My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 1 - DANA WHITE

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

Join Robbie Fox on the very first episode of My Mom's Basement, where he breaks down all you need to know about what this podcast is/will be (MMA, Nerd Culture, Music, Movies, Pro Wrestling & More!), interviews UFC President Dana White, and teases the topics and guests that'll be covered in the next few episodes. Outro Music: "Stand By Me" - OasisYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. My name is Robbie Fox, and if you don't know me already, I am a blogger for Barstool Sports. I cover all things UFC, MMA, wrestling, a lot of nerdy shit, a lot of comic book culture, a lot of nerd culture. I'll dabble in some music, some movies from time to time. And thank you for downloading this podcast and giving it a shot knowing pretty much nothing going in, I assume. I dropped this as a surprise. I just dropped it out of nowhere. I thought, let's lower all expectations. Let's actually just remove them all together. And let's hit the people with an episode without any lead

up. So let's talk about what this podcast is going to be, being that I did that. Like I said, I cover a bunch of different eclectic things for Barstool. And MMA has always been the main one. So as Barstool's MMA UFC blogger, the most frequently asked question I get in my mentions and in my DMs is, when are you going to start a UFC podcast? I would say the second most frequently asked question I get, both in my mentions and DMs and everything I see that comes in, is when are you going to bring back From the Top Rope, which was, if you're unfamiliar,

a wrestling podcast that I used to host with Jared Karabas, another blogger at Barstool. And we had this podcast for a little under a year, I believe, and it was canceled. It was a wrong place, wrong time type deal, and there were a few other factors at play in the cancellation of that podcast, but a lot of people liked it, and a lot of people enjoyed our takes on pro wrestling. As I started to cover more and more things and dip my toes in all these different waters, and the music stuff, the movie stuff, the nerd culture stuff, Star Wars, Avengers, everything like that,

the questions started getting more and more niche and more and more different. So I started kind of building the idea for this show in my mind recently where I said, what if I could just podcast about everything that I blog about and collect all of these questions? When are you going to start an MMA podcast? When are you going to bring back the wrestling podcast? When are you going to start podcasting about Star Wars and the Avengers and your favorite rock and roll bands and albums and stuff like that?

And what if I just made it all one show? I feel like that would work. So I started thinking about it, started thinking these are the kind of conversations that you have with someone in your mom's basement. I had some conversations with my brother about it. And we kind of built this show. My mom's basement is going had some conversations with my brother about it, and we kind of built this show. My mom's basement is going to be all of those things. So I know that's a bit of a weird concept and a weird selling point for this show, in that if you're an MMA fan and you're subscribing

to this for the MMA content, maybe only half of the episodes are going to interest you, and maybe those are the only ones that appeal to you. And if you're a wrestling fan and you're looking forward to From the Top Rope being back, maybe pump the brakes because it's not back fully. We might do an episode here and there on wrestling whenever something big is happening, which if you're a wrestling fan, you know WrestleMania is right around the corner, and we've got a bunch of fun stuff planned for you for that. But basically, doing a show like this, I believe, is the right way to do it. I believe it's the best way to do it. And it solves a few issues for me. Those issues being with an MMA podcast, if it's just solely

covering mixed martial arts, it's difficult for me to get a guest week to week. I get interview opportunities pretty frequently, but not frequently enough to warrant a week to week show. And the co-host issue is a big one in that nobody else at Barstool really watches MMA at least enough to host a podcast about it, so we would probably have to outsource a host, and it's always difficult when somebody's not in office with Barstool, as it's proven to be in the past. The wrestling thing, me and Jared are constantly so busy with other things. Jared with the radio show, the baseball stuff, me with the MMA stuff, the whatever I've got going on video-wise and content-wise like that. It's hard to get us in the same room week to week recording a wrestling podcast, getting a guest. So bringing that back

completely from the top rope as a, as a, just a wrestling show would also be difficult. And then everything else, all of the interview opportunities that I get, and I go, Ooh, that would be so awesome to interview that person, but I have nowhere to put it in terms of the music stuff, and the movie stuff, and whatever else there might be. I've gotten a few, like, comic book writers, their publicists reach out, and they say, hey, would you like to interview them? And I go, oh my god, that would be so cool, but what am I going to do with it? Am I going to post it to the blog as, like, a Barstool Sounds thing? Am I going to record it and the blog as like a Barstool Sounds thing? Am I going to record it and try to put a video to it?

