MMA Fighting - Town Hall w/ PFL's Donn Davis

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

PFL founder and chairman Donn Davis joins the channel following the promotion's Battle of the Giants event in Saudi Arabia to answer viewer questions about anything and everything, hosted by MMA Fighting's Mike Heck.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome to the first ever, MMA fighting town hall. I am Mike Heck. Thank you so much for joining me on this Wednesday. And I'm very excited for this. And for those of you joining us live right now, this is your show. This is your opportunity for your voice to be heard. This is your chance to get answers to your questions as regards to the professional

fighters league. And this is going to be a fun time. So if I may, allow me to set the table for what we are doing here today and how we got here. And then we will bring in our very special guest this past Saturday. PFL put on their Battle of the Giants event in Saudi Arabia. In my opinion, it was the most important event in PFL history. It was the MMA return of Francis Ngano. He took on Henan Faheda in the main event.

And Ngano gets the big knockout in the first round. It was emotional scenes. We saw an absolute banger of a car. co-main event between Chris Cyborg as she defeated Larissa Pacheco. Johnny Eblen gets the win over Fabian Edwards in the rematch. Paul Hughes got the biggest win of his career, et cetera. And then we had a very busy day over at NBA fighting as well. We had our watch party.

We had our post-fight show. And then somebody had asked a question in the chat, something to the effect of what should the next nine months for the PFL look like? And I gave some thoughts. And as it happens on these shows a lot of times, Boston might come. out. I put out a little bit of a challenge to the founder and chairman of the professional fighters league Don Davis to come on this channel. Not for an interview per se, but for a town hall. The messaging for the PFL has always been. We're a fan first, fighter first promotion.

And the fans have thoughts. They have questions about where this promotion is going, what this year has been like, some of the decisions that have been made, headlines in the news and other things. So why don't you come on here and hear what the fans have to say. I'll even wear a suit for it. And then yesterday I get a follow on Twitter from Don Davis. And then I get a text message out of nowhere from Don Davis. And we had a conversation about the show and the challenge. And he said, I'm in.

I'll come on for an hour. I'll answer any questions the fans have, open and direct. Let's do it. And then, of course, he reminded me of the promise of wearing the suit. So now here we are. Suit intact. And for everyone here live, if you have a question, put it in the chat. We'll throw them up on the screen.

question will be answered if follow-ups are necessary i'll continue on the topic and we'll get to as many of these as we can so without further ado let us say hello to the founder and chairman of the pfl don davis don thank you for doing this how are you sir i'm doing great and for all the fans of your show this is the only show i'm doing this week back from saudi arabia so all props to you for talking about the handful of things that we should do differently, and one of those being your show. And here I am for the fans and for your show, and I can't wait to hear the questions

and can't wait to talk about everything, PFL for the next hour. So I had a couple of questions off the bat, if you don't mind, because Battle of the Giants is still fresh on everybody's minds. The event has come and gone. It was a big card for the promotion. It was the return of Francis and everything there to build to all this. When it was over and that weight was lifted, so to speak,

at the end of it. What were you thinking? What was the feeling you and the crew had about how it all went down? Well, what you said up front is true. This was a very important event. Now, would I say it's the most important event? You never know until the end of the story, looking back, what was the most important event? And we have many more chapters in the PFL story. But was it very important? Sure it was. And why was it important? Everybody said, could PFL put on an event that big? Could PFL have an event worthy of Francis Nagano? Could PFL put on a fight card, call it pay-per-view global worthy? And we wanted to be able to do that for the fans, and we wanted to be able to do that for the company. And so check and check. Is it easy to do that? No. Anybody who's followed the fight game long and

knows. It's hard to call it a Francis Nagano, number one fighter or top two fighter in the world worthy opponent. It's hard to put on a fight card this good. It's hard to get the timing, the location, the economics all lined up, and we did it. And so, yes, we breathe a sigh relief, not just that it was done, but it was done with excellence. I put out a tweet today saying, If you're a team, you're an organization, your company in sports, it's rare. Very rare and have true excellence. We feel like we did this event. We're very proud.

Well, we'll get to all the list of questions next. But I did want to touch on Francis and the win. And, you know, it was no secret, everything he had gone through the road to get to the card. And you were in the cage with Francis when he gave that post-fight interview and his team and family were in there. It was just such an emotional scene. What was that like for you? Well, look, without talking out of school, Peter Murray and I spent several dinners with Francis this year. Dinners, post-boxing losses.

Dinners, post-personal losses. So we've been partners with Francis throughout his journey post-UFC. So we're not just promoter, fighter. We're true business partners, and I believe friends. And so for us, it was a little bit different. It's a little bit different relationship. We understand him as a man and as a human with different kinds of goals and fears and different kind of opportunities and challenges like we all have.

And when you walk up the PFL steps, the last thing you see is, what do you fight for? And that's something I feel every day building this company. And that's something I thought. about when Francis broke down in tears. What do you fight for? We're all fighters. Everybody watching the show is a fighter. You might be fighting for love, respect, to pay for your kids to college, to get a bigger home to make your dad proud. We are all fighters. And that's what I thought. And that's the emotion I felt that it's not just about this win. It's not just about his son. It's not just about the money. It's not just that he won by leaving UFC and betting on itself.

not everybody and what we all feel when we quote, when. And boy, it was emotional moment. Yeah, what an ending to the show and stuff to transition from that. But we're going to do that. It's time to hear from all of you, the viewers. And I just want to make, just want to crystallize this because I saw a lot of this when I posted the stuff on social media. You told me no holds barred.

Essentially, all questions are welcome here, Don. Nothing is off limits, right? That's right. Yeah. And I just want to say at front, you know, look, I read not everything, but a lot. You know, I had a 16-hour flight back from Saudi Arabia, and I was able to listen to your full podcast. I was able to listen to three other podcasts. I was able to read a lot of Reddit, a lot of social media.

I deeply care about what I say. We're here to make PFL great. We're not here to be right. We're here to win. And so we really want to be transparent. And we really want to get better. So anything people want to ask, I'll answer. And anything that we can always do better, we're here to do.

So I welcome this hour. And I'm excited for this hour. And whenever it's on the fans' minds, let's get at it. All right. We're suited up. We're ready to go. Casey, let's bring up the first question. What do we got?

All righty. One moment. So many questions. Casey, producer extraordinaire. A little props to Don Davis for accepting this. from ProFights Info, one of our longtime viewers. Appreciate that. Thanks for tuning in.

Scott McCragg celebrates 27 months of membership. Props to Dom for doing the town hall. Bravo. All right. Anytime I can start with two props, that's two more than I ever get. I never get two props. You guys, you start with the easy ones.

