MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas - Episode 443

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

In this episode of The MMA Hour, Dustin Poirier joins us to discuss his UFC Calgary rematch with Eddie Alvarez (00:18:54), Kevin Lee serves as our Monday Morning Analyst guest to preview the Alvarez-Poirier rematch and why he wants a 165-pound division (00:38:29), Henry Cejudo discusses his preparation for a rematch with Demetrious Johnson at UFC 227 (01:01:14), Eddie Alvarez talks about his rematch with Poirier at UFC Calgary (01:28:29). Plus, we also recap UFC Hamburg, and we answer your questions regarding the latest news and headlines in the Sound Off (01:44:44). 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 Comex Ontario.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour It is Monday, July 23rd, 2018, and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the MMA hour here on MMAfighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me.

I greatly appreciate it. Stack show for you, not a lot of time to waste, really, because we don't have a whole lot. Let's get to it. Let's see, 1220. We're going to be joined by Dustin Poirier, one half of the main event for the upcoming UFC Calgary. 1240 will be joined by Kevin Lee. He'll do a little Monday morning analyst for us. I want him to talk about that main event.

What's next for him is at 165? Are they going to make a division? We'll see. One o'clock. We're supposed to be joined by Henry Sehudo. We'll see how that goes. He takes on Demetrius Johnson at UFC 227 for the flyweight title. And then 130.

The Underground King is going to be here. Eddie Alvarez, who is the other half of the UFC Calgary main event opposite Dustin Poirier. So you've got both guys in the main event here. And then, of course, you're going to be my guest at around 145 for the sound off. We have a bunch of calls. We have your tweets from the hashtag the MMA hour.

And of course, number to call 844-866-2468. So a lot to get to, a lot of stuff going on. Plus, we're going to debut a new segment. We'll see around 120 called The Way In and a whole lot more. Hope you guys had a great weekend. Mine was just fine, I suppose. Let's see. What did I do? Nothing. Well, a lot of house chores. Nothing to really bore you with. Nothing all that interesting. But I did watch UFC Hamburg yesterday, which was, well, that felt like a chore, which we'll get to in just a second. But I'm pretty excited about this coming weekend. I am very excited about this main event. I'm very excited about UFC Calgary. And I'm very excited about today's show. Now, without another moment to waste, let us get to the Arros to my Akipe, the, no, Excuse me. The aripe to my pan. The arroz to my friola. The MMA's blicky with the stiffy, the one and only, Danny.

Hey, Danny. You have arroz with arikeeps? That's... Yeah, that would be terrible. That'd be rice with caramel. Do you get the blicky with the stiffy reference? I don't. How am I 39 years old white and cooler than everybody else on staff? That seems like it shouldn't be a fact, but it is. It's not. It's not. How was your weekend? Good? Right. What's wrong? Something bad happened? Did you get mugged again? Someone take your lunch money? Give you a wedgy? Well, I actually got my cell phone stolen. Oh, you did? I did. Well, how'd that happen? Very quickly? And I also watch UFC Hamburg. I like it. It was like, well, the bad news is I had to watch UFC Hamburg. The good news is I got my phone stolen. Yeah. When did you get your phone stolen? So I don't know. I went to pick up some food at a restaurant. Friday, Saturday? Set the scene here.

This was, okay, so this was Saturday. Okay. It was Saturday night. I had my phone, everything was good. I went to a restaurant and picked up food. Then I went back home. Then I realized my cell phone was missing. Uh-oh.

Yeah. You lost it at the restaurant? I don't know. That's the thing. When I got back home, I looked for it everywhere. I called the restaurant. Don't you have that thing where you can I find your cell phone? I did.

So I did find my iPhone and my iPhone end up being somewhere in Long Island City. Oh, Queens. In like an industrial area. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bad area of Queens too, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I sent a message saying like, oh, please return the phone.

Here's this number. That's gone. It's gone. It's gone. All right. Do we have good calls today for the soundoff? We're going to do that a little bit later in the show, but I'm just always one of... And the bar was set for the mouth breathing. Oh, really? See, the first episode, they did a great job, but they have since dropped off. But now you're telling me, like Tiger Woods storming back at the open, they're back, huh?

They're back. All right. And the tweets, we have those as well? Yeah. We've still not... A lot of tweets. Let's pull back the curtain a little bit. We still don't know what to do with the tweets because we have a very narrow show. And we're going to put them back in the sound off today, but we're not sure if they're going to remain in the sound off, right?

Yeah, we're looking to add another segment to where the tweets will be just dedicated to that. All right. All right. You're on Gchat. I'm on Gchat. We're ready to go. Are we not? I'm going to get to it.

Last thing about this, UFC Hamburg. If you had to describe it to somebody who didn't see it in one sentence, what would you say? It was very boring. It was just bad. It was hard to, like, tune in. It was, like, there wasn't much drama in the fights. There was very evenly contested. Yes.

A lot of fights. A lot of, a lot of parity. Yeah. A lot of that still-made, weird scrambles, positions, very boring positions. Not much in the striking, yeah. Okay. We'll check in with you a little bit later for the sound off, but I've got some feelings about UFC hamburger I want to share as well. We'll talk soon.

All right. Lucky with a stiffy. over there. Okay, so UFC Hamburg was yesterday. Literally my wife fell asleep twice on the couch waiting for it to be over. Like she's like, when is this going to be over? And I was like, I honestly don't know. The thing lasted, what, seven hours? I believe, I believe Michael Carroll, who works at Fight metric has measured it. It was in the top five for longest UFC events, just in terms of beginning to end of all time. So, and I believe like four of those five have taken place just since the Fox deal.

Double check his Twitter feed. I think it's MJC flip the script. So give him a look there. But nevertheless, it was painful. You know what it feels like, man? My family, they own, my brother and my sister, they own a restaurant. Just one. Not a chain of them, just one.

And I remember one time I went to Spain. We had Kelvin Gasolum on the show. He apparently did not like Spain, but let me make the point here. One thing I noticed when the last time I went to Spain, was like the food was like incredibly good. I was trying to figure out why. Like how is it that their food is just so much better? But one thing you notice when you go there is the restaurants are real small, right?

They seat like 20, maybe 30 people, right? But they don't, it's not like a cheesecake factor. You've got it upstairs and it down. It's not like that at all. Very, very small. Menu, small. Seating, small. And the answer apparently about why their food is so good, a lot of things, right?

Like what naturally grows well there? What are they good at making historically? But one of the things that they always tell you in the restaurant, in the industry apparently is that like why is banquet food always either like mediocre or bad? Because as you produce something at scale, it is hard to maintain that quality. Right? If you're serving five people, one chef can really dedicate him or herself to making that meal just right. It's they can, the attention to detail can be there. But if you have to serve a thousand and you got to do it in a narrow window, right? You can have as many,

Sioux chefs, line chefs, cooks, whatever you want, the reality is you're just not going to get that kind of quality. UFC Hamburg felt like banquet food to me. And I know that sounds like I'm being demeaning to the fighters. I'm not. They're all very talented. But the reality of mixed martial arts is that the elite and then the very talented, the sport almost doesn't look the same.

Certainly doesn't feel the same in terms of the stakes. you cannot grow that at scale, not very much anyway. You're always going to have for that welterweight division just the top 10 or 15. And outside of that, you can get some good fights for sure. And you can have bad fights inside that top 10 or 15. But more or less, the ones that people are going to care about, the ones are going to be good,

they're going to be in that narrow, small, tiny window. That's especially true for some of those other divisions, right? Like light heavyweight or heavyweight these days. Now, lightweight itself is a little bit different, right? You'd go really deep on that one and get some good divisions. stuff. But the point, nevertheless, it's my phone rings, still stands. It felt like banquet food, man. It felt like just this assembly line process to just make as much of this as possible. And this is what it looks like when it gets to that level. And it's just, the Anthony Smith

CO was really fun, or I should say the Shogun K.O. by Anthony Smith. And super commendable performance by Corey Anderson over Glover to Sherrod to maybe the best one of his career. So it was like their word in some bright spots. And how about the Bermudez kid? Forgive me for his last name. Let's see here. Manny Bermudez. He looks phenomenal. There were some bright spots. Don't get me wrong.

Which I'll talk about in just a second. But it just occurred to me like the UFC really prides itself for good reason on its ability to go town to town week to week and deliver a high quality experience over time. Right? And I'm sure that if you were in the arena in Hamburg, the lighting. was great. The sound was great, but it was all too familiar. It's the same thing over and over and over and over. And I get some of this. They're locked into the Fox deal. They owe a certain amount of content to the Fox provider,

even if they didn't necessarily want to provide it. That's why it's on 2 p.m. on a Sunday for crying out loud. It wasn't like this was their marquee event. I get it. I'm just saying, I'm always reminded of that conversation when someone explained to me, this is why banquet food is bad. And this is why when you go to a place that serves a very small, number of people and they have very talented chefs. That's why the food is so good. And the UFC can be that. The UFC can be that better than anybody. But they can also be this, the banquet side, when they're just trying to push out content out the door. And I'm telling you, yesterday was a chore to watch that. And I know I speak for a lot of people when I'm saying that. Go look through MMA Twitter. Go look at the UFC Hamburg tags on there. It was hard to watch, man. Hard.

And if you're just going to produce content to produce content, you're going to see, Elite MMA is a very, very, very, very finite quality. And for the most part, it cannot be grown at scale. It just is what it is. You can grow at scale everything around it, and that has some merit. But that core that really makes the UFC what it is when they have 85, 90 percent of the best fighters in the world, that is that that is peerless. It cannot be duplicated.

And this felt like we had moved far away from that. And I know I'm not alone in saying that. Now, I don't want to start this on a, well, I already have, I suppose, but I don't want to maintain this sour note. I actually want to talk about some of the positives that came out of this weekend. I had mentioned Manor Bermuda is looking phenomenal.

Your ability to rotate on someone, if you have their back via a triangle and then you want to rotate to guard where you can refit the position and how you have to pinch your legs together and control the head and control the arm and maintain your connection to their posture. I'm telling you, he made it look easy.

That is super difficult to do. Super. That's difficult to do drilling, much less in a live fist fight for crying out loud. So shots to Mandy Bermuda as shockingly good triangle acumen, very, very talented. I was very delighted to see that and still undefeated to mixed martial arts. As I mentioned, you had Corey Anderson, far and away, the best win of his mixed martial arts career. A real, not even workmanlike, he just had Glover's number that day.

He just had it. Great wrestling, good effective use of his own natural skill sets. Yes, he's developed a lot of other things, good footwork. He had a nice uppercut he was using. But that was nice to see. By the way, shouts two. I'm going to get some of these names wrong, but I was very impressed by some of them.

Alexander Rackich beating Justin Liddette. Probably a little work that needs to be done in terms of his finishing ability, but he looked big, physical, good wrestling, good power, good cardio. Light Heavyweight needs some guys like him. So I was happy to see some of that. So those are some bright spots. There may have been some other ones as well.

But the real one, the real bright spot, was Anthony Smith. How about that? 90 seconds going in there and just bulldozing a legend. There are like so many lessons that you should draw from the Anthony Smith one. I barely know where to start. Number one, the weight class change. I know a lot of people are bringing up the fact that the weight class change is a proof that if you don't cut too much weight and you go up to a weight class that's less strenuous to get down to

in terms of your caloric restriction or whatever, you'll automatically do better. I do not buy that argument. I think generally, we do have extreme weight cutting. I do believe that's a problem. But people want to say, oh, there's no points of weight cutting. Yes, there is. There absolutely is.

And there's a lot of guys who've had a lot of success with it. Why do you think fighters want to keep doing it? Because they're all just confused. They may cut too much in the end, but is there a value to cutting some weight? Yeah, absolutely. There's a value to cutting some weight. And getting that line right is hard to figure out.

I think it is true for Anthony Smith that he's probably a little bit better at light heavy weight than he is at middle weight. Here's my point. I don't know how true it is that cutting less weight is better for everybody. In fact, I'm pretty dubious to that argument. However, one lesson you can draw from his victory

is that you could, if you really want it to infer, although the sample set is too small, that cutting less weight is automatically better. But I think the better argument is, try to be in a space where you can get to a weight class easily on short notice. That's the big takeaway for me here. Because think about Anthony Smith and what he was able to do here. He came in on short notice against Shogunhua. He got a big name like that because he was ready to get down there very, very easily. He was able to move to that position without a whole lot of problems. If he had to make 185, maybe he could have

made it, maybe he couldn't have, even if he had, what kind of condition would he have been in? To me, the issue is, get to a weight class you can easily make on short notice because, number one, you might get a big name like Shogun, and, and or one of the lessons from this fight you can also infer is that if you're a guy like Anthony Smith or James Vic, same situation, and you're begging these guys in the top 10 or top 15 to give you a fight, remember, Anthony Smith had called that Sam Alvey. Because he was just looking to fight a guy with a number next to his name. If you're in that position, the very best chance you have to get someone like that through normal matchmaking is probably not very high.

The best chance you have is getting that phone call from Mick Maynard or Sean Shelby late, saying, we need you to fill in. Now you get to fight number eight ranked Shogunhua. Can you make the wait on time? Yes, he can make the wait, and he can make the weight and look good doing it. That's the key. That's your best bet is to get that shogunhoa. short notice call. And if you're going to get that short notice call, you need to be at the kind of weight that you can maintain such that if you have to lose a little bit, it's not too hard on you.

