The Ariel Helwani Show - Al Iaquinta IN STUDIO! Charles Oliveira needs an opponent, Ronda Rousey comeback, more | The Boys in the Back

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

The Boys in the Back are joined all show by Long Island own's 'Raging' Al Iaquinta, as they react to hot topics, including the hunt for Charles Oliveira's opponent (03:13), the latest news on the UFC's White House card (10:17), Raja Jackson's arrest (17:52) and Ronda Rousey teasing an MMA comeback (19:39).After talking a bit about Iaquinta's teammate Merab Dvalishvili (26:14), the trio discuss WWE's debut on ESPN (36:25), the UFC antitrust settlement (43:07), the failed GFL launch (48:34), and Frankie Edgar making his return for BKFC (49:19).Iaqtuina talks about life after retirement as a real estate agent (57:04), then transitions to the topic of TKO's proposed changes to the Ali Act (1:09:21) and what might be next for Dvalishvili (1:17:26) and another teammate, Aljamain Sterling (1:20:41).The Boys review some of Iaquinta's funniest tweets (1:22:33), before listening to your voicemails (1:37:50), and Iaquinta's recollection from the infamous Conor McGregor bus attack (1:57:37). Finally, they answer your Super Chats (2:44:21).

But boys in the back. Boys, boys, boys, boys. What is good. We are back with another edition of Boys in the Back. This time on a Monday, unfortunately, you're stuck with us. Halwani is out observing Rosh Hashanah. I am one-third of the Boys in the Back. Connor Birx joined alongside me.

As always, the legend. Mr. New York, Rick. Mr. Monday afternoon, finally gets the title back. been a minute, but we're back. We're back with Mr. Monday afternoon. We mentioned Ariel is out today. We're also missing Andy, who is on vacation at a wedding in Spain. I hope she's really enjoying herself. And we are also missing Jordan, who had to call in six. So you literally are dealing with the boys in the back. It is, it is me, it is Rick, and it is Frank. And that is it. But we are in the helpful hands of Brad, Derek, Sal, filling in the shoes, stepping up.

in a very big way. Thank you to them, for sure. And it's not just us. It's not just me and Rick. We had to call on the big guns for a special Monday afternoon. We are also joined by UFC title challenger and New York's number one real estate agent.

It is raging. Al Aiaquinta here on the program in studio. And we got the T-shirt, baby. Come on. Matching shirts for Al on the program today. My man. Thank you for having me. Welcome.

How we doing, brother? Thanks for coming in, man. We really appreciate it. I appreciate you guys having it. Wait, hold on. Did I give you these shirts? No. No, we had a man.

If you want a guy, we can hook you up. You can start selling them. He brought a shirt. You're shitting me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are they black or they white? You're black ones. Oh, perfect.

Well, now I got one I can wear two times a week. Wow, look at this. The new studio. Yeah, first time here. This is my first time at this location. This is beautiful. Yeah, it looks great, man. Thanks for coming in.

A short drive from Long Island, yeah? Not bad. Cruise right in. Beautiful. Nice and smooth. You're the whole reason this man right here is a homeowner, yeah? It's true. Homeowner in Wantor, the hometown, my hometown.

We were talking about it earlier. It's how great of an area it is. I don't think he was too familiar with like what Wantor had to offer. And I kept telling him, we kept looking here, looking there. Every now and then a Wantle home would come in. I'd go, what about this one in Wanta? And then he found the one. and it just so happened to be in Wantor,

and I couldn't be happier for him. It's just a beautiful place. Really anywhere, Nassau County, Long Island, you can't beat it. Can't beat him, man. I've always said I love Long Island. Yeah. And where are you?

I am in Brooklyn. I'm in Bumble, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can circle back to that. Oh, no, no, no, I love Long Island. Right by Jones Beach, yeah. Jones Beach. The gateway to Jones Beach.

He's in the gateway to Jones Beach. He's in the gateway to Jones Beach. I love it. 10 minute drive is right. right there. He can't beat it. It's incredible. Al's office, like the home base for Al is right there, like around the corner from my house. It wasn't when we moved. And then he went there right after. Makes it easy. All right. So today you are an honorary boy in the back. You are with us. You're just going to ride the whole show with us. Usually we like to start with some news and some notes

from the weekend in combat sports. We'll start with the news that Rafael Fazeev is out of his main event against Charles Oliva. I actually tweeted back in early August how staff October is. You can see it there. I jinxed us. This is from October 7th. I jinxed us. We not only lose Charles Olavera and Rafael Fazeve this weekend, but we also lost RDR versus Anthony Fluffy Hernandez at UFC Vancouver. So the two non-paperview card main events we end up having to get replacements for, and we're still waiting for a replacement for Charles Olivera to make his debut back in Brazil. On that graphic, those are still intact. October's still looking good. Paper views are still excellent. Paper views are excellent, especially three.

We'll talk about your boy in a little bit. That 320 card is stacked, but it does hurt losing those two main events. Especially, I mean, Charles, because, you know, we look at that lineup, there's tons of big stars in there. But Charles is as big as any of them, right? Like, Charles is one of the biggest names that the USC has. It felt like a great fight, Fiziv and Charles was one that I think most fans were, like, looking forward to and felt like was going to deliver. We kind of have to see now, is somebody going to step in on short notice and take on Charles Olivera and Brazil? So there have been some people who say they might, and then Charles is kind of calling cap on that.

Yeah, he spoke to MMA fighting, and he had this to say a quote from Charles Olivera. He blasts fighters for publicly asking for UFC Rio Spot, but turning down when offered. I saw one saying this, another saying that, but when the UFC calls, what do they say? I can, I got a bellyache, I broke a finger, I hurt my hand. He's essentially saying that the fighters don't want the smoke when they get the call against Charles Olivera. Yeah, and who better than Al, who's sitting right next to us today. notably took 24 hours notice to fight Habib and Manga Madov. What's the mentality when you get that call from the UFC

and they're like, okay, we need you to step in on the least possible prep that you've ever had in your career? It's an opportunity of a lifetime for one of these guys. It's an opportunity like, listen, I wasn't getting a title shot. I had to win a couple more fights, definitely, to even get in the talks for a title shot. I had an opportunity there. It was win-win.

You know, I didn't come out with the, you know, the result that I wanted to, but I gained so much, so much in everyone's eyes. It put me 10 notches ahead and I was ranked, you know, after that fight. And that's, somebody's going to get that opportunity. I hope somebody makes the most of it and realizes the opportunity that they have right in front of them. It's why you really, you always got to stay in shape. If you're right there, you know, if you're in the mix, you've got to be in shape. you got to be ready to go because you could get a Charles Oliver a call tomorrow. You got to do it.

You can't say no. You got a bellyache. Now, good. Give me a bellyache. I don't have, you know what I mean? Get, whatever you got, take it with you, rely on the years of training that you've had in your whole life. Give them hell. We hear sometimes about, like, people when they take these opportunities saying like you're in the UFC's good graces, right?

The UFC looks favorably upon fighters like this. Does that come into your thought process as you're doing this? Or are you thinking about, man, I might lose this fight, and then I'm further back in the rankings. Like, how do you weigh all those factors? As a fighter, I don't think you can really think about being, having the UFC and your good graces. At the end of the day, you're in there fighting for yourself. You're fighting for your health, your life, your money.

It's all right there. It doesn't hurt. Trust me. It definitely does not hurt. But that's not the reason you're taking this fight. If that's the reason you're taking this fight, you're taking it probably for the wrong reason. You want to hop into this just for the opportunity of facing. racing a legend like Charles Olivera and you know if you're if you're a top guy if you're in the

you if you're in the UFC lightweight division you got to believe you can be a champion at any time so the call comes that's a call that you may never never get again it's a crazy sport you got to take that and you got to run with it not just against the legend in charles oliver but you would also be main eventing in Brazil in his home country if you're able to go in there and pull off the upset on six notice it would be insane crazy crazy imagine that that would just be insane uh there is one man that always seems to come to the call that's essentially begging for these fights. We saw him take to Twitter. Matayish Gamrod,

always ready to get in the octagon. He says, respect Charles Alvara, but I told the UFC straight, I want to face you in your home. This will be a true masterclass on the ground, and I'm ready to prove it. He then followed it up again last night, still ringing the bell. I hear you're worried about my style, even though you had a full training camp.

I had none, and I'm still ready to step into the cage. Two weeks left to prepare, and I'm already in ATT right here. No excuses. Let's do this. I mean, he's in the top 10. He constantly seems ready. He always stays in shape, but it does kind of feel like guys don't really want to go against the guy like Gamrod. Yeah, the style is hard. So let's put the shoe on the other foot, Al. You're Charles Olivera. Do you take a guy like Gamrod on short notice knowing how tough a style he is that he's bringing to you? Or is that one where you're like,

nah, you know what? Maybe I want to rebook this. Maybe I don't want to do this one. That's, you got to, I mean, I think that's the fight right now. Someone calls you out like that. There's way, you know, you're, you're in Charles talking about everybody else not wanting to take my talking about belly eggs. Now somebody comes at you and says, I'm right here. I'm the guy. My belly might hurt. My toe might be broken. I don't care. Two weeks notice, nothing. I'm going. Let's go. You got, you can't say, you know, my belly hurts. You know what I mean? So I think that after that, that's what I want to see that fight right now. I'm already invested in it. It's great. I love that. I'm down this. This brings us to a crazy but true scenario. Uh, there is now

not a single fight booked in the top 15 of the lightweight rankings in the U.S. No way. Not a single fighter is booked to fight anyway. That is nuts. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I'm curious is what they're going to do now. It's wide open. And, like, you're going to have to book Ilya soon, like, for the title shot. You're going to have to book these top guys. Armine's been floating around forever. Patti's been around. Patty's waiting. Like, a lot of these guys, it's been a minute since their last

fight. And so it's just like the UFC now has wide open pastures to play with for 155. Wow. Are you like me? Do you feel like lightweight is the best division always? Like, is it constantly the best. I've never felt like lightweight has given up that throne. I've always felt like that's the best UFC division. Yeah, yeah. You look down at like the 15 to 20 range and you're getting guys who could be ranked no problem. Yeah. Yeah, it's a crazy division. It's, you know, it's kind of like that middle weight class where like that's where like, it's probably the, the most populated division, just like in general, like the most people fit into that way category. And then, you know, you add in all these studs that are competing in this division.

right now and have been it is it's always it's always just and now iliad coming up and now he's you know it's like it was stacked before that now he's in there um yeah crazy crazy division crazy time and division and yeah i didn't realize none of the fights had had anything booked which like we got to get we got to get this show on the road let's go exactly because it is like the one of the premier if not the premier division in the ufc and has been for years and years so many popular super talented fighters uh maybe some of them will be fighting on this uh ufc white house Which last week, Dana White, Connor McGregor, Michael Chandler, they all made their rounds on Fox News. And during that, they released renderings of what the card could potentially look like.

And I have to say, like, if it looks anything close to this, they will have gone above and beyond. I know, like, some people like to bring up, like, Fight Island and the sphere and everything like that. Like, I thought the sphere looked pretty close to what rendering is. Okay, but we have to admit, Fight Island did not look anything like it. They promised us a cage on the beach, and that was a practice game. and they ended up fighting in a tent. I mean, if they pulled this off press conference from the Lincoln Memorial, are you kidding me?

That's crazy. Like that with the Washington Mall behind you, like the renderings look absolutely insane. I think there's a couple more that they gave us. I mean, you got the fireworks. If they pull off 50% of this, I would be satisfied with what we saw. If they pull off 1% of this

and that 1% being on the lawn, that's enough for me. All right, so you say that. All right, here's a walkout. I wish we had seen some renderings of what the Oval Office locker room could potentially look like. But you said, like, if they're able to get on the South Lawn,

the White House official Twitter account took to Twitter with the picture of the renderings and said, see you on the South Lawn. Wow. See 29 million views on this tweet, 81,000 likes. Like, I was like the number one doubter

when this first, like, the idea of it came out. I was like, man, are they really going to be able to pull this off? Like, a fight on the White House South Lawn? Now, like, we're getting meetings with Trump and Dana white at the white house we're getting renderings of what this could actually look like we're getting like oh we're going to have to move it to june like we're going to do ufcx we're going to do a watch party on the on the washington mall and now you have the white house twitter account being like we'll see you in june like this feels as real it's ever been and it is crazy to try to comprehend if you

were competing right now is this the type of card where you call your manager and you're like i need to be on this or is this the one where you're like let me sit this out let them have the spectacle and i'll go get my work done over here oh no you want to you want on card Absolutely. It has to be. I think the UFC is doing a great job of like these, you know, I haven't played video games in a while, but you'd have the video game where you go through

and it's like play on the White House lawn. It's never going to happen in real life. So that's why you want to pick. It's like cool. And then here it's happening. The sphere, that whole card was crazy. So props to the UFC for like making these cool things happen. And, you know, Dana White,

digging outside the box and like just kind of like saying it and then really making it happen. And in the beginning, it sounded like he was just saying it. It kind of the same thing with the sphere. It was like, oh, it would be cool and it sounds cool. But then when they bring it to life, it's like, whoa, this is crazy. So I'm in all day. All day.

Like, I think not only we're going to be in, I think, like, just the sphere of casual fans. Like, if you've ever watched the UFC fight, you'll be tuning into this one. Like, that's the scope that this thing could get. And then you have the guys that could potentially be on it. Like, you mentioned, like, this is the one I want to be on. You have McGregor going on Fox News and being like, oh, yeah, it's me versus Chandler like that's the fight to happen then Chandler falls it up with you know that's the fight to make we did the ultimate fighter it makes a ton of sense at this point

McGregor going on Twitter and being like Mystic Mac prediction uh we're we're gonna fight McGregor K-O win first round UFC White House so like if you can parlay Connor McGregor and the White House together like it it doesn't get any bigger than that no do you do you think Connor McGregor will fight on this card I got to think so I got to think if he there's enough time for him to get ready, barring some, he does something nuts, you know, but I think, you know, I think he, I think this is like something that he needed it. When you're kind of McGregor, not many things, you know, silk sheets. What is it? Waking up early in the morning. You know what I mean? Silk pajamas. But to, to fight at the White House, you know, I don't know, I think, yeah, I think, you know,

it'd be probably a lot cooler if he was like an American guy, but, but for him, you know, and if we can get him fighting an American in Chandler. And like, he was like, you know, Mr. He's not about it. Yeah, he's about his man. He's going to walk out with the stars

and stripes, straped for sure. I mean, we said it on the show last week, we were like, if he doesn't get up for this, if he doesn't return for this,

then what is going to get him back? Yeah. It feels like nothing because the clock just continues to tick. This is, this is the last, I think this is the last thing that can get him back.

Yeah, I agree. And it'll probably be, I don't think, it'll probably be a one and done. I don't think, you know, if he does knock out, Chandler in the first round,

I don't know, you know, who knows where he's going to be at, where both of those guys are going to be at, they haven't fought in so long, but if it does happen, which I'm kind of saying it's probably going to, if all things happen the way they're supposed to. But it's a great point, like, after you do that, what else do you do?

You know, if you're Connor McGregor, like, what else do you possibly do after knocking on Michael Chandler on the way of that? Unless they're going to have, like, a fight on Mars or something. Yeah, there's really not, like, nothing better, bigger. Unless I'm mistaken, I think he has, like, one more fight on the deal. It feels like, I mean, It's been four years since he last fall, but it feels like I've heard a million times that he had two fights. Yeah, so maybe you do just get one out of the way, right? You just get one of the way. And then now it's like open market for the boxing, the Jake Paul's of the world. He's a co-owner of BKFC. Maybe he goes down that route. So it feels like this is the big culmination for Connor. And then it's like maybe you do the one more just so you can get out of contract and figure it out. And I don't know if you see will be super happy to like let him out of contract. But they'll have a decision to make after this.

Yeah, I mean, he's not the only superstar throwing his hat in the ring. Obviously, John Jones has said it numerous times that he wants to be on the card. Dana kind of pushing back, but then Hamzok got on Twitter as well and made like an AI art of him standing over the White House. Like, he's one of the biggest star the sport has today, obviously dominant performance over DDP last month to get the belt. Whether this happens or not, I don't know. I mean, like, I guess like he can get into the States now. Is he going to fight on the White House lawn? I don't know.

But like the stars clearly want to be on this card. He joked at the time of the DDP fight about like, you think they want me on the White House law, and he was laughing about it. I think, to me, this feels like it's Connor McGregor or boss, right? Like, it's like, if you have Connor McGregor, you're not putting Hamzot, you're not putting John Jones, you're not doing that. If for some reason or another, Connor cannot, I do think you call John Jones. I think he's the first name you want to call next. But if you've got Hamzad, I don't think that's a bad opportunity either. Like, you need somebody who a wide audience is going to really recognize and also deliver in terms of the fight.

Hamzaa Strickland? Trying to think of an American you can put it in a bad. That would have to be the fight. It's got to be like something like that, right? I think that's, yeah. I mean, wouldn't that be cool? That fight, Connor versus Chandler. So they can get Hamzot and Connor on the same card?

