MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas - Episode 439

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

The Mixed Martial Arts Hour is back in your life. Below is a rundown of Monday's show: 0:00 -- Show open, explanation of what we're about, UFC Singapore discussion, Kevin Lee's 165 pounds comments about fighting GSP and more. 18:56 -- The Monday Morning Analyst with Dan Hardy on UFC Singapore, UFC 226 mega fights, and more. 1:02:22 -- Brendan Schaub checks in on the latest headlines in MMA. 1:22:55 -- Kelvin Gastelum discusses his situation, what he's got planned for a return and more. 1:34:45 -- The Sound Off featuring your calls, tweets and more on the latest in MMA. 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 18665330 or visit comexontera.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour It is Monday June 25th, 2018 and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas

and this is the MMA Hour. Thank you so much for joining me. Boy, you guys killed that music fast. Welcome, everyone. Hope you're doing well. I know I am. I know this is not a familiar site, but hopefully it will become one over time. Fun show plan for you guys today on the docket. three guests. We had four. We had Leota Machita. He had his plans change at the last minute. I think some travel issues. So he will not be here today, but rest assured, MMA fighting will get in contact with him. So on the do today, I'll have a bit of an opening statement about what it is we're going to do and what

we're going to be here on this show. At 1220, we're going to have like a brand new Monday morning analyst. If you guys know anything about my work, we used to do that on the site. We're going to keep that. we're just going to roll it into being a segment on this show. For today, it'll be a guest, Dan Hardy, who called the fights at UFC Singapore. Again, as I mentioned before, 1220 is when he's going to be here. Now, I'll have a clarification about that going forward, but let me get through the rest of the docket. As I mentioned, we were going to have Lula Machita a little bit later in the hour, but that got all messed up. So at 105 or so, this dude is everywhere. You catch him on below the bell podcast, Joe Rogan Fight Companions. he's touring stand-up comedy clubs across the country and a whole lot more.

Brendan Schaub will be here to talk about the latest with him, as well as the latest in combat sports and MMA headlines. Then at about 125 or so, UFC middleweight Kelvin Gastilum will be here. We'll talk to him about what it is that happened between Yuel Romero and Robert Whitaker, where he fit into that, what these issues were that Dana White had alluded to, and what's next for him. And then, of course, a new segment here, on the MMA hour. It's going to be called the sound off. Now, I had pitched to you guys over the weekend

if you follow me on Twitter at L Thomas News and of course at MMA Fighting. A phone number to call. 844-866-2468. I say again, 844-866-2468. And that is a number where you can call. Some of you apparently have called. I've been told and left a lot of heavy breathing messages. I hope to hear those one day. If not today, certainly in the future. But you can call that number and you can give questions, comments. We're going to screen them and then play the best ones on air. I do hope, though, if the control room is listening, we need at least one weirdo heavy breather per show just to lighten the mood a little bit. MMA's a little bit too serious. And then, of course, you can also use the hashtag the MMA hour. You can use that on Twitter.

You can use that on Instagram. You can use that anywhere you want. And at the end of the show, on a segment called The Sound Off, we'll get to at about 140 today, but going forward. It's going to be a much longer segment. For today, though, about 20 minutes, we'll get your best calls, your best tweets, your best questions, the whole nine yards. Yeah? And then, at the end, I have a little surprise for some of the folks here on the show. Not a big one, but a fun one. So, 155 will close out with a little bit of a different vibe.

And, of course, the show is going to run from 12 to 2 o'clock East Coast time. Okay. folks have asked me all week, am I nervous? And the answer is, of course, right? Wouldn't you be? I mean, on the one hand, it's such a platform, it's such a great opportunity, it's such a blessing. On the other hand, it's a enormous responsibility. And I hadn't said anything about this up until now because I wanted to wait until we were on the show.

Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a mistake. I probably should have said it sooner. But my thought was, I'll say it on the show because it'll be more sincere there. You know, I have a vision for this show. I have a vision for what we want to do, for what we can do, for what we should do, for what makes sense for you, for what makes sense for the sport, the site, all the various parties involved. But before we can even get to any of that, really I have to start the show with a measure

of acknowledgement. And I don't have any prepared remarks you can see here. Well, I can't show the numbers, but this is, quick flash, this is just a rundown of who's on the show today. I don't want to give away their phone numbers. But I don't have any, you know, this is not a best man speech where I'm telling you stories about the time, you know, me and this guy got hammered in the back of a Volkswagen or whatever. It's not that. I just want to speak from the heart, but I know what I want to say. And let's just call what it is, right?

I would not be here today. The show would not be continuing here today. this opportunity for all of us would not exist were it not for the contributions of one guy. So I didn't say anything earlier, but I wanted to say it now. I want to say congratulations to Ariel Hawani. I know he's got his show today. I think it starts in about an hour, a little bit under. And I wanted to acknowledge that this is the house that Ariel Halwani built.

And believe you me, I am not confused about that fact. I am not in denial about that fact. I am not in any way challenging that fact. This is an opportunity that I've been blessed with because of an institution that he created and built. And it would be very awful of me to start the show today without recognizing that fact. So I don't know if he's going to watch this.

I don't know if he's going to see this, but I just wanted to say to Ariel, it was a joy to work with you. It was an honor to share the MMA beat table. I was a guest on the MMA hour, I think a handful of times. All the pre-fight shows we did, all the post-fight shows we did. It was tremendous. And really, here's the reality.

I think this is all the win for combat sports fans, because you're still going to get what he's doing. And here you are with another opportunity here to enjoy some more great MMA and combat sports programming, right? It's the best of both worlds. But the reality is this about what he did. I don't want to copy it. And not because I think there's anything wrong with it,

but because it'd be foolish for me to do that. It would be very dumb to try and just do the same kinds of things he'd been doing. So I'm not going to. I'm not going to try. I'm not going to. There's no rat race with me. None of that. I don't care about doing any of that.

It would not serve you and it certainly wouldn't be my interest to do that. I'm going to do the show that I know how to do. And that is, yes, some of this will be the same to you in many capacities. We will have guest interviews. As I mentioned today, Dan Hardy, Kelvin Gass. Brendan Schaub, you, you're going to be my guest on the sound off. So all of that is still in play. But we're going to do some other things a little bit differently here too. I like listener feedback. And not to say he didn't, but I want to make it a really big priority here on the show.

I like hearing your voices, whether it's written or literally in the audio sense. And I want to have fun. I want to have, if I'm not having fun, how can I expect you to have fun? So we're going to try. We're going to try. We're going to do our best, and we're going to hopefully bring you the kind of programming that's a little bit different, a little bit fun, informative, entertaining, one hour, two hour, Dunski. And it will be on our way. And that will be what we'll do. Now, this will evolve over time. We will figure out what works best.

There'll probably be some technical errors. I'm sure I'll say something stupid along the way. These are inevitable obstacles to getting a show off the ground. but these are solvable problems too. One last note, if I may, actually two more notes, but one big one, if I may, I have to acknowledge the folks who made this possible beyond the institution that was built by Mr. Hawani, of course. I have to acknowledge the folks at Vox Media. I've been with the company since 2007, February of 2007, and they've always treated me great. I've been worked a number of different capacities.

I started as a writer at Bloody Elbow, then an editor-in-chief, then I moved over to something short-lived called MMA Nation, then I moved over to MMA fighting, and in MMA fighting, I became like an editor and then a podcaster. And if you had told me at the beginning of 2018, oh, Luke, by the way, late June, you're going to be hosting the MMA hour in New York City. I'd have been like, what are you smoking? And please, may I have some? Because I just never could have imagined that that would be the case. And yet here we are. Life is funny, man. I've been, I've been grinding for about 12 years. And I'm not asking for any sympathy for it. Believe me, it was a choice of my own volition and it's worked out okay. But I just mean this. For some folks, opportunity comes

early. For some folks, opportunity comes late. And for some folks, opportunity never comes at all. And for me, here we are. There might be somebody out there more deserving. There might be people who work just as hard and maybe even harder. All I know is I take this opportunity seriously. I recognize it exactly what it is. It is total serendipity. And I am beyond grateful. So to the folks at Vox, to Brian Tucker, to everybody.

By the way, the crew here has been, I mean, to try and get everything turned over to make this happen where you have to get all the new imaging. You heard the new sound, a little hip-hop vibe for the whitest guy on earth. That takes time and it takes a lot of effort and those guys back there have been on the grind, ladies and gentlemen.

So a tip of the cap to everyone back there. And yeah, let's get this show started. Now, I have not said anything about this because I also want to bring him on the show when the show aired. I didn't want to say anything beforehand. Another gentleman who has been grinding. Another gentleman who's been out there

just doing an incredible job behind the scenes. Taking on a new responsibility to help bring the show to you in the way that you are looking at it now. He will be, and has been, the Arequipe to my pan, the friolis to my aros, a gentleman who will be on the show with me

as an ever-present voice and contributor. Danny Segura is going to be here. Can we go to the back and see old Danny? Where's he at? Hey, there he is. What's up, buddy? All good. How are you feeling?

Good. You're like LP Bay. Total bien, right? Yeah, though again. Big day for you guys yesterday. Yeah. Three and a little. I mean, it was magical day.

It was amazing. How drunk were you yesterday? You know, I had to be in decent shape for this show, so I didn't... Not too bad, right? Yeah. Now, where did you watch the games? In Brooklyn. I thought you went to Queens.

No, that was a plan, but, you know, there was a little change there, and we ended up staying in Brooklyn, but it was still a good time. It was a great day for Columbia, three to nothing in the World Cup. You guys play again on Thursday, correct? Against Senegal. What time is that game? It's like 10 a.m. Right. Yeah, it's early. So are you going to pretend to be sick to go watch that game in Brooklyn again? You know, I'm actually kind of feeling a little rough right now, so yeah, I don't think I might make it. Okay, so I told, I teased this earlier. I'll mention it now again. I need you miced up, not like this with this big ass microphone in your face.

I need you five minutes to close. Just come on in studio. Now don't waltz in like you're Vince McMahon doing the billionaire strut. You're not Connor McGregor. But, you know, gently make your way. I have a surprise for the two of us. Okay. All right. Let's do it. You ready? Yeah.

Leaston? All right. And we're going to do all that soundoff stuff with you later on at 140. Sounds good. By the way, did you include any of the mouth breathers for the sound off? I did not include any mouth breathers? Did I not give you specific instructions? But you'll be getting something that you'll enjoy.

Okay. All right. So surprise is for me too. Yeah. All right, my friend. We'll talk to you a little later in the show. Let's get to some of the results from over the weekend, some headlines if we can't. if we can't. I saw something rather strange. I don't know if you guys saw this. MMA Twitter has

devolved into just a parody of itself, and no small part because of my own contributions. Now, we're going to talk to Dan Hardy about this in about seven minutes, but I wanted to weigh in a little bit early. Donald Seroni lost a five-round decision to Leon Edwards over the weekend at UFC Singapore. Fine fight, good fight. Leon Edwards, I think in moments looked absolutely brilliant. Some other moments, you can tell he's still developing his skill set, but he is obviously on his way up the roster and you could even argue that that one split decision loss he had here in the UFC shouldn't account it he could have gone his way in which case he'd have a really remarkable resume we'll talk about Leon Edwards a little bit later I want to focus on Donald Seroni

and I know it's sort of cliche to be like oh my god I have so much respect for Donald Seroni right he's so great and I should echo all those sentiments I saw something a little bit strange actually though on the other side for I won't say all the people who were saying Donald Soroni Don't Serrani is a hero. I'm not going to say it was equal parts, but I definitely did see a contingent of folks who were like, you know, Donald Serroney should consider retirement. Don't Soroni might want to consider going to Bellator,

to which I have to say, again, I don't know what it is you are smoking, but please pass that because it is having quite an effect on you. I cannot imagine arguing that in public and wanting to be taken seriously. Now, look, I'll meet you halfway. I often see the argument from folks like, you can never tell another man to retire. You can never tell another man to retire. Well, you're right, I can't.

Right, I'm not his mother or something. I can't go up to any fighter and say, it's time for you to hang it up, right? Because they're just not going to listen and nor would you expect them to. So I don't have that kind of authoritarian command to tell someone when they should retire, but I don't know why it's wrong to vocalize concerns. If you're being dismissive and rude, well, that's one thing. But Donald Seroni, to me, while not even close to the idea that he should be retiring, and therefore it would be in that sense premature, if not inappropriate, to tell him that,

nevertheless, you can all envision a scenario where somebody's doing clear and present danger to themselves by continuing to go on. It would actually be negligent to not say something. If not so much, you should retire to nevertheless acknowledge that something has gone wrong here, that this expiration date has passed. And so when folks say you could never tell another man to retire, quite literally that is true, but also it misses the point. Sometimes you need to.

Now, this is not even close to one of those scenarios, which is why I was blown away when I had seen this or that even he should go to Bellator. There's nothing wrong with going to Belator. In fact, Leota Machita is headed that way. Josh Barnett, who left the UFC. I think officially he put out a statement last night. Who knows where he could be headed, maybe Japan, maybe Belator, who knows, right?