That's really the lesson there. That's the big takeaway for me. All these guys complaining, I can't get this guy to fight me. I can't get this guy to fight me. Maintain a ready wait and wait for that phone call. And when they call and when opportunity knocks, you say yes. It's like from Ghostbusters. Ray, somebody asks you if you are a god, you say yes. That's how it goes. Now, beyond that, the story of Anthony Smith, if you guys have never talked to this guy, and of course, if your media, why would you have? But if you've not paid too much attention to him, now's your opportunity to do that.

This is a guy who was out there, I mean, like Josh Neer thugging it on like that Midwest regional scene, probably taking fights when he shouldn't have, competing in weight classes that may not have been optimal. And nevertheless, still had a winning record. But you look at those losses, you see a 13 losses, you know. know how good is. In fact, he lost, what, six months ago to Tiago Santos at middleweight. But the reality is, some of these guys, look, Demetrius Johnson was not an immediate success. John Jones was like an immediate success, right? But Demetrius Johnson wasn't. Some guys take time to figure out what's the right weight class for me, for him that was actually getting down to flyweight

when it was made available, and what are the best skill sets that I can use to make sure that I win? This is not an automatic insight. People are not born with this. It takes time. It takes time. It takes self-belief. It takes good coaching. It takes personal maturation.

It takes professional maturation. It takes a lot of the appropriate ingredients that can put somebody in the kind of position they need to be and to maximize themselves. Now you are getting that from Anthony Smith. Now you are getting that. You are getting a guy who kind is beginning to figure himself out. what are the conditions that have to be established for me to be at my maximum strength, both physically and metaphorically.

You're beginning to see that. And you're beginning to see, as a consequence, the skulls he is beginning to bust. Now, I know some people were saying, well, this is a guy who lost to Tiago Santos six months ago. Yo, look, go back and watch the fight. Pretty clearly, Tiago Santos was the better guy that night. There's just not a lot of argument. But there is reason to believe that maybe that weight cuts in middleweight for Anthony Smith was a little bit excessive.

Did you see his frame next to Shogunhuah? I mean, he looked enormous. He looked enormous. So trying to get that guy to get to that weight probably was a ton of work. I've spoken to him about it directly. He'll even acknowledge it. It was really, really, really hard for him to get down there.

So much of the camp was just devoted to caloric restriction and road work. But the point being is he made it work. He figured it out. Get to the right weight. And when opportunity not, He took it. And yes, going from Rashad Evans to Shogunhu to then Gustafsin had it been able to happen,

that would have been a tremendous step up in quality of opposition. I don't deny it. But it's a great thing when you can go to the right weight class and you can get a name opponent who's on the last stage of his career and another one who's in a pretty similar position. And now you can build your name. You can get two wins in back-to-back months. and you can begin to write your story the way it should be written. I take my hat off to Anthony Smith, man.

That guy has toiled in obscurity for a long time. He is a very talented fighter. He finally is figuring himself out and look at that, man. They always say, create your own luck. That right there is a guy who creates his own luck. Speaking of which, we have to go to our first guest, another man who creates his own luck by virtue of his own ability. He is in the main event opposite Eddie Alvarez at U.S.

see Calgary this weekend. I cannot wait for it. The diamond is here. Dustin Puaier. Dustin, how are you? Wow, look at that. What's going on, man? How you doing? So this is Calgary behind you, huh? Yeah, man, Calgary. How is it? Give me a sense of how Calgary is. It's nice, man. The weather's nice. It's like 70 every day, 68. The air feels clear. I've been here a couple days now. So it's nice, man. I'm having a good time so far. Canadians are as friendly as advertised, yeah? Yeah, man. They treat me well up here. Hey, let's talk about this fire. You're taking on Eddie Alvarez this weekend in the main event.

First things first, do you know if Calgary employs the new unified rules or not? Man, I'm not sure, but hopefully we won't have any problems with down to hands. down or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how relevant that will be ultimately when the fight happens. I've looked into it, by the way. I think, I have not had this confirmed, but I think that they do. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Either way, it's all good, man.

This guy's going to get beat up. All right, let's talk about the last fight. How much do you think about it? How much have you gone back and watched it taking something from it? You know, honestly, not a whole lot. I watched a little bit of video of his last fight with Gaichi. I haven't seen me in his fight more than four or five times since the fight. What is your sense about what happened in the first one?

I know how it ended, of course. But I mean, up until that controversial ending, what was your read on how it was going? I thought I was in control. I thought I had the timing and the speed advantage, the footwork. I was just, I had a better rhythm than him that night. and was, you know, beating him up. But the way it ended was foul, and we're here to do it again now. Do you still have hard feelings about it?

You know, I lost a lot of respect for Eddie as a person with the things he said after the fight that I wanted out of the fight or that I quit or something like that. I mean, you can look at my resume. I don't quit, bro. That's not me. I think, you know, I... This is business. So when we get in there, it'll be cool to get a win over a guy when something like that happens,

but that's not the driving factor behind this. The driving factor is beating Eddie Alvarez and getting a step closer to getting my title shot. I see it's real windy up there. What are the stakes in your mind in this fight? What's on the line? For me, in my heart, I believe a win gets me a title shot. So that's what I'm going to get into this fight with. Does that mean it's the most important fight of your career?

Fair to say? You know, they're all so important. Everyone is the most important, you know. Every next fight is your most important fight. But there's a lot on the line for me in this fight. It's been a lot of years to get to this point, to be a step away from a title shot. And here we are. I'm not going to let it slip through my fingers. I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do and go through whatever I have to go through Saturday night to be victorious. And there's no doubt in my mind. I'm going to get my hand raised. And, you know, that's just the mindset I'm going into this fight with.

Is this fight, in your mind, going to be tougher than the Gaichi fight? You know, every fight's different. I feel like it's going to be similar. I feel like the Gaichi fight could have been as smooth or as tough as I made it. And I think this fight is going to be similar. If I stick to my game plan, if I use clean and crisp striking and I don't brawl, that it would be as smooth as I wanted to be. Of course, there's still a fight, so adversity might present itself.

but I'm the better fighter, I believe. How, let me see if I could ask this the right way. Did you develop an entirely new game plan this time around? Like, how much of the wheel needs to be reinvented here? It doesn't. Just need to sharpen up. My patience is better. I'm more experienced.

I'm more mature now. Those kind of things got me in trouble in the last fight. When I heard him, I went crazy trying to get him out of there. You know, I had a similar thing happening in the Gachie fight. I heard him. but that time I was a little bit more patient and I put him away. So this time when I heard Eddie,

I'm going to take my time. I know that I did it with skill. This stuff doesn't happen by chance. So if I do hurt him, I can take my time and put him away and if I don't put him away there, then it'll happen again. I'll hurt him again.

Just got to stick to that and keep it clean, man. How close do you think you were to stopping him that first time? Very close. I mean, as close as you can get to a fight not being stopped. How much do you think the damage he's taken in his career will have an impact in this fight? We'll see. It's tough to say, man. We'll see. But he's had a lot of fights and a lot of wars. We'll see. I'm going out there to hurt him, though. In fairness, I have to ask the same question to you. Do you have, I'm not concerns exactly,

but what toll do you think the damage of a professional career has had on you? You know, I don't really feel any, any different. But, you know, they say the fighter's the last person to know. I feel good, man. I feel like I'm hitting my prime in my stride right now, but there's no secret to it. Fighters do not age gracefully. And I came into this, I came into Zufa with six fights on my record. This is my 30th pro fight.

So I fought the best of the best for a long time, you know, and I'm sure to some degree that takes an effect on you. But like I said, I'm feeling great right now. I'm feeling like these next few years in my prime years. And I'm going to be a world champion. You know, it's interesting. You've always been really, really talented, really, really good. But you had this sort of, I don't know, reputation exactly is the right word.

But you were sort of known as a guy who would go out there and really have these exciting, you know, all-out wars. And you still put it on the line, but you're a lot more calculated than you used to be a lot more clever in terms of at least what you're showing. when did that switch get flipped where you went from a guy who was, yes, still an action fighter, but a much more, you know, it's much more surgical than it used to be. I think that, I don't know if there was one fight where to happen. I think it's just an accumulation of fights at this level. You know, you can't keep making simple mistakes. You know, if you do, you're out of here.

It's one thing to get to the UFC. It's a whole other thing to fight 20-something fights here and stay here at the top like I have and be in title of attention over and over again. You have to learn or, you know, you have to evolve. And I think that's what it is. I can't pinpoint one single fight. But I feel like things outside of the cage has helped this happen, this growth. You know, I'm a father now.

Being a father has taught me patience is put fighting in perspective. Fighting used to meet everything to me. It was life or death. I still give it my all in training and really care about it, obviously. But this is just fighting. When I go home, I'm a father and a husband, a son, a brother. This is just fighting, man. And it's easier to do now that I think about it like.

that. When did you become a philanthropist? So for folks who may not know, I think for the last few fights, maybe longer than that, correct me if I'm wrong, you've been auctioning off your Reebok fight kit, right, and then donating the proceeds to various charities. First of all, did I get the mechanics of that right? Yeah, I started a nonprofit myself. Before, before that, me and my wife were auctioning off stuff from fights and, you know, doing charitable stuff with it, just with us. Like, no, No name. It was just we were doing things like that. And then we decided to start a nonprofit, the Good Fight Foundation.

If you have any interest in it, you can check it out at the goodfight group.com. But that probably was either the fight, the first fully auctioned off everything I wore to the cage and used it for charity, probably was either the first Eddie fight or the Jim Miller fight maybe. It's been a few fights now. but yeah we do whatever we can do in my immediate community where I grew up at and look for things

that we can help out with this time for this fight with Eddie we're going to be doing 500 backpacks filled with school supplies for the year and we're going to be adopting like sponsoring a teacher's classroom and updating them with all new computers and just a bunch of stuff like that

so I'm really excited man when did it occur to you that that was something you needed to do in your life it started happening whenever my daughter was whenever we were moving back to Louisiana from South Florida. And we were packing up a moving truck. And I had these plastic drawers.

And I had like a room that I kept on my training stuff in. And I had these plastic drawers filled with fight shorts and fight gloves with like dried blood and stuff on it. And, you know, like I was saying a while ago, I have a lot of fights in this organization. So when you're young and you first fight, you fight in the WC and the UFC, you want to keep the shorts and gloves and you want to frame them. And it's awesome, you know. But then you have 20-something pairs of. bloody fight shorts and bloody gloves and shirts and it just becomes too much. So we were moving and I was like, I can't believe I have all this stuff.

I forgot about, you know, all these fights. And then, you know, you don't just throw that stuff away. It means a lot to me, but I was like, maybe we can sell it. And then that's what we decided to do. That's really where it came from. And the nonprofit, is it strictly about giving kids school supplies or does it span other needs? Yeah, it spans other needs.

We worked with a widow of a fallen police officer in my hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana. We've raised 1,000 meals for the homeless. We've done school supplies and necessity kits and new furniture for a women and children's shelter. And now we're doing school supplies. It's whatever we've, you know, there's always so much going on in this crazy world. And it's not just my local community where I'm from. I would reach out and help out with anything. just do it there right now.

And, yeah, we don't have any particular set goal. We do whatever is going on at the time. And, you know, it's back to school right now. School season is about to start the school year. And that's what we've done. Let's take it back to the fight. I'm looking at your Instagram feed here. You and Eddie did a promo tour.

I guess this was around June, about a month ago or so. And it was in Calgary. And the caption for the photo is, take it in blood. Now, what does that mean exactly? It means that I'm going to go out there and earn it the hard way in blood. I'm going to earn my title shot. I'm going to earn this win. I want.

And that's exactly what's going to happen. This isn't a, you know, this is a sport. This isn't a game. This is war when we get in there. Have you ever thought about how some of the losses that you experienced that you're overcoming them, like beating Gaiji, getting to this position? It's a long road. It's a super long journey, but maybe that was the right journey for you to maximize all of the skills that you have, actually. Yeah, maybe so.

You know, everybody has their own path. Everybody peaks at different times. You know, nothing in my life was ever easy. Adversity teaches a man a lot about himself. You know, I'm well acquainted with myself, man. I know what's going on. I know who I am. And this is just fighting.

Tune in Saturday. Watch me go to work. What was the biggest lesson from the Gachie fight? To check inside leg kicks, man. Damn. How long did that take to recover? A while. I had a small tear in my quad.

I strained my MCL. I had a lot of physical therapy done. I had a range of motion was gone for a while. Honestly, man, I couldn't wrestle and I couldn't run at all. for a month after that fight. You know, not even... So I lifted weights a lot. I got on a strength program.

