MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas – Episode 447

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

On this episode of The MMA Hour, we speak to double Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison about her first two MMA fights and run in the PFL; Paul Felder, who serves as the guest for the Monday Morning Analyst to discuss his UFC 226 fight with Mike Perry, his commentary on the Contender Series, as well as some analyst work for us in previewing the big fights on the horizon. We also speak to Mickey Gall about his Octagon return at UFC Lincoln and Tom Lawlor about his abrupt release from the UFC and what’s next for his career. Additionally, Luke Thomas brings you his latest opinion and thoughts on The Weigh-in, and we answer your questions on the latest MMA news and headlines on our segments Sound Off and A Round of Tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. It's the mixed martial arts hour It is Monday, August 20th, 2018, and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. This is the MMA hour right here on MMAfighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me on a very gloomy New York Monday.

But nevertheless, we've got a fun show plan for you guys today. We're going to get to a round of tweets. We're going to get to the way. And you're going to be my guest at the end of the show when we do the sound off. We have four other guests we've got to get to. Let's see. The most successful American Judoka ever will be here, Kayla Harrison at 1220, at 1240 East Coast time.

Paul Felder will be here for the Monday morning analyst. 1 o'clock, Mickey Gall. Let's see, 115. We're going to have Tom Luller, a lit addition to the show, and a whole lot more. As always, you can get in touch with the show at any time using the hashtag the MMA Hour on Twitter. And you can also call us.

Call that hotline, donkeys. 844-866-24-6-8. That is your number to call. So quite a packed show. Whenever we have the four, I always book two, then we end up adding a third, and then somehow by showtime we have a fourth. It's actually more than we need for two hours, but I'm happy to talk to all four, because all four have something very important to say. You know who also has something important to say? the Arequipe to my pan The arroz to my frioli The alla to my chambaya

The one and only Danny Segura who is in the back QO What's good? Do you? No, not really Before we proceed I just want to say one thing Here goes Danny

Making it all about him I'm a patleti I like how you guys win Basically a preseason game We won the Super Cup Yeah, I know, I know There's a trophy Technically we're the best team in Europe

There's a trophy involved But, you know, it's not a real thing. Let's just be real about that. For those who are listening, by the way, I'm listening to this in audio. I'm wearing an Aletico Madrid jersey. Yeah, a greetsman. Antoine Gretzman, who does that stupid dance.

Who does that stupid dance? And Luke Thomas has a really, really mad face right now. Oh, I have a mad face because I have to talk to you. Well, you know what? You're a gracious winner. I've noticed that. You're really very understated celebrations from you. Yep.

Hey, you went to Kassai Grampfling over the weekend, did you not? I did. Yep. How was that? First of all, did you have good seats or no? I did. I had box seats just like a little bit above, you know, the ground level. So it wasn't too high up.

It was perfect seat. Yeah. Literally the best season. Now here's the interesting part. Some of the matches all had different rule sets, right? Yes. Right. So some of them had, like, I thought the Craig Jones, Paul Horace won and was like, oh, 10 minutes, sub only,

then five. That was points, but they still ended up going to a decision. Yeah. So no one scored a point in five minutes. Is that the idea? Here's the thing about sub only with black belts. it's a terrible idea unless you have no time limit. And I keep telling people this and they just don't want to listen.

I'm fine if you want to do sub only. But if you really want to do sub only and you've got two world-class black belts, it's going to take a lot longer than 10 minutes from to sub each other. Unless you're Gary Tonin. He'll make anything exciting. Exceptions approve the rule. But, I mean, I'm really against sub-only

because I feel like if fighters don't have an incentive to take risks, they won't. It's simple. And we saw that. Like, Paharis is pretty much content with going to a draw losing to a decision, which everybody knows it wasn't, nothing really happened. It was mostly because he didn't engage rather than risking the chance of getting leg locked by somebody like Craig Jones, which is very likely.

And Craig Jones is not going to go on the feet, you know, trying to score a takedown if there's no points involved. So he would just sit on his butt and, you know, be looking to fish those legs. I know we're starting the show. We're talking about grappling. And there are people right now who want to pull their hair out as a consequence, which I apologize. Very quickly, AJ Aga's arm.

How do you explain this guy? He's a wild man. He's like the wild man of jihad. to. First of all, he's very good. He's a very, very good grappler. But on top of that, this is the guy that took over Meta Morris's Instagram account, not because they let him because he took it over. Yeah. Who, like, raised issues about their pay. What was the suicide thing he went on? Do you know what he's talking about? So he wants to, if I'm from what I understood, because the sound was a little off there, he was calling out Gio Martinez. Yeah. And basically the loser, I assume, has to donate to a, like,

a suicide. Yeah, but why that of all things? I don't know, maybe that's just something he supports. You know, he... I think there's probably something sinister to that. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to guess that's what it is. Maybe. I think if Chil Sondon and Karam Greger had a baby, it'd be AJ Agasson. He's got a little bit of both going on.

Now, as a bit of a show note that we have to let folks know about, today is my last show before vacation. In fact, I have my bags packed. They're on the outside of the studio. My wife is in studio with you, right? So as soon as this show's over, I'm out of here. We're not going to be back. Well, I'll be back for the beat, I think, on the 6th of September.

Yep. Which is just before UFC 228, right? Getting the numbers right, yes. And then we'll be back for that beat after UFC 228. But this is the last one for a couple of weeks. So I know you're excited to get a little extra time off. I know I am as well. I'm tired.

I'm very tired. Yeah, it's been very busy in the world of MAs the past few months. This show got dumped in our laps back in June. And we've just been treading water for, about two months, so I'm happy to take a bit of a breather here. But we got a great show today. Before we get to the way in here in just a second, the calls, the tweets. Give me a sense of things from the weekend because there was a good Bellator event over the weekend, which I did enjoy, actually. I thought it was a little fun on Friday night. How, but there was no major event,

except maybe boxing because you had Tyson Fury back. How were they? They were good. And I want to give a quick shout out to the ladies of MMA. We had a few female callers call. I don't believe you. You'll see. And then we also had a few female MMA fans send us some tweets, so that was cool. Yeah, was it because I complained last week, you think? Maybe, maybe. Or I don't know. You know, maybe they see me more on camera and, you know, more fun to get on the show.

I don't know. Wow. There can be a lot of factors in this. Your bullshit soccer team wins once. And you turn... And you turn into a... I'm calling it, Aledico Madrid is winning Champions League. You turn into a monstero.

Uh? You're crazy. All right. We'll get to those tweets. A little bit later in the show. We get to the calls a little bit later, and I'll talk to you a little bit later as well. For now, though, donks,

it is time for the way in. Time now for the way in here on the MMA hour where I give sort of an editorial opinion about some things that are happening in the world of mixed martial arts. I noticed something on Friday night. Did you guys watch Bellator 204? James Galaher was back from a bit of a long layoff

due to a series of, who knows if there were matchmaking problems, but certainly there were injury concerns, that were involved there. He was back. He faced a guy a very talented fighter by the name of Ricky Ben Dejas.

Now, we all knew that James Galaher had, there's no denying this, a big mouth, right? The guy talked a very big game to the point where I think some folks thought it was irritating

and then others, and I don't know that it's an unfair criticism, thought it was, to a degree derivative of his teammate at SBG, Dublin, Connor McGregor. In any case,

so what happens? Right? 204. He walks out to the cage and gets in Bandejas's face. Bandejas, I think, had walked to the cage first. So he comes in circles, then Galaher comes in circles. And I think through the intro, got right up in his face, hands raised.

Now, he didn't commit any kind of infraction, as I understand it. There was nothing, he didn't touch him. But, you know, certainly this is a moment of, for lack of a better description, provocation. In any case, the fight goes on and. Bandejas, who is a very talented guy, does what I think Jack Slat calls the Dutch hand trap, where he pulls down one hand with your lead hand, right? So if you're standing this way, they take their lead hand, they pull it down, they create a firing lane, and he fired the right and hit him clean. Galaher didn't see it coming. Falls it up with another right hand, I think that landed, and then ultimately hit him with a sidekick to the face that rocked him, dropped him.

Bandahas gets on top. Machine gun assault with ground and pound, vicious COO, close the show in about half a round. Yeah. So what was the fallout afterwards? Quite predictable, actually. And I'm not even saying I'm against it. This is not me up here saying, oh, James Galaher got mistreated. That's not what I'm saying. But what was the reaction? The reaction was basically glee and delight at this guy's KO. I think, as I mentioned before, some folks found his talk way too ahead of what he had accomplished. Some folks found it derivative and some folks found it irritating. And I understand that. And I'm not here to change your opinion about that per se. Look, man, Galaher's a grown kid, right? He knew what he was doing. He is at the age of making informed choices about his life.

He knew he was talking a big game. he knew he was being a provocateur. He knew he was saying all the kinds of things that when you lose, it comes back to haunt you. He elected to promote himself that way, and when you lose in that kind of way, you have to face the consequences. And he did.

Got on Instagram the next day and didn't back down, said, I'm still the S. And okay, right? Like, you have to expect that if you position yourself, in such a way that when you lose, people will really bring the knives out. Okay, but the reality is twofold. Number one, that was one of the more interesting results that happened on that card. I believe that result ended up on SportsCenter, although a bit for the reversal of fortune, right? You're getting up at his face. They caught that on camera. Then you get knocked out. They caught that

on camera. It was the contrast, I think, that enabled them to put that on there. But what is the point here. The point here is as follows. I have interacted with James Galaher a number of times in person. And I got to tell you, if you think you know him from what you see on camera when he's out there getting in Vandejas' face, you don't. Now, I can't proclaim to be his best friend. I'm not a family member. I don't really know him in that sense either. What I'm trying to point out to you is the reality of someone's true identity is always much more complicated. It's fine if you say, look, this guy went out and promoted himself in such a way, as I mentioned before, that when you lose, they're going to bring the knives out. It's going to be a lot of et-to-brute moments.

Okay, I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is folks being like, these sweeping character generalizations. They're not really fair. It's really not who he is. He's actually a really sweet guy. He's kind, friendly. He's been super generous with his time. And yeah, look, when the microphones are on and the cameras are on, he puts on, I don't know if it's an air or if it's his personality dialed up to 10. I don't know what that is. But yeah, he comes across as a way to some that seems to pass the border of confident and into a cocky and into unnecessarily so, even combative, potentially. But I bring this up for a reason. Again, it's not to defend James Geller.

He'll be fine. He'll be back in the cage. He's a grown man. He can handle it. It is to take back the notion of. identity from what we consume as media. And this is why getting media right is very hard, but very important. Because for all of the Galaher's out there, where somebody is brash in your face,

quite literally, and everything else, it cuts both ways. There's a lot of guys out there in this sport that present themselves a good guys. They're not. They're not. They're bad dudes. And I don't mean that in a positive way, right? whatever you think you see on camera, I'm not telling you it's a lie altogether, because that's not quite true. You are who you project to the world. But if you're projecting something selectively

to the world, then maybe they're not getting the full and complete picture. The reality is always complicated. For all of the people you think are bad people because they act in brash ways and then they get their comeuppance in the cage, there's another side to that coin in M.A. There's a lot of pretenders out there. That includes both in media. That includes fighters. It includes a lot of people. A lot of people who you think are good or bad. A lot of people who think are bad or good. Or, for the most part, something in between. It's always really complicated. A lot of people have compartmentalized identities. A lot of people have compartmentalized morality. A lot of people have compartmentalized projections to the world and especially the younger ones among us. Like young men at

20, 21. They're still trying to figure out who they are. So all I'm trying to say here is, Not trying to change everyone's opinion. You walk that line, or rather you walk that plank, and you get to the end of it, you got to go overboard. That's just the way it works, right? But always be careful. Always be careful in this sport of making too sweeping a generalization about who somebody is from how they are consumed through media. Because I got news for you. That ain't the full picture.

That's either for good, sometimes. That can even be for bad. Always remember that. Let us do this. I've weighed in from you, Bell, excuse me, Belltor 204. It is time now for a round of tweets. Do we have graphics for that or not?

I don't know that we do. That's all right, no worries. Okay, so let's get to these tweets. Put the dial up on the screen there for five minutes. I will answer your tweets within the time it takes for a mixed martial arts round to expire. Here we go. Set the clock in motion, please. Yes.

All right. Would you rather see Michael Chandler in Bellator or UFC? I think selfishly, I'd like to see him... I'd like to see him in UFC just for the fights that would be there for me. But I got to say, you always have to wonder financially what's the best deal for these guys. And I have to imagine that you got to... You got to think he's probably probably going to... He's an extremely important component to the Belator brand,

even if he's not out there sitting the world on fire with ratings. He's an avatar for like Belator corporate loyalty, right? He's been loyal to them. You've got to do right by that guy. Plus he's exciting. Plus he's very, very, very, very talented. There's a lot of reasons why you want to keep him around. Next.

Someone says, Hi, Luke Thomas. Your show, you're spelled wrong. It's fun to listen to, too is spelled wrong. You rock. Well, thank you, Richard. I don't have much to add to that. other than I've policed your grammar, but I nevertheless appreciate your patronage.

