MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas – Episode 451

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Bellator middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi about his win over Rory MacDonald at Bellator 206 (; Michael McDonald about his retirement from MMA; Alberto Del Rio & Campbell Mclaren about the latest with Combate Americas and Del Rio's return to MMA competition. We also bring you The Weigh-in, the Monday Morning Analyst, A Round of Tweets, and Sound Off where we take your calls on the latest news in MMA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the MMA hour right here on MMAFinding.com. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. Man, we have a packed, packed two hours for you, four in-studio guests, right? So let's go through them. Number one, Michael McDonald announced his retirement at age 27 after a career in Bellator in the UFC. He will be here in studio.

He's got a bit of an announcement. He's the announcer and ambassador for Combat de Americas. Alberto del Rio will be here. Alberto del Rio will be here. Let's see. In addition, Michael Kiesa has a big fight coming up against Carlos Condo. We'll talk to him about that. Fresh off of his win at Bellator 206.

Guard Musasi will be here. And we've got other things to get to a round of tweets. the sound off, the way in, I'll be jumping up and doing the Monday morning analyst. How about that? You guys have been asking you about that. Here we are. And of course, you can interact with us at all times. You can do it two ways.

Number one, you can send a tweet using the hashtag the MMA hour. And you may also call us 844-866-2468. That number is toll-free. Yes, it is. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I hope everyone had a good time in Dazone, watching Bellator 206. No matter how many times,

I'll never normalize DeZone. I'll never normalize it. Dumbest name ever. All right. But you know what? It was a good fight. It was a great not of fights. We'll talk about that a little bit later in the show.

A lot to get to. Not a moment to waste. Thank you so much for joining me. Got your tweets, got your calls. We have to talk to our other friend here on the show. He is the Ataquipe to my pan, the arroz, to my frioles. He is the chambaya to my alla. the one and only, Danny, how are you, my friend?

That's good. You guys, Athletico escaped by the skin of their teeth. More like you were playing at home. You had the home crowd advantage and still nothing. What do you talk about? Bail was on there. You guys had your full squad. Bail is, I think, put together from, let's see,

used cigarette butts and banana peels. Now we'll see what you guys can do when we go to Wanda for the second game. What is that? That's probably down the line. I mean, they still have to go through the whole loop of other games and then it will restart again. All right, but this is an MMA show after all. Did you enjoy Bellator 206 on DaZone? I did.

First of all, the zone, and I'll be the guy who properly, you know, pronounces the name. You're 25. You can get away with it. 26 now. All right, fair enough. So, yeah, it was pretty good. I mean, the quality was going in and out for a while. I thought it was my internet, but then I went online and a lot of people were having the same issue. Yeah, I was too.

But, you know, with new platforms, all this is going to happen, you know. But overall, it was a pretty good experience. And the card was fantastic. It was an amazing card. Yeah, it was. Aaron Pico, I thought, looked tremendous. You got to say, in the end, in the end, people were like, you and I were the only ones of the MMA beat who expressed any reservations about the main event. And my position on that main event, Danny, I'll say it again, was I understand why they made it.

And you could tell the fan enthusiasm was there. And for those reasons, it was good. But as I said and you said, it's like, well, Rory is really well-rounded. It doesn't make a lot of mistakes. and the same can be said for Musasi, but there's a weight and size difference. You could see that plain as day. But I got to tell you, during the Monday morning analyst,

I'm going to show that's not the only reason. Oh, there was several of the reasons for sure, but I'll put it to you this way. Can any Walterway in Belletor do what Gagherd-Musasi did to Rory MacDonald? I would say no. No, I don't think so. Right. It's a good point, right.

That in itself, you know, sums up, you know, the whole weight issue there. And obviously Musasi is very skilled. Let's not take that away from him. But we got some other things to talk about, right? Yes, let's do that. So we're going to be giving away PFL tickets, right? All right, how's that going to work?

Explain that to the list. Cool. So originally we had it for the best tweets and calls, but because we have such a pack show, we couldn't get to, you know, as many calls as we'd like to. And the calls were great this week, by the way. Great. So what we're going to do is we're going to open up the lines

and anybody around the New Orleans area that wants to go to PFL, we got VIP tickets. So I believe you have the number. I wrote it down for you. Yes, I haven't. You can give it out in a second. And you can call us and it'll be first come for serve. If you want to go to PFL, just give us a call and the M.A.R. will hook you up.

Yeah. So we're here. We're not going to be too stingy with it. Here's what I'm going to do, though. I'm not going to read the number now. The way it's going to work is before our guest Alberto del Rio comes in, I'm going to read it then. So people have to watch through the whole show. That's how that's going to go.

Nice. I like that. In radio, we have a term for people who call in just to get, prizes all the time. Do you know what the word is? No. We call them prize pigs. And what they do is they have all of the local radio stations on their speed dial. Yeah. And they just rotate until they hear a giveaway and then they press the number. I don't want to do that. I want to give it to a fan who wants to go and listens to the show.

Fair enough. Fair enough, right? All right. I will check in with you a little bit later. Yes? Yep. All right, my friend. Thank you so much. It is time now, ladies and gentlemen, for the way in. Man, can you feel it? Can you feel it? Can you feel it? It is October 1st, ladies and gentlemen, in five days. Five days will be UFC 229. Connor McGregor returning after a two-year absence, one from combat sports, but two from MMA, he'll be taken on the reigning UFC lightweight champion Habib and Noregumato.

You know all of this. Why am I bringing this up? Not to reiterate the basic facts of the contest on Saturday, but to answer a question that everybody appears to be asking me, and I'm sure every other media member, and maybe each other, which is, is this really the biggest fight in MMA history? Is this the biggest fight in UFC history? Where does this really rank?

And can we say definitively that it belongs at the top? And I will tell you, in answering that, it brought up a couple of interesting points in observations. I'm not going to have a long way in today. This will be very short. You know, look, if you wanted to go back and compare some of the bigger North American cards that aired on television with Elite X-C and Kimbo,

So it would be in the UFC on their early debut on Fox, some of the Strike Force shows on CBS, and you can get up around 7, 8, 9 million or more, depending on how you want to look at those demos. Those will be up there for observation. You can go back to the heyday of the Kakatogi boom in Japan, and you can look at Hoyce versus Akibono, 54 million, rest in peace, Norfolk Yamamoto, taking on Masato. I think it did, what, 34 million? It goes down the line like that. I mean, is McGregor versus Numergamedov really?

going to be at 54 million half the size of the Super Bowl? That seems like a really big fight. I don't know the answer to that. Here's what I can say. That was 54 million just in Japan. That was a giant fight there. It's a totally different age. One thing you need to consider here is this is a really globalized sport today. People are going to watch in Ireland at six in the morning if they don't get preempted for Peppa Pig. Shouts to Peppa Pig for effing over the Republic of Ireland in the UK. That must have suck to wait up for that. But the point being is you can watch it in Ireland, you can watch it in the United States,

in Canada, in Mexico, and South America. You can get it over the top. Some places have it in Channel. You can order it online. You can order it on pay-per-view, South Africa, all the way to Australia, non-English-speaking countries throughout Europe. Like, this is going to be a fight

that just permeates the globe in a way where no other fight previously could. It just wasn't an option in this pre-globalized age that we have now. But that's not the point. want it to bring up. And I'm talking like it's a pep rally for a reason. And that reason is back around UFC 100, you could say, well, it did 1.6, 1.7 million pay-per-view buys. And that's really big. But, you know, McGregor versus Habib will probably beat that. And I suspect that it will. I suspect it'll be the biggest pay-per-view in MMA history. But the reason I bring that up is

because if you weren't watching the sport at the time, at the time, everything felt big. Now, that felt like really, really, really big. But MMA was hot. Everyone was in. interesting. It was water cooler talk. Everyone was like, is this the future of sports and where is it headed? And how cool is UFC? And look at how smart the Frater brothers are and Dana White. And we have exhausted that part of things. You're asking this question in part because now we have tremendous highs and then a lot of lows. It's much more of a yo-yo than it used to be. And that's why it's confusing. It's like, is this really the biggest fight in UFC history? Again, I don't know if it's going to do 54 million viewers. But it's going to be damn big. It's going to be top five, top three. It

even be number one. The reason I'm bringing this up and the reason I want to start to show with this today is I am telling you, part of the way it will become the biggest, if in fact it reaches that, is if this audience bleeds out and gets hyped for it. If you generate enough enthusiasm, I'm not saying you can change ultimately the dynamics of the fight, but it starts with you. There's the spark. It eventually turns into a roaring blaze. I fundamentally believe, even if you have had the downside of MMA way upon you recently, even if you felt a little bit checked out, I understand that this is the time to check back in

and fuck the bus incident. I don't even care about that anymore. The reason why you want to check back in is not just because of the return of a global superstar, not just because of its incredible stakes, is because this is almost as good as MMA is really ever going to get, not merely because of the size of the potential fight number one, number three, number five in history,

but because of a guy trying an experiment of leaving MMA for two years and coming back, St. Pierre did it, but that's St. Pierre. Can he do that? Can he really have that kind of a run against the guy that dominant, 26 and O, in the best division globally where every organization has a good, lightweight division? That is what is on the line come Saturday. If that doesn't get you back up, then it doesn't deserve to be the biggest fight in MMA history. But I have a feeling, ladies and gentlemen, that it does. And I have a feeling come Sunday morning or Monday morning, morning, we're going to be talking about a moment in time in your MMA fandom that you not only will not forget, that you cannot forget. And I don't know who's going to win. Your guess is quite truly as good as mine. But what I am saying to you now is, expect bigness, lead the way by example with that bigness, show the enthusiasm. And if it's been weighing upon you, MMA's challenges recently, shed them for a week, enjoy this

opportunity, enjoy these moments. they don't come around very often, and then bask in the glory of what is to come, ladies and gentlemen. Will it be the biggest? I'm going to guess top three. We'll see. In the end, here's what I know.

It's damn big and it's damn overdue. All right, and that's the way in. The wait is finally over this Saturday. The former lightweight champ makes his long anticipated return to MMA as he looks to regain his title. And draft kings, the leader in one-day fantasy sports is putting you in the cage for the biggest fight of the year.

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That's promo code hour to get a free entry with your first deposit in the $10,000 fantasy MMA contest on Saturday night. That's code hour only at Draft Kings. Minimum $5 deposit. Restrictions apply. See draftkings.com for details. All right, back to the show. Now, many of you have been asking me when I'm going to get up there and show everything on the Monday morning analyst rather than having a guest. Today is that day, ladies and gentlemen. It is time for the

Monday morning analyst. All right. Here we are. Yeah, look at that. Standing up here. a her suit, Bjorn Rebney, huh? All right, let's do this. Ladies and gentlemen, let me get this table up here. Where is the lid? There we are. All right. There we go. Okay. So as I mentioned, one of the reasons why it took so long for us to do this is because the studio previously just wasn't built for it. They just didn't have the capability. And I'm going to go easy today. There was a lot of things I wanted to talk about from Saturday. Just not going to do that. but I am going to focus in on one thing. If you want to go to my screen here, that would be great.

Let's see if we can get it up. There we go. All right. Now, here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to go through the whole fight because I can't. I'm not going to show you full highlights because I can't because the zone will get super bitter. So I can't do that. What I can do is I've got a couple of video clips I can go frame by frame on and then we can dig into that.

So here's what we're going to do for the first time standing up here today. this is the second round. Now, in the first round, I would actually ask you to go back and look at how Gagard Musassi was able to land his jab. And what I want you to notice was the timing of it. Go back and look at his jab and look at how he was able to land it when McDonald was between two steps, even before his second foot had placed on the ground, catching someone not on the beat, but on the half beat. Really, really impeccable timing by Musassi. But that's not what we're going to focus on today for the interest of time and the interest of space, first time trying this out.

Here's what I want to get to. The Iminari role. The eminari role is an absolutely phenomenal technique. It was developed by a guy who goes by the name of Masakasu Iminari. You've seen it before. Tony Ferguson tried it against Edson Barbosa, got halfway there with it. And Royne McDonald has done it before as well. He did it against Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, although that did not work.

The reason why we're going to start this presentation here is because, because this is where everything goes wrong for him. You know, he was getting out jabbed on the feet, but that's not the end of the world. It sucks, but he was probably fine. But this is a little bit different. Here's what I want to point out to you, and let's look at this, and I want to show you what went wrong. Why did this Iminari roll go so badly for him? A couple of things, and I'm going to go through this frame by frame.