That would be crazy. I keep thinking about this. And when you said it, it came back to me again. I keep thinking about this. Don't you kind of want the Americans to go over, though? If you're the UFC, don't you want to book it so that the Americans are winning the fights so that the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence is like America winning because I don't know it feels like some dicey situations even John Jones versus Tom Aspinall right

you got a brick coming in if he starches John Jones it's not a great look for the independent side of it ultimately I think these things will all come out in the wash and just having like a massive card that event itself will be good but I do wonder like don't you want to kind of put over the Americans isn't that kind of like Strickland versus not many people have given the U.S. chance in that one. But isn't that what it's all about? You come out on that one? People's that one all? The American dream. Get the bell back? That's the American dream right there. Come on. Book it. It's going to be amazing to watch them try and book that over the next six months. Some other news, Rajat Jackson, arrested last Thursday in L.A., arrested on one felony charge held with

$50,000 bonds. So if you were to use a bail bondsman, that'd be about $5 grand to get out. We don't really have any updates from this whether or not he bailed out what the charge is um it kind of left more questions than answers sort of like what took them so long to arrest them as well if they were going to arrest them because they went to his apartment to do it um but very interesting to see that like action has been taken out i'm curious to see where it goes for me the biggest surprise in all this has just been the fact that like it was such a public act but everything else has kind of played out in private like this like there was no word of him getting arrested for weeks like there was nothing happens and then he gets arrested and it's this low bond number and it's

just like there's so much mystery around this while the thing itself was so public everybody saw it everybody passed it around it went viral everybody's mom grandma everybody saw it it is a bizarre situation but i mean i can't speak to the legality of it i don't i'm not versed enough there to know but i was surprised that the number was so low to potentially get him out of jail um and just how quiet it's all been what took so long what took so long and it was like you couldn't it was mainstream media everybody everywhere and then it was just like oh you got arrested yeah quietly and they just kind of snuck it bizarre sometimes with these with these like extremely dense legal cases they have to build the case before they make an arrest but this is sort of like all the evidence was directly

online and got hundreds of millions of views across the world so yeah I mean it just it just leaves us with more questions than answers can't really speculate on on what's going to happen from here, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the court. We talked about the White House, and there is one name that no one's really mentioned that, like, you know, maybe could it possibly happen? We saw Rhonda Rousey hitting the pad. She's talking about how she's falling back in love with MMA. We have a video of it where she's comparison eight weeks after having the baby, eight years after stepping away from MMA to eight months postpartum. You know, she looks kind of like timid a little bit slow, trying to,

trying to get the hands back and then later in the video it shows her now which the hands look crispy i have to say what she talks about she's finding her love again for mama i'm happy to see this because i may be in the minority here but i do think ronda rousey got a little bit of a raw deal when she left the sport um people wanted her downfall so much that they kind of were in a rush to celebrate her leaving the sport when she did so much for the ufc at that time in the sport of mama and women getting into it. Look, she did herself no favors in terms of how she handled the media and stuff on her way out, but I always do feel like she's not celebrated in the way that somebody of her stature should be celebrated.

Like she is an icon of icons. She's a no brain Hall of Famer. She went into the Hall of Fame recently. And I just feel like people don't really, like, give her the respect that she's probably due. I'm happy that she has a little bit of a better, like, relationship with MMA now and can reflect on it this way. The question for you, Al, I think, is like, the mentality of like getting that itch and then maybe wanting to compete again for like maybe speak for yourself like do you get that it when does it happen did it ever go away like what's

the process like for somebody who steps away it you always have the itch you watch the fights and you're like oh i beat this guy oh yeah i'm great oh you hit the pads that you feel great on the pads i feel great on the pads and then you do a two-minute sparring session with a guy that's like an up-and-coming 22-year-old that's like taking it easy on you and you're like, oh, I remember when I used to be able to train three times a day and wake up the next day and do it again

and do it again. And I was just hungry and I didn't have the kids, the money she's got, like, I'm sure she's doing very well, she's done very good. And so, you know, that's the difference. Can she do it? I would, I'd be very,

to convince me, it'd take a lot. And I'm not really convinced with just one pad session. But I do think Ronda Rousey's done so much in her career that if there is anybody that can make a comeback, that arm bar doesn't go away. She's always got that arm bar and she's got those throws. I think she kind of got away from it in the end.

In the end, she kind of like, if you go back to that, people still aren't on that level, I don't think, in women's MMA. You know, if you go back to that take down those throws, if that's your bread and butter and you get the right opponent and you go in there, yeah, I'd like to see it. Yeah, I mean, she's getting ready to turn 39 in February. It hasn't competed in the UFC since December of 2016 against the Mandonuña. So, like, it's been a minute, man.

We're coming up on a decade of her having not fought competitively. But like you guys mentioned, she's a legend. Women's MMA isn't where it's at without her. So if she did want to make a return, the UFC would welcome her back with open arms. And a huge benefit is that that division's pretty shallow, like, really bad. It's as bad as it's ever been. She could hop into there pretty easily and get a, like, decent matchup and look pretty good. You don't need a B-side either.

You can put her in there against anyone and people will be interested. Even like somebody who has just recently fought for the title is highly ranked like a Giuliana Pena, right? They're peers, you know? It's like she could jump right into the shark tank with this division and ultimately probably be okay. Now, is it like Amanda Nunes or Kayla Harrison? That might be a little bit of a road too far to be coming back from where she's coming back from. But one two down the line, maybe you can build toward it. I don't know.

That sports evolved so much in the last. Like women's MMA at that point was just getting, it was not even, you know, she was the first. She was the first one. She made it happen. And usually, you know, in sports, that the first couple of years, the acceleration, like people, there's now girls that are getting into the UFC that have been training all disciplines from the beginning. She didn't even start boxing until very late in her career. So I don't know. I just think this sport's evolving so fast with the right matchup, they'd have to really carefully.

pick an opponent because it's even like a Juliana Pena, she's active. The last six years she's been doing good. Yeah, champion. Yeah, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I don't know. Apply this, like, when you look at the lightweight division, when you look at what would be your peers if you were fighting right now, and you're talking about, like, the evolution and the skills, what do you see as somebody who's been out of the game for a while when you

see, like, the current crop in terms of the evolutions of the game and what the meta is, like, how the styles play out. Yeah, I mean, you take a guy like Ilya. Everyone's talking about his stand-up is so good. I don't think no one's really even seen his ground game yet. I think his ground game is just as good, if not better. Like, there's no chink in his armor. He's so squared away in every facet of the game.

And where, you know, maybe, you know, even like a guy like Connor, like he had some holes in his game, like, not holes in his game, but you know what I mean? Like, he played to his strengths. Whereas I think a guy like, can just do what he wants to do. You know what I mean? And he can navigate really a fight.

I think a guy like that is just on a whole other level. We've never seen anything like that in this sport. And it's just going to keep getting better because there's guys now that are, you know, coming up that are younger that are just doing everything. They're like, you know, Olympic level wrestler, K-1 level kickboxing, jujitsu world champion. It's like made in a lab for this. And they're made in a lab. And it's a great crazy thing.

to see but it's an amazing sport and it's what's keeping me interested for sure i was gonna say it's amazing from a fan standpoint too i'm sure there's guys that you that you see in the gym all the time that are like this new evolution because i think of this is like across sports almost like in basketball back in the day right used to be like i'm a three point shooter i'm a defender i'm a dunker now they do everything and in mma it feels like there are no holes and it really comes down to like who's night is it and like strategy good coaching good game plan and that's who's gonna win and then you have like freaks like elia who the power everything is there who's who's and he's like a gq model he's like yeah right flashing cars he's got the wife or the girlfriend like he's got the

kids now to go with it the kids starting training and everything it's just like spinning elbow you know what i mean he's at that weird point where it's just like it feels like he can do no wrong and it just like feels like there's superstars like that coming along as well yeah i mean even like you talk about these evolutions like even a guy like marraub like if you're fighting at 135 it's like dude how do I beat this guy like even if I have better stand-up like he's just going to thwart that and take me to the ground like it's just like the cardio I can never last with him it's just like he's the hardest puzzle to solve right now at 135 and if not all across the ufc he almost feels like the opposite in a certain regard to me like like a throwback which is his one weapon

that cardio nobody can the gap between him and everybody else nobody can clear like his hands have gotten really good. Every part of his game has gotten really good and we see it in every fight, right? He's not just a guy who's like spamming takedowns. He's a guy who can win in every phase of the game. But the cardio advantage is just like that one tool that he has is so far above everybody else that I just don't see how you clear that gap. Like you can be as well rounded as you want. But by round three, you're cooked. Like that's it. You really can't counter that. Yeah. It's like that Mike Tyson effect. Yeah. People are scared, you know, they get out of shape you're thinking about getting out of shame, you know what I mean? Like, and then you get in there,

you maybe you save a little energy for the second round or the third round, and then you start getting tired, and then Marab just sees it. And once he sees it, then he's like, you know, it's, I think it's a crazy weapon. It's the most, it's this, it's the scariest weapon. It's more scary than a hard right hand that just knocks everybody out. Being tired in there with a guy like Marab in your face. And you know he's not going anywhere. And like during the training camp, you're told, I'm sure, several times. It's just like, this guy's going to try and drown you, like, his cardio is not going to go. We have to get your, cardio has to be the main focal point.

So if you're about to go in round four, and you're like, man, I'm starting to feel pretty gassed. And like, you look over and Rob's just laughing, smiling, getting his water and everything. It's just like mentally, not only physically, mentally, you're just done. Yeah. You have to think that every opponent is ready for five hards, right? Like, they're like, I'm in championship shape. But when he's ready for 10 and 20 yards, it's like, what can you do? There's nothing.

What is that like in the gym? Like, what does it like to spar and go with Maraup? There's, it's a feeling that you can't recreate. The way he moves and the energy, like, I don't think he would need to, just like moving around with him. You're going to get tired. It's like the pressure that he puts on and like he's moving and you're like, oh, shit, is he throwing something? Oh, is he what, you know, it's, and O'Malley felt it the first time. So I almost thought like, oh, you know, and rematch him.

is guys, you know, can kind of, it levels the playing field. Somebody wins the first fight. The second fight's a little closer, but, I mean, a guy like Marab, I saw, like, O'Malley switched some things up in between the first and the second fight, which didn't seem to have too much, like, actual, I don't know, they weren't, like, practical. He stopped playing video games. Marab has... Stop J and the Pine as we heard.

Yeah, stop doing it. Like, that's the reason you looked, lost to Mara. And then you see, I'm looking on Mara. I'm seeing interviews with him, and that's the differences he's made. And then Rob's not saying much, but I look on his Instagram. He's training with national wrestlers from like this country, that country. He's already dominated the first fight in wrestling. And he's bringing in these guys to improve his wrestling, where the other guys, you know,

a little less video games, a little less like porn. Right. And you're playing a little less video games. Marab's building like a compound to host like Georgian fighters out in Las Vegas. So like he is living and breathing and eating this every single day. The only thing I'll say in fairness, and this is just my personal opinion, somebody can disagree. I do think those things benefit Sean O'Malley, but it ultimately won't close the gap. I don't think you, I don't think anybody, until Marab loses a step, I don't think anybody can close the gap on Marab.

And I've, as you know, I've long felt this. Like I've thought Marab was the best in this division for a long time. that skill that he has, that cardio combined with the fact that he continues to drill the wrestling. You also don't have to worry about Marab. He won't do something stupid. He might dive into like a frozen lake,

but he won't do something that's going to get him outside of the fight game. He's always going to be ready. He's always going to be training hard. He's always going to be available. You can count on him preparing every single time. When you're a guy like that, I just don't see how the gap closes.

I don't know a person out there. I agree. I think he's 24-7. Every moment, everything he does, is he just loves it so much yeah loves being a part of the UFC he loves being a part of the sport now he's at the top the guy he can't go to the republic of Georgia he can't yeah oh he's got always seen those superstar go it's crazy did you ever go I did I went sick I went when he was like

I don't know he had maybe had like five fights in the UFC and he was like it was I could I can't imagine what it was like now that when we arrived in this the Republic of Georgia. And I don't know if he was even, he might have just been cracking the top 15, but he might, I don't think he even was. And at that time,

it was just like four years ago, five years, four years ago, people would, I mean, following him around, you know, superstar.

Superstar. Superstar. I mean, it's for, for that country, for somebody to come and do something like that, it doesn't get much bigger than that. It's crazy.

It's so amazing to see. And he's the best, he's the best guy. He's, that helps everybody and you see what he's bringing his guys over from his country they stay with him he's giving them an opportunity and it's that's that's the that's the kind of guy that you want it doesn't you know doesn't my i don't know if people really i he did it on his own too you know what i mean like i think the ufc held him back and he's you know his instagram's hysterical

oh so good personality the thing with him and al joe they kind of like like oh you're not going to fight al joe we're going to kind of like the guy for he was like 10 and oh 11 and oh before they even gave my title shot. Okay, I want to get into that because when you were talking about like he's a good guy, I was thinking of the Aljo thing. There's no better example of like

the caliber or person Marab might be, right, than the idea that there's this thing dangling, right? You can be a UFC champion. And the only thing you got to do is fight this guy that you said you'd never fight. Do you want to do it? And every time offered or even not offered, right? We don't know if a formal offer was made.

But Dana White obviously publicly said like, we're mad at him for not doing this. He has always said no. to me that tells you like what kind of caliber or person it is he's like I'm willing to wait I will wait my time even though I know I could be a champion right now I will wait until my friend my training partner is out of this division and he did it and now he's a champion and it set him back not at all like right he is rolling now he's fighting every month it seems like he's the one reliable guy that they have um but do you think that the the UFC held it against him

in that regard like that the opportunity never came or was it just a circumstance of like look If Aljo's here then and you're saying you're not going to fight and we have to give you somebody and you're going to fight. Yeah, I think, well, it definitely, I mean, Maraub wins this fight. He's basically cleared out division. He cleared out the division before he was even the champ because they almost had like two champions.

It was like, and I think the UFC could have made, they kind of, they didn't give him the credit for that. They held it against him and they, you know, Dana White in the interviews, he was like, oh, you know, we don't like it when people don't fight their friends. Yeah. whatever, it said, turned down. And it should have been like, this guy is the, look at how awesome this guy is. This is what, like, the fans respect.

Yeah. And it was almost like the fans, like, we're like, you know, they respected it and they, they didn't, they had to figure it out for themselves kind of thing. Whereas if Dana White was like, we basically have two champions, we've got the champion, and then we got his best friend. You want to fight the champion? You got to beat his best friend. You know what I mean? And no one could do that. No one can beat these.

It's like, yeah, it's like these are, you know what I mean? Yeah, I feel like they kind of got the run to deal with that where it could have, it could have like accelerated everything. And they're like, these are two, you know, but now they're doing it. They kind of did it their own way. Marab waited for a shot, Aljo, everything kind of like whatever happened that way. And then Maraub got his shot and Aljo's up at 1.45 now doing his thing, looking great. So it's, I think, you know, sometimes you stick to your guns.

I think a lot of people probably would have went the other way and it probably wouldn't have turned out as great because they did it their way and it's... Yeah, I mean, it really is incredible with C like you say, like the UFC sort of hindered him and he just had to do it his own way.

He had to win 10 straight fights and then like he started capitalizing on the social media as by getting big himself and now he's capitalizing on it as a champion. He is staying active. Like if he wins this fight against Corey Sannhagen in just a couple of weeks, like I don't know anyone you can put

as male fighter the year over him and he's already talking about I'm going to deal with Corey in October, and then I'm ready to go on the December pay-per-view. Let me go 4-0, 4 title defenses. So, like, he's taking on whoever challenges him. He's going against the best of the best, and he's staying incredibly active,

which is the biggest superpower for a champion. Yeah. And he's incredible. And I think the UFC was late to the game on this, but now I think they recognize what they have, right? They have a reliable champion who every time he gets that call is like, give me the next guy up, and I'm going to make it look fun. I know he, you know, the finish.

He got to finish against O'Malley, right? The finish thing is kind of something that people have held against him. But, man, his fights are fun. I don't care if he's getting the finish. Like, the idea of just that constant motion, that constant action, it's good to watch.

He's, as you said, like on his social media, his personality's coming out. He's a genuine guy. He's a respectful guy. He represents his nation well. Like, he's the total package. And I feel similarly about, like, a guy like Alishandre Pantosia as well,

where it's like, this guy deserves respect, like, regardless of the size, regardless of finish this. You just have to look at these champions for what they are. I think Marab is a fantastic champion, and I think the same of Pantosia as well. Yeah, I mean, likely won't be the names that the casual fan knows and goes to,

they're not going to be flashy, but the UFC fans, the diehard fans of combat sports, respect, no, and love them as champions. And I think as time goes on, they'll just continue to be more and more respected. We were talking about Ronda Rousey, whether she comes back or not. I mean, that could have just been a post,

like, it feels good to get back in the gym. It feels good to shake the rust off. So, like, we'll see what has. happens there. I'm not going to hold my breath. It has been quite a long time. She used to be in WWE, and we saw this past weekend, WWE making their debut on ESPN, TKO Group, you know, getting on the four letters. It feels like a match made in heaven for them. They debuted with Russell Palooza on ESPN in Indianapolis. We saw Brock Lesner come back, a former UFC heavyweight champion, beat John. It looks smaller. Do we think, do we think Brock Lesnar?

is Natty, Al? Do we think it's just maybe a little bit of protein powder? Yeah, just a little protein powder for that guy, right? Just a little protein powder and doing his push-ups. But yeah, I mean, he walked through John Cena. We got a kid crying because of it. This was my favorite moment. He was so upset. This made it

for me there. John Cena fan decked out in the gear, and he just watched John Cena get obliterated by Brock Lesnar. But it feels like WWE didn't really skip a beat, man. The production looked great. It was easy to find on the app. I know some people struggled because, like, packages weren't available, but I got ESPN Plus, so I was able to just hop right on, and

it feels like the ship is just off and running. They had a great tribute package to their partnership at the start, and like TKL, man, like they're just killing it right now. They couldn't be any hotter. Yeah, it felt to me like you talked about the video games and like those secret levels. To me, this felt like in the video game when you changed the color palette on the character, where it's like, UFC used to get this. Now we're just flipping the package to WWE. Log on, watch the thing. There's a few execs in the seats. Like, it looks exactly like it would.

But obviously with WWE, who also controls their production, their own kind of flavor to it. But yeah, it was a pretty seamless experience. I watched most of it. Brock looked good. Extremely jacked. And, yeah, I'm sure it'll be a very fruitful relationship for WWE and TKO having both of these properties.

