MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas – Episode 444

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

On this episode of The MMA Hour, we talk to Jon Jones' striking coach Brandon Gibson on the Monday Morning Analyst to review the lightweight main event for UFC Calgary and look ahead to UFC 227 (20:58); Cub Swanson to discuss his UFC 227 clash with Renato Moicano (41:30); referee Herb Dean to help break down what we saw this weekend at UFC on FOX 30 from an officiating perspective (59:48); Germaine de Randamie to talk about her sabbatical from MMA and what's next (01:19:33). Plus, we also answer your questions regarding the latest news in MMA on The Sound Off (1:36:11). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour It is Monday July 30th, 2018 and this is the MMA hour. Caesar is home, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program. I appreciate you joining me. We have a lot to get to today on this beautiful Monday here in New York City or wherever you're watching this. So let's see. We're going to have your calls

at the soundoff a little bit later in the show. We're going to get to your tweets a little bit in the front of the show. We'll have to do the way in. We have to talk about UFC Calgary, and we've got a number of guests here as well. 1220 for the Monday morning analyst. He's a striking coach for John Jones,

as well as many Jackson wink fighters. Brandon Gibson will be here. Let's see at 1240. He fights Hanato Moikano at UFC 227. Cubs Swanson will join us at 1 o'clock. It'll be, let's see, Herb Dean, famed referee. Got a graphics package running twice here.

Famed referee, he'll help us understand some of the situations that we saw, over the weekend, and then at 120, the Iron Lady will join us. Jermaine Durand to me, who appears to be back and ready for UFC action. Where has she been? What has she been up to? We will get the latest with that. Number to call, as always, 844-866-2468.

And of course, we take your tweets with the hashtag the MMA hour. Okay. A lot to get to. Put that away. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm sorry that I keep these in the boxes. I literally keep forgetting the stand that they go on. Someone has to remind me, so I apologize, but shout out to Plastic Cell for that.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know I did. Got to see the new Mission Impossible. Two thumbs up. And of course, UFC Calgary was over the weekend. There's a lot to get to about that, which we will hear on today's show. My general impressions were I loved it. I loved, I won't say everything about it, but I loved a lot about it.

And I think for me, my favorite fight was the main event. It had real tension. It had real stakes. I really enjoyed it. But if I had to be honest, my favorite moment probably came with the response that Jose Aldo had to his win. Pretty incredible. I mean, I even got a little emotional. I'm usually dead inside.

And I have been for several years numb to the point of near non-existence emotionally. But that was, that tugged on the old heartstrings a little bit. Just because. We always like it, like when Jeremy Stevens had that pain, he just couldn't hide. When someone has emotions like that, that they can't hide. It stands out pretty significantly. So a lot to get to. Let's talk now to the Arequipe to my pan, the aros, to my frihole.

He is MMA's blicky with a stiffy. The one and only, Danny, how are you, my friend? How's it going? I'm good. You? Yeah. Very high energy today. Yes.

Dude, I've said one word. How are you hating already? I'm just teased. You're just a hated. Maybe a little bit, but I'm also just teasing. A little bit. How was your weekend? It was good.

I worked. Yeah, well, we all do. I mean, what are you going to get used to it? Okay, so I made a point that my favorite fight was the main event. My favorite moment was the Aldo reaction, not so much to win itself, but the reaction that he had. Favorite fight in terms of after it was over, which one you enjoyed the most? And then is that different from your favorite moment from the weekend? My favorite moment in fight was the Aldo fight.

Really? Both of them. Yeah, that was good because it had open downs and it was all compacted. I mean, all fights are great, you know? So it's kind of hard to pick one. Yeah, there were a lot of good fights on that card. Yeah, it was a really good card. But, man, that Aldo shot and just he came back from getting rocked and who he is and what that victory meant for him.

It just felt huge. Did you get emotional when you saw him crying like that? I got a little emotional. I'll be honest. 100%. Because, like, we've always seen Aldo, like, even with the Conn McGregor loss and like his losses to Max Holloway, this very professional guy. He kind of reminds me, again, I'll throw out their soccer, like a soccer player. Always says the right things in the media.

you know, very composed guy. But we didn't, I didn't really realize until after the fight, until I saw him burst into tears, how big and how important was this fight for him? And not only that, but like the amount of pressure that guy had to go into that fight with was just ridiculous. I mean, we're talking about a pound for pound great, back-to-back loss.

It could be very well in the end of his career, you know, very few fights left on his contract. I mean, this fight was huge. He was facing, everyone's like, well, he only lost to Max Holloway, right, but he lost two fights, number one. So he was facing a potential third. And number one, like the damage from the, The first two was legit.

He took a lot of damage. So to me, we'll get this a little bit later. I thought he looked, I thought it looked overall pretty great, all things considered. A couple of things worth mentioning there in the end. I did not like, we'll get to this a little bit later. I did not like any of the criticism of Yuanian and J-check. I thought that was absurd. And I know that Alexander Hernandez was hard on himself, but I really enjoyed the effort that he turned in,

as well as for Olivier Oban-Marcy. Now, let me ask you, we have some tweets. We'll get to them a little bit later. How are the calls this week for the soundoff, which we'll have around 135? The calls are good. They're good, huh? Yeah, a little slacking on the mouth breathing, but, you know, we had a, I'll just say we have a seductive call in there. The bit is getting a little tired, so we can maybe, you know, a couple of weeks we can go without it.

But I'm glad to hear that it was an enthusiastic response, yes? Yeah. All right. So we'll come back to you intermittently, but definitely for the sound off. So be ready, okay? All right. Very good. Thank you so much.

Let's get the show started with the new segment that I'm introducing. It's time now for the way in. So what do I want to talk about today? Well, a couple of things. but I want to focus in first for the way in on a debate that I saw materializing a little bit after the fights were over on Saturday night. And that was, what can you say about the resume of Dustin Poirier? Now, everybody knows the dynamic that we typically have in fight sports, where unless you have this sort of Floyd, even like Floyd Mayweather's record, you can make some, you can make criticism of every resume. But the point being is people will overemphasize the significance of many losses.

Now, you can't discount a fighter's losses. You can't ignore them. You can't... It's part of their story. It's part of their story. But I noticed that people were trying to undermine the win of Dustin Poirier by saying, well, look, this guy lost to Michael Johnson in 2016. This guy lost to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, how good is he really? And I thought that was one of the most insane things I think I'd ever seen. It truly, truly insane. Look, the reality is you can nitpick any resume. You can go back to any kind of resume if you want, and you can say, well, how good was it then? You know, what does it mean to have a win over Jonathan Brookens, who was a good fighter at the time? But look back on it, what do fans know about that now? What do they know about wins over, you know, pick some of the various guys who may not be competing at a high level anymore?

And then go back and discount it at the time. They mattered a lot. you know, in fact, Max Holloway has a loss to Dustin Parier. How much do you really want to hold that against him? You don't hear nearly as much chirping about that. But the point stands that you get a lot of this. And it's part of the fight game. People may have allegiances to Eddie or they may just be, they may overstate things,

even in good faith, right? But there's a lot of bad faith out there too. There's a lot of people. And look, I've been negative. This comes as no surprise to you. I have been negative at times myself. I have gotten things wrong myself. Everyone can be prone to it at times,

but you have to acknowledge it, and you have to the extent possible, you have to be aware of it. So the point being is even for an undefeated resume like Mayweather's in boxing, you can still say, well, you know, he fought Pacchio post-prime, and he fought Cotto post-prime,

and he fought Canelo pre-prime. And you can go down to that last chapter, and you can say a lot of that, about a lot of the other fights he had, Victor Ortiz, and even the Middano fights to an extent. These were all sort of like handpicked to make himself look a little good. So it might be an undefeated resume, but there are asterisk here or there.

And I don't present to you that Dustin Poirier's resume is perfect. I do not present to you that it is above reproach. I do not present to you the idea that, I don't know, you can't make some noteworthy criticisms of some of the downings. You can praise the upsides and you can note the downsides as well. All of that is part of a bigger picture. And so in many senses, right, any MMA fighter's resume is a bit like a Rorschach test. Do you guys know what a Rorschach test is?

Even if you don't know what a Rorschach test is, you might know the character Rorschach from, what was that comic book movie that was really bad in the end, the character Rorschach. But the point being is a Rorschach test, you'll get these, almost like mirror-like images. It'll be a flat one, but it'll be the same one the left as it is the right. It'll be like the mirror image of itself. And like the psychologist will ask you what you see. And some people will see a butterfly.

Some people will see a horse. Some people will see, there's not to be animals, smoke, a tree, a forest, people. And a lot of people will have different answers for what they see. In other words, the Rorschach test is depending on the nature of what you say, they can make some determinations about your mental state or a way in which you see the world, but there isn't actually necessarily one thing on there. And right, so a lot of guys will have fairly middling resumes. You can pray certain parts of it.

If you want to emphasize that, you can. You can, you can magnify some of the negative parts, too, if you want to do that as well, right? And a lot of guys fit into that Roershack test segment, but not Dustin Poirier. Right. You do not get to look at his resume and say, I can say as many negative things as I want to say positive things. I can make of this what I want to make of this. We can quibble at the margins if you want, right, fine.

And we can acknowledge the losses if you want. Fine. I'm not hiding for many of those. But if you came out of Saturday and your response to that resume, 24 and 5, and the five losses all happened inside Zufa Organizabeth, organizations, the majority of which, by the way, were at Featherweight. If you came out of that Saturday and your response is, yeah, you're not that good. Eh, this is the guy that lost to Michael Johnson in 2016.

Then you're failing the litmus test, not the Rorschach test, right? And the litmus test is either you get it or you don't. I've never seen, not never, but rarely do you find better litmus. tests than the Dustin Poirier resume to unearth the overly critical, right? They have outed themselves as a consequence of this loss, right? If the response after Saturday is, yeah, but this is the guy that lost to Cubs Swanson back in the day. This is the guy that lost to Chan Song Jung at Featherweight. This is the guy that lost to Connor McGregor like that. This is the guy that lost to Michael Johnson, however when. I'm not hiding from any of those facts. To me, they,

also make sense of the larger resume. But if that's the thing you focus on, if that's the thing you're paying attention to, then you are failing the litmus test of, frankly, not only decency, but you are erasing your name off the roll call of people to take seriously forever. That is what you are doing. You are letting the world know this is something you just cannot be, relied upon to have a fair opinion on, right? I acknowledge that he has those losses to Swanson,

to Michael Johnson, to McGregor. I don't think that featherweight was necessarily the best weight class for him, but he has losses at lightweight too. But I also feel like when you go back and you look at those losses, which you begin to get a sense of, by the way, his first loss ever was against Danny Castillo. Does anyone want to say Danny Castillo is currently better than Dustin Porriere or even had a better MMA career than Dustin Poirier? No, you don't. It certainly Cubs Swanson is a fantastic talent, but they're not even in the same division anymore.

Connor, hey, it's Connor McGregor. That loss counts, right? But that was also, I don't think it was optimal weight class. And the Michael Johnson one, look, you fight enough tough guys, you're going to come up short sometimes, and that's what he's done. But I think this last chapter, still less than 30 years old,

you look at his resume, you look at what he's done, and yes, you take into account those losses, but he's not just beating the guys who were sort of mid-tier card fillers, the Diego Fajeda guys. No, no, no. In his last three fights, he's beaten three former champs, and he stopped all three. He stopped all three.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a guy who was always good and is getting incrementally better on the job to the point now where he is clearly, championship material. I don't know if he's going to get a title shot. I don't know when. And even if he does, I don't know if he's going to win. MMA is just too hard to predict.

But he's got 16 UFC wins 11 by way of stoppage. He is literally an all-time great UFC lightweight. Certainly one of the best to never hold a title. This is shark-infested waters. I would argue that the lightweight division is the best in all of mixed martial arts, certainly inside the UFC, it is the weight class of kings. And he is sitting down kings fight after fight.

If you came out of Saturday and your response is, that's the guy that lost to Michael Johnson. And look, that's a clear win for Michael Johnson. I do not take that away from him. That adds to his resume. But if that's the thing you focus on, that's your big takeaway from Saturday, you are failing the litmus test.

You are categorically putting yourself in a place to say, do not pay attention to the opinion that I hold because it cannot be trusted. It cannot be taken seriously. Dustin Parier is on a path to greatness. He is not shopworn. He is still relatively youthful. And he is the best he's ever been.

These guys are not static creatures. The good ones get better over time. they get more mature over time, they get smarter as a competitor over time, and their achievements get more meaningful over time. That is exactly what you have with him. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the way in. All right, time now for your tweets. Let's get to them.