It's just difficult to say, yes, this belongs here when everything I cover is so niche. So why don't we put all of the niche into one bubble and we call it My Mom's Basement. That's what this show is. And another reason I'm doing it is because I really miss being able to sit down with a couple buddies and record a podcast. And especially, you know, speaking to some people that I admire very much, like we used to do with From the Top Rope. It's just something that I've been like, damn, I'd really like to get back to that. So I'm going to have my friends on constantly. I'm going to have Trent talking anything Roommate Chronicles and living together and funny stories that we may have.

Clem's agreed to come on all the time, talk anything that we may have to talk about as far as Star Wars news, Marvel news, anything that falls into the nerd category that you would probably talk about not only in your mom's basement, but in a comic book shop. We'll have Clem on. We'll have YP on. We'll have Rhea on. We'll have Clem on. We'll have YP on. We'll have Rhea on. We'll have Large on. We'll have all of my friends from the office on at some point to talk about whatever they want to talk about. I

want this to be a very chill show, a very chill environment where we come on, we laugh, and we go have us a week afterwards. So without further ado, let's get into the very first guest on my show. Let's get into my conversation with him. I said, we got to kick the show off with a bang. I gave Uncle Dana a call. I said, Dana, will you come into my mom's basement and chat all things UFC with me? Will you chat Conor with me? And he said, Bob, anything for you. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome on UFC president Dana White. Hello? Hey, it's Dana White.

Hey, Dana. Just the guy I was looking to interview. Thanks Dana White. Hey, Dana. Just the guy I was looking to interview. Thanks for calling. No, pleasure. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. How are you doing? I'm good, man.

Good. Yeah, congrats on the new deal. Seven years as president of the UFC, extended that contract. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to it. We're working on a lot of fun stuff over here, man. We bought 130,000 square foot building next door and five more acres. So now we said the UFC headquarters sits on over 60

acres and we're building some, some crazy shit next door. That's incredible. And aside from all of that, aside from everything you've got going on with the UFC and as good a job as you do as the figurehead, I got to tell you, the main reason I was so thrilled to hear that you re-signed for seven more years is because there's no president or commissioner of any sports league that chirps fans on Instagram quite like you do. It's unbelievable. I just scrubbed through your Instagram comments and you're boom roasting people left and right. It's some of the most hilarious shit I've ever seen. I'm pretty confident that I've made more people go private than anybody else.

I think so. Let's start it off with this past weekend, UFC Nashville. We had an awesome card and an awesome main event, Stephen Wonderboy Thompson versus Anthony Pettis. And, oh my goodness, Anthony Pettis knocked Stephen Wonderboy Thompson into another dimension. Yeah, it was a decent card. There were some really good fights on there and there were some stinkers too. So we needed the

main event to deliver and it did. It was a great fight. Both guys fought a great fight and, you know, Anthony Pettis shocked the world on Saturday night. So really, really good main event. And also I got to bring up Bryce Mitchell, Thug Nasty. This guy is absolutely electric. I thought he was like one of our rough and rowdy fighters at first. What did you think of him saying he's got to take time off because he's got Jerry Springer shit going on at home? He's asking for Reebok shorts. He's yelling about Arkansas like he was yelling at nobody about Arkansas.

Yeah, no, he's got some personality. We're going to try to work out those camo shorts for him. Work out those camo shorts. Maybe by the time as Jerry Springer shit's over, you know, he's got some personality. We're going to try to work out those camo shorts for him. Work out those camo shorts. Maybe by the time his Jerry Springer shit's over, you know, he'll be ready to come back and wear them. And next weekend, first ESPN card in Philly, main evented by a fight that they should throw you in prison for because it's such a savage fight.

It's Edson Barboza versus Justin Gaethje. How much are you looking forward to this one? Oh, I'm very excited for this. You know, tell me the last time you saw Justin Gaethje in a bad fight. The guy's always entertaining in killer fights, unbelievable. And Edson Barboza is a stud. So this should be an abs, like you said, this thing should be nothing but pure violence. Yeah, and the rest of the card is pretty stacked too.

