MMA Fighting - What the Heck: Episode 40 | Michael Chiesa, Anthony Pettis, Jon Anik & James Krause

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

This week on What the Heck, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck chats with Michael Chiesa (6:36) to preview his UFC Fight Island 8 main event matchup with Neil Magny on Jan. 20. Jon Anik (30:23) talks the return to Fight Island to kick off the UFC's 2021 year, Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier, Max Holloway vs. Calvin Kattar, Dana White's relationship with the media, criticism of Joe Rogan, and more. Anthony Pettis (57:30) explains his decision to sign with the PFL after a long career with the UFC, discusses how his mindset has changed, Natan Schulte, and if he had any regrets now that he has departed from the UFC. Finally, James Krause (1:23:38) reacts to not getting the matchup with Joaquin Buckley, gives his thoughts on people saying he was ducking Buckley, Diego Sanchez calling him out via Instagram direct message, Megan Anderson's upcoming fight with Amanda Nunes, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is What the Heck with Mike Heck on MMAFiting.com. Now here is your host, Mike Heck. What the heck? First time in 2021, I'm happy to say, well, hello there, everybody. And welcome to a brand new edition of What the Heck here on MMAFighting.com. I am Mike Heck. Happy New Year to all of you as we embark on this brand new year,

2021 coming off one of the most challenging years of our lives and hopefully this will be a much more positive year as it goes on of course because here in the united states i know this show drops Thursday mornings at 10 a.m eastern standard time but as i record this it is 10.25 p.m. eastern standard time on wednesday night january 6th and today has just not been a great day here in this country as you've probably seen and heard by now. And listen, I'm not going to get on this show and talk politics because you're not here to hear my opinion on any of that stuff. But I will say, just because it's on my mind and I want to just bounce some things off all you guys, it's kind of a rough moment today having my seven, almost eight-year-old son walk up to me

and ask me what's going on. Why is everyone so upset? Why are these things happening and how do you answer that question really? I didn't even know what to say. So I in essence told him don't worry about it. You're almost eight years old. Freaking stay that way for as long as you can. And I'm just thinking like enjoy the fact that you don't completely understand what is happening right now. Enjoy the fact that you don't know. Like just enjoy that. Live with that. It's great. Be a kid. And then just be nice to everybody and be respectful and that's it. And he said, okay, I will, daddy. And he moved on and started jumping on the trampoline. And luckily today, while all of this craziness was going on, I got to do what I love to do more than most things in this world. I got to

have some great conversations with some of the greatest people in sports, some of the best athletes in the world, the fighters, some broadcasters. And most of these, conversations you will see on the program this week. Others, you will see a little bit later on down the road, bonus interviews, et cetera. Luckily, we got to just kind of focus on other stuff. We didn't talk about any of the craziness going on. We just talked about fighting and hopefully if you're still sort of upset on what has gone on this week, especially on Wednesday. Hopefully this show can provide a distraction and we can go from there. But a quick programming note before we run down the lineup. If you missed between the links on Tuesday, one, what were

you thinking? It was awesome. James Lynch versus Alex K. Lee. What a matchup. The last round was amazing. Go back and check that out. It was great. But secondly, I announced that we're going to be making a few schedule changes to this show and between the links and the changes are we're going to swap the days around. So this show, instead of dropping on Thursdays, we'll drop on Tuesdays. BTL or between the lengths, we'll move to Thursdays, because I feel like it, especially this show, this show gets lost in the fight week shuffle. Like when there's nothing going on,

it works out better, but like when you have the crazy stretch of all the fights with like meaty days and the way-ins and fight nights, all that stuff, like this way gives you a little extra time to check it out, take it all in, if you will, especially if there's fighters that are like fighting that week that are on the show, I mean, how many times you want to see the same guy answer a lot of the same questions?

And you know what I mean? So I figured, let's move things around, do that. And then between the links, moving to Thursday, especially on fight weeks. I think the banter kind of takes over. The storylines heading into these fight cards, they build a little more. And it puts us in a position where we could do some of those shows live, which is something we've been wanting to do with between the links for quite some time now. But as far as when that change is going to happen, I can't definitively tell you that.

But it could be happening as soon as this coming week. So we will keep you posted on that. Follow us on social media and MMA fighting on Twitter. It will let you know. But in the meantime, this first show of 2021 is a damn fun one. Let us run down the lineup. It will get to our first guest. We're going to wrap things up with James Krause.

I'm sorry, the James Krause. A lot of people were surprised that the UFC did not book the fight between James Krause and Joachim Buckley. Joaquin Buckley is fighting January 16th, but it's not against James Krause. We're going to get James's take on that. Diego Sanchez calling him out via direct message on Instagram. Big fights for his team at Glory MMA. We touch on all that. James is the man that is coming up at the very end of the show.

The former UFC and WEC lightweight champion of the world, Anthony Pettis is going to join us as he is now the newest member of the lightweight roster for the professional fighters league. Maybe the shortest free agency in MMA history, at least from a name of this stature, like a former champion. What was he, a free agent for like two days, maybe three? It's just crazy. But this is the first time I've had the chance to speak with Showtime. You'll hear and see that conversation a little bit later on.

It just felt like in keeping with tradition that we had to bring on the man who was the first guest in the history of the show to join us for the first show of this new year. John Anick returns in around 20 minutes to talk Fight Island. McGregor versus Porier. We even touched on some of the criticism that Joe Rogan has been getting as of late. So keep it locked in for that conversation. Always great to have fellow Massachusetts native John Anick on the program. But first, let us kick things off with the first interview of the year with the man who was heading to Abu Dhabi anyways to fight on January 20th. But now he potentially will do so for two extra rounds, 10 extra minutes.

and he's going to be at the top on the marquee, on the poster, in the main event. It takes on Neil Magni at UFC Fight Island 8. That Wednesday card. Here he is, Michael Kiesa. All right. First interview of 2021 going down right now. Sure, some of them may have dropped in 2021,

but this is the first one conducted in the new year. And what better way to kick it off than with the man? What you found out last week will now be headlining the January 20th UFC event on Fight Island. It's Neil Magny, UFC Fight Island 8. Happy joined by main event, Mike. Michael Kiesa. Happy New Year, sir. How are you?

Main event, Mike, I could get used to that. I'm doing good, man. Happy New Year to you as well. And it's an honor to be your first guest of this new year. Appreciate it very much. This is a nice way to kick off the New Year's and not turn the page from a strange pandemic-filled 2020 and you kick off 2021 and a headline spot. What a world, Mike.

Yeah, what a world. And what a whirlwind, man. I mean, I remember waking up the day of the news, broke that Hamzaa Chamaia was out of the main event. I woke up and saw the news and was like, fuck, I'm going to lose the fight. Pardon my language. I thought I was going to lose the fight with Neil. And I feel like him and I have kind of been eyeing each other for a while.

So just instantly I'm like, well, I kind of knew this was going to happen. This is why I didn't announce the fight yet to anybody. And as the day went on, it turned out to be a really good day. I thought it was going to be a crappy day. So I'm excited to be in the main event spot against the guy like Neil Magni. It's going to be a really fun fight for the fans. Why did you feel like you were going to lose the fight? Do you think like Neil would get the bump?

up or that they cancel the event altogether? I thought that Neil would get the bump up, you know, just because they kind of had him in that spot anyways, more or less to fight Hamza had Leon falling out, but I knew that that could go both ways. And I'd kind of been warned about that prior to the fight getting books. They're like, hey, we're going to book you and Magdie. But just so you know, if something happens to Chima and Edwards for the December 19th card, we're going to bump Neil up.

And I'm like, okay. And then we get through the 19th. And I thought we were kind of out of the woods. But I still wasn't convinced. That's why I just I didn't announce anything. I'm like, I'm just not until I know that this is going to happen for sure. I'm not saying anything.

And it very well could change. You never know. One of us could pop for COVID. You never know. There's a lot of moving parts to it. But, you know, I just,

that's why I didn't announce. I'm like, I'm just going to stay focused. I'm going to stay training and just know that, you know, hopefully if everything pans out, I'll be fighting Neil. And,

yeah, so it's not that I thought the 20th, the event on the 20th would get canceled. I just thought something would happen to the main event. And I was actually right. But I was wrong. about one thing, I get to keep my Neil Magdie fight. There you go, and you're in the main event. So obviously there's a lot to discuss, Michael. First off, the last time we spoke, it was on the

UFC 256 preview show. You made some great predictions. People dug the Mike and Mike chemistry we put out for the world to see, but you did tease that fight with Magny was set. You were excited about the opponent, and then we found out that it was Neil Magny. This is your longest layoff in a few years. Now, hump, hump to you to just get back in there and continue this momentum at 170 pounds. Yeah, I'm really excited to continue the momentum. You know, everybody's year got thrown, you know, just just thrown through a loop, you know. So my whole plan was, you know, get through the fight with RDA, get a little minor surgery done on my knee and then move on to a fight in July, move on to a fight towards the end of the year, maybe January.

And, you know, that all got just thrown out the window, COVID 2020. And, you know, so, you know, even though my goals, they kind of. of got rearranged. I still got to end the year with one of my top goals and that was to be put in a main event spot before 2020 ends. So I was able to make that happen. It just sucks. There's a lot of

inactivity between those two between this fight and my last one. But you know, I'm a guy that's A, this analyst role has kept my mind sharp. I've had to study a lot of fights. I've had to look at things objectively and it's kind of broadened my mind a lot more towards the sport.

I'm able to pick up a lot more things when I watch it and I'm watching film and things of that sort. And it gave me time to hone my skills and fill some voids in my game that needed to be addressed. And, you know, I'm, I'm, ring rust. I don't believe in ring rust. I'm not worried about the layoff in that sense. So I'm just excited to get out there and compete, man. I feel like this is going to be the best version of myself that I've shown in my whole nine-year UFC career. Yeah, you mentioned the small knee operation that you needed done. And then I remember in July you tweeted out that you're going to have two operations done in one session. And then what it was done,

you would be a new man because of it. So I haven't had a chance to ask you this question. Do you feel like a new man since July? Yeah, I feel like a new man since July, but that surgery did not go as well as we had hoped. Supposed to be around 45 minutes to an hour max. And it turned out to be a six and a half hour surgery. They really kind of did a number on me.

And I definitely had some dark days throughout the recovery process wondering, like, you know, I knew I would still get to compete again, but I was just like, is my leg going to be the same? what I mean. You know, and I think that that's just normal for anybody that's going through the recovery process after a surgery. But I definitely had some dark days. But they're behind me. My leg's 100%. I'm able to do a lot of things I couldn't do before. And, you know, and that's very exciting. You know what I mean? To be able to go through a full training camp and I'll be dragging my leg behind me because I've got all this pain in my knee. It's been really nice. It's been refreshing.

So how long were you dragging that pain of the knee around with you? Was it something that had been going on for a long time for you? Yeah, a really long time. I mean, this is an injury I sustained when I was a teenager. And it just, as time has progressed, it just got worse and worse and worse. And especially particularly when winter comes around, you know, because I had hardware in my leg. So it's just like the winter before that, man, I just remember coaching or I coach high school wrestling. Or at least I used to.

