The Ariel Helwani Show - Adam "Edge" Copeland, Carlos Prates, Glover Teixeira, Paul Hughes, Hamzah Sheeraz, Chad Bronstein, news & notes

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show by reacting to Din Thomas’ comments about Gillian Robertson in the aftermath of her UFC 330 loss, Thomas’ apology, and Robertson’s statement (04:17). RAF founder Chad Bronstein joins Ariel in-studio to discuss the promotion’s future, Arman Tsarukyan and other UFC fighters’ involvement, RAF's partnership with Fox Nation, their relationship with TKO and whether he’d consider an acquisition, talking to talent like Georges St-Pierre, and more (19:58). Glover Teixeira stops by to preview his upcoming boxing match against Shogun Rua, also touching on his new biography, the latest on Alex Pereira and the aftermath of the Ciryl Gane fight, his rivalry with Shogun over the years, and more (1:02:34). WBO super middleweight champion Hamzah Sheeraz returns to discuss his recovery from a hand injury, Janibek Alimkhanuly being made his mandatory challenger, his thoughts on Alimkhanuly’s suspension for a positive drug test, whether he’s considering signing with Zuffa Boxing in the future, his frustrations with the WBO, and more (1:30:16). Paul Hughes is back to talk the MVP and PFL merger, his recovery from knee and hip surgery, Usman Nurmagomedov’s latest victory and whether he thinks they’ll have a trilogy fight, Ian Machado Garry’s performance against Islam Makhachev, his hard-line stance on PEDs and calls for stringent testing, and more (1:57:25). AEW star Adam Copeland, formerly known as Edge in WWE, talks about his decision to leave WWE and join AEW, the state of the locker room and being a leader, his longtime partnership with Christian Cage, what it’s like working for Tony Khan, his quest to wrestle at a few iconic venues, John Cena’s final match, wanting to retire in AEW, and more (2:28:12). Carlos Prates is our final guest of the day, reacting to the UFC 330 main event, discussing his case for the next title shot, Islam Makhachev’s skills at welterweight, Ian Machado Garry showing respect during the fight, signing a new contract with the UFC, running into Michael Morales at UFC 330, wanting a rematch with Ian Machado Garry eventually, and more (3:28:12). Ariel and the Boys in the Back react to the belt drama between Islam Makhachev and Max Holloway, Sean Strickland taking shots at Din Thomas and Tyron Woodley, and more (3:55:59), before answering your Super Chats (4:19:18).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the on this Tuesday, August 18, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a lovely, lovely Tuesday afternoon in New York City. We have so much to get to, we have so much to discuss. It was great to be back yesterday. A big shaka, a big hello, a big aloha, a big mahalo. from our ohana to yours yes we were so happy to be back there was so much a discuss yesterday

we've just scratched the surface because when I'm away for two plus weeks the guests start to build up the queue builds up as they say and so as a result we have a super stack show today six guests on today's program a six pock of guests and we're still sort of like you know working through the aftermath of ufc 330 UFC 330 UFC has dropped some news on us this morning morning. There's all kinds of drama going on in the lightweight division and the welterweight division and other divisions. There's all kinds of things happening. Let me tell you about today's show, today's guests. I love today's show because it's a real, you know, something for everyone kind of show. My favorite types of shows are the ones that hit all different forms of

combat sports. You got a little MMA, a little boxing, a little pro wrestling, and we've got some amazing stuff for everyone. Okay, so back into the program, Carlos Prachis is going to join us. Remember, he was supposed to join us yesterday, but he had some flight issues. And, well, he had to reschedule. He's going to join us today at about 4.30 to talk about, all right, is he next? The Islam win, Ian Gary, the Michael Morales stuff, all that and more. You know what we need to talk to Carlos Prachis about. At 3.30, one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Canadian hero, WWWE legend, soon to be Hall of Famer. He might have actually be a Hall of Famer already.

Current AEW legend, current AEW one-half tag team champion alongside his very good friend, Christian Cage, the one-and-only-only-known-on-Eadge, formerly known as Edge, who's going to be a part of All-In next weekend in England, London, Wembley Stadium, to be exact, going up against the Young Bucks. I've had Edge on only once on this program via phone. It was him and Christian at the same time. We didn't see each other. I met him back in 2002 at the WrestleMania 18 fan access. I posted that picture earlier today on social media. It's a massive, massive, massive honor for me. I mean, to have Edge, you know how I feel about Canadian Pro Wrestling.

An amazing, amazing honor. So I can't wait for that. That's at 3.30. At 3 o'clock, Paul Hughes is going to talk to us about everything going on in the world of MVP and PFL, all that and more. Stay tuned for that. At 2.30, the WBO super middleweight champion, Hamza Shira, as we've had him on the show before,

he's got a lot to talk about regarding the WBO and who they are saying should be next for his belt. Actually, there's a link between what Hamza wants to talk about and what Paul Hughes wants to talk about. So stay tuned for that. Glover Tashara, the legend Glover Tashara, has a new book coming out and is also competing in a boxing match

against Shogun Hua, next weekend. We're going to talk to Glover. Been a minute since we spoke to Glover. And in about 12 minutes time, Chad Bronstine, co-founder of RAF,

Real American Freestyle Wrestling, is going to join us in studio to talk about their anniversary show. There's the six-pack right there. Carlos Prochis, Adam Copeland,

Chad Bronstein, Glover Tashara, Paul Hughes, big news himself. Hair got a little longer. Comes a Shiraz. Like I said, said, MMA, boxing, pro wrestling, freestyle wrestling as well. So we're really touching the four

corners right now of combat sports. I can't wait for that. It's going to be a great day. Before we get to our interviews, though, I did want to talk a little bit about some news and notes. First things first, the UFC did officially announce a few of those fights that we talked about yesterday for the Salt Lake city card. And there's no real actual news other than the fact that they made them official, which is, you know, good for accounting purposes, so to speak. Some of the fights. Let me see. Let me pull these up very quickly. Okay, probably the most interesting fights of the mall. Davidson Figurato versus Peyton Talbot. That was officially announced. This is for UFC 332 on the 3rd of October.

Markin versus Johnny Walker is a really interesting fight. That's happening at heavyweight. None of these are the main event, by the way, so let's not get crazy. I'm trying to find the other ones here. Okay. Stand by, stand by. Okay, here's the post. Davidson Figurato versus Peyton Talbot.

Johnny Walker versus Mick Parkin. Atiba Gotee versus Roman Coppilov. Vittori Nardiev. Rodriguez Coria Cort Muggee against Tom Nolan his retirement fight there was another one that I saw

that drew Oh is it Yeah I think it was Goteer versus Coppola In total One two Three four Five six

Seven fights announced But no main event So let us see Let us see what is going to happen Some talk of Valentina I don't know Let's see Let's see

That's not what I wanted to talk about actually at the top of the show. I wanted to sort of close the loop on the Dean Thomas, Gillian Robertson situation. We spoke about it a little bit with McKenzie Dern, and I kind of wanted to talk about it yesterday as well, but I had a feeling that he would talk about it more on his Deep Waters podcast, Dean Thomas, that is. And so I wanted to see how the whole thing shaked out and then weigh in on it. By now you probably know that Dean Thomas cornered and was the head coach for Jillian Robertson on Saturday when she fought McKinsey Dern in Philadelphia co-main event UFC 330. And you know she lost that fight. And then you know that on the post show,

which, you know, Dean works for the UFC as far as, you know, broadcasting is concerned on the desk during the broadcasts, pre-show, post-show, all that stuff. And he's on the post-show, and he basically looks to the camera and says, I'm announcing, I'm retiring from cornering fighters. You know, and I'm paraphrasing here, we can't play the clip. I don't want to get dinged. Jillian, she's gone as far as she could go. I'm done. And when I saw this, I thought, okay, this is very strange for multiple reasons.

Number one, you don't often hear of a coach just saying, like, I'm retiring from cornering, and you certainly don't hear of it on the night that their fighter just lost in a title fight. feels like maybe something that could come out later, certainly not on the night, in passing, in an interview, or maybe just not announced at all. What rubbed me the wrong way the most, if that makes sense, in the worst way,

was the fact that if he would have just said, I think she has gone as far as I can take her, now it's maybe time for her to get a different look, a different voice, work with someone else, I feel like I have done as best as I could do, but there is more to be done and I don't want to hold her back. I think that would have almost been

like an honorable thing to do. Again, I don't think that should have been announced on the night. It's kind of making it about yourself as opposed to her, taking away from the moment, all that and more. But if he would have just said, I've taken her as far as I can go, I think I need to step back. She needs a new voice, a new leader, a new coach, whatever.

Then I always said, I get it. But he didn't say that. What he said was, she's gone as far as she can go. And that means you rode that train as far as you think you can take it. And now that you think there's no more, you know, there's no more of a journey to travel, you're done. That's it.

The going got tough and you said peace out. Which is an insane thing for a coach to say. Not to mention the fact that you're looking down the barrel, you're talking about it, you're making a big announcement when your fighter is probably in the back, feeling some kind of way about losing her very first title fight. He got killed for this. The internet came after and people spoke about it. John Anick spoke about it.

He got killed. And I like Dean Thomas. I'm not trying to kick him while he's down. I'm not trying to make this worse. That's why I wanted to kind of wait for the whole thing. I'm not trying to make this into a big thing. But it was a very unique thing to play out literally an hour and a half after the fight. And so then he goes on his podcast, Deep Waters, which I had a feeling he was going to go on there and, you know, he was going to address it and all this stuff.

And he basically said, like, I screwed up. It was despicable. I should have never said it, this, that, and the other. And that's it. It's fine. You know, did he say that because he got blowback? Did he say that because, you know, someone reached out to him. He was like, yo, man, that was weird.

Who the hell knows? But his next opportunity on air, he came out and he said, bad move on my part, I screwed up, my bad, I feel awful. The one part of the story that we had been missing was, all right, like, what does Jillian think about this? And was she given the heads up? Was she told before he went on air on Saturday? Hey, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to say this. Was she told before he went on air on Monday? Hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to say this. So I reached out to Jillian because I wanted to, you know, no. Like, I felt like that was the missing part of this whole story. And she wrote me back earlier today. And I felt bad reaching out to her.

I generally feel bad after someone loses a fight, especially one of that kind of importance and stature. Like, I don't want to bother them unless I have like a super close relationship with them. But I don't with Jillian. But respect her. I've had her on the show, all that stuff. And she was kind enough to reply. And she also gave me the okay to read her reply. And so this is what she texted me back, verbatim.

I asked her, just for context, I said, like, did you know beforehand? Did you know after? Did you talk to him? How do you feel about this? How did you feel at the time? She wrote, prior to the broadcast, she's talking about the Saturday broadcast, I didn't see any sign of what was to be said. Meaning she wasn't given a heads up. He didn't text her about it.

Anything like that. After the broadcast, he had said, quote, I will address this in the morning, followed by going live on air in 15 minutes. So my understanding of that is after he said it and perhaps the blowback, he said, I'm going to address this in the morning. So this is now Sunday. Blowback happened on Sunday. I'm going to address this in the morning on the show. And then he tells her I'm going live on air in 15 minutes, referring to his apology on Deepwater's podcast. He did reach out to me privately at 5 p.m. and then sent a voice message apologizing around 7.30 p.m. to which I have not responded due to comments he has made since the broadcast privately to my team that lead me to

believe there is not much weight in the apology such as, quote, she's kind of paraphrasing the sentiment that she feels. Me doing that publicly was more so for TV purposes and ratings. She adds another quote, a sort of hypothetical explanation. I don't think there's a conversation to be had, I'm good with everything. The people who sign my checks are, Cool. As for now, I regroup, take some time to heal, and I will be back in the gym as soon as possible on the same mission. And so my understanding of this, that's it for the text message. She wasn't told beforehand. There was blowback on Sunday. He said he was going to address it on the show, then reached out at 5 and then 730 to talk, left the voice note at 730, and they have not talked. I did ask, you still want to work with him just for, you know, the sake of this whole story and for clarity. She didn't reply. of that yet, I would be shocked, just given the sentiment in the text. But I do think that this tells you a little bit more about the whole situation. A coach going on television and saying I'm retiring because the fighter has gone as far as she can go is a pretty shitty thing to do.

Like there's no two ways about that. And not speaking to the fighter beforehand is an even shittier thing to do. And then only kind of seemingly reaching out and saying, hey, I'm going to address this the next day and hey, I'm going on the air, you know, in 15 minutes is also a shitty thing to do because once it came out and once hopefully he realized that maybe this isn't something I should have done, like there need to have been at least a face-to-face or at the very least a phone call like, yo, man, I am so sorry, I screwed up. Heeded the moment. I got emotional. That didn't happen on Sunday. He reaches out after the podcast at 5 and 730 with the voice though and she hasn't responded.

And I don't necessarily blame her. That's a real, like, kick you while you're down. And then it appears as though the sentiment is, you know, I just did this for the pod to get some views or, you know, clip it off, YouTube, whatever, social media. And I'm cool with, like, my actual bosses, the UFC, they're cool with everything. So I'm at peace, peace and love, peace and love. Not great. Just not a great look.

not a great turn of events did not get handled very well and I really do feel for Jillian I really do feel for Jillian um yeah just ultimately like the word that comes to mind is that is a very shitty thing to do to a fighter you go in the back you say

hey I think you've gone as far as you can go with me but you've got a hell of a lot more fight left in you you're still young this is your first title fight I think it would be best for you to find a new voice, and cool, amazing. Hey, I'm going to keep this to myself. Obviously, I'm in an awkward spot. Obviously, I also work for the broadcast.

I'm going to try to be as unbiased as possible. I'm going to tell it like it is. This is on me. I'm not going to, you don't make it about yourself retiring. And let's be honest. Like, Dean Thomas is someone who's been around the sport for a long time. I really like Dean. I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way,

but it's not like he's, you know, Ray Longo or Farazah or, you know, Eugene Barman, I'm trying to, Mike Brown, like guys who you're seeing every single week coaching people, cornering people, Conan Silvera, guys like that. He's got, you know, he's got Jillian, he's got Sean Brady, he's got Joe Pfeiffer. As far as like known UFC fighters, that's, I think pretty much it. I think so. I may be missing one or two max. So like, I don't even know if people would have recognized, to be honest, because he's more viewed as an analyst or, you you know, a guy on the broadcast coming in between rounds or a desk guy, then he is a coach at this point, if I'm being 100% honest. So I don't think people would have even noticed

if you would have taken a step back. But ultimately, I'm bringing this up now because obviously it was a big story in the aftermath of USC 330, but I wanted to know if Gillian knew. If Gillian would have been told beforehand, she said like, yeah, I was cool with it. He told me beforehand. I'm my piece. I don't care. Then I'm like, all right, we could all just kind of calm down. but she wasn't told beforehand. And then she wasn't talked to on Sunday. And then she was only like, there was only a phone call that was made on Monday afternoon after the pod.

Man, that's tough. That is a tough look. That is a tough look. I'm not trying to kick him while he's down. I'm not trying to make this worse. But I feel like that piece of the story was missing. And now we know her perspective. Extremely shitty thing to do.

I feel for her. and I would be very surprised if they continue to work together, you know, crazier things have happened. That should have never, ever happen. Again, she's gone as far as I can take her. It's on me. That's not the way it was positioned. And it should have never, even that, like,

I'm trying to make this better. Like, it should have never even talked about. Like, that was her day, that was her night, that was her title fight, her moment. Let her, you know, grieve, let her do her thing, and then down the line, she comes back. Like, Rose used to be trained by Trevor Whitman. Now she's not.

There wasn't a whole big to do about that. Like, people break up. I get that. To do it on the night and then to go on the pod the next, you know, 48 hours later. And still, like, it was the right words, but I don't know if the sentiment was right. And now we find out that she wasn't reached out to. Ah, a mess of a situation. So there you have it.

There's the complete story as far as the Jillian Robertson, Dean Thomas situation. Tough one, tough one. And I really do feel for Jillian. All right. still to come, we've got a whole host of guests coming up. Glover Tashara, Hamza Shiraz, Paul Hughes, Edge, Adam Copeland, golly, what a dream. Carlos Prachas. But I do have to tell you that today's program is brought you by our good friends over at

Kalshi. We love Kalshi around these parts. Kalshi are very good friends. They've been supporting us for the last few months and they're going to be sticking around for quite some time. And I want to let you know that Kalshki is the largest prediction market in the United States. You're not playing against the house, peer-to-peer trading, yes or no contracts on whether something will happen.

You're trading directly against other users. You're like buying and selling stocks. No algorithm. I hate that word. CFTC approved. It's all good. Download the Kalshi app. There's the QR code.

Use the code Halwani to get up to 25 when you trade 25. K-A-L-S-H-I-K-A-L-S-H-I. Cal-S-S-H-E. Trade what's next! we love Kalshi I need to put my I-fee here because Frank was getting very upset that I wasn't

Frank put my I-FB in earlier today and then noted that I had a stand on my shirt and now I'm very self-conscious about it in fact I had a very late start today and I just felt a little bit off and instead of coming in and empowering me

and making me feel better about life I actually feel worse how do you feel about that Frank hey try not to stay in your shirt man I actually didn't know there was a stain, so you're doing great. Okay, thanks. Appreciate it.

I can hear everyone. I'm just fixing this because there's like this big, like, Frank, why is it all, what is all this? What's happening here? What is all this? What am I supposed to do with all? Take it off and try to get the stain out? What happened? There we go.

I'm not using that. I love. Peace and love, peace and love, Frankie. Co-founder of R.A.F. The one and only, Chad Bronstine is here. One year anniversary show on Saturday. There he is. Big Chad.

How are you? Wow. Look at you. You've been on the show more than anyone in the last year. And you always give me shit. How are you? How are you? Look at you, man, with the sleeve and everything.

You're like that politician who's getting all the crap for the sleeves. You know that? I've always worked. I know, I know. But I don't usually see you. Oh, you didn't see this woman. There's like a bit of an older lady. I don't know her name.

Frank probably knows. And she just like reappeared. with two arms filled with tattoos and everyone's giving your shit for it. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, how long? How long, how long ago? Like when the first one?

Oh, when I was like 18, like when I was wrestling in high school. Okay, yeah, yeah. So you did wrestle in high school? Yeah, yeah. How far did you go? I went all the way up to high schools, but I never made, I didn't go to college wrestle.

Did you try? I did not know. Okay, did you not want to or did you? No, I want to do, thank you, thank you, Rick. Yeah, actually I did try it, but, you know, it's just like you have to the commitment, right?

I was always more into being an entrepreneur. Okay. You know, on the business side. So, but I always loved wrestling. Like, kind of like how you are with the UFC and MMA, it's like when I was done wrestling and I was working in business, I'd always watch big time. I'd always watch all the wrestling. So how you are avid there, I was always staying there.

That was your favorite sport? Favorite sport to watch. So you go to school for what? Like, what do you learn? I went to Kent State. Oh, yeah. And then I transferred Miami of Ohio. And I love.

in Miami. I was, I won an entrepreneur the year at Miami, Ohio. Really? But I didn't graduate. I left a semester. You won an entrepreneur of the year? They had this entrepreneurship award. Okay. And then I went to, I, uh, I left a semester early from college. Oh, you didn't actually graduate? I did not graduate. So I was, then I joined in the ad tech world. Okay, why did you leave early?

Um, because I got a good, uh, job at that time at, um, IACC, which was like city search back then local, selling local ads to restaurants. And, uh, I was always good at sales. And, uh, It was a good opportunity. And my dad's like, you can't leave. I'm like, I'm going to leave. And I did. Did you promise him you'd go back and actually graduate?

I actually got, I actually went back to teach there. Really? Yeah. So I did their entrepreneur. Not like full-time teacher. Sure. But there's a dean of the entrepreneurship program there. And he did an incredible job building out this program.

And as I was, you know, growing in my career, they reached out to me and said, hey, you mind coming and speaking to our entrepreneur program? And so I went back multiple times and spoke to them, and it was an awesome program. So how do you get involved in combat sports? I'm trying to get from your early days to RAF, but we've always kind of like skipped over that because we talk about the new news, but now that you're actually here. So like I remember meeting you if you're working with Juliana Pena. How does that all happen?

So Juliana is a good, I want Juliana, close friend of both of ours. Yes. So Juliana, when we, my wife, she struggled having, we struggled having kids, right? So she had this doctor named Dr. Jen, who was, and she worked on my wife and Juliana. And so when Juliana was fighting in the UFC, I forgot which fight it was, but we had her good friend, asked my wife to host an event at our house for Juliana. And so Juliana came over to my house, and I'm a marketing guy. So I was always in, like I said, ad tech and marketing.

And so I told Julianna I could help her, and I did. And we became friends. I ended up managing Julianna for, I don't know, like six years. which we met. Yes. And she always spoke very highly of you. And then I would, what you and I met through me coordinating times

for her to come on the show. But yeah, so that was my forte into at least combat sports. But you weren't really interested in doing that role, right? That was more like you met, you meet this person. I was not interested. I just loved Juliana.

She's like a sister to me. And she was your first client? First and only client. And well, so like, what would you have called Hulk Hogan? Hulkeg's my partner. So we started Real American Beer together.

But you had a relationship. relationship before, right? Always just partnership on the business side, but he had his own management. Vaux, who's my partner now, Christopher Volo, he worked with Hulk, but I was not managing any other talent. And as far as MMA fighters, it's only been Juliana. Only been Juliana. And no interest in continuing doing that. No. I'm not doing Giuliana is still my, Julianna. Sure, sure. No, continuing. No, no, no, never. And now you're like busier than ever. Yeah, yeah. So I get to work with a lot of managers in the in the sport and I have a good relationship with all of them but julian is the only person that I want to work with. We're approaching the one year anniversary of RAF. I remember it last

year, August, late August, Cleveland. This time last year, what were you thinking about what RAF was? I'm sure you're in a much different place and as we've talked about it probably has exceeded your expectations in year one. What are you thinking before the first show is about to kick off in Cleveland late August of last year. I'm probably thinking the things you were thinking when you first called you was like, is this going to work? Yeah. Right?

So you were thinking it as well? I was, I knew it would. Like I had a good thing. But of course, like, I mean, as an entrepreneur, you have failures and successes. And I'm like, I love wrestling. I always go back to how much you love MMA. I love wrestling, right? So it's like there's a lot of responsibility on me, Izzy and Eric to actually make this successful

because how many people have failed in wrestling, it's been quite a bit. And so for us, it was a lot. lot on our plate, Hulk just passed too, which is a, you know, you couldn't have, it's like, you couldn't have predicted anything that's ever happening. But once we had that show in Cleveland and the production and everything was done, like, I had a feeling that we were going to be successful. But it's been a learning experience. And I feel like we've evolved and we get better every show. Did you consider delaying the launch because of Hulk's passing? Because I remember seeing you on Raw, like not that. It was like three, four weeks prior, right? It was a lot to deal with.

We did, I mean, like, you couldn't, the thing it was, like, we signed contracts. We did everything. It was, there was, Hulk would be like, brother, the show goes on. Like, if we didn't do it, we wouldn't have been able, like, we already paid for. Yeah. This isn't, it wasn't cheap, right? So, uh, we had to execute and we had to deliver on the show. And so show ends and you feel like, okay, we've got something here?

Those anxieties go away? I mean, you, you, I mean, the show ends and we felt good. Like, we felt like we did something special and it had a lot of potential. Okay. Second show, when we went to Penn State, it was okay. So it was like we were like, we learned in the audience, like what we had to fix. And but... Like what?

Just like you, you know, wrestling is a sport. If you're a purist, you love watching wrestling. You'll sit there for three hours. You're not bored. But if you're not creating like energy and excitement throughout the process and you're trying to build a new fan base, you had to draw more engagement. So we just learned that we had to do different things throughout the show just to make sure that were keeping the new audience educated and excited.

I use my wife, for example. I wouldn't have done this without my wife, but my wife knows what my son wrestles. That's how I started this. He brought me back into the sport, but she's a fan that I would use as like, she didn't know enough about freestyle wrestling. So you use her as an example

and you have to educate what are the rules? She'd be like, what's going on right now? So you just had to make sure that you knew and that you can educate during that process of like, so people can follow along with the actual, scoring. Your son is how old? 10. So if your son doesn't get into wrestling,

you don't think this happens? No. Because you're just watching him and you're like there has to be something more for the older guys? So my son, yeah, I had to think so more and also the kids, right? Like you know, when I was younger, I looked up to Holcogan, right? I looked up to the WWE, but you didn't have this professional wrestling league

to look up to Kyle Dake or Bo Nickel or Kyle Snyder or Kennedy Blades or all these amazing wrestlers, Jason Nolfe, etc. So this was a way for us to do that. And so my son inspired being in a wrestling room in the culture that I saw with the coaches and how they sacrifice. I'm like, there's got to be something we can do to build this up. And that's why I met Izzy because the coach that I was in Tampa was like, you got to go see

this guy, Izzy Martinez in Chicago. So I walked into Izzy's room. My son was like seven and a half and he was afraid to be alone in a club. In Izzy's club, no dads are allowed. Wow. That's a rule? It's a rule. Wow. But nobody's allowed in the room. No dads are because he's just how people have those rules and I'm like he's seven I kind of got to stay here my wife was just in the hospital because we had a you know a complicated second pregnancy and so we so I'm like I got to stay for the day and so he's like some the coach just like calls izzie up and he's like oh he's this guy's breaking the rules and like he's seven years old but anyways i got to listen to izzie speak to the kids and stuff and so he let you stay he let me stay okay

and i built a good relationship with izzie obviously izzie's an m m. yeah and he knew juliana and uh things but like i listened to isy speak in his room is one of the best wrestling coaches there are right he has one of the he has one of the best clubs in the united states and he was an eight-time high school state championship coach at montini and then um it just built you know john jones's coach yara riggas holly home etc but i just loved it i'm like hey dude i got this idea and he thought i was just a wrestling dad kind of like when we called you with hulk you just saw us crazy but uh we told him about the um idea and then he came on the road with clay gweed and him and we we were on tour with Hulk, for the bear, and he's like, he started to understand what we

could do here. So he came on in the beginning as a co-finder to build this out with us. And in terms of like the surprise, I feel like you've had a lot of surprises this past year. Yeah. What are some of the ones that come to mind? Like you're like, man, I did not expect this. I did not think this. I didn't account for this. There's a lot of surprises.