We're going to do these a little bit differently. We're going to put five minutes on the clock, five minutes for your tweets. As fast as you send them, that is as fast as I will sit them down. I guess start the clock when the first one comes up, gang. however you want to do that. Ready? Let's do it. Here we are.

All right. I need to see it, though. I can't see it. Is you wanting and Jaycheck the best female fighter on the mic or nah? Ooh. Boy, that's a good question. Is she the best on the mic?

She's pretty good, especially when you consider that she's doing it in a second language. So that automatically makes it a little bit more difficult. Trying to think who'd be better out there right now than her on the microphone. No, certainly she's not, no one has as much theatrics. No one has as much declarative language.

No one has, you know, she doesn't offer a lot of nuance in terms of opinion. She's the best. She continues to see herself as the best. No compromise. No middle ground. And that creates for a lot of, I think, pushback, given that she has lost twice to Rosnamovina Unis. I didn't understand that criticism at all.

What is it you expect her to say? Well, I'm, yeah, I guess I'm second best. Yeah. You know what, guys? Let me stop dreaming. Let me just stop dreaming. I'm going to just hang it up today. I'll just be number two or something and that'll be fine. Like, people have said she's delusional. Yeah. So is every other fighter in the UFC. Every fighter in the UFC thinks they're going to win every fight. And every fight card, half of them lose. You cannot be a pro fighter at that level and not be delusional to an extent. It is part of the package. For her to have that, I was glad.

to see a competitor with that kind of fire. What's next? Okay, is the 12 to 6 elbow illegal anywhere on the body? It's a good question. It's a better question for Herb Dean, which we're going to ask him to get clarification. My understanding, yes. My understanding is that the 12 to 6 elbow,

and again, if you're on your back, it's still gravity, there's no, it's sky to floor. So it's the force of gravity coming down. If I'm laying on my back and I'm doing it, doesn't count. But my understanding is you can hit on the back of the leg, you can hit it on the shoulder, you can hit it on the arm, you can hit on the fingers. Doesn't matter, you can't throw it. Next.

Well, you want to get J-Chic get another title shot before 2020 if Thug remains champ? I think it is inevitable. Folks have said it's a little hard for her to get one. I agree. It's not necessarily an easy, direct, obvious path. There's a lot of complicating factors. What's going to happen with Androge? Maybe Acadia gets up there.

What if Nami Unis, you know, stays injured? Will they give her an interim title shot? There's a lot of complicating factors. But if you look at who she's beaten, I believe this is correct. I believe she's beating the current two, three, four, five, and six on the rankings. She's in a tough spot because it's a little rich Franklin-ish, but she's still young enough. To me, she showed a lot of vibrancy and a lot of, I thought, a really smart game plan at UFC Calgary.

I would not bet on her not getting another title shot. Now, how and when? Hard to say. And if she can stay healthy, that's really going to be important because she may fill in on someone the last minute notice. Maybe she doesn't get it direct, right? You're seeing a lot of people. They're getting an accelerated push when they fill in.

But if she can stay healthy and keeps doing what she's doing, I think it will be a force of, you know, the water crashing in. Eventually it'll break through on the rock. Next. True or false. If Connor somehow defeats Habib, we may have to start calling him the goat. That's a tough question. And I know we're on the clock.

If Connor somehow defeats Habib, we may have to start calling him the goat. No, although it would substantively alter the conversation. Because right now, I consider him to be a very elite lightweight, who at times can be the very best in the world, but overall I think has some weaknesses that can be exploited by other ones. Diaz has shown that. Habib might show that, we'll see. But if he can beat Habib, the reason why I would say no is because there's just not enough

competitive record against the elite of the lightweight to say that. but he'd be getting close. He'd be getting very, very close at that point. Next. Eddie Alvarez chose to gamble and wait until after his rematch with Dustin Poirier to renegotiate a new contract. Seeing as how he lost,

do you think UFC will still give him more money on a new deal? Cubs Swanson, our guest at 1240, did the exact same thing on his last fight. I think it was against Ortega, and he lost, but he still got more money and he re-signed. How much more money?

A substantive bump? I don't know. But go back to the last show and look at the numbers. Eddie Alvarez did not have enough, did not have enough. It was paid more in his belt or last fight than he was in his UFC last fight. I understand it. Fire off another one.

Can we? Yes. Good. Does DP, Dustin Pari, have a shot against Tony, Habib, Connor. Or are they just too elite? Also, how many more fights for Aldo to get a crack at the belt again? For Aldo, probably one, two more? They probably just one more?

And does DP have a shot against Tony, Habib, and Connor? I think he's got a shot against all of them. them. Probably the best one is going to be against Tony. Tony might have some ring rust. I don't know. But I think the, I know, let me finish off the time. I love the, I love the noise. D.P. probably has a really great shot against Tony in the sense that he's got like that Landovanada. He can be really accurate and diverse with his striking. Habib, I don't know. He's just, it's a tough matchup for anybody. I'd like to see the Connor rematch, but obviously it would favor him given what happened for the first time. All right. So there we go. Five minutes of your tweets.

You send the tweets out, you know, you got to just treat it like, you know, as quick as they come, you got to send them quickly back out, that kind of thing, right? Or we're waiting on Brandon Gibson, because we're going to do the MMA analyst now. If you guys haven't seen, there's a technique talk. I used to do technique talk segments. I did one with him. It's probably the most popular one I did on the future of striking. He's one of my favorite analysts, if not.

Well, I have a lot of favorites, I guess, but he's certainly up there. And I'm happy that he is joining us now on Skype. striking coach for many of the world's best fighters, John Jones, many others at Jackson Wink, the one and only Brandon Gibson joins us for the MMA hours. Monday morning analyst. How are you? Sir, how is lovely Albuquerque, New Mexico? It's a gorgeous morning out here. Very, very nice morning. All right, so let's start with the main event. I'd love to get your perspective on that. What can you say about the striking of Dustin Poirier? Why did it contribute to his winning?

First off, I love the fight. I think Mr. Poet is the new king. of violence in the UFC. I was really impressed with the striking. I was more impressed with his composure. I think he was able to really keep the focus, especially after Eddie had him mounted through the legal 12 to 6 elbow, I think a lot of fighters would be flustered in that position.

He was able to stay calm, stay focused, and find his openings. What do you make of that South Paul, the right-handed position? He did switch stance a little bit, but everyone says the key is you have to have your lead foot on the outside of theirs. Is that really true?

Like in every scenario, do you want that or can that vary a little bit? No, I definitely think there's a lot of opportunities to vary it. You know, I train a lot of South Paw fighters. And one thing I look for is for them to dictate when they're on the inside. I think Mandy Pachia is the best example of that. So probably nine and ten times you want to have that outside control. But when you choose to go to the inside, you need to be the one to dictate it first. And Dustin did a really good job with that, especially chasing Alvarez against the fence.

He knew when to switch and when to flank and then when to keep the long outside attacks going. What is your view on stance switching, right? Because some fighters do it a lot. Some fighters do it just a little bit. We saw a little bit in this fight. I don't know that it played necessarily a big role. But if you have a South Paul fighter, would you recommend stand switching more or less? Or does it, original stance?

Does that not matter? Sure. You know that open stance compared to the closed stance, so the open guard would be the Southpaw orthodox stance. I think the biggest thing is when you do have a fight with it, which is teaching them when and how and the defense that goes along with it first and foremost. I think a lot of the guys have their orthodox tricks or their Southpaw tricks. And when I watch tape, we know, okay, if they switch, they're typically going to do this, but their defense isn't polished. So when I see the guys switch, I think it's key to know what's coming and what they're open for. You know, I have a lot of fires at switch stance. John Jones being the first and foremost, but we see it a lot out of Condit. I got Seroni switching some Southpaw, the last few fights. So I'm a big believer in it, but I'm a big believer in their defense in both stances first before it's implemented into the fights.

Irrespective of this fight, just in general, when you watch MMA or UFC today, what's the biggest problem you see with guys trying to switch stance? Yeah, defense and then range awareness. I think some guys are really good at their off stance, maybe from a kicking range or a boxing range, but not always from a clinch range or getting their levels going. So I think we're going to continue to see an evolution of it. Guys like Dillishaw that are fighting this weekend are great stance,

which is cruise. I think we see it a lot of the lighter weights, and we're starting to see it more at the heavier weights. And someone was asking about how Fourier would do against some of the other top lightweights. Obviously, it's a mixed martial arts fight, so it could involve many variables. But let me just ask you from the striking perspective. How good is his striking at lightweight? Oh, I love it. I think he looks powerful.

He looks fast. He looks very well conditioned. I think 155 is the weight class he needs to be at. I don't remember seeing him going back to the other weight. and I think you can hang with the best of him. I would love to see how he matches up against Burgess or Kevin Lee or

Petis or, you know, I guess there's a lot of great guys that I want to see him matched up against. Then it takes us to Eddie Alvarez. I thought Eddie had a pretty good game plan, right? He was trying to faint. He was trying to work at boxing range. But he just, and he had moments. Don't get me wrong.

Like, he didn't look bad by any stretch. But I don't know. Like, I kept thinking that Porrier kept finding that calf kick. and he just kept finding a way to put the fight at his boxing range. What did you see from Eddie? I think Eddie's great when he gets the pressure gone. When he gets his opponents to the warning track, he's very dangerous. You know, we saw it in the Gatji fight.

We saw it against Pettis. He's great when he's the one dictating the pressure. But I think against a guy like Eddie, you have to be able to pressure back and you have to be able to not give ground. And Dustin did a really good job with that. So let's take that now to the co-man event, Josie Aldo. What a win. Were you like us?

We're like, dude, when he was crying, I'm not a Jose hater. I'm not a Jose fan, but I got emotional about it. Absolutely. You know, he's such a storied champion. And to see these guys, you know, recapture a bit of their glory and solidify their legacy that much more, it's inspiring. And I was happy to see Andre Pinedaris as his coach. so emotional as well. I know that it's a long road to get back to those moments.

So, yeah, that's some of the stuff that makes the sport so great. So then for him, the leg kicks were there a little bit. Daniel Cormier had noted he had kind of gotten away from them, but they had a role here. But if I had to ask you why Aldo won, yes, the answer is the body shot. But was there away from your perspective to see how he set it up? Yeah, he really got Stevens getting his frame up. So the more Jose threw that right overhand, which is kind of like the classic Dutch tie boxing style,

getting their frame to come out, getting the frame out, that you know, Stevens blocked the right hand, but his guard was up so high, just left that body shot really, really open. And Jose not only threw the left hook to the body so well, but he closed distance off that right hand. You know, you look, you see him spring into that left hook, and it was a great moment.

You know, seeing it's always two steps. You always get one or two, and then you feel it. And you saw it on Stephen's face. And it was kind of like a, uh, when it's grimace, but like you got me. And, um, yeah, the story was all over after that. You know what's crazy? Like Jeremy Stevens is like psycho tough, psycho tough. That pain, it must be so bad that mentally, I'm sure he wanted to keep going.

His body was like, I've had enough. Is there any way for folks who have never felt that? Can you describe what that pain is like? Yeah, it's paralyzing. It's not the initial impact. You're good off the initial impact. It's one, two seconds later, and then you can't move at all. You know, in the gym, I don't like to see guys get hit hard in the head.

And I think it's a famous coach move that when the young guy comes in and is going real hard and ultra-aggressive, you just give them a liver shot to settle them down. Fair enough. What did you see from Stevens there? He had a couple of moments where he was backing Aldo up. I thought that was the right game plan, but why didn't it work out in the end? He just needed more time, or was there something else you saw? You know, I thought Jeremy did a really good job.

He was firing leg kicks. He was aggressive. He was pressuring Jose. He wasn't giving him a lot of respect. Jose was just able to create the opening. I think Jeremy got his feet planned a little too much, let Jose go first. and that's all it took. I've been really impressed with the streak that Jeremy's been on.

He's been in a lot of wars coming up to this. He's absolutely shown his toughness and his grit. Jose just was able to create the opening. And so for folks who have been asking how he looked, here's what I'm going to say, Brandon, I don't think he looked shinny, and I don't think that's fair to say. Plus, Jeremy Stevens is a hard hitter,

and he landed a clean uppercut on him when he was against the fence, and Aldo was okay. but I do think I saw just a tick of all the accumulated damage slowing him down a bit. So I still think Aldo is a very, very high-level contender, but I don't know sure he's not the Aldo of old. I agree with you on that. I think it shows how great Max Holloway is to be at the level he's at and to have these victories over all of these amazing featherweight contenders.

But yeah, Jose showed some age. There's no doubt about that. I thought early on, you know, it looked like he got rocked, he got slowed down. You know, he's still young in this sport. I think if you can continue to evolve his style, he'll still have a few years left. I just don't know if his style's the kind that could evolve that well.