I'm not coaching this last year, obviously. but particularly when wrestling season would come around and I'd be on my feet for three hours coaching just standing there. By the time practice I would get over me and I could not, I would literally be dragging my leg like a peg leg. Like it almost like I got like my leg is dead. You know, so it's something that was progressively getting worse and I was just able to tough it out over the years. But it just came to the point like I'm I got to become a championship caliber fighter and I have skills. But I have the skills to do it. but I have little things like this injury that I keep prolonging fixing that's going to

hold me back from getting to my ultimate goal. So I just had to just bite the bullet, get the surgery done, deal with the recovery time. And it was the best thing I ever did. And it was a, I mean, given the whole landscape of 2020 and it was just like, this is the time to do it, man. You know, we had a big pause on the sport for, you know, two months. So it was just that was the time to just get it done, get it over with it and move on. And now I don't ever have to worry about it again.

and I haven't had any pain in my leg for the first winter since I was 15 years old. So it feels really good. That's amazing. So this is going to be your first main event as a new man on two good legs. First one since July 2018 for the Kevin Lee fight. Of course, the buildup for that fight was mostly because of that press conference earlier in that year. And, you know, Neil's a confident guy, is a really good fighter. But it has to feel pretty good knowing that this time around for this main event,

this can be built solely as a pivotal matchup in a loaded division and not in the of the, other kind of tom foolery. Is that accurate? Yeah, dude, it's 100% accurate. And look, Neil's got great skills and he's a good man. And these are the guys I want to compete against. I did the whole press conference thing. I've done the trash talking stuff. It's just not who I am. And that doesn't mean that, you know, any fight thereafter, after this Neil Magnet fight, I could get pitted against the guy that's going to talk trash, you know. And that's all fine and dandy, but I just, I don't engage in that anymore. That's just not who I am. But it's always nice to go out there and compete against the guy that you have a lot of respect for

and it's just a good all-around human being. It is a good athlete. I feel like that makes for, I feel like that makes for fireworks as well. You don't have to hate the guy to put on a great performance. You know what I mean? And I know Neil's going to bring it. And I feel like there's a lot of things in our skill sets to cancel each other out and can make this fight really exciting for the fans. And it's just, you know, he's a heck of a guy. I'm excited to compete against him. I'm excited to go five rounds with the guy. He presents great challenges, especially in this circumstance. I mean, this is a guy that trains his elevation. Neal's a five-round fighter. He stepped up on two and a half weeks notice, two weeks notice and fought Kelvin Gasolam in Mexico

City at elevation and squeaked out a split decision win. I mean, the cards are in his favor. If you look at this on paper for cardio, and I like the challenge. You know what I mean? This is what it's all about for me. I like challenging myself. And it's going to be a fun fight. So, you know, I didn't hesitate when they called and said, hey, we want to put you in the main event. I said, deal, let's go. You know, there's no. nothing, there's nothing to, no questions to be asked. I'm just excited for the opportunity. Yeah. And listen, you've showed your ability to, to bring a strong pace in your last couple of fights too. You've got to bring that kind of a pace and you fight a crazy man like Diego

Sanchez and you brought it the entire time. You didn't seem to waver at all. Have you, I know Neil's kind of a different beast. He brings the same energy in minute one as he does in minute 15 or in this case, 25. Have you had to change things at all from like a strength and conditioning standpoint to prepare for a guy like Neil and what he brings to the table in that aspect? Well, you know, given the short time, yeah, we'll make some changes through this last peak week, you know, but for the most part, it's, it's, you know, I don't have, I was able to push a pretty hard pace at 155 pounds after these hard weight cuts, these hard weight regiments, weight cutting regiments and stuff like that, you know, but yeah, we'll fine-tuned some things through this last

week, but even before, so when Shemaiah fell off, I had, I went to Tucson to get some training in with my teammate Tyler, some other guys, go get some taller bodies. You know, I'm like the tallest guy in my gym. A lot of the other guys are like around six foot. So I had to go find the guy that's six three. Found a couple of those in Tucson, Arizona. And I went to before I knew I was in the main event, I was like, hey, we're going to adjust the sparring.

I want to do five rounds today. You know, usually for all my grappling and my wrestling stuff, we do a ton of rounds. But, you know, for sparring, we spar hard. Don't do, don't take any more damage. It's not necessary. So we always keep it within the parameters of the, fight three five minute rounds um but that day i was like hey look we're going five five minute rounds i just just i want just in case something happens this is what i want to do we did it and i pushed a pace from

bell to bell so conditioning is not an issue i'm i'm on point you know what's 10 extra minutes you know i mean then when you break it down you can't make it out to me more than what it is and i draw a lot of inspiration from my colleague and my friend paul felder that guy's a beast and i know i'm not training for a triathlon but i'm in great shape i'm you know i've been through this has been a long training camp, what's 10 extra minutes? If my guy, Paul Felder can jump, you know, not jump off the couch, but jump off the bike or the treadmill and go fight a five, five, five minute rounds against RDA, there's no reason why I can't go out there and do the same thing.

You know what I mean? So I draw inspiration from my peers and I have a lot of confidence in my training. So I'm very confident I can go out there and get the win, whether I get the finish or I have to fight this guy to the bitter end, I'm confident I can win this fight. I feel, and correct me if you don't feel this way, like having the Walterweight division in a headline spot for the second time in three cards once you fight, it's huge because, and as you've seen as a fighter and as an analyst, the division, especially up the top, it feels like it's lost a little bit of buzz since July, since Kamara Usman beat Jorge Mazadol. Like we had Covington versus Woodley. We had Wonderboy versus Jeff Neal, but I don't know. I feel like this is good timing to get this division, especially, you know, top five, top 10. rolling again and get get that excitement built back up. Do you feel the same way or is that just me sort of thinking out loud here? No, that's, that's, that's, that's this, the brigating this division

moving again, you know, and it would have been not trying to take any luster or any shine off of mine and Neil's main event, but it had Chama and Leon Edwards got to stay on the card. You got the, you got the double feature. You'd have the main and co-main two top 10 fights in the welterweight division, you know, they're trying to move this division along. You know, I talked to Sean Shelby and Fight Island. And when I was there for that little three-week stretch, I did work in the desk. And, you know, he was like,

hey, when you get home, be ready. We're getting this division moving again. There's too many guys. There's too many good guys sitting around. There's fights that need to be made. Up until this last recent stretch of these welterweight fights, there was no movement in the rankings for a long time. I mean, you could go back.

I think the last ranked guy that fought up until this stretch of welterweight fights, I think was like Luke A versus Randy Brown. You know what I mean? And Randy Brown was ranked at the time. But I mean, there was a long stretch where we didn't have ranked welterweight fighting. So that was their plan this whole time is to get this fight, get these welterweight fights moving, get this division moving.

There's a lot of guys that there's a lot of good guys that need to make their way to the top. You know what I mean? And things need to be, we need to see what guys belong where. We need to see, we need to line up some contenders. We don't even have outside of Burns and Colby, you usually have an idea of who the next guy could be fighting for the title. And we still don't really have an idea of who that could be. So we've got to get this division moving again.

You know, and this is a perfect main event between me and Neil, two guys that were gunning for the top. We're both of us aspire to be world champions. This is a fight that's got to be made. And I'm excited to be a part of this new welterweight movement to get this division going again. So what are the next couple of weeks going to be like for you? Like when do you head to Vegas and then subsequently when do you travel out to Abu Dhabi? So I think I leave the ninth. Leave the ninth.

And, you know, then we got two days of quarantine. you got the flight, then another couple of days of quarantine. You know, so really it's kind of, it's kind of going to kind of be different having that. You know, usually it's like five weeks, usually five days. Usually I go out about a week before. So, you know, you're kind of the camp just a few days short, but I got to remember everybody else has to do the same thing. So it's not like I'm putting myself at any type of disadvantage.

We're all kind of going through the same thing together. You know, but that's why it's imperative to have a little bit of a longer training camp to make sure I'm in shape and be ready to adapt. You know, this has been, even though this fight is in 2021, this fight got booked in 2020. In 2020, I feel like was the year for opportunity. You know, I feel like a lot of guys, a lot of great opportunities presented themselves,

and a lot of them happened on short order. And, you know, this fight was no different. So I made sure to have a longer training camp to make sure I'd be ready for anything that, any type of change that presented itself, any type of opportunity that came my way, I made sure to be ready for it. and, you know, I'm glad that I'm glad that I did that.

You know what I mean? Because this would have caught me off guard. This came as no surprise, you know what I mean? So I'm really excited to, really excited to head to fight Island to be able to have gone there for three weeks and see how things are done and kind of get the vibe and go to the Flash Forum. And I don't even know for at the flash forum this time. We might actually be at that new arena of the building. I mean, you might know more about this than I do. That's what I heard, yeah.

Yeah. So I'm glad I got to go there, get the vibe. got you know and once i got there and saw how things were run i was like i want to come here and fight so hopefully things pan out to where i'm able to do that and they did so i'm just really excited to get out there and compete and get out there and get on fight island i mean this is like a it's just been a crazy year man i'm just really excited to get out there and start this one off right isn't the start time for your card like i guess normally should be the word like at least from that time because i was looking at like the the espn page and it had like the start times for the

three cards. And it said like your event started at 9 a.m. Eastern time. So I don't know, like, do you know anything about that? You know, I haven't heard. I tried texting Dana and asked him about if there was going to be fans there or not. And I asked him that just to kind to kind of get a read on what the time would be. Because I would assume like, you know, they're not going to have fans rolling in the door at like 3 a.m. You know what I mean? So, I'm not sure what the start times are, you know, but I really, that stuff doesn't concern me. man, I don't really get too rattled about ring rust or start times for fights. I mean, at the end of the day, it's like you're either going to step up and do it or you're not.

You know, so it's, I'm not too worried about the start time. It would be cool to have fans there, though. I think that would be pretty sweet. So I don't really know in terms of whether there's going to be fans there, the start times or any of that stuff. I just know I got a heck of a main event ahead of me against a really tough opponent. And I'm excited to put on the show for the fans. So we'll see what happens. So how do we close this thing out on January 20th?

That's second of three events, eight-day span on the island. How do we get this thing done? Get this thing done by just doing what I do best, man. Just be me, put the pressure on. I know he's going to meet me in the middle. And ultimately, you know, I'd like to get this thing done in less than 25 minutes. But if I got to go to the distance, I've got to go to the distance. I just know that I've had a great camp.

I'm healthy. You know, I went into that last fight with a broken nose. I didn't get to do any live training. And I still got a, I know I got a week ahead of me, so knock on wood. I don't want to jeeks myself. But this is the healthiest I've gone into a fight. since the Diego Sanchez camp. So I'm going to be a totally different guy.

So I'm just excited to go out there and compete, man. In an ideal situation, I get my hand raised within the 25 minute mark. I beat him. You know, I finish him. I put a stamp on this fight, shoot myself up into the top five, get myself and do another big fight.

And the year is the number one contender at 170 pounds. I got lawfully goals, but I'm very confident I can achieve them right now, Mike. I think it's my time. 33 years old. I've been in the UFC for nine years. I feel like I'm at my best. I feel like I'm in my prime.

I feel like this is a good showcase fight for me. Yeah, I can see it in your eyes. There's a focus to you, Mike. But you know, I can't let you go before we get the analyst side out of it. I'm not going to pop you like crazy. But, you know, fight island, man. There's three big main events on the island. First off, January 16th, Max Holloway,

the former featherweight champion, first non-title fight he has had in forever, taken on the surging New Englander. Calvin Cater, phenomenal fight, especially knowing that some of the advantages Max has had in his career, like his size, his reach at 45. Those are negated. In fact, the reach advantage goes to Calvin Cater in this fight. I love this one. I love all three main events, but I really, this one really sticks out to me, Mike.

What do you think of this fight? Well, you got to remember, no disrespect to Max Hollow. We love the guy. But he never has a reach advantage. He's got a 69 inch reach. People don't realize it. Holloway has does not have a long wing span. So he's never really at him being at a reach disadvantage.

It's kind of a, that's kind of like a common thing for his fights. But he makes up for it with his pressure, the way he changes stances. And you would never guess that this guy doesn't have a long reach because he fights like he has a long reach. But a lot of that has to do with pressure and his ability to stand in the pocket and throw volume punches.

Not like he throws short punches. He throws long. So it looks like he has a long reach. But Calvin Cater, man, this guy is an assassin. He is sharp. We saw in the Jeremy Stevens fight. He looked good. We saw on the Dan Egey fight.