Put on a couple pounds of muscle. Did everything I could do to stay busy. And it hurt for a while. But in terms of your own sense of self, I'm sure you went into that fight thinking you knew you could beat him. But beating him in the way that you did, did you take anything extra from that? You know, it just gave me...

reassurance that, you know, these guys like Gaichi, you guys like Eddie, these guys don't mentally break. They don't find a way out. They don't beat themselves, you know, these guys are in there for the long haul. And it just reassures that technique and patience, you know, when your body quits on you, it doesn't matter how mentally tough you are. All these guys are tough, you know, and the same thing's going to happen with Eddie. He's a warrior. He's a dog. He wants to go out there and fight. His backs against the wall. He's in a dangerous spot in his career, and he's going to leave it all out there. And when his body quits on him, there's nothing he can do about it. That's a beautiful part about fighting. Do you make anything of the fact that this

is the last fight on his UFC contract? Yeah, like I said, he's in the corner. He's going to be a dangerous fighter like always. He's going to leave it all out there. That's what kind of fight is going to be. Now, you mentioned and you believe that the winner of this gets a title shot, and of course, you intend on being that guy. My question is the following. Do you believe that the UFC lightweight title will be contested in 2018? Yes, for sure. I do. I believe it's going to happen at the end of the year.

And if it's not me, it'll be me at the first defense of next year. So do you think Connor's going to get a shot immediately? Or, I mean, how's it going to, tell me the breakdown in your mind. how you think it's going to go? You know, in my mind, I feel this like this. It's Connor and Tony. One of those guys are going to fight for the belt, and then I'm next. Okay.

And you think this will all happen inside 2018? I think one of the defenses will happen at the end of this year, yes. Now, if for some reason that there is no defense in 2018, what is your position on interim title fights? I mean, I'm not against them. I think they, when a champ is, out injured for a long period of time or something, I think it makes sense. If there's an active champ, I don't really feel it makes a lot of sense.

It just depends on the scenario and the circumstances. So let's play analyst if we can, Dustin. You're an accomplished fighter, Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt. You know this game better than just about anybody. Connor takes on Habib, who wins? I'm leading towards Khabib in that one, man. And why? Because he's just so overwhelming.

Yeah, and if Connor can't stop him in the first few rounds, and Connor starts to slow down. I think the wrestling's really going to start too much. And then if Habib ends up fighting Tony Ferguson, how does that one go? I think Habib wins there too. Wow. I mean, we saw Kevin Lee take down Ferguson, and I think Kabee's going to be a lot harder to submit.

I think the Ferguson fights a little bit more, you know, he's unpredictable and funky, man. So I think that might be a little bit tougher matchup for Khabib with Ferguson's wrestling and unpredictability. But, you know, man, it's hard to play MMA math and think about these scenarios. Anything could happen in this sport. Do you do a lot of visualizing Fight Week? Oh, nothing crazy. You know, every night when I go to sleep, I think scenarios that can happen.

Think of how it's going to feel. I can't. I can't. And so have you visualized Saturday at all in any capacity? at all? Yeah, I think I'm going to stop Eddie Alfred. Do you have a round in mind, or is that a little too murky? Yeah, too murky.

I don't know what mistake he's going to make. I don't know how long it's going to take to soften him up, but it will be done, man. Your biggest advantage over him is what? Technique, speed, youth, skills, hunger. The whole shebang, huh? Yeah. All right, well, you know what? I am looking forward to it. Enjoy Cowtown such that one can. It looks dynamic from the shot here, but I don't know how much about it. But there it is.

Look at that. Actually here behind me, there's the arena. Can you see it? Oh, yeah, I can. Wow. Oh, that's great. Oh, you're fighting right next to it. As a confident man, you are, Dustin Parier. Amen. Thank you. so much for taking some time out. And I know I speak for a lot of people inside MMA when I say this is one we've had circled on the calendar for some time. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Happy it's here. I'm happy it's coming together, man. Enjoy the show. All right. Thank you, Dustin. Take care. Thanks. Thanks, brother. All right. There he goes.

Dustin. Dustin, Poirier. My goodness. You know what, man? He's come a long way. If you ever see, there's a documentary, was it Fightville? Is that what it was called? made about him, I believe. Yes. If you've never seen it, it's not that he's a completely different guy, but, you know, we all change to the degree that we mature. And you can see a very raw, you know, hungry, you know, hungry. He's still raw, he's still hungry. Don't get me wrong. It's not, it's not that he's not those things, but this very, almost feral version of himself. And now he's this smoother, more thoughtful, deliberate kind of tactician. And it's an incredible transformation to watch.

Similar to what we were discussing before with Anthony Smith. Not that different, actually. That's when these guys really get dangerous, right? And by the way, he mentioned youth. I didn't realize this real quickly. Hold on. Dustin Poirier is only 29 years old. People think he's like in his 30s.

No, no, he's still in his 20s. So that's going to be interesting fight. All right. Our next guest is up here. I want to put it in this kind of context, because I think he's got a bright future doing this. So let's do it now. It's time from the Monday morning analyst.

All right. Joining us, I think, via the gloriousness of... Is it on Skype? Danny Sigurra? Yep. Joining us now via the gloriousness of Skype is our friend and one hell of a fighter and a burgeoning analyst as well.

The one and only Motown Phenom is here. Kevin Lee. Hey, look at that. Suns out, guns out, huh? What's going on? What's going on? Look, I got to do it sometime. You know what?

I follow you on Instagram, Kevin. It looked like your trip to Asia completely changed your life. Am I wrong and assuming it had a big effect on you? No, I mean, I think that's exactly what it is. Six weeks out just kind of like going between six different countries, traveling, getting to see like different cultures, getting to see the different ways that people do things. I think it did.

And it really changed me for the better, too. It really just opened up my mind. And it just gave me a whole lot. more experience too. And I feel like that's really going to come through in the way that I'm preparing for fights and the way I'm going to get in there would be. How so? Give me a sense of that. Well, I just got to see like the way that other people are even training for fights or what they do. You know, everybody's body kind of moves different and like even in cultures, like people just move different. And like it's like even when I was over in Japan, you know, the way that they trained,

the way that they prepared, everything was real. It just was done. And it just was done. And it different way than we do it here in America. And it kind of like opened up my eyes that there's more than one way to do things. And, uh, and I feel like I'm a show that. Now, I know you still have a lot of opinions about the world, but I have noticed you're a lot less active on Twitter than you used to be. Coincidence? Yeah, yeah, true. I'm, I'm a lot less active on all social media. You know, it's just like at a certain point, it gets to be too much, you know, where, where I kind of like to have to dial back a little bit. People, it's the fucking eggs and all that.

Like, I can't take it. I've realized, like, I've got to look out for my own, like, health first, you know what I'm saying? Before I give to too many people. And, you know, I mean, I'm a social dude and all that, but not too much like that. Favorite place you visited? Spain, for sure. Why?

Thailand, Thailand was amazing, too. But Japan, I just love a culture. I love to folks there. Everybody treats you with respect without you having to go out your way or, you know, or it just was amazing to me. The way everything's super duper clean, you really can, you can eat off the streets if you want to.

So I feel like I could move there at one point. And favorite thing you ate. I saw you struggled with scorpion and then durian fruit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I got my hands on a couple things. Favorite thing was probably the Chinese food. Like, they got a different way of doing pork over there. Like, they had like that sweet and sour port that was like over some, man, telling you,

it's the Chinese food for sure. All right, well, I want to get to that because we got to talk about 165-pound weight class in just a second. But I saw you, I made your debut on FS1. By the way, they may not put anything in their cups, but I can assure you mine is filled with either water or coffee every time. See, I mean, it's just, it's such a letdown. You know, I didn't say you shouldn't meet your heroes and you shouldn't get to see things that you ain't supposed to see because then it's just like, oh, man, all this shit was all fake. I don't want to go on the Fox set again and see them like shooting a movie or something.

And I realized the whole time all this shit was all TGI. It was all fake. Santa Claus is not real and it's going to be a huge letdown. That was one of them ones with that. But I'm glad that you're a real one. You're a real one, Luke. They got a good man to do this show. Yeah, thank you.

By the way, how was it trying to break down fights? Was it as easy or as hard as you thought it might be? it's stressful. It's, it's, uh, I mean, it's not really that hard because I, I just love the sport and I just love doing it. And, you know, I know most of the fighters anyway and I study pretty much everybody. So I don't want to say it's necessarily hard, but, uh, it's different. And it's a different type of preparation that go into something like that. Like, I was more nervous for that than like a fight. You know, as soon as that camera come on you and it's red and it's live, uh, it's a different type of like nervousness that go into it. So I mean, it's a good experience. experience for me to do. I don't know how many times I'll do it, just because I'm still focusing on my own career. I'm still doing my thing. But it's good experience in the long run. Let me pick your brain. We'll get to the 165 pound stuff in just a minute. But this weekend, two of your lightweight compatriots, Dustin Poirier is going to fight Eddie Alvarez. They believe a title shot's on the line, whether or not we'll see. But the fight itself, what do you make of

this matchup? How do you assess them? I mean, it's a good fight. It's the right fight that should have been made, too. I feel like they're in a different type of category. I don't really see neither one of them competing with the best at 155. But, like, we'll see, you know. And that's still an option out there for me, too. We'll go see how the whole thing shake out.

I mean, Eddie, he out there, he's doing his thing. He's still kicking. I don't know how Eddie's doing it. But if Eddie wins, then we definitely go. I got to definitely get a taste of that. But, you know, the fight itself, between them two, they're going to put on a good fight. I think they both going to go out there

and they're going to lose some brain cells. Now, your candor is always appreciated. One of the things that I went back and I watched the fight again, the first meeting that they had at UFC 211, Dustin's in that South Paul position. I don't want to over generalize, but you also fight from the South Paul position. Every fight's different.

But for you, Kevin, generally speaking, how much of an asset on balance is that South Paul position for you? It throws guys off a lot, you know, and it's something that you, you know, I do both. I switch orthodox. I'm naturally right-handed, but I go south-ball a lot because, you know, you never know what I'm going to be doing. You never know what stance I'm going to be coming from, what angles, punches are going to be coming from. That's the thing that throws guys off, and especially somebody like Eddie who's shorter, who likes to work behind his jab. you're just by the nature of how your bodies are positioned,

you're going to throw him off. So I think Dustin probably got his number. He had his number the first time. Eddie just, he took kind of a cheap shot out. But, you know, we're going to see on this next one. I feel like Dustin will probably have his number again just from being that South Paul. Dustin's a good boxer.

He's going to keep pushing forward. But, you know, we're going to see how to, I think five rounds kind of favors Eddie a little bit. But, you know, I don't know. I don't really, the fight itself ain't too, I'm not looking at it as like too much of a threat, you know what I mean? Too much of a threat to you? Yeah, yeah, I got bigger and better. You know, I got bigger and better things on my mind, at least. But we're going to see, we'll see how to after the fight, if either one of them are impressive if I got to turn my attention to him.

Now, let's say, I know you're not, but let's say you were cornering Eddie. From a general standpoint, what are the keys to Eddie's victory if he is to have one? he's got to get back on that leg i mean uh justin just took a lot of damage i mean uh dustin just took a lot of damage uh versus gaecie on that on that lead leg and i mean that that's the first thing i would get on the leg the body uh dust he's just been taking a lot of damage lately so i would try and eat up that damage that he's already taken take him down really show that it's a full mama fight too i feel like eddie is a little bit more versatile uh eddie probably is a little bit more well-rounded he got to use all of it. If he just stand up and he's just trying to go to war with Dustin again, he's going to get

his ass work again. So if he was smart, he would do something different. But honestly, Eddie's an old dog. It's hard to teach old dogs new trick. He's going to come out there. He's going to do the same things that he's been doing. And I don't know if he's going to make the necessary adjustment. Yeah, and Porri, had the big power advantage it looked like in the first fight anyway. But you mentioned something about the damage, all those leg kicks that Porriet took at hands, or I should say the legs anyway, of Gaichi. When you look at that as a fan, you look at that, you say, okay, that's really bad, but he'll heal from that and he'll go back to normal. Are you suggesting that there is no normal to go back to when you take damage like that?

Not that much, you know, especially on the nerves, you know, they take a long time to heal. It's more so, it's more than just like a muscle damage or structurally. I think once it, once it gets again, it's like, it's just like being knocked out. You know, once. you get that button touch, it can be touched again. And if he got deep into that nerve, you can, you can, you can get it touched again. So, you know, I think maybe he should have took more. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how bad his leg is, but I'm pretty sure there's still some damage from there. That's a tough one to try and heal in six months. Trust me. I mean, I didn't have Essex kick me in the leg. You know, Edson kicked me in a leg. You know,

etting hit way harder than just engaged you. So, you know, it takes some time. Yeah, I was about to say, how long before you've, felt like you were back to normal after the Edson fight. I mean, well, I, I just played it smarter. I start checking them motherfuckers. I just ain't keep letting them kick me like that. You know, I really ain't take too many. You know, when you look at the fight, you don't see me limp in this shit.