Number one, typically when you do an Eminari roll, and by the way, like, I realize I'm a man of larger size. I'm 6'4, I'm 275 pounds, so I don't do a lot of inverting. So when I do have to invert in class, I have to really go over the technique so I don't hurt myself, so I don't hurt others. I've had to really pay attention to some of the details. When you ever you do an M&R role, you actually want to typically start, not always, you want to typically start with opposite stance. Here, both are in the orthodox stance. That isn't to say you can't do it from that stance, but if you go back and look at the Wonderboy fight, he was in an opposite stance. You go back and look at Tony Ferguson versus it's in Barbosa, it's an opposite stance.

And there's a really important reason for that. And it's this. watch has he level changes for a proper iminari roll this hand would need to come to the ankle and this head would need to be on the outside of the foot never on the inside that i'm aware of maybe there's a variety of that that i'm not i'm not sure about but for sure you want it here right that's what you want watch where his head goes he grabs with the opposite hand for the wrong and if you want to go to the other leg that'd be fine but he's going for the left leg so you need the right arm he's already too far apart.

Musassi sees it coming. And look where the head goes. It ends up kind of in the middle. This is just botched in every way. He started it, I think, in a way that didn't make a lot of sense. He could have switched stances. He reached with a hand for the opposite leg. He should have gone for the far side leg.

He came for the near side. And his head comes underneath. Now, you can say, Luke, you know more than Rory McDonald? No, of course I don't know more than Rory McDonald. I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who's been in gyms for about 10 years. I know things. but that's about it.

Who's the guy, Joe, who does and says, I drink and know things? Is that from Game of Thrones? Something like that? Yeah, that's who I am. I drink and no things. That's it. No more, no less.

But the point being is, this never got off the right foot, quite literally. He goes in between the legs. The head is supposed to go on the outside, and then you corkscrew around. That's how it goes. There's this guy, I forget his name.

He's a Eddie Bravo black belt. I think he goes by, D'erberus, D'Cerberus on Instagram, he has the most impeccable, beautiful imminary role. It is absolutely exquisite in every way. And every version I've ever seen that I've ever been taught is the head on the outside. So he botches that, in part because also he never, you never see him fake up here and then roll underneath, never.

He just rolled underneath. He just level changed from the wrong stance, went into the head inside. It just got off from the, it was bad from the word go. So then, you see this, he has to just basically regard here, right? Which he does, okay? And that's fine. I have no problem with any of this. He just kind of regards.

And I'm showing you frame by frame here. I'm not playing the video because Lord knows DaZone will be all my ass about it. And then he goes and does a number of things. I'm going to fast forward here a little bit in the interest of time. This is an interesting one, right? So watch this. This is the Upa Sweep he tried, and it went nowhere. So watch this.

An upa sweep, if you watch the Kerry Melendez fight, the Kerry Melendez fight was interesting because she had an opponent who was literally sitting up on her lap, essentially, almost as if she had been turned over, she would have been mounted. You never really want to do that, because if your opponent decides to force the Upa sweep, they can get it. If you resist and your frame is upright,

you can get armbard, Omoplata, a lot of bad things can happen to you. You can get triangled. Ryan Hall's got a ton of good triangles from a fake Upa sweep or an attempted one. So watch, he attempts the Opa here, plants the right foot. You see that? Plants the right foot. And it tries to bridge over.

Musasi reads it right away and shuts it down. Just absolutely lights out. Anticipation, lights out. And by the way, the size difference there is really going to matter as well. So that's something to pay attention to. Let's focus in on something a little bit more as we move forward. And this is the beginning of the end. This is what I want to focus on.

So the M&RI roll didn't go anywhere. He tries the Opa sweep. He couldn't even really. Upasweep, you actually kind of want to be sitting up a little bit, and Rory was just still kind of angled back, so that wasn't going to work. Here's the last part about this. He starts in full guard. Okay, here's how it works.

You can pass somebody when they have full guard on you from your knees, but it's much harder. You've got to get on your feet. Typically, that's how you're going to break someone's guard. So you'll notice that's exactly what Musasi does, and the guard comes wide open. Now watch this. This was just absolutely exquisite.

He's going to ground and pound here. You see Musasi, he is. postured over, but he's got his weight behind him and under him so he can be mobile. And I want you to pay attention to this. This was really the key. Look at that. See that? As soon as the guard came open and he attempted some kind of submission or whatever, he put his elbow and his knee together. Now he's created a blocking mechanism. If you wanted to, if you could move your hips back out, you could actually sit underneath and do something known as De La Jiva. You could get in and make a butterfly hook, but putting the elbow and the knee together, now he's blocked. What do you think

he's going to do from here? He's going to push that down and he's going to drop. Look, he never, Rory can't get back inside there, right? What's he going to do? Boom. Look how he drops his weight, knee to the ground. That is textbook, textbook stuff. What's going to win? His hip and leg driving down or Rory's, what is it, adductor here? It's an easy call, the bigger guy. This is where a bad technical mistake combined with recognizing that combined with the size just completely overtakes it for him right just brilliant just drop the weight down knee touches now you're in trouble now you're in big trouble because now one of the things that i really noticed about musasi is his balance on top is good and once he begins to pass he doesn't wait he gets right to work he doesn't at all

fuck around so now look at that knee who's going to win this battle here easy easy call it's going to be the guy on top and by the way that can be also kind of painful Watch how fast he passes here. I was blown away by this as I go frame by frame and not show the video to zone. Let's move forward here just a little bit if I can just so he can delay. All right, he sticks the leg out free, right? Now watch what he's going to do. He's going to rotate.

He's going to rotate McDonald around. And when he does, he's just going to bring his knee with him on top. So he's going to rotate the hips of McDonald to a weak position. He's going to rotate his to a strong position and then just pop it right out. Watch this. He's going to walk him around. And by the way, look what he's got up here. I'll show you this too. Look at that. That's, look at the grimace on his face. Do you see that? It's almost like a head and arm triangle except there's no arm trapped. Why is he doing that? Because if I can control your hips and I can control your head or your neck, you're fucked. You're not going anywhere. Especially when there's a size advantage. This is what I'm talking about. Even if he's as good as him on the ground, technique for technique, the size disparity is going to be a big problem. You're seeing it right here. Once a guy this technical gets into this kind of position, when there's no frame on the inside, you're in deep shit.

You're in super deep shit, right? So watch this. Now, he can turn a little bit, but that's pressure he's putting on him. Look at the head of Musasi, buried into the mat. Look at the weight. Oh, God damn it. I kind of let off here a little bit. Hold on.

If I can go back just a second. No, you know what? Let's go forward. Hold on. Watch. He's going to get up under the chin. making him look away. It was making McDonnell look uncomfortable. He's going to drop his head.

Watch this. He's going to drop his head. And now look at the pressure being put this way. Controlling the head, controlling the hips, dropping down like that. Now watch what he's going to do. He's going to keep walking his hips. See him walking him over? He's going to bring him to the weak side.

He's controlling. Look at how hard that shoulder pressure is. The shoulder pressure is literally making him turn away. I have one time had Bernardo Faria do this to me. And what he told me was, hey, man, doing a bad Bernard Ophari impression. He was like, hey, man, if it doesn't hurt real bad, you're not doing it right. And he always had that smile. And he did it. And I thought the top of my head was going to explode like a zit. It was

so painful, super painful. And it's not just a pain that it affects you. It is immobilizing. So he's immobilizing him here, weight is shifted down. He's got control back here, pushing hips to the weak side and he's just going to pop that leg right through. Dunski. You can see McDonald puts a hand up to stop it. This is quite futile. He's totally controlled. And then he just pops it out. Now in the interest of time, I'm going to get through this a little bit. There are three basic kinds of mount. You can sit like this. This is the most controlling kind of mount when your hips are this far back and you're dropping them down and you're sort of covering the body. But you can't really do anything from here, right? I mean, you can do pitter,

patter punches, but not a whole lot. So what does Musasi do? He can he stabilizes position, and I want to show you this. Here he is still pretty far back. Let's go through this a little bit here. Now he's bringing his knees up under him a little bit. So the three kinds of mount are here, here, and then right up underneath the armpits. The kind you saw, let's say, like Luke Rockhold, Chris Widman, that would be like the highest, not like the highest level of mountain ranking, highest positional amount. So here he gets. super high on the mount. Look at him. Stabilize the position. He waits. Now watch this ending here. I want to point this out. Where is he? Look at this mount. This to me is like just dreaded.

This is such an incredible mount because it's high enough to control him. It's tight to his body either underneath or against the leg. But the hips are far up enough to like weigh him down and yet far back enough to still be controlling. It's like that real nice middle space where if you're far back, you have to be down. If you're super far up, it's hard to get there because someone has to be like really hurt or interfere to really drive up underneath their arms. He's got this nice seated position where he can do maximum damage and has really good control underneath. And you can just see, look, McDonald can't sit up. He drop, look at, look at Musassi. Watch him, go back here. Look at this. He's down. Watch him as McDonald tries to sit up. Watch him drive his hips.

Nope. Boom. And he's going to flatten him back down. Look at this. Just sitting up. Now look at this. There's actually space between the crotch of Musasi and the body of McDonald, but he's now anchored to the floor.

Why is that important? Because if he's anchored to the floor, that allows you maximum position to drop bombs. When you're riding, you can't. When you're anchored, that's when you can just unload, which is exactly what he does. And this is when things just go back to worse. Then when he tries to roll, what does he do? Look at that leg. Look at that leg. Sneaks it up.

Look at that, inching up on the guy constantly, right? Always finding that maximum space. Look at the heels, tucked underneath. Look at that posture, upright, sitting far up. I mean, this is just an absolutely vicious mountain. Now, he sits back here to come on the mount to help control, potentially go to the back, right? Want to make sure he was doing it right. And then we kind of finish over here.

Look where he is. Oops. Apple wants my password. No thank you, Apple. Look where he's sitting, right here. Deep inside on the middle, I went way over time, but it's okay. Look at the ankles, crossed. Like Rico Rodriguez against, was it Kosaka, I believe it was? Just absolutely sitting up there, heels crossed,

McDonald's sitting up, can't go anywhere, can't buck, and he's got, now he's anchored, because he sits up, he leverages himself, McDonald goes back down, he anchors himself, and that's when the punishment starts happening again. Ladies and gentlemen, yes, the size played a big role here. It played a very big role because in any kind of mistake, starting from that Eminari role that was made, Musasi just took advantage of everything and then used smart technique as well as his size

to bear down upon him. It was in the end kind of a mismatch. Great job. I regard Musassi. All right. It's time. I think the time we have remaining. Let's do a little sound off. Now, we went a little bit over time because we were trying that out.

Let's go to our friend. Just a second. Let me get a sip of my coffee. Mmm. I'm here. Never supposed to drink on camera, but I just did because that's the kind of guy I am.

Breaking all kinds of rules. You know what? I'm just a rebel without a cause. Yeah, clearly. All right, Danny. So here's what we're going to do. Let's do this. Can we stitch the video together after the fact?

We'll do some calls now. We'll do some calls at the end of the show. And then when the video, the soundoff comes out on YouTube later on by itself. You can stitch them together? Yeah, that can be done for sure. All right, let's do it.

Can we go to you now on the screen, my friend? Are you ready to be on screen? Look at that. And I am here. What did you think about a Monday morning analyst there? It was good. It was good, really good. I like the little Apple password thing.

You know what? It's only the highest level of technology here on the MMA hour. If there's anything that has been a hallmark of my career, it's the finest of things. All right. It was good. I liked it. We should do more.

You should do more of those. We'll definitely do. That was a bit of a test run, quite honestly. That went a little bit longer than I thought, so we'll budget time a little bit differently going forward. All right. But with that being said, let's just jumping right to it. Calls late. Danny.

Let's do it. Let's hear them. So, you know, big weekend, obviously with UFC 229, but I feel like we do have to, you know, pay respects to Belter. They had an amazing card. So let's talk a little bit about that. Okay. Before we do the UFC stuff. So here's our first caller.

Hey, look, man, big fan of the show. This is Benito Nelson. I'm calling out of Raymondville, Texas. And my question was, do you think that Gagar Musasi is the most underrated fighter in MMA history? And also, do you think he is the best fighter to never get a chance at the UFC belt?

