My Mom's Basement - FRIDAY BONUS EPISODE 1 - MAX HOLLOWAY

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

On the very first Friday Bonus Episode of My Mom's Basement, Robbie sits down with UFC Featherweight Champion Max Holloway ahead of his UFC 236 bout with Dustin Poirier for the UFC Interim Lightweight Championship, and discusses the "Diamond" rematch, Conor McGregor/Khabib Nurmagomedov's rivalry heating up, his son, "Mini Blessed", the future of his career - and a whole lot of Drake when Young Pageviews joins the show! Outro: "Learn to Fly" - Foo FightersYou 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. Okay, welcome back to the show. I am joined by a very special guest, one of my favorite fighters legitimately of all time. Thank you. Max Holloway is in studio promoting his fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 236. I gotta start this interview off and just say say your performance against Brian Ortega, your last fight, one of the greatest performances I've ever seen in my life. Unbelievable. I'm sure you've seen

the videos went viral everywhere of you pulling his arm up and showing him how to block. Were you really showing him how to block in that fight? Because I've seen some people say you were trying to throw an elbow or something. If you see what I do, I lift his hand up, and then I throw a left hook, and then I thumbs up him.

Like, there you go. That's what you need. That's unbelievable. I mean, you're just like that's the Hawaiian in you, I guess. You're just too nice. I don't know. Yeah. You're beating the shit out of him, and you're still holding up his elbow being like, come on, bro. Defend yourself.

Sometimes you got to just help a brother out, you know. Unbelievable. And after the fight, you guys seemed to be very friendly, said we should be friends after this. Have you spoken to Brian after the fight? I didn't speak to him after the fight. No, he was busy doing stuff. I saw he had some injuries after the fight. So, you know, hopefully he's coming back well and we can see him back in there.

You know, I see him calling for fights against Aldo or somebody. So hopefully, you know, hopefully he can work his way back up. And, you know, we're two young guys, you know. I told him there too. What I told him actually after the fight was, you know, we're both young guys, you know. And I heard that you said that we probably would be friends if we was from the same neighborhood. And I said, that's cool, you know. But I told him, let's get this money first.

Let's fight a couple times and we can probably be friends after. Yeah, I think that would be an awesome trilogy. Especially being like the nature of the rivalry between you is such a competitive rivalry. It's nothing outside of that. It's strictly in the cage. Did you see he's making movies with Holly Berry or something now? Oh, yeah. I heard. Sliding in those DMs or something. Congrats to him. Yeah. It's strictly in the cage. Did you see he's making, like, movies with Holly Berry or something now? Oh, yeah. I heard.

Sliding in those DMs or something. Congrats to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I heard, you know. Surprisingly lucky Holly Berry ain't from Hawaii, though. You know where she would have went now. Just joking. I'm just playing.

So you got this fight coming up. You're moving up a weight class. You're jumping up to face Dustin Poirier for the interim lightweight interim lightweight championship you're the featherweight champ now you got the title sitting next to you you can't see it on a podcast it's the title that i think is the gorgeous title the og it's not the legacy belt yet you're working to get that one what made you want to jump up what was it for you was it the legacy aspect was it the weight cut issues aspect i don't know if that was even a factor in your decision not a factor at all not a factor at all you know uh it's a it's a legacy thing it's not even about

a belt you know i got a bunch of the belts at home and you know you know mini bliss rush you don't even know how much i have you know they're all in the closet we don't care uh you know after our takeoff fight i actually wanted to defend my 45 belt in um in the summer car you know that big summer car that always happened july and stuff so we was aiming for that i was doing a bunch of my business stuff ready to go and figuring things out with all taxis and stuff and uh do you have an opponent in mind for that i i didn't know who was yeah that's that's what me and my team was talking about that that's what we was aiming for he's like look this is what we're gonna do we're gonna focus on business things right now. We had a bunch of business opportunities, so we were doing that.

