MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas – Episode 446

Episode Date: August 13, 2018

On this episode of The MMA Hour, we speak to Derrick Lewis about his bout against Alexander Volkov in September; Bellator CEO Scott Coker to discuss the welterweight tourney, the future of streaming, a pivot to Europe and more; Kamaru Usman to talk about serving as an alternate in the Darren Till vs. Tyron Woodley sweepstakes; Ed Ruth, who participates in the Bellator welterweight tournament. We also answer your questions on the latest MMA news and headlines on our segment The Sound Off. 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 18665330 or visit Comex Ontario.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour It is Monday, August 13th, 2018, and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the MMA hour here on MMAFighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me.

What a pack show we have today. Let's see. We've got to get to your tweets. We've got to get to the Way in at 1220. The Black Beast will be here as the name he goes by anyway. Derek Lewis will join us, tell us what's up with him. Then at 1240, he's the president and CEO, I can never get his title right, but certainly he is the man in charge of Bellator.

Scott Coker will be here at 1 o'clock. He's going to be the fill in case either Tyron Woodley or Darren Till falls out. Camaro Usman will be here at 115. This man is literally one of the all-time 10 best wrestlers independent of weight class in the history of American collegiate wrestling. He is now a participant in the Belator Walterweight attorney. Ed Ruth will join us. I am very excited about that. Then, of course, we have to get to the sound off at the end of the show. There is just so much to get to, ladies and gentlemen. As always, we take your tweets using the hashtag,

the MMA hour. Keep sending those. Keep using that hashtag. There you can see at the bottom of the screen. Very, very nice. Shouts to the graphics department. And also the number to call 844-866-2468. That is our hotline. leave your questions. Good, bad, weird, and indifferent, all there. All right. Hope you guys had a good weekend. I had an okay weekend. Not a good, not a bad one, just a fine one. I'm on the last legs of my life before vacation. So my mind is sometimes elsewhere, but I'm locked in. I'm dialed in today. I'm very excited about today's show. All right. So we have a lot to get to, as I mentioned, I gave you the tweet, hashtag to use. I've given you the number. Now, let's talk to my friend in the back of the room.

The is the Arequipa to my pan, the arroz to my frihole, the chambaya to my hala, the one and only, Danny Sigurro. What's up, buddy? Yo, what's up? How are you feeling? Great song, by the way. Yeah, I've had it on lock. My wife hates it, but what can you do? It's a new generation song, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How was your weekend? It was good. It was pretty good, yeah? Yeah. Did you do anything of note?

Um, no, played soccer, had some time to myself, hung out. Didn't watch any MMA, which is not worth it. All was refreshing, yes? Yep. I actually went back and I watched some of the fights from 227 that I missed, but it was the portion that aired on FX. Okay. So it was all decisions.

Yeah. For some reason, it made me bitter that I had watched it in retrospect. I don't know why. That Pedro Muñoz, though. Yes, it ended nicely with that crazy fight. I thought, actually, Brett Johns looked a little bit better than I thought he did. I'm reading what the people said about the fight. I actually went back and I was like, oh, you know what,

Bridgons made a strong account of himself, actually. Nice jab, good footwork. You put on a good fight, he's tough. You did he hard? How did it go in your soccer games? Did you win? Yeah, we won 2-1, and I got both assists. Now, what is the name of your team?

Aledico Bushwick. Atlago Bushwick? Yep. That is the most hipster name. I think I've never heard. No, no, no. You should see the names on that league. Really?

Yeah, there's a sked at FC. It's something little pump says. I don't know if you're... No, I'm too old for that. Yeah. It goes along the lines of Takashi 6-9. Okay, all right. Very good.

Have you still watched that Sean Price video I sent you? Oh, man, I got to get to it. I've been so busy. You have no idea. I believe it. I believe it. For folks a minute, I know there's this guy who made this... He went to Bogota, Columbia, where Danny is from.

And he recorded all the sounds from the street there, turned it into a beat, and then before Sean Price died, he had Sean Price rap over it. It actually came out pretty good. So I sent that to you with no response. I was like, very low energy. I did see like the first minute of it. I just got to get to the end. But yeah, it looked cool.

All right, so we're going to get to the tweets here in just a few minutes, actually. We're going to get the top of the show very quickly. How are the tweets? How are the calls this weekend? Because here's why I asked, hold on now. Usually after a big event, the calls come pouring in. We got to figure it out. There was no MMA this weekend.

How to go? We had so many submissions. I think it's the most submissions we've ever had. What do you attribute that to? I think note the time off, people have nothing to do since there's no MMA. So, hey, let's just. pick up the phone. All right.

Yeah. And there were good calls, yeah? They were good calls, man. They got creative. I got to say. All right. You know what? Have we had, I think we've had, what, one female caller on the show?

Yeah. I believe it was the Dutch lady. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yep. Where are the ladies? I know. They're not.

We got to get some more. They're not participating. Yeah. Danny, you're young. You can't, you know, they don't look at you and say, oh, I want to call the show that Danny Sigora's on. They don't do that? Yeah, maybe not.

They look at me. They don't want to call either. So together we are attached at the hip. Hey, before I get into the way in, can we correct some misinformation that's floating out there? Sure. Did you see the tweet from Jordan Burroughs this morning? I did not. So, for folks in a minute, I know Jordan Burroughs is, and has been for a while, you can look them up.

I think his Twitter name is all I see is gold. Yeah. Jordan Burroughs was a guy who was a major accomplished wrestler in, he went to the university in Nebraska. I think he was a two-time national champ, three-time All-American, maybe more than that. Certainly he's won a number of world titles. He had a crazy undefeated streak up in nearly 70 matches. He won the Olympics in 2012. Now, he flamed out in Rio, but he got back on the horse recently, although he did lose to Chimiso.

Neither here nor there. The point being is he's one of the best, certainly American wrestlers of all time and certainly right now. There was this weird rumor floating around, Danny, that he had been brought in by Connor to train him for their fight. Apparently there is no truth to this whatsoever. He gets on Twitter this morning and says, no, I've not, no, we're not working together.

I don't know if they had any, like, discussions at any point. But here's my thing. Have you noticed how much fake news surrounds Connor? Now, it's not his fault, right? But do you remember, I'm not blaming him or like he's manufacturing it. I'm simply saying,

Do you remember during the Mayweather-Megger fight? They were saying Mayweather and McGregor took a flight together from L.A. to New York. And they're ball in on it. And there was no truth to it at all. Why is there so much fake news around Connor McGregor? I think it's not specifically to Connor McGregor. I think as soon as you get to the level of Connor McGregor, there's just going to be news and rumors floating around. I mean.

Is that what it is? It's just the level of his. Celebrity? Of course. I mean, his name, anybody that, any headline that you put his name in is going to get clicks, right? So any little rumor, any little BS that he posts on Instagram, look, Conne McGregor went to the zoo, whatever. It's going to get hit. So I think it's a product of that.

I don't know if you remember when GSP was kind of teasing coming back or, no, when he retired, right? Or retired. There were rumors that, like, he gotten, like, a girl pregnant and, like, there was a bunch of rumors of why he's like, yeah. That's what happens when you become that. You know, that level. So I would just say this. Now that Connor and Habib are fighting, be careful for fake news out there. Be very careful what you read about Connor McGregor.

See if it's verified on MMA fighting or any of the major sites because I'm seeing and noticing that it's a constant problem. And I don't think it's him doing anything. It's just the nature of celebrity news, I suppose. All right. I will come back to you in a little bit. Actually, I'll get back to you for the sound off a little bit later in the show. But we'll get to those tweets a little bit later as well, too. All right, see you in a bit. For now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the way in.

Now, speaking of Connor McGregor, again, something that's really, that's not an issue of fault exactly. It's neither here nor there. We came up on the, what, one year anniversary of the video of Pauly Malinagy being knocked down and sparring or whatever, knock down, not knocked down, whatever that was. You guys all know what I'm talking about. He was chirping on Twitter. McGregor even chirped about it on Twitter. And that's fine. You know, this point, what can you really do about it? But we're living in an age now where for some reason, people are relitigating that debate over Floyd and Connor. Not as much, but a little bit.

But now something else is happening concurrently. It's like a year later, a lesser version of that fight is kind of being generated on, at least from a celebrity standpoint, on social media. Namely, Drivanta Davis from Charmed City, Baltimore and T.J. Dillishaw going back and forth. Now, I think that has flamed out. I don't think there's anything ever more than there than any kind of social media back and forth. T.J. is trying to make that fight happen. Believe me. Let me say something about that. There is nothing I would like more than Jivanta Davis to step up into the Octagon and have him fight T.J. Dillishaw.

Boy, what an epic beating this would be, right? And it's not that we, as MMA fans, need that to happen. It's not to have anything personal against Javanta Davis. I certainly do not. He's a sensational talent in the boxing ring. but there was a little bit of extra disrespect we had to endure during the Mayweather-McGregor fight. Everyone knew that the chips, or rather I should say that the deck was stacked against McGregor, right? He had never boxed professionally before.

This was one of the great boxers of the era. What reasonably can happen here? And, of course, he lost in the end by way of stoppage. And I just noticed that there was fair criticism of MMA and then a lot of unfair criticism. And you had to kind of sift through it. So as like a matter of, maybe revenge isn't quite the right word, but as a matter of, you know, putting one point up on the scoreboard for the home team wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to see. However, here is what I am noticing back and forth on both sides.

Frankly, folks, I'm sorry. We are as guilty as they are. I see it constantly. And it has come to a point where you now just have to say, if the conversation around these fights is so bad that should tell you a lot about the fights themselves. Here's what I mean. Nothing pulls ignorance from people and ignorance about sport more than an MMA fighter versus boxer debate. Truly nothing. Nothing gets the donks as riled up and ready to comment on things. They just know nothing about more than that phenomenon. Now look, I'm not here to tell you I can predict the future. I

certainly can't. Like anybody else, you do this job long enough where you're talking to a camera a lot. You're going to be about as wrong as you are right. It mostly evens out to about 50-50, but I at least have some awareness of it. I at least have some time spent in the trenches trying to figure things out, at least a little bit. I have seen things like this. Well, Dravanta Davis didn't wrestle in high school, but he grew up scrapping on the streets of Baltimore, do people not realize how valuable that is? And certainly I would not argue that he's a tough individual. But if that person, whoever said that, that's a real thing that I saw, thinks that that counts as trenchant analysis about the level of wrestling inside the UFC.

I want to die. That makes me want to die. That makes me want. to die, if I can be quite candid with you. I've also seen things like, well, if Connor hadn't been tired, he would have knocked Mayweather out late. He was clearly the better boxer, which just makes me want to cry on the inside. I have seen things like, oh, I don't know, McGregor's better than Cotto, Miguel Cotto, and you can go back and forth all the way around. The boxing crowd says things that are terribly, terribly ignorant about MMA. And there's a portion of our audience, too, among us. And it's up to us to frankly police the ranks a little bit, who when they get tasked with debating people about how an MMA fighter would do against a boxer, they say insane

things that are totally unjustifiable about the boxing world. Maybe we should just leave it all alone. Right? I mean, look, on any kind of sports debate, the two sides are never going to see eye to eye. It's about sport is about the resolution of conflict, and the only way to resolve it is the actual competition itself. Two sides believe the same thing. I'm better, and there's one way to resolve that. So in that sense, I suppose a degree of this is inevitable. And it's not like everybody out there is some kind of statistical wonder who can understand the, you know, intricacies of the sport, who have trained with all the best academies around the world. No, it's none of that. I understand that part of sports debate is just having fun. But truly, truly I am telling you, verily I say

unto thee. I watch a lot of sports debates. I get into a few of them myself time to time. The debates about boxer versus MMA fighter are the dumbest ones in sports. And this consistently happens no matter which boxer and which MMA fighter provided their professionals, you plug in. So when I look around and I read the tea leaves and I try to infer what that means, it just tells me what a gargantuan circus everything is from the word go about it. There's no way to do that right. It by definition either makes people crazy or pulls the crazy out of them or recruits the crazy among us.

Something. I don't know. You can figure that out from here. But if a debate is that silly, that insane and frankly, that backward, I don't know. To me, it kind of says something about the fight itself and the nature of that matchup that leaving well enough alone is with the Mayweather McGregor anyway. It's good enough for me. All right, and that is the way in. Okay, let's do this.

We're going to have at 1220 the... Well, it goes by the name of Black Beast. Derek Lewis will be here. So let's do this. We've got a few minutes. Why don't we squeeze in some of your tweets? Five minutes on the clock. I will answer as many tweets as possible

as soon as the first one comes up right here on the screen. And remember, always use the hashtag, the MMA hour. Let us hit it, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go. If the UFC did adopt a 165-pound weight division, fighters would you like to see move up from lightweight or move down from Walterweight. I did a huge draft on my show. Boy, you could go a lot of different directions. You could go Colby going down.

You could go Dosangos potentially go revisiting 165. You could go McGregor coming up. You could go Diaz coming up. There's so many different ways you can do it. You can go VIT going up. You can go Gunner Nelson going down. A lot, a lot of different ways you could do that. Do a draft with your friend. Take two of you and each one of you can pick either someone from 155 or 170 and make a top 15. It's actually a lot easier than you think. Next. P.S. Luke, please unblock me. I own a TRT turtle shirt for cry six. Who is this? Urban MMA blog? Yeah, all right. People always wonder why I block so much. It's a great way of getting out ahead of the curve. I will unblock this gentleman.