I mean, there is, you know, I think that the community of like in the May world of My thesis was that if you're Kobe or Michael Chandler or many others at wrestled in college, people think, oh, these guys don't know how to wrestle. Kobe was an All-American in college. Chandler was an All-American. Ben Ascran was a two-time NCAA champion, right? Ben was one of our first signies. Tyron Woodie, two-time All-American, right?

So we thought that if we started this, they'd come back and want to wrestle because that was their first love. And now you've gone international. Yes. Georgia, Russia, you've got another Russia show coming up, right? We've done Georgia and we're Moscow on September 5th. Right. So you've only done Georgia is the only international. We're the first international show. And then you've got September 5th, that's Hamzad and Tyran Woodley.

Which Georgia was crazy because I think that was probably one of our cool. Eric Bischoff, we were sitting, it was me, Eric and Izzy outside. It felt like the World Cup. Like we sold out the arena. There's 10,000 people. Wow. Outside of the arena, it was wild. And we'd never see anything like it, but the arena was wild there.

I remember when Marab, when Rob beats the Udo, it was just wild. You couldn't have scripted that any better. The comeback? No, it was crazy. He was up, he was up eight zero. Yeah.

He thought he was to get attacked. And I, Marab just his cardio and just his, he's a good wrestler, but it was just wild to think that that happened. So in terms of surprises and secrets to your success, I really do feel like using these names, especially in the world of MMA, has been a huge, you know,

huge deal for you. for you guys, right? Marab, Henry, Hamza, these guys. And the part that I always wonder is, what does the actual wrestling community feel about it? Because I feel like your biggest stars are those names who we know

as some of the biggest stars in the sport of MMA, and it gets shows like ours and other MMA shows to talk about it. And so, would it be fair to say that's not what you initially thought was going to be the blueprint? I think it's a mixture, right?

In your world, right? Those are the biggest names in the world of MMA. In our world of wrestling, like, it's when you have the wrestlers that are coming on, you had to make sure that the purest community of wrestling knows and respects who we have, right? So, like, we have some of the best wrestlers in the, we have every, actually, sorry, we have out of the Tokyo Olympics, 2004, we have six gold medalists on our roster.

Wow. So I think it's a mixture of the both, and I think they respect each other, right? They both draw credibility on both sides, but I do think the MMA community of, like, having like you mentioned like armin and colby and marab and henry and all these people um that are coming in i think they help bring in the mainstream community and it only helps wrestling so i think the wrestling world appreciates that because the whole goal is to grow the sport as a um and build something special and wrestling to people like izzie me and eric and everybody else it's you're in these communities and our kids and everything else it's a popular sport but

mainstream wise you have to grow that does armin own a piece of the company company. He seemed to imply that yesterday on the show. Armin implies a lot. Okay. You know, Armand's pretty active with us. Yeah. He does a lot. He's almost like monthly for you guys.

He's monthly. You know, Armine introduced us to one of our sponsors, Breaer Water, too. Like, he's been very helpful. The original, like, there's, Armand's one of the originals. Like, Kobe's been an original person for us. Bo Niggle was the first really, him and her, him and Holly were the first crossover athletes on our Cleveland card. I don't know if you remember this, but a year ago,

Izzy is Holly's coach, right? And they're very close to how I am in Juliana. And it was one in the morning in Cleveland a year ago. And Izzy's like, we got to get, Kennedy couldn't wrestle because of, you know, NIL. And so Izzy's like, we got to get Holly to wrestle. And so we met with Holly at one in the morning and asked her to wrestle. And she came out and wrestle.

And she did pretty, pretty amazing. It was amazing, right? So I would say that Holly, if I were, like, the way she came out and wrestle was like, it was unbelievable. Like she really almost, she had that match to win. So it's like that's really when her and Bo

were like the two first crossover athletes on our stage. But in terms of like who owns REF? We have investors. Okay. We have Leflin Capital. So when we first started this, I got,

there was a guy named Alex that was part of our beer and the advisor, he introduces to Harley at Lefflane Capital and that's how, that's Lefling does emerge in sports. and they were one of our, them and Cassius and a few others were our first partners. Financially, like right now, how would you describe the state of the company health-wise?

Very healthy. Really? Yeah. Better than you thought you would be a year-in? Or same? Like I said, the beginning was a gamble. Yeah. I think we're in a good spot.

We're in a great spot. Great partners, great investors. And I remember we have a great partner in Fox, too. That's our TV partner. How long is that deal for? It's up until 2008. Okay. And is there a chance of you,

landing on television or is it always going to be Fox Nation? I mean, I don't know, you know, I think right now we're just happy with Fox. I think, you know, let's just say this, Fox promotes RAP pretty well. Yeah, I see it. You're watching the World Cup. I see it. I see us. If you watch NFL, you're watching basketball.

So like, Fox has been an incredible partner to us. And we wouldn't be here without them either because they took the shot in us. Sure. I was meaning like FS1. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that I think right now you can go on certain apps. I think you can go on Fox One, Amazon Prime, and you can watch us through. Okay, okay, okay.

And, okay, so when you talk about, like, the way you build cards, who is, like, who's putting together these matches? Is it you? So, Izzy, Ben Ascran, Lance Palmer, Willie Saylor are the matchmaking team. Oh, wow. Okay, I didn't realize that Ben and Lance were doing that as well. Ben and Lance are part of that team. And then when it comes to, like, the crossover matches, Izzy and I really work hand-in-hand

on those together. And negotiating the deals with the managers and whatnot? Izzy and I. Okay, Izzy and you? Yeah. TV is Eric Bischoff. Production, building everything, is Eric. Eric's, I mean, you know it.

Yeah, legend. And to be frankly, one of my, we have a great partnership, but Hulk always like, brother, we got to get Bischoff. And so when Bischoff came and Bischoff was early, first, I told him that idea, we sat down. I think it was the second time was later, he called D.U. together. But he, Bischoff's a genius.

Like, he obviously was WCW days. There's the reason why he was winning a lot. 83 weeks. Yeah, and now he's still, he built a really strong team. Like he's got himself and then people that followed him across the industry. And Eric's a genius. Like I said, he's a genius. He's really fun to work with.

If I were to go, like, say, sell a reality show and I'd call up Eric, and he's like, hey, Eric, we got to do this. Which we have a reality show coming in September 19th. Eric's like, okay. And then he puts it together, right? His whole team comes up with what we're going to do and then they execute. What's the show? It's called Undiscovered. And it's basically we have all these guys that are and girls trying to get into RAF constantly.

And so everyone says they can do it. So we have 12 people that you'll see that are that are trying out to become the next RIF superstar. And the winner of that show will be on our Miami card, September 19. Oh, wow. Where does it air? It's going to air on Fox Nation. The show will. So wait, September 19th.

And it starts when? Well, the show will air the day before. We already shot the show. Oh, you did. Okay. But when does it air? It will air the day before the Miami event, September 18th. But it's only like a one-hour show?

It's a one-hour show. And then the winner of the show. And obviously, we'll probably do more, but we just wanted to try this out. Okay. But it was, I mean, Eric sent me the first, like, clip of it. Izzy's on it, obviously. Eric, Kobe is the host. And it's really cool.

Were you surprised Colby beat Armin? It was a tough one. You know, it was like, Was I surprised? Kobe's a really good wrestler, and so it was Armin. I wasn't sure what the outcome was to be, but Kobe's, again, like, if you watch Kobe wrestle, he's solid. Like, when you saw him, and Wyman's a great wrestler.

Yeah, yeah. I forgot to mention Wyman, but Wyman was an All-American as well. Sure. So that, you know, that was a really good matchup. And I think Kobe can wrestle anybody, right? It's pretty good, and so can Armine. Armin told us yesterday he beats Dylan Dennis he gets a rematch. Is that true?

Against Kobe? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there, Kobe wants. to do the re- I think there, Colby was always open to doing a rematch with Armin. I think that we could probably see that eventually happen again. We had Colby on and he asked us to make a poll about whether or not he should face Belal. On the anniversary show, the people said yes. Yeah. Still haven't gotten a thank you from Belal, by the way, for that, but, you know, neither here nor there. But it's not on

the anniversary show. It's in Miami. It's in Miami. September 19th, I believe. There it is. Why not this weekend? I just didn't work out. Okay. And then obviously, like we wanted to get the Henry Marab rematch. And so we were able to coordinate with that too. And it's just timing schedules, right? So Marab's obviously going into fighting the UFC. And Henry has a certain schedule. So just wanted to make sure that we can get that match as well.

So like in a situation like that where Marab, we just found out is going to be fighting in October, October 24th for the bantamweight title against Peter Yan. Do you have to get permission from the UFC? Like, hey, does this timeline work for you guys? Is this enough time? How does that work? I think the athletes, we don't talk directly.

Like, I have a good relationship with Hunter. Like, if he had a problem, he would reach out to us. But they've been really great for us. Like, and I think we're good for them too, right? Think about it. Why wouldn't you want an athlete to compete multiple times? I'd say, Marab's probably gotten better at wrestling because he's trained to compete. And then when he gets the call to fight, he's ready to go.

So, like, we're not competitive at all. No, and you kept Armin in the news. I mean, I know he did a lot of other stuff as well. but like it was almost a monthly thing where he was competing and doing something. I think we were talking about this outside, but like I think Armin and R.F are mutually good for each other. I think that he stayed active.

He got way better at wrestling. Yeah. And now he's going to fight and he does his fight and then he can come back to RIF. But like I said, for wrestling, it's good for us where we live because we're not competitive in MMA culture, you know, at all because you can do both.

I always see people speculating online. It's inevitable TKO is going to take over RIF at some point. What do you make of this? Listen, like we have a good relationship with TKL. Like obviously Eric and we got to know Nick and they're very good to our organization. We have had zero problems with them. So I just think for right now we're trying to grow the sport of wrestling. Like when we started this, it was for the love of wrestling.

And so as long as we can continue to do that, if we found the right partner that wanted to come in, then we'd always be open to that. But as now, you asked the question earlier, we're backed, you know, high investors who want us to keep seeing us win. and so I feel like we're in a good spot. Have there ever been talks of this? About with DKO? Yeah. Not yet, no, no.

No. Yet, though. I mean, I don't, I, I, there's no, there's not been open conversation about it. Okay. Have we got calls from other people? Yeah, we've got, we've got, like who? I'm not going to name that. Okay.

We get, and what kind of calls? Like, hey, we want to buy you guys, or? And we get, I mean, I think we've proven to the world that wrestling's here to stay. Like, wrestling's already in the, in the amateur world it is, but we need a league like this. Like, why? it's not fair to the athletes that they don't have the ability to make money after they graduate college, like you do in the NBA and NFL. And I think for wrestling, it's a youth sport too, right?

So we have clubs. I don't know if you've seen that we've acquired our first club in Tampa, and we're going to build out the club model. And then... What does that mean? Tell us what... Wrestling clubs. So that's where I fell in love with wrestling again was I was in Izzy's club.

I was in a club in a club in Tampa. We bought Connor Beebe's club, which Conner Beebe and Izzy grew up together. and Izzy's like you need to take Chase to Beebe in Tampa and we acquired his club but clubs are where kids go and wrestle so the age of four you can go to wrestling clubs in like a little Tykes program and then you're with that coach

like most of Izzy's clubs were like I said the best every kid sticks with him from the age of four until they're in their older like Kennedy Blades Real Woods these a lot of like you see Mikey Calliando that just wrestled for us they're all Izzy kid they were all Izzy Stella and Izzy trained kids

Okay. So we're doing the clubs, and then we have NextGen, which is our youth tournament. And when does that, so has that kicked off yet? Yes, we did our first event in Milwaukee. Okay. Which was Ben's hometown. And it was amazing. And then it was the kids get this fish off and team created a production that when the kid walks out,

some of these kids were better in how they performed than in terms of their personalities than others. But it's a, it's a, they make to the finals, and then they get to compete on the state. of Fox Nation. If they make it through the day. And win, okay. So it's the best kid, I mean, it's usually, you know, ranked kids that are coming from all over to compete. And then the show is a two-hour special or three-hour special on Fox Nation.

And they get the Bischoff production quality, James, you know, David, John, his whole team. By the way, that Milwaukee event, you're watching Ben compete against B'Lall. Are you nervous? What are you thinking? Like, this was a huge deal. The guy almost died a year ago. Well, I'm nervous. And I give Bala a lot of credit, too, for taking that.

Yeah. I heard you, I watch your show, I'm a fan. You were like, oh, it's a lose, lose for Bala. I didn't look at it like that. Why not? Because I think Bala knows Ben. Balaah loves wrestling. So I give him Bala.

Bala was the first guy we called when Julianne and Bala are good friends. Izzy and I were of Penn State. We called Bala to take David Carr. I don't know if you know David Carr. Of course. David Carr is one of the best wrestlers in the world. And we asked Bala to wrestle him. He's a competitor.

He's like, I'll take that. match. A lot of other people would have said no to that. Ben Ascran was, Ben Ascran's still a great wrestler. So, like, you could say he, you know, he almost died what you did. It was the first signature, but I wouldn't ever count Ben out of anything. And you put Ben in any matchup. It's a tough matchup. But just like, you know, who knows how the body reacts and things like that. But being Izzy were talking to Ben all the time. Okay. Ben was, Ben works with the company. Yeah. He's been with us since day. I mean, we first contract. So like, Ben would tell us if, we said, this was Ben's idea.

And Ben will call us up every day. It's like, I need a wrestle. And is he like, are you sure? And Ben went through it. Ben said he was training, he was wrestling, he's beating kids in the club. So, you know, it was back to your question, though,

the experience of Ben walking out with the, like, the funky, I don't know if you saw the back of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was incredible. Yeah. Ben said something to me, and Izzy the other day, he's like, Amy, his wife was awesome.

It was like, I don't think you could have wrote a better ending to him. movie. It felt like you were in a movie. Yeah. And none of that was scripted. Yeah. No, it was amazing. I mean, it was emotional. Just to see him out there was surreal. I was just wondering if you were maybe

relieved when it was over like, okay, we did that. The result didn't even matter. Like him walking out was a win. I'm not going to make that, because Ben would get, Ben doesn't want anyone to victimize him and I'm not going to make that because Ben is the ultimate competitor. Yeah. And I think in the wrestling community, no one underestimates this

Ben. Yeah. He's a, he's a monster. Like, he's just I don't know if you know this, but when we signed him, he got, he went into that coma and then he comes out, Izzy and I were like, what's going on? And he's working in the hospital. Like when he's in there because he loves, he, he, he, he, he, he, we, our first pitch with him was like, I don't think this is going to work.

Right. Tell me why it's going to work. Right. And he signed after we told him why. And so he's been with us and, you know, you just don't count a guy like that out. As far as the show this weekend, uh, August 22nd, Fox Nation in, um, Tampa. Yeah. No, Cleveland.

Oh, you're back in Cleveland. Tampa's in... I'm from Cleveland. Yes. So our first show we did in Cleveland, Wolstein Center a year ago. And we were on our beer tour, Hulk went to, we were at the Cavs game.

And Hulk's like, brother, this audience is special. And we were doing... And he loved Cleveland. I'm from Cleveland. I'm like, if we do RIF, we have to do our first show in Cleveland. So it was Wolstein Center a year ago. And now we're at Rocket Mortgage.

This is where the Cavs play, which is an incredible sign of growth. Yeah. How many people do you expect, by the way? 10,000. There's the lineup right there. It's amazing. Like Woodley Buckley buried all the way at the bottom,

which is a fun, you know, if you know the history of the St. Louis guys and whatnot. But the name that jumps out to me is Jordan Burroughs. Because Jordan Burroughs, for me, you know, like, I'm not a hardcore wrestling guy. Obviously, I know about the guys who graduate to him. Like, I know Jordan Burroughs from the Olympics, from NBC, from all that stuff.

And this is his debut for you guys, right? How hard was it to get him on board? Jordan was tough. Yeah. Izzy and I worked on that for a while, And then we have this guy named Brandon came in at works with lives next door, was his living next door to Jordan and Philly. Oh, wow.

We talked to Jordan multiple times. I think Jordan had to go on his own pathway to see what RIF was. But in Philly, Jordan called us up and he's like, you know what? I want to do this because what he said was he had 30 kids coming to his club because he owns a club the next day, and they were all wearing RIF shirts. Wow. He's like, how was the RIF event? And they said it was incredible.

And so I think he felt that. you know, what we're creating for the youth community special, and he wanted to, you know, continue to help grow that. So that was, now he's all in. Now he wants to wrestle every month. Okay, and he's going up against Sean Brady. Yes. UFC fighter.

How do you come about, like, picking Sean as his debut opponent? You know, Sean, we've talked to Sean. Is he, is he, Sean's manager, Lloyd, as well, we've been talking to, and, you know, just came up as an idea, and we pitched it to them, and they, they accepted it. Love that. I love Jordan. I know a lot of people

have tried to get Jordan to do MMA. Yeah. And he said no to that in the past. He feels like he's been one of those guys who's like, I'm good. I did the Olympic thing, one of the greatest of all time, and now I'm going to go off

and do my own thing. So when I saw him get added, same with Gable to a degree. It felt like Gable took a little bit longer. Gable was also one of our first conversations that we had. Way back. The Hulk was on the call.

Oh, wow. With him. Hulk, Izzy. I think Eric was on the call and we talked to Gable, and he was ready to go. And then it just got pushed back with obviously going to the UFC,

but yeah, Gable's also, you know, Gable was a last minute add to Cleveland, and he wants, so we got, we got Gable.

Well, he's also on this card. This is stacked, yes. Gable's on this card too, and he, you know, Gable's usually a main, of some of these,

some of these, as you see these cards, a lot of main eventers that, and people, like, Armum will always call us like, I'll open up the show. I don't care, right?

And so he, we've learned that opening up the, having, like, good openings and middle, it's like, for wrestling, it's kind of like writing a movie. You have to have a...

You need to keep the energy. You don't know how it's going to go, but you hope it's going to be energetic throughout the whole time. So it's like all the cards that the team makes, the matchmaking team is about creating excitement. I just think it's so fortuitous for you guys.

Like, Gable's fighting in a month in the UFC. And so to have a guy like that, especially someone of his stature who's about to go on this, we suspect meteoric rise in the UFC, also compete for you guys it's like a dream. Yeah, I mean, it's...

In the past, as you know, like five, six, seven, eight years ago, UFC's not letting people do this. No, I think that, again, I think for the UFC side and our side is wrestling is not, you know, wrestling, like, it's six minutes versus 25 minutes. Like, our, the injury side of it is less, and I think that it's great for both of us. Why wouldn't, you've, you've become an RIF fan, your team, I'm not going to name names on crew here, but we were having this conversation, no, I'm saying... What they were hating?

You guys had some conversations about, like, Am I gonna like you ask the question some people are like am I gonna do I want to be an are you gonna watch RIA? Yeah yeah yeah I'm not gonna name names but this person said well I don't know and then later on there I watched your show and they're like I have two screens up I'm gonna admit to it yeah yeah yeah think that and that's good like I like the band trender show I don't we're not trying to win every like you we have to win by performance we have to win by that we're putting on a good show and I think that we've shown in this world right now that R a RIF is a conversation now we're And you go into a wrestling club on a Sunday.

Like, more so for the wrestling community, too, is like, we want the kids to be talking about us. Like they talk about football. For sure. Like, your Buffalo Bills, you're obsessed with your, or New York Knicks. Yes, yes, yes. We want people to come in passionate about what's happening at RAF. I'm not bringing up the Cavs, Eastern Conference Finals.

You were talking mad shit before that. I was like, wow, this guy's. I was at the first game to us, and I was in a box, you know, and I was telling them that calves would look good. They were winning. It was a crazy comeback at the end. It was unbelievable, yes, down 22. I was very upset about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You talked less after that one, but I remember you talking before. I'm not going to talk. Yeah, I did. I Instagramed you. I'm like, yeah. But I admit it was the necks were the, next were amazing. I appreciate that.

Thank you for that. And by the way, I'm so thankful to RIF because this year, I'd say first half of the year in UFC, like kind of dull at times. There were many Mondays, which is our biggest show, you know, coming out of the weekend where you were the top story. Yeah. Like, I was saying. like Giorgio and Armin, that gave us like several days of conversation. You know that neither one of them knew each other was

when we put that prior. Yeah. Neither one of them. Wow. Is it like me and Izzy talking through that? Like Georgia, we had, but no one, they're like, Georgia don't want to get taken down. Right.

Right. Yeah. And Armin was like, who is this guy? Yeah. Yeah. So good. And we told them like, we told her. So the sweep who manages Armin on the wrestling side was like we were talking to him. and just tell him if he wins this match or anything.

It takes him down. It's going to go viral. And lo and behold, it went viral. What's a dream match for you? There's a lot of them. Like, you know, we, you know, I don't know, there's, we've had a lot of our dream match. It's like a video game.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we get to put on a lot of our matches that we want. But there's definitely talks with people that we want to see come. Tell us, tell us. Why not? Put it out there. Right?

Manifest it. You know, we text, I'll say this. We text, you know, PSP all the time. Okay. Because he loves wrestling. Yes. Like he's,

he's reached out to us, not in the sense where he has Canadian team members. We had Sam Stewart, wrestler from Canada, who's great. And then we're talking to others. And he's like, hey, we'd love to see these guys in the card. I'm like, well, we'd love to see you in a card. Yes, yes, yes. So any interest? Yeah.

I mean, I think that. You got to get him out to a show. He said, you know, we're trying to get him out to Miami. Okay. But he's amazing. Like, I saw him doing some crazy stuff on Instagram. and I'm like, you don't need to train. You're in a race a beast.

He's come on, because he wrestles, I think, two or three days a week, he says. Do you think he's interested? Who? George. I think he's interested. I think he respects the sport of wrestling. And, you know, what we're seeing is, like, John, John comes back. John coaches Gable, but John came to our event and when Gable made his debut,

was in Dallas. And John loves wrestling. Like, most of athletes that wrestled, like I did. Even if you wrestle in high school, you wrestle. middle school, like it had some sort of impact on your life. I think it's so good for the youth. It's like discipline, foundation, confidence. Whether you're going to be an NCAA champion or not,

it just allows you to get that foundation. So I think a lot of these guys, they come back, they remember what it meant to them, and they're like, I got to be a part of this. Did you ever really have a serious conversation, John D.C.? Well, you know, like I said, Izzy's John, and then Ben's talked to D.C. There was, earlier on, they were talking about a lot.

We didn't even talk about it. they were talking about on media, but nothing came about. Nothing now. No. What about Brock? I don't know. You know, Brock just retired.

Eric Bishop's good friends, you know, knows them and stuff. But I don't know if he'd come back, but Brock was an amazing wrestler. I remember, like, I've heard you say, like, oh, the, the WWE guys or even the AW guys, but, you know, like, these pro wrestlers, they don't want to come over here because, like, if they lose. But I actually think that's more for the UFC guys, because if I saw, like, a Chad Gable come over. Oh, wait, Chad Gable's a great human being.

Yes. I love Chad Gable. Chad did stuff for us to real American beer. He was texting me in the beginning of this. Let's get some of these guys over. Chad was a great wrestler. Yes. Just so we know, Chad, I think Chad was like All-American or he's also on the Greco.

I think, I forgot the exact staff. Olympic team, right? Olympic team. And Grecoe, I think, but I got to double check. Don't get to check me here because I'm not sure. But Chad Gable is all in all, it's a good human being. Like, he writes to me and he's like, I just love what RIF's doing. I mean, and he's a, you know, he's a fan of R-AF, and I'm a fan of his.

Like, I love seeing his, his, he's doing great as a play. Right now. He's a good, he's a really good person. You root for good people. For sure. I just think having those guys would be very fun to see how they would do in a non-scripted. I think it's a good, personally, I think, like, Bischoff and I talk about this and is, he's like, why not? Like, you know, another one that's, we almost had a wrestler was Jacob Casper, who was

a part of real American, wrestled at Duke. Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, he, you know, he was there. Is there, is it harder? with the pro wrestlers than the UFC guys? I just got to find the right, it's got to be the right thing and the right time, you know, but I think that Jacob was going to wrestle in the beginning.

It just didn't work out for his schedule. By the way, speaking of wrestling and Hulk Hogan, did you see the Netflix series? I got to watch the Netflix series. What did you think of it? I thought it was good. I thought it was good. And Hulk, when they were doing the Netflix,

they were doing a lot of the shooting when we were on the beer tour. Yes. So I got to spend time with them, and they're a great team. that was doing the documentary. And, you know, like I said, for us, Hulk was just an amazing partner. And I'll tell you, like, when we called you that day, he's like, man, it'd be strong to get

Ariel. Yeah. You bring this up. You're trying to tap it to my inner child. No, I'm saying, but he was, I used to joke around Hulk all the time. And our team would say this because I would be on so many calls with Hulk. So that's so good at doing his impersonation. Yeah, yeah.

Brother, man, you're good at it. Yeah. So when he wasn't on the calls, I'd pretend I was Hulk. Oh, my. Tell the story of Hulk. Amazing. You know, 1984, you know. Yeah, Iron Sheik.

Iron Sheik, leg drop. MSG? He was a genius and he also had so many cool ideas throughout this. And he, every time on our tour, he would talk about Bischoff. And he'd be like, I just got to get two of you guys together. And then I told you, before we had the first call, that was in Hulk's. When we called you that one time, it was in Hulk's kitchen. But the first time when I met Bischoff, it was in my kitchen.