And Dan Ege is as tough as they come. He's durable. Calvin Cater showed he can push a pace for 25 minutes. The guy's super tough. He's rolling the New England cartel. Those guys, there's something going on over there. I think that, you know, you got Rob Fon, who's looking good. You know, and Calvin Cater's kind of been the captain of that team.

I think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to be a showcase fight for Calvin because Max is as tough as they come. But I feel like there's something in the air. that Calvin Cater does, does enough to get the job done. But with that being said, Max Holloway, he could, he could show us that he really is one of the best to ever do it by going out and beating Calvin Cater. It's tough to say. I feel like the odds are stacked against Max a little bit. And I don't think it's from a skill standpoint.

I think maybe I don't know how focused he is on wanting that fight to get that fight back with Alex and Bolkanovsky. You know, and you know in this sport, Mike, as from your. side of things in the media. Like you have to be focused on the task at hand. You can't be focused on the fights that could have would have should have should have went different or things of that sort. Those can come back to haunt you. So I would hate to see Max have this fight, have his performance be altered by the fact he's too focused on getting that third fight against the champion. So I'm, I'm slightly leaning towards catering this fight, but I think it's going to be a striking, striking extravaganza, lots of boxing. It's going to be, it's going to be

really fun. I'm excited for it. And of course, after you and Neil Magdie do your thing, Connor McGregor and Dustin Poyer again, a lot of horns again. Connor back after nearly the same layoff you've had taken on a guy in Dustin Poree who is a much different fighter than their first meeting. To be fair, both guys are. But man, last fight on the island for January. What sticks out to you when these two high-level lightweights get after it?

Well, one thing Connor is shown time and time again is this guy, the time off, he's going to show improvements. I mean, we saw him when he fought Cowboy Soroni just like came out with these shoulder strikes. He, you know, he put a big stamp on the main event finishing an ultra tough cowboy Soroni. You know, but Dustin's a guy that he's shown his new wrinkles in his game through his performances. He's been a little more active than Connor. And I think that the move to 155 pounds has been good for his chin. I mean, everybody always wants to go back to that first fight and say, you know, he got slept really fast and that's going to haunt him in his sleep.

And it's going to come back to bite him in the butt in this fight. I just don't know if I truly believe. that I think, you know, Conner's one of the best fighters we've ever seen in the Octagon, arguably the best, you know, but he, you know, this guy, he's, he's versatile. He's, he's got underrated ground skills. I mean, you saw, if you say, if you go back and watch this and fight with Habib, he was able to defend takedowns. He was able to get back to his feet. He was able to do a lot of the things that Dustin couldn't, but this fight's not going to take place on the ground. These guys are going to fight on the feet. Dustin's shown a lot of

new wrinkles in his boxing game. He's shown that his chin is not comprehensive. He can take a shot. And I think that maybe his activity could benefit him in this fight. And I think the longer the fight goes, the more it's going to benefit Dustin. If the fight goes to it, if the fight's finished, it's going to be a Connor McGregor knockout. If this fight goes the distance, I believe Dustin Poria gets his hand raised. With that being said, I believe that Dustin has what it takes to avoid the early onslaught from Connor and take this fight into deeper water and win a decision.

No matter what, I think this fight is going to be absolutely insane. I think that either irregardless, it's either going to be a knockout of the year performance for Connor or it's going to be a five-round fight of the year between Connor and Porier. But I just think if this fight goes the distance, I think it favors, I think it favors Dustin Moore. There you go, everybody. Early preview from the man himself, the man who's going to be headlining January 20th against Neil Magny. Always a pleasure, catch it up with you, my man. The timing on this and ending this is perfect because my seven-year-old just walked up to me.

He lost a tooth about a minute ago. How about that? He was getting a visit from the tooth there. But all the best to you, Mike. Save travels. Happy New Year once again, man. Peace. Thank you, sir.

Interesting fight at 170 pounds. Michael Kiesa, very healthy, as it seems, Michael Kiesa, taking on Neil Magni. Very interested to see how this plays out. And not only that, very intrigued to see where the winner goes from that fight. Because 170, as it's been for a while, absolutely loaded. But still a lot of question marks, especially. at the top. Of course, you found out Kamara Usman v. Gilbert Burns is official at UFC 258 in February. That's a huge fight. But, I mean, listen, with this division sort of working

itself out, this fight on January 20th between KSA and Magni, very important, especially so early in the air. But speaking of Fight Island, you're going to be hearing this voice quite a bit during the UFC's next trip to Fight Island. Let us welcome back, the play-by-play voice, Mr. John Anick. All right. Well, in keeping with tradition, the first guests in the history of the show, how to join us for the first episode of the new year. And it's fitting as we put a bow on 2020 officially and look ahead to what is shaping up to be a massive 2021. Have to be joined once again by the voice of the UFC broadcast, the Jalen Brown, by Peyton Pritchard, the great John Anick.

Happy New Year, my man. How are you? Happy 2021 to you, my man. It's good to be with you. It's good to be kicking off a new year with a lot of fights. I mean, I'm on an email chain with these bout notifications, and I can tell you, man, these fight announcements are coming fast and furious. So it's going to be an interesting first quarter. And I think for those of us that have had a couple weeks at home, we're Conda Jones into get back on the road and get to fight Island again. I agree, man. There's just so much to talk about it. It's crazy to look back on that conversation we had in early April of 2020 with where the world was at the time. And fast forward to where we're at now, after a storyline filled year with the pandemic and massive fights and

breakout stars, just leaving us with so much to talk about. I'm curious. John, like when your kids, even like your grandkids someday down the road, someday ask you, like, what was 2020 like? What do you think you're going to say? Well, I'm hopeful that 2021 isn't going to be super similar to 2020. I can't sit here and tell you that we're out of the woods. Two days ago, there were north of 31,000 cases in my home state of Florida alone, right? So I am hopeful that come the fourth quarter, I won't be taking a COVID-19 test at my house, administering it on my own, I did yesterday. So, but yeah, man, obviously I think for a lot of us, even for my kids, when they look back

at a year that was void of school and full of masks and not being able to go to restaurants or go to gymnastics or anything like that, I think we're hopeful that the end is in sight. And certainly with vaccinations coming down the pipe, hopefully we can get vaccinated, you know, when we're prioritized. I'm not saying that we should go to the front of the line. but you got to think that 2021 is going to bring some wholesale changes and things that are better

than what we dealt with last year. Yeah, I hope you're right about that. You know what? Just kind of putting a bow on 20th. I do want to get your take on something if I could because you know, you being a massive sports fan and MMA compared to like a lot of the other sports that we watch, it's still a baby.

Like the UFC compared to all these other organizations is still a baby, but we had our year-end awards at MMA fighting. And most of the individual awards, everybody was universally in agreement with, but there was one that got people all sorts of fired up, the 2020 breakout fighter of the year. So basically how it works, John, is like the staff will rank their top five for each of these awards and whoever gets the most point wins the award. But this one went to Hamza at Shamaev. And personally, I gave it to Kevin Holland,

but I completely understand anybody giving it to Shamiya because he went from relatively unknown, unless you're like, we're a fan of him going up to this massive figure that we couldn't go a single show without getting a question about or talking about, man, have I been getting hammered for writing that article because everyone thought it was Kevin Holland? The interpretation of that award can go in so many different ways, John. But what are your thoughts of that? Because outside of me saying Volcanofsky Holloway 2 wasn't a robbery,

I can't remember getting beat up so badly on the Internet when I actually went with the masses for my pick. Well, big picture, I will start with Big Mouth Kevin Holland. And I think maybe some of us underestimated just how much support there is, domestically and internationally for Kevin Holland after a 5-0-2020. And I really think the nature of the Joccaday fight that seemingly was watched by a lot of people was such that it took him to the next level. You know, midway through the year, he's beating Darren Stewart coming over the octagon

and saying to Dana White, hey, man, I didn't even know if I won tonight. I want to run that back and give the dentist another shot, you know. So the only argument against Kevin Holland is the strength of schedule, right? A lot of these year-end awards, you know, you're starting with the champions. Kenny Floreon on our podcast said Davidson, Figuero was the breakout star of the year. You know, I think that might have been a byproduct of just trying to find some hardware for Figuero, who wasn't his male fighter of the year. But it just depends how you quantify it.

The criteria is open to interpretation. I mean, you could argue a man to Hebas. For me, Hamza Chimaev was the breakout star of 2020. And I think that has to do with where he was in 2019 relative to where he is entering 2021. But again, man, these awards, they certainly light people up. Male Fighter of the Year was very contentious on our show. But I think as long as you find some sort of trophy for Kevin Holland, for Kamsat Shimae, maybe give him rookie of the year, then all as well that ends well.

There you go. Of course, like John said, if you want to get more on the award season, Anakin Floreen, just gave their hardware away. So go check that out on YouTube wherever you're listening to your podcast. But we've thrown the 2020 calendar in the trash, John. It's on the 2021. and the year will begin on Fight Island, three events and an eight-day stretch, and it kicks off next Saturday, the 16th.

UFC Fight Island 7, headline by Max Holloway versus Calvin Cater. More on the fight in a moment, but it was made official that the event will be not just airing on ESPN Plus, but will also be broadcast on ABC. And as a guy who probably watched a lot of sports in his heyday on ABC, Monday Day football, and so forth and so why world of sports? This is pretty cool, isn't it? It's exciting. And I try to sort of steer clear the ratings,

conversation because I got to stay in my lane and focus on what I do. And it's nice when we do a big number, but that can't be my focus. I can't be disappointed when we don't do a number that I was expected that we would do. But it's huge. I actually wasn't even in line to call this show. And now I'm thankful to be getting the opportunity. So we're heading to Fight Island a week early. Initially, I was just going to go for the pay-per-view at the end of the rip. But it's big, man. And I think sometimes we're so internally invested and in it that to me, a show that's wall-to-wall on UFC pass feels very similar to a UFC fight night on ABC. And as my friend, you are, you know that and you know what my reality is. But it's exciting, you know, it's exciting when I get text messages from

friends I haven't heard of that are mainstream sports fans that say I just read an article that the UFC is going to be on ABC. So that gives me maybe a lens into which, you know, I'm not usually looking and maybe suggest that it's a bigger deal that I have thought it is. So we're excited. Boots to the ground. 13 fights, Michael. Here we go. Here we go. Holloway versus Cater, the first main event of 2021. It seemed like this is the path to take, right? You have Max Holloway, who has been in nothing but title fights for the last four years. He now takes on a very hungry New Englander and Calvin Cater, who I believe was a bigger

story in 2020 than he may be getting credit for because this loaded, talent-filled featherweight division needed some movement up the top, and Calvin stayed busy, got two big wins. And that activity, those performances over Jeremy Stevens and Danny Gay set himself up for this massive fight. What do you think of this, the first of three main events in Abu Dhabi coming up next Saturday? Yeah, probably criminal that a lot of us got through our awards show formalities without even dropping the name Calvin Cater. So I think you're wise to sort of bring him up in that context, given how big 2020 was for him. It's a huge fight.

And I kind of feel like, Mike, I was the guy after Holloway Volcanovsky too who said, man, I'd hate to be Max Holloway's next opponent because he's going to put it on somebody after, you know, getting hosed largely. I hate to throw out that robbery term, but I definitely walked away from those 25 minutes thinking that Max Holloway had regained his title. And, you know, fights are big swings to begin with. When you lose a title fight like that and all of a sudden you're not a two-time UFC featherweight champion and you're not defending your belt, it's almost like walking back into your new life. So massively disappointing for Max Holloway, but a big opportunity for him to gain back a lot of that steam against the oncoming Calvin Cater. You know, with respect to my guy Ken Flo, I think Calvin Cater is probably Boston's best hope for a UFC champion. You know, I think he has most of the tools that you need. I think it's going to be a byproduct of getting the big fights and staying healthy.