Anything else on that card that stood out to you from your perspective? You know, I was happy to see Joanna win. It was kind of a bit of a lackluster fight, but I was happy to see her with her hand raised. And I think the great fight on the card was Ross Pearson, John McDessie. I love that fight. That was a great one to see just so bloody back and forth. McDessie did such a good job controlling the boxing range

and finding the pull counters against Ross. And Ross was in it until the very last second. So that was a fun scrap. Fair to say that you think McDessie is reborn at Rufusport? And this is not a slight at Faraz. Their reputation speaks for itself. They produce world champions, and they will continue to do so. But not everybody is the right fit for every place.

He seems to be thriving at Rufus sport. Yeah, I think, you know, McDessie and Rufus are really starting to click together. And sometimes that's what it needs. Like, you know, TriStar is obviously a great gym. I've gone through it myself where I have a really good fighter, and sometimes you just get to a point where you get a little stagnant, you know, you get caught in your rhythms, and it's good for those fighters to get. get out and try some new stuff.

And, you know, speaking of that, I'm actually sending Carlos Condit up to TriStar. He's going to get a little working with Rory and Farras and help Rory for the Musassi fight. So I'm happy that Carlos gets to go out there and get a new look and pick up some new tools and be in a new atmosphere environment. So, absolutely. How did that come about? That's an interesting development. Yeah, I think Carlos and Rory just, you know, talked and the offer was there.

and the opportunity and the timing was right, so go for it. Wow, great. Now, I know that there's a big fight coming up that you're invested in. UFC 227, the main event, Cody Garbrandt, is going to be looking to get his title back when he faces T.J. Dillishaw. Let's break this down just a little bit. Let's start with T.J. first. I have to tell you, when I watch him strike, boy, I have a lot of trouble following what he's

doing. I gather it's a lot of fakes, it's a lot of faints. But tell me from your perspective, it's so many, it's so many. angle changes, it's so many speed changes with his hand, with his positioning. How would you describe the striking, modern striking of T.J. Dillishaw? You know, I actually just got back from Los Angeles this weekend. I went to train my good friend, Cub Swanson, and he's at the training lab with T.J. So I was able to see T.J. work a little bit this weekend. And, you know, T.J. and and Ludwig, it really built up a good system of repetition, repetition, catch you on that same pattern.

So I see TJ setting a lot of traps. He's very good in both stances. He has wonderful entries, very good on his fakes, very good on his level changes. And no, the takedown's always there with T.J. You know, it showed in his fight against Linnaker. If he wants to fight the pace that way, I think he definitely can set up some great takedowns. How do you, and I'm not asking you to reveal a game plan necessarily, but how do you beat a guy like T.J. Dillashaw, assuming that wrestling is not an option. You know, I think the exchange Cody caught him with at the end of the first round in their first bout is kind of how you get T.J.

You let T.J. come to you and you look to find power shots. That's how Dotson caught him back in the day. I think you have to be patient with T.J. I think you almost have to counter fight him. or you pressure him so hard that you force him to flank off and find some power shot open there. And now it brings us to Cody. Go ahead, I'm sorry. No, he's a tricky fighter to fight. That's for sure.

You can't bite on everything. And, you know, he brings a lot of power. One thing I've noticed about Cody, and we had Dominic Cruz on the show. He believes that Cody's going to win. I mean, he wasn't, like, adamant about it, but that was the way he was leaning. And he believes that Cody was really,

impacted by the back injury at UFC 217. Do you share that assessment? You know, I worked with Cody a little bit at the start of his camp for 217. We went out to Austin together and I can see that his back was troubling him and I think that was an injury that plagued

him throughout the camp. So, you know, Cody wouldn't want me to make any excuses for him, but you know, those kind of injuries, especially a back injury, can take its toll on a training camp. So I hear Cody's been super healthy this camp and I think it could absolutely make a difference. Cody has the power to finish anybody at 135, and he definitely has the speed.

He's been champion. I think he's hungry. I think he's hungry to come back. Statistically, I think these guys, it could be 50-50 every time they fight. I really do. They both have so much power and technique, and they're both a new-age kind of fighter. I'm excited for this one. Aside from Cody's noted power, what would you say is his best technical asset. Cody, Cody has sharp eyes. He has very sharp eyes

and very good range awareness. Those are hard things to teach. That just comes with years and years and years of martial arts. His boxing movement is so refined. You know, some guys need big moves to set up their angles. Cody's just like the little quarter step guy

and he has you on an angle and you know he's safe and you know, he's going first. Yeah, Cody's a good. And he's ultra-aggressive. That's a hard thing to teach. He just fights down and goes forward. Fair enough. With the time we have remaining one of your other understudies,

John Jones put up a reflective post on Instagram. I believe it was the one-year anniversary of his winner of Quirmier. And I don't want to get into those details, but he did say something kind of interesting, that he believes that when he comes back, whenever that is, that he's going to be another level above what he already was back then, which if you're looking back at what he showed then, was another level above what he was before.

But my question to you is, it's not that I don't believe it. I'm perfectly willing to believe it. It's that how do you maintain that kind of growth in the absence of competition? Yeah, absolutely. And he's had long periods of breaks. Like there was a long layoff to the first DC fight.

There was a long layoff to the OSP fight. There was a long layoff to the DC2 match. But I also think that this is a game, where guys are paying too high of a price in training camps and sparring leading up to fight. So John's layoff definitely has some benefits. But you're right, like the lack of competition could also be a hindrance at time.

So it's going to be a balance, but we never have a problem getting John Jones fired up. He's a special champion. He has a very special mindset, and he'll get in there, and I believe, reclaim everything that he ever had and more. I told me the other day that I think greatness and his legacy

continue to await us. Like, we're not there yet. Do you think, how do I ask us? We already knew he was a great wrestler. That was true before he even really got to MMA, right? How much better of a striker can he be? Like, again, the other question is, how much more growth is still possible?

I think there's still a lot of growth possible. You know, John's in his 30s now I think he's really starting to develop the one strike knockout power And we saw that in the last D.C. fight You know, before that, John was like a break him down, break him down, break him down, finish We're guys are never just out cold unconscious.

I think now John's really developing a lot of power for 205 And he's going to really start putting guys asleep. Do you think he has any interest? I mean, I realize I'm asking you to speculate, so I apologize. But do you think he has any interest to compete at heavyweight? Yeah, absolutely. I think the goal right now when he returns would be to claim back the light heavyweight crown.

But John has a frame and definitely the technique and the size to compete at heavyweight. And who knows, maybe they make a 225 cruiserweight one day or a 195. I think John would have a lot of interests in different way of categories, not just heavyweight. Before we go, the co-main event, I believe, for UFC 227, Demetrius Johnson is going to face Henry Suhudo. Let me pitch to you the question as follows. What does Henry Suhudo need to do to win? Because it appears Mighty Mouse is quite the puzzle for everyone to figure out. Myself included, I think I'm cornered 15 rounds against DeFutrius, and I've not figured him out yet.

So props to him and Matt Hume on a great job. I still want another bite at that one for sure. Yeah, the stopping Demetrius, if you let Demetrius control the pace, he's going to wear the guys down. Like, I think he fights at the highest pace of any MMA fighter in any weight class. So So Hutto is going to have to stop him and control him, whether that's on the fence, whether that's on the ground. I think trying to carry Demetrius into some deep waters and stall him down is the only way to beat him. I don't see Sehudo maintain the same output that DJ can. All right. Any other, by the way, are you keeping up with boxing these days?

A little bit. I watched Mike Garcia and Robert Easter the other night, so I try my best to keep up with boxing. That's probably one sport outside the MMA realm. I try to follow. You don't watch too much kickboxing? I watched a little bit of that karate combat on bypass the other day. That was cool. Yeah, I'll watch Glory. But as far as like outside, I mean, if I was watching college, football on a Saturday. I think my wife would lose your mind. Like, I'm already so enthralled in sports as it is that there's not too much time for recreational sporting opportunities. I was just going to say, before we let you go, you know, I've

been watching and I've been very impressed by is this kid from New Orleans, Regis Progrey? He looks amazing. Oh, yeah. A little bit of them. You know, I'm excited for boxing right now. You know, I think they're really starting to develop a lot of stars. Everybody in the Imaid loves Lomachenko. I love the power of Canelo. I love the slittness of Triple G. I love the ferociousness of Wilder. I like the work ethic of Joshua.

There's a lot of stars right now. And, you know, I'm always looking for different athletes that can inspire me from a psychological stance or a technical stance. So I try to do my best to keep up because everything's changing so fast. All right. Well, we appreciate it. You can follow him on Twitter at Six Gun Gibson. By the way, are you going to L.A. for the fights? You know, I think I'm not going to corner Cubb.

He has a real good team with them. So I may just go out as a fan and spectate. All right. Well, you have certainly earned the right to spectate. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your insight. We always appreciate it. And I'll see you on the road. Yes, sir.

Thank you. It always a pleasure. Likewise. All right. So he just mentioned Cubs Swanson. Cubs Swanson, I believe, is. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe we have him on Skype.

Do we not? Yes, we do. So let's go back to Skype and talk to Mr. Swanson. There he is. Hey, Cubb. How are you? I'm good. How are you?

Look at that mustache. Wow. Are you driving around in vans picking up kids? Just my own. Oh, look at her. Hey. She is adorable, man. What's her name?

Thank you. I'm on. Royal. Royal. Is it feeding time? Yeah, I wake her up in the mornings. Take care of her for about the first hour and feed her, change her, do all that stuff. And then Kenna takes over and then I go to the gym.

So it's usually how it works out. Yeah, I was going to say, how is it being a father impacting your training? I've been seeing some of the stuff on Instagram. Obviously, the work is getting in. But I imagine it's been a bit of an adjustment period as well. only a little bit it's been pretty cool because all the guys at the gym me Juan tj saye georgie we all we all have young kids so we all have that in common and kind of know what each other are going through and we just go to the gym we enjoy each other's company we train

hard and we go home and hang out with the family i can never keep track of your gym uh affiliations So you and TJ and another gentleman, you have this new gym, the training center, spelled with like a rain in the training, currently in Orange County, as I understand it. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. But you used to be in Palm Springs and you're still affiliated to an extent with Jackson's. So, like, how did you end up in this predicament?

Okay. So I was always living in Palm Springs and, you know, doing my camps out in Albuquerque. I would go back and forth. and I just decided that, you know, I really wanted to get with our strength conditioning coach and Guy was doing our diet, Sam Calveda, with the training lab. And we got the opportunity with me and Juan and TJ to basically start up a gym with him and be able to do that full time. And I saw that as an opportunity for some change and an opportunity to not have to leave

the state, you know, and leave my family. So, you know, my wife, Kenda, spent the first pregnancy in Palm Springs in the summer. And I didn't want to do that to her again. So she's pregnant again. So we decided to move out here full-time to Orange County and I train out here full-time and I don't have to leave the family at all. Aside from the convenience, has it delivered what you have hoped it would deliver? Oh, yeah. You know, I'm really picking up my wrestling. getting back to my jiu-jitsu, changing up a little bit of my striking, obviously bringing out Brandon Gibson that you guys were just talking to. He's been coming out, you know, helping me flow on some things,

but I've worked a lot with Dwayne Ludwig. Me and T.J. share a lot of ideas. We feel like we both have things that could help each other. And then Juan Archeletta, he helps me with my wrestling, you know, daily. So I just feel like all together, I'm just becoming more complete. I wonder if she agrees. Apparently she does. Did you feel like you needed to make a change? Like in terms of, we were talking, they were, Brandon was telling me they're sending Carlos Condit up to TriStar to get some new looks.

Did you feel like you needed a new look? Yeah, I definitely felt like I needed a, I just felt like I needed a change for some growth. and you know I love Jackson's everybody there is family to me and they know that and I didn't leave on bad terms or anything they kind of understood my situation and I've been there I've been going out there for eight nine years and I felt like I needed to take a you know start a new chapter in my career and I honestly feel like all in my career here at this facility and with Sam especially going into my mid, you know, and then late 30s. I'm 34 now. I felt like I really needed to be as smart as possible with how I'm treating my body and how I'm performing every day. So, you know, I really felt like Sam was my best option, you know, our strength conditioning

coach. And I just felt like if I want to have longevity in this sport, I need to treat my body right, you know, when it comes to weight cutting, when it comes to strength training and making sure that I'm good. What did you identify personally as your biggest area of need? Just having my game well-rounded. Did you feel like you got away from that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, for a long period of time, I had a bad back, you know, for a long, you know, period in my career. And I didn't want to grapple. I didn't want to wrestle because I had a higher chance of not making into the fight. And so I did enough to maintain, but then, you know, some fights that showed that

you know, I lacked in those areas. And, you know, I've done a really good job with the strength training of strengthening my core and getting better and just, you know, finding a better way to do those things. So you're facing Hanato Moikano. This will be the opening bout on the main card at UFC 227. What do you make of Moikano as an opponent? I mean, I think. I think he does a good job at fighting with his length. And he's pretty quick on his feet and he's got long range. So he uses that very well. He does get caught up sometimes trying to brawl,

but for the most part he'll stick and move and run and lay kick and kind of play the game. And he does it pretty well and he's done it to some high level guys, so I've got to give props on that. What conditions do you have to establish in order to win? I think I definitely need to check his kicks. I got to cut him off, but I'm not going to be chasing him or anything like that. I think a lot of people have messed up doing that.