Thank you. I enjoy the show. It gets me through my day or through my morning commute to school. And I'll be watching later. Have a nice one. All right. That's an interesting question. Fadour is probably the best fighter to never get a UFC title shot,

but I think what he's implying is... That fought for the promotion. Right, exactly. You have to be in the organization in order to even qualify for ones. Exactly. So I would say he's probably up there. Yeah. If he's not, number one, he's certainly in the top three, man.

That is a fairly easy call. That is a got... He's so talented, dude. When I was watching him go through... I mean, I have tremendous respect for Rory McDonald. I think those jabs he wasn't expecting. I think they kind of disrupted his... his concentration.

And that's why I think the MNari roll was off. And then from there, man, it just went from bad to worse. I think Rory thought that he was going to have the speed advantage in that, you know, being the smaller guy, but, you know, Musassi's a pretty quick guy. And it's timing. Yeah, and I think that threw him off. That definitely surprised them. And I would say so.

And it's weird because it's almost like a thing with middleweights where they, they fall under this, a lot of middleweights fall under, you know, best UFC fighter to another five for a belt. For me, it was always Michael Bisping, right? But then we know how that. that ended. Then you're Romero and then now he's getting all kinds of title shots, right? Yeah. And now it's Geiger Musassi. That has to be him. Maybe TJ Grant that lightweight, you know, he never really got one officially, right, never fought. After the concussion, right?

Yeah. Last thing about this, when I've interviewed Musassi a number of times, he'll be on the show a little bit later. He's told me, he's like, you know, I've had a number of injuries and they kind of held me back during different portions of his career. And people don't want to hear it. Oh, I was injured. You're making an excuse. Yo, man, it's real. Like, look how much better he. is now. It's obviously true, that it kind of held him back a little bit. Cool. Well, let's move up to heavyweight. We'll talk about that. Hey, Luke and Danny. This is Josh from Vancouver here.

I was just wondering if you guys think Rampage Jackson would be a top 15 heavyweight in the UFC after his performance this weekend at Bellator. Thanks, boys. That's funny. Serious question, by the way. Would he be a top, look, hold on. Let's a good question. For the rankings. It's a really good question. I honestly feel like he might be. I don't think that's that crazy at all. It isn't. Number 15 heavyweight is Justin Willis,

so I actually think it's pretty good. Then Stefan Strue, Arlovsky, Shemul Abdera, and Tai Tui Vasa. I think those guys might wrestle him, in which case, no. But if they stood, could he be? Yes. Yes, he could.

Yeah. Right? I mean, if they chose not to take it to the ground, I think the answer is yes. I mean, think about it. A fight between Stefan Struv versus Rampi Jackson. It can go either way, right? Yeah.

God, you know what's funny about the whole, like, oh, he doesn't want to fight a wrestler? Dude, Rampage used to have lights out takedown defense. Yeah. You ever seen the Kevin Jackson, excuse me, the Kevin Randleman fight? No, I mean, not out of top of my head. I've seen highlights for sure. One of the best prides ever was Pride Body Blow, which that fight was on.

And that was the first time Fador fought Nogera. Dude, remember Kevin Randleman? I mean, you remember Kevin Randleman? He was an amazing wrestler and built like a brick shit house. Dude, he could not get Rampage down. Rampage had unbelievable takedown defense. But I guess over the years, he just got tired of that. And also, he still does. I feel like a lot of the things.

times people shoot on him he stops it but then they just stay in a stalemate whether he's pressed up against the cage etc you know and that's not the type of fights he wants to be in but yeah so the answer to that maybe i think maybe yeah yeah all right now let's talk about uc 229 hey luke and crew um as my name is scott anderson i'm from boston um like an irish king of boston i'm obviously pretty excited for this weekend and while i'm looking at the the fight it kind of makes me think with 25 years this year of the ufc and kind of celebrating that. Everyone's toting the Connor fight is the biggest fight ever.

But my question is, is it actually the most important fight ever? And if it's not the most important fight ever in UFC history, then what is? Thank you guys so much and enjoy the fight this again. So it's a great question. Everyone's talking about this is the biggest fight in UFC history, which it could argue, it could be, very well be.

But what about the most important? Is it the most important fight in the UFC? It's a loaded term because what is important to me? Obviously, I will tell. you that it has like implications for divisions, implications for greatness, implications for careers. And in that sense, this is highly important. At the time, I will say this, at the time, the rematch between Penn and St. Pierre felt like the most important, the second one. In the end, it ended up being a bit of a wipeout. But heading into it, that one felt like, because if you've

never seen the first one, I mean, Penn was tuning him up early, very badly, arguably could have won that fight. I would say that one probably was the most important, at least heading into it. But this one's pretty damn important. That's why it gets me. It's like, oh, the bus incident. Man, forget the bus incident. Yeah. There's so much more than the bus.

That's why I hate the promos that are going around. It's like it's all about the bus as if, you know, the bus incident happened. And then that's why we got this fight. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's so many other reasons why this fight should be happening. But, you know, back to that question, I think this is, for the biggest, there's metrics, right? There's traffic, you know, how many people are talking about it, paperview sales. For most important, I feel like it's a thing with time, right?

like, you know, Stefan Bonner versus Forrest Griffin. Like, yeah, that was an important fight. But we didn't realize the importance of it until after, right? So I think the same with this. We'll see what happens, you know, a year down the line or a few months. It really depends on who wins and how they win. Right. And then what happens after as well, right? Right, sure.

All right. So now let's talk about numbers for UFC 229. Okay. Hey, Luke and Danny, big fan. My name is Dennis. I'm calling someone from a dump, known as Bridgeport, Connecticut. I don't know about the possible people you buys for 229. There's a lot of people talking Dana White saying impossible

3 million Some of your colleagues Former colleagues 2.5 minimum 2 million I just want to know your thoughts about that Your opinion

And what you think We could be looking at And so what would you consider A failure Anything below 1 million And below 1.5 million Yeah just your thoughts on that P.S.

Talk is boring Who? Yeah I couldn't understand what he said at the end So, something's boring? I don't know. If you're going to have a zing, you've got to be intelligible. And it's got to be clear, right?

Yeah, it's got to be clear. What good is a zing you can't understand? Okay, I would say anything below a million is a failure. For sure. Anything below, anything, you know, I would consider one, two, be borderline bad. But one five would be fine. Two would be great. Yeah.

2.5 would be incredible. And I'll go from there. I'll go on those incremental half million stages. Yeah, anything over below a million, it's a complete failure. I mean, I would even say like 1.1, 1.2, it's like, eh, for really the biggest fight in UFC history. Not a huge failure, but definitely not good. And then I would say anything above two is a great success. Okay, I can buy that.

Yeah. All right, now let's keep it. What is your prediction and what it will do? Oh. Are you feeling it? Dude, you heard me in the opening. I'm feeling it, man. Yeah?

I'm not. No? No, not yet. See, you're burned out. That's the problem. No, I don't know. This is the effect to everyone's enthusiasm.

I mean, it's interesting because I've talked to some people that are casuals and they're like, yo, you know, the Habib McGrager fight. Like, people know. People know what's up. But I don't know.

I don't know. It's just like the amount of promotion. I think once, you know, it's still five week. Five week starts today, right? Well, technically Tuesday with all the events. I think once I see the reception around that, then I'll get a good gauge of

how is it going to do. But I guess it does. Does, I'll choose two. Okay, I'll go two, two, too, too. Okay. Cool, now let's move on in. Let's talk about the trash talk that's been going on between Habib and Connor. All right.

Hey, look, Danny, this is Diego from Mexico City. I'm a huge fan. And with a press conference scheduled for Thursday, we should expect a lot of the same thing as the last one, especially now that there's going to be an audience. So I want to know your opinion as someone. from the media. Where would you draw the line between mental warfare and showmanship and disrespect and unprofessionalism?

Because we know Conor loves interrupting and responding even if the question is not for him. And as a fan, I really want to know what both fighters have to say. And I find it really annoying. So I can only imagine what it's like for you guys to ask a question and not get a response. Much of gracias and saludos to Mexico. Salusa Mexico and shout out to our international colors. You can always email the MMA hour at Voxmedia.com if you don't want to call our hotline.

So yeah, is there a line between mental warfare and being outright disrespectful? There is no such thing as professionalism or any line about professionalism inside MMA. The only line is do you do anything to jeopardize the fight? Anything else is fair game. And fair in the sense of it could be terribly demeaning and awful things to say.

But I used to point this out. Ricardo Marjor used to tell his opponents, he was going to drink their wife's breast milk. I mean, we haven't even scratched the surface of unprofessionalism. I mean, I thought, the thing is, Connor's, like, stoking these ethnic and cultural tensions. Yeah. And we'll see where that goes.

I don't know how good of an idea that is long term, but, like, it might end, I'm not saying that does, but I'm saying individual things I've seen may or may not bother me. But folks have had, like, is it crossed the line? Yeah, of course. The fight game is about crossing the line. The sport is about crossing the line. So to me, the answer is it's all fair game.

This is one reason why there weren't fans of the first press conference because he'll be like, Connor, are you going to knock him out? And then it's Oleg, Oleg, Ola, Ola, for, you know, 45 minutes. Yeah. And that's what we're going to get on Thursday probably. But yeah, I mean, and this is something I feel like Dana White has always gotten, right? They've always asked them about, what do you think about this fighter saying this? And this fighter saying this.

And he goes, hey, look, this is the fight game. These guys are going to get into fist fights. You know, they're about to fight. Of course, they're not going to say nice things to each other. It's nice to get, you know, some fighters be very respectful. like the GSP, but it's the fight game. Anything goes. The last thing is, what if someone called

another fighter the N-word? See, there's you getting... Here's a thing. Materially, I'm not sure how much worse that is than other things, although let me be clear about this, it's absolutely reprehensible in every way imaginable. What I'm saying to you is, that's one of those cultural touch points here

that if somebody did that, there would just be so much outside pressure to knock that off, then that's the case. But materially, you can say really nasty things to each other without much of an issue. Yeah. There's definitely things that are off-limit

and things that I'm sure the UFC will act upon if they do come up. But for the most part, not really. Yeah, there's very few things, though. So I'm going to leave you with this question, and then I'm going to get Michael McDonald. Sounds good. Sounds good.

Yep. All right. We'll do these calls also a little bit later in the show. Cool. Yeah. Hey, Luke. Hey, Danny. My name is Mike. I'm calling from the DMV area. Hope to run into Luke sometime over here.

My question is... I'm a hermit. Do you think Khabib will... get any of this rub from Connor if he beats Connor? Or do you think that in a way, this could end up making him like a heel or making everyone hate him for taking down the chair? Thanks, appreciate it. Well, he would have to win first, and there are no guarantees about that, right? If Connor wins, then forget about it.

Although I still think even with a loss, if he performs well, he could maintain some level of extra popularity. So you run to one of these situations where it's like, is this the Amanda Nunes scenario with Ronda all over again, where Ronda loses and there's no rub? That's possible, but I don't believe it. And the reason why is because Habib has already much more of a following, both domestically and abroad, than Amanda has, I think, in either of those cases, even to this point. He has a pretty unique following in Russia. I think worldwide, he's got a lot of fans as well. And here in the United States, you saw the Habib Army show up to A.K.A. and go Ben, and that's just a small group of guys, but it's indicative of, I think, a larger set of people

who are really interested in seeing him compete and do well who are fans of his. So to me, let's say he wins, and again, there's no guarantees over any of this, but if he wins and he wins dominantly, then yes, he'll get some rub. Will he, like, take McGregor's place as the world's biggest MMA superstar if that happens? I don't think so. I don't think anybody can take his place, certainly not right now. But can he boost his profile? Um, for sure. sure. And by the way, if you're expecting to see me out in town, good luck. Your boy stays under lock and key, son. I'm not there. I'm not there. I'm not hanging out too much. All right, let's go to our first guest. Man, we've already been to like eight segments already on the show.

This gentleman has had a distinguished career in mixed martial arts and decided at age 27 he was going to hang it up. And I said, man, we got to talk to him. So joining us now on the phone as former UFC and now Bellator and MMA fighter, Michael McDonald. Michael, what's the Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Hey, man. So let's talk about it. You announced over the, well, I guess, end of the last week that you were going to be retiring from the sport of mixed martial arts.

For the folks who may not have seen the statement that you put out, what were the events that transpired that made you know that now was the time? Oh, man. There was a lot. There was a lot of stuff that happened. And one thing is I almost lost my hand, and that's a big part of it. So if I was going to explain them all, it'd be quite a while. But that's one of the biggest ones is, you know, right after my fight, I had to be rushed to the ER as soon as I get back to the United States.