The Carolina Kowalkiewicz fight, you got Michelle Watterson on the card, Michael Johnson, David Branch. The whole card is really exciting, but that main event is just like one of those must-watch fights where, I mean, Justin Gaethje's pretty much a must-watch fighter. Every time he's in the cage, like you said, he's so exciting. He's one of those signings for the UFC I felt panned out almost immediately. You could tell in that Michael Johnson fight that, like, yeah, this guy's the real deal,

and he'll throw and bang with anybody. So true. You see a lot of people, you know, with undefeated records, and then they come over in the UFC, and their first fight might be a little, you know, they get those UFC jitters. There was no jitters in that kid. That kid came in swinging, and it has been absolutely fun and incredible since he got here. I love watching this kid fight. Yeah. So speaking of ESPN, we got UFC on ESPN this weekend. You guys just signed a new exclusive deal with ESPN Plus where all pay-per-views are now going to go through that channel in the U.S. Tell me a little bit about this deal because I saw a lot of backlash online, but obviously there's more to it than that was just announced. How does this benefit the fans?

You can't gauge anything by what you read online. ESPN has been incredible to work with. Love the vision these guys have. Love the direction they're going in. And for fans, there's never been a better time than to be a UFC fan than right now. The amount of content that ESPN is pumping out for these fights is ridiculous. Now you can turn on ESPN and see full coverage of every card that we're doing on ESPN. Who would have thought it would happen? Yeah, so this deal in particular, though, where you can only buy pay-per-views through ESPN+, does this open the door for, I heard you mention maybe bundles and discounts, where will we be able to purchase maybe six months or a year's worth of pay-per-views

at one time for a discounted rate in the future? All that stuff's going to happen. These guys are really good at what they do. They're dialing this thing in now and getting it figured out, and it's going to be so much better for the fans. One-stop shop. And there's nothing difficult about it at all. If you have Netflix, you can get ESPN+.

If you have Hulu, you can get ESPN+. It's the exact same thing. Yeah, I agree with that. For MMA fans especially, if you have ESPN+, nothing really changes for you. This is the future. This is what everybody's going to be doing in the next couple of years. So this past weekend, and I'm sure next weekend, we're going to get a lot of calls from fighters wanting to be on International Fight

Week, July 6th. It's your biggest card of the year, usually every year. And I got to ask you, I'm a huge Conor McGregor guy. You might know that. We've met once before. I'm the scrawny nerd at Barstool that covers all fighting. Yeah, I remember you. So do we huge Conor McGregor guy. You might know that. We've met once before. I'm the scrawny nerd at Barstool that covers all fighting. Yeah, I remember you. So do we see Conor McGregor on that card July 6th? There's been a lot of rumblings about it. I know he wants to return on that card, and it seems that the avenue is now open for that trilogy to be completed. What trilogy? The Diaz fight? The Diaz fight, yeah. Yeah, that's probably not going to happen.

You don't think so? I would like to see him back on the card, yeah. And who do you envision him facing? Well, we're going to have Tony Ferguson is getting better. He's feeling better. He hit me up the other day. So we'll see where he fits in. We've got the fight coming up with Holloway and Poirier.

We'll see how that thing plays out. Al Iaquinta is going to fight Cerrone. So a lot of this stuff is going to play out over the next couple months, and then we'll figure out what's next. All right, so it looked like for a little bit that Conor and Cowboy were in discussions. Cowboy and Conor were going back and forth, seemed like they wanted to do it,

and then we caught wind as fans or media, whatever you want to call us, that the negotiations had fallen through because the UFC wanted the fight to happen as a co-main event, and Conor McGregor didn't want that. Is there truth to that? Yes, yes, that did happen. You know, but it's not anything that – every time I deal with Conor, there's always something, you know. that – every time I deal with Conor, there's always something. You know, there's always something to deal with, and we get it figured out.