Okay. And he's like, let's just picture Eric, this idea and see if he gets excited. and that's when Eric... Was it surreal for you to see, like, new interviews of him? Yeah. Almost a year later? Yeah, it's still, you know, it's like, it went by so fast, like, in terms of, like, we have, we have, uh, Terry Francis to see over real American beer.

Like, she grinds pretty hard to keep that, and we're building that, the team there. And then, um, Hulk was, that was Hulk's vision. Like, that was the beer, like, just unifying and creating that vision and, uh, being on the road that he, I've never seen a human being in that kind of pain and then sit there for three eyes. And that's we tell our athletes, like we do these fan zones. Yeah. It's two hours. Like, Arm and everyone has to go do it with the kids.

And Hulk would be like, always stay no matter what until the last kid got to see him. Wow. And it wasn't an act. It wasn't a gimmick. It wasn't, it was sincerely like he'd be angry with us if we didn't allow him to, like, stay and make sure he sees everybody. Wow. Incredible. And may he rest in peace.

year two, how many events? So we're going to think we're going to do 24. 24. So you did 14? Yeah, so we did 13. We went to Georgia, 13, but the plan is to do at least one U.S. and one international. That's a lot. Yeah.

How are you going to survive this? I don't know. We have a good, the team that we build is pretty good. Will you go to all of these? I've been to everyone. Damn. The good thing is like our family is like Izzy's family, my family, Eric's. Like a lot of them come to our events.

They, like, my wife and my kid, they're homeschooled, so they're traveling with, uh, okay. Yeah, my wife's pretty amazing. Like, I told, she was the first person I told this idea too, and I was like, she was on the couch. I'm like, what do you think about a professional wrestling? She's like, what kind of wrestling? Yeah, yeah.

She knows wrestling through me. She's like, oh, you know, she thinks I'm just another crazy idea as an entrepreneur. But they, my wife, my son, and my daughter, they're at every event. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 12 and 12, we'll see.

Like, we're, right now, we're shooting for that. Okay. I can't say now, but we'll have an announcement for November in another country that will be a big opportunity for us. But wrestling is very popular. You probably don't even know this area, but like in other countries, like in India. Yeah, no, no. Dirt wrestling and freestyle wrestling, I think, on the second most popular sport. Wow.

And it's extremely popular wrestling, Japan, in all CIS countries, you can imagine. It's very popular, right? In Canada, wrestling is very popular. So I think we'll end up doing an event in Toronto. You're trying to hit all these spots. Yeah, we want to go to all the countries that wrestling is popular. It's great to see because we've seen so many promotions come and go very, very quickly. And it feels like you guys just, honestly, exceeded expectations almost off the jump.

And now are, you know, on this exponential, meteoric rise. It's wild. Yeah, we're having a lot of fun. And I think one day you'll come to an event. Yeah, I know. It's like the culture is, I think it's different. Even like, you know, you got Dylan Dennis. who people think is this like menace, right?

But he comes to our events and he sees all the kids and he's, everyone just changes. It's like everyone really loves, I think, what the energy that is at these events. And, you know, Juliana's in the commentary, right? Yeah. But I would like to see her wrestle. Oh.

She, one of these days. Yeah, Chale loves it. Yeah, Chal's amazing. Chal's been with this since day one. Yeah. Obviously, also an All-American, great wrestler. We thought he was going to wrestle Tito Ortiz, but that never happened.

Yeah. I know he does a great job for you guys and honestly tells me all the time how much he loves it. Like genuinely loves it as far as just a fan but also working the events. Charles incredible.

His knowledge of wrestling, obviously is amazing and his son wrestles too. So Charles' son comes pretty much all events with him too. Like our, like sick of traveling family now. But yeah,

and then you got Shane Sparks that just added to the commentary who's amazing too from big time. So this Saturday, one year anniversary, live from Cleveland, from the old Q. The old Gondarina, no.

Was this the gunnerina? Was this the same building? No, I think it's a total rebuild. But rocket mortgage is going to be an incredible show. There it is. There's the card. Not bad. The main?

Yeah. I'll go with Morave again. Why not? Bo Nipple on there as well. Who's Who? Look at Gable. And then Woodley Buckley all the way at the bottom. Woodley's debut for you guys.

Will he's also a great wrestler I really like Willoughly a lot Got to know him And he came to a event with Ben one time This is not the Milwaukee one And then he, that's again The reaction he has like man This is real

Like the what Because he was a great wrestler And he's training He was I talked another day He's down like He went from like 220 now he's down to 190 Wow wow He's gonna be

Him and Buckley's gonna be a good match of him Congratulations Congrats on all your success Congrats on everything this past year. Good luck this weekend. We love covering you guys talking about you guys. You guys have been amazing. Appreciate you coming in.

Thank you, Chad. There he is. Chad Bronstein, the co-founder of RAF anniversary show, one-year anniversary show this Saturday. Don't miss it. Fox Nation. We'll take a quick break. Say goodbye to Chad and then say hello to Glover to share. We'll be back.

Back on the program, that was my conversation with Armid Sarukian from yesterday. He was great. We just had Chad Bronstein. He's been a big part of his. his RAF organization. He'll be competing for them in October after his fight in Los Angeles, September 19th. He's going up against Marisa Heuffy. Still to come on the program, Adam Copeland, aka Edge, is going to join us. Absolutely cannot wait for that. Carlos Pracha is going to join us as well. Hamza Shiraz, Paul Hughes. But it is now time to talk to the former UFC light

heavyweight champion, one of my favorites. It's been a minute since we spoke to Glover Tashara. one of the good guys in the game and he's kind enough to join us right here and now to talk about a few exciting things happening in his life. There he is. Hello, Glover. How are you?

Bonilla. No, Boatada. Bortada. I screwed it up. I screwed it up. It's good to have you on, Glover. It's been a minute since we spoke to you and there's a lot to talk to you about

how's everything. How's life? Life is great, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Yeah. Life is great, you know. Training, training for my match

with Shogun Hua next week, you know. And I'm putting the book for the next couple months, the book's going to be, and everything's going great, you know. Okay, so I want to start with the book because I have a good friend who I've been working with. I've called him a colleague, but more so a friend, Guillermo Cruz. I call him the Brazilian Beast. I've known him for well over a decade, and he told me recently, I'm writing a book

with Glover Tashara. Wow. And then he tells me, all right, it's coming out. December, we've got a cover, we've got an Amazon link, we're going to put all this out there, there it is, Glover-Teshire, breaking the rules, amazing stuff. How did this all come about for you? Because you have one of the great stories that I still think the fans, till this day, don't really know the entire tire story, like what you've been through and what you had to overcome to get to where you got to, the UFC, the top of the mountain. How did this all come about for you?

you know like you say everybody see know a little bit about the story they like oh man you should put that in the book then a book you know and I say yeah when I be a champion I'll do it you know and

yeah become the champion and I retired and you know at Guillermo talked to to me to my friend George to my man is George you know and we come about the book I say yeah let's do it Guillermo be a perfect guy for there because I know he will hunt everybody down for the interview, you know?

Of course. He's relentless. And, you know, he did a great job, you know, put it together. It's amazing. And I feel good, man. I feel like hope to inspire, you know, some people and, you know, in life in general to be people like the way I live my life was like with obstacles and everything. but the way I deal with the situations. And even though if I couldn't do well,

like get upset about things, then I learned it later that's not even worth it, you know. It's worth it to be positive, be focused, believe in yourself, and enjoy the present moment. So hopefully that inspires some people. My story was, you know, you know a little bit about it. Training Chuck LaDelle, went back to Brazil, and I have to stay there for, you know, three and a half years.

You know, like I say, a lot of people, I see today as a coach, I see a lot of people with some obstacles, they tend to, you know, start slowing down, maybe stop training, maybe come back later. But that weakness there, it takes the moment, you know, a moment for the fighters. I see a lot of fires that grow old, oh, this guy's going to be a champion. You know, like I see in the beginning with Alex. right but you keep going you keep going you keep trying keep going about some stuff happening you know here and there and people just lose focus so hope that book can teach some people about you know

discipline and and you know be relentless and and and and that is a great way to not only describe you but also guillermo he is relentless he's incredible as far as his knack for getting the story and reaching out to people and following through and being just a great journalist and person. It's out December 8th of the book, but you can pre-order it right now via Amazon. So I urge everyone to do that to support you. What an amazing journey and story that your life is,

and it's great to see it all finally come together. One thing I've always thought about, like as far as biographies, Glover, it sometimes could be daunting because you've been through so much. You want to tell your whole story and it has to like all kind of fit into a book. Was that daunting for you as well

to try to get everything down there to feel like you are representing the entire journey of your life? Yes, yes. But, you know, I read it. I write a book and Gilemer did a very good job and, you know, and put it together. Of course, not that everything goes in it because, you know, it would be like a 500-page book, right? You know, I start at 46, so it's a lot of stories. Like, you know, did the principal come to Mexico, to America, to America?

they will walk with Chuck Lydell. And, you know, behind the scenes, all the fights, the drama a little bit, I think this is going to be great for young fighters, you know, fighters in general, because, again, the way I learned to deal with myself, the way I learned to deal with this pressure, they just want it, that it's so much, I want the belt so much, you know, and that takes, it's a lot of pressure on you, you know, when you want something so bad, is I'm just, I'm just want. almost like it comes the opposite, you know. It's almost like you fear something so much, that thing happens to you, you know?

So when you want something that much, you can always, it doesn't happen. So it's kind of got the way I learned to deal with those situations, to let go a little bit and just enjoy my time and enjoy, you know, my youth, you know, because the time, you lose that, you know. Like one day I'm going to, right now I'm talking about like, yeah, when I fought John Jones, you know, all the great shit. It's stuff like that. So hopefully we'll be able to inspire a lot of athletes. You mentioned you have a fight coming up. August 29th, you're fighting Mauricio Shogun Huah in a boxing match. This is Spontent Fight Night 3.

Now I want to ask you something. We remember the first one with Chail Sunnan and Anderson Silva. That felt more like a choreograph dance. Is this a pro fight, Glover? what this is and how this all came about? You know, this is a pro fight, man. They didn't like their fight with Shellstone, you know, people, you know, the defense was, you know, like you talk about, say, yeah, man, so take it easy, Shellstone, you know,

make the show going. But, and then the second fight was, you know, Paul Freitas against Madelele. They had that fight in the ring, you know, spot they don't want to, it's not something they want to promote, they say, who's going to be the fighters? They're going to fight. They're going to go over the day, and they're going to leave everything out there and they're respectful. You know, they're not going to be doing a fight like them because things happen, but they're not going to be doing a fight like there. You know what? My name come up, Shogans come up. You know, of course, you know, a few other names, but when they ask me, and they ask, who you want to fight? Shogah,

and before they say that's the guy. Because they say sugar, don't say the next name. That's it. That's who I want to fight, you know? And here we are, man, a week away. What was it, what is it like training for this fight? It's been a minute.

Your last fight was in 2023 in the UFC. What has it been like training for this? Yeah, you know, ups and down, man. It's good and the bad. It was really happy, excited to focus on diet and camp and do it myself. At the same time, it's like, wow man I remember now how it's to be dead tired you know to get up in the morning and you're like you already set the guys time to train you know oh man I got to go today you know because retired

is fun man retire is like huh hold on I don't have to train today I'm little tired it's going to take a day off you know I'm going to go in jet ski in the lake but uh you know this is discipline they have to follow and but it's all good you know it makes me because we like this stuff. We like to be able to do that, you know, because we want the results, right? We want it to be good and being better every day. It's been a great journey, man.

It's been great camp, you know. I have a lot of fun, you know. I learn, I learn, Eddie, all the years, you know. A lot of camps, I'm not stressing too much. Glover, we've seen recently some fighters post-retirement, have some issues. Dustin Porre, Anthony Smith, come to mind. You know Anthony well, you fought him.

What was life after fighting like for you? Do you relate to these issues? We've talked about some of your issues in the past, and I'm just wondering, I know you're so involved with Alex and the gym and the other fighters there. Do you understand what it's like when the music stops, trying to find that identity, trying to find that next thing to keep the, you know, the adrenaline going, the energy going, or was it a different experience for you post-retirement? Yeah, it was, man.

So it's difficult to find a purpose. You know, we're looking for what we do, you know. Like, it's like we're working so much towards something, you know. And then like, okay, what I'm going to do now? You know, it's like you don't know really what are you going to do. You know, for me it was okay, coaching. I'll be there 100% with Alex as a purpose. Right now I'm passing on.

We've been, have a lot of energy. amateur fighters, pro, you know, pro debut, the tuning pro, a lot of guys coming up. So this is, I think I find my purpose in coaching and pass it on. You know, you feel they're happy, when they're happy, but like they lose a fight, it's kind of sucks too, you know. But it's emotion that goes up and down. And for me, it was meditation, man. I involve more. And then the end of my career, I was already going to, you know, Isha Foundation and Sad Guru.

You know, it's going spirituality a little bit and meditation. So after I retired, I focus a lot on there. So it's a big help, you know. It's a big, like, you're working for purpose and everything is here and now and enjoy, you know. And I would imagine how close you are with Alex and it, and it, coinciding with his, you know, his rise as well. That period, 2023 probably helped just a little bit. The last time we saw Alex, of course, was back in June at the White House.

Can I ask, what was your take on the fight against Surreal Gun on how he looked at heavyweight? Alex looked amazing, man. He looks so strong. You know, he's wrestling. It was like, you know, sharp and strong. The techniques and very explosive. It's just, again, I say this. before, I don't know.

I, you know, Chuck is to tell me he's not good to be ready too soon, you know. And it could be there, you know, something that maybe I felt like that Alex was ready too soon, you know, the time, you know, in the day of the fight,

feel like the time was off a little bit, you know? And he made that mistake, you know, show whether he's going to come in and sit again, just step in with a jab and that happens, you know, and the whole thing with two, with the Herb Dean, you know,

like, nah, not, you know what I mean? Because the jab, okay, knock him down, but then, you know, the elbows should have had, maybe if that didn't happen right there, if the Herb Dean would be more aggressive, telling us to sit again to watch the back of the head. It could be, you know, you never know. And at the day, you know,

Alex got caught with the jab coming in. That's what we got to study. That's why we got to work on it, you know, be more. You know, do those fent, and not shown those punches. And Alex is a master of there. He, you know, he's done a couple times. You know, he's done a few times.

He lost it to Adesanya. He'd come back. Light heavyweight champion. He lost on Kalaev. He studied and he said, you know, that's how I'm going to fight this guy. And it's incredible. It's incredible. And I know he's going to come back.

And I know he's going to get to, if he's have on his head, man. The day that I see Alex that I see he's not there 100%. You know, maybe I stop believing, but I know if he's come back, the way he always come back and he's 100% on the game, you know, the guy don't drink, the guy don't, you know, he eats healthy all the time and he don't party. He just, you know, he doesn't like training too like crazy right now.

He's working out, but he's always in top shape, you know. It's difficult. I believe if he come back and say, Dover, let's get this. And I know for sure he's going to get that belt, man. You're going to accomplish his goal. Is he going to stay at heavyweight? He's going to stay at heavyweight. Yeah, that's the plan, man.

Are we going to see him again this year? I hope so. You know, Alex, man, he's like all the time after the fight. Like, when he's next? He already before the fight, he already planned the next fight. You know, hey, well, you can fight this fight. They can fight in August. You know, he wants to fight all the time, you know.

And right now it's time for, we try to control him, man, take time. You know, it's good to take a time, too, you know, you fought back to back for so long. And especially after this, you know. But yeah, you know, he wants to fight. If the fight happens, I think he'll be willing to. 100%. Alex always wanted to fight. Do you have a preference as to who he comes back against?

No, no preference. You know, we want some thing, just the thing. We want something that Alex is going to fight. You know, the plan with them is like, hey, because Alex is a huge name and excited fighter to watch, you know, he sells and not just sell for because he talks and promotes. You just sell because he fights. And get some fight they're going to put him right to the title,

you know, right back to the title. And for him, I think, pretty much any fights, you know. And we joke, I joke. I think after the, I say, hey, Alex, listen, head up, you know, this is what happened. Let's go back to a dry and board. Let's work. Let's work with the mistake. Come back.

And maybe you get this fight. You know, this guy's just talking a lot of shit. You know, Hucket, go over there, knock his ass out and get back to the top and fight, you know, and get the rematch. That would be incredible. say, yeah, and I think it's a good fight for Alex, you know, the guys are talking, and it's a good fight for Alex, man, go over there and take him out of it, you know. Do you think that's the one they're going to book? No, I'm not sure.

I don't know. Sure, sure. You know, this is what I say, yeah. I say right there after the fight, you know. And you mentioned the Herb Dean stuff. Can I just ask from your perspective, you've been in this game for so long, Alex's points, his gripes about Herb and about, you know, missing the shots, as he said to the back of that. Do you agree with everything that he said?

Do you feel the same way about how Herb ref that fight and how Herb has been reffing as of late? Yeah, you know, making mistakes, Derek, Ariel. We make mistakes, right? When we make mistakes, we're happy. We get knocked out, you know? Like Alex got knocked down over there. You know, Herdine definitely make a mistake in the 5. mistake in a couple of fights and lately he's a great referee he's a referee man in my fights but

i don't know man sometimes i feel like this is my opinion you know hope being great guy nothing against him but the thing is we all make mistake right and it's time to sometimes i feel like the guys need to take some time off man some time to relax or these guys back to back man he's like He's one Friday somewhere, Thursday and another place, you know. And when referee, many, many fights, it's just like it's burn out. You burn out. So that's how I feel lately because Herdeen has been great. He's one of the greatest.

And lately he's been doing a couple mistakes. He's with that one with the guy pulling the head, Olivera. You know, Michelle Perreira. Perira, yeah. Yeah, there's been a few, and now he's getting... You're better with the Brazilian names than me, man. Hey, I don't know, pehera, Pereira. I think it's...

One R is hard R, and then two R's is like the H, right? Yes. Like Alex Pereira, because it's one R, but if it's two R's, it's like Pehera. Yeah, yeah, but it's never Pehira. No, no... Pehira is no name like that. Okay, okay, my bad. But Herb getting booed now.

You see this at the events. Yeah, I mean, again, maybe, take some, yeah, him, I don't go vacation. He should take some time off, come back, and people forget about it, you know. Again, he's great, man. He's great, but I have to say their way, mistakes are made, and they hurt somebody else, you know?

Going back to you and Shogun for a moment, there's a history between you guys. How would you describe how you feel about, Shogun because I remember way back in the day there was a fight that was going to be made and I think he said that you didn't have enough experience in the UFC we're talking like 14 years now or so and so I'm wondering if this stuck with you how you would describe your relationship with him how you feel about him yeah at that time I was really upset you know I remember I'm gonna show him I'm gonna show him you know because you know somebody tell you know he's not big name I'm not gonna fight him it's like

he's offended, you know, he's like, man, I want to, who, you know, we think he is, you know, he's like a fighter, he's a shogun, you should fight everybody, you should take me and, you know, and show me, teach me a lesson, you know, like, but that's the way you think and when you're there that time, but, you know, and now I understand a little bit, the corner, didn't want him to fight me, me, I was going through everybody, you know, even though there was my first fight in UFC, but then later on, Humpage, uh, um, page, uh, septa fight. So we, you know, I'll end up fight them all the nothing, but then later

rampage, get everybody, right? But Shogam, you know, nothing, not against him. I respect the guy. He have a great history, you know, a great, uh, great fighter. And we're going to box a little bit, you know. He is, it takes my wrestling away, take his kicks and, these way, you know, and we're going to put some hands in each other and have some

fun. You both actually retired on the same card back in 2023. Is this going to be a dual retirement again on the 29th? Will this be one and done for you guys as far as boxing or you're leaving it open? Listen, despite this eight-two-minute round, you know,

I'm having fun training because I don't have to train so long, you know, can be like shorter train explosive. And this is a fun time and if it's an opportunity like that comments again, man. I see how I feel like I show

you guys how I look, right? And we see the comments too. It's again, Eric, you know, like we go over there, I think I'm doing really good, you know, I'm sparring with young guys over here. My coach's son,

Fennelie Feliz and Ali Feliz, the incredible box so you can go check him out. Try to trying to get them in a boxing zoo soon, you know. But like those guys incredible and, you know, I'm doing good with them. And again, I just want to go in there, the day of the fight, see how I do, see how I show. And we see, man, you know.

The end of the day is like, I'm leaving this moment. I'm not planning anything for next week, man. What about this What about this monster? I want to get his name right. King Edocholo. My getting... Plinyo keeps talking to me about the rise in heavyweights.

Six foot eight. This guy's a monster. Are you working with him too? Incredible. And I work with him sometimes. Yeah, of course. Me and Plinyo, we work with each other. We work.

Pliny has got to fight too. I spot with Plinio a couple times. Oh, yeah. And he's, and he, He bring the guys here, you know, and I help him what I can help, you know, like with the wrestling, with the jiu-jitsu. But a plenary, he's been training more in plinio's gym. And, but his kid is incredible, incredible, humble. He's learning so well because he's so, you know, Japanese, man.

Japanese make, now I went to Japan and I felt like, man, I thought I was a nice guy, you know, I feel like I'm a douchebaggy. The people, like, they open the door for you and they say thank you, you know. Bro, you're the one to open the door for me. Don't say thank you. And you're one of the nicest guys in the world. So if you feel like that, gosh, they must be supreme. Yeah, a few because they're like, oh, yeah, yes.

Yes, oh, yes. Yes. He's incredible. But he's like that. And he's great, man. He's got to work on his jiu-jitsu, too. He's coming along. very well, you know. He was trained with Chikon, Alex,

and Eusory, and he's been coming along, man. It's going to be some guy to watch, you know. Okay, yeah, because I saw his fight last week. He's a month, I mean, six foot eight. And he fights like that and he hits like that. Hits hard, he's fast. He got, you know, crazy knees, like, you know, because it's like six feet eight and you can see so athletic, man. He's like skinny, you know. He's good.

Get that distance in the wrestling. We've been working with him in the wrestling. He's been getting good. Getting good. I remember, and going back to the book, which comes out December 8th, and people can order it right now on Amazon pre-order it. Great holiday gift for, you know, the holiday season in December. I remember, you know, hearing about your visa problems and all that stuff.

All these years later, Glover de Cheshire is at the White House, cornering of fighting. Like, who would have thought, right, when you first came over to the States? That you would be hanging out with the president. I'm sure back then when you were having those visa issues and you couldn't get into the country and all that, you never thought that would happen, right? That must have been surreal for you over there at the White House. Crazy, man.

Yeah, you know, I did thought about that, you know. And it was like, oh, man, it's like, you know, having a little espresso here in the White House. You know, a couple of a few years back, I was like, I couldn't end. the country, you know. It's amazing. It's crazy, you know. It's like ironic, almost. But, you know, in a way like, okay, do the right thing, you know. Do the right thing, you know, do the justice, be the right guy, you know.

Don't do anything wrong because opportunities and history is a make of day. You know, what are you done in your life, you know? If you do mistakes, like I would talk about it. You know, we're not perfect. You've got to be strong. You got to be big enough, too. You know, if I call, call somebody or go with them, you know, I see, I see a Dean Thomas apologize another day.

I'll go like there, apologize, and realize that we are wrong. You're sorry. You know, hey, man, I got, hey, Ariel. You know, that day I was this and this, man. I really apologize. I'm wrong. You know, and that takes a lot. takes more sometimes, especially for men, man, a lot of ego.

Don't want to talk about you. You feel bad your whole life, but you don't talk to the guy, you know? You kind of like, I hope Eddie would know I didn't really mean that, but you don't, you know, you don't actually go in the essay, man. You know what? I apologize. I was wrong. And that's how we got to live.

Yes. Amen. The book is called Gloria Vachera Breaking the Rules. It covers his unres. life story from undocumented immigrant to American citizen and then UFC champion with wild stories along the way, including being held at gunpoint by cartel bandits as he crossed the Mexican desert. It's an unreal story and I'm so happy that you worked on this and that you are coming out

with it and that you worked on it with my dear friend Guillermo Cruz. Parabence, Glover, on this amazing achievement. Well done. Looking forward to reading it. And of course, good luck to you next weekend against Shogun Huah, looking forward to seeing that as well. So great to catch up with you and to see you again, Glover. Hey, thank you, man. Appreciate it. And, hey, after the fight, I'll come back here and I tell you if I'm going to keep fighting again or not, you know? It's a deal. I answer that question.

It's a deal. Thank you, Glover. Good luck to you. All right, my friend. The former UFC light heavyweight champion, truly one of the great guys in the history of the sport walked away in 2023, but is returning in an eight-round heavyweight bout, August 29th, in Sao Paulo, Brazil against the legendary, former UFC champion, pride champ, Maricio Shogun, Hua spat in fight night three, and it airs live on TV in Brazil, TV Global, and it's being built as a pro-hybrid contest. So, as he said, eight two-minute rounds. But most importantly, go check out the book, Amazon pre-order available right now. Our old friend, the Brazilian beast, Guillermo Cruz, who I love so dearly and have called a friend

and was a colleague of mine for so many years at MMA fighting. So happy that he did this with Glover and wish them all the best with the release coming up in December. But like I said, you could pre-order it right now. Good luck to the two of them. All right, still to come, we'll be joined by Carlos Prochus. Can't wait for that chat. Adam Copeland, aka Edge, WW Legend, current AEW tag team champion. By the way, in the chat, guys, I dropped that picture of us together.

I think I dropped it last night. Can we have that for that? Because I want to show it to Mr. Copeland. I forgot to mention that. I just want to have. I got it. We got it. I should have never doubted you.