People always like, oh, you're so sensitive. You're not hurting my feelings. You're just wasting my time. Imagine you went to a bar and that weirda who's at the end of the bar just came up to you and started talking to you. You know how awful that is? You're at some airport bar waiting. to catch a flight, you got a three-hour layover. You don't want to talk to this guy. You got nothing in common with him. I'm not trying to look at the pictures of your kids on your phones. Imagine if I can hit a button and just block him and he goes away. Would you not hit that button? Right, me too. So I do. Next. Well, Habib and Connor both make it to fight night. I'm going to remain positive, even if it's

irrational. I'm going to remain optimistic. Even if it's irrational, I'm going to say yes. Yes, the fight happens October 6th as planned. Next. Besides, Connor Habib, what fight are you most looking forward to before the end of 2018? Easy call, D.S. Poirier, for sure. Gosh. That whole 230 card. And honestly, the belts are a waltrowweight tournament getting going. Seems to be pretty fantastic.

Next. Do you think we'll ever see Ben Ascran in the UFC, and if so, will he become champion? I don't know about the second part. Let's talk about the first. I saw him, when did I see him? It was a while ago. And he was telling me that he will retire under contract with one championship. So either one lets him go for some reason, which I don't, I mean, maybe they do, right? Hard to say. But it seemed to me like that was all pretty much set in stone and there was no real way around it. That one will never sit right with me. I mean, making him go to World Series of fighting to go get experience was, of course, the claim that he knew.

needed to do. An absurd, totally absurd claim, a ridiculous thing that only delayed something and forced him to go to a place that I'm sure was fine financially for him. I'm sure it was good for one. But it really was not the optimal place for a talent like Ben Ascreen. We had Henry Suhudo on this very show saying he thought very highly of Ben Ascran. And even if Ben Ascran wasn't that guy and he would get beat by the top Walter weights, at least we would find that out. And now we can't. What a waste. I mean, so unfortunate. Next. How to call you? How to call you you guys when I am not an American listener. International calls ain't cheap for broke students like myself with a hey Jose Marino avatar. Okay, very easy to do this. Here is the email that we have.

You can write us, record a voicemail, you know, state your name, where you're from, make it short, make it concise. TheMMA hour at voxmedia.com. Not MMA hour at voxmedia.com. Not MMA hour at Voxmedia.com. Dox.com, the MMA hour at Voxmedia.com. Record yourself on MP3, shoot over an email, and voila. There you are. Cheap and free for international listeners. Next. I bet Luke brought the stand this time. I'm sure he remembered especially after being reminded because he's such a swell guy. You're right. I forgot. I forgot because I'm the dumbest man in America, potentially the Milky Way, if you really want to. to be super specific about it in terms of the depth at which I'm an idiot. I forgot again. I forgot

again. So I'm stupid, but you already knew that. Next. Does a win over Jacques-Are make David Branch a legit contender at 185 or just another top five-ish kind of guy? It's, well, it'll certainly be the best one of his career. I actually think, I don't know where Jacqueray stands at the moment very quickly. Let's see. So that's a little bit of an issue numerically where he is versus is reputational where it might put him. Jacqueray sits at five, Gastlam's at four, Widenet at three,

and Lott-Ruckold at two. It wouldn't put him past the other guys, but yeah, it probably would mean he would swap spaces. He's only sitting at seven. Brunton has a fight coming up. So it is possible. It is quite possible.

Next, very quickly, if we can. If GSP doesn't get the 155-pound title fight, who will he fight next? I've been thinking about this and wondering it myself. I honestly, I don't know the answer to that. I guess the DS fight is a no-for- him, either Nick or Nate. Let me finish this. The Silva fight. I'm trying to, I guess he's not

like 100% no to it, but probably no to it. Now's not the right time kind of thing. So there's that. I don't know. I don't know. My hunch is that 155 is really what's up on the top of his list of interests, because he would be the first guy to get the belts in three-way classes. if he could do that. Who else could possibly replicate whatever value could be derived from that kind of a contest? But of course, as he rightly noted,

and as we mentioned, the MMA beat last week, it's like, dude, you drop the title at 170, okay, no problem there. But then you win the title at 185 and then you drop it, what, a week, two, three, something like that, later, a month, something like that?

I mean, the idea that they would give him one at 155 seems fanciful. But this is the point I tried to make before. I mean, it's not true that the inmates are running the asylum. The UFC still exercises a pretty strong degree of control over all the operations in the UFC. But at the same time, if GSP wants it and calls out for it and if the winner, let's say it's Connor and he wins and calls out for it, who's going to stop them? UFC's going to say no? Maybe.

I don't know. I have a hard time believing that. All right. Forget about all that. For now, let us go to our Skype machine. We are joined now by esteemed UFC heavyweight. and the world's greatest Houston Dynamo fan, one and only Derek Lewis joins the show.

What's up, Derek? How are you? I'm terrible, man. How are you doing? Wait. Why are you doing terribly? You'll assume, though. You'll soon, though. Okay. Well, did the Dynamo... I see you kick Ariel Wiani out. I didn't kick him out. I didn't kick him out. I swear. He has a great show.

Oh, okay, you took that own Canadian flag out. Okay, I see, okay, he switched up a little bit. I'm not Canadian. Okay, yeah. I'm glad you threw everything away, though. That's good. It looks better. It looks a lot more cleaner.

Well, it's a lot more cleaner than his. Well, I've got my own, I don't know if you can see the clutter. I've got my own clutter. I can't talk too much, but, you know. It's nice. It's organized. A little bit. A little bit.

little bit. You know, what's not organized is that beard? What happened to that? Yeah, I missed my appointment Friday, but it's okay. I'm going to get on it. Now, hold on a second. Where are you that there are mirrors, cinder blocks, and a scale? I'm in the locker room. At the gym? Yeah. Oh, there it is. I didn't know they had those color lockers at Planet Fitness there, Derek. No, no, I don't do Planis Fitness. Come on, man. I'm a little high maintenance than that. I'm teasing

just a little bit. All right, so let's back up a little bit. There were some reports out there, Derek, that you were set to face Alexander Volkov, I believe in UFC 228, which is coming right up. What happened? What's the story there? What, they took the fight off or something?

No, no, I'm asking you. Is it true? 229. Excuse me, 229, Komen. I'm sorry. I apologize. Yeah, it's true. Okay. I was supposed to fight off. I guess, co-main event. You know, I didn't care what the fight was placed at.

So that's fine. It's co-main event. Let's, before we get into the details there, let's talk about your back. What's the current situation with your back? Right now it's doing pretty good. The shots that I took, they say it should last like 10 to 12 months.

So what was the name of the shots? It wasn't stem cells or nothing like that. It was something, they shot me like 20 times in one spot. There's some type of steroids. These are USADA approved, right? These are medical. Yeah, for sure, yeah. Yeah, we sent the pictures and sent the name of the medicine that they was going to shoot into me

before I even took it anyway, and they said that it's been improved. All right, good, good to go. Okay, what did they say is wrong with your back? What is the particular ailment that you have? It's muscular. There's nothing to have to do with the disc or nothing like that. Just like straight muscles. Muscular impingements.

Besides getting shots, is there a short and or, well, I guess the shots are the short term, but what's the long-term treatment for something like that? Right now they're telling me, do a lot of stretching and rehab and stuff like that. Really, most likely I probably just got to lose a little more weight. What's the target weight they want you around?

Probably 250. And what are you at right now? 285. I'm working on it. I'm not working on. Okay, what's the weight loss plan, Derek? Walk me through it. I'm on a different training regimen right now.

and we just really just started my diet. You know, I really got to lose all this way before Thanksgiving will come around because if Thanksgiving will come around before the fight, then I'm being about 300 pounds. So I know for sure I got to get down at least 260, walk around at 260. What was the last time you were 260? And I don't mean a weigh-in day or something. I mean like walk-around weight.

Shit. Probably eight years. Great. No, I'm joking. So about six years ago, I was two six, six, you know, walk around. Six years ago. Are you going to hire like a dietitian or anything like that? Not, but it's a few guys that contact me and try to help me out with this camp right here. So we'll see.

I feel like that's pretty doable. Like, if you're 160 pounds, losing 30 pounds is a lot. If you're 285, I'm not saying it's nothing. Seems relatively doable, though. Yeah, it is. But, you know, I like to eat. It's kind of hard to pass up on all the good stuff that's around my house. But I've been trying real hard, you know.

So we'll see. We'll see this fight right here. Hopefully I could come out with a four-pack. You know, I'm not going to guarantee a six-pay, but I can guarantee a four-pack. That could be your new nickname, four-pack Lewis. Yeah. All right. So you got the shots.

When did you get the shots? How long ago? I got the shots two weeks, two or three weeks ago. And so I'm guessing, was it immediate relief? No, it took about three or four days because my back would just still sore from all the shots that they gave me. And so how do you feel today? Like super mobile, ready to go? Yeah, I feel real mobile right now.

You know, all of my fights, especially all of my UFC fights my whole career, I never been in there without any kind of impingement and pain wrong with my back. You know, it just amazed me that I made it this forward with all the pain that I have to endure during all my fights. Have you ever had these shots before, first time? I just my first time I ever had. You know, I was taking magnesium. And magnesium was working for a while, but this last fight right here, it didn't work at all. You know, it's one thing to have pain in your fights, Derek, but it's another one to have pain during camp to the point where, you know, you can't train the right way.

You mentioned you had the pain in the fights. I'm wondering, how much have your camps been affected by this chronic injury? Oh, every camp, especially at the beginning, every camp, we have to take at least 10-minute break and stuff like that to stretch out. and I'm trying to warm my backup, and it's always affected every camp that I've ever had, especially in the UFC. So are you back to, like, what kind of training are you doing now? Like, you're slowly kicking the tires on your back, so to speak,

just to make sure that each stage of training is okay? Yeah, for sure. We're taking it step by step day by day. You know, we're taking it real slow because there ain't no way I'm going to pull out this fight again. You know, I pulled out in my past, and I ain't planning on doing it this fight right here. I was wondering, the UFC,

did they ever tell you how they felt about what happened in your last fight? I know that you took ownership for what went wrong. I'm wondering how they responded to it. They didn't say anything about it. I know everyone knows it was just a bad performance by both of us. You know, there's nothing really I can say at this time, though, but they really didn't say anything, But they say something, but it's really nothing that I can go ahead and tell the folks out there that's watching.

Have you gone back and watched it? I finally watched it. And I thought it wasn't that bad, you know, not the way that Joe Rogan was making it sound like. You know, it wasn't that. But I seen worse fights than that. You know, and by him saying that, it's where everybody else believe, oh, yeah, it's the worst fight ever. It's not even the worst fight ever. So the only reason why I guess they're saying that is the worst fight ever,

because they expected so much between me and him. You know, they expected fight worse the whole three rounds, you know, and it wasn't. You know, I expected the same thing. You know, I was disappointed that it was an entertaining fight as well. Also, I think it's a little more than that. It wasn't just that they were expecting something from you. Sometimes when a fight is bad, it's because one person has got some issue going on. But in this one, both of you guys didn't seem like yourself.

So it was just, it was boring, as you well know. It was also confusing. We just couldn't make sense of why round over round it looked that way. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was confused too. You know, I tried to make him engage. I did a couple of things try to make him engage, and he just wouldn't do it. You know, even I try to do a little bit more than him.

And it just was weird to me, too, you know, the whole fight. So I don't know. What do you make of his post? What do you make of his post-fight comments releasing a statement saying he was essentially living, I think, with the fear that he had taken from his last fight into this one? What did you make of that? To me, whenever he stepped inside the octagon, he looked scared from the get-go. You know, he wasn't the same guy that I've seen at the way he ends.

Like his facial expression is emotions and everything, it wasn't the same. So all of that right there threw me off into the fight too. So I didn't believe that he was really that scared of me. But the look in his eyes, it really did show that he was scared. I saw some people say, well, what he was scared of was getting tired. Do you buy that, or was he frightened in your judgment of exchanging or taking a shot or something? Yeah, I was believing he was scared taking a shot because it was there. Just as much as it was there for me.

ever seen something like that before? Never, never. And hopefully it will never happen again. So you never know in these situations like this. All right, so USC 229, you're supposed to be in the co-main event role, taking on Alexander Volkov. What do you make of him as an opponent?

Size him up for me. He's a tough guy. He's a long guy. You know, I really can't stay into his kicking range or his reach and stuff like that. You know, I believe I got to push the pace and get closer to him and really get more strikes off

than he can land on me, really. What do you think a win like that puts you in the division? You were already pretty close, sort of knocking on the door title shot as you did get the win in the last one, but we all know that that fight was probably less than inspiring for contendership hopes. What does this one do for you?

