Dan Hardy was there, Graham Boylan was there, and it's somewhat unique to see Graham, who's the CEO of the company, the head promoters, say that he thinks that you should be in. the UFC. So here's a guy who is, you know, obviously doing good business with you on the roster.

And I know he's a manager as well, but I thought that that was very interesting. Do you agree that it's time for you to go to the UFC? Do you feel like you're ready for the UFC? Ariel, I think I've been ready for the UFC for the last two and a half years, you know, but it's actually now that I've got the, I can now say, you know, I deserve it with how my record's gone, you know, how my wins have been, you know, I think I'm more than ready to now, And I think right now I'm ready to go and then at the moment with the top 10, you know, and for Graham to back that, you know, to me it makes sense, you know. He knows it's the truth and I think a lot of the people know it's the truth.

But, you know, Cage Warriors is a great promotion for me to be with and I honestly think that they do have fighters' best interests, you know. So for Graham to say that he thinks I'm ready for the UFC, you know, I think that speaks for itself. One thing that I really appreciate from you is because I've read you, you know, you've said this before, you're not going to beg. You don't like to see guys beg. You don't want to go out there on Twitter and do the whole like, get me into the UFC. There is something, and I understand why people do it, but it's a little bit off-putting to see, you know, grown men and women beg for an opportunity. Usually an opportunity comes when you deserve it and you want them to recognize you and sign you.

Why do you feel so strongly against maybe some of the methods that we've seen in the past from other fighters. I think it's a confidence thing. I believe that I'm, I'm ready for the UFC and I'll be in the UFC. So I don't need to beg. You know, I know they'll come to me. And if they don't, it's their loss at the moment, you know, whereas I think a lot of fighters, they're begging to get into the UFC because that's, that's their way in. But for me, my fighting does the talking. You know, and I know that if the UFC doesn't come, then I'll knock another guy out until they eventually do come. So, you know, the need to beg it, you know, I'll never beg any man for anything. That being said, will you be disappointed if your next fight isn't in the UFC?

I won't be disappointed because I know I'm eventually going to get there. You know, for me, what Cajorers do very well is they promote me very well. You know, I'm a big fish in a little pond. So when I know, when I get to the UFC, I know that straight away, you know, I'm not going to be a big fish and, you know, I won't necessarily get the best promotions from the start. So for me, every fight that I have outside the UFC just means that I'm going to get even bigger and I'm going to grow even more so that when I do get to the UFC, you know, I'm going to be an even bigger name and in the long run it will be better for me. So, you know, I'm confident that I'll have as many fights as I need to get there and eventually when I do, I'll be an even bigger

start. I was wondering at the beginning of the show, your nickname is the prospect. Um, that can, I mean, if you become UFC champion, you can't be known as the prospect anymore, right? I mean, that nickname has an expiration date. Eventually, I said when I become UFC champion, I'll have to change it. But then even Brad said, but then you can become pound for pound number one. And there's always that next stage. So, you know, at the moment, I've branded myself very well with it and, you know, and I like it. So I think it might have to stick.

But you're right, you know, eventually I may have to come up with another nickname. but, you know, definitely for now it's sticking with me. Who gave you that nickname? It was my dad that gave it to me, and it was actually before I even had my first semi-pro fight. Wow, so why do you give it to you? You know, he knew I was the prospects. That's literally it.

He knew. That's amazing. He knew that you were going to turn it. He was okay. He pushed you to do this. Yeah, my dad's been in martial arts for all his life, and it was him that actually, actually got me into it. You know, I said to my dad, look, I really don't want to do building for

living. I didn't, I, since I left school, I went straight into carpentry and, you know, I didn't enjoy it. And for me, it's always been a dream to do a sport. And there's not many sports out there that you can start at the age of 16 and pursue a career. And my dad was currently doing jiu-jitsu with Jimmy Manoa and a few other MMA guys, you know, and at the time, I was a big UFC fan and I went along and I was like a duck to water and so because of my dad he gave me the money

to pay the monthly memberships and he made it affordable for me to achieve my dream so for that I'm forever grateful for him By the way right after your fight at the beginning of the post fight interview you gave a shout out to someone who passed away but I couldn't really

understand what you were saying could you clear that up? Yeah it's a lovely lady that was taken from us the other day. Marina Pappas, she's my head coach's wife. She was battling with cancer and unfortunately passed away last week, which is why he couldn't call to me. So I just wanted to kind of pay my respects to her.

He was in the crowd and he did come in the cage after the fight, and it was quite emotional. But, you know, I got that win for her and I honestly think that she was looking down on us and she was with us that night. Wow, well, I'm very sorry to hear about that for you and your coach as well. You know, I know there's a push to see you fight Jack Short. I know he fought on the card.

What did you make of his performance? Have you seen it? I didn't backstage. We did have a TV on, you know, and I saw bits of the fight as I was warming up myself. If I'm honest, Ariel, he's not on my level. I respect him and I actually really like him, you know, and I like his dad as well. Richard, you know, I shook their hands and stuff and I met them on Saturday.

But, you know, if I'm honestly, they're not on my level. You know, I honestly think that the only guys that are on my level are the top guys in the UFC. So, you know, for me, I don't really take much notice of it as far as getting matched with him. But, you know, I always say I don't turn anyone down. And if that's some cage warriors would like to set me up with to fight, let's bring it on, let's get it going.

Let's say you're assigned to the UFC and you have the pick of the litter for your debut and you think that you're a top 10 guy, what's the dream scenario for your first fight in the UFC? Well, before we started this interview, Brad actually gave me a list. Do you want to see the list? I'd love to see the list.

Wow, look at that. Marlon Vera, Uriah Fabor, Uriel Cantara, Thomas Almeida, Hennon, Hennon, Berow, Eddie Weinlin, Enrique Breonna. So are we moving backwards here? Wait, that's Brad's hit list. I was like, these guys all, something in common, yes. Yeah, we want us a bit of revenge.

He's giving me that list and, you know, I'll do what coach says. But no, if I'm honest, you know, I would take anyone they offered me in the UFC. I look today at the top rankings and I don't think it's until you get to number 18. They're all American fighters and Brazilian fighters. where's the English guys, you know? I believe I'm ranked number one in England now. So, you know, since Brad has retired, you know, I feel like he's passed that tool drawn to me

and someone needs to go there and tear the division up and I honestly believe that's me. You know, we've got a new wave of guys coming from England now. We've got Darren Till taking over the Worldweight Division and I believe I'm the guy to do it at Bantamweight. So, you know, as I say, I'm just waiting for my opportunity. But when it comes, you know, top 10, top five, or whoever the UFC would want to give me,

I would take them on and I'm confident that I would finish him. I love this idea of Brad turning you into this sort of cyborg to go after all the guys who beat him. That's a great story. Like you're going to program you as his own personal robot. I love that. By the way, UFC going back to England in May, is that a dream scenario for you to fight in Liverpool?

I know that it's not London, but to fight in your home country and your UFC debut, would you like that or is that too soon? that would be amazing I feel like that's destiny because with the fight on Saturday I came out uninjured unscratched

if that's not a sign that I can fight in nine weeks time I don't know what is I'd have a week off this week I'll binge have some cake you know enjoy life for a week then I've got eight weeks to prepare you know I'm in shape now

it would be the perfect scenario right before summer you know make my UFC debut that would be a dream come true and in England you know I couldn't ask for a better scenario.

Yeah, the scene right now, as far as the guys that we talked about in Liverpool, you know, young fighters like you in London, it's just amazing what's going on in European and specifically UKMMA. Graham, by the way, tweeted earlier today that he was asking the people, which is the bigger fight, you versus Jack Shore or you versus Patty Pimbleau at 145? He said, all have the capabilities of being two division champions. Either one would be the biggest fight in Europe right now. Do you have a preference and do you agree with him as far?

is it being the biggest fight in Europe? I don't have a preference. You know, I know I've always said that I'll fight 145 or 135 either or without a problem. I did actually call for the 145 strap after I won the 135er. But since then, you know, my coaches, they've said they want me staying at Bantamweight. And, you know, I've sorted my weight cuts out now.

So Bandonweight really isn't a problem for me to make. You know, so I know that my coaches, they don't want me moving upper weight. They say there's no need. You know, you're the champ at 135. You stay there. Why do you need to go up? For me, you know, as I always say, I don't care.

I want the big fights and I want whatever's going to get me paid the most money. So, you know, if that was against Paddy, so be it. But either one, I see an easy fight for me. I love it. Nathaniel, congratulations on all your success. It's been really fun watching you as of late. And that fight from September, one of the best rounds of the year. Like I said, one of the best rounds that have ever seen for, you know,

a title fight, first round of a title fight, just phenomenal stuff. And then the knockout on Saturday, there were a lot of big performances, I thought, none bigger than yours this past weekend. So congratulations on the win on Saturday, on all your success. And I do hope that the UFC comes calling very soon because I do believe as well that you deserve to be there. Thank you very much. It means a lot. And thanks for having me on the show. You know, that's one off the bucket list. Awesome.

Pleasure is ours. We'll talk to you very soon. And again, congrats. Enjoy the victory. Thank you very much. All right, there he is. Nathaniel Wood, the prospect. And thank you very much to Brad Pickett, who's right over there hugging Nathaniel Wood, for helping us set that up.