I should have never doubted you. My apologies. That's a great point. news, Paul Hughes is going to join us in about 30 minutes time. But looking forward to this chat with Hamza Shiraz, the reigning defending super middleweight WBO champion was last seen in action at the end of July. Just a few weeks ago, we spoke to him about all of that. He fought in Saudi Arabia, got another victory, but has been in the news as of late. And so without further ado, let us say hello to the one and only Hamza Shiraz, who's kind enough to join us right now, the super middleweight

champion. There he is. Hello, Hamza. How are you, my friend? Good to talk to you again. I'm all good, how are you, bro? I'm doing great. So, full disclosure. You know, we're on break. We had a little bit of a vacation here. I'm keeping up with the news. By the way, I see your hand over there.

Okay, now you've thrown me for a loop. Is that a fresh surgery? What happened there? Yeah, it was after the last fight, man. Okay. After the last fight, I had picked up a little injury during the fight. I didn't really make it a thing after the pose fight. what do you call it, interview or nothing like that

because I didn't want to, I was just getting on with it and now we're just here recovering, bro. Okay, so did you break it in the fight? Yeah, I think it was in the second or third round, man. Oh, dear. Second or third round. I hit him in a funny place right at the top of his head. And then, yeah, it was, I felt it straight away,

but looking from the positives from that, I got through the 12 rounds with a little injury. But yeah, back on to bigger and better things, hopefully. So what's interesting about that And again, now we're going in a different direction But you know There was some criticism

Of the performance In the aftermath Was that hard to hear Knowing, you know I didn't know that you broke your hand Knowing that you were dealing with that I mean now knowing that you did break your hand The fact that you went 12 rounds

And were dominant even though Maybe it wasn't as explosive As previous fights Was it frustrating to hear some of that criticism? I wouldn't say it was frustrating Because I knew What was happening Do you know what I mean?

And at the same same time, even though I did hurt the hand, kind of the level opponent wasn't the opponent that you really get up for, do you know what I mean, coming off great, great fights in the Adama's fight and Belanga fight. They're big names and their fighters that get you up for it. And then you kind of, on the other end of things where, you know, you're expected to go in there and just blast these guys out. So hopefully the next one is a big one. But yeah, lessons learned and experience banked. Did you mention that to your corner at any time in the fight that you had broken your

hand or thought you broke your hand? No, I didn't remember mention it, but Andy was smart enough to pick it up. He realized, and then after the fight, he kind of said he goes out, because I knew something was up because he, we've worked, what, three camps now, so he knows me better than on myself. I loved, every time they went to the corner in that fight, I love the way he speaks to you. I love listening to him in the corner. There's just something about his demeanor.

He's calm. He's, but he's like he's informative. He's insightful. Sometimes I just feel like there's a whole bunch of nothing being said in the corner. Or it's just like all for a show. It's performative. I can listen to him in between every single round. And I thought in that particular fight he was doing a great job with you.

Yeah. And everything he says is like pinpoint accuracy with there's a meaning behind everything he says. Like you said, he's not talking for the sake of talking. And for example, sparring when we're doing well and there's nothing to be said he doesn't say anything so yeah you hit the nail on the head there love it okay so all right so i i do wish you a speedy recovery and by the way what are saying as far as your your timeline is to return uh we've won the road to recovery as we're speaking now so i think i'll be active again up the end of uh november early december okay um so as i was

saying at the at the very top um so we're on the break and i do see that uh there's this news that the WBO has ordered that you face Janibak in your next title defense. And this has created quite the stir, especially online, because for those that may not be following the story, he tested positive for a PD back in December of last year. And it was a one-year suspension. But then all of a sudden, the suspension got reduced. And now they're saying that he's your mandatory. And so there are some people out there who will come out.

and say that like you pop once, you should be, you know, banned from the sport. This is actually multiple infractions, and the suspension is getting reduced. And some might even say, like, the one year suspension wasn't enough. And so when you find out that A, got reduced to essentially like a half suspension

and B, he's your mandatory. What is your reaction? I'll be honest with you, Ariel, I think it's a joke. I think it's a joke. I think what the WBO have done here is a disgraceful, disgraceful to the sport of boxing as well. What you're essentially doing or what they're essentially doing is rewarding someone who's been popped.

So to me, it doesn't make sense. And on top of all of that, not just rewarding him for being popped, but while he's banned, while he's still serving a band. So it does not make sense. I like to think of myself as someone who's come up through the ranks and honored and respected the Clean Sport Program, respected the fact that through hard work, through the ups and the downs,

I've got there as a champion. And now that I'm here, I'd have a kind of, no, I wouldn't say I'd have a more kind of smooth and more simple ride in terms of fulfilling the mandatories in who I thought would be Jacob Bank for my last. fight and I just think it's bad for the sport of boxing you know giving these guys the platforms and almost saying yeah don't worry it's okay we'll just crack on as normal and act like nothing's happened okay so their explanation or at least part of it and I do want to correct something

I said multiple they say first time offenders so I want to apologize for that I was getting his story confused with our next guest who's going to talk about multiple offenders so I want to apologize to Janibak for that but the WBO ended the suspension early can't canceling it on July 10th of this year, so a bit over a month ago, saying that he's, quote, a first-time offender with a, quote, impeccable personal and professional record. Do you feel like, like, you know, like, first-time offender, like to say that, okay, it's your first time and that you have an impeccable personal and professional record that shouldn't, like, there's always, there's always something that you could say that's good about someone to, to reduce it that quickly. And then in addition to that reward, the individual, with the title shot seems like a double whammy. Yeah, in a new weight category as well. Yes.

One which he's not competed in before. But listen, it's all the organizing bodies doing. Do you know what I mean? They're the ones who's responsible for all of this. Like you said, a first time offender, like, come on, man. You're talking about someone who's been popped here. Doesn't matter if it's the first time. You know what I mean?

Being popped is being popped. At the end of the day with the sport we're in, you're risking your life. You know what I mean? You're risking your life. And the fighter side of me, my ego is saying, listen, crack on of it and just get in there and get the job done. But then me standing for a man who believes in his morals

and being, like I said, a clean athlete, kind of contradicts everything if that does happen. So it's put me in a very, very sticky situation in all honesty, aerial but um something myself and my team will have to sit down and see see see what we're doing did the wbo talk to you before they made this decision no not at all we tried to reach out to them ever since i won the title um that mode we wanted my team to kind of sit down with them and map out a plan of mandatory etc etc but no nothing was spoken to nothing was spoken about um and i suppose it comes down to ulterior motives corruption um like i said doesn't really give a good message to the sport

of boxing listen there are so many up-and-coming youngsters um pros who are or amateurs who are fighting to you know eventually become world champions and what what message does this give out do i mean what message does this give out it's not it's not a good one for sure when you say corruption What do you mean by that? Exactly this, in terms of what the WBO I've done here, it's, to me, it's corrupt. And I'll say it as it is, you know what I mean? I'll say it as it is, I feel like it's all based off relationships.

These moves being made are all based off maybe personal relationships or whatever it may be. Because it's come out of nowhere and it's extremely, yeah, not right for the sport of boxing. Not just me. Sure, sure. I'm speaking out here because I'm talking from a moral perspective. You know what I mean? I'm talking. I want to give a message to the youngsters out there that, you know, like even though

it's being deemed okay, it ain't. And that's period. It's not. So you tell us that before making the announcement, they didn't reach out since the announcement, since the decision. Have they said anything to you, any communications with you or your team? No, the only thing we got was the mandatory letter. Really?

Yeah, and that was it. This is shocking. I had, yeah, so I found out when everyone else found out. Online. Yeah, online. We'll find out literally when it got older. What was it last week or whatever it was? So, yeah, we're all on the same page.

That is crazy. And you guys have tried to get answers. Yeah, ever since I won the title, Ariel, ever since I won the title, we've tried to sit down with them and my team has reached out, but we've got like nothing back. So I understand this may be easier for me to say, but is there any part of you that's like, Well, to hell with these guys.

I don't want to be their champion. If this is the way they're going to treat me, if these are the decisions that they're going to make, if these are the kinds of actions they're going to reward, I don't want to represent their organization. Listen, that's something I'll have to discuss with my team, right? And it kind of, what they've done, it pushes you into that corner of me eventually thinking like that.

And it'd be kind of, if I was to do that, it'd be totally justifiable. Do you what I mean? it would be totally justifiable and like I said I'll keep in this interview I'll keep banging on about morals etc etc and that's what it's down to it's down to being a clean athlete being someone who stands for clean athletes and one who is true to that and represents that so I wrote down what I what I think could be your options here tell me if I'm missing one yeah I suppose you and your promoters queensberry could ask for a step-aside deal and essentially you'd have to pay Janet back to like move off to the side number two, you could petition the WBO to allow for an exemption where you don't have to fight him in the end. Number three, you could vacate the title, which we just talked about. Or number four, you could just fight him. Those seem to be your four options at the moment.

Am I misrepresenting one or forgetting one? No, you're 100% correct. I think another option, I don't know if it counts, but it could be to try and get a unification fight. Of course, yes. I think that overrides it. I'm not too sure. I could be wrong. But that's another option there.

So listen, there's options there. Which one are you leaning towards right now? Right now, I don't, I'll be honest with you. I don't know because ever since the news kind of got leaked, all I've kind of been doing is going back and forth, going back and forth, what are the options? And like you said, we just, we've almost like yesterday or whenever it was, we got the light, the five options. And now it's about picking what I want to do and what's morally and ethically right.

Is there any part of you that feels, you know what, I feel so strongly against PD usage in combat sports and boxing, let me go out there, prove my point and beat this guy up. Let me do that. Do you feel that way? 100%. Yeah. 100%. That's what I was saying, the fighter side of me.

Yeah. Well, on that side of you kicks in. It's like, yo, just go in there, just beat this guy up. You know what I mean? Beat this guy up. But then it comes down to what we want to do as a team, right? Yeah. Because ultimately every fighter will fight anyone.

But having a good team, having a world-class team is what I'd say gets you further. Could I ask, what is your team advising you to do right now? Where are they leaning? I haven't spoke to them. The only thing we spoke about was the options, which was yesterday, like I just mentioned. Okay, yeah. We're just waiting to hear back from the WBO and then I'll sit down. with Queensbury and my manager and everyone else involved.

Can I ask, where do things stand right now between you and Queensbury? My understanding is you have one fight left with them? Yep, I've got one fight left with them. We've had a great relationship. And we'll see what happens. We'll see what the options are. See if whatever fights next, if it's a big one or whatever. It's got to be a big one.

You know what I mean? In period, it's got to be a big one. And we'll see whether the options. there to explore any other avenues or stay with them. What's what happens? Are you interested in exploring? Are you interested in at least looking at what else is out there? Yeah, for sure.

For sure. I mean, why not? Ultimately, I want to do what's best for my career, what's best for me, what I feel is best for me. And that could mean staying with Queensbury. Do you know what I mean? So we'll see what happens. Did you watch Edgar Berlanga's?

last fight. Yeah, I did watch it. Why are you laughing? I watched it. Why are you laughing? Just, I just, every time his name's mentioned, bro, I just, I find it amusing. Why? Because, I don't know, I just, I just find it amusing.

All these interviews, recent ones I've seen of him. I saw one the other day him calling me easy work. But listen, he done his thing in his last fight. I'm happy for him. Well done. What did you think of his performance? It was a good fight. He was an entertaining fight.

Yeah. I didn't really know much about his opponent who he fought, but I see that he got dropped again. But this time he come back and he won the fight. So, listen, maximum respect to him. And I see another interview where he said that the three hardest punches he faced and he didn't mention my name.

So I'd like for him and his next one to mention my name if he can't, thank you. Did he really say your easy work? Yeah, I see. interview he's like easy work how that's just that's just that's just his personality you literally fought 13 months ago how could it be easy work I don't know bro I'll be honest with I don't know so you just sit there and laugh yeah I just sit there and laugh listen there's like loads of things but in in that fight that not in that fight but on the day of the fight that went wrong for me like in the morning of the fight I remember getting a knock from on the door at 10 a.m and I knew

But when you get a knock on fight morning, you know that this ain't a good knock. And the team come in and they all looked upset. And I thought the fight was cancelled. But no, they said that they lost all my medical records. And I thought, I go, what does that mean? And they said, you can't fight unless you get your medicals done again. On the day of the fight, this is. And then what that entails is getting your pupils dilated.

So once you get them dilated, they take a measurement and you can't see for about four hours. And that was only available. I remember at one o'clock. So we went there, got it done. And they dialed it my pupils and was on the way to the venue and I still couldn't see. And just when I was getting my hands, my vision started clearing up. And I've never never, never said anything about that before. So it just goes to show that if anything, he was easy work.

Yeah. Oh, wow. I do not know that. I can understand why that would be a little traumatizing, for lack of a better word, before a fight. I did not hear him say that, but I can imagine you watching that somewhere. the easy work line and chuckling considering what ended up happening and what you had to deal with on the day of the fight. That is wild.

I do know you have a great relationship with Turkey Al-Shake and he's obviously closely related to Zufa boxing. And so the natural thought would be if and when you become a free agent, that might be an outlet that you look at. Definitely an avenue I'll explore. I can't say that I'll 100% go with them because, like I said, I'm still in contract with Queensbury and I could still end up being with them. But yeah, if and when I'm free, definitely an option I'll explore.

What have you thought of the product watching them from afar? Listen, I think they're great for boxing. I think they're great for boxing. I feel like they bring something new to the game. And I feel like genuinely they're here for the betterment of the fighters. And I'm sure a lot of people out there would disagree with what I said. but as for me and my thinking, I stand by that. So, you know, it's interesting, you know,

one of the things that initially the likes of Dana White, who's obviously the face of Zufa boxing is, like, we don't want to work with these sanctioning bodies anymore. We don't want to deal with the WBC, WBO, IBF. It's perfectly said that because the WBO doing what they've done with me just goes to prove their point. Well, that's exactly why I was saying it. I'm wondering if there's a part of you that's like, you know what, I do agree with what they're saying.

I don't want to have to deal with this nonsense. I'm siding with them, basically, after going through this now. As for me, I can only speak about the WBO because I've only had this experience with them. I can't speak for the other governing bodies. That would be unfair. So as for that, that's my kind of stance on that comment for now. Okay. Is there any part of you that thinks that they'll get, you know, I've seen people talking about this online, talk sport, et cetera, my friend Adeola Depot, that there's going to be enough noise that they'll maybe change their mind, that they'll reverse course. Do you think the public pressure, it's such a bad look. I mean, like, I don't know. The combo of the reduced suspension

plus giving a title shot in a new weight class is just absurd. It's just like a triple whammy. Do you think they might reverse course and realize that this is just bad business? This is just a bad look. You see, on this side of the river, everything. would say they're taking the piss. They're taking the piss. I know that one. They are taking the piss. Why are they taking the piss?

What's going on? That's what we'd say. I don't know. I think your opinion on this would be more beneficial because I don't know. What do you think? Some of these organizations, when they get blowback, they dig their heels in and they But this is one of the weirdest ones because you rarely ever see a suspension reduced, not because, oh, he provided a B sample and it came back, you know, negative, and now we're going to refute, or there was a tainted supplement.

They're saying because he's a first-time offender and because he's got like an impeccable record and he's a good person, we're going to reduce it. It's absurd. I've never heard anything like this. Listen, that phrase, first-time offender for someone who's in a sport where you're risking lives is a joke. I don't know what to say about that, man. wild. And then to add the other stuff like, oh, he's a good guy and he's got this impeccable. It's just, the whole thing is absurd.

And then it's one thing to say, like, we're going to reduce it for that reason, absurd. But then to reward it with a title shot in a new weight class is triple absurd. I don't understand it. It's crazy, man. It's honestly, it's crazy.

And now you're saying they're not giving you answers. They're not giving you, they're not even talking to you. The more you think about it, the crazier it gets. Yeah. You just end up in this rabbit hole. Like, it's just, yeah, it's just not it, man. And so you're probably sitting there thinking like, what the hell? I've worked my life. I try to do things the right way. And this is the reward. This is what I have to deal with. I either have to say, like, let me suck it up and beat this guy to prove a point or give up my belt. And now I'm the one being punished. It's got to be incredibly frustrating for you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. As I mentioned earlier, it's almost a bit disheartening because your work, your whole life to become this champion. And once you become it, you think, Yeah, like I'm here now.

As I mentioned earlier on in an interview, I'll get a fair crack at a whip and, you know, I might get a chance to unify, et cetera, et cetera. But unfortunately, other people's motives get involved and it's not as simple as that. So what do you do now? Is the next step wait to hear from them? What makes you think that you're even going to hear from them? Exactly. Exactly.

So now it's just about hopefully hearing from them and then five options that we discussed. I'll discuss with my team and then go ahead with one of them. And correct me if I'm wrong. Is there a period, a 20-day period, a negotiation period, and then you guys have to figure something out, and then it goes to a purse bid? Is that accurate? Yeah, that's correct. I saw it on the letter they sent, the mandatory letter.

I think you have 20 or 20, however many days it is to negotiate. Otherwise, is it the purse bids get called or whatever it was? Yeah, so it's been about a week or so, but nothing really has happened in the past week. Absolutely nothing. Wow, this is wild, man. You think maybe after this they'll call you? I don't know. I'm sure I'll be hearing from them, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good or bad, I'm sure I'll definitely be hearing from them. It's funny because they are active on social media. I see them all the time, Gustavo, the whole squad. I mean, normally you think you hear from it, but it's, yeah, disheartening. All right, well, I'm sorry that you're going through this, but I appreciate you coming on and letting us know how you feel. feel. I suspected that this was the way in which you felt because it's one of the more bizarre ones.

I mean, PEDs have been a big issue in the sport of boxing in MMA and combat sports. And like I said, there are some who believe first-time offenders should be banned for life, let alone have their suspensions reduced so considerably right off the jump. So appreciate you coming on and hopefully there'll be a positive resolution and you won't be sort of backed into a corner here to make a really tough call. Thank you, Hamzai. I've got to. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. And get well soon.

I hope you have a speedy recovery. Thank you. There he is. Hamza Shira is the WBO super middleweight champion that's 168 pounds. Facing a real dozy. Last week, they come out and order that he should face Janibak, who's a great fighter who is champion in the 160-pound division for the WBO back in the day, who did test positive and got a suspension as of December of last year and had it reduced.

And now they're saying it was going to be a one year suspension. So it would have been December to December. It gets it reduced. And now they're saying he's the number one contender. He's the mandatory. And we're reducing that suspension. Wild stuff. Now, in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Paul Hughes, who is all kinds of fired up regarding the state of drug testing in the PFL.

So stay tuned for that one. There's a lot You know, the drug testing stuff I know May not be as sexy as the matchmaking stuff Or this guy called out this guy Or this guy wants to fight this guy, et cetera, et cetera. But it's a huge part of the sport And there are some fighters who feel the need

To, you know, speak up Because maybe not enough is being done. There are some fighters who feel the need that, you know, Like, hey, like I said, first time offender Doesn't matter. You should be banned for life. You're going into a fight with a performance-enhancing drug in your system,

you're going to punch another person, you're going to hurt them, you can kill that person without PEDs in your system. God knows what you could do if you do have PEDs. People have died, especially in the sport of boxing, on a year-to-year basis, it's a tough one. And so I could imagine the likes of Zufa boxing, the likes of Nick Khan and Dana White pointing to a situation like this, saying like this is exactly what we're talking about.

This is why we don't want to work with these sanctioning bodies. Because he used the word corruption, and there's always been corruption in boxing. There's always been corruption attached to these sanctioning bodies. And not just them, but the judging and the drug testing and whatnot. And so they might look at that and say, yeah, this is exactly why we want to control all this. We wouldn't do it. Now, I'm not going to pretend that, you know, the UFC and even WWU, like, it's all like perfect, hunky dory that there aren't things that are happening that make you say hmm there have certainly

been title shots that haven't been warranted and whatnot but i don't i don't know if i've ever seen a situation off the top of my dome where someone had their suspension reduced because they were a first time offender and just a good dude in the eyes of the sanctioning body i don't know if i've ever seen that weird one uh still to come carlos preaches adam copeland And in a matter of moments, big news, Paul Hughes, who we haven't talked to in a bit, who's had some injuries, who has been on the shelf. But I'm curious what he has to say about Usman Nirmagamatov, about Ian Gary. I know Alfie Davis and him have kind of been going back and forth.

The last time we saw him was in October of 2025 when he lost to Usman Nirmagamadov in that highly anticipated rematch. He had what I thought was one of the best fights of 2025 at the very beginning of the year, January of 2025, where I thought, you know, razor thin. Been a minute since I watched that fight, but I remember in the moment thinking, I think he got it. He didn't end up getting it.

He ended up losing via majority decision, came back, beat Bruno Miranda in Belfast in May of 25, bit of a risk to take that fight when maybe he had the rematch, you know, waiting for him, and then had the opportunity to fight in October, it didn't go his way, and we have not seen him since. He has been on the sidelines, had a knee injury in March of 26, so just a few months ago, about five or so months ago, which took him out of that Belfast main event in April of 26, had surgery on the knee back in June,

his second knee surgery, and, you know, there's a road for him to travel to get back in there, but he's hoping to get back in there in 2026. Nevertheless, he has been active as of late. First, I've seen him talk about the MVP, PFL, merger, if you will, and been quite vocal on drug testing. So I thought coming off to Hamza Shira's story, he would be a very interesting guy to talk to as well. Here he is our old friend, Paul Big News Hughes.

Hello, Paul. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Long time, no speak. It has been a minute. We have not talked to you. A lot has happened. First things first, most importantly, regarding your own health. How are you doing? How is the knee?

Not too bad. Getting there, I actually had a hip surgery as well. Oh dear. About nine weeks ago, yeah. So getting there slowly but surely, I needed fixed up. It was a non-negotiable, so it is what it is. I'm just focusing on my rehab right now, focusing what I can control, and that's it. Was the knee what removed you from the fight, and then as a result of going, you know, having to have surgery and going under, then you did the hip as well?

Yeah, so the knee was the issue that was stopped me from training. The hip has been an issue for a couple of years, and it's something that has been a limitation, but the knee is what took me out of that fight. And what was the issue with the hip? Just a whole lot of wearing terror, brother. Just bad liberal tears, FAI syndrome, like just a lot of issues, but it was something that I kind of adapt of my style to, to combat and I'd done a good job

with doing that. The knee just kind of took over and it got to the point where it was I just couldn't train anymore basically. I know fighting in Belfast is such a big deal for you when you had to come to the conclusion that you wouldn't be able to fight on that card a few months ago. How devastating was that? Look, it was literally the last thing in the planet I wanted to do was to pull out of that

truly, especially after coming off a loss, like the last thing I wanted to do. But it is what it is brother, it's the game. Yeah, I got fixed up and all I got to do is just make sure my body gets right and I'll get back in there. Okay, so I kind of want to go in chronological order here if we can. First things first,

your reaction when you heard about the MVP PFL deal? Hugely positive. I think it's a great thing for us fighters in the organization and as MMA as a whole. I think

it just makes everything better. I think it gives us more opportunity to get our names out there. And I think it just solidifies a real competitor to the UFC, especially in the years to come. So I think ultimately what I care about and all of this is just how it goes for the fighters,

that's what I care about. And I think that it's going to be hugely positive for us. So when you saw that first show, I'm assuming you watched that show the next day on Long Island, the one headline by Usber Manga Madov. we saw, you know, it's early days, but we saw a little bit of the Jake Paul influence and whatnot. Did you like what you saw?

I know, I know, again, it's very early, but do you feel like, you know, I know some fighters feel some sort of way about him and some don't like, whatever. When you're seeing this, are you feeling like this is ultimately going to be a positive? Absolutely. I do believe Jake Paul when he says that he is fighter first, and that is a large part of his ethos and MVP's ethos. and I do believe that. Their track record shows that on what they've done. So ultimately, again, that's what I care about. And if more opportunities arise from this

and the PFL, MVP, grow, which they will, then that's just positive for everybody and it's positive for the industry. What do you think of Usman's win over Archie Kogan? Brilliant, yeah, great shot. His kicks are so elusive and come at weird angles. I did some predictions for that fight and I did say that he was much better

than Cogan everywhere. I wasn't expecting a first round knockout. I don't think he really was either. But you've got to give it to him. Great knockout. And so afterwards, Usman goes on the microphone and is like, hey, you know, Jake Paul likes to talk about Dana White,

not paying fighters and whatnot. Well, now we'll see if he's really truly about that life, so to speak. We'll see, because that was his last fight and we talked about the free agency and whatnot. And then this past weekend, he's all over the gaff, right? He's all over UFC 330. I feel, I watched that and I was like, all right, this is a done deal.

Like he's going, the coast is clear, Islam's at 170. This feels all but done. When you're seeing all of this, do you feel the same way? Yeah, I'll agree with you. I think that it's pretty much certain that he goes to the UFC. How do you feel about that? I know deep down you'd love that third fight. You feel some sort of way, I'm sure, about the first fight,

and obviously the second fight as well. but to know that maybe that would put a massive obstacle, at least for now, in your effort to get back to him, how does that make you feel? I'm quite indifferent to it right now because of my situation. You know, I'm just, I'm in rehab more right now. I'm just trying to get back into that cage, and I obviously have to prove myself again.

That's my focus. Obviously, you know, when I get back in there, I start racking up wins. Like I truly do not plan to ever lose again in this sport, I think I've showed my level. As the wins go on, of course, it's going to be more and more in my mind because I think our paths are,

our stories are always going to be intertwined and anything that I see online referencing him and his win streak, there's always comments of like, oh, well, he lost the Hughes, he lost a Hughes. I think our stories are always going to be intertwined in that regard. So when he does go to the UFC, which I think he will, each time he wins, there's still going to be that question mark of, well, he's actually not on the fidget. He lost. He lost. And I think that that just builds the storyline even more. And as time progresses, I'm not saying right now, but as time progresses, I think that it will be a fight that people want to see again, for sure. As far as the top dogs in the UFC's lightweight division, the Justin's, the Armands, the Illias, the Maxes of the world, do you think he beats those guys?