We'll have to see. But to me, it's like Soroni is not even like close. to that at all. It's not to say he's not having some struggles. It's not here to say that this is peak Seroni or that at 35 years old when you zoom out and you look at it and you say, well, 35 dropping four of his last five. I mean, you know, what does that really mean exactly? Well, okay, that's not great. But a couple of things here. What are the reasons why Nogero was beloved was for a lot of reasons. He fought the best of his generation. But two, it was the physical sacrifice on the altar of athletic glory, right? It's really what it was.

Going in there against Bob Sapp and getting pile driven into the ground where you're taking on a guy so much bigger and, you know, comically strong, looked like a comic book character, in fact. He's out there doing that and no Gary out there. And it's just just figuring it out. And just taking that brutal beating against Crow Cop and figuring it out. And then taking that brutal beating even by Tim Sylvia. figuring it out, right? He had just shown incredible will and incredible skill and this indomitable spirit. The comparisons between Nogera and Saroni are a little overstated, but what I mean to say is the following. Soroni is the last of the Mohicans. He needs to change that opening music. I know the

kid rock thing with the cowboy thing works. I get it. Who doesn't love it? It's the one time I can say, it's like kid rock. He likes Boone's farm and he has a great song for Donald Serroney. All right, man. Just don't run for Senate. But I would say this. He is the last of the Mohicans. He should come out to that song. Did you guys not hear what he had to say? Forget all the stuff about him being sick, which was incredible that he got out there. Forget all stuff about like, hey, I just wanted to have a good time, and I had a good time. I love this. I'm not going anywhere. That's incredible too, right? Oh, that's incredible. It was a different thing that he said. He had acknowledged, and I'm paraphrasing here, that he was glad to offer the opportunity to guys like Darren Till, to guys. To guys.

like Leon Edwards, to have that next step in their career to excel, to go forward. He had acknowledged that there's a bit of a circle of life and that there's a bit of an ecosystem. Not that he's done. Not that he's done winning. No, no, no, no. He's going to go out there and put it on somebody, believe you me, but that he recognized everyone as part of this evolutionary cycle and he was totally accepting of the fact that he's getting older. Some of these guys are getting younger and they're getting better. And that's just the way things go. Rather than, And I understand the self-preservation. Believe me, any rational person would do it of saying, well, I'm not going to fight that guy because it's bad for me. And late in my career, I need to be very, very choosy about that. He does the exact opposite. He welcomes the inevitability of what comes next. He welcomes the inevitability that there will be some decline. Not linear. He's not done. But that, he welcomes the inevitability that there will be some decline. Not, not linear. He's not done. But that, this is just part of the process of being a fighter. And it's almost, he almost treats it like

it's a responsibility to help those guys next, even though those are the guys that are beating him. Ladies and gentlemen, you talk about having respect for Donald Serroney. Pick your reason because he's an excellent fighter, because he has athletic courage, because he fights the best of the best, because he travels to far reaches of the earth, because he fights when he's not feeling well, because he has beaten good guys, because that combination on Rick's story is one of the most incredible things you ever seen in your life, pick your reason. Here's another reason. He is helping the next generation of guys to get out there and be something special at his own personal expense and is accepting of it. It's not something he's being dragged into. I can't say enough

good things about Donald Serroney. I really can. All right. Now, with that being said, let's talk more about that fight and to do that, it's our very first segment here on the MMA hour with your host Luke Thomas here, yours truly. Let's do the Monday morning analyst. Kind of botched that a little bit there in the back. Joining me now here on the magic of Skype

is a gentleman who called the fights at UFC Singapore. He is just my favorite analyst out there doing it right now. The one and only Dan Hardy. Dan joins us. Hey, there he is. Hi, Dan. Hi, good to see you, man. You look great in that seat.

Congratulations on the new show, man. It's good to see you. Well, you know what? I can think of nobody better to join me but you. You've been very kind to me over the years, and I've really appreciated your analysis. And he did a great job at UFC Singapore. My first question is, are you still in Singapore?

And if you're home, how the hell did you get there so fast? Yeah, I got home. I landed at 5 o'clock this morning, so I've been back in the UK for 12 hours. But my adrenaline's still going from the weekend. I don't sleep a great deal for a few days after the flights because I'm still too excited. Man, well, your enthusiasm shows.

Great job calling them. I'd always love hearing you and John Gooden. Let's start at the top. I don't know if you heard my remarks about Donald Serroney at all, but just this acceptance, it's not merely, it's all the character traits. You can talk about being a good fighter, but then he doesn't have the responsibility,

but to talk in the language that he has responsibility to the next generation, it is so utterly remarkable, is it not? It's incredible, you know, he has my utmost respect. And, you know, it's the true attitude of a martial artist, take on any challenge, willing to learn from any challenge, any challenge, willing to, you know, to go anywhere to take on a challenge and embrace no matter

what comes in his direction. I think it's incredible. I think a lot of fighters are inspired by him. And, you know, I got the, I was, I got the chance to speak to Jason Knight before UFC Liverpool as well. And he spent some time at the BMF ranch and just had nothing but amazing things to say about Cowboy. He does a lot for the younger generation of fighters, both inside the sport and and outside, you know, teaching him out to change tires and tile roofs and that kind of stuff. Yeah, he's a great example of as all. So if I had to ask you why Leon Edwards won the fight against Donald Serroney, what would you say? I would say he got a good head start. I would say he landed clean shots early on, and I think, you know,

I'm obviously open a cowboy up pretty good with a knee early on. I felt like he was, to a certain extent, dictating the fight at least for the first three rounds. The problem with Leon Edwards he tends to take the foot off the gas a little bit if he's cruising. He always reminds me of an old teammate of mine, Andre Winner, who, you know, when he feels comfortable in the fight, he fights at the level that he needs to continue winning. And sometimes you know that he's got an extra gear and he can step it up. And a lot of the time, you know, we watch Leon Edwards fight and he kind of starts slow and he builds up and looks great in the third round like he did against Peter Sabota.

But Cowboy, he started a bit faster. But then, you know, he dropped off a little bit in the later rounds. But in his defense, it was the first time he's done five rounds. Who won the clinch battle in your mind over the course of the five? And what I mean by that is... I thought... Sorry if I may. I'm sorry to cut you off. What I mean by that is not really who was able to land the more effective strikes,

but from a wrestling standpoint, control position, turn the other guy, that kind of thing. Well, it's a great question. And I actually spoke about the Robbie Lawler fight for Cowboy. And one thing he did really well in that fight, because he knew that Robbie Lola was focusing on that kick to the body, and that is a weakness of Cowboy, we've seen a couple of times. Cowboys started to level change into the clinch,

and then he was coming up with knees and elbows and following up with a kick. But if you watch that fight back, every time they broke the clinch, they were breaking on Cowboys' terms, which was allowing him to land clean elbows. But for me in this fight, he was initiating the clinch,

but not with the intention of getting a takedown, with the intention of maybe stifling the action a little bit. But then he was holding on for too long, and it was actually Leon Edwards that was breaking and landing the clean shots. So although obviously Cowboy was initiating the clinch a lot, I don't think he did a great deal with it. And it was always, say always,

the majority of the time it was Leon Edwards breaking on his terms and landing good shots. What did you like the most from Leon Edwards? I would say in a vacuum, and all of this have to be set up over time and things like that. But I would say in a vacuum, the body kicks were, they were so quick. My only complaint was he didn't follow up on them enough. But if you had to ask me what I love from him, oh, those were just sublime. they were good but if you go back and watch his Vicente Lucque fight I think that that if Cowboy had faced the Leon Edwards that Leuke Vicente Lucie thought I think I think Leon Edwards

would have probably been able to get the stoppage from the body kicks I felt like he was better at setting up the body kicks in that fight he used his lead hand much better to to open the body kick target and to be honest that the best thing from Leon Ed was this week has been his attitude you know we've seen more of his personality he was very vocal in every face-off he had with Cowboy. He did get under his skin. He did rile him up a little bit. And I do feel like that affected the fight.

We don't see a great deal of personality from Leon Edwards. He's a very quietly spoken fighter. But to me, I think that was the best thing we saw about in this weekend was he kind of came out of his shell a little bit. And I think that now he's got this win over Cowboy. He's going to get a lot more confidence that we're going to see in the future. How would you, how do I ask this question exactly? it's not a question of merely who should be next for him, because that's a bit of a matchmaker role.

But against who would he show his best talents next? Does that make sense? Like, not meritocratically, who has he earned a shot against? Who would he have to fight for us to see the very, very best of league on Airworts? Because I felt we got flashes of it, and then not so much flashes of it. Yeah, I think there are a couple of options. One fighter that he called out in his post-flight interview, Jorge Mazvedal, would be a great fight. he's always been one of my favorites and Masfidel's the kind of fighter

that will push Leon Edwards back he will look to expose Leon's slow starting nature and I think he's a very aggressive kickbox and very accomplished and I think he can I think he can give Leon Edwards all that he can handle in that range

which I think would be a great fight and the other one is Santiago Ponziabio I think that would be a great matchup as well two very aggressive fast strikers obviously Ponziabio is much more of a push forward fighter and Leon Edwards is much more of a, you know, wait for the fight to come to him and then punish them for it. So I think that would be a great matchup as well.

But to be honest, I mean, pretty much everybody apart from Damien Meyer and Kamara Usman would probably be good fights for Leon Edwards at this point. Fair point. Let's talk about Ovin St. Prue. You know, he made a point in his comments to you post-fight that I never had taken inventory of that he is so active and will fight anyone anywhere. Listen to this, Dan, you already know this, but for the audience's sake, he joined the UFC in 2013.

He fought twice in 2013. he fought four times in 2014, twice in 2015, four times, excuse me, three times in 2016, three more times in 2017, and he's already fought twice in 2018. Why does he not get credit for being an absolute, first of all, road warrior, and then a guy who will fight basically anybody anywhere? It's a good question. I think partly because he's very quietly spoken, he's not a brash out spoken individual, he's not calling people out.

I certainly felt like he showed a bit more personality on the microphone on Saturday. But ultimately, I think it's because we still don't really know exactly what to expect from him. We all feel like he's got more to show. We all feel like he's still got a lot of areas in his game he can develop. We know he's an amazing athlete. He can punch moving backwards on one foot with his eyes closed, crossing his arms over when he's hitting Patrick Cummins and pivoting off the lead foot when he knocked out Shogun. There are lots of things in his game that show us that he's very,

talented, but I just kind of feel like he's missing the glue that holds it together, which is the aggression to push forward and make it happen. And I think he paid for that at the weekend with that knockdown. You know, he allowed Tyson Pedro to dictate the pace early. And I think he was, I think he was fortunate that he was fighting a young prospect that's maybe not got the pedigree to control his emotions in the fight. You know, Pedro came out dancing, like his girlfriend and Taito of Vasa and their, The whole crew were right next to us at the commentary booth,

and they were all up on their feet dancing. And it was a bit more of a nightclub atmosphere, to be honest. And OSP was there meaning business. It got caught cold early. But I think that OSP will see himself if he watches the fight back, that if he just puts it on people, he's devastating. He's absolutely devastating. Tai Taitoivasa, by the way, doing more shooies than any person can be medically advised to do.

I'm at the point now where his next fight, they're going to start with a shooey, like between rounds with water. at this point. That's how much he does the shoey. But let's get back to Tyson Pedro. Say again? Sponsored by Monster Energy drinks. You know what? Who could blame him? It works. People love it. I love it too. So here's my question about Tyson Pedro. He came out with those question

mark kicks. They were beautiful. They looked phenomenal. And then he, as you mentioned, dropped him with that right hand. And then he clinched with him. Is that that inexperience you're talking about? He's clearly a good athlete. And clearly he's a good striker. And clearly it was true that training with Brandon Gibson and those folks at the BMF Ranch has done worlds of good for him, but the clinching I just, I just didn't understand. Well, interestingly, a part of me expected it a little bit. When I interviewed him earlier in the week, he talked a lot about the Corey Anderson fight, which, as we know, Anderson tied OSP up against the fence and probably won the first two rounds

by stifling him and beating him up in the clinch until obviously he got starched with that head kick. And I think, I think Tyson looked at OSP and thought, well, I know he did. He's a big, strong, powerful athlete. the earlier rounds are going to be the most dangerous because he's most unpredictable and fastest in those rounds. So probably tie him up against the fence for a round or two and wear him out and then start to use that, you know, the speed advantage that he probably had

given the fact that he was a lighter fighter, he would have been able to maintain that into the later rounds. But again, I just, I think emotion got the better of him. He was a little over-eager to get the fight going. And I don't think he meant to go for the takedown. And I think if, well, the other thing as well, clamped onto the guillotine and if you look at the difference between ilia latifi and osp there's like a six inch height difference so you clamp a guillotine onto onto latifian you can lift him off the feet

and make that guillotine work but osp still had his toes on the ground you know what i mean it was a um a lack of adaptability i would say and he just got a bit carried away with the moment he went for the takedown when he really didn't need to he should have stuck to his game plan and and stayed clenched up against the fence and dirty boxed a bit. I still have high hopes for him. I just also think he's young and it'll get better over time. People were asking me about this gentleman, and one of the problems with my jobs and the hours that I work

is I just don't have the time to focus in on prospects like I used to. But all I heard in the week up to the Singapore event, Dan, was Peter Yan, Peter Yan, Peter Yan. And so I decided to remain agnostic about it to the extent that I could. And then I watched him. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I was blown away by Song Yadong, and we'll get him in a minute.