I know this is going to be like a roller coaster. This is just the baby hill. That is going to be the 300 foot downhill. Just luring you into a false sense of, That's why Casey's the best of the game. You're lolling me into the sleeper hole. Thank you, Scott, my man. What else we got?

Mason asked, what are the three short-term goals for the PFL? Hey, Mason, it's a great question. Look, we're the new kid. This is our sixth year and UFCs in year 30. So our first goal is, most people do not know. the name PFL. When I go to Chick-Flea every morning and get my iced tea in my mini-biscuits, or when I go to the Verizon store, most people don't know the name PFL. So we need to raise our awareness. We need to raise our brand. When people watch the fights, we never lose them. When people

come to the shows, they always come back. People love the product, but our awareness is not as high as it needs to be yet. So think of our brand is still in middle school. And the UFC brand, like is getting a PhD. They have a big head start. So our first goal is to raise awareness of our brand. Get people to try the product. Get people to watch us on ESPN. That's goal number one. Goal number two is we have to continue to be the place that fighters want to be. Now, we've succeeded on this in our first five or six years. Fighters want to be here because they're in control. They're not under my thumb. I don't make any decisions here. Once the PFL signs you, it's all up to the fighter. If you win, you advance. If you win four times, you get a million dollar check and a cool belt. You become the

champion. So the NBA started yesterday. It's just like the NBA. If you win enough in the regular season playoffs, you go to the championship, transparency and meritocracy. I'm like Adam Silver in the NBA. Adam doesn't control whether LeBron makes the playoffs. Anybody can make the playoffs. It's called win enough. So we really say that UFC is a promoter-driven league. A lot of decisions at the promoter level. PFL is a fighter-driven league. All the decisions are really at the fighter level. So we still want to make this the place that fighters want to be long-term. And the good news is we're winning most of that. If you look at the up-and-coming fighters, Dakota, Backey, Seventh, Frederick, Paul Hughes, UFC gave them all offers, and they all chose PFL.

So the young and emerging superstars are coming to PFL, but I still have to do with my team make this the place fighters want to be. More opportunity, both an economic opportunity, and the other things they may want to do in their careers. And number three, international expansion. This might not be as interesting to some of you in the United States, but 80% of the 650 million MMA fans are not here. They're not in the United States.

550 million in the 650 are outside the U.S. So PFL is working to serve them differently than the UFC. We have PFL Europe, PFL Mid-East, next year, PFL Africa, and in maybe two months, we'll announce PFL Australia. So what these are is their own leagues. They have the best regional fighters. All those events are held in the region. They're all prime time in the region.

So in Europe, 10 p.m. Friday or Saturday, all the events are in Europe. And the winner of the PFL Europe moves up to PFL global. So we're building the Champions League of MMA to borrow a soccer term. So global expansion is number three. To be able to serve those 550 million of the 650 million fans better that aren't in the U.S. with these international regional leagues. So raise awareness, make it the place fighters want to be. So every year we get more and more great talent and number three, global expansion.

Those are really the top three things. Then in the next short term, which I kind of think of two years, we have to continue to do. But great question. And it's where I spend a lot of my time. You know, Mason, to your question, obviously, you know, Dana White has a big support system above him. You know, it's owned by Endeavor, a big company that does all the business. It does the fighting, but Endeavour does the business. And I know, you know, a lot of times you'll get questions on, why don't I do more of these shows with Mike and others?

Well, a lot of what I spend my time on is the business, not just the fighting, but the business, you know, the media, the sponsorship, the expansion, everything that goes toward building a company. And so a lot of times fans say, hey, what are you talking about? I don't care about media deals. I don't care about sponsored deals. Why are you on CNBC? Why are you on CNN? Why aren't you on Mike Hacks show? Well, a lot of it is I spend a lot of time on the business and building the company so it's robust so we can have great fights.

And a lot of my team spends a lot of time also on that fighting stuff. All right. So I want to touch on a couple of things you said there. One, I know we're going to get this. So I might as well just get it out of the way because your first step was, you know, we're in middle school. The UFC has their Ph.D. And, you know, we're climbing up that ladder. I think something that fans talk about all the time is when you do media and when Peter does media,

oftentimes it's a lot of comparing yourselves to the UFC. Like, they're this. We want to catch them. We want to do this. And I understand the ultimate goal is to win. Do you feel like when fans say, why not focus on making PFL the best it can be as opposed to catching the UFC? Do you understand where they're coming from? Yeah.

You know, it's a really great point. And I was out in Riyadh. There were about 60 MMA media in Riyadh. And we took them out to an event after the weigh-ins. And I went out for two hours. And you'll be interested. I said, hey, I'd like to go around and get your feedback since you're the media on what we can do better. And the first two said, stop comparing yourself to the UFC.

You're getting killed in social media. And the next two said, UFC's being really weak and arrogant in certain areas. you should attack them more. And then I stopped after the first four, I said, thanks, guys. You just canceled each other out. So as my father's 94-year-old, wise man who I talk to every day, you know, says two things can be true. So we do not compare ourselves to UFC. Now, sometimes do we spar on social media with UFC?

Of course. Should we spar more or less? I'm not smart enough to know, right? But I think they're both true. We should probably sometimes spar less. We should sometimes spar more, just in terms of creating stuff. But I'm answering your question as a pure business matter for a minute, right? Leave aside the sparring.

No time in our inside discussion about planning fights or running the business, do we talk about UFC? Why is that? Because both companies will win and all the fans will win. Back to those 650 million fans I mentioned out there, the MMA fans, UFC only gives them 50 fights a year. PFL only gives them 25 fights a year. So between UFC and PFL, there's only 75 premium global fights. If you go to soccer, there's 5,000 soccer matches. If you go to basketball, there's 3,500 basketball games, if you include the NBA and the Power 4 of college. Wow.

The MMA fan is vastly underserved. They need more premium fights. So it's not UFC or PFL. We're both doing very, very different things. UFC, the one-off fight product, which they do great. PFL, very different sports season product. So it is not about UFC versus PFL. We're not here to take their fighters.

Their fighters are their fighters. Their media partners are their media partners. Their sponsors are their partners. And fans get to see one or the other, or most of them, both. So from a business matter, both can win. From a sparring matter, should it be more, should it be less? you know, it depends who you ask. And I'm trying to figure it out all the time, just like the rest of you.

Yeah, it's like a fight. Sometimes, you know, the one who's aggressive and throws the first punch wins, the counterpuncher wins. So maybe see if counterpunch. I just trying it smarter. It's interesting because sometimes when I punch, it's to educate. Because it's never for no reason. And people who know me and all the companies I've built,

I'm not stating anything just because. Dana sometimes just gets mad. I'm never really just stating something because. So one thing I constantly state on social media is this fight matrix rankings. And people throw popcorn at me all the time. I mean, I read it all the time. Stop it. Stop it. Right?