So how about this? Some more tweets. So we reached out to Scott Coker via their PR. And I thought that, okay, here we have a situation. I can't get over the situation between Pitbull and Chandler. Here we have a situation where one individual is saying that he was offered an intermedent. title fight and then the bout agreement said no interim title fight so he said thanks but no thanks and then we have another guy michael chanler who's saying i was never offered an interim title fight against

anyone and his manager is backing that up so i said to new york rick call scott cocker and let's get the final word on this situation unfortunately he's unable for some reason i wasn't given a i wasn't really given any kind of reason here but i'm told that he cannot join the show so that being said Patricia Pipple did tweet me that he sent me a surprise on Instagram, excuse me, on WhatsApp, okay, well he sent me, I can't,

let's bring in New York, Rick, here for a second, can we bring him in? Is he show ready, makeup, wardrobe? There he is. Hello, what happened, New York, Rick? I said, go call, nice shirt, by the way, unbox therapy, the man. Thank you. What happened? Tell us what happened.

You said, go get, Pitbull called them He said hello Hung up Oh we're starting at the beginning here Okay, okay, tell us the whole thing I was talking about the Coker part I mean it's it's you already outlined it

Contacted, I want to come Why? Why can't he come and clear the air? He's in meetings, man Can't do it What's more important than coming on for five minutes To clear up this massive controversy Involving two of their biggest stars Whatever meetings he in? He's in

Come on. Let's step aside You agree that this is a misoperative opportunity. Who knows? This may be the start of something, and there could be an opportunity down the line. Well, he just sent me a screen grab. It's not... Who's this? Pipple? Yeah, Pipple. Of a couple conversations, but I can't, he said it's not for public consumption, so I can't really do much with it right now. But that was him, right? It was definitely him. What do you make of the whole situation? One guy is saying, I was offered an interim title fight, but it didn't actually say that on the contract, so I said, thanks, but no thanks. And then the other

guy says I was never offered the interim title fight. Proof is in the pudding, right? We've got to see the contract. We've got to see what the deal was. Yeah. Or speak to head honcho, Scott Coker. Where's Scott? Should I just call him up right now? Sure. When on? Let's see here. I'm going to text him on the air.

Well, that was fun, right? It was good. I wish we were able to hold on to him the first time we got him. What do you think happened there? bad connection. You think it was bad connection? Look, I got to take somebody for their word. Okay, I'm just saying,

uh, that was me, Michael, this is great. That was me, Michael Chandler. That was my phone number. That was my voice.

I'm learning English, you fucking idiot. Check any of my interviews. And then he says, check your WhatsApp. And then someone tweeted, and then he retweeted, Hey, Ariel Hawani,

why do you guys keep giving airtime to Chandler, who lies constantly and not equal airtime to his opponents? What are you talking about? we had premise on, not that long ago. All kinds of accusations I mean, we tried to bring people on and we were successful. Yeah. I mean, he's not

fighting. Anyway, they're saying they're saying it's not happening. All right, well, look, we're trying. Do you not take my word for it? No, but I just wanted to give it the old college try. We're trying to get people emotionally invested in Bellator fights and balls are being dropped here.

Which actually leads us to our question of the day, but we'll get to that in a second. For now, let us reset live. Twitter.com slash MMA fighting that does it

for this portion of the show. In a matter of moments we're going to go exclusively over to Twitter

you know the drill by now again live. com slash MMA fighting. That's where

you need to go. Boom. The MMA after hour. Ricks picks your questions your comments there's so much

going on in the world of MMA. All the drama at Walterway new fights being added by the second

all the action this past weekend Gary Tonin MMA debut, Frankie Edgar's, quick return. Oh, there's the dots.

Scott Coker's writing. Dots on my text. Here it goes. Come on. Anyway. Oh, yes. Wait. Thoughts are back.

Oh, says he's in the card. It doesn't matter. Okay. Hey, he said call him. Who gets things done around here? Who gets things done around here? Come on, New York.

Who gets things done around here? Call him right now. Scott Coker, everyone. About to join us. He is going to clear the air. Spread the word. I'm alerting the masses. Okay.

Scott Coker, President of Belator. New York, Rick, I said, reach out to the people. You know, go about it the right way. Go through the proper channels. Reach out, right? Turned out. Oh, there he is.

Scott Coker, are you there? Speaking. Wow. Scott, I got to say. What a mention you are, Scott. I asked my people, I said, hey, can we get Scott on the phone? We need to clear something up. We've had a lot of drama on the show today, and there's only one man who can clear this up,

and it's Scott Coker. And I'm told, Scott Coker said no. And I said, you know what? I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. So I'm going to reach out to you live on the air, and here you are, as always, reliable as ever. You show up.

Great. Put me on the spot. Okay. So you have no idea what I'm about to ask you? No, I have no idea. Let me fill you in, Scott, because we've had quite the show. today. We've talked all kinds of Bellator stuff. We had Benson Henderson on. We had James Galaher

on, but then we had Michael Chandler on. And this is where things got really interesting. Okay, so Michael Chandler's on, he's all fired up. He's calling Brent Primus a part-time fighter. He's very upset. And then we get to Patricia Pitbull, okay? The Pitbull brother, the 145-pound champion. And he is saying that he

agreed to a fight against Patricia Pitbull on April 13th, live and free on the Paramount Network from the Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri. He was all excited about this, right? He's 2-0 against Patrici, but he wanted a shot at the lighter brother, right? Okay, they've had a long standing feud. He said he signed a bout agreement. And then he said that Patricia Pippel got a bad agreement and said, you know what? Thanks, but no thanks. Patricio Pippel has been saying, I was told that it was going to be

an interim title fight for five rounds. And once I got the battle agreement, no interim title fight, no five rounds. I'm not taking this three-round fight. I'm a champion. I deserve to fight for a belt. He said his brother, Patricchi, was offered this interim title fight against Michael Chandler, and for whatever reason it was then given to him. And then, Then, Scott, this happened. We called Patricio, and they were both talking at the same time. They were going back and forth. And I know you've seen us do this before with Eddie Alvarez and Gilbert Melendez.

This was like version two of that. And they were both going at it. One guy said interim title fight. The other guy said no interim title fight. And so we had this disconnect. And of course, now Michael Chandler is fighting Brandon Gertz. But this was magic, Scott, as a promoter, you would love this. This is the kind of thing that you can repackage and put on Paramount Network on

Spike.com, on Beltor.com. No more spike.com. But you get the point. This was gold, Scott. I'm telling you this is gold. But then I said, we need Scott Coker to clear it up. Was there an interim title fight offered or was there not an interim title fight offered? And then we couldn't reach you.

But now here you are. So please, Scott, explain to us what happened here. One guy's saying interim title fight. The other is saying no, the fight's not happening. It's a bit disappointing. What can you tell us? What happened? Well, I can tell you this, that I can see why there's a misunderstanding.

And the misunderstanding was this, you know, when we found out that premise was not going to be available, we reached out to Pitbull and the 155 pound brother and said, hey, we'd like you to fight and even if we're

doing the interim title because, you know, Povison has been out for one of the years to be out for a period of time and, you know, were you interested?

He said, uh, no, because I think he said yes and then I think he turned it down or something, something happened where he couldn't do the fight. And I think it's due to injury.

Uh, and then so he said, okay, well, that could be a lot of fun that there's already some heat on, and we'll offer to the younger brother, 1.45 pounds pit bull. And at the end of the day, we said,

yeah, we can't, we don't, this should not be a title fight. They should just be a fun fight. But so we sat on the bottom, we went over to them, and it was at, you know, three rounds. It was just a non-title fight. And so Michael Chandler is correct, but there was a original contract offered to the first runner, but, you know, we felt like, what's going to happen?

What if the brother wins the title, and then the one, the 155-pound people want to fight him for the title, the brother versus brother? I don't think that's going to happen. So, you know, we just felt like we should leave it separate. And then when that didn't work out, he wanted a five-round fight. He fell out of a five-out fight, but, you know, I think that's just a misunderstanding between my guys and his management.

Ah, okay. Now I understand it. So the older brother or the other brother, I think Patricia, well, they're twins, right? So, um, the, the, the, the, the, are they twins? Are they in fact twins or are the actual brothers? What is it? No, no, no.

No, no. I think they're brothers. They're friends. Okay, okay. Well, the 155 pit bull, patricki pit bull was offered an interim title fight against Michael Chandler, but then once he couldn't take the fight, you said, let's go to the Patricio Pitbull brother and offer him a non-interm title fight, just a three-round fight. And he was like, no, I want the deal that my brother was getting.

And you guys weren't interested in doing that. Is that accurate? That is correct. That is correct. That's a correct statement right there. And do you feel like, you know what? Interim title fights, you know, they're being passed around like candy these days. We should have just done it. It's a big fight. People are into it. Why not just do it? Do you feel like that was a mistake to not offer? Patricia Pitbull, the interim title fight? You know what? I don't because, you know, now you're stuck in a situation where when his brother's healthy to fight, who's going to fight? Who's going to fight? Well, if he beats Chandler, the brother's going to fight their brother? I mean, you know, I don't think that was

that was something we wanted to do. So we do want to put, you know, the brother's the best situation. I just don't think it was really clear where there's a misunderstanding with their management by the time I got to him that this is not, you know,

the five-round offer, this is a three-round offer, and just have a fun fight. And, you know, I mean, you know, we like to do that from time to time and let you guys go in there and, you know, get it on and see what happens. Yeah, wow.