You know, I hate to keep banging this drum, but his hands were pretty sore after the Dan Egey fight. It's a 25-minute fight. You know, I do think you have to be measured and try to, you know, maybe conserve some energy and some health early on in a 25-minute fight. But what a great main event for us on ABC. I mean, you're embedded. You know all too well how good that fight is on paper. And, you know, I can't see how it's boring. So nice showcase for those two guys.

And hopefully for the Bostonians, Calvin Cade is dropping that Methuen accent on the ABC masses at the end of the fight. Never know. You mentioned something that's become kind of a big storyline heading into this fight. And others I've spoke with said the same thing. I talked to Michael Kiesa the other day about this. And even Calvin mentioned it when I spoke with him a couple weeks ago. The question is, is Max Holloway over that fight with Volta.

Volcanovsky. The second one, like, is he looking beyond cater towards a third fight with the current champion? Is that something that's on your mind as well? Like, Max is a consummate pro, and you never know what he's thinking, even when he says what he says? Or do you think this is more of like a creation of a storyline for storyline's sake? I think the latter. I think he's the greatest featherweight of all time. He may not have the title defenses that Jose Aaldo does necessarily, but he is the greatest featherweight fighter of all time. And the version that he presented against Alexander Volcanowski and against city kickboxing and against Eugene Bairman and that great team

that is obviously trying to beat Max Holloway and his great team, his longstanding team. Those adjustments, that performance in the rematch should be hugely encouraging to Hawaiians and to Max Holloway fans. So I think he is elite enough, an athlete physically and mentally, that

you can expect a prime, prime time performance from Max Holloway. And I still think he'll get a great shot from Calvin Cater, but I certainly think Holloway deserves to be entrenched as a two to one favorite, and I expected him to be as good as ever and as good as he was, you know, in the Volcanovsky fight a few months ago. Yeah, lots of like on this car.

We got Breeze versus Akhmadov. Joaquin Buckley makes his 2021 debut against Alessio de Cherico, return of Santiago, Ponzi. We got Carlos Konda versus Matt Brown, maybe the most under the radar fight on Fight Island. Very fun. And then we go to Wednesday the 20th, Michael Kiesa and Neil Magni, the main event for that one. And as we all know by now, Leon Edwards versus Hamasat Shemaiah, postponed once again. But man, I'm glad these guys got the bump up to keep this division in the forefront because I feel like Walterweight has so many unanswered questions coming out of 2020, especially in the top five in the top 10. Like big fight coming up in the 20 between these two under the radar guys at 170 looking to get over that hump and closer to the top five themselves.

What say you in regards to Kiesa versus Magni on the 20th? Yeah, it's a good problem to have. But I think the sports fan embedded in all of us wants that clarity a little bit at lightweight and at Welterweight. but yeah, it's a fascinating main event. I think it's simplistic to just say that because it's now 25 minutes and not 15 that the advantage swings to Neil Magny. You know, Michael Kiesa has outstanding cardio. I think he's got to find a choke, you know.

I mean, I don't think he necessarily wants to play the long game. But I think these guys match up so well with each other. They're both known for being super hard workers. I think they're both on the cusp. And I also think they're both in their prime. You know, Magny has obviously had some historic runs that didn't result in championship opportunities. But I do think he's better than that guy that was ripping off six or seven in a row. So I'm very excited to see what these guys can do. And Kiesa deserves this type of fight.

You know, he was fighting in the wrong division for way too long. And I think he would be the first to acknowledge that publicly. So I'm excited to see what he can do. This is the fight that he's wanted. You know, a lot of people, I don't know if it's his lack of knockout power on paper, but a lot of people are calling out O'T Neal Magni. And Kiesa gets the fight. We'll see what he can do with it in 14 days, my man. Yeah, he's, excuse me, very healthy. He's got, he had the knee, the knee surgery. Didn't go well initially, but he seems to be as healthy as he's ever been heading into a fight.

So that's the Wednesday car. That's really good. But we'll be diving deeper into that one on MA fighting for sure as we get closer. But first pay-per-view of 2021, January 23rd, Connor McGregor is back, taken on Dustin Porre in a rematch. And we know how the first fight went, but that seems like it was forever ago now, John. But it's still part of the story. But these are just two completely different fighters now in 2021. not? No doubt about it. And I think Connor McGregor doesn't get the credit he deserves as being

one of the best strikers in MMA, distance management power, knowing what to throw and when to throw it, adding layers, getting better constantly, the shoulder strikes against Donald Soroni. Not every day you see that as a method of victory. And by the way, mixed in a head kick for good measure, you know, when some people talk about what Connor McGregor did in 2020, he was the perfect fighter. Circumstances prevented him from making that walk again. But I'm just excited. excited to see McGregor at 155 pounds where he hasn't competed all that often in the UFC. It's crazy to think that he has one 155-pound win in the UFC, and that was the championship over Eddie Alvarez. It's a fascinating number. Obviously, Porriere is a completely different beast

than he was in 2014. It's amazing how good Porriere was, though, back then. And if you talk to him now, he just knew so much less than he knows now. And I think it's been a mental evolution as much as a physical one for him. You know, I think the miles on the Porreier tank could be a benefit and could be a detriment, you know? I mean, that hooker fight was an absolute war, and there were wars on top of wars, you know? So I do think it stands to reason. The Conne McGregor is going to be the fresher fighter. You know, Porriere and McGregor both putting themselves through hell right now, but it's as good as it gets, man. It really is. And I think the only sprinkle would be if the title was on the line, but certainly feels like a championship fight to me. Yeah, that you've been

a great point about Porre's mileage and it could be a help to him. And he kind of saw it in that Dan Hooker fight because that's second round between those two guys, which is absolutely ridiculous. And maybe the Dustin Porre of old, if he was in that position, he might have got finished in the second round. But the composure he showed in that moment makes me so intrigued for this fight with Connor because, you know, he doesn't freak out when he's in these moments anymore. He's able to get through them. Is that something you notice as well? Is that just spark an extra bit of intrigue to you? Yeah. It's a great point by you. And you're seeing me nod my head. And I do think the UFC

apex has an effect on certain fighters this tremendous calming influence. And I think Poriae kind of walked out, felt like he was better than Dan Hooker everywhere, as humbly as he would say that, and just felt very comfortable in that environment, almost as if it's a glorified

sparring session. You saw him talking shit to the broadcast team. And not like this thing, if I'm not mistaken, and then going right up to Dan after the fact, it's a very intimate setting. And Fight Island is different, right? I don't know how many fans are going to be in the building. I don't know how many VIPs are going to be in the building, but I do know that the 30-foot octagon is going to be in the

goddamn building, and there are going to be at least a couple of hundred people around the octagon. It's a different setting. And by the way, Connor McGregor's going to be walking through that door and not Dan Hooker. So I can't wait to see how it plays out. You know, I haven't had a chance to call all that many of McGregor's fights. I feel like I've been step by step with Porre for his entire UFC career. So excited to see Connor make that walk and come hell or high water, man. However many COVID tests, I got to beat. I'm going to be there January 23. Great nod to Rick Patino with the walking through the door come and I did. Of course, Michael Chandler's going to debut against the aforementioned Dan Hooker on that card. That's a banger. That's a big one.

Of course, Gichi and Charles Oliver are out there as well, kind of on the outside looking in. And as good and as important as 155 has been for the UFC, do you think this is like the most fascinating year to come in the history of the lightweight division in your mind with all these questions unanswered? Yeah, I don't know how you could argue otherwise, you know, and my inbox got a couple of duzies yesterday, right? I mean, it's fascinating to see how it all will play out. And I also think Islamakashev is an interesting name to bring up because one thing that I think a fan suggested, maybe one of our podcast listeners, if you want a shot of Khabib, if you really want to be the guy that maybe would draw Khabi back, you know, or if you're Drew Dober or whoever it's

going to be, go beat Islam Mahashchev, right? Go knock that guy out. And maybe that'll, you know, get Khabib's competitive spirit going a little bit because you know that can't believe Mahashev is a future UFC lightweight champion. And they believe it's a matter of if, not when, or when not if, I should say. So fascinated to see what happens at 55 to see if Chandler, you know, can really be a factor because that's biting off a whole lot with Dan Hooker as the entry fight. So yeah, man, the cupboard is the furthest thing from Bear. And we're excited to to see how it all plays out here in a couple weeks, man. Of course, the big question is whether or not Habib comes back,

because, I mean, you were there, UFC 254, what a moment that was, amidst Justin Gaichi and then announces retirement. But the UFC, Dana White, has not closed the door completely yet. They're going to be meeting early next week. But what's your gut telling you, John? Do you think we've seen the last of Habib, or do you think something entices him back in there? Well, I think if you're asking me,

does he compete in the next 12 months? I don't think so. I don't see much differentiation between 29 and 0 and 30 and oh, you know, go start playing 29 black on the roulette wheel, you know, moving on, right? I just don't see some value in one more win, you know what I mean, especially if he made his promise to his mother. Now, there's a lot of guys out there that provide intriguing challenges, and maybe that would be something that Khabib could speak to. But right now, that competitive spirit isn't necessarily there. and the manner in which he disposed of two interim champions is such that, you know, those rematches don't make a lot of sense. So I know he eventually is going to get some sort of competitive itch.

Maybe he can scratch it as a coach. I really don't know. But I think you'll see him maybe in a grappling setting at some point. But in 36 months, maybe. But I just don't see him in the UFC in 12 months. And I hope I'm right on that. I think he had a great capstone and a great moment. and I'm not in any great desire to see him rush back to the table.

I'm with you on that one. I just got back from picking my son up at school. I know you're going to get ready to pick your kids up from school in a few minutes, but I did want to get your take on a couple more things before we let you go, John. First off, and I've said this a million times now, Dana White deserves a ton of credit for what he did to get things back in 2020, 100%. But one thing that's kind of irked me, John, is to see his relationship with the MMA media deteriorate even more so than has been a long time.

It's been interesting to watch. And I'm sure you saw the video where you shut down the naysayers and prove people wrong, et cetera. But I'm curious, what did you think of that video? Because listen, there are some in the space who are negative, John, and I'm sure you've seen it. But at the end of the day,

I feel like the majority of the media members, we had questions, and I think we were right to have those questions as this is all coming together. So this notion that the MMA media tried to stop this from happening, in my opinion, it's a bit far-fetched. But I wanted to get your thoughts on that if I could. And do you think that this relationship between the media and Dana White can improve? Because you know him better than I do.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's unfortunate. And I think a lot of what you bring up is fair. And I will couch what I say with the fact that I basically turned in my card as a broadcast journalist when I signed with the UFC in 2011 and essentially became a promoter. I will say, though, as somebody who works for the UFC and is a full-time employee, I think a lot of us got a little bit defensive, right? that maybe we weren't getting the national credit as a whole for putting these live events on in this climate, you know?

And when some of the mainstream sports leagues, for lack of a better way to put it, would come back. They would do so with all this fanfare and how are they doing this? And why wasn't the NBA calling Dana White and Hunter and Lawrence Epstein and trying to figure out what the UFC was doing to try to expedite some of their problems? So I did get a little bit defensive

and sort of wanted to see the UFC and not just Dana White, but our executives get a modicum of credit for what we were able to accomplish in 2020. You know, I mean, they give out the Emmys. Nobody's acknowledging what the UFC has done from a live production standpoint. So maybe that's a separate conversation. But I do believe that maybe there were some unfair criticisms levied at the media. It's hard for me to sort of go too far down that path, obviously.

But obviously, we need the media as much as we need the fans. We need everybody back in the building. And nobody will be happier than me. I can assure you when we have some sense of normalcy. But there's been great support of this organization, as you know, from yourself and from a lot of media members. And I don't know, man, there's so much noise and toxicity in this MMA space. And, you know, I got three kids and packing lunches. And, dude, like, I'm out of my skull piece trying to just keep my damn life together.