And then that huge deal with Paramount coming for the UFC. Yeah, I mean, it makes it just like that more aware of how turnkey it is when you have your own in-house production services. Because it's just like, all right, we're going from Peacock to ESPN. No one's going to notice the difference other than up in the top right. We're going to have ESPN logo instead of the Peacock one. And now UFC with Paramount, you imagine, we're going to go from that pay-per-view in December to the first one in January, and the only thing you're going to notice is difference

is Paramount Plus branding instead of ESPN. And the promos for Yellowstone or whatever shows. Yeah, yeah, seven years, $7.7 billion deal gets done. done last month. Obviously, you were in the organization for quite some time. Like, what is it like to see them ink a deal of this magnitude? Yeah, it's pretty remarkable, right? You're going from, you just see the transition over all the years from a Spike TV and what was FX. Yeah, yeah. I'm out. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's the sport just continual growth of the sport. And you just hope the fighters are

going to be eaten from this whole thing. You know what I mean? It seems like this is the perfect opportunity for them to get a big bonus big raise and everything but hopefully it will be i think you know dana's already kind of you know mentioned that the bonuses are going up and everything so let's start getting these guys paid like the pro athletes that they are so on that front i mean that's the obvious thing where all our minds go right away right is there so much money going into it do you ever foresee a world where the fighters are able to get a cut of these things because of bargaining because of coming together collective bargaining or a union or whatever. Is there ever going to be a day where the fighters are able to put their personal gain

aside and say for the collective good, we will do this? Like there was some whispers when you were fighting, but it never quite came to fruition. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be very hard. It's very hard. It's you're dealing with people from all over the world. And if somebody doesn't want to take the fight, we might be able to just find some guy from Brazil in the favela. That's like, I'm ready to go for free. I'll fight for free. People have said that fight for free. You know what I mean like it's uh the uc is just it's such a platform to grow your career and grow in anything and you know people idolize that so much that they're willing to do whatever it takes to get on there um yeah the it's tough to form like that kind of union thing we'll see what

happens with these class action lawsuits that are going on uh settlements coming up pretty soon i think yeah oh nice but uh but yeah we'll see what what happens with that um it seems like the UFC's pretty squared away. They got this thing on lockdown. And we'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens in the future. But I think it's good.

I think the new deal with Paramount will definitely help the fighters in some way. And I think the management's going to really have to step up. You know, the pay-per-views, the points are going away, right? So there's no more pay-per-view points. So how's that going to work? Are we just going to, like, do some equation that kind of like evens things out?

Or how's that going to be able to? to go. So there's a lot to be seen. But at the end of the day, you've got to, you just got to fight, you've got to win, and you're going to worry about yourself, right? It seems like that's the, that's the way to go. It's the mentality. It's fascinating to think about it, even though we're probably not going to get to see any of it on the back end. It's just like, now these fighters and these managers know, like, seven years, $7.7 billion. You mentioned pay-per-view points going away and everything like that. So, like, how they're able to negotiate and structure this is something we probably won't find out, but it really is going to be a fascinating time for fighters

because you made another great point with like, if you don't want to fight for the money, if you're trying to collectively bargain, if one guy is just like, oh, well, I'll still fight for these wages, then it kind of brings the whole tower down. Or you can just go find someone else who is trying to realize their dream, trying to accomplish and get to the UFC, and they'll just fight for less. Yeah, it would take, in my opinion, it would take everybody being on the same page, right? Everybody in the locker room just goes, we're not fighting or or an entire card, right? Let's say one Saturday.

Every single fighter said, we're not going to compete unless these things are implemented. There'd be like a real change, a real impact. Alternatively, it could be like a Connor or a John, somebody with some real stature, an Alex Pereira or Tom, who's just like,

I need this to be in place, otherwise you don't have me. But failing that, it just feels too hard, as you said. People live in different places. You can always find somebody who's going to fill in the quality of the cards, in my opinion,

has gone down a little bit to the point that like if you find somebody to replace. Nobody's really even going to be the wiser. They're not going to even know that I was missing out on somebody. So I'm skeptical of that. You mentioned the antitrust part of it. It sounds like you're confirming that you will be receiving some money from that settlement. We've seen other people come out and say, like, I'm not going to take it. Hainato Moikano famously was like, I don't want to take the money. What's your opinion of like if you're an active UFC fighter? Now, he has come out and said, I should be clear for the record. He has come out and said like his decision was not based

on like the UFC is going to treat me differently or not treat me differently because in the legal terminology it says like the UFC cannot treat you differently based on whether you're accepted or not. But what's your thought on somebody like Hanato Mikano who at a principle was like I agreed to this contract. I did not agree to this extra money. So I'm not going to take it. What are your thoughts on like that type of situation? So I think it's an interesting battle that you're fighting as a professional as a UFC fighter. you're fighting kind of like your comrades and you're also kind of like fighting the UFC at the same time the UFC's goal is to bring you know their returns is you know they want to uh you know their investors

have to get their bottom line is the is the goal and to increase their bottom line they if they pay the fighters less you know then it it helps their bottom line so it is kind of like you know You're kind of like fighting your friends to fight the company. It's an interesting dynamic. And I think that's why the UFC's been so successful in a lot of ways. They've done it so smart. But it's like nothing else. It's not like the boxing model.

It's not like the professional football basketball. They've kind of created their own model. And now you see them, I guess, trying to kind of bring that model to boxing, which is like the most similar, I guess, kind of like structured thing to do. do, but I think it's going to be a, I think Dana White got a little, a little taste of not going to be as easy. Yeah. I'm not saying it was easy.

I mean, but he's definitely going to, I think he thought it was, it's the Turkey Al-Shik, funny, because, you know, Dana's always been the guy. Yep. But now I feel like Dana kind of felt what it's like to be a fighter a little bit. He was kind of like in the back, you know what I mean? He's on the sidelines. Yeah, it's a little different. It felt like a Dana we had never seen before.

Yeah. He was sort of just off to the side. It didn't really, like, really feel like he was pulling that many strings when he was. came to the event. It kind of just felt like he was sort of like a figurehead to pump up the promotion of like, oh, Dana White's involved as well. Yeah. Yeah. He was sitting, he wasn't sitting right up on the, like, usually he's like right there. He's got the headset on. It's like he's running the show. This was kind of like he was sitting next to the guy running this show. You know what I mean? So it's kind of like. And it didn't really feel like a UFC, right?

Like the event itself felt like what we've seen from boxing in the past. It didn't really feel like the Dana White fingerprints were on it other than Dana did more media than I've ever seen him do. the last like two or three years yeah i think uh you know the fratitas gave him the bull and and he ran with it i think turkey's kind of like i don't think you know maybe maybe it's not too small maybe he should you know what i mean and i think there was a lot of things that happened in that event that dana probably would have you know i think he had a lot of influence on it but i think if dana really had his way it would have been a little bit of a different show yeah and so related to that right like we're talking about the antitrust we're talking about the paramount deal

one of the things that obviously helps the fighters the most is the the rise of new promotions right like pfl now being a definitive number two to purchase of bellator at the time that bellator existed strike force pride it has always been best when there's been competition we saw gfl um come out and really make an effort to like snatch up all these um fighters that were outside the ufc and seemed like they had almost all the names that you'd want but ultimately ended up they ended up not being to fund it. What were your thoughts on, like, when GFL was really making a push and getting all these guys signed up? Who do I got a call? Get me in there. They're going to pay this guy a million bucks for a fight? What? Did you actually consider at a... Did they hit you up at all?

100%. They didn't hit me up. Listen, there would have been a... I don't know if I would have even... They would have had to pay me a lot of money and they were... I'm in real estate shape right now. I'm not in fucking, you know, the top shape of... Reginald versus Dylan Danes, one seven? Yeah, that would be all. That guy will not get in the, in the ring with me, guaranteed.

But they were paying the guys a lot of money. It seemed like it was all good. You know what I mean? Kind of wish it would have happened. Kind of wish it would have happened. It would have been a great platform for the guys, but the money they were throwing around. It was like laugh, it was,

I could have probably called this. everybody get in, get your money, because this thing ain't lasting. You got one, maybe two events before this thing goes under because there's no way. It just doesn't make sense. So was that the talk, like seemingly

from the fighters that you were talking to, like people were kind of like, let's get this money, but we don't think this is really legit. At least like they're not going to do multiple events, right? Some people might think they could do the one and then it's over. It sounds like it was so much money

that it was too good of an offer to pass up. It was just like, this is all I have to do for this amount of money? All right, I'm there because it was a lot of fighters that were either retired or on the back halves of their careers. Yeah. Yeah, it would have been interested to see how the fights looked with a lot of these guys that were kind of like, you know, it would have been a little bit of like,

kind of like freak showish, you know what I mean? Maybe guys that aren't, they don't look too like they're, you know, in like the peak of their career going in there. It would have been like a spectacle, but I would have liked to have seen it. I would like to see it. I would like to see the paychecks and these guys get paid because a lot of these guys really deserve it. You know what I mean?

And the numbers they were saying they were throwing around was just crazy. But it looked like it had a little steam going for a little bit. But even while it was, everyone was kind of like, yeah. Get in, get two or three fights, whatever. Because I just didn't see where the money was going to come from. Yeah. Good, man. I was just going to say one of the things that I thought about when we were talking about this was Frankie Edgar.

Frankie Edgar has been somebody who's been retired for a bit seemed like he had exhausted like all he could kind of do in combat sports One of the unrecognized legends of the game in my opinion Like one of the most like the guys deserving of the most respect You talk about pound for pound like that's a pound for pound type guy And now we see him coming back for BKFC And BKFC has kind of become a home for some of these guys who are on the back end Or it feels like hey maybe the sport is done with them

They find a new avenue for it What do you make of like people like let's say like a Frankie Edgar type fighter who had an illustrious legendary career in the UFC but now is at the point where hey I need to make this money I'm going to come back for BKFC yeah it's a tough one I love Frankie so much everybody who does yeah that's the thing uh he's fighting um I don't know showman's guy oh yeah Jimmy Rivera which I think is a pretty good good matchup for him Jimmy Rivera's he's tough you know um but I think Frankie's boxing you know,

he's always been pretty tight and he's always been pretty safe, I think, you know, in the boxing realm. So, I think it's a good fight for him. I don't know, you know, the bare knuckle thing is just brutal to watch. Brutal, it's like, you know, like, oh, just, yeah,

every punch, even glancing blow kind of like gives you unfixable damage. So it's, but that's why people love it. It is a gladiator sport is if you're going for, you know, for damage, that's the sport where it's, it's unforgiving. But, yeah, I'll be watching Frank Yeager for sure. It's a legend of the sport.

Hopefully, he goes in there. I like Jimmy Rivera too, the East Coast guy, two East Coast guys going at it at the Rock, you know, at the Prudential Center. And I will say we've been before the BKFC puts on a fantastic show. So, like, they'll spotlight him. Hopefully, you know, both guys just come out healthy and they put on a good fight. Yeah, I'm of two minds about it. I love, I think BKFC has a lot of momentum right now. I think the product's really good. I think Feldman's great as like the front man for it. They got some good talent in there. But I do feel kind of uneasy at times about like a guy like Frankie Edgar getting in there and getting into bare knuckle boxing. I can't like, I try to separate myself from that idea and that part always does make me feel a little bit uneasy. But I'm also a type of guy at the same time who, you know, Frankie Edgar has to pay his bills. I can't tell him how to do that. So if that's what he feels he needs to do, like, Like, who the fuck am I?

Like, I'm out of the equation, and it's up to him to make those decisions for himself. But, you know, some guys at the end of the line, it does feel, it makes me feel a little bit uneasy. But BKFC is a well-run organization. They've got it kind of, like, dialed in for what they're doing. So hopefully, as you said, everybody comes out safely and everybody makes good money and they have a successful event in Jersey. I spoke to Frankie pretty recently. I went down, I did his podcast down in Tom's River. And we kind of talked about it

And I loved his attitude about it I thought it was going to kind of be like You know, didn't they get paid kind of thing And he was like And I didn't know Frank Yeager was like He had a couple of streets He had some decent amount of fights And then I remembered like he

I remember first hearing about him In the underground New York sit in the city Before it was legal in New York He was fighting on these Peter Storm underground uh fights and uh and i that was like the he was like the main event he had a couple fights there and i was like oh yeah that's right frank he's like finishing off where he left off with like the street but you know i forgot he was a scrap he was in the streets he would scrap and now

he would go do these underground fights and he was never scared of nobody and he's still not scared and his attitude was awesome and i was like oh he's got like a fire about him right now it was not this is not like him going in to do like a, you know, a Twilight payday kind of, he's going in there to fight. And I was like, oh, I was like, oh, all right, now I like this. I mean, you mentioned you get the itch from time to time. I mean, you just have to wonder if the it's got so bad he had to scratch it and BKFC was sitting there waiting for him. And like, it's also crazy. You mentioned the underground and everything like that. And now he's doing BKFC that like the sport is still like in its infancy enough that like you have a guy like

Frankie Edgar that started in the streets on these underground illegal fights and now he's finishing in BKFC compared to a guy like Ilya Tuporia that's like private jets and and you know tailor-made training and superstar wife and everything like that that they can coexist and still be fighting at the same time and it's like they came from two different worlds it's just it's just nuts yeah yeah the uh those days those are crazy like i don't think the fighters nowadays can even understand what it was like when it was illegal in new york did you do any of those or was that before your time i was right there i had like a couple of smokers in the gym you know and then i then i it was frankie was like maybe a couple years ahead where he was doing

those and i was still wrestling i was still like wasn't right quite there you know if i was a little later for sure but uh but amateur mima was became big in new jersey right about the time when and I started, like, really getting serious about it. And I was, like, the underground thing, I don't know. I was, I was, like, right there. I was right there, but no, I never fought in any of those. I never went to him. I would hear about him.

I would go on the underground, I think. I'd feel where I would go. And I'd see, like, it was like, you know, pictures. There was no even video. It was just, like, you see, like, five pictures from the fight. And it was, like, Frank Yeager on top of somebody with, like, bleeding. And, like, his knuckles were, like, bloody and stuff. and there was a couple of other, like, local, like, local legends, you know?

Yeah. Frankie was the guy that kind of, like, made it out of that underground, those underground fights and really made a big name for himself. So when he said he saw it on the underground, that was the OG4. Yeah, yeah. Sherdog and the U.G. It was like, you know, it would be like, it would be like one thread for, like, the results of those, yeah.

The results. And it was like, they wouldn't announce where the fight was going to be. It was like, you got you had to like. Wasn't it in, like, shipping containers I would hear? and crazy shit like that? It sounds like a movie, man. They were in gyms that, it was like a movie. It was like, you know, it was in, it was, they were in gyms in like the city for the

most part, but like it was very like they would, I think, tape the windows up. Yeah, yeah. You couldn't see what was going on. And they wouldn't release like where it was going to be until like the day of, you know, it was, I can't imagine the rush that you got from, not, not just fighting, but being there. Yeah. How crazy is it that it's only been legal in, he, in this state for 10 years? That's nuts, right?

Yeah. Like, when you go back and think about that? How long everybody had to go to New Jersey. Yeah. You know, a lot of the guys coming out. Like, we all, we didn't make any money. We had to sell tickets. We had a percentage of the ticket sales.

And not only that, we have to convince all of our friends to go to, like, Atlantic City. You know what I mean? Where a lot of the guys were right there. It was a crazy time, really crazy. I mean, who is it? Aljo has never fought in New York before? Yeah, Aljo's never fought in New York. He's got something with, like, a brain, I don't know.

Isn't it the eye, isn't it, that you had, like, LASIC or something? something and they don't allow you to compete with that something something i i think somebody like messed up a thing on his like one of the i don't know some something in the documentation it's like ridiculous that he hasn't been able yeah you're working and there's no like nobody that can like fix whatever it is i don't know it's just so weird yeah yeah but he's doing it right i don't think you can yeah yeah just tax property i mean uh income tax yeah we uh we talk about frankie edgar coming back, BKFC, you talk about, you know, you get the itch, but then you go to the gym and and it's just like, yeah, maybe not. Has real estate helped with that as well? Like, obviously,

it keeps you busy with your time. It keeps you, you know, financially sound, everything like that. Like, does it keep you from going back into fighting? Oh, I mean, I got to think if I wasn't, yeah, I don't know, but if I would do something, there was something else I'd be doing, but I'm definitely like all in on, on the real estate. Fighting is kind of like my, my relief from that world, you know? I go to the gym. and I'll watch the fighters, I'll get the, and then I'll get beat up a little bit, and I'll go, oh, yeah, that's right.

I got a showing tomorrow in the morning. I got to remember, I got to focus on that, you know. But yeah, the real estate, everything's going great with that, and it's keeping me. It's very similar to fighting. I've just taken my focus from being the best in the world, that one thing, to now being the best in the world, that is another thing.

What was the OG on how you got into it? What inspired it? Like, you're obviously having this incredibly successful fighting career. What made you be like, Let's go get the real estate license. It was when I got injured. I got injured. I hurt my knee, and I had to get a pretty serious surgery.

And the UFC was not really... The UFC doctors, they were like, if you get this surgery, there's a good chance you're probably not going to fight again. The surgery that I had was very... I was the first MMA fighter that I think that they ever did this surgery, too. It's called an osteocondrial alligraph. It's kind of like, how can I describe it? Like, they take cadaver cartilage and they put it in the underside of your kneecap.

So I got, yeah, so I got like cadaver cartilage on the underside of my kneecap. And they've never done it. They do it. I've done it to basketball players. And this doctor, Riley Williams from HSS, saw him. He's the, at the time, was the number one guy. And saw him, he was like, listen, I feel very confident that we do this. surgery, we'll get you back in there.

The UFC doctor was like, no, don't do it. If you do it, you're not going to fight again. I said, no, HSS, best in the world. They said, so the UFC wasn't going to pay for it. They were like, if you want to do this surgery, HSS charges more than if it was a different hospital or whatever it was, the difference in, it was like $40,000 difference in the surgery because they were going to do it. I wanted to do it with the best, at the best.

So they were like, we'll pay for X amount. You have to make up the rest. I'm like, I got to make up the rest. And I'm going to be out for six months or a year. So I can't do that. So there was a big holdup. I was, that's when I started getting like crazy, like making fun of whatever, yelling at Dana and fucking cursing and stuff.

And, uh, and eventually I went out and I met with Lorenzo and told him what was really going on because it had never gotten to that level. I was speaking with like people that really, you know, I was speaking with, uh, The UFC doctor who, I don't know if he had, he didn't want, I don't know why he would, you know, he was so against it. Was he recommending an alternative surgery for you to get? Not, not really. There was not really much of an alternative.