It was like, let's get ready for July. And then they came with this fight in April. And many people know Tony was the first name. And Tony is like, we're almost on the same streak. People actually, I was in Toronto. They thought I was Tony Ferguson. I was kind of hurt from that guy at the ball place. And then even people on Twitter.

This is going to my Twitter feed. And some guy was saying, oh, I don't know how he's fighting so much. I hope his head is good. And they're like, what are you talking about? You're talking about Tony. He's next, dude. It's kind of funny. That would have been a great fight.

But all jokes aside, I hope Tony's doing good right now. I hope he figures it out. And I hope he comes back soon. Of course. I think we all do. This part is missing him. It's hurting him and Adam. And hopefully we get to see that soon.

Absolutely. So what do you have to say to – I've seen some lightweights calling, saying you don't deserve this shot. You're disrupting the weight class and whatnot. How do you respond to that? It's simple. Fight me. If I'm disrupting the thing.

It's got to be awesome to be able to say that. See, I'm like a 145-pound not in shape guy. I'm just a skinny like comic book dork. It's got to be awesome to be like, you got a problem with me? Fight me. And be serious about it because I say that and I'm not serious about it. I'm like, yeah, fight me. The thing is, like, I'm not going to fight someone on the street.

You know, I see some of these guys, they're talking and they're doing, like, they think it's cool and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, at the end of the day, I don't get paid for fighting in the street. Make sure, you know, make sure we have a check, you know, and make sure it's in front of thousands and millions of people because I want people to witness this. That's my whole thing. Everybody keeps saying we're disrupting stuff.

I don't see how. You guys got a champ in there. They made this belt because the champ is saying that he wouldn't fight until November, I think. That's eight months away. A lot of things can happen. He was saying he didn't even know if he was going to come back and fight.

All that kind of stuff. Maybe he does come back early. Maybe he fights Floyd Mayweather. They always like playing that idea of boxing Floyd Mayweather. I was like, what? Or maybe he gets hurt. We don't know. We don't know.

The UFC don't know. I think it's a smart move on what the UFC is doing. And there's really no clear-cut contenders right now at 55 anyway, you know, with the whole Tony issue. You know, they just did the counter fight. You know, I think Dustin deserves it. Even at 45, you know, we see who's next, you know, after this. You really don't know what's clear right now.

You know, there's no clear cut. You know everybody everybody keep telling me about this guy and that guy i'm like look my thing is simple with the ufc i tell ufc send me whoever you guys think is the hardest fight what their name and my name on a contract i'll sign it and i'll send it back you're an absolute savage and this fight this fight coming up dustin poirier it's the rematch so this was a fight you had very early on in both of your careers, and you suffered a defeat in that fight. Looking back, is it the kind of thing that you can't get out of your brain

because you know how much you've improved and you know how much of a better fighter you are, where you're like, man, I really wish I could get that back, even before it was booked? Or is it the kind of thing as a fighter that you kind of just got to let go? You know, I just let it go. And like I said, I'm a competitor. I'm a competitor.

Like you said, I'm competitive and I want to fight. I got three of them in that column on the other side of my record. And I want all three of them back. But at the end of the day, if I wasn't going to be able to, I wasn't going to be able to. If I am, I am. Like I said, all these guys are cupcakes. The first time I tried this one, it wasn't gonna be able to i wasn't gonna be able to if i am i am you know i'm like i said all these guys is cupcakes you know and uh you know the first time i tried this one you know it wasn't too good so hopefully this time around it'd be much better so i can't wait one of those you got in the elk column is connor mcgregor would you say i've seen you and connor go back and forth

on twitter especially recently would you say connor is is the most animosity you've ever had against an opponent because generally you're pretty friendly with all your opponents. And even Conor, there's not a ton of animosity, but there's a little jabbing, there's a little back and forth. Would you say he's the most? I just think it's funny. At the end of the day, like you said, it's not animosity really. It's just that he's going to say something.