But Peter Yan, whoa, they don't come much better than that. Tell me, how impressed were you with that guy? I was incredibly impressed. He was one of my picks for performance of the night, you know, especially making his UFC debut because he's still an unknown commodity. And I think he got the perfect opponent with Ishihara. You know Ishiara is going to be moving laterally and throwing single big power shots because he knows he's got fast knockout power.

particularly in the first couple of minutes of a fight. But if you watch Yan's fights, he's so good at pressuring people. And he reminds me a lot in his attitude and in his approach to Just Engaging. But if you replace Justin Gachis wrestling and reckless boxing with really nicely polished Muay, that he's very good at delivering from both stances, you go back and watch his, his Magamad Magamedov fights, and you'll see it. He cuts people down. He paints them into a corner, switching stances.

And at the same time, he's constantly rolling underneath and landing nice, short combinations and chopping into them with kicks and knees. He's a very, very talented fighter. And he didn't look at all out of place and uncomfortable in the fight. You know, even when Ishiara had the run of the octagon and had all the movement he wanted, you could still see that Yan just knew it was a matter of time before he caught him. How much is Jan's stance switching a product of his talent and how much of that is just the new normal in MMA? Again, it's a good question. I think it is a new precedent for mixed martial arts. I think for me, when I was fighting people of different stances,

I always had a visualization. I would have one of those old top-loading cassette tapes, because I always struggled. If I was fighting an orthodox fighter, I was very comfortable because most of my opponents, most of my opponents and training partners were orthodox. But when I had someone who was Southport, it was almost like I had to have a second skill set,

a second box of tools that I could draw upon. And then if you think that that's constantly happening in the fight, if you start to set up the right hand and then all of a sudden they switch stands, you've got to throw that out the window and start building a new attack plan up. And I think that constantly keeping somebody on the back foot, particularly in this moment of the sport where people have not become comfortable with stance switching, whether it's their own or their opponents, I think a lot of people are making the most of it.

I mean, Dom Cruz always did an amazing job, stance switching. Obviously, we've seen T.J. Dillashore under the coaching of Dwayne Ludwig doing it really well as well. So I do think it's a new progression in the sport, but I do think, you know, in sort of four or five years time, we'll have guys that are at least 60%, 40%, one stance or the other, but they'll be switching most of the time. And then Song Yadong, just looking, absolutely. You know what he reminded me of? And you're going to, the comparison won't make sense until I explain it. Mitsuhiro Ishita was predominantly a wrestler.

But what I mean is, Song Yadong just has this absurd physical intensity. I mean, he physically put it on Aranches. He could do nothing to do. It was just the pressure and like the power striking and then the control. Even when Aranches, Dan, was trying to turtle. He had to turtle slowly because everything was being held.

It was, I was so impressed by that guy. He's what, 20 years old? What is that kid's ceiling? Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. And again, another special athlete. I don't think we got a good look at him in his UFC debut because, unfortunately, I didn't feel like his opponent was really worthy of being in there with him. He just kind of couldn't keep up with him.

It was nice to see him against someone that's got, you know, a lot of UFC fights under his belt like Aranches. But again, you know, Felipe just couldn't get into the fight. Every range, Song Yadong had it covered. He's got beautiful boxing, very, very classically trained boxing, nice, tight combinations, no wasted movement in anything that he does, constant pressure, very good range management as well. If you watch his fights,

he manages that space between him and his opponent so well. As soon as someone, as Bruce Lee said, when my opponent expands, I contract, and when they contract, I expand. He does that almost second nature. So he's able to think about his attack instead of his footwork. It's beautiful to watch him. It really is.

I mean, we're just scratching the surface. We've not even seen what this kid's capable of yet. Any other high performer you'd like to acknowledge here from that UFC Singapore card? To be honest, I think the leech looks amazing. Lee Jing Liang, he took on Daichi Abe and we all kind of felt like that was going to be a stand in the center of the octagon and trade punches until someone fell over. And the leach is a very aggressive fighter. One thing he said to me earlier in the week is that he would like to, he would like to be less aggressive and more measured. And he would like to find a flow state a bit more.

He would like to be a bit more reactive to his opponent. It was clear he had a game plan to beat up the lead leg of Abe. And it was clear that Abbe came in there with his coaching from Dwayne Ludwig, planning on switching his stances quite regularly, which unfortunately he paid for because no matter what leg was forward, it was getting hammered by Lee Jing Liang. And I mean, his confidence is at an all-time higher, and that was the most measured performance we've seen of him yet.

I really think the Chinese MMA fighters are on the rise. And as he kept yelling into the microphone after, China Power, you know, there's definitely something special going on in that region, and we're starting to see it now. Certainly are. What fight are you most excited about for July 6th, July 7th? So that would be the ultimate fighter finale, and then, of course, UFC 226.

Pick your fight that you've really got your eye on. Well, I am in London at the moment, ready to record inside the Octagon for the main event. So my entire focus is on that at the moment. I've been watching all the training footage of DC, you know, getting into his training camp and seeing how he's moving and what he's adding to his game. He has my respect,

stepping up to heavyweight and taking on Miyochic, but I really feel like Miyoch is the most dangerous fighter that DC could fight at the moment, especially with John Jones being out, because everything that DC does well, Stipe's got a counter to it. And the things that DC does to light heavyweights

is what Stipe's doing to heavy weights. You mean, you watch him against Inganu. He DC'd him. You know, he embraced the grind. He beat him up. He dragged him to the floor. He stayed in his face. The difference with the two,

obviously is probably about, well, I would say 30 pounds difference, probably a bit less now because D.C. is going to have gained a bit of weight. But it's that short-range power. And, I mean, Miotich can throw moving forward or moving backwards, and he needs very little space to land it. Even in ground and pound, if you watch his knockout against Alistair Overeen, I mean, he's literally moving sort of 12 inches with a landing knockout power to people. So it makes it very difficult for DC moving forward and covering distance very quickly against the guy like Miyochich, who obviously you've got to move past that boxing range, which we know he could knock out big, strong heavy weights, and then you get your hands on him. And although DC's a great

wrestler, so is Miyoch, and he only needs to wrestle enough to keep DC uncomfortable for the fight. So I'm absolutely obsessed with that one at the moment. I think it's a fascinating matchup. And I love guys stepping out of their weight class and taking risks like that. So respect to DC. Let me play devil's advocate if I can for just a moment. One thing that Cormier told me years ago was that, yes, he went to light heavyweight for Kane Velazquez reasons, and we all know those, but he loved fighting at heavyweight because he goes, they're so slow. He could just see everything coming. Now, Miochich, as you mentioned, is a great athlete, and as you mentioned, has short-range power. But what about the speed differential? Cormi is a little bit longer in the tooth

as well, phenomenal athlete, but do you think he'll have a speed advantage? I think, I think, I think possibly you have a speed advantage, but the difference is, Cormier, the majority of his punches are looping shots, and the majority of steep-age punches are straight, and a straight line is always the shortest distance between two points. So although D.C.'s got to move forward, he's going to be rolling under those punches and winging over the top,

throwing that heavy body kick that he likes to use. Everything that he's doing, I mean, this is a perfect camera angle. He's walking onto this. You know, it's very, very dangerous for him. He's going to be walking into the firing range, And there's only so many times you can bob and weave to one side before Miyochi starts to adjust and catches him with a hook. I really feel like if DC is going to get the win here, he needs to add something new to his game. And in the conversations I've had with DC, I don't think he's prepared to do that.

I think he feels comfortable with the skill set that he's got. And I think he feels like it's enough to prove that he's the best fighter on the planet, let alone the best heavyweight, best light heavyweight. It feels like an eternity ago. But again, playing devil's advocate. can anything be taken if your Kormier from Miochich's loss to Stefan Strouve? And I know that's a crazy body type and a long time ago,

but I'm just wondering, is there anything? I'm not sure, to be honest. That was an unusual version of Miochich, and that was a long time ago. That was my last fight, so I remember it very clearly. Wow. Yeah, I know. And that was in Nottingham as well, you see.

So Mierchich had to travel a long distance to, I mean, it's 5,000 miles. as he had to travel. Struve was hopping across the pond. It's 45 minutes from Amsterdam. It's not a very far journey. And I just think the amount of time that he would have had to adapt

to someone of that kind of height, I don't think he had the time to do that. The travel, I think, affected him as well. And, I mean, let's be honest, his best performances have all been since that fight. I think that was a big wake-up call for him. And there was a little bit of a stumble

in that knockout as well. He wasn't turned and faced his opponent when he got punched with that clean shot. I don't think that's, well, unless DC comes in on stilts with groupsticks for arms, I don't think he's going to make much different. I know it's a silly question, but I had to ask because it was a time he got pushed back and stopped, so I was just thinking maybe, maybe, but very quickly, Max Holloway, Brian Ortega, is the optimal responsibility for Ortega to get around the jab of Holloway?

I think the problem ultimately with fighting Holloway for Brian Ortega is the speed in which he starts at and his aggression. Brian Ortega does very – I mean, there's something very, very Diaz about the way he approaches fights. He's got faster hands, and I would say his boxing's tighter than the Diaz brothers. But his pace is very similar. He's kind of walking down and beat you up with nice long-range punches. Max Holloway's got a real fire in everything that he does. And again, the stance switching is a real problem. The range is going to be very different to the Frankie Edgar fight.

So, you know, punches that Brian Ortega could get away within that fight, I don't think he's going to be able to get away with Max Holloway. And I also think, you know, he's not expecting a takedown from Frankie Edgar. That's not something that – sorry, he's not expecting the tape down from Max Holloway like he was against Frankie Edgar. So that's something else he can discount. So, you know, maybe Brian Ortega will look to clinch. But it's a fascinating fight.

It's boxing against kickboxing ultimately. I don't see a great deal of a ground exchange unless Max Holloway gets snapped down and Ortega clamps onto his neck. I mean, we know he's dangerous. He's got a great squeeze on him. But I think Max Holloway is a bit too wily in those ranges. I think he might be able to kind of move around Brian Ortega and beat him up from a distance. Should Brian Ortega pull guard? Possibly.

But then the assumption is that Max Holloway is going to stay in his guard. And, you know, a lot of the time, guys get guys, you know, they end up sitting in people's guard because they feel it's a comfortable position to ground and pound from. And anybody smart that's done any research, especially someone like Max Holloway, who's adamant he's going to keep that belt, will know the risks in that in every range. He's a very respectful fighter,

he's Max Holloway, which not only tells me that he's going to do the research, he's going to do the work necessary to prepare for a particular fighter, but he's going to be able to stick to a game plan because he knows where he loses the fight. And on the grappling, on the grappling ranges, he loses that fight, I feel. I don't think he's going to tangle there. I think his anti-grappling's

good enough to stay out of guard or at least get back up to his feet if he does end up in guard. Just a couple more questions for you, Dan. I really appreciate your time. The Israel-Adassanja Brad Tavares fight, it's not, look, everything Israel-A-Sania has shown us has blown me away, but nevertheless, and he is confident that this is not too much of a step up. Brad Tavares is really good, and he keeps getting better. And the problem with that is Brad Tafaris is pretty good either being defensive or being resilient, and he's good everywhere. Is this too much too soon for Israel-A-Sanja? To be honest, no, I don't think it is.

I think he needs a high-level opponent to bring the best out of him. You see him fighting guys that he feels comfortable to handle like his debut against Rob Wilkinson. He looked so comfortable in that fight, it was almost like he was a little bored. He was kind of playing with him a little bit, whereas you step in against Brad Tavaros, who's had so many fights in the UFC. he was fought some of the best. He'll have Adasanyu's respect, so Adasania will be on his best behavior,

and he'll be putting his best foot forward. And the other thing, you know, you look at the movement patterns of both fighters, Adasanyu's very unpredictable. He's very long and, uh, and ranging and very, very creative. And the only times really that Brad Taboras, in my opinion, has struggled in fights,

is when people have stepped outside the normal movement patterns. You know, if you're standing orthodox, in a solid boxing stands, throwing a jab cross and a low kick, That's when Brad Tavore's does best. But when you're coming, like the Bobby Knuckles fight, when you're coming from a front kick to a left hook and you're doing things unusual,

that's when you get through his guard. So he's really going to have to be paying full attention to Adasania and probably not taking too many risks in the first round. I actually feel like this is a good fight for Adasani to really show us what he's capable of. I think the ceiling for him is incredibly high. The question I wanted to end on was the following. I'm watching more and more UFC events.

and at times we highlight it. So for example, at UFC 222, we had talked about how many 20-year-olds were beating 30 or 40-year-olds. At UFC 225, that was also that case. And here we are again, UFC Singapore, your guys like Song Yadong, for example, 20 years old or whatever. Is it my imagination, or is there some kind of real pushout

from the 20-year-olds in MMA now of the old guard? And is it accelerating? Yeah, I think it is accelerating. And I think it will continue to gather speed until, you know, until a lot of the old guys are kind of more fighting the old guys. I think it's about time we had a master's division, to be honest, because it is getting to the stage where, you know, these young guys, and more than, I mean, it's not, it's not the technical advantage

or anything like that of the young guys. It's purely because they've grown up with mixed martial arts. They've grown up with a seamless game. You know, it took me many, many years to go, okay, I'm striking, now I'm in the clinch, now I'm grappling. And to then to take all of those seamers, out and start blending it together. That's what we're seeing from these young guys.