Thank you, sir. All right, here we go. Which, in your opinion, would you say, is currently the deepest division in the UFC and in Bellator? This is a very easy answer. You could probably say maybe Belator's welterweight division is deeper. That welterweight and lightweight space, that's your sweet spot right there. And the reason why you know that is, number one, it's true in Bellator. It's true in the UFC.

It's largely true in virtually every other organization on Earth. that lightweight, welterweight sweet spot, it's the guys who are super athletic, super talented, but are probably just a tick too small for your stick in ball sports or something else in related fields of activities in other countries,

certainly in our country. If you want to play American football, you've got to be big. If you want to play American baseball, you don't have to be big, but they can be a little in their larger size. And that goes as true, I mean, NBA basketball,

do I need to say anything? Certainly hockey. You've got to be physical presence as well. And these are guys who are just a tick under that in size, but have all the athleticism, all the rage, all the combativeness, all the skill, they just need to put it somewhere. And so to me, it's not an accident that the guys who are just, just smaller than the guys

who are of typical major league pro athlete size, that there are so many of them in abundance such that all of the major organizations inside MMA and many of the smaller ones, their best division is 155 and their best fighters typically come out of there. So that's what I would say. All right, next. Odds of Alexei Olinic getting his third Ezekiel choke against Hunt. Hunt seems way too smart for that, like way too smart for that. But I would have thought everybody was way too smart for that. I don't know how you get Nogi Ezekiel choked in MMA, but it keeps happening. So my answer would be probably very little and low. All the guys he's gotten it on to this,

you know, look, I'll respect to Victor Pesta, but he's not Mark Hunt. Mark Hunt's accomplished a lot more. And I don't think that's any kind of an insult. I think it's a statement of fact. And Hunt is savvy. He's going to be hard to take down. I think he's a more physical guy than Olinic, even on the feet. Forget all the striking. I think just his ability to create distance.

Hunt can sprawl still pretty well. So I'd say it's pretty rare. Plus he can keep the fight at distance. But we're going to see, dude. All right. Next. Which sport do you think is the hardest to ref an umpire? What do your thoughts on expanding replay and when and how it could be used?

Jesus. Hashtag, not a mouth. breather. Well, if you're not a mouth breather, I don't know what you're doing watching the show. What sport do you think is the hardest to ref an umpire? Well, I got to say, MMA is pretty goddamn hard to referee. And they're all hard in their own ways. Um, football, you have so much, American football, you have so much replay. It's almost overwhelming. The rules are confusing. What about strike zones inside of baseball? That can be incredibly hard to police night after night after night after night. you're going to get a lot of that wrong.

They're all kind of uniquely hard in their own way. And without having done them, I'm only speaking from what it appears to be the hardest. So I'm going to say that hard to rank them quite candidly. The only thing I would say is the professional training programs that the other leagues put in place to raise the next generation of referees and then make sure that the ones they have are kept up with best practices. That's a lot better. Next, do you think Habib is overrated? No.

Yes, 26 and 0 is a great record. When you look at the people he's fought, compared to Connor, it's not even close. Only one former champ or challenger in RDA compared to Max, Poirier, Nate, Aldo, Mendez, and Alvarez. Mendes is spelled wrong. Okay. Do you think Habib is overrated? Well, it depends how highly you rate him, doesn't it? This is going to happen no matter what with respect to this fight.

If Connor wins, everyone's going to say, Habibu's. If Habib's overrated, even though he's not. If Habib wins, everyone's going to say, you know, Connor got lucky all those nights. I'll finish up here, even though he didn't, even though that there's not even close to being true. And it's just this weird matter of bizarre perspective that we keep foisting upon the world where we do this revisionist history thing. Look, Connor has great wins, and he's got the wins that you mentioned. The Poirier win is pretty fantastic. But Poirier is different now.

Nate, he won and he lost two. I don't think he would, excuse me, I don't think he would be whatever lose to Nate, to be candid with you. You've got guys like Max Holloway, but he beat Max when Max was barely himself. So I'm not here to take away any of those wins. They're all great, but the question is, is one guy a fraud? No. Does one guy have a lot of interesting names that have aged well in his resume? Yes.

Is he supremely talented in Conrader? Yes. But you don't get to 26. in the sports toughest division by accident, especially when you're not a dramatic finisher. That must mean that the skills you possess have to be overwhelmingly controlling. And more to the point, when you really think about it, I've said this before with Habib. Show me a guy in MMA. Everyone talks about his rides.

Oh, he's got the ride with the wrist control. He's got the ride with the cross wrist. And look at the chicken wing he put on Michael Johnson. Man, forget all that. Forget all that for just a second. You want to know what makes Habib a bad motherfucker, I'll tell you. Here's the answer. Show me somebody else in MMA that has that array of takedowns that he has.

Right? He could throw from an underhook. He can do judo trips and throws. He can do single legs. He can do double legs. He can do high crotch lifts. He can do body lock takedowns. He can go forward.

He can go backward. He creates motion. He can do it against the fence. He's not so great in open space, but he can do it there if he needs to as well. He can go it going forward, backward. He is complete. in that sense. Now, I'll tell you somebody else who's becoming pretty dang complete as a mixed martial artist, including in the takedown department, out here hitting double legs on people.

That's saying, I didn't know she could do it, but pretty amazing to see. She is literally the most successful American judoka ever, ever, by a million miles. And she's our guest now. Kayla Harrison joins the show. Hey, Kayla, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Thank you so much for making time for us. I know you are in high demand. It is quite an honor here to have you on the show. Yeah, yeah, I'm so busy.

I was actually going to jump in there and tell you that, yeah, Kavu's got pretty good takedowns, but does he have two Olympic gold medals? But you said it for him. No, he does not have two Olympic gold medals. He certainly doesn't. You do. So let's get right down to it. You had a great win at your last PFL event.

It did go a little bit longer than I expected, you know? It went to the third round. I have to say, I think that's a positive. extra ring time, plus you got the wind. And look at your face, it appears to be totally unscathed. Were you surprised it went that long? Yeah, I was. I mean, initially, I actually got off the mat, got out of the cage, and I was really upset.

Really frustrated, really emotional about it because, you know, I want to be the best in the world, and you can't be the best in the world if it's taking you that long to put away people, in my opinion. But once I calms down, once I talked to Mike and Big Jim and I talked to Tony and sort of let the emotions settle. I realize that's invaluable experience. I mean, it's good to know. One of the biggest things I was always concerned with during training was my gas tank because I just always felt like I wasn't in great shape for MMA for some reason. Like in judo, I always felt like I could have 20 matches in a day and I would always be in better shape than all of my opponents. And in an MMA, I get so tired, so fast.

So I really had a lot of anxiety about my gas tank. But it's good to know that, you know, I felt just as fresh in the third round as I did in the first. So I'm happy with it. What is the difference between training cardio for judo and training cardio for MMA? It's just a different, you know, it's a totally different sport. I mean, first of all, judo, your matches are spread out. So you have one five-minute fight and then you get a break. And then you have another five-minute fight.

and then you get a break. And then you have a two-hour break or an hour break. And MMA, you do it all, you know, you get a minute. So the pace is a lot different. I'm used to going just straightforward, just barreling through people, which is still sort of the kind of pace I want to have in MMA. But again, it's a different sport. So when you talk about conditioning for striking, I don't have that yet.

You know, I'm not really comfortable on my feet like how I want to be. So I get a lot more tired when there's distance than if we're in the clench. I spoke years ago to, you know him, Roddy Ferguson. I don't know if, I think you were on an Olympic team with him. He made the argument that judo should have a lot of... Say again, I'm sorry, I cut you off. I said I was 14 when he was on the Olympic team, but I do know Roddy. Well, you know, look, my dates are off.

What are you going to do? But he made an argument to me years ago that there should be high striking transference from MMA to judo, if you're an elite competitor, obviously, because of all of of the gripping and the explosion in the gripping. There's no transference. No, I mean, I can see that. I can definitely see what he's talking about. But it's just, you know, grabbing a ghee and holding onto someone and pushing and pulling

and that is so much different than having the quick reflex of throwing out a jab. You know, yes, my hand speed is fast because I'm used to grabbing a ghee. But really, it's not like I'm not anywhere close to what a boxer would be or a kickboxer would be like that speed is something that I have to learn. I want to get back to your... Sorry, I want to get back to your MMA fight in just a second, but this has been burning in my mind. I've been thinking a lot about it.

How much did you tape your fingers together, and how much do you miss the ability to tape your fingers together? Well, I'm really lucky that I didn't have a lot of hand injuries in judo. I broke my thumb when I was really young, and I have a pin in there. But other than that, I only taped, usually, like, if I would bust a knuckle or something, like I would tape these two fingers together.

And I don't miss it that much, to be honest, because it's like such a pain every single workout. You have to take, like, it's like wrapping your hands. Now that's what I equated to. Like taping my fingers was like wrapping my hands. Like every single workout. It's just another added step that I just want to get on the mat and work out. Like, let's just do it.

All right. So you mentioned you got off the mat, uh, the cage anyway, against Josect Cotton and your team talked you off the ledge. they say to you? Well, Big Dem told me to stop my goddamn crying and shut up. And Mike was really happy. Di, I was really happy. You know, I implemented my jab a lot. I was moving my head a lot. I got to the takedown safely. They were really happy with everything. They thought I looked a lot

better, a lot more well-rounded. And Mike just kept saying, like, listen, this is great experience. This is what you need. And Tony was like, look, he was like, that is way scarier than you going out and submitting someone in the first round. Like, if you go out and submit a girl, I think he said, I think girls will still think they can, you know, there's a chance. They can hang with you. Oh, you know, she's not well rounded, this or that. But he's like, you go out there and you instill your will like that for three rounds. He's like, that's scary. No girl's going to want to fight you now. And I was like, okay, I feel a little better. Is that really something you want? I know this fight was a little bit hard to materialize because they are having.

some degree of difficulty, and I think, frankly, any promoter would in finding requisite opposition at this weight class. First of all, how is that going in terms of what your expectations are in the future? And do you actually think this fight will hinder your chances a little? I mean, I don't know. I'm not a matchmaker. That's not my job. My job is just to get in the cage and fight. I hope it doesn't make it harder to get fights. I think there are a lot of girls out there who are happy to talk, but hopefully they don't just talk. They put up and get in the cage with me. but it's tough 155 I think a lot of people have doubts about 155 because it's such a big weight class it's very underdeveloped in the women's MMA community so if I have to go down to get some fights

then I have to go down but I'm guessing you don't want to make that drop down until you get a little bit more experience underneath your feet if I'm reading you correctly yeah look I mean first of all I don't believe in cutting weight you know I just don't I think it's terrible for your body If you're going to win, you're going to win at whatever weight you compete at. And I think it's sending a bad message to young girls and young kids all around. You know, I don't want anyone, especially like my niece or someone to think that, oh, to be thinner is to be better. Like, I just don't believe in that. You're big, you're strong, you're powerful.

That's the message that I want to send. But I do realize that if I want to be considered the best in the world, I have to beat the best. And that person is at 145 pounds. So I walk around at about 160 when it's not post-fight week. And, you know, I know that I have to go down there. PFL is really, I'm really fortunate that they feel the same way as me. You know, they said, listen, we want you to be strong. We want you to be healthy.

We know that when you're healthy, you put on a better fight. That's what they want their athletes to do. They want them to put on great shows. And they want to make that as possible, as physically possible, as physically. capable and possible for them. So I think, yeah, as long as I can fight at 155, I will, but I know that the time is coming. We even talked about this fight being at 150 because we couldn't find an opponent, but thankfully, Josette stepped up and we got it done.

So what's the plan for, I want to get back to the wake-cutting thing in a minute, but for now, what is the plan for 2018? You got two fights under your belt. They both went all your way. There's still some time left on the calendar. Are you thinking you could squeeze one more in this year? Oh, yeah, absolutely. If you do.

It's in my contract to fight every four months, so. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, so you definitely have to get one more in. All right, and that would likely be a 155 as well, right? Yeah, if I can, but like I said, I'm willing to go down to get some good competition so that I think people start taking me a little more seriously. But I'll fight whatever weight.

I mean, I think 1.45 is the lowest I can go, so I shouldn't say whatever weight. But I'm ready. Now, during judo, two questions. Did you not cut weight at all? And also, did you have to weigh in with the ghee? No, we don't weigh in with the ghee. We weigh-ins for judo used to be the morning of the tournament. Now they're the night before, but they do a random weight check the next day.

So four competitors from each weight class are random. selected and if they're not within 5% of the weight, then they're not allowed to compete. So it really deters athletes from cutting a ton of weight. Like if you fight 100 kilos and you weight over 105 the next day, you can't compete. And I never cut any weight in judo. I actually walked around about 5 to 10 pounds underweight and I was eating like 6,000 calories a day, living my best life. Because I just don't, you know, I'm also hypoglycemic.

So food is a really, it's kind of a big deal for me, I think a little bit more so than maybe some other athletes. And yeah, like I said, I just don't, I don't know, I don't believe in it. I don't believe in the message it sends. You know, it's interesting. I actually think your worldview is really the only way to combat it. It's not that you can't do things. I know NCAA wrestling has employed a number of considerations and procedures to combat it. They've had some success with it after they had a couple or a few guys die.