So just as a fan, can you explain to me the rationale behind Conor McGregor being a co-main event? I think it's so crazy. I can't imagine Conor McGregor being a co-main event. I know that I'm probably the worst person to, you know, try to play devil's advocate against because i'm a fanboy and i'm a nut hugger but i just have to understand no i love i love hearing other people's point of view on that i i interviewed with captain aioli the other day and he said the same thing well let me ask you a question we were going to do the fight that was going to be on the card with him was probably going to be um the heavyweight championship should that be the co-main event? Should the heavyweight championship be the co-main event? Yeah. I believe so. If

Conor McGregor's on the card, yes. Boom. Well, there you go. Well, the more people I hear from the fans and the media and all this shit, if I end up putting Conor McGregor, not as a champion on the main event, I guess I don't have to listen to any bullshit, do I? I mean, there is precedent for it in the past with Conor at 196 and 202. They're two of the top three of the company's highest selling pay-per-views, no? Yeah. So if I didn't do it this way and everybody, you know, I just made him the main event with no title, no nothing, everybody would go fucking mental and go nuts and start chirping about, you know, oh, he gets favoritism.

Oh, 100%. I don't know, but you did it at 196 with a title fight on the card, a tremendous fight between Misha Tate and Holly Holm. It was the first Diaz fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know why that happened. He was the main event. The fight fell out.

Diaz went in last minute, and we kept him the main event. Yeah, that's true. Correct, but then it was rebooked for UFC 200. That kind of fell apart, and then you did it at 202. That was the main event with no title either. But he was the champion, wasn't he? He was, but it was a welterweight fight, so there was no title on the line. Yeah, but he was the champion.

He was the champion, and he was already the main event. All right, that's fair. That's fair. I was interested in hearing... Conor McGregor is not the champion right now. He's ranked number two in the world right now. Oh, God, you're rubbing salt in the wounds, Dana. You're rubbing salt in the wounds.

He's not the champion. Back then when he fought that fight, he was the main event. His fight fell off. On late notice, as usual with conor mcgregor he takes another fucking fight and takes a weight class above him that's right he's a fucking savage dana he is a savage he's a fucking savage and i love him for it and he was the champion so yes of course we're going to keep him in that main event slot i just think that's not the case right now i just think if you're taking any advice from from little bob here, I just think Conor McGregor, main event, always.

It doesn't matter who's on. If you put every title you have on the line and Conor McGregor's not a champ, you put the champ champ in the main event. I love it. Now, here's a question as well. Rogan, Joe Rogan, was actually the first one to mention the possibility that the fight was falling through because of the co-main event issue. When Joe Rogan talks about kind of inside UFC scoops and stuff like that on his podcast, does that bother you at all? Or is it such a huge platform that you see that, you know, ultimately it moves the conversation forward and benefits you guys? Yeah, I don't know if there's ever benefits or, you know, or whatever it might

be to stuff being, listen, there's nothing bigger than ESPN. You know, if they put stuff out there, it's huge, but it's about what we want out and what we don't want out. I mean, that's more of what it's about, but when it happens, it happens. And what are you going to do? All right. And I know you've gotten this question a hundred times, so I'm going to take your answer. I'll keep it short. Is there any chance we see a 165-pound division in the UFC in 2019?

Not in the next seven years. In the next seven years? I'm here for seven more years. And you'll never let it happen? When I go, they can make a 180, 165, 122, whatever they want to do when I'm gone, they can do. Wow. It ain't happening while I'm here. What's the resistance to it?

What's the appeal in it? It seems like a lot of fighters want to do it. It seems like a lot of fighters are saying the weight cut in between 170 and 155, no? I think it's a lot of guys who know they can't win at either 170 or 155 that would all jump ship. If you look at right now our 170-pound division and our 55-pound division, they're stacked. So you got Usman, Woodley, Covington, Wonderboy, RDA, Masvidal, Askren, Till, Ponzinibbio, Lawler, Edwards, right? There's the 170 division. Lightweights at 55, you got Habib, Tony, Connor, Poirier, Iaquinta, Kevin Lee, who's moving over to welterweight to make it even better.

Edson Barbosa, Gaethje, oh, I forgot too, Pettis now is over in the welterweight division, which makes it even better. Cerrone, Felder, Gillespie, Diaz. You build a 65-pound division, you completely drain both of those divisions. Yeah, that is a decent point. It ain't happening while I'm here. These divisions are stacked. We have tons of great fights in both divisions. We don't need a 65-pound division.