So, you know, I just start checking them. I start doing the right things. But even then, though, you know, a couple of dig it through. So it takes a while. It takes, you know, a couple months, maybe two months or so before I really felt back to normal. I asked Dustin this question I'll put it to you as well

Sort of tell me how the lightweight title goes this year When is it going to be contested in against two Do you think Connor gets the immediate title shot? Yeah, I think The Connor fight is the right fight to make They do Connor versus Kabib in October And you know It's just it's so muddy

It's so weird I feel like they do still need to That's why I've been pushing for this 165 pound division because I feel like they need to like clarify all this. You know, even that were they talking about stripping Kobe Covington, who just had that little interim title. You know, why do we, we got three titles in between these weight classes anyway. You know, he won that title off a guy who made his living at 155,

and he's a natural 170-pounder. They should go ahead and just make a title in between those. And, you know, moves 170 up to 75. Let Khab and Connor go at it for the 155 belt. make a 65 belt and then let tyrant fight somebody for the 75 belt you know i think that that makes the most sense uh at 55 right now it looks like it's going to be kabib and connor it probably should just because of how much uh promotion is already going into it and it probably makes most sense you know in october now i want to get to that 165 in just a second i promise but do me the honors

if you can if it is habib and connor who wins and why that's a toss up it's a toss up one uh i i keep kind of going back and forth on it. I still think that Connor probably will get it. I think he'll sleep him. You know, I think Kabeep is going to come out there with that same approach that he's been approaching fights for five, six years. The only thing is it's such a big X factor. With Connor, you don't know, you know, how he's going to look, what he's going to,

if he's still got that same hunger, because Kabeep going to come hungry, he'll be going to be ready to fight. And if kind of take it lightly, then he's going to get his asswood. But, you know, Kabeb, that style, I don't know. He might get slept. Where are you in the division? Now, if they don't make a 165, where does that leave you? I know where you're ranked, but I'm saying in your mind,

you've got Porrié Alvarez this weekend. That'll sort some of this out. But where does it leave you? Yeah, I don't know. I got some options. And that's always the best thing to have. So we're going to see. Like I said, I mean, we'll see the winner of this.

It's good timing for me to come back and fight that winner at the end of this year maybe. I mean, we're going to see. You know, I'm keeping, I kind of always got my own thing. going on and I'm kind of always in my own here. I made that call out to George, St. Pierre. So every day that I'm waking up and I'm training, I'm training with him thinking of different ways that I could beat him. So, you know, until my focus shift, we're going to see.

Has the UFC expressed any interest in your idea about you at 165 and or you at 165 opposite St. Pierre? Me at 165, yes. At St. Pierre, they don't really know because nobody really knows. You know, they know everybody kind of gives me like the little side eye whenever I say that. And it's because they know that George ain't going to take a fight that he don't think he can win. And I think we all kind of know George don't think he can beat me. So, you know, everybody, whenever I mention it, they kind of give me like the little, okay, you're going to try that, huh?

And I'm like, yeah, until otherwise, I'm going to see how this thing go. But they have expressed interest in a 65-pound division. I think they just waiting on the right timing or, you know, trying to figure, how they're going to do it, but it's going to have to come. You know, this weight cutting issue is such a big deal. And it's not even like, I'm not calling out for it because I can't make 155 anymore. I'm smaller than some of these other guys. Right now, I'm sitting here at 178.

You know, I can make the weight class no problem again. It's just, you know, we have to do something about this weight cutting issue. The only commission to look at it was California. And the way that they came up to fix it, they added a 165 and a 175-pound division. And that's the only solution that there is. Everybody knows that this weight cutting thing is a problem, but nobody's coming up with no fucking solutions. Everybody's just kind of, you know, waiting for somebody to die. And I don't feel like that's the right thing to do.

I think you have to take at least one step in the right direction. And then just see how I go. It's really no, no downside to it. Is that what you believe that it would take something catastrophic for major structural change to happen inside MMA's weight classes? Yeah, and it's a shame, too. But, I mean, it's happened again and again and again in all these combat sports. You know, you've seen it in boxing. You've seen it in wrestling.

They just did it a couple years ago when the three kids died in the sauna. They went ahead and changed all these weight classes. I mean, that's what it's going to take. It's, I mean, it's unfortunate, you know, and it could be, you know, and people kind of gloss over it, too. You know, Yeroyah Hall, I trained with, the man had a seizure. getting, you know, cutting weight for fights. And, you know, it kind of gets swept under the rug, and it kind of goes like, oh, he was doing his own thing or, you know, he wasn't worried about him.

But, you know, the man had a seizure getting ready for a fight. That's not a joke. That's not like, you know, it's more serious than I think people realize. And it's my health on the line, too, along with it. So if I can take and all I got to do is just step up and just talk about it and try and make some change happen, then that's what I'm going to do. But the rest of these motherfuckers are too scared. They won't do it because they don't want to step up and say what they really feel.

Do most fighters you know roughly your weight class, let's say 155, 170 somewhere in the welterweight lightweight space? How receptive are they to this idea of a 165-pound division? What's the word on the streets? I mean, I don't know. most people, especially won 55ers, that I talk to, like they all want it.

You know, we all are about the same size. You know, a lot of these guys are 85, 90. You know, you see guys like Paul Felder. You know, I fought, you know, I fought Jake Matthews and Michelle Preseris and all these guys are way bigger than me. And it's like, you know, even Essent,

Esson was, you know, a little bit bigger than me, too. It's like we all doing the same thing to compete against each other. It doesn't make sense. If we can make it a little bit safer and we can make it a little bit more fair. Like, that's all I'm calling for.

It's just a fair, even playing field for me to go out there and compete with somebody without having to kill myself to do it. Now, I certainly understand the merits of the argument. I'm going to be candid with you and tell you I'm a little bit skeptical on a couple of fronts, but maybe you can convince me about something I'm missing. Playing devil's advocate, I certainly acknowledge the dangers of extreme weight cutting. It would be a fool to not. But the natural response would be, why not just fight at welterweight?

To that, you would say what? Well, I mean, again, I'm asking for a fair and equal playing field. You know, you're going against guys that are six foot three or just carry around 15 extra pounds on them. You know, a lot of these guys at 170, and it's documented. They're all coming in. They step into the cage at 195 or, you know, sometimes 200 pounds. If you look at even with California put out, you know, they put out the weights of people the day of. And a lot of these 170 pounds is like 195 or a little.

little bit above. And you see, like, in a fight, I think, I mean, I'm still behind. That's why Dosanjo's lost that fight to Kobe. It's because Kobe had 10 pounds on him. All he has to do is lay on him and lean on him and make him carry that weight. It's different at the highest levels. You know, at the lowest levels, yeah, you can do that. But at the highest levels, that 10 pounds, it makes a huge difference. If you do a 165, you won't have these guys cutting from 200 all the way down. You have guys from, like, you know, my, I'm a lot. about my size, and those guys will go up to 175. And if they can make 165 through that,

then it's a more even playing field because I can get bigger. And then the other question I would have is, do you have any concerns? I think you would agree, lightweight and welterweight are MMA's two best divisions, but almost in any organization you go to, would you have concerns that if you made the 165, yes, you might solve, or at least, you know, temporarily,

not eliminate, but make the weight cutting less of an issue in that space, but you'd be draining the two best divisions to make another one. Does that make a lot of sense? No, I mean, again, you look at the divisions. There's 100 guys. I think there's 99 registered guys at lightweight in the UFC. And then there's like, what, 89 or so before. I mean, somebody had to look up the exact numbers,

but I feel like it's 89. So you talk about 100 guys between two different weight classes. There's only a top 15. And all these guys, everybody from top 25 could all be, champion. So, of course, they can make another, you know, you can add, you can add a top 15, 165 right now and keep a top 175, top 15, and it'd just be just as strong as 170, you know what I'm saying? There's so many guys, there's so much talent. The talent is there. It's the same thing as they said about, you know, adding 125 for the women. You know, yeah, it's going to take some time

to cultivate that, but it's going to, I think it'd be even easier because you already have so many guys in between these white classes right now that could fill that up. And it's at, it's always going to be, you know, the talent is always going to show up. You know, you're a bright guy, which makes me wonder why you're wearing a Brooklyn Nets hoodie. How can you support that team? I don't even know what it is, to be honest with you. It's just a little workout hoodie. I'm going to go for a run as soon as I get off the phone with you.

You know, it's just, I'm going to get it sweaty. I'm going to fuck it up. I don't care. All right. So you're not a Brooklyn Nets fan. It's just clothing. Yeah, I don't even know. I don't even know what it is.

You know, sometimes through the fashion and stuff that I'll wear anything, to be honest with you. And then, Kevin, before you go, you're ready to take a lightweight fight if the right one is offered to you sometime through the course of 2018, yes? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, I've said, I've got a lot of options that I'm playing with. You know, I got things that I want. They got things that they want. We're going to be somewhere in the middle of that and everybody going to go home happy. But somebody going home with their ass-woof at the end of this year.

Wait, now, are you suggesting that you're not, are you still under contract with UFC? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, okay. Yeah. No, I'm saying, I'm saying things that they want fight-wise, you know. They got ideas that they want for people for me to fight. I got ideas like I want people for me to fight. We're going to see how they all go down.

But by the end of this year, that's still where I'm looking at, probably on that Madison Square, Harding Guard, regardless. All right. Well, Kevin, I look forward to that or whenever it is you get back. I really appreciate your perspective and enjoy the run. Kevin Lee, world's biggest Brooklyn Nets fan. There he is, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Kevin. My man.

All right. Take care. There he is. You know, he marches to the beat of his own drum, that guy. He has his own opinions. I'm still not totally sold on the 165 idea. I mean, I am sold in part, right? I'm sold in the idea that it's probably a lot healthier for fighters to have these 10-pound

increments. So 55, 65, then 75, 85, and then I guess you would have no 95, but, you know, some uniformity in that space. But I've often said this. A weight class created to assist in heavy weight cuts typically has that as its sole value. In other words, if you make a 165-pound division because you're like, man, these weight cuts are really bad, okay, that's fine. I agree. The weight cuts are bad. And in fact, it might actually help, but then that's really its only function that promotionally, this is not going to be a weight class that a lot of people are going to be getting behind. And I'm telling you, man, I remember this so distinctly.

When was this exactly? Can't get the year right. In 2007, 2008, I remember so vividly we would have these debates in MMA. And I'm telling you, I heard this on the radio. I heard this on TV. heard this from fans at events. They would say things like, you know why MMA is so much better than boxing? I'm not asking you to agree with the assessment. I'm merely relaying the conversations and talking points that I had heard. And they would say things like,

you know what makes MMA so much better than boxing? Is that there's only five weight classes. Lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavy, and heavy. And now is at the time when light heavy was still, you know, like one of these marquey weight classes. And now you're going to get all these extra weight classes. and now you're going to get all these extra weight classes and you're going to add another one.

I don't know how that's going to go. Speaking of title shots, we go now to our next guest. I don't know if he's on call or if he is on Skype. Which one is he? Danny. Where is he? Skype.

All right, we go now to the magic of Skype because this gentleman will be facing Demetrius Johnson for the second time when he contends for the UFC flyaway title, the one and only, Henry Sohudo. The American Dream is here. What's up, Henry? How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How are you guys doing?

Doing quite well. Henry, I've been stalking your social media in preparation for this interview, and I have noticed that you have taken, correct me if I'm wrong, it appears that the training for this camp is different in every capacity than virtually any other training camp you have had. True or false? True, true, true. I think I'm using science. I'm using pretty much science at the center of this fight camp. rather than just going off of, going off of filler, things like that.

So I think that's what's been different. I'm doing a lot of different, you know, using sports performers. I'm working with this company called Neuroforce One. And, you know, a lot of it's based on recovery. A lot of it's based on just, just peeking at the right time. I think sometimes as a fighter, as a wrestler, we hone in on a lot of these old school, these old school methods. and sometimes all school methods can get you hurt.

And what I've learned is I learned to take a back seat and actually use these narrow, these, this narrow system that they have me on, you know, detecting, waking up every morning, using my old megawave and understanding at what level of a capacity can I actually train and how hard I should go. So I'm being monitored by science and it's something new.

And I feel so much stronger. I've done tests at the UCPI. and they've done studies on me, and I guess my studies have been off the charts according to them. So I'm extremely happy to be able to use Neuroforce 1 and everybody at the U.S.C.PI. And, you know, hopefully by August 4th, and we're ready to do, we're ready to take out the mouse.

Now, this is your first time using these services or not? I've used some of it before. I've used phase four before. before they work with a bunch of Olympic athletes. But I've always been intrigued with this, and I've been following Neuroforce 1 for about, since the first time I fought with Hase, I know people started recognizing the difference in my body.

And it's a lot of these, like, neural stems that go on my body to kind of help their recovery and a lot of the strength factors too. And, you know, I started using it when I was, my first time when I fought Hades and I was just like, man, I've never felt so good in my life. and you know did it with Bettis

and then now we're just you know we're doing it with Demetrius now and we're just doing at a very it's just at a higher level man more people have people monitoring everything by the time I wake up to

about time I go to sleep there's somebody examining my body that sounds a little creepy but it also sounds very effective so riddle me this though the one thing I noticed from the Hayes fight was not just to your point

you looked physically better or that there was a bouncing your step, but there appear to be technical adaptations as well. Now, I'm sure there's been a growth. You've been training MMA for a long time now, so that growth is going to be continuous. But has there been any jumps in technical ability as a consequence of these other changes you have made? Oh, absolutely, man. If you, if you could recover correctly, you could, you could be able to, you know, feel like a butterfly, you know, sting like a bee like Muhammad Ali. No, Muhammad Ali was a heavy way. this is why Ollie was always able to do a lot of that

a lot of the you know the shuffle stuff the playing around things like that because he's never really had to cut weight and it's almost like the same thing with us if we're able to feel good and we'll be able to move and do a lot of these things that a lot of these athletes sometimes they want to do but because of a rigorous weight cut or because they're not peeking to their fight they're unable to do so yeah absolutely a lot of it's technical too I travel the world a bit of

to Singapore, you know, Holland for kickboxing, going to Brazil back and forward, just just traveling the world pretty much and picking, picking the best from, you know, just picking the great minds from every art and then collaborating all that into mind. All right. So the idea there must be that to beat an opponent like DJ, these kinds of efforts are needed. That's the idea, like short of these efforts, you can't be. them. I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, the extraordinary challenge requires extraordinary prep. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's all it is, man. And it's nothing that I, that I haven't done

before. It's just now, it's just a little more detail because there's a world title on the line. So a lot of people want to be a part of it. A lot of the right people want to be a part of it. And I allow these people in. You know, if they want to help me be the best, man. And if you know what you're doing, please help me. I'm here to ask for help because Demetians ain't. You know, he ain't no slouch. But at the same time, it's like I'm, you know, I can fight, man. I'm a Ferrari, too. You know, I just need the right fuel.