And I'm not saying that weight cutting in MMA can't be fixed to some degree. But honestly, I just think athletes have to have your attitude. I'm at my best when I compete at my best, which is not dehydrated. Do you have any ideas about ways they could solve weight cutting? I think that, you know, the judo idea is a really good idea. The random next day weight check, you know, maybe not 5%, or 7%, something like that. but you have these guys cutting 40, 50, whatever pounds. Like, that's, I can't even, I can't even fathom cutting 50 pounds and then believing that I can step into a cage at my very best 24 hours later.

Never mind, like, physically how I would feel, but you have to think about the kind of, like, it's not, you're not swinging a baseball bat. You know, people are like punching you in the head. You dehydrate what, you're also dehydrating your brain. Like, what's the number one thing that keeps your brain safe? It's the water, you know? Like, that's just, to me, it's like, I'm surprised that commissions allow it as of now. You know, there's so, I had, I've never had like MRIs or, you know, blood tests and all that to do a judo tournament. They do all these tests as commissions to make sure you're healthy and you can fight, but they're going to let you cut 50 pounds.

That doesn't, like, that doesn't make any sense to me at all. Let's talk about the fight itself against Josette. You know what I saw? I saw some double legs. Saw some double legs from you, judo, Kayla. Hey, what was the thought process there? It looks to me like you know you can always, you always have the ace in the hole, right, if you need it.

But this is the opportunity to begin to implement some of those things you've been working on. Is that a fair read? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, American Top Team is one of the best. I mean, I think it's the best gym in the world. and I think our grappling is second to none. You know, Mocko, a great wrestling coach. Mike, obviously, my head coach has a wrestling background.

And for me, I pick up grappling a lot faster than I pick up any other martial arts. So the wrestling was a lot easier for me to pick up than the striking. And, you know, our whole process is if I can't take them down in the clinch, then I can go below or I can shoot a double or I can, you know, that just makes me much more well-rounded. I can take you down from any position, like a Khabibi. Fair enough. What was the best thing about your last fight? What was the thing that surprised you the most in terms of difficulty in your last fight? I think the best thing about the fight was just how relaxed I was.

You know, there were even a couple times where I got close to her, but I didn't take her down. And instead of panicking and just like zombie reaching, I was able to sort of reset, stay calm, stay patient, go again for the, you know, striking into the takedown. I think the most difficult part was just how tough she was, you know, obviously I was upset. I didn't get the arm bar in the first round. But we, you know, again, MMA is not judo. You have to be smart. So it's position before submission. I knew that there was short time. So that's why I decided to go for it. But if that had been two minutes into the round and I ended up on bottom, you know, that I might not have won that round. So I'm happy with how my ability to understand MMA and sort of take my skill set and put it to good use inside of a cage

is coming along. But I was definitely surprised with how long it took me to put her away. You know, she was very, very sturdy, very durable. It's also tough too, no elbows. I think maybe it would have been a little bit different had I been able to throw some elbows, but it is what it is. You know, you're in the PFL. They don't allow elbows, but it is a very fighter-friendly organization. And I know we spoke, we spoke a while ago before you'd even gotten your first fight. You had some, what I would call pretty understandable trepidation, or at least some apprehension about the MMA world, the way in which it treats athleticism and competition. You're now two fights in, right? Have some of those concerns been assuaged?

Yes and no. I mean, again, I fight for an organization that's very pro-fighter, you know, which I'm honored to do. They put us first. You know, it's not about how much trash I talk or how pretty someone is or, you know, who their manager is. It's about, you know, who shows up and puts on a good show in the cage. And if you win, you advance. But again, it's still, you know, I have to grow a thicker skin.

I catch myself reading blogs or reading forums about what people are saying. Oh, yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. No, I know. It's a slippery slope, though, man. It's hard not to. And I'm like, like, if someone said the other day, I was reading this, so I have like a Google alert, so it pops up, you know, and I just, I clicked on it. And it said, what do you think of Kayla Harrison's personality, just out of curiosity? And then there's just, like, whole forum, like, debating whether or not I'm fake or like, I'm a man, like, all this stuff. And I'm just like, oh, my God, these people don't know me. Like, why are they saying these things? But again, it is what it is. I just can't, like, I can't go to MMA forums, I think. It's just, like, not healthy. Can I give you some unsolicited but potentially helpful advice? Yes.

The best thing you can do as a fighter is to learn how to get an ear for criticism. Because when you get someone like Anthony Pettis, he listened to, not so much forums per se, but even MMA media, and like, we get things wrong all the time. He was listening to criticism so much that he changed the way he fought. And I don't know that that didn't really any favors. I'm not saying you would do that. But the people who, like, comment on who you are, they have no clue who you are. They couldn't possibly have anything to say.

But someone down the line might say something insightful about something much more narrowly focused and interesting. You can't block out all criticism. You just got to find the one that matters and is important and is delivered in an impactful way. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Sure. No, I hear you. And I mean, I think I take criticism pretty well. It's just when you, like, feel like unwarranted attacks on things that don't, I feel like don't matter. But I have to remember I'm in an entertainment business now, not necessarily. I mean, I want it to be a sport. And I think it's going, it's on its way to becoming a sport. But I mean, people still talk about athletes all the time, don't they? So I guess it doesn't really matter. People are going to talk. But they're talking about you. That means they're watching. So perfect. I mean, LeBron James is out here building schools for kids,

and they're still telling him to shut up and dribble, right? Like, you can't win. It's impossible to win. You know what I mean? No, it's impossible to it. No, you're right. You're right. You're right.

Before you go, a couple more questions for you. Do you do any visualization as an athlete? Yes, yes, I do. Every night, all the time. Okay, so then answer this question, Madam. How long before you are carrying the title, it doesn't matter the weight class, of a major MMA organization? I picture that every night.

I have since I first decided that I was going to fight. That's the end goal. It's not, sorry, my niece is with me this week, and she's painting right now, but she's singing while she paints. It's all good. I do the same thing. No, so I visualize it every night. You know, I fully expect by the end of next year, I will be one. of the best, if not the best in the world.

And then I've been trying to figure out a way to shoehorn this question. And so I'm going to do it in a real meta way. How long before you do interviews where jerk jobs like me don't ask you about Ronda Rousey? Oh, I think it's never going to. I think that it's going to follow me for the rest of my life. I'm going to be 90 years old and I'm still going to be talking about Ronda Rousey. I also didn't watch SummerSlam last night. I'm taking you didn't either.

I didn't. I didn't. What happened? I couldn't possibly tell you, Kayla. I couldn't possibly tell you. I don't watch that stuff. So what can I say? Here's what I did watch. I did watch your fight at PFL and you looked fantastic. You look fantastic. I'm glad to see the growth of your career. I don't know when you're going to fight next, but if it happens to be anywhere near this studio, we would love to have you in studio here, Kayla, okay? Absolutely. Sounds good, for sure. Congrats on all your success and I'm sure there's a whole lot more of it down the pipeline. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. You too. All right. Very good.

All right. We are waiting for one, Mr. Paul Felder. We'll do our Monday morning analyst with him. Got to say, man. We had her in studio in D.C. for my radio show. She brought in her Olympic gold medals. They're way heavier than you think they are. How heavy are they? It's like, I don't know.

I don't know exactly what the weight is, but it's like if you picked it up as a dumbbell, it wouldn't be as heavy because it'd be distributed. but it's like this little rock that is crazy heavy. It's very, very cool to see. She has two of them, which is even more impressive, but she's also physically just a presence, man. At 145, she keeps going the way she's going. She is going to be a problem, a problem for people.

So that's going to be interesting to see. Now, Paul is going to be our next guest, Paul Felder. And there's a bunch of waiting to ask him about. I know he's got that, I think he's got, we'll ask him about this. I think he's got like an arm x-ray today, maybe an MRI, something like that. And I believe we have him on via Skype. So let's go to him now for our Monday morning analyst segment with Paul Felder. All right.

Let's do it now. There he is. I can't see him. There he is with that glorious morning beard. How are you doing, Mr. Paul Felder? I'm good. How are you, man? I'm good.

I'm very delighted to catch up with you. I appreciate you making time for us. Now, I did see on social media from your account, not just generally. So I can trust the reliability of this. Do you have a doctor's appointment today about your arm? So what's the deal there? Well, this is my, to be my third x-ray, the first one obviously being when they realized it was broken,

and then I had one after the surgery to see if the plate, you know, was holding up and doing what it's supposed to do. And then today should be another one, another x-ray, and see if the bone's healing the way it's supposed to and my doctor told me if today goes the way they expected to go. This splint that I'm wearing should be off. I should start a little bit of PT and rehab on the arm, getting the strength back and get the flexibility of my wrist.

We'll see. So whole fingers crossed that that's good news on my x-ray today. Let's say you get good news, and we certainly hope that you do. When would you anticipate a return to the octagon? When I was at the PI, Um, Heather, who was working on my arm and helping just, you know, do some scraping and get some, some blood flow in there said, uh, realistically, if everything goes well, December is possible. Wow. That is crazy quick.

Okay, that's not nearly as long as I thought. Yeah, man. I mean, there's a metal plate in there, dude. So the doctor told me, he's like, this, this isn't going anywhere. He's just, we want to make sure that the bone that's attached to the plate where it was broke. and is fully healed before you start getting too crazy. But that was the reason we went with having the plate put in versus maybe trying to line it up and letting it heal in a cast because that would have taken significantly longer to just let it heal on its own.

Okay, so let's get to the actual injury itself. For folks who men, I know it happened during your fight with Mike Perry at UFC 226. Was it the spinning back fist that did it? It's got to be, man. I've watched that fight at least 15 times. and the only thing I see that would have caused that kind of a break is that spinning back fist that hit off. I hit off the top of Mike's head. Okay.

Got a hard head. Yeah, he certainly does. Did you feel it immediately? Did it impact your ability to compete with that hand? There must have been some kind of hindrance with that. I knew something was wrong, but at first I just thought my arm was stiff and sore. and then in between the first and second round in the corner, I was trying to make a fist because I couldn't make a full fist

because the bone was snapped and I could feel crunching. I could feel the bones grinding together in my wrist. That sounds normal. That's how I knew something was very wrong. All right. So I've been thinking about a lot of that fight. I rewashed it the other day. What is your impression of that fight?

Yeah, you had the injury and it didn't go your way. It was a very tough fight. he's a tough guy too. I know you expected to win, but going back from there, what is the lesson there? Is 170 in the right weight class? Why did the result? Why did it happen that way?

See, the unfortunate thing I think for me is, if that had gone well, I do think 70s very much a possibility. I don't think size or strength was really why things went wrong. I think it was just a tough fight and circumstances didn't go my way. I got hurt. I really feel I could compete at that weight class,

but I do also a big part of me thinks I can really still make a run at the top at 155. I was on a three-fight winning streak, and now it's like I took a loss, but I only took a loss at 170, so I still haven't lost in over a year at 155. So I'm hoping that I got to talk to my coaches, and my manager and things like that. But I was really leaning towards 70 leading up to that fight.

And then now I really want to try to make one more really strong run at getting into the top five. And, you know, I would love to fight for that belt someday, man. The 170 thing, I had two thoughts about it. And I don't want to be that Wawa guy who gave you unsolicited, terrible advice, which, by the way, I want to follow up with. You can. I'll listen to you.

I will listen to. I know you are. You know this game. It's the guy at Wawa, I had no idea who I was either. He didn't even know who I was. And people were getting on me like, oh, he's a fan.

I'm like, no, he wasn't. He just asked me what happened when I explained it. He's like, oh, yeah, man, you can't be throwing spinning back for this. It happens all the time. Used to happen to me back when I fought, you know, fair or not, whatever the guy said to me,

which was complete crap. So, yes, I'll listen to your advice. Which I'll get in a minute. Hold on this Wawa guy. So you go in there and you're just, you're not bothering any, buddy, you're ordering up your meatball sub with whatever you put on it. And this guy, how did he know, like, was your face still fucked up?

Like, how did he know you were a UFC fighter if he didn't know who you were? My face was still banged up, but more importantly, I had this on. So he's like, what happened? What happened to your wing, bro? And I was like, okay. I hate explaining to people who don't know what's going on. I'm going to just start saying I tripped and fell and landed on my wrist. But so I explained him.

I was like, well, I'm a fighter, and, you know, I had a fight, and I threw a spinning back fist, and it broke. And the guy gave me his whole history on why I shouldn't be throwing spinning back. He still didn't realize that I was a current, you know, UFC fighter that if you actually followed the sport, you would probably know not only who I was, but that fight that just happened on a pay-per-view on one of the biggest cards of the year with Cormier and Stepe, and it's like, he didn't even know.

So I was like, you don't even know what's going on in the UFC right now, yet alone giving me advice on what I should be throwing in the sport today. Well, how was the sub? Was it still delicious? You know, the messed up parts, I don't even think I was getting a sandwich that day. I think I just got like some water in like a protein bar or something. I didn't even get to indulge in a delicious hoagie or a meatball sandwich. All right, well, look, back to once. By the way, I was just thinking about that, like Connor McGregor,

you know, one of the most successful popular fighters, independent of, you know, boxing or MMA, I bet he gets it all the time. I don't know about from Wawa technicians, but you can imagine how many people that must come up to him? Like, when he lost to Diaz, can you imagine how many people

must have said something to him? You can't win with this stuff. Bro, why'd you tap, bro? Yeah. He was choking me. That's why I tap. All right, back to you. Here was my thought about 170.