Not how you say this one wasn't in the last one was in English. As soon as I got back to California, we had a rush, rush back, and the swelling was so bad. I almost needed emergency surgery to not lose my hand. But the problem with it was the surgery required was so difficult that only a, like, top-tier expert would have been able to fix me. So I either almost lost my hand or got surgery from someone who wasn't able to do it. So you did get the surgery already, right? I did, yes. And everything is okay?

Yeah, yeah, everything turned out well, so that's good. And so do you have full function? I'll say this. I'll say this. Everything, everything turned out with my hand, not with my arm. My arm did not, unfortunately. What's wrong with the arm? I have zero function of my left bicep whatsoever.

So there was an issue during the surgery. And we think it was the anesthesiologist still, not the surgeon that I had, that I actually have zero ability to use my left biceps whatsoever. It's completely dead. So already my left arm is like half the size of my right arm. And so now it's been almost a month that I have not been able to use my left bicep whatsoever. So I can't open a jar. I can't, you know, get a, uh, a box, you know, out of the, you know, out of the cupboard. I can't, uh, lift sheet of plywood or a cabinet. Um, nothing.

So, okay, let me see if I understand. And neither of us are medical doctors, but, and I'm, I'm terribly sorry to hear this, of course. Is the issue that, like, the, the, the, the, the, distal bicep tore off the, like, is it a nerve issue or what, a tendon issue? What happened? You know, my surgeon, I talked to my surgeon about it. He used a lot of big words and told me a lot about it. He said the way that this happened, he goes, it's still connected. But basically it's not coming back. It's not waking back up.

And he said, now, now there are different reasons that people's muscles don't come back after surgery. But this particular reason and how this happened is about a 1,000 and 8,000 chance. He said, my surgeon is a surgeon of 20 years, and he said he's never seen it happen to any of his patients. So it's quite a rare thing what happened. Good news is all recorded cases have recovered that have been recorded in the medical journal. But it's not a for sure thing that it comes back, but the odds are in my favor that it does. But just because it comes back doesn't mean it's not a huge burden on my life. They said on average it could take up to six months to come back.

So literally not being able to use your arm for six months, you know, and that kind of sucks. Yeah, that's terrible. And it's your right hand and your right hand dominant, correct? Or no? No, no. This is my left hand. Okay. It's your left hand, yeah.

Wow. I'm really sorry to hear that. Well, I certainly hope that you make a full recovery. And if the medical sciences, as they proclaim it to be, then you probably would will be, but I'm sure that's a terrible inconvenience in the meantime. So, all right, let's talk about this a little bit. I mean, I guess after that, you had to know that a professional MMA career was just not possible, huh? Well, it was a lot of things.

This was one of the things that really pushed me over the edge and really, you know, tip the bucket. You know, but I was thinking about this for a while. You know, I'm a follower of Christ. And part of that about being a follow of Christ is having your priorities in order. And what that looks like in my life is God says, I want you to serve the people who you've committed to serving first before you serve the people you haven't committed to. So first off, I've committed to serving the Lord, first off, and then second off my wife. and after that, I don't have any kids yet. And then so because I don't have any kid yet, who comes after that is your immediate family,

and then the people who kind of flow out forward from that. And, you know, I was feeling for a while that I guess my ministry or my life with those most important things were, it's tough to do that to the best of your ability when your life literally revolves around your job literally revolves around your job you can't call into it for a replacement i can't have someone cover my shift i can't say hey guys you know i'm not i'm really not feeling well or or um you know i have a family member who has a wedding or or a life um endangering surgery um you know can we get this move back a week or something that just doesn't this is not the way it works you know show business must go on and not only that um training every day must go on or else i'm going to get

beat up in front of a million people and lose half my pay um so it's just it was coming on for a while of you know i i i know i've given a lot to the to the sport and i'm willing it's not that i'm unwilling to do it i'm i'm willing to put in the work all that's fun stuff is great um but i have committed a lot. And I'm getting to the point where I'm like, you know what, I'm starting to wonder if I can keep my priorities straight. And I'm wondering, you know, kind of looking at my life and how much I've missed so far and being like, you know, as I'm continuing, is this the path I want to continue going? God, would you show me if this is where you want me to go? And because of that, because I was questioning, is this where I should be going? And as a follower of Christ, my

my mission in life is to do whatever he tells me to do. It's not to, you know, go for what I think is going to have the most money, the most fame and popularity or anything like that. So before my last fight, I prayed, and I said, God, would you show me if this is where you want me to be? If you want me to go, I'll go. If you want me to stay, I'll stay. I said, God, I'm going to pray for two things.

I'll say, first off, would you give me a hole in one? I said, I don't even know if I can ask that. But if you could give me a hole in one for this fight, that would be fantastic. And I would know that this is your first, like, goodbye. And a cherry on top of a fantastic career. I said, second off, if you could wrap up my contract with Bellator legally, morally, and give me absolutely no question whether I'm supposed to move on. And the second part of this, my hand, almost losing my hand,

I was literally in the most pain of my entire life. currently having no use of my left arm and me being a very big possibility that I'm never able to use it again things like that it was just like without question

it was just like this is it's time well that's yeah it sounds like you're at peace with it though yeah oh yeah absolutely part of that prayer what was me saying God I don't want any what ifs. I don't want any like, oh man, what if I kept going and oh man, like,

should I really be doing this now? Like, like God, God says that he is not a God of confusion. So I got, make me sure, make me, make me have zero confusion. Let me be sure. And if you make me be absolutely positive, then I will, I will change my path and I will relentlessly pursue it. Just like how you asked me to, you commanded me to pursue my fighting career to the best of my ability. So, you know, he made it 100% clear that I'm supposed to be moving on and that that the price outweighs the reward at this time with fighting, both for me personally, for my life, just everything about it. Yeah, you're still so young. You've got a lot of life left to live. I'm curious, by the way, did Bellator pay for the surgery? Yes. Okay.

Well, it's not technically Bellator. It's their insurance. Sure, yeah. When you told them you were done, what did they say? Well, I only talked to a couple of people personally, and one of them is Rich Chu, and he's the matchmaker for Bellator, and he was very understandable. He understood perfectly why I said what I did. This is my fifth hand surgery in five years, you know, and like I said, not only that,

I almost lost my hand. I have possible permanent damage. And after the surgery, I am not joking. This was the absolute worst pain of my entire life that would not stop. It was like someone took one of my jet parallel clamps that I used in my woodshop, and I just freaking put it, clamped it down to 10. And it was excruciating to the point where I didn't think it could get any worse. I was like, this is a 10.

okay, this is the most pain that anyone could possibly feel. And I'm like, I can't get worse. And it got worse. Ten times over. It just got worse and worse and worse over eight hours to the point of I was just pushed to the exhaustion of the most excruciating pain I've ever been in my life. I've just pushed to tears. I could just so exhausted of feeling this pain. I mean, after these experiences, I mean, there's just, I would never want to even put myself in a situation when I have to do this again.

This is, yeah, hard pass. You know what's crazy is I know how tough you are. Everyone out there knows how tough you are. It sounds like these hand surgeries, and particularly this last trauma you suffered, it has, in fact, traumatized you quite understandably. Yeah, I mean, I've gone through it many times, but this is the worst.

I mean, my previous broken hand, when I fought Peter Ligier in England, in Newcastle, That was almost a compound fracture, first off. So my bone was almost sticking out of my skin. That was a pretty bad break. That didn't even scratch the surface of the pain that was involved in this one. This one was, I not only crushed but shattered this bone next to my wrist. And that's bad, too.

It's next to your wrist, any movement is just going to set it on fire. I mean, it was the pain of this one was unlike anything I ever experienced in my life. Now, what's interesting is you have always had, the specific nature of it, please make sure I and the listeners and the viewers understand. You've always had a bit of a woodworking business. What is it that you do outside of fighting specifically? Right. So I have a custom woodworking business, everything that I build, aside from cutting boards, sometimes I can have a, that would be considered semi-custom. some of the cutting boards.

Sometimes I'll make like 10 of a board, then I'll pop them out and then I'll sell them or something like that. But for the most part, it's custom cabinets and furniture. And I can build both of them how they need to be. But cabinets are at high demand right now. It seems like with the economy going well, and everybody is wanting to make their house a little bit more customized to what they're looking to do.

So I enjoy doing both. I actually really, really enjoy ingrained cutting boards. In-grain cutting boards are the highest quality cutting boards on the planet, and they're actually very difficult to make properly. So that is something that's really cool, and if you make them properly, I always say it's kind of like, if anyone's ever chopped wood on a stump, you notice as long as you're chopping straight down on that stump,

that stump never gets any shorter. The stump only gets shorter when you start chopping at an angle. because you're chopping in between the wood fibers. That's exactly what you do with an ingrained cutting board with a knife. It will never get any shorter. It will never show any where as long as you are cutting properly. So that's one of the cool things I like making. They're very, very difficult to make properly, and I've made a lot of those.

So I do make some of those for people to buy. But the heart and soul of the real business is just someone has a space. something that they want and they say, hey, this is a very difficult thing where I don't know what to do and I helped them find out what they want. I build it on my computer to perfection to exactly what they're looking for. And then after it's what they're looking for and they're confident in that, then I take their money and then I build it what I built on my computer and install it. So I take care of everything from design to install on whatever someone could dream of made a wood. So we're running a little bit short on time, so let me make sure I get a few more questions in if I can. Again, I don't mean to be impersonal, but with your arm being the way that it is, will that affect your job?

It will. Yeah, it does affect my job. Man. But if your strength comes back, you should be fine. It's a fair way to describe it. I should be, in theory. What are you going to do if it doesn't? I know. It's a terrible question. I'm so sorry to ask it, but I am curious. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I would first off say, I have confidence that God will provide. I do have a couple of job opportunities that even if worse came to worse, and I was completely unable to use my physical bodies, and I do have some other opportunities I could go. But I know God will provide if that's the case. Your favorite MMA memory is what? Oh, man.

I have some good ones, but definitely, without question, my favorite MNMA memory was after my fight with Alex Soto, I got a message from a girl. And it turned out that I married her. And so that was pretty cool. Is that right? Is that how you met your wife? I did. My wife's father, so now my father-in-law is my coach's best friend. And we never met.

She's a lifelong martial artist. She's been doing martial arts, and she's two. She outranks me in martial arts. And so we never met, though. She came to my fight to support my coach. And then after that, she sent me a message on Facebook, congratulated me. And then I learned that not only is she a dancer, but she's also very attractive martial artist. And so I started flirting with her, took her out on a date, and here we are.

Wow, that's amazing. I'll tell you, my favorite memory with you is I interviewed you at UFC 145 after you knocked out Miguel Torres. You just had this incredible, youthful enthusiasm, man. It was really great to see. Looking back, you accomplished a lot. I know that injury didn't go the way you wanted. And as you mentioned, that Alex Soto fight in the aftermath was so great for you. But in fairness, do you have any regrets about fighting MMA at all?

No, no. I currently, I have no regrets. Even losses, I learned so much for my losses. I learned so much about masculinity, about being an adult, just about success through these losses, even more so than the wins. So I think it was an incredible learning experience. God really showed it to me that it was like, it's like college, you know, for a short period of time. You know, I mean, I was fighting for 13 years. You know, someone goes and gets a PhD for 12 years, you know. It's basically what I did. I got a PhD in success and hard work. I got a great community of people around me now, and I'm equipped to do my next thing with zero debt. So that's kind of what God showed me this period of my life is kind of like college.

Well, you know what? You ended your career with a bang. You beat a really top guy. You did it rather easily. I know that some people are going to play the game of what could have been, but what it was was pretty great, man. So I'll say this, congratulations on a great career for all its ups and downs. And thank you for spending some time with us. And by the way, if your recovery goes as plan, which of course we hope that it does, tell the public, because I'm sure they would want to know.

Okay, sounds great brother. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Michael. Congratulations again. All right, man. What a great guy that guy was, you know. Didn't go as well, 19 and 4 record. That win over Miguel Torres, man.

that was a big deal back in the day. The kid hit hard. He hit too hard for his own frame. All right. We go from one guest to, check this out. We're going to have, today's a big day on the show because I did my Monday morning analyst

standing up there. We're going to have our first two in studio guests. Now, I was only supposed to have one, but I'm now being told we're going to have two. We're going to have the announcer and the ambassador for Combat de Americas, Alberto de Rio.