And what we're trying to educate people in is if you watch Saturday night on ESPN, or you watch Friday night on ESPN, you're watching the same quality product. Now, I'm not making a pay-per-view point because remember all the top five fighters in UFC are pay-per-view only. You'll never see them watch on the ESPN TV product. In fact, probably top 10, you will never see them on the TV product, pay-per-view only. So if you add up the fight matrix of all the cards on ESPN TV on Saturday and PFL TV on Friday, it's the exact same. So we're just trying to let fans know if you haven't seen PFL yet, this isn't the NFL XFL.

This is kind of like if you took Bunza League and La Liga and Serie A, if you're a fan of soccer and put them all together, that's PFL. And they're the Premier League. So are they kind of got a head start? A little teeny bit. Pay-per-view? Big head-start. So I'm not, you know, trying to steal any pay-per-view thunder.

We can't compete with their 15 pay-per-views. We do one a year. But on the media product side, Saturday versus Friday, pretty equal fight product. So that's part of like the sparring that I'm normally out there doing is trying to educate. Could we do it better? Could we do it different? We're just like everybody listening today. We're trying to figure it out.

And then the other thing you touched on is, you know, the fighters in especially in the season, they controlled their own fate, right? I think you could add a promotional element to this. I was actually talking to somebody about this earlier because they didn't. knew you were coming on. One thing Bellator did incredible was during one of their Grand Prix, they actually had like fighters come out and like the higher seed fighter would call out who they wanted to fight. And I thought that was the coolest thing Belator had done in years. And then they, and everybody loved it unanimously. And then they never did it again. So the thought of maybe like adding a promotional element to it, like you have the first night of the regular season.

We know who wins. We know what the points are. Why don't we have the top point getters come out and either call out their next opponent or draw a name out of a hat. We spin a wheel. Everyone in the MA fighting knows how much I love the wheel spin. Like that just adds like an interesting, fun trinket to the festivities. You know what I mean? It just gets people more involved. 100%.

So there's two things we've talked about for 2025. Well, first of all, I want to stay up front. We're all about innovation. We love trying things that I would want to see. right? I'm always, look, I worked in AOL in 1997. I'm always about trying new shit, right? Because most people don't want to try new stuff. And most people are scared of failing. So everybody in our company knows, try something. Nothing ever bad happens. Nothing ever bad happens in our company if you try something. If you're focused on enhancing the product with innovation and it doesn't work, we come and say, good try. So there is no fear in our company of trying things. So to your specific, specific point. There are two ideas we have. One of them is exactly your idea. So maybe we do it for the second round and maybe we do it for the seating of the playoffs. Because remember, four people get in the playoffs. So number one, should be able to choose his fighter from the other three. Maybe he doesn't want

to fight the fourth seat. Maybe he thinks the easier matchup as a two or three seed. So we've considered when you get to the playoffs having your call-out system. We've also considered the highest points after the first round picking their fight in the second round. So call it the callout either in the second fight or the playoffs. Playoffs, we kind of like a little bit better because the stakes are cooler. You know, it makes more sense because there's only four fighters. The second thing we've thought about is a random draw in the second round of the regular season. Right? Everybody fights once and obviously you can't draw whoever you have, but to make it feel the that some fans think we're favoring people in that second round matchup.

Just like the NFL tries to have great fights early, remember the first week or first two weeks of the NFL, what is every game? I have to see that game. I have to see that game. We really set up the fights for the first regular season fight not to be easy or not to play favorites. If you look back in the schedule, it's the opposite. There must-see fights. look at what we did to Shane Burroughs when he came in the league.

OAM. What? What? We weren't favoring anybody. So the first regular season fight we always want to set because we want fans to come back to PFL and say, oh, my goodness, look at this setup. But for the second regular season fight, we thought wouldn't it be cool to have you use the term spin a wheel pick from a hat, this randomator that had a whole. big of excitement. So both of those are two things we thought would add new innovation, new excitement for 2025. And I think you, you're going to see one of the two, and maybe you'll see them both.

I love it. All right. Very excited. Let's get to the next question. Thank you, Mason. Respect. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist. This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European

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Wi-Fi available to AeroPine members on equip flights sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. Let's see. Was Don happy with the pacing of the card? I remember Kayla Harrison versus Taylor Gwardino went 14 hours start to end. this Saturday, including prelims, is about five and a half hour. So I'm sure of seen this over the years, Don, is people talking about the pacing.

And I have noticed the pacing has been pretty bad over the years. I thought the main card flowed beautifully on Saturday. I thought it went boom, boom, boom. We didn't get a lot of filler or anything like that. So I thought that was a tremendous improvement. But were you happy with the pacing on Saturday? And have you heard people say, do the great fine? man, this can get kind of sloggy.

Yeah. I've heard everything and I've read everything. I'm on it, guys. So two years ago, 2023 and 2022 was way too slow. 2024 was 20 minutes faster. I'm talking about the global season. So we improved in 2024,

but it's not good enough. It's not yet good enough. So this year we were better. But 22 and 22, 23, we got more comments on the pacing. It was almost like, please, stop. You have to help me get this show going, right? And so we made a concerted effort. What did we do to make a concerted effort?

We had to cut out some storytelling. You know, we had to cut out some storytelling. So it's not like we had commercials. It's not like we were making a bunch of money, you know, and slogging in like the NFL, putting in more commercial time. We tried to give them a little bit more on who were these fighters. And people were saying, I need less of that. and I want better pacing. So we cut out about 8% of the show, you know, in terms of time,

you know, in 2024 in the global league season. But still, people are saying nice, but not enough. So we have to do more. And in 2025, it will be a faster-paced show. We just hired the head of production from WWE. Was there eight years reporting to Triple H? He would start. His first show will be our next show. He's been on board working for a month. So George Greenberg, who has 18 Emmys, will now have some assistance. George is 70, and he's been running around the globe. So he'll still be executive producer of every show. But Chris Kaiser will now be also here to help pace the shows.

It'll be fantastic. And the second change you'll see is when we come back with the Champions Series next year, it's going to be an NFL show, three and a half hours, eight fights, not a 10-fight card. So not the Global League season. That has to be 12 fights because you have to get the whole fights in. Everybody needs to get their fights to advance, but the champion series in 2025 will be an eight-fight card, a three and a half hour show. So we're going to attract tap pacing in two ways. And so I think people are going to be happier in 2025, and they are correct.

Too long. So that was kind of another thing that people are bringing up is Bellator and whether or not it's going to be back in 2025. So you're saying Bellator champion series will continue on into 2025. Yes. And no. So I want to separate fighters from product from brand. So why did we acquire Bellator? Great fighters.