Number one, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, especially if you have time to, like, get your body weight. totally right for 170 rather than taking a fight on short notice. But this was what I noticed. I don't think you don't have big power. I do think you have big power. But Mike Perry just wore it better than some of your 155 opponents.

Maybe that's a Mike Perry thing. Maybe that's a 170 thing. But those are my two thoughts. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think he's used to getting hit by bigger guys. He's competed at that way class. A, he's tough, like you said, to begin with. I mean, Mike's a beast, no matter what division he's in.

And on top of that, yeah, he's used to the bigger guys. And, you know, he's taking punishment from guys even bigger than me. So I'm going to see that a lot if I go to 170 where guys won't fall down or, you know, because I hit him with some shots that maybe if that was a 55 or who's smaller than Mike or he's not used to that, I feel like some of those right hands would have at least dropped a lot of 55ers. And then preparing your body for 170? Sorry, no, no worries. If you take a 170 fight, but now you have time,

like, you know, let's say 10 weeks to prepare, would you bulk up a little bit? Yeah, yeah. I was, I was, it's tough, man, because I was like, I was waking up two weeks out from the, the Vick fight in Idaho, still at like 180, 182, two weeks out. So I was struggling.

to get down for 55, but I'm not huge to be making weight for 70. That's why that 15-pound gap kind of throws things off, whereas I had to start eating just so that I wasn't walking into Fight Week at, you know, 178, 179, just from workouts, I get down to that no problem, you know. So if I knew ahead of time, I'd probably be walking around lean and bigger in the 90s, whereas right now it's, it's tough for me to do that. that's why I'm thinking 55 might end up being back on the table just because since the hand injury, I haven't been able to lift as much either. So the weight that I do have on is weight I can

lose quickly, just from burning fat. Got it. All right. I want to use your analytical powers, and I hope that you get good news from the doctor. Appreciate your time today. Let's look ahead. Now, you were actually supposed to fight James Vic coming up this weekend at UFC Lincoln. Instead, it's going to be James Vic taking on Justin Gaichie. You're impressive. of who might win there. Oh, did we lose them? Oh, there we go.

That's a bad way to freeze on Skype. See if we can get them either back on Skype or on the phone. Oh, right when we had the analysis stuff. Gee, de it. You know what? When are cell phones not going to suck?

That's what I want to know. You ever think about that? It's like, cell phones have enabled talk radio, which is my normal course of business to thrive because you can get virtually anybody anywhere. I think he's in a car or something, right? But at the same time, the technology is just not that good. We think it's that good. It's not that good. Granted, we are making incredible demands upon it where I'm trying to look at this gentleman through his cell phone. Back on the Skype or what? Yes? All right, let's go back to Mr. Felder on the Skype machine.

There he is. Sorry about that. All right, you were saying, Vic versus Gaichi, what do you think about who might win there? I think if Vic uses his range properly and can stay away and avoid those leg kicks and keep it at bay, it might force Justin to use his wrestling a little bit. And if he shoots in on Vic, I think it's trouble. And I think Vic might be able to secure a submission, man. I think he's just so long and rangy that he's going to be able to avoid a lot of the power punches of Gathe. he's just got to watch the leg kick. So hopefully that's something he's been preparing for so he can avoid getting his legs chopped down

because you see Gachi's able to do that to guys that are shorter. So imagine Vick's long legs who's obviously got to have skinnier legs to be fighting at 155 at 6.3. So I think it's going to be a battle of can Gachi land the leg kicks and hurt him or can Vic keep his jab on him look for that uppercut or look for a submission.

So I give the slight edge to Vick in this one. I don't know which way to lean on the Justin Gachy scenario, which is as follows. Is it smart to incorporate wrestling because he is so good at it? We've seen defensively he can use it to great effect to keep the fight standing. Or has he so ingrained a fighting style that going outside of that to what he's historically done would be aberrant for him to the point it might throw off his offense? Where do you lean on that equation? Yeah, I think if he decides on this fight to really use his wrestling,

It could be a problem for him just because of the submission threat that Vic possesses with the guillotines and dars chokes and things like that. He's so long that even if you have a good shot, once he gets his arms around your neck, it's almost impossible to defend a guy like that. Then that takes us to some other lightweight fights that are happening on the calendar. I've got to get your impressions very quickly. We talked a lot about it before. Habib versus Connor.

Let me repitch it to you as follows. What is Conner's most undervalued strength? What is Habib's most undervalued strength? I think for Habib, I think we talk about how he's not as good on the feed. He has all these problems, but his pressure so unrelenting that he's able to land a lot of big punches on guys that we kind of stop talking about because he gets to take down. He uses his ground and pound. He's gotten submissions. But he's in your face.

He landed a lot of shots on Edson Barbosa, who's clearly a better striker. But because of the takedown threat, because of the ground and pound and the pressure, guys have to backpedal. They have to worry about his wrestling, and it opens up for big strikes. So one of the things that we could see

that might throw people off is Kabib might be able to land some punches and some strikes because you know that he's going to be coming to take you down, and you have to worry about that anytime you're fighting that guy. So I think his boss, boxing is kind of completely forgotten about, even though he's improved it and it is getting better. And for Connor, his take-down defense, I mean, who's taking him down and really controlled him there other than when Diaz got the submission? But Connor initiated that wrestling exchange anyway. So I think his control on the feet, and Mendez obviously got him down too, but he did have a bum knee

going into that fight, which we found out later on and did almost no wrestling. So I think Connor's ability to keep the fight on the feet and stay at range is someone. That's something we know he's good at. But I think his wrestling and his jiu-jitsu is underrated. Certainly. And then Dustin Parier, Nate Diaz, that's a really interesting one for me. And I'll tell you why. It's because overall, I think Dustin is the more complete fighter and has more ways to win.

And I do think skills win fights. But the fight, the places in a fight he likes to be boxing at range or grappling on the ground, boy, just so happens to be that Nate Diaz is awesome there. And in a three-round contest, zero issues with cardio anyway in a five-round, but especially in the three-round, that is to me a very competitive fight. Yeah, I agree.

I think you're right. Where Dustin is really good is where Nate thrives. And same with Dustin. They're both tough guys that like to bang it out a little bit, and that's Nate's world. So we'll see. But I think, I agree. Poilliers is definitely the cleaner

striker. He's got good wrestling, but Nate, he's a freak, man. He takes shots. He hangs in there and he finds a way to win and he's got great submissions and judo throws. So that's a fight that if everything works out and they end up actually fighting, that's going to be a hell of a fight. I think that's going to be a three-round bloodbath, to be honest with you. You did two, maybe three, but I certainly saw you doing two of the weeks for the Dana-Y Tuesdays in the contendom series. phenomenal job. You really have come into your own with this gig, and I was really happy to

see you back there. What is something you are seeing with the guys who are the next generation of fighters that maybe some of us, when we're watching, don't pick up on, like, yes, they're well-rounded. Okay. But you've now done that gig a lot. What are you seeing from them? Did we lose them again?

I think these kids are learning too. You know, they know how to act in there. They know how to promote themselves better than guys. Maybe when I was first getting into the UFC, they they know how to hype themselves up. Am I still there?

Yep. Sorry, I thought maybe I was lost again. No, you're good. Yeah, they all, they seem to have a lot more confidence these guys coming in than than guys at that level outside of the UFC would have normally had

maybe three, four, five years ago. These guys know they belong there, and now they have to go through a longer road to get to the UFC than I did when when I got signed. I mean, these guys normally used to be able to fight for a regional promotion that the UFC kind of looked to for a feeder.

And now they've got those guys have to now come and fight another guy that's at that same level and UFC ready potentially and battle it out on the contender series. So I think that they're more UFC ready than they used to be or ever have been at this point in MMA. Yeah, you know what's crazy. That's Sadiq Yuse. a fight. I forgot the gentleman who he fought,

but they could have easily handed out a contract to the loser in that fight. Oh, yeah. Bro, when I saw that fight matched up and I looked up, I think Mike, it was Mike something that he fought. And that kid was an

stud. And in the highlights of building up to his fight, he was training with Mike Perry. And he's like throwing him around and landing shots. So, I mean, that kid, that's how good. That kid is even at 145. He's competing with UFC welterweights. And it just, yeah, Sadiq's just that good too. I mean, coming into this one, I knew how good

Sadiek Yusuf was. I'd seen him before. I'd seen him live. Knock a guy out. So he's a guy I've been aware of for a long time when he got on the Contender Series. And he was the underdog. I couldn't believe it. Before you go, do you know when you're commenting, not so much for the Contender Series as the season is over, but when you're going to be next in the commentary booth? Next week. Next week. For real?

Wait, you mean Lincoln? Yeah. Oh, very good. And who are you doing it with? Who's your partner? Fitzgerald. Oh, what a great team. Boy, he is so talented that guy.

He had no background in MMA. He has transitioned just fine. Yeah, he really, you know, dove into it, watches all the fights, does a ton of research, ask questions, did a little bit of training now that he's out in Vegas at Syndicate, I think he was taking some

Muay Thai classes and things like that. So he's all in, man. He's a sports guy, you know? He's one of those guys that embraced the sport and once he got that job, he dove into MMA and learning all aspects of it, and it's paying off.

Well, I'll tell you what, I know the last fight didn't go your way, but you've been phenomenal in the commentary booth and whether it's at 155 or 170. I know you still have some glory days yet. Paul, thank you so much for your time. And if I ever find that guy in Wawa, I'll tell him how to make his sandwich better or something, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm going to go back to that one this week. I'm going to be out that way anyway. I hope you, and the man, can have a little conversation. All right, good luck with the convo. I appreciate it, my friend. Thank you. All right, thank you guys. There he goes.

Oh, man. All right, we're trying to get Mickey Gaul. We'll see what happens with that in just a second. But Paul is one of the good guys, man. Not a lot of good guys in this sport. He's one of them, dude. That is hilarious. I see that kind of thing all the time.

You talk to fighters, man. They'll be anywhere, grocery store, home depot, any kind of place where people do a lot of commerce. 7-Eleven. It doesn't have to be a place with food, you know, or whatever. Just your neighborhood stores that everybody traverses. And sure enough, man, like, I talk to fighters all the time. And they're always like, yeah, that dude was like, what was your problem? Why did you tap?

Why didn't you throw this punch? you go for the takedown. How come you got choked out? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, they all have to sit there and go through it. But then when you figure it out, you're like, and then sort of in my line of work, the more fighters you talk to, like the higher level they go, excuse me, the higher level they go, you begin to realize that like, oh, wait a second, this doesn't stop. Like, your level of celebrity, not only does it not immunize you, right? It doesn't immunize you at all. But on top of that, it actually exacerbates it. Like, the more popular you are. And if you have any kind of,

of failure, the more that you are not inoculated from this kind of thing. So when he put that on Twitter, I was like, yep, that sounds like every other fighter I know who's ever lost, where if someone just says, there's this famous onion article. I'll get to it later because we have to get to our guest, but there's a famous onion article about this. Danny in the back, remind me to bring it up when we have a chance to get to it. Is he on Skype? Is he on the phone?

All right. So let's get to him now, joining us on the hotline. is a gentleman that returns to the Octagon this weekend when he takes on George Sullivan. The one and only Mickey Gaul is here. Mickey, how are you, sir? Good. What's up, Big Luke Thomas? All right, my man.

Look, I saw the video, but I'm still not clear on things. So you have moved to one Colorado, correct? No, I'm doing like my train. I'm not in L.A. You're in L.A. Oh, that's right, because you're with muscle farm, right? Yeah. And Muscle Farm moved from Colorado to L.A.?

Or am I... Help me understand your training situation. All right. So I'm out in L.A. I'm traded with Joe Schilling, Eve Edwards, Muscle Farm, Jason Manley,

Ben Zong, just a bunch of beasts out here. Okay. Now, how did you get hooked up with them? So me and Joe Schilling had the same management. The past, and we met. and we like hit it off and then you know around the same size and stuff and uh we we me and him

you know we started like wanted to train together so i came out started training out here um he helped me a lot uh with stand-up i'd help him with jihitsu and then i actually uh i also i live with eve edwards out here and so me and him are splitting a house out here and uh and yeah i'm just i'm I'm around killers. I'm around beefs, having a great time. Just getting better, man. Okay, so I've heard a lot of different things about what you're doing. I just wanted to have you clarify it. Are you no longer with the team you were before? Are you still affiliated with them? How's that work? Absolutely. That's my team for life. That's my family. That's more than my team. But, you know, I'm out here. Yeah, that's Grace New Jersey. That's my blood.

But, yeah, I'm out here. You know, I'm working with, I'm trained at the muscle farm gym, which is a great facility. out here in Burbank, and then, you know, Joe and Eve and Jason Manley, these guys are, you know, these are my brothers too. They're helping me tremendously. All right. So what has been the, we last saw you, UFC 217. It's been a while since you've been around, but here you are back. What has been the biggest area of growth for you? Huh, good question. I just think overall, I think, you know, everything, I would say trimming, a, I think it's a lot, like, trimming the fat off a lot of techniques. You know, Joe's helped me a lot, with a lot of understanding of stand-up.