And then we're going to have Campbell McLaren, a gentleman, if they want to bring them on inside. They're getting miced up. All right. be fun. Combata ametics, man, they're out there doing something kind of interesting. I remember back in the day, it was BET's, God, who was it called? It was like Iron Ring, I think it was called. They were trying to appeal to a specific demographic, and maybe at the time, MMA wasn't quite ready for it, but I do think that they're ready now. And the success that they've had is, well, it's just

been, it's been pretty remarkable to witness. And I've said this before, man, it's not about, like, racial quotas. We've got to make sure we have enough of this demographic. no, it's that certain demos are just rock-ribbed fight fans. And Latinos worldwide, certainly in North and South America, they are rock-ribed fight fans. But on the MMA side of things, I think it's still a bit of an adjustment and a learning process. And Kobatea Medicas is out here trying, man. They're out there trying to make it happen. So I'm waiting to bring them in studio. You know, all are taking forever to mic to mic them up. Um, you know what? I'll take that opportunity to tweet. Yeah, I don't really care.

All right, I'll tweet out a little bit later. Oh, yes, yes. While we wait for them, let's do this. Let's give away the tickets to the PFL that Danny had talked about earlier. Now, you've got to be in the New Orleans area or be able to get there. But if you want now, call in, state your case, 646809-0777. I'll say it one more time, 646-809-0777. That is your number to call.

Go get them ticks. You know. Also, I mean, is there a better place to be in the world than New Orleans, Louisiana? Shouts to all the folks in New Orleans. They're phenomenal. By the way, I mentioned on the MMA hour, the gentleman DeSerberus, who has the good eminari rolls. It's Marvin Castile.

Shouts to Marvin Castile. Maybe the best imminari roles in all the sport jiu-jitsu. Just absolutely flawless. He is tremendous. And if he knows better about inside entries, then listen to him. All right, let's do that. You're going to bring them in now? Yes, let's do.

Let's bring them in. No need to wait. While I'm still good looking, please. Here we are. Look at this. Coming in here. Look at this. These gentlemen have ties.

Much o'clock. Much o'clock. How are you, Campbell? Luke, I'm very well. Thank you. Have a seat, gentlemen. Thanks. Campbell, how's your Spanish?

Mucha gusto. Yeah. I'm not that great. I am learning. hear Spanish now. So am I. But I do know how to say, Combate America. Yes. I figured I should know how to say the name of them. I've been

I've been waist deep in Rosetta Stone for about three years. And it works. My wife's also Colombian, so we have No, no, that's a better way to do it. Colombian wife. Yeah, but they crack the whip or all the mistakes. As opposed to which wife's, Luke? Yeah, exactly. You know what?

I'm a point well made. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. You two are my first in studio guests here. I am very happy to have you. There's a lot to talk about. Combate America. There's so much going on. Alberto, I'll start with you. Now, your role is, your title, correct me if I'm wrong,

your announcer, as well as ambassador. Yes. What is an ambassador of Combate America? Well, I go places. I go all over the world telling people what Combatte is, what Combatte America says, and what we do here, what Combate represents for the fighters and the passion, the love, the fight like a Mexican.

We have that campaign. We can talk about it later. just explaining the people that doesn't understand what we're doing and what combat America is. How receptive is the message? As you know, boxing is the king, it seems like, of Latin America for combat sports. But they do seem receptive to MMA, but it seems like it's a learning process. No, they're loving it. They're loving it.

That was the general perception for some people, even some people working in the company, thinking that the Latin countries were not educated when it comes to MMA. But the level of MMA in Latin America is amazing. And I'm really happy to say this because in the moment those investors, those, that important people in the company went to Latin America. They saw the high quality of fighters that we have. They were in shock and that made me really happy. Biggest amount of progress, biggest challenge.

What would you say? Well, we're doing fantastic things. Our numbers are up there. Like we're doing way better than Bellator and any other companies out there. Yes, of course, we have the UFC as a number one because they've been around for many years and they have way more money than us. But we're doing fantastic things where we're beating the UFC in many countries in Latin America, especially in Mexico.

In Spain, yes. And when I started working for my good friend and boss Campbell McLaren, I was in Mexico, I was in Mexico and I was just throwing BS. And I said, we're going to beat the UFC in less than one year. And we did it in seven months. We have better numbers. More people are enjoying what we're doing. And I think it's because they can see through us and they see that we really support the Mexican talent, the Latin talent.

For us, they're not just a pair of gloves. We really care for them. And that's where I come in the picture. Of course, Campbell is a super busy man. He's running the company, bringing more sponsors, more investors, getting the money to help combat Americas to continue growing. So I get that approach, that one-on-one with the fighters, to make them feel what we want to feel when you are a fighter.

I have been in both sides of the cage inside and outside. So I know how it is. When you're a fighter and you don't get the appreciation from the promoters or from the organization, and we have seen that several times, and that's something that is not happening here in combat. How did it strike you to do an all-Latin promotion? I heard you talking about the Iron Ring, by the way,

before I walked in and you said maybe we weren't ready. There's no time anyone would have been ready for the Iron Ring because that show was total chaos. Right? I mean, it was just out of control. The numbers were great. It was beating the ultimate fight. I thought it did pretty well.

But I tell you, it's so different. You know, people ask me, you know, where's your top audience? What's your biggest market? It's really the U.S. I mean, there's 65 million Hispanics in the U.S. And now with our new deal with DeZone, we've got Gilmolendez and Giuliano Peno and Max Brato doing the English language commentary, right? And I actually put my cell number out on the air on DeZone. I said, call me, let me know how.

And I got a bunch of people called none of them. Wait, wait. You put your cell number? I know. They said that was a mistake. Yes. You're like, you know the rapper Mike Jones? He did that.

Yes, you're like Mike Jones. So what's the worst that was going to happen? I'll talk to an angry fan. Is that the worst that can happen? But people were very supportive. And I think what, I think what we have to remember, you know, I, you know, launch the UFC. Of course. I think the UFC is nearly perfect for what it is.

But I think it's one version of MMA. It's not MMA. It's a version of MMA. And Alberto talked about fight like a Mexican. And I think that, you know, when I started with Hoyce and Horyon, the graces, the only way that they weren't going to win every time was to bring in big wrestlers, right? And that was Dan Severin and Kevin Randleman and, you know, guys that Mark Schultz, who was an Olympic wrestler, he wasn't necessarily big. And they could counter the jiu-jitsu. So the DNA of the UFC is grappling. And as Alberto

knows the martial art in Mexico is boxa. So my guys, so the UFC essentially is grapplers that learn to strike. Combate is strikers who are learning how to grapple. So I think in an MMA fight, there's three different fights. There's the ground, and in the UFC, we know that pretty well. There's stand-up, and we all know what that looks like, but it's that one in between standing. And that's where it's getting interesting in Combate, because my guys treat the ground defensively. Can't take me down. If you do take me down, I'm going to get up again. That's a very different thing. So when you watch combate, if you watch combate, you've got to see a difference because we have more finishes in our events. And the guys typically try to finish standing.

Interesting. And it's just, it's a different mix to it. It's a different style of the sport. You know, what's interesting as well is that like the organization appears to be from the outside looking in walking this weird line, and a good line, but it's a weird line, right? So like, what are the most important rivalries in boxing. It's Mexicans versus Puerto Rico's, right? But at the same time, it's like this Latin unity organization. So how much of it is Latin unity, how much of it is let's get these Colombians versus the Venezuelans and have it go?

Do you have siblings? Yes, I do. Do you love them? Technically speak. Technically. That's the answer, right? Everybody's a sibling. That's awesome.

But, you know, a fight's going to break out. Yeah. All right. And U.S. versus Mexico. It's hot for us too, right? I mean, that's fantastic. And with Goyito and John Castaneda next week, a week and a half in Tucson, like I said, the symbol of both countries is the eagle, Mexican eagle and the U.S. Eagle.

So we've got two Eagles fighting. So that's going to be a very hot fight. And we're united as Latins, I mean, or as fighters. But what we're doing here in Combates, like we had Copacombats, where we did something like the World Cup of Combates, We had the World Cup, the World Cup of soccer, right? And, you know, I mean, everybody played the same sport, but they're competing for their country.

They're carrying their country over their shoulders. And that's what we're doing, creating that rivalry that the soccer teams have. Mexico versus United States, Mexico versus Puerto Rico. Madrid versus Barcelona. I saw your scarf. Al-a-Madrid. A la Madrid. Yeah!

It makes him happy. Oh, man. I'm not happy because we lost Ronaldo. Ronald, whatever you want. I know. That's how we kicked off in Spain. We did a fight last year, Barcelona versus Madrid. That's right.

You did a El Pasico. For them, I saw that. And that is where we doubled our first time on goal, which is our Spanish partner. We doubled the UFC's ratings in Spain. One more question, because I know you got an announcement to make, and I want to get to it. The other one that's interesting to me is... What are you announcing? Do I know about this?

Something I've heard. Something I've heard. Here's what I want to get to, though. A little bit. A little bit. Just to clarify for folks who are in, I know, because I feel like you were like on Fight Pass in 2016. Wow. Now you're, with two places.

Univision and DeZone, correct? In the U.S. In the U.S. I'm talking about for our U.S. U.S.S. Univision in Spanish, and Univision de Portes as well, which is the Spanish sports cable network. Okay.

Typically don't give you the numbers, but I'm telling you, based on my sampling when I gave out my phone, seems like they liked it. Yeah, yeah. Seems like they like it. But, you know, with Giuliana Pena and Gil Martinez, you've got, Gil Melendez, I'm sorry. You've got two UFC fighters talking about combate. And I think that's going to help the English-speaking audience, too. For sure.

Familiar faces, UFC faders, both Hispanic, of course. Right, second, third generation is exactly what you're talking about. Exactly. So get the feeling, know what this is about. I say salsa outsells ketchup because everybody likes Spanish flavor. It's also better for you. It's also better for you. Thank you. So that's kind of the feeling. It's not, this was built to take advantage of an underserved audience and a group of athletes who really weren't being recognized. What we're finding is around the world, everybody likes us. I mean, this isn't just Latin America. This is real. Everybody's going to like this. Now, Alberto, I have been told that, you know, you used to do professional wrestling. You used to be in MMA. Yeah.

Everyone knows you have a background in that regard. But I heard a rumor that you have something to add maybe to that resume, maybe to that legacy. What's up for you next? Well, I'm going to jump back in the cage or in the cage for the first time. La Haula. That's what we call it, the cage in English. because I used to fight in rings in Mexico in Asia but never inside the cage

so for 2019 I'm going to be doing that I'm going to be fighting in the cage for combat America's my family my cousin I'm not saying just this because my boss is here and he writes my checks I really love this company as many people know and for the ones that

don't have a clue about this I'm a very passionate man in everything I do and I have invested my heart in this company because I have invested their heart and money in me. And it's not just giving something back to the Latins and the company. It's giving back something to myself. That's how we started our work relationship and then friendship. He wanted me to fight for combat it.

But back then, I was doing pro wrestling and I was doing other things, and I wasn't that hungry for fighting again. And, you know, the business has changed. The progress in business has changed. And for me, I know for others, they love the way the business in pro wrestling is going, but for me it's different now. I don't enjoy it anymore. So I started.

And I'll tell you, I don't know anything about the business. I don't watch it. So what's different? When I started in the, I fell in love with the sense of all their respect, the loyalty, the being men doing pro wrestling like tough guys and I'm not saying there's no tough guys anymore in pro wrestling but it has changed in a way that I'm not enjoying it anymore and because I'm not going to change the world,

I'm not going to change the pro wrestling business but I can step aside and do something else. I started investing my time and in other projects and especially in Combat Americas and watching these guys, these kids, this amazing fighter is going toe to toe every single month, and now twice a month. It made me feel hungry about fighting again. Like Sylvester Stallone said in the last Rocky movie, The Beast Inside the Basement.

And believe me, I have a beast inside the basement that I want to release. And we started talking about money. Money has never been an issue. Camel has always offered me fantastic amounts of money to jump back in the ticket. Quite frankly. I kept saying no. No, no, but like now it's not just the money. I feel like it's the right time to do it by doing this.

This company is growing in an amazing way. And, you know, me being Mexican, being Latin, it makes me happy to see a product that is the foundation or the ones carrying it are Latins, of course, behind the, with all the help from the investors and people with money. But the ones carrying it to take it to the place where we want to take the company are Latin and Mexican.