I think the only person in the UFC right now that has a chance against him is to pray. I commented on that recently whenever he did, when he beat Cogan. Like, I know the guy I've been in 10 rounds with him. I know his style. I know his capabilities. And I know the style required to beat him. The only people in the world that can beat him is myself and Elliot de Porea. I really believe that because of the style.

He is so elusive. His kicks are phenomenal. His wrestling is obviously fantastic. Right now, he beats Gae. Absolutely no problem at all. He could definitely be the champion of the UFC right now. And again, stylistically, I think the only one that gives him an issue there is to bea. Not even Armin.

You think the wrestling sort of negates itself? Armin is a good wrestler, but his striking is not very good. He's done a great job of competing at this level, and he's super athletic, great a competitor. His striking is not on the same level as Narragamatoff's. Nirmagamatov is very smart with his striking. Armin, I don't think, is at that level. To be honest, so I think Guzman wins that one.

And just while we're sticking with Saturday, and we're going to get to the meaty stuff in a moment, you've been linked to Ian Garry in the past. You've got the Cage Warriors experience, both obviously Irish. Seeing that fight, the way in which it played, played out, what do you think? Do you know what?

I watched it again today. I would be really frustrated if I was in. I'd be really pissed off because of a number of things. I think he got dropped and I think that's just not really a reflection of how the fight was in any way. Of course, credit to Islam, he caught one of the best strikers in the UFC. I think he kind of exited the clinch with his hands down, which is a tendency to do throughout his career, basically his only defensive weakness, I would say. And I'd be kicking myself about that if I was him.

But more so, I think I'd be annoyed that, I guess that fifth round, I'd be more annoyed that, I guess by watching it, you know, I'm looking at the body language coming out in the fifth round. I know a lot of people spoke about like, oh, even Dana, like, oh, you want to see more killer instinct. It's not that Ian doesn't have killer instinct, but I just would have loved for him to go at him a little bit more

to take a little bit more risk. But then again, it's easy to say that. It's a hard thing to do when you're fighting these elite guys. But another reason of why I wouldn't be happy would be more so just of how the fight played out and how Islam fought. I mean, how much that fight was spent with Islam in a bodylock position? Like a large part of that fight,

the entire first round essentially, the fourth round as well, which I did score for Ian, I believe it was definitely two-two going into the last. round, hence why I convented on the fifth round stuff. I think he definitely has the beating of Islam, and he certainly could beat him in the future. I was just about to ask you about that fourth round and the way in which you scored it. I was disappointed that two judges didn't give it to him. I thought that that was actually a pretty easy round to score.

He just had the body lock, but Ian was nailing him with shots. Like all the offense, all the damage was from Ian. absolutely I think yeah you're absolutely right and I think it's a very clear round four for Ian I think again about the body lock

I think Islam was really terrified to engage in much offense hence the holding on to the body lock I think he was very clinical to get the back in the fifth round and he deserves respect for doing that against such an incredible competitor

that Ian is but yeah I think he has the beating of and I just, I wish he had to wind after him a little bit more, but, you know, he certainly can in the future. I believe he definitely has a beat nothing. What do you make of the hugging stuff? He's gotten some criticism for that. Look, each to their own.

I mean, post-fight, for sure, respect. I would have, I mean, I would have loved him to just come out and give him the double finger at the coming into the fan. Do you know what I mean? But, yeah, it is what it is. I do agree with you, though. I think when the dust clears, he will recognize that he had him. It was right there for the taking.

And maybe that had nothing to do with what he didn't do or did do. But I think just a little bit more, another gear, and he maybe pulls off that upset. We'll see if he gets another crack at him. Now, I want to talk about your situation because you've been quite vocal, especially in the last few days about drug testing or perhaps lack thereof in the PFL and wanting to see it ramp up. We actually just spoke to a very talented boxer named Hamza Shiras, and he has his own drug testing issues going on in the world of boxing.

So it's not exclusive to MMA. To be clear, basically one of the sanctioning bodies has said that he should fight a guy who just tested positive back in December, got a one-year ban, and now they've reduced it and said, okay, he's free and clear because he's a first-time offender, and he's a good guy, basically, which is absurd. And, oh, by the way, he's getting a title shot. In their mind, he's the mandatory.

So it's all out of whack, right now. What did you could test it for or pop for? The exact substance, not EPO, which I know you've talked about. I will find out I don't want to misrepresent. I will get back to you on that one in a moment. But tell me what sparked your need, especially, I know you were talking about it on holiday, I do believe, to speak out and be like, yo, something needs to change here in the

PFL. So I had no idea basically that Alexander Shablay, who is one of the the guys I called out in that video yesterday had popped for EPO. This guy is in my division and I looked into it. I'm like, okay, he's just fought again, but he's popped and he's got a six month suspension for EPO. So then I started doing my, then I was like, all right, I need to look into this. You can only get EPO in your body by injecting it. So I'm like, right, well, this guy's clearly blooded open and he's received a six months suspension. How, in what

world is that okay? I mean, then I just got completely down the rabbit hole then of like I looked at when he got pop for his test, I realized he got popped because it was an out of competition test from USADA, which they were using during the tournament

part of PFL. Then I realized, right, well, I've never been tested out of competition. USADA actually ended their partnership with PFL not long after that. So then I realize, okay, so this guy, for example, is out there competing without randomised drug testing. Like, what sort of incentives are going on there? I didn't see anything publicly. PFL never commented publicly. And now he's back in the mix and he's campaigning for a title shot.

He literally was injecting EPO in his body a year ago. And now he's talking about fighting for a belt. it's a huge issue of fighter safety to have people who are doping like this competing against clean athletes but then I spoke about Kubolaev who got popped maybe over a year ago now who won the PFL tournament he won a fifth round submission

you know what if he wins by a fifth round knockout and Hazer's Pinedo is suffering concussion issues suffering brain damage against somebody who's blood doping I mean what sort of how could this possibly be safe for athletes. That's what sparked us for me.

And once I got into this, I realized this is a proper issue of fighter welfare. And I can't not address it. I can't not speak against it. This is athletes' healths on the line. And again, someone in my division, like, as you can see, I'm so passionate about that, I can't, I actually can't believe what is currently happening. As an aside, Janubeck tested positive for Meldonium, which is, a banned substance in a VADA test. That has nothing to do with your story, but I did want to point that

out. You're talking about PFL's drug testing. They did have an agreement with USADA. They're no longer with USADA. It's now being overseen by the Mohigian tribe. And I'm wondering, in your experience, your last fight for them was October of 2025. Was there unannounced drug testing? Or was it just the night before or the day of, what type of drug testing are you subjected to when you're fighting for them? So the only drug test that I've received in PFL has been a urine test the day before fights. So that has been consistent throughout and that is what has been going on to my understanding. There's been nothing out of competition. There's been no whereabouts. There's been nobody at my gym. And like, to be honest, you may be thinking, oh, why are you not speaking

about this now? See, when you're competing, you're fighting. You don't, I don't know what the drug testing protocol is. I know that I've got urine test before, before my fights, but like someone could show up my door. Whatever, when you're a clean athlete, it doesn't matter, you don't think about it. Then, like, again, when I've got down this rabbit hole,

I'm like, all right, if this is the system, these cheaters can beat that so easily. If it's just a urine test day before a fight, that is, it's an IQ test. It's not difficult to beat that. So the likelihood of guys out there cheating going up against clean athletes is unfortunately quite high. And I just think that that is an issue of safety. I mean, 100%. Number one, just doing urine is a problem.

It should be blood in urine. But you don't want to do blood the night before a test. Excuse me, night before a fight. It has to be random. You can't know when the test is happening because then you can skirt the process very easily. Everyone's very smart these days. and it has to be out of competition as well. They have to show up to your gym.

They have to show up to your house. It's a nuisance. It's annoying. But that's how you catch the cheaters. The only way to catch them is unannounced and random and frequent. And frequently to build what's called like a biological passport of these athletes. The more I've looked into, I realize, you know, a lot of Olympic athletes, they get caught years after the Olympics because they're still getting tested and they've realized, okay, they've been doping during this period. and now they're not dobin and you can see that.

So how athletes are getting around this is they're microdose in certain compounds like EPO, which I've commented on, like growth hormone year round. So it's a very small detection window. So the fact that these Mowgli Kubailaev, Alexander Shalblich, got caught out of competition testing

is quite lucky, to be honest. But now, because there hasn't been adequate out of competition testing, they are essentially free to cheat away and to then re-enter into that organization. But I just think it's wild, but

coincidentally, the first I've had, today I got received an email basically from the commission saying that I'm going to be subject to an out of competition today. Come on. Are you serious? First time. The first time, brother.

And, you know, you could take that, it's funny. But anyway, you can take that one of two ways. You can take that either in a way of, like, perhaps I've ruffled some feathers which I mean yeah maybe I'm maybe I am ruffling feathers maybe that's what I'm

trying to do because I'm caring about the fighter welfare I want to see more adequate testing or like it could be seen as a threat some one may may say that but you know potentially it's a benevolent thing and they are saying look

there is there is some sort of protocols in place here to do out of competition testing and I hope that that is the key but unfortunately having now, you know, begun this process, it's actually shown to me even more how inadequate the testing is because, number one, they've informed me their testing. Yes. That ain't random.

Number two, they're basically saying, like, from my understanding, I received the email very short period of time ago, is essentially I'll receive, there'll be an agent come to my whereabouts, which I filled in in the next 21 days, or alternatively, I'll do an online drug test, so something will be sent out and there'll be somebody on video to make sure I've done this drug test properly and then sent back. I don't even know where to start with that.

That's absurd. I'm not going out in the line and saying here, that may not be adequate to catch drug cheats. It might not be. I've got to be honest, I wouldn't dare to call myself an expert, but couldn't you be on camera and then say yeah

here it is and then have someone else send their sample instead like no one's watching you put it in the mail you tell me like I've never even heard of that the thing with this area

like I'm not like I'm not trying to come at the PFL here like you know I've spoke to you many times in this show about how positive it's been being being with BFL and how amazing they've been even when back in a couple number of years ago where the PR wasn't very good

I was still Mr. PFL and I still am very much Mr. PFL, Mb, whatever. Like, I am on their side. I want them to succeed. I want there to be a legitimate, amazing organization for fighters to fight in. But, I mean, this is just not good enough. Even the email I've never really heard of, to be honest, since you got vocal about this, has anyone from the PFL reached out to you.

I haven't had any contact. I did reach out to I reached out to some people about this recently and didn't receive an end back unfortunately because I want like again I'm not trying to it's not like I'm just going out and I'm thinking I deserve a response

for this. I'm purely just thinking about the fighters and I think it's just a perfect storm right now seeing all that and then realizing right well this merger's happened there's going to be new resources there if there's a time to do this, it's now, and I, my conscience would not let me just be quiet about this. Like, I have to push for a level playing field in the organisation.

And I think it's good for the PFL. And, you know, I'm certainly willing and open the conversation about it. Not that they have to answer to me, but I just, all I'm trying to do, Ariel, is maybe get this to the forefront of this merger and maybe to get this talked about a little bit more purely for the sake of the fighter safety and fighter welfare, which, you know, I've obviously heard, like Jake Paul, a couple interviews I've heard him talking about, like, what he's most proud of is how he protects fighters and fighter welfare. And this is like a perfect opportunity to like really, you know, bring that into this organization. Going back to a previous point

that you made, it is true. I have often said, I don't know if anyone flies the PFL flag higher and and with more pride than you. So I wouldn't say that you're, you know, a disgruntled employee, for lack of a better term. I could see someone saying, okay, why are you bringing this up now? Why didn't you bring this up before your debut or after your debut or before one of your title fights?

What would be your response to that? Well, my response is I didn't actually know how inadequate the testing was until basically this thing came out recently with Shabler. you know, or sorry, how inadequate the testing was, but also the lack of punishment for athletes who do cheat and then can get right back in the mix again. Like, again, as I said to earlier, you don't think about these things when you're fighting, competing, you're just, when you're a clean athlete, you're just doing what you do, you're preparing for the fight, you get a test the day

before, whatever. I thought maybe with the Dubai fights it was just because of the region, to be honest, I just wasn't well enough informed, I didn't really know, nor did I care. Because when or clean out that you don't care, but haven't seen these things come to light recently. It just opened up a can of worms for me. And again, I can't not speak about this issue, especially with this merger coming up, I feel like it's my duty to speak on behalf of the fighters as well.

Have you talked to any other PFL fighters? I'm just curious. And I know you said that you got that letter very recently, like just probably within the last couple hours. If they've received letters like this, It does seem a little curious that you would receive this after being so vocal over the past few days. Well, I've never heard of it in my experience. I would love to, you know, I would love to know if there is any athletes out there that have been out of competition tested or tested outside of Fight Week.

I would be, I would love to hear that because that's a good thing. Again, like, that's what I want here. I want this to be safe for us all and I want to increase testing. but yeah I don't think so and you know I'm not the only PFL that I think to feel this way you know it's obviously a lot of people don't want to come out publicly because it can't have consequences and I'm realizing that as I went down this like my intention was not to like wrong pfL but only to bring eyes to this for the sake of the fighters and you know there may be consequences to this I'm just going to have to live with that now but I can't in my conscience

not talk about it. I'm putting you on the spot here. It's currently 8.25 p.m. where you are right now. Do you think that you received that email in between, I'm just doing the math, 2 p.m. your time and now. The reason I asked that is, when I said you were coming on, I received some messages as well. And so I do believe my theory is that they knew you were coming on. And so they sent you that email hoping that you would say,

it on the show? It may have been after that. Yeah, that's what it seems But again, like Ariel, the unfortunate thing about it is kind of just show me how inadequate it actually is. Yeah.

Which is the sad part of it. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, PFL's still a relatively new organization. This merger now brings in, you know, a lot of new faces into the organization. And so one would hope that change would come as well. I don't think any organization wants to be involved in something like this.

It's not worth it. It's not worth injuries, life-threatening injuries, things like that. You would want to be at the forefront. And I think the UFC has done a relatively good job, especially earlier on. I think they've kind of calmed down a little bit since the departure from USADA. But still, we have seen some high-profile guys get caught and face some serious suspensions. I think you're in the camp of those who probably want to see lifetime bans or two-year suspensions for first-time offenders and things of that nature, right? absolutely I mean do you want it out of the sport or not you're not going to get there

if you're giving somebody a six-month ban for taking injecting EPO in the system I mean this is what I just fundamentally can't understand yeah as far as you were sorry to interrupt you but if that continues you know somebody's getting a six-month ban for EPO that you know clean athletes are going to look at that incentive in the organization and they may not want to compete there. You run into that risk. It's the last thing I want. I want to be part of PFL and MVP. I'm here. Like, I want to flourish here. And I want the organization to flourish. Like, I'm on that side. But you would run that risk if there's not adequate testing. Yeah. And to be honest, I mean, six months, like, there's a lot of fighters who are just

fighting every six months. It's, it's barely a slap on the wrist. As far as realistic for you, in terms of coming back, what are you saying? First quarter next year? Yeah, if all goes according to plan right now, that's what I'm looking at first quarter. Okay, and I saw you had some choice words for Alfie Davis.

What's the issue there? Bro, we... Called him a gobs shite. Bro, he is like, you know, he's talked so much shit. To be fair to him, like, he is shite. Like, I don't want to be fair, he is shy. I made the bollocks out of him.

But like, it is what it is. We all, he went to sleep in the third round, didn't land a glove on his husband, but he wants to talk all this shit about me. But anyway, look, like, we could sell that already next year. First, my return, no problem at all. At least he's not juicing because he looks fucking fatten and fluffy. Oh, gosh.

So that would be the one. If it would be up to you, he would be the one you'd return against? Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Okay. I love the, to be fair, he is shite. I mean, I don't know if that's contradictory or not, but I like the fight. It would make a lot of sense.

And there might be a vacant lightweight title in the new MVP MMA. So I'm sure you would have your sights set on that. I know you probably want to beat the guy who's holding the belt right now. But, you know, we'll see how that all plays out. I wish you the best, Paul. Speedy recovery. I hope everything goes well with the rehab and whatnot. And thank you for coming on to talk about this.

I know it probably might put you in, you know, I don't know if hot water is the right thing, but you're doing the right thing and the sport needs more people like you speaking up. Appreciate it. Yeah, as if this is going on, I'm starting to realize the more hot water I've got to be. No, you're good. But look, bro, I have to just, I cannot speak good, you know, and I appreciate you having me on. It's always to catch up. Always. And my best your family as well. We'll talk to you soon. Yeah, John. They'll be watching right now, brother.

We love them. We love them. Hello to the Hughes family. Thank you, Paul. We'll talk to you soon and speedy recovery. Thank you, bro. Appreciate it. There he is. Big news.

Paul Hughes, kind enough to join us to talk about a not so fun subject, but one worth talking about. And worth mentioning that there is drug testing in the PFL. It is the Mohican tribe that oversees their drug testing. But, you know, the lack of random out of competition. testing, the lack of, you know, the unannounced testing, that email, there's a lot of questions to be answered. John Martin actually is going to be joining us tomorrow in studio. So very much looking forward to that chat. That is going to be one where, honestly, I'm really looking forward to talking to him. We've talked to him a bunch, but he has said in interviews that the

the idea of coming together with MVP actually was spawned based on something that happened on our show. And we can get into that with him tomorrow, which was pretty damn cool to hear, if I'm being honest. So looking forward to that tomorrow. Still to come, Carlos Prachas, Carlos Prachas is going to be joining us to talk about, obviously, the Islam Khachev win. and him wanting to be next, what happened with Michael Morales on Saturday, whether or not he will fight for the title next, will he fight Michael Morales?

All that and more we'll discuss with Carlos Prachas. But what a massive, massive, massive thrill it is for me to say hello to our next guest. As you all know, I'm a very proud Canadian, and as you all know, I have an affinity for Canadian pro wrestling, the great Brett the Hemannhardt, who sits by my side, each and every show,

my favorite athlete as a kid, my first favorite athlete. I fell in love with him and the Heart Foundation and everything that has to do with Canadian pro wrestling. And so speaking to this Canadian pro wrestling legend is a massive honor, a massive thrill, a massive privilege for me. Let me just very, very quickly run down some of his accolades.

W.W.E. Hall of Famer Class of 2012, two-time Canadian Wrestling Hall of Famer once with his good pal Christian 2021 and then inducted in 2024 as a singles competitor. Current AEW World Tag Team Champion with Christian Cage, former two-time AEWT&T champion, four-time WWE champion, seven-time World Heavyweight Champion, five-time Intercontinental Champion, one-time WCWUS champion,

14-time WWE tag team champion, obviously with the likes of Christian Hulk Hogan, Randy Orton, Ray Mysterio, Chris Benoit, 2001, King of the Ring winner, 2010 and 2021, Royal Rumble winner, inaugural Money in the Bank winner in 2005, WB, Triple Crown, and Grand Slam champion. We use the word legend a lot in all of combat sports, in all of sports. It is often overused. It is not overused when talking about Adam Copeland, formerly known as Edge, currently competing in AEW as Adam Copeland, one half of their,

tag team champions who will be competing at the all-in show next weekend at wembley stadium in england he's kind enough to join us right here and now to talk about it all my man adam how are you sir how's it going how's it going all these years on all these years you know i've only had you once on the program before it was a phone call with you and christian never face-to-face never in person never via zoom or anything like that this is a massive honor for me thank you well thanks for having me. Gosh, hearing that intro, you just, you lose track sometimes, especially as the years kind of keep rolling on.

But, yeah, that was a lot of stuff. But then I think and go, yeah, okay, I feel like my body feels like I did all. And I was trying to wonder, by the way, why have we never spoken before? And then it dawned on me. It dawned on me. Montrealer, Habs fan, salty Leafs fan, you've had a bias against me,

I get it. We could have issues. Yeah. Although I will say, I really, really enjoyed the Habs run in the playoffs this year. They were really, really fun team to watch.

And so I checked my hab-hating card for a few weeks anyway. I'm happy to hear that because I had an issue with some of the Toronto fans in my life because I was like, you know, we're salty baseball fans in Montreal, but we root for

the J's because we want Canada to be happy. Why can't you be happy for us? Your team is irrelevant. Be happy for the Habs, but I felt like they were rooting against us. I felt like they wanted us to lose because their team was irrelevant. I feel like to an extent, but I also feel like there was more support for Montreal than there normally would have been because there's been such a drought. Yes. In terms of, you know, the Cup being in Canada. So I feel like that. I feel like, like there was a lot of goodwill across Canada for the HABs this season, more so than usual. Yes, that is fair. And I do think they're a very likable bunch. They are. Yeah, they are. You really just come across as like, you know, I say kids, but good fun kids.

You know, by the way, first time talking on the show, I would be remiss if I don't say, we have met before. And way back in the day, young Mark Ariel Hawani stood in line for about an hour to take this photo with you at the WrestleMania 18 fan access. Yeah. Five second pose too. Look at that. You put the belt on me. I felt like a million bucks. How about that? 2002 in Toronto. Yeah, I love how far the setups for appearances have come. We're like against the wall. But it was a great thrill and this is an even bigger thrill. All right. Much to talk to you about. How would you describe Adam as of now, your time in AEW. The decision to show up just a few years ago

was a shocker, the debut, the music, the pyro, you come out, you and Christian, all that stuff. You were such a WW lifer. You were so synonymous with the organization. And now you're about three years in. How has it been? How would you describe it? It's been fun.

And I think I say that word, and it sounds like a simple word, but that was really the goal was to have fun. not chasing championships or, you know, the props, let's face it. You know, I'm not doing that. I just wanted to come and have fun and create with some performers that I'd never had a chance to touch. That and the fact that I knew I'd get a chance to team with Jay again and go against teams

like, you know, FTR and the bucks. Those were big things to want to be able to try and do. And I knew there was only one place to do that. And I kind of run the gamut with WWE. There wasn't much left to do for either, you know, for the company or for me. And to me, that writing was pretty clearly on the wall. It was more along the lines of, am I going to go to AEWM or am I going to retire? And during the match with Shamo, I still didn't even really know because I was having so much fun out there with him and just loving that experience.

I truly wasn't sure. But then in looking at the roster in AEW and talking to Tony and, you know, after we did the Toronto show and talking to Tony and kind of looking at the landscape, it became a no-brainer the more I looked at it. And again, once I, you know, sat down and talked with my girls and threw it their way, because we do that. We'll sit down and talk to them and get their take on that. things and they

said, well, you gotta go there. And that was already leaning there, but that really sealed it. Fair to say, though, if AW is not a thing, if there's not an alternative, you might be done by now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would have been done. Yeah, I would have been done by now because I think I probably

would have come back for a year with WWE. And then, um, retired however everyone wanted it to happen and, and that would be that. But man, this is kind of breathed new life into me in terms of, you know, the creative avenues that we can take. Because, again, I feel like we've kind of driven down most of those avenues with WWE. But gosh, like I just look at the roster and I've repeated it ad nauseum. But the fact that I've never wrestled Samoa Joe, that just is so odd to me that two guys with all of our experience have never met in there.

And then you look at the young guys and pretty much everybody I look out there as young compared to me. So I can say that about pretty much everyone. But it's just a stacked roster of people to get in there with. And, you know, while it's fun, while it's still fun, you know, that to me is honestly the biggest checkmark for me is it's still fun. And when it doesn't become fun, then why do it? because, you know, the reason I wanted to do this is because you didn't know, have to grow up. You just get to jump around in spandex and be a big kid, right?

So while it still feels like that, I'm going to keep doing it. And AW has helped in that regard because it's giving all of these new fresh things to look at and try and conquer, I guess. I remember CM Punk was on my program. And there was all kinds of talks about the locker room and the state of AW and what was going on behind the scenes. You come out, you cut a very fiery promo on television, and it felt like a locker room leader, a veteran coming out. And in some ways, trying to put out a message, but also rally the troops behind the scenes. Would that be a fair way of describing it?

Yeah. Yeah. I knew in being hired that at some point, one of my jobs would be to try and dial up. in a locker room. You know, I've been put in a position to lead them before and had good success. So I assumed that was one of the reasons to bring me over as well. And I got to say, man, right now, this last year, you know, kind of turned the corner in terms of it feels like everybody's pulling in the same direction, you know,

and once you can do that, and once you get, you know, a few creative elements to the show that are really starting to hit, I feel like then everything kind of gets dialed in, and it feels like that's where we are right now, and that's always fun. What's amazing about AEW2 is just the freedom to explore and to try things,

and it's much more like the attitude, era in that regard. Because a lot of times when we were out there during the attitude era, it's like you might, there might be a plan. There might not be too. Or you might be figuring out as you go. My experience by the end with WWE was overproduced, over-rehearsed, over everything, and it kept handcuffs on you to where you couldn't really explore too much.

That's not the case with AW. and that again, just it's fun. What would you say was the turning point? You say like it's because that's where I was actually going with, you know, you say the speech, you rally the troops, maybe it doesn't hit right away, but I keep hearing from AW guys that as of late, like there's just a difference in the last year or so.

Can you pinpoint where the change came, what the turning point was? I don't know if there's an actual like a pivot point. or anything, but I just feel like everyone started to see what everyone was there for, you know, and kind of understanding that, okay, people aren't trying to take spots or whatever. It's like, no, we're just trying to make this place better and make it the best it can be. And I think in order to do that, you need a locker room that has different elements of experience and has been through it and has done it and can be a calming influence or just a shoulder to turn to

to talk to. And it doesn't need to be about wrestling. It can be about life. It can be about a mortgage payment. It can be about, you know, so many things. I've had so many discussions outside of the realm of wrestling with folks to just be able to get their stuff out and be able to talk and just feel better. That's, that's, I kind of take that on as part of why I'm hired. and the locker room knows that I'm one of those guys that you need anything, just give me a bucks.