I think he'll find ways to get him to come to the middle and fight me in the middle. And a win over him gets you what? I mean, it's a nice win, of course, over a respected name. But beyond that, in your judgment, what's the value? when beating him? Well, I mean, I had a lot of guys calling me out, and he was the top rank one, you know. And so that was the fight I wanted. I think it's a good fight.

And I went over him, I think, just gets me another big fight. Not really too worried about the belt right now. I just want big fights, you know, and bond fights at this point in my career. Like you have no designs on the belt, or not at this moment? Not at this moment, but, you know, if I, if I never fought for the belt, it wouldn't bother me. I've, uh, that whole song and dance gets, gets tiring and, uh, it's a lot of, you know, playing favorites. And I just, uh, I've just had it, I've had it dangled in front of me so many times. I'm just like, whatever, man, just, you know, give me the big fights, uh, you know, pay me to show up and,

and, and, uh, let me do my thing and, and I'll go home and, and, uh, hang out with my family and do my think. Do you read anything into the idea that he's a younger guy up and coming and you're a little bit, certainly I would not call you old, but a little bit longer in the tooth than some guys. And so the UFC might be saying, hey, let's exchange one guy for the other. I mean, that's always the point. That's what happened with Duho Cho.

And, you know, that's how matchmaking works. You go, hey, this guy's on a roll. He's up and coming. you know, let's test them against this person. So I know the role I'm in right now, you know, coming off of a couple losses, you know, you get to be the gatekeeper role. So that's fine.

I'm just not going to let anybody, you know, build their name off of me. Fair enough. Now, the other issue sort of involved here is not necessarily that position, but the one that you were in previously. So you fought out your contract and then the last fight you lost. But you did resign with the UFC. And correct me if I'm wrong,

I went back and I looked at this. you did get at least some kind of a pay bump. Did you not? Oh, I did, yeah. So ultimately, I want to imagine you'd have no regrets about resigning with them, but what I would ask you is, if you could go back and do it all over, would you do it the same way? Yeah, I would.

I felt like when it was all said and done, we were able to see eye to eye. It was more than they were initially offering me. you know, I did get some huge offers, but the companies weren't, you know, as stable and things like that. And it was really making me, you know, really think hard. But one of the biggest things is I'm all for Usada. You know, I spent a long time fighting for the company with, you know, without the major drug testing. And I feel like I wasn't a big fan of that.

And so I just, I was. thinking in my in my head do I really want to be fighting guys that I know are just cheating and I'm not one not one to do that so um I was happy to sign back with the UFC and being in a clean sport so you you think this is probably where we disagree a little bit so let's let's talk about that do you believe that you saw it is working yeah I'm glad you brought that up because um I'm a big fan of yours I listen to you all the time you know that and that's one thing I disagree with you on I tell her. Fair enough.

You know, that's the only thing I disagree with you. Yeah, it's a big inconvenience with Usada, and I don't think they're catching everybody. I think there are some people that are getting around it, but for the most part, they are catching people. You know, a lot of the people that are getting caught, everyone's making excuses. Maybe a handful of those people are legitimate, but I doubt it. Do you mean, like, the tainted supplement excuse? Yeah. I have a hard time believing a lot of those. I mean, you're supposed to, you know, be on top of all that stuff.

And, you know, with our, with our coach, Sam, everything that we take, you know, he's putting a stamp of approval on. And if we were to test positive, he's basically, you know, putting our whole team like, hey, we all take this stuff. You know, we give it to you, Sada, this is what we're taking. you know, feel free. And I feel very confident every time they test me. I'm like, yeah, come on, test me. I'm good. I'm clean.

So you have, you basically have a service where you pay to have your stuff tested ahead of time. Is that the idea? The supplements you might take or the food you might take or whatever. Sam, basically, he runs everything past Jeff Nguinsky. You know, he gave him all the list of all the supplements and things that we're taking and make sure before he gives it to any of us that, that it's okay before. Now, does this come at some kind of considerable cost?

How does this, how do you ultimately arrange for this service? No, that's just part of the regimen with Sam is like, he does our strength conditioning, our diet, and our supplements, and he takes care of all that stuff. He's the one that, you know, it has a working relationship with Jeff Novinsky and make sure that everything that we're taking is legit before we take it. It's by company. It's not like we're doing independent testing or anything like that.

It's just we're saying, hey, we're using this company, this product. Do we have the okay on these products? How bad do you think the steroid problem was pre-usata? When I say steroid, by the way, I mean not merely steroids, but any kind of banned substance. I mean, I think it was bad. I was pretty ignorant to it, you know, all through my WC days because I came from a smaller gym, I believe. I think, you know, when you get to like the super gyms, there are more people that are helping each other out.

And so there's more of a chance that you get to learn about that kind of stuff. I didn't learn about any of that kind of stuff until later in my career. And really finding out like, wow, okay. And it's not like that there's a different. between somebody taking the smallest amount to like recover and then a combination of like 10 things to make them just an animal some some enough to like change the structure of your face you know what I mean yeah size of your head you know what I mean that so there's a difference between taking a little bit to recover and then making you just like a robot and and I think that that's

you know I feel bad for them in the long run because I I think they'll have a lot of problems down the road. And I think that when they talk about, you know, concussions and things like that, I feel like a lot of people don't take into consideration that it's the concussions mixed with the steroids and the, and what that might do to the brain. Fair enough. We'll have to discuss this in person because I've got some of my own ideas about it. But you did bring up something separate from this idea that I do think is kind of interesting.

You know what I've noticed? Maybe I'm on to something. Maybe I'm not. I have noticed that the super gym, as you described, it's not necessarily going away. Wait, what does the caption on your mug say? Coffee makes me poop? Yeah. The super gym is not going away, but it is going away for the elite fighter.

Every time we have an elite fighter on this show, more and more and more, they're having guys around them, but it's very tailored, it's very delicate. It's very much about them. idea, let's throw 20 of the best welter weights in a room and we'll just see what happens. I think people are still doing that, but not for the very top guys. Yeah, I mean, they always said, like, look at

boxing, look at what they're doing. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in a boxing gym and I watch the way it goes. And it's, you'll see a trainer as another trainer and then a towel guy, a water guy, and one fighter, you know. It'll be one

fighter and five assistants. but, you know, they were making the kind of money to pay all those people. So I think that was the difference. In our sport, the money's not like that. You'll see two coaches in a room with 40 fighters. And, you know, I feel like it was all a money thing. I think that when, you know, you start making a few million dollars, you can build your own gym and pay those coaches to come and watch.

every session and pay training partners that come in. And I just feel like it was simply a money thing. Why haven't you sent me any samples of your beer yet? Because my beer is not being made anymore. What? It's pretty a bit of that. It sold out the first batch they did. And then they kept giving me the run around. And then the last time I talked to the main brewmaster of the place I was working with, he's like, oh, I'm no longer there. And I was like, all right. But But I am getting a Killer Cub cold brew coming out that I will send you coffee.

All right. I can deal with that. And before let you go, I was looking on your Instagram. I see you're here playing soccer, which I'm a big soccer fan too. However, you disgust me, Cub Swanson, because you're wearing a filthy, filthy Juventus jersey, of which I can only say how disgusting. What are you thinking wearing a Juventus jersey? man it's funny i literally so my buddy calls me guys i grew up playing soccer with and they're like hey

we got a 35 and over league you want to jump in and i'm like well i'm not 35 yet i'm 34 and they're like yeah but you turn 35 this year so you can play and i was like oh cool so both my brothers decided to jump on so i just show up and jump on playing with my brothers and all these guys that i went to high school with they're a little bit older than me and uh and that's the jersey they gave me. I posted a picture, and then people were just, yeah, you're Juventus fan. Oh, screw you. And it was funny how much people were just chiming in on it.

And I was like, man, I just showed up and they gave me the jersey. But now that Ronaldo's on the team, it's even crazier. Yeah, so I just like high-level soccer. I don't really have a team. I always cheer for American teams. All right. Well, you know what you can cheer for? You can join me and cheer for Real Madrid, the Kings of Europe, okay?

All right. All right, Cub. Thank you to your lovely wife for helping out assistance with your very verbal daughter. And thank you for spending some time with us. I really cannot wait to see you compete at UFC 227. And I appreciate your candor even on spaces where we disagree. I appreciate you as well. All right.

Thanks, cup. Take care. That takes us from one esteemed gentleman to another. and I believe this one is through the magic of telephone, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. He is one of the best referees in the business, and I want to have him on. It merely has some clarification just so we can get better information and we can make better and informed choices about what we see.

The legendary, Herb Dean, joins us now on the telephone. Herb, how are you? I'm excellent. How about yourself, Luke? I'm doing great. Herb, thank you for making some time for us. So as you can imagine, there were some questions coming out of UFC Calgary, and there's some broader questions, too, that I wanted to get into.

First of all, the 12 to 6 elbow, somebody asked me earlier today, the 12 to 6 elbow, even if it lands on, say, your fingers or the back of your knee or it's not even painful. Even if it misses, is it still a foul? It's a foul to throw a 12 to 6 elbow. And so, yeah, and the 12 to 6 is the description, meaning that the elbow is traveling from, sky to earth, from ceiling to floor. And that's the way they call it 12 to 6. Okay. You would assess the penalty depending on, like if you were in a fight or you were refereeing, how do you assess the penalty? Like if it lands, how bad it is, if it doesn't land, walk me through that. Right. So, so there, I mean, there's a foul. So there's an illegal

technique. Of course, if it doesn't land, it doesn't hurt the person or if it lands and it's not, you know, it doesn't impact the person. So as a referee, we have some choices. We can give warnings. We can stop the action, give a firm warning.

We can stop the action and take away an advantageous position or we can also take away planes. I see. I think a lot of people So, depending on what happens. So, of course, if someone gained an advantage and harms her opponents through an illegal technique, you know, what we're supposed to do is try to balance that out.

By the one thing we can do is take point or take a position, we try to balance that out by those things. So if there's a, let's say it misses, of course we would, you know, probably I would respond with a warning. Watch that, that's an illegal elbow. If I believe, let's say it lands and there's not much effect, I could still come with a warning. Or if I, you know, that's kind of for the referee who's in the fight because at the same time, there may be a lot of other borderline fouls or infringement to the rules that may be floating and coming along. And the referee who's in there seeing those things may decide that he needs to make a stronger warning to, you know, to kind of get the fighters back. into the mode that, hey, this is a fight with rules and you need to pay attention to those rules. Does your enforcement of a particular rule, and what I mean by that is, not that you don't enforce it,

but you certainly have a degree of latitude about how you want to enforce it, does that matter based on who the participants are or whether or not it's a main event? No, those things don't come into play. What comes into play is, you know, there are some latitude on how the referee is going to enforce the rule. And I know that we try to lock these things down with a bunch of rules and procedures and mechanics

so that we can take as much of that latitude out. But I don't agree with doing that because each fight is its own situation and we're going to have to trust to the referee's discretion at some time. So there's a lot of different reasons why you can do

something differently. And you know, the referee who's in there at that time is the one who has the best view. He's getting the best information. And so he's the one who's able to make those decisions. I see. By the way, do you feel like the fact that you have latitude is a good thing because it does allow you to customize the appropriate response?

But at the same time, it's like there's not much latitude, let's say, in NFL refereeing. If you, you know, if you hit a defenseless receiver, there's a certain procedure for that. If you clip, there's a certain procedure for that. If you rough the passer, there's a procedure for that. Do you find that it creates confusion among the fan base and media? Well, I mean, it sounds like you're confused about it. That's for you to say, I know I'm not confused about it. I know that a lot of the fans aren't confused, but maybe some are, you know.