Are the fires. Yes. And their Mexicans are Latin's, right? So with this, we could give the company the first pay-per-view in history. That's the plan. That's the plan. Have a big pay-per-view because I'm going to be facing a former super champion, well-known in Mexico and the United States.

Who? Well, we cannot have the name yet. He hasn't said it. He hasn't said it, but we're working on it. But if we get him, it's going to be. a super fight, a fight that all the Latino fans are going to love because these big names for all the Latins and also for the Americans here. So it's going to be something amazing that we'll bring that first pay-per-view for this

company. We could do it. Let's say, we don't know where we're going to do it, but if we do it in Mexico City, and I'm not putting any pressure, Amigo, if we do it in Mexico City. Downtown Advantage, Altitude, Advin, I didn't say that. Sorry. We could do it in, like in Arena, Sierra Nevada, Mexico, in front of

28,000 people. You could sell that out? Two years ago, I draw 28,000 people for a pro wrestling show defending a pro wrestling world title, and I draw 28,000 people. I go around San Antonio with

Alberto and he gets mobbed. In New York, he gets mobbed, getting here. It's different in Mexico City. Yeah. It's not mobs. It's hordes. It's really, it's really different. So what's the plan?

First quarter, 2019. Is that the idea? We're targeting February. We've got a couple steps to go. He's just, you know, really gotten himself back in great shape. Yeah, you've got phenomenal. Has it been a challenge? Because it's been like, what, eight years? Ten years since you fought? Wow, a long time. And ten years, and I stopped

doing wrestling and jujitsu for like five or six years because I was going to those MMA gyms, and for them it was like a challenge to try to tap me out. You know, there's a pretty, there's a, there's really good guys out there and they all went crazy on me

so I was like, hold on, hold on, I'm doing pro-rest and I just have to, you know, look pretty and have muscles and stuff so I'm going to stop doing this because one time I got hurt, I hurt my ankle and I was working, back then I was doing 260 shows, 270 shows per year. So I was like, and working hurt

because I went to an MMA gym, of course I had my dad, what are you doing, kid, you're not planning on fighting anytime soon, so just focus on what you're doing right now. So I stopped doing that for a while. Now I went back to the jiu-jitsu, the wrestling. As you know, my background is amateur wrestling. I'm enjoying so much, going back there with those guys,

and, you know, getting back in fighting shape, but at the same time passing some of my experience to the young wrestlers. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool atmosphere every time I go to the gym. And now I'm having my little son, Joseph, Joseph, Papa loves you. He's doing it with me. He's like, you know, I always said,

I don't want my son to be a wrestler, to be a fighter, but that's what he enjoys. He enjoys punching people and throwing people around. Is this a one and done, or you think you've got a few fights in you? I think it's just one and done. We're talking about maybe I'll see. We were talking about it.

I'll be happy with one. I don't know. At that time. You know, that's what I said for my first MMM. may fight. You know, I was doing $50 per wrestling match at the time. Then Mr. Saeki came from Japan and was, hey, here's $25,000. Will you fight Kangu Watanabe?

I said, for $25,000, I go in a boat to Japan and I will kill Kanga Watanabe. And then I remember me and myself in the locker room saying, I'm telling my dad, is this one and I'm done. And then, you know, Saeke came after the fight, the fight I wanted. in the first round and he was like, okay, here's 50. Do you do another one? Of course, yes. And keep bringing the, yeah.

I see what you mean. So we'll see, man, we'll see. Well, you know, it's incredibly exciting. I have to ask, I've always wondered. Again, I don't know anything about the pro wrestling business. You have to forgive my ignorance. But the name, Dos Casas, two faces. Where does that come from?

Well, it was, there was this pro wrestling magazine in the 60s and 70s in Mexico. And they used to create our super, That's how my uncle Milmascarus, the Milmascarus name was worn, Santo Blue Demon. Because here in America, you guys had all those superheroes, and Mexico wanted to have their own superheroes. So the luchadors, the wrestlers, were the first superheroes for Mexicans. That's where the mask came from, also for the Aztecs and Mayans that they used those masks to go to battle. But it was that sense of creating a superhero what made Valenti's. Pettes, that was his name, the one who created that magazine, to come up with the idea and create

those fictional characters that later on came to life with my uncle, Emil, Santo Bluedemone, and my dad, Doscaras. And he was, to pick the name of Doscaras, he was the audience, he was the fans picking that name. They were like, they presented my dad, okay, here we have this amateur, former amateur wrestler, former bodybuilder he's going to be one of the biggest stars in Lucha Libre, Mexican Lucha Libre

pick the name and they threw a bunch of names and the one winning was Los Gatos. I'm crazy. Well, you know what? Scaras is still in real shape too. I was going to offer him a fight. No, I think I should have my dad. Not just because he's my dad, he'll kick my ass. Fair enough. Well, I wish we had more time, but we have a tight schedule

today. Let me just say this. Congratulations on your comeback. Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing it. If folks want more information about Combates, where do they go? Combate Americas? All right. What's your next show? And it's combat with an E on the end. Combat with a knee on the end.

America with an S on the end means the fighting Americas. That's all. And when's your next show? The next show is a week from Saturday in Tucson. All right. Then we're in Guadalajara, Monterey. Fresno is our Copacombate.

So that's the big eight country. One night, eight-man tournament. Who else is doing that? Nobody. Nobody. You're out there innovating. You always have been Campbell. Congratulations on your success.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. let's do this. We have to go to another guest, do we not? Who do we have here? Yes. Is he on? Danny? All right, people were working on it. Thanks very much. Yes, of course, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Next time you're in town, I'll put a, I'll give you a ton of time, I promise. We're on a tight schedule. And thanks for remember the Iron Ring. Yes, hey. People hated that show, Luke. People are, people are racist. I mean, that's just the reality. What do you want me to tell you? It just is? It just is. All right.

We're waiting to get hold of Michael Kiesa. He's got a big fight coming up against Carlos Condit. I'm very excited to talk to him about that. Big thanks to those gentlemen. If you've not seen any of the Combatia Medicas, give it a look. They do good stuff. And it's one of the few promotions out there that's doing something a little bit different, trying things a little bit different, and making some headway all along.

Well, we are putting our cameramen to work today, huh? Up there doing the analyst, bringing in the in studio guests. You guys, look, you're a bunch of union laborers lazy, and I'm finally getting all that dollars that Vox wastes on you. Getting, you know, finally sweating out here for once, huh? You're welcome. You're welcome, boys. That's what I have to say. All right, coffee time.

Joe, you're welcome, buddy. It's the most work you've done on this show ever, right? It's hilarious. We're trying to get a hold of Mr. Michael Kiesa. We'll see how this goes. You know, the good news about the sound off is that if one of our, and I'm not anticipating this, I'm just saying, if one of the guests doffs or something, you know, just go back to that, you know, just cover for it.

It's great. Nothing wrong with that. All right, so hopefully we can get a hold of him here. I am excited about this big fight, Carlos Konda, and taking on Michael Kiesel, Michael Kessa, Michael Gessa, of course, jumping up a weight class. This would be at 170. By the way, that UFC 232 card, let's look at that here for just a second while we are in limbo. And who do we have here?

UFC 232. So far, it's Cyborg versus Amanda Nunes. Elir Latifi versus Corey Anderson. Ooh, that's a bit of a sleeper. Jessica I taken on Sejaro Ubanks. We had them on the show before. Ryan Hall taken on BJ Penn. The Combatea Amidicas commentator.

Gilbert Melendez, Arnold Allen. Interesting. And then Michael Kiesa taken on Carlos Cond. And there might be some other ones in the works. they might add, because this is that December 29th card, yep, at C-Mobile, they might add John Jones to that card. If they add John Jones versus Gufferson to send that card, I mean, you know, it's just the best thing since Slikes Bread, so.

So pretty decent card, actually. I'm very much looking forward to that. I was surprised by that Ler Latifie, Corey Anderson fight. Not that they made it, but, man, that must have fallen into the radar. I completely don't remember that. Hey, real quickly, man, while we're waiting because they were talking to, about DeZone, I wonder how everyone's DeZone experience was. I have a hard line that runs to my laptop tower.

That tower is the same one that I do my YouTube shows on at home, where I can stream in 1080p, 60 frames per second, and I get like, it's a gigabit speed. So it's like 900,000 download, like 40, 50 upload. So plenty of bandwidth. And my app was getting chewed up a little bit. Now, that's not the case for the week before for Bellator 205 on that Friday. it was fine. And then for Joshua Povetkin, it was okay. Like, it would go from like HD to SD and then back to HD. But for Bellator, it was straight up where it was Bruce Buffering where, you know, I'm talking about where, to play on words, but where the arrow in the middle is winding.

It was not a great experience. Now, again, it's a brand new app. You have to have a brand new service. I'm not expecting this to be a prolonged issue. But I saw folks in the. the UK talking about this new deal that the UFC has with something called 11 sports. Now, I don't live in the UK. I don't understand all the various issues that you guys do. I'm not telling you you don't have a reason to bellyache. What I am saying is one of the common complaints was, well, we're not going to be able to record it. Again, I don't know how 11 works. I'm not telling you you you don't have a right to complain. If it's not, if it's upsetting for you because it's extra money and now you have to add cables and wires in a Chromecast, I'd be mad to. What I am saying is

though, if they're not providing DVR functionality in the app, I would riot. I would riot before I allowed that to happen. So I don't know what that's about. You know what? Let me text some folks. See if we can get old Mr. Kiesa on the air. Danny, any update? No update?

Well, he might be talking to him. No good yet? Why don't we do this? Why don't we do a round of tweets while we wait? Do you have five minutes to give or not? All right. You know what? How about this?

Put the clock up. No more just bantering about. Let's do a round of tweets, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get that thing fired up here. All right, here we go. Count them down for me, please. As soon as that clock starts ticking, I'll start talking. Here we go.

Who's Peppa Pigs? Next opponent. Oh, God, I felt so bad. I felt so bad for you, Brits. That is, and then, of course, the Irish, too. Oh, that sucked, huh? Can you believe that? It was right at the main event, too.

I'd, dude, if I was staying up until 6 a.m. watching Bellator, and they did that, your boy would be livid, super livid. Yeah, that was a huge, huge error. They need to, and then apparently there's a law. They did that at 6 a.m., but apparently no one knew that was a law, and that's never happened for UFC fights, so God only knows what that issue is. Next.

What was the determining factor? Size or skill in McDonald versus Musasi. It was this. I still think skill-wise, McDonald is basically as skilled as Musasi, more or less. I mean, you could cover certain areas, one's more than this and the other one's more than that.

But what I would say is that wasn't a great performance from McDonald. I think he made a lot of errors. And what happened was, as I showed in the Monday morning analyst, it was errors that McDonald made that were not only was Musassi able to take advantage of them, even if they were the same weight, he was then able to bring his size to bear to make those mistakes even more costly. Right. So it was a little bit of both, obviously, but I also don't think, like, if they did that fight again,

I don't think it would actually look that way. I think McDonald would be a little bit better. I just don't think he ever got out of first gear. And that's a credit to Musassi for pumping that jab right. in his face. But it's a little bit of both. It's quite the answer, but more about taking advantage of someone else's mistakes. There you go. Okay. Do you feel that it's a matter of time before a current UFC champion jumps to Belator?

You mean like while they're a champion? That might be difficult given championship clause unless they ultimately give it up or they get stripped or something. Do you feel it's a matter of time? Well, you know what? What's kind of interesting is there's a rumor going around that the, that Dezone is paying Bellator $5 million a show, right? I mean, that that's kind of interesting. That's a significant amount of money. If I was a champion and I was making paper viewpoints, but my pay-per-views were selling, you know, not enough to trigger the various tiers that ultimately return money to me,

I would consider a flat fee like that a little bit more interesting. Well, it depends on what they want. Do they want to make a lot of cash or do they want the status and visibility that comes with being a UFC fighter? And the UFC fighter also, of course, you know, there's still an opportunity to make a bunch of cash that way as well. But my hunch is that if the right circumstances there, and we're talking about a lowerweight division

where they don't necessarily draw on pay-per-view, it could happen. I wouldn't put it as likely, 30, 40%, maybe at the best case scenario? Next. Do you think Woodley would have fared better than Rory did against Musassi? Do you think Woodley would have fared better than Roy did again?