Like, I've always, you know, been tough, and I know I feel like I could crack anybody, but I understand it better. Like, I understand it more as, like, as a science and, like, you know, more ways. So I've even more confidence in my stand-up, you know. I'd say everything, man. I'm learning a lot. I'm soaking it all up out here. And, you know, my job is to get as good as I can as quick as I can.

And I think this is a necessary step to help, you know, expedite that process. Has it been as fruitful the move as you thought it would be? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I came just looking to, like, work with, like, Joe, with Eve and Jason Manley. And then the muscle farm thing came around. That's been tremendous.

It's an awesome gym in Burbank It's a beautiful facility And there's always tough training partners Coming through so I'm getting a lot of tough work Seeing that high level speed all the time Of the UFC You know glory guys Belator

You know just high level dance And living with Eves I mean that guy is an encyclopedia of MMA right Like how much is he just dropping knowledge daily all the time. We watch fights. You know, I'm learning all the time. I, you know, I surround myself.

I wasn't good to surround myself with good people. And, you know, I have the same environment out here in L.A. And yeah, he's the man. He's the best. He's the other one now we're about to go. You're going to do some training. All right. So how much of this was a reaction to the loss at UFC 217?

Did you say to yourself, I'm not getting good fast enough, or I'm not where I want to be, or was this all planned beforehand? How related are the two events? Well, I'd say probably, had I not had an off night and not taking my first loss, I wonder would I be here right now? This was concocted after the fact. So I think that would be, you know, they say you win or you learn. and I think I learned I needed some, I was, you know, I was the best guy in my room at home.

I needed to, I thought I could do it all at home. And I think, you know, the loss made me like look for more, like, opportunity and other opportunities to grow. And, you know, to get out of my comfort zone and all that. So I think, I think it had, it definitely had to do with that. But, you know, so I guess I'd say, yeah, probably did I do that. had I ran through the guy and won a fight, maybe I'd still be in Jersey. And I wouldn't even have tried this L.A. thing. So here you are in L.A. learning with Joe Schilling.

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong. Did I not see Joe Schilling in a ghee at a competition called High Rollers where they smoke weed before they compete and then they grapple? No, that's correct. That's absolutely correct. And that's exactly what the structure of the tournament. And Joe Ankle took a couple of legs off people. that tournament. Did he really?

How good is he getting in the Ghee, by the way? Because I know he's been putting in work underneath the radar a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, we've, we've been doing a lot of Jiu-Sitza. So for the Ghee, he just threw that on like two weeks before the tournament because it happened to be a Ghee tournament. We've been doing a lot of

no-gee and like M&A-specific Jiu-Jitsu. So, but his, yeah, his jiu-sit-s gotten, I'd say, oh, like, 100 times better than when,

than when we started. He's, you know, he's, he's understanding now, and he's, like, he's really picking it up, he's enjoying it. And, yeah, it's really fun to see because, you know, he's probably the best kickboxer, best merit kickboxer ever. And now he's in a... Let's get to your fight. For sure, let's get to your fight. You're taking on George Sullivan here at UFC Lincoln. He's on a two-fight losing streak. He served out of USADA suspension, I believe, so he had some

time off between his two losses there. But this is, this one is a little in close proximity to his last fight. What are you anticipating from him? I think another guy from your neck of the woods, if I'm not mistaken, on the East Coast. Yeah. Yeah. George's a Jersey guy, just like me. You know, he was like one of the best guys, maybe the best guy, like, on the regional circuit when I was, like, first starting. Like, George Sullivan was, he was a CFFC champ. He just, like, got called to USC. So it was cool. Like, I kind of like, like, almost like, yeah, I'm going to be like that. I like almost looked up to him a little bit then, but now I get to, like, kick his ass with easy. So that's cool.

But, you know, I envision him, you know, I think, I think, you know, I think he's a little old school, a little, a little stiff. And I think I could beat him anywhere. But I think he's, I also know he's a tough, he's a tough son of a bitch. And, you know, he's not going to be easy out, but I'm going to get him. What's interesting to me is your placement on the card. Now, you're on the FS2 portion of the prelims, the very first one on the just past fight pass, so you're on the television portion. Are you a little surprised at your placement there?

I had a, we did an MMA beat panel last week. We talked about it. We were all a little surprised by it. What do you mean? That it shouldn't be, uh, should be where on the main card? Uh, yeah, yeah, you should. Yeah, I think it too. I don't know.

Maybe, maybe that's a mistake or maybe it's a, it's a mistake on purpose. I don't know. Have you given it a ton of thought? I mean, either way, you beat George Sullivan. you're in a good position, but have you noodleed that one through it all? Sure, yeah. I hope I'm on the Fox Wars 1 portion. I don't think my dad has Fox Sports 2.

I don't think we got Fox Sports 2 in Jersey, so I hope I'm on Fox Sports 1st, so I won't keep me. According to Wikipedia, it's the FS2 portion, but I don't know if that might change come Saturday. But it's sort of interesting to me, right? Like you beat Sage Northcutt. He's out here, I think, co-maneventing some of these fight nights,

and you already smashed him. So it's just a little of a weird position to be in, right? Totally. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, I don't know, man. I think it'd be silly for them to have me on that portion. You know, let me, you know, make a bang, make some noise and do it on TV,

on TV that everyone has. Sure. Do you anticipate that maybe this is, or maybe this is something like, look, guy had a loss, guy had a move. We need to, you know, kick the tires, make sure everything's going fine, but you get a win here, and you're back in the spotlight right after that. Maybe this is just seeing where you're at, given all the change. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I looked at the, I don't know. I think I should definitely be on the main card. That's where I want to be. I want to fight in front as many people as possible.

This is what I work harder to do. So I want to be on the Fox Force one portion, but maybe a lot, you know, I'm sure everyone wants to be. Now the distance in terms of... I know I'm a name too. For sure. Look, and they've invested in you already. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like you're just trying to bang on pots and fans to get attention.

Everybody already knows who you are, right? So kind of surprising in that sense. In terms of the space between your last fight and this one, were you considered any fight before this? And here's what I mean. Like, you wanted to take time off to get better to move and all that stuff, and now you're ready to go. If you win on Saturday and the odds makers believe you will,

will you get back into the cage relatively quickly after that? 100%. I, um, so I was talking about the bit after my last fight. I know it's been a while this is November, but that wasn't, like, that wasn't exactly by my choice. I was trying to get right back in. I was trying to fight in Boston

in January. I was trying to fight. Um, I, I, and, you know, I was trying to hop back maybe a little too quickly. I just had a bad taste in my mouth. But then, you know, I was trying to fight International Fight Week, the L.A. card, one earlier in the summer. But, yeah, I plan on doing a lot of fights this year. I'm ready to run.

I want to do this fight. I want to do Madison Square Garden again in November. And then I'd like to do, you know, a fight after Christmas and then, you know, another fight before summer. I'm only alone, man. I've been training, I've been gearing up. And, you know, it's my time. I'm ready to go.

Physically, how much are you different, right? Because you're still growing into your full athletic potential. Has that been something you're noticing as well? Yeah, yeah. I just, you know, I just feel what I can do to other guys who are good. And, you know, I'm doing great. I'm beating up guys that are supposed to be really good. but I also, I know I'm supposed to be real bit.

So, you know, it makes sense. I feel good, man. You know, we're just getting started. We're just getting started. Now, you're a smart guy. You always have a plan for after the fight when they put a microphone in your face. I'm wondering, do you have the same one for Saturday?

Oh, yeah. We always got a plan. Hopefully it'll be on Fox Sports One and everyone can see it. We'll see about that. Very quick, before you go, very quickly, Mickey, I understand you have a beagle. If this is true, I have heard both good and bad things about beagle. Beagles, I've heard they're quite loyal.

I've heard they're very yappy. Any of this true? Yeah, totally. They'll definitely give you like a big, a big howl. They're sweet. They're so sweet. And yeah, one of dogs, if you can deal here in that, like to the point where you're like, shut up, you get a beagle.

But I'd say it's worth it. Like you, you have, like, they, yeah, they like to be heard. They like to how. Well, you know what? Kind of like you. You like to be heard and certainly like to be seen. Nothing wrong with that. Mickey, it's been too long.

Thank you so much for your time on the show. And we can't wait to see you fight on Saturday. Thanks, brother. Talk to you soon. All right. There he goes. All right. I,

wait on Tom Lawler. Okay. I think he's going to be. surprised he's on Fox Sports 2. I'm looking at it here. Wikipedia, Fox Sports 2. I'm going out of UFC.com slash schedule. I'm looking on the event page for

UFC Lincoln. So is FS2 prelims now. If he wins quickly and they have time on the broadcast on FS1, they could always squeeze him in. That's always a possibility. Of course, we always know that this broadcast from FS1, if you have a 30 second knockout, they usually fill it with 75,000 hours

of B-roll that nobody needs or wants to see because that's just the way do things to pack in enough ad time to make it worth their while, which I cannot tell you how excited I am for that era of MMA to come to a close. The era of, hey, here's a 30-second knockout, round one of a card on FS1. Oh, we've got 29 minutes and 30 seconds guaranteed before the next fight starts because this channel has to sell too much ad inventory. Yay.

All right. Back to the phones for our last guest today. this gentleman, I don't know what the hell happened here. So I wanted to get him on because he's truly one of MMA's unique personalities. Weird news. The one and only, filthy Tom Lawler joins us on the phone. Hi, Tom, how are you? Hey, thanks for having me.

All right, Tom, let's back up a step. First of all, congratulations, I have to say, on all your indie wrestling success. Now, you know that this is not necessarily something that I consume, but I follow a lot of what you do. And also, the other day, I subscribed to be in sports. I saw you on being sports. I was like, my guy, Tom Lawler, is blowing up out there. So I know you've had some recently difficult news, but congratulations on all your success, man.

Yeah, I appreciate it, Luke. You know, you mentioned me having some difficult news lately, but I'm not choosing to look at it that way. I'm choosing to look at it at opening the door to many other opportunities that hopefully come my way. So I was with the UFC for a long time, you know, And as you mentioned, I had some difficult news. I was let go one week ago today. Some pretty interesting, shocking news to me, at least.

All right. So for folks who made out know the story, you were with the UFC for many years. You had fought in middleweight. You had made a transition to light heavy. You had knocked out John Volante. I believe you got a bonus for that. You had a fight. Didn't go your way against Corey Anderson.

And then there was a USADA suspension, something you have adamantly challenged. I believe they found Osterine in your system. You tried to find out from maybe what's, supplement it was. I think they even tested your coffee and you couldn't find it. So you were just kind of stuck in no man's land. You were set to be off suspension in October, I think 10th of this year, so less than two months. And all of a sudden, they just released you. Number one, did I get those details right? And number two, what is your guess about why they waited until now?

One, yeah, you've got all the details right. So props to you. That's a very good job and synopsis of the situation. And two, I think it's just a combination of them getting rid of guys and my age and not having fought in a few years. You know, it's unfortunate that the UFC has become such a large company that they don't look at things on an individualistic basis, but, you know, that's part of the fight game, I guess. It's part of the entertainment business.

And I just have to kind of take it and roll with it as it goes. I was shocked. I was kind of distraught because I had asked previously for my release when I was given the USADA suspension. And believe me, Luke, when I tell you this, I did not intentionally ingest any sort of Austrian or any performance-enhancing drug. I'm all natural, and I've been tested many times since then, passed all of them. I am, however, happy to be out of the USADA testing pool and not have to let them know where I am at all times. wonder what's going on with that. Those of you who have read the Josh Barnett situation

or kept abreast of that can kind of understand that not everything is fair, I guess, when it comes to Usada and the UFC. Is Usada a force for good in MMA? It's supposed to be, yes. Idealistically, it is. However, in execution, I think a lot of things are slipping through the cracks,

and I think they've done a lot of things wrong. The banned substance list is basically just a list of substances that they don't want to test, that they don't want to see the effects on it. And they don't see anything that's put on that list. And when you have, like, a substance, we get emails. We've gotten emails from USADA. There's been alerts. There's been a ton of information out there about Austrian being spiked in products.

And, you know, if it's that prevalent, you know, maybe you should do some studies on it and see if it is worth, you know, suspending people and ruining their lives for two years over. When you got the news that you were initially suspended, what were you saying to yourself? Like, how am I going to make money? You obviously developed quite a reputation and a career in the indie wrestling scene, but was that the plan right away? Was that already in motion when that suspension hit?

Well, I've got an indie wrestling habit that I need to support. Let me put it that way. That's a little more realistic. No, I was looking for it. forward to fighting. I was in the process of asking for a fight, and it took me way, way off guard. I spent many sleepless nights just sitting in the backyard, staring at the space, wondering how the hell this happened to me. And to be honest, the past two years, while I haven't been able to fight, it's been miserable for me. It's been hell. It sucks. And I feel like there's a monkey off my

back. You know, I feel free as a bird nowadays. So I'm a lot happier. I put a lot more. I put myself through a lot of stress over the entire situation because I'm not somebody that was ever going to go out there and intentionally cheat or try to game the system. I was trying to do the best with what I was given and, you know, trying to take advantage of hard work and dedication and let that pay off. And, you know, I was collateral damage along the way. And it's going to really sting. It's going to really, really hurt when Brock Lizzer goes back and fights for the title.