But there's a lot of the fans who haven't read the unified rules document. There's a lot of the fighters or people who are the commentators who have not read the full document. So, you know, that could be where some of the confusion comes from all. also. You know what I mean? So I'm not sure exactly as to what. I think at this, with this sport, I think there needs to be some discretion. When you compare to a football, uh, refereeing, I don't, I'm not an expert on that. So I can't really compare it, you know? Fair enough. By the way, how often do you think do you encounter a fighter where at the UFC or let's say Belator main card level, something like that, where they commit a foul and then they're genuinely surprised that that's a rule?

until you enforced it, they didn't know that that was a fault or a foul? Every now and then, it doesn't happen often, but every now and then they're a little bit confused. That foul, the elbow one, I mean, that's a rule that, I mean, I think that's a rule that that's probably going to be looked at again and again. And it was up, I don't, I'm not sure if they spoke about it, this last conference, but it's been spoken about, because the rule doesn't. the rule doesn't make a lot of sense from one point, and for a while I was always,

I didn't like the rule and I always wanted to get rid of it. For the situation where that fight happened, I don't think the rule really makes a lot of sense to use it there. I don't think that that elbow should be any different than any other elbow. But when it came time to get rid of it, I spoke to some regulators that wanted to keep it. it in and I asked them why. And they, I don't know if you remember the situation with Matt, with Hamill and John Jones? Yes. Okay. So in a situation like that, where that elbow is coming down,

that's an unpadded, that's unpadded, an elbow, a small area, and it's coming down to the face directly down where it could land in someone's eye. And that could cause a serious injury. This regulator, there's a group of them. They had, there's been a, there's been a, They had some information from more than one physician about what could happen, and I don't want to go into it. But to me, it was like, okay, we need to not eradicate the rule entirely because we do need to think about that type of a situation. Man, that's a really injuries could happen. For sure, but that's a really tough spot, though, right, Herb?

Because on the one hand, the rule you want specificity so that you can allow for the appropriate room to have a fair room. rule at the same time. You know as well as I do. You used to compete, certainly. How many fighters you've spoken to who were like, oh, I was in the moment. I was just flowing. I wasn't thinking. They don't exercise that amount of discretion very often. There's a lot of tension in that. Well, I mean, that can't be a mistake. That can't be an excuse for a mistake. I was like, I was in the moment I was flowing and I forgot about the rules. You know what I mean? So you're competing in a sport. There are rules. You need to rule. No, then they compete by them. All right. So one of the other things that I saw that, Rob, an interesting debate in a general sense that I wanted you to weigh in on if we could was what is the rule about an opponent? Let's say they're hurt. They are moving, but they show their back. I've seen so many UFC fights. I think about, for example, when I don't know if you remember, Herb, when Ken Shamrock beat Kimo, he hit him with the double knees. And then Kimo just sort of showed him his back and he clearly was kind of out of it. There was no doubt about that stoppage.

but I don't know what the rule is. So in your judgment and your expertise, what is the rule about an opponent showing someone their back and what that means for stoppage? Well, I think that the referee, that's one of those things we're going to have the referee interpret it, you know,

because there's a lot of things that could be happening. And so I don't want to make a blanket rule if you show your back to your opponent the fight gets stopped. You know, MMA fights a pretty chaotic thing. You could trip and fall, and the way you fall shows your back

and presents your back. And now we've got a hard, well, okay, stop the fight. We present it your back. When the provider, what we want to do is protect fighters when the fight is no longer competitive so they don't continue to get injury. And so we don't want to make a rule like every time you show your back, we're going to stop a fight. But when somebody does show their back, and that's a pretty good sign that they're not able to protect themselves. So we'll let the referee look at that, assess the situation and make a decision, right?

Right. Boy, what a tough call. You've got to make them a split second. So what else would you be looking for? Like how else they're defending themselves? Do they show physical signs of cognition, things like that? Yeah, I mean, we're looking at how they're defending themselves. They're looking at are they turning their back because they're just trying to move away.

They're running there. You know what I mean? Whatever it may be. I see. Are they in the fight? Are they, is this a moment that they're trying to recover from? or is this something that's, you know what I mean, this is, are they unable to fight, you know?

Got it. Okay. One other one that was really interesting to me. I didn't see this brought up anywhere else, but it sort of occurred to me, which is the pace with which there are standups occurring in grappling scenarios. Now, let me just tell you what my bias is,

and I'll acknowledge it up front. I actually like it when there's quicker standups, and I say that as somebody who appreciates the ground game, but I, by personal preference, however right or wrong this is, Herb, is that I like a little bit more involvement in referees pushing action. Number one, do you agree that the referees today

might be a little bit more inclined to step in? And if you do agree or not, is that a good thing? Well, I'm not sure if the referees today would be more inclined to step in. If you say referees, that's a lot of people included in that. Some are a little bit more inclined to step in. And some are not. I think if you step in, you should step in for reasons that makes sense.

You know, and there's a lot. You know, that's a lot to go into. You know, okay, so I do a training. I'm doing my training in October, maybe October 13th. Not quite sure about that weekend, maybe the next weekend. We spend a lot of time talking about what's going to bring a stand-up, you know. And there's a lot of different ways of explaining that situation, you know. So let's say, you know, a situation where the guys are locked up and they're not going anywhere.

But if there's no tension, you know what I mean? Because sometimes if they're, even if they're not doing anything, if there's a tension there that's going to need to be that's going to resolve, you know what I mean? Then you're going to let that play out. The worst thing is that kind of interrupt that, you know, and so. But at the same time, if you see a situation where someone, and that's the thing, you're going to allow people to do things for a little while, But if they're not progressing, then you're going to change it. If somebody's doing like, I guess the term would be cooking, right? Like, let's say you get somebody into a situation where you have an advantage.

You have an advantage using your weight and using, you know, your position. And they have to deal with that situation. And you don't press your advantage. You just let them spend energy dealing with that situation. You're cooking the person. But we're not going to let someone cook someone a whole fight. They need to advance that. they need to progress if that makes sense.

100% that makes sense. What would you say? How would you define stalling? And here's the reason why I asked that. There was a debate that would happen, God, UFC 200, I guess, when Daniel Cormier fought Anderson Silva, Silva used a lockdown, but then didn't do anything after the lockdown in terms of underhooking on the same side to progress the offense. Reasonable people can disagree, but to me, that's a little bit stalling.

But I don't know if that's how you would necessarily perceive it. How do you define stalling on the ground specifically? Well, I mean, so like you said, like a situation where someone has an advantageous position and the other person has to work out of it, I mean, they could be cooking, right? But if it's not, eventually it has to go somewhere. How long? Okay. Well, then there's no set time frame.

I mean, every, I mean, I don't know. If you can think of a way to make set times for every situation that makes sense, I'm down. I want to hear it, you know. And, you know, you could do it and then we could sit here. I can have a bunch of fun poking holes in and go, what about this situation that happened from this time? Or what about that? Or what about this?

And, you know, it happens all day. So right now, what we do is we just, you know, that's why we let the referees make the decision on what's happening at the time, you know. Sure. Yeah, you're right. I don't. I don't have any way to define the time. It's just.

Yeah, I don't think. I mean, we try to think about it. And, you know, people would come up with things. And then, you know, like we're doing now, then we sit around and poke a bunch of holes in. But what about that situation? What about the situation? You know? Right.

So we just hope the people who are in the ring at the time. And we have, I think that the officiating is getting better in the sport, right? We're getting better officials. The officials are getting more experience. Communicating with each other more, making good decision. For sure. I would certainly agree with that. But MMA fighting has also, not the site, but the actual sport has changed a lot, right?

there's a lot more, there's a lot of guys and ladies who are really well-rounded and they cancel each other out a lot. Fights are often going longer. You're seeing more decisions. This is all backed up with fight metric data. So my question is, do you as a referee see a lot more scenarios where you think you have to intervene as a consequence of how the sport has changed over time? Okay, that's a pretty good question. Yeah, I think that as a sport has changed as far as, because basically if we intervene, we're talking about stalling a situation that are going nowhere.

Yeah, as far as people being able to stall, I think the stalling tactics are getting better. You know, these fighters really, all of whatever they're doing, if they're, whatever they're doing at the time, they're doing it well, you know, these guys know what they're doing. Fair enough. Herb, if you could be president of MMA for one day, what rule would you either adjust or change inside the sport? Ooh, okay. Well, I mean, the one that you're talking about with the elbow, I think that it's a rule that we have to look at. And I think it's a rule that everybody in the sport, all the, yeah, all the regulators are kind of look at that rule. And it's one that definitely deserves some conversation. The grounded opponent rule, not every state, of course, has taken that on board.

And there are some arguments for both sides. So I think that definitely needs to be looked at. You know, it's pretty rough in the sport to make a grounded opponent two hands. You know, in combat sports, you always want to keep your hands around your head. So that's a rough thing to tell fighters, hey, put your hands on, well, take your hands away from your head, you know. So, no, that's something to be looked at, that's awesome. You know, I see a lot of complaints. I don't necessarily have this complaint, but I see it a lot.

So on behalf of the audience, I'll pitch it to you, which is the fence grabbing. How much of fence grabbing do you think is tactical and how much is it just instinctual? Did these guys reach out like that? Well, it's definitely instinctual. You know, a lot of it is, I mean, you know, and you're asking me, I mean, I can't give you a number, how much of it is what, you know? But the good way with fence grabbing, if it affects. affects the position, then take action.

You know what I mean? If it doesn't affect the position, you know, then, you know, if there's no harm, I'm not going to say no harm, no foul, but as far as adjusting whether you're going to give a warning at that time for that one, that should go into it, right, into your decision. Somebody does it more than once,

even if it hasn't affected the fight or doesn't affect the position, you're going to have to do something because they're doing something out of the rules that could, in the future, your effective position. Before I let you go, Herb, do you have your, are you officiating at UFC 227? And if so, do you have your assignment? I don't have my assignment, but I'll be there.

You'll be there. All right. Well, I wish you, you don't need luck, but I certainly wish you a great officiating effort, whatever the proper, nice thing to say is. I don't know, but I am looking forward. Yeah, I don't know. But, hey, thanks for having me on, man. And, man, thanks for all these questions.

You're really good questions. I appreciate it. I'm thinking about it. It's like I always enjoy coming on and talking to you about this stuff. And yeah, yeah, great questions. Thanks,

I know some of them sound inane, but I'm just trying to think through the process. You know what I mean? No, no, not at all, not at all. And like,

and the thing about it's like, I mean, it's a fun sport and all of a sudden, you know, the conversation sometimes gets not very fun because you're trying to like talk about something. You know, when you're the conversation gets kind of boring because you're

trying to talk about something in a way that's like, hey, this is what I'm trying to do every time. You're trying to be as consistent as possible. right. So, yeah, it can be a boring conversation. I'm sorry if I was real boring on there. You're not boring at all. You're actually really helpful. You know what I mean? Yeah. You were always very helpful, Herb. I wish you best of luck at whatever, a UFC 227 and thank you for your time. All right. Thanks a lot, bro. Bye.

All right. There he is. That was clarifying. That was clarifying. Hey, let me talk to Danny real quick, if I can. Pull up old Mr. Segura. Oh, you can't right now? All right. We'll talk a little bit later. The complaints that people have about, well, you know, Mark Goddard enforced the 12 to 6 rule. It's a dumb rule. Okay, it's a dumb rule, but it's a rule. So you've got to enforce it.

And also, it was a number of things. It was apparently, according to Goddard, the raking of the ear, the grabbing of the fence to drive his hips in to hold the position. and then on top of that, the 12 to 6 elbow, like a lot of people were complaining about that, I got to be honest, I had no problems with that. And people said, well, it changed the course of the fight. Well, number one, I still kind of believe that Dustin Poirier would have gotten up.

It wasn't like there was a ton of offense from there. In fact, the reason why he threw the elbow is because his hips were so sucked in against Porreys he couldn't actually create distance to throw anything. So that's why he threw that because that was the only thing he could throw in space. That was the first part. So, like, it wasn't like he was getting bombed on, and Porre had already shown he could get up.

And then at the end, it's like, okay, a referee decision affected the fight. I'm, like, perfectly okay with that. It doesn't really bother me. All right, I believe we have to go back to Skype because joining us now is the Iron Lady herself. She put a tweet out first time in like a year. Germain Durandumie. Germain, how are you? I'm good.

Thank you so much. Jermaine, you're in Holland right now, yes? Yeah, absolutely. I have to say, I don't know if anyone's ever told you this. I went to Holland, I don't know, a year or two ago. Maybe people in Holland don't agree, but I think it might be the perfect country. I agree. I couldn't agree more with you. People just know how to get along there.

I mean, I'm sure there's fights and everything else. But generally speaking, they know how to live around each other better than other places I've been to. Well, I don't know a lot about other places, but I do agree with you. We get along pretty well here. You know, we're very social. We like to socialize with each other. All right. So out of nowhere, July 27th, you tweeted, looking forward to getting back in the UFC Octagon.

It's been too long. And then you tagged Raquel Pennington waiting on you. Let's do this. All right, let's back up a step. We haven't seen you in the Octagon. I was there since UFC 208. but I know you've been out more recently because of an injury. What was the injury and what is the state of that?