I need the right, the right people working on me. And I'm going to be firing at all cylinders. Let me ask an open-ended question. If someone, and I'll ask it, when you look back on your first fight with him, why did you lose? I think a lot of it I'd probably credit him I think I credit him I credit his coaches

the game plan I should have never gotten the clinch I didn't I don't know if we respected his clinch as much as I did after the fight you know I was like God just precision but a lot of the two that was just the timing issue like people don't realize man

by the time I had my first MMEA fight to the time I fought Demetius Johnson, I was only fighting for three years, period. No amateur experience in MMA, nothing, just all pro from my first, from my debut. You know, after fighting for a year and a half, I signed with the UFC. And then slowly, you know, catapult to, you know,

to the championship fights. So a lot of it was just, it was time, too. You know, it's, so a lot of it I would credit DeNschen. A lot of it, I'd probably, I'd credit myself, too. Like, I just wasn't, I wasn't ready. So when people ask me, you know, how do you beat Demetrius Johnson? You know, this happened two years ago. And I looked back and I just thought, I'm just like, dude, I just need time.

It's not a technical thing. It's not a tactical thing. I take that back. It's actually everything. And that's why I use the word time. And when you say it's everything. So you mentioned it's technical, it's tactical. When you think about what you have to do to beat Demetrius, what goes through your head?

What kinds of conditions have to be in? place for you to win? A strong mindset, composure, relaxed, season and opportunity. A lot of these things, man. I've studied him a lot. I've actually picked up a lot of good habits from what just watching film from Demetrius Johnson.

You know, it's like they say, it's like game recognizes game, and it's true. You know, I'm not here to, I'm here to be honest, too. You know, it's, but I enjoy it. And the reason why I died into mixed martial arts is because of competition. I'm a competitor, man. I wouldn't be doing this for anything else but competition. I want to take out the best.

I want to beat the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. And I want to do it ultimately because he took me out the first time. I mean, you're talking about a comeback story from being knocked out in the first round to going out there defeating a guy that knocked you out, the pound-for-pound king, you know, to defeating him. I mean, that's, that's, that's what I have envisioned in my head. What do you think it does for your career if you beat him now? I mean, obviously you get the title, right? So you'd be the champion.

You'd be the guy to dethrone him. But I mean, in that pound for pound discussion, what would it, what would it put you? Oh, it put me, uh, it put me in the history books. People, people, people will forget a, people will forget a two division champ. They will, because there's, there's already, there's already five so far, or six. Five. No, people won't forget, and people won't forget an Olympic champion in the U.S. seat champion until the next person does them, that is one tough human being.

You know, ultimately, I feel like it could put me in a different category. You know, I conquered two sports and I beat the pound for pound best fighter in the world. Like, there's no denying this kid's the truth. You know, if you actually go back and you look at your wrestling matches from when you won the gold medal, there's a lot of times you had to come back from adversity to win those time after time and you did it, right? I'm wondering, do you take anything from that particular journey into this particular fight camp, this sort of like having to answer for these different sets of challenges?

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's not just the Olympic Games, but it was leading up to the Olympics. I remember the whole year of 2007, man, I did not win one tournament. I did not win the U.S. Open. I didn't do anything until the Olympic trial. Like, I had the worst year of my life, like, leading up to the Olympics. but I still kept my eye on the prize and you know next you know

at the Olympics I was ranked 31st in the world at the Olympic Games and from 31st I wasn't even supposed to be at the Olympic Games there was only 16 slots according if you want to go according to the world championship results

and the rankings and I was one of the last persons to sneak in and qualify and then you know win the whole thing so you're talking about it You're talking about a guy that's determined man. You're talking about a guy that's driven. You're talking about a guy that will, despite what's happened in the past,

that will still keep his eye on the prize. And that's who, Henry said, Houda was, a determined human being that wants to push his mind, body, and soul to the highest levels. And this is ultimately what I enjoy, right? You know, Henry, one thing that always gets brought up with Demetris is his technical ability. And certainly it's considerable, right? He is where he is, and it's not an accident. One thing that never gets mentioned to me is his confidence, right?

Just to throw Borg in the air and then catch him with an arm bar, yes, that requires technical acumen, but it requires the confidence to attempt something like that. How do you take that confidence from him? It's, I'm a confident human being too. I, you know, like I said, I recognize it. You recognize that, hey, this guy is dangerous in every area, wrestling, jihitsu, strike,

and all of the above submissions. You just got to be in your A game. That's it. You've got to be a learned at all time. This isn't your ordinary UFC fight. You know, and I understand that. I welcome that. I welcome pressure.

I welcome the best. Come on, bring it. You know, I've, I embrace it. I embrace pressure. I embrace the fact that, okay, come on, let's go, man. I'm ready. And I think that's all of it. I think it's just a trigger, man.

It's a mindset that you, as a fighter, as somebody that wants to be a world champ, you've got to start thinking like one. And I'm going to seize the opportunity. That's all I know. Do you think UFC would be happy if you beat Demetrius? Yeah, I think so. Nothing against Demetrius.

Nothing against Demetrius, but I think when you have a dominant champ for so many years, it's almost like, you know, they want a new step. storyline. They want a new storyline to tell, especially, especially it would be somebody like me, man, I'm bringing not just the Americans, but not I bring it an online America with me. I'm bringing, I'm bringing, you know, I speak Portuguese, I speak Spanish, I speak English, you know, maybe I'm not as flamboyant, as Connor McGregor, but I have a storyline to me.

And I think there's a lot of fights that could be, that can, you know, that could be made and, and height because of that. I know I've spoken to so many fighters over the years that they always say, oh, when I win, when I win. And I'm sure you're taking this fight because you want to win and you absolutely believe it. Fair enough. But we're also human as well, right? And as a professional, no matter what your industry is, I don't know how fear doesn't creep into your mind on occasion. Here's what I mean.

Have you ever even for a second thought about what would happen if you don't win where that leaves you inside the division? I mean, God, that's... I know it's a heavy question. I don't mean to be depressing, but I'm just sort of trying to ask a real human emotion there. Yeah, no, I don't... It's hard for me to even think that way. Because I don't even necessarily...

Listen to this, Dan. Like, I'm not a... I don't even necessarily, when I fight, I don't even necessarily think about winning. You know what I think about doing? I think about doing. about doing things right. And when you do things right,

things will fall into place. I think of my areas of concentration. I think of the opportunity my opponent's given me. And the only thing I think of is doing things right. And when things are done right, things will fall into place. How long for you, actually, let me ask us a different way.

How different is your training now relative to your training in the Olympic grind? both in terms of its difficulty and its duration. Yeah, I think I'm smarter about it now. I'm smarter about the training. No, I'm not 21 years old no more. I'm 31. You know, it's been 10 years since I pretty practically pretty much retired from the sport of wrestling.

And, you know, I'm smarter about things. I'm wiser about things. I try not to get emotional about things. I think you have that split second and think, hey, calm your ass down. It's okay, man, you got a hit. Don't get emotional. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's more like that. I think it's just, it's just being wiser, man.

I think a lot of this stuff, too, I've taken from guys like, like Bernard Hopkins, a guy that I, you know, obviously I'm not as old as Bernard, but I'm, but I take his skill set, his mentality, you know, of fighting people accordingly and using sports performance to, you know, to peak at your sport. You know, so that's, that's, that's, that's the mentality that I, that I, that I, that I, that I would say that I have now that I kind of didn't have then, you know, the heart, the drive doesn't change. The, the scientific part does.

And that's just because it's accordingly with age and with, and with, and with, and with the rigorous training that we're doing with, we're not. just wrestling. You know, we're striking each other in the face. We're striking each other in the body. We're throwing knees, elbows, kicks. And it's a little more brutal than just, you know, they're wrestling that. What was the most beneficial overseas trip you took? Probably going to Russia. Going to Russia and going out there and being humble. Going out there and seeing the level of competition and seeing my eyes just being opened up. And I was in high school and I knew when I went to Russia

and I saw all these competitors, all these World and Olympic champs compete at the Ivan Euregan, the tournament, which is one of the toughest in the world. If you guys want to find the best athletes in the world, you guys have to go to that tournament. It's the Euregan, it's in Siberia, it's in Krasyars. And I remember going out there, I remember watching

Olympic champs and the world champs getting knocked off first, second round. I'm like, what the heck? But it opened my eyes. It let me know that, hey, man, I'm not going to forego. I'm not going to go to college. I'm not going to go to a division when to wrestle like everybody else. You know what I want to do?

I want to be the best in the world. And that's exactly what I, you know, that's exactly what I did. And it was thanks to the Russian culture that completely changed her mind. I don't know if anyone's ever asked you this. Maybe they have. If they have, forgive me. But what is your sense about how well Ben Ascran would do if he was able to compete against the UFC's best, which, of course, we know he was not?

personally i think ben ashton could be anybody in the world i think he has his strengths of striking and this is just his strength of striking is you'd probably even give him a b minus i'm sorry a d minus you know we're a d but man his grappling skills he's wrestling he gets on top of you man you're uh you're i think the person to really ask would be somebody like tyrone willie who who who who who is the champ and has trained with Ben Ashman. I think maybe he could, I think he would probably open your guys' eyes. He would be a scary guy to fight just because of the fact that he's able to use his leverage and he's gumbing, he's flexible, and he does a lot of things from his jit-suches.

He's very diverse and he's a scary fight for anybody, even for Tyrone Willie, for any of those guys. So I personally think Ben Ashken would be one of the best. I think he's one of the best in the world. Before you go, I really appreciate your time here, Henry. You mentioned something that you do speak Portuguese. Obviously, you're fluent in Spanish speaker. But it seems like the UFC, they've had some success in building some of these South American Spanish-speaking markets. Obviously, we're not including Brazil.

Brazil is already well taken care of it. But, you know, they just were in Chile. They're going to be in Argentina. Obviously, they've had many shows in Mexico. But it still feels like they haven't quite broken through, right? Like they haven't quite had this uproarious moment. They got close with Kane, but not quite, right? If you win on August 4th, can you usher in this age of development of Spanish-speaking Latin America?

And I guess part of North America as well. Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, I speak good Spanish. Spanish was actually my first letter as growing up, and I understand the culture. I understand the culture. I understand what the people want. I'm a, I'm a warrior. I'm a, you know, it's what they call it, Guerrero in Spanish.

And absolutely, man, I think it's, I think it would be, I think it would be dumb for me not to even fathom or not think about taking over all of Latin America, for sure. Well, Henry, I got to tell you, you got me interested, man. I saw the training on your Instagram and I know what this means to you. I know what kind of competitor you are. August 4th cannot come soon enough. I wish you nothing but the best of luck. for spending some time with us. And, man, I'm excited, really excited. No, thank you. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

All right. Take care of, my friend. There he goes. All right. I got to tell you, I got to tell you, if you haven't seen his Instagram page, you should check it out. Old boy is out there putting in the work on the mats. All right, so we're going to be joined by Eddie Alvarez in about seven or eight minutes or so. I want to take a moment. We don't have any branding around it right now, but we're going to add some. It's time for the way in. And it's a sort of an editorial comment that I want to introduce to the show. I like having guests. Having four is actually too many. It actually interrupts the rest of the show. Happy to have all the guests that we have. Don't misunderstand me. But I like to bring in, I used to do a live chat,

or it was just a opinion for 90 minutes. I want to bring in a little bit more of that to the extent that we can. Now, let me get on with it because the preamble's gone too long. This is my point. I have had a total rethink about Connor McGregor's sabbatical from MMA. Now, it's not that every part of it is great, right? He did get into the mischief in Brooklyn. That was not great. And I think there's going to be some kind of resolution around that this coming Thursday. So that should be interesting.

But here's my point. I think a lot of us have been frustrated, right? We want him to get out there. You are in your prime, is the argument that we have all made. What are you doing? Taking some time off, okay, fine, but this much. So the point where you get stripped of not one but two titles, that seems inadvisable. And I think some of that still probably is true, right? What is the appropriate amount of time off?

It's debatable. And what is the appropriate way to act during your time off? Well, some of that's not debatable, but of course, even in the legal side of things, some of that is debatable too, right? What's the time best spent? But of course you don't want to be overly paternalistic either. You have to leave these choices to the individuals in their lives and really you have little say over it other than, you know, what runs afoul of the law. But here's my point.