I'm not going to back down from it. And with the things that we do we're competitive we're competitive you know and uh and a bunch of the things that that i do and he say you know it is what it is you know it's just uh it's facts that's what it is you know people it's not really shit talking when you're speaking facts you know and i like hearing that guy with facts so that's just what what we do yeah i'm a huge connor guy i don't know if you knew that i'm a massive connor fan i gotta tell you in the back and forth it was like 10-8 holloway i was sitting there being like do i really have to cover this right now this guy just body bagged my guy it was it was tough to watch what do you make of of the recent connor habib stuff because as as a fan of

connor and as a fan of the sport as as someone that covers the sport, I hate it. I'm looking at the – it's gotten so nasty and so ugly that I'm fearful that one of these guys is going to – something bad is going to happen to one of them with the way they're talking. What do you make of it as a competitor who's very just down the middle, not really into that kind of stuff? Yeah, exactly what you said. It's not even to do with the sport, so I'm not even focusing. You know, I heard Dana White saying he's going to intervene. I'm glad for that.

You know, these guys got big platforms, you know, and I think they should use it for good. And one of the things on my mind right now that one of them should tweet about is climate change because right now a bunch of people is telling me that it is cold in new york and it's not supposed to be this cold you know and uh same thing in hawaii you know it's kind of cold there and it's not supposed to be this cold already so you know let's make one of them talk about climate change or something to change the world let's start talking climate change i'm here with max holloway and we're gonna start a climate change podcast maybe

maybe get crone gracie on the podcast. Have you heard his flat earth theory? Yeah, I don't know. Bro, it's unreal. Did you guys see that Netflix flat earth series? Yes, Behind the Curve? Yeah, yeah. I just watched it. It was so funny.

Bro, it's the funniest thing I've ever watched. The funniest part was when the guy was like, look, if it's a flat earth and we have this thing and this light, we'll put it. You should see the light through the holes. And he's like, but if it's curved, then you need to lift it up a little. And he's like, he's like, OK, what are you doing? I'm holding it straight. I'm holding it straight. OK, lift it up.

Lift it up. You see it. Yeah. What are you doing? Lift it up. Oh, oh, that's that's really cool. The whole thing. Like they just realized, like, oh, wait, maybe it is curved.

It was it was so great. People are being like, you have to take us seriously. They're wearing light-up sunglasses and light-up bow ties. If you haven't watched Behind the Curve on Netflix, it's honestly one of the funniest things I've ever watched. I didn't watch it. I just saw that clip. Well, you've got to watch the whole thing. But it's hilarious, too.

Karon Gracie thinks we live on an eyeball. Yeah? Yeah. He's like, we live on a giant's eyeball. Yeah, but then that giant eyeball is not flat, so he's contradicting himself, right? No, no. He said, like, you know the colored part of your eye? Yeah.

He said that's like looking up, and it's flat in the middle of it. There's some kind of—we're on the flat part in the middle. I don't know. You've got to watch his theory. It's not ever flat. You look in the eyeball. I don't care where it is. There's some kind of, we're on the flat part in the middle. I don't know, you gotta watch his theory. It's not ever flat. You look in the eyeball, I don't care where it is, there's no flat side

of the eyeball. Listen, my man, it's Krohn's eye and we're just living in it. I gotta ask you, Krohn's an exciting fighter. Yeah. What fighters are there

in the UFC or in any combat sports that you look at? You're at the top of your game, in your prime. Who do you look at and go,

they excite me. I like to watch them fight. Ah, you know, there's a bunch of them. You know, there's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of fighters that do that, you know. Boboza is one of them. Gaethje is one of them. That fight was unbelievable. Are you watching UFC

week to week, by the way? I try to. I try to, but, you know, being in Hawaii and stuff, we train on Saturdays and I train on Fridays and sometimes I'm in training, like being in hawaii and stuff we train on saturdays and i train on fridays and and sometimes i got i'm in training like the gaethje fight and stuff i had to watch i had to re-watch the the rerun because we would i was i was sparring and stuff that day so yeah i try to keep up and watch and this and that or so on some of them you know sometimes it's just like you know it's my job like you know like somebody who like the podcast i'm sure you guys don't like listening to podcasts after doing this all the

time all the time you know so it's like it's it's worked for me sometimes and then other times like how you how you said like some fighters really intrigue me you know like style benders he wants style bender intrigues me he's super cool you know um and then you got guys that just intrigue you like for personality wise like like Thug Nasty. Yeah. That dude, man. I was hearing his story about his thing. I was like, dude.