We picked up 45 fighters ranked in the top 25 in the world. That's astounding. Astounding, right? We had 25 fighters at PFL ranked in the top 25 in the world. So the combined company in how it was 80 fighters ranked in the top 25 in the world after that acquisition. that was the main asset of Bellator. Their viewing audience had declined substantially, and their product was not well regarded.

I know there's Bellator fans out there, but that's the underlying kind of metrics that we got. So we needed to improve that show, improve the production quality, improve the fight quality, improve the distribution. And we made some improvement this year. We made each card matter more. It wasn't just Bellator 301, 302, 303, just copycat of UOC. We're all about making these fights matter. The global league season, every fight matters, right? So we want to bring more meaning to that.

We got halfway there this year, but there's more work to do. So we will come back next year, I think, with an enhanced version of the Champions Series where there's even more meaning and more stakes to every fight. So you will see, call it version 2.0 of Champions Series next year. So the product will continue to be better. So that's the product point. And then the brand point is the brand is not resonating. The Bellator brand is not resonating.

It's not resonating with fans anymore, with commercial partners. So we have to look at that. And the PFL brand is. So we said we would take a look at this year and we would study that. And we think it's likely we're going to make a change. And everything will be PFL branded. But we haven't determined that yet. We're still evaluating that.

But the early data is PFL is far outperforming Bellator is a brand, whether it's viewership, whether it's commercial, whether it's ticket sales. But once again, it's different from fighters and that's different from product. That's a brand point. But we will have a champion series. It's done extremely well. That champion series will be a 2.0 version. And all the Bellator fighters you have seen are part of PFL Inc, the company.

and they will be back on the new product in a superior and exciting way. Is that why the Paris card was canceled and the Chicago card was quote-unquote indefinitely postponed? There are two reasons for that. No. We needed some of those fighters for future events. You've seen one future event, the super fight we just put on. There are two more major Bellator events that will be announced. One is in December, one is in January. They are both stacked international events, and we needed the fighters for those events. So everybody has been rescheduled, and it is at the end of December and the middle of January,

two massive events. Okay. We look forward to hearing the announcements. Yeah, so when we said postponed, we met postponed. And the two events in December and January are the biggest Bellator events that we've had this year. Okay. Get excited, Bellator fans. All right.

What else we got? Thank you, Joseph. And if you're fans of any of the fighters who are postponed, they're coming. Scott, I don't know if you can even answer this, but how many pay-per-view buys did Battle of the Giants do and did it meet your projected goals? Can you answer either of those questions? Scott, I will always be as transparent as you could. You know I can't answer the first question, Scott, but that's good. But I'm going to do anything.

The second question, yes, it did. And I actually made a post just an hour ago. So if you go to LinkedIn or you go to Twitter on the Don Davis PFL account, we actually provided eight viewership goals that we put out. Almost everything on this event I put out in my account one hour ago. And what you'll see is pretty astounding global audience numbers for this event. This event, by our research, beat every viewership number of every UFC event this year and was very, very close to Ring of Fire, which, you know, was Ring of Fire.

I mean, it's the biggest boxing event in five years. So very, which is really our benchmark, right? because Ring of Fire is a Saudi event. Ring of Fire is our same time. And Ring of Fire was the biggest combat sport event, call it this year. And we were within, we were 40% bigger than some, 20% smaller than some, but overall the same global viewership metrics of Ring of Fire. So that was really something that was our stretch goal, and that's what we achieved.

And we put out those metrics about an hour ago for everybody who's interested in the weeds of all the details. Because as you know right now, economics flow a very different way. You know, in the sports world, it used to just be PPV buys, but now money has made many different ways. Sponsorship, social media, host fees. You know, there's an economic bundle that's very, very different now. And so there's many metrics that matter. But most of all for us to kind of answer this, to kind of where we started, you know, when you said, what's the most important thing? the most important thing is people are aware of PFL.

And you will see in those metrics that we put out that we accomplish that goal. Because that global viewership number, the global reach number, the global engagement number, the global post number, the global media number, everything we put out, accomplish that goal of awareness, discussion, and favorability. And that was everything here. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Scott. Jay, will Don officially release a statement regarding the weight cut,

incident with Diane Silva. So I'm glad this came up because I was going to ask you about it anyways. So for those of you who are not aware of the situation, she was scheduled to compete on Bellator, London. She had a weight cut issue, still hospitalized. We were told that the promotion flew in one of her friends from Brazil to be with her at the hospital. That person has been keeping you guys sort of apprised on her recovery. And then we were also told that it was dehydration and she had to be hospitalized, put in an induced coma after some kidney failure, currently sedated, unclear what the long-term effects of this will be once she is released from the hospital. But the thing that everybody has been wondering, Dawn, it's a question I've gotten a lot.

Promotion has been quiet about this. Multiple requests for updates, confirmation, et cetera, no response, no statement, nothing, if we're being honest. Can you tell us what's going on with that? And why has this not been addressed? Yes, I'll tell you. It's. specifically not been addressed for the fighter privacy. Everything you just said is, fully explains the situation. She was a first-time fighter for us. She experienced a very difficult weight loss, which resulted in a medical emergency that was dealt with seriously and appropriately. And she's been in long-term hospitalization, and we've got everything possible to support her

recovery. And to say anything other than that is not our place. This is her business and her privacy. But everything I just said is the news. And that's the news that is well known. And that's the news that we wouldn't want to say anything more than that news. Is this something that's, have you had other sort of conversations with internally about things like this before where you have a a fighter in a situation and you just because even once it was all figured out you know i think everybody under the sun tried to reach out for comment and there still wasn't anything at all um even like we're aware of the situation we wish are the best nothing like that and it didn't happen and i think i think it kind of rubbed people the wrong way and do you understand why um yeah look i i understand why

a lot of times people in the media want to know some stuff i totally understand that but i I would hope people would appreciate that over the last five or six years, given how we've handled our business partners, our fighters, our relationships with everybody associated with the company, we always try to do the right thing, which doesn't always mean the easy thing. And in this case, I think respecting her privacy at a very sensitive time versus giving constant updates to anyone who wants to know is the right thing. It might not appear to be the easy thing. This is no different from when there was a lot of firestorm several months ago, including on Ariel's show, about a fighter's medical. And we were getting calls for weeks.

And we weren't saying anything. Well, you know who's medical it was? Paramount. You know who's fault it was? Not ours. You know who's doing everything behind the scenes? The PFL General Counsel, on his spare weekend time. Well, we don't go out to tell everybody that. So we're the good guy, not the bad guy. We're not at fault. The other people are fault. But nobody knows the story.