I mean, like, I've had guys that are in the UFC now that come up to me and they say, the thing that inspired me to get into MMA was your fight with GSP. I'm like, that was 2010. Like, you'd not even started training until then. But I forget, they've had eight years to put that together. You know, if you start training MMA in 2010 and you're watching the likes of George St. Pierre and Joe Sealdo, and then John Jones and Conner McGregor and, you know, you're Learning from the best as you're learning your game and you don't have all those bad habits.

I spent years and years and years doing mid-block, high block, you know what I mean? Fronking, learning to count to 50 in Korean and that kind of stuff. These kids aren't doing that now. They're getting in there on the mat and they're only learning stuff that's sport-specific. And that's why we're seeing such seamless transitions in their game. I mean, Sonia Dong is a great example. Is he an MMA fight? Is he a boxer?

Is he a kickboxer? is he a wrestler, he's everything, he's all of them, because he's a mixed martial artist. But then you look at Felipe Aranches, he's a jiu-su player with some striking skills. You can still see the seam in his game. So when you start to erase those seams, that's when the decision-making so much quicker, they're so fluid in their transitions that the older guys, we don't think quite as quickly. Dan, are you still eye on a comeback? Always.

Always, absolutely. Yeah, I sit on the Arctic side and I watch these guys all the time. and I think to myself, more than anything, because I watch my old fights and I see those seams in my old fights. And I'm like, oh, I make so many mistakes. I was so, I was too heavy in my UFC career. I was talking to my old striking, and my old strength and conditioning coach the other day about this. You know, when I was fighting at welterweight, I was starting training camp at 210. You know, I'm walking around at 180 now. And I would probably still fight at 170. I could make 55 if I wanted to. But at 180, I feel like I move like a flyweight. I can keep people in the head,

no problem with my lead leg without thinking about it. Before, I was more interested in deadlift in 500 pounds because Anthony Johnson might be standing across from me. You know what I mean? Like the sports changed and unfortunately I got caught up with the trend at the time, which was, you know, be an athlete, get big and strong between training camps, blow yourself right down so you're the biggest you can be. And unfortunately, it just didn't suit my style.

I mean, I'm a taekwondo guy, so speed was always my advantage. And the only thing that kept my weight down in the early part of my career was that I was fighting 15, 16 times a year. I would stay so active that there wasn't time to gain weight and then come back down. But then when I signed with the UFC, I think my last fight was sort of April, May time. I didn't fight until October. That was the longest break I'd ever had in my MMA career. And I was right at that age where my body was ready to grow. I talk about this a lot.

I mean, there are so many fighters that come to mind. Tom Dukinwaris is the one that I've been talking about. out with people recently. I feel like he's right at that stage where his body's ready to jump up in size. And all he needs to do is give himself six months off and he'll comfortably move up a weight class. There are a lot of guys, I feel like they're really boiling themselves down to a weight class because that's the weight class they started in. So that's the weight class they feel like they should continue in. But you look at the likes of Jake Matthews, who looked incredible at the weekend as well. I can remember when he made his debut at Lightweight and he looked like a boy. And I stand next to him now

and I'm like, my goodness, he's bigger than me. You know, he grows every time I see him. And I think with the shift in the sport, if you look at the welterweight division, there's a lot of lightweights there now. There are a lot of guys in the welterweight division that a few years ago probably would have been lightweights. You stand the next, you know, you stand Mike Perry or Colby coming to next the glacing tibout, and they're about the same size.

And then you look at middleweight as well. We've got a former welterweight as the champion. Kelvin Gastelan's wrecking guys that are bigger than him because he's got speed and the power. I just, I think there's a shift in the sport. And, you know, I think maybe I was, maybe I got caught up in the wrong time. And I'm looking back now thinking, I'm not really showing my best in the UFC. And that's the thing that keeps driving me to have one more fight because I feel like I, I feel like I could give much more of a better example of what I'm capable of now.

Well, you, no matter what role you take on, whether it's fighter or analyst, you've been a great ambassador for the sport. I don't want to name names, Dan, but you and I both know what we're talking about. It is a crime that you were not. nominated for Analyst of the Year. I cannot imagine a list that should be taken seriously with your name, not on it. Thank you so much for being my first guest on this program. Thank you so much for all your calls and I guess I'll see you around. Absolutely, my friend. It's always good talking to you and best to look with the show. I'll be tuned in every week. Thank you so much, Dan. I don't believe that,

but thank you so much. There he goes. All right. Thanks to Dan Hardy. What a guy. How is it possible he was not nominated for Analyst of the Year. I don't, I understand everyone's got there. And look, the ones who are named, they're great. They're phenomenal. It's not to say that they're all, there's, you know, totally unqualified people, and here's Dan on the side. It's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is, how do you listen to that and then listen to his call over the weekend and say like, well, you know, maybe he could be, you know, honorable mention or something. Like, what? That's a first ballot analyst of the year candidate. Are you kidding me? My goodness. Big thanks to Dan. Although, Interesting to note, he likes Stepe's chances.

I can never tell with my own steepe analysis, because there are certain fighters I have a better handle on. Right. I've got a better handle on Max Holloway. I've always had a really inconsistent handle on Stepe Meochich. And so I don't do predictions for him because I just can never get a good read. And he has obviously, his success speaks for itself. So Dan's belief in him and the challenges that Cormier face are intriguing because I was naturally thinking a bit of a different way. I don't know what to say about that.

Don't forget, in about 10 minutes or so, we are set to be joined by Brendan Schaub. About 20 minutes after that, we'll be set to join by Kelvin Gastilum, and then at 140, we will do the sound off. That's where you become a guest of the show. There were a couple of things I want to get to here on the show, if I can, that I didn't get a chance to get to at the very beginning of the show. Did you guys, and by the way, is Danny back there? I want to ask him a question. Danny, come to the forefront here, my friend. Where is he?

I can hear you breathing. Hi, Danny. Hey. There you go. Did you watch the PFL on Thursday? I did. Favorite fight from PFL. There was a few.

Let's see. I just need one. Hence the word favorite. I don't know. I like the Will Brooks fight. It was good. Okay. I thought that was good against Fermino.

Yep. That was a good fight. All right. I'm trying to remember when. out of the top of my head. What was your favorite fight? Good question. I would say the Harrison outcome. Okay. I really liked. But I don't have a favorite

fight in that sense, but I have a couple of notes I want to get to. I just wanted to see, I'll come back to you in a minute, but I just wanted to see how you were thinking about that event. Here are my notes that I wanted to get to. Number one, poor Tiago Tavares. So he gets hit with a low blow. He gets his five minutes and he can't continue. And now you're thinking to yourself, okay, well, I've seen fights like

where Alessio Sakara couldn't continue you against Ron Faircloth or you can name guys where they've been kicked in the balls and then five minutes expires and they're still retching and writhing and agony on the canvas. This was sort of similar. But in Illinois, they have a technicality.

Can you believe this? Let me read this to you. This is from the Illinois Athletic Commission. So as I mentioned before, Tavares gets hit in the balls. He gets five minutes. He can't continue because he's still in visible agony. So they give his opponent a TKO win versus a no contest. Listen to this. Mr. Tavares was not struck by an illegal blow,

as low blows are considered accidental. By default, per our rules, section 1370.630 C2B. Triple I states, quote, A contestant who is hit with an accidental low blow must continue after a reasonable amount of time but no more than five minutes, or he or she may lose the bout by technical knockout. I was trying to think, I was like, what is the dumbest rule in MMA? I believe I have a winner, ladies and gentlemen. How can a low blow, which is by definition illegal, not be illegal by virtue of being accidental?

That doesn't make any sense. And of course, you have Tavares's manager says, this is nothing short of ridiculous. Now could someone explain to us why a lobo to the groin is not illegal if it's accidental, right? Either it's off limits or it's not. Now you can gauge the intentionality if you want. But apparently in Illinois, you can just run up and soccer kick someone in the babymakers and win. So heads up, MMA fighters. It's UFC won all over again, apparently, or even worse than that, in Illinois. They have a rule where it is not a problem. It is literally legal to kick someone in the ball. and have a win. I wanted to make that note. Second of all, Jason High, losing to Efraina Skidero. If you go back and you watch the fight, and I believe the judge's scorecard spoke to this,

High was winning on two of the score, excuse me, High was winning, there was two rounds in, I think they were in the third round. I believe he was winning on all three scorecards, so he was up 2018, heading into the third. I believe that's correct. and Efraín Escadero jumps guard

excuse me jumps guillotine or guillotine and you can see High is straining a little bit and in that strain he you can see he's grimacing he's hand fighting he's tripoding up he's doing all the things

that you want to do to pop your head out or to you know just find some kind of way to plug or open the choke from the leak. And he does one of these numbers, a quick grab and I'll let go, almost looks like a tap, because he's trying to decide, should I grab the hand, should I not, do I want to put my hands on the mat, do I want to put my hands on the chin, do I want to force, how do I want to separate this? If you watch what he's doing, absent the hand motion, where I mentioned, tripodting,

as I mentioned, turning the chin, he's doing all the things aside from handfighting that you would want someone to do. The referee apparently discounted this. This was one of the major that I had with Mario Masaki's non-stoppage, or whatever you want to call it, of letting the fight go too long, between Shevchenko and Priscilla Kachewara, which is that it'd be one, he's a blackbound jujitsu and a very nice man. This is not a character assassination, but it's a criticism of the performance. On this show, and I have to say this because everyone in M.A is incredibly sensitive. But in this show, I attack ideas, not people. In any case, in that performance, what you saw was that

if that had been somebody who didn't know much about Jiu-Jitsu, you would have noticed that Ketchwara was not doing and taking the evasive actions that somebody who was proficient on the ground would take for dominant bad positions that they'd be suffering under. And that was why you were like, that's not a great performance from him. I do believe Yomasaki's had some other good ones,

but that's not one of them. So fast forward now to the Jason High Fight. What is the connection? The connection is that the referee should be able to look at those other things and say, number one, if you just touches, shouldn't you ask, did you tap? Are you okay? Are you out? Are you out? If he gives the thumbs up, to me, that's, Ty should go to the runner. If you can't immediately tell it's a tap and didn't look to me like a Brazilian tap, you should ask and do follow-up questions to see where they're at. Number two, you should see what also they're doing, right? Physically, are they

taking the actions necessary to defend? Are they showing you competency in defense? in these kinds of positions. And Jason High did. He did. He absolutely was doing that. Go back and watch. That was somebody who knew what to do. He's a black belt under Ricardo Laboreo.

That is somebody who knows what to do when he's put in bad positions. And yes, that guillotine was clearly clamped on. And yes, he was clearly feeling it. But you can tell he was beginning to get separation, or at least Escadero was just losing a little bit of steam on it, just enough to squeeze his way out. And then, of course, he gets up and he throws chairs and he pushes the ref. Look, I'm not here to defend the ref pushing, but I'll say this about Jason High.

The guy has been dealt a bad hand a number of times. I'm not saying you don't have to punish him or whatever you want to do. But to me, the commission going back, standing by the call, I guarantee they will do nothing to admonish or train the referee. And I'm sure that they're probably going to bring the hammer down on Jason High. That to me is unconscionable. I don't care if you want to punish him for his actions. but to only do that, and then to stand by the referee,

a big mistake in my judgment. A couple of their notes from that card before we get to Brendan Schaub here in about five minutes. Number one, how about Kayla Harrison? Whoa, what a performance she had with an incredible arm bar in that first round. I have been saying this, if you've been watching the Monday morning analyst,

I have been saying this ad nauseum for a long time that some submission finishing in MMA could use a little, polishing. Now, it's not for me to train them, but if you watch sport jujitsu and you watch how those guys finish chokes and set them up and takebacks and everything in between, you just notice that there are certain details that you have to get right. In fact, you can go back and you watch Ronda Rousey with her Jujicatami game and the thing she was doing. And the key here that I keep talking about is you see a lot of belly down arm bars. The belly down arm bar that Nogera hit on Crow Cop was one where it was leg over the face.