So I get asked a lot about that. You know, to me, it's just another day in this MMA paradise that I think we're all, thankfully, to have some sort of seat in, you know. Yeah, I completely agree. And, you know, and hopefully that, I mean, I can compare to Dana White all the time because of the looks and the bald head and all that stuff. They say I'm Dana's kid and everything. But, you know, someday, hopefully this can all improve, John. I agree. And again, I used to work for ESPN when I was forced to ask Dana White the hard hitting questions.

And our relationship was obviously different than that it is right now. But I'm hoping that things can improve here in 2021. It's all roses and rainbows in 2021, Mike Heck. I mean, let's be honest. I love it, man. And I am going to ask you about this. You know, we're face to face. I think it's fair.

Hey, it's up to me to not perjure myself. Yeah, if you think about a lot, you can tell me. But I am sure that you have seen and heard over the last year, several months about Joe Rogan. And he's, you know, he's been taking a little bit of a beating on the broadcast. And let me just say this. I think at times I have been critical. But while some people already just throw him out of the seat, I'm not ready to throw him out of the seat. I feel like he's still got a ton to bring to these broadcast.

but at times I feel like the three-man booth and having two-color guys more specifically. I feel like it kind of hamperts him a little bit. I mean, that's just where I sit. But I wanted to ask you about all that because I feel like after every pay-per-view when we're doing these live post shows here in MMA fighting, we get a ton of Rogan questions

and people just criticizing him and how he handles himself in the broadcast. So I wanted to, if you don't mind, to kind of get your take on the whole situation because sort of like the Dana situation, you know him a lot better than most. of us who are criticizing him. Right. Sometimes it's hard for me to assess the totality of a broadcast right after the fact. And really, I would need to, not unlike a fan or media member,

go back and fine-tooth comb the thing to address specific criticisms. I can tell you that for me, I do try to take that constructive criticism and employ it in the next show. I mean, for all the noise that's out there, there is certainly some constructive stuff that I think you can take to the next show. I have seen some of that. You know, I think that. You know, I think that. that, again, the social media space after these live events can be a tough place for us to sort of engage and habitate. But I think for Joe, there are a lot of different factors. I think he has never been happier in that broadcast booth. And I hate to put words in his mouth, but I really think he enjoys the dynamic. He was in a two-man booth forever where he was just working with a play-by-play guy.

He couldn't bounce off of a fighter. And I think it's been an adjustment for all of us. I mean, my job, as I've said to you, is a totally different thing in a three-man booth versus a two-man booth in terms of the real estate that I have in terms of what is asked of me. But no broadcast is the same. And I can assure you big picture, like we do look at everything that people say. And we ain't trying to get worse. Like we're trying to get better. But if you're asking me, I think he still adds tremendous value. I still think that there's a special undeniable quality to our broadcast when he is a part of it. and I can assure you he ain't going nowhere. Again, I hate to put words in his mouth,

but he absolutely loves this job. And I think we had a little bit of an international flair with some of the pay-per-views at the end of the year. You know, there were big shows like UFC 251, 253, 254 that he wasn't a part of because they were happening in Abu Dhabi. But hopefully domestic pay-per-views return here more so in 2021. And he gets a chance to get back out there more often. You know, it's not that easy stepping up every eight weeks

trying to do one of these things and constantly having a revolving door with the broadcast team. But I love the guy. I've never been closer to him than I am right now on January 6, 2021. And hopefully he's here well past me. Big question, John. How do I fucking do is the question. You effing did great, John. You did amazing. Excellent, excellent answer.

I appreciate the candidness. And obviously, a huge question as I'm looking at you right now, true or false, is the mustache sticking around for Fight Island. So does this look like a mustache to you right now? Sort of, right? Or no? Yeah. So I don't know.

It evolves, Mike. I mean, again, it flows so goddamn fast that if I shave everything off right now, I'll have a mustache by the time I board that plane on Saturday. So, yeah, I haven't, I've been rocking this thing now. It's been well over a year. So I don't know. If you want me to wear this at UFC 257, just say the word. It'll be there.

You want the stash? I think you got to keep it, man. Done. Done. Yeah. Break holes. MMAfighting. com.

Mustache stage. Looking like Wade Boggs and Jody Reed, John. Jody Reed, number three in your program right there. You know I like having John Annik on the show? First of all, he's just a wealth of knowledge and information. But secondly, and I don't feel like what I do is like interview people. I feel like they're more conversational. But like having Anik on, it's like two guys sitting at the bar.

I don't know if it's like the Boston connection. I don't know, but I am excited to hear him call the action in Abu Dhabi beginning next Saturday. And if he didn't know, early start time for the first two cards, the January 16th car, which is going to be on ESPN Plus and ABC. Prelims are going to be on ESPN Plus exclusively for that January 16th card, headlined by Max Holloway versus Calvin Cater. Prelims start at noon, and then the main card is just at 3 p.m. Eastern time. That is tremendous.

I love that. But if you thought that was cool, this is interesting too. The Wednesday card, the one headline by Kiesa versus Magni, prelum started 9 a.m. Eastern, noon Eastern main card. It's just awesome. It is just awesome. Love that once in a while. And then, of course, the trip culminates with UFC 257 headline by Connor McGregor versus Dustin Poirier.

Normal start time in the U.S. for that card. First pay-per-view of 2021. Prelims probably started like 630 or 7. ESPN prelims at 8 Eastern time and then excuse me of course the main card at 10 p.m. Eastern standard time. So that's the UFC's future as we head to our next guest

whose future in the sport is no longer with the UFC as he has just signed with the Professional Fighters League. Huge signing. Let's chat with one Anthony Pettis on what the heck. Making his what the heck debut happy to welcome the former UFC lightweight champion of the world who recently made the decision to turn the page in his fighting career.

And maybe he might quite possibly have the shortest free agency in MMA history, if we're being honest. See aside with the Professional Fighters League for the 2021 season, Anthony Pettis joins us on the program. Anthony, how are you, sir? I'm good, man. Can't complain. Congratulations on the signing, Anthony. It's only been a couple of weeks since the news broke,

almost 12 years with the WEC and then subsequently with the UFC. What was that like to put pen to paper, thus closing the door on that pivotal chapter of your career. Oh, it was crazy, man. Honestly, the thing that was most disappointing was not going to do it in front of fans, you know, not having the fans in the audience and like getting that experience of that UFC field one more time. But I think, you know, for me was time. You know, I think it was like one of them things that I thought about at the beginning of last year, you know, after I came off of back-to-back losses, I'm like, I got to figure out what's going on in my career. What is like, what is happening to make these, these fights feel the way they're feeling,

You know, it was like, it was like I was training doing the training. I was busting my butt in training camp. And then I'd get in the fight and it wouldn't be my best performance. And I'm like, you know, something's off. So I went to see a mental psychologist, a psychologist, a sports coach. And speaking with him and training with him, man, it just opened my mind up. Like my eyes up to like my career and my decisions I was making in my career and like the fights I was taking. I was always looking for like the next big thing, you know, it was like I was addicted to like that.

that next big win, that next big thrill, you know, going up to 170, fighting Wonder Boy, going down to 145 and fighting Alavara and Max Holloway. You know, I did some crazy things in my career. And when you're in the trenches, you don't really have time to, like, sit back and look at it. You know, you're like, all right, what's next? What's next? On to the next camp.

On to the next guy. And for me, I fought the best of the best. You know, I fought everybody in the UFC. Like, if you look at my list of names, it's killers row, if you will. You know, it's like, it's all the top guys. And I'm proud of that. You know, I'm proud that I went and fought them good guys. But then when I think about it without the emotion attached and like, you know, the fighter mindset attached, like I'm the best, you know, the best in the world.

I want to show that in the best in the world. It just makes me think that I make the best choices in my career during that time. I was going for like these big names, these big wins and doing these crazy weight cuts where now it's like I want to slow it down a little bit. I want to be a champion, but I don't want to be in that rush to be a champion. Like I don't want to be like, how do I get back to that belt? And that's where I was at in my UFC career. I was always trying to get back to becoming a champion. And going into last year, coming off that last loss, you know, in January, I was, like, let me slow this down.

You know, I didn't fight until May and then I fought again in December. So it was a slower year for me, like, than usual. But I made some lifestyle changes and some life choices that I'm like, you know, this is how I want to end up about my legacy in the sport, how I want to be remembered in this sport. And I think this was one of the big things that guys are going to talk about. You know, most guys, I was very comfortable in the UFC. They took care of me very well. I was, you know, well looked after. But it was like, there are the opportunities out there.

My little brother leaving, you know, going up to Belator was one of the, not main reasons, but one of the reasons where I'm like, yo, I saw him transition over to an organization. I went to corner him at one of the fights, both of his fights, and seeing how he was treated, seeing how the fans respected it. It was like, you know, it made me feel like I got to see what's next. You got to see what else is out there and I got to see, you know, what my worth was. when you had the pen in your hand getting ready to sign that PFL contract, were there like, were there nerves attached to it?

Like you had made the decision to move on and test free agency. But still, as that contract is in front of you, the mighty pen is in your hand. It must have been like a surreal feeling for you. Was it not? Oh, man. It was probably one of the most nervous days in my life, you know? Like, it was like making a big decision, you know, because it was like, and I said, the UFC has been nothing but great to me.

I've had the best opportunities I've gotten treated very, very, very well in the UFC, you know, taking care of very, very well. Great opportunities, man. Like, I grew up under them lights. You know, them gloves are like part of, it was part of my life. You know, like seeing them gloves as part of my life. And then deciding that, you know, I'm going to go see what's next, the next part of my career, the next chapter of my career.

I think you said it very well, like that turning the page onto the next part of my career. I was nervous. Yeah, I definitely still am nervous. Anything could happen, you know, and the best thing about this is I know what my fights are. And the UFC, it's like anything to pop up, a short-notice fight. You got this guy that got hurt. You know, this time I know when I'm fighting. I know the 10 guys that are in my division.

And, you know, I have an opportunity to become a champion in 12 months. When did the fight with Alex Marono come together from your perspective? Like, Alex told me before the fight, it was like two and a half, maybe three weeks before the fight actually happened. He put pen to paper. When did you know about it? Same as that deal. The UFC called me up, like, hey, we got an opportunity on the card. Like that's kind of how always happens.

I told him I wanted to fight. I was like, you know, I won three fights in December. It didn't look like it was going to happen because that card got full. I think Leon Edwards and what's the guy's name? Hamza Tchamayev. There you go. That guy, one of them guys got COVID and opened up a spot on the card. So they hit me up.

They didn't really have an opponent for me. They gave me a list of names. And I'm like, yo, whoever's ready. I'm ready to go, whoever's ready. I didn't want to cut down the 155 in that short. notice because my goal was to go back to 155. It was like three weeks and two and a half weeks. I'm like, oh, that's going to be a crazy way to I rather fight at 170.

So, you know, they got back. And I think they asked Marano's culture, asked Marano before he even like knew what was going on. And I was doing an ESPN interview like right that same minute. I'm like, oh, he took the fight. So like, you know, I give him my quote. I'm like, yo, he's, you know, I knew he was a dangerous guy from Texas, a former teammate of the guy that I fought in January. So it was like, yeah, I kind of want to get that one back out of four to CMMA. And, you know, the rest is history.

You know, he signed the fight, and we went in there and had a good fight, a fun fight, actually. It was a fun fight. When was the last time you had a fight on that short of notice? Cowboy Seroni in May. Yeah, that's right. That's right. What a crazy year this was, man. But the best thing for me was, like, that mindset change.

You know, when I started talking to that coach, I was just ready, like, mentally ready. I didn't have to, like, get so – because I've been doing this so long. I feel like the more pressure you put on yourself, the more, like, things happen in training camp, like little things that we can't control. And these last two camps was like, I was already training. I was in shape. It was just getting little parts of the game, you know, better for my opponent. And I fought cowboy, a former opponent, you know, fought him before.