You know, I might be need to even doing something with the girls, but I'll get back to you. Is there someone or a few people in particular of the younger crew that you've really taken to, that you've really wanted to help out perhaps the way a veteran helped you out back in the day? You know, they're all just so excited. But I sit down with Darby and him and I will get into some existential conversations. But I really, really enjoy his energy and his outlook on life. Hangman, you know, great dude. Swerve and I, you know, been buds for a long time.

I love that MJF is always, always, always going to come to the table with ideas. Give me a guy like that as opposed to someone who just expects it. And really more than anything, it feels like a locker room of that, of people like, okay, I want to get this a shot. I want to get this a shot. I want to get this a shot. And keep trying until something sticks. Leo Rush is another guy.

You know, he's throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, man. And he's going for it. And he's allowed to go for it. And I think that really is the key, especially when, you have a lot of creatives under the same roof. Have you told Darby to like maybe chill a little bit? Like his guts don't need to come out and cut himself with like, you've been there, done that, you've taken all the bumps.

He needs to chill, no? Well, that's why he won't listen to me. Because you're a hypocrite then. We actually did have that conversation. He went, okay, were you saying that when you jumped in the flaming table? I went, well, a bit of a point. And honestly, I'm still that guy sometimes. Like, should I jump off a 21,

foot cage? Nope. Did I? Yep. Yep. I was feeling young and dumb, but I was only one of those things. Do you regret that? Nah, man, it's part of it. It's just part of it. You know, you don't expect to walk out of this unharmed. You know, more than anything, though, what I will say is I feel like that one has lingered with me. So that injury in particular, you know, I, I feel, it every once in a while. I'll go to take a step and the leg will just give. I'm like, okay. Right. There's a plate and screws in there now. I got to keep track of that. It's also the same leg that I tore the Achilles. So, you know, it reminds me, but I don't regret it, man. You know, it's all, it's all part of the process. It's all part. When I got up there and I looked down,

I went, oh, these cages are higher, I think. They were. More than anything, it was the Balakai's face and going, okay, I I can't kill him. Right. I got to try and do an elbow drop, not a splash. Here goes. I got to be honest, when you debuted in AEW, it was so exciting, the music, everything. But there was a part of me that didn't want to see you feud with Christian.

And I don't know if it was the nostalgia of it all. And I know that wrestlers don't want to just play the old hits over and over again. You want to redefine yourself and evolve and whatnot. But off the jump, I didn't want to see that friction there. And so I say that to say, this is so much fun seeing you guys back together again. It's been so much fun. And the plan was to get there, but we thought to add the layers first would, A, remind some people that needed reminding or bring an entirely new fan base on board with what this whole thing of him and I was. and in talking to Tony when I first came he goes I said what what's the first order of

business he goes I feel like we need to accomplish you and Jay and get you guys answered basically you know because if we don't they're just going to keep waiting for it so we we kind of thought okay well we'll start and we'll do this and he's an entirely new character now and and try and bring in some other players you know bring in Nick Wayne and bring in Kip Sabian and bring in Shane-O-Wain and Luchosaurus and Sting and Darby and try and get some other characters involved too

with the goal being from day one that it will end with him and I team and really that was that was honestly the reason for me and Moxley at Revolution was to get to the point where you know Christian's character can't get past himself

and can't see me win the world title before he does. So he's going to cash in his chip to make it a triple threat and then lose. So everything falls apart on it. Those were all the story points that we were trying to layer in there before we peed. But that was always... Hopefully you care more about what it is now. And how do you feel about how it's going, this iteration of you guys together? It's my favorite.

Really? Yeah, it really is. We had a blast when we're younger, but we were two of the same. same. We were filling the same role. We were Bill and Ted with the obnoxiousness turned up, but essentially playing the same

character. You know, our characters are totally different. What he is doing now is so different from what I'm doing now. And the challenge of that was to make those two characters

somehow work under the umbrella of a team. and that was that was the thing that we wanted to accomplish and and I feel like we did and it was a bit of a challenge initially to try and figure that out but once we did it's just the dynamic of kind of this Walter Mathout Jack Lemon thing or Staple or Mulder of hey stop paving sorry I got a Frenchie and she's barking all good all good hardly can hear okay and so you love this version, and I think the fans are loving it as well. And as I mentioned earlier, you're going to be a part of All In next weekend, Wembley Stadium against the Young Bucks. Correct me if I'm wrong. I do believe this is your first time at Wembley for AEW. Is this your first time ever at

Wembley or have you wrestled there before? First time ever at Wembley, first time ever against the bucks. And I mean, just those two things alone. You know, when we knew we'd get to team, Obviously, it was the Bucks in FTR We're like, okay, got to get in there with both teams and just kind of see how that feels. And it's just been, you know, the series with FTR and the story that we're able to tell there and, you know, especially at double or nothing in New York,

to have Beth there, to have Jay there, to have FTAR. It's like, if anybody needed an example of why, came to AEW, just look right there. Or the fact that I'm getting to wrestle in Wembley against the Bucks, who I do consider one of the best tag teams of all time. Just like after. Yeah, man, any time you can get first-ever matches, and especially to do it in a venue like that,

I mean, that's what you do it for. That's the good stuff. So Wembley obviously isn't in our home country of Canada, but when I think of Wembley Stadium and I think of pro wrestling, I think of one match. I think of Bulldog versus Brett Hart, 1992 SummerSlam. I'm wondering if you're the same

and if it means something a little more to you because of that. And I'm also wondering if you recall where you were when that match happened. Yeah, I mean, that is the first match I think of. It's honestly, I think, the only match in terms of matches. I think, you know,

prior to AEW going there that I can really think of. And just remember the fact that they went on last, which blew me away because I was like, wait, the intercom and title is going on the main event. And that didn't happen then. And then just being a fan of both performers and seeing what they were doing and by that point being in the industry, which gave me a different lens, that was fascinating because that was one of the matches where it's like, okay, I'm smartened up and I'm watching this now for different things.

And anytime you watch Brett, you're always going to pick up on a lot of those little different things. Oh, it was amazing. Brett being my favorite, loved it, a little bit heartbroken as to how it ended, but incredible and how it's aged over time. Can I ask you this? You posted on Instagram recently these sort of white whale venues that you want to compete in. You got to Arena, Mexico, which I'll ask you about in a second. Wembley's right under it, so you're going to get to that in a moment in a little over a week.

you're about to get to Maple Leaf Gardens in October with Maple Leaf Pro, and I'll ask you about that as well. We love what they're doing. Scott DeMore, shout out to him. And it feels like Tokyo Dome is right there as well. Is there a chance that within the span of six months, you're going to just knock all of these off? I mean, there seems to be a possibility. And I've thrown it out there to anyone whose ears need to hear it. I was like, hey, I'm around. I like to do it. So then it just becomes, you know, does it work out, you know, in terms of my contract and things like that? But again, with makeleaf pro, Tony was just like, yeah, you know, I get why you want to do it. So go do it.

How would you describe him as a leader? So here's the best example of how I can explain Tony Kahn to the outside. or people who ask me. First night, first match there, we're in Kansas City. I'm standing there with Beth and the girls. Tony comes flying up, knows both the girls' names. He goes, hey, girls, I'm so happy you're here. I'm so excited that you're here.

Isn't this great? And then, boom, takes off. And they looked at me and went, who's that? I was like, well, that's my boss. That's Tony. And they're like, whoa, he's awesome. Because the guy loves wrestling and he's full of energy and he cares. And, you know, when you boil it all down, the most important thing is really great human being.

And that, as I get older, as I raise kids, that's very important to me now. You know, before you kind of just do your thing and the blinders are on, right? But now where I conduct my business is important to me and who I conduct it for. And Tony, man, he's a good human being. I think a little bit early on, there was some talk. The knock on him was that like he couldn't stand up to the guys. He couldn't be a boss. He couldn't be a leader.

Honestly, I don't hear that anymore. I don't feel that. Have you felt, I know you were, you know, it's almost going to be three years in October. Have you felt a change in him? Yeah, I think so. yeah, I think he's just become more hands-on. And, you know, that was discussions that we had. You know, the Mies and the Moxley's and the Jericho's said,

you need to get more hands-on again. And I think that has made a difference. It's truly made a difference because it's his vision. We can just help bring it to fruition, or we can be there for ideas or to pick brains. but at the end of the day, it's his vision. And we need him in order to try to get that vision that he wants across. And so I feel like that's the case.

I don't know what the case was like before because it wasn't there. But, I mean, he's not afraid to disagree with me. I'm not afraid to disagree with him because, you know, we're just trying to put out the best product available. Are you sometimes blown away by the fact that he's got nine jobs? How is he able to do this end, like produce and write a wrestling show? I feel like that's a big enough job as it is. I mean, he just never stops. You know, I don't know when he stops.

I know what I have on the go and it's enough to keep me very busy. And it's a drop in the bucket to what he's got going on every day. Yeah, more power to him. Dude's like an energizer bunny. He just, you know, he may be tired, but he keeps going. Arena, Mexico, why was it such a big deal for you? You know, I've always been so enamored with Lucha Libre. I just, the pomp, the circumstance, the pageantry behind it, the masks, the colors,

There's the Millmaskers blue demon movies. Like, just all of that. Santos and just, I don't know, I've always just found it so fascinating. And the fact that it's a completely different style within this industry where pretty much everywhere else sticks to the same formula. And then to have just a pure wrestling arena and it's old and you can feel it. And I've said, you know, arenas sometimes take on the emotions that have been let out there. And that feels like one of those places. You know, you walk in there and it just oozes history.

And, you know, to be able to do that and perform there, because I went once when I was WWF champ. Oh. I put on a looseer mask. I put on a long sleeve. Went and sat in the second row. And just the atmosphere that night, I was like, at some point I've got to get here. Yeah. But I got to get here.

And then to come out that night and to feel that, like, you know, I'll date myself here, but I felt like the Memorax dude in the commercial. Yeah. That's what it felt like. And it, you take those nights with you forever. You know, the fact that whatever it is you did for this amount of time has connected with enough people for them to react that way. and yeah that's a good feeling so it lived up your expectations or perhaps even exceeded

yeah i think it probably exceeded wow i think it exceeded um just because you never really you know i try not to get too bogged down and what it's going to be but that i mean that was one where i was like man never been here i wonder what this is going to be like and um and when i got off the plane there was there was like about 15 people waiting there to applaud me off the plane. And I went, oh, this might get crazy. Okay. I don't think I've ever been applauded by the airport workers as I'm getting off the plane. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So that gave me a bit of an inclination of what it could be, but see, even still, you just, you don't know, right? And, and again, I don't, I don't really take all of this too seriously, you know, so, yeah, I just don't try to get wrapped too much in it.

get a night like that. You're like, well, man, this is pretty damn cool. The spark in your eye, the joy in which you're talking about this, is remarkable to me. You're about to turn 53 in October. You're 52 now. Most people at your age doing something for multiple decades don't speak with this like childlike enthusiasm about what it is they've been doing for those decades. And so are you surprised by this, that you still love it this much, that it still connects with you this deeply after all these years? No, it doesn't surprise me, actually. It really doesn't, but I, but I've had to, to structure the relationship differently before wrestling was everything, you know, in the first run. It, it topped everything, you know.

And I think it kind of had to in order to get and accomplish what I needed to get done. In coming back this time, though, I've really, really truly just tried to focus on the enjoyment of all of it. And I think having it ripped out of your hands for almost a decade, if your mind's in the right place, that you're going to come back and enjoy this thing no matter what. You know, so, you know, if a match doesn't necessarily go off exactly the way I wanted, okay, it happens. You know, I mean, Aaron Rogers has thrown a lot of interceptions.

It happens, you know. And it's okay. Because we're, again, we're inhabiting characters that hopefully people want to attach to and have fun with or get mad at. And to me, it's still the greatest, it's still the greatest industry. It just is. But the whole idea of it, it still just tickles me. And I just, I love that it's such a creative outlet for people. and having experienced other creative outlets now with acting and writing,

just understanding the freedom that pro wrestling can have in terms of your creativity and having your vision come to fruition. That, that to me, is really the best part about it. It's like if you create it and you have an idea, you know, especially with AEW, chances are you're going to get to give it a shot. And that's fun. You know, this whole version of Jay and I as a team, you know, it was all a concoction that we kind of were stumbling on as we were doing it. And that's a blast.

You know, that's like calling the set list on the fly. I was shocked to learn that you've never competed at Maple Leaf Gardens. How does that never happen? So apparently, I think someone said I missed it by like six or seven months. Wow. Yeah. So I just missed the tail end of it. By that point, we had moved to the Skydome while Scotia Bank was being ironed out or something. So yeah, like when I first started the company, we were doing 30,000 house shows. Crazy. Yeah. So this is going to be huge October Maple Leaf Gardens. Is this you reaching out to Scott? Is this Scott reaching out to you? How does this come about?

So really initially, I had thought at some point I might have to put my promoters hat on and just run a show there if I want to get there. Wow. And so I was perfectly prepared to do that, you know, to go, all right, okay, I'm just going to produce a one-off and go in there and run it and just have a blast. And then I did an interview with one of the many Leafs outlets that I talked to, my buddy, Neckelberger, and he had brought up Maple Leaf Gardens and I said, I got to do it. well, Scott saw the interview, and Scott and I had maintained contact over the years. I mean, we broke in at the same time. We did a lot of the same roads together in the same vehicle. So he said, well, I'm going to run it.

And, you know, obviously I'm like, well, then I got to do it at some point. But again, got to talk to Tony because, you know, he's paying. And I get him not wanting to have, you know, a talent on a show where I could possibly get hurt, right? So I totally understand that. But it goes back to Tony being a fan of wrestling. And understanding for me that Maple Leaf Gardens is a very, very, very big deal. It's the place where I first saw wrestling live. It's the place that that solidified that this is what I'm going to do, let alone all of the least memories. And having watched those over the years and yeah it just holds such a significance for me so the fact that I get to do it

is just I've been I've been over the moon I really have like I'm so excited for that night and and again to your point to be to be that excited you know 27 days before my 53rd birthday I mean, and still finding things to go for and to grasp for. I think that's the key to keeping the sparkle, is finding those things to still go after. In that same vein, just curious, I know probably a long shot, but when Sina was doing his whole year-long retirement, you were so linked to him. Was there ever a part of you that thought, that would be pretty cool to just show up and do something? I know it's impossible.

I know those doors don't link to each other, but did the thought run through your mind? Well, here's what I realized. They could link to each other. They could. One place doesn't want it to. So, okay. You know, um...

You think if you would have gone to Tony, he would have been okay with it? Absolutely. Really? I truly believe that, yeah. And you think the other side... Because he knows what it would have meant to a very large segment of the wrestling fan.

Mm-hmm. But you think the other side would have said no? yeah yeah I do you know and and I can see it from all sides I really can but you know John knew I was there in spirit and you know and him and I experienced the fact that we we kind of made our bones on each other and and and we're both aware of that fact like both of our careers would have been great but I think that angle that story those two opponents kind of propelled us to a place to a different place did you even explore it no no I I you know assumed that it and a lot of these are assumptions yeah but but having been there long enough and kind of knowing how the mindset is there, I realized it, you know, it's just, it ain't going to happen.

If we're up to me and John, sure. How do you think it played out? How do you feel about the way it played out? I didn't. I truly, and this goes back to my relationship with wrestling now, is I don't really watch it. I've put a bit of a barrier in between. After 6 p.m., I don't talk wrestling.

I don't look at wrestling. I don't take a wrestling call. I don't, nothing wrestling. And I think for me at this stage of life, I kind of needed it that way. You know, and I think that's allowed me to love it as much as I still do because I'm not letting myself get bogged down

in the anxiety of it and the pressure of it and the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, I don't know. I'm in Arena, Mexico. I got to try and do a 6-1-9. Is it a dismal? Yeah, who cares? It was fun. that's how I look at it. And I think there's something to be said for that.

I think there's not enough, you know, people out there just having fun now because they're too worried about ratings or this or that or whatever it is. You know, all of this. Chances are you want to do this because it's a really, really fun way to make a living. And I've tried not to lose sight of that. That being said, like Tony has an important thing. to tell you and it's 7.30, he cannot reach you. You're unavailable. He has to wait till tomorrow. You say six o'clock. Really? That's the hard rule. And everyone respects it.

I don't even know if they know. Wow. You just don't reply till tomorrow. Yeah. I'll talk to him tomorrow. Wow. And how long has that been for? Since I've come back on this. Okay. Years. Yeah. Amazing. Surely you know what happened in his final match, you know, like him tapping. Yeah, so what I get now is what I get off Instagram. Sure. And so I, you know, it's hard for me to comment on full this, full that, because I haven't watched a full anything in, you know, I think the last full thing I watched was the brain bustlers in the Madison Square Garden.

And no, there was only a couple months ago, but that's generally what I'm watching full through now, if I watch something. But could I just ask, as a wrestling mind, like him tapping in his final match, him losing to Gunther, did you feel like that was the right call? I'll just preface it by saying, I despised it. I hated it. This man told us for two decades, never give up, and they make him give up in the last match. I thought, I understand there's a time honor tradition in this business. You put the guy over. You know, you walk out, you do the job. I believe that that's a, that's a, that's a mentality that was born maybe in like, the 70s, we're not living in those days anymore. We have WWE Unreal showing us, you know, creative meetings on Netflix. And so why can't you just make the fans go home happy? They want a happy ending to the story,

and they certainly don't want to see the guy whose motto was to never give up. Tap, at the very least, let him go to sleep and say, I went out on my shield, not literally quit in his final match. I mean, I can see the argument for sure. I guess for me, what it boils down to is what John think. And I know he didn't have a problem with it. there's my answer. Can I give you a retort to that?

Sure, yeah. You're in the movie business, you're in the TV business. Yeah. I listened to an interview with Quentin Tarantino. He has a movie that he feels strongly about, but it absolutely bombs everyone hates it. But he's like, I loved it. Does that make the movie good? In his eyes, yeah.

But to the public. So I guess basically what you're saying is it matters more what he thought in the end, even if everyone hated it as long as he's at peace with it. To me, yes, because he's the one who has to, be at peace or not at peace. Those other people are going to move on. Yeah, fair enough. And they can be worked up about it and this and that,

and even when they go back to think about it. But John is the one who has to walk in John's shoes every day. So if John's cool with it, then who am I to not be cool with it? Fair. I wouldn't ask you what the scenario is, but have you allowed yourself to think of what scenario you want to go out on? Man, like I keep saying, remember when Jericho left WWE at the time?

time you got like thrown in a dumpster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kicking and screaming. I'm like, imagine if your final appearance ever is that. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. What are you doing? And you just, you want to stay and you're crying and you're in a dumpster.

And, you know, if you're a heel, obviously. That to me would be so much fun. And, uh, and then I also think you'd have people expecting you to come back and you just never do. There's something kind of Andy Kaufman about that. Yes. Do you think at 54 you're still wrestling? Oh, God.

Right now, I'd probably say no. Okay. Right now. You know, a lot depends. You know, got beekeeper coming out, got Percy Jackson coming out.

So there's always opportunities within that world too, which then pulls me away, because again, Tony's cool with me going to do these things, but that also adds on time. So, you know, I really planned on not doing any more acting this year and just focusing purely on wrestling. So I don't know, man. It's hard to tell. Like, there's some nights after a match where I'm like, whoa, okay. Yeah, I got a year left tops. and then there's times where I'm in there and I'm feeling great and go, man, I could probably do a little more than a year.

But do I want to? What do my kids want more than anything? What do they want from their dad? And they know dad loves work and they know it makes dad happy. But at the same time, I think they'd rather me be home. and just doing occasional acting gigs that their friends think is cool, you know, because suddenly I'm cool to all their friends again because I'm Aries. Yeah.

Incredible. It's amazing how many different iterations of you we've seen over the years, and I'm going to let you go in a moment. This has been amazing. Can I just ask your daughters, their ages? Yeah, so Lyric is going to be 13 in December, and Ruby is 10. So they're in those pockets where you always, always hear the cliches of you only have so many summers.

Yep, yep. We're in that. And I think about that. And, you know, and I also know if I didn't have to retire that first time, I'm definitely not wrestling right now. But this has kind of felt like the way to finally ended on my terms or as close to my terms as possible. You know, it needs to be the terms of the person who runs the company.

Don't get me wrong. but to not be told that's it you're done. And for me to be able to say, okay, that's it, I'm done. That is really the last thing for me for contentment in terms of my wrestling career. I know they're still young, but have they shown any interest in the business in doing what, no. No. No, they love creating. They love writing.

They love, you know, they'll create stuff. day long. I think they see the toll it takes, you know, and not just in dad, but mom too. So they know that there's a huge physical toll that comes with that job. And if you don't have a good relationship with pain, it's probably not going to be a good job for you. And for whatever reason, lack of brain cells, I don't know. But I have a fairly high pain. tolerance. So yeah, I think my brain worked for this job. At the end of last year, there was some talk that maybe you would go back. Was your deal up at the end of last year? No. No. Okay. Good to clear up. I love it because I'll have people come up to me in the airports

because I really do try and just avoid social. Yeah. But I'll have people that have come up to So you're leaving and you're going to go work scene? I was like, what? What are you talking about? And like almost get mad at me because that wasn't the case or that I wasn't going to wrestle scene. I'm like, well, you worked yourself up into that. Yeah. I'm here.

I'm doing what I'm doing and I'm loving it. So, yeah, the contract wasn't coming up. There wasn't, you know, I think it might have been up in October. Okay. But with beekeeper, with Percy, with the broken leg, you know, that all adds time on. Will you retire in AEW? Yes. Yeah.

That's where I want to read. Okay. And I know that may disappoint a lot of people, but it really, really, I love it there. I love the company. I love the attitude. I love the exuberance. I love the drive. I love the excitement that I see from the locker room.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to go anywhere else. I'm good. You know, I did everything I could do there and then some. And, and again, I think they got everything out of me and then some that they could have. So, you know, for the better, which is really all you can ask for in a relationship or a partnership. I know you say you don't watch anything, but feel any ownership to Judgment Day? Do you feel any sort of kinship to that?

Any sort of connection still? Of course. You know, I'm very proud of some of the stuff that it got up to, you know, and to see that it was such a great launching pad, you know, more than anything. Because that was the initial vision was to make it a launching pad for talent, at least that at that stage that I saw and went, hey, we need to implement these people more. like Damian Priest is like 6-6 and can move and Ria's Ria and like how we're not doing anything. And then then you get Dom in there and to see where he's gone. And then also to be the baby face along with Ray for that first year of them kind of finding their feet once, you know, I was tossed from the group. That was really fun too because I felt like I was involved in trying to help continue to get it off the ground.

So yeah, yeah, it's always, you know, it's same with the brood. It's the same with Lafamelia. It's the same with, you know, with Lita. It's the same with Vicky. It's the same with the stuff like them with Beth or any, you know, rated RKO. Like, I've been really, really lucky and thankful for some of the stuff and groups that I've been involved in because they, you know, they need some, some, some, some, some, some, headway.

Got to be surreal for you to see what Dom has turned into, right? I mean, you probably remember him when he was this, like, as we all do on TV, but you probably have experiences with him behind the scenes. What a star he is. I'm blown away by him. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you would have found too many people that would have called this. Okay. Or understand that he had that in him, you know, because he was a quiet kid who barely

said, ooh. And then you realize, like, under there is this young man is starting to grow and find his voice. But even just to see how far he's come, I think his first match was with Rollins during the pandemic, right? And to see where he is now. Like, I had his first match as a heel. And it was on Raw. I think it was in Portland. And, you know, he'd never been a heel before.

And he's in the main event of Raw. trying to be a heel. And I feel like that was the route and the road to go and let him kind of, you know, again, discover. And I think he's been able to, for sure. I would love to ask you about one last thing. And I almost feel ashamed asking you this because you're so disconnected from the internet. But it's been a hot topic. And I figure who better than you to ask this question to?

There's been a huge debate over the last couple of weeks because it started on a podcast hosted by Conrad Thompson and Eric Bischoff where they proclaimed that Roman Rains is one of the most overrated wrestlers in the history of the business, that no one can name a great Roman Rains match and that he goes on and on with the entrances and whatnot. I have said on my show, I vehemently disagree. In fact, there's a Roman Rains guy right over here right next to me. I'm an admirer of what he has done and I think he's really come a long way. I'm just curious, you saw him grow up, and I know you've, I wouldn't say that you're the best of friends, but you probably have respect for what he's done in the business. Your take on hearing something like that. I mean, it's all up to the person and their take. It's all subjective.

You know, some people will think I'm overrated, okay? I'm not sure if I've heard that one. I don't think I've ever heard that one. I'm sure there is, though. And whatever blows your hair back, you know what I mean? Like, who cares? Like, honestly, who? Who cares?

There's no better answer to me. Give the fuck. Are we having fun? That's what matters to me. And I've worked them. Easy to work. Fun to work. Good to work.

Loved my matches with him. And I think he found the voice of his character. and found something that he fully connected with. Overrated, I mean, that's up to each individual person. Again, you probably had people saying Austin was overrated or name it. By the beholder, right? But I know in working them, right? I appreciate that coming from you, and you're probably like rolling your eyes internally as I'm asking the question.

Oh, no, man. That's right. Are Leifes making the playoffs? Yes. You say it so emphatically. I say it every year. Like, if you haven't picked up on this by now, I'm always going to trend toward positive.