Leg over the face, because when you're at least near mount, you can go a leg over the face. They can sit up, yeah? And that can work. It can work. But if they learn to evade and they can helicopter around or they can open up a leg and spread your, you know, you're supposed to pinch your knees. You can spread that apart. There's ways to evade.

So one way to fix that is shin behind the head. Go back and watch that arm bar from Kayla Harrison. She attaches the elbow to her body. She rotates towards the legs the right way. She puts shin behind the head. Why? Because it's like a three-quarter stack. It literally forces the head under and then it forces them to roll. And once they roll, leg comes over the face. And then she finished the arm bar, all she had to do was attached to herself and lean out to break the hands, which she did. Kayla Harrison's the real deal, ladies and gentlemen, their big challenge is going to be finding opposition. And I grant that. Their big challenge is going to be how do we get a big enough stage for her? But somebody that athletic, that talented, that refined in that skill set. If they can find a way to make that cyborg fight happen, to me, it's like you've got all those skills in the clinch, you've got all those skills in the ground, and she would have the size

advantage over cyborg. I'm not saying you make that fight right away. She needs, like any good prospect, even the blue chip ones, a lot more time to just work on her craft and get the cage time, really, right? But, I mean, look out, folks. Look out. Kayla Harrison is absolutely the real deal, holy field. All she needs is opportunity.

All she needs his time. All she needs is victims because that is a special athlete. One more note from that PFL card. By the way, Brian Foster, Total Barbarian, really appreciated his performance. Got us in a shout out to Will Brooks.

What a guy, right? Here is a guy in Will Brooks who holds two wins over Michael Chandler. Folks, forget this. Goes to the UFC and obviously had that great run against Ross Pearson and then it just didn't work out for him.

And I don't know why it didn't work out for him. but it didn't really work out for him. And I think some folks left him on the side of the road. I think some folks left him for dead. And look, he had to earn that against Luis Formino. Luis Formino is one of these guys where if you watched him in World Series of fighting, then you can say with pretty clear confidence, he's not one of the best guys, but he gives the best guys trouble.

And he went on there, and from pillar to post, he stuck it out, he stuck to his strengths, he pulled out the victory. The guy had a baby boy several days or a week or so before the fight. to have that kind of pressure, to have that kind of absolute world weighing down on you, and then to come out and perform the way he did. I love the attitude he had. I love the hashtag he's using, secure the bag.

So looking forward to seeing Will Brooks on the redemption tour, and that was a great first step. All right, we go now to my friend and yours. You can see this gentleman on the Below the Belt podcast. You can see him, well, everywhere. Comedy clubs, the whole nine yards. Danny, is he on Skype or is he on the phone? I don't know, actually.

Skype. All right. Then let us go to the Skype machine, the one and only Big Brown himself, Brendan Chubb. Look at the, oh, in the studio, no less. Had to stunt on me, too much. Ah, you know, man, it's a big day for you. I couldn't just be doing this from my house and my undies, man. I appreciate that. How are you, buddy? I'm great, man. I'm doing great. How are you doing? First day. I know. I had to take Pepto-Bismol as a precaution because I didn't want my rear end exploding from nervousness on the air. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, right. You were born for this, man. I'm proud of you. It's cool, man. Thanks, dude. Well, thank you for coming on and making time for us. I had spotlighted you on the show right when I found out that I was going to be taking it over.

First of all, I know you were in Houston over the weekend. How was H-town? H-town was great. It was hot. It's hot as hell, but phenomenal crowds, man. I never know how these things are going to go. We're doing the Houston improv. It's one of the bigger improvs. San San Jose is probably the biggest than Houston's right there. And when they go on sale, I'm like, God, I hope people show up. And you never know, but some of the best crowds I've ever had, man. It was a good time. How much of your audience at the comedy clubs?

How much are they MMA fans? How much are they non? What's the mix? I would say 60-40 MMA fans. You know, there's a lot. I get a, you know, when I do the meet and greets, I get a ton of fight questions. I'd say 50, 50, 60, 40. Something like that.

Okay. How much of them know you, how much of them are surprised to learn you were a fighter? Like, oh, I just can't believe it. Not too many, because I feel like it's pretty well documented. You know, they might know me from JRE or if it's girls there. They know me from E, which are like, what? You fought? I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's that, man. But it's all good. Fair enough. I want to talk a couple of headlines with you before we get into some other things. Machita, heading over to Bellator. Your thoughts on that? I love it, man. I love the move because, you know, with the UFC,

with the ratings being down a little bit and their pay-per-view model, and then they're going over DSPN, for a guy like Machita to go to Bellator, he'll be on free TV. There's some great matchups. You're telling me you wouldn't watch Machita versus Roy McDonald, you know, at 85 or Machita Gayguard or the rematch with Phil Davis or Bader, you know, so there's some great fights for him.

You know, the sponsors over there's the Wild West. love it. I love it for Machita. There's no, there's no USADA. I'm not saying he's on stuff. I'm just saying USADA, it's so strict that a lot of guys don't like to deal with that. So I think it's a brilliant move for a guy like Machita. Yeah, I want to talk about the USADA thing for a little bit more. I'm not here to suggest that he's on anything. In fact, I thought getting busted for Keto 7DHA was just absolutely insane. But let's put that aside for a moment. If you're Michita, what is he, 40? Right at it, something like that. And now you have Josh Barnett. Now, I don't know if Josh Burnett is going to Bellator. But here's Barnett raised a point.

in his sort of announcement yesterday about why he was leaving the UFC. He had great things to say about UFC, but his point was, basically, I don't trust Usada, and I don't have another year to give away. I can totally understand guys who, you know, when they've got the clock is ticking,

you got a little bit of time left to make some big money at the height of your name or, you know, relative height of your name. Why not go somewhere else? I agree. And for a guy like Barnett and the way that was handled, and there's no like my batman, we took a year of your career,

especially a super important year of your career. there's no compensation from the UFC. I think we're doing a disservice. If you just take you sada for what they are and you think they're just salt of the earth and there's no motives behind all their stuff and the way they move. I think they're a great corporation. I think drug test is important, but a lot of it's political as well. So you see what's going on with Josh Brennan, a lot of these guys.

I wouldn't want to be involved in that. If I was still fighting the UFC, that would drive me nuts, man. What they're doing, it's too much. I think it's ruining things more than helping. What do you think would be the ideal scenario? My view has always been let the fighters get together and pick an arrangement like they do in other leagues where you have some testing, but it's not the most strict thing in the world. But if those guys elected, that's what you've got to live with. Yeah, I mean, you're hitting it right on the head.

That's exactly what they should do. Oh, you mean talk to the guys who actually have to go through it and punch each other in the face and deal with if the guys are on PDs? You want to talk to those guys, see what they think? You mean like weigh-ins? when you decide to move the wait-ins and every fighter's like, dude, we don't want that. And like, sorry, you know, so that's why you need a union or a fighters organization

or something like that association. But I don't, we're so far behind that. You just got to take it, man. They're not going to do shit about it. You just got to take it. Have you given up hope for a fighters union? I'd say, yeah, at this point, you know, I've talked to a lot of those people who are involved in it

and just the dynamics to make that. thing go. The fighters have to want it, man, you know, and when I say fires have to want it, that means everyone goes, you know what, this train's not moving. We're not putting any more coal in that goddamn engine into that fire until this happens. But you got, you know, guys like Connor and you got guys like John, you got all these people making good money. And then you got guys who, man, I got to eat. So there's such a vast difference between the upper level guys and the guys who are just getting there where they have to fight, or guys are fat and happy at the top.

So until they all decide not to move and do nothing until something changes, it doesn't matter what high power lawyers you have, you know, who's representing you, what ideas they have. None of that matters. So I wouldn't even entertain it really anymore. People come on the show and talk about it. I'm just like, all right, cool, man. You're not going to do shit.

Is there any red line that they won't allow to be crossed? Because I thought it'd be after the sale, you know, the $4 billion, and they got kind of antsy. And then I thought, man, when the television deal comes around, the ESPN one, I thought, man, they're just leaving so much money on the table, how much we don't know. But the point being is, and then now the way and thing, I'm just wondering, like, what is the thing in your mind that they will say, okay, now this is just too much. I really don't know what it is. I don't know.

I have no idea. I have no idea what that threshold is because I thought if there was ever time to do it would be during these TV deals, during the TV rights, if all the fighters went, dude, they're negotiations right now. Let's not do anything until they give us what we need. Because no one's going to pick up these rights until if no one's fighting, no one's going to pick up these rights. But that skip, you know, there wasn't even a mention of it. That wasn't even in the, no one even brainstormed that. So, you know, I'll continue watching, but I don't feel sorry for him anymore, anything like that. Would you have signed a Project Spearhead card if you were still in the UFC?

No. Why? I wasn't a big enough name. I wasn't like some, you know, I was in a Brock Lesnar, John Jones, or D.C. or, you know, Pettis at the time when I was fighting when he was on Wheatie Boxes, if you're just a run-of-a-mill guy, if you're like, you know, the top 15 guy, you're floating around, you know, 8 to 15, which I was, I was one of those guys, and you go against the grain, they're, A, you're never going to be world champion. B, you, you know, you're going to get the worst matchups possible.

It's just, it's too scary out there for those guys right now. because again, the reason is those guys one through eight aren't sticking up for you. So they're going to get the benefits from it. I just wasn't a guy who could have been outspoken like that. Have you ever trained with Donald Soroni, by the way? Yes, I have. Yeah, for a long time in Denver. Do you have any cool training stories from Donald Serroney?

Like what a maniac he is, but like a maniac in a good way? You know, Donald being a maniac, he's just, you know, he's one of the, those guys who, you know, he'd come in after, you know, being on the boat all day, the lake all day and come and spar ten rounds and tear up everybody, you know, and he'd have a sunburn on his face and on his back and he'd have no handwraps on, and he'd put freaking shingards on and just whoop everyone's ass. You know, when I first got to Jackson, I stayed with Cowboy and Leonard Garcia. And I just, you know, he'd play video games and like ride horses and do shit when all I want to do is rest and conserve my energy,

then he'd go in there and just beat the brakes off everyone. So he's a special, special dude, man. He always talks about his nervousness, but then when you ask people who know him, none of their stories about him involve him being nervous. Ah, God, I wouldn't say that. You know, his nerves in the back are pretty intense, super intense. And typically, you know, he's a slow starter because, you know,

he's so, you know, he is terrified to fight. But he's a guy, you know, once he's a guy, you know, once he gets going, it's a slow start, but you let him start firing off, and he's one of the best in the world. My thing for me with Cowboys, it's almost a shame because, you know, Cowboys can be one of those guys who we chalk up, you know, with your right favorites. I'll see they're WC champions, but never UFC champions, and they had so much talent, they should have been UFC champions. I think in 2018, 2017, they started to change the tide. I don't think you can do that, Donald Colony Cowboy way of fighting, fighting wherever, whoever, I don't care what name it is.

I'll fight in Singapore at 4 in the morning with 70 Watchers. I'll go fight Darren Till in Liverpool. The guys are too good now. Guys are good at everything. You got to take it more serious, more like a professional approach where you need the time and you need those camps. And I know everyone goes, anytime anywhere, we love that. That's the best, man.

That's cowboy. I get that. But you're never going to be world champion doing that. You just can't these days. Hmm. Let's change gears here if we can for just a little bit. You had Kevin Lee over the weekend asking for a St. Pierre fight. I don't know how likely that is, but let's put that aside because the other portion of it was a 165 pound weight class. Are you in favor of the 165 pound weight class? I like more weight classes. I think it'd be good. I'd rather have more weight classes than more interim belts. They make more sense than interim belts. And guys who are killing themselves to make certain weights and stuff like that. like that. So the more classes, the less severity of weight cutting is going to be an issue. But, you know, as far as Kevin Lee getting that GSP fight, there's so many moving balls there

for that to happen. He might as well call it out hoist Gracie. It's not happening. I don't mind the guys calling it out, though. Why not? Shoot your shot. You never know. Shoot your shot. You understand. They're represented by the same agent. So shoot your shot. That could be... They're both CIA? They're both CIA. guy. Yeah, they're both the yeah, which I am too. So you know, the only reason why I look at, I go, maybe there's

something there because you know, if you're going to fire that shot, you're firing it for a reason. I don't see, and it's such a random call out, you know what I'm saying? So it's so random. At 165, you know, the only way you're going to lure that legend of GSP out of that cage

is with a Kabeber-Connor fight at 55. So he's only cut in a 55 once. The, the A. Dia's fight, who some would argue was a bigger fight than Kevin Lee, probably an easier fight than Kevin Lee, but a bigger name if you want numbers. That didn't lure him out. So, Kevin

Lee at 65, I guess, if George just wants to take a fight and collect another belt, you know, if that's his logic behind it. I don't know. I don't see it happening, though. I asked Dan Hardy this. He was on the show earlier. What fight from that July 6, July 7, back to back? So that'd be the ultimate fighter,

Israel Adasana, your Brad Tavares card. And then, of course, UFC 226. Of all those fights, Which one are you looking forward to the most? There'd be two. It'd be Derek Lewis, Francis de Gano, which is just a freaking hell of a fight. Riverlands First is definitely going to sleep. And then DC Stepe. I find that fight so fascinating.