It was a hand injury. I was camping with it for a very, very long time. So I had surgery almost. I just couldn't, I just couldn't bear the pain anymore. I could not train through it and my hand was slowing up. I couldn't even put my hand in a glove. So I decided to go along and have surgery. And everything went perfectly.

You know, I was ahead of schedule, and then everything went backwards. The hand started to work against me. I couldn't train anymore. It was hurting again. So my doctors told me, you know, I had to take some time off and relax the hand a little bit and give it time to heal because, I mean, I've been fighting for 19 years. I had a lot of battles, so, yeah, some damage was done. But right now I'm cleared by the doctors, also by the UFC doctors. I'm ready to go.

I'm pulled it back in training, and I couldn't be happier. I feel great and getting better and better every day. Were you worried at any point with the hand injury that that was it for your career, you wouldn't be able to get back to competing? To be honest, there has been some times that I was afraid, absolutely.

But I try to stay very positive. I'm a very positive human being. And, you know, I didn't, you know, I always kept hope. I knew I had to be patient. I knew it was going to be a big test for me and to be patient, but I had the patient, and now I feel great and I can punch again, so it feels good. Okay, so that explains the injury. So now let's talk about this. The injury has kept you out for some time. I wonder, certainly no one is happy about injuries, but did you need the time away from MMA, given how toxic things had become after your fight with home?

Partially, yeah. I mean, it's been, you know, there has been a period that was very negative and very dark period. But, you know, I have a very busy job, too, and I go to school with that job along. So I was pretty busy, too. You know, I wanted to get my degree for my job and become a police officer in Holland. and that's what I am right now. So I work full time, so that takes a lot of time too, you know, go to school and, you know, work.

So that also was a big part of the reason why it took a little bit longer. When you say dark, what was, I can imagine, but give me a sense of things. Why was it so dark? I mean, I fight because I truly love fighting. I love fighting with all my heart. It's the first love and the biggest love of my life. And I love to share what I love so much with other people that love the same thing as much as I do. But, you know, you have spectators and you have the people that do it.

But we all love this sport so much. I never, but never in my entire life or human being, I had the attention that people thought it was okay to say the things they say to me. I've never ever wanted to hurt anybody in any kind of way. Not Holly, not anybody. So, yeah, it was a very dark time. I saw an interview you did with a Dutch media outlet. People were telling you, like they were giving you death threats

and they were telling you that you should commit suicide. I mean, I have trouble even saying that because it's so ghastly. But that's true? Yeah, they, yeah, they absolutely did. They even made pictures of a gravestone with my name and date of death on it. So, yeah, it was pretty tough. Yeah, that's not cool, you know. People telling you're worthless and, yeah, it's tough.

But at the same time, like I say, you know, I'm a very positive person. And being able to sometimes share a message with people to let people know that it's not okay. Nobody likes to hear those things. And some people, I think, don't realize how much impact those words can have on somebody. I have a very great support group behind me, people that love me and surround me with love. But there are people, children, you know, that maybe don't have that or have a bad period in life. That can happen to any one of us. If somebody tells them to commit suicide or tell them they're worthless, maybe they decide to act.

And that's the scariest thing about it. let's rewind all the way to that day in Brooklyn. And then I know, I know it's terrible, but I promise we'll work up to the positivity of today. I promise, I promise. Don't worry,

don't worry. All right. And I appreciate your candor because I know this can be some difficult things to discuss. But here's what I would say. You won that fight against Holly all the way back then. If you could go back in time, would you still fight for that title knowing all this would happen?

Yes. I would still make the same decisions. Okay. Absolutely. Tell me why, because after that things fell apart. You decided that you would... Okay, you said afterwards you would not fight cyborg,

and then they stripped you, and then you had... It was just a bit of a mess. I think you can agree. Why would you still do the same things? Because it makes me the person that I am today. I still stand for what I believe. And if you look back at any interview that I gave before that fight, before the fight with Holly,

in every interview I've always... said, I go back to 135. And all of a sudden it was such a big deal, which I absolutely understand. And that's on the side note of the whole cyborg thing. But the most

important thing is to stand for your decisions. And I stand for every decision I make. Every decision you make in life has consequences. And I knew the decision that I make would have consequences. Did I know that it was going to be that bad?

I mean, not being stripped of the title, but all the negative things people said, did I expect that to happen? Absolutely no. Do I wish that upon anybody? Never, ever, ever. You shouldn't say those things to people. Would I still do it all over again and make the same decision? Yes, I would. Absolutely. And I don't disagree with my decision. I fully stand behind me. So the only thing where we disagree, and I promise this is the only one, understand your reasoning. I understand your commitment to principle. I frankly admire it. The only thing I can't wrap my head around is, why take a title fight if you have no intentions of defending it against the number one contender? That's the only part I don't get. Which I completely understand. But the

whole part was I wanted to fight Amanda Nunes because I lost balance credit of her. She's a great champion. And I thought this would be my chance to fight Amanda. Fair enough. You mean that 40. Or back at 35? 35. Got it. Okay. So here you are, all these many months later. I asked about the injury and the time off being good.

Was the time off good for, not the mental health, for your technical progression? Like, where are you as a fighter now? I honestly believe I'm mentally and physically stronger than I've ever been. before. And why is that? I walk around right now at run 147, 146. I feel in great shape. I absolutely do.

Okay. And you're ready to get back in there. If the UFC called you today, you could say yes or no? Yes. Right. Pretty safe to assume they probably won't offer you a title fight, right? Fair enough. And you're okay with that?

Yeah, absolutely How come? I think for me, as a person right now, the most important thing is to get back in that oxygen. Now, you want to... And I just know, I have my eyes set. Okay, sorry, I was cutting you off there. I apologize.

You have called out Raquel Pennington. Don't worry, don't worry. The Skype delay is a bit there. Okay, why Raquel Pennington? What's the case there? Well, it's not the case. Well, it goes a little bit back. in the past, a couple of her fights dropped out, and they needed her opponent. And a couple of times

I offered, and for some reason, I never got to fight. Let me say, first of all, I have the utmost respect for Raquel Pennington. In my eye, she is a true warrior. I mean, look at her last fight. She battled. She really battled. And I think style-wise, we are a great match-up. I absolutely believe that. She comes to fight, and that's what I like about her. I mean, she just comes off a title fight. I think we're both in a good position to fight each other. I think it's the right time to fight each other. And it would be an honor for me, absolutely an honor, to fight with such a warrior as she. In your mind, where are you inside that division today? To be honest, I'm absolutely not worried about that. The only thing I want is get back in

that Octagon and have fun. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm not worried about a title fight. I know I need to win a couple of fights. But for me, the most important thing right now is to get back in there and have fun again. Yeah, I was going to say, if you don't get the Pennington fight, you're still willing to get out there and compete soon, right? Yes, sir, absolutely. It's just that the Pennington fight would be your preference. Yeah, absolutely. And I know there is interest from the UFC in that fight. So it's up to Raquel. You know, I come to Denver if she wants.

I come to hostile territory. I'll fight her there. I mean, Colorado is at elevation, right? I live below sea level. I mean, if she even wants, we can make a five-rounder. I just want to get back in that. You said the UFC has expressed interest. I'm wondering, what have they said to you and B?

What is your relationship with the UFC like today? Oh, it's still good. It's still good. I mean, I'm not angry at them. I mean, it's nothing personal. They're a company. You know, business have to go through. And we all know that.

There's no hostile anything. I've no, we talked about fighting. They asked me if I was ready, and I told them I was ready. All right, fair enough. And I told them, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no. You are the interview subject.

I'm sorry. This thing is this technology. great, but it's also terrible. Please finish your thought. Well, that's the Dutch connection. There's nothing to do with you guys. Don't worry. So, but, and I also express my,

you know, my wishes. And, you know, I hope they get along and maybe to ask Raquel. You know what's crazy is that coming out of kickboxing, and to this day, of course, your reputation in kickboxing is incredible. You're maybe one of the best to ever do it. And you always will be.

It's going to be a long time before someone matches what you did. I wonder if you feel like this whole episode has made people forget about that. Like, what do you think this has done to your reputation, this whole thing? Well, to be honest, I agree with you. I think a lot of people forget what my record is, I'm sorry, in kickboxing. But, you know, at the same time, for me as a person, I know what I have accomplished. in my life. And I know for me, my career doesn't stand or fall by Hollyholm or Chris Seibor. You know, it's a bad spot, you know, and, you know, it happened, but I have to go and we have to

move on. I mean, life is too short to just hang in one moment. I mean, I have a beautiful career. I fought a man. I'm undefeated in kickboxing, and have many knockouts. I've fought the best of the very best in the world. I mean, I got to fight in the UFC. I got the headline a UFC card. I mean, I just say I'm blessed. And I get to share my love with so many other people. I mean, wouldn't you say you'd be blessed if you were me? I would, except I'm a relentlessly negative person because I'm American. And you're, you are relentlessly positive. It's pretty incredible to watch. So let me just, let me end on this, if I may, Jermaine. It sounds like you want to fight because you still love to fight and you want to fight for you because it's something you enjoy.

You're not fighting to erase or change people's opinions. You're fighting strictly on your terms for you. Yes. And for people that just love to see fighting. I'm not just fighting for me. I also fight for so many other people. I mean, people that have been bullied, you know. And my message is always to people.

There's always going to be people that are going to tell you you cannot do it. they will always be. I have faced those people so many times in my life. Even before I started doing MMA, a lot of people tell me, you will never make it. You can never do it. But I made it and I did it. And I'm still going to do it.

So if I get to share that and maybe I can change one person's mind and they start to believe that they can do it and they will follow their dreams, I think my life and my mission is accomplished. Well, I have to say, I appreciate your candor and your willingness to address these issues. I'm sorry you had to face some of these darker times, as you alluded to, but you've been smiling.

This whole interview, your positivity is pretty noticeable, I have to say. Well, yeah, you know, die with memories, not dreams. I live by that. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Jermaine. I look forward to seeing you in the Octagon again. Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day.

You too. All right. There she goes. How about that? man I don't she smiled more in that interview than I smiled

in my life that's pretty crazy all right it is time now where you become a guest on this show it's time now

for the sound off there we go a little bit late but you know better late than never which means we have to go to our friend in the back

the blicky with the stiffy the one and only Danny Segura Danny how are you I'm good you what did you Think about Dremaine? I like the interview.

Pretty interesting. I love how she's very... Would you be that? There's no way I'd be that positive after that kind of situation. Yeah, probably not. But I love her message. I love how honest she is about everything.

Even when you asked her the tough questions, you know, she embraced that she... She's not hiding from anything. She's not hiding from anyone. And then that's all you can ask for, right? And we are not going to hide from the phone calls, are we? We are not. All right.

You have told me we've got some good ones today. We do. All right. Without further ado, get it going. All right, let's get it started. First one about, I guess, the controversial stoppage of Goddard this weekend, so let's talk about that. You mean the, which one? Eddie Alvarez, Dustin Porre. Oh, the stoppage wasn't controversial, but the elbow. Yeah, the decision to stand them back up with the elbow. Yeah, sorry about that.

Hey, Luke, I wanted to know your opinion about my Goddard's intervention in Alvarez-Poyer fight. And I wanted to know, do you think it was the right call to make in that situation? Thanks. By the way, rest in peace, shan price. Very good. Touch you back when you're hit with a hard hawk. P. My knuckles drag when the god walks.

All right. Neither here nor there. Let me just say this, Danny. Did you mind the stand-up? I didn't. Okay. Tell me why you didn't. I thought it was the right call.

I mean, I knew that the 12 to 6, right, it was illegal, period. I mean, whether... Let me play devil's advocate. The fact that it hit on the shoulder didn't hurt him. The fact that Dustin even said, I'm fine, that doesn't matter? Illegal is illegal. Right. Right.

I mean, let's say you need somebody in the head, right? A downed opponent. And it doesn't, it wasn't a heart of knee. The person clearly looks there. That doesn't change the fact that it's illegal. Right. Right. So I do agree with the stand.

Because at the end of the day, you're doing an illegal technique, right? So there has to be some price for it. And, you know, that was the position. So it didn't take any point. It was just positional. I thought what Herb said was really important. Herb has noted, like, there can be a foul, but I have discretion inside of that foul to make either A call, B call, C call or decall. And so you can object to the rule being illegal, but as you noted, it is.

So then the question is, are you upset at Goddard? Not you, I'm using the preferable you. Are you upset as a fan out there as an observer for the call that he made in terms of the discretion? And I gotta be honest with you, I'm really not. I'm just not. We have this attitude inside MMA, Danny.