I kind of thought that this was a bad idea for a long time, at least this much time off. I kind of thought it was a bad idea to be this absent. I thought it was a bad idea to just let your prime go. And it's not to say that there might not be costs down the line, but here's what I do know and the rethink that I've had around this issue. I have made the point before on this very show several times that we are breaking these fighters, man, breaking them. They do too much media.

I am part of that problem. They do too much weight cutting. We are all part of that problem. And them too, they have some ownership over that problem. Too much travel, not enough pay. I'm sorry, but the anti-doping protocol is absurd. All of these different factors where you have a guy's like Max Holloway in his prime, only now kind of coming around and all these other fighters pulling out constantly.

And you saw Alexander Gustafs in this very weekend, injured, injured, injured, injured, injured, sick, injured, can't do it, can't do it. Or you get guys and ladies like Ronda Rousey who have a couple of things that don't go their way and they're gone. Look at Kane Velasquez. Now he's eyeballing WWE, how serious, I don't know, but more than that he's eyeball on MMA, it appears. And that's okay. That's their lives.

They're going to live it the way that they want to live it. Here's my point. We are breaking these guys. We are breaking them. I've said it before. I will say it again. There's too much demand being put on them, whether it is external because of the game itself, whether it is on the mat, because of the nature of the way that they train

and have to train, frankly, to be good. So you ask what the rethink is. The rethink is that Connor McGregor, once again is ahead of everybody else, including, I mean, this is not some kind of breaking news, but I'm now admitting it on this front, including yours truly. I had him pegged wrong on this account. Again, it wasn't that I thought that the time off was bad, but I thought this kind of time off spent this way. There was some debate about whether or not that was optimizing it. And now I'm thinking very little of that is true. Now I'm thinking it makes totally,

total sense that he took this time off when he did. Not only did he have the huge paycheck from beating Eddie Albrez and then the even bigger paycheck from them beating Floyd Mayweather, but he did have a kid. And he is young and he is in his 20s. And yes, that's his prime, but that's also the prime of his life. It's not just about the professional ownership that we all think that he has to us in terms of responsibilities. Everyone else sticks around until they get the desire to compete beaten out of them or the ability to compete beaten out of them. You look back at St. Pierre that four years off

and he comes back and not everybody's St. Pierre, they can take four years off and come back that way, but you look at it now and you're like, oh, right, right. St. Pierre, another guy who was ahead of the game. Smart. Super smart. Now, he let himself get burned down to the point where he, I mean, I thought he lost the Hendricks fight, to be honest with you.

He let it go maybe a little too long, but he took the break and look what it did for him. He picked up right where he left off and even higher in some capacities. Look, man, I don't know what happens next with Connor McGregor. I don't know what they're going to say to him on Thursday. I don't know if he's going to be fighting, Habib. I don't know if he's going to win or lose. If he loses, I'm not sure what that says about the time off. There's a lot of debate to this, and everyone is going to second guess and say,

what if and should have been this and it should have been that. I'm here to say, I don't think so. At least not on this one. Yeah, maybe he could have taken a little less time off. And yeah, he could have thrown a few less dollies or hand trucks through bus windows. Yeah, there's some things you can quibble with at the margins. But taking that time off that he took after giving everything that he gave, remember UFC 200 he was supposed to be there

but he said he didn't want to go because he didn't want to do the media he was already burned out then I come up here two times a week to do this and the MMA beat and most days I'm so sleep deprived I want to cry and that's like a pimple on the ass of what this guy has to go through plus he just had a kid plus he's got extraordinary wealth Plus, God knows whatever injuries he's been dealing with all this time. Taking that time off was the smartest thing he ever did.

Maybe in terms of preserving himself. And maybe he comes back and he fights Abe and decides he doesn't want anymore. Or maybe he comes back and he fights a beep and he beats him and decides he wants to stick it out for some more big fights because that's just the kind of competitor he is. I don't know. But what I do think we need to wrap our head around a little bit is that when people are allowed,

to exit the game, they often have no problem walking through that door, whether it's because of the financial luxury or some other kind of opportunity. That should be alarming to all of us. Not everyone's like that, but a lot of them are. I think that says something about the kind of pressure we're putting on them.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the way in. All right, let us go to our last guest of the day, our last, but maybe, you know, the highest esteemed. he is going to be taking on Dustin Poirier in the main event at UFC Calgary this weekend. The Underground King is here, the one and only Eddie Alvarez. Eddie, welcome to the show. How are you?

Hey, what's up, Luke? I'm excellent. Are you in Calgary as well already? No, I'm not. I'm still at home in Philadelphia. I leave when I leave. I leave tomorrow morning, like super early, maybe like 6 in a morning. Fair enough to each his own.

Boy, it sounds like you got a pep in your step there, Eddie. You're super jazzed for this contest. Oh, man. Super blessed. Feeling good, man. And the best shape I've ever been in. And I don't know, man. Something different about this.

What do you think that is? I thought a while, like, when I started fighting in the UFC, there was a lot I felt like when I entered there was so much pressure sorry I'm getting to my truck going to my haircut there was so much pressure to win

when I entered the USC and it didn't allow me to kind of just be free and fight the way I wanted to fight and fight like free of thought and things like that and just being instinctual there was a lot of

I felt like things holding me back from my best performances and I kind of filled them holes had a little coming out party being myself during the Justin Gage party. I'm just in a Gagee fight. And I don't know. I just feel like rejuvenated.

And I felt like I kind of finding my own self again. When you look back on the first fight, what's the biggest takeaway you have from it? Just too hesitant. I was coming off a loss. I was coming off one of the most embarrassing performances of my career. still hesitant, still questioning my own ability, and my own ability to perform at a high level, things like that.

And it just looked like, didn't look like myself. It looked like someone who was thinking too much. And so the Justin Gaitchie win, it wasn't just getting back to the win column. For you, it was also, what, finding yourself again? During the fights, people in M. may say, oh, he's experienced to win. He's experienced. He's going to win because of experience. People don't understand that experience can be a double-edged sword. With experience comes a lot

of thought and thinking. And if you have a thought about every single experience or every single foot you have, it's very hard to not think about every movement and everything you're doing. And whenever you think, you slow up because you need a process. going on. So I think just getting back to being instinctual and trust in my instinct and not having to control every single thing that goes on an octagon, it allowed me to speed up, become faster, and, you know, just, you know, fight at the level I know how to fight. Let's talk about the specifics. I asked him this question, and I'll ask you the same one. What are your advantages in this fight over him?

I can predict wherever the fight wants to go. If I want to rip him to the ground, I can take him to the ground. If I want the fight to stand, I can have the fight stand. If it turns into a dog fight, I win every time. I have a ton of advantages, tangible and intangible. So I feel very good. If I asked you why it took kind of so long to make this fight, what would you say? I would say that I had a number of better opportunities that had better money involved with better, like, opponents that would up my ranking and up my stock a lot better than Dustin Porier.

So I took them opportunities instead of Dustin Porier, which I would expect any fighter to do. But we ended up here. So in your mind, what is the value? of this fight. You get your hand raised on Saturday. You get a great win, of course. But in your mind, what are the stakes? My title and the only title that matters in the lightweight division is I'll be descending my title of being the most violent man in this sport. So it's the only title that matters. So that's what's at stake. I kind of feel like you have that no matter what at this point. I'm a battle act, Luke

It's hard for me to see how you would lose that, given your resume. You know what I mean? Even when I lose, I win, man. I don't know, I enjoy fighting. I enjoy everything about it, the suffering, the good, the bad, the ugly. It's in my blood, so I don't know. Now, I ask... Everybody has violence within them, even you.

Maybe so. I asked him what he gets with a win. He's as a title shot. Do you think there are title shot implications with this contest? I mean, who else fights the opponents that me and me and Dustin have fought back to back? Who takes the risk that both of us fight back to back? I think both of us collectively have fought the best guys in this division. we take risk, fight after fight, and we finish fights. So I think there's not another guy, not even within, I don't think there's another guy within a quarter mile that should deserve the next title fight other than the winner of this fight. So I think it's a pretty true statement. So in your mind, even if Connor comes back this year,

the winner of this bout should get Habib Numer Gamadov next? Look, I said we're talking about who should get it, but what will happen is a whole different, that's a whole different thing. If Connor comes back, Connor will get it. I'm a realist. I'm not going to, you know, I'm a realist. This is what's going to happen. The ability to make $100 million for the UFC

is way more important than doing what's righteous and what's whatever for the company. So they'll have to hash out the Connor Khabib thing, have that fight happen. Everybody make a lot of money and be happy. And then whoever's sitting waiting in the wing, who is deserving, I guess we'll get the next shot. Eddie, it's now well documented that you are heading into this contest on the last fight of your current UFC deal.

Why are you doing that? I don't think there's any reason why not to. That's why. I haven't been given any reason why not to. I mean, I guess that's the best I can say. If I was given enough, there I thought, hey, it's not worth the risk. I'd say, okay, let me, I'm not going to roll the dice here. This is very good.

This is what I feel I'm worth. And I'm just going to keep going and do it. But I haven't really been given a good enough offer to not take the risk that I'm willing to take. And so do you envision yourself with the UFC for the remainder of your career? I do. I think we'll get it. I think we'd get a deal done for sure. I just, you know, we're not there yet, you know, and sometimes I know with the UFC, you know,

you never know when you strike a deal, but I'm patient. I've learned to be patient because in the past I've gotten ahead of myself and maybe left a lot of money on the table. But I don't know. I think what's fair is fair, and every fighter, it's a very, you know, individual thing, how much each fighter deserves and should get paid. And, you know, I think I bring a lot of value. And when I fight, I make this company a lot of money.

And I make a lot of fans excited. And I just want to be shared with a little bit more than what I'm being shared with. That's all. Yeah. Is there any way to give us a sense of how far apart you are? I mean, I guess the answer is far apart enough such that you wanted to fight out your contract. But, I mean, is there any kind of other way to help us understand the divide? Is it significant divide?

Yeah, it's, it's, I don't believe it's significant. No. I mean, considering how much the company makes, no, it's Pinaw. It's a quarter. They'd be flicking me a quarter considering what they make when I fight. but what I'm asking for is not just what I feel I deserve right now I mean in the past eight fights I look at who I fought

co-main event main events some of the largest cars in UFC history with the McGregor fights sellout crowds on MSG have been involved in some pretty lucrative things and I felt like, you know, I should be shared with a little more considering. So it is what it is. That's business, man. That's just the way it goes sometimes. How do you compartmentalize that where you say,

okay, this is really important priority, but, geez, I still got to fight Dustin Poirier on Saturday as well without having the former hang over the ladder? Because I know how to separate things. Fighting is they lock a door, and I need to be focused for a 25. minutes and that's it. I mean, it's foolish to think, oh, I have to be focused every single second of the day. That's a very difficult thing to overcome. And I've done that when I was young,

but I've learned to when it's time to be a father, I need to be a father. When it's time to be a husband, I need to fight. It's a fight. It's a huge learning thing for me as a person, not just as a fighter, but to separate all of them. You know, So I'm a man of multi- I wear a lot of hats and I'm not the best at it, but I learn every day how to separate one from another

and get into state when it's time. You know what I can't believe? I cannot believe that you haven't fought in Philly since 2010. How is that possible? That's sad, right? It's very sad.

Like, it's a very sad thing that even think about or talk about. The UFC hasn't went there. I don't know why. I thought when I won the title that they would have an event there, but they didn't. So, you know, the Philadelphia fans are foaming at the mouth for a UFC to come there. And I think we have enough guys on the East Coast between Jersey and Philadelphia and New York that we could put on a sellout show at the Wells Fargo.

So I'm not sure why it's not happening, but, you know, UFC, they got their, they got their, their own thing coming up going on. I know, but doesn't it feel weird on Fight Week? You're like, I'm going to Calgary to go fight Dustin when, I mean, I don't know the economics, but my hunch is, man, you're one of the few guys in MMA that's got a real and always has had a local following. It's just kind of odd you guys are going to Canada, and neither of you are from there. Yeah, yeah.

Honestly, yeah, it is. But who knows, man? Whenever I can't figure something out or it sounds silly to me or whatever, I just always think this is probably where the money's at for the business. So that's probably what's going on. It'd be great to do Philadelphia, man, but I don't control these things. I fight in an alleyway wherever if they're paying me and my opponent's there, I'll show up. I fought all over the world, Tokyo, Russia, Canada, Costa Rica, all over the world.

I fought in Costa Rica in 100-something degree weather with no commission. I didn't wrap my hands. I wore women's gloves. I'll fight literally anywhere. Just have my check and my opponent there, and we'll get it done. Yeah, it is certainly a decorated history. Let's revisit the first fight for just a second if we can. If I asked you why you threw those knees to Poirier's head that ultimately caused about to end prematurely, what would you say?

Why did I? Yes. Oh, man, that's so silly of a question. Only because I would have had to been thinking clearly. And if I was thinking clearly, I wouldn't be good at fighting. So, I don't know. It's just when you get in a cage, the funniest thing when a commentator says to a fighter, like, what were you thinking here? And I find that to be a funny question because sometimes the fighter actually answers it and acts like they're a lot smarter than what they are.

They go, oh, I've seen him go left. So I went here and, like, as if they're a lot smarter than what they really are. The truth is almost everything we do inside of a cage is done instinctual. there is no thought involved, no thought pattern, no anything. It's an instinct, you do it, and I did it, and that's it. That is what it is. I don't, you know, I'm sorry for what happened, but I'm just acting like instinctual in there. I'm just fighting and trying to survive.