You know, things get twisted. So for us, what we always try to do is handle things the way we would want to be handled if we were in that situation. And sometimes will that make us not look the best, but is it the right thing? to do. And in this situation, it is a serious situation. It's deeply unfortunate, and it's very private, and we want to handle it accordingly. You mentioned the medical thing, Sabahamasi, I'm sure that's going to come up as well. Is there any update on that, or is that just, it just isn't your thing? Well, it is not our thing, but we've continued to pursue it relentlessly

on his behalf. Continue to. And we will not. stop until it's handled. All right. Thank you for the questions. What else we got? Uh, I know this guy. This is some news that dropped up before. Our old putty... This is news. And to tell you guys how much I'm current, I saw it. Yes. How does Don Davis feel about the Bellator lightweight champion Usman Ramaga Madoff saying he plans to move to the UFC in roughly two years? So basically what, if you don't know, Usman said that when Islam Makachev hangs up the gloves and moves on to other things. He wants to slide in and keep that train rolling at 155.

What was your reaction to seeing this news, Dom? How many of you have said you're going to move to Florida and retire in four years? And how many of you do it? One in 10? One in five? Right. How many people say I'm going to go to the Super Bowl and then do it and not do it? People say things all the time and then they don't do it.

So my ego, my ego. might not he go. Might he go in two years? Might he go in five years. Might he be the champion? Might not be the champion. My goal is to make my man Usman happy. My goal is to make my man,

Usman, successful, financially rich, and a champion. So that in two years, he forgets he said this today. What will make him happy, you think? What's the next move in making him happy? Is it him fighting Paul Hughes? What are we thinking here? Well, he'll face everybody that's exciting eventually. Every fighter's different.

What we try to do is meet the fighter where they are. We don't have one-size-fits-all. What Paul Hughes wants is different from what Francis Nagano wants is different from what Sandra Dubei wants. And we try to do a custom suit within what could work for the company and be successful for the company. So we have no playbook that we run. The other guys have a playbook.

We have a, what would you like playbook? We have a custom suit playbook. So I think we're in a great position to keep him happy. You know, I think two years is infinite time in the fighting world. And I say, you know, we can all talk about this question in two years when I come back on your show. All right. Love that. We're setting the table for future appearances.

Thank you, Jed. See you tomorrow on BTL. Casey, will you bring in more middleweights and bandwates to face Mix and Edlin. This is a great question. A great question. Yeah, what are we doing here? Well, look, Casey is a great question. And as you know, it's an issue for us. So sometimes fans say, you're not doing X. And we're aware of normally of X. And sometimes it's not possible.

Like we work really hard on it and it doesn't work out. And sometimes it takes a longer time. So this one, yes and yes, is the, are you trying to? If your sentence said, are you trying to? You've said, will you? The question is, who's available and can we get them? But if you say, are you willing to expend resources that are very large? Yes.

Are you doing everything possible? Yes. Now, you said, will you? I don't know to be candid if we can pull that off. Would we like to have a middleweight or a bantam weight? In the season, we would. You know, something that Mike, I listened to, talked about in his podcast. You've got to have at least eight great fighters at a 12, right?

There's 12 in a season division, 10 plus two alternates. Eight of them have to be able to win the championship or it's not interesting. So can we build that depth in any of those two divisions? Well, if we can't, why give it to you in the season? That's no good for you. That doesn't do us any good to not give you a great product. So are we on this? We are.

Have we been on this since January? We have been. But I don't know. As I say here today, do I think we're going to have good challengers? Let's say if Patchy or Johnny we're going to have kind of two fights next year. Could we give them two fights in the Champions Series? Are interesting? Yes.

But do we have enough to build those into seasons in a global season? Not yet. We don't. And we've tried. So I know there's a couple of names who have just either fought out their deals or been out released from the UFC. Brian Kelleher is one of them. Jake Hadley is another.

And I think, you know, Jake, considering your international brand and the expansion and everything, I think Jake would be great. And Brian's always a fun guy to be around. So are any of those two names of interesting? to the PFL? I don't want to comment on any individual names. And, you know, we got really, well, look, we have great fighter ops with Mike Kogan and Ray Cephyl and their team. But we also have, unlike UFC, we have a pretty proprietary database, 220,000 fighters.

You know, we call it a black box, you know, think it was a money ball. So we scout globally, not just with people, but with a computer. So we don't leave any stone unturned. So we're aware of what's happening. in terms of just like baseball. And they quote, minor leagues in emerging countries, not just in the top 3,000 fighters. So assume that we are talking to anybody

that we're allowed to talk with without tampering and we're making offers to anybody that would be additional to what we can do in both these divisions. We would love to have because the question is right and I appreciate Casey. Thank you, Casey. Speaking of Casey, let's go to the next question.

Garrett, thank you. That's at least two ice coffees for me. Is there any chance of cross-promotion in the future? I'd love to see in Gano versus Verhoeven or Nemcoff. I also think showing a willingness to cross-promote would be powerful for the sport as a whole. So you guys did PFL versus Bellator. I thought that was a very cool concept.

Francis and Rico being paired in the same sentence has been a thing throughout the week, especially on Ariel's show. and that would be interesting in a number of ways. Nemcoff, I think, is probably the most, at least to me, the most interesting challenger for Francis and Ghana right now. But as far as the cross-promotional stuff goes, could we see a PFL versus KSW?

Could we see a PFL versus Risen? Could we see something like that again? Yes, so it's interesting. So I think for fans, I'll answer to this on a fan point and then a fan who are interested in the business point. So I'll give you both answers. And so one, we've said at PFL, and I've even said people who've seen my interviews, I'm yes for everything. My answer is just yes, always.

So when people call up on a deal, yes. People call up with an idea, yes. I have a bias for yes. So on any cross-promotional ideas, we're a yes. So you can fill in any promotion and any fight. Our bias is yes when they call us on the phone. Full stop. So the second question is, is that a good fight and can that economically work?

But I don't start with no ever. I'm 100% yes. And that it's, is it a good fight and can it economically work? Who's going to let you questions? So remember, somebody like Nemcoff, that's our guy. Remember, all fighters are PFL link. So if that's a great fight, we can do that. Champs v. champs, which was PFL champs v. Belator champs that we put on last February,

we'd love to do that again. That was so cool. You know, so to me, whoever has the PFL belts and the Bellator belts coming out of 2024, we'd love to put that on in 2025 again. That was cool. You know, five champs against five champs, awesome. So we should do that. So to me, whether it's UFC on the way up or rising on the way down, you know, in terms of call it bigger or smaller promotion,

yes and yes. It's just, is it a great fight? And how does those economics work? No matter what, I'm a yes. You don't have to reveal any promotions, but has there been discussion about a cross-promotional event from another promotion out there that we don't know about? Now, has there ever been discussions? I like to qualify that with serious discussions. Not serious discussions.