What a great story would have been. Those two have a back-and-forth And Michael Challenger says he was never offered an interim title fight against anyone. Is that possible? Did it not get to him? Yeah, we were actually sourcing it out and seeing if there was any interest from pit bull and that we were going to go to Michael. So, you know, where was left with Michael?

I'm not sure. But at the end of the day, you know, we were not interested in putting, you know, the two brothers in the same title contention and the same weight class. Okay. And that's why we chose to not do it. You see? Now it's all cleared up. Now we don't have to speculate and wonder what happened.

Now it's a very clear explanation. Well, there you go. I'm excited to be. You know, had a lot of heat on. At some day, you don't see that at my fight. You never do. Yeah. And you can take that clip, by the way, free of charge, you can use it.

I'm just kind of bummed that the fight isn't happening because I feel like there's so much heat behind that fight. I mean, that's a promoter's dream right there. Well, listen, if you think that Chandler's not going to be a great match, that guy can scrap too. So I think, you know, it's going to be a great matchup at the family arena on April 13th. Way to go, Scott. That was perfect promoting on your part.

You take the direction that I'm in, and then you go in the other direction to the fight that's actually happening. See, that's why you are who you are. I wish to call up the handoff. Yeah, that was phenomenal. Well, I'm going to... I'm going to stay true to my word.

Five minutes. I know you're a very busy man. You've got a lot of things coming up. We talked to Benson. Henderson, April 6, of course, Belta 196 in Budapest, Hungary, and he's fighting Roger Huerta, which is a very cool story, and then you have this card on April 13th, and of course, Beltor 200 is coming back. Last thing, Scott, I promise that I'm putting you on the spot here, but I'm very upset about

the tape delay, and I've talked to you. Is there anything you could tell us about the tape delay situation? You know, hopefully we'll have an update soon, but they are trying to work something out. It might be sitting on our app early or alive, and it might be on the Paramount app. So I try to get some clarification, but maybe we are working on. This is not something that we take lightly. It's just, you know, sometimes, you know, we're in a situation where the station has commitments and, you know, and our international partners have commitments and they want to air the program.

But, you know, we do want to make it right, and we think this sport should be live. And we're doing our best to make that happen. Well done. Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it. Keep it up. We're looking forward to next week. And thank you for doing this on such short notice.

I told you, I wasn't going to blindside you. I just wanted clarification. That's all. Yeah, I appreciate you. You're going to get to clarify and turn in on that scene. I'll tell you. First, cheer is going to be a one-and-second sight. Looking forward to it.

Thank you so much. Hi, buddy. Bye. There he is. The one and only. Scott Coker. How about that? We cleared it up.

Okay. Matter of moments. Like I said, live. Dot,com slash MMA fighting. The MMA after hour. It starts right. Now, go there.

All right. We are back. Time now for the M.A. After Hour, and that means it is time for everyone's favorite segment. It is time for... And now it's time to open up your ears and your minds, MMA fans. It's time for Rick's Picks. Rick's Picks.

Rick's Picks are lots of fun and his hair is in a bun. What a day. You already know what it is. Rick's Picks. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's the moment you've all been waiting for. Yeah. It's the new craze taking the world by storm.

Live from the Vox Studios in beautiful New York City, it's time for RixPix. Who's the man? Who gets things done? You the man. I mean, really. All it took was one text. You got that power.

Bang. And now we know. And now we know. Does it seem You know Does it seem kosher to you? Do you feel like this is inaccurate? Seems that

The Explanation by Scott Seems to clear everything up Yeah, yeah, yeah All right, well we figured it out Here we go You want the truth You come on this program

Other programs are getting You know The mistress of the president Here we're getting the Belator president To clear up things, huh? How about that? 21 million viewers Come on

All right, Rick's picks, no time to waste. What else you got? It's time for Rick's picks. We're going to start with Josh Barnett. Oh, yes. Proved innocent. In this tweet responding to you after you were talking about the news when it broke, saying, I proved my innocence, as I stated from the beginning,

and now I can look towards getting back in the ring in the near future. The time I lost, though, can never be regained. It should not have come to this ever onwards. You got to feel bad for Josh Barnett, but at the same time, now he's able to continue his career by no means done and ready to get back in the ring or the cage. What a story. Historic as far as the USADA UFC relationship is concerned, right? Because he's the first man to appeal and win. He's the first man to actually, you read this thing. You can get it on the website, the final judgment. It's like 20 pages long. But Josh Barnett was very meticulous about his supplements, what he did, what he took, how he took. I mean, that's what you have to do. If you're going to do that as a fighter and you're playing by Usada's rules, that's what you have to do.

And he won. Now, as you said, feel bad for him because it took him a year and a half to be let off Scott free, public reprimand, who cares, no suspension, no fine. But in essence, he was suspended, right? He couldn't work for a year and a half. He couldn't go to another promotion. He couldn't do that. So I do feel bad for him. I'm very happy for him because he's a guy who's been labeled in the past as a cheater and he's had his own run-ins.

But in this particular case, he did not cheat. So just because you may have taken something 20 years ago doesn't mean you're taking something today. Well, I think it's, this is a best case scenario for a lot of people because also the cases that come out with USADA, a lot of times it's guilty, you know, guilty until proven innocent. Yeah. And I think this can go a long way toward going, look, if, you know, I'm sure the speculation was out there about Josh Barnett as soon as this news happened. And we have a case where he's proven to be completely innocent. And so maybe the first judgment made against somebody who tests positive should be one that's a little more even-handed rather than condemning. Because as we see, it's not always cut and dry. And in this case, Josh Barnett did the homework. did the documentation, proved that he was not knowingly taking anything that would enhance performance,

and we have that ruling now. And, you know, they have to figure out a way, I know it's a process, I know it can't happen in a month, but there needs to be a way to make this shorter. Six months, four months, three months. Well, you're essentially serving the suspension

if you don't make it shorter. He might as well have been suspended, which is unacceptable. If it is found that you're not guilty. Yeah, so what a great story. unfortunate you know about this and we've talked about this as far as Usada. They are classic Friday

news dumb people. They love Usada and Invictor are the only two entities that put out news on Fridays. And I mean, here's another case. This is something that should have been out on a Monday so people can, you know, revel in it. But hey,

congrats to Josh Barnett. And then I was watching him on Access TV. New Japan Pro Wrestling. Strong style evolved. I saw Josh Barnett. I saw Josh Barnett and Jim Ross, ringside. It's all the rage. I didn't see it.

The majority of our website doesn't even cover MMA anymore. They're all about wrestling these days. Sad state of affairs. It's the way the world is going. Yeah, but it is fun. Anyway, so that's great news for Josh Barnett. Well done. Indeed.

Moving on to the next Rick's pick, we depart a little bit from the proclamation that I made that we don't have any, only positivity. Oh, yes. In this case, we're going to show something negative. story, but to spin it in a different direction. So,

um, here we see, uh, scenes from LFA 36. And we're going to watch a replay here. He hit his knee on the way down and knocked himself out. Jumped off his back and, and did a flip.

Um, clearly disrespectful, dangerous, all of the above. Chapman, right? First name? What's the first name?

Let me, uh, do you, do you have it there? Yeah, because we're going to go to, Drew Chapman. His name is Drew Chapman. Yeah.

Um, and, you know, say what you will about his act and I think a lot of people have and have weighed in and some stronger than others. But I think he's been penalized. He suffered a DQ rather than getting the win. He was suspended. And he apologized for his actions. I mean, I think, you know, this story got a lot of traction over the weekend. But ultimately, he's kind of owning up to what he's done. He's controlled. trite for it. He's been punished for it. And I don't know if you can ask much more. I think that that puts a bow on this entire ordeal. It's not often that the apology will come so fast. And I thought he did a good job and clearly was affected by this. Now, you know, admitting himself that

now he has to go through the rest of his career kind of having this stain. You know, it's crazy about it? His nickname is the honorable. Yeah. His nickname is the honorable. And he mentions that here in the interview with Mark. Yeah. He is to go. He is. is suspended now for 90 days by the California State Athletic Commission. Look, initially I saw that, I was like, holy smokes, that is negligent, that is dangerous, that is disrespectful.

You are jumping on another man's back. By the way, the opponent knocked himself out. Yes. Like, that wasn't even the weird as part of the whole clip, the jumping on the back. The fact that he knocked himself out was just bizarre, and then he celebrated. So really, like, he didn't,

okay, I know he was happy, he was his debut, but honestly, like, he didn't even do it. Yes. but clearly this wasn't a thinking. Oh, of course. So he kind of blacked out. It did something that was really stupid. In the end, the opponent

whose name escapes me right now, what's his name? Irvin's Ayala. He's not seriously injured, so that's great news. But there has to be a punishment for something like this. So the question is, I mean, it was unprofessional.

It just, it was everything that's wrong, right? I mean, there's nothing good that you could say about this. No. 90 days. Is that enough, in your opinion? I could hear a case for having it be longer, but at this level,

I think it's hard to say that the guy shouldn't be able to go out and make a living. He got the DQ. He doesn't get a win. In fact, he gets a loss. He is suspended, and he's contrite. I mean, I'm okay with 90 days, but I wouldn't be opposed to longer,

but I'm also accepting of 90 days because of how he's handled it thus far. We play basketball together. Yes. And you have seen me sometimes, I have a bit of a temper, you know? Sometimes I black out and I lose it, right? So I have actually, you know, believe it or not, I have sympathy for someone who makes a stupid mistake in a moment where you're excited. I really do.