Hopefully it can be a dominated performance and it would put me right back in the place that I was supposed to be in and be a contender, a real contender, and be fighting for the belt next. Now, he called you out on Twitter. He wanted you guys to fight at UFC Moscow. You were like, Zip Chance, I'm doing that. Black Man in Moscow? No fucking way.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing, Mr. Lewis. You fought in Zagreb. You fought in Halifax. You fought in Auckland. It's not like you're not a Globetrotter. So why not Moscow? Oh, no, I've just seen too many movies.

and too many news channels and too many rumors and stuff like that would go down in Russia and especially in Moscow you know, even though they had the FIFA Cup out there and I just didn't feel comfortable

going out there. What are some countries you don't feel comfortable fighting in? Of course, Germany, Russia. Germany is a wonderful place, Derek. Europe's largest economy. Yeah, I'm sure for you, for you, I'm sure all day long it's wonderful.

With no worries for you, you could just keep walking straight. You don't never have to turn your back on nothing. All right, fair enough. Germany, Russia, anything else? That's about it. Yeah, all right. Well, I'll let you have seen. That was closer to Germany and Russia.

Probably Turkey, too. I don't know. I probably got to do my research on Turkey. Turkey's having problems right now anyway. Okay, you won't go there. You are going to be taking him on it. UFC 229 is in the co-main event role. This will put you in a particularly great spot.

Do you feel like, yes, you want to recapture what was kind of lost from momentum in the last fight, but do you feel like you owe it to anybody? Is that the right way to frame it? No, I really feel like I don't hold it to no one, but I do know that I have to perform a little better than I did my last fight, Just for myself, you know, I'm still not really satisfied with my performance, you know.

I believe I owe it to myself. I think I spoke to you last time and you were taking your kids to go see the Incredibles 2. And I remember if I recall this distinctly, they wanted to see the Jurassic Park movie. And you were like, no chance we're seeing that garbage. But we will go see The Incredibles 2. How was The Incredibles 2? Incredibles 2 is real good. We liked it.

We all liked it. We laughed at. Jurassic Park was a big disaster. So you did end up seeing? We was all disappointed. Yeah, we seen both. The same day? No, the next day.

You just movie past it? Yeah. I actually fell asleep in the Incredibles, but it was still good, though. Did you see Mission Impossible? I seen that. It was good, right? It was okay. Yeah, it was okay.

A bunch of countries, you won't fight him. Not at all. Not even go visit, not even on my plane the lane there for one hour. And how are the Houston Dynamo doing this season? And for folks who are a minute, I know this is a real thing. You are legitimately a big soccer fan, right? Yes. So how are the Houston Dynamo doing?

We're doing good right now. We're doing good. We're doing real good. I think we'll make the playoffs. We'll probably win the championship this year. I can't name one Houston Dynamo player. Tell me who's a really good player for your team. Derek Lewis.

I'm alternate. Did you see old man Wayne Rooney for my team last night for D.C. United? Yeah, that was a crazy. It was a good hustle by him, you know, by him being that old and running down there on the other end of the court or field. Yeah. Saving it, then coming back, then doing a little lob kick. And that was pretty good.

How come you don't watch European soccer? It was boring. It's better than MLS. Nah. We got the real soccer. MLS is the real soccer. Oh, there's a lot of Europeans pulling their hair out right now. We got to get you watching some European soccer, and then we can debate that.

How's that sound? No chance. I won't watch the U. and I can know. I got it all blacked out on my TV. All right. I got the force package for MNS. All right.

Fair enough. I don't know why you like MLS as much as you do, but I respect the originality, Mr. Lewis. The only thing I would say is you've got to get a shape up on that beard. Good, sir. It's in need of some help. Yeah, well, I'm about to get on it. Actually, tomorrow, just for you.

All right. I appreciate that, Mr. Lewis. Thank you for spending some time with us, and I can't wait to see you back in the cage at UFC 229. Thank you. Thank you for them. All right, there he goes. He is about his original a personality as they come.

And I know people are like, oh, my God, more soccer talk. He's a legitimate Houston Dynamo fan. He can describe to you, like, in detail, like how their offenses were, how their offense works, the shape they like to keep, whether they play like a 4141 or a 4-4-2 or whatever. he's that guy. It's pretty incredible. And he told me he doesn't watch fights. Can you believe that? Like, doesn't watch fights in his free time. Watches the Incredibles with his kids.

Fell asleep. Jurassic Park. Hated it. And Houston Dynamo. I don't get it either. I don't get it either. But there we are. Speaking of movie recommendations, I've been telling everybody about this. I think I had a tweet storm about it yesterday. Let me make a very, very quick recommendation while we wait for our next guest. I don't like MMA movies. They're all pretty bad.

I don't like most MMA books. They're all pretty bad. And this one's not MMA, but it's Maitai. At least has a bunch of Maitai in it. It really kind of centers around it to a degree. A prayer before dawn. You can get it at most streaming services. I watched it on Fendango now.

I've tweeted it out for YouTube movies if you want to see it there. It's essentially the true story of this boxer, although the actor was from Liverpool. I don't know about the original guy, who ends up in Thailand, drug addicted, I'm not doing any spoilers, drug addicted and just miserable, lonely, culturally isolated, and ends up through a series of missteps in Thai prison, not only in Thai prison, but in a notorious Thai prison, where he essentially not only fights for survival, but among a number of other things he has to grapple with, as I mentioned, personal isolation, cultural isolation, addiction issues, violence issues, and he finds there's a sort of a team inside the prison that guys used to cope and he fights for the team. And I'm making it sound almost like a teen drama with this very, very quick summation.

Let me tell you something. I don't know if it's the best martial arts movie because it's not designed to be that. It's designed to be a real film told through this cauldron of struggle. In big part of it was Muay Thai. but it's the best movie I've ever seen that has martial arts in it. It's not the best martial arts movie. Like, it's not, it's not the raid. It's not enter the dragon.

It's not any of those things. But it's, it's incredible. I don't know how else to say it. It's just one of the best movies you could possibly see. So a prayer before dawn. One word of warning, though. the movie is incredibly violent. And I don't mean violent like if you've seen zombie movies and or even the Walking Dead and people's guts are spilling out and they're getting stabbed in the eye socket.

It's not violent in the cartoonish, gory way. It's much more, certainly it's much more visceral, much more real. And I do not recommend certainly no children. And I would honestly, I would caution against teenagers probably watching it below a certain level. It is, it is, they say the UFC's as real as it gets. No, no. A prayer before dawn is about as real as it gets. That is a sensational piece of movie making.

All right, we go from one esteemed guest to the next. This gentleman is the brains behind the operation of Bellator, previously strike force. You all know him, you love him. Scott Coaker joins us here on the line. Scott, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you, Luke? I'm good.

I haven't talked to you in a while, Scott. I hope things are well. I know you're deeply saddened by the Warriors offseason. All they managed to pick up was Boogie Cousins. It's going to be a rough year for you guys. You know, I think we're going to be okay. And I'm looking forward to going to the games. They start, I want to stay in October, so it's not that far away.

And I can't believe the basketball season is already back. It really is. Let's talk about MMA, though. Let's start things there. You know, I got to tell you, this is dead serious. I am really legitimate. very excited for the launch of DeZone. I can't wait to sign up. But there's a larger conversation I think needs to be had here. And I'm wondering what your perspective is.

Why is it that in the MMA, the organizations are really the early adopters of the streaming model? As you know, UFC will be on ESPN Plus. You're going to have a substantial amount of inventory that's going to end up on DeZone, at least in its initial stage. Is it just the timing of the TV deals? Why do you think MMA organizations are early adopters. You know, I think it comes down to our audience. And believe me, all ESPN and DeZone and I'm sure other, you know, streaming platforms have done their due diligence.

And really it comes down to our fan base is, you know, a loyal fan base and then we'll follow the fighters that we have under our league. So that's really what it came down to. And that's what DeZone told us. They said, like, you know, when we did our studies, we proved, you know, they were in the, sorry, they were, they were the belief that wherever the fighters would go, that's where the fans would go. And I believe that as well. I mean, really, at the end of the day, it's about the athletes and the fighters. And DeZone is a company that's, you know, they're in the, not just the media business, but they're in the, you know, the business of information.

and, you know, as far as gathering all that data, and, you know, they have a ton of data, and that's what the data proved is that they will follow the fighters, and that's why, you know, Beltor's such a great fit for DeZone, as well as U.S.E for ESPN. What's interesting to me as well as John Skipper, of course, has a big role to play in the operation of DeZone. It was believed for a long time when he was at ESPN. That was part of the reason why MMA wasn't there. He just didn't seem to be a big fan of it. That does not appear to be true at all in this case.

How receptive is John Skipper to MMA content? You know, I had a nice conversation with him at the boxing disown press conference. They had with Eddie Hearn and AJ in New York City, probably about a month ago. And, you know, we had a nice conversation with Skipper, and he was into it. You know, in the past, I agree with you. I mean, I think he was a little bit hesitant, but, you know, I think that was just a different time, you know, just a different era. That wasn't a long ago, but things changed in the sports business, and, you know, they launched a new platform. And so, you know, I think that, you know, having MAA on there made sense.

And for him to come to his own, I mean, to me, that's a great asset. Because, look, this will be a company, I promise you, that in four years or three years, you know, they're going to go after the NFL. They're going to go after NBA. They're going to go after WWE. They're going to go after everybody that they can. And so this is not going to just be a fight streaming service. This is going to be a sports platform. If you go to their platform in Japan, let's say, they have Major League Baseball from Japan,

but they also have Major League Baseball from the United States. They have WWE. They have the NFL. Even in Canada, I think they have the NFL up the rights up there for digital streaming. So you're talking about a company that, you know, right now cannot, you know, go after these rights because they're obviously tied up. But in three years or four years when the rights open up, they will be a bidder against all the big boys going after those rights.

One of the great things about the streaming platforms that live behind paywalls, it's a new bundle if you think about it, whether it's the ESPN Plus side, whether it's DeZone, as you mentioned, it will have boxing, it'll have Bellator. We'll see what else they're able to add. But it's a bundle, right? You pay for a service and you can sort of pick and choose what you want in there. To me, the plus side to that is that's a really sustainable business. model, Scott, but I wonder, do you have any concerns? And maybe this is just me speaking

irrationally, and if it is, by all means, let me know. On the plus side, I think it's a very sustainable model. I do have some concerns about the ability of that kind of content to stand out beyond the audiences that already like it. Do you share any of my concerns? Well, I think that, like, you know, when you talk about the zone specifically, again, it's not going to be just, you know, a platform that's just for fighting or, you know, I mean, I believe that they'll have, you know, like surfing on there. They're going to have some type of, you know, let's say, you know, baseball, major league baseball at some point.

I think they're going to go after the big ones. And I think they're in it for the law and the sense that they know that it's going to be three years before they can even start bidding for, you know, the four big sports here in the USA. And so they're going to grind it out and they're going to grind it out with combat sports because they know that combat sports can deliver an audience. And if you think about, you know, what a great. great value it is, paying $9.99 a month, instead of buying two or three pay-per-views a year, it's a great deal because easily the fight that we're doing on the 29th could be a pay-per-view

fight. I mean, that's a big fight card. And that's what they want to put on there. They want to put on our biggest fights and, you know, put them on the DeZone platform. And so not only are they going to just get our big fights for the World Trophy tournament, but they also will get, you know, you get all the boxing from Eddie Hearn, as well as the Super Series tournament that they just signed up from the UK, I believe it, throughout Europe. So if you're a combat sports fan, it's a great value. Is Belator, at least for the time being out of the pay-per-view business, or rather, not that you're not trying to produce that kind of quality card, but that you wouldn't actually

put it on pay-per-view, you just put it on DeZone? Yeah, I mean, we have the right. you know, to do pay-per-view with our deal with DeZone. But, you know, they, you know, James Rushton and I spoke about his philosophy and what he wants to try to accomplish. And, you know, he would like to make it where, you know, people don't have to go to pay-per-view. They go straight to DeZone and watch the fights there.

And he said, you know, we want you to put on the biggest fight card that you can. And at that time, it was, you know, Rory fighting Gagher was like, people were talking about that fight. So he signed it and Rampage and Van der Leight. as well as a tournament launch. I mean, this is a fight that a year ago we put on pay-per-view from MSG. And this one, we said, okay, let's hold it on pay-per-view because DeZone wants to put it on for their inaugural launch.

And we're really excited about the 29th of September. It's going to be a big, big, big event. This is a bit of a loaded question, so I apologize for answering in a loaded way, but at least I'm acknowledging it's loaded up front, yeah? long term, is Belator a better fit for DeZone or Paramount Network? You know, I'll tell you, that's a very good question, and I think that you have to have both. I think that you, you know, to have a sports streaming platform like DeZone makes a lot of sense.

But I think it's a, you know, linear TV is also going to be important. So they complement each other, in my opinion. And that's why, you know, we have, you know, an offering of 15 fights on Paramount and then seven on the zone. I think that's a perfect, perfect number. It's a good fit. And I think you still need to stay on linear TV in today's world. But who knows, you know, that could change. And, you know, when you talk about Paramount, it's like, you know, they have some, you know, the Yellowstone show that they just, you know, came out of the box super hot with.