I find it fascinating, man. Okay, why? On what grounds do you find it fascinating? I find it fascinating because what's interesting is we're calling a super fight, which to me it's a super fight is probably the best super fight in USC history. When you look at what D.C. has done at light heavyweight, his only loss is coming to John Jones. And then him being undefeated at heavyweight, you know, the Strike Force Grand Prix champion, and then him just doing work in the UFC at heavyweight and how good D.C. is.

And then Steve Bay, I feel like, has never got the credit he deserves being the winningest heavyweight of all time in the UFC, especially at heavyweight and the guys that he's beat. That people, I think, are always coming up, yeah, but he didn't beat Kane in his primer. He didn't beat this guy in his prime where Steve is just doing his thing. And even I counted him out against Francis, and he mopped the floor with Francis. So I think it is a legit super fight, man. It's not getting enough tension that it should be getting. And what's interesting, too, is you see DC going, if I can beat Steepay, I'll be regarded as the greatest of all time.

And what I flinched when I first said, I'm like, well, no, the John Jones. You can't because John Jones. But then when we look at his record and you see what he's done, I mean, there's argument for it. It's not a bad argument, you know, not at all. It's a much better argument that people realize. I don't know if I agree yet because, A, I need to see the fight and let's see what happens. And even if he wins, is it controversial, whatever. But let's say he goes in there and just starches him in two rounds, which let's just say it happens.

You can make the argument if you want, right? That not only did he do that, he had this belt at light heavyweight and the losses that he had were to a guy who had these, essentially these performance-enancing drug issues. Now, I personally am not that moved by that argument. I know some people are, but it is. you can make the case that way. There's a case and you can argue and people are like, all right, but no one's like fully convinced.

I'm waiting for someone to come up with an argument that really moves the people. But to me, I, you know, with the John Jones, the dark cloud over him, it's a decent argument. I love the fight, man. Also, I love the fight. I'm very curious because

I don't think D.C. should be as big as an underdog that he is. I think it's crazy. If you want to make some money, I would definitely bet the dog on D.C. For sure. Stepe is already considered at least the best UFC heavyweight of all time, maybe the best heavyweight of all time. What does he get if he beats Kormier?

Does he get another level of something that he currently doesn't have? Yeah, because you could say, you know, D.C., I guess, is, you know, sort of in his prime. You know, he's talking about retiring after this one, unless, you know, that Brock Lesnar monster comes out and can get him out for another super fight. But I guess it's just more, I think all Steve is looking for to get Valdea is the best of all time is, these fights, you know, the D.C.'s, the Brock Lesnar, so I think that's why he's doing it, because at heavyweight, who else is left for him? Who else? Name a guy you're dying to see Steve A fight. Brock Lesnar? John Jones? Correct. Agreed. So all super fights. Right. By the way, you mentioned that he was an underdog, according to best fight odds at various

places. He's as high as plus 225 at certain, oh, he's, excuse me, as high as plus 230 at certain places so you're righty. A fairly substantial underdog Daniel Cormier is if you want to get in some money on that. Speaking of Brock Lesnar and John Jones, please tell me you are in favor of this happening. I don't know what the mechanics are that need to be moved to make that fight happen, but certainly there's no bad angle to that fight, right? Hey, hey, golden snitch, you saw to take a hike, beat it, nerds. I don't care what you got to do to make this fight happen. I don't care if you just let them do. in a basement of someone's house,

but I got to see this fight. It's my number one fight I want to see. Talk about a super fight. That's in a ridiculous fight. I don't want the golden snitch and you decided getting the way of this. There's things that need to happen and you guys cannot prevent this from happening.

I don't care what it takes to make this fight happen. Who would you favor at the outset? Oh, John Jones. Yeah, I think so too. I don't think there's a man alive he can't beat when he's at his best. True or false.

agree completely agree 100%. I think, you know, take away some of the drugs he's taken, if that does come true. But he's the greatest fighter ever grace that octagon. And now we get to you. You know, if you watch your podcast, for example, you had on Derek Lewis more recently. By the way, how is he in person? I hear he's delightful. He's amazing.

He's a good dude. And also, you know, with the Blow the Belt TV show, we do a lot of comedy stuff in there. So with Derek, he's also a funny guy on Instagram. That's the way we wanted to bring him in. I thought it'd be a good fit. But we don't know each other. We've never met. The only time I've ever talked to him is he called me out after beating some guy.

And I was retired. I'm like, well, no, dude, call someone else out. So we don't know each other at all. So he gets there. He's a good dude. Great dude. You know, just we do the sit down interview first in studio. And then I picture him the comedy bits and what we want to do.

But, you know, it took him a little while to get going. But he's a great, great dude, man. And now I hear you on your podcast. You know, you cover a lot of boxing. How much of that do you organically enjoy? Because you come from MMA, but you do like combat sports. But I'm just sort of wondering, like, what is your level of enthusiasm for boxing these days? You know, I definitely say it got way bigger once I joined Showtime.

You know, obviously I got my foot in the door there from the Connor Floyd stuff. I've always been a huge boxing fan. And, you know, when they ask you to cover some more stuff and you start to, just like anything, get more into that world. And then, you know, you start to meet these guys. And, you know, I love it. Now, I'll say this. I'm not a guy, you know, if MMA is on Access TV or I'll watch Bellator, I'll watch Invict. I'll watch everything, MMA.

With boxing, unless it's a stud up-and-comer or unless it's a big name, I'm usually not tuning in. So that's the difference there. MMA I will watch regardless. Boxing it, I have to either know them, have a connection, or know that that guy's headed somewhere. Is Triple G Canello the fight you are anticipating most this year? Or something else? No, God, no. No, I'm over Triple G Canello.

Once Canelo ate those tacos and blamed it on that, I'm out, man. I'm out. Really? You don't buy that? I can't believe that man has all that money. You got Austria, Illinois has been cut, you know, cross-dressing with whores and stuff with cocaine. You guys go through all that, and that's the best you came up with. Are you shitting me?

The six of you are in the room, and that was, dude, she would go tacos. Yeah, let's go tacos. It's 2018. Even my girl's Mexican and shit, even she's like, oh, God damn it. Like, no one bought it, man. So I just, I was disappointed. I mean, I'll watch it. I'll say I'm into it, but Giante Water, Anthony Joshua's the fight, man.

That's the freaking fight. Does that happen in 2018? I'm going to say yes. You know, they both verbally agreed to it. Hearn came out today saying, you know, it's in Deontes corner. There's nothing else left to do from my sources at Showtime, which are pretty good. It would be, you know, the plan is the first fights in the UK, Joshua fights wilder there. And then the rematch, no matter what happens, is in the U.S.

So it's good for both guys. You're going to get a trilogy fight out of this. So it would be so good for Boxman. It's a great matchup. that's the fight I'm looking for. Well, Brendan, you have always been good to me. I really appreciate your time. I know you are a road warrior and the like.

It means a lot that you came on this show, man. Thank you so much. And everybody should watch the Below the Belt podcast. Anything you want to plug before you go? No, sir, man. I just want to thank you for having me on, man. And congrats to you, brother. I know it's a big move for you.

And you've earned it, man. And you're one of the most talented guys in the business. So good things are having to good people, man. And so I'm proud of all you guys at fighting. You know, you guys are killing it, man. Thank you, Brendan. Enjoy the road and keep wearing those ridiculous shoes. I enjoy them.

Thank you, sir. I'm on it. There he goes. Brendan Chav, ladies and gentlemen. Big thanks to him for stopping by. We go from one guest to another. This man is one of the top UFC middleweights in the world. He might be getting a title shot next.

We've got to figure out what's next for him. But he is one of the best. Joining us now is the one and only Kelvin Gastelam by the phone. Kelvin, how are you, sir? Yeah, Luke, what's going on, man? How are you, my friend? I'm all right. I'm on the way to the airport, but I'll have a few minutes to talk to you guys. Can I say where you're going because they told me, can I tell the audience? Yeah. You're headed to Spain, right? Yeah, heading over to Spain. I'm going to go teach a seminar, and we're going to be right back for International Fight Week. Where in Spain are you headed?

Uh, this will be south of Spain, uh, in Malaga. Have you been before? I've never been. I've never been. It'll be my first time. So I'm pretty excited. Spain is my favorite country outside of the United States. You are going to, oh yeah, you're going to love it. You're going to love it. Oh, awesome. Hey man, I wanted to get you on the show. I wanted to see how things are. Obviously, wish you best in Spain. But for the moment, let me get your reaction to Whitaker versus Romero. What did you make of that? Who was the rightful winner in your mind. Yeah, oh, I thought, I thought Romero would have been getting the nod,

but, you know, obviously he didn't. And, you know, selfishly, I thought, I was hoping they'd give it to Ritaker, you know, just because Romero had missed weight, he wouldn't have been getting the belt. And then it would have just created this whole, whole scenario where I'm definitely not getting the next shot, you know, where I'm going to. It just wouldn't be a position where I would be fighting for a title anytime soon. Now, according to UFC, yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, according to UFC President Dana White, he was saying that they had asked you to fill in as a replacement in case one of those guys fell out. How far in advance did they do that?

Yeah, well, at first, they came to me right after my fight with Jocker Ray. They had told me that they wanted me to be as a backup. you know, stay in shape, keep work, you know, keep training and stay in shape before the next month. And my manager was negotiated money to get from that. You know, I wasn't going to be doing it for free. So that fell through. So he told me that's not happening, okay. And so I went on vacation.

I was on Cancun. I went to Cancun. You know, was drinking, eating the whole, whole week and then I get another call Wednesday before heading out to Chicago, you know, two days from, well, really a day and a half from Wayans. You know, it was Tuesday, it was Wednesday night. And I get a call saying if I can file on Saturday. And I look down in my, I look down on my belly and I'm like, no, I don't think I can do this

a day and a half. All right, let's back up a step. First of all, that's hilarious. But backing up just a moment. They wanted you to train and get ready, and they didn't want, like, their issue was, we need you to do this, but we're not going to pay you? Or was it not that we won't pay you? We just won't pay you X versus Y amount.

I'm not sure what the whole ordeal was. My manager was negotiating that. But I just know that once we were negotiating the money part, that kind of just fell through. Okay. Now, how, don't lie now, Kelvin. How heavy were you from Cancun? I mean, I was probably about $200, 205, you know, at most. But, you know, in a day and a half notice, you know, while I've been out drinking and eating, it's not very, you know, I probably would have been in the hospital if I want to try to that.

Right. So there was no way you were going to take that. Even if you could have made the weight, it just would have been a bad idea, right? Yeah. I mean, no, it just, it just, I wouldn't have been able to do it. not healthily, at least. All right. So let's get now to the fast forward part.

So if you watch the media press conference after the fact, Dana White says you had issues you had to work out. To what is he referring, Kelvin? You know what? I think he was just a little upset about me not taking the fight and just said those comments. Because there's nothing like if they called you tomorrow and said, hey, you versus Whitaker.

October, MSG. You could do it, right? Yeah, of course. I'm ready. I told him I'm ready to go. So were you surprised he said that? Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Don't found it, you know, just because I don't know where those comments are coming from. I just figured he was upset over me not taking the fight a day and a half before. Have you had a chance to speak to him since? No. No. I'm not. Do you want to?

Yeah, I would love to sit down and see what those comments were about. I just haven't reached out to them about it. But, you know, eventually I think I want to sit down with them and talk with them and meet with them and see what the future holds. Okay, so you're back, obviously, states out, I don't know you're heading to Europe, but you're back training, you're back on the bandwagon. Or not the bandwagon, I should say the plan. if they called you today and said when could you be ready to contest for the middleweight title, what would your answer

be? Yeah, let's do it by the end of the year, by November in Madison Square or would you do it in Vegas. If Robert Whitaker can't do... I'm ready to go anytime. Fair enough. Now, let's assume they want to do that November date

that you had in mind. What if Robert Whitaker can't be there? Do you think they should create another interim title? I don't like the idea as interim titles. You know what I mean? I just don't see why they would make an interim title. Unless Whitaker is still injured for that period of time, you know,

and then that would be the only time where I feel it would be right to make an interim title. But, you know, I don't feel like I should be the guy who's, next. You know what I mean? I'll wait out as long as I have to get the title shot. You know what I mean? Tyrone. He waited out almost a year and a half after he fought me to finally fight Robby Lawler

so. I'll sit it out. That's fine. How long are you willing to sit? A year or more? We'll just have to see. We just have to see. Now, the other interesting debate that... I mean, I don't want to be out that long, but yeah. Fair enough. Now, there is this other interesting debate at middleweight. You have two wins in a row. You knocked out Michael Bisping in November of 2017, and then in May you had that win over Jacques-Aray at UFC 224. So you're on a

great two-fight win streak. You're one of the top middleweights in the world. Chris Widman is also kind of knocking on the door. Now, he's out now, but he has the win over you. I know you believe you're the deserving candidate, as do I, but I'd just like to hear from your perspective. Why should you get the shot ahead of him? Chris, Wydenman thinks he should get the shot over, me. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I believe that's correct. Yeah. Well, I was ranked, I believe I was ranked ninth when he fought me, and he was coming

off a three-fight skit, you know, and, you know, since we fought, I fought two top five guys, you know, two former champions and two guys that were in the top five. Michael Bisbing and Jokoree, Jokoray's former champion, Michael Bisbing was the former champion. champion. I've been beating all these top 10 guys and former champions while he's been out, you know, injured, unfortunately. But in the past 18 months, I've had all the, you know, five fights with former champions and top 10 fighters. So, you know, I don't feel how he feels he deserves it. He's been injured. He's been out, unfortunately. But that's just the way it goes. He says he's the most decorated fighter, but that's, that's in the past.

man, you know, we're talking about now. And, you know, active fighters, fighters who are winning fights and fighting the big fights should be rewarded, and that should be me. Has the UFC given you any indication about where you fit in their plans?