In this case, like, you could have seriously hurt someone. So there has to be a punishment. I'm not going to be one to say, like, look, the guy has a career. He seems to be a great guy by all accounts. I spoke to Ed Sores about him. Ed called me on Saturday. you know, I really do feel bad, but I do feel, I struggle with the 90 days

because I have a feeling that maybe 90 days like this is not enough time. Like, he probably wasn't going to fight in 90s. I know that when you're younger, you're probably fighting a little more often than in the UFC or Belvoir, but I think six months would have been fair. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, I get that.

It's a tough call for Andy Foster. And also, he had the win taken away from him, right? Yeah, he had. he got decued. My thought is like, it'd be a different story if he wasn't contrite, if he wasn't showing

that he learned the lesson from this. Because of how he's handled it, I'm okay. I'm okay with the 90 days. I mean, he's clearly learned the lesson. He clearly doesn't want to be in this position. He clearly will not repeat this again.

I think, you know, it's okay to let him move on from it, especially considering the opponent wasn't harmed, fortunately. it's a lot different if if the opponent was seriously injured from that. But

a bad showing but a good apology and a lesson for for you know younger fighters. Okay speaking of younger fighters Gary Tonin here at 1FC

over the weekend getting it done with his hands yeah boom knocked down right there and I was so impressed with him winning via TKO I think it was clear he could have gotten a submission at times as well, but wanted to showcase the hands a little bit, and boy, did he. I was so impressed with Gary Tonin.

Everything from, like, his demeanor, his striking was really good. You know, I know he's making his debut, and Richard Cormanal is not, you know, a highly ranked opponent. I believe he's three and four going into this fight. Also the celebration. The elbow drop. Yeah, you got the people's elbow there. Even the Fu Manchu is phenomenal.

He's the complete package. He's the complete package. He's got the skills. He's got the swag, as they say. By the way, I was going to mention this on Twitter, but I don't really love the name. But afterwards, they didn't do a post-fight interview, which was crazy, in my opinion.

By the way, respect to one championship, they made this very easy to watch. It's streamed on Twitter, which we're streaming on right now. It's sometimes hard here in the United States to watch one, not because of the time difference, just because you either have to pay for it or it's, I don't know, it's on a different outlet.

But here it was live and free on Twitter, Saturday morning it was perfect. And they didn't do a post-fight interview, which was a bit disappointing, but they do this thing where they give him a medal and he's with the two ring girls. And, I mean, that was the very definition of what's his brand, cash, chicks championship? Yeah. Something like that, right there. So it was like that was it right there. Like, that's the poster or the new logo.

Anyway, I was so impressed. I did reach out to him. A lot of people were like, why didn't you have Gary Tonin on? He's still in Asia. He's still in Thailand. And we will be talking to him very soon. but the time difference just made it impossible for him to be on. But I have to say as far as like BJJ rookies coming over to MMA, that was one of the best.

Got another coming up pretty soon. Dylan Danis. Dylan Dennis. I asked Dylan about this last week, if you recall. He wishes the best to Gary. Wishes the best, but he said he's not going to compare himself. How do you not compare him now? How do we not watch Dylan's performance on, I believe, April 28th, and not then compare it

to what Gary Tonin did. It's going to be tough. He better show out. It's going to be tough. I'm looking forward to that, but major props to Gary Tonin, who, by the way, was in studio back in, I think, November. I have no recollection of that interview. You were under the weather, right?

I was so sick. Yeah. And I actually apologized to him, and he didn't realize. So I was happy about that, but I was very sick that day. Yeah. Okay. Some more action over the weekend. There were obviously a lot of great fights, but I think Caposa here.

hit on what was the the move of the weekend or actually even the day not even the weekend 324 we had suplexes at Invicta ACB and 1 here this one from Invicta

the next from ACB Jesus and then the final one happened at 1 and I believe the one from 1 was reversed the decision was reversed and this fighter was actually qualified for landing the suplex Damn, that one hurts.

Which is unfortunate, because what a great move. Look at that crimson mask. Yeah. It's a very scary. The suplex? Yeah, it's a very scary move. But, this one. How impressive.

Going flying. Yeah. Lots of suplexes on March 24th. Dave, the suplex, thanks to Caposa. Here. Hannibal. Tweet from Hannibal, Invicta FC sponsor. I like that he came back for more.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's almost not more. It's the first time, really, because. Janasa Moranjan, the fighter he initially sponsored, didn't make wait for her fight and didn't fight. So his logo didn't end up getting the publicity, but But this was way better, right? It was a make good, his big face was on the canvas.

In fact, in that last gift we had of the suplex, it was there on the mat. A lot of action happening on Hannibal's face. Big old Hannibal Burris face, Hannibal Burris.com on the Invicta mat, a cool little MMA sponsorship thing. No, but this was better because he was like an Invicta sponsor.

Like now, I think, is this something, he pays, right? Yeah, it was a sponsorship, yeah. Okay. Oh, here we go. Chandler and Pippel continue to go. On Twitter. Now it's Petriky getting involved. It's funny you said you turned down a fight against me, Michael Chandler.

Nice excuses, too. You had no problem asking Brooks for a third fight after two beatings and asking the referee for mercy. Can you maybe chime in and let him know Scott cleared this all up and that they can let this? Yeah. I will say, credit to the person who's writing these tweets for the brothers. because no no I'm just saying credit because he did bring up a good point they did fight for an interim belt which I forgot about

right listen they're they're running their own tweets he said it on the on the sure sure sure sure sure it's me yeah yeah geez don't question you're always so skeptical of people tweeting you're always think it's not them because it's very clear what it's not them

is it because I've talked about this before Danny writes your tweets so is it because of that Seguera? Danny Seguera back here writes your tweets so are you is that why you're skeptical is this a bit of projection Listen, I will not reveal who's behind my great tweets, but it to me is very clear when, you know, it's just like a guy you speak to him.

He doesn't speak well. You know, I don't speak Portuguese as well. And then all of a sudden I'm getting on my Twitter and I'm just writing like I'm Guillermo Cruz, just like it ain't no thing. It's just hard to suspend that kind of disbelief. That's all. Look.

You don't see me. He joins the Chase Sherman, All-Star Team, the All-Star Squad of. Yeah, what happened there? What happened there? Where's my tea? Okay. Moving on to the next Rick's pick. Elias.

Theodoro first ever ringboy making the walk at Invicto F.C. as well. A real hot topic this weekend. Yeah. This is why I liked this past weekend. It was different kind of stories. There was a lot of stuff going on.

A smorgasbord, if you will. Now, some people upset that that Elias was maybe taking some attention away from the fighters, I'm hesitant to go there because some upset that he was sporting sponsors I say hogwash to both of those things

first of all no ring boy or girl is taking attention away from the fighters if you're allowing that to take attention away from the fighters you're doing that to yourself you're doing a disservice to yourself by allowing this to take this just brings more attention it doesn't take tension away there's a difference and then this guy's getting some sponsors

so what let them get paid Who cares? All ring girls should have their own sponsors. Why not? Agreed. Why can't Natasha have her own sponsors?

Like what's... Why is that so bad? I don't get it. No, it's not. And it's fun. I mean, let's not... And I don't think Elias was trying to make

some kind of statement on... No, he was... He's just having a little fun. He was having fun. And took it seriously. You know, I was obviously there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he take it seriously?

He took it very seriously. Okay. It was important to him. He wasn't making a mockery. He was not making a mockery. There was not making a mockery. there was no, you know, antics. He just did the job and did it well.

And I think people had fun with it. Do you have a problem with him being shirtless? No. I mean, what'd you want him to wear? No, I think he might go fully shirtless next time. We'll see. I thought this was a very appropriate outfit. Yeah, that's the thing.

As long as you do this properly, you know, it can be done. Don't want to make a joke out of it, but I want to have some fun. And I think that... I know problem with it. That was the case. Okay, speaking of having some fun. Who's that? Hill.

Never heard of her. Just kidding. Oh, see. I forgot you. What are the chances Angela Hill is going to tweet you later? Yeah, probably. Someone's probably going to tell her that I was hating and then she's going to come and actually take it too seriously and then like make a joke about me being the TMZ of MMA and caring too much about, you know, the personal lives of the fighters when that's not even like what I do the show, you know, six hours a week. When do I ask about their personal lives?

Like, like about who they're dating and whatnot. You know, you really got deep into Taito of us as KFC consumption. Yeah, so he's not involved in a romantic relationship. I'm kidding. No, but I just, I mean, it's something else. Anyway, go ahead. Ty, well versed in the KOC, by the way. Like, I was impressed with it showing.

Okay. Angela Hill here with a Photoshop of Randah Marcos' face onto a tiki, like, what is this, a mannequin, saying that she's going to introduce her new submission that she learned in Hawaii. against Randemarkos, having a little fun on the Twitter. Speaking of having fun on the Twitter, we see a clip here from WWE. Ronda Rousey preparing for WrestleMania,

getting some rolls in with one Shana Basler. Did you see this one? I know you saw, there was another clip of her rolling around. Yep, I saw this one. I saw her actually doing moves in the ring. She was running the ropes and all that. Very smart, by the way. This is the perfect use of social.

media. Here's someone that everyone's interested in. Everyone wants to know how she's going to perform, right? Keep dropping these little hints. I mean, how many times do you think these two have already done this? This is probably time 10,000. Actually, Shana Basler retweeted it and said like something to the effect of as we've always done. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you're right. But this is smart marketing on WWDE's part. Yeah, fantastic. Although, come on. Let's get, you know, Shane a more spot. So actually, I saw then that Triple H retweeted it and said both of these women are going to be making history at wrestling? Yeah.