My knee at that point was so. So it was pretty much that and have a chance to fight again or get nothing and not fight again, period. Exactly. That's exactly the situation. And I, you know, I felt like no one was listening to me. You know, this doctor had his, you know, idea about it. and the UFC was just listening to him. I don't know if they didn't want to spend the money,

if they thought that, you know, if he said that I wasn't going to fight again, why are you going to spend money to fix a guy's knee who's probably not going to fight again? Meanwhile, I got them in touch with HSS. The UFC now is sponsored by HSS. So I've been making deals since day one. I want my commission from that one. And I'm serious.

You honestly should, yeah. I did make that happen. I introduced the UFC to HSS. to figure out, you know, that they were the best. And this doctor in particular was the best. He did get me back into the, into the ring, into cage, octagon, whatever. And now they're sponsored by the UFC. So it's great.

It's a great story. But at the end of the day, that's when I got my real estate license. I said, I got the surgery. I crushed into the course. I had a bunch of people that were very successful in life that were always preaching real estate. They said, you know, you're going to win some money in fights. You're all in favor. He owned a whole block at one point.

I think he still does. And he's still, you know, invest in real estate. And I always saw real estate is just like, I just love the idea of like, that's mine. Like that, you know what I mean? You got a piece of property. You can see, well, where can I be? You know, what can I afford? What can I afford?

What do I have to do to be able to afford that? That's where I want to be. It's like, you know, somebody wants to be somewhere, but they can't afford that. It's like, how do I, you know, how do I, you know, how do I, you know, How do I send my kids to this school? How do I do? You know what I mean? It's like real estate is such a cool thing to me.

And as an investment, I don't think there's not much better. It's just an appreciating asset. If you get a couple rental properties, I don't know where I would be without that. So I think real estate and fighting for me has helped me live a pretty good life at this point. I remember at the time, like when you were doing that, because you did this as an athlete, which is not always the way it goes. Some people are trying to plan for that career after fighting. And some people, it's like that natural thing of like, I'm going into commentary, right?

Like, D.C. retires. He has a spot on the booth. Dustin Porre, right? We've seen him. He was fighting and now he's, like, doing commentary. This wasn't as natural, right? This was, like, a completely separate career for a lot of people. But you were doing things at the same time to build yourself up to here.

And I do remember at the time, like, Connor McGregor would say, like, the real estate agent. Like, it wasn't necessarily looked at as, like, positively. It wasn't necessarily like everybody seeing like, oh, this is smart. This is like a really good idea that you're doing. What was your feeling when you were trying to do this as you were still trying to be a competitive athlete at the very top of the game? And people were like looking at this like, are you really focused or making fun of it or whatever? Yeah, I kind of like like, I kind of liked it. I'm a guy that can kind of like joke at myself.

I kind of like, you know, I'm not too serious in that aspect. So, like, it was kind of like, I was like, oh, I kind of like roll with it. You know what I mean? I'm just a real estate. But in my head, I'm like, this is fucking genius. Like, everybody's talking about this. Yeah. Every single person, they can't mention, I like, I went to it out saying real estate.

I was like, maybe this is the best thing I have it. And I just kept going with it. And I did have, you know, a real passion for it. I love where I live. I love Long Island. My father's been a head football coach at, like, some of the top high schools for my whole life. So I always, like, you can't go, what is it, the degrees of separation with the Kevin Bacon? Yeah.

Like, you meet somebody on Long Island, one or two people to have some connection to my father. Right. He's been a teacher in Limbrook forever. He's been a coach at Hewlett, Manhasset. Now he's at Belmont JFK, Limbrook even for there. So, like, Long Island's just in my blood, you know what I mean? And ever since I can remember, my dad had, like, show him. He would always, he was like my tour guide in life in Long Island.

And now I liked doing that for people. And it's kind of just, like, worked out perfectly. And you having a good sense of humor about it obviously helped. I remember the, like, Regent Al, the exit, the Twitter account. Yeah, yeah. That one was very funny. But. Oh, the one where anytime someone says XYZ owns you, they'll quote tweet it and be like,

yeah, but how many houses do you on? Yeah, yeah. That guy's great. Did you ever meet that guy? Aaron Rwainbaum, we did a podcast for a little while. Oh, shit. That's incredible. Never met him in person, believe it or not.

Over Zinfeldon. But I feel like I know, oh, yeah, he just created this, like, parody account for me. And it was so funny. It was so good. It was so good. And he's, uh, he does great with his investments. He's, he's owned McDonald's, uh, and then that was like his first thing. And then he kind of got into real estate while we did this podcast.

He heard about my Airbnb thing that I have going on. And he started doing Airbnbs and now we're like competing on it on, on like, our reviews and our favorite. I have five-star ratings and stuff like that. And he's crushing it right now. That's amazing, good. Yeah. What a great story. And I was saying all that to say, like, it has now proven to be brilliant, right? Like, this has been an incredible move for you. Because as you said, you're very successful in this new career, but also it has given you that thing that that itch doesn't feel as strong, right? Now you have this career that you're completely doing. What would your recommendation or advice or be to, like, anybody who's a UFC fighter or any

any kind of like professional athlete who's feeling that and then the end of the career is coming up where you have to make that transition whether it be to real estate or something else like how do you go through the mental process of that and what would you say for them to do it's tough man it's a tough balance it's a tough thing to like know when me for me it just kind of came like naturally like I really just kind of the whole that whole surgery thing left a bad taste of my mouth and I kind of found this other thing at the right time but I think if you you know who knows maybe if i didn't find real estate i would have went all in on fighting i would have realized that that was the only thing i had in my life and i would have done better with that

who know you know what i mean so you don't really that's the way it happened for me um and and i think everybody's got to have their own journey their own path um if if it is like listen it's kind of like what is the book is a book real estate guy keller williams gary keller the one thing it was like write this the name of the book have you heard of this the point book, the one thing. It's like if you're going to catch, if you try to catch two rabbits, you'll never catch one. But if you catch, if you aim for the one rabbit, and I'm like, I'm, it kind of like Dana White

with this whole boxing thing. I'm always, I'm almost like, are you trying to catch two rats, three rabbits with the, with the, with the slap and everything? Boxing power slap. Yeah. I don't like feel like fighting, the UFC right now is missing like a little something. I don't know. You know what I mean?

I mean, we say that constantly because it does feel like, it's almost like, it's almost like he's bored with the day-to-day of the UFC, the week-to-week to fight nights with everything like that, because you see him going on these side quests with Turkey to do Canello Crawford, and now he's starting up Zufa boxing, and he's doing the power slap. And it feels like the only thing that's really getting him up is like these sphere cards and these White House cards, then he doesn't have the focus for these week-to-week, the UFC Rios, the UFC, the UFC, where you can really start to build these stars. We've said that for a while. We're in 100% of grants with you. Why didn't he bring Turkey into the UFC? Like, get him, get him,

He's just like a boxing guy? Well, Turkey, Saudi has cards that they are doing with the UFC. So there is a business relationship on the MMA side. Saudi also has a deal. The kingdom also has a deal with PFL as well. So they are. His excellence. His excellency.

It's sick. They are interested in MMA, but Turkey in particular is only passionate about boxing. He doesn't care about MMA. He really, like he is a boxing super fan who's getting to like, manipulate the game and see his fights that he wanted to see play out. With MMA, he doesn't care about it. It's just a business relationship.

But UFC does have a relationship with Saudi Arabia, as does PFL. And so they're in the combat sports realm, but as far as Turkey in particular, he is boxing, boxing, boxing. He bought the ring. He only cares about boxing. So I don't know if you could ever,

like, if you were Dana White bring him in, nor I don't think you'd want to, as you pointed out, like, this is my thing. Maybe you stay over there. But it feels like that's also Turkey's thing now on the boxing side and maybe Dana White, you kind of stay over here. Yeah, I think that's, it's not really working out like Dana White might have watered it too. We'll see because they're doing like the, they're going to do their version of like the boxing cards that I think are going to be closer to Contender series where it's like we're building it up.

And I think Dana will have a lot more of his footprint on that that will then lead to some of those fighters going toward these like bigger boxing cards. So let's see if that can ultimately be successful. They got a great deal where it's no loss for them. Saudi is footing the bill and they get to produce all this content and build these fighters the most interesting next step for me on that front

is what's going to happen with the Muhammad Ali Act. They are trying to alter the Muhammad Ali Act which many people think will be beneficial to them enacting a similar structure like you said where the UFC just ports over their thing into boxing

what happens there is going to be the big next step. If we're cheering for the fighters to get paid better with the Paramount Plus deal and everything like that, we want to keep the Muhammad Ali Act and intact for the pay for these boxers going on Zufa, Zufa boxing. It'll be fascinating.

Who's the guy? Who's our guy, the reporter up there? He got up there and asked that question. Yeah, Sean C. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was pressing them all. Set up. Set up the interview. Yeah.

Set up. Do you think that interview will ever happen? Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. I think Dana walked up the stage and was just like, make sure we never have an interview

with that. But you see a little stumbling block like that. not happening in the UFC. Those guys are picking John Morgan. There's the question. You know what I mean? There's nobody's pulling that stuff in the UFC game. So it could maybe open them up to some like...

Actual tough questions. I mean, he did an interview with PBS Las Vegas. And Amber Dixon, she was really pressing him hard on some questions. And like, she was... I love it. Some great rebuttals. Like, he was like, well, I've been part of the, you know, you know, MMA fighters have...

had massive paydays, look at Connor McGregor. And she's like, yeah, in a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather. I think, yeah, it's nice to see. The one biggest difference beyond just like, you know, the media corps is like, the MMA space and UFC have had this issue for years and years and years. And everybody's already asked this and nothing has changed. Whereas in boxing, we're coming from a system where the fighters are elevated already, right? They are protected and operating from the space.

And now they're trying to take certain things away. so people are going to be more inclined to ask these questions, press this matter. If you show up to a UFC event and you're asking Dana White about like, do you think fighters should be paid more of this and that? It's like he's done this for 10 years now. Nothing's changed. The fighters are not unionized. Nobody's pressing for this.

The fighters themselves are not. So it's kind of like falling on deaf ears. Boxing has a real good status point that they're starting from. And now it's like, are you trying to take this away? That's the question. Canello didn't look like. He said some, right? He was like, boxing has always been here.

Boxing has always been good. Boxing will always be good. He wasn't really buying it. And Max Kellerman, what was he? Yapping about so much up there, right? Like, Jesus, like, the Savior is here? If His Excellency was never born, none of us would be here. Yeah.

That was crazy. It was great. Come on. What were they calling him? Blazerman. Boy, that's right. Glacerman. I mean, you can't really bully these top-level stars.

Like you mentioned, Canello Crawford was on the show with Helwani, and he was, you know, throwing out the idea of the Toporia fight, and he's just like, what's that going to bring me, man? Like, what kind of money is that going to give to me, man? Like, why do I need to get involved with that? Like, if it's not going to be as big of a payday as I just got with Canello, then I'm not interested in that. Like, these massive boxing stars are going to get their say in this. For a guy of a Canelo, Terrence Crawford, they'd have to take a pay cut to fight a UFC fighter, whereas for Iliot to Pori or anybody else, it'd be the biggest payday of their life times X. Like, it would be exponentially bigger like it was

for Conner. It's been eight years and they're still bringing up the Connor one. Yeah, exactly. And it's just a completely different economics. But, yeah, Terrence Crawford, what do you make of that? Would you be interested in Iliot-Torporia testing himself against the box? Like, do you think the idea of UFC or MMA fighter versus boxer is silly altogether? Or would you be interested in something like that in a rare circumstance like that?

A rare circumstance? And I think that might be a great circumstance. The guy's got freaking, you know, he's knocking out everybody. guys in the UFC that haven't got knocked out. Max Holloway, like, you know what I mean? Volcanowski, you know, these are guys that, you know, it looks like there's a professional boxer in there with professional MMA guys when he goes in there and fights.

And then, you know, you got to think, like, he's such a disadvantage because he's got all these other weapons to worry about. But maybe he gets in there and Crawford's a wrestler, isn't it? He shows some wrestling stuff, right? Yeah, he's been some videos in the front lawn. What do you think of the video of him sprawling on the front line? Did you see it? I saw something.

I think he put somebody in a cradle. I don't know who you had in a cradle, but it looked pretty good to me. Let's get Terrence in the cave, man. I think we got to do like a modified. We got to do, what is it, dirty boxing, Mike Perry or something. Yeah, yeah.

Round one we'll do, we'll do boxing, round two. Oh, like the one FC, right? Yeah, yeah, I like that. Make them do something like that. But, yeah, if they fought in straight boxing, obviously, you know where, you know, the odds would be, probably, right? But, I mean, it'd be something cool to see.

What's the weight difference? So, Terrence. His last fight before Canello was at 154, but he's been a 147 guy. And so he's right in the range of Ilya. He fought 145, 155. He fought Canello at a much higher weight, but that was just because it was Canello. That's not where he's going to compete. It seems like he's saying he might settle at like the 160 range.

Ilya and him at 160 would be fine. They could find a weight to agree upon. It almost seems like Ilius just idolized Connor McGregor coming up. It seems like there's so many similarities. but he's kind of like taking it to his own level and Conner's done it before so he's going to have to do something that Connor's never done. That's right. And beating a guy like that.

He'd have to get the win. That's the difference. It's either that or three belts. Those are the two options. You win in the boxing match that Connor couldn't or you win three belts. Those are the two options for how you separate. Go up to 170?

Yeah. Yeah, there's like a meme that goes around where it's like you are at this stage of the Connor McGregor career and like Ilya is at the stage where he's calling out boxers now. He got the two different belts, and then it's like return against the Dagestani,

and it'd be Islam, and then break your leg. Oh, wow. Imagine he wins at 170, and, like, that's a fight that I would have wanted to see at 155, but maybe it happens at 170, and then you win that fight at 170, you beat the Dagestani guy, and now you win the boxing match.

I love it. What do you think of, like, Islammachachia, but, you know, obviously you've been in there with Habib, you've also been around the sport as Habib was on the Ascent. What do you make of just the dominance of that team? What do you make of them being able to transfer from Habib to Islam, missing no beats? Even a guy like Umar, who had a great fight with Marab, like definitely to me, like the most interesting fight Marab's had that I thought people could be competitive with him in a long time. What do you make of that team and that type of style? I think they're all

very similar to Marab in a lot of ways. They're 24-7, 365. they come from an area where they kind of probably have like a little genetic advantage and like cardio like you know like it's it's it's nature and nurture they're naturally you know they have a a level that they can get to and then once they put 24-7 365 they get a whole other level and that's what's the difference between them and a lot of these guys and I think Islam's just like he's like the 2.0 version he's I think he's like a little longer a little stand-up maybe more confident. He's definitely had Khabib to look up to

and then to take the ball and run with. I think Khabi was kind of more like the front-runner, so he didn't have like, you know, he paved the way for Islam to run with the ball, and I think it's a dangerous dude, you know what I mean? Yeah. And even Usman, who's going to compete for PFL, like they're just, they just don't lose.

Like, these guys are just unstoppable. It's incredible. I mean, we saw Marab. earlier this year fighter Naramaka Medov as a massive underdog in that fight I got up like plus 200

which yeah we found to be pretty crazy gets it done in incredible fashion comes back from being down two rounds than none he's fighting in two weeks against Corey Sandhagan

we talked about him a little bit earlier in the show fighting in two weeks against Corey Sandhagan the under price tags are gone he is a minus 420 against Corey Sanhagan

obviously you know Marat very well like you have to assume he's going to be 100% ready for this I got to think so. I mean, he was, I saw it. He was sparring with Aljo, I think yesterday or the day before. And, no, he's just, he's loving it. He loves the, he loves, he loves Corey Sanhagen's, the problems that he possesses

and figuring out how to, you know, navigate that. And I think, I just think he's, he's just going to keep, he's on such a role right now. He's just, you know, and guys are just fearing that cardio that you don't want to, you don't want to throw a punch, because if you miss, your level goes down this much, and then his level goes up this much, and it's, and Corey, Corey's, he's on a run. He's a dangerous guy. He's got some weapons that are crazy. He's great standing up. He's great on the ground. That middle, I think, is where Marab, as always, is probably going to pull away, and then the cardio, too. I think, I think it's stylistically a very good fight for Maraub, and the odds makers agree. And Corey definitely

poses a lot of problems, but I think Marab's just so focused. It's just not even a thing. Do you think, like, if you had to say this style is the style that I think will have the best opportunity against Marab, right? Is it somebody like Corey who's super well-rounded,

dangerous in the grappling, dangerous in the striking? Is it somebody like Umar who's like trying to match what Marab does? Ultimately, I think that's not the option, but I'm curious what you think because I think Marab's always going to be better, right? If you're trying to out Marab Marab, you're going to lose that battle. But I almost do feel like the other style, the like well-rounded style,

is going to lose those middles like you said. So what is the style that's going to pose the biggest threat to Maraup? That's the thing is you can't even imagine it. You know, try to create the fighter to beat them. And you can't even create it in a lab, you know. A guy that would have to be, you know, you try to catch Maraub early. Is that it? Is it, O'Malley?