All right, continuing a little bit more division talk. The 125-pound division has been up in the air for a long time. Seems like a few months now it's been, is it going to go away? Is it not going to go away? Recently, the 135-pound champ, TJ Dillashaw, failed a USADA drug test, and he forfeited his title. And now it looks like you're doing Henry Cejudo and Marlon Marais for that championship, the vacant championship? Cejudo wants that belt. Cejudo believes he can win that belt. He wants that belt. He wanted to fight Dillashaw. That's not going to work out. Marlon

is the next guy in line, so we'll see what happens. So does that title fight, does that situation have any effect on the current status of the flyweight division? No. Okay. I'd like to play a little game with you now, if you don't mind. I call it goof or no goof. I'm going to rattle off a few names, and you're going to tell me whether or not you think they're a goof. Okay. Darren Revell. Douche.

Douche, whoa. Douche. Went full douche. I love that quote. What the fuck does Darren Revell know about fighting? That was a good one. The answer is nothing. Have you heard from him recently after that, or you think you just shoved him in a locker and he's been stuck in there?

Exactly. Exactly. I gave him a wedgie and put him in a locker and haven't heard from him since. Amazing. Ben Askren. Yeah, no goof. No goof. Ben Askren seems to think that you think he is a goof. Ben Askren is wrong. All right. Fair. Ariel Hawane. Come on. That's a no brainer. Dork. Dork. Wow. So here's a story about me and Ariel Hawane. He hates me because I went and I got into the background of one of his shots for ESPN and I was holding up a free Connor sign outside the courtroom, and they were trying to get me out of the shot. They couldn't do it,

so he hates me. He's a jerk off. Listen, the last thing you need to worry about is that fucking dork hating you. Guy cried on TV, for Christ's sakes. He did. You banned him, and he cried like he had a terminal illness. Fucking unbelievable. His kids are going to fucking see that someday. Okay. Colby Covington. No, you know, Colby Covington's not a goof. This guy, you know. I disagree. He knows how to get himself noticed.

Let's put it that way. He's doing his thing. He's doing his thing. I don't like how he's doing his thing, if we're being completely honest. Following you around in casinos, filming you while you're gambling. I stuck up for my guy Uncle Dana there, and I was like, get him out of the UFC. Kick him off the tour, Doug. You're the man.

But you know what? That whole scenario wasn't as bad as it actually looked on film. I stood up and said, what are you doing? And he turned his camera off, and I said, listen, man, let's not be an idiot. Get your shit together. Don't do this. Don't do that. You're going. Get your shit together. Don't do this. Don't do that. You're going to get your next shot.

So then the next day they got in a fight, and they got banned from the Palms. Yeah, I saw that. Is there going to be any, does that affect at all your booking of that fight? Or you don't give a shit about that? No, I don't give a shit. The Fertittas gave a shit.

Yeah, I saw Ali was tweeting too. Ali was saying, like, we're not fighting him now because he got into a fight with us on that buffet line. Yeah, well, listen, Ali doesn't make fights. I do, so... Fact. Boom-roasted Ali. Here's another softball for you. Oscar De La Hoya.

Fucking dork. Yeah, another one. Is there any update on that? You know, we kind of saw you... You and him went back and forth for a while, and then you sort of declared war on him. And you were like, the people around here know me. You go to war with me, you're not coming back from war.

Is there any update on that war? Hey, when's his next MMA event? Bro, I don't think it's happening. You got a date? I don't think it's happening. Oh, okay. I think he's going under. I thought him and Tito were big business partners.

Tito's talking about going and fighting in Bellator again. Yeah, exactly. The dumb leading the dumber with those two. You know, we do. What a fucking dynamic duo those two are. It's unbelievable. We know we do rough and rowdy. It's like amateur boxing.

And we almost doubled their pay-per-view buys for that. Yeah. We're talking legends. Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz. We do 40,000 buys. They did 25K. Exactly. Maybe watch out for Ruff and Rowdy on the circuit, eh?

I'm watching you. Okay. I'm watching you, pal. Here's one that was in recent events. George Masvidal. No goof. What he did. I loved what he did.

He's a fucking gangster, not a goof. It was total gangster shit. Yeah. And I total gangster shit. Yeah. And I saw your response. You had the typical, you put on your Dolly incident voice, and you said, I can't believe it happened, but I know in the back of your head you're like, this is awesome. No, no, that's not awesome. That's not awesome. It was awesome.

I was at Nashville, and I ran up into the Octagon in Nashville. First of all, there's no title fights. I don't go near the Octagon when there's no title fights. I don't go near the octagon when there's no title fights. I don't even wear a suit. I'm wearing fucking jeans and a sweater, and I got to run up there and tell Willis and Blades to knock it off because I don't need that shit. We just had Conor and Khabib.