It's going to really, really hurt when John Jones. get to reduce suspension, but what can I do at this point? Really? You don't believe that they should be allowed back? How would you treat their re-entrance or not into the sport? If you look at the dance substance list that you've said it has, you're going to tell me that, what was it that Brock Leather tested positive for? Colomachim. Yeah, Clomaphene.

Which is a masking agent, correct? or it's what you use when you're coming down off of a cycle. Yeah, to like mitigate the negative effects, allegedly. But by itself, by, if you just took Chlomaphene, it is not performance enhancing. So that's why the suspension was not like two years. But it helps if you've used it helps. Is that, is that worse or better?

Is that more performance enhancing than Austerine? Does Austerine deserve a two-year suspension compared to a one-year suspension for that? This whole, I don't know, what the hell is going on? John Jones and he shot it, but I cannot wait to see the outcome and see him back headlining Madison Square Garden or something along those lines because, I mean, it'll put things in perspective. They'll clarify a lot of things for people when it comes to the drug testing situation. What would be the ideal drug testing scenario in your mind?

If you could be a king for a day, king, filthy Tom Lawler, how would you arrange it inside MMA? Well, they would need to, I mean, this is a perfect case scenario, they would have to test every single product that gets put out there, you know, and then draw conclusions based on that. I mean, realistically, we know that's not going to happen. They just have to go by hearsay and whatnot. But, you know, I think you have to draw the line. It either has to be zero tolerance policy to what they have outlined as bad, or it has to be just a wild west and wide open. And one thing, and we need to be honest about this is mixed martial arts and the UFC and they're not sport.

I mean, let's be realistic. The commissions are not there to uphold the ethics of sport. They're there to make money. And when you look at it as an entertainment property, you know, as an entertainment property, you know, at what point you say, maybe we should just get rid of all the testing and let these guys do whatever the hell they want. You know, are there really any different than stunt men at this point?

Yeah, that's certainly one way to look at it. I mean, you know my views on this. I don't really want to interject him at the moment, but it's not a bad argument. I haven't heard the stuntman one. That's an interesting one as well. Now, what are your point? When it comes down to it, what are we as fighters?

where for the majority of us, we're willing to risk our body and our lives for a set of money. You know, those of us who are doing it as a profession, that's what we are. We're essentially stunt at the basic level. Yeah, I think my issue on the whole thing about it is I don't have any skin in the game as a participant, which will always narrow and color my perspective. But it's like, I don't understand what people want exactly, right? You can't solve doping in literally any sport. There is no sport, not even cycling.

where they have truly figured out a way to effectively eradicate it, not in tennis, not in cycling, not in baseball, not in football, not in soccer, especially not in soccer, not in swimming, not in anything. And all of a sudden you think you can just figure it out in fighting because the consequences are more dire? You cannot. You cannot. It is a total farce for me from day one about it.

And then in the meantime, you enact these draconian Richard Nixon level drug war policies and then guys like you get hemmed up in it and nobody really wins. I don't really quite understand what's happening here. Yeah, yeah, it's a very valid point. And, you know, honestly, the more that I think about it, the more that we talk about it, you know, my idea shifts. Because not only, I mean, all these guys that use, use, use, use, and abuse and abuse, it's going to hurt them later on in life. So, you know, when I'm still popping wood at 70 and these guys are all shranked up, I'll be the one laughing at the end of the day. That'll be a fun Instagram post in a few years. Hey, so I know that I saw this on social media, I recall.

You still plan to fight. Like you're not done at all. They've released you. What is your plan going forward? I am more, more, more than willing to fight. I have heard some offers. There's been some management companies that have reached out to me as well since the split with the UFC. So there's things on the table.

I am looking forward to fighting. I would say to ask my training partners at Syndicate MMA if I still have anything left in the tank, but I don't want them to embarrass me publicly that could hurt my contract negotiations. So I'll just say that I've been training for the past two years, nonstop every single day, and I'm looking forward to making my return to mixed martial arts and continuing in the squared circle as well. Yeah, I was going to ask you, how do you intend on balancing that? Because you say it's a hobby, and I don't know the reality of it, but it's, seems to me more visible than it ever has been.

Can you reasonably do both if your MMA career gets back on track? Yeah, absolutely. And that's my goal at this point in time is to continue doing both. I have a number of dates set up in the future with, you know, the aforementioned MLW that you mentioned, which is on national TV. Also, if you don't get being sports, you can catch them on YouTube. And, you know, a variety of other independent companies, AIW in Cleveland, Black Label Pro in Chicago.

You know, there's a number of companies that I wrestle for across the U.S. that I'm going to continue to appear for. And also, as soon as that suspension's up, I'm looking forward to fighting. Last thing about this before I let you go, because I know you're a busy guy, but I was just thinking about this. It's like, how do you look back on your time in the UFC? Because for sure, man, you had some great wins, some huge moments. You fought in one and two way classes. You won some bonuses.

But the thing is, I don't know that they ever knew what to do with you, right? Not everybody fits every corporate structure. And here you are, you are making a great name for yourself with all the stuff at the way-ins, and they took a lot of that away. And they brought in Usada, which we all know has these real problems of overreach. I certainly think it was successful, but there's been some really weird moments in between. You look back in your UFC career. What do you think about it?

Well, you know, I don't look back on it with any ill will towards the UFC whatsoever. I think for that time of my life, it was probably what I, needed to be doing and where I needed to be. And, you know, previous to the UFC, it's not like I'm just a UFC fan. Now you get fighters, I talk to fighters in the gym who don't know who Sakaraba is. They don't know who some of the early fighters in the UFC were. And it blows my mind that, you know, these eras have been forgotten and lost. And before I was in the UFC, before I was a UFC fan, or I can't say that actually, before I was in the UFC, I was an MAA fan. You know, I had a fan of the sport. I was a fan of rings. I was a fan of pride. I was a fan of pancreas. Virtually

every, you know, variation of mixed martial arts of the sport I've watched and I've, and I've loved. So now for me and previous, for those who worked around as fans, previous to, you know, the ultimate fighter kind of taken off and pride dying, the scene was a lot more vibrant across the world. And if you really pay attention to mixed martial arts over the past year or two, I've kind of felt that ground swell again, you know, as technology makes things more available across different nations, you see other companies popping up, Verizon in Japan, Road FC in Korea, KSW and Poland, EFC and that South Africa, you have all these other promotions that add something different than what the UFC does. And a lot of times that is in the entertainment aspect,

and allowing guys to do entrances and allowing them to have a personality outside of the ring or the K-A, And that is one of the aspects of MMA that I love. And really, it's not in the U.S. anymore. So I'm more than happy to go ply my trade around the world. And that was one of the aspects that I kind of miss and I loved about when I first fell in love with M&A. Well, I'm sorry that this chapter had a weird and unusual ending, but it is ending and another one will begin. Tom, thank you so much for your candor on today's show. and for checking in with us.

Can't wait to see what you do next. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right, there he goes. Tom Lawler. Filthy. And I don't watch Pro Wrestling. It ain't for me, you know,

but he's out there doing big things. Can't hate on that. All right. Let's see. It is time now for you to become my guest on this very show. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for the sound off. All right. Whenever we have the sound off,

we're joined by the world's worst soccer, fan. Cheers for nothing but Super Cup champions being the best team in Europe. One win. Do you understand that when order is restored in the universe because it will be, I'm going to dunk on you like this kid Zion at Duke

dunks on the rest of college basketball. Bring it. All right. You have asked for punishment. I am all too happy to take requests. Let's go. All right. So there we go. We spoke to great guests today. Now we've got to get to the calls. We've got to get to the tweets. You can send those again using the hashtag the MMMMM. an hour and as well, 844-866-2468.

So, Danny, we got to the tweets. Now it's time for the calls. You have filtered through the best. You have told me that we have finally some Title IX-esque gender representation. We do. Equal across the board. We do. So do we have a ladies-first policy on today's show?

Sure. Let's go. All right. You set it off, my friend. All right. We're going to talk a little bit about the business and why the ratings are done. Okay. Hey, Luke and Danny.

Jess here from Sydney in Australia. Loving the show and loving what you're putting out. I was thinking the other day, with some of the flights being announced really close to the fight day, do you think that has an impact on the paperview buyers and on the viewership on Fox? Could that be the reason why everything's so down? I know a couple of years ago,

they were announcing flights a lot further out from from fight day. And so you can kind of have that time to build up and promote the card. Okay, love to hear your thoughts. I could be completely there. Bye. So great call. Yeah, actually it was a pretty good question.

Yeah. And this is something that when we talk about why the numbers are down, we blame it on a bunch of different factors. And this is one that rarely gets brought up. Right. And I think it's totally on the mark. Yep. Right?

Because it used to be that, number one, I don't know, maybe it's my imagination, but I don't remember the injury woes, pardon me, really getting, I mean, they were bad before, but they seem to be get really bad around 2014 or so. And in any event, since then, they've gotten not much better, but we've got other mechanisms and play to deal with it. But you've got injury problems. Plus now you've got this contract malaise where guys are like, I don't really want to sign. You've got UFC literally announcing fights before they're signed to pressure guys into signing, you know, so for me it's just a little really weird,

but I think absolutely if, like, you know a fight's going to happen 12 weeks out, and it's reasonably big, and there's media around it, and you can anticipate it, and you think about it. Yeah, I think that does serve as a better anchor, Danny. Yeah, I mean, Darren Till versus Tyrone Woodley,

I would say that's a pretty fantastic fight, and given who they are in the sports, especially with Till, you could make that a pretty big pay-per-view, but, man, how many weeks did they have to, since the fight was announced? I mean, it's been, the fight's happening, what, in two, three weeks?

Yeah, two and a half weeks because I go on vacation for two. So by the way, people might say, what about Connor versus Habib? Yeah, what about Connor versus Habib? It's the exception that proves the rule, Danny, right? Because it's so big and so huge that it doesn't need the extra time. But for all the ones that aren't Connor versus Sabib, you might need some extra time. And let's look at boxing. Like, Canelo versus Triple G, that feels like it's been announced forever and it's been on everyone's calendar for months.

Well, because of the delay, though, right? Sure, also because of the delay. But even prior to that, like, when it was announced, I think that fight was announced first than the Mayweather. Gregor, yes, even though it aired three weeks afterwards, yeah. And, you know, that's something that boxing does very well. It's like, all right, this fight's happening, get it on your calendar, wait for it now. Yeah, fair enough.

It's a good call. Great call. Look, look at that, ladies, huh? We take your calls and we praise them when they're smart. I can't wait until we get the first dumb female caller because I will dump on her as well. All right. Equal opportunists. Let's hope we don't get to that.

All right. Now, let's talk about Connor McGregor. A lot of questions surrounding him in his fight with... I don't believe it. Champa VBA, yeah, right? Very strange. Hey, fellas, this is Zach from Brisbane, Australia. I love in the show.

Listen to the quality. My question is just about McGregor Nermigermegermedov. Most predictions on either side of the debate are picking a landslide, either a quick McGregor K.O. Or a Nermigermadov molling. So my question is, is there any chance that you guys see this fight being a back-and-forth battle at all, or is it just going to be a landslide on either side? Cheers for all the content. So go first, Danny. What do you think? This, this person didn't actually call, but actually

dropped an audio file on our email, which can do that. The MMA hour at Voxmedia.com. So if you can't call, if you don't have, you know, the money to pay international calling, you can always just send us audio to that email. Okay. But yeah, this is an interesting one, because everybody I talked to, It's either McGregor is going to get a quick K.O. Or Nirmagamedov is going to just destroy them and it's going to be very dominant. But is there a chance this can possibly be a back and forth and maybe we go to a split decision or something like that? Yes, of course. Yes, of course.

Always remember something. 538 is a site run by this guy named Nate Silver who deals in probabilities. And he took a lot of, well, this guy named Sam Wong out of Princeton took more shit for the last election predictions. but the point being is, if you see something like, oh, let's say X fighter has an 84% probability to win, Danny. That doesn't mean that they necessarily win 84%. How do I explain this? That doesn't mean that when they go in there, it's like a guarantee. 84 times out of 100, yes, but that's not what I'm trying to say.

People think that like if you have a 90% chance of winning, that not only do you win, but you win in like a landslide or something, but that's really not what it means exactly. So like whatever the probabilities are, and by the way, they're close. if you look at just the odds makers, it's not even that. But that doesn't tell you that it couldn't be a landslide. Connor could go in there and wipe them out in 13 seconds again. Or Habib, over the course of two rounds, could mall them and then submit them. It can go a lot of different ways.

So whenever you look at odds, whenever you look at probabilities, always be careful. That's not necessarily a reflection, at least if we're talking about percentages. That's not necessarily a reflection of how the fight might look. Now, he's asking a bit of a different question, this caller. Here's my point. Sure. Let's say Habib goes in there, closes the distance, no problem, and it absolutely puts the, I mean, goes to work on Connor McGregor. Would that shock anybody in the first round?