They've been killing it over there with a couple of their shows. and, you know, it's nice to see our promos running on it, and they still love Bellator, man. Kevin Kaye loves M.A. and he's pushing it, so, you know, we're happy to have both. Fair enough. Let's get to some of the specifics here you have going on. Scott, I've got to tell you of all the things I've seen you do under the Bellator banner. Now, Strike Force is a little bit different, obviously, but certainly under the Bellator banner, the announcement and the way you guys have put together this Walterweight tournament, this might be the best reviewed thing. It hasn't even happened yet.

people are ecstatic about it. There's very little to complain about it. But let me actually ask you, where do you think this ranks relative to the Strike Force Heavyweight Grand Prix? Which tournament from the outset do you think is going to end up being better? Boy, that's a good question. Because if you look at all the killers we had in 2011, when we launched the World Grand Prix Heavyweight Tournament for Strike Force,

you had Alistair. And I mean, listen, the guy that won it was the second alternate. That was Daniel Corriere, fighting as a heavyweight. So, you know, it's a tough one. I think that the fight, the action that you'll see on the 29th will be much faster, explosive. And we got, we got, you know, killers on this tournament for the Walter Ways. And when you think about Karechkoff and Lima and Rory and Daley and MVP, I mean, it's going to test a lot of people.

And, you know, I think that that's – to me, they – They go neck and neck because, you know, the Headweight World Grand Prix was something that, you know, I was extremely proud of putting together, and it was really eight of the best heavy weights in the world at that time. And I feel the same way about this tournament here for the Welch weights. What was the last time you can remember a fighter having two different fights and two different weight classes scheduled at the same time? Rory McDonald's, well, he has his hands full. Have you ever heard – can you remember any situation like this before? You know, it's extreme. I never have.

And I'll tell you, I have never met a fighter like Rory. And here's what I mean by that. It's like he fights Douglas Lima in January. And he calls me up two weeks later. And again, you know, he was, you know, he took a pounding in that fight. Two weeks later, he calls me and he's like, I'm ready to schedule a fight. I said, Rory, no, no, no, you need to put on the brakes here for a second. You know, let's just rest.

He's like, no, no, I'm ready. I'm just about, you know, able to walk, and I still have a limp, but I think I can start training in another week. And I like, this guy's nuts. I mean, he just wants to fight. He wants to stay busy. He just wants to, you know, get out there and compete. So I think it's my job to slow him down. And, you know, but he's chomping in a bit.

And he wanted to fight with Gaggard. And Gaggard wanted to fight him. And they want to test themselves. And then, you know, we'll give Rory a three-month break. I think he's actually going on a holiday of vacation, which is probably very very very. very rare for him and his family, and they're going to, you know, be gone for, I think, two or three weeks, and then he'll come back, and then he'll start training and he'll go to camp, and then he'll be ready for, you know, his round of the tournament, which had happened,

I want to say, in February at some point. Let's get to some of the specifics. Shirley, Scott Coker, surely MVP versus Daley is going to take place in the UK, right? You know, that's something that hasn't been determined yet, because, again, we have a partnership with DeZone and the World War II Turner lives on DeZone and we're in conversations with them but it has to make sense for them as well. So that fight

hopefully it will end up in the UK but I can't guarantee it at this point. Fair enough to say though that Bellator is making some kind of a pivot to Europe you guys are doing more chores than ever. You sign 20 plus guys across numerous weight classes recently. Why the strong belief in a

European future for your organization? You know when you think about you know, the fight, the MMA fighting across the world has grown so much and even in you know, the fights that we put on in

let's say in Italy for the last three years, when we first got to Italy, the town level was low. No one had seen like an MA fight card or fighters at the level that we had brought. And, you know, it took about

three years for now the fighters to really embrace it, the fans to embrace it, TV to embrace it. But there's great potential in the UK and in Western Europe. And so we're starting an eight-fight Western Europe league next year. It'll be kind of live on its own. It'll be for the European market. And it'll be televised in their in their time slot, prime time, instead of having to wait until 4 in the morning to get our broadcast here. But we're going to customize and localize a product just for them. And you'll see a lot of, you know, you'll see a lot of fights between, you know, London versus Ireland and Spain versus, you know, Italy.

And there'll be a lot of Italian fights and a lot of Spanish fighters, a lot of, we're going to try to recruit some French fighters because at some point, you know, that's going to be open. And I'm sure everybody's going to be trying to get there. But, you know, we feel good about going to France and Paris and doing a fight at some point. But, you know, the fighters, we have so many great fighters under contract now in the U.K. market, and between that, in Ireland and the surrounding countries like Amsterdam, I mean, Holland, which is, you know, we're so close to London. It's, you know, a lot of great talent, a lot of great television opportunities, a lot of great sponsorship opportunities, and we're going to provide a product that's customized for them.

Very quickly, because I got some other questions I want to ask you about, Is that also going to be called Bellator or is it going to have some kind of a different name? No, it'll be called Bellator, but it will probably create a different numbering system for the UK series or the European series. Got it. Okay, very cool. A couple more things I want to get to when we have you on the phone. Number one, do we have an opponent or a date either for the Bellator debut of one Leota Machita? We're working on that right now, actually, and hopefully we'll have something in the next day or so. but, you know, I would say, you know, to put it on your calendar that he would probably fight in the end of October, maybe early November, but the opponent has not been finalized, and we're working on that right now. Does Eddie Alvarez have a future in your organization potentially?

You know, I don't think we've talked to Eddie, but listen, if he wants to reach out and have a conversation and he's truly a free agent, and we're not interfering in anybody's contract, we would love to talk. to him. I think the guy, you know, has done a lot of good work and building his brand here in the U.S. Obviously, you know, he had some great fights here with Michael Chandler in the past. But, you know, we want to talk to every free agent that's out there that is a big star, and I think he's still a big star. How is the free agent market these days? You know what? You know, it's like there's somebody here and there's somebody there, and then, you know, it's like, you know, it's not. It's not like there's, you know, hundreds or even tens and 20s of athletes. It's more of, you know, a big star here or a big star here or a medium star there.

But they are out there, Luke, and we've been plucking them away, you know, one by one. And we're going to keep shopping, and we're going to keep growing this roster. And in the meantime, we're going to keep growing up like we are with Pico and Gallagher and Darren Caldwell's fighting this weekend, who's just an amazing fighter. And then we have AJ McKee. So we're going to keep growing up from the ground up and then buy them from the top down. And that's what's worked for me in the past with Strike Force. And I think we're doing a great job over here.

And this roster looks nothing like it did four years ago. It's a much different, you know, fight roster than we had. So it's something we're proud of. And it's not easy to do. But I think we have a good handle on it. It's certainly true. A couple of more questions here very quickly. is it my recollection that the Ruth Neiman Gracie fight,

because we're going to have Ed on the show a little bit later, that was your original alternate, and as I recall, it got bracketed back in. So if my memory serves, why the switch from alternate to hardcore? You know, the switch is really based on Lorenz saying, you know, instead of waiting until next year to fight, Roy, I'd rather just fight now and stay sharp, and I'm okay being an alternate in the tournament.

And so when he took that position, then we said, okay, then we got to move things around, and then, you know, that becomes the alternate fight. And now the guys don't have to fight for their slots. We can just slot them in. And I think that's going to be a very interesting fight, that Neme and Gracie gets into the fight. You know, it's going to be the wrestler versus the grappler. And then it's starting to learn how to strike. You know, it's going to be very interesting. I'm really, really looking forward to that fight.

I actually totally agree. I think it's actually a good test for Ed Ruth and Neiman Gracie has I think a bit of a narrower skill set than some but just the right kind to give Ed a run for his money at least in his first real big fight. Very quickly, Aaron Pico, man, this kid he just won't stop stepping on the gas pedal, huh?

He has looked amazing since his initial stumble taking on Leandro Ego. For folks who may not know, Leandro Ego is a very legitimate fighter. Do you guys have any concerns that like, you know, he got into a little trouble in his first fight maybe trying to bite off more than he can chew. Don't get me wrong, he has looked incredible since then,

but he's right back to doing that again. This is a very serious challenge. Yeah, it's a big step. But I feel good about it, and you know what? At the end of the day, he has to feel good about it, and his coaches and his trainers, his management team, his whole infrastructure there, they need to feel comfortable about it. And they do.

And so, you know, it's going to be another test for Aaron. And let's see what happens. I mean, that's, you know, that's the beauty of MMA is that, you know, on September 29th, they're going to step into a cage and they're going to figure it out. Bellator 204 is going to be about what, this Friday, I believe, right? August 17th, if I'm not mistaken. One last name before you go. You mentioned Daryon Caldwell is going to be fighting against Noad LaHot,

but I'm also looking at this one. Logan Storley, he has quietly put together a very thing. very impressive game. He is a Walterweight fighter. He is a decorated wrestler. Is it possible that if it comes down to it and you needed another alternate for whatever reason in your tournament, is Logan Storley a guy who in that

scenario could be slotted in? You know, we haven't talked about that, but, you know, is it possible? Boy, you know, that's something where, you know, I would want to make sure that he's ready because that could be a big, a

jump from, you know, fighting, you know, in, like a monthly, you know, event and just coming on board, and he's only had, I think, one or two fights with us, and then, you know, to take that step up, and then all of a sudden you're fighting Douglas Lima or Roy McDonald. That might be a big step, but, you know, we would definitely, you know, monitor what happens this weekend. And, you know, if you look for you, this just looks like a beast, maybe, you know, we would consider it. But, you know, I like to give the guys a chance to really grow and really, you know, get to the point where they're ready to compete at the highest level and then give them opportunities. But he's a kid that were really high on, and he came highly recruited. Everybody was talking about this guy, and, you know, I'm sure every organization was trying to sign him. And, you know, luckily he came with us, and I'm looking forward to, you know, see what he has.

All right. Well, Belton, also, by the way, on that card for folks who may not know, you should know now, Daryne Cardwell is going to be on it. Logan Storley, as I mentioned. James Galaher will be on the card as well. So August 17th at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Scott, it's going to be a long NBA season, but I'll be thinking about you through those many losses, okay? You know what? I hope I can kind of on one hand. you probably can you probably can it's going to be one hell of a season to watch i'm actually like i actually think they might have five losses or less honestly i'm saying it's going to be a lot of fun and you know what listen people people bag on us and give us a hard time but you know what i went through probably you know 25 years of dark ages with the warriors that i so state a fan so i'm happy to uh to engage in and in the uh in the gluttony of it all all right

All right, Scott, thank you so much for your time today and looking forward to this Welterweight tournament and a whole lot more. Appreciate it. All right, thanks, Luke. Bye. There he goes. I haven't talked to him in a while, man. I missed out all those DeZone pressers and everything else in between.

So that's been something to watch. Let me get a sip of this water. All right, we are trying to locate one, Kamar Oussman. In the meantime, that Beltor Walthaway Tourment, I mentioned something. We're going to have Ed Ruth on the show. He's not just another wrestler.

Like, that's not who. who he is. He is a guy who if you took the 10 best collegiate wrestlers of all time, right? Now, there might be guys who did more on the international scene afterwards. Obviously, he made, I think, one or two attempts at a world team and then focus on MMA. So there's guys who might have gone on to do more on that level, but just inside the collegiate ranks, you know, you've got, you've got your Dakes, Sanderson's, Smiths, you've got, well, you've got a bunch of them, but you got to add Ruth's name to the list. Top 10 all time in college. All right. But we'll get to him a little bit later. Let's get to our guest now. I believe we have him on Skype. So let's go to the magic of Skype.

He is going to be, what do you want to call him, an alternate or something for the UFC 228 main event? The Nigerian nightmare is here. The one and only, Kamaru Usman. Kamara, how are you? I'm wonderful, man. It's a pleasure to be back on the show, Lou. It's always a pleasure to have you. So walk me through it. They called you and they said, Kamara, we have an opportunity. we think, here's what it is. Lay out for me the call. How did you get the selection to do this? And why did you say yes?

It wasn't really a selection process, things like that. I believe that I should have been the rightful guy fighting in the first place for that belt. But as soon as they announced the fight that those two were going to be fighting, which I kind of had an inclination. That was what was going to be happening when I was in Vegas. is for Fight Week. And so as soon as my, I got the okay to start working with my hands, I came back and I was in training right away.

And I was already training before they announced the fight. But I mean, that's, so I was going to try to make weight regardless of whether they called me or not. I was going to be in Dallas. That's my hometown. I mean, what, what? That's my fight. That's a perfect fight for me.

So, you know, I was training already. and fortunately they were just like, hey, you know, I want you to stand by for this, but I was going to do that anyways. They didn't have to tell me I was going to be there on weight, whether they were going to try to compensate me to be there or not. I was going to do it for free because that was rightfully my shot. We'll see how things play out.

Now, you have to do everything, right? You've got to go there, you've got to train. You actually have to weigh in, right? Like, you've got to go through the entire process because even if they all weigh in, God knows if something happens on fight day, that's when you come in. So this is a full process like any other fight camp, right? Yeah.

It's, you know, I'm not, I'm not, you know, God forbid anything negative happens to any of the fighters. That's not my plan at all. I don't, I'm not praying for that. I'm not hoping for that. You know, if Theron Till is able to make weight, more power to him. I want him to be able to make way. and get his shot. And if Tyrant is able to, everything is fine with him, more power to them.