Then we just had the stuff that went down in Australia with those two, or wherever the hell they were, I don't even remember. Huh? London. Yeah, London. In London with those two, and that can't keep happening, and I blame that on my staff. That shouldn't have happened, and that can't happen again, and Curtis Blades and Willis

were getting there at the end of that fight. They really were. You need a little more muscle. You give me a call. I'll be honored to come in there and hold some people back. Apparently we need you. Here's a two-for-one deal, all right? Nick and Nate Diaz.

They're definitely not goofs, but those two, you know, I don't know exactly what their deal is i mean i can tell what nick seems like they drive you up a wall but if you think if you look at the things that nick says and and the things that nick is doing right now you can tell that nick doesn't want to fight no fighting is is the last thing on nick's mind and uh and nate i can't figure nate out because nate's at that you know at the top of his game right now. And I don't know if he doesn't realize, but I've seen it over the years many, many times. The decline is very quick.

When the window closes for an athlete, it happens really fast. And there's a lot of money out there to be made by Nate. And once that window closes, they'll never have the opportunity to make that kind of money out there to be made by Nate. And once that window closes, they'll never have the opportunity to make that kind of money again. Have you seen his post recently? He had a post on Instagram two hours ago. No. He posted a video of him training.

He looks to be in tremendous shape. And the caption says the following. It says, Khabib's hiding scared because I slapped the shit out of him. Connor already got his ass beat twice. Where the fuck you at, Khabib? P.S., Poirier is a pussy. He spelled everybody's names wrong, as per Nate Diaz. It seems like he wants to fight, but he just won't give you the call? I know. No, listen, we just called him. We called him with a fight last week, and it looked like he wanted to do it, and then he disappeared.

Completely disappeared. And I agree. I've seen video footage of him training. He looks like he's in great shape, but I don't know what the deal is. God, I would love to see that guy back in the octagon complete the trilogy. It seems like the time is right for it now. I got two more names for you on goof or no goof. Stephen A. Smith.

No, I love Stephen A. Smith. No, I love Stephen A. Smith. Oh, so do I. I'm so happy you didn't call him a goof. I mean, he doesn't know what he's talking about with MMA, but I love that. I think it's hysterical. That guy standing there and talking about MMA is some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen in my life. He gives it a shot, though. He does. He does. It's a fair effort. And finally, Max Kellerman. I love Kellerman, too. I've been friends with Kellerman. Oh, come on. Kellerman, too. I've been friends with Kellerman. Oh, come on. He's a goof. I've been friends with him for many years.

He said McGregor wouldn't land a punch on Mayweather. Yeah, I know. Yeah. That's a goof move. He fucked that one up. He fucked that one up big time. Yeah, no, he's a very good friend of mine for many years. All right.

Well, we're going to give him a half goof because he gets a goof from me. That's all the names I had for you. Dana, it was a pleasure talking to you today. It honestly was. Thank you so much for coming on the show, talking UFC with me. Hope to have you back. And I'm very excited for UFC Philly. Pleasure, buddy.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. A huge shout-out and thank you as an order to dana white thank you so much for being the first guest on this show it's fucking awesome that he was the first guest i wanted to come in with with a bang and i was able to so i'm really happy about that i'm also happy because i was supposed to interview him in like mid-december i want to say but it was at a time where i was like struggling so much with my anxiety, my depression, my panic disorder that I turned the interview down like while he was in the office,

basically, I was supposed to interview him with Kevin and Karabas and Casey Smith on their radio show CCK on Sirius XM. And he came in, I just got hit with a panic attack, which was very regular, I couldn't do radio, it wasn't that it was like Dana White, so it was too big. It was the fact that it was a radio show. I couldn't do radio with my friends. I couldn't do podcasts with my friends. I turned down a bunch of interviews. I turned down an interview with George St. Pierre, who if you know me, you know, he's one of my favorite mixed martial artists of all time, possibly the greatest of all time. He was in our office and I wasn't because I decided I couldn't do it. And my brain was telling me that I couldn't because of my anxiety because of the panic attacks. So