And then we trained together, you know, so it was like one of them, it was, it was weird, not fighting your friend. But at the same time, we're both warriors. We both go in there and put on for the fans. And that was another fun fight. I think I had great fun fights this year, honestly. I had fun doing it again. As you're making the walk to the Octagon in Las Vegas, like you mentioned, there's no crowd. There's the fanfare that you had hoped for wasn't there.

Did you know right there and then that you were walking to that octagon for the last time? Like, were you 100% sure that this is it or is it still up in the air? It was still up in the air. You know, I was going in there. I knew it was my last fight on my contract. I was like, you, I got to win. I got to perform. I got to look good doing this and I got to have fun doing it.

I try to take that pressure off myself. That whole training camp, it was short camp. I was really like judging my mental preparedness. Like I was like, oh, am I mentally in these training sessions? Am I mentally in this sparring session, these grappling sessions? And I was like basing my, instead of like my physical performance, I was really judging my mental performance. And I will do that for all the rest of my fights.

Like instead of going in there, like trying to win sparring and win grappling and win pad sessions, like I'm going to judge myself on how mentally was I in that pad session, how long was I there in that pad session? Because that's where fighters kind of lose their ability. to grow. And they don't even realize it. We do this so much. You go to these training rooms and like 20 minutes or 30 minutes of that practice, your head's somewhere else. You know, you're thinking about what's what you got to do today, what bills you do, what moves you're going to make, you know, what interviews, like all that stuff is in your head. And then you think about it,

you only really got, you know, 15, 20 minutes of practice because the other one, you're, you're mentally somewhere else. And, you know, once I was aware of that, I started focusing on that part in my training and I could feel my game, you know, picking up again. So that was a great thing that happened my last camp was like changing my my perspective of judging my physical performance to my mental performance. Yeah, I mean, it was it was super noticeable on that night on December 19th. Like you looked, you could tell like just by the look in your eyes, like you looked like free. Is that? I don't know if that's like the right word, but you look just like you, you, like you said, you were having fun. You looked free. And you were actually like, you focused a lot on the mental,

which is great, but you looked in like tremendous physical condition. And I know that you had a phenomenal interview at the ESPN and you discussed the decision to enter sobriety. You were you were sober for several months. I mean, that walked to the octagon, like, how good did you feel physically and mentally? Was that like the best you felt in a long time? Yeah, I think the physical came with the mental side. Like, like, once I freed my mind up and I was like focusing on the right things and I wasn't trying to get these like, I wasn't forcing progress. It was progress was happening naturally. And then like, obviously being sober changes the game up. You know, because like I explained on this, like, I don't think I had a problem where I wasn't addicted to doing these things.

It was just like so many years of these roller coasters of like training camp, not training camp. It became normal. It was like not training camp life. I could drink beer. I could smoke. I could do like all these other things. And then when I'm in training camp, I was super strict. But then the growth wasn't happening because I was always like preparing for an event.

And then like being out of train like even right now without having a fight coming up and actually focusing on small parts of my game and being mentally there and like, all right, I'm going to focus on geotines today and really focus on my guillotines and not like. be clouded with other other thoughts it's such a freeing thing and then like going to that fight like me and my my mental coach was like no let's make sure we're there mentally let's let's have some key words that we can like bring ourselves back and that first round I face some adversity you know I slipped when I did that jump around kick he hit me twice in the face and a blood I felt the blood right away and I'm like in my head I'm like in my head I'm like here it comes and I'm like yo what are you talking about get to get out of your head and get to this fight and then that's that's what I impress myself the most about like being able to bring myself

back, you know, even after I got hit in the face like that, you know, blood was coming out. Every time I get in the nose, I bleed now. Like, it's crazy. But, you know, he got me two good shots. And I talked myself back into being present. And that was huge for me. Isn't that crazy to kind of think about on your career with like the names you fought, the championships, like all that stuff that took you like this long to, to put that in perspective? So crazy, man. I'm like, yo, if I wish I would have pursued this like a long time ago. I was such a man's man, a tough dude. Or I'm like, yeah. I don't need that. I don't need no outside advice. I don't want no one clogging up my head or like,

and then like the first two talks I had with him and I was like, whoa, like this is like, it's a real journey. Like that mental, that mental like journey is like, there's so many good books about it. There's so many great athletes before me that already did this. Like with like, tennis is like a good one that like related to because I feel like there's very specific techniques in tennis like the back hand, the stroke, the athleticism. And like in MMA, if you're not present for one second, you know, you're going to make a mistake. And we're both well-prepared athletes. And 15 minutes goes by like this in that octagon or 25 minutes.

And, you know, when I think about it, I'm like, man, I was just, I was just a killer out there. Man, I was, like, looking for blood when I run. And I mentally wasn't even, like, aware of it. Like, I wasn't aware that I was just so focused on that goal. But then I got that belt. And I think that's when stuff changes for a lot of athletes. So you're, like, so focused on that goal, that gold. When you get that gold, you know, I defended it once.

but then like going into the RDA fight, it was like, I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, if you will. Like it was like, I did that. And then it was like, I lost it and I'm like, man, I want to get back to it. And like the second time around, guys are better.

The guy studied your game. Like people were looking at you as a champion. Like what holes does you have? And, you know, and mentally I was just in and out of it. Like I was in the training camps, but then out of training camp, I wasn't thinking about fighting. I wasn't thinking about the next, you know,

part of my career. So I'm glad that I found it right now and I still have a long time in the sport and I have a whole new journey ahead of me, but it was like, it's crazy when you think about it, man, like how huge that mental aspect is to this game. The timing was perfect because there's your last UFC fight. Everybody was paying attention. Everybody knew it was the last fight on your contract.

And then you enter free agency for what was it like 48 hours? Like, what was that process like for you? I mean, it did not take long for you to make a decision, but was this just like a whirlwind for you or did you already kind of have an idea of where this is going to go? I had an idea of like a new a new a new a new home if you will I just didn't know where it was gonna happen you know I knew I knew we had offers because like you said people know that I was fighting my UFC contract out but I couldn't look at the offers and like all right this is what I want until I was done

with that last fight so I then I got that last fight you know the emotion's super high I'm like all right what's next we had to get clearance from the UFC so the UFC has to like release you your contract even after your fights up they have to release you your contract. So once that happened, that's kind of when I had an opportunity to say yes to something. And, you know, I was looking at a couple deals, a couple opportunities, and the PFL just made the most sense to me, especially at this point of my career, like, their format for becoming a champion. I can become a champion in 12 months. It's like, you know, it's a season. I know what I'm going to fight. It's definitely a whole different experience for me, you know,

having a tournament style like this. And also that I get to be the face of this company. I know there's other big names in this, but like, I'm taking it on my own, my own shoulders to be the face of this company. I feel like it's my job to make this company a household name and people want to tune in and know when the next PFL fights are happening. And, you know, so that was another big thing for me, like saying yes to this part of my career. It's like Bellator, like one FC, same kind of concept as UFC. I'd have to work my way up to a title shot. I'd have to find out, you know, who's the next guy in line, try, you know, try that aspect to it. Whereas this is like, it's already laid out how to become a champion.

I know how to do it. It's in 12 months and a year span. And there's 10 guys in my division and only four of them I have to beat. So it's exciting for me. Was there like a last ditch effort from the UFC to try to snatch you back up? Or like once they said, all right, man, you can go say yes to somebody else. Was it just that was like the mutual parting of the ways, so to speak? Well, we were going back and forth when I had two fights left, one fight left.

You know, they offered a contract. They offered, they weren't cutting me. A lot of people are like, oh, they're making all these big cuts. I'm afraid to get cut. Like, I wasn't getting cut. I wasn't on the chopping block. Like, I had an offer from the UFC. But that offer was, like, putting me back in the same rat race I've been in, like, if you will.

Like, I've been in that rat race. And I know, like, I was going down at 155. Everybody's trying to get that belt again. There's some names in front of me. I mean, it would have been fun to go back there and, you know, take care of some guys that I had, that I know I could have beat and I lost to. But, you know, when I made this decision, I took all that emotion away from it. I took away, like, trying to be a champion in the UFC, trying to like re-come back from losses that I had, you know, rematches that I wanted. And I was like, what makes sense for my career?

What makes sense for Anthony Pettis right now? And, you know, it didn't take long. I knew what my goals were. And these guys were giving me a format for it. I mean, you've been doing this a long time. You're a prize fighter, Anthony, as most people are in this sport. I mean, you have to be to do what you guys do. But you're a professional athlete at the same time.

Money is awesome. Like it is just awesome. And seeing a million dollars for a prize just looks great, I'm sure. But, you know, the format and the way it's structured, is it more about the prize or is it more about starting this thing? You said, you know, right after bat, like you could be the face of this organization. You're going to start this thing with a huge bullseye on your back. Like, is it more about the money or more about the challenge. Like getting to New Year's Eve, winning the whole thing from a competitive standpoint. Like, what stands out more to you? I mean, don't get it twisted. The money's for sure the motivation and all this. You know, I've got to take care of. my family, my, my, my daughter, you know, so the money's definitely, you know, there for me. But it's like, now I was making good money in the UFC, you know, it wasn't just like, you know, it was, it was like, this is a crazy switch for me. But it's like the, the opportunity to become a champion, a new format, and becoming the face of this company is a huge, a huge part of this decision for me.

But, I mean, a million dollars is a million dollars. So it's like, yeah, that's definitely still the go. But everything that comes along with that, you know, you know, the being out of fight four times next year. Knowing when my fights are, I don't have to take no two week notice fights. I don't have to do, and I don't have to put myself in crazy positions and cut crazy weight to go get a title shot or like, you know, do these things that I've been doing. All that kind of played into my decision.

Of course, the last two seasons at 155 for the PFL were won by Nathan Schulte. The guy has looked great, unbeaten in two seasons, hasn't lost a fight in almost four years. Everyone, as soon as you sign, it was like, oh, man, Pettus and Nathan, it seems like that that's the dream matchup in this division. And we don't know what it's going to look like bracket-wise and not bracket-wise, but just like regular season-wise, what's everything starts up divisually. But the competitive part of you already has to be looking at this matchup, right? Most definitely.

Yeah, I think, you know, when I was looking at all these lightweight divisions, I knew I was going back down a lightweight neck this year. You know, obviously you got to look at that guy. You know, he won twice in a row. Definitely looked great. You know, he had some great striking, great jiu-jitsu, well, all-round great fighter, honestly. And he comes from a great camp, you know. So he has guys testing them all the time in his camp. But he hasn't fought Anthony Pettis, man. He hasn't fought somebody like me. And the way my

mindset is right now, I'm just excited to go out there and actually perform. Not only win, but perform and, you know, carry that flag on my back. A couple last things, Anthony, and I do appreciate the time. But, you know, kind of going back to that interview with the SPN before your last fight and some of the things that we talked about here, to sort of add to that, and I was actually thinking about this ever since the fight with Marono and seeing your demeanor like we talked about.

Like, you know, looking back seven, eight years ago, you're the UFC lightweight champion of the world. You're on the Wheaties box. And I mean, you're the freaking man, Anthony. And you're the guy. You're becoming the face of the sport that has had to continuously fight for mainstream acceptance and exposure for so long.

This is just incredible to watch as a fan. But on the flip side, you sort of touched on this, it had to come with this immense pressure attached to it. So I'm curious, were you happier then when you were a world champion on top of the world in this sport and having all the success you were having, but balancing all those pressures and the things that come with that? Or are you happier right now, new promotion, new opportunity, new mindset, new lease on life? Are you even able to answer that question?