You have to ice them if you can, basically. Yeah, but then if you don't, try too hard, then, you know, it's almost like it's hard to do that because you got to expend the energy. You don't want to, you're just, you know, it's just like in the back of your head. It gets you tired because you're just thinking, it's like if you, like a mental thing, if you're just thinking like, don't get tired, don't get tired. The word tired is just always in your head. And before you know it, you're like, oh, I'm tired. I didn't do anything yet. Just thinking about the word got me tired. You know what I mean? The guy's bouncing around in

in front of you throwing punches. You think he's punching, he's shooting. You think he's shooting. You think he's shooting. He's punching. Then he shoots. You end up. on your back. It's crazy. I get, I don't know, I get like a claustrophobia just thinking about being locked in a cage with that. It's crazy. I know, because on top of everything, man, he's just kind of a madman. Like, he's diving into lakes. I saw the other week he had a baseball bat and he was just hit the logs and like, he's just like out for a jog. Like cinder blocks. Cinder blocks. He's out for a jog before a title fight and he like tears his whole shin open. He's like, his stitches will work. He had a, he had a giant cut on his finger before the last fight. Like, he's out of

He's just a madman who's always going to be game on top of that. You talked about Al Joe. I mean, he's doing great at 145. Calling for a title shot, throwing his hat in the ring for it. Don't know if we'll get it with where Lorone Murphy is at and everything, but he has seamlessly gone up to 145, taken on really tough fights, and, like, adjusted brilliantly to where he is in the title conversation. He's right there, you know, in this game, all you've got to be is, like, right there,

and things happen, things, you know what I mean? Things move around. You were talking about it. You got that shot. Yeah. And you took the opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, you never know what can happen in this game,

but as long as you're, like, in the conversation, anything can happen, and he's right there. I think he's deserving of a title shot. I can understand why people might not think so, and Murphy, right, he's right there. But I don't know. I think that's probably the way the UFC will go. But I think Aljo's one fight away, you know what I mean? Definitely. And if the stars align, he can.

be right in there is stay ready because it could happen in any moment i think his big advantage is he has a name right lorone murphy is a great fighter but like name value wise much more people know algeman sterling former champion i think that's going to be his biggest advantage i do think ultimately lorone will get it and he has to fight one more but like as you said if opportunity comes knocking like he's a guy who could easily call and just be like hey come in into this fight yeah yeah no he's uh that that division's crazy too right yeah yeah 155, 145, 35, I mean, well, 75, I don't know about it. It's just kind of like Marob's like, like, dominate it.

At this point, it's like everybody's like on this floor and Rob's on the second floor just like, fucking, you know, running laps. Even this real estate, first floor, second floor, three bedrooms upstairs. Rob's got the freaking, he's got the penthouse up there, right? Come on. One other thing I want to get into you, we were scrolling through the Twitter account before we got on. And there was just a, there was a few tweets, a handful of tweets that we wanted to pick your brain on here. We can just start running through them. Just some tweets that we found. This one, this idea, power slap, but with calf kick.

So I'm assuming it's the same thing you line up, but instead of taking a slap to the face, you take a kick to the calf. Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I don't know what the heck I, I'm on Twitter. Maybe I have a couple of drinks. I'm like, oh, it sounds like a really good thing to take. Like, I want to know if you were watching Power Slap when you came up with that. I'm going to say I was probably watching, like, two idiots kicked themselves in the leg. Yeah.

And, like, I was like, oh, this is a great idea. Well, the brilliance of it is the lack of brain damage. Like, you know, at the end of the day, all you're hurting is the bones and the muscles down there. But I think people love the brain damage. These guys, people do love the brain damage. These poor guys with the Power Slap. Do you watch it or are you just kind of like? I don't know what.

So I hated it. And then I watched an episode Here comes the twist So this is Morab fights Peter Yon Yeah And it's me Jay Griggs

Jason Griggs He actually owns the Ultimate Fighter House right now And the power slap house Wow really He's the owner He's a good friend of mine He's from Belmore Long Eyes

Right Oh get out But he moved out to Vegas Like 15 years ago He was a club promoter Ended up Parlaying that into a real estate career Owns a bunch of Airbnb's

Bought this sick Airbnb and now the UFC does so I'm with Griggs and a few other people and we're like oh the power slap is tonight so I text short Shelby they were like I think I was a little drunk

already definitely don't give him tickets to the power slap. Amber from the UFC she was I'm sorry I'll we're sold out we don't have any tickets for you guys I go I'm with the guy that runs the power slap pass can you get can he he's he we couldn't get a ticket

so we snuck in we just walked right in i bought a power slap shirt i acted like i was supposed to be there we walk in someone's slapping like as we're like sneaking in everybody's eyes are on the on the slap yeah so they're not watching so we're like oh this is perfect they caught three of my friends and they oh me and griggs got through so it's just the two of us and we're like text and we're like, yo, we got in, we're in here. I looked to my right, Amber, right there. He looks over and she's like, what are you doing here? I was like, I couldn't miss it.

I had to be here for this. So she ended up letting us stay, got us bracelets. She respected the fact that we weren't going to let anything take us back. And I watched that thing. And I was like, it's such a spectacle. It really does make you feel like, I don't know. like you're it's it's you're like sitting there and you're like yeah kill him yeah it's like it's you're just watching like these poor guys it's like the guys like like uh like they just woke up and

they were like yeah let's pay these idiots to slap each other and like for our entertainment and i'm like oh there's no turning that thing into a sport it's not a sport it's a spectacle yeah there is something about it that's like but there's also it's like all these poor guys but i don't I don't know. Maybe they need the money and, you know, what else are they going to do? Maybe they can work a worse job than a little bit of brain damage to get some money. But, you know what I mean? I don't know. I stuck into that and I had a different, I had a different, I don't know. Yeah, I still hate it.

It changed your perspective. I don't know. You're not anti it. It's consumable, but you don't love it either. Yeah. I don't know. I still watch it a little bit. He became a fan. Yeah, he loves it. he's the ambassador for power but I also like

by the way nobody is a bigger fan than you because nobody has ever snuck into power slap you're the number one dollar slap fan I snuck into that thing and I wasn't missing it for the world don't try to tell me I can't go to this but uh yeah

I forgot what I was gonna just say but it's um yeah I'm almost like more like I'm not I like laughing with it kind of thing I'm like oh power slap yeah these guys like you know like ugh whatever I don't know

I don't think it's... Did you know that those guys can use the UFCPI? Like, they are, they have the same benefits around the campus as power self-athletes. They're only UFC.com roster. Yeah. Like, they're mixed in with the UFC athletes. Let's focus on the UFC. We got guys like, you know, we got like, you know, we got like, guys fighting in freaking Perth this weekend that I'm, I'm trying to like, you know what I mean?

Yeah, get to know them, even know who they are. Yeah, I want to know these guys. Let's do a little, like, something, you know? getting me, I shouldn't be getting me involved with you guys slapping each other. I'm with you. We should be watching these guys

of Perth. Tweet number two. Here we go. Back to the tweets. Dreykis first Bilal has to happen next. Can you sell us on this one? Is it Drigas cutting to 170 or is it Belal going up to 185?

They just got a five. I feel like there was too many fighting words. Yeah, like you're coming into my town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, listen, if we're going to act like we're like mobsters coming in and you got to accept your, you know, whatever, give you a ticket to my town

and then Drickus is in there and then they're like booing them. That's got, that's like fight that's got, you know, bro, people are booing me because of you. Let's go. I feel like I'm starting to notice a trend here which is that you are firmly in the camp

of like if we're talking shit to each other, you must back it up. Like there's no like, there's no like fake like this is just for Twitter. If somebody says something, you feel like there's an impetus like we have to fight now. If you say some shit to me, we have to fight.

And it gets to a certain level where it's like, all right, there's like certain things maybe you could say to build a fight, but then if freaking 5,000 people are booing me, I don't know, because of you, because you had to, and you're not even in my way, clear, so what are we even talking about? Why are you going to say, I'm coming into your town? I don't know where, how did that whole thing start? I think, I think, Drickis has always kind of like,

yeah, Drickis is always kind of taking shots of Balala, and Balala was trying to get his get back. And Belal needs to get back And this is the one Like, everyone clowns on me And that's the dog You know what I mean? I want to see Bilal get crazy

Belal's got to get a little crazy He needs to fight right now Nice, you know what I mean? He gets them very streakus And make him eat his words And then people Ah, what? They want to freaking

The guys with the questions In the audience when he was doing that interview Yeah, well now I like it. I like it. All right, Belal DDPA at a 180 catch weight All right, tweet number three Oh no

You've never seen a baby seagull Have you seen a baby seagull ever I haven't but like they have to exist Because we've seen grown seagulls They just I don't know I don't know how it works Have you ever seen a baby?

I have not but that's a great tweet I don't understand I was yeah I don't know what I was doing But I was just thinking Is this or you walk in the beach And you're like I've never seen them Or is this you've had a couple drinks And you're like you know what

I've never fucking seen one I was definitely at the beach We were just talking at the beach You know I'm at the beach a lot I think about Seagulls. All right. Tweet number four.

Oh, God. You quit Zins for a week and you got COVID. You do the math, Jimmy. I love it. Listen, they say that nicotine can have some effects with viruses and stuff. That's all I was getting at. No need to quit now. Yeah, I did kind of quit.

They just phased out. I don't know. They started tasting bad. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I was like doing like crazy Zins. They really caught on for a while where everyone was doing them. Now I feel like they've kind of chilled out a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. It can't be good for you. Nah, I can't. But I didn't get COVID while I was doing the Zins. I'll tell you that. I don't think it was COVID, but it was a good tweet. It was a good tweet.

All right, tweet number five or four, one of them. My favorite thing to do at the airport is run up a crazy tap at the bar and sneak away and get on the plane. I've never done that ever. I thought this was a confession right here. Oh, no. They'd get you. I just say, I was just saying that.

It does make you wonder. Like, I mean, sometimes those bars are right by the gates. Like, it's just like, yeah, I'm going to go piss right quick. And then you just never, you just get. Did that guy just get on the plane? Like, you're gone, especially if you're never coming back to that city. I just saw a video of a guy who didn't pay his bar tab at the airport. and like cops coming to him and confronting him about it.

Shut up. Like when he landed in the next city? No, no, no. He doesn't sneak onto the plane. That's the problem. He was at the gate and they were like, sir, like you didn't pay. And then he did a whole thing. But yeah, I guess the key is you got to be near your gate

and then you can just sneak on the plane. Not that we're condoning this. We do not condone this. I condone it. Tweet number five, tweet number six, whatever, last one. Oh, yes. I would like the word tabernacle to have an increased usage in my life and yours.

This is like six months ago to the day, so like six months later, have we been able to increase? I noticed so far we're like an hour 36 into this, no tabernacles yet. I don't think I've said the word since I tweeted that. What a great word, though. I mean, it is. It is, yeah. I mean, there was a venue. I'm from Atlanta.

There was a concert venue called The Tabernacle. And it gave you this image of this, like, real powerful, great place. And it was like a rundown shack, but the name carried it. It's a great word. I feel like I looked up the definition. I can't remember. It's got something to do with... I've actually got it right here.

It's a sacred place or object with meanings varying by context, but always relating to dwelling or housing something sacred. So if you're in a tabernacle, it's sacred. Yeah. Or if you have a tabernacle. It's a good word. Great word, right? Yeah, I mean, it looks like...

I'm seeing some blueprints for buildings of it. Who knows? Maybe one day you're selling it. tabernacle. I got to find the tabernacle. He just added a goal to the list. I mean, tavernacle. Lifetime goals.

Sell the tabernacle. It truly is. It's a fantastic word. Those are some great tweets. I was just scrolling through. I was just like, I like it. The stream of consciousness from raging out. I have one more thing.

We have a segment called voicemails, which we're going to do after this. But I have one more question for you, which is, it sounded like you were saying, like Dylan Dennis's name. you know he wouldn't want to fight is that a goal you said you have some goals would you ever would you consider dylan dennis yeah i don't even want to give the time a day i would beat the crap out of that guy so bad what is he gonna do i'm back he's the uh he's fighting for misfits he's the misfit's light heavyweight chain like the he's like the opposite of what like who are you fighting okay the mechanic the one thing i'll say in his defense was he

was signed up through GFL to fight Tony Ferguson. He was going to fight Tony in MMA. Still. Still, what do you do? I don't know. I mean, ma'ams, misfits, they could give you a call. I would beat the crap out of that guy so bad. He can make that fight happen, but he won't.

Guaranteed. He's not fighting anybody. You think it's going to be more like the influencer guys like he just fought? Yeah, he's not going to, you know what I mean? And if he did fight, it would be a disaster. He's not going to put him up and throw some punches You know what I mean?

He's not He's, like, who do you fight? Logan Paul? He fought Logan, yeah. That was the, that was pretty bad. That was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.

That was, I would be embarrassed. My dad would never talk to me again. If I fought like that, that was one of the most disgusting like, the guy didn't throw a punch, he tried to do a guillotine at the end. He couldn't even get that right.

And he goes in there, he guillotines this guy, in like 10 seconds. The guy doesn't even know what a guillotine is. He said, I'm not training Jiu-Jitsu. Like, what are you doing? Oh, yeah, the mechanic's shooting for a takedown against the BJCB. That was just so, that whole thing.

But, I mean, yeah. I'm going to give Dylan Dennis a little bit of bail here, which is I do think people have come to hate him so much. They forget that he is actually good at Jiu-Jitsu, and he was like a decent prospect for Bellator. Like, when he was fighting in MMA, like, he was doing a decent progression. He was kind of on his way up. But it's been a long time since we've seen that from him.

So I think people are just like, fuck this guy, he sucks, he stinks. Like, jiu-jitsu-wise, like, he's still a dude. In M.MA, I don't know. Maybe he could compete. Yeah, jiu-suitous, I don't get you so far nowadays. Yeah. We're going to pull guard against thinking a guy. Somebody raining down punches on him.

Yeah, it's not, this isn't, you know. I'll tell you what. I would watch, I would watch Raging Now versus Dillon Dennis. don't make me get back in shape I'd kick the crap I feel like I'd kick the crab out of him with it like just on like real estate shape instincts

and like redefine meals that I'm you come from the open house to smash them up or it happens in an open house yeah that would I mean we could make it happen uh all right so we do have

but if he wants to freaking fight I'll kick the shit tell me I'm not bad I'm not saying out I want to go to the single here let out let's have out got a promo No, no, no, no, I'm not cutting a promo. Don't put me on, I don't belittle me, making it, oh, if I was, yeah, guy, I fought freaking Khabib Namauga made of.

You're going to make me freaking, do cut a promo for, Kabeep fought Dylan, too, outside the cage after the Connor fight. Exactly. If I catch him on the street, I'll freaking, it almost happen. Have you guys ever, like, he's obviously from the tri-state area. Like, have you guys ever run into each other? Yeah, once, once he, I knew that he, he, I knew that he, had just had surgery and I kind of like, I don't know.

I let him off the hook. Oh, so there was like a encounter somewhere. Yeah, he was trying to, it was during COVID. I don't even want to talk about it. All right, all right, all right, right. He got off, he knows he got off the hook. He had, it was me with a bunch of girls and it was him with freaking, it was me like, it was like couples.

And then he was with like freaking, a couple of his fighter friends. And he was hobbling around. What are you talking shit for? You just had knee, he just had knee surgery, bro. He's just watching in. Hey, fuck you out. Once, bro. Get out of here.

So, yeah, just, I know that guy, like, what he's all about. Good for him. He's maybe making some money, but is that how you want to go out in life? I don't know. You didn't throw a punch against the Logan Pull. He pulled the guillotine. You're freaking fighting, you know. Hey, whatever.

You're making money. It's all nice. I hope he's doing all right. I hope he doesn't cry when he sees this. I like it. It's a happy ending. All right. So we do have a segment called.

voicemails. Not very creative. It's literally voicemails. There it is. A little production for you. Fans call in, leave us voicemails. But we said last week, we got Aleco, Aliquinta coming in studio, leave him a voicemail. So these voicemails are going to be, hopefully, targeted to you for you to answer. Yeah, we'll see if there's some for you, hopefully. Ahoy, hoi, hoi. Yo, what's up guys? Shout out to everyone. It's your boy, Connor, here. It's your boy, Connor, here. 2M2O's from Yardley PA. Oh, I like that. Shout out to the 2-1-5.

Shout-up. My question is, are the cards really as thin as everyone is saying in terms of stars, or is the UFC just doing a terrible job at making the fans care about the new-age fighters? Like, I feel like a Nate Diaz or another win-loss fighter doesn't get as famous if they were to come up in today's era. I feel like the people with record short of a Hamza or Islam don't get to love anymore, causing the Starpool to be so thin. Love to hear y'all's thoughts.

Keep up the great work. Peace, I'm out of y'all. Yes, I mean, we were kind of just saying that. Like, I think we're all in agreement when it comes to that. Like, it feels like there's not enough love to these normal fight nights. I'm not calling Nate D. as a win-loss fighter. The guy beat kind of short notice. You know what I mean?

I don't know. And he had his brother, and his brother was at a time when he was like, you know what I mean? I but I do agree with with a lot of that stuff I think yeah there's um there's is a lot of there's a lot of stars out there I think there's a lot of stars on this weekend's card coming up there's a lot of stars that are in the in these upcoming cards that really need to be given the shot you know what I mean a little less power slap a little more UFC Perth you know yeah and and I think the the biggest thing that we've kind of been circling around in this this callers pointing out is like the personalities are not really shining through it's kind of just like

you get from week to week you get from fight night to fight night and you don't really have people like breaking through like to learn more about them like you're a great example right like you had so many fans at through your like the bulk of your UFC career it wasn't just like when you're finally fighting for a title a guy like marab really didn't get like highlighted until he's like near championship level I feel like the era is a little bit different like we want to see like more of the personalities and see it come through. And I think that's why this show is so great because this is one of like the last, like the last of the Mohicans with this stuff.

You know what I mean? Like this gives the fighters the platform. And I think for fighters that choose not to come on and doing them a big disservice or for whatever reason or not, right? But I think that, like I think Ariel and you guys have been a big part of the sports like development. And I think, I think Dana was joking a little bit, you know, when he said. Maybe he should, but maybe in the back of his mind, he's like, ah, you know what I mean?

While I'm going off doing a little bit of power slap in boxing, maybe these guys could find some stars for me, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, it's a great point. Like, Ariel has always been here to highlight the people's personalities, let people into that, learn more about them. And the UFC seemingly is not, like, as invested in that as they once were. Yeah, yeah. Go, boiling them back. It's Jimmer. What's up, Jim?

So it looks like we're getting Conner McGregor on the White House card, and it looks like Michael Chandler's finally going to get his date after all that time waiting. But my question to you guys is, do you think there is a world of possibility where Conner McGregor wins against Michael Chandler and fights Max Holloway for the BMS championship? To be honest, I thought that they were going to headline

the White House with Connor fighting for the BMS belt, because it just doesn't really make sense for him to headline over Amanda and Kayla if he isn't fighting for a belt, but I guess he's Connor and rules don't really apply to him. But yeah, anyways, let me even know what you guys think. Shout out Andy, shout out Honor Jordan, shout out Rick, shout out GC, and most importantly, shout out Frankie. Love you guys. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, if we see Connor come back, then nothing would shock me.