Eddie, we're tight on time, so let me ask you this. On Saturday night, when the fight is over, when M.M.A. fans visit mhmapiding.com. What is the headline going to be about your fight? The Philadelphia will now fight the underfeated Russian like

like, what is it, Rocky 5? So we're going to relive this movie again. The only guy who can take out the undefeated Russian is me. I'll dominate Justin Forier. I'm going to hit him. If he doesn't go out unconscious

when I hit him, then I'll then I'll choke whatever's left of him, and then I'll finish him. But then I'll fight the undefeated Russian and win my title back. Eddie, again, I told Dustin this, I'll tell you the same thing. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say, I cannot wait for Saturday. I really appreciate your time. Go get a haircut, which I'm sure will be excellent. And thank you for spending some time with us here today.

All right, there he goes. All right. We have not a moment to waste, ladies and gentlemen. So let's do it now. This is where you become a guest of the show. It's time for the sound off. All right. As I mentioned, we are back.

It's time now to go to the back to MMA's Blinky with the Stiffy. We want it only as he's not even looking at the camera. There he is. Hey, Captain prepared. How are you? Yeah, I was super prepared. Look at that low energy. Very low energy.

Like always, right? You got to bump it up a little bit, man. It's a show. You got to put on a show. Yes? Yeah. I agree. All right.

Well, apparently I'm not speaking. a very convincing language to you. Okay. We have to get to the calls, do we not? Yes. How are they this week? You mentioned you had alluded to them earlier being quite good. They're really good, yeah. All right, we don't have a moment to waste. Let's get right to them now, please.

A little bit about Anderson Silva's return. Okay. Big news. All right. Hey, Luke, this is Chris from Chicago. I'm just wondering since Anderson Silva recently got exonerated from his use out of troubles with only one year suspension on his timeline.

What would you think about possibly pairing him up with Shogun at some point to make one of those old school legends fights happen in the UFC? Thanks, bud. And I love what you're doing with the show. All right. Great call. Appreciate the good question. I would say I'm not interested in that.

There's two schools of thought around this, which is one, you have the old guy fight the old guy, right? and there's something kind of sentimental about it because I think most people feel like it's an easier fight and most of the time it is, but you can also get like those Machita versus Belfour situations and it's actually no better for them in the end at all. And you don't get anybody passing the torch to anybody else.

So I don't really want that. And so for that reason, and I saw him talking about it on Twitter, your boy wants Anderson Silva versus Israel Adasania. I think it's absolutely the fight to make. It's a total passing of the torch moment. It is a guy who, even by his own admission, took something from Silva, at least in terms of perspective,

if not outright technical details. And Israel Adasania to me, basically, except for being mad at Brendan Schafer's opinions, basically does everything right in this game, give him a little bit of star power, and that's the best use of him. Danny, can I get a witness?

Dude, I'm all in for that fight. Shogun or Adasanya? No, the Adasanya one. That one's great. And at this point, you have to, I think Anderson only has three fights, left and you got to wonder what the UFC's goals are with Anderson Silva. Do you still want to

use them as a big draw and perhaps get him, you know, some momentum behind him and get him a win, get him an easy matchup? Or do you want to go the route and pair him up with a guy like Israel or Assania where he can pass the torch down and really build up at Asana? And it's not even, it's not even just the idea that he would win in some kind of abstract sense. Chris Wyatman won via knockout the first time, but everyone was like, oh, Silva was clowning. Then the second one, he breaks his leg, so you never really got that proper resolution. I mean, you got it for the first one, but everyone's going to say something. Here's my point. Not only do I think Adasanya would win, but he would beat him striking, right? He would say, you know, this is a game where we feed the elderly

to the young, and there's a reason we do that. I know it sucks. It's a terrible thing, but if you hang around the game long enough, that is your fate. We need to cannibalize them to feed to Adasia. It's just what I'm saying. I know it sounds so terrible. It does. It does. It does. It does. But I don't mean it terribly. I just mean you have to look out for the next generation, right? So let's do it. Yeah. And Silva, I mean, he fought Daniel Cormier.

He was fighting the top dogs. He fights everybody. Yeah, he fights everybody. And by the way, they were shoot-a-box teammates. I don't know if they would even fight each other, him and Shogun. So, yeah. No, a lot of sign if it's the one to make. Please, Jesus.

Yeah, they go way back. I think that's a fantastic matchup. That's the one to make for sure. All right. Well, let's talk about Walterway now. A lot of stuff going down there. Yeah, certainly. What's up, Luke?

This is Shark Tech 316 calling out of Indianapolis area. I just got the news about the welterweight title. And this whole situation is just absolutely crazy. Up is down. Left is right. Dogs are living with cats. People are eating breakfast for dinner. What is going on in the welterweight division?

They're talking about stripping Colby Covington of his interim title. It seems like they're just handing out interim titles nowadays like candy. what do you think about all these interim titles and them being handed out? Also, what do you think is going on with the entire welterweight division? Are they going to move forward with the Darren Till fight? What news do you have for us on the situation? Okay. Do you get the cats and dogs living together line?

I do get that one, yeah. Those boosters, yeah? I didn't hear the second part of that question because that was a long question. First of all, when people call in are like, hi, I'm Shark Tech 317. No, your name is Larry. Okay, Larry. Just go by... Try that Twitter plugin.

I know. I know that's exactly what it is. When people call into my radio show and they're like, hi, I'm like, I'm Big Gary. No, you're Gary. That's who you are, okay? Stop. Just stop doing that. You sound like a fucking idiot, all right?

You're Gary. Gary. Sorry, you're not happy with your name, but you're not. That's who you are, okay? I'm crazy Steve. No, you're just Steve. You're stupid Steve, but you're Steve. Anyway, point being is this.

What was a... question again? I forgot. Oh, what's happening at Walter Waite? Yes. Sorry, I got off on the sidetrack. The answer there is, I was thinking about it's like, what are all the things they could do to undermine any notion that the interim title has value? And there's a lot of different things that they can do and that they will do, like stripping Ferguson and the way that they did, I didn't like very much. That was bad. But really, this one would be the worst, right? Because here's the idea, it's not even clear that if you're an interim title holder, it confers any financial benefit. I mean, you're on the main event, so that's better. But I don't

that necessarily guarantees you more money. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't. I don't think you get points unless you're the actual title holder. So it is good in a sense that it keeps you the number one contender position. That's something. It confers a greater degree of visibility, so that's something. But if the idea is you can win it and then be stripped of it the following month, it essentially is merely, and this is always kind of been the case.

If you look at like UFC court testimony from executives, but it really sort of enshrines the idea that it is. a trophy for that evening. And it's got some value in as long as you hold it, but there is nothing really keeping them. There's no protocol to keep them from stripping it. I think it would be a, I understand the way in which interim titles are handed out is crazy. I understand the way in which they're stripped can be crazy. But this one would be a completely different ballgame. It would truly take any remaining value from an interim title fight and interim title belt that it had. And I I understand it had dubious value before.

It would be extraordinarily dubious at that point to the point of being nonexistent. Yeah, and I understand some interim champs getting stripped. Tony Ferguson suffered a brutal injury, right? Who knows when he's going to be back? But Kobe Comington is asking to fight in November or December. Right. This is not a guy that's out for a long time. There's literally just two months from September to November.

And you're stripping him. So this whole time, the interim title was a golden ticket. You win it. You're getting a title. You're that guy. Yeah, you're that guy. If you can't even get that of an interim title, then what does it even mean at this point? Nothing.

It's just really to fill a main event slot in a paperview card. Yeah, so the poster looks better, I guess. Yeah, it's horrible. All right, so let's keep that waterway train going. We're going to go down to the contenders and talk about them. Okay. Hi, Luke. Hi, Danny.

This is Angie calling in from the Netherlands. When we consider the welterweight division, it's pretty stagnant at the moment. but recently Kamaru Usman asked they know why to make the fight with Darren Till. We know that they want to fight each other and they ask for this fight in the past. Personally, I think this is the fight to make right now. Do you agree with me and do you think that the USC

is holding back on this fight because they don't want their most promising prospects to fight each other? Thanks. First of all, a lady caller. Yes. Huh? That's great. We have five female.

viewers, one of them called. That's awesome. By the way, you ever been to the Netherlands? I haven't, but I want to go. The Dutch won't agree with this because they're spoiled. It's maybe the perfect country. I've not been to many places where I was like, wow, they've actually figured out how to live in a way that makes sense for happiness. Holland is truly a spectacular place. I mean that sincerely. And if you're like me and your other languages are not all that great, everyone there speaks English, like literally everybody. So it's kind of cool. Anyway, neither here nor there.

Great question. I would say this is a fight I called out a long time ago to the point where I talked about it in my live chat. Camaro Usman took the video of that and put it on his Instagram. Dare until Kamaru Usman is the fight to make. And everyone's like, a prospect's going to lose. Well, then a prospect loses. How am I going to sleep through the night? At some point, you have to have a degree of prospect resolution.

And the only way that happens is if they fight each other. I realize Eddie and Dustin are not exactly prospects in that sense. they're much more contenders, but also kind of Kamara Usman and Darren Till are as well. They're both two and then six in terms of their ranking. This is the fight to make. Why? Because both of them speak to questions about the other ones' liabilities. You have this clash of cultures, you have this clash of styles, you have this clash of personalities,

big, brash, bold. That is Darren Till. Kamar Usman, a little bit more reserved, actually, as a speaker and a very sort of measured guy. but he does a lot of wrestling. That one does a lot of striking. I mean, it is absolutely the fight to make for all the reasons that you will learn. The winner will tell you who is the rightful heir

to the title shot in a way that almost no other bout you can make will. That fight, ladies and gentlemen, it will be ready? Promotion of malpractice if that fight is not made. 1,000% I endorse that. I have to agree on that one. I think the right order would be Woodley Covington make that

the unification route. And right on that same card, you got to put Usman Till. Oh, man, that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. You know what? You could also make it for another interim. Oh, yeah, yeah. The interim, interim title.

Yeah, for sure. Why not? Yeah, and you can have a poster with, you know, four titles. You know what? Just give everyone on the goddamn card a title. Basically. If they do decide to strip Kobe Cointinton, who do you think should get the shot?

Colby Covington. If they decide to strip on Till or Usman. The winner of Till versus Usman. I mean, I guess Till, if you wanted to go by rankings, because he's higher up. Yeah. But honestly, I feel like both of them are kind of at the same position in the division. Both of them still have unanswered questions. We know they're talented.

We know they're good. Great. How good is Darren Till against the guy who can wrestle like Kamara Usman? How good is Kamar Usman against the guy who can strike like Darren Till? Yeah. There's only one way to find out. Have them fight. Yeah.

Yeah, that's definitely the fight to make. This is the last question on Walter Wade, and this is regarding the champion. Hey, Luke, this is Joel from New Jersey. This is a question about World's where champion, Tyler Woodley. Can you pinpoint the reason or reasons as to why MA fans, especially the article one, Vee-immily dislike him? I think any article will post about him, 80% of the comments are negative. I like your thoughts about that one.

All right, thanks. MMA fans, the Magga crowd, is not going to like this, but I'll just call it what it is. He is a young, rich, black guy with opinions, opinions that I think he is largely right about. People don't like that, especially the MMA fan base,

which tends to be, yes, young, but also predominantly white, and also there's a real, there's a real Make America Great Again vibe going through MMA, and that's fine if that's the way you want to live. Colby Covington is that way. We can all disagree or agree,

but it's fairly simple. Now, look, has he said some things that I disagree with? Sure. Has he said some things that I did not think were merited by the facts? Yes. Like when he got bitter at everybody at UFC 214 for not liking his fight with Demi and Maya, I mean, look, it's a spectator sport. If it's not spectator friendly, I'm not exactly sure what you're expecting. But I also think that people don't appreciate how good he is. He is probably my favorite analyst. He is an extremely, extremely smart, adept, clever analyst. I think he is one of the best Walterweight fighters, frankly, of all time. And I also think the fact that he is outspoken about racial dynamics inside the sport and that he does so from a lofty position, it angers people who don't want to agree that that's the nature of things. But Danny, this is America. It's the reality. People are going to downvote this video as a consequence.

Ask me if I give a fuck. I don't. Okay? Because it's a fact. I didn't get to ask you, but you answered. Yeah. Ask me. Do you?

No. No, I don't. But, you know, look, it's two things. yes, he does say things that people disagree with, including me, right? When you're mad at everybody for your fight at 214 being boring, okay. I mean, it wasn't, it was not great. However, we have seen since then lots of people have boring fights with Demi and Maya.

Lots of people have boring fights with Wonderboy Thompson. I was trying to tell people before. Look at all the knockouts he had, the Jayhira knockout, the Koshchek knockout. My man's had a lot of knockouts. He gets a totally unfair rep. And, yeah, there you go. Yeah. I'm with you on that one.

Plus, you know, he had those two performances that didn't help him. Sure. In mind, the last one against the Wonderboy? Yes, those didn't help his case, and getting mad of the audience never helps either. For sure. But at the same time, a lot of this is out of his control. Yeah. It just is.