No. People kind of float things all the time. Do you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Like, boy, wouldn't it be great if we had a private plane today and we just took off. did. But nobody ever takes me anywhere. That's not a serious offer. You know what I'm saying? So to me, have there ever really been serious discussions? No. But do I think, do I think there will be in the future? Yes. I'm pretty optimistic guy. I'm a realist from a business standpoint, but I'm always

optimistic. Even John Jones's tweet struck me as very interesting. I see you. Even Francis's response. Thanks, champ. That was classy. Hey, that's a lot different than the last three years. That's a lot different than the last three years between those two guys. So to me, I'm an optimistic can-do guy. And so to me, hasn't happened in the past, but the future is the future. Do you really think that this John Jones versus Francis fight can happen? Like, I know, I know it's, hey, look, we're in, we're yes. And Dana is Dana. and says what he says. But like if you had to bet on it, do you think it happened?

Like Turkey's probably the only guy who could pull this off at this point. I agree with that. Both of you guys. So, you know, Dana is, I understand the stubborn Boston mentality. I have it myself. So do you think this can actually happen? Remember, you said if I was a betting person, if you give me even odds, no. Right.

Even odds are like, is that likely? You know, is that a good bet? No. But if you gave me four to one, I would take those odds and I would take that bet. Okay. So do I think it's possible? Yes. Likely? No. Possible? Yes. And do I think since it's the biggest fight that could ever be made in M.A. And perhaps the last or next decade, that's why I think it's possible. it's so big, that's so thrilling. And sometimes people say, what the F, we're going to find a way to do it.

I want to, let's find a way to do it. So that's why it's possible. I know you can't speak for the man, but has Turkey told you we're going to do this? We're going to do everything we can to make it happen? Okay. No, well, first of all, if he had, I wouldn't breach that confidence. But look, I have a ton of respect for Dana.

He built the entire industry. Does he want to be part of the biggest fight in 10 years that he made happen? Sure. Turkey is the biggest man in combat sports. Can he make the biggest fight happen? Sure. I just think there's a lot of cool stuff that could happen here. I'm the least important guy here.

Turkey and Dane are the most important guys here. I'm just the guy who's already said yes. I'm the least important guy here. Thank you for the question. Let's keep him firing away here. Garrett, you're the man. You know what's better than the one big thing? two big things.

Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS' five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. I figured this is coming. Clovis, what happened with Geygard's situation seems like he was done dirty.

So this is a legal matter. There is a lawsuit up to $15 million. He's claiming breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith, and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, a claim for relief for monopsinization, $15 million in damages. You are named in the lawsuit. I don't even know if you can talk about anything in this regard. I don't think so, but the question is here, so I figured I'd approach you with it.

Yes. Thank you for the question, but I'm not able to answer a comment. you know, now that he's made a legal filing. There you go. Thank you for the question. What else we got? Profite's info. When you lose a homegrown talent like Kayla Harrison

or find yourself unable to sign a free agent like Nate Diaz, what are those discussions internally and what can you do going forward to change that? Loaded question here. It is, but I'll accept that. Well, let's just leave the two names out for a minute and just say, what if we can't sign somebody

that we thought we could sign. Right? Let's just treat that way. Look, we're competitive, aggressive business builders. Seven years ago, I had this idea in my head, and I had zero employees, zero dollars, zero fighters, and zero viewers. And we're doing better than that today. So we did that by being competitive and being aggressive

and executing hard and getting better every day. So we win more than we lose, but everybody loses. So we try to learn when we lose. Why did we lose? Could we have done something different? And that could be losing a sponsor. That could be losing a fighter. That could be losing an employee.

That could be a fan that is on. on Reddit, who doesn't like us for some reason. We try to learn when we lose and we try to get better tomorrow. No different than that. And those are discussions we have internally on anybody. And so that's our culture. And as I said, that phrase earlier, we don't want to be right. We want to win. And that comes from when you lose, figure it out why so that next time's different. well there is a name on here that i do want to ask you about so might as well do it now let's talk about kail harrison because a lot of people have been rubbed the wrong way about things you have said about kela on the way out so i want to give you the chance if if needed because i've been i've been

boisterous about it don't love it i know dana's done similar things did it with francis it happens it's a thing that happens i don't love the whole kela ran to the ufc thing and i don't know if that's what you meant to say or what but do you want to talk about that because a lot of people didn't like that yeah well i think because everybody didn't listen to what i said in this entirety so i don't think i can help by repeating it because what i said had immense respect and had immense context but when it gets cut down in social media was taken completely at a context um so i'll try to I re-put it in context again, but I'm sure it will re-get cut down again and re-get cut out of context. So to repeat, I only said three things.

One, we're immensely proud that we developed her from scratch, and she was one of my favorite fighters. And I think she's one of the greatest fighters of all time in the women's division. So first of all, Dana never says that. Number two, we made her offer to be extremely high-paid and to spend her whole career here and to do anything she wanted out of huge amount of respect and basically offered her a blank check and a blank ticket, not just economically, but post her career. Dana never says that. That's because we want her.

And number three, we offered her bigger fights here than she has at UFC. Cyborg, bigger fight, Pacheco bigger fight. They're bigger than the two fights she just had. Nobody would disagree with that. So why she had the UFC? That's what I said. So those are three things I said. So those are all respectful, factual, and pretty straightforward.

So why did she go to the UFC? I don't know. And I don't understand. So I think it has to be there's a brand there that validates her. And our brand isn't that big yet. So that's it. But nothing but very factual respect and very factual desire that I wish on fans behalf, we could have given the biggest fight in the world, that

now that Cyborg is clearly cemented her stature as the goat, everybody wants to see Kayla cyborg. Okay, well, that's a bigger fight than Kayla will ever have unless Nunes comes out of retirement. And the person who stopped, that was Kayla. And it doesn't make me any money putting on that fight, but I wanted to put it on for fans, been trying for five years and I couldn't get cyborg here and I bought the whole company to get cyborg here and then Kayla leaves. So I don't understand it and that's all I've expressed. The Pache, like I think people with the whole Pacheco thing is yes, Pacheco is the only person that

beat her, but Kayla's also beaten her twice. So maybe there's that on this dance. A few years ago. Before she grew up, before she got better, two years ago. Yeah, that's like saying They all beat LeBron when he was 26 years old and before he got to be good. So everybody understands how it all works. My last beat you when I've come in my prime, I beat you. So you used to beat me when I was a kid. So what? Everybody knows that.