It's just about him getting into the Octagon for that fight back. Yeah. I don't really see that fight happening, him and Max, but maybe. And it does kind of feel like they're at different wavelengths right now in terms of their career. Like Max is still trying to make this push for a rematch against Lillia at 155, whereas Connor, we have no idea where he's at in his fighting career. Yeah. It's a good fight, though.

I'd watch it. I mean, of course, if they didn't watch it. It was good boys. This is Chris from Los Angeles. I got a question for you guys. First, shout out of all three of you. Shout out Andy in the back. Yeah.

question though. Why doesn't anyone, in terms of like when they say pound for pound, how come they don't give credit to actual fighters who, I guess in my opinion, pound for pound is people who moved up and moved down and weight in that success. Like, I feel like a guy like Frankie Edgar, who is a very much undersized light weight, and he went down to featherweight, fought up all the way to several title shots there. I think he beat Pedro Munoz and that made him a top five ranked Banimate. So he was ranked top five in three divisions. Yeah, guys like Hendo, who is a middleweight champion, light heavyweight champion, beat Fador. I think that was that heavyweight in strike person on the second.

I don't think Fador is Doey-Sk and make light-heavyweight. Shout out Fado. Shout out Fado. Also, you know, like Connor, you know what I mean? I know you fought Nate at Walter Wade. That's a lightweight, but Nate is, you know, he's now a Walterweight. So how can we don't really recognize pound for pound as people who can actually just move up with, move up and wait and whatnot?

I feel like that's what they do in boxing, you know, and that's what Crockett kind of did. but I mean what you guys think. I got a fun question for you guys next week if you pick this one up. All right, peace. What do you think, Al? We were talking about Frankie. I was saying, like,

I think he's one of the most underrated. I think Hendo falls into that class too where it's like going up and slaying giants. Like, maybe we start here. Like, what is your definition of pound for pound? Do you look at pound for pound? Do you care about it? And if you do, like, what's pound for pound?

I think pound for pound to me is almost kind of like, like the real BMF, you know what I mean? Like the guy that's like, that's like the guy you want to be you know what i mean like that's you're like the champion of champions yeah you know like in the wrestling tournaments it was always like you do the rest tournament in each tournament you know it was the 135 weight class 141 you know each weight class and at the end there would be the most outstanding wrestler and that was like that was like the guy and all the all the champions i think would vote and all the coaches like it would be like kind of like the people's people you know what i mean

that's kind of like how I like define the pound for pound you know and do you think like a guy like a frank Yeager is kind of like I think he's underrated I don't know if you agree but I just feel like somebody who can go up weight classes and have success to me is a very significant feat I know title defenses is one of the hardest things if not the hardest thing that you could possibly do right because you're just turning through contenders you're facing the top of the top but the idea of a guy like in Ilya tuporia moving up in weight to me is very significant and matters because you're now facing a whole new different set of people with

different skills and physicality. Islam, if he's able to do it at 170, I think that's very significant. So I put a lot of weight into being able to do that. I love when, it seems like it doesn't happen now. It's only like guys are like in their division. They win the belt and then maybe move up. I remember when Anderson Silver fought James Irvin. Remember that? That was so cool. Forest. Yeah. And that was like a way to like build a guy up. It was like, all right, he's not fighting like it's not fighting like a top 10 guy in the weight class above but he's going up he's fighting a guy it was kind of like something really cool about that he knocked him out you know what I mean I think that did a really good that was like really big for Anderson at the time I thought

that was cool BJ was my favorite fighter for so long because of that so many he didn't care about anything I didn't give a shit what the way Connor moved through weight classes yeah yeah yeah going from 145 170 155 just taking any fight that's available to him and just building that star power I mean shout out Kevin Holland you know let's not sleep on the man who who bounces between divisions yeah i guess nobody's business yeah what's going on y'all big fan my name's christian um checking in because i'm down 55 pounds uh going for a good job pounder uh in terms of how much i'm trying to drop to reach peak sexy uh question for you guys yesterday i decided that i'm going to meal prep everything for the next five weeks uh and i had

my last supper quote unquote which was just some straight up fried fish had about eight pieces of fried fish with some rice and peas and collard greens. So my question to you guys, what is your favorite cheat meal or your guilty pleasure as it pertains to unhealthy eats? Love the show. Keep doing

what y'all doing? How man, what was it for you? Like, you just got done with a camp. You could... Oh, a fight. Yeah, you just got done with a fight and you get to just go a ham. What are you going on? First off, his... I mean, the fish fried is probably not the best, but peas and collard greens doesn't... It's a... It's a lot. It's a lot of...

It sounds like a nice southern meal. It wasn't too bad. You could do a lot worse than what he did. I think for me it's like chicken parmesan with the ice cream at the end. The ice cream, I could just eat ice cream until I explode. Oh, same, dude. I put back a whole pint across the course of this past weekend. I mean, it's just too easy to put down.

Like pizza. I'm a dangerous man around a pizza. Six, seven slices, no problem. So is it carbs more? Is it sweets more? Like, what's your, like, lame? It's the combo of them. Both.

Having six, seven slices of pizza and then putting down half a pint of ice. Oh, yeah. Those are rare nights from him, but like it's no problem. When you were cutting, there's some guys who like watch food network and shit like that. Are you that guy or were you like, don't be around me with food? No, I was pretty, I was, we were, and before the ultimate Friday, we got locked in like the palestation for a week. And I would just watch the food. They had like some incredible food stations about like what was going on in Vegas with the,

food and I put it at I put together like a whole list in my head of like that places I wanted to hit I never hit them but I was you know definitely watching the food food network and yeah that's a particularly crazy one because you know you're not getting out of here for weeks you have to do this cut multiple times on the show yeah so that's not torture that's not like the worst case scenario for you because I could see myself just going nuts being like I can't eat this for weeks and like going crazy. Yeah, no, it wasn't, I, I don't think it's, at that point, I mean, if it was like right there in front of me, maybe, you would have pounded it.

Even that, not even. I think you're so focused on, like, what you got to do for me. It was like, I actually liked cutting weight. I was like, I'm a freaking gladiator savage. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm doing this for my fucking dream. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, it was like, I liked, I felt so focused when I was cut weight.

It was like, everything, like, 24-7 was about fighting because I was just. just not, you know, I was like, oh, I'm counting down like the minutes until I could have a banana with freaking almond butter. You know what I mean? Like, sick. What do you think about the ultimate fighter at this point? Or you don't think about it.

They got to do the ultimate fighter in Vegas. Let them go out. They got to change the thing. Real work. Add drama is what you say. Add the drama. That's, we've seen it already. There's enough.

Like, nowadays, you know, like, people are scrolling on Instagram too much. It can't even focus for a freaking, I want to see some crazy, I want to see them. I want to see, like, who's tempted to go out, you know what I mean? When the guy, when the guy jumped the fence and he, like, snuck out, tail, whatever his name was. You know what I mean? Often do they do men's and women's, or is it all, do they ever make it? I think they ever make it. I know where you're getting at.

Mixing the men's and the women's, put them all in the same house. I don't think that's the move. I think, yeah. You want the girls from like, you want like, we're going to put you like on the strip right next to like, you know, we're going to put you like. There's some establishment. Yeah, you know what I mean? You're going to be like tempted, you know what I mean? We used to, in the Ultimate Friday, we used to see the light from the luxor.

Yeah, yeah. And we would just be like, we look at the light. We were like, oh, right there. You know what I mean? Like, imagine you could go out and like, that's when you're like, oh. That's real discipline. You really got to be locked in. You got, like, the Dagestani Muslim guy.

And you got, like, Juni Browning right next to him. And this guy's going out. He's coming back drunk and he's got this. I want to see it just once. I've been thinking about this for a very long time. What about live? He needs the spark bad. What about live?

Do you think that that added, like, something and could be done again? I think it definitely could add, yeah. I think you, and if you put two of those together, you're allowed to go out. And the live? And the live, you know. Now we're, now we're checking. You could bet on the fight, you bet on the guy, and then you're like, oh, no, he went to the club. No way, you know?

Yeah, like that's not bad. That is not bad now. Because I've long thought it's just dead and can't be revived, but actually, that's not a bad idea. That would be, it would be like, you know. I wonder how many fighters you actually get out of it. I think everybody succumbs to the, to the temptation. Well, but then you got, like, the guys that lose, but they stay, you got to stay in the house, you know what I mean? So it's, you know what I mean?

Yeah, but now they're going to the club every night and you're sitting here suffering, sweating in the sauna soon. And then, like, the last day, Dana goes, all right, we're actually giving you all a fight now. Yeah, I was just going to say, that's what they do. They surprise me with the guys that have been going to the club. You got one week to make way to go. Yeah, you get another chance of it.

This isn't bad, Al. I got to tell you. I'm in. It's a reality show. You got to make it one. The boys. What up? I'm going to keep it short.

because I kind of hate the sound of my own voice. I just want to give a couple shoutouts. Shout out to the Queen Andy. Shout out to Jordan. Well, shout out Jordan. Neither of my hand. Also, shout out to Frank. I've seen you on a rank jerkmate in a while, man.

I hope everything is all good. Jesus, what is that? Also, shout out to my brother, N.Y. Rikikiki. Shout to Rikiki. As I'm sure everybody knows, I am the number one G.C. Marks. O'Connor. Yes, shout out, man. Also, the only thing we really disagree on is the quality of the Lord of the Rings franchise,

but, you know, all good, all good. Thumbs up to the chat. Big shout out to the chat. You know, coming to you from Louisville, Kentucky is your boy. Sweet out. Appreciate the call, man. Wait, was that it? That was good, I guess.

You're Lord of the Rings guy? I was going to ask the He's a Lord of the Rings Hater as well. They're trash. They're trash. They never got into it. Just didn't have the time commitment, right?

Like, who can sit down and watch nine hours of walking? Who can do this? It seems like there's a whole, like, world over there with the Lord of the Rings. Oh, yeah. How much going on in it, though? Yeah, no. I couldn't, I couldn't even be, I couldn't even make fun of it because I don't know enough of it. There we go.

What's a guilty pleasure? Like, Alia, Quinta, you finish the day job for the day. You're just at home. What are you doing? Like, what's your, like, what's your, like, thing that you just go to hobby whatever i got a boat oh yeah so i go out on the boat a lot that's nice that's my that's my i skipped the gym about every single day this summer to go out on the boat you know that's nice it's hard to it's hard to resist it's hard it's hard and i bought it three years ago and i

had to fix it a lot and finally this is the first full summer where i've used it it's it's the reason that you you know live so close to the water you just got to make it happen you know Life is good, man. Life is good out on one time, Long Island. All right, so we've been on TV this whole time. We've got to bounce off TV, so we're going to take a quick two-minute commercial break. We'll be right back here, finish up the voicemails with Alia Quentin, and then we'll bounce. All right, welcome back, Frankie.

Let's keep rolling with the voicemails. Hey, it's 24-inch doves. I got a question here, okay. What piece of UFC merch or something from the day of a fight, like gloves, or something you have kept that I don't say different visual maybe

it kept like a brochure from the arena or something good stuff as always guys 24 yourself I'm out

ow what do you have like what mementos do you have if anything I got a lot of stuff I'm a I'm a

collector of like things like that I don't know meaning for for not just your own stuff but like other

fighters and other MMA things? Yeah. I got a pretty cool the fighter's locker room from like Abu Dhabi so like fighters locker room

that has like all the Arab riding is pretty cool. It's above my garage which is the gym so it's like I love that you know

I got the sign I just my fiance found it recently and she was going through like cleaning out my my suitcases

at UFC Brooklyn, the one with where I thought could be they forgot my sign. You know what? At media day?

Yeah, yeah. They forgot to get me a sign. So I wrote Raging Al on a piece of paper. Oh, I remember this, yeah. You remember that? Yeah.

And it was at the time, it was like right when I was, I was like off for a while and like hated the UFC and me were like this. Yeah. And then they forget my freaking sign. And now it was like,

they did it on purpose. And I was like, I don't think they did. They called a rude very apologetic. Mark Lamont La Man Lamonica Lamonica

Mark La Monica He called me Like we were It was maybe like 20 minutes before we were gonna leave And he was like Hey man I'm here I just want to let you know

They forgot your sign I was like what do you mean He was like your sign Like you don't have one It's like not here Like they forgot it And then like 10 minutes So I got prepared for this

I was like huh I was like, all right, made my own sign and acted like it was nothing. Like it was, I was like, I had, no problem. I brought my own. I just brought, you know, I brought my own sign. They thought I was going to bug out about it. So, like, he gave me like the heads up. Yeah, that's great.

I never, I didn't even think about it. And then she was like, oh, what is this? It was like, it's a raging owl on it. It's like all faded and it's like, washed through. It's like great. I still have that. That's a pretty cool one. But the gloves, I keep all the gloves.

Yeah. I've given away a few. you know stuff like that but you get the posters from each event i have the posters i have those hung up in uh in my house most of them yeah yeah those are those are cool so there's always like uh conversation starters oh yeah great mementos that's like the type of thing though that we're talking about the personality right even something like that like there's just no opportunity for stuff like that to happen anymore for you to have not have the thing then you show up like it's just they show up to the dais they do their five minutes they get out like

Even, I remember Nate Diaz, like, drew over, Ariel always loves that one. He, like, drew over the one for the cowboy fight. Like, there's just these, like, moments that were kind of missing. I mean, I feel like you've probably talked about this a thousand times. Well, like, we do have to talk maybe about the bus incident. Like, that card that week. What was, how crazy was it being in the bus as that's all going on? Like, that was just the craziest thing.

I was actually, I was just on Frankie. Yeager's podcast, and we talked about this, like, a lot, and it brought back a lot of the memories from it. It was in the Barclay Center, there's an elevator that goes up and down with the bus, because it's in Brooklyn. Yeah, there's not a lot of room. Let me take, let me throw this somewhere. Yeah, because I'm chewing on things. Yeah, to stick it under the desk. Yeah, there we go.

So the bus goes in on the ground level, like off the street and, like, pulls into this. garage and then it goes down and there's like a dial and it turns it and then the bus pulls in like underneath in like the basement so we did the press conference they forgot my sign i squared it up with felder we get back in the bus and cabeeves right behind me and the bus is like pulling into the elevator and we hear banging now at first i thought it was um fans or something i was like oh they're like fans something when I like whatever and then it was like aggressive and I thought they were running people I thought they were running I thought it was like stop you're killing somebody you know because it was like really yeah like who could be doing

this like yeah so in my in my head I'm like I'm like oh fans cool oh shit no they're running someone over and then something comes flying through the window I was we were in the back right and then that was the front left where like rose Michael Kiesa another his name begins he couldn't fight too got caught

but they were in the front left so I couldn't see all I just see his glass come flying through the window and it was like a bomb went off

I go oh shit I was like I'm trapped on a bus okay what's your first instinct are you thinking safety or are you thinking like

something's about to kick off like what was your like mind as soon as that moment happened once the glass shatters are you the glass shattered I was like almost

like I was hoping there was something that we could like fight our way out of like I was like on the bus with a bunch of fighters I hope that they don't have gone I don't I don't know what it was oh okay yeah I thought you were saying you wanted to fight you're saying I hope if there's a bad scenario like yeah it's something where it's fair like we can find a way out okay got it got I kind of thought it was like an act of terrorism or like so yeah I had no idea I was like this is not good I thought it was like probably like the worst is like this is going to be like a life-changing event. Like, some people might not make it off this.

But it was, like, split second, it would be it. I don't even think I thought that, but it just like, it was like, oh, it was kind of like, oh, it was like, not good. Yeah. And then two seconds later, he comes running around the other side, and he's banging on the window at Khabib, and I was like, oh, I was like, whoa. I pulled out my camera and I was like, I started filming, and, uh, yeah. You're like, oh, shit, what is this guy?

What is Habib doing during this? he was uh he was behind us he didn't know what was going on i don't think either and then once he came off he was like yelling back but we couldn't get off we were in the back and they wanted to get off yeah yeah wanted to get off and fight the guy i'm sure they did i was kind of like i kind of want to fight him too that too yeah scary as fuck's going on here and everybody was going nuts and the best And I kind of, I did Pravino dirty last week when I was, he, he, I, Chris Pravino was, he worked with the UFC, right? So he was on the bus. The whole thing happens.

We get off the bus and Pravino, you know, the cops were in like, they took us to like a back room and the police are like asking us kind of like questions. Everyone's like trying to figure out how the hell these guys, who is he with? What the hell? Where did he go? And Khabibibu. goes to Pravino and he was like ha ha Pravino you got in the position with the plane like when a plane goes down

yeah yeah took the legs took the head in and Pravino was like no I didn't but Kabib said that like it was hysterical you know and I kind of like ran with it and I think he got really mad at me over like over the years because I said it like a couple times and then I said it again on

with Frankie on Frankie's pocket and I was like I was like, yeah, the chances that Pravino listen to this podcast are probably not great. But there's a chance. I said he's probably not going to be happy with me. Sure enough, they clip. The clip in posted.

That was the one clip. They posted like three clips. That was the one. I got a message from Pravino, L.O.L. Like, shake my head. I was like, oh, no. I don't know if it really happened. I didn't see it happen.

Khabi said it. I don't even. By the way, that's a dollar. blasted through the window. Like, I might do the same thing. I'd do that 100%. I'd be like, yeah, man, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. That was the situation.

I used that as like, kind of like, that was kind of like what we thought was going on. It was like, this, we don't know, you know. It was crazy, dude. How quickly did people realize like that, like, Rose, Kiesa, like, that people were actually, like, hurt? Like, beyond just, like, oh, the glass is broken, but, like, people are, like, hurt. Yeah. Pretty. I mean, it was, it was, it was, read Harris was yelling like, what?

he was yelling something and then somebody was like oh it's it's Connor and he was like what like what the fuck like how does he he's not even like he wasn't even in the like thought yeah supposed to be there

yeah he took a private jet must have been partying for 10 hours on the jet before he got yeah you know he gets there and he's just freaking going nuts but uh and then they put it on the embedded episode that week

no no no no they did yeah because wasn't there a whole thing where they like held it back for a while they're like was so upset about it. He's like, this is the most disgusting thing. I don't think they used it right away.