Who would your favor in that matchup? Yes, but again, let me be very clear about that. That was just a bad performance from Rory. I think he could do better in another one. He might still lose. People like, are you saying he would beat him a second? time? Well, maybe not. But do I think he can perform better than that? Do I think he can do an Eminari role with his head on the outside? Yeah, I do. I absolutely think that. I saw him do it against

Wonderboy. You saw him do it against Wonder Boy. It's absolutely possible. So, so yes, I do think he would have fought better. And I think Woodley probably could have fought better. But Musassi is just really good about number one, as I mentioned, taking advantage of mistakes. And you know, the first Ryah Hall fight notwithstanding, he's pretty good about staying out of trouble too. I would still favor. Nubisasi's really good. He's really, really good. I would favor him. Next. Any chance that Nick Diaz 209 is brought back for UFC 230? Seems like an impossibility at this point, but God, wouldn't that be awesome, having both Diaz brothers fight on the card? Yes, please. Next. Is the UFC missing big promotional potential by not having Ferguson and Pettis at the Fight Week presser? No,

Luke, Luke, please unblock me, Luke. All right, Danny, save his address. I'll unblock him after the show. Well, here's the deal. No, the presser should be about what it's about. There's a waste of time to have those guys up there. But I like what the UFC is doing. They're giving Ferguson and Pettis their own workout earlier in the week. I think that's great. I love it. I love the call. It's a fight that deserves to get magnified. It's true fighters who deserve to get magnified. It's an opportunity for the press to really focus in on something early on and not be distracted later. Smart call by the UFC. Good job by them. Next. I'm currently paying $99 a year on FightPass, $9.99 a month on DeZone. DaZone. $9.99 a month on ESPN. No, you're not. You're paying $4.99 a month there. $4.99 a month on PSVU.

Add in a few pay-per-views that my streaming budget is tapped. Are you hearing any similar complaints from fans? Are fans getting squeezed too much? Can I ask what you pay? So I would pay, I say whatever it is for FightPass. I pay that $10 a year. $10 a month, sorry. So that's $120.

I pay for DeZone. So that's 240 a year, right? And then I pay another five for ES. No, I paid the 50. So that's 250 a year. And then for pay-per-views, I usually have a friend over and we split those sometimes. So I don't use PSVue, though. But I also do YouTube TV, 35 a month.

And I think it's about it. I got rid of who, I got rid of Sling. It's a lot. But the idea behind DeZone is to get rid of pay-per-view over time. And here's what I would say about UFC fans. We're in this stage now where the UFC is trying to keep their old contract. We're going to have 30 fights and then we're going to have 12 paperviews. And we're going to have 42 a year and we're going to have those 12 prelims on ESPN.

I don't see that lasting. I don't see how that's possible. You mean to tell me four years from now, five years from now, you're still going to be having a pay-per-view a month? That seems terribly unrealistic. I don't buy that even a little bit. So I would say we're in this transition period where the streaming services that are designed to take over and eliminate the need for pay-per-view, it's still in this introductory beta phase. And we're sort of living in two worlds at once. Once that is fully a part of how television is consumed, this would be less of an issue.

Hey, Danny, I'm going to send you a number. it's a bit late now but we can try him. And then you can call this number, all right? Yeah, I know. It's going to make it a little hard. But just try this. Maybe we can get, you know, if we can get five minutes out of them, it might be all right. But I just send it to you on G-chat.

All right. Hopefully we can get that to work. We can at least, we can put maybe push Gagard back a little bit, like 145 or something. And so that way we can have a little enough time with him and then we can stitch it all together. All right, so we're hopefully going to get hold of Mr. Kiesa. It's live show, folks. What do you want me to do? You know what I'm saying?

It's why you got to take Madison to your own hands. You got to do your own Monday morning analyst. That's what I'm... And by the way, about that, I'm happy to bring back a guest. Like, you know, when Dan Hardy comes on, you know, you got to give the floor to Dan Hardy. When Dominic Cruz comes on, same kind of thing. But week in week out, it's been a challenge to figure out how to do that. I know it sounds obvious.

You just hook a laptop up to a TV, but it's a little more complicated than that. But I got to be a lot of it. got an email already. People seem to be sized for it, so we can make that work. All right. Ah. Danny and Elock, it's fun. Fun having to tap dance here. Live on air. Hey, you got the tickets are gone? All right. Look at that. You know what? You're welcome. You're welcome cameramen. Got there earning that check. Enjoyed the PFL show as well. That should be kind of fun. I mean, it's hard to go in New Orleans. Man, you could just wake up in the gutter in New Orleans, and I'd be sized to do that, right?

I mean, it's pretty great. There's almost nothing wrong with New Orleans. I mean, being below sea level kind of hurts, but if you've never been there, you know who went there recently? If you guys ever seen Arsenal fan TV? I guess Arsenal fans worldwide have some kind of yearly pilgrimage to some festival. And this past year, it was in New Orleans, and all the Brits seen New Orleans was hilarious. They're like, this place rocks.

Yeah. Yeah, New Orleans is the shit. It's pretty great. What do we think, Danny? Is this going to happen or no? Yeah, I mean, it's done. Let's just scrap that. Why don't you come back on the phone, the screen here? Let's take a couple more calls because that ain't going to happen.

You know what I'm saying? Like, we got a window, bro. Got tight windows, man. If we were on to like four or five, we could just play with this a little bit. Yeah, if we could, you know, we had so much time to schedule stuff, you know. But your boy, your boy has to, as soon as this show is over, I got to go uptown. I gotta do three more hours of radio, dog. Fun.

You seem excited, right? It's the worst part of my day. Don't give you wrong. I like the job. Is that what I mean? It's like when you're done with, it's like the MMA hour is over and I now have to go gear up for the Luke Thomas show.

It's a very different show, by the way. Ro, it's hard, man. You got to like, I drink. I drink enough caffeine to kill the elderly. Honestly, if I was 10 years older, I would have a heart attack. That's how much coffee I drink. We got 10 years of the MAA hour, right?

I'm going to die. I'm going to have, I would say less. I'm a bit pessimistic. Yeah, I'm going to have the right I drink coffee, I'm going to have an ant. I have to literally drink, can we just pull back the curtain? Why not? Why are we doing this phony bullshit? Before the show, Danny, here's what I have to do.

Yeah. I have to drink Peptobismal, don't I? Yes, I've seen it with my own. So that my rear end doesn't explode. And the reason why is because I drink enough coffee to, honestly, it's like, it's like, You ever seen that scene, you ever seen Dumb and Dumber, the scene where Lloyd Christmas spikes, and then the dude sits there like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If it wasn't for the Peptobismol, that would be me in this chair. You understand? Yeah, all right. This is the point where viewership drops. Yeah, bathroom humor. Everyone asked for it. They're like, do you know what the MMA hour needs? Bathroom humor.

Yeah. So we got a few minutes to kill before Mr. Musazzi comes on. You want to take on a question? Yeah, let's do it. All right. You're going to stitch this together, yes? Yes, this will be all together. It'll make sense.

So, Usada, big news came out, right? That now they're no longer going to announce potential violators, right? So we have a question about that. Let's hear it. Hi, Luke and Danny. This is Rahul from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Usada has apparently started to not release possible violations until after they conclude their investigation. for fan like me, I think this is a good thing because of how fighters are generally prosecuted in the court of public opinion whenever they fail a test like a Yo-Romero or a Josh Barnett or a Tim Means.

But on the other hand, could this be a bad thing where the UFC basically kind of strong arms you saw that into not releasing positive results and prosecuting a certain fighter if that fighter is, you know, big business for them, like a John Jones or a Brock Lesnar or even a Conno. McGrath. All right. So I'm going to stop it right there. So good question. Basically asking what are your thoughts on, you know, this whole USADA thing where they're not going to release any more names until, you know, everything's sorted out. Okay. Good question.

Here's my answer. My answer is that I'm massively in favor of it. I think it's absolutely the right call. Athletes are entitled to privacy. I don't know why this is a controversial idea, but it appears to be for some. Again, it's not, it's not, I don't understand why. But here's the reality. Anti-doping and privacy, they can coexist, but they are constantly within tension.

The more privacy you have, the less anti-doping, ultimately. And now this is less of an issue about testing and more about disclosure. But I'm just pointing out, it's, that's really what you have to figure out when you're debating, what the important move is here is how much privacy do you want to give and how much leeward towards anti-doping. I would say this is one of the better ones. Because it doesn't affect their testing protocol. It doesn't affect their adjudication protocol.

It's merely an announcement. Now, I will get sticky, and I absolutely take my hat off to Sean O'Malley for getting out in front of it, for not hiding behind it, for declaring what it is. And by the way, look how much better it is. He gets to set the narrative. He gets to go out and do it. And by the way, you could say, well, why should it be able to? Because they changed the policy for fully a third of these, a third of these being overturned.

It is absolutely the right call. I applaud the UFC for doing it. I'm sure it was painful and debated and difficult, but the athletes are entitled to some protections. I'm glad they gave them some. Yeah. This should have been done from the very beginning. I mean, sure, the announcement is still going to be the same.

Like, you know, the fighter cannot compete. Like, O'Malley can't compete at UFC 29, right? That's a fact. But he gets to go out there and say it himself. And I think that's huge because as soon as these USADA headlines come out, you know, potentially, eventually flagged for, you know, anti-doping, you know, failed tests, whatever, like, immediately what people think is just, oh, steroids, you know, that person failed a drug test,

when it can be like a number of things, you know. And now with this, you know, fighters get to, first of all, think, you know, what's, you know, how's the best way to process this and, you know, really, you know, take on the situation with, with honesty and, you know, present their case out there to the public, right? Yep. All right. Well, look, you want to try and reach Mr. Musassi? Yeah, let's do it.

So I'm going to reach out to him. Do you want me to leave a question for you? Sure. Yeah, yeah. Do that. That'd be great. Cool. So here's a D.S. Poirier question by a female caller.

Oh, look at that. You got a lady calling. All right. How about that? Hi, there, Luke. It's Joe here calling from Jolly Old England. And my question to you is, what do you think would happen if both Nate and Dustin turned up to the way-ins and both weighed in bang-on-165? Would they have to scrap the card?

Would they make it a catchweight? What do you think would happen? And do you think there should be a 165 pound division? Thanks. Bye. You know what? It's a good caller right there. Thank you so much.

Shouts to Jolly Old England. I don't think they would do that. Because, number one, they would just lose money. The U.S. you would find them both. And I don't think they're in the business of giving up cash. you could make the point that they would try to make some point together. And if the two canceled out the punishment by them both being on weight that way or off weight, then maybe that'd be different.

But the punishments would be handed out irrespective of any of those concerns. So, no, I just don't find that very realistic. The one thing that's kind of interesting is, has anybody reached out to the New York Athletic Commission to see if they'd be sized for this? I wonder if they would be in favor of it. Now, the Association of Boxing Commissions is prepared and I think has already passed guidelines allowing for 165. But the bigger issue here would be, to what extent the New York Commission would be willing to accommodate this on short notice and bumping up 170, ostensibly the 175. Would they keep any other, let me look at the card here real quickly.

UFC 230. Siri, I don't need to talk to you. Who else is on that card? Let's see, let's see, let's see. You've got a welterweight fight with Lyman Good and Sultan Aliyev, and you've got, that's it, and there's some middleweight fights. So you do have the one welterweight fight. Would they bump that to 175?

Would they just keep it at 170? Hard to say. So part of this would just be a function of regulatory willingness. But we'll have to wait and see. You guys know I'm always looking for new books and podcast, and I, I've got a recommendation for you. Today Explained is a fresh daily news podcast from Vox. Hosted by Sean Rami Swarham, the show features news from all over the world.

For example, talking to Uyghur journalist who has more than 20 relatives detained in China's secret concentration camps. And the show places a premium on diversity, not just in the voices you hear from, but also the news they explain. Cultural moments, like when everyone was talking about Serena and the umpire at the U.S. Open, why Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation has exploded into a debate over how we treat sexual assault. The craziest stories you never knew about what the Trump Foundation uses their charity money for. And it's not just wall-to-wall Trump. Today Explained has done great episodes on everything from the controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson to the reopening of the Emmett Tillcase to the recent controversies over the Stanford Prison Experiment.

And if you haven't heard, look, the show sounds human. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even sing a song. Look, they made a song about the Mueller investigation's list of indictments to the tune of We didn't start the fire. So what are you waiting for? Subscribe to Today Explained by Vox on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you're currently listening. All right, look at this. This gentleman always treats us well. My God, did he not look impressive on Saturday night?