Dude, I had Dana White on the podcast just two weeks ago and we were talking about Thug Nasty. This guy is so crazy. I actually hit him up. I want to go out to Arkansas and make a video like helping him fix his roof or something. Because did you hear this stuff he said he's got to take a layoff because he's got some Jerry Springer shit going on at home? I did hear that. That's fun.

And that's why I like that dude is cool. I met him once. I did when he was on DC's team. Yeah. I got to go and meet him. I was in an episode, and it was all pretty cool. But, you know, Thug Nasty is Thug Nasty, man. How's the DC rivalry treating you for the daddest man on the planet?

Oh, man. We call him Danos now. And I told him I'm the type of dude, like I tell everybody, how much of a competitor is Savage. I want to be, you know, I already did, and there's goals. I did a goal of I wanted to become a UFC champion. Now I want to be the number one power-for-power fighter in the world. And Daniels is number one power-for-power in the world.

So I told him, you know, you better watch out. You know, like, if you get a contract in my name, you know, damn, best believe I'm signing it. I don't know what you're doing, but I'm signing it. I got to tell you, if you want to be the daddest man on the planet, you got to have less swag. Right now you walked in with the coolest shoes I've ever seen here in a matching ovo jumpsuit like you gotta do that like tuck your tuck your sweatshirt into your sweatpants wear some new balances something like that uh on a lighter note mini blessed yes i love this kid yeah i've probably blogged about mini blessed as many times as i've blogged about you you're you're you're you're the man you're a man bro that's the truth your son is the funniest most swagged out kid on the planet

there's videos of him standing on chairs at bruno mars concerts getting down like you've never seen like if if i have one eighth the swag that mini blessed has by the time i'm dead it will be a good life man he dabs you out of the planet every time you win a fight. Yeah, he does. And then, man, I wish, like, I got videos of him at the Logic. Logic came down and Eminem came down concert and he was on the chair doing it. But, like, I was missing the good parts. And, man, he was going for it.

Like, we was all focused. And when I look at him, he's like a big, I don't know how it happened. He downloaded YouTube music. But he's like, he's the reason why we went. Like, I love at him. He's like a big, I don't know how it happened. He downloaded YouTube music. But he's like, he's the reason why we went. Like, I love Eminem. But he's the reason why we went. Because he's like, Dad, I heard Eminem's coming down. Can we go to the concert?

How old is he? He's seven. Oh, my God. So this guy is like listening to, like, I'm like, how do you know Eminem? And he's like listening to YouTube music. Yeah. And he listened to that. He found Eminem.

I don't know if some videos I posted up of him rapping. He tried to rap before. He tried making stuff. He's so funny. That kid is something else. Has he seen 8 Mile? I did not show him 8 Mile. Bro, you got to show him 8 Mile.

I'm sure he would love it. Does he like watching you fight? He loves it. He loves watching me fight, man. No fear? No fear. He makes the... If you were my fight, man. No fear? No fear. Like, he makes the, like, If you were my dad,

I wouldn't fear you. The last fight, if you see, like, Paul Federer said something like, oh my gosh, look at his son's face. He's in touch. He wasn't.

That's just how he is. Like, he's at home watching TV. Like, he does this weird thing where he sat, like, him and his, on his mother's side, like, a bunch of their kids do it too.