But my dreams, I've dreamt that this was the process of how I become champion. So nothing changes for me. I'm going to go through the only difference from this and an actual scheduled bout for me is there's a little less. There's a little less of that pressure, a little less of that anxiety that you feel. Because once you have an opponent in your mind that you have to train for, you're working on specifics. Oh, I got to do this or do that to try to mimic. I got to get guys and mimic this. This is just a little different process to where I don't have to do that.

I'm just training hard, doing the things that I'm good at. And kind of, of course, roundabout way doing some of the, you know, mimicking some of the things that these guys are good at. But it's just a little less stress. I actually kind of prefer it this way because I'm just going to show up and do my job. Yeah, see, you're all smiles, but you're usually all smiles, so that's not all that different. But let me ask you this. It's just my job to ask questions. Are they paying you the same?

How is that supposed to work out? I mean, of course they're not going to pay you the same. Because what if both guys do make weight, which I fully expect, then, you know, it's kind of tough for them to pay you a full, you know, fight purse when you don't, you know, you don't even fight. So, yeah, it's not the full pay. but, you know, I can't complain. Like I said, I would have done it for free anyways. You know, it was funny. I was telling this to James Vic.

I had interviewed him for like months on end. And he was saying, I can't get someone in the top 10 to fight me. I can't get someone in the top 10 to fight me. A story and a refrain. You were dealing with it for a long time. And then somebody falls out and then you step in or someone else steps in on their behalf. And the game changes instantly. It's how you got the Maya fight when it was supposed to be somebody else before that.

Boom. Now you've got to win over somebody in the top five, right? Here's another scenario. I've made this point before, Kamar. I wonder if you agree. Your best chance in the modern UFC to climb the rankings or whatever, get a title shot is just to be ready.

Absolutely. I mean, even now I'm still having that problem. It's not, oh, I had that problem and then I fought Damien Maia, now it's all going. I'm still having that problem. I'm still having that problem getting guys that are ahead of me to fight me.

That's been an issue because, now that I've, for years, for years I was hanging around that 13, 11, 13 area in the rankins trying to get these top 10 guys, but nobody wanted to be the guy to take the loss in the top 10, then have them fall out of the top 10. So that was their excuse for a long time. Now, I don't want to fight that guy. Let him prove himself against a top 10 guy first before I get to fight him. And so fortunately, once I fought Damien Maill, boom, now I'm there.

I'm still having a hard time with those guys. Now, guys like, of course, Massifal is like, oh, I'm going to call this guy out. Okay, that fight makes no sense. And then you've got Neomagny, and he goes on air and says, oh, well, you called me out for two years. Now it's time to fight.

Oh, really? What happened two years ago? Now that makes no sense. And then look at guy like Santiago Ponsinovo. I was supposed to fight him in Chile. This was his event because he's the South America. guy. They were going to use him to break those new markets. Supposed to fight him in Chile.

You know, he falls out. Now he's got a bout in Argentina. What? When the right foot, the right person like, okay, you know what? I want that back. You ranked ahead of me. I want that fight back. But what does he say? He comes out and says, you know what? No, let me, RDA, let's put on a good performance. No, you don't call out somebody that's ranked ahead of me when you didn't even beat me. You didn't even fight me. You sit down. Let me do my work against everybody right the head.

Then you guys can have whatever I have left. So, you know, I'm still having a hard time with those guys. But RDA, if I do fight anybody besides winning the title, September 8, it's going to be RDA. Why just him? I mean, that's really the only fight that makes sense. I mean, he just fought for an interim title. That's the fight that puts me right there. I'm not getting till, which I wanted, not getting him.

Coventon, four times I've been offered that fight. He's declined each and every want. Not getting that guy. So the only guy left to put me right there is RDA. You've been offered the Covington fight four times? Four times. Wow, that is crazy. He is four times I've been offered that fight.

He said no. And even they tried to make that fight again, November 30th. They offered me a fight. I said, absolutely. I will wait for that fight. Because actually, they offered me RDA in Brazil for that main event that Glover and Jimmy Mandowa got. Yeah. I was offered that fight.

But I said, yes, I'm ready. I'll take the fight. But he said no. He said something. He was dealing with something. I don't know whether he went on vacation or something with his ear or it doesn't matter. He turned it down or he didn't he wasn't ready to fight. So that's fine.

But that's the only fight that interests me. But once they came, they came up and they said, hey, we'll give you Coventon on the 30th. Are you interested in that? Absolutely. That's the one guy that I really, really have malicious intent to hurt inside that case. And so, of course, they offered me that. Of course, I jumped at it. But then he goes to the White House, comes back.

back and says, you don't want it, and I don't want to fight. So that's crazy, but I thought he, and I could be wrong about this, I haven't spoken to him in the last, for a while now. My understanding was he turned down the September fight because he would be ready by October November. That was my timeline. Did the UFC give you any indication about why he ultimately declined? No, no.

But, I mean, this was a thing. You taught, you taught for a long time that you want the title fight. That's fine. Now, they give you the title fight. September 8th, that's your event. But you know what? No, I'm not ready. He goes comes out and says, no, you know what?

This is my timeline. I'm going to fight when they're ready to fight. Like, this is my belt. I'm going to, you're not the champ. You're the interim guy. You're just a placeholder. The champ is ready to go. They give you the opportunity.

You turn it down. So they went with the next guy. They went with Darren Till. And then, so you have to sit and wait. Like, God forbid something happens to the guys that fight September 8th and they have to be out for a while. So that means what? You're not going to fight forever until they're ready?

No, so they offered me that fight. You said you'd be ready in November. They offered me to fight in November. I accepted. He says no. Once again, for the fourth time. Let's go back to September 8th. What is your thought process about what's going to happen that day?

Do you think to yourself, oh, I'm much more likely to fight Woodley than Till or vice versa, or just a nameless opponent? or even, do you even try to tell yourself, well, maybe nothing happens, so try to stay focused? How are you emotionally centering yourself in terms of your expectations for Saturday, September 8th?

I'm completely content. I'm not swaying one way or the other. I'm prepared for just... I'm prepared for anything. I'm down for whatever, and I'm riding for whatever. If Till makes weight and Woodley, This is the thing. I'm going to break it down.

Woodley doesn't, it's not, for Woodley, it's not about making the weight. That's not the issue. Woodley's a wrestler. It's not about making the weight. If Woodley doesn't fight, it's about something else.

Something else happens. So that's the only reason Woodley's out. But with Darren Till, I mean, he showed that it gets a weight issue. I mean, he's a big guy. It's not his fault. He's just grown. He's a human being. He's a big guy.

So with Till, it could be a weight issue and it could be something else. But that's what I figure with both of those guys. With Willie, it's not going to be a weight issue. If he doesn't fight, it has to do with something else. But with Till, it could be a number of a few things. But I'm ready for either one of those. And I'm also ready if nothing happens. Nothing happens. I make wait, I did it in college for free every weekend for what, seven months or whatever. So, hey.

Do you have a preference about who you'd like to fight? If you had a, if you could choose? Absolutely. Absolutely. Woon Woodley. That's a champ. That's, I'd rather fight for the belt than just another fight. No, no. Oh, I see. Right. Because if Tyron falls out, then it would be, what, a non-title affair

or something or whatever it would be? It would be just non-title fight. just, it would just be a main event, five rounds. I guess what I mean is independent, sorry, let me clarify the question, this is a bad question. Take out the belt as a part of the equation. In terms of opponents, and not as men either, but as opponents, who would you rather face? As opponents? They're very, very different fighters, right?

Yeah, very different fighters, but without, take the belt out, but is Woodley the champion? Are we looking at Woodley as a champion? or it doesn't matter. We're looking at them as just as opponents. The latter. Just as opponents. For now. Just as opponents.

Of course, I'd rather Till. Why? He's a bigger guy. He's a bigger guy. He's right now, he's got the wave. He's got, he's got the, you know, the whole country, you know, behind him. He's that face guy that the UFC's really behind and they're really trying to push. So, yeah, I would want Till.

for sure, absolutely. If you were Darren, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. And plus, he hasn't really been tested. That, that, everybody wants to see that ground game. Everybody wants to see that ground game tested. So, of course, I want to test that as well. I want to see what he possesses down there when he's put on his back. This is sort of a weird question of just trying to get inside of a fighter's mind.

If you were the size of Darren Till, would you even try to make Walter Wade? I'm sure you've seen the video where he went blind. literally trying to make it. That seems like a bridge too far. When he went what? Blind. You didn't see this? Who went blind?

Darren Till went temporarily blind trying to make weight against Stephen Thompson, yes. Wow, I did not see that. Well, this is my reasoning. With that Stephen Thompson fight, you were given ample amount of time. You knew about that for a while. you were training, you were training,

they were basically trying to get Wonder Boy to take the fight and fly where they were fighting. But you had ample amount of time. You didn't have to travel. You were in your hometown. You slept in your own bed. And things still got in the way of you making that weight. Now, when you don't have ample amount of time,

pretty much you had 48 days pretty much to train for the fight and get down to wait. And I saw him in Vegas. He was with me in Vegas. He's a big guy, a really big guy. So now with 48 days to make the weight and you have to travel to America, it makes it a lot more difficult to make that weight. So, I mean, it's going to be tough for him. It's tough for everybody.

It's tough for me. I have to make weight as well. And now it's starting to play in my mind. I have to worry about that as well. So it's tough for anybody. But for him, especially, it's going to be tough. It's like what it reminds me of is Anthony Johnson continuously trying to make 170 back in the day.

And this was the same struggle, and I bet it's the same for him. Let's play analyst for just a second with you, Camaro. If that fight does go forward, Till was Woodley very quickly, how does that one go down? I don't know. I've learned to not make a precise... I'm looking at it from both ways. If Till is going to win, he's got to keep the distance and sharpshoot from the outside and try to land something big and possibly hurt Woodley. If Woodley's going to win, he's got to get on the inside.

And, of course, he's got to use his All-American wrestling. You got to. Pull Till on his back, make him feel what it's like to have someone grab his leg to where he has to fight hard to get away. Because I don't think he feels that every day. I don't think he's felt what we've dealt with for years and years and years drilling the same. technique for years and years to get there. So if I was willing, I would make him feel that. Then once you've broke him down a little bit, then you can start bombing off. I wouldn't just stand in and try to trade with the guy that's, you saw, we all saw the stare down.

I mean, it was like a lightweight fighting almost a middle way. Yeah. Kamaru, I am looking forward to September 8th. I don't know what your participation will be, but certainly we are hoping for the best. One piece of unsolicited advice, I had a house fireman. You got to update your smoke alarm. I can hear it beeping in the back. You're that beeping on the battery? Yeah. It started last night. I'm not. I kid you not. I'm laying in bed. Then I start hear beep. I'm like, oh shit. So I got to go get some batteries and update that. Dude, get that 9 volt. We don't want anything to happen to you. All right, Kamaru. Thank you so much, man. Looking forward to September 8th, one way or the other, okay?

All right. Appreciate it. Thank you guys. Yes, sir. There he goes. We go from one great wrestler to maybe one of the greatest wrestlers that the American Collegiate System has literally ever seen. He's going to be facing Neiman Gracie in the opening, well, one of the quarterfinal bouts of the, well, excuse me, the Bellator-Waltrow Waltrow-Waltrow Grand Prix. Ed, Ruth joins us here on the show. Ed, how are you? I'm doing great, yourself. I'm doing very good, Ed. Ed, I got to say, man, I am so excited to see that you are going to get to participate in this tournament. We just had Scott Coker on, but let me just get your general level of enthusiasm. Is this tournament going to be the Ed Ruth coming out party for MMA?

You know, honestly, I feel like it is. And, you know, and I just feel like it's great to have like this to actually come out too, you know, I actually have something to come out too. What do you mean something to come out? Oh, you mean like this grand stage or something, right? Yeah, just the whole Grand Prix thing surrounding it. You know what's interesting, you mean? You know, most guys don't even get that. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just saying like most guys don't even get that opportunity, you know. Yeah, it's true.

You know, your career is so interesting, right? You have been really slow rolling it inside MMA. You've been taking tough fights and you've been doing great. You're undefeated 6 and 0, only have the, what, the one decision. But you're slowly just putting together experience. Why have you taken this path inside MMA when I'm going to make up an example here? Aaron Pico is just like screaming. to get to the top of the division right away?

Because, you know, for me, it was more, I just didn't want to just jump into the sport and then kind of just kind of try and coast off of past accomplishments. You know, as an athlete, building myself, I've always been somebody who's been in the process of building myself personally as a human being. And, you know, I never thought that I would just go into M.A. And just start fighting the top guys, by the way.

And, like, that never crossed my mind. I really thought that I'd come into the sport and I'd fight every single person that came across my path, and then I become the best fighter, you know, and I just took the same mindset in the wrestling, and I took that in the fighting, you know, and that's how my career has kind of been going. You know, I can't, I really, I really wouldn't rather see any other path.