Wow. He is the reigning middleweight champion and absolutely just bulldozed his last contender. A very good fighter coming up from another weight class. one of the best fighters to ever do it, certainly in that division. The champ is here. Gagard Musassi. Mr. Musassi, welcome back. I'm good.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I know you're making time for us. You just landed in Amsterdam. I really appreciate that. Let me start by saying congratulations. And the first question, I suppose, would be that that had to go about as easy as you thought it might go, right? Well, I saw the interviews before the fight.

I said, or I can dominate him in two rounds. or it will be a hard-fought, a five-round fight. So, but eventually, it's never easy, but it went better than, than we thought. So what were you expecting from him? Like, worst-case scenario, what was the game plan? The game plan was exactly what we did, keeping him at range, straight punches, more kicks, maybe kicks to the body,

and make him desperate for him to shoot and take over. Because I could have shot on him and tried to take him down, but we don't want to end up in a guillotine or anything, something like that. So we wanted him to come to us, and that's what he did. I think he got punched a lot, and then he was a little bit desperate. And so he went from my leg, and that's how I get the top position. Yeah, and you notice he did. didn't shoot, he went for that Iminari role, but it didn't go very well. Are you surprised

he went for that? It's fairly low percentage, right? Yeah, I still do that against Robert Boy Thompson, but I thought he's a Southcar, so it's easier to do that against the South car. I didn't think he would do that to me. But honestly, I hope I've seen his state, I started him. Now, ultimately, you were able to get your left knee through. You walked his hips to the other side, and you were able to pass to mount, and it all went very quickly. I know, again, you believe in your ability, but it seemed to happen so fast. I wonder if even you were surprised by that.

No, I think, I don't know when I hit him on the nose, after that he was defending. Even from the guard, I was hitting him. I don't know if people can see it on camera, but those were hard punches, hard. elbows. So eventually he opened his guard and that's why I got to pass his guard and I got to full mouth. So I was actually hurting him when I was in his guard. How much do you think size played a role? I always said size doesn't matter if he would clinch or I would get a top position, then size would definitely matter. And I think that was the case here. I always said I'm faster than him.

He was thinking that he was fast, but I was faster than him. I had the better stand-up. Yeah, size played a factor. But before people go on size thing, GSP thought this thing he won. Kevin Gassman is fighting for the middleweight title. He's a welterweight. Wittaker himself was a welterweight.

You know, so before people go and say, yeah, well, it's a size difference. 100% it made a difference when we were on the ground. But I think stand-up, I was better, and my game plan was better. Where do you think this puts you among middleweights in the world? I really don't care. My goal was never to be the best. I always wanted to make my money.

Of course, I always wanted to win my fight. But, of course, if you keep winning, people are going to say the best middleweight. and how I would face against Whitaker or something like that. But to be honest, I really don't care. Fair enough. I know they want to be considered the best because, you know, everyone loses, you know, and then all the haters will come up, you know. Yeah, you're right. That's probably true.

So what's interesting, though, is you broke some hearts, Mr. Musasi, prior to the fight, I believe you said this, that, you know, the end is coming not right away, of course, but it's not too far away. when did you decide that you were probably closer to retirement than some may have realized? Definitely after Shumlanco fight. But after that fight, I stepped up. I feel like I'm a better fighter than I fought Shumlanco. But yeah, and it's almost two more fights.

Almost end up my contract. So I have to see it. Like I said, I will never say I'm going to quit. Because, like I said, if I have wins like this, but I don't take damage, and I'm just winning without any damage, without any injuries. Of course, I could see myself go another three fights. But to be honest, I'm looking to see how the next three fights will go, and then to be honest, to quit, yeah.

Wow. So when your eye got all swollen up in the Schlemenko fight, you were just like, fuck this. This is just too much injury. People didn't see what happened back after the fight. I was in the hospital. I couldn't move. I didn't know if I lost my eye or not.

People didn't see those parts. And then hearing all the crap that I lost, but I didn't lost. And then it is what it is. You know, this is how it is sporting. But I want to go on top. So the way I'm training now, I turn really hard. I can do it another three times. I don't know what kind of motivation I will have after that,

but trainings are hard. Training camp are really hard, so I'm not enjoying it. Yeah, so wait, let me break that down to two parts. Your eye, the only thing that we saw, of course, was it swell up, but you almost lost your eye? No, well, I didn't know because the doctors were talking. my surgeon that had operated, my knee was there, my normal doctor that always helped me with recovery after the rain was there.

My eyes were shut, and then they didn't know what was wrong with my eyes. So for a long time, I was in the dark. So we didn't know. Thank God, no serious injuries to the eye. But if you have fights like that, you're going to think help is more important. You know, it's nice that I make money, but I want to end up healthy. I don't want to be a retard after three. Sure.

I can understand that. Is that the worst injury you've had from a fight? Yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah. Now, what's interesting is the other thing you... Yeah. I normally don't take any damage. But like I said, if you fight a hundred times,

eventually you're going to see a punch that you're not going to see, or, you know, it's going to land on the wrong place, and that's what it happens. You know, it caught me in the first minute, and shit happens, yeah. Yeah, certainly it does. All right. The other thing you said was, just so you know, because the viewers are watching this, I personally, I don't care, but just for clarification's sake, Gaggard, retard is a bit of an impolite word.

Did you know that? Oh, I didn't. No, I didn't know that. But you guys, you Americans are very sensitive, I have to say, also. It's true, yeah. You know, I don't want to be, like, brain damage, let's say. Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Look, we are.

You guys are very sensitive. American people are very sensitive. I know, I know. Look, you're right. We're way too sensitive. You don't have those problems in Europe, to be honest. You guys have everything, me too movement. I don't know what kind of movement you guys are.

Yeah, well, I'll leave that part alone. I'll just say we are definitely too sensitive. I'm not sure, but you guys are also feminist. I don't know. All right, all right. Let's put that aside for just a second. You mentioned that you don't enjoy training. Now, I can understand that, but like, is it a case where you've never really liked training all that much?

And you just did it to get good? Or that you used to like it and now you have fallen out of love with it? Well, I never, after my love in tried against Donald. I never felt the same. I didn't love the sport that much anymore, to be honest. I always have continued, and what's the fun of training? I don't sleep well. I cannot eat well.

I'm on diet. Everyday people are punching me. My body is sore, so I don't have a lot of fun. I can't go and have fun. So people think that's fun about three years. I don't know. I can do lots of fun stuff if I don't fight. What would you do if you stop fighting?

Eat, maybe travel. What do you like to eat? What's the go-to now? Now that's your home back in Holland. Junk food, pizza, ice cream, chocolate. Anything that's not good for you, I like. Yeah, well, nothing wrong with that. But seriously, you haven't thought about occupation, like what you would be if fighting ended?

I thought about some chair and work or something, but I don't know, I'm just saying that, but maybe that's to give me busy or help my fellow to get a title, a world's title. So I haven't really thought about it, but just, you know, for the first year, I just go eat. I go maybe, you know, get fat. Nothing wrong with that. Look, a few more questions for you. I really appreciate your time. So you have, what, three more fights on your contract?

Yes. All right. And I know that the Leota Machita fight is important for you. He's got a big contest coming up in, I think, December, if I'm not mistaken. Let's say that that goes well for him or whatever. He can get through that without any issue. Do you anticipate that that's the next fight for you? No, because,

He's fighting that somehow I talked to Scott, I said, Lavato's next, he's on a few days, like six, six and Owing, Belvoir or something like that. The next number one contender, I would like to face him in January or something like that, and then fight Musheera afterwards. If you win, he'll fight. But I'm not going to wait for Machita for six months. The guy doesn't deserve that.

Okay, fair enough. But you ultimately want to face him. Are you going to require that there's out-of-competition drug testing for, you face him? 100%. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I know the commission, each state in fighting,

the commission handles that, but they're going to have to get another party involved to do extra additional testing. Otherwise, I'm going to give the title back to him, and I'm not going to fight it. It's simple as that. We don't want a 40-year-old

guy using steroids and feeling like 20. We want him as the 40-year-old guy that he is now, and that that guy, want to face. I don't want to fight a cheater. And he knows he's cheating. He's all the time he's now in interviews,

he's saying stupid shit. But let's hear how he shows up in his next fight. The reason that he left UFC, he got paid the same from Bellator. He got the same offer. UFC and Bellator, they paid him, I think, the same. And he went to Bellator because he just himself, he said, I didn't like the USADA testing.

So I know what he's up to So if it came to it You wouldn't mind giving up the belt I don't mind They can have the belt If they don't really drug test them I'm not going to fight the belt Wow

And I would Yeah it's easy to say Do you do you know what a bucket list is Well my Yeah I know My goal now is La Mado And if Mashita wins It's Meshida

And then I have one fight left And I can make wealth weight. I saw Dr. Hema Chima cutting weight. I hugged the guy. I said, wow, you're a big guy, you know. So, yeah, I can make welter weight easy. Not easy, it will be difficult, but I can make it.

I talk to my doctor. It's possible for me. Or I go light of the weight, I fight Ryan Bader. But that's dreaming. That's, you know, I have to go to Lavato and then whoever is next. Yeah, that's crazy though. But so if you can make

welterweight, like what was your walking around? What do you weigh today, for example? Well, after the way, that was 200 pounds. I think, I think, yeah, the big welter weights are around 190. So if I lose, you know, 10 pounds more, something like that, I could make more 170. Man, but you would hate that camp, though. You couldn't eat anything. Yeah, but I would.

do it only for one time deal. It's only one time. And let's say I finish my contract, I did another title, and I'm gone. Just for accomplishment, I want to do that, you know? Yeah. And then I'm not going to do well to wait all my life.

It's just one time deal. I mentioned to Bellator that I can do it, but only at the end of my career, let's say last fight or something like that, just to have that accomplishment. nothing else. By the way, have you spoken to Belator either A

about down the line this Walterweight idea or about the extra party for the drug testing? Have you brought this up to them? Yeah, yeah. But I understand Bellator is working with the commission

in which state the fight is going to be. Whenever the fight come here, he still has to win from Carvalo, so we have to see if he's going to win. But I have to, you know, I'm going to look, I'm going to definitely have a close look at the fight. Listen, even if you, let's say, we forget about the steroid.

We say I made a mistake, he didn't use steroids. But I fought him. I felt he was oiled up. I seen the footage that he was shiny. But when I had his back, I chimy down on him, and he took a position, top position. So, you know, what can I say? That I felt. Let's say the steroid part, even I don't know 100%.

We say, okay, but the other part I know 100%. So at least this time is not going to be in Brazil. I'm not the same fighter coming out of injury. He's not the same fighter either. And the result will be definitely different. There's a little bit bad blood. I love that because it's only going to motivate me to train better. Well, I got to say you looked phenomenal on Saturday.

You made it look easy. That's not an easy thing to do. By the way, before you go, who's your prediction for Champions League winner this year? It's Madrid again, right? Yeah, I don't like it anyway, but now they let Ronald go. I think I don't like them to win at all. You know what? You're now my mortal enemy, Mr. Musasi.

We can no longer... because you know you love Madrid. Stop lying on the air. Tell the truth. Okay, okay. But why did they let the Ronaldo go? He's the best player. One of the, it's not,

this mess he's not the best, he's the best. You know, they let the best player go for $100 million. They won the champions with three times in a row. I feel like we all should have, you know, kept him, not let him go. Because what I feel from Barcelona,

the player, they usually don't let them go. Or when they go, they retire, you know? Namor went to PSG. But I'm talking about like Iniesta, I'm talking about like Messi. I'm talking about those guys that came up

with the fellow tour, but the Barcelona's youth, you know, the youth team. So I feel like they didn't shoot them well. I'm not a Ronaldo fan, by the way, but I don't know.

Sure sounds like it. I'll tell you what, when Madrid win again, you can come on the show and apologize to me, okay? And then I'm not going to win this year. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, yeah. All right. Well, look. Congratulations.

You did a... All right. All right. All right. Enough. Congratulations, Gagard. I really appreciate your time. And again, man, what a win for you.

You looked unbelievable. And enjoy the junk food. Okay? Thank you, my friend. Thank you. All right. There he goes. Oh, he is a character.

He's a character. a good one. All right, guys, don't forget number to call as always. 844-866-24-68. Congrats to the winners. Use the hashtag the MMA hour whenever you talk about us and whenever you got a question for us. Send that and I believe it is the MMA hour at Voxmedia.com for folks who want to send in a recorded voicemail, which we can get to next week. If you see me in Vegas, say hi. Don't be weird. We'll be back next Monday. Thank you guys so much for watching. Until then, stay frosty.