Like, they sit down, the TV's here, and then they look sideways. He does this weird thing and he makes his eyes something weird that makes him look concerned, but he's not. He could be watching the most kid-friendly show ever and he watches it like that. I do this thing when I'm watching fights where I think I'm in the fight. It's like VR and I just do the head bobbing. That's cool. I love bobbing. That's cool. I love doing that. That's awesome.

UFC Hawaii. Have we had any update on UFC Hawaii? Has there ever been progress made where you're like, I think this thing's going to happen because I'm not going to bring up the name. I won't say it. The UFC's in the room. I won't say it. But a rival competitor went to Hawaii, and it was an amazing MMA event.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to be jonesing for that Hawaii card. It was an amazing MMA event. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to be jonesing for that Hawaii card. It was super cool, you know. And, man, as someone that covers it, you got to get that Hawaii card so I can put on the expense report. Like, oh, yeah, I didn't want to do it, but I got to go Hawaii for work. You're coming down. You're number one. We're going to have number one mini-blessed fan there for sure.

But, yeah, we see what happens. I don't know. I talked to some guys and this and that, and they keep going back and forth. Who knows? Maybe after this, after I come to, I like to call it, instead of Champ Champ, it's Champ IC Champ. So after that, maybe I'll hold out and be like, look, take me home or I'll fight you, Dana. I guess the cool thing is calling out celebrities who don't fight nowadays. Yo, pull that sound bite right now. I'll fight you, Dana.

Max Holloway. I love you, Dana. Don't do that. Don't do that to me. Go get me out of the job. We won't do you dirty. We won't do you dirty. So you're wearing the OVO jumpsuit.

I got to tell you, in this office, we have Drake's biggest fan. Oh, yeah? Legitimately his biggest fan. And if you don't mind, I'd like to bring him in to ask a few questions about Drake. Yeah. Because this guy is obsessed. Every time that you fight, he's like, oh, yo, Drake's boy's fighting. I got to watch Drake's fight.

That's my dude. I need to meet him. Yeah, so we're going to bring him in the room right now. I think he's next door. I just shot him a text. Hopefully he comes in. You and Drake, when did this start between you and Drake?

It just, you know, it's just I guess it kind of happened organically. That's all it was. Here he is. This is Young Page Views. What's up, brother? What's going on? It's me and you, brother. You're going to move the title out of the way for me? Yeah. The title's moved out of the way. So I just told him

you're Drake's biggest fan. And you had to come in here and ask him a few questions. The jumpsuit looks unbelievable. I mean, that's the first time I've seen one like this in real life. I figure this is like some sort of, you know, one-on-one type of thing. What's the deal? No, no, this one, you can get these ones. They send me stuff all the time, but yeah.

No big deal. No big deal. They send me stuff too. I just go on the website and we enter our information and then it comes right to the office. So same type of situation. But, I mean, obviously to start off the top, when you hear – did you hear it before it came out on the album, the name drop? Or like what is like that whole process like? No, I heard it just like everybody else, you know.

And it was always cool. It was fun. Everybody kept asking me about it. But you just got to keep things secretive, you know. And it was always cool. It was fun. You know, everybody kept asking me about it. But you just got to keep things secretive, you know. You can't be going around and airing your laundry out for everybody. So, you know, you just keep them guessing. And is that like what do you do? Do you text them when you hear it?

Like, oh, that's crazy. Like, hopefully I have this problem in the future. But what do you say to Drake when he name drops you on his own? When Drake name drops him, what should he say to Drake? to do this be cool bro don't be nothing but then maybe you don't know about it bro you're totally yeah it'd be totally good yeah eight out of ten you know whatever the whatever your name drop could have been better yeah no no no that's the song's called oh see i'm so out of the loop. That was playing it cool, though. He didn't know.

He's like, oh, yeah, I don't even know. Exactly. You could have nailed that better, bro. He is new right here. Damn. All right, so if Drake ever name drops me, I want this on record now. I should be like, hey, thanks, bro. Like, cool.