Yeah, what's interesting, though, is you know this better than I do. You lived it. There has been, I'm going to guess, at least from the outside looking in, Ed, you know, when you have the kind of resume that you did in college, people have probably been wondering, hey man, when are you going to step up and take on somebody with a big name or something? Have people been like, metaphorically speaking, knocking on your door, asking you to take really big step-ups maybe a little bit too early?

You know, if anything, I'm calling, I'm asking for them. Even if they're telling me to fight somebody that's a big step-up for me, anything that comes on the table, I'm taking the offers, any opportunity I'm taking the offers. I never really felt like they were just kind of pushing me. to four. It never felt like there's too much experience that you can get too soon. If anything, if you meet somebody too soon, I just took it as a chance to kind of learn something a little bit, a little bit better, you know. But as far as I've seen thus far, you know, everybody else kind of come across the path, you know, they just kind of just been adding more to my repertoire.

So let's talk about this matchup, Neiman Gracie. I really like this matchup for you. I think for fans who want to see you get tested, uh, he can offer that. He's a veteran. He's been around. He's got a lot of mat time. He's obviously got a specialization. And yet at the same time, this whole tournament, if you look at it the right way, could be potentially winnable for you. What is it about this matchup? Like, size him up for me and how do you feel about this pairing inside the quarterfinals? I feel like it's a good matchup too. You know, I think we're going to have like, I just expect to see, you know, us doing a little bit on the seat. But honestly, I do see I'm trying to take it to the match, trying to just take me down, trying to submit me, trying to, you know,

get a leg submission, catch me sleeping on the mat or something like that. So, you know, I feel like it's a good matchup, but, you know, I'm a guy who liked me on the feet, and I feel like, I feel like this match is going to stay on the feet. Yeah, and again, your record speaks to that. You got the KOs, the TKOs. When did you realize you really, A, like to strike and B, that it was something you could get really good at? it was actually when I was in college really

I was yeah I was actually sneaking away and going into the boxing gym because there was a boxer there and the guy I found out he was a national champ he found I was a national champ so you know he was going tip for tat and you know you teach me something and I teach him something and you know the love just kind of grew from there

that's crazy so you have made conscious decisions I'm guessing as you have gotten an MMA experience, maybe when you could have taken it down, and at times you have, but I'm guessing you've also decided to strike it out on the feet as a means of testing yourself,

getting the experience, right? All those kinds of things? Yeah, and you know, for me, when I saw a fighter, a fighter is somebody who could fight. You know, they're on their feet, they're on the ground, you know, I always wanted to be a complete fighter. And, you know, I always wanted to show people I don't need to rely on my wrestling.

My wrestling, if anything, is just, you know, it's just something that I fall back on. That's just my safety net. But if anything, I have more tools that you need to worry about. Do you feel like a lot of wrestlers have gotten that wrong coming out of college? I do.

I do feel like a lot of wrestlers kind of relied more on the strength and, you know, the physical aspect of it. You know, wrestlers, we're just sturdy or human beings by nature just because of what we've been doing for such a long time. And, you know, I feel like some guys kind of rely on that a little bit more so than relying more on their talents. It's kind of like, you know, flourishing their talents, like building their talents. You know what's crazy about this tournament and the side of the bracket that you're on? If you beat Neiman Gracie, right, you're automatically in a title fight.

And if you win that, you then have to defend that. Like, if you were slow rolling your career before while you got your feet wet, wow. You are about to hit it into overdrive. This is kind of, I don't know if I've ever seen anything like this. You must be thrilled that the title is on the line inside the tournament. Yeah, of course. You know, if anything, I'm so happy it's there. You know, that was like the biggest reason why anybody wanted to be in this Grand Prix.

And the fact that I get to fight for it, the second match, you know, that part alone, like, if I don't think about it, you know, I'm fine. but sometimes when I do think about it, it just blows my mind. So that would mean your eighth professional fight, you would be fighting for a title. Do you expect it will be Rory McDonald? I hope it is. You know, I'm not running from anybody.

You know, if you take the title, you better take it on the champion if you want to see yourself as the champion. And these six fights you've had that you have slow rolled. As I mentioned, folks, I mean, I realize you will, fought in Budapest. You fought back in, well, right outside Happy Valley, right, in University Park, Uncassville, Florence, Italy. Each fight, could you feel yourself gaining the requisite experience you needed to tell yourself, okay, I'm headed in the right direction, everything is coming together the way it should be? Yeah, definitely. You know, every time I would go out there,

you know, and then I would come back home into the gym. It was just like, I would go back and watch the fight, and I was just like, I wanted to see more of this. Or, you know, like, okay, that's why I won or, you know, this, I could have lost because of this. And, you know, every single fight, like, as soon as I get back at the gym, I'm just like, okay, I better start sparse, you know, you know, every fight, like, taught me something. What did you learn from the last one? Were you won by TK. over Andy Morad, for example? Oh, man. Sometimes I don't want to give out all my technical fault. But, you know, some of the things I saw, you know, I just, I just want to see myself with my hands a little bit higher.

you know, I want to move my feet a little bit more. I'm just, I've always been very hard on myself. And, you know, especially when it comes to your career, you've got to be your own coach. I was about to say, have you ever had to convince a coach? Like, okay, yes, coach, I know I can wrestle. Please don't make me rely upon that. Have you ever had to, like, defy a coach in that way? No, not at all.

If anything, all the coaches that have been worked away, everybody's kind of been seeing it from my angle as well. They're like, okay, you're athletic, you're fast, you have hands. I can't definitely let's develop this and keep focusing on it because, you know, they're like the wrestling aspect is good. But as you get into the higher, as you get higher and higher and fight, you know, better guys, you're going to see guys with better hands, better feet. Let's talk about the other side of the bracket. Let's play analyst for a second, Ed.

Who wins in MVP daily? Who do you think? I got to go with MVP. His striking is just, it just seems like he's hard to get in on. Daly, it doesn't seem like he has that pinpoint accuracy like MVP does. And I'm sure you saw his last fight, MVP, excuse me, Daley's last fight opposite Fitch. Did you see that? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he had to deal with a lot of wrestling, and it seemed like he was pretty pissed about it. Well, he's never been one to be shying away from his opinions. All right, so then you have Koreshkov. And Lima. Who do you like there? I don't know. That's a pretty good matchup. They're both pretty solid guys.

Lima has good power. He has good kicks, man. He has good kicks, man. I think somebody's definitely going to get knocked out, though. All right? So then you have Lima. I'm going to say Lima, right? So I'll just pick it for you.

I'm going to say Lima and MVP. Who wins Lima versus MVP if that permutation happens? Oh, man, that's a tough one. It can go either way. But I'm going to go MVP on this one. Just because he's a striker, just because he's a striker, just because he's fast and he's a striker. And I've seen people who move and they don't like getting touched,

they usually are good at avoided damage, and that's just what I've seen. So it sounds like in your mind, and this is not a crazy thought at all, that for the Belator Welterweight tournament final, it'll be champion Ed Ruth versus MVP, huh? You know, in the dream world, which I'm trying to make possible, yes, that would be it. That's crazy.

Now, I know you competed in the, what, the 20, was it the worlds or the 2017 Pan Ams in the ghee? It was actually the 2017 and the 2016. and the ghee, right? Are you going to do that going forward still? Oh, yeah, of course. I just been taking a little break from Jitsu just because, you know, I've really been focusing on the striking acumen of the fighting.

But, you know, definitely I always wanted to go back to the compete. And I was trying to do, you know, I was even trying to go back to do no-gey, you know, some no-gee worlds, trying to see if I can get some medals and that. Do you like the ghee? I'll be honest with you. I do not like the geek.

It slows me down a lot, and it makes it very difficult to, like, submit people for me, just because I'm a wrestler. I'm not used to having so much fabric on. But, you know, I like it because it's challenging, and it makes me think more. And it's like, okay, I can't slide with just this crappy technique. I've got to actually know the technique. And by the way, before we let you go, do you still keep in touch with some of the wrestlers out in Penn State still?

every once in a while I reach out you know say hi to one of the guys you know congratulate them if they win a title and you know they've been winning quite a few I was about to say here's my last question you know we talk about sports dynasties right Tom Brady and the Patriots or you know

you pick pick one seems to me like Kail Sanderson's run with Penn State in no small part because of what you did you want I think you had Bo Nickel win last year David Taylor the whole nine Is that one of sports great dynasties? I got to say it is, you know.

I got to say it is, especially for wrestling. Exactly. Big time for wrestling. It just doesn't get brought up, and I'm like, these guys are doing something pretty special. All right, Ed, I cannot wait to see your Neiman Gracie fight. I don't know what's going to happen in this tournament, but I have had my eye on your rise in mixed martial arts,

and I'm curious to see where it goes from here. Thank you for spending some time. us. We really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem, man. Thanks for having me on here. All right. Anytime. There he goes. Ed Ruth. If you have not seen his highlight reel, boy, do I encourage you to do that. All right. With the time we have remaining, this is where you become a guest on this show. It's time for the sound off. All right. Like I mentioned before, you just got to live on the air. You know what I'm saying?

Like, if you're, life doesn't stop just because the camera's rolling. Your boy can't breathe out of his nostrils, hence the mouth breathing. All right. Jambe'u'ala, our friend in the back, one Danny Segura. There he is. How are you, my friend? I'm good. Can I just say how shitty must it feel?

Like, you go to your Jitsu tournament, you go look at the bracket, blue belt division, maybe purple. Blue belt, yeah. Blue belt. Ed Ruth. And it's Ed Ruth. Jesus. One of the 10 best wrestlers ever in college. I will just not show up.

I'll take the forfeit. Which, by the way, in Jiu-Jitsu is not that big a deal. People do it all the time. They call it closing out. All right. We have put the number up. It's always 844-866-24-68. Or for international impoverished listeners, you can use the MMA hour at voxmedia.com, right?

I got it right. They can send their MP3s there, make them short, make them fast, get in, get out. Yes. How are the calls today? You told me at the beginning of the show, Danny, that these calls are just another level. Is that right? Yeah, man, we had so many calls that, like,

there was a lot of good ones that I, that were not going to be able to feature just because there were so many. Okay. And there was also a lot asking about the next UFC fight cards. So I try to stay away from those because we'll probably get into those the next show. So, yeah, but we did get a lot of different type of calls just because there was no UFC event this weekend. So there was no exact theme.

talk about. Okay. So let's get started. The first one is, Connor McGregor. Of course. Hi, this is David from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Question about the Habib Khan fight. Abut. Do people not remember how Habib looked against Michael Johnson? Johnson picked him

apart with his stand-up on the feet, made it looked easy, it almost finished him at one point. Now, McGregor is thousand times better than Johnson, so isn't this even just going to starch him in one punch right off the bat? How is no one talking about? this. We have pure proof of how

Habib performs against the striker and Johnson is no McGregor. Not enough hype about this. I have McGregor winning this easy. Just want your thoughts on why this isn't being more hyped up. Okay. Okay, so before you... Let me say this. I appreciate the question. Boy, what a

bad question. Well, before we get into this, I think this guy's a Connor McGregor fan. Which is fine. There's no problem being a Conner McGregor. And also, I would like to add this is not really a question. It's more of an opinion. You can call. You don't necessarily have to have a question for us. You can just call and state your opinion.

Yeah, or you can call it and say I was wrong about something, which by the way, both has happened and will happen. So yeah, it doesn't have to be a question. You'd be like, Luke, you said X, X is clearly wrong. What do you say now? Yeah, exactly. So, I do think there's a little, some things off

with this question in the sense of I don't think Michael Johnson destroyed Habib on the feet. But he did have some, yeah, I don't know about that. But he did tag him up a couple of times. Right, but there's just a couple problems with the question. Number one, He didn't nearly finish him. That's a problem.

Number two, there's a lot of questions you have to ask yourself. But he goes, well, we've seen how Habib has done against a striker. Well, what kind of striker? Michael Johnson's striker. Edson Barbosa striker. Those are two strikers. They're very different kinds of strikers. He had a variety of success against both.

By the way, heads up, he won the Michael Johnson fight. He finished him. So there's also that to be taken into account. So when we talk about a striker, there's no such thing as a striker. What kinds of striker? What kinds of strikes? they throw? By the way, what kind of approach does he take? I spoke to Javier Mendes after that fight and he was like, yeah, we're not going to do that with Connor. I mean,

it seems to me like their plan is, they want to close the distance immediately and then from there find just the right entry. They want to stand as much as they need to and not a second more. Now, however long that ends up being, I don't know. Now, to the caller's point, I said it was a bad question. I'm not trying to be mean. Here's my point. He says, Conner can knock him out in one punch. Did I think Connor was going to beat Habita, excuse me, Aldo that way? I never had a million years saw him. Who did? One Punch K.O. No one saw that, but it did happen. Connor has incredible accuracy, fantastic power, good vision, long use of his limbs. He's a phenomenal talent. So I've made this point before. I think overall, if you're evaluating the skill sets in their history, I tend to

favor Habib, but it's just a degree of probability. People want to make it like, oh, I'm saying Habib's going to win. That's the only option. No, it's just probability. I don't really really know what's going to happen. And by the way, I don't think it's an overwhelming probability. But even if it's, let's say, 55% in Habib's favor, that could be Habib barely winning inside that 55. That could be Habib thrashing him. And inside the 45, that could be Connor barely winning. That could be Connor putting his lights out in one shot. I just think overall, Danny, I ever so slightly lean towards Habib. You know what? And where? And where another reason why I picked this cause because I'm leaning towards Connor McGregor.