this podcast is a bit of a victory lap on on getting better and getting the help that I needed getting back on anxiety meds and talking to people that I needed to talk to. And getting that Dana White interview back meant a lot to me. So, you know, if you're, if you're out there and you got depression, if you got anxiety, if you're going through panic attacks, I'll tell you what, I'm living proof that time and time again, they may not go away for good, but fuck, you could definitely, you could definitely change to the point where I don't recognize the person I was in 2018 for the whole second half of that year I was struggling so horribly and now I feel so good I feel good enough to do this podcast to do interviews to get those interviews back so like fucking hang in there man because it's awesome

what happens when you do and it's it's very much not awesome what happens when you don't. So hopefully this podcast, I'll be able to talk a little bit more about my anxiety and struggles with everything like that in the past. If it helps people out there, I've written a few blogs about it. And I always get an overwhelming response of people who tell me that it helps them just to be vocal about it, which is an honor for me to hear in a bit of a bittersweet way, you know, because so many people are struggling. But if I could, if I could hopefully make anything easier, it's, I'll always be one to talk about shit like that openly. So in transitioning and talking about more uplifting, less serious issues, I'll close out this podcast by just talking a little bit more about what it's going to be, what you could look forward to. This is not one of them. By this, I mean me talking

to myself and only to you guys with nobody else to bounce off of. I hate doing it. I think I'm, I don't think I'm very good at it. I think you have to be a special kind of interesting, funny human being like Theo Vaughn or Bill Burr to host a podcast by yourself weekly and keep it entertaining. I don't think I'm that person. So week to week, I will try to have a guest or co-host on for pretty much every segment of the show. I can't imagine other than maybe the intro and the outro.

I'll be talking to you guys solo. I don't like not having a Chewie in the co-pilot seat, but I got some cool things on deck. If you're a wrestling fan, you know we got WrestleMania right around the corner. It's at MetLife Stadium this year. And myself and Jared Karabas will be in attendance. So why not reunite beforehand and do a special From the Top Rope edition of My Mom's Basement. We'll be doing it next week. We will break down everything you need to know about this year's granddaddy of them

all, WrestleMania. Whether you're a casual fan or a hardcore fan or you just tune in for one show a year, I think it'll be a podcast for you. I think you'll enjoy it. I think it'll just be fun to be back in the studio with Garabas, to be completely honest with you. And then after that, I got a bunch of interviews planned. This show is not going to be a show where each and every week has this huge guest. Sometimes it's just going to be me show where each and every week has this huge guest. Sometimes it's just going to be me and Jared doing From the Top Rope. Sometimes it'll just be me and Clem breaking down Avengers Endgame the day after it comes out, which we will be doing.

Or we'll do a movie commentary, or we'll do an album retrospective, or a top 10 list, or anything like that. It's going to be very listener-driven as well. So if you have ideas for the show, I want them. I want to listen to you guys. I want to hear what you guys want to hear. So make sure you DM them to me at Robbie Barstow on Twitter. You can hit me on Instagram.

I don't check my DMs as often. It's just that Robbie Fox on Instagram, R-O-B-B-I-E. But I want to hear who you want to hear on the show. Send me your wish lists of guests, whether they're Barstool employees or the biggest names in MMA. I don't care. Whoever you want to hear, I'll listen and I'll try to make it happen for you. If you send me questions that you want answered on the podcast, I'll also try to make that happen. We'll do a mailbag segment where you could ask me anything from a dumb, like,

who would win Superman versus Batman, which I'm sorry for calling that question dumb. It's not a dumb question. And the answer is Batman 10 times out of 10. But if you want to send me some kind of comic book hypothetical, if you want to ask me what I think your theory on end game, if you want to ask me who Conor McGregor is going to fight next, or how to get your foot in the door barstooler, you know, any kind of question that you think would pertain to me, I'll try to answer it on the show. So week one, you know what? Here's what we'll do.

We'll have week one, you go leave a five-star review on iTunes and you write your review. You write your question or suggestion or comment or anything you need to write in the review box. So you do that. I'll read off a few of them on the show next week. That about does it for me this week. I think I've hit pretty much everything I need to hit. It's a shorter show because there's no co-host on the segments other than the Dana interview. So I'm going to call it a show, quit while I'm ahead. Again, thank you to Dana White. Thank you,

thank you, thank you so much for being the first guest on this show. And thank you to you for downloading this, listening to it, and giving it a shot.