I see it all the time where people will say, but the call affected the fight. So what? Calls affect sports constantly. Was there was a, I don't know, was a safety running over, hitting the guy a defenseless receiver or whatever. Was that call that change the game?

Ruffing the passer. Was it changed the game? Was it a ball? Was it a strike? That changes baseball. Bottom of the ninth, you throw a pitch. Maybe it's on the edge of the plate. Guy calls it a strike.

That affects the game. That's the game itself. And the role that officians have in changing it. We want to keep this idea about what's a pure fight. Because I think we're still living in the days where here's Gracie versus some Kung Fu clown. And we don't want to get in the way of it. Get in the way of it.

It's modern sports. I really have, if it was an egregious one where he kind of like winded up and didn't even throw it. And then they stood him up. Okay. But it landed. You threw it. Dunski. Fine.

Plus, he was holding the fence at the same time. Yeah, that's true. And it was a hard shot. Like, try, you know, take an elbow to your shoulder. That can dislocate it. That could really affect the fight. So he's also, I mean, it landed kind of like over the shoulder. Yeah.

But it was also kind of attacking the clavicle a little bit. That could be two foul at once. And by the way, your bone here, this one, wicked, wicked easy to break. Very easy to break. All right, what do we got? All right. Let's talk about the ratings, which were surprising, right? For Saturday's show.

They were garbage. Yeah. A little bit of mouth read. This is Kyle from Houston, Texas. And I was wondering, given the low ratings of the Fox 30 this weekend, what you expect to buy rate for the upcoming UFC pay-per-view this weekend. Thanks. And long-lived yellow mustard. So two things.

What did you think of the ratings? And what do you think of this week's ratings or potential ratings? Yeah, so I'll go with the second one. I don't think we clear 200. I think it's sub 200, to be perfectly honest with you. Could be wrong about that, but I don't think so. You don't think the promo and the Fox broadcast did it? No, I don't.

Number one. Number two, what do I make of the ratings? I guess on some, I'm of two minds, Danny. I don't know about you. on the one hand, I'm not surprised because you look at that and you say, well, there's no star on that card. What could it possibly do? On the other hand, you say to yourself, wow, record low. That's the record low overnight.

Now, we'll see what ultimately the final numbers come out to be. And I think it'll probably be a little bit higher than the baseline, or the bottom number anyway. But at the same time, did we not discuss this on the MMA beat last week? I kept saying to folks five, six years ago, you cannot force this much product on the folks out there, the casuals, without expecting some kind of rejection. You're turning it into banquet food. If you tell the customers it's okay to pass, believe me, don't be surprised when you succeed as a strategy when they do that. The bill is due. And now the bill is being paid. And as you can see, it is quite painful. Honestly, MMA can't get behind streaming services fast enough. That is the only thing that's going to protect

it. And the reason why is because when you're behind a pay wall, as long as you're part of a larger portfolio that gets people to fork over money for subscription fees, you're finally mind, the individual ratings inside don't necessarily matter all that much. I mean, they do matter, but it's not super consequential. But I don't know that, and I'll be dead serious about this. I don't know that MMA could survive if it was forced to live on TV going forward. Yeah. My thing was like, I'm with you 100% regarding the oversaturation, but also it's like,

I don't know how you say it in English, but in Spanish it would be the Pastor Cito Mentiroso, like the lying shepherd, you know, like the kid's stories. As you well know, for folks a minute I know those days. Let me back up a step. Yeah, go for it. Columbia has a gazillion phrases. Do they not? A billion, yeah.

So I've learned 500 million of them, but every time I talk to you, I learn another one. So I've actually not heard that one. So it's like the story where the boy cries wolf, right? What's every single promotion? Oh, this fight card's the best. You got to tune in. You got to tune in. You got to tune in.

And let's be honest, how many fight cards have we seen? And they're quite shitty a lot. So now when you got a really, really, really good card, you know, this was a fantastic card, and you're like, this card's the best. You're literally saying the exact same thing you've been saying for the last five crappy cards. So how are you going to tune in? People might not know who Jeremy Stevens is. People might not know all that much about Eddie Alvers and Dustin Poria.

So, you know, it is hard to promote a fight when you're saying every single card is the best, tune in, and they're not. And then when you really got a really good card, what's the difference? You're not making any difference. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, and also, I think folks have been a good point. It's like, where's Dana in all of this? You only see Dana on Get Up on ESPN, which is their morning show when Conner's chucking shit at buses. But like, I'm not saying he should have promoted the Hamburg card.

In fact, I'm glad no one did. But it would have been nice to promote this one a little bit more. And again, you can't make media outlets want to talk to you. But I bet if he had talked about Connor and oh, by the way, let me also promote my fights this weekend. They wouldn't have been interested. I don't know. I could be wrong, but I have a hard time believing that. Right.

Right. Keep it rolling, son. All right, let's go. Hey, Luke and Danny. This is Aaron from Chicago. There was something that I noticed during the Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poet fight that really caught my attention. And I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Throughout the first and second round, Dustin Poet kept grouting at his own shorts.

And he was pulling them up almost as a tick or as maybe they were bothering him as well. I was wondering your thoughts on that. And if you think that it is possibly just a tick, that is a timing mechanism for him or if it was something that was actually bothering him and could have led to a distraction in that first round of the fight for him. I know as a view.

So he keeps going on, so let's cut about that. But did you notice that? I noticed that as well. He kept grabbing on his shorts. I did not notice that, no. He did. And I don't know. There was a few word drove.

You say grab, you mean like with his open palms? Yeah, like he kept pulling him up almost as if he was uncomfortable with it. I know a lot of fighters. They don't actually like to have super sweaty palms. So they'll wipe their hands. I know that that's a pretty common thing. It depends on how the taping works or just their personal preferences.

Some never bother with it at all. But I know some guys don't like that. So I see a lot of them wipe the inside of their hands. Adasania, I think, might do that a little bit. So maybe that's, you know what? Without having seen it, I'm hesitant to comment on it. By the way, speaking back to the ratings, I can tell you what Colombian phrase I know for that.

Castigo de Vino. Right? In any case, back to this one. Yeah, I don't know. I don't make a whole lot of it. Did you get the sense that it overly impacted his performance? I don't know, but I did notice he was doing it a lot. At first, I thought it was just kind of like, you know, how some fighters just like to do it.

Just, I don't know, maybe kind of like Cristiano Ronaldo takes a free kick. He kind of pulls his shorts up, just kind of like a thing you do. But then he was really doing it a lot. And I kind of thought maybe, I don't know, the shorts were giving him a bit of trouble. Yeah. You know what? I don't know. I tried to get him on the show today.

He just declined only because he's spending time with his family. I'm actually going to speak to him tomorrow. But I'll ask him about it. But I wonder if it was just the sweat thing or maybe his shorts were slipping or... Yeah. You know what? I didn't notice it, but maybe that... I'll look into it.

How about that? Cool. Sounds good. Now, the next caller is a very seductive color. Oh. Oh, Lukey. This is sexy speed. from Michigan

and I was wondering if you and Danny could answer a question for me could you ask slower I guess not oh my God get it over with

the impressive win of Dustin Diamond Corrier knocking out Eddie Alper is in the second round in the wind streak and people he is defeated

should he fight Tony Ferguson, since Tony Ferguson got injured, and should fight Dustin. All right, I'm going to cut it right there because then after that it gets a little weird. I don't, I could be wrong. You never know with someone's voice. I get the sense that Steve's actually not that sexy. Yeah, I think if I heard of that in a dark alley you had run or, you know, anywhere in the street.

It's like sexy for what? Forchan? Maybe for 4chan. I don't know. Twitch? Yeah. But not in real life. Anyway, but it's a decent question.

Yeah. About who we should find this? It's one that came up a lot after the fight. Yeah, but the thing is, it's like title shot. I mean, I think we all kind of know what's going to happen. It's going to be Connor Habib, whether it should be. We can all have this debate about what it should or shouldn't be. It is going to be that.

But okay, then you've got to think after that. If Connor wins, is he going to want to rematch Poirier or is he going to want to fight Diaz? I don't know. Or is he going to want to fight Ferguson? I don't know. I mean, that's really, really hard. But let's say Habib wins. Then what do you do?

I gotta be honest, I don't know how you can go wrong with virtually any permutation. Do you want to have him fight Kevin Lee? Fuck it, I'm down. Craig Kevin, Tony Ferguson? Who could possibly be against this? Or just sort of giving the title shot.

Do you, or maybe you actually do have a preference. I'll be honest, people always do this thing. Like, as a media guy, you can make a choice about, like, do I want to be a guy who breaks a bunch of news and stuff? And, like, you share news about fights. People go crazy. I've never It's hard to explain

It's not that I don't get up for fights I mean Jesus Christ I make my living doing this I'm not bagging on that It's a fantastic thing to be in media It's just not for me Because I don't necessarily feel like I don't get crazy

About the announcements themselves So like as long as he wasn't taking a step back Dustin I'm fine I don't know how I feel A lot of people were asking like Oh you know Get Habib Connor and right in that car

To make you know Tony Ferguson versus Dustin Porre. And I'm completely against it. I mean, Dustin Porreya, what he's done is worthy, at least, to have on his career be called a title challenger. At least have that in his record, that he fought for a title. Fighting Tony Ferguson, that man's a beast. I mean, he, like, broke his leg, like, not so long ago. Now he's doing flips and breakdancing.

I mean, that guy's a monster. But let me ask you, what's the difference between ultimately, it's a fair point. It's a fair point. And I mean to cut you off. I apologize. But the point is this. Let's say he fights Tony Ferguson. Let's say he beats him.

So now he'll have beaten champion Eddie Alvarez, champion in a different organization, Justin Gehachie, champion Anthony Pettis, and then previous interim champion Tony Ferguson. At that point, does it make a difference that he wasn't in a title fight? He'll have such a collection of scalps. Oh, it 100% does because you're still not a title challenger. Yeah, but functionally, what does that mean? I mean, fighting for a title, just having, just having, look, if you, if you're not a title, you're going to go your entire career, right?

And you never fought for a title, but yet you've done everything. You've stepped up for the promotion a million times. You've been in super tough competition. And you never even got that chance. That to me is a robbery. I think Dustin Poyer, I mean, he said it himself. He's like, yo, my next fight's for the title. It doesn't matter if he's not the next guy, but his next fight must be for a title.

And I'm 100% I agree with that. I think he should take the time off. He's coming off super tough fights with Justin Gage and Eddie Alvarez. Dude, take a year off. even if it takes that long, recover. We've seen some people take some time off and look great. Dude, he's taking a lot of punishment. Just take a year off or whatever time is needed to get your next shot.

If Connor McGregor's the next guy, all right, wait for your next shot. But the man has done everything. Everything needed to get that shot and he deserved. I mean, there's a fair argument. I wouldn't begrudge him if you wanted to take time off. I don't know that I would necessarily need to see that. I would say that the only thing that I would take into consideration is about the title fight, to your point, what's the functional difference if you beat four champions versus getting a title shot?

It's, well, it's the opportunity to become a champion, of course. But I don't know that that, even if itself, changes the whole thing for me, but the paycheck. I would be happy for him to get a big paycheck. That, to me, matters pretty significantly. So you can convince me. I think it's a strong argument. It's just that, like, from a matchup standpoint, would I be happy with virtually any of those permutations? Oh, I mean, don't get me wrong.

I'm a fight fan. So, of course, I want to see Tony. Ferguson versus Dustin Porter. You're kidding me. That's violence written all over. But out of fairness to Dustin Poyer, the man needs a title shot. But waiting is so complicated in today's game, though, man. It's a big risk. I mean, Tyron Woodley's the champion and he waited. I know, but if you wait and then it's your turn and then you get injured, bro, that bus does not come back around, man. So like, I'm not saying you're wrong. You're making good points, Danny.

I hear you. I wouldn't argue too strongly, but it's risky. All right. Keep going. All right. Let's talk about now middle weights. Hey Luke, this is Clifton from Anaheim. I was just wondering with the success that Anthony Smith has had moving up from middleweight to light heavyweight, going unranked to the top 10 in two fights, why are guys like Luke Rockhold and Chris Wyatman and Yowell-Rabarrow sticking around at middleweight fighting each other when the title is tied up with Tufts and Robert Whitaker's injury, when they could not cut that extra 20 pounds and fight in light heavy weight, which is a much shallower division, and possibly fight for the title, which is going to be vacated in March anyways, and not have to cut that huge amount of weight. Thanks.

Boy, it's a complicated question, but a good one. There's a few reasons. I think, for one, in the case of Wyden, he has friend Corey Anderson doing big things up at light heavyweight, So that might inhibit a decision to move up there. So that could be related to teammates. That would not involve Luke Rockhold necessarily, but I'm merely pointing that out. You know, you're right. You look around and you could say, wow, those guys, they might be able to make an immediate impact up at 205. But these guys, man, they're creatures of habit and they're often stuck in their ways.