Okay. Yep. I can't really argue with it, but what do you, why? I view it the same as I would probably give 45 to Habib and, you know, 55 to McGregor. Yep. But man, I don't know. There is something to be said. Some strikers have had some success.

Sure. Against Habib. Sure. We know Connor McGregor just needs a small window to capitalize on that. You know what's what I like about this fight, Danny. If you're a Habib fan, I think you should be nervous. If you're a Connor fan, I think you should be nervous. I think he should be nervous.

And that's why I'm like, oh, Habib's going to win. I don't really know, to be quite honest with you. And there have been times where I thought guys would be competitive with Connor. And dude, here's the thing about Connor. Not that Habib is not. But Connor on game day, bro, he is bottom of the ninth, game seven. He is intense, ready to go, always locked on. He is a competitor's competitor.

So you have to count that too. And he always shows up. We know some guys sometimes be like, oh, no, this fighter. had, you know, the rough first round, I couldn't get my, I couldn't find myself, whatever. Connor never has that issue. He, he makes sure whether he's injured or not, he shows up and he finds a way. Sure. He's always on point. But again, I want to be clear, it is entirely possible that Connor goes in there and chaos him in 60 seconds. You know, that's what I'm feeling. Okay. Maybe not 60 seconds, but. Okay. That is entirely possible. Yeah.

But I still believe the appropriate rational response is, and I realize that fans of either, side are by definition irrational. It's what means to be a fan, a fanatic. I'm just saying to me the appropriate responses, you can pick who you like, but you should weigh neither of these guys are chumps. They don't have a ton of, they don't have a ton of liabilities. Connor does not lose all that easily. And by the way, Habib's never lost. So take their strengths quite seriously. I 100% acknowledge it can go either way, but leaning towards McGregor. All right, this will be fun then. Yeah. So let's keep the McGregor train rolling and let's discuss his future. Okay.

Hey, yo, there's Mani Laggy Lags. My question is, if McGregor comes back, win or lose, what is you doing after the fight with Khabib? All right, so quick shout-out to Mani-Laggy-Lag. Right, that's what he said? That's a real name. I suppose. Or maybe that's just his, I don't know, Twitter persona, maybe. His street alias?

Yes. So, Connor McGregor defeats Habibner Megamatov. Where does he go next? Connor def-I. I don't see how they don't do a GSP fight. And I know that, you know, there's some kind of complications in there. discussed it. We talked about last week in the MMA beat. I just don't. What's you going to? I mean, I guess you could do the Nate Diaz fight, right? If Nate doesn't lose to Dustin. How on earth is

Connor going to fight Nate if Nate loses to Dustin? Now, I'm not predicting that necessarily. I'm just saying we're talking about contingencies and hypotheticals. How do you, because remember, Chuck Minnandhal's always made a great point about Connor. What's his career been about? Escalation. Yeah? How do you escalate after you beat the UFC lightweight champ who's undefeated? Not a lot of places you can go. Yeah. Somebody made it this point to me on Twitter once. I forgot who, but they said, Connor McGregor's not a king. He's a conqueror, which is the perfect way to describe him. He doesn't reign over divisions. He's just out to get the next big thing. He just pillages and moves on, yeah. I think if he wins, I mean, unless, if Nate Diaz manages to beat Dustin Poria,

which I think it's likely, you definitely getting a third one, Nate Diaz is fighting for the title now. Now, what about if Connor loses? Yeah, if Connor loses, that's where he gets, tricky. I think that Nate Diaz fight is always going to be in the back burner. If he loses, they're definitely going to make the third one. And that's going to help him get back in the horse. Maybe after he beats him, maybe he hasn't, like, not an excuse,

but, you know, in enough reason to fight for the title. Yeah, it was all for two years. By the way, his fans understand that if he goes in there and gets mauled by Habib, the right answer is, well, Habib is just a mauler, okay? The right answer is not, and I'm sure Ringwrest plays a role,

but a guy like Connor McGregor, who is just, as I mentioned before, my God, on Game Night, he is dialed in. The answer is not, well, there was just a bunch of ring rust and otherwise he would have won. I mean, maybe that's true. And it just seems to me like, well, no, one guy was competing and has just a skill set that he has matured over time that basically beats most other skill sets. That's really the answer there. It's not, do not find excuses where they don't exist, right? Unless he, in fact, you know, is injured or something like that. And also, if he loses, like, I can definitely see him getting that, you know, an ADES payday and then even calling you quits.

I mean, the guys made tons of money. Yep. Why? Well, you have, yeah, he has one kid, right? I think another one on the way or something like that, I've heard. I think so, yeah. Either way, he's a father and, you know, make a bunch of cash and be on your way. I get it for sure.

Let's talk about Mr. Diaz. All right. Hey, Luke, this is Aaron from Toronto in Canada in case when he's don't know where that is. We certainly don't. him. Anyway, my question is about the Diaz-Pourier fight. Sean Al-Shadi previously tweeted an idea that they should make the fight the main event in New York, and I must say I love the idea. Don't you think the UFC would get more pay-per-view buys if it went the route of promoting the crap out of Diaz on that card as being in the main event? You can make the pay-per-view poster,

promos, and marketing all about him, and to support the card, you could put the strawaway belt on the line in the co-main event. The fans would benefit two as it would make the fight five rounds. To me, putting Diaz and Porre any lower on the cart than the main event would be promotional malpractice. What do you guys think? Thanks again and keep up the great work. Now, that is a great call.

Yeah, that was a great question. Well done. Very clear. Well spoken. Yep. Argued it. Okay. Yep.

So let's get to some of the merits there. I disagree with my colleague, Sean El Shottie. In the following sense, if the UFC went about it and did it, it's not that I would cry about it because Nate is probably going to end actually being the biggest star on that card unless the UFC can pull a rabbit out of a hat here. It's that I made this point last week too, man, I don't really feel like they know how to promote

DS, to be honest with you. They keep putting him in these smaller roles or these sort of forgettable moments because I think in their mind that's just kind of who he is and he hasn't been able to break out of that yet to a degree sufficient to his own expectations. So it's like, well the UFC should put him in there. Well, what does it tell you that they didn't put him in that role? In other words,

in Sean's argument is, think about how great it would be. Yeah, under the auspices of an organization that thought he deserved to be there to begin with, which they clearly don't. Why would, it won't work. It only works with the right kind of handshake, with the right kind of partnership. And whoever's fault it is, whether it's Diaz's fault or the UFC's fault or both of them, Danny, they just, they have a hard time seeing eye to eye on a number of issues. Comane's probably for the best, to be quite honest with you. I agree, but man, I feel like not watching a D.S. Poria five-round fight is kind of, I don't know. I mean, just imagine what that fight would look like five rounds and what it would look

like three rounds. In my opinion, I think is going to go to the distance. And man, those last two rounds would be fantastic. Both guys are hard to finish. Both guys have been their proven, proven durable. You know, what's interesting is I had a conversation with Chal Sondon. He came on my radio show. He came on this show, but he came on my radio show as well. And he says he doesn't really like five-round fights and thinks that they're bad, not necessarily for the fan, but for the fighters.

I mean, it's two extra rounds of beating, you know? Well, think about it. How many times has someone come out of a five-round fight? And there's been plenty that came out unscathed. Yeah. But think about any good. five-round fight. Those people came out of that fucked up. You think about something like a Carlos Condit versus a Robbie Lawler. You know, I just don't, okay, Robbie Lawler got back on the winning track, but I don't think either of those guys were the same after that. I'm not here to call for

the abolition of five-round fights, but I have been rethinking them at least a little bit. I do wonder if they're bad for fighters. I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying I'm at least contemplating it more than I used to. Well, it definitely are, but five-round fights is one of those things that, like, You don't see, I don't want to say you don't see often, but you're not fighting, you know, five-round fights all the time unless you, you know, hold a belt and you're a title holder. Or you're just getting back-to-back immediate rematches. So it is one of those things where it's like, you know, the odd fight. So in this case, I would like to see this fight-five rounds, me personally as a fight fan. And, you know, fighting's fighting.

We know what fighting is about, which is, you know, hurting the body. Yeah, but there's, you got to have degrees to which you can allow things. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just thinking about it, but I don't have a strong opinion. It was interesting. Cool. So if Neidea is in Porre stays,

a common event, let's get to our next question, which addresses, what should it be the main event? What if I know? That's me breathing the last two interviews. No, Luke, Thomas. I am your Ryan Bader.

Hi, Luke. It's James here from Liverpool in the UK. I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts on what the main of the main event? event is going to be of UFC 230 if Dustin Porrier and Nate Diaz are the co-main event, what would be

the main event? Are they holding out possibly for a defense of one of D.C.'s championships or perhaps something else. Really interested in your views. Thank you. Bye. The tough thing about this question is... Everything? Everything? It's a good question, by the way.

But, man, like, how do you top Diaz? Like, McGregor tops Diaz? Right? Like, it won't. It won't top it. It won't top it It'll be a title fight And in that sense, it will top it Does that make sense? Like only by stature and proximity to title

In whatever titles mean you need is So it'll be Cormiere against somebody By the way, can I just Think Cormier gets in there? I don't know Can I tell you how baffling I find this John Jones scenario? Yeah, sure Okay

I've made this point before And there's a lot of people who just want to be mad at John forever I'm not one of these guys MMA is not better without John I don't know how this is hard to understand. The sport is better when he's around. You can all say what you want. You can all, I've seen, you ever seen his mentions on Twitter?

People send him all kinds of nasty things about, oh, I bet. Yeah, it's just whatever. You can all imagine. And look, as I mentioned before, some of the stuff he earned through his own irresponsibility, but some stuff is just gratuitous. Point being is, look, MMA is better when he's around. Fact. Like, when he's fighting, it's just a lot more interesting.

The denials around this, I just, you can take that shit to somebody else because there may mean nothing to me. But I just find, how do we know? not have resolution about what's happened yet. I've spoken to his lawyer a long time ago. He didn't really give me a sense that resolution was imminent, but not far away. His manager has spoken a number of times about there being some kind of resolution. I don't know if they're waiting out the clock or if there's some kind of information we don't know and that maybe some kind of change is possible soon. I don't, something about it just feels off to me. And look, my hope, I'll be very clear about it,

is that he does, I don't know, get cleared is the right word, but whatever the punishment is that it expires and that he becomes eligible to compete again. That is my hope. I don't know if that's what's going to happen? But Danny, don't you find, like, the fact that his manager, I think has spoken a number of times saying, yeah, we're relatively close to some kind of a conclusion to these matters, and then we never actually get a conclusion to the matters. I mean, maybe there's information behind the scenes that makes things keep changing, but I don't know. It's a little weird, right? Yeah, it is a weird situation. And from my understanding, John is not having a hearing, right? No, a hearing only happens in the event that you challenge it and it goes to an arbitration panel. There's no hearing. Yeah, they're just waiting for a decision. So it's like, what is taking so long?

I do think, though, that it goes back and forth between his representatives and USADA. So maybe they're trying to work out a negotiated settlement or something. It's been forever. It's been a while. So my point is, if you could get him on there, well, forget it. I mean, it would be the king of all king returns. You know, it'd be great. But it's either going to be Cormier or they might do the.

Amanda Nunes fight. If they don't put that in December, against Cyborg, you could do that. But my guess is it's going to be an underwhelming main event relative to the comane. And you could say, well, doesn't that mean the co-main should go above it? Right. They just don't see him that way. And they should see him that way. They just don't. All right. Let's move on to the next question. We're going to go for Habib and Connor back to that. Well, they love these questions, huh? Yeah. Hi, this is. Hi, I'm Charles here. I'm calling from Orlando, Florida. Question, for October 6,

would Khabibh struggling to make weights in previous way-ins or suffering with injury? Do you think the UFC will have a backup? For example, Tony Ferguson is coming out of injury at the moment, fit to fight again. Would they have him up as a backup since he is the interim title holder? Would that be able to replace Kibibb on that card to fight Kahn-Magreb? or would they have

Delsn-Pory on a year's campaign? So basically would Yeah, that is his question. So basically what this gentleman's asking is should the U.S. you have a backup for Habibah McGregor? I don't think it's the worst idea, but recall he made weight no problem

against Edson Barbosa. He made weight no problem against who was his last fight, ally Quinta. He made weight no problem. Whatever those issues were and they were real, they're not the same anymore. He has gotten his act together, right? It took a little while, but he got his act together and he has not had a problem. So like out of an abundance of caution,

I could understand it, but I would not equate this, although the history is bad, I would not equate this to the Darren Till situation because the Darren Till situation is one of recency. Literally missed weight in his last fight. I know there were extenuating circumstances, but Habib has at least shown, yes, I've done wrong, and there's been times where I've badly cost the UFC, but there's reason to believe he also learned his lesson and has this now under control. I'm not saying Darren Till doesn't, but I am saying it's a little bit up in the year.