No, right, Danny? Then you go to the second round. What if Connor lands a big shot on him? And now Habib is fighting for his life and he nearly gets stopped. Then you come out in the third round and Habib restores order. Then you go back in the fourth round and he takes another shot. This has happened all the time. Or, or how about this?

Habib beats the crap out of him for three rounds. and then he gets tired. Somehow Connor does it. You can say, well, that wouldn't happen. Keep saying shit can't happen and mixed martial arts. And it always does. It always does.

So for me, I do think that in the end, it'll be a finish one way or the other, and it'll be decisive, one way or the other, at least the very ending. But could it be back and forth? 1,000%. I have a feeling this is going to look a lot like the Chad Mendez-McGregor fight.

Because, man, McGregor's takedown defense and is looking good, man, against Eddie Oliver, a solid wrestler. You know, he didn't really give him the opportunity to shoot on him. And, you know, even against Chad Mendez, he was doing some things on the ground that, you know, let you know that he's very aware of fighting off the fact. He didn't use his guard, but he used his timing really well. When do I find just the right moment to explode, right? His timing in offense generally, McGregor's, is superb.

And he's got good hips from the bottom. Like he's good at shrimping and always staying at an angle just not flat on his back. Right. But the other X fact, of course, is if Connor gets tired, you know, he just becomes a shell of himself. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. But I would not be surprised if it's a back and forth. Yeah, of course.

Cool. Now let's talk about, let's keep the McGregor train rolling. All right. Hi, Luke. This is Jim Conn from Chicago, Illinois. I don't want exclusivity, but I do want priority. Danaway has said recently he has no interest in GSP fighting the winner of Kabee, versus Connor. If Connor wins, despite Dana's current stance, do you think that GSP versus

fight the UFC will try to make? Connor has a history of only punching up and not down, even though Ferguson, Diaz, and Woodley would be huge fights. None of them would bring in nearly as many paper-viewed buys as Connor versus GSP. Let me know your thoughts. Love the show. I think, you know, and this is something that didn't get brought out to me until we were on air on the MMA beat. Yeah, I think it was after the beat. Because for me, I've just been contemplated. Okay, getting there. What's the buildup going to look like? I've never really thought about post-UFC-229.

Dude, if McGregor wins, how is the GSP fight not happening? More than that, think about it just this way, right? McGregor wins. Let's say he wins in spectacular fashion. Yeah. You know, second round TKO, like the – let's say it's just like the Alvarez fight, all right? You just brutalized. And this is why I want to give Connor credit people like, what if Habib is overrated?

Yo, Habib's not overrated. If Connor stops him in the second round, that is as legit an MMA win as they could possibly come. Understand that. So let's say he does that. To me, it's not even about that, right? Conner wins, gets out, goes to the presser, boom, what does he say? He says, I want GSP. Someone calls up GSP and his management and say, what do you want? He says, I want Connor. If those two actors together say they want it, who is going to say no to this? Who is going to say, now maybe they make it non-title or at 160 or something. Maybe they find a way around that. But for sure. or if both actors come out and say they want it,

it's a done deal. Yeah, if Connor wins and GSP has already shown interest, and you can tell Connor, you know, he's always looking, as I said, Connor's not a king, he's a conquer, he's always looking to get the next step. The next step has to be GSP. So if Connor wins, that fights happening, for sure. Now, if Habib wins, I don't know.

I think it's actually different. Yeah. Because I think Habib just kind of wants to stay as a title holder at 155, and I don't know, I mean, I'm sure he does want to face St. Pierre, but he's not quite the atmosphere chaser that McGregor is. I'm not passing judgment on it. I'm just saying they have different priorities. I actually think the chance of a Habib-G-Sb-G-Sb fight, I don't know.

Connor versus GSP if Connor wins, enormous. Oh, for sure. All right, now let's talk about McGregor. If he wins, what happens? Right. Hello, Denny Segleta and Luke Thomas. This is Dunk from Connecticut. I have rooted for Connor McGregor.

every fight he's had, but I wouldn't consider myself Connor fan. I always looked at it as, like I was rooting for MMA. Every fight he would win would bring more eyes to the sport. But at this point, do you think he's brought as much attention to UFC as he could, and the win is actually bad for MMA at this point? Curious to hear your thoughts. So that is a fantastic question. We're getting better and better questions these things. Do you notice that?

Yeah. Is at this point, like, Let's be honest, Rondorowski winning, Connor McGregor winning. It's a healthy thing for the industry of MMA. I mean, I probably, I mean, you've talked about it before. You probably wouldn't have your job if it wasn't for Brock Lesnar, when he made it a sport hot. Absolutely believe that.

Yep. Well, I probably wouldn't have my job if it wasn't for Rondorowski because I got hired around, you know, that time when everything was popping. But if McGregor wins at this point, given the fact that we know he can't tie up a division, you know, the belt doesn't get defended. the chaos that causes a 155, all that, you know, then there might be interim titles in place.

Everything that comes with McGregor winning, is, are the consequences of that worth? Like, is McGregor winning at this point good for the sport? Does he still bring the same attention? I mean, or the attention that he already brought is probably the attention we're going to get. Yeah, you know what? It's interesting.

I'm actually, boy, I've thought long and hard about this one. I certainly don't know if I have the right answer, But my general sense about this, Danny, is that I'm glad that those guys did what they did on their rise. But then once, and that was incredibly valuable for MMA, Rousey, Lesner, Jones to an extent, right? When Jones was ballooning up. And even still, in that Jones-Cormier fight, the rematch was a big deal, right? So to me, I've often said this, the most exciting time in a fighter's career is when they're on that rise. In boxing, it's a little bit less true.

It's once they become kind of kings, that that matters more. I'm not really sure why exactly that's the case. But to answer the question, my basic belief is that it probably would be good for MMA if Connor wins, but it's hard to say if he's even going to stick around. So what is what's the real value there if he wins? It's fairly fleeting. And more to the point, look, man, this is not, I know Tom Lawler called it, like, they're more like stuntman, and I certainly appreciate that perspective.

But these are not scripted outcomes. Like, whoever's going to win is whoever is going to win. And these guys are facing the very best of their generation, the very best of their weight class. At some point, if the sport can't sustain itself through its own designed mechanism, which is, we don't know the results, then it doesn't deserve to. Right. It is nice to have what you talked about, these periods of explosive growth that shower everyone. Like, here's the truth, man. When Connor retires, I sort of wonder what's going to happen to the Irish MMA scene.

and I wonder what's going to happen about the number of jobs, frankly, in Irish MMA media, I suspect it's going to shrink considerably. I could be totally wrong about that, but that's sort of my hunch about things. And certainly when he goes, it's going to happen to affect in MMA. It's going to have an effect in America,

much less overseas. So it's like, I'm not saying there's not good outcomes to be had when a very popular figure does well. But if a guy like that can't sustain himself in a sport where that is what is ultimately what we're trying to decide, then that's just the way is. That's my look. Anyway. Yeah, I think it's, you know, a lot of gray areas. You can't save.

McGregor wins. You know, it's bad for the sport or good. I think there comes, you know, some consequences and some pros as well. It's a mixed bag, right? Yeah, it's a mixed bag. And it kind of depends on what kind of bag you want to get, right? I think, I think if Carter McGregor loses, at least you can, you can keep in mind that there will be some order restored because, as you mentioned, Habib has, is willing to defend the title against anybody. He just wants to be champion and there's certainly value to that. And not only that, but it brings the lightweight division, you know, a breath of fresh air and it should make it a lot healthier. But, man, those numbers that Connor McGregor draws are something else. And, you know, that's also very

very beneficial. There's a trickle-down effect to that. As a general rule, here's what I would say, has Connor McGregor been good for MMA generally? There's no doubt. There's no argument. There's no contrary to that, the answer is yes. Fact. I would agree with that for sure. Good. I got you did. Let's talk about Bellator. Right, one of the very few things we agree on. Let's talk about Bellator now. And this is a really good question.

Hi, this is David calling from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Question about our good Canadian friend, Rory MacDonald. If Rory beats Gayguard and wins the Bellator Grand Prix, will he be universally regarded by the MMA world as the best act of welterweight. And would this be the very first time that Bellator has a champion that is universally regarded as superior

to the UFC's? And knowing all this, do you think the UFC regrets their decision not to resign Rory as he looks to become the face of Bellator? So I'm going to cut it right there. That's an interesting question too. But yeah, man, if he beats Gagred Musassi

knowing what we know about him, right? And then if he goes on and clears that welterweight Grand Prix, which is looking pretty stacked, is Rory all the sudden in the goat conversations? Boy. Well, that's not the same question he asked. Wasn't his question, wouldn't he be regarded as the consensus best Walterweight?

Yeah, the Walter Wally. Yeah. Well, not even the Walterweight goat. Because the goat's the greatest of all time. That's George St. Pierre at Walter Wade, right? So, I mean, like, who's the best welterweight right now? I don't know how you say no to that. That's a great point.

But I would say this about the tournament. Rory does not have an easy path no matter what, right? because he's facing Musasi, then he's got to face Fitch. Fitch is, I don't know that he would be the higher ranked guy in the tournament. And then he has to face the winner of Ruth versus Gracie. The big X factor there for me, Danny, is how good is Ed Ruth? Is he the next big thing in MMA, which he might be? Or is he just not ready for a guy of Rory Stature?

We don't really know yet. And then on the other side, he's got a guy in Lima who he beat. He's got a guy in Daly who he beat or MVP. or Koreshkov. So I certainly see Rory as the best guy in that tournament, but the winning of that tournament, plus beating maybe the best middleweight out there, yeah, that might do it.

That might honestly do it. And it also depends on what happens with Tyrone Woodley in September, right? Does he beat Darren Till? And if he does, how does he look doing it? Yeah. A couple of interesting things have to happen, but I would say generally, is it possible? And not only like, not possible,

it's some kind of like crazy theoretical stuff. Is this a real contingency that we should prepare for? Yes, it is. Sure. And I think the second part to that was, do you think the UFC made a mistake in letting him go? Because for a while, it felt like the UFC was letting go these guys that felt like they were close to done, right?

And then, you know, Roy was coming off, you know, a bad nose injury and he had a pretty bad loss against Stephen Thompson. But, man, if he manages to beat Geggard and clear out that World War I Grand Prix, did they get it wrong? That's a tough one to answer, right? here's why. It's because what does one criticism you and I have had about Bellator, excuse me, UFC all these many years, which is, yes, it's where the best fight the best. It's also where the best can't get tune up fights. Yeah. And it looked to me pretty clearly that what he needed was a break

and what he needed were fights that could get him back on his feet. And that's exactly what he got in Bellator, like to the letter. He didn't face any chumps. He fought good guys, but he fought good guys in a way where he could use his existing skill sets to get around, certainly in the daily case. without too much damage. Now, the Lima fight, he got beat up a little bit more. But you just don't really get that in the UFC. So, like people will say, it was a mistake to let a guy like that go.

Well, in the sense that UFC could provide more of a platform for guys to get back on their feet, yes. But it's not a mistake if you're the UFC and you realize, we're not going to give this guy any fights to get back on his feet, which means that this crushing grind of our type of fighting and schedule is only going to grind him further. well in that sense it actually does you know make sense that they let him go

I think he could have gotten guys of the level of daily within the UFC and given the fact that you know George St. Pierre let me interrupt you just for a second do you think that would when you say he could have gotten one I agree what I'm saying is and maybe you think differently than me do you think the UFC would have matched him up that way you know I think depending because you don't know how the relationship is

but if they were both parties were content with each other I think they could have, yeah. And given the fact that Rory's still young and he's huge for that, you know, Canadian market. And not only that, but he has a win over Tyron Woodley. Like you could have played that second fight up, you know, into a bigger deal. And just given Rory's stature within the UFC, he was a guy that was a prospect. He's a guy that's well-known.

He's a guy who's also been in crazy wars and fans remember him for that. I think ultimately, if Rory proves out to be, you know, what we all think, kick one of the best waterways out there. It's probably a mistake for letting him go. Okay. What's next? All right. Now, let's talk about UFC Lincoln and the main event that's going to happen in that card.

All right. Hey, Luke. It's Adrian from Corpus Christi again. I really appreciate you taking my call last time. That was awesome. Oh, my God. I've become a superstar here in Corpus because he all... Why has he called him a wind tunnel?

My question is Justin Gagee, James, just in Geichi, man. How much is he really worth? If he loses his next fight, did the USC just get everything they could out of Gagia already? He's very, very exciting, but, I mean, how long can he keep losing? You know, how long can they keep doing us the same performance

of the very exciting guy, but it just doesn't come close in the end. Thanks. Yeah, I've thought about this one, too, man. And I feel like not too many people are thinking about this, right? He fights in a row, and if he loses, like, he doesn't lose decisions. He gets, he goes out on his shield. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead.

No, yeah. Like, people are just contemplating, oh, he's such a fantastic fighter. Oh, what a war. But, man, if he loses this, it'll be three in a row. Where does that put him? I mean, and not only that, but, like, really bad, like, really crazy wars and really bad finishes, too. Man, if he lost this one, let's say he loses. First of all, let's be clear.