So is Shana? Oh wait. Evolved in WrestleMania? I don't know that actually. If that's what the tweet said, then yeah, I'm assuming so. I actually didn't know that. It's still a bit surreal, right? Yeah, it's cool.

To see Rhonda doing that. It's very cool. I want to see this because then, you know what was interesting? Yeah, he wrote two athletes preparing to make history, WrestleMania weekend. If Shana's involved in something, I love that. But you know what was interesting about Shana Basler? She tweeted.

She said, just a couple of days ago, wait a second, wait a second. Is there a lot of tweets here? No, no. Not that one. Not that one. No. Wait, wait, wait for it. While you're looking that up.

Okay, okay. Big news. Yeah, what do you got? Markle Fultz going to play tonight. Yeah, I saw that. Anyway, it was something to the effect of like, thank you, MMA for reminding me. I can't get it. Why, you know.

Why she. Oh, thank you. you MMA media for reminding me how sick of you and your fans I am. Now, was this like, was this K-Fabe or I don't feel like we did anything that bad to her, but. But I don't even know what that means, though. MMA media and I guess the MMA fans, not the MMA media fans, I don't know. But. No, no, I think she meant MMA media.

No, she's saying MMA media and their fans, though. Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting. But either way. I think it's funnier if it's K-Fabe actually. The angle could be, you know, she's revolting against the MMA. Jesse Levine says that she will be in the women's WrestleMania Battle Royals. Oh, there we go.

There we go. Shana and Rhonda both at WrestleMania. Okay. Going outside the sport again, we have Tyson Fury. You're sending a message to Dary. Can we turn the audio up so when this runs back? Here we go. It's Tyson Fury.

I just want to say congratulations to Darren Till on bringing UFC to Liverpool for the first time. It's going to be a great show. Look forward to it. Good luck, mate. Champ or former. Stripped to the belt, but Tyson Fury. Yes.

Sending regards to Darren Till. Staying in the world of boxing. I don't know if you saw this one, but it's quite funny. Luke Rockhold. I didn't see this. training oh my god garell big baby

miller miller new york's own uh top ranked heavyweight taunting him with a cheeseburger to get him to do his road work uh girelle fighting that's hilarious at barclays

but yeah luke the master motivator and uh kamaro osman as well that's hilarious uh if you watch the beginning of the clip here we go watch what he says well my ass hurts Oh, wait, this is the end.

But I think he says Joshua would already had the cheeseburger. That's how he taunts him. Jarrell, do for a big fight soon. But Luke, getting it done on the motivational front. Just, you know, different streams, different streams. Did they show him eating it? Going into the, who, Jarrell? Yeah.

No, he's not going to eat it right there. Okay, two legends linked up. This from B.J. Penn's Instagram. I was just, we're talking about the old school and I just want to talk about the time. And I want to know if you remember this. When I was sitting at a jiu-tzee tournament, you just became the UFC heavyweight champion. Light heavyweight champion. You came into a high school, maybe your high school gym arena.

You walked in and I remember, I remember asking you, I was a kid I knew nothing. 19 years old, I remember going, so what's it like, man? What's it like being the UFC champion? And you go, it's a real job, BJ. You got to do this, this, this, and that. And I remember that that stayed with me all the way till today and about the training camps and all this. And I remember that talk and I still remember until today. I just thought about it as you walked past.

And I thought, thank you. No, man, it's crazy that the evolution happens. It's just champions around around other champions. They should have a hard work dedication. Now you look at Chris Seiber being the main event and show what hard work and dedication truly pays off to it. We can be a fighter forever. BJ Penn learning from, I like how they cut off Tito there.

Well, I mean, look. All right. It's only, no, it's only one minute on Instagram. Maybe there was more to that. No, that's cool. That's very cool. Yeah, BJ Penn, young BJ Penn sitting in a high school gym, getting words of advice from Tito Ortiz.

That's amazing. Okay. Connor McGregor, notorious on Instagram, obviously. But in this case, celebrating World Down Syndrome Day. His friend, DJ Andrew Walker, doing the billionaire strut. another example of Connor McGregor doing obviously good things spreading awareness for charity

something that he continues to do a little bit of a departure from the usual instance for Connor but good to see well done and finally Sean Grandy saying he's happy as a report

that he's returning to Bellator for one night only on April 6th there were so many reasons to do it but the biggest is that his main event fee is going to his friend Manny Rodriguez and he also asked people to give Manny Rodriguez needing help the Spanish language

commentator for Bellatory MMA so good on Sean for coming back well congratulations to Sean on coming back but good on him for donating his main event fee to help Manny and a lot of other people could do the same so happy I love Sean Grandi

he is truly I know I say this about a lot of people truly a mensch. He's the guy, in case you don't know the story, he's the one who reached out to me. I never met him in person at the time, never had a conversation face to face and said, I know you're a big Nick's fan, do you want to be on my radio broadcast? He is the play-by-play man for the Boston Celtics on the radio, and he said, do you want to come? We're doing preseason at the garden. Do you want to come do the second quarter with Cedric Maxwell and I? And I was like, what, this guy, are you serious? this is mind-blowing stuff

so I got to sit there with him he gave me a press pass I mean it was just amazing I got to see him in Boston at UFC 220 I went to a game a couple days prior and he's just such a great guy he really is

sent my kids like some expos cards just a great guy and you know I think that Beltaire obviously has a great play-by-play duo in Morro Rinalo and obviously Mike Goldberg but I think Sean Grandi was really coming into his own and I was sad to see him leave and I'd love to see him stick around.

I know his job as play by play guy for the Celtics kind of makes it difficult for him to do MMA with no offseason but I'd love to see him have still some kind of role in MMA because I think he really gets it and you can see him for one night old and I'm really happy I'm really happy that for a good cost yeah and also you know very interesting news there from Scott Koker about maybe offering these international shows via an app which is something that I've been

pushing for every single outlet under the sun. I was watching March Madness yesterday via the March Madness app. There are ways to monetize this. So I just feel like in 2018 you got to figure this out. You want to do your show tape. Did you

know, by the way, that if you are on the West Coast and you don't have direct TV, that not only are you getting it via tape delay, Belator, but you're getting the tape delay of the tape delay. You know that, right? So they don't, like, if you watch the ABC game of the week between the Rockets and the Warriors Sunday at 2.30 p.m. Eastern time,

it's airing at 11.30 a.m. Pacific time. Makes sense to you, right? NFL in L.A. airs at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern here. In California, Belator, which airs at 9 p.m. Eastern here in the States airs at 9 p.m. Pacific. So unless you have direct TV, every Beltoe event is tape delayed. And then if you're watching an international event,

it's the tape delay of the tape delay. So you're getting this like nine hours later. Almost like half a day later. It's madness. They need to get rid of all that tape delay stuff. And I get it, Paramount isn't a, you know, it's not a sports network, but they have to understand that in 2018,

you have to show things live. Things that are being broadcast, to a certain point, like percentage of the population need to be broadcast to the entire world life. And if it's not on TV, make it via an app. Why not? Yeah, the fans will find it if you make it available. Yeah. Okay. Let's have some questions here. Yes.

Your question of the week. This one has caused all kinds of problems for me. Well, look, I mean, you chose the wrong platform for it. You limited your options because of the platform you chose. Yeah, it was a mistake. And now suffering to consequences. an interesting question. It's a fascinating question, but it would have been good to have it many options.

So here's what we did. Ariel Halwani asked, no, look, you chose the medium, my friend. Don't blame Twitter. Twitter's a great platform. How else could I do this? We're live now on Twitter. Yes. And the people, the question of the week, excluding the UFC, which promotion are you most into these days? Asked Ariel Halwani.

He offers the following four options and then I'll get to something in a second. Bellator, one FC, Cage Warriors and Invicta. now 13,000 votes later overwhelmingly 69% say Bellator Cage Warriors coming in with 20% Very strong European contingent Invicted and 3rd with 6%

And 1 FC with 5% Now you recognize that you Are you surprised by those numbers? No Well maybe a little bit I'm surprised at how high Bellator is Really? I admit Wow

You're not surprised by Cage Warriors being that high No because I think Our following specifically related to this show is very heavily European, especially because of the timing and what time it is there versus here right now. And this question

is kind of related to the show. No, so no, I'm not surprised. And also, A, Cage Warriors puts on a great show. And B, they're now on Fight Pass and people can catch them. People can find them. So I'm not surprised.

I think Cage Warriors does put on a great show. We had Nathaniel Wood on. I don't think there's any secret that Cage Warriors is a good promotion. I didn't expect it to be so overwhelmingly in favor of Bellator. I have to admit, especially, you know, we're talking about the limitations. They tape delay shows on the West Coast. Sometimes they're doing shows that are on a Friday night when, you know, the headliners are,

when it's not a tent poll event, it's, I don't know if Bellator is as popular as some of these other promotions. So I'm a little surprised by that, but you also put out a second poll asking some of some of the other favorites. Well, you know why I put out the second poll because I thought I had whittled it down to, you know, proper four. In fact, I did ask

both you and Danny Seguera if I was missing any. And of course, we all miss KSW, which I don't know how that happened. But I gave some other options. I said here, you know, put them in the comment section. Yep.