I mean, that's a great question. And it's kind of hard to answer because, like, when in 2013, you know, that was my only go was to be the UFC champion. I didn't think of no other organization. I wasn't even focused on money at that point. I was like, I want to be the best in the world because I was getting taken care of pretty well when I came over from the WEC. And once I accomplished that, you know,

there's a lot that comes along with that. And you see other athletes that, you know, there are other fighters that, you know, it's hard to hold the belt. That's why Anderson Silva is one of the goats to me. Like how long he hold that belt for. John Jones, how long he held that belt for? Like, there's a lot that comes with that fame,

that target on your. back, you know, like everybody wants a piece of you. And, you know, I was, I was young when that happened to me. I was 23 when I won the, the WC belt, 26 when I won the UFC belt. And I didn't make the best decisions. And I mean, the first to admit that, you know, I made really bad decisions outside of my training camps. In training camps, I was focused. I was 100% all in. But outside of the training camps, that's where I was making mistakes. And now that I'm in this stage of our career, I'm past, like, them decisions. Like, I don't even need to impress somebody. I'm not trying to like go out and and buy the next big thing or like yes i've done that already it's like

now i'm back focused on legacy and it feels good to be like focused on the career again like that like even my outside of my season i'm building up a fight team and i got guys signing under my management so it's like um a lot more opportunities but the right opportunities not like stuff that's going to pull me away from my goals the management too i mean you're you're it's good to stay busy and have like different things right like i mean the fight game can consume you in a lot of ways like you focus on it too much. At least you're still like in the fight game. Like you're still thinking about it, but now you're helping other people. That's got to be really pivotal for you at this point in your career. Yeah, but I was doing it too with Serge. You know, my little brother, I was like kind of

helping them out this whole time and all the guys at Rufus for, but like I wasn't officially doing. You know, we had managers and stuff that was helping. So like me starting this year is like, you know, I have, I have the whole thing here. You know, I have like from the training to the relationships to to everything a fighter needs to succeed. And I know the mistake. And I know the mistake. that they got to look out for. So that was a big reason why I'm, you know, starting my management company and helping these other guys out. And we're starting from the ground up, you know, it's like me starting.

These guys, like I have some guys that are in the developmental team, amateur team and a professional team where like they're the newest new. Like they're kind of the green, green guys, no fights yet. And then once we start getting these guys fights and they start progressing, I think my management companies didn't make a name pretty quick for itself because we have, we have the great foundation here with Rufus Sport down the block, my gym. I'm in front of my gym right now doing this interview. I got my team about to train.

Yeah, it makes you stay part of that game. You know, I got to be in there helping these guys out. And honestly, when you teach something, that's when you know you mastered it. And I think when I teach these skillsets, I can explain it on the lowest level or on the highest level. There's something that helps you with that. That's something to be sad about that. So I'm excited about, you know, this chapter in my career on the fighting side, you know, building up my management team with my gym. So much stuff to be excited for for 2021.

one. I'm sure you don't have any regrets with the UFC career and everything. It's all learning lessons along the way. But is there like a certain fight that you just wish you you could have gotten that you didn't? Tony Ferguson. I said it like the last right after that last fight. You know, if I would have stayed around the UFC, that would have been a fight that I definitely want it. And not because like, you know, where he's at right now. Tony's a tough dude. But I feel like I was that close, man. I was that close to win in that fight. It was like, and it was a fight of the year. We put a show on. So they're the other kind of fights that I like. But yeah, Tony Ferguson was one of them fights that I wish I can get back.

Nate Diaz, obviously, that was another fight that I wish I can get back. But like I said, when I was making that decision, I'm like, let me take the emotion away from all of them fights and like what's really best for my career moving forward. And this deal that's in front of me, man. Like this year in front of me is very exciting. And then last thing, I have to ask you about this and I'm sorry to do so. But I know you've done some interviews and you waited on this whole thing, this Jake Paul versus Ben Asken fight. You said you'd be down to help Ben get ready. And I mean, do you honestly think this fight happens?

Like, if it does, I'm sure you'll help Ben and be a good teammate. But do you feel like in the next two months, you'll be working with Ben Ascrant to get ready to box Jake Paul? I just feel like the both of them are trolling all of us, Anthony. Maybe you can provide some insight. I don't know. I mean, from what Ben said that his team was really in negotiation of actually giving him a contract and a deal. And then once he said yes to the contract, they went radio silent on him.

So that was the last thing I heard. And that's probably like a week ago. So I'm not sure if that's like part of their game plan or if they're going to Ben will take the fight. You know, Ben's that dude. Like Ben will take that box in match for sure. So, I mean, it's kind of on them now. I think Ben agreed to it.

And it's kind of on their side now. That's so crazy. This is so 2020 into 2020. Yeah, 2020, man. Anything can happen? A lot of great insight from Anthony Pettis. Definitely one of the more intriguing storylines heading into the PFL's 2021 season, of course. They didn't have a 2020 season due to the pandemic and everything going on.

But despite that, they made a lot of noise, big signings. Of course, you know, even dating back to before the 2020 season was supposed to kick off, they signed Rory McDonald. Now we get Anthony Pettis, Fabrice Over Doom. It should be a very interesting year. And then I'm actually excited to see what else they can come up with before this 2021 season rolls on. Let's see what they can do.

I'm intrigued. One of my intriguing storylines into 2021 is, all things PFL. 2018 was a big year for them. It was a refreshing change of pace. You know what I mean? I thought the concept was interesting. I think a lot of people questioned it,

but they pulled it off. It was really fun. 2019 was, I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't 2018. It definitely wasn't. A lot of chaos, a lot of craziness happened. But maybe absence is what's going to make

the heart grow fun. or we will soon find out what the PFL is going to be. I am excited. No doubt about that. We do have one more guests coming up to put a bow on this episode of the program, but I will go ahead and say my goodbyes here before we get to that. So first off, a big shout out and a thank you to all of you listening, watching the program. 2021 is going to be a kick-ass year.

I'm hopeful that 2021 is a kick-ass year for everybody. I look forward to hopefully doing some of that ass-kicking. with all of you. But yeah, let's do that. But don't forget, we'll keep you posts on when we plan to make the schedule shift with this show moving to Tuesdays, between the links moving to Thursdays. Excited for that to happen. Of course, big thank you to Casey Lydden on the production, Alex Savas and Jose Youngs

and the graphics and dealing with me pestering them for graphics and all sorts of craziness. They are the best. Big shout out to the guests, the fighters. And once again, all of you guys. And as always, have a heck of a week, everybody. last weekend without the UFC for a little while. So get ready for that fun and exciting eight-day stretch in Abu Dhabi.

But we're going to leave you with my conversation with the James Krause. All right, the James Krause back on the show, one of the best 170-pounders in the sport, one of the best coaches in the sport, as we are now in a new year and a lot of opportunities ahead of us, James. Welcome back, sir. How are you?

I'm good, man. Just enjoying the night off. I was taking Wednesday nights off. So it's nice to not get beat up on a weeknight for a change. There you go. Well, I appreciate you doing this on your night off. I was not aware of that. No worries.

So we spoke right after your win over Claudio Silva on Fight Island, and you were waiting to, it was a couple days after. You're waiting to get your knee checked out once you got back into the U.S. And you thought it might have been a partial ACL tear, but you didn't know for sure what kind of answers were you able to get? It was a, ended up being a, can you see me? Yeah, there you are. Okay. It ended up being a partial MCL tear, which is what I thought it was going to be.

That's what I told me there. It's nothing serious. No surgery or anything like that. You know, I'm, I think it's, I don't think it'll ever be the same, but I'm pretty close. You know, it's, I don't think it's, it's not too terrible. It would be all right. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm about as good as I'm going to be there. Yeah, I mean, you're not a guy that goes out and fights like five, six, seven times a year anyway. So it's like, the layoffs probably going to be like what it would normally be. There was no injury, right? I'm already training every day again, so it's no problem. Yeah, we're good.

Well, we have a lot to discuss, James. First off, we saw that your old friend, Joachim Buckley, has his next fight booked on January 16th, booked against Alessio to Cherico. And it seemed like everybody, including Dana White, thought a fight between yourself and Buckley, this was the direction to go because of what had been said over the last several months.

Let's just go ahead and address this because I saw on social media after we confirmed this fight, you were taking a little bit of a beating. People were accusing you of ducking him, which is just so ridiculous to even say out loud to you, but what happened from your perspective? Why did this fight not get put together between you and Joaquin Buckley? I'm not really sure.

I don't have the answer to that, to be honest with you. I've asked for it twice. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I don't want to keep talking about it because I feel like this is a fight that's not going to happen. So I'm not going to keep, I don't want to keep talking shit about something that's not going to happen.

There's nothing that's going to come from it. And I don't think it's on his end, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think it's not that he doesn't want to fight me. I'm not saying he's ducking me, but to say that I'm ducking him is absurd. And he didn't, I didn't hear him say that. But from anybody that knows me or has followed me at all in my career, knows that that that's not true. I've asked for the fight.

They didn't want to make the fight. I can't, I can't force him to do it. You know what I mean? I'm not sure why. I don't know the answer to that. But it doesn't really, it doesn't really matter to me, man. And I haven't lost a minute to sleep over it. So it makes no difference to me.

My bills are paid regardless. Yeah, I mean, we talked about it. We talked about it in nauseam. I'm sure you've talked about it a million times. But there was a post you made like right around Thanksgiving time. And it was something the effective sign the contract, sign it now, or we're done. I'm moving on. So ship sailed in your mind?

Well, that was just me saying to everybody that was that I'm ducking him is like, listen, I've asked for the fight. I don't know. I've done everything on my end that I can. do to get the fight. Yeah, and like I hope I don't see this on Monday as like clickbait because I feel like I've done a couple of these interviews and it's like, you know, they chop up this much of it of what you said. And I'm over it.

You know, I pretty much said, hey, I asked for the fight. They don't want to make the fight happen. No problem. But quit saying I'm ducking people because I'm not. I've never ducked to anybody in my life. And I fought. I fought. I mean, look at the resume.

You know what I mean? Like look at my. resume, compare my resume to his. You know, it's not, I'm not scared to him. I'm sure he's not scared to me. I tried to make the fight happen. They didn't want to make it happen. Okay, cool. On to the next. Yeah, I mean, you just, just look at your last fight. Like, you took, you, you went across the world on like two weeks notice against a guy who went like 14 fights in a row. It's crazy to think that you're ducking anybody right now. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not ducking anybody, man. That's, uh, that people can say what they want. They can have their opinion on,

on who would win or lose that fight. And they're entitled to that opinion, but to say that I'm Duck in him is absurd. Well, it seems at least for right now, based on your social media, that perhaps your sites might be set on a different competitor or more like a competitor seems to have a site set on you because earlier this week, you took to Instagram, and I saw this fight poster featuring yourself in one Diego Sanchez, and he threw some screenshots of a DM that he sent you.

I'm just pulling it up real quick. So for those who didn't see it, it said, Hello, James. You're a smart guy. Well, Matt's smart anyways. He's spelled you were wrong also. We're reading this. Trying to ignore the grammatical errors here. But you had talked bad on my mentor. When you don't even know him, he's actually a really amazing human being. I didn't want to get all heated and say, F you, so I won't go there. It's cool, bro. I know you don't know. I'm going to retire soon. Probably May, maybe April. Maybe I can show you some of Joshua's methods in the Octagon. If it's not good timing, we should train, and I'll teach you some new shit. Breathe in your blessings, Diego Sanchez. Of course, the Joshua he's speaking of is his mentor and coach Joshua Fabia, who has faced a ton of public criticism.

And apparently you have had some not so nice things to say about him. Where did this all come from? Oh, I don't know him as a person. Maybe he is a good guy. I don't know him. I've never said bad. Well, that's not necessarily true. I feel like he's a master manipulator.

You know what I mean? Like, and I responded to, I'll go into this. I responded to Diego and I said, I'm sure he's a nice guy. He just don't know shit about fighting. And listen, man, like, first of all, like, I feel like there's been a couple people that said, like, there's brocode and not sharing DMs. Like, this wasn't a fucking conversation we had back and forth. You know what I mean?

Like, if, like, if there's, I'd never shared the Buckley, uh, the conversation because that was a back and forth, that was a back and forth dialogue. I didn't share that. That's broco. There was no dialogue here. I said, you can get it. Like, let's go. Ask for it.