He might win. He might win a spectacular fashion. There's a good chance he might win. Right. I mean, he is not out of this fight by a stretch of the imagination. but let's say that for hypothetical purposes, he does lose. What does this do? Boy, puts him in a bad place.

That's a real bad place it puts him now. It certainly puts him as somebody who would be a fan favorite that you could rely upon. But this is what I mean about that grind? It's like, you have to ask yourself, is the UFC really the best place for a guy like Justin Gehche? If he goes out there and he wins on Saturday, you can say, sure. He'll win some, he'll lose some, but he's definitely competitive enough to stay in this space. But the reality is they're just going to give him a series of murderers. He's only going to be fighting serial killers.

That's it. Guys like James Vic, guys like Dustin Parriott, guys like Eddie Alvarez. Frankly, even Michael, dude, Michael Johnson gave him the business before, you know, the things didn't go his way. But he knocked down, I mean, he came very close to beating Justin Gagey. So you have to ask yourself, like, is a guy with that kind of fighting styles, is this really the best place for him? Because here's the truth.

The only matchups he's really going to get, the kinds of get the fans all worked up are the kinds where he's going to get abused. He might win, he might lose. But you've seen it. man, he doesn't get out of these fights without taking a substantial amount of abuse. And so you lose three in a row. Now you've got to just wonder, like, how much more of this is they're viable for a promotional entity? Because do people really want to see him fight, like, people outside the top 15, even though they might be very...

And by the way, guys outside the top 15, they're pretty good. Especially lightweight, hell, yeah. They're pretty good fighters. So that would be a really bad spot. It's a big win for him. It's not like three losses in a row. Oh, will he get cut? the issue. The issue is if you lose three in a row, now where are you in a division where they can

maximize what you do for them? It makes the most sense if you can just win enough to stay in that orbit. Once you lose that space, it's a different equation. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's exactly a do or die, but man, it definitely changes career paths, right? It's like, take left or right here. And if he loses to James Vic, especially if he gets finished, can the UFC still go back to that well and just, you know, pull the same card and just keep putting him in exciting fights. Until what point are fans going to be like, look, I don't want to watch this anymore. Yeah, no, I think they still want to watch him, but if he's getting abused by guys outside the top 15, because by the way, all this abuse is cumulative.

Yeah. Right? Or a cumulative, I should say. Then, you know, it's going to get easier and easier for the guys outside of that orbit to get their hands on him. So, you know, Justin Gachie has his work cut out for him here. By the way, I asked Paul Filder about that. Where are you on this one? where he, A, is it A, he needs to incorporate wrestling

because he is, by the way, he's a very good wrestler and he can really add some safety to his game and by the way, Savage ground and pound. Or B, he's been fighting this way for so long that adding wrestling will actually throw him off of his game. Where are you on that one? You know, I would always like to see him wrestle just because he has really good wrestling credentials

and the few times that he's shown, I've been following since WSOF. Yeah. The few times that he has shown wrestling, wrestling, it's pretty good. So I would like to use him, I would like to see him use his wrestling just to be a little smarter in his fights. But man, if that's his brand, that's who he is, you know, you can't change a guy. I do think there's a path to victory without wrestling. I think Vic backs up a lot in a straight line and he keeps his chin up and he's very tall as well.

And that'll leave Gagey a lot of, a lot of room to, you know, throw powerful hooks. And, you know, from my understanding, Vic has been finished before, right? He has, yeah. I think Benile Doryush did it. Yes. So, you know, there's that. Something that I didn't think of which Paul Filder brought up is the leg kicks. Yep. Gage's got brutal leg kicks. Maybe the best in the division.

Yep, and that guy's tall, has long legs, and, you know, that could definitely be a factor. It's going to be a fun fight. Oh, yeah. All right. All right. Let's talk about Demetri's Johnson. All right. Hey, Luke.

This is Edgar from Houston, Texas. I have a quick question for you. Do you think we've seen the last of champion DJ by his own choice? I'm thinking maybe he got tired of being champion. Maybe he doesn't want it anymore. Every time he fought, there were only two stories that would revolve around him. One, why are your numbers awful?

Two, when are you going to fight TJ? Fought nonstop. I'm thinking now he's able to sit back, play on Twitch, spend time with his family, heal up. Maybe he doesn't need it anymore. He's already one-on-one with the champ-parent champ. His win over So Hoodle is more convincing. He's already mentioned he doesn't.

want to fight, TJ? Let me know what you think. All right. Thank you so much. Sider for Rambling. Bye. Yes. He's a liar, this gentleman, Edgar, from Houston, Texas. He promised us a short question. Yeah, 46 seconds, man. Indeed us. Yep. Okay. Boy, that's a great question. I would still say competitively, there's no doubt in my mind. He would like to get his belt back. I bet he thinks he can beat Sohudo if they fought a third time. By the way, you could have easily scored that fight for him, so it's not some crazy idea at all. So I think that the competitor in him absolutely wants to maximize what he's.

can do. I will say something that, you know what? I mentioned this before. I'm not going to say who it was, Danny. Somebody in the UFC once told me something, and the first time they told me this, it was a very high-ranking person. The first time they told me this, I thought it was them trying to cover for low wages. Here's what he told me. He goes, it was better when we could pay guys very, I'm paraphrasing. It was better when we could pay guys very little because they would fight more often. And we wanted to, you know, when you start giving up big checks, they don't, they don't fight as much. And at first I was like, well, that's a really ghoulish thing to say. But dude, there's kind of something to it. I'm sorry there just is. You look around, you got,

you know, I guess they're going to sign here, Luke Rockhold and Chris Wydenman, but you heard look Rockhold be like, I'm not going to get back in there unless it's the right deal. And it's like, he's like, I've got all these businesses going on outside of MMA. Do I need to say anything about the Diaz brothers? GSP did a long career and took a hiatus, but nevertheless, look at that. Look at Connor McGregor taking time off. Dude, you see it all the time. Guys who get money, outside of the cage, they take a couple of big paychecks. And Demetrius has, you know, obviously been around and put his work in, but I'm just saying they start to get outs, they start to take them.

That is not nearly the same case in boxing, where once they get to high earning potential, they try to stay in that orbit as long as possible. I'm not saying I agree with the UFC's logic exactly, as this person related to me. What I am saying is, yeah, yeah, we grind these fuckers into sand. so when they don't have to be ground anymore, they kind of choose to not be in that position anymore. Right or wrong? No, right.

And even within fighting, we see it. They don't have to get a check elsewhere. Like, look at Nate Diaz. This was a guy that we knew him. His whole brand was, I'll fight anybody anywhere, and he'll show up and scrap anyone, yeah, for sure. All of a sudden, he gets, you know, that big money check from Connor McGregor or the Conne McGregor fight,

and all of a sudden he's like, yo, I'm not picking up the phone until there's $20 million on the line. So there's definitely some truth to that. I would like to address something he mentioned, which is something that I found very interesting. Have you noticed that a lot of champions, and this is not true for everyone, but they look relieved once they lose the belt.

I mean, GSP, you wanted to leave. Great point. Anderson Silva when he lost to Chris Whiteman. And certainly Demetrius Johnson, I mean, I'm sure he was sad and part of him was. Sure. But he wasn't devastated. He wasn't Daniel Cormier crying, you know, after the loss.

He was, in some ways he kind of felt like, okay, now I don't have this thing. Now I don't have anybody asking me, when's your next fight? I don't have a duty to be constantly defending this. And think about it too. Like if you're Henry Sohudo, he won the Olympic champion. He won in the Olympics, what, 10 years ago?

Oh, I think yesterday. I think yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of the Beijing Games where he won. Now, think about that. You win that Olympic champion. You have that title for life. But the next Olympic cycle, you're just another don't think in the tournament. You don't have to answer for anybody. You might have to do extra media because of who you are.

But you don't have nearly the same pressures. Oh, can he repeat? I'm not saying there are no pressures once you win a title. It does change things. But the point being is the Warriors won the last NBA championship. I recognize the NBA is stacked in their favor at this point. But they don't enter the season as the champs. Someone else has to claim it.

Rather than once you win the title, dude, I mean, heavy, it lies the crown. Wow, it is such a responsibility. So much you question, so much extra media, so much extra weight on your performance. You have to face the very best guys typically all the time. Yeah. I do think you're right. I do think they're sad when they lose. But Jesus Christ, you don't have to worry about all that grind anymore.

Five round fights all the time, you know? And they also have a clock. Like, you know, let's say if a top five fighter wants to take a break, he can take a break. I mean, he might lose a spot, but he can't take a break. A champion can't just go, hey, look, I'm taking a vacation because then everybody starts going, hey, you got to defend a vacate, you know? Well, you know, Connor had a couple months off. Well, Connor is the exception to everything.

Yeah, I know. So, yeah. We got time for one more? Yeah. I'm going to have to intervene in this one, so let's just play it and then... Is this a person who's treating the bottom half of their body like an amusement park? No, no, no, no, no. Not this one, no, no, no.

We've had those, but don't worry, I got those out of the way. This is Kyle from Houston. Luke, I want you to pick one of the two. The USC drops 50% of its current fights, meaning fight cards, but keeps the face the pain and your woo fans or the USC keeps its current amount of fight cards, but Real Madrid never wins a champion's league again. Which would you choose?

Thanks. Let me hop in real quick because... He kind of botched the setup. He did, he did. So, how about this? No face the pain. No more woos. 50% I think is too much.

So let's say, I don't know, like 15, 20% of the cards. So, you know, 15, 20% of the cards. percent of the cards off, no face the pain, no woos. You would you rather take that or have Rao Madrid never win a cup again? Well, this is an easy choice because even you botched the deal. You mean to tell me I get less oversaturation and I don't have to listen to face the pain? Is that the offer here? That's the offer.

I'll take that. The counter of that is, Ravel not winning anything ever again. Oh, oh, oh, I see. Well, you know what? I can always wear your plugs. You can always switch to a letico. Yeah, I'd rather die. I think I got an extra job.

I'd legit rather die. I'd rather die in Thai prison, like some of those guys in prayer before dawn. No, no, I would take the wooing and just wear earplugs. Look, I've already hate humanity and I'm 39, right? Like, what's going to change? You're going to stop hating humanity? No, I'm a misanthrope through and through. So just let the donkeys moan and do their primate mating call.

It's the white trash primate mating call. Let them do it. And I can still mock them and get followers on social media. through my, you know, coastal elite snobbery, and life will continue as normal. And Real will continue to be the dominant force in Europe that it has been the last decade. Sure. We'll see about that. Part of me actually thinks you enjoy Face the Pain and the Wooz. In a way you like to hate on it.

To be honest, I have a little bit of fun hating on the woo's. I'm actually tired of hating on Face the Pain. Somebody shouts to this YouTube channel called MMA On Point. They made a video about why Face the Pain needs to be thrown away. and every time there is somebody out there with callous knuckles from dragging them across the floor who comes out and goes, I like face the pain. And I just think to myself, how is it I have to like, imagine going to a restaurant where all they served was feces soufflis. And I had to convince you to not eat there.

How is that possible that I, like in the year of our Lord 2018, I have to get out there and like make an argument that this is something we need to move on. It's like, it's like so dated. It's like, it's not even, it's not even like a band and a song that did really well, independent of its UFC involvement in that era. Name another STEM song. I can't. Can you name another Limp Biscuit song? You could probably name maybe a handful, right?

Break stuff, rolling, nookie, right? These are all uniformly bad, but they had some success. We're not even doing that. Do you mean to tell me they've got Everlast in Dana White's back pocket? They can't have jump around. Everybody loves jump around. I love jump around. Do you love jump around?

Yep. Well, what are we doing? Who doesn't? Apparently the UFC, because they keep doing face the pain. I just, we are destined to learn the hard way. And you made a great point, like a while ago. Like, not only is it a terrible song, but it says something about the UFC brand. Like, if somebody that's like 17 or 18 listens to that, dude, that's like so 2010.

Like, that's 2010. That's 2003. or 2008 or something like that. Like, whenever the first UFC video game came out, like the better one, I guess. Like, yeah, what is that? Like, that just sounds whack. It sounds lame, to be honest.

Like, I don't know if you remember. I think it was for the second Connor McGregor fight. They put the promo and Nate Diaz came out and there was a Drake song. And I'm not the biggest fan of Drake, but it made sense that felt fresh. That's what they need. They need to rebrand.

They need to switch the music. They need to refresh it up. And I feel like, well, what song would you pick? And I'm like, dead air. the sound of an animal being skinned alive you know armpit fart noises for 45 minutes I mean literally anything is better

than that the poverty of imagination on this one really is amazing so shots to everyone like I like the plane well you're stupid what do you want me to tell you you are a literally dumb person I don't know what to

I can't help you all right well you know what I've insulted the audience enough Danny I think we've reached the threshold What are you going to do with your time off, my friend? I'm going to live life. I'm going to go outside to see the sun and talk to people. Is your life going to be lit A.F? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

All right. I am. It's going to be lit, fam. It's going to be lit fam. I am headed overseas. I'll be back on the fifth, and then we'll have the MMA beat on the sixth, and then I think the 10th. We'll be back in the studio to do this very show. For sure. All right, my friend.

Good job today. Thank you to everybody who paid attention today. we are off for several weeks, but we shall return in all of our glory. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Until next time, stay frosty.