And people weren't really content with that. Yeah, and so you create a second poll. KSW, ACB, Risen, and Bama. And Risen, actually winning this poll. This one has a lot less votes. I think, you know, it got a little bit buried in the shuffle.

Rise in 42%. Bama, 36%, KSW 10%, ACB, 12%. So. Someone then suggested it. And by the way, in the comments, ACB got a lot of comments, but then in the poll, it didn't win. Someone suggested then take... Look, this is not the right way to do it.

We have to do it. We'll do it again. And then, of course, I pissed someone off. Lex McMahon writes me, hey, buddy, I thought we were closer than that. Where's Titan? Titan. come on look there's a lot of promotions that should have a beef with you here who else i don't see lFA on here i did put ala in the first one not in the poll part though at least i

mentioned them why are you trying to get me in trouble look i mean you know you did our best here um it would have been good to have like a mega 12 i you know agree with that like a march madness bracket that'd be fun you just do you just do a 64 um promotion tournament and see who the winner is. But I think, you know, it's clear at this point, Bellator does have a foothold on that number two spot, no doubt about it. And the European promotions

are being watched. People are paying attention. I'm really into cage warriors these days. They put on a great show. It feels big. They go to the right locations. They bring Nathaniel Wood to London. They bring Patty Pimblit and Molly to live, they do it right.

For what it's worth, I think it's worth mentioning. There's one person I know who watches all of these events from start to finish. Yes, that's-COSA. I mean, at this juncture, he's watching Jakarta fighting championships 36. I'm sure he is. He just put a giff up of a great, you know. Oh, you haven't opened right now?

No, no, no. Oh, you're joking. You sold that well that I believe that he was actually watching it. But, yeah, his vote was for ACB because he said it's no frills but great fights. and that's a ringing endorsement. Okay. Other questions.

It's nearly a month since John Jones appeared in front of CSAC. Excuse me. Pole Wizard. Any... Wild Matt is telling us, next time we should have used

Pole Wizard. Okay, well, now we know. This is where you come in. You did this without my approval, authority, input. Oh, look how many

you could do. Six, seven, eight. Oh, my God. Yeah, You messed up. I might have to do a new one. You messed up, Ariel. Wow, you could go, I'm all the way to 12.

Can I go to 13? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you put the Syracuse orange on there. Yeah, wow. I'm all the way to 14. Okay. After the show, I got to do this the right way. Okay. Okay.

Can you tell me all the promotions, anyone who's watching, everyone that I need to list? Can you just make a neat for me so I don't forget it. This is a nightmare waiting to happen. Just include every promotion. You're going to get the lingerie. One tweet. Give me all the promotions that I need to list.

Thank you. Wild Matt, I'm counting on you. a month since John Jones appeared in front of the CSAC. Any idea when we'll find out about the USADA punishment? It was left in their hands at this moment

John Jones' license revoked until we hear from USADA. Do you have any update on when that might be? Do we know anything about... I'm told it's soon. Very soon he is right. David is right. Surely can't be far off.

I'm told it soon. Exactly when... There's not going to be like a hearing or something, so it's just going to happen. You know, given USADA, I'd say maybe Friday at around 6 o'clock. I'll be sitting down for my first Passover Seder and they're probably going to drop it on all of us.

That's my guess. So stay tuned. Who would you like to see Josh Barnett fight when he returns? You know, I saw a lot of people throw this out, talk about this, and I'm not convinced that Josh Barnett is going to remain in the UFC. First of all, we've seen this scenario before

with Frank Meir, with Chale Sunning, where guys have just said, you know what, give me my release. Let's just kind of move on. And no secret that Dana White and Josh Barnett haven't been the best of friends. But, you know, towards the end, he was a good soldier. Josh Burnett has said some things, especially recently to the MMA junkie about dealing with Usada and his reservations about continuing to deal with Usada. He alluded to the fact in that tweet that, you know, it shouldn't have taken that long. I'm not so sure that Josh Barnett is going to say, you know what, let me get back

into this relationship with Usada. And so... And you blame him. I don't blame him. It's a perfectly reasonable... So let's see what happens here, but I don't know if... I feel like it's a little premature to talk about who's he going to fight. But dust is just settling on him coming back. Yeah. You know, there's still a lot

to be seen. I'll say this. We've all been waiting for that sort of Daniel Cormier-like alternate to win the Bell Tour tournament. Imagine it's Josh Barnett. And I could see it happening. Remember, he was in the first tournament. Rory won't be happy with that. He made it to the finals against Daniel Kormier, if you recall. He did.

We'll see what happens. But great news that he's free and clear. Absolutely. What are your thoughts on Leota Machita's main event run coming to an end at USC 24? I don't know if you've noticed this, but Leoto has headlined a ton of cards in a row. This is a bizarre question. He was supposed to fight Dan Henderson, UFC on Fox in Tampa. and he wasn't the main event.

Remember, that's when he got pulled. Yeah, but if you look at his actual... The actual run. So, Eric Anders, Brunson, Romero, Rockhold, Dalloway, 175. Wyden. Wyden. Munoz.

So it's been since 163. What year is that? 2013. So that's a long... It is long. Although, I will say, it's somewhat flawed because he was going to fight on that card

had he not been pulled. Look. The curse. Let me tell you something. There is a guy, Dave Knowsworthy, who's my friend. Newfoundland. Yeah, Newfoundland. He has a friend whose name is, let me see if I could get this right.

Can I get this right? Where's Dave Knowsworthy? This friend, this is unbelievable. His friend, I met him before, by the way, he travels, no matter where it is, he travels to every Leotamachita fight. If it's in like the Brazilian jungle, if it's in, you know, Antarctica anywhere.

This guy, I can't find it right now. This guy travels to the fight. It makes sense. Dave knowsworthy. Here is.

He sent me a picture. Here's the best part. So this is the best part. Machita has kind of recognized them and after the last fight he actually invited him

to have a meal with him the next day. So he sent me a picture of them together after the Eric Anders fight. just couldn't believe it. Look, you show your allegiance and it gets it done.

But what an incredible run as a headlining prospect for Leo. Chow is his name. His name is Chow. He has not missed a Machita fight in person since 2010 or 2011. And he showed me a picture of them together and this guy

no matter where he's fighting takes time off and goes, travels to it. And in fact, he went to the Tampa fight because you remember that fight got canceled the week of. Well, he's going to UFC 224, I'm sure. Yeah. But Leota will not be

headlining for the first time in a very long time. Is it time from Joe Daddy, friend of the show? Is it time for Endeavor to hire slash promote a second guy when Dana isn't available for it? Is there another person?

Yeah. I mean, they have guys like Dave Shaw, you know, these executives, but these aren't true promoters, right? I get this question a lot every time we ask, you know, for questions about the beat about Dana. I mean, I don't know

the answer is honestly i i do believe as i've said before about other promotions i said to you about glory i believe every fight promotion needs a face needs a leader needs a promoter need someone to get up there on the dais do interviews and tell you why this fight is important tell you why this fight you know needs to happen tell you why you know these two fighters are fighting tell you what's at stake all these things and more when where why how who what you need that in fight promotion and I just feel like the UFC isn't getting that right now. Like is, is it the biggest deal in the world? No, because the UFC's an established brand.

If you're a young promotion, if you're just trying to get your feet wet in the fight game, okay, you know, it may mean a lot more. But I do feel like it's something that we're missing, and the fact that I keep getting questions about it makes me feel like the fans are missing it as well. So I'd love to see Dana do more. I'd love the old Dana to reemerge. I'd love to see the passion that we saw out of him. from Mayweather McGregor.

If it's not going to be him, then it needs to be someone else. And I'm not quite sure. To me, it's very clear that he's more invested in, you know, the boxing idea right now. He won the race. I've talked about this a million times. He won the war. There's nothing left to prove his friends are gone. The boxing thing is near and dear to his heart and it's a new challenge.

So we'll see what happens. But it's very clear that the old Dana isn't there. And who could blame him? I don't blame him. The guy just got paid, you know, like $400 million on top of the million that he makes. And he gets paid like something like $18 million a year. That's what was reported by Darren Revell of ESPN. Like, it's very hard to, and your friends are gone.

It's very hard to have the same passion. But I really do believe that the UFC needs someone. Do they need a second guy? Yeah, I guess. I think it's more valuable to have one person go out and do, you know, the promotion for you. And it worked very well. Wanted to be telling if Dana White does in fact go, go to the Anthony Joshua fight this weekend

against Parker and Joseph Parker and and didn't go and that fights in in Cardiff and and didn't go to the London show his own London show but he's going there to maybe recruit or do whatever it is

with Joshua I mean isn't that telling and by the way stop asking about Anthony Joshua fighting UFC that is not accurate they're talking about Zoufa boxing they're not talking about offering him that money to actually compete fight MMA. What's up?