I'm here. You know what I mean? Like, there was no dialogue. And if you're going to call me out, like, what do you what do you what do you what do you he's not scared but I just don't understand the the not posting DMs if there was dialogue back and forth I can see that but that was the end of it I said let's go like I mean I ain't hard to find man uh anyway uh yeah I mean I basically just said I think his coach is a joke and apparently he took offense to that how long ago is

this this like six eight months ago yeah I should I forgot all about it man like uh no this is probably six, eight months ago, maybe even longer. I just said, I think the dude's a master manipulator. I think he's a joke. I don't think he knows what he's talking about. And I, I'm sure he's a good dude, you know. I don't know him personally. But I don't think he knows shit about the sport.

I don't think he knows anything about combat sports, period. What's interesting about him is that, like, after the Pajada fight and even after the Kiyazza fight, it wasn't just like interviews with Diego, his interviews with, like, both of them. So like he was in the limelight. And it's not like he just flew under the radar. And he might have flown under the radar for the Mickey Golf Likes. I didn't even know anything about him until the Kiesa fight when he was like the only guy in his corner. And then like he got in all these interviews and we got to see more with him. So in a way, it was just like, he was just everywhere. So it was like it was almost like the criticism.

I'm not going to say it was warranted, but like you weren't you weren't you weren't attacking his character as a human. You were just judging him like answering a fight question. The only thing that you could say that I said bad by his character is I said he was a master manipulator. And I truly believe that. Like, he's a dude that you see on the McDojo Instagram page that it was like doing magical shit and people believe it. You know what I mean? And unfortunately, he's just got a hold of Diego who believes it. And I don't know what they got, you know, what that's all about or whatever.

But Diego should know better. And he's always been kind of a little – Diego's always been a little bit odd anyway. So, man, who am I to, who am I to, you know, to, I'm just giving my opinion. You know what I mean? If you don't like it, fight me. You know what I don't know what to say. You don't know, I don't like it, fight me. Apparently he wants to fight me.

But I haven't heard a response from him since I posted that or his or his guy. When did he, when did he send you that DM? Got a couple days before that. Okay. So it wasn't too long ago. When you like, like, when you saw that you had a DM from Diego Sanchez, like what were you thinking like was it something you had to look at right away like how did you even react to it was in my other folder i don't check them you know all the time so i whatever i looked at

it and uh i hardly ever check them to be honestly but for some reason that it just so happened that i checked it that day and uh and to say oh what's this guy won't i mean it's been eight months ago you know i forgot all about it so i mean i still believe that and i still am saying it And, you know, it holds true. But, you know, like I said, you want to fight me? Okay, cool. Like, let's go. I mean, April or May, I think it makes sense.

He wants one more. I mean, listen, this guy, I'll be honest, like, one of the big reasons I became a fan of the sport was because of Diego Sanchez on the first season of the ultimate fighter, like, just watching him and just being Diego, like, it got me into the sport. So, like, you could be the man's last fight. Like, is that something that would mean a lot to you as a fan? a coach to fighter?

Yeah, listen, from a competitor's standpoint, he's obviously, he needs to be in the Hall of Fame, in my opinion. He was a pioneer of the sport. He's been, I mean, he's been fighting. He's almost 40 years old. So just him competing at the high level at 40 years old is amazing in itself. I won't be in the UFC when I'm 40. He's 39, I believe.

But, you know, he's Ultimate Fighter 1, I think, and won that season. It's fought the who's who of any, you know, lineup of UFC. see vets. He's fought everybody. So, is there a part of me that wants to fight him? Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to fight a legend like him. But from a competitor's standpoint, yeah, I have a lot of respect for him.

But from a standpoint of like where he's at in his career, I don't I don't, you know what I mean? I don't think we're on the same level by any means. And even more so, I think his coaches is hindering his career. I mean, there are a lot

of people obviously, and I'm sure you've seen this, that They're concerned with Diego. Like, they love him. They appreciate everything he's done for the sport, but they're concerned about his health and his mental state. I mean, what do you think about the Diego Sanchez that we've seen over the last couple of years? Like, I know you've had opinions about his coach,

but like what about like Diego the fighter? Like what have you seen over the last couple of years? Are you as concerned as a lot of other people might be? I mean, I hate to say that I'm concerned. It's not my job to be concerned with the dude. But yeah, I mean, to say they're there, if you're going to just watch and to say there hasn't been some kind of decline there, you would be you would be

blind to say that that has not been a fact that there's been a decline in his his skill, his performance, you know, all in all, and even his, it seems like his mental health. Listen, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not in any, any shape to comment on somebody's mental health, I guess, but it just seems from the outside looking in

that there's definitely some things going on. And, you know, if he wants to fight me, dude, I would love to fight him from a competitor standpoint. I don't feel like we're on the same level by any means, but am I going to turn down a fight against a legend like him? Absolutely not. Somebody's got to fight him. Right.

I agree. I agree. It seemed like maybe him and Damia and Maya were going to meet at some point. Nothing's on the book. So, I mean, he called you out. It's right there. And I'll wait for him. I don't have.

I'm not in any hurry. Right, because James Krause, the fighter can wait, but James Krause, the coach cannot wait because a lot of your fighters are starting to get booked up, man. We saw Kevin Kroom. He's going to fight Alex Casares. Of course, Megan Anderson's title fight with the man of Nunes got rebooked from March. I mean, I want to start there.

Like, it's the fight game and hiccups happen. You know this as well as anybody, especially in this crazy time in the world. But when Megan found out that December 12th wasn't happening, how did she react to that? Oh, she was devastated for sure. We had to talk about it. You know, it's just you get that opportunity, you know, especially with the implications. But you get that opportunity. And it's just like, you know, that's a potential.

a life-changing moment for her. And then now that's, we didn't get rescheduled. We just got at first, it was just, hey, this is not happening right now. We are going to reschedule it, but there's no date set, right? So they had to come back with us about a month later and say, okay, let's go with March 6th now. Was the, as a coach, do you feel like the postponement was like maybe good timing? Like, I mean, you don't want to overtrain. You want to peek at a certain point, but still, like, first UFC title fight, chance to face the greatest of all time.

extra time to prepare can't hurt all that much, right? Like, do you guys look at it like that? Like extra time, this could be a benefit to you. That's how I looked at it for sure. I mean, it's definitely not going to hurt us, right? I mean, we're not. It's not going to hurt us at all. The thing about her is, is, I say it's not going to hurt.

It can't hurt us. You know what I mean? And that's, I feel like she would have been ready in December. She'll be ready March 6th. Like, to me, it's tomato tomato. I'm not going to complain over more time to, prep. But, you know, sometimes she gets, we get in these long camps, because we always have a lot of notice for her fights. You know what I mean? So there's always like 12 weeks notice. And anytime that

you give that fight or 12 weeks to work, sometimes you can get over training in. And like, for example, her last fight, she was, her weight was just like oddly low. And she was ran down. And we're talking like three, three and a half weeks out before the fight. And, you know, I said, listen, like you got to go home. You look like shit. Like I literally told you. color of that in the middle of practice. I said, you look like shit. Go go fuck home and go eat. Go eat whatever you want today. I don't care what it is. And she had five guys twice. And I was like, go eat. You know what I mean? And like, and you can, she can do that because she's earned, you know, she's disciplined. She's very disciplined. Two discipline in fact at times. So, yeah, we're good. I mean, she's looking great. I mean, we're looking great. She's looking good. Her rounds look good. She looks good. She looks good. She's ready. I remember when she first got signed to the UFC, they wanted to throw her in with Cyborg for the title, like right away for her first fight.

And her and I have had conversations over the years about, you know, one, just trying to get into the UFC and the struggle that was for her because the division wasn't really there. They weren't sure what they were going to do with it. And then we've had conversations probably over the last year about like some of the things that she's dealt with mentally and, you know, how she's still working on that. She's made that a priority. So as someone who's been around her and his coach her for a while, like the difference between the Megan Anderson that came into the UFC to the Megan Anderson that we're going to see in March 6th. These are probably like two completely different people from mental perspective. Is that accurate? A thousand percent.

It's not even close. I think just her ability to be at peace with, you know, the stressors and the anxiety and the, you know, the emotion and the pressure that comes with, you know, getting ready for a fight in general, let alone a title. fight. I think just, I don't think those go away. You know what I mean? Like, but it's, some people are better at, some people are better at dealing with those than others. And I just think she would kind of get, she would get in her own head before. And now I think she's much better at dealing with those things and using them as a positive, rather than as a negative. And just like with anybody else, there's always, there's always days that, you know, that monster creeps up on you, but she's great. You know, she's, uh, come, come March 6th, there'll be no, there'll be no reason,

that we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't win in the world title. There'd be no outside influence that, you know, it's not that we weren't ready or her, mentally she wasn't there. Like, all the boxes are checks on our end. We just got to go execute. Can we get Grant Doss in the damn fight? The guy's on social media shouting for a fight every day. What's going on here?

I know. I know. I hope. Trust me. Trust me. However much you guys hear, I hear it 10 times more. So it's, I hope to get the damn kid a fighting game off my back. I think we're going to get something big, though.

I think they're in the, their work. on something, I think they're going to get a pretty high profile guy. All right. That's awesome. Who's next? Like, who's the next one you think we're going to see? I mean, listen, I know you don't want to, like, grade your fighters, like your prospects and your up-and-comers, but we saw Jeff Molina get a contract.

Kevin Krum gets signed. Who could be next? Who could be next to get over that hump? There's three guys that come to mind, like, next. And we ask who's next. Three guys come to mind. One is going to be David Onama. I believe he's six and O with six finishes, five, I believe, in the first round.

And then Trey Ogden is up there. He's up there. He's had a lot of, you know, been doing well on LFA and spot on some other show on our show on Fight Pass as well. And then Mike Breeden, fought on Contendenters series. Lost on Contenders series had a great showing, you know, went after, just started a little slow. but he's coming off a really awesome body shot knockout and he's explosive, he's exciting. He has the style that those guys want.

So I think it kind of depends on what weight class, but those are the guys that I believe that will be next out of our gym. What did you think of Jason Witt's follow-up, the sophomore appearance? Good God, man. He looked tremendous, man. He looked so good.

This is the guy we've been waiting and it was nice to know that he had some time to prepare for a fight unlike the last one where even like hours, before he didn't even know if he was going to make that walk. Whole different situation this time around. And I thought he got the big fat hose job and should have got a bonus in that fight. Yeah.

Yeah, we had some really good talks. You know, him and I did before and I could just tell going into it. He was, you know, I truly believe that there's times where a fighter walks in that night and there's just nothing that anyone or anything can do to stop that person from winning that night. Now I just feel like, just where he was, you know, it was just his night. I just don't think there was too many people that were going to beat him that night. That must have meant a lot to you too because, I mean, he's been so close so many times in getting that call.

Yeah, I mean it doesn't count until you get your first win, right? So just because you're there, it doesn't mean you're there. And, you know, it's really important to get that first one out of the way, you know, especially coming off of a loss, especially right now, you know, they're purging the roster. And luckily, all my guys are coming off of, you know, I don't have any like, oh, and two guys or anything like that. So I think I have just a couple guys coming off of a loss, but they have to have previous wins.

So, you know, we're, you have to be conscious of that right now. You know, the USC is looking to cut anybody for any reason. They're letting go of a lot of high profile guys to clear, clear roster space for these younger hungry guys, you know, and my guys are in that, in that group. But we still got to be, we still got to be ready. You know, we had a great year last year. Don't plan on slowing down anytime soon.

But, you know, it's a new year. And we got to stay focused. Absolutely. Well, listen, I know it's your night off. I don't want to keep you from your family any longer. I appreciate the time, as always, James. Always a pleasure. All the best of you and the team, my man. Hopefully we get to see you and Diego get in there.

If not, I'm sure you're okay with that. And whenever it happens, it happens. I appreciate it. It's on, man. All right, man. Take care. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.