Yeah. I actually think it's a terrible idea to have a backup opponent. By the way, there is no backup opponent. You can throw in DS. It's not the same as Habib versus Connor. In that sense, Danny, there is no replacement. Right. But I don't think there should be a replacement

in case either or falls out. I don't think anybody should be plugged in. Unless maybe like if McGregor falls out, I think maybe then it makes sense just because, you know, Habib is still the champion, and I do think the title should be defended, so maybe a Dustin Poirier could step in there. But the other way around, if, say, Habib were to drop out, I'm not, you know, supporting the idea of having a backup. Because what if Connor loses, or you never know, Connor gets injured?

By just having a backup and making either guy a fight, you could potentially lose that fight. And I think that's the biggest fight the UFC could ever be. Yeah, also, in fairness to Connor, Remember, he was supposed to fight what Jose, Jose falls out, and then he'd bring in Chad Mendez, and he had to fight that guy. Now he won. But, you know, the guy has, give credit where credit is due. He stepped up a number of times for people that just didn't. Remember, he's supposed to fight Cole Miller in Ireland and ended up with being Diego Brandau and everything else.

And you could say they all went his way. That's not the point. The point is he didn't know that. He just took the fight anyway. Maybe he doesn't have to do that anymore. So, yeah, I think he's best. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Now let's move up to the heavyweight division. Let's talk about an individual that has been getting some criticism lately. All right. What's up, Luke? It's Adrian again from Corpus Christi. Third time I'm calling. I haven't been on the show yet.

I wonder why. Hmm, I don't know. I am a mouth breather, of course. And you are dunk. My question is, where does Francis and Gano go from the Derek Lewis fight? I just saw Derek Lewis right now when I loaded it up. I've been training all morning. Anyways, where did Derek go?

And of course they would do the GSP fight against Khabi O'Connor. Come on. There's no question. I'm going to cut him right there. I'm going to cut him right there. Yes. Well, he made the show finally. He made his day, Danny.

He made the show, so congrats. Let's talk about Ingana. Where does he go next? I mean, this is a guy that he's been getting some criticism from Dana White, you know, from the fans as well. He's still obviously a big name in a division. I don't know exactly where he's ranked, probably number one contender. But, you know, where does he go next? Do you do a JDS rematch?

Or has he fought JDS? No, no, I don't think he is. Sorry, I'm thinking of somebody else. You could do that. Yeah. Because JDS is kind of, because you look at the rankings, Volkov is at 5, but he's fighting Lewis at 2. Then you have Overeem.

You know, they're not going to do that one right away. And then you have JDS. Now Mark Hunt is locked up, right? I think for UFC Moscow, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I think he's fighting. Alexiolanic, right? Yeah. So do like that.

So you could potentially do that. But he's got to get back on the horse, man. he's going to get back on the horse. And JDS might be the best opponent for him, if you really consider it, because yes, he has big power, but he fights a little bit more on the outside than he used to. He's a little bit more careful.

He actually got thumped up a little bit more in his last fight against Ligwe Ivanov than I thought he was going to. He took a lot of damage, actually. So that's a possibility. But I had people telling me that when Ngano came out with that message, and I don't begrudge him acknowledging that he was afraid.

We've had these debates about cornering all the time. I'm not aware you came down on the Painted situation. I'm sure her corner are not bad people, but this argument that, well, someone's corner is best situated to make these choices for their health. It's like, well, you're best situated in the net sense. Some of you're better situated than Danny. You're better situated than me, but you're not infallible. And it turns out that these people and their coaches believe in these fighters so much that they will send them back out there to scenarios where they don't really have much of a chance of winning. and they end up getting and taking extra abuse.

And again, I don't think MMA, I've seen very good coaches and otherwise very good corners make these kinds of choices much more regularly than you do in boxing. But it carries consequences. Like, in the end, it's only Francis that has to worry about this. No one else, his corner, doesn't have to worry about this at all. So in the end, a roundabout way, you know, I don't know,

you want to go to the back of the division a little bit? You could give him Taito Ivasa. Maybe if Arlovsky wins at UFC Moscow, maybe there's a rematch there or something. Somebody who's potent, but maybe, you know, less than the very top of the division. But, you know, we need to have a real conversation about cornering in MMA. It's not good. And it's the not good cornering is often done by people who are very capable coaches and loving people otherwise. That's the scary part about it.

Yeah. This was a weird one because I don't know how, I don't know if the UFC still in the France is Inganu business. We knew like on his rise, they were like, yo, this is the next guy. And they were investing a lot of assets, you know, promotionally wise, you know, getting his name out there. And I don't know, I don't know if that's the case anymore. But I would like to, I would like the UFC to have some sort of rebuilding path within

Ghana. I think this is a guy that speaks to a market that a lot of heavyweights don't. And, you know, physically he's huge. He's a very imposing figure. You can sell the whole heavyweight allure, right? And, you know, at the end of the day, if you look, besides the Derek Lewis fight, man, he was always showing up and knocking people out. So I think there needs to be some rebuilding going on. I think I like the Taitu Ivasa fight in the sense of, you know, it's a fun fight to contemplate.

But, man, Taito Yovas is a pretty legit striker. Maybe I don't, I don't, maybe you go back further. Maybe he needs a Tuna. I think he needs a Tuna. Yep. I think that's exactly what he needs. Who knows if the U.S. he will give him that, though? Right.

Mm-hmm. All right. Let's move on to your favorite TV show. Okay. Hey, this is David from Anaheim calling. My question is about the ultimate fighter. I know in the past the UFC has really wanted to take control of the production. And I thought they were going to give it away to ESPN with this new deal.

But that recent interview Dana White did about their building and gym right next to their current headquarters makes me kind of double think if they're going to give away the production control with ESPN with this new deal. Just want to get your thoughts on it as well as Danny's. Thank you for taking my call, Luke. Bye. So, first of all, how surprised are you that tough is continuing? Because, like, I think MMMA media, we're all like, oh, yeah, like going to ESPN, this thing's done, right? Yeah.

I don't care. I don't give a fuck at all. Can I just be clear about that? We're talking about your favorite TV show. Come on. The thing is, here's the truth. Here's the truth about this. When I first saw this news, I was like, I'm ready to rage.

And then I thought about it. And I was like, I'm just, it's going to be one thing I just don't watch. There's lots of TV shows. I just don't watch. Now, how smart is it for the UFC to say, you know, pick and choose? And then, I mean, don't be surprised when you succeed with a strategy where I just start choosing a lot, which I think is a bigger problem than just the ultimate fighter. But okay, like, I can't pretend to be upset, Danny. I'm just not going to watch.

Yeah. So I don't really, I don't really care, to be honest. What's the other part of the question? Like, oh, about the production? Yeah, production. The question is who does MMA better? ESPN or UFC. Yeah.

You know, and on some level, I'm just like, well, UFC does better. That means more editorial control on broadcasts and things they don't want getting out, not getting out. But, you know, MMA journalism generally gets those kinds of things out. They're better the UFC than they used to be about being forthcoming about those kinds of things. So if it means a better broadcast in the end, which means it's better for the sport, Yeah, okay, I can live with it, I guess. I agree with you in the sense that the UFC obviously knows how to work MMA better than ESPN.

But if ESPN does manage to get a hold of the production of Tuff, I mean, they will change some things around. It won't be the exact same show. It won't have the same feel. I think if Tuff is going to stick around and they're planning on keeping it, I think it needs some refreshment. I think it needs something new.

So maybe ESPN can, can offer that? I don't care. All right. Have I made that clear? I just can't tell if I've made that clear. Yeah. So it's 202.

Do you want to answer another one? Yeah, yeah. We've got to time for a couple more. Okay, cool. Let's talk about the divisions in the UFC and this caller was really riled up. I got to say. All right. Hey, it's all these X-Spot here.

Obviously from Australia. Yeah, I'm a little bit pissed off with these divisions. Yeah, I just, I don't know how hard it is to fix these divisions with all these weight-cutting issues. I just want to. How hard is this? Just fucking fix these divisions. All you've got to do, just add a division in the middle. One division fixes it.

165, 175, just crap to 170 division. Whatever the bloody Tyrone would be, Darantil, whoever the fuck it is, when they move up, move down, whatever they want to do. They don't have to weight cut, it's awkward. Whatever they do, change it to super lightweight, super well-to-weight, whatever it is, whatever it is.

185, then added 205. And then added 225, add a cruiser weight. And then you got an open heavyweight division. Two divisions, that's all you've got to add. What are your thoughts? I'm done. Yeah, peace. All right, so he's done, and he was also kind of pissed off.

What are your thoughts on adding more divisions? I don't think you're a big fan of that, right? Yeah, I mean, you can as many divisions as you want, just be ready for more bad MMA, and it would not solve the weight-cutting problem. It might make a dent in it, maybe even significant contribution, but it wouldn't get rid of it. And now you just have to live with, I mean, it's just amazing how much MMA used to reject the trimmings of boxing.

And now it can't dive head first into them quicker. I made this point in the live chat when I was still doing it. MMA is like slowly becoming boxing where it's like if you want to add a 165 pound division, okay. Yeah, you can still have a decent 155 and a decent what would then be a 175. You can do all that. The notion of a cruiserweight division sounds like a ghastly, terrible idea. Also, I'm always skeptical, Danny, always. When someone says, like, I have a solution to this incredibly complex set of problems.

All you have to do is X, right? People say, oh, look at what one did for hydration testing. It has fixed weight cutting. Well, it fixed weight cutting in a part of the world where weight cutting was not nearly as big a deal. How do we know that that's directly attributable to their hydration testing? It might, in fact, have, it might actually be. I'm not saying that it's not. I'm just asking, people in MMA do this shit all the time,

where they're always like, well, X did Y to solve the problem. How do you know that that actually solved it? How do you know it's not another series of complicated factors that all work together? How do you know that the problem is even solved? So, granted, they have less weight cutting happening, drastic weight cutting anyway, inside one. But where is the data publicly available that shows and definitively proves that it was a hydration test and they got it done? I'm a favor. Do you understand. I'm in favor of hydration testing. But I just, anytime anyone always says, here is the, all you have to do is the X solution,

you should always be very, very skeptical. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually, I'm actually a fan of maybe adding a 165 division. I could live with 165. But man, heavyweight, the heavyweight division is so thin. Imagine splitting it into two. Yeah. That'll look pretty ugly. I'd rather die. Yeah, that'd be terrible. But the 165 is interesting for me.

I do think it will solve some of the weight cutting issues because, hey, if you, it's hard to force somebody from 155 to 170 because, man, that's a big jump. It's like if you're telling somebody, no, you've got to go up. I mean, you could literally change their entire career, right? Because that's different type of competition. Now, if it's 165, eh, that's not that bad, you know, just fight guys that are just a tad heavier, maybe even your size if you're missing weight at 155. So I believe it could solve some of the weight cutting issues. Some. Some, yeah.

And also, man, let's talk about the matchmaking. The 155 and the 170, especially a 155, is a logjam. I mean, creating a weight class where some of those top contenders can get title fights in another weight class, that definitely would make everything a bit smoother. And we wouldn't have, you know, top guys. We wouldn't, nobody would be, you know, all riled up saying Dustin Poirer is not getting a title shot and all this and that, you know. So I think it'll solve that as well. And also create room for super fights, which I'm a big fan of.

Imagine 165 of champion. You are drastically overstating what a super fight is when you talk about doing that. I mean, champion versus champion, isn't that a super fight? Not if the fight itself is not super. No. It could just be a champion versus a champion. Oh, bigger fights, which that's what the UFC. I think you keep adding titles, you keep watering the product, and you will see that quickly.

I mean, I think if you add another weight class, it's also, you know, the UFC should. have less incentive. I can, here's everyone once. Wait, wait, wait, let me finish. Okay, okay. The USC would have less incentive to make all this interim belts, you know?

They would have more incentive to great interim belts. No, because what's the reason why they're pulling fighters to headline pay-per-views and putting up interim titles is because the champions that they need to fight in those headlining slots are not available. They will take their resources and maximize it to the end-degree to put product behind it. You guys think if you add another title, it would relieve pressure. No, it would just enable them to add more. That's what they keep doing.

They keep taking their resources and pushing it to the ultimate max. Here's my point. I can acknowledge, Danny, that there are benefits to adding a division and that it wouldn't be 155 and 175. It wouldn't drain them so terribly because that's the real sweet spot. I grant that. But fans of that also need to acknowledge there are downsides. It's not one or the other.

There are some positives. Yes, there are some downsides. And you have to reconcile that. You have to figure out what matters more to you. All right. Lastly, one last one. We've got to get out of here because I have to get uptown and do three hours of radio. This is not a question.

This is a, this is the ultimate mouth breather. This is, I mean, from here on is downhill. So I think after I play this, the next couple of shows will take a rest from the mouth read. All right. Because this is just off the charts. All right, let's hear it. And I'm not going to even play the whole thing. Please don't.

It's just too much for a little bit. We don't have time. That is awesome. All right. Does he talk? No, no. Stop it right there. But man, face the pain and mouth breathing.

You know what? He's basically topped out the art form. Yeah. That was Van Gogh right there. That's it. All right, Danny. Good job today. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for watching. I always appreciate it when you do. And until next time, stay frosty.