No, nothing. All right. That's it. Should Stephen Thompson get a third title shot if he beats Darren Till? I don't know about you, but I don't like this fight. I don't, I don't like it either. Why don't you like it? Because I think Stephen Thompson is too big a step up as a former title challenger,

somebody who's competed against guys that are not, you know, names on the resume of Darren Till yet. I think it's a big jump. Now, granted, look, Donald Serroney is a big win. No doubt about it. But I think Stephen Thompson is a level up just based on who he's been in there against

and where he is currently. So I don't know if this is the fight that I would put Till in in front of his hometown on this huge show that, you know, you want to send people home happy. I don't know if this is the fight to make. I think you want to put somebody in there that's more evenly matched.

door. And look, if Daryntill knocks out Stephen Thompson in the main event of this, the place will go bananas and I'll eat my words and it's huge and whatever. But this is a big step up, in my opinion. This is a guy who just fought for the title. Yeah. And I don't understand the rush.

We talked about it last week. For everything that everyone wants to say about Connor McGregor, they booked him perfectly. They gave him the right opponents on the right stages. Dublin. Boston, then Las Vegas, the right kind of matchups, back in Boston, and there's nothing wrong with the Diego Brando fight. There's nothing wrong with the Dennis Siever fight. You're in this to build talent, superstars, and obviously look what happened to him.

And not everyone's going to be him, but there's a blueprint there. Why are you rushing Darren Till? Who could very well win this fight? But this is not about... But gets the same kind of rub from beating a Leon Edwards or a Gunner Nelson or... a Neil Magny, like, what's the point? And it's not like there's some rivalry there. It's not like there's some friction there.

It's a fun fight. This is the Darren Till Show. Stephen Thompson could very well win this fight. Stephen Thompson could very well still be the number two Walt'sweight in the entire universe. Remember, he beat Roy McDonald and did so quite convincingly, right? So number two.

Thompson is just all fighting for the... Like, this is not the fight that I was. And he fought would lead to a draw, and then it was another super close. So yeah, and then of course came back in one just a few months back at MSG. So I don't get it. I don't get it. It could pay off beautifully.

He could knock him out. You could put anybody in there with him and it's the same thing. I don't get it. What was the question? I don't even remember what the question was. You're right? Yeah. Seems very distracted.

No, nothing. What was the question again? Should Thompson get a third shot if he beats Till? And that's the other thing. That's exactly the other thing. Where does he go? as Tyrone Woodley is champion. Where does this guy go?

So, I don't know. I would have done the Leon Edwards fight, but maybe I'm crazy. No, I think, I mean, I think that's a fine fight. I think there's a possibility that somebody could get this wrong the way I feel about it. I don't think this is a bad fight. I think this is going to be a fun fight. I just think this was an opportunity to showcase,

to showcase Till, and I think this is a tough fight. I think this is a very tough fight. You know, where could Thompson go? you asked, he does have a win over the 185 pound champion. There's not, you know, a closed off avenue there. Sure. He holds a win over him. That is true.

Okay. Do you think the UFC will ever go public? There have been rumors of that ever since, you know, they were purchased for such a large amount. And here's another question about Dana White, right? It's amazing. Every week. There have been rumors of that. I haven't heard much as of late.

I hear more about the loan and the TV deal. those are like the the two major topics of discussion. But yeah, there have been whispers of that, you know, over the last, I don't know, three or so years. Right now, prediction ever? UFC, public company. Ever? Yeah. Gun to my head.

Yep. Total prediction. No insider knowledge. Yep. Yes. Okay. If the U.S. could get into the Olympics, now let's call this MMA, to frame it properly. If MMA could get into the Olympics like boxing, would that push the sport over the top for mainstream?

audiences. Do you think that that would be some kind of indicator to mainstream audiences to say that this is something they need to be paying attention? I don't think so. I don't think the mainstream public is watching Olympic boxing that. MMA collectively, you know, led by whoever is interested in the Olympics. No, I don't think there's a real push. I mean, I know there's some people have talked about it. I just don't know how it happens. In boxing, you're wearing head gear and all this stuff. How can you have MMA with that? You know, how can you do Jiu-Jitsu with that? But what do you mean? How can you do MMA with that? How can you do MMA?

Like, what, you're going to start, you know, going for... How could you do MMA with headgear? The same way you do boxing with headgear. You're going to go for, like, guillotine with someone wearing a headgear? So maybe you don't land a guillotine or maybe... That's whack. You can't roll on the ground wearing all that stuff. Well, headgear is not ideal to show who's the better boxer, you know, regardless.

So I think the same limitation can be placed on MMM. And the other thing is, like, there isn't an amateur scene in MMA. It's a, like, most people are just jumping. Look like Dylan, Dad. just jumping to pro. There's no amateur. Look at Gary Tonin. There's no real amateur scene.

So who's this talent that's going to be there? That's an interesting question. It would have to be developed. And then the other thing is, if they're not wearing headgear, you want these people to fight, what, like every, you know,

like one, like one twice? Well, I can't imagine a scenario without headgear. Okay, but then it's not really, that's just not the... No, it's... That argument I don't get. You can't roll on the ground

with someone wearing headgear. Why not? Going for submissions. the guy's wearing shin pads and stuff. I don't know. What is the guy wearing? Just headgear. No, but what about, you know,

what amateur MMA? You know what they wear in amateur? Yeah, maybe so maybe you don't go with the shin pads. Look, I'm not promoting it. I don't know. But I think you could have headgear conceivably. Like, that does not feel like a huge limitation to me. It's flawed.

It's never going to be perfect. Same way I would prefer to have boxing without headgear, but that's the Olympic style. Okay. we the MMA hour had Benson Henderson on today but no talk of one-on-law basketball game I thought of it I was trying for a fight he said he was chubby

we're years removed now is this ever going to happen pounds I just didn't think it was the right time you know it was very business like this time so yeah I mean sorry will it happen will it ever happen I'm easy to find you know he's the one who's kind of here, gone for nine months, ACL, I'm here, you know where to find me.

Handsome Rob asks, are either of us, you and me planning on watching WrestleMania next weekend? Next weekend. Do you think Rhonda will do? How do you think Rhonda will do, sorry, in her pro wrestling debut?

I think they're going to protect her. You know, that's why she's in a tag match with other performers. I already told you about what I think of this angle. It's not really doing much for me, although I must say I'm not really, you know, tuning in week to week. Will I watch it?

I might go out of my way to watch it. I've always enjoyed WrestleMania. Remember, I was the biggest fan on the face of the earth. Like, I adored pro wrestling. I have nothing against pro wrestling. I think it's a great thing. It's great entertainment. I would have no problem with my kids watching it.

I just, you know, I just kind of fell out of love with it. I forgot that it was next week. If I remember, sure, I'll watch it. If you remember, come on. I mean, everyone's going to be tweeting about it. So yes, I will remember. But I, you know, I wish her the best. I hope she succeeds.

And I hope that they have Paul Heyman in our corner. Okay, wild mat with the update. Belator 1, Road FC, ACB, Fight Nights Global, M1, LFA, CES, Cage Warriors, Bama, and Victa, Victory FC, Titan FC, Pro Fight League, pancreas, deep shooto, Risen, KSW, TKO, Super Fight League. bang. I didn't hear lingerie fighting. Wait, but I actually think he missed one.

What? Combate. Combate Americas, yeah. Then I'd get freaking Campbell McLaren on my butt. I'm sure you can't get them all. There will be somebody missed. It's a pretty damn good list right here. Good list.

With the return of Roseanne, the show is back tomorrow. Oh. How has she not been booked on this show yet? You know, I haven't reached out. Let's get this done. Okay, I'll try. Roseanne. To remote the show.

I don't believe that it's really her. Even if it's not. I don't want to have my, you know, my heart crushed here. Even if it's not, right? Whoever it is. Just have that person? No, can convince her that this is an opportunity to promote at least. Okay.

With the show coming back. I'll try. Let's do it. All right. Steve asks, who says, wow, more, you or Owen Wilson? Wow. Wow. Wow.

Oh, I was going to ask. The LeBron. an Owen Wilson movie. Yes. Do you see the LeBron clip? Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Have you, have you seen a while a lot? You do, yeah. My bad. Wow. Wow. Owen Wilson's the man. Royal Tenenbaum's one of my favorite movies ever.

Okay, good. I like it. One of my favorites. Do you think you could out wow Owen Wilson? Wow. Wow. What? Those time mats asks,

What are some of your Passover traditions? Oh, wow. Thank you, Bill. Well, we typically go to Montreal. We have the Seder. I have to say Passover may be my favorite holiday of all the holidays. For those, you know, most of the people listening, probably don't know what I'm talking about, but we can't have any bread. We have a Seder. We have great meal.

Family. It's all very good. Sometimes I've had to miss it because it lands on a Monday. I'm so dedicated to this program, as you know. But this time, it's on a Friday, Saturday. So I'm very excited about that. I'm very excited. So traditions, not many traditions.

One night go to my parents, one night go to my wife's parents. You know, my kids now, I just actually this morning, I went to my middle son, Walters, Passover celebration at his school. We sang some songs, talked about frogs and the plagues and all this stuff. It's all very exciting. So it signifies the beginning of spring. it signifies March Madness, it signifies baseball season starting,

it signifies spring break. I mean, it's all, you know, WrestleMania, it's all very good things happening. The Masters, of course, who could forget about the Masters, it's all very good things happening in March, April time.

So this one's a little earlier than usual. It's usually like mid-April, but that's how the calendar works, the Jewish calendar. So yeah, I appreciate it. And happy Easter to everyone who is celebrating that as well. Before we get to the next one, MJ on Twitter reminds us, 2016, Headgear no longer in Olympic boxing.