May not even text him. Do whatever, yeah. Yeah, maybe don't even text him. Like a couple days later. Not because you don't have his number. Just put it in a, you know, you ever watch the LeBron videos? The Instagram stories, yeah. Yeah, yeah, just bump to it.

That's it. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Now, when he's – I'm the biggest Drake fan we know. That's on record. I told him. So I'm not chirping if he hears this.

But he's been known to support a few different causes over the years. That's a nice way to say it. When he's out there with the Irish flag and everything, it's like, what's the deal with that? Is it ever like, hey, man, I thought, you know, what side are we on? No, it's cool, man. It is what it is. You know, he's friends with everybody.

Right. It seems that way. And then this Drake curse thing, you know, like, it's funny. It's a funny thing. Like, he's friends with people that's winning championships, too. Bro, you're one of the only ones to break the Drake curse. Actually, he's friends with Kevin Durant. He won a ring.

You know what I mean? Like, come on. He got him tatted on. He's friends with everyone in the NBA. Yeah, true. That's what I mean. It is what it is, you know. But I guess the true test is we see if Anthony Joshua lives up to it, right?

He just was training with Anthony, so we see what happens. Was it ever in your head at all before the fight? Not at all. People kept trying to put that negative energy on me. I'm like, no, keep that energy away from me. Right, right. All right. Now, this may be kind of a controversial question.

So, Drake, he's online. I've never actually weighed him, but it said he's about 170 to 180. Are you worried about him coming into your weight class? I know we've seen the videos of him with the pads. Yeah, it looks like a pretty tough matchup if we're being honest. Yeah, we'd be totally honest, you know, and I, you know, your guy, your guy's boss look like he could take on if we're being 100% honest. So yeah, I mean, one bite, you know the rules.

We know everybody knows the rules. How do you envision that fight going, you versus Drake in the octagon? Have you seen the pad work videos? Yeah, I saw it. He's pretty good. Drake is the man, you know. But I don't know. Just, you know, Drake, don't hit me with a false sweater, you know, in there.

Then we'd be all right. You know, maybe he sings me to, like, you know, to sleep, like a Jigglypuff or something, but I don't know. I didn't see a Jigglypuff in the top card. My dad has had a Jigglypuff Pokemon card in his wallet since I was like five years old. Why? I don't know why. He loves Jigglypuff. Shout out to Jigglypuff.

Your Midwest dad just loves Jigglypuff? For some reason, dude. Jigglypuff doesn't get enough love. I think it was an underrated Pokemon. Bro, that's friggin' weird. That's kinda weird. It's not that weird. It's a good Pokemon. I know the kind of guy your dad is. That's weird.

Alright, well, I'll tell you that. Maybe he's in Midwest. Maybe your dad would not be a Charizard kind of guy. Bro, he's from St. Louis. He's got a Pokemon card in his wallet. I don't know, dude. You gotta lose some hunting street cred. It's something I never knew when this would come back up in my life, but when you said that, it's like, bitch. All right. Do you got any more Drake questions for our guy Max Holloway here?

And, you know, we had the tennis ball video, too. The guy is the most elusive person I've ever seen. So, you know, obviously he can't be hit. Do you have any other, like, training advice just from his videos? Would you train with him? I would train with him. That would be sick Instagram. Yeah, even if I ever got to train with him.

Even Oliver, the guy who actually runs OVO, he actually does a lot of training, so I'd love to train with him. Damn. So what about Oliver vs. Drake? Who are you taking? Man, you guys go watch Oliver's videos. The dude is a killer. Sounds like we heard his answer right there. Sounds like we heard his answer right there. Sounds like we heard his answer.

You got to give this guy a call if you train with him. Thank you for joining us. There's no chance that happens, but I would be totally cool. Listen, it was a pleasure talking with you. Dustin Poirier, UFC 236, order the pay-per-view, ESPN Plus. Our guy Max Holloway is going to pick up the win, become the champ I see champ. That's what I like to hear.

Yes, sir. All right. Thank you.