I mean, those are really complicated fights. And if you look at, I mean, look at whose Wonderboy has fought and who Maya has fought as well. Those have been boring fights. Like the Kobe Coyington Maya won wasn't really exciting. No. The Till Wonderboy wasn't too exciting. So it's not just on Tyron Woodley. No, no, no, no.

And again, when he's not fighting those guys, they tend to be pretty good fights. Yeah, he just had some really tough fights. He did. Cool. Now let's switch the topic around. Let's talk about weight classes. Okay.

Hey, Luke and Danny. Stefan calling from Parkland, Florida. I'm the dunk that had to redo his message because it's too early to do one of these. Are we going to see a increase in fighters moving up in weight class since Anthony Smith destroyed Shogun over the weekend. I'd actually like to see the approach that UFC or one FC, excuse me, is taking with no weight cutting. Rich Franklin did have an amazing article on how they actually cultivate that and not have to deal with weight cutting.

Always a pleasure. Love the show. I hope you guys have a great one. Great call. I said this at the beginning of the show, Danny. People don't agree with me. I certainly agree we have a weight cutting problem inside of MMA. I certainly agree that there's more we can do in terms of medical oversight to prevent these kinds of things. You can look at what one-fc has done, certainly NCAA wrestling in terms of hydration testing. There's a number of different ways in which you can work on these issues. However, and I do agree, I think Anthony Smith is much better as a light heavyweight than a middle weight. I think Dan Hooker, much better, much better as a lightweight than a featherweight. There's a lot of guys you can go through the list.

I remember a story years ago when George Rup was trying to get down, I think even to Vance on weight. He was eating 400 calories a day. I mean, this kind of caloric restriction is absurd, right? I'm acknowledging there's a problem. I'm acknowledging the problem is pervasive. I am also acknowledging and arguing that this idea that not cutting any weight confers more advantages than cutting some weight. I do not believe that to be true. I think that that is a myth. I think a lot of these guys cut weight for a reason. And this, Danny, is why the problem is so hard to solve because it is actually true that, dude, you heard Kevin Lee talking about these guys. I was like, why don't you fight at 170 if you walk around 178, 180?

It's because the other guys are walking around 200, 210. Dude, that's a huge advantage. Now, maybe it's not always an advantage. Maybe it's not an advantage in every fight. Maybe it's not an advantage in the way that you would want it to certain times. But dude, that is a ridiculous advantage. These guys cut weight because having a size advantage, if you can maintain it with enough degree of cardio and clarity of thought, it's a monster advantage.

So this idea that like, well, cutting no weight, that's the real way to fight. Maybe for some of these guys, for some guys that not cutting much weight is absolutely the right fit, and they should do that. But I think we need to accept the idea that these guys are not cutting weight because they're just like, well, I'm going to do this even though I don't perceive any benefit to happen as a consequence. Yeah, a lot of guys overdo it. The reality is having certain size advantages and certain applications.

particularly if you're a big guy who wrestles, yeah, it does work to your benefit. And that's why medical oversight and more needs to be done because it's a hard problem to solve. It's a thin line. It's a thin line. And for some guys like Kevin Lee, you don't have a weight class for that thin line. Like, you might be big at 155, but you might lose some speed and cardio. But at 170, you might have that speed and cardio, but you lose a lot of size. So 165, you know, it's that, it's that very, that sweet spot. And for some guys, there's no weight class for that. But you see guys like Dan Hooker. Look at Daniel Cormier, who became just champ, champ,

and he looked fantastic moving up a weight class. Michael Kiesa going up. You know, Dan Hooker, you mentioned earlier. Also, keep in mind, though, that everyone's like, oh, he looked better at heavyweight. He did look better at heavyweight. However, remember that the only guy he lost to a weight class down is maybe the best fighter ever.

That's true. 100%. And also, we don't have enough of a sample size to see. Everyone's like, oh, look at these anecdotal pieces of evidence. They're important. They count. But more study is needed. Yeah, for sure.

It's definitely a thin line, like, fighters have to balance, and they have to find that sweet spot, you know? Let's fire through these, buddy. We're short on time. Let's talk about the champ champs, as we just mentioned. Yes. Hey, Luke, my question is, if Daniel Kornier is still the heavyweight

and the light heavyweight champion when he retires, that leaves two divisions in the UFC without champions. So don't you think the UFC should be looking to make some sort of a mini tournament in both divisions to see to see who the clear contenders are or to make

matchups after Daniel Karmie retires 4. All right, so I stopped that question, but you get the question. He kind of rambles after that, but yeah, so what do you think about mini tournaments? This is something that I did not think about at all.

They did it at... It makes complete sense. They did it at Flyweight the UFC did when they launched the division, but they only did it as a four man. I like that idea. Give me four guys at the top on each weight class, have them sorted out and let that just be what it is. I absolutely love that idea, especially look, I don't know what's going to happen with John Jones. Is he going to come back soon? Probably not. We'll see. What about Gustavson? I know it's a minor injury, but what's the deal there? And then you got Corey Anderson coming up and Glover kind of moving down. And there's just there needs to be some clarity there. You can say the same thing about heavyweight.

I am totally, totally, totally in favor. But not eight man, just four. Just the four man. There's a lot of new faces, and what a better way to introduce a new fighter using a tournament? You can create a story, you know? I think it's a fantastic. The only downside is there are certain guys who are good on a calendar and certain guys who are tournament fighters. And, of course, the tournament's going to favor a tournament fighter, but separate issue. All right. Now, let's talk about another champ who's currently, whose situation is unknown right now.

I was bored into it. Bobby. Bolden, man. From Providence, Rhode Island. Quick question for you guys. It's not quick. Any news on Max Holloway? A lot of reports are that he might have had a mini stroke.

Is that true? Will he ever fight again? Should he ever fight again? Should he ever fight at 1.45? Or should he move up and wait? Answer these questions for me. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Also, shouts to the mouth breathers out there. I would say that his management, Brian Butler, has suggested that that is a totally, total nonsense. I'm willing to take him out his word on that. But you saw, you know, the tweet last week from Max and he's starting to feel better. Here's my sense of things. I'm guessing his days at 1.45 are done. In which case, you have a real serious question to ask about what needs to happen with that title.

because even if it's not necessarily weight cut related, but could be weight cut exacerbated going forward, right? So whatever your issue is, it's got nothing to do with the weight cut, but a further tough weight cut will make whatever issue that is even more harmful. Do you really want to do that? I mean, I've said this before. You look at Max Holloway in person. We've got a picture of him right here in studio.

And he looks kind of slender, you know, and lanky. Dude, in a person, he's big, man. he's a big guy. I'm going to guess that, A, you will not see him in 2018. You will see him maybe, maybe in 2019. And then on top of that, if you're going to see him, you're going to see him back at 155. And I think the UFC's got a real problem on their hands with this 145 pound division because I feel bad for Max. Obviously, we wish nothing but the best for him.

But dude, medically, I'm so far removed from this, I'm speaking out of turn. I have a hard time believing he's going to go back to 145. Yeah. I mean, this is a guy that has had issues going down to 145. And when I was at UFC 223, I was looking at Khabib and Max Hollow and I'm like, Max might have the size advantage here. Yes. There's, a hundred percent. Really big. He's a big dude.

Yeah. He reminds me of Anthony Johnson when he was like, you know, not fighting. Just, yeah, and he just looks big as hell. Like, you're like, how the hell does this guy make? Because when he entered the UFC, he was like what, 20, 21 or something? And now he's older and his body's just, he's just gotten a lot bigger, man. And selfishly, I would like to see him at 145, just because I really want to see that Ortega fight. I think that's one of the best fights in MMA, period.

But, man, his health comes first. So I think 155 has to be at his weight class. And look, there's tons of good fights for him at 155. All right, what's next? So is this a show without our weekly mouth breather? I thought we just had one. Oh, no. This one wins at all.

All right. You ready? Yeah. Born ready. I was born deep within the YouTube comment section. a Daniel Cormier frying me. I'm here to refute your mouth. Bold and wild.

Yeah, he's a weirdo. Yeah, that was a good one. Treating his lower body like an amusement park in the back of a Greyhound bus station. I understand these gentlemen. This is my audience. What can I say?

All right, what's going? You got any more of these? We got tweets. I don't know if we have time to get to him. That's it? You know what? How about this?

Five minutes of tweets. Five minutes of tweets. Let's fire through these. Put them up for me. my friend, I will go through them, okay? All right, this is the first one. All right. Who do you think made more of a statement on Sunday?

Corey Anderson or Anthony Smith? 1,000% the answers Anthony Smith. Now, I think Corey Anderson did himself a ton of good. Don't misunderstand me. Cory Anderson, again, a real just... How do I say this exactly? A comprehensively strong performance is the thing I would say. But Anthony Smith, beating the guy in the way that he did,

making the headlines in the way that he did over a name in the way that he did, coming off of beating another guy in a very similar fashion, two champions in a row, and I understand that they're past their primes, I get it, I get the Augustus Singh would be a big step up. I understand that there's categorical differences here. At the same time, that was such a huge win for him in terms of the name value. Remember, it's not just two back-to-back wins in two back-to-back months. It's two back-to-back wins in two back-to-back months over guys who have name value and were champions. It's the kind of thing that raises not merely your visibility, but your likability as well. And so it puts them in a much better spot.

Next, fire them off. Here we go. Who has more left in the tank? Glover or Shogun? I would say Glover. But both of those guys have some serious questions. They better start asking themselves. And if you saw Glover's interview with Heidi And Drawl on Fox Sports 1 after the fight,

I think you got a little bit of a sense of that. He is, he was asking himself the hard questions and what does he have left? And so it wasn't like he got named. Aaron just got absolutely brutalized, but he did get comprehensively beaten. To me, again, depending on who you match him up with, they could still win again. But winning again is not really the issue. The issue is who can you beat? How do you look doing it? And what can we do about that? And should you keep putting yourself into health risks to achieve those ends? Right. So there's larger perspective here that has to be incorporated. But I would say Glover,

Glover probably is in better shape, just has less miles on him, despite the the advanced actual numerical age and can protect himself better. Stefan Strueve got only one fight left on his contract. Should the UFC keep him? Yes. Certainly at heavyweight, there's some value in keeping him.

I mean, we're talking about one of the all-time toughest dudes at that weight class I think I've ever seen. If you guys didn't see in Instagram, he could stick his tongue through the bottom of his lip here, which was Stefan Struev, man. You can accuse him of many things. Not being tough, ain't one of them. Hold on. I'm not done yet.

But the point being is I believe that I'm not sure what's happened with him if he's just not developed his game enough or if he's if he's still got some issues to iron out. I'm not sure what the problem is. Remember he had that health scare to what extent that has that impacted his development and his career. These are all questions that have to be taken into consideration. But getting rid of him, let's see what happens in his next fight. but my hunch is no.

All right, now we have, let's see. What advice would you give to the UFC, like they care about my opinion, for the 205 division? What is your prediction for who holds the belt next year? Cormier is going to hold it, because if Gustafson can't fight him, no one's going to take it from him.

What advice would you give the UFC for the 205-pound division? Same thing we did before. I thought the idea for a four-man tourney. Love it. Love everything about it. I think that's the way to go. Next. What do you think?

This is the same dude who got the call in, Danny. What do you think, Lieben's motivation is in taking this bare knuckle boxing fight against Phil Barone. We tried to get him on the show. We couldn't make it work out for the time. Unfortunately, he just wasn't available in the time slot that we're on. But my sense is probably money, which, you know, that's why you work in that industry. I don't know if I'm not, when I say money, I'm not talking financial destitution. I'm simply saying he likes the paycheck. Remember, he tried to come back at Bellator and then he failed the medical. Maybe he feels like he still has more to

give, maybe there is a degree of financial destitution. I'm going to try and talk to him and find out, but probably all the same kinds of motivations that get all kinds of people out of retirement and fight sports. I doubt it's any different. Next. Is Brock Lesnar a fighter or a businessman? The two are not mutually exclusive. Next. Are we seeing a changing of the guard finally? Seems like these lower ranked younger fighters are finally getting a chance to disrupt the rankings and shuffle the deck, the heavier divisions defiantly, I was trying to say definitely, but it's misspelled, need some new blood in the ranking. Rankings. Hashtag, donk to be, what? Donktober's very own? Okay. Yeah, we've been talking about it before. How many of these cards have featured guys

less than 30 or right around the 30 mark who are pushing through and then shoving out the elderly so to speak, from that division. Now, these divisions like light heavyweight and heavyweight, the older ones can hang on a little bit longer for a lot of complicated reasons, not least the which is power of being the last thing to go and sort of a general fight acumen that is characteristically missing at heavyweight.

So if you've got veteran savvy and big power, you can do a lot with that. We're seeing guys, you know, get finished with Ezekiel chokes from the mount, no geese style. So that tells you a lot about heavyweight. But the point being is there's still really good talent there too. I think, though, in the other divisions,

you're just seeing the youth is also coming with not merely less miles and speed, but they're also having technically adept game plans. Guys are getting better earlier. So you're having all the advantages of youth plus all the advantages of best practices that have been handed down from coach to fighter. All right, that is it. What a show. Big thanks to Eddie Alvarez.

Big thanks to Dustin Poirier. Big thanks to Henry Sohudo. Big thanks to Kevin Lee. Big thanks to you. Until next time, stay frosty. You know,