Good. It makes life a whole lot easier and a whole lot happier. And, and, um, but when it comes to the Leafs, I do the same thing. And I will watch literally every game. I'll watch it on delay. I'll scrub back. I will watch them all. And I do think, you know, Cheka made a lot of changes. And I think a lot of good changes. And it's going to be fun and very interesting to watch if nothing else. Well, I'll say this. You remind me a lot of myself, I'm a diehard New York Knicks basketball fan. And you may have heard for the first time in 53 years, they finally got it done. That's why this trophy is right next to me. That's why my computer is littered with all this stuff. Don't give up. Don't give up hope. Because I'll tell you, Adam, that night when they finally did it,

when I didn't think it would ever happen in my lifetime, is the greatest night. I've never experienced joy like that. I've never experienced it. I was crying. I didn't know how to control myself. I took off my clothes. My kids were shell-shocked by my reaction

because the fluid coming out of my body. And so I do wish that for you and Leafs fans. I do really wish that. There was fluid coming out of all the holes out of it. It was crazy. And you know what? No regrets. I wish I could relive that night over and over again.

And I'd been dreaming of that night. And so I just say, don't give up, because when it finally does happen in your lifetime, it will make it all worth it. And here's the thing. I might just keep growing this beard until it happens. Oh, God. That might be a problem. I don't know about that one. I don't know about that one.

But I do wish you luck with that. And, of course, wish you luck next week. Sunday, August 30th, all in Wembley Stadium. Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, Copen Cage against the Young Bucks, a dream match, if you will. this has been a dream interview. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for the time, Adam. And continued success and congratulations and all the great things you've accomplished throughout your legendary Hall of Fame career. Thanks, man. You too. And next time we'll have to make sure that I'm in the studio. That would be amazing. I would love that. Thank you.

All the best to you. Thanks, man. You too. Adam Copeland, aka, or formerly known as Edge, Copen Cage, Wembley Stadium, August 30th, incredible stuff. A.E.W. All-in London. You can order it online. You can watch it wherever you get your paper views, HBO Max. It's an amazing thing to see him continue to do this after all these years alongside his best friend, his long-time friend, Christian Cage, Jay Riso, who is another great guy and another proud Canadian and edging Christian back of the day. Let's get a look at that. I showed that picture to my kids earlier today.

I was like, look at me. Back in 2002. Look at me. Look at young Ariel. WrestleMania 18 fan access. You know what my daughter Claire said? She said, why are your eyebrows so big? Golly, Claire is he?

I mean, first of all, Edge, I mean, he looks phenomenal there. Like, look at the locks. Look at the 10. And look at me. This is prime Syracuse Ariel Hawani going with his friends to WrestleMania 18. all of them were coming the next day. I leave early to go to fan access by myself

so that I could take pictures with the likes of Edge, Diamond Dallas Page, Lillian Garcia, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, full-on mark. I was never a mark, by the way. I always appreciated wrestling, knew what it was, but if you would have told that kid, what do you mean bullshit? I was never...

Always knew. Always knew. Always, I mean. From day one. I'm not saying. You never had any nostalgic, like, I'm not saying like six-year-old me. Yeah, you said you always knew.

I mean, as a sane adult. By the way, let's not move on very quickly from what Claire said there. Yeah, what about those eyebrows? Your eyebrows are extremely bushy in the photo. Like, how is that? Are you plucking them now? No. How did we get from there to there?

It's threading. Okay, I don't pluck my eyebrows. What are you going to keep them in check now? Okay, so what I do is, stress? You know, things do, like, I mean, things do, like, things do change over time. What is that? 2002, so what?

24 years. 24 years. What I do is, and I learned this actually for my barber. I don't go to a barber anymore, as we've discussed. Yeah. But they used to, I remember my barber in Williamsburg would be like, can I trim your eyebrows? I was like, oh, well, you could do that? You could do that?

That's crazy. Now what I do, I'll be honest. I'll tell you the full routine. The full routine is, do, do, do, do. touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch. Hey, can someone come in the bathroom and let me know if I've gotten everywhere? Ah, you missed this, you miss this. Then I go to the beard.

Don't really do the beard as well. What's wrong? What's wrong? What's so funny? Oh, you can't hear me. What happened? Oh, we're back. We're back.

What happened? It was incredible content. We lost audio. So we got all that stuff about your beard. It was just, and your eyebrows. We see you just gesticulating. You're seeing you and all these things. I was hearing everything.

I heard nothing. Frank? Something's shit. We got it back. Okay. Okay. Wait, so do I need to repeat myself now? I think so, yeah.

No, no, no. It was a one time. It was okay. No. Oh, yeah. The chat's shitting all over us. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Okay. All to say, after trimming the beard, then you go, zhp, ship. Oh, okay. Trim. Yeah, all right. So you do trim. Yeah, but when I think of trim, I think of like,

I just go with the thing. razor. Why are you so crouched over in the picture as well? Oh, we were doing the five second pose. Okay. You know, the five second pose was made famous by Agent Christian. They would say, for the benefit of everyone with flash photography, we're now going to pose with our belts, and they would stand there and go like this. So I was doing the pose. Now, I was doing it horribly, very awkwardly, but I was very excited to do it. Plus, he put the belt on me, which I think he did for everyone, I wasn't special or anything. But I did the pose thing, because they would always like stand like this. Rick, do you remember this at all?

vaguely. Gosh. This is the era where I started to come out of it. So to be honest, if you don't know that, I look very weird. Like, I look especially weird. Like, what am I doing in my hand? Only in that scenario. Only in that scenario.

Yeah. I don't know what to say. But yeah, the eyebrows are, you know. It is pretty cool that 20 years later, you are talking to that man on your show. Like, there are something. And I think he's aware of who I am. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

That's insane. You just talked to him for like an hour. Yeah, I know, but that's insane. Prior, I would like to think. That is insane. And a real diehard Leafs fan. I've heard him talk about the Maple Leafs. I hope that he has liquid coming out of every arifice at some point, you know?

That's all I hope. Come on. Every hole, sorry, sorry. I stripped down naked in front of my children. Liquid fell out of every hole. Can I tell you something like LK about that night? like super okay. We're combining LK and whatever this is about to be.

This is going to be. I've never said this before. The Knicks win. All the blinds are down. Knicks win. I'm going nuts. I took off my pants. You have told us that you took your pants off.

But I don't know if I mentioned this. There's a knock on the window. So I have a neighbor who's a Knicks fan, but like we're not the best of friends. I pray to God he's not listening to this right now. We're not the best of friends. But like we're talking, hey, how about those nakes? You know that type of thing?

You walk the dog. How about, hey, big win last night. Yeah, that's it. Like, we're not going. You really talk, for sure. I hear a knock. I ignore the knock because I think it's like something, I don't know, a tree, a branch. And then there's another knock.

And then Jacqueline opens the door. And it's him crying and like coming for a hug. And I've talked about this with the kids. I'm like, I don't know if in that moment, you know what I mean? like pants are off, crying, shnought everywhere, liquid coat. I didn't know if in that moment that was what I, you know what I mean? Without, do you understand what I'm saying? Did you do the hug?

Of course I did the hug. It's no pants. I did the hug in the boxer shorts for sure. I'm like, listen to man, you're coming into my world here. You're going to have to deal with the circumstances. I didn't know if in that moment I wanted that, you know? Does that make sense? Did I miss that he hugged this man with no pant? You just got to take it, man.

The team just won a title. He's emotional as well. He doesn't know what to do. He might not have family that long time. You leaned out the door? No, no, no. He knocked on the door. He knocked on the window.

You lean out. No, no, no. The door was open. He came into the house. He sees you with no pants. He walked. He's freaking out, too. You open the door with no pants?

I didn't open. Oh, you missed the whole story. Jacqueline opened the door. My wife opened the door. When you had no pants? She doesn't know what's going on. They're terrified. The next one entitled.

It's forgivable. In retrospect, she said she was happy he showed up because she felt like I was going to do some harm to myself. Yeah. I was going to... The video, yeah. The video, you can see her in the background at one point, and she looks very concerned. They're all concerned.

They were shell-shocked. There was no celebrating. There was no celebrating. He hugged me. So I just... Did he think about taking off his pants? You know what's a crazy thing? I've not seen him since.

That one was June 13th. I have not crossed me? I'm not surprised. Maybe. He got home and after everything calmed down. He was like, Hey, honey, I, uh... Just hug that area.

I don't think Gary will have any pants. I was wearing Zillow the next day. I was wearing boxers, so, you know. Oh. It doesn't matter. I mean, it was like, that matters a lot. All right, all right. Oh, okay.

I didn't know it was a boxer situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't going. Do we have our next guest? Okay. All right, very excited to talk to this man. Actually, just celebrated his birthday. I believe his birthday was yesterday.

If my math is correct here. Yes, August 17th. He is in some people's minds, including my own. The number one contender in the welterweight division, after what transpired on Saturday, he's the great Carlos Prachas. Kind enough to join us right here and now to talk about everything. There he is. Happy birthday, my friend.

Happy belated birthday. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much. How are you doing? All good? I'm doing great. Was it a stressful birthday? Because I saw on social media the flight, the cancellation, the 5 a.m.

How would you describe this birthday? Yeah, yeah, bro. I'm not kind of guy like here. I really want to celebrate. my birthday, you know? I'm not like really care about this, but yeah, we supposed

flight to Vegas at 7, 7 p.m. You just got the flight at 5 a.m. You need to wait in airport and things like that, but now you're here in Vegas. I'm surprised that you say you're not the kind of guy who wants to celebrate his birthday because, or maybe I shouldn't be

surprised because I feel like you celebrate life every day. Every day is a birthday for you, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like party, but to be honest, the last month I'm a little bit tired of this, I think. I think I need to rest a little bit, you know, take care about me. And now maybe after I get the title, okay, then I came back celebrate again, you know. I think I'm getting old, bro. Oh, my God.

I'm getting old. So, yeah, so I'm getting a little bit tired of party, you know, like I need to think about before I go to party and things like that. No more smoking, no more drinking? No, no, no, no, no. Come on, bro. Okay. I'm sad. I'm a little bit tired of party, you know, like go out,

hang over, but he's still drinking, still smoking at home with my friends, you know. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad to hear because I think a lot of people would have been disappointed if you would have said otherwise. By the way, what was it like being on the flight with Islam and the whole crew there? Bro, or some friends of them. Oh, it wasn't him?

Maybe two. No, no, no. Maybe two guys, I think. Okay. They are, what's coming to Vegas also. Okay, but they weren't giving you trouble.

No, no, no, they are really nice. So you were in attendance, obviously we saw you there on Saturday in Philadelphia. Can I ask,

what were your thoughts on the fight? How it played out, how it ended, what transpired. Yeah, it was a really good fight, you know. I really want to year

to win, but I expected already Makashiv would get the win. but it was a really good fight, you know, like five rounds, really good to me stood, some points of the fight, you know, some skills of Islam. And yeah, that's it. I'm really excited now to go.

It's my time to train to him, fight him, and get the title. Do you think Ian could have won that fight? I think he could. I think he could, but maybe be a little bit more aggressive or something like that. work on different ways to defense the takedowns, you know. But it's hard to say that also because I don't know how it's to be front of Islam, you know? Like I don't know how it's to fight Islam, you know. Sometimes you're planning something, but during the fight you need to change

or sometimes your game plan don't work. So, but yeah, basically I think be a little bit more aggressive, maybe. Some including Dana White were critical of him afterwards saying that he didn't have that killer instinct, especially in the fifth round, too much hugging, too much respect. Do you agree with that? Yeah, yeah. I don't like too much like he hugged so much during the fight, like be really friends.

But, you know, like everybody has the way they like to do the things and they like this way. But I don't think it's a nice way to go to the fight, you know. You know, there was also talk after the fight that it's going to be a little bit different at 170 for Islam. Do you feel that same way because the fighters like yourself are bigger, yourself, Morales, Shafka, you guys are bigger than the typical 155 are obviously, and he's moving up from 155 and maybe isn't as big as your typical welterweight. Do you feel like that's going to be a big thing for him now as a welterweight champion? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel this now.

Like the guys are big, longer, heavier. So I think, I think it's a little bit harder to him fight the guys from the world trade and the lightweight. What did you think of the way in which he fought, the way in which Islam fought? Say again. What did you think of the way Islam fought, his performance?

What did you think of it? No, I don't like. But of course, it's really intelligent. gentle way to fight, you know? Like, really smart and really effective already. What didn't you like about it?

What I think about? No, you said you didn't like. Oh, we may have lost him there. We will reconnect with him in a moment. We were chatting and then it just died. It just shut off. Carlos Precius, what a guy. His birthday

was yesterday. He was supposed to fly back and then his flight got massively delayed and now is in Las Vegas. And of course, the last time we saw him was against Jack Delam, Madelaine. What a performance that was. We spoke to him after that one as well. That was an incredible win for him back in May, in Perth, a win over the former champion. And obviously we know about the win over Leon Edwards.

He's been on some kind of role as of late. 14 and 1 in his last 15 fights. Of course, the one blemish was the short notice fight against Ian Gaguer. Gary, he's back. Carlos Prachas. There he is. Yeah. Yes, hello.

Back. I was asking you, you said you didn't really love, you know, the style of fighting, and I was just curious, what didn't you like about it? Bro, say again, didn't understand. You're asking why I don't like that style? Yes, yes, yes. I think it's borrowed, you know, like he... I don't like watch fights at all.

Like, he's striking fights. So some of friends, of course, I like to watch. but especially if there's some grappler fighting I don't like to watch I like to watch like people's getting knockouts a lot of action and things like that and it's crazy because now I really like to train grappling

Martin striking but I don't like to watch yeah but I don't like to watch like grappling and fighters go to the ground and board fight I don't like you'd rather watch football football I like to watch soccer yeah soccer Yes, you call it soccer?

I call it football. Yeah, because if I say football, a lot of people are going to understand American football, you know? No, no, no, no. We're international here, okay? That's American football, but football, futchebol, period, is... Fuchibol, yeah. Fucci ball. What happened to Brazil, by the way, against Norway?

That was tough, huh? Yeah, bro. Bad day. Really bad day. Yeah, yeah, we won't talk about that. I saw a picture before UFC 330 of you and Hunter Campbell. and of your manager Lucas and Hunter Campbell. Can I ask what was discussed, what was agreed upon in that meeting?

I'm the next for the title. Okay. Yeah, basically. That's it. New contract. The next one for the title. And let's go. And you got a new contract.

Yeah. Amazing. Congrats. Padevance. Thank you, brother. Thanks so much. How many fights? Eight fights, I think.

Okay, and so he gave you the promise. I think eight, I think eight. Okay, so they gave you the promise and this was before the Islam fight, but you feel like you're next based on what he said. Yeah. So what's up with Michael Morales?

Why does he think he's next? Bro, I think he's going to fight maybe, I don't know, Belal Mohammed or somebody, another fight there. Okay. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Oh, yeah.

maybe I don't know another fight but he needs to fight one more. Okay. You guys had a couple of run-ins on Saturday night in the crowd, outside, this and that. What did you make of all of that? Yeah, yeah, he's a nice guy, you know? And then we met at the fight

and then he asked me if I'm going to fight or not. And then I say, of course, no, because I'm next for the title and he knew it's already. but I tell him after the fight, after I beat Islan, I'm going to beat him and he. And yeah, that's it. But he's a nice guy. So he was trying to get you to agree to fight him,

but why would you fight him if you promised a title shot? Not him, not him. Most of times not him. Most of times because he come to me once in time and ask me like, hey, you're going to fight? And then I say, yeah, I'm going to fight easily, and then I can't fight you. and then I can knock you out

I say that and then his friend like he probably he was really drunk I don't know that guy yeah start to talk hey Prattis

Prattis let's fight let's fight that guy was loud I think I think I think I think he want to be famous like Morales

like me you know This guy in the middle right This guy Yeah exactly Yeah He's a nice guy too

probably he was drunk I thought you were gonna slap him there No no no no We are like talking on the

good way, you know, like he, yeah. All is good. Afterwards, Islam said that he thinks you should be next. That must have been good to hear, right? Yeah, really good. He also said that he wants to be active, that he doesn't want to take a long break, maybe come back end of the year or early next year, which is... I hope.

What do you think? What do you think about when it could happen? I hope so, bro. I hope so. I would love two fights in December, you know? I fought already MSG and I didn't fold at the Timu Bayorena. So I really love to fight there. Okay.

Do you think he'll come back so soon? I mean, historically, he doesn't usually come back that quickly. I don't think he's going to back quickly. No. He fought JDM and then he got 10 months, you know, like he was easy fights. He didn't get damage. He didn't get any injury. And now I think he broke in his nose.

So I don't think he's going to fight until December, bro. Yeah. So is that frustrating for you? I mean, obviously you're going to wait, right? You have no other choice. No, no, it's okay, bro. It's okay. I'm not rush, you know?

Like, as much it's, I need to wait. I'm going to be training also, you know, going to be studying, going to be training. So I can be like you more, more, I can say English, like, more ready. Sure. I'm already. Yeah, no, I understand. You understand? Yeah, of course.

Yeah. When you watch him, especially up close, do you see holes? Do you see holes? Do you see, you know, things that you're going to try to exploit when you fight him? He's been so 17 wins in a row and usually very dominant. But yet, I'm wondering when you watch him, do you see holes that you're going to try to exploit? Yeah, yeah, especially on the takedowns. Oh.

Try takedown on when he's striking, you know, like he, I like to see the way I can, like, he defends something, you know, stop some takedown or things like that. Okay. What about on the feet? What about the striking? What do you make of his striking? He's good. He's having a good kickboxing, bro. You know, but of course I'm much better. So I'm excited to test myself against him. Did you see him or his team? Sorry, go ahead. Say again? No, what do you say? No, what were you going to say? Sorry, sorry.

I'm really like, you know, like kind of fight like it's really, I know, I know I'm really under. dog, but not because of the title, only because of the title or money, but I really want to fight him because I want to test myself against him, you know, like he, I'm really excited to do this. I really think I can win. I can, like, shock the world. I can make everybody surprise it. You feel it. You really truly feel it in your heart. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's all coming together for you. I will do this. I will do this. You believe you'll be the one to beat him? Yeah. I mean, if the version of Carlos Prachas, who we saw against Jack Della and Perth in May, shows

up, does that version beat Islam, or do you need to be even better than that version? Maybe better, maybe better. Okay, because that was a pretty damn good version. Yeah, but I think now I would be a little bit better, you know, like better and better step by step, fight by fight, I'm going to get better. Everyone slows down at some point in MMA. Do you feel like he is slowing down? at all based on what you saw on Saturday? No, no, no, no. I don't think so. I think he's on his prime.

Okay. Did you see the photo of him that came out yesterday about how he looks? No. There was a photo of him posing with someone. We could show to you here. I was just a little... Ah, with a purple, with a purple eyes, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, I think I saw. I saw the one. A lot of damage.

Oh, yeah. I saw the one. I think he broke in his nose when he took Ian's down. Oh, yeah, you think so? Bro, I saw the video when I think he got his back and then, like, drop him to the ground and then he hit his face on Ian's Gary back. Oh, wow, okay.

I heard him talking about a headbutt at some point, but I don't remember seeing that. I think I saw on X, something like that. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. So, yeah, so that might keep him out. for even longer. Yeah, I think so.

Did you see him at any point in the fight week? Maybe on the day of the Wains, one day before the Wains, I don't know. I saw him in some point. Yeah, we just talked like you're really, really fast. Like,

hey, hey, Nutella K, K, how you doing? Have a good fight, and then he go to his room. Okay, what about his team and all that? Any interactions with them? No, no. No, really. I just saw a guy, I don't remember his name, but I saw a lot of, sometimes I see a lot of videos of him.

I think he's Olympic champ. Olympic champ. And then, yeah, wrestling. Okay. Wrestling Olympic champ. And he trained with Iceland. And then I don't know, maybe he didn't understand the first time I asked him. And then I asked him like, hey, bro, can you teach me, can you be able to?

my coach to fight Islam and then he agree, you know, and then after he understands and he's, oh, no, no. It seems like you guys have a good relationship, you and his team and Islam, like it's all good. Yeah, yeah. Not a really good relationship, but respect, you know?

Sure, okay. Like, there's no friction or anything like that. No. I like the fact that he mentioned that you should be next. Some champions would be like, ah, you know, I'm the champ, let them decide. I like that he mentioned you. Yeah, I like too. I like too because I don't know why.

A lot of people's I imagine like he's fighting and other people or I don't deserve the title shot. But he said my name. Everybody say my name, Dana Hunter. So it's okay. I'm the next. They came out, you mentioned underdog. They came out with the lines. And Morales, according to the odds makers, has a greater chance in their mind of beating him than you. He's like a smaller underdog than you. How do you feel about that? I don't know I think it's okay Morales

I think people think Morales can fight better than me just because he's stronger because of course on the strike I would kill Morales and grappling

I don't know everybody called that guy a wrestler but I never saw him trying to take down you know so I don't know

maybe people say like Morales would would have like more chance to beat Islam because he's bigger you know like he's really heavy but about techniques and things like that I think I'm much better

do you think he's overhyped Morales no not overhyped he's really good he's undefeated but I think people's think like he can have more chance to beat Islam because he's stronger

you know like he's bigger guy and it would be like a little bit harder to his land taking him down. I got to say, you versus Morales is a dream fight for me. For me too, bro. I would love to fight him, you know?

But after I get the belt. But for the belt, it's even bigger. Yeah, and then I can't fight Morales. Morales and Ian. Yeah. That's the dream. Two fights I want to do after.

There's two fights I want to do after get the belt. Do you think Ian will fight for the belt again? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. He's young. He has 28 years old. 28, yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think you're going to fight again.

He seems to be handling the loss very well, very positive, his outlook, what he said on the microphone in the back. I'm always impressed. I feel like he has great maturity. Yeah, yeah. His head is really good, you know, like the way that he thinks the things. like he way, the way how he work with the things, you know, the emotions and things like that. He's young, but like his mindset is really good. So I know it's not official just yet, Carlos, but it seems like you're so, so close to fighting for the belt, to getting that title shot that you have been wanting. Yeah.

Not yet, but we don't want to get crazy. But I'm just curious, when did that dream start for you? How long has it been that you dreamed of fighting for a UFC title? For a long time, for a long time. Like when I was fighting, like he started to fight the UFC. That dream, he started to become more, more strong, you know, inside my hand. Inside, inside me, like, yeah, I'm getting close. I'm getting close.

And now it's time to get the title and bring it the belt to Brazil. When you were a little kid, did you think of this? No, really. No. No. What did you want to do when you were a little kid? What was your dream? I don't know, bro.

Work with something like I could make a lot of money, you know. I never thought about to be like an athlete. Never. And then after my, never, never. And after my first work, I saw how bad this work like some hours per day, like with the boss and things like that and the off sea or anywhere. and I'm scared to work like I don't like work

so that's why I become a fighter What was that job? Say again That work that you're talking about What was it? First, I work at like a flower store You know, like I did deliveries

to bring the flowers And things like that You didn't like that No, bro Why not? Why? Eight hours per day Work eight hours per day

Work eight hours per day bro. I don't like. Delivering flowers to people. In Brazil, I like to say my mom when I was child work a lot, like the morning, afternoon at night. She was a teacher, you know, and she worked a lot.

That's why I born tired already. What did she do? She was a teacher. Okay. What kind of subject? Portuguese, English, and I don't know how to say that another

in English was like about the books on Portuguese, you know. Okay, for kids, for kids in school. And university also. Okay. And so that job that you had delivering the flowers,

was that the only real job that you had? No, I work also. And you know when the guys are building the house? Yeah. Yeah, I work like you with the guys who help the workers, you know, like, I don't know that the right, they're right word in English. Yeah, but I almost like basically help building the house.

And so for you, the dream of being a UFC champion, what does it mean? Because you say like, okay, when you were a kid, you didn't think you'd be an athlete, what does it represent to you to become a UFC champion? But now we represent a lot of things, you know, because I started training, I start to fight, And then I make like a small money.

You know, my first professional fight. And then I say, oh, okay, I can make money doing this. And I don't need to work eight hours per day. So, and then I start to fight. And then I start to love in the fight. And, you know, like I'm working on this 17 years old. I started working this 17 years ago. And now on this journey, I have a lot of people with me, you know.

Like they believe on me, they work with me. So I think it's really important to get the title, to become a UFC champ because I can prove the people, no matter what other people say about you, you're going to choose what you're going to do in your life. Even if they say, ah, you cannot be a champ or I cannot do this because you smoke or party or something like that, you can put everybody's wrong, you know. Oh, man, what a great story. It is really amazing.

the journey that you've been on and what you represent. Can I ask you before I let you go, Carlos, what is the message to Islam? What do you want to say to Islam? I'm ready to fight. I can't wait to fight him. And I'll knock him out. I promise, I promise everybody,

I promise people's in Brazil. I promise in my coach. We're going to change everybody's life. And I will bring that bell to Brazil. It's a wild thing because you don't just say you're going to beat him. You say you're going to knock him out. You believe that in your heart.

Because I think the only way to beat Islan is knocking him out. You can't go the distance with him. Yeah, I don't think somebody can, right now, maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm a soft. I don't know. Can fight him five rounds and beat him by points. But I don't think nobody can beat him by points, you know. So I think that the easier way, like not easier, but the. The last hard way is knocking him out.

Do you think he got tired on Saturday? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, some people were saying that. Hard to tell. One last thing. I don't know if you saw Max Holloway was saying, why does he have two belts out there?

How do you feel about him having the two belts? I think it's okay. If I got two belts, I would do the same, bro. Even though he's not defending the other belt? Yeah. No, it's okay. Just remember people's undeveloped. All right, fair enough.

And maybe one day you'll be, 170, 185? No, I'm okay, bro. Just 170. All right, fair enough. Fair enough. You want to be the first Brazilian Walterway champion, right?

Yeah, yeah. I love it. Well, I wish you the best. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you so much for coming on. Happy belated birthday. Appreciate you always, and hopefully you get that title shot.