Well, there you go. It was controversial because there was a debate over, you know, actual concussive force and like broken noses and the other damage, like it being a tradeoff. But yeah, that's a great point that we didn't, I didn't remember. Olympic boxing didn't use headgear. And Jesse Levine says that Rose. Zan's son runs her Twitter account. So let's get in touch with the sun. All right.

And let's, uh, I actually think I DM to her last year when she followed me and I got nothing back. But I'll try. Let's try. Okay. What's a food that a lot of people like that you have either never tried or don't like? Well, can I, can I say a shooey? Or does that not count? No, you cannot say a shooey.

Because I don't think a lot of people like shooey. Oh, that's right. Okay. Fair enough. Uh, tongue. What kind of tongue? Like a beef tongue? I just, I just can't do tongue.

I can't do tongue. I can't do liver. Liver? Can't do liver. Can't do eel. Okay. How do you feel about that, you know, fish in general, seafood? Oh, I love it.

Okay. Sushi. I'll eat all kinds of sushi. Just not eel. The color is weird. It's like orange. Who wants to eat that? No, it's not.

But okay. I'm a little colorblind, but it looks orange to me. Brown. Those are three that come to mind. I don't have pork. I think that's probably a bigger. Yeah, that's probably the bigger one. Yeah.

I don't have porks. I don't have bacon. I have turkey bacon. I will not have like Canadian bacon or ham or like some kind of pig roast that you people like to eat completely barbaric. Who are you people? Who are you talking to? Those are the ones that come to mind. I used to be very strict.

I used to be like really strictly kosher and no meat outside the house, all that stuff. But I've eased up a little bit. How about you? Mine is coconut. Coconut. Don't love a coconut Wow Especially coconut shavings

Oh really? Yeah Yeah like a like a mounds bar Or like anything that has Coconut on it Wow Disgusting Do not give that to me

I cannot eat this Cognanette Trash What about drinking coconut water I'll do that Okay But it's it's more the like Coconut Flakes

Or like a coconut thing Then I'll eat a coconut Or I'll eat a coconut Or I'll drink Coconut water or coconut juice Yeah But the like flaky coconut I just, it's so gross to me.

Wow. Wow. Now I can't stop doing it. Well, you did it before and now you're just aware of it. I'm just aware of it. I think that was a great question about, Wow. About Owen Wilson there.

That's it for the questions. Anything else you want to? Why? You don't usually ask me that at the end of the show. I feel like it's been a good day. It has been a good day. Lots has been discussed. There was a reason.

I wanted to give you a chance to gloat maybe about, you know, some, your basket, you know. Look, you're going to rub it in that we lost to Duke. Perpetual cheaters, perennial cheaters. I told you, what did I say on the show last week? The worst opponent for Syracuse was Duke because they know the zone. They played them twice this season. They play them every year now that they're part of the ACC.

So it's okay. I'm all about Sister Gene. Anyone who rags on a 98-year-old nun is just absolutely, I mean, like, what's wrong with you, people? Sister Jean is the best. I hope Sister Jean and the Ramblers beat Michigan. But there's a great point in there, not about ragging on Sister Jean,

but a point about, like, I don't know if you saw this. Sister Jean's, like, rights. She's given them the permission to utilize her as a marketing tool. Yeah, and she's making no money off it. She's making no money off it, but... Who cares?

I mean, it stands to reason that, like... She's 98! That there should be an opportunity for players... I mean, what a story? To capitalize on it. Oh, that, but she's not making any money. No, yeah. Yeah, but that's by her choice.

By the way, players, I'm not going to argue against that. All the players should be making money. I think that's the best point that comes out of this. It drives me nuts that, A, the players don't make money, and B, like, right after the game, they interview the coach. The coach is not the star. The players are the stars. See people wearing their jerseys? It's crazy.

By the way, did you see that interview with Dana Jacobson and Leonard Hamilton? Can I just weigh in on that for a second? I thought she did a phenomenal job. I thought she held her ground. I thought it was a valid question, even though, you know, down four with 11 seconds left. It's kind of a move point, but why didn't you foul? No, no, no, no.

That is a perfectly reasonable. It is a reasonable. I think it's a stretch to think that they can come back, but it's fair. It's not like they're down five or six. But can I just tell you what I would have done in that situation? Just my, and I've not been in her shoes. So I'm just saying, I would have asked one question to get to that question. I would have asked one question to get to that question.

Just one question about the game, what went wrong, and then that question. Because that, I think his reaction was like, why are you leading with this when a lot of things happened to get to that point in my eyes, okay, maybe the game. I just would have asked one question at the top to get to that question. That's all. One intro question about the game, what went wrong, something like that, and then you get...

And you know, coach, 11 seconds left, down four, get the rebound. Why didn't you foul them? Why don't you try to put them on the line? Hope for the best. Get a quick three, get a quick two. You know, it could happen. Crazier things have happened in this sport. Absolutely.

In fact, I saw Deadspin had to cover this, And they made the point that there was a game in 2012. Florida State erased a nine point deficit in 70 seconds, coached by Leonard Hamilton. Leonard Hamilton. No, and someone else showed me that in January, he did this. All I'm saying from an interview perspective,

one one to get to it. That's all. I mean, needless to say, though. Because completely appropriate. I didn't watch that game. I was sleeping. It was 100% appropriate. I just think that maybe you would have gotten a different answer

if you soften them. I feel, you know what? I really think he was just testy. He was just test. Yeah, he was fired up. He has a right to be fired up. But, and he got a little bit, you know, he got a little bit aggressive there.

But credit to him, by the way, for coming back and then sort of calming down throughout the end of the interview. And Dana did a fantastic job of holding a ground. That is a very tough spot to be in. All I'm saying is one question, because if you're watching at home, and I didn't watch it, but I woke up to it,

I'm thinking, oh, something happened in the last 11 seconds. That is, like, that is not why they lost the game. Now, could he have, you know, was he preventing a miracle from happening? Yes. Why not foul? Like, who cares? No one's, you know, going home.

But, and here I just see something where he says, I wish I could have done better. There's nothing wrong with the questions. There's nothing wrong with the follow-ups. I'm just saying, I wish there was one question before. And then I'd love to see how we would have reacted if there was one question before. Fair enough. To me, though, that is the most important part of this. Like, this is, this is everything for this season on the line.

Sure, sure. That is to me is the most important part I'm gonna get straight to it and he Maybe she didn't think maybe she didn't think that she had enough time Maybe she didn't want to wait time Also it seemed like it was a quick you know Let's just do this but anyway It's fascinating

Good on him for You know softening his reaction later Yes yes yes That's it All right what else I'm done Why do you keep asking what else

Can I go home? No let's keep going What are you talking? You know what? I'm calling up Patricio one more time Oh stop it Are you mad that I called Coker? Is that what's happening here? No, what? Why would it be bad that you call a Coker?

Well, the PR people were like, oh, Eric probably thinks that, you know, we couldn't get things done for him. I'm like, no. Hey, look, that's on them. Listen, you want to get things done? Come to me. No, look, they, they, you skirted the system and it worked. Yeah. So no. Yeah. You were upset. Why am I upset? Because you feel like as a fellow PR guy, you know, they were giving you the runaround. No, no, no. They're good. They are, they are,

good people over there. They're good eggs. They always treat it fairly. All right. Well, I have a baseball game to watch. Blue Jays, Cardinals in Montreal. Big O. My friend Bennett Brow keeps asking me, what are we eating on our Seder on Friday? I don't know. I don't know, Bennett. I really don't know. But I'm excited to see Vladimir Guerrero

Jr. play in Montreal. And I'm excited for the baseball season to start. And I'm excited to say goodbye to you. So I'll see you next week. Thank you very much. And thanks to everyone. who sent us questions and thanks to everyone who tuned in. Austin, you can hear my music. What a day it has been, my friends. What a day it has been. I'm going to sit. I'm just a little, a little hot there out of the gate. Maybe it's because my ears are so tired. It's probably because of that. I'm going to send out a new poll the moment we are done here. And I'm going to put all those promotions. So if I offended you earlier, I am sorry. I am very sorry. But I am going to rectify this situation in a

matter of moment. So stand by. It has been a fun day, my friends. It's always a fun day here on the MMA hour. We always have a lot of fun. And we've talked to a who's who. And we learned a lot. And now it is time to go home. Thank you very much to Frankie Edgar for stopping by. Looking forward to his return on April 21st. Thought he handled everything very well. And if he's at peace, I'm at peace. Thank you very much to Cub Swanson. Congratulations to him on his new deal. Welcome back and good luck on April 21st as well. Thank you very much to Volkan. Osdemier and good luck to him on Thursday as his legal situation hopefully gets cleared up for his sake. Thank you very much to James Galaher.

Appreciate him setting up his Skype and wish him nothing but the best. Thank you very much to Camaro Usman. Good luck to him on May 19th against Santiago Ponzenibio. Thank you very much to Brad Smuggler. How fun was that? CPA4MMA.com. Check him out. Thank you very much to Paul Craig.

Congrats on the win and the new contract. Thank you very much to Benson. look on April 6th. Thank you very much to Michael Chandler, Patricio Pippel, and Scott Coker. Appreciate that very much. Thank you very much to Ty Twyvassa. Good luck to him on June 9th. And thank you very much to Nathaniel Wood. Congrats on his victory as well. Back next week. Same time and place. Until this, hey, peace. So amaddy.