So I'm just saying this is a topic that everybody yell. So one, how I talked about this is not even close to how Dana White talks about fighters. This is not remotely how he's talked about Francis. So that's completely wrong. And two, I probably should have said nothing, but I was trying to explain the situation. If I had to do it over again, my mistake. No good has come from it. I have no desire to do anything negative about Kayla.

I have no desire to have a bunch of clip bait that's negative on the PFL. So my mistake saying anything trying to put this in context, my sole goal was truly to give fans the biggest fight in female history of Cyberm versus K. And I spent like Ahab on a great white whale so much energy chasing this fight. To have it just go through my grasp to put it on for fans kills me. Kills me. And people have out there been chasing something for three or four years. And then to have it go away. So Kayla tells me to chase and I chase it.

Cyberg tells me to chase it. I chase it. Can't win. Neither one will end up in the same place. So that's really the whole frustration you're feeling from us is we cannot put it forth for the MMA fans. Because that's the fight everybody I want to see. I'm sure you're paying attention to what she's doing. Do you like seeing her at 35 or are you concerned?

That's someone who cares about. To be honest, as my 94-year-old dad says, every job is easy until it's yours. So I got so many problems. Trying to take care of my own to-do list, I just focus on my own to-do list. Yeah. Fair. All right. Thank you for the question.

How much time you got, Don? Is whatever the fans want to do. If they want to go a little bit extra, I'm here, man. Mike says town hall, fans want to hear this town hall, here for this town hall. Let's go. The questions keep pouring in. Let's go. Don, and being the promoter of PFL, do you ever find yourself modeling behaviors or taking lessons from Dana White?

So we touched on this a little bit, but, and you do ever expect, for Dana and you guys spar back and forth whether it be social media or at a press conference here and there what is your thoughts on this question? Do you ever find yourself modeling certain things or taking certain lessons from Dana White because of the success that the

UFC has had? Dana is nobody will ever be Dana. Maybe the only person in Dana's league is Don King. Nobody else is even close. Vince McMahon, but he's in wrestling, which he controlled the script. But Vince McMahon, Don King, Dana White, those are the only three ever in that league. And I don't know that we'll ever see anybody else join the fourth route, you know,

the fourth member of the Mount Rushmore of those three. I think it ends with those three. So I think what I always try to do is build the PFL and the way that I can build the PFL. And a lot of people say, Don, you're not the promoter that I want you to be. One, yeah, I'm not quite the promoter of the PFL. I'm the chairman, the leader of the company. Could I be a different promoter or a promoter that some of the fans want? Sure, we'd all like to be everything that everybody wants us to be.

But we just got to be ourselves. And we've got to try to be effective in the way that we can be and build the company for the fighters and the fans, the business the best that I can do. And that's my own way. How do you rank the three of those names that you just said? Dana, Don, Vince. Who's number one? So to me, you have to rank them on value created. That's how I rank things as a businessman. And therefore, Dana's number one. Because he went from zero to 12 billion in value. So he's number one. And Vince went from zero to eight billion in value. It's number two.

And Don King made a lot of money, but didn't create a corpus or a company or entity that left value. You know, there wasn't a sustainable business. So it has to be number three. That's a good question. Thank you very much. What else we got? Cole, what is Don's favorite all-time MMA fight? So, Don, you have a night out.

You go home and you're just like, man, I want to watch a fight. What's the first fight you're going to find? So people who are doctors don't watch medical shows. People are lawyers don't watch legal shows on TV. I'm aware of everything that's going on because it's important for business. I don't want to watch other people's MMA shows for enjoyment. You know, what I'm saying, I get a lot of MMA. You know, so I don't sit there and say, let's kick up and watch me a good KSW. You know, this is not, it would never cross my head, right? So to me, I'm aware of every. it's going on from a business standpoint, but I would never sit there and say, that's my relaxation away from work. This would be I'm working. I'm taking in what's working for them. I'm understanding what's going on. But if I'm away from work, I'm away from work. P.S., I'm never away from work. You know, build the company's hard. You know, I'm on year seven of no days off, no vacation. I'm just that 62-year-old entrepreneur that's just,

Pain, challenge. I'm on. What's the best fight you've ever watched? Even in the building, what's the best fight you've seen? Well, it's interesting. I'm going to answer differently. It's boxing for me. I grew up, you know, I'm a little bit older. So I grew up boxing.

And, you know, and so to me, I was very much shaped by Hagler-Harns, Tyson, Duran, Sugar-A. I was very much shaped by boxing. And so for me, and I'm pretty close to Mike Tyson. And Mike and I spent four days together in Saudi Arabia, had a lot of meals together. So to me, it would still be the things you did as a child, you know, call it 10 to 18 years old, or very formative in sports. And so those would have been boxing, not MMA, because there wasn't MMA back then for me. And to me, I still remember when nobody could last, Spinks couldn't let, you know, Spinks couldn't get off the chair in the first round against Mike was scared, almost come out for the first bell. You know, so I still remember that, you know, when like none of us could afford pay-per-view.

So like 50 people pulled $1, right, when I grew up, you know, and you would all be in a living room and you'd all put in $1, right, to watch that fight. So to me, Tyson was everything in boxing and getting together with 50 people to watch those big fights was everything. Tyson was a scary, scary man. What do you think about him fighting Jake? You into it? look it's a mega event Jake and the key is our business partner Mike is our business partner

so I'm close to both so I wanted to be like when Godzilla and King Kong hit each other in that movie and they both fall down but then they both get up and they're okay remember that you know I think that was the last Godzilla do you remember that one it's right now on on HBO Max right they both crunched

and they both fall down but they both get up and they're both okay and then they both become friends like that's the ending I want of this one Mike having spent a ton of time with Mike is the most misunderstood athlete of our time, the most wise, interesting man. I've had the pleasure of meet the last five or six years. I love Mike. And Jake is the most made from nothing celebrity influencer, wow.

Remember, the average pay-per-view buys outside of Connor McGregor are now 200,000 in the UFC. And Jake's averaging 400,000. Think of this. He himself is a better marketing machine than UFC. So you just have to take hats off. So between Jake and being in awe of his ability to promote himself and Mike being somebody will never see again, I just, I want King Kong Godzilla. Knock each other out, be okay, and shake hands and be friends.

When is Jake Paul going to fight for the PFL? He tells me summer of 2025. He's been training. If Nate Diaz would have accepted the fight as he did in the center, you know, down in Dallas, he said, I'll take the fight. It would have happened. And then he backed away and didn't take the fight. And then later he was ready to take the fight.

but Jake had a lot of success in boxing, so it wasn't yet ready to come back to MMA. So just as we talk about the hard ability to put together a big-time fight, like we did with Francis and Henan, you know, you have to have timing, health, money, all comes together. It's very, very hard to do. That was one that the timing was always off between Diaz and Jake. And will the timing be back on next year? Don't know. Will it be Tommy Fury? Don't know.