No. I haven't been given anything, but I'm hoping I get the next shot, you know? The fans want me to fight, and they should get on social media and ask for that fight, too, because I want to fight. I want that fight. I get a lot of people

tell me on social media they want that fight. I mean, I get non-stop messages that, you know, that I should be fighting for the title next. So the fans want it. I want it. Let's make it happen. You know, two young hungry lions going at it. It's time for the new generation to kind of take over this division and I feel like that's me and winner for so. You know, two young hungry lions going at it

would be fun of watch, I think. aside from the question about deservingness and who the top contenders are, why do you think you're a good matchup to face Robert Whitaker? I mean, from a skills standpoint, why do you believe you're the toughest test for him? Well, I know that he's been offered the fight against me twice, and he has not been wanting to fight me, you know, and that's, I feel for a good reason. You know, I'm the most, I think I give him the most difficult time if we step up. up in the cage and I think he knows that.

Is it because you can match him? No, in my opinion, in my opinion, I match up horribly for him. Is it because of the boxing? Your boxing matches up with his? I think my boxing matches up well with his. Also, my wrestling and my ground game is going to be better than his, I think. All right. Well, I don't know what Spain holds for you, my friend, but Bienviahe.

I wish you good travels. I'm telling you, watch out for that haman in Spain. It's deadly. I'm probably going to be eating a lot of it, yeah. Well, enjoy your time, and I don't know what the UFC holds next for you at Middleweight, but I can't wait to see it. Thank you for joining me here on my first show on the MMA hour, and I wish you the best of luck.

Congratulations on the new gig, man. And thanks for having me on as part of your first show. I really appreciate it. Safe travels, Kelvin. All right, there he goes. Very good. I believe you should get the title shot next. I got nothing against Chris Wydenman, but I think Kelvin makes a pretty compelling argument

and the fact that, yes, Weidman having the win over him kind of complicates factors, but if you're just thinking of like cool matchups, Weidman versus Whitaker would be great, but Kelvin versus Whitaker would be dynamite in my judgment. Okay, we're here a little bit ahead of schedule, but I kind of wanted to do that on purpose. I want to give a little bit of extra time in the rundown than we had initially set aside.

But it is time for a very brand new segment here on the MMA hour. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for you to be a guest on the show. It's time for the sound off. All right. Time for the sound off. Now we had pimped, what camera am I looking at? Oh, this one. We had pimped the number to call 844-866-2468.

That phone line is always open for you. Once again, 844-866-24-68. You can call, you can leave a message, you can mouth breathe, you can, you know, whatever you need to do to have a good time, call that line, and the best ones will be screened, and then you'll make it to air. I really believe in doing a lot of listener integration. I come from radio, and my judgment radio is the original social media. Somebody would put out an opinion to the world, people would react, and everyone would just combine it into one organic thing. That's what I really like doing. here, and I'm going to do it here on this show. So always call that number 844-866-24-68. And of course, your tweets as well with the hashtag, the MMA hour. Now, with that being said, let us go back to our friend in the back of the studio, the one and only, Danny Segura. Yep. How are you? I'm good, you? You just went to Spain, didn't you? I did. I was in Barcelona. Am I lying about that, Hamon? You're not. It's deadly, bro. Food there is amazing. Did you eat the face of a pig when you were there? I didn't. But in Colombia, that's pretty normal eating like pig,

like Lechona. No, no, no, no, but like the face. No. You didn't see that? So I was walking down the street once in Madrid and, you know, they have all the pigs hanging everywhere, right? Which is common. And then they had the face of one and you can go and order it and they pull the cheek muscles out, which apparently are quite tender. I'm not eating the face of another animal, man. That's just sort of where I draw the line a little bit. Yeah, I guess graphically must be pretty weird. Yeah, it is. All right. So what do we have in store? Explain how this is going to work to the listeners out there and the viewers. So we've had some submissions. We've had, you know, voicemails and tweets as well. Basically, you know, users asking questions and you'll get

to answer them on air. So, you know, with that being said, do you want to tackle tweets first? Let me ask you a question. How many of these calls sound like somebody is touching themselves in the back of a Greyhound bus station? No comment. So that means several. Yes, that's awesome. That's exactly what we want. But we got a lot of submissions, right? Yeah. And you have screened the best of them, Yes. Yes, I have. All right. So we want to do calls first and then tweets, yeah?

Cool. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Set this up. Here's the first call. It is regarding PFL. Okay. Hey there, Luke.

This is Gino from Tucson, Arizona. I just want to get your thoughts on the PFL two card and what you think of the product. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the easy accessibility with its playback being on Facebook, and you being able to playback whenever, and also the playback. Mons, the MSNs, sports app. I just want to hear your thoughts. Thanks. Bye.

Appreciate the call from Gino. Great call, by the way. Nice, clear landline, right? Did you watch it on Facebook? I didn't know they had a replay available. I mean, I know that you can just drag the cursor over or whatever, but do they have some special kind of interface now that I'm not aware of? I basically gave up Facebook after the KBridge Analytica thing.

So I didn't catch all the prelims on Facebook, but I did catch the end of it. Okay. And yeah, Facebook Watch is a pretty good streaming platform. The last time you saw fights was on the UFC prelims that were on Facebook gets changed completely. Okay. So Facebook videos taken off. Do you use the MSN app? I do not use that.

I don't. Okay. Here's how I watched it. I watched it using the... I used YouTube TV, which has unlimited DVR, so I can just go back and forth with that. I had not watched the prelims. I had missed that. Although, shouts to Vinnie Megalach, doing great work as well on that PFL card.

I have to say, I had kind of poohed them on the MMA beat a little bit. I'll walk some of that back. I will admit that some of that I got a little hasty with. I kind of feel like personally, look, anybody who's outside of that UFC realm is forever going to have brand recognition issues, they're going to have talent recruitment issues. And what you're noticing now, who is that guy? I forget his name, the former HBO exec, what you're seeing, Danny, and I'm sure you can attest to this, KSW notwithstanding, but a lot of shows here in North America, what they're doing is

because they can't necessarily get the best fighters, they're changing formats or demos. So there's a couple of smart options with that. Number one, you have Combat de Americas, who's going after that Latino market. Smart. To me, very, very smart, right? Or you have people who are changing format.

It's like, let's just get who we have out there, and then let's put them in a tournament. And with a tournament, you have points, and with the points, you have an off-season. At first, when they announced that I was like, no one is going to care about this. But you made a point to me, I think, what, a couple of weeks ago?

it reminded you of soccer, right? I have to say, I agree. I kind of like it so far. But here's the only caveat to that. The caveat is that we are so early into the season that so far, so good. Will Brooks look tremendous. Kayla Harrison's not in the tournament, but she looked tremendous.

Right? Brian Foster looked tremendous. But, you know, those were long, tough fights. What happens when the injuries start to mount up? What happens when the withdrawals from the tournament start to mount up? Then what do you do? How much will the points really matter in the end? So I would say this. So far, so good.

I have been pleasantly surprised. I will say this. The product and the way that it looks on NBC Sports, it does not look like the World Series of Fighting, right? Haven't you noticed that? Yeah. Definite step up. 100%. I actually was there live for the PFL card.

The one here in New York. Yes. And then I actually, so I've experienced both, you know, being at the event and catching it on TV. And it's looked great. A lot better in the WSO. Yeah. And also, I mean, what an analyst panel they have. Todd Harris, notwithstanding, shouts to Todd Harris.

He's good, but he's not the analyst. They had Todd doing his thing. Then they had Couture, Baza, and Eves Edwards. Eves Edwards, criminally underrated. Everybody loves Baz. And I think we've forgotten, folks, Randy Couture used to call UFC fights. Randy Couture used to put out UFC prediction videos. I have missed those.

You can see what a talent he is. They're doing good things over at the PFL. So I don't know what's next, but so far, not too shabby. Right? Pretty good product. All right, what do we have next? Cool. Now, this is regarding Bellator.

Yes, I was just wondering if Josh Barnett is going to be going to Bellator now. I mean, he just got released or at least that's the last thing I saw from it. So I was just wondering if he's going to be going to Bellator or not. Good luck, Luke. I know you can do it. You're the one person that I knew should have gotten the position, if anybody was. would. So good luck. Thank you. Thank you to that unnamed caller. No name on that one, huh? Yeah, no name. We'll just call him Applesauce McGee. Thank you, Apple Sauce McGee, for the wonderful

sentiment. I really appreciate the call as well as the kind words. Let me read you a little bit what Josh Barnett had said. I'm not going to read the whole thing with just a couple of good things. Here's why ultimately he called it quits, of course, with the debacle with Usada, as he called it. But in the end, this is what he spotlighted, Danny. Quote, there are a lot of stories left to tell career, and I want to be the one to determine them without influence. To do that fully, I need to go it alone. I have to be the architect of my destiny, to traversing battlefields far and wide. The UFC has been very good to me and a great place to fight. But what time I have left in this sport, I need to be the one calling the shots and creating the battle plans. I hear the call for high adventure, and I will

oblige. Do you remember, do you watch baseball at all? Nope. Yeah, you know what, me neither. It's a dumb sport for old people, and I only get on the bandwagon when the Nats are in the playoffs, and I jump right off after they inevitably experienced calamitous times. But I do remember when Jeter retired, right? Remember when Jeter retired? He did this super awful, annoying farewell tour at every away game that season. As I recall, he went into the season saying, I'm done, and so he would go to Camden Yards to play the Orioles or whatever, and every team would have some kind of gift for him. Do you remember this at all?

I think the Miami Marlins, even, or the Florida Males, whatever they are now, may have given him like a surfboard or some stupid-ass thing. Point being is this. What does that have to do with Josh Barnett? I think it means that, not the gift giving so much.

But when these guys are at the end of their career, I think they want to be celebrated. I don't think, unlike Donald Serroney, who is just willing to give himself to the process of evolution, I think a lot of these guys are like, look, man, I have worked this hard to build up my name. I have worked this hard to become somebody. I have worked this hard to earn some cash. Why, at the very last opportunities that I might have,

do I want to give that away to somebody who wants to take that from me and beat the living daylights out of me? What purpose could that possibly serve in my interest? Donald Seroni has this larger perspective. And again, he's got wins against top 10 opponents left in my career. I'm just sort of pointing out the mindset. He's his own thing. I completely understand Josh Barnett. He had the issue. He lost the whole year with Usada. He doesn't trust them. But I think the other part here is that I've got a name. And I've got one probably last chapter left. I'll call it a chapter because I don't know exactly what it is. One last chapter to be celebrated, to use all those years of positive equity he's built up in his name. Well, now it's his chance to spend it. I completely get it. Will he go to Bellator? I don't know. My sense is he probably wants to do the pro wrestling MMA thing. Does that mean he signs with Bellator and then goes to Risen and then does, I don't know, he calls New Japan Pro Wrestling of matches or something? Maybe he could do that.

Do you think he goes to Belator? I think so. And I think that's the perfect place for him because we know he's very fond of Japan. A bunch of his career was there, took place there. And Beltor gives fighters that option to go to Risen and fight there. Plus, you got all those legends, you know, Federer Emilianenko, Frank Meir, So he'll fit in perfectly. I think it'd be a great move if he goes there.

We'll have to see. What's next? Cool. So this is going to be, again, Belator related. Two different questions, two different parts. So I'm just going to play them back to back. Okay. What would it be a good matchup for Machita's, the other Machita's first fight?

How will he fare in the fight and indie promotion? And will he become champion within the next year? This is part too. So with having both the Machita brothers in Belator, with good promotion, can they make those two guys the new slash old faces of Bellator? Wow, that is an interesting question. I don't know if they can make them the faces of Belator, other than to say to the extent that they want to move into the Brazilian market,

I think having certainly Chinzo, but, you know, let's be real. More importantly, Leoto, is probably going to be pretty good for any kind of exploratory efforts in that regard. but I don't know if I can call them the face of this. I did see some people saying it's a game changer for Machita to go to Belator. I would respectfully disagree. It is certainly beneficial for them. And Leota Machita is deservedly beloved, but I don't know that this is a flipping the MMA world on its axis kind of moment.