I got the UFC 223 embedded episode five, and it's like 10 million videos. They're not suppressing that. Will Harris, I think. I thought it came out later, but that's crazy. And then obviously, you get a huge opportunity. And it's like, obviously, that must have been a mentally taxing week, right? Like, it's just like the craziest shit in your life is happening all at once. I barely, I didn't sleep much like that whole, that whole week was just nuts.

You know, you don't sleep the night before the fight because you wait, night before the weigh-ins because you're cutting weight. Yeah. You always get a bad night's sleep. You barely sleep. But that, and that was, the bus thing happened. Then I had to cut weight.

All the fighters had to cut, you know, cut the rest of your weight. The weigh-ins the next morning. Then you don't sleep well. The weigh-ins happen. And then, like, you know, 30 minutes later, you find out they're not, Max isn't going to make it.

And then, like, two hours later, I find out I'm fighting, you know, 24 hours, 30, six hours later next day for the for the championship it was my adrenaline carried me through that whole weekend it was wild i ever have a crazier weekend in my life that's it's a problem yeah you would have had a nuts weekend was there any negotiation or was it just like title shot i'm in like well how how did that go i was pretty much like you know at that point i i think i had fought uh like a year before that and then i had a year layoff i was i was that that that that that was

was where I was negotiating a lot before that fight. I ended up getting a good, a big uptick in my pay to fight Felder. And didn't even matter because they ended up giving me, you know, a big bonus for the title shot, you know. But I probably could have, you know, I was just at that point so focused on trying to win the fight that I was like, yeah, I don't really, I don't even care. Anything I get is more than I was going to get and, you know. Well, there's a world where it's like they, you know, go somewhere else, right? Like if they say like, yeah, so you're just like, I'm in, put me in. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. Such an opportunity. And I think it was the best thing rather than negotiate. I mean, I probably could have. So they kind of like verbally, I don't know what happened, but the press conference, they did another press conference. I forget how the timeline worked. then they did maybe it was like was it like that night they did it yeah the night of the wayans they did another press conference something like that I was in a press conference I remember the

other press conference I don't know the timing of it but yes I remember this was another press conference which I don't know what I forget why because the next day was the wayans so when would they had been it was it the it was the wayans maybe and they did like a press conference after the wayans which they don't usually do something but they had my con like the contract for the new fight they had already done all the promotion but i never signed the contract and i looked at it and i was like so this is on the dais like you sit down and it's there or backstage backstage we're about to walk out i think like we i already had to do like all the media again i had to do all the media so we did like all like the backstage interview like right away it was like immediate he didn't

make wait they call you they give it the fight boom we did all that first and then they had the contract in front of me and i was like oh i don't know i think if i just at another zero. I was like, you already did. At this point, it's like a little too late to go back.

And I looked in whoever the girl's face that had it. And I think she thought the same thing. And I was like, I just, I called my manager.

And I was like, is this like, is this the contrary? I kind of like walk through it. And I was like, all right. And I signed it. I feel like,

what would have happened if I was just like, you know what? Throw another zero on that. You know what I mean? And at the very least, they're going to be like, well,

we'll meet you in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. You walk out to the press conference and they're like, and now fighting for the title, and it's somebody else. They just pulled them from the back. 13th ranked, dude, or something. Wow.

Yeah, if you have a crazier few days than that, it would take the craziest events. Just rewatching the video, I hadn't seen it in a minute. Like, it really is jarring. Like, I mean, like, the whole window gets blown out. Oh, yeah. And, like, he is, like, on a war path. Like, he's grabbing trash cans.

He's grabbing tables. Like, he has insane that you were on the bus with it. Yeah, the security acted pretty good. to get because he was throwing he was going to wreck that hole that he was going he grabbed a whatever he grabbed like a freaking uh one of those big metal like blockade things I think crazy man yeah he says is bleeding from the forehead a lunatic yeah dude but I mean I don't know it's it's like it's incredible promotion for the next fight but it's kind of like it's definitely telling the line between like just being a bad person you know yeah

I mean, he had to come back to Brooklyn to do community service for it. But it all worked out in his favor. He fought for Kibib, and it was the biggest fight. Yeah, biggest pay-per-view in UFC history. Yeah. It's crazy, man. As always, the UFC wins, right? Like, they get the promo, they just move on.

It's funny that you mentioned they were going to suppress it. The top comment on the YouTube video is, in quotes, that was the most disgusting thing to ever happen in the UFC. Puts it on Embedded. Yeah, I swear in my head I built it up where it was like, they didn't release it right away, but it turns out they did. yeah um wow what a what a wild time much love of y'all man i'm just a long time watching

he was love to y'all god blessings shout out to ariel keep doing what y'all know oh that's it oh that's nice shout out man thanks for the message i like it great voicemail harry calling the gun from long island shout out to gc we don't want them This one is for the legendary raging ally, Quinta. As a fellow Long Islander, shout out to Ron Concoma and Rocky Point.

What are your favorite things about the island? I ask because the biggest Long Island hater is right next to you. Let you see know what's up. Thanks. So the truth comes out. I love Long Island. This is crazy. I've given it nothing but praise, man.

I love Long Island. This man has slandered Long Island for far too long. I love Long Island. It's a beautiful area. We do a segment where he goes to taste different foods and things. And for one of them, it was like at somebody's house. It was for Seattle. But the house was in Long Island, so they had to go to the grocery store, do this.

Atlantic Beach, beautiful. Atlantic Beach. Yeah, yeah. On Air Jordan, a guy who works in the show, but is not here today, lives in Atlantic Beach. And so they went down there. And yeah, he just shit all over Long Island in the entire video. I think I said how much I loved it. Beautiful highways.

He's like. Beautiful. Listen, I think the highways, you got to have a Southern State Parkway in your life because it makes you so much tougher. If you can get to work every day on this, on, you go, the merge between the Southern state and the Meadowbrook, if you can do that, you're probably like right there to be like, you could probably do like some sort of like NASCAR racing you could do like some of those guys would just they would run all they're not interested they're just trying to get to work you know

what I mean a little F you here and there you've got a you've got a you're like it's like a war path every day to get to work that's the beautiful thing about long island besides the beaches you got the south shore the beaches east Atlantic Beach long beach point lookout that beaches is Jones Beach. Jones Beach is, you know, kind of like more like a, it's a, what was just like a mainstream beach.

You know what I mean? I'm more of like a Lido West kind of guy. They got to surf. People fly in from all over the world. Hurricane, what was the hurricane recently? Sandy? No, well, people weren't really surfing.

I forgot the name of the. People are surfing on the roof. Yeah. But most recently was, I forget what the hurricane was. I mean too. I swear there were people, there's birds out there.

That's a window. We can open it up. Holy shit. But there were people that flew in from all over the country, really, to surf in Lido West, Long Island. People think New York. They don't think surf, yeah. And these are the best surfers in the world that come to Long Island to surf. You really don't think about it.

You're by the city. I could take 45 minutes. Uber ride to see you guys in the city here. That's the key. You got Montauk, the Hamptons, if you want to be like bougie, whatever. and you got the north shore of Long Island. You got everything right there. You got to pay your property taxes.

It's a little exclusive. We don't want everybody. You've got to work hard. You're going to be working. You're going to be going on the Southern State Parkway. And you will be tested. That is your right to passage on Long Island. We don't want the people that aren't doing that.

You know what I mean? There's a different type of person. Somebody from like, you know. He's from Atlanta, Georgia. Someone from Atlanta, Georgia is going to have to go. through the ringer. You know what I mean? You have to pass through the fire. You very could have easily have gone back. You know what I mean? Like, you're here. It says a lot about you. You should be proud of you. That was a great promo for Long Island. I can't lie. I have a confession now.

So growing up as a Queens boy, the longest time, people would be like, I'm from Long Island. I'd be like, you're not from New York. You know, you're, it's not really neat. I agree. I agree. We should succeed. So I would always think. Queens and Brooklyn are not part of Long Island. No, no, no, no. Despite being on the same island. Did you bring up a good point? Yeah. That's our frank.

I would, I would disagree. I think, yeah, I would say it's Nassau County is the line. Yeah. New York, you know, the state of New York is, you know, right there, boom. Nassau Queens border. The state of Long Island is, you know. The Nassau County, the state of Nassau, the state of state, well, that's the state, but the county, Nassau is the state of Long Island.

So it's Nassau, Queens border, Long Island versus the world. That's the, that's the... I mean, listen, we could all get along. You can, you know what I mean? But, like, we're paying a lot of taxes and, like, the, you know, the whole state's eating from them. You know what I mean? Yeah. So maybe we kind of, like, do our own thing a little bit.

I think we got, you know, we've got the population for it. I think we'd be, like, one of the top 10 most popular states if Long Island was a state on its own. I love this. I was proposing this just to be like I kind of disrespected Long Island for a while and then now that I live there I love it so much like the idea like what you said like 45 minutes out

from the city I've got a backyard I got a pool like life's a little bit better for me now than when I was in Queens but I love that you took it even further which is like good don't come here this is my place if Long Island becomes a state is it still on Long Island or is it then

in Long Island? No always on even if it's a state yeah Yeah, you're on the island Yeah, I think it would still be On Manhattan in Manhattan Now, in Manhattan But you're on the island

Yeah, it's an interesting thing, right? That whole on or in Do you care about that? Not so much, every now and then I'll slip up And I'll say in Or I won't even slip up Like sometimes I just talk weird

And I'll say on And it'll sound like in And people will give me hell And I'll be like, bro, shut up. I'm from moving island I can do this. You can't, because you're not from here, but me.

They're trying to move here, and they're telling you. You're going to tell me. The on versus in is kind of like a bit we've had going for years on the show now. It's always like, oh, is it on or is it in? Obviously, we know people say that it's on. We really just say it because people really do get fired up. If you're like, oh, yeah, I'm in Long Island. They're like, would you shut the fuck up?

It's on Long Island, you idiot. It's great, though. It is a cool thing because there's no, that's the only really, like, you know, you could be anywhere. You're not, you know, you're not on Minnesota. you're in Minnesota but Long Island's the only place you could be on it's like you're on a floating

rock an island you know what I mean well his argument is always it's not actually an island uh decent argument it's a peninsula right it's connected I actually don't know if I've ever made that argument but I never said that that's an island

argument that's a decent argument somebody else said that it's a peninsula the East River is on a river I think that's what you're thinking huh East River is a Delta oh wow now we're no no but somebody Somebody in our vicinity, somebody in our, like, group has said it's a peninsula. Because it's connected at the Queens border.

But not, but yeah, well, but there is, it is an island encompassing that. There is a body of water, right? There's no, you can't just walk to Manhattan. Well, then is Queens and, then his argument of Queens and Brooklyn being part of Long Island. Yeah, yeah. It depends on how you look at it, you know what I mean? it's that yeah you could be it's a great place to live for all your real estate needs this is the guy uh to get you to get you to get you sorted out on londok bayville to sayville oh so we're oh

we're like new york everywhere we're just every well yeah uh about new york everywhere i mean not upstate anywhere in the united states of america to buy sell or rent i can help you out what's the website iiquita real estate dot com there it is Go there. I love this. What's going on, boys in the back? This is Joe from Toronto calling. What's up, Joe?

Shout out to you, 2GC. This is a question for Rajin Al-I. Quinto. Let's go. Who is supposed to be on the show Monday. Not sure if this voicemail is getting to him. We did it. In terms of your real estate client base, what percentage of your clients are coming to you

because they know your fighting history, and they know your background and all that, whereas what portion of your clients just found you online, whatever reason you end up as their real estate agent, and then they find out later like, oh, shit, this guy actually fought in the UFC. I had no idea. I thought he was just a humble, long island boy.

So curious about that. Otherwise, take care, boys, and have a great day. Great question. It's a lot. A lot of people, you know, the fighting definitely opens a lot of conversations. But, I mean, it's also, you know, people from the gym. A lot of my clients are people that are from the gym that need help buy and selling. Now it's starting to get, like, people who know people that I've worked with, the referral.

You know, it's starting to get, like, people that are like, yeah, I used to always be like somebody that I knew would call me, oh, I'm looking to buy or sell. Now it's like, oh, somebody told me, you know, it's like another degree of separate. So it's starting to get like that, but it definitely in the beginning it was like 100% was like somebody that knew. There was one guy called me right after I fought Diego Sanchez and I said, I'm selling houses, you know, on the post-fighting. Yeah, incredible. I'm selling houses if you're looking to buy or sell and sold the house in East Meadow. He simply saw the interview.

Incredible. You know, it definitely got me into, got me into some doors early, you know, that, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I. accelerate i worked hard though i really definitely wasn't like i was out every weekend showing houses still most weekends i'm out you know shown doing open houses doing stuff but that's it's uh it's really it's good and it's long island people my kind of people people that we either want to learn about long island i love talking about it your instagram is great you do all these things talking about like all the different facts about different long island neighborhoods i love it man i love i love where i live and i think it's like a hidden gem in the world

So I love showing it off to the right people, you know, bring the right crowd in, you know what I mean. Do you feel like there was any doors that closed as an example, right? Like, do you think there were ever people who are like looking for a house, but they're like, it's fucking All right Quentin from the USC? Like, isn't that a real estate agent? Like in the beginning when you're starting out, who like doubted like your commitment to it or doubted like you knew enough of the ropes? Definitely.

There were people that like, oh, he's one foot in, one foot out. Yeah, like something like that. It was definitely that. but I'll tell you, me one foot in, I'll beat freaking 95% of the people with both. But then also, like, me, I thought it was like a bigger deal. I'd be like, oh, you know, I fought in the UFC, I floor Kabib. And some, like, you know, 70-year-old woman's like, what?

She's like, you know what I mean? And I'm sitting there like, here, watch me, this guy is out. And she's like, ew! On the flip side of that, have you ever had anyone that's, like, too much of a fan? Yeah, me. No. We had the best. We can love you, man.

It was good. It was great. It was great. It was awesome. Not really, actually. I've been pretty good at, like, yeah, pretty good at, like, figuring that stuff. At the end of the day, it's such an important transaction. It's such an, like, an important thing.

Nobody's really there just to, like, fan out. Like, this is a lot of money. This is an important, like, thing you're moving to it. I feel like it's so easy to transactional. to transition from like, oh, I know, Al, like, great, you fought in the UFC, but now it's like, all right, we're doing business now. Let's get to business, you know? Definitely, you got to be, it's, I think it's almost like, it maybe like helps out a little bit more to navigate through people that aren't serious. It's like, you got, you know, you got to be financially, you know,

you got to be able to have, like, you got the pre-approval. Oh, this guy's serious. He's got a pre-approval. Like, call the lender that guy, he got the pre-approval from. So, hey, you know, this guy's, oh, yeah, he's, you know, credit. it's good. In comes debt to ratio, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, all right, he's serious. He's looking, you know what I mean? And I don't think I've ever had a situation where it's been, you know, like someone pulling, you know, trying to play a game or something, you know. Good. What's up, boys in the back? This is CJ, coming out of Roswell, Georgia.

Hey, shut out Roswell. Georgia. Shout out Mama's boy. Shout out GC. I don't even really have a question. And this is going to be some glazing. So Frank, go ahead and get the drop ready. I just wanted to say that since coming to this new era of the Ariel Helwani show, G.C. has really come out of his shell and started cracking away with the jokes. And I just really appreciate his sense of humor. And another thing I want to say real fast is that we got to stop talking to Rick about Lord of the Rings

because it's obviously just rage bait. All right. Love you, boys. Take it easy. Damn, appreciate the call. Shout to Mama's boy. No D.1 Glazer Drop. Wow.

He even requested it. There we go. Can't play it while them. I appreciate. Ariel, Ariel was on Logan Paul's video, like he was doing a vlog, and Ariel was big-upping Logan. He's like, this guy's the future of the sport. He's so good. W.W.E. this. W., and then Logan is like right next to him, covers his mouth. Shirt covered. And screams into his microphone. He's like, this guy's a D1 Glazer what he just played, and then published it. And then published it, and it became a whole thing.

Like, his, Ariel's kids are like teenagers, so like they know Logan Paul and they know like the glazing terminology and they were like heartbroken they were like dad that's that's fucked up that he goes like they like took it like personally then ariel went on logan's pod they all they started it all out everything's good uh i very much appreciate those words though shout out to mama's boy shout out to roswell uh means a lot man you know what's up guys shout out to everyone it's your boy connor here two m two o's from yardley pa shout out to the two one five my question is are the car's really a state Yeah, this is like the first one we heard.

Thank you, man. You're struggling back there. Hey, it's 24-inchubs. No, no, I'm already put it. Did we go through them off? Did you just doing a terrible job at... I feel like I'm hearing four or five minutes. Did you say that we already heard that one?

Yeah, we heard both the ones you just play. Yeah, we started at the top of that. No, no. Frank, he's struggling. Hey, boy, just watching the show right now. A long time listening to her first time caller. You haven't heard this one. I'm just wondering, simple question for you guys.

When you guys are taking too many fights, what's your go-to drink? Is it a beer? Is there a hard alcohol? Is it a mixed drink? Is it water? Let me know. Yeah, so, like, if I'm at home and I'm watching the fights, like, we do the watch parties, but if I'm at home, like, something alcoholic, there's nothing more fun than, like...

Hard or beer? Like, what do we do, though? I'm actually not a huge liquor guy. I stick pretty close to the beer and wine. But, like, if I'm watching fights, it's going to be beers. But, like, put back five or six beers while you're watching the fights. That makes for a good Saturday evening. What about you?

Do you drink when you're watching the fights? Are you, like, locked in? Like, what's the move? No, you're usually drinking, watching the fights. Yeah, I like drinking a Modelo during the fights. Hey, shut out. It's brand recognition. If it's, like, a fight, you know, if it's like,

but if I'm, like, out somewhere, then something else. You know, I'll do, like, a, I like, I like those. espresso martinis They're great You get one of those Like your night's kicking off right I'm not much of a drinker

But I do like an espresso Martini Okay This is an important one Aljo Drinking a little bit During camp Did you ever do that?