We'll be somebody else, don't know. But Jake says he's ready. but he really had so much success in boxing in his mind that it really delayed his MMA. So Nate was in for this? Not when we needed him to be. When he accepted first of all he wasn't, then he came back and he was more interested, but Jake could kind of move on. Interesting.

I did not know that. I did not know that he was ready to go and timing was just awful. Right. All right. We'll take a few more. Don has been very gracious with this time. rider, Don, what is the overall plan for Francis and Gano's future? Would the PFL be open to doing a co-promotion by with Francis and MMA?

So we kind of touched on this as well. If you had to guess, and as I said on the post-fight show, and I kind of continue to feel this way. After everything this man went through, I don't even think it's fair to talk about what's next for him because he needs, as Eric Nixixix told me, give him some time to just heal his heart and then heal his body and his soul and his mind and then we can talk about what's next.

But I might as well just ask you, If you had to guess, is Francis's next fight in the PFL smart cage or is he boxing? So I don't mind. And I always share things that are mine to share. But I don't mind saying this. We spent time with Francis. I'll tell you two things. One, he's doing great, everybody.

He is doing great. And number two, he doesn't know. He's open to both opportunities. he talked to Pete Murray and I. He's very close to Pete. And he said, you know, let's figure out with the best opportunities. And we said, we're open to whatever you want to do also, Francis. So the good news is he's in the best place he's ever been in in 12 months.

So everybody who loves Francis is a different energy and different smile about him. So fantastic. And number two, he doesn't know. We don't know. The world's open to him. And I think that's, you know, the next three, four months. That'll be a consideration with a wide aperture. It's good to hear.

I can't even imagine what that man has gone through. And then having ready to get in there and fight a giant human being like Henan Fajara is, man. Well, and for everybody, he made it look easy. And you forget what Ferreira did to Bader. And Bader is a pretty seasoned smart fighter. So season smart fighters don't lose in 20 seconds. So just if you put those fights in your mind back to back, that tells you how dominant Francis was. This, and remember, Hennon was number five in ESPN's rankings.

Number five in ESPN's rankings. So this guy came in ready, big, powerful, black belt, judiths, as well as the right hand. and France's made it look easy. What a moment for The Predator. We'll take two more, Casey, and then we'll let Don go because he's given us a lot of time. Have you ever considered having events similar to one with a mix of MMA, moitai, and four-ounce gloves, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, but here in America? No.

We're all about MMA. MMA is a gross sport of this decade. MMA has plenty of fans, plenty of fighters, plenty of economic dollars. We're all about MMA. MMA only. All right. Last one, Casey. Give us a doozy.

So I love this one. Signed Parker Porter. Parker Porter is a, fans love Parker Porter. Fought for the UFC. Was released by the UFC. And I've been saying forever, you've got to sign this guy. He would have been a great first opponent for Francis, just a nice, humble New England guy from Connecticut.

And fans love him, Dawn. I think Parker Porter make a terrific addition. to your roster. I will take this back to our fighter team, and I will tell them that I spent an hour and a half of fans, and this is their top recommendation. Is that a reasonable takeaway? Is that a reasonable takeaway? Is that leaving good stead with the fans?

You'll be the ultimate baby phase. Okay. I just want to know, am I going to, if I take that back to Ray Cepho and Mike Cogan, is that going to get fans stopping throwing popcorn at me from not coming on the show? and being on CNBC and CNN too much. That's all I want to accomplish here today. I mean, Don, if you've learned anything in these five, six, seven years building this company, no, the answer is no.

No matter what you do, you're going to get popcorn thrown at you. It's all good because, again, you're bringing in newer fans, and we graduate from specific steps. They throw popcorn. See, the Parker Porter train rolls on. People want to see Parker Porter. Okay. I want to ask you one more question, speaking of the baby-faced stuff. PFL World Championships.

Is that going to be a paper? Great question and I have great news. Is everybody ready? Let's go. Is everybody ready? Friday, November 29th, PFL World Championships, six title fights, six million dollars on the line. Free.

Free. ESPN Plus and 20 media partners around the world. in 170 countries. Free. Starts at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Free. Our treat to fans is a 2024 thank you.

That is terrific news. People are going to be very happy about this. Ten title fight. What a way to watch the show. So now it's popcorn, now it's popcorn, but no butter popcorn thrown at. me just popcorn that's right people are going to eat it now then i get throw to you they're not they're going to savor the flavor now don um right so 10 these all going to be five round fights they're all five round fights they're all world title fights six back to back to back to back to back

super bowls five rounds one million dollars each two 30 p.m. start time this is a brilliant big love the 230 start time guys big so sleep maybe do a little bit little shopping, watch them all, watch football or basketball at night, could be better. This is great news. I think everyone's going to be very happy. Don, thank you so much for doing this.

I've taken up way too much of your time. I appreciate you jumping on, being open and honest, accepting the chance. I say on these shows all the time, you never know who's going to be listening. You never know who's going to find out what you had to say. And I say stuff, I admit it. But you hit me up about this.

I didn't reach out to it. You hit me up about this. this and I have a ton of respect for you for coming on here and answering the questions. And I know some of them weren't easy to answer. Some of them were tough, but you came on here and you did it. Any final message to the fans, the viewers, what would you like to say to them? No, look, thanks, guys. Look, it's year six.

And we were nowhere six years ago. And now we're somewhere. And keep watching. Keep telling us what we got to do better. We're listening and we're getting better. 2025 is just around the corner. championship is our big moment. Watch it.

We're listening and we'll see you in 2025. Casey, with that being said, the crowd goes wild. You can hit the music now. This is a great time. First of hopefully many town halls here on MMA fighting. Hopefully you get Don on again for maybe a state of the union heading into the 2025 season. But as you found out, if you're just jumping in, Don just dropped the bombshell. PFL World Championships,

Black Friday, 2.30 p.m. Eastern Star Time, free. Free to subscribers, free. It's a gift. It's not a pay-per-view. And Dave says if PFL science, Parker Porter, he is a fan for life.

So something to bring back to Ray Sephyl and Company after this. Tomorrow, 12.30 p.m. Eastern Time, BTL, we'll discuss PFL Battle of Giants. We'll discuss all things mixed martial arts. And we have action freaking Bronson joining the show, which is going to be a lot of fun. So Don, thank you again for your time.

Thank you all for joining live. Thank you for all the great questions. I'm losing my voice at this point. And we'll see you tomorrow, everybody. Good night. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance sets.

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