I don't quite read that. But I do think he could be helpful for any international efforts. I do think he could be helpful specifically for Brazil. as for who he should fight first. If you look at their middleweights, I'm thinking in Schlamenco. It would be a great fight if they can make that happen. I don't want to see Melvin Manhoof fight anymore

because I do believe that would not... Fighting is never healthy, but we're at a stage where that's really unhealthy. Musasi, they could do that one, they could run it back. He has a lot of good ones. Levato Jr., you could do a King Mo one. There's a lot of really good ones. Who do you want to see him fight?

I really like that King Mo Fight. It would be intriguing. And back to the other part where, you know, they were talking about Shinso. Beltor likes to play with these kinds of things. So I can definitely see them being on the same card, you know, main and co-main. And, you know, that'll be fun to watch two brothers compete. You know what? You know what?

You know what? Yeah. Doing some kata, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. You know what they should do? I don't know if this is disrespectful. I don't mean it to be that way. I would love to see somebody with a karate background at an open workout to start breaking boards, you know?

That would be fun. That would be amazing. They don't even have to be like sturdy boards. Just get the ones that clowns use. But that would be kind of cool. What else we got? Cool. This is now going to UFC.

Oh, hello. My name is Dom. I'm from Long Island. And my question is to you is from Robert Whitaker beating Yuel Romero. What is his next option, Yowell, retirement or still continue with his legacy? Well, ordinarily at 41, losing twice like that, I would say time to go. But Yuel Romero is a cyborg from the year 2050, sent back in time to beat us all up. I've never seen an athletic specimen quite like him.

One of the guys who used to write for Bloody Elbow, Mike Reardon, told me when he was covering wrestling low 20 years ago or something, that even on the international scene, Romero was regarded for his athleticism and that folks couldn't believe just, we're talking about a sport in wrestling, real wrestling, with an, extraordinarily high participatory rate, right? People getting pulled from countries all over the world. And even among them, he was an athletic specimen. So I think he still can keep going. Folks who have said light heavyweight, I don't need to see that. I'm not against that. If they make light heavyweight with Romero versus Gustafson, let's do it. If they do Romero versus OSP, fine, these are fine fights. I mean, there's a lot of great options for him. But to me,

it seems pretty clear. He didn't miss weight by much. He believes he could have continued that cut. true or not, I don't know. But I would say this, if they can just get the diet part right, you know, bringing in George Lockhart late, as effective as he is, there's only so much he's going to be able to do, get him going early, have someone monitor the progress of Romero throughout. He lost to Whitaker barely. I could have made a case that he won that fight. He's still right there. Maybe he can get the winner of Gastilum versus Whitaker if they make that, or maybe he could get even another title shot because he's sort of sitting right there and he's so capable and he's so fun and he's also figured himself out.

Again, I'm not opposed to him going to light heavyweight, but I don't need to see him at light heavyweight. Make sense? Yeah, for sure. I'd like to see him stick at 185. I mean... But if he's going to do it, he's got to do it the right way. For sure. But, you know, even this wakeout, it was controversial with the whole commission him and not giving him enough time. That Illinois commission? Yeah. They got some problems. Yeah. I think the race right now, it's obviously between either Whiteman or Gastilum. So whoever doesn't get it, I think that's who Romero should fight and do a title eliminator about it. Do we have any other calls?

Yep. Again, UFC. Hey, Luke, long-time fan. Congrats on the new gig. I want to know what you make of OSP's performance this past weekend, and more specifically, why these fighters in today's day and age do not take the opportunity to call someone out when given to them. What's with this attitude of I'll fight anybody at any time?

Why not call your shot and advance yourself? Great. call. Appreciate the support. Very, very kind of you. I would say OSP doesn't care. You can keep wanting these guys to do this. You can keep wanting these guys to want things in the way that you want them to want it. And they just don't. When he says he doesn't care who's next, I take him out his word. I had mentioned this before when you look at OSP's resume. I don't know if I still have it up. But he had fought, you know, he's one of these guys who has several times fought three or four times in a calendar year inside the UFC. That's very, very rare. We had this interesting problem in mixed martial arts.

where what we're doing is we're saying, oh, we as fans have too many fights, but Danny, I talk to fighters, and their major problem is they can't get enough fights in the calendar year. And so here's OSP doing that. So for him, I really just take him out his word. What do I think?

I loved that straight arm bar from him. It was not a Camorra. There was very, very light work being done on the shoulder. What had happened was a Camorra has to go behind your back. Yeah? That's how it has to go. That's why you step over the head like Tessa Pedro did against Sabribeck Safferov.

It has to go here. What happened was Tyson Pedro, if you just rotate your hand, if we can get the camera to shoot on this one, if you rotate your hand like this, it can only go so far. So watch what happens. And OSP read it the whole way. As soon as he goes this far, he stopped. If you rotate your hand up, now you can raise it above your head.

As soon as he rotated the hand, he caught the wrist and then just straight arm barred him. And that thing looked nasty. I agree with everything that Dan Hardy had to say, Danny. There was some proactive issues he could have had. but I believe on the ground the anti-wrestling, the scrambling of OSP, and then the submission

awareness of him has come a really long way. Yeah, 100%. He's just so heavy on top, too. Like, Tyson Pedro's a big dude, and OSP just gets on top of you and you just can't go anywhere. Any more? Yep. How many more of these do we have?

Hey, Luke, I was just wondering what you saw of the state of the Walter White Division and what fights you think could be good for the next contender. Thanks. for the next contender at Welterweight? Yeah, so I'm guessing he's asking what fight should be booked next

to create that sort of next contender? Because we know Kobe is up next, but after that... Usman Till. Someone's got to take an L, which no one wants to see, but it is the inevitability of things. I have been dying to see that fight. It's the one we want to see. It's the one that makes sense.

Folks are going to say, but you're going to have a contender lose. They'll be back. It's not the end of the world. And at some point, one of these guys has got to put it on the line and really go out there and show us. That's the one I want to see.

I agree. 100%. Let's fire through this. I didn't we had so many. We haven't gotten to the tweets yet. I know. Here's what we'll do. Let's do these calls.

And then in 155 when you come in here, let's do the tweets in here. Okay. Sounds good. Could someone run the tweets back there for you? Yeah. All right. We'll get that time.

Okay. Cool. And this last one I know you'll enjoy a lot. Okay. It's the mouth breather? No, not quite. I just wanted to say that it's Galvio. That is awesome.

Yeah. Well, first of all, it's not. Well, it is. but it's also, Danny, as our native resident fluent Spanish speaker, will you please tell these dullards I've been right this whole time? Yep, you've been right, it's Calbijo. Wee. Look at that.

Why do they challenge me? Here's the problem with it, though. You know what's done? I've really done a disservice to myself. Now everyone thinks I'm the pronunciation police about anybody's name. But I'm not. Like, I don't know how to pronounce certain African or Eastern European names, and I get them all wrong.

Everyone's like, I thought you were the pronunciation police. Just over that. Not about anything else. I don't know anything else. It was just the one word because the double L is the Y is the J. I hear it every day at home. Right? Yeah. All right. Bring your ass in here. Let's do this. Let's do it. Danny will come in here. I have a surprise for everybody. I'm going to wait until he gets in here. We'll get your tweets. We'll have someone in the back to do it. I don't know how we're going to make this work, but we'll make it work. But that was a hilarious phone call. So thank you, everyone. By the way, that number 844-866-24-68. We'll keep that up. I really love your phone calls. I

messages, they're awesome. Now, he's miced up, is he not? All right, let's bring his ass in here. Very good. Danny, it's a big day. Yeah. I'm actually more nervous about this or price than I am of producing the show. What do you think I'm going to do? I have no idea. Is he going to throw a pie in your face? You're correct. No, I'm teasing. I'm not going to throw a pie in your face. I went to the liquor store. Okay. And I said, you know what? I said, it's me again. But beyond that, I said, here Danny has been behind the scenes slaving away, working his ass off. And I thought to myself, Joe, if you want to get on this as well, you may, but hold on just a second. I thought to myself, you know what, we need to celebrate. We've been stressed all week. I don't know what's going to

happen in the future, but we're living in the moment. So I thought, what better way to celebrate. Can we get that? There we are. Can we get the middle one here, the punch? Well, I don't know if you can zoom in or not, but this is a drink called Aguadiente. Yes, yeah, it is terrible. Well, you got the worst kind, by the way. It was the only one they had. Oh. It was only one they had.

Antioquino is the best. I know, I know. Also, 1492 is pretty good. I don't know how you're saying it in Spanish. But in any case, this is the official drink of Colombia. Do we even have these tweets? So we're going to get them up? So anyway, I said to myself, we need to toast the show.

Do we not? Yep. I don't think anyone's ever drank on this. Look, there's many reasons where you drink a Guadadadiente, right? To celebrate, and for me, when I'm sad. But either way, there's lots of good reasons. So here, take one of these. All right.

All right. We'll get to these tweets here in just a second. Let's open this up, and we have to toast Colombian style, my friend. Give me your thing. All right, here's what we're going to do. Going to have a little drank. You got plastic in this one. Hang on.

Here, yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. All right, here we go. That's yours. Please don't spill that because it would make it smell terrible. All right. All right. Here we go.

I didn't tell my boss is this. I'm probably getting fired. Great way to end the show. I know. All right, so let's toast this. Here is to good luck and good fortune and new beginnings toast. All right. Let's do it the right way.

Come closer, come closer. Because I can't move around this mic. Let's do it. Colombian style, right? Right. All right. To be right. That's good.

That is terrible. Wow. It's not bad. I would like to leave this on set. How about that? Let's do it. Not here. We can put it up there.

Yeah. Whenever we have some momentistication, or again, when I'm just feeling lonely, we can drink. Why don't you pull your chair around, and let's get to these with the time we have remaining. We don't have a whole lot of time. All right, based on Cowboys' last two losses

against upcoming contenders, would you think it's time for him to take maybe a few more fights with only veterans of the sport? I think he should take fights with whoever he wants, but I agree, maybe taking something of a bit of a more a, what do you want to say? somebody of his age group, 35 or so, would be fine.

But here's the thing. If y'all think that he can't beat top 10 fighters, you're sorely mistaken. Yeah. I would like to see, I would like to see him get a fight against another veteran, a big name, you know. He's been fighting back-to-back against Till and against Leon Edwards. So, you know, time to put the contenders off to a side. I know he doesn't mind fighting them, but let's get, you know, I know he already fought Matt Brown, but something like that.

That's fine. I'm just saying he can still beat top 10 guys. I'm very convinced of that. What else we got with the time we have remaining? I just wanted to say that it's Calvillo. They're playing it again. Do you, they played the Calvillo thing again? Yeah.

Do you think Leota Machita can be champion in Bellator, seeing as he finally has a fairly dominant win over Gregor and Musassi. Yeah, sure, if he wants to be, or he wants to take big fights. He could do it. He could get into the alternate at the heavyweight grand prix for crying out loud. But does he have championship material? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if he could beat Musassi, but, you know,

stranger things have happened. And there's history there. Musasi accused Liotomachito of greasing, you know, the first time around. So they can build that fight up nicely if it does come down. All right. What's next? Let's get through two more of these. Do you think it was a mistake for the UFC to hold a subpar event in Singapore during the World Cup?

I don't think it mattered at all. I don't think it mattered even a little bit. Two different audiences. I slept in and then watched the build the World Cup and caught it later, the Singapore event. It doesn't matter. I mean, was it good for exposure? No, but it hardly matters. I think it was a mistake of having that card.

I feel like the UFC should have a certain standard. If you're going to put in that type of card, is it worth putting, you know, get those good fights like the Leon Edwards, Cabo Soroni, and throw them in another card. It was in Singapore. Who gives a shit? Let's do one more. I caught the PFL for the first time this week

and liked what I saw. Do you think he can give Bellator a run for its money? Probably not because I don't know if it has as much money as Belator has. You want to scoot back around because you're picked on the money. But I certainly like it as an alternative. alternative to the various organizations out there. Yeah? Yeah.

I think it's too early to tell, but like from a product standpoint, just looking at it, the quality is pretty good. I think, you know, we'll see a few seasons into it. They're going to perfect it. I'm sure they'll learn from some mistakes. And I think it could maybe down the line give Belator run for its money for number two. Well, look, we got a close shop here. I have to get uptown because I have to do three more hours of radio.

Yay! I might want to take that with you. No, I don't. I need to do that sober. How to go? Okay? Yeah, it went well. All right.

That's it? Yeah. It went fucking ballers. I think we, yeah. We killed it with that world. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll be back next week.

I don't know who's going to be on the show. And I don't know what we're going to say, but it'll be fun. Thank you guys so much for watching. I can't tell you thank you enough. What an honor it was to be here. I'll see you in about a week's time. And until then, stay frosty.