Yeah So maybe this is not as rare As I thought I just got his rum Man He loved Fong Harbor rum Shout out

Shout out to him Good stuff He's brought us bottles We love it Several times Yeah We go through With rum

In the summer That's the drink choice. I love it. I thought it was more of like a universal like no, but I guess it's not really. I'm starting to learn that. Yeah. No, I definitely would, you know, I drink a glass of wine. If I'm going to a wedding, I'll have a couple drinks, you know what I mean? Maybe, I mean, it's not, if you drink it every night, it's hard, it's not really not good, but, you know, I don't think. It's not a complete cutout. It's just like, be responsible. If you're hung old, You know, if you're, if you put it in a hard week of training, it's never the best.

You probably, you know, Rob's the best, like, example of that. The guy never drinks ever. Yeah. Only Funk Harbor. But, uh, but, yeah, I think, you know, if you're going to, if you're responsible, you know, if you're not waking up hungover, you know, if you have a, if you can, if you can, if you can, if you can, it depends on you, like, Aljo can have a couple drinks, maybe get a little buzz on, but he's not, like, waking up hungover the next day. Yeah. And Aljo's just built differently. I was going to say his physique is insane.

like he's always in good shape. Yeah. Like he could wake up the next day and go 10 rounds. You know what I mean? I don't think. Whatever it was somebody that couldn't, you know what I mean, you know?

Yeah, so it's more of a personal. It's like some guys have to, some guys don't, you kind of just, right? Okay. Yeah, if you can control yourself, if you, you know, if you can't control yourself,

then that's, you know, you probably should just not do it at all. It's like anything in life. It's like all the discipline required for these camps, right? Like, it's like you can, you can cut a corner here, but should you, right?

Like, those types of things. And I think somebody like Aljo might need it. I think he might be better, like, you know, just having, like, a little, like, you know, having something to look forward to. You train harder. Maybe, you know, if it's just, like, training every day, some people, some people different. You know, maybe he needs, like, a little, like, a little, like, you know, maybe kind of, like, takes his mind off of it.

He could bring his mind to another place. And then, you know, the next day he's, like, more focused. Yep. Yeah. Bring it back to equilibrium. Yeah. Hey, what's up, boys, in the back. It's AJ from the great state of Connecticut once again.

What up, Reginald? My question actually is for Al here. So right online, you got into real estate around the same time or after some sort of contract dispute with the Chicago Alvis fight. So I was just curious. That's actually, you know, was true. It was a true story, you know, how that kind of came from being. But if not, like why you did get into real estate. if it was something you were always interested in, you know,

after you would finish your fighting career, or if it was just something that kind of happened that you decided to jump into right away. Thanks, guys. That's a good question. I had brought back from a long time ago. The Tiago Alves fight was supposed to be at MSG. I signed up for the fight,

but I kind of like, they offered me the fight, and I said yes. And my knee was so jacked up. I forget, that was, I don't know, that was before or after I had surgery. I think it was, I don't know, I forget. But I kind of like thought there was a chance that I was never fighting again. So I just kind of like went crazy.

And I was like, oh, I'm just going to go out on my shield. I'm probably never fighting again. I'm just going to ask for like crazy money, curse them out when they don't give it to me. Like, like, yeah, what it was, yeah, I don't know if you, I don't have it on topology. Yeah, it was, I don't know if it was before I had surgery or not. but the contract dispute was basically I was I was just kind of like

fed up the whole it was like the whole thing with the UFC wasn't paying for the surgery um it was for 205 it was around September of of 2016 they're saying so it was probably after I think it was after I had surgery and I think my knee wasn't healing the way it was supposed to so I was like I'm not fighting and I kind of thought maybe like I wasn't going to fight enough if I was going to fight again so I kind of just went like... September 19th that's saying is like roughly when you were

out of that fight. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. But yeah, I just kind of like kind of thought I wasn't... I was just like I was nuts. I was like kind of like in a weird spot of my life. These guys, you know what I mean? So I kind of just went crazy with the contracting.

Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Well, as you were talking about earlier, like it is a it is a crazy thing as a fighter to have that realization like i may not be fighting like that may not be my long-term careers or you had to be in a different mental spot yeah yeah thinking about all the other options um especially when it comes to like injuries yeah because you know you can compete at that level but your body's like no that's what it was i i was like i'm basically i my knee was so jacked up that i was like i'm probably if i if i fight it's gonna be like it's not going to be good for me you know but i was like i there's a price for everything yeah i shout out

my price and they said no and then i was like oh no and i kind of like went crazy about it and i was i think what that was but yeah was there a point at the end where you were just stepping in there knowing like i'm not the best version of myself due to this uh i never not that you always think you're going to win right you never went in like not thinking you're going to win but did you think like man two years ago I would have been walking through this guy

definitely the last one I think you know Bobby Green fight they said they were they said they were fighting you know doing one at MSG and I was like I've never fought

at MSG you know got it let's let's do it I give it you know everything I had and I was in great shape you know I don't think

you know it was just maybe not you know I don't take it anything away from me yeah you know what I mean

but uh but yeah I think the MSG won. If it wasn't at MSG, I don't know if it was. You might not have done it. Yeah, yeah. I got it. What's up, boys, in the back.

Keep killing the game. Appreciate the shout-out, Connor. Man, wrong time, listener, first time, Connor. Caller. But for real, shout out to G.C. Digging that you're on Strava and enjoying the running journey. Hey, let's go. Enjoy it, bro.

It is a awesome experience. I'm an ultra-trail runner. Oh, shit. Add me on Strava, bro. See how let's ultra runners do it. You're both for real. Keep on pushing forward. Keep on killing the game.

And that goes for everybody, including the Andy and... Andy getting a lot of shoutouts on her day. Yeah, Jordan. That guy. And Jordan. All right, y'all. Keep killing it. Catch you later.

Yeah, let's go. Shout to Strava. We're like 350 members now. Oh, it's a marathoner is crazy. Oh, built different. It's like running logs. So, like, you like hit it. you just run with it

and it tells you how long you went your pace and everything like that so we started a group for fans of the show yeah there's been some pretty inspiring stuff it gets my ass out there more so yeah anything I'm trying to push him to get out there be a big pop if he jumped in there were you a road work guy when you were in camp

I loved running yeah I ran in high school I ran cross country to stay in shape for wrestling I just love running do you still run nah but I should I should, you know, definitely, yeah, I got to get out there more. I ran a 5K last week, like a 9-11.

Let's go. Good shit. Let's go. The slowest 5K. It doesn't matter. No fucking matter. You're out there doing. You're out there.

But that's what's so great about what he's doing and the Strava thing is like, it's just people running. It's fun, man. It's fun. We got to get out. Oh, there'd be a massive pop. I'd have to get in there. You get a kid. I need something of rigging.

Give you a motivation. Man, there's some people out there. This dude's talking about ultra running. Like, it's like global. You got people running half marathons in Finland and 10Ks in Sydney, Australia, it's happening. So, yeah, it's been fun. He runs, like, the morning of fights. So it's like around the MMA community is like, oh, we're going to run because this is.

Yeah, you try to do like the fight day, 5Ks and whatnot. Where do you, is it an actual 5K? Oh, you just run on Strava and I don't know, just track it for you. Yeah, so you just rip the park or whatever. Yeah, it's fun, man. It's fun. what up boys and alac winter good to meet you this is don davis calling in to promote pfiel nante this friday september 26 11 a.m eastern iub versus desmay made event lightweight al i know you know a lot

about that check it out on the pfl app or at your local broadcaster if you are in france or anywhere else in europe al while you're on the show today I want to ask you about a teammate of yours on to Gennario. Hope I got that right. It's coming off an impressive win in Ring of Pound at 87. It's also a lightweight, majority decision over Cameron Scalio. I know he's one to know, but that also means he's undefeated. What would it take to get him to the PSL?

Give him a ring. Let him know. We're in the Beethoven business. now on to the ad in the back frank section of this week's fall and no ad because i wouldn't do that to al keeping it sematically though connected frank are you a fan of doom two and have you played or heard of the doom two map my house this map is a subversive horror thriller that revolves around the house that continues to change in shape sometimes drastically and in a non-Euclidean manner Check it out, draws inspiration from the 2000 novel House of Leaves by Mark V. Daniels, one of those.

You know what? Just House of Leaves. Look it up. Curious to see if we can make this happen with their teammate out. And great to meet you. Have a good rest of your week and see you again on Friday, boys. Take care. All right. I didn't know he was going to do research and invite your teammate or anything like that. That was incredible. That is not the real Don Davis, unfortunately. He does a good impression.

He's an impersonator of Don Davis that for some reason calls in every week. But we should give your boy a plug. What was the fighter that he mentioned? Oh, what the fuck? Now I thought Don Davis really wanted Tommy D. That's what I'm saying. Now I'm pissed that it wasn't like. I was some fucked up shit.

You had me really thinking. I was like, oh. I was like, wow, Don Davis is really watching the finger-ring comment. I'm like that. Tommy D. Janeiro. That's his name. Yeah, Tommy. That's a great name.

Beethoven. Oh, that's his nickname. Wow, he really knows about it. Yeah, he had a big fight, Ring of Combat, this past weekend, Friday night. Oh, he's the one who fought this weekend. Tropicana in Atlantic City. That's why I don't know who that guy was, but he knows. He does his research.

Cameron Scalio, majority decision at Ring of Combat 87? Yeah. I'm loving it. Beethoven. Beethoven. This guy is as tough as they come, and great wrestler fought a tough fight. He fought two fights in this one, to a ref and the guy. Oh, it was one of those, huh?

They gave the guy a point for an eye poke. The guy polled him in the one, maybe it was an eye poke. This is why he got the majority to sit. Majority, the guy Castro gave him the, I, we was sitting in the ringside. Judge Castro gives it 29, 28, the other guy. We wanted to kill him. The guy, Castro was lucky, got out of there a lot. So the ref gave the other guy a point, right, for the eye poke.

And everybody was like, what are you doing, right? So if you're the judge and you're sitting there and you see that, it doesn't matter, you're still giving the round to the guy that won the round. Yeah. 8, 9, 9, 9, right? Yeah. 9. The guy didn't even win the round, the other guy.

I don't know how this guy, Castro, ever saw it for the other guy to make it a split. So he gave him. He gave the other guy. That turned into a 10-8. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Instead of the 9-9. Wow.

No. Yeah. Insane. I'm looking at his Instagram right here, man. I just gave him a follow. Shout out to Tommy, Beethoven, DiGiano, man.

He's got his own merch. He's got his own logo with a B and Beethoven is a musical note. Why is his nickname Beethoven? He has, he might, I don't know if he's fully deaf, but he's pretty.

No way. That's crazy. What a name, right? What a story. What a name? Yeah. I mean, narrow in its own right yeah great name sick and then beethoven oh this is this is sick i mean

crazy shape yeah he's one of the guys to look out for right he's one of the guys is one of the guys that's like uh you know training with he's been training with matt sarah forever great wrestling um just tough tough guy for this was a hard fight that he had and he he's been he's been through some he's been through some tough uh tough fights on the way up and uh this was a big one for him and he got the win so we're definitely pulling for Tommy he's a beast he's love it yeah love it name to watch even if it was the fake Don Davis at least we got Tommy on the radar yeah man that's awesome really good it's I don't know who that guy is but he the fact that he knows that and he pulled that I was but and this guy calls like regularly huh this guy

don Davis that's incredible yeah yeah do we have it look at that t-shirt that's nice man oh hell yeah nice I need I need a a Beethoven shirt yeah it's all right All right, man. We're joining the fan club now. Oh, we're all in. One and a. Shout out. The symphony gets bigger.

Yeah, I love it. Oh, is that the fan club? The symphony, the symphony plays on, he says. Oh, I love it. I'm all in, man. He's awesome. He's awesome. He's awesome.

Boys in the back. I'd like to use this show real quick to give a girlfriend, to give my girlfriend a four years a message. I asked her to take off work to watch the show with me. Okay, she took off work and she's watching. In these last four years, I've learned to live with a sense of gratitude that growing up I never once thought possible. Yo, she's watching live right now.

You make each day feel easier than the last, and on the days when it's not so easy, you give me the strength to be tough. I know I asked you to take off work today, and it's probably been very disappointing sitting on the couch. Watching our slub asses. Talk about M.MA. But now, I should be on one knee, and I'd like to ask for your hands.

Shut up! There's no way! Frankie. Hit the horn, because I hope she said yes. The Frankie news? She said yes. I'm killing. I'm killing.

There's no way that's real. That was incredible. For the newly engaged. Shout out. Wow. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. If that's legit,

please send us videos, if you get a video or photo, that would be next level. That is the most unreal thing I've ever seen. I'll get a, I'll get a t-shirt printed with that on it. Are you kidding me? We should have them on the show if this is real.

On the show, Don Davis can officiate the wedding. Don Davis can officiate the wedding. We need save the dates. We need save the dates. Yeah, for sure. Send them out. Come on.

Wow. That would be incredible. I think both of them need to come on the show. I want to go. No, we'll have them together. We need the girlfriend on too. Wow. I am sorry that that's, that's, that we,

had to be the witness. No, that's incredible. That's incredible. I wish we could have seen what was happening right. We had a live feed. What's happening right now? She had to sit through two hours and 47 minutes of ours. Frank, find the person's number. Call them now and just see, do a check in.

I hope they said he is. Was that the finale, Frankie? Is there any left? Okay, I guess it's one more. Going on, boys in the back. Henry here from UNC. Hey, shout out to the challenge. Aemone challenge to a bite challenge. Oh, bite challenge. Iron Man um and listen I think I just smoke him and it really wouldn't even be close um

you can do it on on the aerodon peloton shit out in real life it don't matter gc come get the smoke all right I'm in wow you versus Henry I need the stipulations right up a contract and we can figure something out I need the stipulations young Henry from UNC the story is back here we had a bike sponsorship Averon similar to a to a peloton and like I was just smoking everyone in the office couple people came in smoked them too. And then I started calling out Sean Brady. And he came on the show and accepted the challenge, Walterway, Sean Brady. And then he ducked. He ducked ever since. He saw the work I was putting in and he was too scared to come in. Instead of date and everything,

he ducked the bike challenge. It was a real storyline. Like Brady was like coming on, talking about it. He ducked, man. Doct. Yeah, real ducking allegations against him. Oh, wow. That changes a lot. I'm a big friend of this guy. We love Sean Brady. We love Sean Brady. Massive fans. But he's got a to do the challenge. They'll always have an asterisk next to his Yeah, he doesn't want to get on the bike. On Tapology, it will soon say like

G.C. Can't. Fizzled bout. G.C. Bike challenge. Yeah. But we love Sean. What is the bike that is? So it's called an Averon and we would just get on and do like, what, two minutes or something on it? Yeah, no, like one minute by the end. Yeah, it was basically like a sprint.

It was basically like a sprint. Yeah, who could sprint the farthest. It's like, it's not a, it's not like a cycling bike. It's more close to like a, it's an exercise bike, but it feels like a road bike as opposed, like it feels like riding a bike as opposed to that spin, um, feel. Uh, great product. Really, really, really, I mean, legendary day I took out our, our guy on Air Jordan and then get a secondary challenge from a day. I mean, you know, legs were, being two people in the same way. We're goo after that, you know,

we love, I love giving, uh, raging out of the lore here. That's good. It's a real deal. Sean's, now, from what we understand, according to Sean and according to, um, Joe Piper, Sean holds the record at the PI for like the craziest V-O-2 max from riding the bike so that's why we wanted Sean Brady but then he ducked their boy

wow I can't believe we just got a proposal on the air that would be crazy that's real that's not I hope they they got to send a video or photo let's send a video something I'm going good

I hope they recorded it might not have any more Frankie that's all the voicemels are we got any super chats Damn right, we do We have three All from the same individual

He paid $10 a pot for these I'm going to read them off $30. Look, I have an issue with the White House card Specifically the Connor versus Chandler fight Can you help me push a better fight Shout out to the boys Plus Andy and Frank by the way

Shout out to you See my personal preference is Connor versus Nate That's what I would want to see I think that's the best one Yeah, I don't mind that Well Connor versus Nate Yeah Conner versus Nate 3 on the White House card?

There's just more story. Like, if you're going to do Connor, the Chandler thing never has taken hold for me. Like, Chandler's great, but it's like he doesn't really have a beef of Connor. It's like they did tough together. Chandler's too nice. He's too respectful. The Nate thing feels like you can, like, boil something up.

Even, you know, the Max fight that they were talking about, there's at least a history there. Yeah. Speaking of the devil, sorry to interrupt, he wrote, again, why is no one talking about Connor McGregor versus Max Holloway 2? There you go. It's a much better fight and storyline, and Max is out. until 2026 and a test for Connor which leads into a trilogy Chandler after for real for real

continue I honestly I feel like it's it's the flip you do the Chandler first and we get a gauge of where McGregor is at in his career because I mean Holloway has has looked has looked great like he looked so good against Porriere just a month and a half ago two months ago I think the inverse if Connor comes back he looks great against Chandler then you could start talking about a Holloway fight no it's a great point like Max is still, like, cream of the crop. Chandler's obviously, like, fall in a bit in terms of that, so.

Did he do one more? He did do one more. It says, if Connor comes back, it needs to be Connor versus Max Holloway at the White House, not D.C. Not D.C., not Chandler. What are your thoughts? I thought we just gave him.

I love the passion, though. He's, like, all out. Is there a word, Max, in that whole thing? I don't know. He could have just put that all in one. Is this his burner account? Well, we appreciate. Appreciate the $30.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, that's it for Super Chats, Frankie? Yes, sir. All right, that will do it for us. Al, we can't thank you enough for coming. Dude, you made it. This shirt.

I mean, come on. Come on. You made it the long haul with us. Two hours and 52 minutes. We can't tell you how much we appreciate it, man. It's been fantastic. And tomorrow, if you want to watch some more content, Ariel out all week, but we'll have the return of the MMA beat in form of the beat.

Ariel, Ben, Fulkes, Peezy, Carol, Chuck Mendenhall, the new iteration of the MMA beat. The beat will be tomorrow. Then a classics interview look back on Wednesday. And then we're back on Thursday. We're previewing UFC Perth, one that one regional I at Quinta is excited for, and then the crack on Friday. Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you again, Talaai, Quinta. We appreciate more than you know. Peace.