And they need to be kind of forced into new scenarios before they agree it's good for them. Look at the resistance Kelvin Gaston initially had to being a middleweight. And then he kept winning and he kept winning and he kept winning. and he's still sort of eyeballing a return to Walter Wade at some point. But it wasn't until he really started just putting the beat down on some of these guys at middleweight that he said, you know, I can do something here. And now look at him. He's on the cusp of a title shot.

So partly it's a function of if no one forces them up there, they may still just believe they have the advantageous body size for that. And moreover, a lot of those guys are still at the top of the division. They've had some bad losses, but they've had bad losses to each other. Wyman lost to Rockhold. Rockhold lost to Romero. Romero's, you know, 40 plus. I think they feel like if they move,

they risk leaving a good position. It's not that they're wrong, Danny. The question is not that the questioner is wrong and saying they could have even more success at light heavyweight. But you know fighters, man. They get in their mind, this is my recipe for success.

These are the conditions that have to be established. And they don't want to rock the boat. Sometimes they've got to be forced out of them. Yeah, for sure. And this is a question that I've asked myself as well, like look at Anthony Smith. Before Anthony's move to Light Heavyweight, like we knew who he was. If you're a hardcore, you know who that guy is. But he's not, he doesn't have nearly as much as prestigious Chris Whiteman or Luke Rock,

or Yo, Romero, right? And look, look at the name he's become at Light Heavyweight. Dude, if you're Romero or any of those guys were to go up to 205 and get one win, all the sudden they're entitled conversation. You know, they're right there. The line seems one, much shorter. And let's be honest, if you look at the top 10, the competition at middleweight seems a lot more difficult than at light heavyweight. So that's something I never understood. Move up a weight class and, you know, fight possibly less competition, have a shorter, you know, trip to the title. The only caveat there is Anthony Smith, and I spoke to him last week, so I'm not, I'm not undercutting the win. It's a great win. We know Rashad was very much at the end of his career. He

retired after that, but he still beat a name in Rashad, and he beat a name in Shogun. Now, I don't think Shogun is in the same kind of spot. I actually think Anthony Smith is a very good light heavyweight, But until he beats the Alir Latifis or something in the world, there's still some questions about it. My point being is, if Luke Rockwell goes up to Light Heavyweight, if Chris Wybin goes up, those same big names kind aren't there anymore. I mean, maybe Glover to Chera, but he's still a real tough challenge for anybody. So my point is, the days of picking off old stars at Light Heavyweight, they're numbered. So it's not the same thing as Anthony Smith going up anymore.

But to the point, they could have gone up before, and they could have had their choice of it, And they decided not to. So there you go. Keep a train rolling, my friend. Let's move on to, I guess, a location of UFC events like during the week. Like perhaps, you know, choosing a different time of the week to put a UFC event. Good question.

Hey, Luke, Mike from Columbus, long time, second time. My question is, with the low overnight ratings, would you think it would be best that the UFC move some of their, fight nights to a weekday and Saturday and save Saturday for their pay-per-view events, especially with the success Dana White's Tuesday night fights this happened. And especially with us living in the Midwest, we only get two months of the year where we could party out. So, and then Saturdays are pretty good for that.

Thanks for the time. Enjoy the show. Before you answer that, do you remember when the UFC used to have events on Wednesdays, like years ago? Sure do. Steve Habe Eochich fought on a Wednesday. Yeah. How fun were those?

Like, I love watching M. in May on a Tuesday. You know what? I am so in favor of that. Don't you remember the Luke Rockhold, Costa Philippaute fight was on like a Wednesday or something? I love those. I love, even when the PFL is like,

when I watched the PFL is like, when I watched the PFL is on a Saturday night, you know, being candid, probably not. But on a Thursday, my chance of watching it grows exponentially. But the truth is, man, there's just the casual audience is not the same. The casual audience doesn't value fights in the same way that we do. So, you know, you're talking about the success of the Tuesday night, Daniel White Contender series. I agree, but you're not selling that to an audience, a live audience, right? So there's no gate to worry about.

You're just having friends and family and training partners in there. And then it's just for streaming purposes. We don't know what the viewership is like. We have reason to believe it's probably decent enough depending on the fighter or the contest or whatever. But there's no real way to know. That's all proprietary information. So when you're calling the success, I understand, but on whose terms and in what way, we don't really know the answer to that. So I would love to see it, but it's just not realistic.

I will say to Columbus, though, I don't know much about the city, but they do host one of the great expos. They host the Arnold every year. That's another thing that Strike Force used to do. They used to hold events the same weekend as the Arnold. Do you anything about the Arnold, Danny? A little bit, yeah. I mean, it's basically, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, we've got dolls of him and this up here. I've never seen.

One man has not defined what it means for masculinity in my life more than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And you can call that sad. I don't give a fuck. because he is the, beyond that, he is the king of fitness. So everyone in the fitness world, from like bikini fitness models to powerlifters, to strongmen, to Olympic weightlifting, to bodybuilding, everybody shows up to the Arnold and they sell their gear and their tank tops and they compete. It's like the goddamn Mecca.

Strike Force used to have a show in conjunction with that because MMA is also actually still a pretty big part of the Arnold. And everyone has stopped doing that. I don't know what the metrics are that told them that that was a good idea. Maybe it is. I don't quite understand it. But I love the Arnold and I miss that that crossover, to be honest with you. I recently saw a documentary.

I think it was bigger, faster, stronger. Yeah. So, hold on the guy who hosts that, who runs it or did the, that was the narrator, his brother is a big time powerlifting guy and YouTube star. Okay. Yeah. That was a great documentary. Yeah.

He openly used the steroids, by the way. Oh, nice. You know what? I don't care. I don't care. So we've had, we're running a little bit short on time. We've had really great questions. Far amount.

So let's feature the last one. A little friendly face. We have time for two. We have time for two. Okay. Cool. I'm out of breathing Mike from Connecticut. And I just wanted to ask,

what do you think the future holds for Nick Newell? And is the UFC still a plausible option in the future if you can win three or four fights in another promotion? Danny, I don't know how you feel about this one. I would say the chances of him in the UFC are very slim unless he fills in on short notice. I still think that's your best opportunity to get opportunities you otherwise wouldn't get. So I'll say that. And I would say, I really hope Bellator gives him a shot.

He's highly promotable. I still think he's very skilled. Credit to Alex Munoz, he won fair and square. What else are you going to say? No excuses. No excuses. I said, no excuses, win or lose. He said no.

And he hasn't subsequently made any. But to be honest, my hunches, is the UFC going to happen? If I had to bet, I'd bet against it, but I wouldn't bet a lot. I still think it's possible. I just really hope Bellator thinks twice. Yeah, it sort of felt when he lost like it was it. Like, that was his chance to make it into the UFC. I may be completely wrong about this.

We've seen Dana White change his mind in a bunch of different occasions. And as you said, he can always fill in for short notice. But, man, it just felt like that was it. And, you know, Nick Newell was still a fantastic fighter. He still has a great story. I think as long as he wants to fight, he should fight. a major promotion, say whether it's Bellator or PFL, whatever

it is, but I'd love to see them in Bellator. Hey, look, go to, go to Ryzen, go to one. I wonder if they'd be interested as well. By the way, Ryzen had some great fights this week. They certainly did. They certainly, they always do. Yeah. By the way, one note on that. People were beating me up on Twitter

because we don't give enough Japanese MMA coverage. Was there criticism? And partly it was a function of like, why were we sending, I don't want to get into that part. But they were asking me, like, why don't you feature more on the MMA hour? And the answer is not as a personal preference that I have anything against Japanese MMA. Japanese MMA used to be the most important kind of MMA, but that's a long time ago. Let me just be clear about this. If you have a podcast out there

and you want to devote time to Japanese MMA, I highly encourage you to do so. It is an underserved market. But if you are interested in audience cultivation to the point where you can sustain a job, that's a real fucking bad idea. Okay? It should be a hobby of yours or something. You can make a claim that a site has an editorial responsibility to give some kind of coverage of Japanese MMA. I believe that we fulfill that obligation strongly in MMA fighting. So could we always do more? Yes, I'm not opposed to it in the future. I do love it on a personal and professional level, but we don't make time for it because it'd be a real bad idea to make time for it.

Sorry, that's just what the market bears. Yeah. And I think we cover the main things. I mean, talking over me knocking out, no, Melvin Gellard, we have. I'm not knocking our coverage. I think we did just fine. Could we always do more, we could? But at the sacrifice of something else,

that frankly is more important to our viewers and our readers. So, all right, last one. Okay, cool. Hey, Luke. This is Tim from Arizona. I don't really care to see a Jurjajek versus Rose again. So who do you think Rose should fight next?

Thank you. Love the show. Bye. So before you answer, are we on the same page that Young J. Chick's likely not getting a shot, the next shot? The next shot?

No, I would agree that she's not getting the next shot. Same. Okay, so who do you think should get that? Man, And Androge, right? That's the one you got to do. It's fighting Kolkiewicz. Because, and also, because frankly, it creates a little chaos in the division, right? So she is the, my judgment, you know, she's fighting double K?

Yeah. When? 228. So soon. So if she wins that, for sure, she should get it. But let's say she wins that and then she fights Nami Unis and she wins, right? Okay. If she does that, then you have a problem on your hands.

Because, you know, Jacek smashed. I mean, we're not smashed, but, you know, satisfactorily beat Androge back at USC, what 211 in Dallas. I was there for that one. So now you'd have this thing at the top of the division where, like, Randy beats Tito, but Tito v. Vitor, but then temporarily, Vitor had beaten Randy. Of course, Randy had fixed that. But you get the idea where these guys were kind of all feasting off each other at the top.

I actually think that's part of what made light heavyweight so great back in the day. So to me, you absolutely feed her to Androge. I think Androge is a very tough matchup for Numbia. It's not saying she will or won't win, but that physical style, you know, Rose is so technical and sharp in the timing and the distance. It's a real contrast to the marauding, bruising, physical, Freddie Serrano strong. You know what I'm talking about, right? Super strong. And if she wins, now you've got some fresh permutations or even some old permutations, you can work back in.

Yeah, I agree with you. You said it was a problem, though. I don't think it's problematic. I think it's great for the division. The problem in the sense of it creates chaos. Right. I mean, chaos is good. Sorry, I meant it in a different sense, but yes.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, if Androja fights Rose, right, and she wins, all of a sudden, young J. Chichick, I'd be down to see Yon J. Chich and also. And let's say Yachik wins, given the fact that she has a pretty convincing win over her. All of a sudden, Rose, Yon Jachik 3 makes sense. Yeah. By the way, people are down on it.

Like, I don't really want to see it again. Okay, right now. Right now I don't want to see it again. Yeah. But in boxing, these guys will fight four or five times. And the first time she got, okay, crushed. Dude, do folks not remember, Nama Yunus had to turn it on in that fifth round. And she did credit to her.

She absolutely did. She was the rightful winner. It wasn't like YNJech was like terribly out of it. Give her a couple more wins. And look at the big mouth. And I mean that as a compliment that YN J. Jake has. Dude, I'm telling you, there absolutely is.

Not right now. Not right now. There's no appetite for it now, but they're going to fight a third time. For a title or not, they're going to fight a third time. Yeah. Let it cook a little. Let it, you know. Stay cooking, fam.

Yeah. All right. What did we miss? Anything else? No, that's it. I mean, there's a few other questions. I don't know if you want to get to if we have time. Nah.

I got to get uptown. Yeah. I have three more hours of radio to do. Fun. I think we have one guest. So I've got a bunch of talking I have to do. Good show today. Yeah.

I really enjoyed everyone stopping by. All the guests were there on time. It was kind of great. Any parting thoughts, my friend? Nothing. UFC Calgary was great. That's the type of MMA I want to see. Fair point.

That's watching that because sometimes some of these fights. It did not feel like a chore, did it? No, it didn't. Sometimes UFC Hamburg, I mean, Jesus Christ, just watching that card. Sometimes I feel like I'm not a fan because I'm watching and I'm like, dude, I'm not interested in this. But watching Jose Aldo fight Jeremy Steven, watching T. T. Shia Torres fight, Yon J. Chick, Porier Alvarez. That made me feel like a fan.

I was tuning in. 100%. For sure. You didn't have to beg me. Oh, no. Yeah. All right, Danny, great job today. Very high energy. I loved it. I loved it. Really appreciate that for you. Good job today, man. Yeah, no problem. All right, and I appreciate all of you folks out there watching as well. Follow Danny on Twitter at, I think Danny Segura TV. Follow me at L. Thomas News. And until next time, stay frosty.