We here think that you should be next as well. Thank you, brother. Thanks so much. Oh, and by the way, good luck in Sacramento this weekend. I know you're doing a lot of stuff with full violence. So I wanted to give a... Yeah, exactly. You're going to do a seminar.

Yes, you're doing a whole takeover over there in Sacramento, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so where's the seminar? Do you know? I don't know, bro. I know you'll be in Sacramento, but I don't know where. That's fine.

We're going to tell the people. I think we have a picture that we can show. So there it is. Sacramento takeover. Two classes with Carlos Prachas. How great is that? Great photos as well. Thank you, Carlos.

All the best to you, my friend. Thank you, brother. Bye-bye. You too. Thank you. Bye-bye. The great Carlos Prachas, kind enough to join us on this Tuesday afternoon. Did you guys catch at the end there?

Anyone catch it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I saw it. You saw it. I thought of all the guests today, Carlos would have hit me. What is that? With the Shaka Khan. He's called the Shaka Khan.

Look at G. Oh, yeah. He's so casually doing it. It's not even like, the looser you hang, the better. I hang so loose that when I don't even do it and I'm doing it. Is that a, you put the hand horizontally out? Well, because this is like me driving right now.

Oh, I feel like you. You know what I mean? It's like, no, but I thought like Carlos would have been like, yeah, bro. No, he's Brazilian. He's not a limoom. I know, but I feel like they're all kind of the same. Wow.

No, no, no. CNHR tomorrow. In terms of their way of life, in terms of their lifestyle. They're all kind of the same. Somebody's clipping that out for sure. Double down. They're all, no.

The page is just... No. Is that why yes? I'm not going to be... I saw you, brother. Yeah, they're all kind of the same. You're telling me Carlos Pratchez couldn't be an honorary Hawaii. You're saying like island vibes, like casual, low-key, kind of laid back.

Tropical. Yeah, yeah. They're all the same. Wow. I heard what you said. That's so crazy. That is... You need that inspirational message painted somewhere on the wall.

Oh, my God. You can party as much as you want and still be champion. Yeah. Carlos dropped a anger there That is incredible Like how inspirational is that? It's like Well you know

What do you want to send the message It's like you can party You can do whatever you want And you can smoke cigarettes Even at your place to work Just like him I love the fact Oh yeah

Notre Dame has the play like a champion today Carlos has the party like a champion Yes Oh that's a great one by the way I respect that he doesn't want to go to the clubs anymore And prefers to just party at his own house He just wants to party at his own house He's just like us

He's just like us. That's dialed in. That's locked in right there. He's going to show up with the belt. You know, when he comes home, he's going to be talking to the kids in the elementary. I just want you guys to know, you two can party. You could drink like a champ. You can smoke and win this and beat the pound for pound grade.

I brought a carton of cigarettes to pass out to everyone. Yeah, there you go, guys. Here's a swig of vodka and joy on the house. Can we talk about this two belts drama? We didn't really get into this yesterday. Okay. So here's the situation. Max Holloway is doing his stream for, I think, kick, and he's looking at things.

What does he do? He just sits there and comments on things? What's happened? I mean, everyone's clipping it off. He games. Oh, he games. Okay. So then he sees Islam with the two belts, obviously former lightweight champion, now current

Walterway champion, and he says this. Why the fuck do you have two belts for aura? I mean, it is what it is, bro. I mean, you are, but you're not. That would temporary, but now you're just defending one belt, bro. Why you keep... I don't know. I don't know, guys.

Okay, so he says that about the two belts. And I will be honest, I kind of thought the same. I understand that he's a former lightweight champion, but the two belts should really be if you are defending both, or at the very least, all right, now you moved up, you want it, it's symbolic, you beat Jack Della, you're there, I get it. I don't know if it should be like that every time. Like if I'm Justin Gachie, I may be feeling some kind of way about that. I get it.

Am I worked up about it? Am I upset about it? Am I commenting on it? No. But I do understand where he is coming from. I do understand. Is it a huge deal? No.

It's not a huge deal. But I do think that the person who is the champion of said weight class should be the one holding the belt. And even though you wanted in the past, you know, maybe you just stick to the one. Anyway, then that gets clipped off. Islam writes this. I don't know, bro. It's even too heavy to hold, but you don't understand. Sorry.

It's not a bad retort. It's not a bad retort at all. But of course, worth mentioning, you know, Max's held titles in the past. Two belts at the same time? No, but he's been featherway champion. He's been BMF champion. So it's not like, I thought it was a great retort. I thought it would have been an excellent retort if he was talking to a guy who had never held the belt before.

Like if you were just one of these guys who comments on things, you know, these fighters who turn podcasters or whatever streamers, and you've never held the belt before, then like it would have really hit. But he did, you know, we're talking about the two, so he didn't have the two. I get it. That's why I say, great. Not excellent, but great. great retort, fine retort. And then Max replies, and this is what he says.

We know somebody else runs his social media for him, and that's what they reply. Let me say word for word. I don't know, bro. It's even too heavy to hold, but you don't understand. I don't know what he meant by that. And now Max breaks out all the belts. I kind of. I kind of have an idea what it is like.

I kind of know how heavy it feels, brother. Actually, wait, hold on. We got one belt. We've got a BMF belt. We've got a third belt. We've got an old school belt. We can keep going if you like, bro. I can keep going to see how heavy these things are.

These things are pretty heavy. Man, the old belts are so much nicer than the new belts. Now he's got four. He's got three on one shoulder. He's got two now on the other shoulder. Shit. You gotta do your homework if you think there's a replicas, bro. Now he's got a...

I don't know how heavy these are. Like, I got hit in his head too many times. I ain't talking about Islam. I'm talking about the guy who's running his IG for him. And now a seventh one. These are, bro. These bad boys are heavy. Okay.

Not a bad retort as well. A fun retort. Now, he was obviously talking about Ali Abdel-Aziz, who he was obviously talking about Ali Abdel-Azzi, who he's saying is running Islam's account. I wonder, though, I feel like Islam has reached a point to where he's doing his own stuff. I feel like Ali does it for like the up-and-comer guys, the guys that he says, like, hey, brother, let me try to help you out. I'm going to talk some smack.

Big unc this. I'm going to dunk on you there. Like, you could kind of tell, I feel like Islam, Habib, those guys have reached a status. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here to where, like, yeah, we got it. Like, this is too big for you right now. You know, we're going to handle it from here. That's what I feel. If, in fact, it was Ali who wrote it, then yes, that's a tremendous dunk right there.

That's a 10-7 from Max. But we can't forget that the initial comment was about, Islam holding the two belts, lightweight champion, welterweight champion. I think we could all agree that the lightweight and the welterweight titles aren't the same as the featherweight in BMF. You know how I feel about the BMF, and I'm not trying to make. I love the map. Max is one of my favorite fighters of all time. one of my favorite people to talk to you. I'm not trying to get into a beef with Max here. I love Max. I

adore Max. I feel like I'm an honorary Hawaiian. Max, if you see this, how's the shot guy? It's loose. I was just in Kauai. I didn't get the invite to the golf tournament. I didn't get the invite and I was devastated. But the BMF isn't the same as the welterweight or lightweight title. It's not. Now, if you want to count titles, because he didn't win the belt seven times, but the UFC gives you titles every time you win. They give you like, you know, the belt to remember, to commemorate, whatever. They're both at seven. Seven, seven.

They have both won a title seven times. The difference is there's BMFs in there as opposed to lightweight and welterweight title fights. So there's a difference. So in the end, in this back and forth, who's the winner? I don't know if there is a winner necessarily. it's not cut and dry, it's not black and white. I would actually almost go as far as to say that Max is the winner, if only because now I feel like he's being discussed

in a conversation with the Walterway champion Isamahatchev. He has entered that chat as a result of this somewhat silliness about the two belts. To fight him? I feel like now this is the thing. No, I don't need to see Max versus this. I'm not saying I need to see it or want to see it. I'm saying it's now become a thing.

I think if Max never comments on this, the two belts, then Islam never comments on him, then he never retorts. We're not even talking about Max right now at 5 o'clock on a Tuesday. But now we are. People are making graphics, Hawaii, Dagestan, too, this, that, and the other. I feel like... Hawaii Dagestan too. The greatest rivalry in all of them. I actually think both guys are just right. I think... Yeah. I think Max has a point about Islam having the two belts. Agreed. To what you say, Justin should feel a type of way. Like, he isn't defending those belts. He doesn't hold the lightweight title right now. Agreed. I also don't think it's that big of a deal.

But Max also has a point. I mean, Islam also has a point in that he is more accomplished as Max Holloway. BMFs do not count the same as 155 and 170-pound undisputed titles. Max had an interim title in there as well. So it's... You're 100% right. They're both correct. Islam is more accomplished, and he can say that.

And I also don't think he should be holding both belts when he gets up there. That's fair. That's very fair. This to me feels like like a 100 millionaire telling a 75 millionaire to watch his pockets or some shit. It's just kind of, it's just like, who gives a fuck? Like, you guys are both amazing. I woke up today, and, like, it was all I saw.

It's all about this. All about this. You know what's so funny about this crap, by the way? People say that we love the drama, and yet... Yeah, I don't care. You know what I mean? Everybody loves drama, bro. Everybody loves drama.

Was it not Maxwell Holloway himself? No, I agree with he is. It is no drama. This is a little bit of drama. What's the drama? It's a fucking thing, and he did he... I guess it is a little bit of... drama. He got his wife in there. He was like, yo, come

throw the belt. Every single kid, every single account, every single aggregator is clipping this off, loving this, responding. Come on. Is Islam going to respond again? Maybe. I can't see it. Didn't he do a post in front of Rocky and was like, I put the second belt

on the way? He actually did. Oh, she responded again. He always says like, sorry A. Who knows? Wait, what? So what did he do? He put the belt on the Rocky statue? You ever texted with a Russian person and then instead of a smiley face, they give you like an open bracket, open bracket, open bracket, open bracket, open bracket, that's what I feel like the A is. What does the open bracket mean again?

It's a smiley face. Oh, yeah, okay. It's just, no, it's like five of them. But there's no two dots. There's no colon. It's just open bracket, open bracket, open bracket, open bracket. And isn't the, the Brazilian is the KKK, KKK, KKK, KJJJJJ, KJJJ, Jha, Jha, Jha, Jha, Jha, Jha. Jajajajaj.

Jajaj is a Spanish. No, KKK. You got to finish. Yo, Hawaii is getting canceled today. There's a Jha, Jha, Jha, right? Ha ha ha ha Like an H sound No no no no

He's saying though With like if you're Phonetically saying it I read it as Ja ja ja ja ja ja ja What's the other one? Jerome Max Holloway's his name All I'm saying is he once

Wait what? What the hell is that Where did that come from? We know his name I'll tell you Because I called him Maxwell before All I'm saying is He once said hey bro

You're 43 grow up And I'm just say this is a lot of drama too. All right, I know you're much younger than I am. That's fair. But this is a lot of drama. All I'm saying is people like to say we love the drama. Meanwhile, all you guys eat it up.

Oh, here's an interview with some guy with just like a bit of a mundane story but got a big win. Ain't no one consuming that. But holy shit, talk about some belts and people lose their mind. Yeah, it's, I don't know, man. Yeah, sure. You know? I think we have the Islam. Oh, there it is.

Second belt I give to Rob. Rocky, don't worry, sorry A. AI or real? What's the A? Also, who is A? Is it me? Who is Joe? Yeah, who is Joe?

Yeah, is that AI? No, that's the A-I-I-I-I-I-A-I. Yeah, that's not going to fit on the statue, is it? Sorry, Ariel. Or Ali. Oh, is he signing it? No, no, maybe he's saying, sorry, Ali, I didn't give you the belt. I gave it to Rocky.

I don't fucking know. Who knows? Is that a good clapback? I don't even know. Speaking of clapbacks, what about- Speaking of Ali's, did you know Muhammad Ali is fighting on Dana-W-E-K-N-Tender series tonight?

Oh, that's right. We made that discovery, M-A-H-A-M-E-D. Legend. A-L-Y. Sorry, I just had to get that. I'm excited. Is that Muhammad Ali? I'm excited about that one.

Namal Fazil, my boy. We'll never talk to him again, but I'm excited about it. Speaking of clapping back, here's Sean Strickland, and is this the Tyron Woodley thing? I don't know what it is. There's something with Sean Strickland.

And Dean Thomas? Had some comments about the Dean Thomas thing. Tyron Woodley was like, hey, watch your mouth. Yeah. I don't play. And then he posted it. He posted it. Bro, let the CTE get to him and forgot his record is a red line.

Watch your mouth, Tyrant says, talking about Dean. You have no clue what the F you're talking about. We laugh all the time when you have no filter. But you, I can't tell that one. A habitual line crosser. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, right or die about him, don't cross that line. Basically, he's standing up for Dean.

He's like, yo, don't mess with Dean. And then Sean says, bro, what are you going to do? You ain't going to do a damn thing. L.M.A.O. Dean can ask my. See? And then he posts Tyrone Woodley's record and says, weak-ass bitch. And that's when Tyrone says that Tyrone will let the CT get to him and forgot his record is a red line.

WAB, as some people. like to say. Yeah. Do you think he should have posted it? The DMs? Yeah. I think he is purposely

antagonizing tyrant so yeah, I don't think he cares. And Dean? That's like the least of it. Yeah. Like Sean Strickland commenting on the Dean Thomas thing

is like the most expected outcome. He comments on anything. Can we bring up whatever he said about the Max Holloway and this on? He has a comment on everything. I'm sure he's talked about that.

He talks about everything that happens in the sport of him. Has he actually commented on this? I don't know. Oh, okay. you're just saying. It's like, you're right, you're right, you're right.

Also, I feel like Sean Strickland is the least of Dean Thomas's words right now. Yeah, I don't think he... I don't think Dean is that bothered, to be honest. I think he's happy to keep his TV gig. He should be bothered. That's a bad look.

I know. Leaving him on red? Yeah. I mean, especially the statement that Gillian gave to you, like, that is bad stuff. Yeah. But I will say,

I don't think he's all that bothered. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. What about Izzy's new tattoos, guys? What do you have to say about these bad boys. Happy for him. Yeah.

What does that say? Anyone know? Frank was... Connor actually knew what it said. I think it doesn't say dragon? Oh yeah. There we go. Wait, how did you know that?

Yeah. You could read... Did you AI it? I mean, did you Google lens it or whatever? I swear someone in this control room told me that, so maybe I'm just completely... Frank. Frank was the one who said it. No, I've said that the neck tattoo is not new.

Oh Did you I thought you said It was Wollahi Yeah it is He wrote Dragon and Arab Okay So it is Dragon

Jesus I thought it was a D's nuts joke Dragon D's nuts Sean O'Malley's out here mocking Ian Gary The way in which he fought Let's take a look

Oh Oh Everyone getting there Yeah Oh Whoa A little tap there Yeah

Oh How's your father That's how people hug, right? Yeah, well, I don't know. Connor Ben is out here hanging out with LeBron James. LeBron James.

Yo, look at this. Where is this? Airport? Yo, is that an airport? LeBron looks at an airport. No, like an office? No, this looks like an office. Braun ain't flying commercial, bro. No, he's on his way to the PJ.

CB Sporting the Stash. Right? Yeah. It is, it's a constant reminder. When you get a perspective of how big NBA players, is compared to like normal sized humans, it's ridiculous. How much do you think on the scale of none to the rock meeting DDP, how much do you think LeBron faked like he knew Connor Ben?

Oh, what's up, bro? Loved your fight. Nah, nah, I was talking to the champ. Regis Progress? I don't think he faked it. I think he was probably like, I think there was an introduction of a, I'm Connor Ben, nice to meet you. Oh, yeah.

I think I don't think it was like. I think Connor knows enough about his standing in American sports that he wouldn't like assume. Or a handler, like came over and was like, hey, this is Connor Ben. He's a, he's a championship level boxer. He wants to meet you. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think LeBron had to do the whole like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw the fight. I saw the fight. I didn't tell me I was talking to you. Champ, champ. The guy with the eggs? Connor Ben was once a, oh, the guy with the eggs. Who said that? Frankie.

Frankie's. Oh, Lee, Frankie. Frankie. Connor Ben was once a big-time matchroom prospect. They're hoping that Odell Kamara is another one. They had that great promo yesterday. Here's his Instagram post announcing that he will be fighting on October the 3rd. So there you go.

Same day as the UFC 332 card, and that is the Ben Whitaker card in Brum, I do believe. So a lot of hype surrounding that. someone texted me yesterday will not text it DM me stopped saying tall glass of milk oh I was actually about to say yeah highly anticipated debut of the tall glass of milk

I need to make like a tall glass of milk like rankings no you don't right now no yeah no yeah that's gonna go really bad why why is that bad if I say Ulberg's on there Odell's on there you're gonna leave somebody off or put somebody on

Ariel Helwani's hottest men in combat school what's wrong with that I don't like it. Okay, can I ask you guys a question? I'd happily do that, by the way, and I would have no issues doing that. You seem a little too happy to do it, but yeah. Why? Okay, I don't think anyone would truly have an issue with it.

But if I did it for the female fighters, they would have an issue. Is that a double standard? No. You mean like... I think it would be inappropriate if I did it, but why is that? I think you should do both. I shouldn't. Al Jermaine Sterling...

Oh, my God. You remember that video? His fiance did on the channel. That was the worst video. No, that's the best. Shut up. That's what I'm saying. I think we do both.

I'm going to do... I'm not going to participate in your rankings, but I'm going to do tall glass of milk. Pound for pound glasses of milk. I think there's going to be a big problem just even with the phrase glass of milk. You put a white lady on there. This is going to go horribly. Yeah, it actually plays for both.

Tall glasses of milk and glasses of milk. No, this is no good. This is elite milk right here. No, this is bad. Eddie Hurnt says he's going to sue Dana White? What's going on? I've not seen this clip, but I see it here. Let's watch.

Actually, I should be suing Dana White because what he's doing is he's actually purporting to have the ability to stage the fight there. And he's using my client to do a venue deal that he has no rights to. So again, this is fucking boring stuff. So Dana White's gone from being the promoter of the event to now ask. if he can be involved. Rather than going, fuck off. I'm saying, why?

Why should I let you be involved in this event? Well, I mean, the promo just said, coming soon, I believe, which, you know, I think that part's true. It seems like everybody is adamant that the fight takes place in New York. I mean, there isn't really any consideration. There's no willingness to speak to the government,

Sadiq Khan, transport for London. It's just like, we just want to do this fight in America. Tyson Fury has agreed to do it in America, and we haven't at the moment. So we're talking through a roadmap of what that might look like to change the deal. And if they do all the things that we've discussed and agreed in principle, then I think there's a very good chance that the fight will happen in America. All this stuff about running promos during the broadcast of their sporting events, It's like, I mean, they're entitled to do that because we've signed a contract.

But right now, there is absolutely no agreement for the fight to take place anywhere else. Actually, I've changed that. Right now, there is absolutely no agreement to change the contract that we signed. And right now, from our side, no announcement is imminent. And by the way, if it wasn't Turkey-Ele-Shake, if it was somewhere I really didn't like, I wouldn't even pick up the phone. You know, the pressure's on. They want to announce the fight tomorrow.

Right? No way. And by the way, if they do, you will hear from me to say, we ain't, no. And by the way, if they were to do that, which I think was the plan, actually, about a week ago. And I come out and say, I'll promise you, if you do this, we will not change one thing. There's no fight unless you do what you're contractually obliged to do, which is to do this fight in the UK.

Oh my. This is getting really interesting. Yesterday on Monday Night Raw, they ran a promo for the fight, no date, no venue, no location, no city attached to it. So this is getting really interesting. I mean,

if the fight is, in fact, going to happen in November, there's still some time. But, you know, you do have to sell tickets. Also, if it is, in fact, happening at Madison Square Garden, which has been reported, that's a place that, you know,

costs a lot of money. You want to hold the date. you don't want to just throw that money away. And let's not forget Netflix is involved in all of this. And Eddie Hearn has a relationship with Netflix. He had his docu series on Netflix. Certainly doesn't want to burn that bridge as well. And there's also Turkey Al-Shake involved.

There are so many different components to the saga right now. So many different components. I mean, even airing the promo yesterday with no date and with no, you know, location, no city, none of that attached to it is supremely rare. They did it obviously after the, the Fury Mahmouda fight. But that was in April. It's August.

It's been four months. They've both fought again. Obviously, AJ against Pranga, the infamous Marius Walk fight for Tyson Fury. Oh my gosh, this is getting super interesting. It's amazing how the Eddie v. Dana, matchroom v. Zufa boxing with Netflix, with Turkey, with

sell a ring, all that has all kind of come to a head with this. This fight is so big, so massive, so important, so lucrative that you would hate to see anything happen to stop it. But now all of a sudden, this one little obstacle, this one last wrinkle about where it's going to take place might actually end it. I think in the end they figure it out. I think in the end, cooler heads prevail. I think in the end it does happen.

but it has become some kind of tit for tat. Why is last night's promo any different than the one they ran at the end of the home run derby in July? Well, I mean, that wasn't that long ago, but I think the differences, more combat people were watching. It's getting closer. End of July, by the way,

those fights didn't happen yet, Pranga, Wach, or Vak. So, like, there was still the, oh, yeah, but they do have to win their next fights. Now they have won their next fights, and I think we all kind of assumed, okay, by now, we will all move on with our lives. And know the announcement, know the date, hear it, live it, press conference, digest it. So I think it's just enough time has passed. I mean, Home Run Derby was a little over a month ago, and they both fought since then.

So I feel like enough time has passed to where people are like, all right, it's a little strange now. And plus he's saying this. He's like, he's flat out saying if you move this fight, if you put it in America, we're not competing. We're not showing up. We're not agreeing to it. This might all be like, you know, I'm pointing the gun at you while you're pointing the gun at me and we'll see who wins this game of chicken. It might just be another way to get more. Who knows?

I personally think right now they figure it out. I think there's too much at stake. There's too many big players, Netflix relationship, all that and more. I think they figure it out. Do we have any super chats, Frankie? We do. This is from LAS to the positively glaring Ariel and Co. P-T mentioned on the post show,

where would Gary end up being signed to Match Room? P.S. B-I-N-B. Let's discuss sponsorship for the young fighter. Please advise contact. Do you know which fighter you're talking about? No, no clue. Also, it's B-I-N-B? I think it's just type of it.

Wait, go back to that. Oh, by the way, how's our eBay auction doing? That's a good question Did we link it? Let's link it. We're linking in the last 30 seconds of the show? Yeah. I think he's talking about he wants to sponsor.

Maybe he's talking about Liam. Maybe he's talking about the Iowan Lion. Oh. That's what I think. We'll clarify that. $775.50 bids. Okay, but we need to up it. Oh, it's going to get up.

Danielle Cooper says, I said I do as shout out to my mate Monty. He's a huge edge fan. On this day. That was great chat. Here's Jake from Windy City who says with the new PFL MVP, do you expect Morrow continuing as the voice of the promotion? I mean, he only did one show.

And I think it's more about his relationship with Netflix, to be honest. I wouldn't be, I mean, I feel like it's got to be Sean O'Connell. He's earned that. He's been there since the start. I think they should try to reach out to Jimmy Smith as well. I think Sean and Dan do a great job. I think the broadcast booth is like one of their lowest rank worries, if that makes sense. Simon 98, re- Yesterday's discussion to trilogies where two of the fights were for the belt.

Yeah, Leon Usman and also Vitor, Randy Couture. But yeah, Leon Usman is a great one. Sammy also says, I was on the Fight is Right boxing show as a guest. with Tunday Ajai, Anthony Yards coach on YouTube. You guys inspired me to do so. What's up, Sammy? Well done. Shout out of guys, Sammy.

AAK says Dean also said he was still going to corner Brady. What? Did he say that? If he's going to corner Brady, was the announcement just that he's going to stop cornering Jillian? Because if so, that makes it infinitely worse. Who's to check? Wow. What a mess.

Who is to check? Tomorrow's show is going to be a great one, friends. John Martin in studio. Going to talk about the new PFL MVP merger. Tiofimo Lopez, I point here, but he's not going to be joining us in studio. He's finding Roli Romero this Saturday in Las Vegas. The Takeover, always a great time. Etzen Barbosa is going to be joining us to talk about his retirement.

And we're going to be doing, hold on to your seats. To your Tuchas is a virtual face-off with one Platinum Mike Perry and Dylan Danis, ahead of their highly anticipated showdown next Saturday. They will both be joining us at the same time. Who's excited, huh? Who's excited? Keep my full name of you, Mom. It's been a great day, friends, but it's time to go.

We did have a 5 o'clock hard out on this Tuesday. Is the sun setting? What's going on? Yeah, it does that. Not at 5.30 on August 18th. It's actually 830. Your clock is wrong. Ah. It's been on air for 7.5 an hour.

Oh, we've got the link, by the way. We got the link by the way in the chat. Thumbs up to the chat. Peace and love. Peace and love. There's so much to be excited about, so much to be thankful for. I'm actually most thankful for Frankie. Oh, that's really nice, too. I want to tell you why.

Please. during my travels a pebble got stuck in my little port here what would you call this? A barrel or granular what was it? Sand

No it was pretty damn big what do you call this thing right here where you put the the court? The court? Port, P-O-R-T A P-O-R-T A pebble got stuck here

and I couldn't charge my phone now I eventually initially I couldn't charge a period And then I figured out if I just like wedge it in, wedge it in and like lay it down, I'd be able to like, it would be like, and if you touched it, if I breathed on it, the thing would come off. Frankie comes out with an exact, no, first he comes out with like a, what was that thing yesterday? Like a plier. Yeah, then he comes out with an exacto and listen to this. Do you hear that?

You hear that click? Oh yeah. You hear that? Here, ASMR for the techies. Ah Look Unbelievable Thank you to all I guess

Thanks to Frankie Thanks to you Back tomorrow See time of us to say peace I'm out here